you deserve a break today

About three years ago, I received a Facebook “rant” comparing the hourly wages of McDonald’s employees and military personnel. The gist of the argument was that “burger flippers’ were making far too much money for what they did compared to military personnel, who often were called on to risk their lives. 

I did a bit of research, and found that comparing the two occupations is like comparing apples and oranges.

https://tohell-andback.blogspot.com/2017/06/is-it-time-to-raise-minimum-wage.html

Although the Federal minimum wage is $7.25 an hour, most states have higher minimum wages than that – even red state Arizona, which has a minimum wage of $12 an hour.

The folks in this country who think that burger flippers should not be making $15 an hour would be shocked to learn that burger flippers in Denmark make $22 an hour. On top of that, McDonald’s workers in Denmark get six weeks of paid vacation a year, life insurance, a year’s paid maternity leave and a pension plan. And like all Danes, they enjoy universal medical insurance and paid sick leave.

On top of all that, the Danish National Symphony Orchestra is amazing:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=enuOArEfqGo (the good, bad, and the ugly)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DT1NJwEi6nw (for a few dollars more)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4niv522mbtM (a fistful of dollars)

A Big Mac flipped by $22-an-hour workers isn’t even that much more expensive than an American one. Big Mac prices vary by outlet, but spot pricing suggested that one might cost about 27 cents more on average in Denmark than in the United States. That 27 cents is the price of dignity. The article below goes into a lot more detail, and is worth reading. 

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/08/opinion/us-denmark-economy.html?action=click&module=Opinion&pgtype=Homepage

New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman wrote a book titled “That Used to be Us”, which I read a few years back. In many ways, Denmark today is what the United States looked like in the Eisenhower years. 

The golden age of American capitalism, from 1945 to 1980, was a period of high tax rates (up to 91 percent for the very wealthy), strong labor unions and huge initiatives, such as the G.I. Bill of Rights to help disadvantaged (albeit mostly white) Americans. This was a period of rapid growth in which income inequality declined — and in some ways it looked like today’s Denmark.

The United States may still have the world’s largest economy (for now) but we are definitely not the happiest country in the world.

Finland has the best schools in the world, and they are #1 in terms of happiness.  However, Denmark is ranked as the 2^nd happiest in the world, and not just because the minimum wage is $22 an hour.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/laurabegleybloom/2020/03/20/ranked-20-happiest-countries-2020/#306edfd97850

We are currently ranked at #18, and that’s a decrease from 4 years ago, when he had a more stable political climate.

Despite the fact that there are lots of people wearing MAGA hats, we are a long way from being the most respected country in the world. In fact, we are ranked at #22. The Nordic countries also come out well on this list, but the most respected country in the world is one we share a border with – and it’s not Mexico.

For a lot of reasons, most of us have felt an increased sense of anxiety since January of 2017, but we don’t have to travel to Denmark to get a break from it.

All we have to do is vote.

The Postman

The Postman is a 1997 American post-apocalyptic action-adventure film produced and directed by Kevin Costner and features him in the lead role. The screenplay was written by Eric Roth and Brian Helgeland, based on David Brin's 1985 book of the same name. The film also features Will Patton, Larenz Tate, Olivia Williams, James Russo, and Tom Petty.

It is set in a post-apocalyptic and neo-Western version of the United States in the then near-future year of 2013, sixteen-plus years after unspecified apocalyptic events, starting with the breakdown of society through “hate crimes and racially motivated attacks (by) a militia-like group” led by Nathan Holn, progressing to war, followed by plagues, that collectively left a huge impact on human civilization and erased most technology. Like the book, the film follows the story of a nomadic drifter (Costner) who stumbles across the uniform of an old United States Postal Service mail carrier, and unwittingly inspires hope through an empty promise of a "Restored United States of America."

Released on Christmas of 1997 from Warner Bros., The Postman was a major critical and commercial failure, grossing a total of $20 million worldwide. Nonetheless, it was nominated for three Saturn Awards.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Postman_(film)

If some of the phrases shown above sound familiar, here is why:

“Hate crimes and racially motivated attacks” – currently, Asian-Americans in this country have been attacked because some of our leaders have been saying “Wuhan virus” or Chinese virus” instead of the correct term, which is “coronavirus”. If you want another example, how about "They're sending people that have a lot of problems, and they're bringing those problems with us. They're bringing drugs. They're bringing crime. They're rapists. And some, I assume, are good people."

