09/13 is Fortune Cookie Day
Sweetmorn, Bureaucracy 37, 3187 YOLD
And let us not forget 13.0.8.15.8 mlc (the Mayan Long Count)
*****
~~ Fortune Cookiess
Today is Fortune Cookie Day celebrating that quintessential "American" food, the Fortune Cookie, widely served in Chinese restaurants throughout the country. It is not nearly so common in China because it isn't remotely Chinese, but is strictly an "American" thing. It is disputed whether it was invented in San Francisco, California, or Los Angeles, California, but it is definitely not Chinese. With the strong California connection, it arguably might possibly be Mexican, but nope. It seems to be vaguely based on an old Japanese cookie, and the "fortunes" seemingly derive from an unrelated old Japanese practice of selling slips of paper with fortunes on them at temples and shrines. Post invention, they were initially made by hand in various California locations until eventually a fortune cookie machine to mass produce them was invented by Shuck Yee of Oakland, California. By then, however, they had long been associated with Chinese restaurants.
The marketing spiel, tactics and such that led to their successful introduction into the Chinese restaurant after dinner niche isn't at all known. Possibly they might also once have been routine fare at Japanese restaurants too. Whatever the case they eventually became particularly the provenance of "American" Chinese restaurants, very likely in part because of the unconscionable and unwarranted internment imprisonment of persons with Japanese ancestry living in the west during WWII. Perhaps we should really think of them as "misfortune cookies"?
The little slips of paper in fortune cookies often contain mere aphorisms, but often instead have statements which purport to fortell, to some degree, one's future. In some traditions, these are read aloud, followed by the phrase "in bed". (Try it some time). They also often contain some "lucky numbers." Were one to take that at all seriously, it would arguably constitute a type of superstition, or at least divination. In keeping with that possible helping of woo, it is also Supernatural Day as well as Positive Thinking Day. In order to counter balance that, and keep the universe humming along on an even keel, it is also Defy Superstition Day Since fortune cookies are an "American" thing, it is only proper to to invoke one of "America's" greatest sages to address all the woo and counter-woo.
Today is also Programmer's Day which is celebrated either by writing a searchable personal address book in C++ or
WRITE BROKEN ENGLISH
SENTENCE FRAGMENTS
ON GRAPH PAPER
IN ALL CAPS
SAY IT IS COBOL
On this day in history:
379 – Yax Nuun Ahiin I was crowned as 15th Ajaw of Tikal
1501 – Michelangelo started work on his statue of David.
1541 – John Calvin returned to Geneva to reform the church
1609 – Henry Hudson reached the Hudson River.
1743 – Great Britain, Austria and the Kingdom of Sardinia signed the Treaty of Worms.
1788 – The Philadelphia Convention set the date for the first presidential election in the United States
1814 – The British failed to capture Baltimore. During the battle, Francis Scott Key composed his poem "Defence of Fort McHenry",
1847 – Six teenage military cadets known as Niños Héroes died defending Chapultepec Castle in the Battle of Chapultepec.
1848 – Phineas Gage survived an iron rod 1+1/4 inches in diameter being driven through his brain
1898 – Hannibal Goodwin patented celluloid photographic film.
1899 – Henry Bliss became the first person in the US to die in an auto accident.
1906 – The Santos-Dumont 14-bis made the first flight of a fixed-wing aircraft in Europe.
1923 – After a military coup in Spain, Miguel Primo de Rivera became dictator
1933 – Elizabeth McCombs became the first woman elected to the New Zealand Parliament.
1948 – Margaret Chase Smith was elected United States senator, becoming the first woman to serve in both the U.S. House and Senate
1956 – The IBM 305 RAMAC, the first commercial computer to use disk storage came out
1962 – The 5th Circuit ordered the University of Mississippi to admit James Meredith
1971 – State police and National Guardsmen stormed Attica Prison
1985 – Super Mario Bros. was released in Japan for the NES
1987 – A radioactive object was stolen from an abandoned hospital in Goiânia, Brazil, contaminating many and causing some deaths
1989 – Desmond Tutu led the largest anti-Apartheid march in South Africa
1993 – Yitzhak Rabin shook hands with Yasser Arafat at the White House after signing the Oslo Accords
2007 – The UN adopted the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples
Born this day in:
“There is still plenty of good music to be written in C major.”
