Tuesday, February 24, 2009

Take me down to Mardi Gras

Bon temps roulez mes amis. It's Mardi Gras (Fat Tuesday) folks. So everybody shake your groove thing.



Today is also know as Shrove Tuesday or Pancake Day, which heralds the beginning of fasting in Lent. On this day (so the historians say) there were feasts of pancakes to use up the supplies of fat, butter and eggs... foods that were forbidden during austere Lent.

In England there arc several celebrations on this day but perhaps the best known one is the Pancake Day Race at Olney in Buckinghamshire which has been held since 1445. The race came about when a woman cooking pancakes heard the shriving bell summoning her to confession. She ran to church wearing her apron and still holding her frying pan, and thus without knowing it, started a tradition that has lasted for over five hundred years.



Keep them pancakes coming

I saw this clip on the Huffingtonpost website and thought it the best way to review Oscar history -




Today in History:
On February 24, 1582, Pope Gregory XIII issued a proclamation that made everyone change their calendars from the Julian calendar to his own new and improved "Gregorian" calendar. (Obviously he was in cahoots with the calendar printing people, or he would have done it in November or December.) It was this shameless act of self-promotion that led to subsequent Vatican proclamations being called "Papal Bull."



Feb 24 1868 -
President Andrew Johnson impeached for High Crimes and Misdemeanors, which is fancy talk for removing Secretary of War Stanton. This remains an honor not bestowed again until the blowjob years of the Clinton Administration.



On February 24, 1920, the spokesman of a radical political group in Germany announced that it would change its name to the National Socialist German Workers' Party. The group had previously been called the East Munich Crips. Rejected names had included "The Genocidal Maniacs Party," "The World Conquest Party," and "The Party of Smiley People Who'll Make Life a Happy Little Picnic for Everyone."

This name change made all the difference in the world, and eventually led to Evil Nazi Bastards, who later teamed up with the Evil Fascist Bastards of Italy and became a Significant Problem. They did not kill quite as many people as the Evil Communist Bastards of the Soviet Union, however, and were therefore unable to scare posterity into producing apologists.



(The party spokesman who had announced the change was of course Adolf Hitler, who did not change his own name and is therefore known to history as... you guessed it... Adolf Hitler.)

Feb 24 1921 -
Abe Vigoda's birthday.



Not dead yet!


February 24, 1990 -
Businessman Malcolm Forbes dies of a heart attack, at his home in Far Hills, New Jersey.



Call boys all over New York, mourn his death.


And so it goes

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