What Would Jimmy Do?

Seventeen years ago, it was pretty noisy around northern Virginia and it wasn’t all because of the wedding activities. On this date in 2004, people visiting from out of the area were asking, “what’s that noise?” The answer was, of course, cicadas. Just like 17 years ago, over the next month or so, billions of cicadas will emerge in a number of states, from New York west to Illinois and south into northern Georgia, including spots in Indiana, Ohio, Tennessee, Maryland, Pennsylvania and New Jersey. This group of cicadas, known as Brood X (as in the Roman number 10) is among the geographically largest of all 17-year periodical cicadas. 

Once above ground, the cicadas announce their arrival — the main aggravation they inflict on us is their loud, buzzing mating call. The sound is equal to the intensity of a lawn mower or motorcycle.

But around here we acknowledge this date for another reason — for the last 16 years, we’ve dubbed May 22 as “Anniversary Day.”
Anniversaries are an important part of life — they mark important events. It’s like we put a pin on the calendar to remind us of something that’s important and matters to us. It’s a chance to reflect on a relationship — and to celebrate the event. It gives us a chance to look back over the years since our wedding day and reflect on how it has shaped us. 

As wedding anniversaries accumulate over the years, they can elicit mixed emotions. Some years we feel pressured to do something amazing to mark the date, but some years it’s just a good time for regrouping the relationship — maybe just as simple as going out to dinner and remembering the day you got married, or met, or got engaged to remind yourself why you fell in love in the first place.

So this will be a noisy anniversary for Kelly and Chris — I’m not sure about the cicada population around Cleveland, but no matter….. if my math is correct, the “Anniversary Day”  this year celebrates 39 years of marriage. Happy Anniversary to Kelly and Chris for the 17th time and to Mike and Sue for the 22nd time. Just think, next time we celebrate a ‘cicada’ anniversary, in 2038, Kelly and Chris will only be 16 years away from number 50 — and for Mike and Sue that big one will only be 11 years away. 
With, or without, cicadas — Anniversary Day is great…..
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As you’re probably aware, the news has been full of news about killings lately… murders in many metropolitan areas are up by a fairly high percentage so far this year. Internationally, several prominent people have been murdered/assassinated.  

I’ve often wondered just exactly what the difference in murder and assassination really was. Most dictionary definitions suggest that “assassination” is usually associated with a well-known victim. Several sources indicate that assassination is almost exclusively reserved for murders in which someone is being killed primarily due to their title or role in an organization or movement. I think this is probably often, but certainly not always, true.

I guess you could probably say that every assassination is a murder, but not every murder would be considered an assassination. 
The legal definition of murder in the United States includes killing with (1) “malice aforethought, characterized by deliberation or premeditation or occurring during the commission of another serious crime, such as robbery or arson (first-degree murder)” and (2) “murder by intent, but without deliberation or premeditation (second-degree murder.)” If I read this correctly, all assassinations are first-degree murders. It’s interesting, that while I could find a “legal” definition of murder, I couldn’t find any “legal” definition of assassination.

Obviously, there are many opinions as to what constitutes an assassination. Usually assassination is used when someone important is murdered, but assassination isn’t based on “importance.” It is the removal of someone because of who they are, what they do or what they know. If someone is murdered for their wallet, or their car, that would not be an assassination. Assassination isn’t about how important the victim was — it’s about the motive for the murder. 

Unfortunately, assassinations have become commonplace for us — we hear about them from around the globe on a more or less regular basis. Most of us can tick off a list of people that have been assassinated without having to think too hard… Julius Caesar, Malcom X, Abraham Lincoln, John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Jr., James Garfield, Huey Long, Medgar Evers, etc.
Often, news of these deaths is so shocking that people can remember exactly where they were and what they were doing, wearing or eating when they learned person had been murdered. 

Assassinations have become (an unwelcome) part of our world. I’ve heard it said that assassination is the extreme form of censorship… probably true. 
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We were listening to the news this morning and I made the remark that the the whole world is becoming stupid — and that they should all wear dunce caps. As I sat there, mulling over the news, I got to thinking that maybe intelligence has just become an oppressive force on all these stupid people for a long time. I think they believe their stupidity and idiotic tendencies are not something to be mocked — they should be celebrated. Unfortunately, admitting stupidity is still taboo in our society, so it’s necessary for these people to pretend to have knowledge to survive. Some of our friends often simulate knowledge of, especially,  politics and history and readily accept compliments from friends and family on their intelligence, who seem unaware of its fictitious nature.