~~ Arnold Schoenberg
1502 – John Leland, poet and historian
1583 – Girolamo Frescobaldi, pianist and composer
1594 – Francesco Manelli, theorbo player and composer
1755 – Oliver Evans, inventor, engineer and businessman v
1818 – Lucy Goode Brooks, founder of Friends' Asylum for Colored Orphans
1819 – Clara Schumann, pianist and composer
1830 – Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach, author
1851 – Walter Reed, physician and biologist
1873 – Constantin Carathéodory, mathematician and author
1874 – Arnold Schoenberg, composer and painter
1876 – Sherwood Anderson, novelist and short story writer
1885 – Wilhelm Blaschke, mathematician and academic
1886 – Amelie Beese, pilot and sculptor
1886 – Robert Robinson, chemist and academic
1887 – Leopold Ružicka, biochemist and academic
1893 – Larry Shields, clarinet player
1894 – J. B. Priestley, novelist and playwright
1904 – Alberta Williams King, civil rights organizer
1908 – Chu Berry, saxophonist
1911 – Bill Monroe, singer, songwriter, and mandolin player
1914 – Leonard Feather, pianist, composer, producer, and journalist
1916 – Roald Dahl, novelist, poet, and screenwriter
1917 – Carol Kendall, historian and author
1919 – Mary Midgley, philosopher and author
1922 – Charles Brown, singer and pianist
1925 – Mel Tormé, singer, songwriter,and actor
1928 – Robert Indiana, painter and sculptor
1933 – Lewie Steinberg, bass player
1941 – David Clayton-Thomas, singer, songwriter, and guitarist
1943 – Mildred D. Taylor, author
1944 – Peter Cetera, singer, songwriter, bass player, and producer
1948 – Nell Carter, actress and singer
1952 – Randy Jones, singer
1952 – Don Was, bass player and producer
1954 – Steve Kilbey, singer, songwriter, and bass player
1955 – Joe Morris, guitarist and composer
1956 – Joni Sledge, singer and songwriter
1957 – Vinny Appice,drummer
1961 – Dave Mustaine, singer, songwriter, guitarist, and producer
1965 – Zak Starkey, drummer
1967 – Tim "Ripper" Owens, singer, songwriter ,and guitarist
1967 – Stephen Perkins, drummer and songwriter
1970 – Lee Abramson, bass player and composer
1975 – Joe Don Rooney, singer, songwriter, and guitarist
1977 – Fiona Apple, singer, songwriter, producer, and pianist
1982 – Colin Marston, guitarist, bassist, and producer/engineer
1983 – James Bourne, singer, songwriter, guitarist, and producer
1983 – Molly Crabapple, illustrator and journalist
1985 – David Jordan, singer and songwriter
Died this day in:
Saying is one thing and doing is another.
Nothing is so firmly believed as that which we least know.
~~~ Michel de Montaigne
1506 – Andrea Mantegna, painter and engraver
1592 – Michel de Montaigne, philosopher and author
1872 – Ludwig Feuerbach, anthropologist and philosopher
1929 – Jatindra Nath Das, activist
1931 – Lili Elbe, model and painter
1949 – August Krogh, physiologist and academic
1953 – Mary Brewster Hazelton, painter
2004 – Luis E. Miramontes, chemist, co-invented the birth-control pill
2019 – Eddie Money, singer and songwriter
Holidays, Holy Days, Festivals, Feast Days, Days of Recognition, and such:
Day of the Programmer, during a non-leap year. (International)
Día de los Niños Héroes (Mexico)
Roald Dahl Day (Africa, United Kingdom, Latin America)
Fortune Cookie Day
I'm on Top of it Day
International Chocolate Day
National Peanut Day
Programmers' Day
National Defy Superstition Day; including
Positive Thinking Day
Supernatural Day
Music goes here, iirc, well, With apologies 
Defy Superstition Day
Battle of Baltimore
Arnold Schoenberg
Larry Shields
Chu Berry
Bill Monroe
Leonard Feather
Charles Brown
Lewie Steinberg
David-Clayton Thomas
Don Was
Joni Sledge
Zak Starkey
Eddie Money
Ok, it's an open thread, so it's up to you folks now. So what's on your mind?
Comments
Good morning and good fortune to all
Pluto dropped a link to a piece "Understanding China" which might explain why Americans think fortune cookies are a Chinese tradition. Here's a taste...
Now the idea of "positive thinking" is positive (so to speak). Glass half full, or half empty? Hey it is completely full, half with water and the other half air.
Nice music today. Thanks for the OT. Everyone have a good one!
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
Good morning LO. In part we can't understand the
Chinese not because they are inscrutable, though they werre once labeled with that, but because they are not Eurocentric. The culture and traditions of the fertile crescent filtered through Greek and Roman traditions wound incestuously mired in Europe for ages and then spread outward. By the time euroman got way over there certain mental processes were so entrenched that understanding anything that lacked the same basic conceptual framework was impossible without focused effort that pretty much nobody was willing to engage in just for a quickie exploitation fix. Euroman nevere went to the east (or west) to meet, learn and understand, but to try to colonize or, failing that, swindle, bamboozle, conquer and otherwise exploit.