Plagues – COVID-19 is the worst disease to hit the world since the Spanish flu of 1917-1918.

“Restored United States of America” – sounds a lot like “make America great again", doesn’t it?

Today, mail carries are more important that ever, and I’ll explain why.

The postal service is actually older than the United States of America. It was established on July 26, 1775, by the Second Continental Congress.  Benjamin Franklin was its first postmaster general. Franklin (1706-1790) put in place the foundation for many aspects of today’s mail system.

My dad was a mail carrier from 1955 until 1976, so I have always been fond of the postal service, which provided my dad (a union man) with an income adequate to support a comfortable middle class living.Today, the postal service has collective bargaining agreements with seven different unions, representing nearly 500,000 employees. Every two weeks, the Postal Service pays $2 billion in salaries and benefits.

https://facts.usps.com/size-and-scope/

Last week’s disastrous election in Wisconsin highlights why voting by mail should be available to everyone in the country. Due to the fact that voters in Wisconsin had a choice between being exposed to the coronavirus or not voting, the House of Representatives just introduced the Universal Right to Vote Act, which would allow everyone in the country to vote by mail in federal elections.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Right_to_Vote_by_Mail_Act

Many of our Republican leaders, including Donald Trump, vote by mail, but don’t like the idea for the rest of us, since low voter turnout benefits the Republican Party, and high turnout benefits the Democratic Party. 14 states have passed voter ID laws since 2011. Since there is virtually NO evidence of voter fraud being committed in this country, the real purpose of the laws is to prevent minorities (who tend to vote for Democrats) from voting. A few of these laws have been revoked by court systems. In the case of North Carolina, the judge had ruled that blacks had been excluded “with surgical precision”. I’m not quite sure how it would be possible to reverse those voter ID laws, but I suspect it would need to be done by a non-partisan review of the laws by members of Congress to determine if they are actually necessary.

In the 2000 Florida election, at least 1,100 eligible voters were wrongly dropped from voting rolls in an attempt to purge a list of felons.Many of those who were dropped showed up to vote and were told they could not. In a presidential election decided by 537 votes, that erroneous purge may have been a factor. Twelve years later, Gov. Scott ordered state officials to clear the rolls of non-citizen voters.

The state department whittled a list of 182,000 potential noncitizens to about 2,700 by comparing driver's license data, which contains some citizenship data, against voter rolls. County supervisors, again, were told to notify those listed by mail of the need to urgently prove their citizenship. Like last time, some supervisors decided to sit out the purge.

Already, a Pasco County woman and a 91-year-old World War II veteran from Broward County have made headlines for being wrongfully targeted. In fact, elections supervisors found that most names on the list belong to citizens — probably because the motor vehicle department's citizenship information is out of date, the Miami Herald reported.

https://www.tampabay.com/news/politics/stateroundup/florida-voters-mistakenly-purged-in-2000/1235456/

In 2018, Brian Kemp, who was simultaneously Secretary of State (and overseer of elections) and gubernatorial candidate, purged 340,000 voters from voter rolls.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/oct/19/georgia-governor-race-voter-suppression-brian-kemp

Stacey Abrams lost the election by 55,000 votes.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_Georgia_gubernatorial_election

Prior to the passage of the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act, House Democrats unveiled a plan for a different stimulus package that included a $25 billion cash injection into the Postal Service. The Senate compromise left that provision out, instead providing USPS with a $10 billion line of credit. In a letter to congressional leadership on Tuesday, a group of House Democrats renewed their push for a $25 billion appropriation in a forthcoming “phase four” coronavirus relief bill expected to receive a vote in the coming days.

https://www.govexec.com/management/2020/04/trump-rejects-calls-usps-stimulus-agency-sounds-alarm-over-its-future/164462/

Trump and other Republicans want to privatize the post office, which is why they keep claiming the postal service has lost money. It has  not.

In 2006, Congress passed a law that imposed extraordinary costs on the U.S. Postal Service. The Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act (PAEA) required the USPS to create a $72 billion fund to pay for the cost of its post-retirement health care costs, 75 years into the future. This burden applies to no other federal agency or private corporation.

