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Accidental Invention of Snow Globes

December 23, 2025 by suzannesmom

Photo: Original Vienna SnowGlobe.
In the year 1900, Erwin Perzy I of Vienna created the very first snow globe. Unintentionally.

I’ve always liked stories of inventions that happened by accident. The currently ubiquitous Post-it Notes, for example. I think it takes special kinds of creative thinkers to realize they’ve on stumbled a good invention.

I recently learned that the popular snow globe was the offshoot of a medical project. Erik Trinidad writes about it at the Smithsonian.

“In the opening scene of the 1941 mystery Citizen Kane, the eponymous protagonist, played by Orson Welles, clenches a snow globe in his hand as he utters his last word: ‘rosebud.’ The glass-encased spherical diorama of a snowy scene was a mere novelty at the time, but the film, in part, gave rise to its popularity.

“Now, more than 80 years later, it’s hard to imagine the Christmas season without snow globes. A symbol of childhood nostalgia, the Austrian innovation has become beloved around the world.

“In September 2024, I toured the Original Viennese Snow Globe Factory and Museum in Vienna’s 17th district. Erwin Perzy III, spokesperson of the multigenerational family business, led me through the story of how his grandfather, Erwin Perzy I, invented the snow globe.

“ ‘He invented this by mistake, because he wanted to make something different,’ he told me. ‘The improvement of the electric light bulb was his [intention].’

“It was 1900 when Erwin Perzy I, a tradesman who built and repaired surgical instruments for local physicians in Vienna, was tasked with creating an inexpensive solution to amplify light in hospital operating rooms. Perzy, who always had a knack for experimenting in his workshop, found inspiration for his assignment in a tool used by local shoemakers: a glass globe filled with water to act as a magnifying glass. He positioned an Edison light bulb near a water-filled glass globe, and he added different reflective materials to the liquid that might help increase the illumination — including white particles that floated around before sinking like snow. …

“He had a friend who sold souvenirs to pilgrims at the Mariazell Basilica, a local religious site south of Vienna, for whom he made trinkets; he molded little pewter models of the church to be sold alongside candles and crosses. One day, an idea struck: to combine two of his handiworks together, by putting the miniature pewter church inside the wooden base of the glass globe filled with water and white wax particles — effectively creating the first snow globe. Perzy knew he had something special on his hands— not to mention marketable — and applied for a patent for ‘glass ball with snow effect.’ …

“ ‘Collectors agree that the first snow globe patent was issued to the Viennese Erwin Perzy,’ reports Anne Hilker in her thesis, ‘A Biography of the American Snow Globe: From Memory to Mass Production, From Souvenir to Sign,’ filed in the Smithsonian Libraries and Archives. But her report also cites appearances of snow globes that, while short-lived, predate Perzy’s patent. ‘The earliest snow globe for which both specific surviving contents and date can be established is that containing a miniature of the Eiffel Tower from the Paris [Exposition] of 1889.’ …

“Perzy started putting other models into glass spheres and selling them in markets around the city. By 1908, he had become known by many Austrians, including Emperor Franz Joseph, who praised Perzy for his ingenuity and gave him a special award as an Austrian toymaker. …

“Its trendiness waned after World War I. With the subsequent economic depression, snow globes were not a necessary purchase, and sales rapidly went into decline. The situation did not improve during World War II. However, when the war ended and soldiers returned home, starting families and creating the baby boom of the late 1940s and ’50s, a subsequent snow globe boom took hold. …

“Enter Erwin Perzy II, a motorbike and typewriter mechanic. … ‘My father’s idea was changing the pilgrim souvenir to a Christmas item,’ Perzy III told me. ‘He made a Christmas tree.’ Perzy II took three new models of snow globes—a Christmas tree, a snowman and Santa Claus—to the international toy fair in Nuremberg, Germany, in 1955.

“ ‘They bought our snow globes like it was something to eat!’ Perzy III gushed as he retold his father’s success story. ‘We supplied all the big stores, like Macy’s, Neiman Marcus, Saks Fifth Avenue, Bergdorf Goodman — all these big chains.’ “

More at the Smithsonian, here. Got any snow-globe memories? Please share them.

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Ma’amoul as Ecumenical Holiday Treat

December 22, 2025 by suzannesmom

Photo: Zeena Bakery.
Ma’amoul is a traditional Middle Eastern cookie made by combining semolina flour with butter and milk, forming it into a dough, and filling it with nuts or dates. 

I love that in my extended family there are three religions. We have what are sometimes called the Children of Abraham because they share the Old Testament in some form: Jews, Muslims, and Christians.

Lillian Ali reports at the Smithsonian that they also share a shortbread cookie around the holidays. It’s called ma’amoul.

