Posts from — February 2024

Why are you being hustled by street vendors to buy sad and drooping former roses, vegetative matter that missed the cut for bouquets, or were too late to the hospital?

Blame Esther A. Howland (1828 – 1904) of Worcester, Massachusetts. Her guilt is writ large by the Greeting Card Association’s Esther Howland Award for a Greeting Card Visionary. She imported the concept to the US from Britain to bolster her father’s stationery store in 1847.

Of course, it wasn’t long before the stationers had infiltrated school boards and imposed the now mandatory exchange in the classroom to push the low end product of Asian children and prisoners.
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The last day before the beginning of Lent on the Gulf Coast that once belonged to France, it is Mardi Gras, “Fat Tuesday”: Laissez les bon temps rouler!

It was first celebrated in Mobile, Alabama, but the big show these days is in New Orleans, and it is a holiday in the state of Louisiana, because people wouldn’t show up for work anyway, so why fight it.

A tradition is to serve King cake, which is a circle of cinnamon bun dough with a white frosting on top sprinkled with sugar colored purple, gold, and green. If that weren’t bad enough, they put the figurine of a baby in the dough, and whoever finds it in their piece is supposed to be lucky. Actually if you find it and don’t choke on it, I guess you are lucky. You should use a small ceramic figurine, as some of the cheap plastic versions melt in the oven [yummy].

In Britain, Ireland, and many of the Commonwealth countries Shrove Tuesday is celebrated as Pancake Day. Apparently people are using up everything they give up for Lent.

Today is Darwin Day celebrating the birth and works of one of the greatest scientists the world has ever known. He shares his birthdate, 12 February 1809, with another great man, Abraham Lincoln.

Darwin’s book, On the Origin of Species is a founding document of evolutionary biology.

Why? Why not…

Year of the Wood Dragon

Chinese New Year
[Spring Festival]

[Note: The Lunar New Year is tied to the Second New Moon after the Winter Solstice, which is on February 9th in my time zone and February 10th in China.]

It’s Groundhog Day and some of the militant marmots object to being disturbed.

FYI: this is approximately the midpoint between the Winter Solstice and the Vernal Equinox. It is called Imbolc among the Celts, which is why people are interested.

On average groundhogs are right 40% of the time. Flipping a coin has a better average for accuracy.

Update: The North American groundhogs agree that winter is over, but Lucy the Lobster disagrees.

February 1, 2003

Commander:
Rick Douglas Husband, Colonel, USAF

Pilot:
William C. McCool, Commander, USN

Payload Commander:
Michael P. Anderson, Lieutenant Colonel, USAF

Mission Specialist:
Kalpana Chawla, PhD
David M. Brown, MD, Captain, USN
Laurel Blair Salton Clark, MD, Captain, USN

Payload Specialist:
Ilan Ramon, Colonel, Israel Air Force

NASA now has a Memorial Page honoring those who have been lost in the space program.