If the costs of this retiree health care mandate were removed from the USPS financial statements, the Post Office would have reported operating profits in each of the last six years. This extraordinary mandate created a financial “crisis” that has been used to justify harmful service cuts and even calls for postal privatization. Additional cuts in service and privatization would be devastating for millions of postal workers and customers.

https://thinkprogress.org/a-manufactured-crisis-congress-can-let-the-post-office-save-itself-without-mass-layoffs-or-service-4da965b2bc63/

Postal employees today need to be considered “critical workers”, but they don’t have the option of working from home like many people do. Our mail carrier wears gloves and a mask while delivering our mail, since it is a fact that the virus can be present on the mail that they are delivering to our homes (which is why I wash my hands with soap and water after opening our mail.)

In order to protect the integrity of this year’s presidential election, it is CRITICAL that the USPS gets an immediate injection of the $25 billion it needs to stay in business, and it is also critical that Congress passes the Universal Right to Vote Act. If those two things don’t happen, it’s possible that the Russians could win.

Again.

Joe Btfsplk

One of my favorite comic strips when I was growing up was L’il Abner, which ran from August 13, 1934 until November 13, 1977, an astonishing run of 43 years.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Li%27l_Abner

The strip ended almost exactly 2 years before the death of its creator, Al Capp, on November 5, 1979. The main characters were L’il Abner Yokum, Daisy Yokum, Mammy Yokum, Pappy Yokum, Honest Abe Yokum, Tiny Yokum, and Salomey. In addition, though, there were numerous supporting characters, one of whom was Joe Btfsplk, who is famous for being the world’s worst jinx.

https://ameripics.wordpress.com/2013/09/04/btfsplk/

Joe’s name was pronounced something akin to the Bronx cheer. If you don’t know what that is, here’s a sample:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=omI7FYttJUk

The Yokums live in the fictional town of Dogpatch, and it was set someplace in one of the southern states of America. Inspired by the comic strip, an area of San Francisco was renamed “Dogpatch” sometime in the late 1940’s and 1950s.   It was initially a working-class neighborhood, but has experienced rapid gentrification since the 1990s. Now it boasts similar demographics to its neighboring Potrero Hill – an upper middle-class working professional neighborhood.

If life ever returns to normal, and it’s safe to once again to travel to other cities in the country, I’d recommend a trip to San Francisco, a town that I used to get to frequently when I worked for Fireman’s Fund. The “city by the bay” has a lot to offer, and it is considered to be a very safe city. However, if you see Joe Btfsplk walking down the street, run the other way as fast as you can.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dogpatch,_San_Francisco

No shit, Sherlock !

The picture above was taken at the local Safeway grocery store this morning. Like most grocery stores, the shelves for paper towels and toilet were empty. When I was in the local Fry’s store a few days ago, the paper products were cleaned out, the laundry soap was almost entirely eliminated, and the canned goods aisle was much reduced. Our son was at Sprouts this morning, and discovered that they were completely out of cereal, frozen food, and meat. Our daughter was also there this morning,  and discovered that ALL of the bulk food was gone.

The picture below was taken this afternoon in the bread aisle of Fry's:

All of the shortages, of course, are caused by the COVID-19 virus, and folks started stockpiling essential items due to the fact that the CDC had advised people to make sure that they had a 30 day supply of essentially items on hand – which naturally led to hoarding, and some price gouging , as well as a few fights in the toilet paper aisles.

A man in Tennessee bought more than 17.000 bottles of hand sanitizer, and managed to sell a few (at highly inflated prices) before he got caught. The Department of Consumer Affairs (1-800- 352-8431) has the ability to fine gougers $10,000 for a first offense. Faced with that prospect, the man donated his supply to charity, which will at least give him a tax deduction instead of a fine.

Nationwide, chaos has erupted.

The NCAA March Madness Basketball tournament will be held without the thousands of fans usually in attendance. Cactus league baseball ended early, and both the NBA and the NHL have put a pause on their seasons.

St. Patrick’s Day parades in Boston and Chicago were cancelled.

Hotels are experiencing cancellations at a terrifying rate. Within the last week, one hotel in Flagstaff had 230 cancellations, and the trend is happening all over the country. A lot of those cancellations are Europeans, who are no longer permitted to enter the United States for the next 30 days following Wednesday's order from the Trump administration. If you've ever been to the Grand Canyon, you would have noticed there are people from all over the world at the site - and now they aren't there anymore.

On Tuesday, all the schools in Boston will be shut down, and will not reopen until April 27. Chicago has also closed all of its schools, as well as civil and criminal courts. The Chicago archdiocese is cancelling all masses. Over the weekend, Governor Ducey of Arizona announced that all schools will be closed until March 30.