Thanks for that quote, btw.
The glass is neither half empty or half full, is it simply the wrong size.
be well and have a good one
That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --
A cookie once cracked
only leads to speculation.
Great bunch of music today EL!
Looking forward to divining the meaning of superstition
Enjoy your moan day.
[video:https://youtu.be/od5WdxsRCt0]
Good morning QMS, thanks for
the music, though summer is waning, and your thoughts upon the pseudo-eternal verities of the cookie.
be well and have a good one
That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --
Hi all
Hi EL, Hope yer smoke is cleared out. We had some here a couple days this week. Hope some fall migration is finding you, we're getting some bits of here, lot's of Ruby-throated Hummingbirds going through now, some Baltimore and Orchard Oriole, and Yellow Warblers.
Have you ever checked the McNair Brickyard Vaux's Swift fall roost? It is somewhere there in the bay area. They count there lots of nights as they enter the chimney. One day last week it was 25 THOUSAND entered! It is a swift tornado as they go in. I'm sure there are sites online that talk about it.
In the theme of the spiritual and supernatural... here is my contribution. I thought this was awesome. Trying to ID sounds is difficult as I don't know the Siberian soundscape. I think the explosive one is a Euro Jay alarm call. The drumming is a grouse of some sort, the deep single hoots are Great Gray Owl, her wolf is awsome as is the jawharp. I might be in love.
Gotta get to work so gotta fly... have a great day!
Hope all are well or better!
edit to add: lots of the initial high yodeling is likely Yellow-billed Loon, and the double toots are their Pygmy-Owl or similar (Tegmalm's or somesuch).
We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.
Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better.
both - Albert Einstein
Good morning Dysto. Haven't done (or heard of) the
brickyard thing. Not noticing any migrants yet, though we now have a house wren in the yard. He's visiting the neighbor too, we have resident Bewicks Wrens, so it will be interesting to see how this plays out.
I'll check the video in a bit, your description makes it sound great.
Had a GHO calling in the neighborhood last couple of nights.
We've also had a beautiful super light morph red tail handing around for a couple of weeks now. He's got a few preferred roost trees near by, then the scrubbies find him and call in the crows who harass him until he leaves. Constant entertainment.
be well and have a good one
That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --
swifts
Here are the swifts...
It is McNear Brickyard, maybe in San Rafael?, Marin Co., which has some dis-used chimneys that migrant Vaux's Swift use by the thousands... right now is THE time to go see this.
less than 1 min.:
5 min.:
the yard sounds fun... you should be getting some transients any day, or your local park with watercourse...
We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.
Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better.
both - Albert Einstein
300,000 NYC Municipal workers
go back to their offices today. Businesses who serve these office workers will see their goods and services utilized once again.
NYC Schools open fully, no remote learning available for the first time since mid-March 2020.
The City is awakening.
NYCVG
Good morning NY. So the new(ish) normal(ish) is
creeping up upon you. Hope it works out ok for all.
Be well and have a good one
That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --
Good Morning enhydra and all of us
Yes the New(ish) normal(ish) is obvious.
I just got back from Whole Foods and it was crowded. Hanven't seen that for well more than a year.
I am definitely in favor of things opening up and businesses having a chance to recover. It's uncertain about how useful lockdowns were and how so many businesses and lives were destroyed by the lockdowns.
Clearly we did not and still do not know with clarity what we should do.
NYCVG
It is extremely probable that we will never know.
We can't undo them and re-run the experiment (life is like that an awful lot). How many extra deaths of owners, managers, suppliers, How much sick time of how many necessary/critical employees. And, of course, largely irrelevant to USAns, how much of how many other effects not capable of being reduced to economic quantification.
be well and have a good one.
That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --
Zak
while I'm here... Zak Starke is a world-class top-of-the-line 5-star AAA grade drummer. Story is that his godfather Keith Moon gave him his first drum kit. I saw him later 90's when the Who (still with the Ox) toured Quadraphenia, entire album straight through, since they had never done that at that point, besides a hits set from other stuff... Zak was mind blowing awesome. He could play Keith's drum parts as well as anyone ever.
We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.
Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better.
both - Albert Einstein
Good questions, aren't they?
NYCVG
Reality, in general, isn't binary and also isn't scalar.
There is a continuum and spectrum to everything. The questions seem to presume otherwise. Just my 2 cents worth.
be well and have a good one
That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --
not so sure I understand
this cartoon illustrates how confusing all of this is for me.
