The Presidents’ Ice Cream

Posted on July 18, 2023July 19, 2023 by vlaw759

In 1984, President Ronald Reagan declared July to be National Ice Cream Month and the third Sunday of the July to be National Ice Cream Day. In doing so, he said, “Ice cream is a nutritious and wholesome food, enjoyed by over ninety percent of the people in the United States.”

But what about other presidents? Were they fans as well?

George Washington

He spent $200 on ice cream during the summer of 1790—which comes to about $6,600 today—and merchant records prove it. When he moved into the President’s House, he brought 309 pieces of equipment for making ice cream, plus tasting spoons, cups, and other paraphernalia for entertaining.

John Adams

From letters written by Abigail Adams, we know she and John ate ice cream with the Washingtons and perhaps made their own.

Thomas Jefferson

It would be hard to top Washington’s passion for ice cream, but Jefferson certainly left his mark as an ice cream devotee. In fact, historians credit him as the first American in history to write down a recipe for ice cream. It is one of only ten recipes in Jefferson’s handwriting. The recipe most likely dates from his time in France.

Although Jefferson himself did not note the source, his granddaughter recorded a virtually identical recipe later in the 19th century and attributed it to “Petit,” indicating that Jefferson’s French butler was the original source of this recipe. It is definitely in the French style. After serving as Ambassador to France, one of the souvenirs Jefferson brought home was the vanilla bean. Jefferson may have introduced the United States to vanilla in 1789.

Vanilla Ice Cream

~2 bottles of good cream
~6 yolks of eggs
~1/2 lb. sugar
~1 vanilla bean
Mix the yolks & sugar; put the cream on a fire in a casserole, first putting in a stick of Vanilla. When near boiling take it off & pour it gently into the mixture of eggs & sugar. Stir it well. Put it on the fire again stirring it thoroughly with a spoon. When near boiling take it off and strain it thro’ a towel. Put it in the Sabottiere [the canister within an ice pail] then set it in ice an hour before it is to be served. Put into the ice a handful of salt. Put salt on the coverlid of the Sabottiere & cover the whole with ice. Leave it still half a quarter of an hour.
Turn the Sabottiere in the ice 10 minutes; open it from time to time to detach the ice from the sides. Stir it well with the Spatula. Put it in moulds, justling it well down on the knee; then put the mould into the same bucket of ice. Leave it there to the moment of serving it.
Thomas Jefferson’s Recipe for Vanilla Ice Cream

Jefferson enjoyed ice cream so much that he had an ice house excavated on the White House grounds, in part to ensure that ice cream could be made during the summer months. Monticello had several ice houses for the same purpose. Jefferson likely helped to popularize ice cream in this country when he served it at the President’s House in Washington. There are no less than six references to ice cream being served at the President’s House between 1801 and 1809; several times guests described it being served inside of a crust or pastry.

Similar to Baked Alaska?

James Madison

*Dolley Madison, fashion maven, oyster ice cream lover*

A small man, James Madison wasn’t a voracious eater. But he seemed always to have room for ice cream. His wife, Dolley Madison, who was truly a trendsetting first lady, loved ice cream. No doubt, she did much to popularize the dessert in America, too. We don’t know much of James Madison’s flavor preferences, but Dolley Madison preferred oyster. (At the time, there were no standard ingredients for ice cream, and early “taste testers” tried everything from grated cheese to foie gras.) In 1813, Dolley Madison served a “magnificent strawberry ice cream creation” at Madison’s second inaugural banquet at the White House.

Andrew Jackson

In celebration of his inauguration on March 4, 1829, Jackson invited the American public to the White House. He was “a man of the people.” Overwhelming crowds ruined many White House furnishings and forced the new president to make a getaway through a window. They broke dishes and glasses, and generally wreaked havoc on the White House in the process. Of relevance here: among other things, the rowdy guests feasted on ice cream and cake. Staff moved the whisky punch outside, the celebrants followed, and staff handed ice cream and cake to those on the lawn through open windows.

Martin Van Buren

In deference to the severe economic depression during van Buren’s presidency, the White House chefs offered relatively restrained menus to residents and visitors alike. However, van Buren’s daughter-in-law Angelica Singleton Van Buren, who performed as hostess at the White House, honored the president’s Dutch roots by serving desserts popular in the Dutch community. Called oliebollen or “Dutchies”, these little donuts often were filled with currants, raisins, or candied fruit. They are said to be life-changing with ice cream, maybe pecans sprinkled on top.

Abraham Lincoln

Few in Washington, DC, partied like they partied at Lincoln’s second inaugural ball. The crowd of 4,000 attacked the 250-feet-long buffet table. They had much to choose from – including ice cream in “vanilla, lemon, white coffee, chocolate, burnt almonds, and maraschino” flavors, among other treats. The inaugural crowd descended like locusts on the feast, leaving the floor “sticky, pasty and oily with wasted confections, mashed cake, and debris of fowl and meat.”

William McKinley

While courting, McKinley once spilled a tray of strawberry ice cream all over Ida Saxton’s white dress. She didn’t hold it against him and married him on January 25, 1871.

Theodore Roosevelt

As president, Teddy Roosevelt liked to ride his horse around the estate of the presidential physician, Dr. Presley Rixey, in Arlington. Dr. Rixey had a log cabin on his property, where the president would stop for ice cream.

William H. Taft

Our stoutest president, Taft loved ice cream. First Lady Nellie Taft served it to guests in the Red Room three times a week. To ensure a ready supply, the Taft White House took measures: the Tafts not only added a large Peerless Ice Cream Freezer to the White House kitchen in 1912, but kept a Holstein cow on the grounds to ensure a fresh supply of milk and cream.

Pauline Wayne, the White House cow who produced as much as eight gallons of milk every day to ensure the First Family had a constant supply of ice cream. She also served as a Presidential Envoy to dairy farms and cattle shows.

Woodrow Wilson

His favorite food was strawberry ice cream!

Calvin Coolidge

Coolidge and his wife served ice cream at a 1924 White House reception honoring World War I veterans.

Herbert Hoover

In 1923, Herbert and Lou Henry Hoover visited Seward, Alaska. While out on a walk there, Lou Henry stopped to share her ice cream cone with a small black bear cub. Not a recommended activity, but is it reasonable to assume that the couple enjoyed ice cream?

Franklin Delano Roosevelt

During the Depression, the Roosevelts set an example of thriftiness in entertaining, with First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt famously hosting a dinner that cost only seven and a half cents per guests. One of her favorite dishes to serve was cornmeal hasty pudding with ice cream.

In 1941, reporters at Roosevelt’s annual party for the press stayed till the wee hours. At about 1 a.m., ice cream was being served in the main hallway. Eleanor Roosevelt, who was standing behind the table, said ”Don’t you think it’s a little late for ice cream?” All took the hint and went home.

Harry S. Truman

Starting at age 14, Harry Truman worked at a pharmacy and soda fountain located on West Maple Avenue in Independence, MO, now the home of Clinton’s Soda Fountain. According to their website, Harry Truman’s favorite was a butterscotch sundae with chocolate ice cream. I found confirmation that he worked there “as a boy” but not about his ice cream preferences and nothing about his actual job. So maybe this doesn’t contradict the info about Obama? (See below.)

Dwight D. Eisenhower

There’s a readily available photo of Eisenhower eating a Good Humor ice cream bar, but I found no context and no other info on his ice cream preferences. It may have simply been a command performance for public relations.

The Eisenhower Library has a recipe for Mamie Eisenhower’s “Frosted Mint Delight“, one of Dwight’s favorite desserts. The recipe calls for a mixture of crushed pineapple and mint apple jelly, served frozen with whipped cream, almost like ice cream.

John F. Kennedy

JFK frequented Four Seas Ice Cream (a stone’s throw from the Long Dell Inn) and his favorite flavors were vanilla and peach.

As First Lady, Jacqueline Kennedy preferred French desserts, particularly bombe glacée.

Lyndon B. Johnson

Johnson’s favorite ice cream flavor was peach. Lady Bird Johnson famously served peach ice cream with lace cookies.

Peach Ice Cream

~3 eggs
~1 cup sugar
~1 pint milk
~1 quart whipping cream
~1/2 gallon soft peaches, peeled, mashed, and sweetened to taste

Beat eggs in a heavy saucepan until thick. Gradually add sugar, beating well. Add milk and whipping cream. Mix well. Bring to a boil, stirring constantly. Reduce heat to low. Continue cooking and stirring until mixture thickens and coats a metal spoon. Let cool.
Stir in peaches and pour into freezer can of a 1-gallon ice cream freezer. Freeze according to manufacturer’s instructions.
Lady Bird Johnson’s Peach Ice Cream Recipe

A well known conservationist, Lady Bird Johnson chose flower-themed desserts for her daughters’ engagement parties. White House Executive Chef Henry Haller served “flowerpot sundaes” in clay flowerpots, which he filled with layers of sponge cake, ice cream, and meringue, topped with a fresh flower.

Richard Nixon

Though he adopted the practice of eating light, Richard Nixon always had room for ice cream. Newspaper accounts during his presidency reported that, even after large state dinners, Nixon frequently finished his evening with an ice cream sundae.

In 1969, Richard Nixon requested an dessert “no one had ever seen” for a dinner celebrating astronauts Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin Jr., and Michael Collins at a reception in Los Angeles. Pastry chef Ernest Mueller created marzipan and raisin ice cream globes, covered them in meringue, and served the toasted balls in pools of blackberry sauce. By all reports, the astronauts greatly enjoyed their “Clair de Lunes.“

Gerald Ford

Ford had a nearly heroic devotion to butter pecan ice cream. Whenever he visited his hometown of Grand Rapids, Michigan, his travel assistant Jon Nunn would make sure that butter pecan ice cream was always on hand. Every night he’d ask his aide, “I’ll bet there’s a little ice cream in the fridge, isn’t there, Jon?” And there always was.

Ford once told his doctor he wanted to lose 10 pounds. “That’s easy” said the physician. “Either give up your nightly martini or give up your butter pecan ice cream.” The martini was history.

*Gerald Ford and Betty Ford at a Baskin-Robbins ice cream shop in New Hampshire, February 1976*

Jimmy Carter

Reports abound that Carter still enjoyed plenty of ice cream 3 months into hospice care—peanut butter ice cream being preferred.

Ronald Reagan

In 1984, as part of Presidential Proclamation 5219, Reagan said ice cream has “a reputation as the perfect dessert and snack food” and pointed out that nearly ten percent of all the milk American dairy farmers produce every year becomes ice cream.

A few years later, he named Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield (of Ben and Jerry’s Ice Cream) US Small Business Persons of the Year in 1988. His well-known love of jellybeans suggests that his ice cream, whatever the flavor, would be sprinkled with jelly beans.

Bill Clinton

President Bill Clinton loved ice cream and seemed to find an ice cream shop in every place he visited. On a visit to the Penn State Bakery Creamery, chefs allowed Bill Clinton to mix his own flavors, an honor they’ve granted to no one else. (He mixed Peachy Paterno and Cherry Quist.)

