03/31 Open Thread - International Taco Day

OK, I'm just gonna go straight to the wiki on this. A taco (US: /ˈtɑːkoʊ/, UK: /ˈtækoʊ/, Spanish: [ˈtako]) is a traditional Mexican dish consisting of a small hand-sized corn- or wheat-based tortilla topped with a filling. The tortilla is then folded around the filling and eaten by hand. A taco can be made with a variety of fillings, including beef, pork, chicken, seafood, beans, vegetables, and cheese, and garnished with various condiments, such as salsa, guacamole, or sour cream, and vegetables, such as lettuce, coriander, onion, tomatoes, and chiles. Tacos are a common form of antojitos, or Mexican street food, which have spread around the world https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taco

There are those who try to assert that tacos did not originate with the indigenous peoples of the Americas. This is laughable. Not only is there evidence for their existence in Mexico before the arrival of the conquistadores, but there is the small matter of maize. Maize is a new world plant and the indigenous new world peoples grew and used it long before the arrival of the various types of outsiders. The classic taco starts with a corn tortilla heated and softened on a comal and filled with whatever ingredients the cook chooses. The elements of this technology were foreign to the various invaders. The assorted gringoids knew nothing about corn and less about nixtamalization which is a key element in producing the corn masa from which proper tortillas are made. I will, however, give them the blame for flour tortillas, because they were, after all, the wheat people, the biscuit makers and flatbread aficionados. They also get the blame for the hard-shell crispy style of taco, the Taco Bell® taco, but that's it.

FWIW, I was raised in SoCal, mere miles from the Mexican Border so tacos are in my blood. I'm quite partial to Baja Style fish tacos, but am also a firm believer in the idea that you can put anything in a taco so long as it will fit and isn't liquid. As I write this I'm strongly considering making corned beef tacos for St. Paddy's day

On this day in 1918, Daylight Savings Time went into effect in the US for the first time. It has been 106 years and still nobody has come up with a reasonable justification for this foolish and deadly ritual.

On March 31, 1968, LBJ gave a speech to the nation. It is said that he spoke on how to limit the war in Vietnam, but all I remember is that he promised not to run again. In retrospect, he turns out to have been the last Johnson Democrat, to be followed after a brief period of chaos and fragmentation within that party by the "New Democrats". He gave us The War on Poverty as opposed to a war on the poor and the end of welfare as we know it, starting with the Economic Opportunity Act and the Office of Economic Opportunity. He gave us the Civil Rights Act of '64, The Civil Rights Act of '68, and the Voting Rights Act of '65. He did give us an "Omnibus Crime Act", but it was quite tame compared to the later "Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994" and the subsequent "Patriot Act". He signed over 300 conservation measures into law including the Wilderness Act and the Clean Air Act. He did preside over the Vietnam War and the Invasion of the Dominican Republic, but there is some evidence that he was not a casual war monger, let alone a gleeful one, nor an aficionado of "regime change operations". He also didn't indulge in targeted assassinations, especially not of US citizens or their children. His presidency was a time of transition between the US ad a "Garrison State" and the US as an out and out warfare state, and it is not at all clear that he approved of the transition. He, after all, worked for arms control agreements with the USSR and signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

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On this day in history:

1492 – Queen Isabella of Castile ordered Spain's Jewish and Muslim people to convert to Christianity or face expulsion.

1774 – The Kingdom of Great Britain ordered the port of Boston, Massachusetts closed pursuant to the Boston Port Act.

1854 – Commodore Matthew Perry signed the Convention of Kanagawa with the Tokugawa Shogunate, opening the ports of Shimoda and Hakodate to American trade.

1889 – The Eiffel Tower was officially opened.

1899 – Malolos, capital of the First Philippine Republic, was captured by American forces.

1901 – Rusalka by Antonín Dvořák premiered at the National Opera House in Prague.

1905 – Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany declared his support for Moroccan independence in Tangier

1913 – The Vienna Concert Society rioted during a performance of modernist music by Arnold Schoenberg, Alban Berg, Alexander von Zemlinsky, and Anton von Webern, causing a premature end to the concert due to violence; this concert became known as the Skandalkonzert.