But, again, I’ve gotten a little off the subject. I intended to discuss dunce caps… after I had used the term, it occurred to me that you don’t hear it much anymore and probably most of the younger generation don’t know what one is.

When I was young, “dunce cap” was a fairly common term and was always a symbol of idiocy or punishment. But that wasn’t always the case. 
For the younger readers, the caps were usually made from rolling paper into a cone and writing a “D” or the word “Dunce” on the paper to indicate that the person wearing the cap had done something very stupid. They were called a dunce cap or dunce’s cap or a dunce hat or dunce’s hat.

The name comes from a Scottish philosopher-theologian named John Duns Scotus. I’m not sure if it’s of any significance or an omen or something, but his last name (Scotus) happens to be the abbreviation for the Supreme Court of the United States. His middle name, Duns, comes from the village where he was born and came to be pronounced “dunce.”

John Duns Scotus was a Franciscan who was ordained in 1291 to wear “the habit of the Friars Minor at Dumbries.” 
The dude was a real thinker — his life’s work was all about the study of this world and the next. He became a master philosopher, linguist, theologian and metaphysical thinker.

So how did his name become a synonym for stupidity? For some reason, Scotus was also a proponent for the use of pointy hats. One story is that he was inspired by the use of such hats by wizards — another says that it was Scouts’  love of the headgear that inspired the popular image of wizards wearing conical hats. Either way, the hats were meant to indicate wise men. Scouts believed the conical shape would act like some metaphysical funnel of knowledge and wisdom. The hats were a symbol of knowledge until after he died (in 1308.) But during the 1500s, the popular thought among church scholars began to turn against the “Dunsmen,” and soon the “Dunsmen” or “Duns” were thought to be woefully out-of-date in their thinking, and thus stupid. 

Today John Duns Scotus is thought to be one of the great thinkers of the Middle Ages. He was beatified in 1993 by Pope John Paul II, in recognition for his contributions to religious theory. 
So even though you don’t hear much about them anymore, dunce caps may not represent a proud tradition, but they certainly are part of a long-standing one.
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Those of you that have ever had the discussion with me, know that I don’t like Facebook. I think it’s dangerous and often causes more harm than it does good. I rarely check Facebook, but I often get e-mails advising me that someone I may (or may not) know is having a birthday or doing something special and suggesting that I write something on their Facebook page. 

Today I got a “challenge” from someone asking me participate on their page. 
Here is their challenge — “Apart from makeup, breakup, wake up, 7up and look up. Which other UP do you know?” Well, I’m not usually one to turn down a challenge, but after giving this one about 30 seconds of thought, I realized it sure isn’t much of a challenge….

Up is a word that is probably used by all of us multiple times ever day — it’s not particularly hard to think of lot of words and phrases that use “up,” like…. wind up, stand up, keep up, screw up, show up, look up, sum up, clean up, throw up, sign up, round up, line up, catch up, roll up, add up, tear up, warm up, shut up, rise up, mix up, wake up, suck up, cover up, or shake up.

We’ve probably all said, “what’s up?” on occasion and had to “give it up” sometimes and I know I’ve often gotten “fed up” with things. I’ve certainly been told to “shut up” at times and I’ve even given “two thumbs up” a few times. 

Sometimes we don’t realize how often we use that little word “up.” Just think about all the times you got all dressed up, or got all worked up over something, or went barking up the wrong tree. How often have you heard “bottoms up” during happy hour? 

Obviously this blog could become very long just by listing all the times I’ve used “up.” So I’m not sure why such a silly, and simple, challenge was issued. But it was, and I decided to “take the person UP on his challenge.” I think I won….
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Today is May 9th — Mother’s Day. Coincidently, May 9th, 1976 was also Mother’s Day — and — the day Kelly was born. I remember the weather being a little nicer on May 9, 1976… bright and sunny and warm.

Since Kelly was born, her birthday has fallen on Mother’s Day in 1982, 1993, 1999, 2004, 2010 and 2021. 

The day Kelly was born, Gerald Ford was President, James Callaghan was the UK Prime Minister, and Pope Paul VI was leading the Catholic Church. One of the best selling books was The Russians by Hedrick Smith. The top pop song was Welcome Back by John Sebastian. 

I won’t reveal Kelly’s age, but if my calculation is correct, she’s 16434 days old…. and that makes her a member of Generation X (I think.)