Since becoming vegan, he’s opted for raspberry sorbet.

George W. Bush

At a campaign stop in in Pennsylvania in 2006, George W. Bush ordered pralines and cream ice cream. When word got around, pralines and cream reportedly flew over the counter at that Pennsylvania ice cream shop for weeks and weeks. Although he prefers cones of praline and cream, he’ll eat vanilla custard in a pinch.

George W. Bush reportedly shipped cartons of Blue Bell ice cream from the creamery in his native Texas to the White House and to the family compound in Kennebunkport, Maine.

Barack Obama

*President Obama and then-Vice President Biden in 2010*

As far as I can confirm, Obama is the only president to have worked the counter at an ice cream shop. At age 16, he worked at a Baskin-Robbins in Honolulu. Scooping, scooping, and more scooping—hard on his wrists. In an essay about his first job, Obama admitted, “I was less interested in what the job meant for my future and more concerned about what it meant for my jump shot.”

When Barack Obama went home to Hawaii for presidential vacations, he’d enjoy confections from his youth – coconut ice cream and Hawaiian shaved ice.

Barack Obama is the only president to have a Ben and Jerry’s ice cream flavor named after him: “Yes, Pecan!” in honor of his campaign slogan “Yes, We Can!” In 2014, a Japanese ice cream company released a matcha tea flavored ice cream called “Obamatcha” to celebrate the American president’s fond memories of eating matcha popsicles as a child. A Russian ice cream company also released “Obamka” ice cream bars in 2016 in a rather odd bid to cash in on “chilling” relations between the US and Russia.

Donald J. Trump

This president likes ice cream so much as a dinner dessert that the White House ushers had instructions to always slip him an extra scoop. In an interview with Time magazine, Trump boasted of having two scoops of ice cream with his chocolate pie while other diners got one.

Joe Biden

When campaigning for vice president, he once stepped to the mic and introduced himself by saying, “My name is Joe Biden, and I love ice cream.” It’s safe to say that hasn’t changed. His favorite is Graeter’s chocolate chip. This Cincinnati-based ice cream brand has been around for about 150 years. He claimed to eat Jeni’s Splendid Ice Cream before public appearances for its performance-enhancing capabilities.

Bottom Line: Ice cream has been with us since before we were even a country. Eating it is practically a patriotic duty.

BETTER KNOW TOADS

Posted on June 20, 2023May 28, 2023 by vlaw759

King Richard III, or (as Shakespeare called him) “Thou toad, thou toad”
(Richard III, 4.4.149)

Toads have had a bad rap in the west. At least as far back as Shakespeare the toad’s ugliness had become a synonym for anything loathsome. And then there is the poisonous nature of toads. Could anything so repulsive and toxic not be evil? And let’s not forget the association of toads with witchcraft, and even Satan himself.

On the other hand, according to Robert DeGraaff (The Book of the Toad), “There is a great deal of evidence that in early Asiatic cultures and in the pre-Columbian civilizations of the Americas the toad was regarded as a divinity, the great primeval Earth Mother, the source and end of all life.”

Today, there is evidence that reality falls somewhere in between.

All toads have toxic substances in the skin and parotid glands. Ingestion of toads or toad cake (i.e., the dried secretions) can lead to intoxication. They secrete one or more of five compounds: bufotoxin, bufotenin, 5-MeO-DMT, bufotalin, and bufalitoxin.

Most toxic compounds of these toxin are steroids similar to digoxin. Patients who have inadvertently ingested toad toxins usually have gastrointestinal symptoms consisting of nausea, vomiting, and abdominal discomfort.

Toad secretions and cake have been used as a drug for its cardiotonic, anti-inflammatory, and analgesic (pain relief) effects since ancient times. Doctors in China have used Bufo genus toad cake dissolved in water to treat heart disease and slow the spread of cancerous cells for centuries.

The mild poison of most toads in the U.S. is not lethal to humans, but it can cause allergic reactions. It is important to wash your hands after touching a toad.

yellow dart toads — “If you bite it and you die, it’s poisonous; if it bites you and you die, it’s venomous.”
Toads are not venomous. They secrete toxins rather than injecting it.

Two Poisonous Toads in the U.S.

The glands of American toads secrete bufotoxin, a poisonous substance meant to make the toad unpalatable to potential predators. Although most toads in the United States are only mildly toxic, their secretions can cause serious damage when smaller pets (such as dogs or cats) eat one of these toad varieties.

I’m going into some detail here because these two species pose a real danger as opposed being a nuisance or discomfort, like most toads in this country.

FYI, the most poisonous toad in the world is the golden poison frog (Phyllobates terribilis), also known as the golden dart frog or golden poison arrow frog, is a poison dart frog endemic to the rainforests of Colombia. Think curare.

Avoiding toads is relatively easy for most of us: they are nocturnal, and they hibernate underground during cold weather.

There is no specific antidote for toad toxins, so pay attention!

Rhinella marina (Cane Toad)

Cane toads’ native stomping ground ranges from to the Amazon basin in South America all the way north to the lower Rio Grande Valley in southern Texas. They have established habitats in Florida, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, U.S. Virgin Islands, Guam (including Cocos Island) and Northern Mariana Islands, American Samoa, and Republic of Palau. In Australia, where farmers originally introduced them to help control scarabs eating sugarcane, cane toads have become one of the worst invasive species in the world.

The skin-gland secretions of cane toads (bufotoxin and bufotenin) are highly toxic and can sicken or even kill animals that bite or feed on them, including native animals and domestic pets.

When swallowed, cane toad toxin can affect the heart and central nervous system. People may experience blood pressure swings, breathing problems, paralysis, seizures, salivation, twitching, vomiting, and crying. Adult cane toads can secrete enough toxin to kill a small child. In severe cases. exposure can cause death through cardiac arrest, sometimes within 15 minutes. At the least, the skin secretions irritate the skin or burn the eyes of people who handle them.

Humans can also use this toxin as a weapon. The Emberá and Wounaan people of Panama have traditionally used Cane Toad toxins on the tips of their arrows.

The prevalence of a toxin resistance gene makes it possible for some snakes of the sub-family Natricinae to consume native toads. In a 2021 article from the Journal of North American Herpetology, researchers Jordan Donini and Sean Doody said, “We documented successful consumption of the invasive cane toad by the Southern Watersnake (Nerodia fasciata) in southwest Florida, both in the wild and in the laboratory.”

Depending on where you live/travel, it can be important to know the difference between a cane toad and a native southern toad (Anaxyrus terrestris). Adult cane toads are much larger than adult southern toads, which only grow to a maximum of approximately 3 to 4 inches. Cane toads do not have ridges across the head, as seen in the southern toad.

Cane Toad Appearance:

Tan to reddish-brown, dark brown or gray
Creamy yellow belly
4”-6” long (sometimes 9 inches)
Backs are marked with dark spots
Warty skin
Triangular parotoid glands on shoulders that secrete a milky toxin substance (native southern toads have oval glands)
No ridges on top of head unlike native southern toad

Incilius alvarius (Sonoran Desert Toad)

The Sonoran Desert Toad – previously known as the Colorado River Toad – is native to the United States and Northwestern Mexico. Like the Cane Toad, the Sonoran Desert Toad secretes bufotoxins that can seriously injure humans and kill smaller animals such as dogs.

colorado river toads — *Sonoran Desert Toad*

Their native habitat in the US includes Arizona, New Mexico (where they are a threatened species), and California (where they are a species of special concern). Because these toads are native, they cannot be legally killed in those areas. That hasn’t stopped people from trying to harvest their toxins.

Sonoran Desert Toad appearance:

Olive green to dark brown color
Belly is cream colored
3”-7” long
Smooth and shiny skin, but warty
Distinctive oval glands behind each eye
Visible glands on their hind legs

Psychedelic Toads

In 2022, the National Park Service had to issue a blanket warning to visitors not to lick wildlife, especially toads. The toxins that some toads secrete can (under specific circumstances) cause psychedelic hallucinations.

licking toads — *Both **Family Guy** and **The Simpsons** have made episodes about this bizarre (and not quite accurate) fad.*

The smoke from dried toad cake of both Cane Toads and Sonoran Desert River Toads causes hallucinations. Licking a toad will likely just cause extreme discomfort for both yourself and the toad.

Cane Toad secretions contain bufotenine, a tryptamine that can have hallucinogenic effects in large enough doses. Several religious traditions have used this toxin for ceremonial purposes. The Olmec obtained bufotenine by milking toads over hot rocks and then using the toxin as a narcotic. Chemical analysis of seven Haitian “zombie powders” found secretion glands from Cane Toads, along with puffer fish and hyla tree frogs.

*Smoking dried toad toxin may cause you to see them stand up and play musical instruments.*

Sonoran Desert toads secrete an enzyme known as O-methyl-transferase, which converts bufotenine into the extremely potent psychedelic 5-MeO-DMT. When a human inhales smoke from 5-MeO-DMT, they experience hallucinations many have called “religious.” Researchers are developing treatments for depression, anxiety, and addiction from the psychedelic properties of Sonoran Desert toad secretions. Dr. Alan K. Davis, a clinical psychologist at Johns Hopkins University warns, “It’s such an intense experience that, in most cases, doing it at a party isn’t safe. It’s not a recreational drug. If people get dosed too high, they can ‘white out’ and disassociate from their mind and body.”

Ingesting Sonoran Desert Toad toxin orally does not cause hallucinations, but that hasn’t stopped people from trying. According to the National Poison Center, “Licking toads (typically cane toads) can be dangerous, however, and may cause muscle weakness, rapid heart rate, and vomiting.”

The Toad Pharmacy

All Bufo species of toads have parotid glands that release toxic substances when the animals are threatened. These toxic substances are biologically active compounds, such as dopamine, norepinephrine, epinephrine, serotonin, bufotenine, bufogenin, bufotoxins, and indolealkylamines. You might notice that the first four listed here are familiar!

In “The Development of Toad Toxins as Potential Therapeutic Agents” by Ji Qi, Abu Hasanat Zulfiker, Chun Li, David Good, and Ming Q. Wei, the authors make the following points:

In traditional Chinese medicine (TCM), processed toad toxins have been used for treating various diseases for hundreds of years. Modern studies have revealed the molecular mechanisms that support the development of these components into medicines for the treatment of inflammatory diseases and cancers.
Recently there have been studies that demonstrated the therapeutic potential of toxins from other species of toads, such as Australian cane toads.
Toxins from toads have long been known to contain rich chemicals with great pharmaceutical potential. Recent studies have shown more than 100 such chemical components, including peptides, steroids, indole alkaloids, bufogargarizanines, organic acids, and others, in the parotoid and skins gland secretions from different species of toads.

Frogs or Toads?

Many people confuse frogs and toads. After all, they are biologically related and share many characteristics. Scientifically, frogs and toads belong to the same taxonomical group. Both have glandular skin and similar diets, which they swallow whole. Additionally, both are amphibians and periodically shed their skin.

