TODAY IN HISTORY

Today is Monday, March 1.

TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT

On March 1, 1954, four Puerto Rican nationalists opened fire from the spectators’ gallery of the U.S. House of Representatives, wounding five members of Congress.

ON THIS DATE

In 1781, the Continental Congress declared the Articles of Confederation to be in force, following ratification by Maryland.

In 1893, inventor Nikola

Tesla first publicly demonstrated radio during a meeting of the National Electric Light Association in St. Louis by transmitting electromagnetic energy without wires.

In 1954, the United States detonated a dry-fuel hydrogen bomb, codenamed Castle Bravo, at Bikini Atoll in the Marshall Islands.

In 1961, President John F. Kennedy signed an executive order establishing the Peace Corps.

In 1966, the Soviet space probe Venera 3 impacted the surface of Venus, becoming the first spacecraft to reach another planet; however, Venera was unable to transmit any data, its communications system having failed.

In 197 1, a bomb went off inside a men’s room at the U.S. Capitol; the radical group Weather Underground claimed responsibility for the pre-dawn blast.

In 1974, seven people, including former Nixon

White House aides H.R. Haldeman and John D. Ehrlichman, former Attorney General John Mitchell and former assistant Attorney General Robert Mardian, were indicted on charges of conspiring to obstruct justice in connection with the Watergate break-in. (These four defendants were convicted in Jan.

1975, although Mardian’s conviction was later reversed.)

In 2005, Dennis Rader, the churchgoing family man accused of leading a double life as the BTK serial killer, was charged in Wichita, Kansas, with 10 counts of first-degree murder. (Rader later pleaded guilty and received multiple life sentences.) A closely divided Supreme Court outlawed the death penalty for juvenile criminals.

In 2010, Jay Leno returned as host of NBC’s “The Tonight Show.”

In 2015, tens of thousands marched through Moscow in honor of slain Russian opposition leader Boris Nemtsov, who had been shot to death on Feb. 27.

Ten years ago: Yemen’s embattled president, Ali Abdullah Saleh, accused the U.S., his closest ally, of instigating the mounting protests against him, but the gambit failed to slow the momentum of his ouster. Five years ago: In the

Super Tuesday primaries and caucuses, Republican Donald Trump won

Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Massachusetts, Tennessee, Vermont and Virginia; Ted Cruz won Alaska, Oklahoma and his home state of Texas; Marco Rubio won Minnesota. On the Democratic side, Hillary Clinton won Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Massachusetts, Tennessee, Texas and Virginia while Bernie Sanders prevailed in Colorado, Minnesota, Oklahoma and his home state of Vermont.

One year ago: Health officials in Washington state, announcing what was believed at the time to be the second U.S. death from the coronavirus, said the virus may have been circulating for weeks undetected in the Seattle area. (Earlier deaths in the Seattle area and in California were subsequently linked to the virus.)

Dear Abby: My mother has become very “spiritual” over the last eight years or so. Recently, it has become all-consuming and on the verge of becoming detrimental.

She often refers to her “guides” (she says they are feelings, but I think she’s getting brainwashed by human “guides” online), who have convinced her to withdraw thousands of dollars from her bank before the second wave of COVID-19 hits.

I recently became engaged. We don’t plan to be married until 2022 so our guests can have a fun, safe time at our wedding. Mom wants to take a “mediumship certification” class, which will run for 18 months.

The actual certification is scheduled for the month we told her we may want to get married, so now she’s trying to guilt me into changing the date. She copied me on the email she sent to the teacher in which she said she would try to “direct me to choose a different date.” I let her know she’s not going to dictate our wedding day, but is there something more here that needs to be addressed? — Certifiably Annoyed

Dear Annoyed: I don’t think so. Your mother’s spiritual life is her personal business, and it would be a mistake to attempt to make it yours. Unless you are convinced her spirit guides cheated her out of the money she withdrew — in which case you should contact the authorities and report it — let her live her life as you are pursuing your own.

Dear Abby: My husband and I have been married 22 years. They have been a rough 22 years, and I’m no longer in love with him. I will not be looking for another husband should we get divorced.