Starting tomorrow, Massachusetts governor Charlie Baker has ordered all bars and restaurants to stop dine-in operations until April 6. 

Many states are banning gatherings of more than 50 people. Bars and Restaurants are closing public service, with restaurants filling only to go or delivery meals. The amount of people  not getting a wage is an issue that will worsen an already bad situation.

Even as the coronavirus pandemic continues to spread, Republicans have blocked Senate Democrats' bill that would require companies to offer up to 14 days of paid sick leave in times of health emergencies. In addition, the White House is not planning to delay cuts to the food stamp program, now slated to start in April.

So, what’s the cause of all this craziness?

The current crisis started in Wuhan, China, and quickly spread from there. Early on, many of the patients in the outbreak in Wuhan, China reportedly had some link to a large seafood and animal market, suggesting the virus likely emerged from an animal source. Analysis of the genetic tree of this virus is ongoing to know the specific source of the virus. SARS, another coronavirus that emerged to infect people, came from civit cats, while MERS, another coronavirus that emerged to infect people, came from camels.

However, the origins of the current crisis goes back even further.

During the Ebola crisis , the Obama administration set up pandemic crisis centers in 47 countries- including China. The Global Health Security Agenda, a pact between over 60 nations that began in 2014, had been funded by a five-year, nearly $600 million supplemental package that was dwindling. That one-time funding, which Congress originally appropriated in response to the Ebola epidemic in West Africa in 2014, ran out at the end of September 2019. If the funding had not been extended, the number of countries would have been reduced to 10. Although it is NOT true that the Trump administration caused the reduction (funding was eventually extended and expanded), it IS true that he shut down the health care directorate on the National Security Council.

https://www.factcheck.org/2020/03/false-claim-about-cdcs-global-anti-pandemic-work/

The Obama administration set up a National Security Council directorate at the White House that was charged with preparing for when, not if, another pandemic would hit the nation.

Compared to other countries, the United States is woefully unprepared for a pandemic.We are currently far behind other countries in terms of the number of people tested (per million people), our out of pocket medical costs are MUCH higher than other developed countries, and the number of hospital beds per 1,000 population is MUCH less.

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2020/3/16/21173766/coronavirus-covid-19-us-cases-health-care-system

On February 29, Trump held his second press conference about the coronavirus. This time, the main speaker was Dr. Anthony Fauci, who actually knows what he is talking about when it comes to infectious disease. The look on Trump's face speaks volumes. Either he has suddenly realized that he himself is at risk for the disease, or he is simply angry that the truth is actually being revealed to the public.

https://politicaltribune.org/social-media-reacts-to-potus-face-during-presser-when-doctor-starts-to-list-added-risk-to-anyone-suffering-from-heart-disease-obesity-trump-looks-scared/

Dr. Fauci was appointed director of NIAID in 1984. He oversees an extensive portfolio of basic and applied research to prevent, diagnose, and treat established infectious diseases such as HIV/AIDS, respiratory infections, diarrheal diseases, tuberculosis and malaria as well as emerging diseases such as Ebola and Zika. NIAID also supports research on transplantation and immune-related illnesses, including autoimmune disorders, asthma and allergies. The NIAID budget for fiscal year 2020 is an estimated $5.9 billion.

Dr. Fauci has advised six presidents on HIV/AIDS and many other domestic and global health issues. He was one of the principal architects of the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), a program that has saved millions of lives throughout the developing world.

Naturally, Trump designated Mike Pence (who knows nothing about medicine) as the public voice for the administration about the disease.

https://www.niaid.nih.gov/about/anthony-s-fauci-md-bio

Congress is working toward a $7.5 billion emergency spending package for the COVID-19 response, and it was supposed to have been made public last week, but there's a hurdle: Republicans who don't like language in it that would keep drug companies from price gouging on vaccines and treatments.

The Trump Administration is woefully unprepared for the coronavirus pandemic (due to his own fault), so they are stealing $139 million from programs that help the poor—and zero from his border wall. They are taking $37 million from the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program that pays for heating & cooling assistance for the poor, $4.9 million from Substance Abuse & Mental Health Services, $4.2 million from Aging & Disability Services, and many more – but nothing from Trump’s border wall.

In contrast, in 2009, the government purchased large quantities of the swine flu vaccine so that it could be provided to the public without cost.