Toads	Frogs
Live on land	Live near water
Warty-looking skin	Sleek, smooth skin
Dry skin	Mucus-covered skin looks wet even when dry
Short legs	Legs longer than head and body
Get around by crawling	Hop instead of crawl
Broad, flat nose	Pointed nose
Spawn in chains	Spawn in gooey clumps
Solid black, round shaped tadpoles	Gold-flecked, slim shaped tadpoles

Toad Miscellany

Among amphibians, the anurans, or frogs and toads, are perhaps the most intelligent, and have the largest brain-to-body ratio of the amphibians.

By and large, the brighter the toad’s coloration, the more toxic it is.

American toads hibernate during the winter. They will usually dig backwards and bury themselves in the dirt of their summer home. However, they may also overwinter in another area nearby.

You can find toads in all but the coldest parts of the world.

Adult toads eat insects, snails, slugs and earthworms.

Toads do not drink water. Instead, they absorb it through their skin.

*Toads in the Super Mario Brothers franchise do not have the same physical characteristics of other toads. They are staunch protectors of the Mushroom Kingdom!*

Despite spending most of its life on land, a toad will return to the water during the mating season. They lay their eggs in water.

Being carnivores, toads prefer eating live meat. They do not consume dead meat or previously killed animals. Technically, they are able to consume fruits and vegetables, but it might not make them happy.

A toad will also eat its own skin after shedding it. However, they do this to hide from predators rather than for any nutritional value.

Toads live approximately 5-10 years in the wild. However, a toad in captivity can live up to 40 years.

Collective nouns for a group of toads includes a knot, nest, array, knob, knab, lump, and squiggle.

Toads can carry salmonella, which they can transfer to humans or other animals handling them.

Toads are great additions to any garden because they eat the pests that may plague the plants—and the gardeners.

Bottom Line: Better know toads!

A FINE OLD TRADITION

Posted on June 13, 2023May 27, 2023 by vlaw759

Lisdoonvarna arranged marriage festival — *Lisdoonvarna, a month-long matchmaking festival in Ireland, attracts 40,000 singles hoping to get married every year.*

Arranged marriages were common throughout the world until the 18th century. An arranged marriage is when the bride and groom are selected by individuals other than the couple themselves, usually by family members. In some cultures, families rely on a professional matchmaker to find a spouse for a young person.

Usually, arranged marriages happen to provide social, political, economic, or religious advantage to one or both parties. Note: typically both partners agree/consent to the arrangement.

The practice of arranged marriages has declined substantially during the 19th and 20th centuries.

Gwen Broude and Sarah Greene have studied 142 cultures worldwide. They report that, despite the recent decline, 130 cultures have elements of arranged marriage. This means that more than half of marriages worldwide are arranged.

Arranged marriages remain common in many regions, notably South Asia, the Middle East, North Africa, Sub-Saharan Africa, and the Caucasus. Deeply-rooted traditional beliefs in arranged marriages in South Korea mean that the custom prevails in many rural communities. In India, 88.4% of the marriages are the fruit of an arrangement. Statistics on arranged marriages show that they are most present in the world’s most numerous nations. Arranged marriages number more than 26 million unions worldwide.

Benefits of Arranged Marriages

If you search online for pros of arranged marriages, you will find a list something like this.

It eliminates the stress of trying to find a life partner.
It keeps parents involved in the relationship.
It creates harmony within both families.
It keeps people rooted in their family, culture, and ethics.
It reduces worry about the future welfare of any children.
Arranged marriages ensure that the culture and traditions of both parties align closely, so religious issues do not arise.
The two families will have a good relationship: the connections between the families and the couple last long without misunderstandings.

Chances are, my readers disapprove of people having no say in who and when they marry. Well, you might be surprised to learn that leaving marriage arrangements to the elders, entirely or partially, is something that young people in certain countries actually prefer.

*Shanghai Marriage Market, where interested parties can view the “resumes” of prospective marriage partners every Saturday and Sunday*

But Are the Results Good or Bad?

Statistics reveal that arranged marriages last longer with a substantially lower divorce rate compared to the western idealization of the love marriage. In the US, around 40-50% of non-arranged marriages end in divorce. The divorce rate in arranged marriages depends mostly on the type of arrangement, but the worldwide divorce rate for all types of arranged marriages is estimated at 6.4%. (Separation rates in India are twice as high as the divorce rate, so it is also likely that people in arranged marriages are less willing to see divorce as an option.)

arranged marriage
gay marriage — *Hindu ring ceremony*

The love experienced by Indian couples in arranged marriages appears to be even more robust than the love people experience in “love marriages.” In a 1982 study psychologists Usha Gupta and Pushpa Singh used the Rubin Love Scale, which gauges intensity of romantic love. They found that people in arranged marriages reported an increase in romantic love for their spouse as time passes. In contrast, people in love marriages more commonly report a decrease in romantic love over time.

Studies have shown that couples in an arranged marriage are more likely to be very romantic towards their partner; mostly because they both are slowly adjusting to the new life and passing every hurdle together.

The newest UN report for women’s progress show that women who participate in partially arranged marriages and self-arranged marriages enjoy greater authority within the marriage than those whose marriages were entirely arranged by their families. They are more involved in making other important decisions as well, such as the optimal time to have children or financial management.

Women in partially arranged or self-arranged marriages are also less likely to experience marital violence, spousal rape, and financial abuse. Additionally, women who participated in the selection of their spouse are much less likely to become victims of honor killings later.

Overall, given the low arranged-marriage divorce rate, one might think this is the best way to go about marriages. However, studies that explore the satisfaction rate of both autonomous and arranged marriages show mixed results. In India, approximately twice as many women in arranged marriages report being separated from their husbands as report seeking a legal divorce. The success of arranged marriages seems to depend on how marriage is perceived, the relative importance of practicality and passion preferred.

*Advertisement for a matchmaking service in Chennai, India*

Forced Marriage

When one or both of the people involved do not consent to the union, that is a forced marriage. For example, when family members threaten or use force to coerce the union.

Note: a forced marriage is NOT the same as an arranged marriage.

“The Babylonian Marriage Market” (1875)
Edwin Long

Many factors could compel people into a forced marriage. A council may require a young woman or man to marry as part of a repayment for debts or to settle a dispute. Parents might sell their child as a bride or groom in exchange for a dowry or bride price. Relatives might kidnap a prospective bride or groom and force them to marry or face a future as a social pariah (or even an honor killing). In times of conflict, fighters often coerce women into war-time “marriages.” Human traffickers commonly lure women and girls to areas with skewed male-to-female ratios with promises of work or education, then coercing them into forced marriages. Threats of social ostracism, emotional blackmail, and lack of financial independence can also force unwilling people to marry.

Children who marry before they reach adulthood are considered to be in forced marriages.

Worldwide, statistics about arranged marriages demonstrate that over 11 million girls younger than 18 enter forced marriages every year. South Asia has the highest percentage of forced marriages for girls under 18. Africa is second in forced marriages, and together with South Asia, it represents a third of the total number worldwide. In Bangladesh, between 27 and 29% of girls married before they turned 15.

However, there is some good news on that front. Worldwide, the incidences of underage marriage have declined drastically over the past decades. In 2018, UNICEF reported that the proportion of brides who married before age 18 has decreased by 15% since 2008.

Between 2000 and 2018, some 300,000 minors were legally married in the United States. The vast majority of child marriages (reliable sources vary between 78% and 95%) were between a minor girl and an adult man. In many cases, minors in the U.S. may be married when they are under the age of sexual consent, which varies from 16 to 18 depending on the state. It is most common in West Virginia and Texas, where about seven of every 1,000 15- to 17-year-olds were married in 2014. (Both states are currently reviewing laws to end child marriage.) In many states, minors cannot legally divorce because they have to be 18 to file for divorce or hire a lawyer. Domestic violence shelters typically do not accept minors.

As of March 2023, seven states have banned underage marriages, with no exception: New Jersey (2018), Delaware (2018), Pennsylvania (2020), Minnesota (2020), Rhode Island (2021), New York (2021), and Massachusetts (2022).

*States where underage marriage is legal*

Arranged Marriages in the U.S.

Until the first half of the 20th century, arranged marriages were common in immigrant families in the United States. Arranged marriage is legal and still occurs in the U.S. today.

“Green Card Marriages” are the most common form of arranged marriage in the US. Census Bureau statistics show that over 450,000 Americans each year marry foreign-born individuals and petition for their permanent residency permission (green card). Of all green cards issued in 2007, 25% were awarded to American spouses, making it the most utilized path for immigration in the U.S.

The majority of immigrants entering into green card marriages sincerely desire to marry and intend to make the marriage last. However, the USCIS revealed that between 5% and 30% of all such marriages were sham marriages, never intended to last beyond the minimum required to make the green card permanent.

Most Jewish marriages in the U.S. are not arranged. However, in Haredi communities, marriages may be arranged by the parents of the prospective bride and groom. The parents often engage a professional match-maker (shadchan) who finds and introduces the prospective bride and groom and receives a fee for their services. The wedding is known as a shidduch, from the Aramaic word meaning “to settle down.”

Members of some sects of Christianity, such as the Apostolic Christian Church, practice partially arranged marriages. The prospective bridegroom will come to an agreement with the father of a woman he wishes to marry. She then has the option to decline the proposal.

Contrary to some misinformation, among the Amish there are no arranged marriages by the parents or other mediators. Young people who choose to be baptized into a certain Amish affiliation (typically the one they grew up in) are expected to marry inside this group. However, a person looking to marry will choose their own potential spouse from within the group.

Note: “A forced marriage is grounds for divorce and for both civic and church annulment in the US. The U.S. government is opposed to forced marriage and considers it to be a serious human rights abuse. If the victim of forced marriage is a child, forced marriage is also a form of child abuse.” (US Customs and Immigration Services)

Bottom Line: Although not common in the U.S., arranged marriages worldwide are often successful and desirable, depending on the couple’s expectations and views of what makes a good marriage.

*Combining traditional customs of arranged marriage with modern technology*

LIKE IT NEVER EVEN HAPPENED!

Posted on June 6, 2023May 25, 2023 by vlaw759

A marriage annulment is a legal ruling that deems a marriage null and void — as if it never happened in the first place. Annulments effectively erase the marriage.

There are two main ways to formally end a marriage: annulment and divorce. An annulment declares that a marriage was never valid, while a divorce legally concludes a valid marriage. A divorce is more common and easier to attain. Annulment requires specific circumstances and evidence.

Most people are fairly familiar with divorce, personally or observationally, so this blog focuses on annulment, both civil and religious.

“The Civil Wedding” (1887)
Albrecht Samuel Anker

Civil Annulment

Because an annulled marriage was never considered legally valid, any prenuptial agreements are also invalid. Plus, neither partner has a right to the other’s personal property or finances the way they would in the case of a divorce.