I’m not sure if Emily has figured it out yet, but she can probably get away with only one gift this year… it can be a combination Birthday/Mother’s Day gift.
Happy Birthday Kelly (and Happy Mother’s Day.)
Love you lots….
— 30 —

In the United States, Mother’s Day is celebrated on the second Sunday of May each year. Today is the second Sunday of May, so today is Mother’s Day. 

Usually I try to find something not well known or trivial about these special days… during the Middle Ages, the custom developed of allowing people who had moved away from where they grew up to come back to visit their home or ‘mother’ church, and their mothers, on the fourth Sunday of the Christian festival of Lent. Back then, it wasn’t uncommon for children to leave home to work when they as young as 10 years old, so this was an opportunity for families to meet up again. This custom became Mothering Sunday in Britain — and, because the dates of Lent vary each year, so does the date of Mothering Sunday. Even though it’s often called Mother’s Day in the UK, it has no connection with the American Mother’s Day.

Mother’s Day is not a federal holiday. Organizations, businesses and stores are open or closed, just as they are on any other Sunday of the year. Public transit systems run on their normal Sunday schedules. Restaurants are busier than usual, because people take their mothers out for a treat.

Mother’s Day has become a day that focuses on generally recognizing mothers’ roles, and it’s become an increasingly important event for businesses — especially restaurants and businesses manufacturing and selling cards and gift items.

As I’ve said before, mothers deserve to be honored every day, but it’s nice for them to have a special day of recognition and appreciation. 
So Happy Mother’s Day to my favorite three Moms, that also happen to be the best three Moms I know — Claire, Kelly and Chassie… 
— 30 —

Well, we survived Cinco de Mayo and today is another big day — anniversary day. Just like last year, according to the experts, this one doesn’t deserve any special designation. It sure seems like 49 years of marriage should be special ‚ but it’s not. There are no traditional themes associated with the 49th wedding anniversary. 

According to the Census Bureau, more than half of currently married couples (55 percent) have been married for at least 15 years, and 35 percent have reached their 25th anniversary. But — only 6 percent have made it to their 50th wedding anniversary. 

So I guess we’ll just have to wait one more year for what is, apparently, the mother of all anniversary milestones. I’ll just have to be content with the fact that we’ve put one more year in the book that Claire has again made me laugh and be happy and appreciate her more than I did last year.
Tune in here next year for a much longer blog….
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Both faithful readers know that the month of May is usually busy around here…. yesterday was “may the 4th be with you”  or Star Wars Day and today is Cinco de Mayo — the holiday that celebrates the date of the Mexican Army’s May 5, 1862 victory over France at the Battle of Puebla during the Franco-Mexican War. 

The Mexican Army that won the battle was largely outnumbered and poorly supplied. In fact, they were known as a rag-tag army and only had outdated guns at their disposal. But as few as 2,000 Mexican soldiers, some of whom hid behind tall cactus plants, defeated 6.000 French soldiers during the battle, that lasted from daybreak to early evening.

Ignacio Zaragoza was the Mexican general that led the army that defeated the French. He was born in what’s now Goliad in southern Texas and was only 33 years old when he led his troops to victory. Puebla was renamed Puebla de Zaragoza in his honor.

Although it was celebrated in the United States just weeks after the Battle of Puebla, Cinco de Mayo wasn’t officially recognized here until 1933. President Franklin D. Roosevelt enacted something called the “Good Neighbor Policy,” which was meant to improve relations with Latin American countries and communities. After Cinco de Mayo was officially recognized, it really began to pick up steam in the 1950s and 60s. I guess drinking seemed like a good way to improve international relations to FDR — sounds like a good idea to me.

The town of Chandler, Arizona has a typical Cinco de Mayo celebration — food, music, parades, dancing and Chihuahua races. Townspeople enter their Chihuahuas into the race and receive a large cash prize if their Chihuahua is the fastest.

Cinco de Mayo is not a federal holiday in Mexico, but it’s always been popular with the kids — even before the pandemic, schools were closed for the day.

So happy Cinco de Mayo — no matter how you celebrate and even if you don’t take in the Chihuahua races, you can’t go wrong with a Margarita.
— 30 — 

Chinese is one of the most popular cuisines for take-out. During the pandemic, we’ve either eaten outside at a restaurant or gotten “take-out” from all kinds of restaurants, but I was thinking about all the Chinese restaurants we’ve eaten at over the years. For a while, it seemed like it became a challenge to find the “best” Chinese restaurant in whatever city or country we were in.