Do you mean that some/all of these measures are/may be helpful? If so we can agree on that.
It seems like the Greater Good is asking us to do all of the things---shots, masks, lockdowns mandates,distancing,whatever, in hopes that something anything can or will stop the spread of this virus.
Or, just keep buying vaccines. IDK.
NYCVG
Along that line yes.
The poster is implying either a mask works and nothing else is remotely useful or needed, or else it doesn't. A surgeon's mask or cloth mask stops, depending upon various factors, varying percentages of exhaled pathogens from infecting those in the wearer's vicinity. An N-95 stops a huge number of pathogens from infecting the wearer.
Distancing - assume a highly contagious maskless person, would you prefer to have them coughing directly on you, not on but very close to you, or far away?
The virus is not all or nothing either. A healthy person who inhales a single viral particle probably will not even be infected. Somebody who inhales just barely enough to get infected is likely to have a mild case, or at least milder than oner who inhales vast quantities. The viral load determines if you get it and how bad.
That means that you wish to reduce as much as possible any potential viral load. Best bet is to be alone, outdoors with nobody in a 100 foot radius and a light breeze blowing. A cloth mask + social distancing reduces the likelihood that you'll spread it to others in sufficient viral load to make them sick and an N-95 plus social distancing seriously minimizes the chances that you'll get it. Neither is perfect, and people are, in bulk and on average, a bit sloppy, lackadaisical, forgetful, etc., etc., so a vaccination makes sense to protect the vaccinated. It does reduce the risk of them getting it and of them having a seriously severe case if they do. By reducing the chance that they get it, it also reduces the chance that they'll spread it. But, no vaccine is perfectly effective either.
And on, and on, and on, etc. The virus isn't an on-off switch and no defense technology or strategy is either, so "all of the above" is not an insane choice. There are a lot of old jokes and snide references to "belt & suspenders", but I have worked at jobs where you had so much crap hanging off of your belt that you needed braces to keep it up without cinching it up like a gay 90s corset.
be well and have a good one
That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --
@NYCVG I forgot to mention that
I forgot to mention that question 6 presumes facts not in evidence and that question 7 is simply playing games. The vaccine makes nobody a super spreader. Certain behaviors and situations can be super spreaders in one original sense, and an infected person participating in those events and behaviors can be a super spreader in another. So, if a vaccinated person has a break through infection and engages with uninfected persons in those events and behaviors, that person could be or be part of a super spreader. The vaccine doesn't cause the behavior and the question is, in a sense, nonsense.
the whole thing is inaccurate memes to one degree or another, including the use of the word "lockdowns" for wildly differing sets of rules for things that are not remotely similar to real lockdowns.
be well and have a good one
That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --
And now for something a bit more refined
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uT3SBzmDxGk]
Thanks BC, a little culture in the afternoon is
always welcome, especially from those two.
be well and have a good one
That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --
Something that popped into my mind
As I heard the story (no idea where I heard it, it was 29 years ago)Bill Clinton had to be stopped from announcing the signing of the Oslo Accords because Israel had broken them before he could leave the room. Supposedly they were waiting for a call from Rabin to signal the bulldozers. Has anyone else heard this story? It would be nice to get confirmation. The story sounds more illustrative than literal.
On to Biden since 1973
Afternoon, doh -
Never heard it, but would not be surprised.
be well and have a good one
That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --
Must be a chocolate fortune cookie for me to wotk
Have a good day all. Thanks for the Open Thread.
https://www.euronews.com/live
Afternoon mimi. The traditional cookie, which
has a slightly non-traditional dough, is, sadly, chocolate free. That's why you cannot trust the fortunes.
be well and have a good one
That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --
Is there also a Forbes cookie? A Bloomberg BusinessWeek cookie?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fortune_%28magazine%29
Good morning lot. That is a sadly bassackward
query. You should ask is there is an Oreo or Lorna Doone magazine.
Luce founded "Fortune" magazine in 1929 (a most interesting year to talk about anybody's fortune or fortunes) and appears to have named it after the cookie, which had been around since the 1890s, unless it was pure coincidence.
be well and have a good one
That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --
Legend says the little strips of paper inside the cookies
were originally recycled ticker tape, with stock ticker symbols instead of “lucky numbers”…
People would buy stocks based on hot fortune-cookie tips and lose their shirts, so cookie bakers were urged to switch to something more solid with better odds for non-insiders than the stock market, like lottery numbers…
By the same token, patrons of Chinese restaurants were urged to save all their strips of paper since it was a custom to throw bushels of them out the windows of tall buildings to honor someone during so-called “fortune-cookie-fortune parades”…
/
misinformation/bs /jk