Getting the courts to grant an annulment can be difficult. At least one party must believe the marriage shouldn’t have happened, and they have to provide grounds to a judge in order to have it annulled. To qualify for an annulment of marriage, you must meet certain circumstances. The following situations typically qualify:

False pretenses: One or both parties were tricked into getting married.
Mental incompetence: One or both parties weren’t legally able to make the decision to get married because of a mental disability or being under the influence of drugs and/or alcohol.
Underage marriage: One or both parties were under the legal age of consent (typically 18) at the time of the marriage.
Concealment: One or both parties failed to disclose important details about themselves and their lives prior to the marriage, like having a child, criminal conviction, or serious illness.
Failure to consummate the marriage: One or both parties are unable to be physically intimate in the marriage.
Concealed Infertility: One spouse might be physically incapable of having children, and that spouse might have lied about it to the other spouse. This would involve both fraud and lack of consummation.
Consanguinity: Incest is defined as a relationship between two blood relatives who would be banned from legal marriage in their state. This typically means more closely related than first cousins.
Bigamy happens when one person is already married at the time of marrying someone else.
Underage without parental consent: Lack of consent can happen when one spouse is too young to consent on his or her own behalf, and the other spouse did not get proper consent from the parents of the underage spouse.
Unsound mind: You may be able to show unsound mind if you or your spouse was under the influence of alcohol or drugs at the time of your marriage. If you were prevented by intoxication or by a mental disorder from understanding what you were doing, you may be able to get an annulment.
Finally, a marriage can be annulled if one spouse threatened, blackmailed, or coerced the other spouse into marriage.

In an annulment where there are children, it’s as if the parents were never married. That means both parents can individually seek custody or work out an agreement for shared custody, much like they would if the child had been born to unmarried parents in the first place.

*“Le Jugement de Salomon” (1649)*
*Nicolas Poussin*

States’ Rights

Just as the requirements for marriage and divorce vary by state, so do some aspects of annulment. Someone interested in an annulment—whether for personal, family, or literary reasons—should investigate requirements of the relevant state.

Sometimes there are time limits on filing for an annulment. According to the Nathan Law Offices, in general, you have four years from the date of the marriage to file for an annulment. However, there are exceptions depending on the reason for the annulment.

And the time limit varies by state. For example, in Michigan, Virginia, and Ohio—and many others—the marriage may be annulled if a case is brought to court within two years of the marriage date.

However, there is no time frame to get an annulment in New York City. You can ask the Court for an annulment whether you have been married for 2 years or for 25 years as long as some of the grounds for annulment are met. Ditto Georgia, and several other states.

In Oklahoma a marriage that takes place before the expiration of six months from the date either spouse was divorced is a voidable marriage. In order to annul such a remarriage, an annulment action must be brought within the six-month period.

In North Carolina, the marriage can be annulled if it was performed under the representation that one of the parties was pregnant, but the couple separates within 45 days of their marriage and no child is born within the 10 months following the separation. Many states allow annulment on a much greater number of fraud-related grounds, but in North Carolina this is the only fraudulent ground available for an annulment.

*“The Marriage Settlement”* (1745)
William Hogarth

RELIGIOUS ANNULMENT

This is a totally separate action. People who don’t qualify for a civil annulment may still be able to obtain a religious annulment, but this will have no effect on legal responsibilities as spouses. This process is not a part of the court system but, rather, a part of the church or institution to which the person(s) belong. However, it serves a similar purpose in that a religious annulment of a marriage typically decrees that the marriage was invalid from the beginning.

In religious annulment, the Church recognizes that a valid marriage never existed under the laws of the Church. Although some other religious institutions provide annulments, the Catholic Church is by far the most commonly used. For simplicity’s sake, I’ll stick with Catholic annulments here.

In 2015, Pope Francis issued a motu proprio, which is essentially an amendment to existing Catholic canon. These two documents, the Mitis Iudex Dominus Iesus and Mitis et Misericors Iesus (one for the Western Catholic Church and one for the Eastern Catholic Church), make the process of obtaining an annulment more efficient.

Without an annulment, a Catholic cannot remarry, even if they divorce. A divorced Catholic who remarries without obtaining an annulment cannot receive any other sacraments.

The short of it is that to obtain a Church annulment, the person seeking the annulment must satisfy the Church that one or more of the requirements for a valid marriage was missing or abridged. The long of it is—well—long. (These are quoted directly from the Vatican library of canon law online.)

Insufficient use of reason (Canon 1095, 10): You or your spouse did not know what was happening during the marriage ceremony because of insanity, mental illness, or a lack of consciousness.
Grave lack of discretionary judgment concerning essential matrimonial rights and duties (Canon 1095, 20): You or your spouse was affected by some serious circumstances or factors that made you unable to judge or evaluate either the decision to marry or the ability to create a true marital relationship.
Psychic-natured incapacity to assume marital obligations (Canon 1095, 30): You or your spouse, at the time of consent, was unable to fulfill the obligations of marriage because of a serious psychological disorder or other condition.
Ignorance about the nature of marriage (Canon 1096, sec. 1): You or your spouse did not know that marriage is a permanent relationship between a man and a woman ordered toward the procreation of offspring by means of some sexual cooperation.
Error of person (Canon 1097, sec. 1): You or your spouse intended to marry a specific individual who was not the individual with whom marriage was celebrated. (For example, mail order brides; otherwise, this rarely occurs in the United States.)
Error about a quality of a person (Canon 1097, sec. 2): You or your spouse intended to marry someone who either possessed or did not possess a certain quality, e.g., social status, marital status, education, religious conviction, freedom from disease, or arrest record. That quality must have been directly and principally intended.
Fraud (Canon 1098): You or your spouse was intentionally deceived about the presence or absence of a quality in the other. The reason for this deception was to obtain consent to marriage.
Total willful exclusion of marriage (Canon 1101, sec. 2): You or your spouse did not intend to contract marriage as the law of the Catholic Church understands marriage. Rather, the ceremony was observed solely as a means of obtaining something other than marriage itself, e.g., to obtain legal status in the country or to legitimize a child.
Willful exclusion of children (Canon 1101, sec. 2): You or your spouse married intending, either explicitly or implicitly, to deny the other’s right to sexual acts open to procreation.
Willful exclusion of marital fidelity (Canon 1101, 12): You or your spouse married intending, either explicitly or implicitly, not to remain faithful.
Willful exclusion of marital permanence (Canon 1101, sec. 2): You or your spouse married intending, either explicitly or implicitly, not to create a permanent relationship, retaining an option to divorce.
Future condition (Canon 1102, sec. 2): You or your spouse attached a future condition to your decision to marry, e.g., you will complete your education, your income will be at a certain level, you will remain in this area.
Past condition (Canon 1102, sec. 2): You or your spouse attached a past condition so your decision to marry and that condition did not exist; e.g., I will marry you provided that you have never been married before, I will marry you provided that you have graduated from college.
Present condition (Canon 1102, sec. 2): You or your spouse attached a present condition to your decision to marry and that condition did not exist, e.g., I will marry you provided you don’t have any debt.
Force (Canon 1103): You or your spouse married because of an external physical or moral force that you could not resist.
Fear (1103): You or your spouse chose to marry because of fear that was grave and inescapable and was caused by an outside source.
Error regarding marital unity that determined the will (1099): You or your spouse married believing that marriage was not necessarily an exclusive relationship.
Error regarding marital indissolubility that determined the will (Canon 1099): You or your spouse married believing that civil law had the power to dissolve marriage and that remarriage was acceptable after civil divorce.
Error regarding marital sacramental dignity that determined the will (Canon 1099): You and your spouse married believing that marriage is not a religious or sacred relationship but merely a civil contract or arrangement.
Lack of new consent during convalidation (Canons 1157,1160): After your civil marriage, you and your spouse participated in a Catholic ceremony and you or your spouse believed that (1) you were already married, (2) the Catholic ceremony was merely a blessing, and (3) the consent given during. the Catholic ceremony had no real effect.

*One of the most famous “annullers” of all time—King Henry the VIII—created a new religion so he’d be allowed to marry all of these women.*

THINGS THAT MIGHT NOT BE OBVIOUS OR INTUITIVE

Unless otherwise specified, there is no limit on the passage of time between marriage and annulment.

Glynn (Scotty) Wolfe, an American Baptist minister is known for having the largest number of monogamous marriages. He married 31 different times. One marriage was annulled.

A Catholic couple who obtain a divorce can subsequently apply for an annulment when one or both parties want to be members of the church in good standing and/or be remarried in the church.

If one member of a couple applies for an annulment, the other member has the option of agreeing, disagreeing, or (in the case of a couple previously divorced) simply not responding.

If each spouse/former spouse completes the fact-finding forms (done independently), their answers are compared and discrepancies resolved. This process can go on for months!

*“Mariage de Louis de France, Duc de Bourgogne et de Marie-Adélaïde de Savoie” (1715)*
*Antoine Dieu*

Bottom Line: Civil and religious annulments are two distinctly different actions and one cannot replace the other. Be clear about your rights and responsibilities, which vary by state in Civil annulments.

THAT JUST ISN’T NORMAL!

Posted on March 28, 2023March 28, 2023 by vlaw759

I’m not talking crazy or aberrant or clownish. No, I’m talking about the paranormal, events or phenomena that are beyond the scope of normal scientific understanding.

Storytellers have always been fascinated by characters with superhuman abilities. Throughout human history, such paranormal abilities have appeared in nearly every culture in the world. They are sometimes attributed to historical figures and sometimes relegated to mythical figures (though history and myth often overlap).

Mind Over Matter

Telekinesis or psychokinesis is the (supposed, or hypothetical) psychic ability to move objects at a distance by mental power or other nonphysical means. A 2006 survey of American adults found that 28% of male and 31% of female respondents believe in the possibility of telekinesis. (WikiHow offers a 14 step guide to developing your own telekinetic abilities here!)

*Rama, avatar of Vishnu, in battle against Ravana*

In ancient myths, characters often had paranormal control over elements of the natural world (such as storms or animals) rather than direct control of materials. There are a few notable exceptions. The Norse god Thor and the Greek hero Perseus controlled their weapons through limited telekinesis. Thor could make his hammer Mjölnir fly around, entirely independent of gravity. Perseus was able to make his sword fly further and more accurately than he could throw it to strike Medusa. Vishnu had broader telekinetic abilities, which he used to control the movement of his enemies in battle.

*Franklin Richards (Ultraman) with parents Sue Storm (Invisible Woman) and Reed Richard (Mr Fantastic)*

In the comic book world (specifically, in Marvel comics), Franklin Richards, omega-level mutant and son of Reed and Sue, is probably one of the most powerful beings in the Marvel Universe let alone just the most powerful telekinetic.

Extra Sensing

By definition, clairvoyance is the ability to predict future events. If you are clairvoyant, you know about things that you did not actually see happen or hear about. Some clairvoyants even claim to be able to speak to the dead.

