Barnson.org

So, it’s Black Friday. What great deals did you find in your pre-dawn shopping?

I was sent these questions by a foreign co-worker; I thought reproducing them would be a reasonable way to talk about Thanksgiving this year!

On (2007/11/21 10:23), Manush Thranivaniranjanian wrote: > 1. What is the significance of the Thanksgiving Day? > (answer in one or two sentences only)

Thanksgiving is a traditional Autumn harvest celebration first celebrated by colonists of the New World in 1621, and continued in various forms until it became a federal holiday in 1941.

> 2. Why it always falls on a Thursday in November?

Historically, it occurred after the last day of the Autumn harvest of crops (usually late October or early November). Franklin D. Roosevelt set the date for the national celebration in 1939.

> 3. Why Turkey is the main item on a Thanksgiving Day dinner table?

A turkey is much larger than a chicken, duck, or goose, and feeds many more people. It was also supposedly served at the first American Thanksgiving dinner, as recorded by William Bradford in 1643 in a manuscript lost until just before the start of the Civil War. Because of this, President Abraham Lincoln had turkeys sent to soldiers for Thanksgiving during the American Civil War (1861-1865), and the tradition stuck.

Turkeys are also a native American species, and several traditional Thanksgiving dishes like corn on the cob, pumpkin pie, and American cranberries are made from foods which only existed in America prior to the sixteenth century.

> 4. When did the custom of Presidential pardon of the Turkey started?

Nobody knows for sure; it is rumored that Harry Truman started the tradition in 1947, while others maintain it was Abraham Lincoln who started it by issuing the pardon to his son’s pet turkey.

> 5. Which state in the USA has the largest number of Turkeys?

Why on earth would I know that? 🙂

Regards, — Matthew P. Barnson | UNIX System Administrator | – – – – Thought for the moment: There is only one way to console a widow. But remember the risk. — Robert Heinlein

As many of you know, the first of the “His Dark Materials” trilogy has been filmed and is being released on December 7, 2007. The Golden Compass is not even released yet, and is already causing a furor, sufficient to warrant an entry regarding the religious leanings of its author on snopes.com:

Claim: The 2007 film The Golden Compass is based on a series of books with anti-religious themes. Status: True.

There will be a new Children’s movie out in December called THE GOLDEN COMPASS. It is written by Phillip Pullman, a proud athiest who belongs to secular humanist societies. He hates C. S. Lewis’s Chronical’s of Narnia and has written a trilogy to show the other side. The movie has been dumbed down to fool kids and their parents in the hope that they will buy his trilogy where in the end the children kill God and everyone can do as they please. Nicole Kidman stars in the movie so it will probably be advertised a lot. This is just a friendly warning that you sure won’t hear on the regular TV.

Now, on the one hand, I understand the consternation of some parents. My sister-in-law, for instance, mentioned her distaste for the series. She really liked the first book, mentioning that Pullman built a wonderful world and populated it with really interesting characters. The second book she thought was good, but not as good, but the strong anti-religious overtones of the third book turned her off. She still liked the series as a whole, and recommended it, but wished the third book had turned out differently.

On the other hand, I read the trilogy myself, and loved it. I found the first book a fun introduction to the series, but fairly forgettable. The second book made the story more interesting, and the profound implications of the third book made it a fantastic joyride through parallel universes and the complications of competing worldviews.

“…in the end the children kill God and everyone can do as the please.”

Well, their description of the ending of the book is way off, but it sounds like a happy ending to me. The more children are exposed to new ideas and taught to think for themselves, making rational choices about their religion and personal lives, the better. Let’s camp out for tickets!

I no longer live in an area with much ammunition for this device, but this is just too funny (though a little bit cruel) for words:

The Squirrelpult.

Avenge yourself against ghost dialers who start talking at you in a Spanish recorded message or who hang up after you pick up (registration required):

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/15/technology/personaltech/15ghost.html

The gist: http://www.whocalled.us/ keeps a registry of offenders. Get information on the callers and complain to their local Better Business Bureau.

I love the routine emails I receive from people as forwards of some little factoid about this or that. The latest ones are “DOOM!” posts about “In God We Trust” being taken off the US Dollar coins…

From: Some Chick Subject: Fwd: FW: New $ coin

This was sent to me today. Can you really believe they have gone this far. How sad for our great nation.

Please help do this refuse to accept these when they are handed to you. I received one from the Post Office as change and I asked for a dollar bill instead. The lady just smiled and said “way to go”so she had read this e-mail. Please help out….our world is in enough trouble without this too!!!!!

