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Almost as reliable as the Farmer's Almanac®, |
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Almost as reliable as the Farmer's Almanac®, |
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Volume 6, Number 5
Wednesday, October 11 - Tuesday, October 24
Discoveries |
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THE MORON'S CALENDAR October 11 October 12 October 13 October 14 October 15 October 16 October 18 October 20 October 21 October 22 October 23 October 24
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Picture this. You're hanging out with a friend,
catching each other up on your busy lives, when he suddenly exclaims, "Oh! I found
the greatest little French restaurant!" (It doesn't have to be French or a
restaurant--it could be a remote golf course, a cool bookstore, a cozy little bar,
anything.) Whether or not you actually care, you'll feign interest because this person is your friend. We all feign for our friends. And our friends, being our friends, usually know that we're feigning. It doesn't bother them any more than it bothers us. So they go on. "Julie and I wound up in a new part of town the other night, and we were both starving, and we just sort of stumbled into this fantastic French bistro." (All right, your friend is David and Julie's his girlfriend. You probably never really liked Julie, but that's beside the point. David's trying to communicate. Give the poor guy a chance.) "The service was spectacular, the place was elegant but casual, very romantic, the food was out of this world, the wine was exquisite, and it was still the cheapest dinner I've had in years." (David's always using words like spectacular and exquisite, but stifle your nausea just a little longer. He needs to get this off his chest.) "We couldn't believe our luck, finding it by accident the way we did. What a discovery!" He's waiting for you to prompt him. Nod. Good. Smile. Very good. "Well, you know me. I'm not about to walk away from a discovery like that. You know what we did? I asked the waiter to introduce us to the owner. When she came to our table, I distracted her while Julie snuck up from behind with a steak knife and slit her throat. We herded the wait staff into the walk-in, locked them in, painted our names on the sign in front of the restaurant, and now it's all ours!" Don't be too hard on David... he's only following the historical precedent set by Christopher Columbus, who "discovered" the Bahamas on October 12, 1492. I don't want to be too hard on Columbus, but it seems to me that in calling his conquest of the Bahamas a "discovery" we do grave injury to the indigineous peoples of that island nation, and still graver injury to the English language. David and Julie didn't discover their French restaurant-- they stumbled across it. They liked it. They took it. A few hundred years ago, there was nothing shameful in that kind of behavior. Anyone who's ever studied Latin or done a couple of crossword puzzles knows that Caesar even bragged about it. "I came, I saw, I conquered," he said. He certainly didn't say, "I came, I saw, I spread the beneficent light of western civilization into hitherto benighted cesspools of squalor." So instead of praising Columbus for his discovery, or damning him for his conquest, it might be more appropriate simply to recognize him as history's most aggressive tourist. The wave of aggressive European tourists that followed Columbus is often criticized for having brought war and pestilence to the primeval bliss of the Americas. This is unfair. War and pestilence already existed throughout the New World, but her peoples had not yet become sophisticated enough to commercialize them. Human history is just the side-effect of our gradually improving ability to kill one another. Aggressive European tourists helped the budding civilizations of the New World acquire in decades what it had taken Western Civilization centuries to develop on its own. Where's the gratitude? The Moronic FinancierNote: this column originally appeared in The Moron's Almanac in October 1999, but given its obvious perennial value I've decided to print it every fall until 2045. Many readers have expressed concern about the stock market's performance in the month of October. They point to the great crash of October 24, 1929--the original Black Tuesday--and to the milder crash of 1987, which also occurred in October. They wonder if these might be cautionary precedents. I have done some research on this matter. It is true that the market crashed in October 1929 and again in October 1987. I have fed this information into a spreadsheet and created a chart in an effort to identify the trends. The conclusion leaped off the page: the market