Psychics, palm readers and fortune tellers all claim to have clairvoyant power. Some use a crystal ball for information. Others read tea leaves, tarot cards, marked sticks, bird movements, animal entrails, clouds, stars, bones or dice, dreams, water, smoke, and almost anything else they encounter to tell the future.

Extrasensory perception, or ESP, means the ability to “know” or “experience” something one isn’t able to see, hear, touch, smell, or taste in the usual way. So, such people are said to have an extra sense, a “sixth sense” to perceive the world.

Sometimes people refer to this paranormal ability as second sight. People use their eyes to see the world around them. But those with “second sight” claim to see things that are not there (remote viewing), or to see future objects or events.

ESP in History

Many leaders have consulted those with paranormal abilities throughout history. The ancient Greeks communed with the gods through the oracles. Priests in the Mali Empire advised emperors and military leaders on the wishes of the ancestors. Vedic astrologers read complex charts of the stars to provide Hindu rulers with specific dates and times on which to hold major events.

But our ancient ancestors are not the only ones who consulted clairvoyant experts when making decisions.

Nancy Reagan frequently consulted with Joan Quigley throughout Ronald Reagan’s presidency. After John Hinckley Jr shot and nearly killed her husband in 1981, Nancy Reagan enlisted Quigley’s help to prevent future assassination attempts. Quigley used astrology charts to determine the best times for public appearances, traveling, and even signing the intermediate-range nuclear forces treaty with Mikhail Gorbachev.

About ten years ago, a scandal erupted in China when Liu Zhijun, the Railway Minister, confessed to consulting a feng shui master to determine the most auspicious days to break ground on new projects.

Nechung Oracle in Ladakh, 2014
Christpher Michele

Tibet has a State Oracle, the Nechung Oracle, whom the Dalai Lama consults before making major decisions. The Oracle enters a trance state to act as a medium between the natural world and the spirit world. While in this trance state, the Nechung Oracle provides guidance to observers, sharing the knowledge and wishes of kuten, the spirit world.

In the US, one of the most famous psychics in recent history is Youree Dell Harris, better known as Miss Cleo, spokeswoman for the Psychic Readers Network. On late-night infomercials for the pay-per-view paranormal service promised millions of insomniacs psychic help.

ESP in Fiction

Paranormal abilities present a world of possibilities to fiction writers as well. Stephen King’s books are full of characters with psychic talents, such as reading minds (The Shining), predicting the future (Doctor Sleep), pyrokinesis (Firestarter), psychic surgery (Green Mile), and necromancy (Pet Semetary).

Macbeth and the Witches
Johann Heinrich Füssli (1741–1825)

Clairvoyants abound in Shakespeare’s plays, warning characters about things that will come and providing foreshadowing to the audience. Three witches guide Macbeth in his quest to become king, ultimately causing his downfall. A soothsayer tries to warn Julius Caesar of his impending death.

Comic books frequently star characters with a wide variety of paranormal abilities, some more useful than others. Nearly every character in Marvel’s X-Men universe has some form of psychic or telekinetic ability. They range from the extremely powerful telepath Jean Grey (Phoenix) to Eye Scream, a mutant with the amazing ability to turn himself into any flavor of ice cream.

Types of ESP

Wikipedia breaks down Extra Sensory Perception into specific categories, though there is some overlap.

Clairvoyance — The ability to see things and events that are happening far away, and locate objects, places, people, using a sixth sense.

Divination – The ability to gain insight into a situation using occult lists.

*Dowsing for metal ore, from 1556 “**De re metallica libri XII**” book*

Dowsing – The ability to locate water or other resources underground, sometimes using a tool called a dowsing rod.

Dream telepathy – The ability to telepathically communicate with another person through dreams.

Dermo-optical perception – The ability to perceive unusual sensory stimuli through one’s own skin.

Psychometry or psychoscopy – The ability to obtain information about a person or an object by touch.

Bag with objects for divination
Africa, 1880-1920

Precognition (including psychic premonitions) – The ability to perceive or gain knowledge about future events, without using induction or deduction from known facts.

Remote viewing, telesthesia or remote sensing – The ability to see a distant or unseen target using extrasensory perception.

Retrocognition or postcognition – The ability to supernaturally perceive past events.

Telepathy – The ability to transmit or receive thoughts supernaturally.

And so we come to psychics, people who have one or more of these paranormal mental powers and abilities (such as the ability to predict the future, to know what other people are thinking, or to receive messages from dead people.)

Psychic Abilities

Wikipedia presents a list of alleged psychic abilities that real-world people have claimed to possess.

*“The Separation of the Spirit Body” from **The Secret of the Golden Flower**, a Chinese handbook on alchemy and meditation*

Astral projection or mental projection – The ability to voluntarily project an astral body or mental body, being associated with the out-of-body experience, in which one’s consciousness is felt to separate from the physical body temporarily.

Atmokinesis – The ability to control the weather such as calling rainfall or storms.
Automatic writing – The ability to draw or write without conscious intent.
Bilocation — The ability to be present in two different places at the same time, usually attributed to a saint.
Energy medicine – The ability to heal with one’s own empathic, etheric, astral, mental or spiritual energy.
Ergokinesis – The ability to influence the movement of energy, such as electricity, without direct interaction.
Iddhi – Psychic abilities gained through Buddhist meditation.
Inedia – The ability to survive without eating or drinking, multiple cases have resulted in starvation or dehydration.

*An advertising poster depicting magician Harry Kellar performing the “Levitation of Princess Karnac” illusion, 1894*

Levitation or transvection – The ability to float or fly by mystical means.
Materialization — The creation of objects and materials or the appearance of matter from unknown sources.
Mediumship or channeling – The ability to communicate with spirits.
Petrification — The power to turn a living being to stone by looking them in the eye.
Prophecy (also prediction, premonition, or prognostication) — the ability to foretell events, without using induction or deduction from known facts.
Psychic surgery – The ability to remove disease or disorder within or over the body tissue via an “energetic” incision that heals immediately afterwards.
Psychokinesis or telekinesis – The ability to influence a physical system without physical interaction, typically manifesting as being able to exert force, control objects and move matter with one’s mind.
Pyrokinesis – The ability to control flames, fire, or heat using one’s mind.

Shapeshifting or transformation — The ability to physically transform the user’s body into anything.
Thoughtography – The ability to impress an image by ‘burning’ it on a surface using one’s own mind only.
Xenoglossy — The ability of a person to suddenly learn to write and speak a foreign language without any natural means such as studying or research, but that is often rather bestowed by divine agents.
Witnessing – The gift of being visited by high profile spiritual beings such as Mary, Jesus or Fudosama (Acala) from Buddhist Traditions.

BOTTOM LINE: Who knew there were so many ways to be not normal? Surely one appeals to you—or maybe more than one!

FANNIE FARMER: NOT MY USUAL BLOG

Posted on March 14, 2023March 14, 2023 by vlaw759

Because this is Women’s History Month, every day I’ve been spotlighting a woman on my Facebook page. But Fannie Merritt Farmer (1857-1915) deserves more than a paragraph!

(Note: Though she sometimes spelled her first name “Fanny,” Fannie Merritt Farmer was not affiliated with the Fanny Farmer candy company. Frank O’Connor named his candy company after the chef and food scientist in part to ride the wave of her fame in 1919.)

Early Culinary Training

Fannie Farmer was born on March 23, 1857, in Boston, Massachusetts. The oldest of four daughters in a family that highly valued education, she was expected to go to college, but suffered a paralytic stroke at the age of 16. Some say she contracted polio that permanently affected her left leg. In any case, for the next several years she was unable to walk and was cared for in her parents’ home.

*From an 1896 issue of “The Boston Cooking School magazine of culinary science and domestic economics”*

Once she was able to walk again, she did so with a pronounced limp. At the end of her life, she was again confined to a wheelchair. And none of this kept her from achieving much and influencing virtually every household in the United States even today.

During the time she was homebound, Fannie took up cooking for guests in her mother’s boarding house. Not until the age of 30 did she enroll in the Boston Cooking School. The Women’s Education Association of Boston founded the Boston Cooking School in 1879 “to offer instruction in cooking to those who wished to earn their livelihood as cooks, or who would make practical use of such information in their families.”

Fannie enrolled during the height of the domestic science movement. The curriculum covered all the basics, including nutrition and diet for the well, convalescent cookery, techniques of cleaning and sanitation, chemical analysis of food, techniques of cooking and baking, and household management.

Fannie was one of the school’s top students. She graduated in 1889 and stayed on as assistant to the director, and in 1891, she became school principal. The school became famous after the publication of The Boston Cooking School Cookbook by Fannie Merritt Farmer in 1896.

Fannie Farmer Cookbook

The publisher, (Little, Brown & Company) did not expect good sales and printed a first edition of only 3,000 copies—at Fannie Farmer’s expense! Thus she became an early “self-published” authors who made good. Subsequent editions were published as The Fannie Farmer Cookbook (or The Fanny Farmer Cookbook).

The cookbook was titled The Boston Cooking-School Cook Book through the eighth edition, published in 1946. The ninth edition, published in 1951, was titled The New Fannie Farmer Boston Cooking-School Cook Book. Not until the eleventh edition, 1965, did it become The Fannie Farmer Cookbook.

You can now read the entire 1918 edition of The Fannie Farmer Cookbook online!

Farmer’s book eventually contained 1,850 recipes. As was the custom for cookbooks of the day, she included essays on housekeeping, cleaning, canning and drying fruits and vegetables, and nutritional information. Farmer also provided scientific explanations of the chemical processes that occur in food during cooking,

The Mother of Level Measurements
Photo: Bettmann/Getty

And (in my opinion) the most important contribution for cooks today: she standardized measurements used in cooking throughout the US. I’m not alone in this; food historians have called her the “mother of level measurements.” Prior to Fannie Farmer, recipe authors listed ingredients as a lump of butter, a teacup of milk, a goodly amount of honey, … Level cups and teaspoons (or fractions thereof) as we know them today are thanks to Fannie Farmer.

Fannie Farmer’s Impact

Her cookbook was so popular in the United States—so thorough, and so comprehensive—that The Fannie Farmer Cookbook, went through twelve editions. By 1979, the Fannie Farmer Cookbook Corporation copyrighted and published The Fannie Farmer Cookbook, and Marion Cunningham updated the thirteenth edition.

Farmer left the School in 1902 and created Miss Farmer’s School of Cookery. She began by teaching women plain and fancy cooking, but her interests eventually led her to develop a complete work of diet and nutrition for the ill, titled Food and Cookery for the Sick and Convalescent which contained thirty pages on diabetes.

Food and Cookery for the Sick and Convalescent by Fannie Farmer

Farmer gave lectures at Harvard Medical School, teaching convalescent diet and nutrition to doctors and nurses, and taught a course on dietary preparation at Harvard Medical School. She felt so strongly about the significance of proper food for the sick that she believed she would be remembered chiefly for her work in that field.

During the last seven years of her life, Farmer always used a wheelchair. Even so, she continued to write, invent recipes, and lecture, until ten days before her death. The Boston Evening Transcript published her lectures, which were picked up by newspapers nationwide. Farmer died in 1915 at age 57 of complications related to her stroke/polio.