U.S. Government to Release New Dollar Coins

You guessed it ‘IN GOD WE TRUST’ IS GONE!!! If ever there was a reason to boycott something, THIS IS IT!!!!

DO NOT ACCEPT THE NEW DOLLAR COINS AS CHANGE

Together we can force them out of circulation. Please send to all on you mail list !!!

My response to the email was short and to the point, but I have a bigger rant to follow…

On Wed, November 14, 2007 07:42, Some Chick wrote: > ‘IN GOD WE TRUST’ IS GONE!!!

It’s true that a few of the first run of these new dollar coins are defective. Around 50,000 coins are missing the edge inscriptions entirely, which include “E Pluribus Unum”, “In God We Trust”, the mint marks, and the year produced. Coins with this minting error are already a collector’s item among the 300-million run of dollars… the rest of which do not share this defect.

In my opinion, if you acquire one of these rare “godless dollars”, you should probably keep it in your coin collection rather than turn it down for ideological reasons. They are currently worth around $50 on eBay.

Regards, Matthew P. Barnson Urban Legend Aficionado

That said, I want to address the fear-mongering in the original email.

Can you really believe they have gone this far.

Who is this mythical “they” who have “gone this far”? What is “their” agenda? I believe that this ties in to the common American mythology of government: that those in government are atheist-loving, god-hating liberals who want nothing more than to deprive your children of their religious liberty by imposing state-sanctioned godlessness on their poor little hearts.

This is the type of bogeyman used to scare people into action. While I applaud activism and consider it a necessary and fruitful area of politics, I detest the farcical means used to drum up support.

I received one from the Post Office as change and I asked for a dollar bill instead. The lady just smiled and said “way to go”so she had read this e-mail.

I believe you mis-heard. What she actually said is “What an idiot.”

Together we can force them out of circulation.

Umm, no, you can’t. Just like misogynists who hated the Susan B. Anthony dollar because it featured a women’s rights activist, you will labor in vain the rest of your days for an utterly useless cause. These things are slated to be produced for the next decade (one new president per quarter-year). There are no plans to take the dollar bill out of circulation yet… but all the right-wing-nutjob schemes in the world won’t make a dent when they are based on faulty information.

our world is in enough trouble without this too!!!!!

If by “in enough trouble” you mean “has the lowest rate of crime, war, and death along with the highest quality-of-life, wealth, and education per capita in human history”, then I agree. Otherwise, you’re off your flamin’ rocker.

That said, yes, the USA is in some trouble financially as a result of ill-considered Middle Eastern wars. This will correct in time.

Please send to all on you mail list

There are certain suggestions which should always be ignored. These include things like:

• “Shout ‘FIRE!’ in a crowded theater!”
• “Get involved in a land war in Asia!”
• “Hey, watch this!” <thud>
• “Please forward this email to everybody you know.”

Seems that Facebook, Myspace, Twitter, and IM have won the internet communication war. Blogs and email are for old farts:

http://slate.com/id/2177969/

I like keeping a blog though. It’s therapeutic, and I enjoy writing. Perhaps I should open up a Facebook and Myspace account, then write a program to automatically post to those sites when I update my blog… worth a thought!

“My name’s Steve… and I’m a super-villain.” Line me up to load Linux on my Fembot.

Another myth… busted. This one comes from the Great White North.

Eskimos don’t have many times more “words” for “snow” than English does. Because several Eskimo languages are polysynthetic, like German, they allow words to be smashed together to form a new word, when in English such a word would be considered a phrase. Some of the languages have a few more words for snow than English, some a few less. Yupik, for instance, has around 24 words to describe frozen water… while English has around 40.

Now according to the discussion page, the debunking has been debunked… but the long and short of it is, some Eskimo languages have a few more words for snow, some a few less. So the next time someone tries to use this tired old canard, you can prepare a ready comeback to look the part of the pedantic curmudgeon you really are inside!

Marvel Comics has put an archive of back issues online. For those of us (like me!) interested in catching up on the stories but not willing to spend a fortune collecting back-issues, it’s a godsend. I hope they expand it to include special editions, short-run canceled comics, and the like.

For a limited time they have several hundred issues available for free. They’ll be publishing a library of thousands of comics initially, with 20 more being added every week. The price is $60 a year to subscribe, and there will be a 6-month delay from press to online versions… but for the comic aficionado, it’s totally worth it.

I’m catching up on Astonishing X-Men (Joss Whedon’s take on X-Men) right now. Cool stuff.