Last Friday, the House of Representatives passed the Families First Coronavirus Response Act with bipartisan support. The Families First Coronavirus Response Act offers some important initial steps that would offer immediate relief to countless families across the country, including: FREE coronavirus testing for everyone who needs a test (including those without insurance), paid emergency leave, enhanced unemployment insurance, strengthened food security initiatives (to ensure that everyone has the food they need), and increased federal funds for Medicaid (to help states pay for increased costs due to the outbreak).

There’s a problem, though. The act still needs to get passed by the senate, and it’s hard to tell what Moscow Mitch plans to do.

Trump is proposing drastic cuts to the Centers for Disease Control’s budget — a 16% haircut, to be exact. He also wants to reduce the Department of Health and Human Services’ budget by a whopping 10% and lower our contribution to the World Health Organization by $65 million, or 40%. That’s on top of a proposed 7% cut to the National Institutes of Health’s budget.

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2020/2/24/1921658/-Ted-Lieu-Dow-is-plummeting-due-to-coronavirus-so-why-is-Trump-proposing-deep-cuts-to-CDC?detail=emaildkre

The World Health Organization offered coronavirus test kits to the Trump administration – which turned them down.

The stock market has been plummeting lately. Although the Federal Reserved reduced  interest rates close to zero over the weekend, the market tanked ANOTHER 13% today.

There are two causes that have caused the stock market to go through some wild gyrations recently:

1) the COVD19 virus and

2) the chaos in the oil and gas market because Trump's favorite dictators (Putin and MBS) are squabbling over the price and production of oil

In this country, there are two groups that have been adversely affected:

1) workers in companies that do not have paid sick leave

2) industry, primarily the oil and gas industry, airlines, and the cruise industry

Here's how each group is affected:

Workers - the percentage of workers that do not have paid sick leave varies slightly by industry, but it’s between 25 and 30%. This group has a choice of either going to work sick or not getting paid for taking time off to recoup

Industry- In 2019, the oil and gas industry had revenue of $181 billion, and profits of $28 billion. The airline industry had revenues of $240 billion, and profits of $28 billion. The largest cruise line, Carnival, has a net profit of $3 billion.

In addition, the oil and gas industry received government subsidies of $20 billion. 80% went to the oil and gas industry, and 20% to the coal industry. The airline industry received subsidies of $279 million, most of which went to subsidize airports in smaller cities.

The Trump administration is currently working on a plan to provide financial assistance to which group?

If you said, "industry", you get a gold star on your forehead.

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/10/trump-expected-to-seek-aid-for-shale-companies-hit-by-oil-rout.html

On the morning of March 15, the airline industry (which had profits of $28 billion last year) issued a request for $50 billion in aid from the U.S. government.

https://www.barrons.com/articles/airline-stocks-are-getting-a-lift-from-hope-for-50-billion-in-aid-51584384462

Hours after two Democratic presidential candidates cancelled rallies and the White House suggested people "avoid crowding" due to the coronavirus, Trump's campaign announced an event that is to be held on March 19 in Milwaukee.

The president will attend a "Catholics for Trump" event at the Wisconsin Center in Milwaukee on March 19, his campaign said Tuesday. The event appeared to be different from one of Trump's rallies – which draw thousands of supporters to arena settings – but it was not immediately clear how many people the campaign expected.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2020/03/10/trump-hold-wisconsin-campaign-event-biden-sanders-drop-rallies/5016939002/

When a reporter at a press conference recently asked him if he took responsibility for the lag in testing for the novel coronavirus, he said, “I don’t take responsibility at all.” When PBS White House correspondent Yamiche Alcindor asked why he doesn’t take responsibility for the problems combating Covid-19 when the White House got rid of the pandemic team in 2018, he answered “I just think that’s a nasty question…. When you say me, I didn’t do it…. I don’t know anything about it.” He followed up with “We’re doing a great job.”

Since Trump is incapable of taking blame for anything, the latest person he is blaming for the fiasco is his son-in-law, Jared Kuchner.

The president is reportedly remorseful about taking his son-in-law’s advice to treat the outbreak like a public relations problem rather than as the public health emergency that experts such as the White House’s chief coronavirus adviser, Dr. Anthony Fauci, were advising him to do.

While Fauci and other health experts were urging Trump to take aggressive measures to stave off the rapid spread of the virus, one former White House official described Kushner as egotistically inserting himself into the high-level discussions as the go-to uber-mensch who could jump in to save the day.