She is interred in Mount Auburn Cemetery, Cambridge, Massachusetts. (Mount Auburn is my favorite cemetery and was the prototype for Hollywood Cemetery in Richmond, VA.)

Fannie Farmer’s Works

As far as I can tell, this is a complete list of her books:

Farmer, Fannie Merritt (1896). Boston Cooking-School Cookbook. Boston, MA: Little, Brown, and Company. A complete list of editions may be found at Boston Cooking-School Cook Book.
Farmer, Fannie Merritt (1898). Chafing Dish Possibilities. Boston, MA: Little, Brown, and Company.
Farmer, Fannie Merritt (1904). Food and Cookery for the Sick and Convalescent. Boston, MA: Little, Brown & Co.
Farmer, Fannie Merritt (1905). What to Have for Dinner: Containing Menus with Recipes for their Preparation. New York, NY: Dodge Publishing Company.
Farmer, Fannie Merritt (1911). Catering for Special Occasions, with Menus and Recipes. Philadelphia, PA: D. McKay.
Farmer, Fannie Merritt (1912). A New Book of Cookery: Eight-hundred and Sixty Recipes Covering the Whole Range of Cookery. Boston, MA: Little, Brown, and Company.
Farmer, Fannie Merritt, ed. (1913). The Priscilla Cook Book for Everyday Housekeepers. Boston, MA: The Priscilla Publishing Company.
Farmer, Fannie Merritt (1914). A Book of Good Dinners for My Friend; or “What to Have for Dinner”. New York, NY: Dodge Publishing Company.
- [Republication of What to Have for Dinner: Containing Menus with Recipes for their Preparation (1905).]

Fannie in the Kitchen
Fannie Farmer biography

One hundred and three years after her death The New York Times published a belated obituary for Fannie Merritt Farmer. This obituary and Wikipedia are the primary sources used for this blog. I finally found a biography for her, but I don’t have it and don’t know how comprehensive it is.

Bottom line: People should know that Fannie Merritt Farmer was more than a compiler—or even a creator—of recipes.

For other extraordinary women I’ve highlighted on my blog, check out

Trailblazing women in history
The history of women in the workplace
Notable women in psychological history
Pioneering women in the music industry
The struggle for women’s suffrage
Religious historian Elaine Pagels
Science fiction author Ursula K. LeGuin
Mystery author Dorothy Sayer
Interviews with author Fiona Quinn and astronomer Heidi Hammel
My paternal grandmother Margaret Louisa Butcher

BLACK WRITERS IN THE UNITED STATES

Posted on February 21, 2023February 21, 2023 by vlaw759

Who comes to mind? Chances are it’s such Pulitzer Prize winners as fiction writers Alice Walker, Toni Morrison, and Colson Whitehead.

“From the first African-American Pulitzer winner — Gwendolyn Brooks in 1950 — to more recent winners such as Tyehimba Jess, Lynn Nottage and Colson Whitehead, these writers’ creative interpretations of black life are rooted in research and history.” (pulitzer.org)

Since that 1950 first, there have been six African American Pulitzer Prize winners in poetry (including Tracy K. Smith, the Poet Laureate of the U.S. from 2017 to 2019), four in drama, and a special citation for Alex Haley, author of Roots.

So far, the only Black American to win a Nobel Prize in literature is Toni Morrison, in 1993.

These recent accolades have grown from deep historical roots.

Early Examples of Poetry and Fiction

Lucy Terry Prince, often credited as simply Lucy Terry (1733–1821), was an American settler and poet. As an infant, she was kidnapped in Africa and sold into slavery in the colony of Rhode Island. Obijah Prince, her future husband purchased her freedom before their marriage in 1756. She composed a ballad poem, “Bars Fight”, about a 1746 altercation between white settlers and the native Pocomtuc. This poem was preserved orally until being published in 1855. It is considered the oldest known work of literature by an African American.

Another early African-American author was Jupiter Hammon (1711–c1806), enslaved as a domestic servant in Queens, New York. Hammon, considered the first published Black writer in America, printed his poem “An Evening Thought: Salvation by Christ with Penitential Cries” as a broadside in early 1761. His speech “An Address to the Negroes in the State of New York” (1787) may be the first oration by an African American speaker that was later published. In 1778 he wrote an ode to Phillis Wheatley, in which he discussed their shared humanity and common bonds.

Phillis Wheatley
possibly by Scipio Moorehead

The poet Phillis Wheatley (c. 1753–1784) published her book Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral in 1773. This first book aimed to prove that “Negros, Black as Cain,” were not inherently inferior to whites in matters of the spirit and thus could “join th’ angelic train” as spiritual equals to whites. Her mastery of a wide range of classical poetic genres, Greek and Latin classics, history, British literature, and theology proved that claims that only Europeans were capable of intelligence and artistic creation were patently false. Members of the Abolitionist movement embraced Wheatley’s literary prowess, which combined elements from many genres of poetry with Gambian elegiac forms and religious themes to create work that was read and shared by people on both sides of the Atlantic. In addition to being the the first African American to publish a book, Wheatley was the first to achieve an international reputation as a writer. Selina Hastings, the Countess of Huntington, was so impressed by Phillis Wheatley’s skill that she gave the financial support to publish Wheatley’s book in London.

Victor Séjour (1817–74) wrote “The Mulatto” (1837), the first published work of fiction known to have an African American author. Juan Victor Séjour Marcou et Ferrand was an American Creole of color and expatriate writer. Born free in New Orleans, he spent most of his career in Paris and published his fiction and plays in French. “The Mulatto” did not appear in English until the Norton Anthology of African American Literature was published in 1997.

In 1853 William Wells Brown, an internationally known fugitive slave narrator, authored the first Black American novel, Clotel; or, The President’s Daughter (1853). The story centers around two mixed-race women fathered by Thomas Jefferson and held in slavery in Monticello. Like Phillis Wheatley’s poetry, Brown’s book was first published in London. Inspired by the success of Frederick Douglass’s work, Brown published Narrative of William W. Brown, a Fugitive Slave, Written by Himself in 1845, detailing his early life in Missouri and his escape from slavery. In 1858, he wrote The Escape, the first play written by an African American author to be published in America.

Frank J. Webb’s 1857 novel The Garies and Their Friends, was also published in England, with prefaces by Harriet Beecher Stowe and Henry, Lord Brougham (Lord High Chancellor of England). It was the first work of fiction by an African-American author to portray passing, a mixed-race person deciding to identify as white rather than black. It also explored northern racism, in the context of a brutally realistic race riot closely resembling the Philadelphia race riots of 1834 and 1835. Webb published his novel in London, where he and his wife lived between 1856 and 1857.

In 1859—still pre-Civil War—Harriet E. Adams Wilson wrote the first novel by a Black person that was published in the United States, in Boston. She claimed to have written the book with the sole purpose of earning enough money to survive. Our Nig; or Sketches from the Life of a Free Black, In a Two-Story White House North, Showing that Slavery’s Shadow Falls Even There, was largely autobiographical, and most of what scholars know about “Hattie” Wilson is derived from her novel. The story of Our Nig centers around a mixed-race woman in New England, discussing the racism and abuse that went on even in the nominally free states of the North. The publishing world largely assumed her novel to have been written by a white author until scholarship by Henry Louis Gates, Jr proved the author to have been an African American woman.

*Original Manuscript of The Bondswoman’s Narrative*

A recently discovered work of early African-American literature is The Bondwoman’s Narrative, which was written by Hannah Crafts between 1853 and 1860. Crafts was born into slavery in Murfreesboro, North Carolina in the 1830s but escaped to New York around 1857. Her book has elements of both the slave narrative and a sentimental novel. If her work was written in 1853, it would be the first African-American novel written in the United States. The Bondwoman’s Narrative also has the distinction of being the only novel entirely untouched by white editors, presenting the author’s thoughts without being filtered to be palatable to a white audience. The novel was published in 2002.

Autobiographies

Early African-American spiritual autobiographies were published in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, preceding the slave narratives. I won’t delve into those here, except to say that authors of such narratives include James Albert Ukawsaw Gronniosaw, John Marrant, George White, Zilpha Law, Maria W. Stewart, Jarena Lee, Nancy Gardner Prince, and Sojourner Truth.

According to Wikipedia, “The slave narratives were integral to African-American literature. Some 6,000 former slaves from North America and the Caribbean wrote accounts of their lives, with about 150 of these published as separate books or pamphlets. Slave narratives can be broadly categorized into three distinct forms: tales of religious redemption, tales to inspire the abolitionist struggle, and tales of progress. The tales written to inspire the abolitionist struggle are the most famous because they tend to have a strong autobiographical motif. Many of them are now recognized as the most literary of all 19th-century writings by African Americans.”

Frances E. W. Harper (1825–1911), born free in Baltimore, Maryland, wrote four novels, several volumes of poetry, and numerous stories, poems, essays and letters. She was an abolitionist, suffragist, co-founder of the National Association of Colored Women’s Clubs, and the first African American woman to publish a short story. She was also the first woman instructor at Union Seminary in Ohio. Her book Poems on Miscellaneous Subjects, self–published in Philadelphia in1854, sold more than 10,000 copies within three years.

Harriet Jacobs (1813 or 1815 – March 7, 1897), born into slavery in Edenton, North Carolina, was the only woman known to have left writing that documents that enslavement. Her autobiography, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, written by Herself, published in 1861 under the pseudonym Linda Brent, is now considered an “American classic”. For most of the twentieth century, critics thought her autobiography was a fictional novel written by a white author. Jacobs’ autobiography is one of the only works of that time to discuss the sexual oppression of slavery, which led many publishing companies to refuse her manuscript; she finally purchased the plates and had the book printed “for the author” by a printing firm in Boston.

Other African-American writers also rose to prominence in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Charles W. Chesnutt, was a well-known short story writer, novelist, and essayist. He wrote many works dealing with social and racial identity in the American South after the Civil War.
Paul Lawrence Dunbar, who mixed mainstream English and the dialect of rural, Black communities, was the first African-American poet to gain critical acclaim and national prominence. His first book of poetry, Oak and Ivy, was published in 1893.
Mary Weston Fordham published a book of poetry in 1897, Magnolia Leaves. She worked as a teacher for the American Missionary Society, and many of her poems contain spiritual themes, as well as references to family and historical events.
Elizabeth Keckley was born into slavery and became a friend of Mary Todd Lincoln and head of the Department of Sewing and Domestic Science Arts at Wilberforce University in Ohio. Her book Behind the Scenes; or, Thirty Years as a Slave and Four Years in the White House, focused her narrative on the incidents that “moulded her character,” and on how she proved herself “worth her salt.” It details her life in slavery, her work for Mary Todd Lincoln and her efforts to obtain her freedom.