crashes in the October of every fifty-eighth year. There is nothing to worry about until October 2045; just keep buying low and selling high. (Incidentally, when I say "sell high" I don't mean to suggest you should have a few drinks or smoke a little dope before you sell. I mean you should sell your securities when they're worth more than they were when you bought them. Persons who insist on selling their securities when they themselves are high, or on selling them for less than they paid for them, will probably not require market intervention to damage their portfolios.) However, we must keep our eyes open. Many wars have been declared in the month of October--certainly more than two every fifty-eight years--and wars can have unpredictable effects on the market. Historically, one in twelve bankruptcies have been declared in October. And, most alarming of all, roughly one twelfth of all documented cases of spontaneous human combustion have occurred in the month of October. So never mind the market: watch your health. The Moron's History BookAccording to the venerable 17th-century Archbishop of Armagh, James Ussher, and to Dr. John Lightfoot of Cambridge, it was at exactly nine o'clock a.m. on the chilly autumn morning of October 23, 4004 B.C., that God created the world. The world is 6004 years old. (Or 6003.) Bottoms up. While the creation of the world and the discovery of the Americas are interesting anniversaries, the coming week also marks the anniversary of something truly important: the first doughnut was fried up on October 19, 1917. In the midst of the first world war, Salvation Army volunteer women in France found themselves stymied by inadequate supplies and ovens for baking. Unable to prepare the cakes and and pies they so badly wanted to bake for the troops--and a little afraid the boys would start going after French tarts--they came up with the novel idea of frying rather than baking the dough. Thus, the doughnut. And sometimes the donut. The donut should not be confused with the bagel, despite their physical resemblance. The bagel is boiled and baked, whereas the donut is fried. Bagels are found in varieties such as onion, garlic, salt, poppy-seed, and sesame-seed, and are frequently consumed with cheese and fish. Donuts are not. Donuts go nicely with coffee. On October 12, 1960, at a U.N. general assembly, Soviet Premier Nikita Khruschev pounded his desk with his shoe. This resulted in the popular stereotype of the Soviet Dictator who pounds his desk with his shoe. Many Soviet Dictators did not pound their desks with their shoes. (Elisabeth Shue's Birthday was October 6. She was born in 1963.) On October 14, 1651, Massachusetts passed laws prohibiting the poor from dressing excessively. It was felt that persons of limited means should save their money and learn to make do with simple vinaigrettes. The German spy Mata Hari, a Dutchwoman named Margaretha Geertruida Zelle, was executed by the French on October 14, 1917. There wasn't much actual evidence of espionage, but she had been seen naked with German officers and the French considered this distasteful enough to kill her. On October 17, 1933, Albert Einstein moved from Hitler's Germany to the United States, establishing his reputation for genius. This reputation was diminished when he chose to settle in New Jersey. Also worth noting: On October 11, 1899, the Boers of South Africa declared war on Great Britain. On October 11, 1976, the Gang of Four were arrested in Peking. On October 13, 1903, the Boston Red Sox beat the Pittsburgh Pirates in the first World Series. On October 16, 1793, Marie Antoinette was beheaded. On October 17, 1989, an earthquake measuring 6.9 on the Richter Scale struck the San Francisco bay area. U.S. pilot Chuck Yeager broke the sound barrier in a rocket-powered airplane on October 14, 1947. It's still broken. Farming TipsIf you want farming tips, you need the Farmer's Almanac®. This isn't the Farmer's Almanac®. This is the Moron's Almanac™. Please try not to get us mixed up: it confuses us and embarrasses the farmers. Thanks. Trivia solution: It was (a) the match, but they were all close enough. Give yourself a hundred points for any answer. Deduct fifty points if you were reluctant to choose (a) as your answer because you thought it was too obvious. Deduct five hundred points if you then decided that its obviousness was just a smoke screen. Disqualify yourself if you used a pen or pencil to calculate your score.Disclaimer: Food · Phone · Gas · Lodging · JustMorons.com. The Moron's Almanac™ |
MORONIC TRIVIA What was patented on October 24, 1836? a. The match b. The flammable stick c. The burning bit d. The sulfrous stick e. The incendiary splinter
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