Kushner apparently insisted that the president not declare a national emergency when he addressed the nation from the Oval Office last Wednesday out of fear that “it would tank the markets.”

On the morning of March 15, David Leonhardt (of the New York Times) this morning published an article that listed all the ways that Trump has mishandled the crisis - and there are MANY.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/15/opinion/trump-coronavirus.html?referringSource=articleShare

This morning, Trump said that Americans could be hunkered down and practicing social distancing at least until July or August because of the coronavirus. In a tightening of voluntary guidelines on Monday, President Trump announced that federal officials were recommending that all Americans engage in home schooling when possible, avoid gathering in groups of more than 10 people, avoid eating out at restaurants, and avoid discretionary travel.

“With several weeks of focused action, we can turn the corner and turn it quickly,” Trump said.

Last nights debate between Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders highlighted the fact that the best long term solution for our current health crisis is to replace as many Republicans as possible in November, starting with the White House.

As of this morning, there have been 182, 442 coronavirus cases worldwide, and 7158 deaths. China has the most cases, and the most deaths, so far, but the virus has spread to 162 countries so far (roughly 90% of all the countries in the world), so it definitely is a pandemic. 

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/#countries

In the meantime, if you were slow getting out of the house the last few days, and got to the store to find that they are out of toilet paper, you know what that means.

No shit, Sherlock.

Fat Tuesday

Tuesday of this week was officially “Fat Tuesday”, the last day before the beginning of Lent. In keeping with the spirit of the day, I planned to make jambalaya when I got home. If you would like to make the same recipe, here is one example:

https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/31848/jambalaya/

Inertia being what it is, I wound up instead buying a can of Campbell’s gumbo  soup, which was considerably easier to make – and it only cost me $1.99. I actually made gumbo from scratch when I lived in Flagstaff, and it took SEVERAL hours to make, so don’t try to do it yourself.

Fat Tuesday is also known as Shrove Tuesday. The expression "Shrove Tuesday" comes from the word shrive, meaning "absolve".  Like Lent itself, Shrove Tuesday is a time for Christians to "make a special point of self-examination, of considering what wrongs they need to repent, and what amendments of life or areas of spiritual growth they especially need to ask God's help in dealing with."^.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shrove_Tuesday

Some Christian communities celebrate the day by  consuming pancakes. In others, especially those where it is called Mardi Gras or a translation thereof, it is a carnival day, the last day of "fat eating" or "gorging" before the fasting period of Lent. In case you are wondering, “Mardi Gras” is French for “fat Tuesday”.

Shrove Tuesday first started around 1000 A.D., but Mardi Gras has been around even longer, since it goes back to around 100 B.C., and was associated with the pagan feast of Saturnalia, which eventually became Christmas.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mardi_Gras

Since I went to a Catholic grade school and a Catholic high school, I got ashes on my forehead on Ash Wednesday for many, many years. The last time that I remember getting them was when I lived in Evanston, Illinois, and a female Episcopalian minister was giving ashes to people at a train stop in town. Surprisingly, the origin of ashes on the forehead is actually a Jewish tradition, and it dates back to the 1^st century A.D..

https://catholicproductions.com/blogs/blog/the-biblical-roots-of-ash-wednesday

Another feature of Lent, of course, is the absence of meat. The Catholic church still recommends abstaining from meat on Fridays, but since the second Vatican council, it is no longer mandated, but SUGGESTED. However, the current requirement is that Catholics also abstain from meat during Lent. Although fish has traditionally filled that role (which is why McDonald’s started to sell fish sandwiches in the 1960’s), the introduction of Beyond Meat and the Impossible Burger have expanded the number of options to avoid meat. Burger King sells the Impossible Burger and Carl’s Jr. sells a Beyond Meat burger, and you honestly can’t tell the difference between those offerings and a traditional hamburger. Sales of these two products is now $1 billion a year,

Lent is a precursor to Easter. Since the date of Easter is determined by the lunar calendar, it can be celebrated as early as March 28, or as late as April 21. In 2020, it is celebrated on April 12, which happens to be my sister’s birthday.

https://www.primarygames.com/holidays/easter/when_is_easter.php

It’s still too early to put on your fancy Easter clothes,  but it’s not too soon to start eating a lot more fish. Tonight’s entrée was coconut shrimp – but we will have consumed a lot more fish before Easter gets here.

Bon appetit!