After the Civil War

One of the most influential authors of this period is Booker T. Washington (1856–1915). Among his published essays, lectures, and memoirs are Up From Slavery (1901), The Future of the American Negro (1899), Tuskegee and Its People (1905), and My Larger Education (1911). Booker Taliaferrro (he adopted the surname Washington later in life) was born into slavery in Virginia and attended school while working in a coal mine, eventually graduating from Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute. He was the founder and first president of Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute (now Tuskegee University). Advisor to may presidents, he is the first African American to appear on a U.S. postage stamp, or to be invited to dine at the White House.

W. E. B. Du Bois (1868–1963), in addition to being one of the most prominent post-slavery writers, was also a sociologist, socialist, lecturer, historian, and civil rights activist. In 1903 he published an influential collection of essays entitled The Souls of Black Folk in which he wrote, “The problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the color-line.” He drew from his personal experience growing up in rural Georgia to describe how African Americans lived within American society. William Edward Burghardt Du Bois completed graduate work at the Friedrich Wilhelm University (Berlin, Germany) and earned a doctorate in philosophy from Harvard University. Du Bois was one of the original founders of the NAACP in 1910.

The Norton Anthology of American Literature (Fourth Edition, Volume 1) spanning the colonial period to the Civil War, includes biographical information and samples of the works by Phillis Wheatley, Harriet Jacobs, and Frederick Douglass. Volume 2, which surveys the years since the Civil War includes biographical information and writing samples from Washington and Du Bois, as well as more than a dozen other Black U. S. writers.

Bottom line: There’s much more to writing by Black Americans than the big name fiction writers (great as they are)!

“Just Friends”?

Posted on February 14, 2023February 14, 2023 by vlaw759

Today’s blog post was written by Kathleen Corcoran

The term “just friends” makes me grit my teeth every time I hear it. It implies that romantic and sexual relationships are somehow worth more than platonic friends. Friendship is relegated to a consolation prize or afterthought.

An Irish Gaelic word, anamchara, captures the importance of intimate friends in our lives. It means both friend and soul mate. In the Martyrology of Oengus, Brigid of Kildare said, “Anyone without a soul friend is like a body without a head.”

The ancient Greeks agreed. Aristotle defined friends as “A single soul dwelling in two bodies.”

So if friends are the other parts of our souls, why does society (and the media) refer to intimate companions as “just friends”?

Humans are a Friendly Species

Since the days of wandering tribes of hunter/ gatherers, homo sapiens have needed to rely on the strength of the community for individual survival.

The benefits start in childhood. People who spent more time with friends as a child are likely to have a lower body mass index and blood pressure as adults.

Being around friends causes humans’ brains to release dopamine, norepinephrin, vassopresin, oxytocin, and serotonin, making people happier, calmer, less stressed, and more likely to survive and recover from difficult situations.

Having intimate friends decreases your chances of developing dementia.

When in proximity to friends or other loved ones, a person’s brain releases fewer stress hormones in response to threats.

People with close friends have lower rates of cardiac disease, high blood pressure, diabetes, and excessive abdominal fat. If they have a heart attack, people who report not feeling lonely are much more likely to survive.

Even the perception of having the emotional and practical support of friends improves the likelihood of a good outcome when a person goes through hard times.

Having friends is even good for your career! According to a Harvard Business Review study, women with strong friendship circles, particularly when those friendship circles are primarily other women, advance more in their careers and earn 2.5 times higher pay.

“Just friends” keep us alive and healthy!

We Need Friends More Than Family or Romance

**Platonic: How the Science of Attachment Can Help You Make-and Keep- Friends**
by Dr. Marisa Franco

As Dr. Marisa Franco wrote in Platonic: How the Science of Attachment Can Help You Make-and Keep- Friends, intimate friendships provide people with unique benefits that other relationships cannot. Friends provide emotional support without getting bogged down in decisions about retirement and childcare. Platonic friends have all the intimacy of romantic relationships without the obligation to provide sexual gratification.

Katherine Wu divides love into lust, attraction, and attachment. Intimate friends combine the attraction (dopamine, norepinephrin, and serotonin) of romantic relationships with the attachment (oxytocin and vasopressin) of family relationships without the libido involvement (estrogen and testosterone) of lustful relationships.

A study by William J. Chopik found that people with strong relationships with friends and with family experience better health and happiness overall. However, at advanced ages, people with intimate friendships have better health even than those with strong family ties. This might be because friendships that last into old age have already withstood the test of time.

Many women experience more intimacy with same-sex friends than they do with romantic partners.

Close friends (and family and romantic partners) develop similar brain-wave patterns when they are together. However, when they part, friends keep those similar patterns longer than they do with familial or romantic intimates.

That’s a lot of brain chemistry and health benefits from people who are “just friends.”

Things Weren’t Always This Way

*Gilgamesh and Enkidu shared what might now be called a “romantic friendship.”*

Until recently, most people married for reasons of politics, progeny, or property. According to Stephanie Coontz, author of Marriage, a History: How Love Conquered Marriage, the understanding of marriage as an emotional institution did not arise until the 19th century.

Before then, people much more commonly turned to friends for emotional intimacy and affection. Friends kissed and cuddled each other, slept together, and provided the kind of support that, today, society only condones in romantic relationships.

When his friend Enkidu dies, Gilgamesh mourns him, saying, “My friend Enkidu, whom I loved so dear, who with me went through every danger, the doom of mortals overtook him.”

In the Bible, King David said of his friend Jonathon, “Your love was wonderful to me, passing the love of women.”

When he lived in Springfield, Illinois, Abraham Lincoln had a very close friend named Joshua Fry Speed, with whom he shared a bed and had pillow fights in his pyjamas.

With the rise of women’s suffrage came more female-only spaces, such as women’s colleges, where intimate friendships developed into new traditions and forms of expression.

When a Vassar girl takes a shine to another, she straightway enters upon a regular course of bouquet sendings, interspersed with tinted notes, mysterious packages of “Ridley’s Mixed Candies,” locks of hair perhaps, and many other tender tokens, until at last the object of her attentions is captured, the two women become inseparable, and the aggressor is considered by her circle of acquaintances as — smashed.
Yale student newspaper, 1873

The Lord of Montaigne, a Renaissance-era French philosopher even claimed that friendship was so intense and intimate that women could not understand it.

Seeing (to speake truly) that the ordinary sufficiency of women cannot answer this conference and communication, the nurse of this sacred bond: nor seem their minds strong enough to endure the pulling of a knot so hard, so fast, and durable.
Michel Eyquem, Sieur de Montaigne

John Laurens and Alexander Hamilton
detail from The Surrender of Lord Cornwallis by John Trunbull

Letters to friends frequently included language that modern writers would reserve for romantic or sexual partners.

In 1779, Alexander Hamilton wrote to his friend John Laurens, “Cold in my professions, warm in [my] friendships, I wish, my Dear Laurens, it m[ight] be in my power, by action rather than words, [to] convince you that I love you.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson said of his friends, “What is so delicious as a just and firm encounter of two, in a thought, in a feeling?”

So how did people move from intimate companions, romantic friendship, and soul mates to … “just friends”?

Blame Technology

Well, sort of. For most of our history as a species, humans have lived in small communities with strong social networks. During the Industrial Revolution, people moved to cities in droves, where those strong social networks were more difficult to maintain. Instead, people turned for intimacy (as well as child-rearing and basic survival) to romantic partners and connections within the nuclear family.

*Friends work together to pull heavy loads.*

Until the 1800s, the word “loneliness” did not exist. The closest word in English, “oneliness,” simply meant being without other people, without any negative connotations. A growing consumer economy, research in psychiatry, and a spreading understanding of evolutionary biology emphasized the importance of the individual alone rather than as a member of the community.

The closed doors and relative anonymity of living in a crowd also changed people’s understanding of sexual orientation and intimacy. Victorian ideals of male and female behavior as being opposite and complementary meant that people restricted their opposite-sex friendships for fear of signalling romantic attraction.

At the same time, people restricted their friendships with those of the same sex due to new fears of perceived homosexuality. As Dr. Marisa Franco wrote in Platonic: How the Science of Attachment Can Help You Make-and Keep- Friends, “Our discomfort with affection in friendships coincides with the rise of homophobia as it is expressed today.”

Psychiatrists like Sigmund Freud and Richard von Kraft-Ebbing characterized romance among people of the same gender as a sexual disorder, creating the concept of sexual identity. As historian Lilian Faderman writes in Odd Girls and Twilight Lovers, the turn of the 20th century “was also the beginning of a lengthy period of general closing off of most affectional possibilities between women. The precious intimacies that adult females had been allowed to enjoy with each other earlier — sleeping in the same bed, holding hands, exchanging vows of eternal love, writing letters in the language of romance — became increasingly self-conscious and then rare.”

Homohysteria, the fear of being perceived as being homosexual, drastically curtailed people’s demonstrations of affection and intimacy among their friends. Before the 19th century, society stigmatized people for non-cormforming sexual acts but not for attraction or for non-sexual behaviors. Freud and Kraft-Ebbing, among others, created the modern definitions of sexual identity, which included homophobia.

Today, people are lonelier than ever. People shy away from expressions of intimacy and love with friends lest they be perceived as declarations of romantic or sexual attraction.

Social media technology, despite filling our screens with the activities of friends, can actually make us lonelier. When people use social media platforms to facilitate face-to-face interactions, they report less loneliness and stronger relationships. However, when they replace face-to-face interactions with activity on social media platforms, they report weaker relationships and stronger feelings of isolation. Research tells us that there is no replacement for communicating with or spending time with intimate friends.

Today, on St. Valentine’s Day, I’d like to celebrate all the friendly people reading this. Friends make us happier and less stressed. Friends help us in our careers. Friends keep us healthy and sometimes even keep us alive. Friends make our lives better in innumerable ways. Friends are so much more than “just friends.”

A MURMURATION OF STARLINGS

Posted on February 7, 2023February 7, 2023 by vlaw759

Collective nouns fascinate me, as I’ve mentioned before. I’ve heard a group of starlings called a “murmuration” most often, but I’ve also seen

Murmuration of starlings — *Murmuration of Starlings in France*

A chattering of starlings
A cloud of starlings
A clutter of starlings
A congregation of starlings
A flock of starlings
A scintillation of starlings

In mid-January, a starling showed up at our bird feeder. A week or so later, we saw two. A few days ago, we had a whole clutter of them!

Starlings are boisterous, loud, and they travel in large groups (often with blackbirds and grackles).

Starling flock — *Some starling watchers have created a game of finding shapes in the swirling s of flying starlings*

Attractive Starlings

Juvenile European starling — *Adult European starling feeding a juvenile*

Their appearance changes with age and seasons. Young ones are more brown than black.

Summer starling plumage — *Starling plumage in summer*

In fresh winter plumage they are brown, covered in brilliant white spots. In summer they are purplish-green iridescent—but not as blue-black iridescent as grackles.

Their legs are officially pink, though I’ve always thought they look more yellow. The bill is black in winter and yellow in summer.

Bigger than chickadees, smaller than blue jays, starlings seem to me to be about the size of cardinals.