She writes, “Three days a week, Zeena Lattouf Joy rolls hundreds of balls made of semolina dough. She flattens them out; fills them with chopped walnuts, dates or pistachios; and uses a mold to shape them into decorated cookies called ma’amoul. …

“Ma’amoul is a traditional Middle Eastern cookie often enjoyed around Muslim, Christian and Jewish holidays, made by combining semolina flour with butter and milk, forming it into a dough, and filling it with nuts or dates. Some ma’amoul recipes use ghee, rather than traditional butter; others mix all-purpose flour with the semolina or add a small amount of sugar to the dough. Still others flavor the dough with rose water, orange blossom water or a marzipan-like spice called mahleb. Across all iterations, what sets ma’amoul apart from other shortbread cookies is the way they are shaped with a wooden mold with a decorative carving set inside, called a taabeh or a qaleb.

“ ‘I find it really meditative,”’says Lattouf Joy, of the process of rolling, flattening, stuffing and molding. ‘It allows me to just kind of zone out.’

“Lattouf Joy worked in behavioral psychology and negotiation for several years. ‘At some point along the way, I started to, you know, wonder: “What if I just baked bread?” ‘ she says. She ultimately quit her job, and, in late 2023, she founded Zeena Bakery.

“While many people think of knafeh or baklava when it comes to Arabic sweets, Lattouf Joy decided her ‘micro-bakery’ would specialize in ma’amoul, which she grew up baking with her Palestinian grandmother. …

“In January 2022, Lattouf Joy practiced iteration upon iteration of the recipe, trying to fine-tune it, adjusting quantities of flour and baking soda until she evoked her grandmother’s treasured cookie.

“Now, Zeena Bakery sells cookies at farmers markets in Brooklyn’s Fort Greene Park and Irving Square Park, as well as online, shipping thousands of them nationwide. She makes between 2,500 and 3,000 cookies each month, on average. Lattouf Joy says one idea motivating Zeena Bakery was to buy from farmers and try to center them in her business. She hopes that, as it continues to grow, the key stakeholders will stay the farmers she sources from and the employees.

“ ‘My goal is to center as many farmers as I can, whether they’re farmers in the Levant and Palestine or in New York,’ says Lattouf Joy.

‘My hope is to create an environment that is about kindness and love and care.’

“Before ma’amoul were treats served at special occasions, they were simple biscuits that fueled travelers. ‘ “Ma’amoul” is not really a fancy word,’ says Nawal Nasrallah, an Iraqi food writer and historian, known for translating medieval Middle Eastern recipes into English. It comes from the Arabic verb “amala,” which means “to do” or “to make.” ‘

“Ma’amoul can be traced back to an Egyptian cookie called kahk, Nasrallah explains. In the medieval era, ‘basketfuls’ of kahk could keep for weeks or months as travelers trekked on horseback or camelback. … Modern kahk, still enjoyed in Egypt, are nearly identical to ma’amoul, except that semolina flour is absent from the dough.

“The adoption of kahk, and later ma’amoul, as cookies used in religious celebration can be traced back to ancient Mesopotamia, Nasrallah says. Ancient Sumerians would celebrate the coming spring and the goddess Ishtar by preparing qullupu, also a dry cookie stuffed with dates.

“As time went on, the filled cookie, in the form of the ancient qullupu, the medieval kahk, and eventually ma’amoul and its Iraqi equivalent kleicha, stayed firm as staples of spring celebrations like Easter, Eid and Purim. …

“Ma’amoul even has relatives as far as China, where mooncakes are made with carved wooden molds similar to taabeh. In fact, Nasrallah says, the distinctive, circular patterns carved into the taabeh are moon-like, since Muslims follow the lunar calendar.

” ‘Names differ from region to region, from one era to another, but, basically, the food is the same, and its function is more or less the same: celebratory food for religious festivals,’ says Nasrallah. …

“In a blog post, Lattouf Joy writes that Zeena Bakery is a ‘love letter’ to her grandmother and ‘a love letter to all of our ancestors — yours and mine.’ ”

Check out the family recipe at the Smithsonian, here.

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Music at the Library of Congress

December 21, 2025 by suzannesmom

Photo: Shawn Miller/Library of Congress.
The Dalí Quartet, accompanied by Ricardo Morales on clarinet, performs during the Library of Congress’ Stradivari concert in Coolidge Auditorium in 2023.

I can see why, as National Public Radio suggests, the music program in today’s story has been staying under the radar. Under the radar is the place many good activities and people feel safest these days.

NPR’s Tom Huizenga reported recently on a little-known cultural venue in Washington DC.

“The year is 1925. The Great Gatsby is published, the jazz age is swinging, and on October 28th, a new concert hall opens at an unlikely spot — the Library of Congress, in Washington D.C. If only its cream-colored walls could talk. For 100 years, performers of all stripes have graced the Library stage, from classical music luminaries like Béla Bartók and Igor Stravinsky to Stevie Wonder, Audra McDonald and Max Roach. Today, it remains one of the capitol city’s most beautiful, best sounding and perhaps best kept secrets.