1917 – According to the terms of the Treaty of the Danish West Indies, the islands become American possessions.

1918 – A massacre of ethnic Azerbaijanis was committed by The Armenian Revolutionary Federation and Bolsheviks.

1918 – Daylight saving time went into effect in the United States for the first time.

1930 – The US Motion Picture Production Code was instituted, imposing strict censorship on the treatment of sex, crime, religion and violence in film for the next thirty-eight years.

1933 – The Civilian Conservation Corps was established to relieve rampant unemployment in the United States.

1945 – A defecting German pilot delivered a Messerschmitt Me 262A-1 to the Americans

1949 – The Dominion of Newfoundland joined the Canadian Confederation and became the 10th Province of Canada.

1951 – Remington Rand delivered the first UNIVAC I computer to the United States Census Bureau.

1964 – Brazilian General Olímpio Mourão Filho ordered his troops to move on Rio de Janeiro starting a coup d'état

1966 – The Soviet Union launched Luna 10 which later became the first space probe to enter orbit around the Moon.

1968 – LBJ spoke to the nation on "Steps to Limit the War in Vietnam" in a TV address. At the conclusion of his speech, he announced: "I shall not seek, and I will not accept, the nomination of my party for another term as your President."

1991 – Nearly 99 percent of Georgian voters supported the country's independence from the Soviet Union.

1991 – The Warsaw Pact formally disbanded. NATO, allegedly created to defend against it, never did. Strange.

1992 – The Treaty of Federation was signed in Moscow.

1998 – Netscape released Mozilla source code under an open source license.

2004 – In Fallujah, Iraq, four US private military contractors (mercenaries) working for Blackwater USA, were killed

2018 – Start of the 2018 Armenian revolution.

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Some people who were born on this day:

If you would be a real seeker after truth, it is necessary that at least once in your life you doubt, as far as possible, all things.

~~ René Descartes

1596 – René Descartes, mathematician and philosopher 1621 – Andrew Marvell, poet and politician 1685 – Johann Sebastian Bach, composer 1730 – Étienne Bézout, mathematician and theorist 1732 – Joseph Haydn, pianist and composer 1778 – Coenraad Jacob Temminck, zoologist and ornithologist 1809 – Edward FitzGerald, poet and translator (translated the Rubaiyat) 1823 – Mary Boykin Chesnut, author 1833 – Mary Abigail Dodge, writer and essayist 1906 – Sin-Itiro Tomonaga, physicist and academic 1908 – Red Norvo, vibraphone player and composer 1911 – Freddie Green, guitarist 1913 – Etta Baker, singer and guitarist 1921 – Lowell Fulson, blues singer, songwriter, and guitarist 1927 – Cesar Chavez, labor union leader and activist 1928 – Lefty Frizzell, singer, songwriter, and guitarist 1933 – Anita Carter, singer, songwriter, and bassist 1934 – John D. Loudermilk, singer, songwriter and, guitarist 1935 – Herb Alpert, singer, songwriter, trumpet player, and producer 1938 – Arthur B. Rubinstein, pianist, composer, and conductor 1942 – Hugh McCracken, guitarist and producer 1974 – Stefan Olsdal, bass player 1977 – Toshiya, bass player, songwriter, and producer 1980 – Kate Micucci, singer, songwriter, guitarist, and actress 1981 – Ryan Bingham, singer, songwriter, and guitarist

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Some people who died on this day:

No man is an island, entire of itself.

~~ John Donne

1631 – John Donne, lawyer and poet 1837 – John Constable, painter and educator 1855 – Charlotte Brontë, novelist and poet 1917 – Emil von Behring, physiologist and immunologist 1995 – Selena, singer and songwriter 1996 – Jeffrey Lee Pierce, singer, songwriter, and guitarist 1998 – Bella Abzug, lawyer, activist, and politician 2006 – Jackie McLean, saxophonist and composer

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Some Holidays, Holy Days, Festivals, Feast Days, Days of Recognition, and such: World Backup Day Eiffel Tower Day Cesar Chavez Day (United States) International Taco Day International Transgender Day of Visibility National Farm Workers Day

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