We tried counseling as well as a Retrouvaille weekend, which was hard emotionally as we learned a new way of communicating. However, after the weekend, I would always initiate the skills we learned, but he would not.

He’s retired. I’m still working, yet nothing is getting done around the house. I’m tired of feeling stressed. I don’t like cleaning up after him and our daughters, and I’m thinking of moving out.

I feel overwhelmed and want to live by myself for a period of time, but something is stopping me from signing a lease. Our daughters are in college, and my door will be open to them anytime. Should I move out? — On the Verge in Texas

Dear On the Verge:

Perhaps. However, before you sign anything — including divorce papers — please consider discussing your feelings of stress and being overwhelmed with a licensed psychotherapist. Some time away from your stressors might be helpful for you, and a therapist may be able to help you determine how long a period that should be before making anything permanent.

To receive a collection of Abby’s most memorable — and most frequently requested — poems and essays, send your name and mailing address, plus check or money order for $8 (U.S. funds) to: Dear Abby — Keepers Booklet, P.O. Box 447, Mount Morris, IL 61054-0447. Shipping and handling are included in the price.

Dear Abby is written by Abigail Van Buren, also known as Jeanne Phillips, and was founded by her mother, Pauline Phillips. Write Dear Abby at www.DearAbby.com or P.O. Box 69440, Los Angeles, CA 90069.

Nine out of 10 underperforming kids, left alone, eventually get the message — YOU and YOU alone are responsible for YOUR school performance — and begin doing fine. Things usually get worse at first, which requires much hand holding with the micromanager, but per the adage, they eventually get much better.

A therapist takes a 10-year-old boy into what she calls “therapy.” The young fellow is belligerently defiant toward his parents and throws titanic tantrums when things don’t go his way. At school — virtual, going on a year — he’s distractible and doesn’t finish his work without being hovered over and harangued by his mother, a tactic that frequently precipitates more belligerence and a titanic tantrum.

After nearly a year of weekly “therapy” sessions, nothing changed. If anything, the boy’s behavior worsened. At that point, the therapist waves a divining rod over him — just kidding — and discovers that he “has” ADHD and oppositional defiant disorder.

In other words, she conceals her ineptitude by claiming that something is wrong with his biology — according to her, a “biochemical imbalance.” To “seal the deal,” so to speak, she recommends he begin taking stimulant medication — one, mind you, that has not reliably outperform placebos in controlled clinical trials. To the credit of their common sense, the parents refuse to accept both the diagnoses and the medication.

I hear similar stories quite often from parents. Without exception, said parents know what has caused their kids’ problems. They did! As in this fellow’s case, the parents micromanage on the one hand and threaten charging elephants with fly swatters with the other.

They delay beginning to seriously discipline until the problems in question have become habit, and their “discipline” consists of one part yada-yada and one part screaming and threatening.

Excuse me? This means a child’s neurochemicals are out of whack? Do the therapists who dispense these absurd explanations perform physical examinations? Do they draw and analyze blood samples, for example? No. Request brain biopsies? No.

Then how, pray tell, do they come to the conclusion that these kids have bad biology and need drugs?

What the parents need is a strategy for recovering from the effects of yada-yada, threats that amount to nothing, flyswatters, screaming and micromanagement that leads, almost inevitably, to more screaming, more yada-yada and more micromanagement.

“If I don’t check on him,” a mother tells me, “he won’t do his work.”

Wrong. As long as she checks on him, he’s not going to do his work. Micromanagement always, without exception, brings forth conflict, communication problems and the worst in everyone involved.

“I should just leave him alone?” Mom asks.

“Yep, just leave him alone.” One-sentence therapy.

Nine out of 10 underperforming kids, left alone, eventually get the message — YOU and YOU alone are responsible for YOUR school performance — and begin doing fine. Things usually get worse at first, which requires much hand holding with the micromanager, but per the adage, they eventually get much better.

What about the 10th kid? Glad you asked. He needs some incentive. Not rewards, mind you. Rewards work on rats, not so well on humans. Number 10 needs to learn, courtesy of very patient but determined people, that in the grown-up world, privilege is a function of personal responsibility. The 10th kids usually come around. Usually.

When one is dealing with the wild card of human nature, there are no guarantees.