Winter starling plumage — *Starling plumage in winter*

Starlings have diverse and complex vocalizations and have been known to embed sounds from their surroundings into their own calls, including car alarms and human speech patterns. The birds can recognize particular individuals by their calls and are the subject of research into the evolution of human language.

Starlings are active, social birds. Pet starlings notoriously bond closely with their caretakers and seek them out for companionship. Although wild birds, they are easy to tame and keep as pets. Their normal lifespan is about 15 years, possibly longer in captivity.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart kept a pet starling for several years. He may have written his Piano Concerto No. 17 in G, (K. 453) as an adaptation of the bird’s song. When it died, Mozart held an elaborate funeral for it, calling on all the mourners to sing the bird a requiem in procession.

Mozart starling song — *Mozart’s notation of his starling’s song, written in his expense book in 1784, to which he added the note “Vogel Stahrl 34 Kr. … Das war schön!”* *(Starling’s song, 34 Kreuzer… That was beautiful!)*

“Come Here” Starlings

As the story goes, Eugene Schieffelin—an eccentric pharmacist in the Bronx—was an Anglophile and a Shakespeare aficionado. As deputy of a group whose goals included introducing European species that would be “interesting and useful” and benefit homesick immigrants. Schieffelin, it is believed, latched onto the goal of bringing every bird mentioned in the works of Shakespeare to Central Park, and he zeroed in on the Bard’s single reference to a starling in Henry IV.

HOTSPUR: He said he would not ransom Mortimer,
Forbade my tongue to speak of Mortimer.
But I will find him when he lies asleep,
And in his ear I’ll hollo “Mortimer.”
Nay, I’ll have a starling shall be taught to speak
Nothing but “Mortimer,” and give it him
To keep his anger still in motion.
Henry IV, Part 1 (Act I, Scene 3, Line 228)

However, according to Eugene Schieffelin’s obituary in 1906, he imported starlings for an entirely different reason — to wage war on a particular type of caterpillar that was invading his garden. In fact, researchers at Alleghany College published an article in 2021 arguing that the story of Schieffelin’s obsession with Shakespeare grew out of social and political anti-immigrant sentiments common at the end of the 19th and early 20th centuries.

In any case, starlings are an introduced species to America and have adapted well to urban life, which offers abundant nesting and food sites. It took them just 80 years to populate the continent. They are a ubiquitous, nonnative, invasive species. There are so many that no one can count them—estimates run to about 200 million. Genetic research shows that all of these millions of birds descended from the original 80 or so birds Eugene Schieffelin released in Central Park. They’ve behaved atrociously in their New World.

Despised Starlings

Starlings can damage grass turf as they search for food. While looking for worms, the extremely strong beaks of these birds often damage the root systems of the grasses they pull up. Large flocks can destroy crops in your garden and disturb your newly seeded lawn when the birds feed on seeds and berries.

The US Department of Agriculture officially classifies European starlings as an invasive species. Many biologists despise starlings for their reputed ability to outcompete native birds for food and a limited number of nest sites.

Nesting starlings — *Starling chicks in their crevice nest*

They nest in cavities, and each spring they seek crevices in buildings, homes, and birdhouses, as well as holes that have been carved into trees and poles by woodpeckers. They compete for these sites with other cavity nesters, including chickadees, bluebirds and swallows. Because starlings do not have to migrate south for the winter, they are able to claim the best nesting sites before breeding season begins.

This is my major concern: that a clutter of starlings will drive out native Virginia birds currently in our backyard (goldfinch, cardinal, blue jay, tufted titmouse, house finch, blue birds, woodpeckers, chickadee, flicker, wren, brown thrush, even the occasional sharp-shinned hawk and (a few) mockingbirds.

One hopeful possibility: “The evidence that this competition has led to significant population declines is pretty slim, at best,” says Walter Koenig, ornithologist and researcher.

Also, one significant point to remember: starlings thrive in areas that are disturbed by human presence, including dense urban environments, places where more sensitive species cannot survive in the long term. Maybe native birds are simply finding more hospitable locations.

Disastrous Starlings

However, starlings can cause actual public disasters. In 1960, Eastern Airlines Flight 375 took off from Boston’s Logan Airport for Philadelphia and other points south. Seconds after takeoff, it collided with a flock of 20,000 starlings. Two of the four engines lost power, the plane plunged into the sea, and 62 people died. This remains the worst airline crash—in terms of human fatality—that was ever caused by a collision with birds. See the 2017 article Even If We Don’t Love Starlings, We Should Learn to Live With Them by Lyanda Lynn Haupt.

From the same article: “After that crash, officials tested seasoned pilots on flight simulators to see if any could have saved the plane in such a scenario. All failed. In subsequent tests, live starlings were thrown into running engines. It was found that just three or four birds could cause a dangerous power drop.”

Although starlings’ ecological sins might be overstated, their devastating effects on agriculture are beyond doubt.

Starlings damage apples, blueberries, cherries, figs, grapes, peaches, and strawberries. Besides causing direct losses from eating fruits, starlings peck and slash at fruits, reducing product quality and increasing the fruits’ susceptibility to diseases and crop pests. They also lurk around farmyards and lots where they binge on feed in the troughs of cattle and swine.

The US Department of Agriculture counts the devastation as high as $800 million annually. Some researchers estimate that starling cause approximately $1.6 billion of damage to crops and livestock every year.

Dealing with Starlings

The good news is that for the last thirty years or so starling populations have been stable. Every species has a carrying capacity, the number of individuals that can thrive in a given place without exhausting resources, and perhaps starlings are there.

Ecologically, starlings’ presence lies somewhere between highly unfortunate and utterly disastrous.

Starlings are not protected in Virginia or by the federal government, which means that we can remove the starlings and their nests at any time of the year. We might also fill the bird feeders with food they don’t like, block potential nesting sites, and prune trees to deny cover for flocks. If these starlings turn out to be particularly stubborn, we might even play recordings of hawks and predator calls or simply bang pots outside to drive them off.

Bottom Line: Whatever a bunch of starlings are called, they are definitely a nuisance—maybe even a disaster!

Rosy starling (Pastor roseus) — **Rosy starling (Pastor roseus**)

Cape starling (Lamprotornis nitens) — **Rosy starling (Pastor roseus**)

Gift Giving Then and Now, Here and There

Posted on December 27, 2022December 30, 2022 by vlaw759

This is an update of an earlier blog entry from December 30, 2015. I wrote this as part of a series that might be characterized as Darwin’s Christmas, tracing the evolution of a number of our current Christmas traditions.

Gift Giving Origins

blue Santa Claus figurines related to Odin — *Blue-robed Santas reflect the influences of Odin, Saturn, Grandfather Snow, and Tovlis Babua.*

The earliest gift-bringer I read about was Odin, a Pagan Germanic god who is thought to have influenced concepts of Father Christmas in numerous ways, including sporting a long white beard and riding through the night sky. Odin wore a blue-hooded cloak and rode through the midwinter sky on an eight-footed horse named Sleipnir, visiting his people with gifts. According to pre-Christian Norse tradition, he entered through chimneys or fire holes on the solstice.

The Germanic goddess Holda presided over the summer and winter solstices. In the winter, she presided over the first snow, bringing joy and good fortune, traveling in her sleigh and dressed in a red or white cloak.

In 16th century England (during the reign of Henry VIII), Father Christmas was pictured as a large man in green or scarlet robes lined with fur. Popular custom associated Father Christmas more with good cheer, peace, joy, good food and wine, and revelry. In 1616, Ben Johnson presented at court the play Christmas: His Masque in which the character of ‘Old Christmas’ presides over holiday parties with his children ‘Misrule’, ‘Carol’, ‘Mince Pie’, ‘Mumming’, ‘Wassail’, and ‘New Yeares Gift’.

figurines of Santas around the world — *Representations of Santas around the world, L-R: Hungary, 1884; Austria, 1904; Russia, 1903; Canada, 1930; U.S.A., 1935; Mexico, 1923; U.S.A., 1925; Holland, 1920.*

Father Christmas merged with St. Nicholas (Sinterklaas), which morphed into Santa Claus. Suffice it to say that most people around the world who celebrate Christmas also have a tradition of a Christmas gift-bringer: Santa Claus, St. Nicholas, Pere Noël, Father Christmas, Christkindl, the Wise Men (Els Tres Reis), Olentzero, Grandfather Snow (თოვლის ბაბუა), or an old gift-giving witch called Befana (in Italy). In Scandinavia a jolly elf named Jultomten delivered gifts in a sleigh drawn by goats. And in Russia, an elderly woman named Babouschka (grandmother) leaves gifts by children’s bedsides on January 5th.

Mythical gift givers leave presents in different places. In much of Europe, children put their shoes or boots by the door, ready for presents. In Italy, the UK, and the USA presents are left in stockings—and, of course, under the Christmas tree.

Gift Giving Timing

gift-giving-santa-figurine-with-stack-of-gifts

People open presents on different days as well. Children in Holland often receive the earliest presents, on December 5th for St. Nicholas’ Eve. On St. Nicholas’ Day (6th of December), children in Belgium, Germany, Czech Republic, and some other European countries open some of their presents. Christmas Day (25th of December) is the most popular gift day for the UK, USA, Japan, and many other countries. In religions that follow the Julian or Orthodox calendar, children open gifts on Orthodox Christmas Day, which typically corresponds to January 7th. Many people in Catholic countries such as Spain and Mexico don’t open gifts until the Feast of the Epiphany, on January 6th.

Gift Receivers

Who gets presents has shifted dramatically over the centuries. At the Roman midwinter festival of Saturnalia, the rich gave gifts and hosted banquets for the poor. Odin gave presents to “his people.” The goddess Holda spread good fortune to all those who honored her. St. Nicholas gave to the poor.

According to the Christian Science Monitor, in early modern Europe, gift giving also had roots in Christmas begging, when bands of young men, often rowdy, would wassail from house to house, demanding handouts from the gentry. The Welsh Y Fari Lwyd or Mari Lwyd custom includes revelers dressed as skeltal horse arguing with households to demand entry and beer, all in rhyme and song. For Alilo, Georgian Orthodox children dress in white or in religious costumes and sing carols house to house in exchange for wine, sweets, and an egg. It wasn’t till the mid-1800s that gift-giving shifted from the poorer classes to children.

On the other hand, giving gifts to heads of state, kings and queens, emperors, etc, pre-dates the birth of Jesus.

Modern Gift Givers

Today, it seems everybody gives gifts to everybody—an impression strongly supported by advertising and merchant specials! Christmas begging from charities is rampant. Salvation Army kettles (which first appeared in 1891) are on sidewalks all over the world. Employers often give actual gift baskets or holiday bonuses. Co-workers, neighbors, and friends exchange gifts. Parents give gifts to children, but people also give gifts to parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, siblings and step siblings, and second cousins twice removed.

By now, all the glittery wrappings are probably torn asunder, the gifts put away, exchanged, maybe saved for re-gifting, and the leavings look more like this.