A lot of Chinese dishes aren’t really “Chinese.” I’m sure you could say the same about most nationalities. 
But one dish you find in just about all Chinese restaurants in the United States, that you almost never find in other countries is General Tso’s Chicken.

So who was this General Tso anyhow — and how did he become such a great chef?  I guess I might as well get this out of the way right now — General Tso has essentially nothing to do with this Chinese chicken dish. 

General Tso (Zur Zongtang) was a real guy —  an actual Chinese general that rose to fame during the Taiping Rebellion of 1850-64. By the time that rebellion ended, General Tso was a household name. I know that beef Wellington is a dish named after the Duke of Wellington. So it seems reasonable that this chicken recipe might have been invented and named after General Tso, right? No — wrong.

General Tso’s chicken, as we know it today, wasn’t invented until the 1970s, in New York City — not in the southern provinces of China where General Tso earned his glory. 

My extensive research determined that General Tso’s Chicken, a sweet, spicy, crispy chicken dish, was introduced in 1973 by Peng Jia, a onetime chef to  the Chinese military and political leader Chiang Kai-shek. At the time, Peng Jia was the proprietor of a Manhattan Chinese restaurant named Peng’s.

Peng claimed that he actually invented the recipe while working for Chiang sometime in the 1950s, but that the original recipe was far different from the dish that many americans love today. 

When Peng opened his New York restaurant in 1973, Hunan cuisine was virtually unheard of in the United States. Most Chinese restaurants in the US featured Cantonese cuisine, that is far blander and sweeter than Hunan food.

Peng was convinced the American taste was unprepared for the fiery, sour taste of his original dish, so he sweetened the recipe. The dish became an instant hit and gained massive exposure when Henry Kissinger, whose every move was covered in the social and gossip pages of the day, made Peng’s restaurant a regular hangout and General Tso’s Chicken was his usual meal. Before long, General Tso’s Chicken could be found on Chinese menus all across the United States. 

Peng never explained why he came up with the name Genera Tso, but considering that he invented the dish for Chiang Kai-shek, he probably arrived at the name because it was one of several that the chef used to honor Chinese military greats of the past. 

In 1990, Peng returned to Hunan province and opened a restaurant that featured the dish that made Hunan a popular Chinese cuisine, but the restaurant closed quickly. Apparently General Tso’s Chicken, the symbol of Hunan cooking in the US and much of the world, was too sweet for the Hunan people. I guess there’s no accounting for taste…
— 30 —

Cinco de Mayo is coming up soon and a few days ago we were discussing how we make margaritas. Everyone had a slightly different recipe and everyone made them using different “techniques.” Well, this conversation eventually led to to how other drinks are made and to martinis and the “shaken or stirred” controversy — or at least difference of opinions.

So — James Bond is noted for lots of things, among them a famous phrase that goes something like, “A vodka martini, shaken, not stirred.” You’d think a world famous superhero like James Bond would know the proper way to make a martini…. but from what I’ve learned over the years, he apparently doesn’t.

Should a martini be shaken or stirred? Just about every bartender I’ve talked to and every “bar book” I’ve read are very clear on the subject — there’s no gray area. If the cocktail contains only alcohol-based ingredients (spirits, vermouths, liqueurs) it should be stirred; if it contains any non-alcoholic ingredients (citrus juice, fresh fruit, eggs, cream or herbs) it should be shaken. 

Most bartenders agree that there is a right way and a wrong way to mix the ingredients in various cocktails. As to why certain drinks should be stirred and not shaken is an area that will probably never be agreed upon.
Stirring a drink, like a martini, produces a silky mouth-feel with precise dilution and perfect clarity. Shaking adds texture and aeration, changes the mouth-feel and binds ingredients that would readily separate with simple stirring. Naturally, this is just one school of thought.
And if you’re making a drink like a daiquiri — that should be shaken — stirring is as outrageous as shaking a martini.

But back to James Bond… he always demanded from the bartender: vodka, straight up, very cold, and —always, always —shaken, not stirred. So if you’re a James Bond fan, I’m sorry to tell you that even though he might know a lot about wearing tuxedos, using ingenious gadgets, and getting female foreign agents to bend to his will, when it comes to the martini, he’s a bit of a rube. All traditionalists will tell you that a martini is made with gin and is always stirred.

I hate it when I have to disappoint a lot of people, but sometimes we just have to face the facts…. contrary to what James Bond often famously declared, a martini should never ever be shaken, and it should contain gin — not vodka.
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