“The idea [came] from philanthropist Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge — and one bespoke piece of bipartisan legislation. ‘She was indefatigable and intrepid,’ says Anne McLean, senior producer for concerts at the Library, ‘a remarkable woman, six feet tall, a brilliant pianist.’ …

“Coolidge was born into a wealthy Chicago family in 1864. She studied music, traveled abroad, married a Harvard-trained orthopedic surgeon and, in 1924, came to Washington to establish a foothold in the nation’s capitol. She approached Carl Engel, the Library’s music chief, about the possibility of adding a small concert hall to the Library’s voluptuous — and voluminous — Thomas Jefferson building. …

“Eager to get started, Coolidge wrote a check for $60,000 to the Librarian of Congress, Herbert Putnam, on Nov. 12, 1924. And yet there was no legal mechanism in place for a civilian to make such a monetary gift to the U.S. government. Congress worked quickly, taking only a little over a month to pass a bill allowing such a contribution.

“It took less than six months to build the hall itself — the intimate, 485-seat Coolidge Auditorium, with its warm precise acoustics. ‘There are a lot of secrets to it,’ McLean says. ‘The back wall of the auditorium is slightly shaved to be concave and extremely responsive to string sound. Underneath the stage is hollow. But that hollowness is a factor, as is the cork floor, which was very unusual for its time.’ McLean says the sound blossoms in the hall. …

“The most famous [Coolidge] commission became one of America’s most iconic pieces of music. Aaron Copland‘s ballet Appalachian Spring, written for dancer and choreographer Martha Graham, received its world premiere at Coolidge Auditorium on Oct. 30, 1944. …

“And the commissions keep coming, thanks in part to generous women who followed in Coolidge’s philanthropic footsteps. Composers commissioned for the 100th anniversary include MacArthur fellows Tyshawn Sorey and Vijay Iyer, plus Pulitzer winner Raven Chacon, George Benjamin and the electronic artist Jlin. Pulitzer-winning composer Tania León had her own world premiere earlier in this 100th anniversary season. Para Violin y Piano was commissioned by the Library’s Leonora Jackson McKim Fund. …

“Situated inside the Library of Congress, Coolidge Auditorium benefits from the Library’s substantial acquisitions. In the mid-1930s, another philanthropist, Gertrude Clarke Whittall, gave the Library a set of rare Stradivarius instruments. …

” ‘When they were first acquired, there wasn’t a resident ensemble. And the concept was, “How do we keep them in great shape?” So they were occasionally hiring musicians to play them for $2.50 an hour,’ McLean says with a laugh. …

“These days, the Strads can be played by any string quartet booked for a concert at the Library. But McLean says there’s a catch: The musicians need to show up a couple days early to learn how to control them.

‘The secret of the [Strads] is that they are like racehorses, they’re thoroughbreds, and they can get away from you if you don’t have a chance to get used to them.’

“Cellist Daniel McDonough and his bandmates in the Jupiter String Quartet got used to them when they played the Strads at the Library earlier this year. I asked McDonough if playing one of the instruments was anything like finding yourself behind the wheel of a Ferrari.

” ‘Yes, the automotive analogy is a good one,’ he says. ‘Sometimes I say it has a fifth gear. These instruments, because they’ve been played for hundreds of years and because they’ve aged and grown into themselves so beautifully, have a kind of ringing tone that I think no other instrument’ has.”

More at NPR, here. Nice photos. No firewall.

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Fund for Independent Literature

December 20, 2025 by suzannesmom

Photo: Andrew Harnick/AP file photo.
Mellon Foundation president Elizabeth Alexander is one of the people behind a new fund for the literary arts.

Among the many worthy causes clamoring for our attention at this time of year and in this political climate are those that support the First Amendment, including freedom of the press.

Where I live, we have a nonprofit local newspaper that is sent free to every post box. it was launched with funds from donors and grants and now has the enthusiastic support of all sorts of local advertisers.

For national and international news, I subscribe to the Guardian and the Christian Science Monitor, which are independent of the kind of corporate pressure that contaminates many large television networks and newspapers. Who owns news purveyors really matters. And I believe that ordinary people can help a lot.

Another First Amendment realm that philanthropists have realized need support involves the literary arts — the freedom to write poetry, novels, and other kinds of high-quality books. That’s why a new fund has been started.

HILLEL ITALIE writes at the Associated Press, “Citing a chronic shortage of financial backing for independent publishers and nonprofits dedicated to writing and reading, a coalition of seven charitable foundations has established a Literary Arts Fund that will distribute a minimum of $50 million over the next five years.

“The idea for the fund was initiated by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the country’s largest philanthropic supporter of the arts. Mellon President Elizabeth Alexander cited literature as a vital source of expression.

“ ‘Novelists, poets, and all manner of creative writers have shaped and driven our collective discourse and capacity for invention since the nation’s founding,’ Alexander, an acclaimed poet who joined Mellon in 2018, said in a statement. ‘American philanthropy can and must play a bigger role in strengthening the financial infrastructure of the literary organizations and nonprofits that serve these literary artists.’

“The other participants are the Ford Foundation, Hawthornden Foundation, Lannan Foundation, John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the Poetry Foundation and an anonymous foundation. The project will be overseen by Jennifer Benka, whose previous experience includes serving as executive director of the Academy of American Poets. …

“During a telephone interview with the Associated Press, Alexander emphasized that the literary fund had been in the works well before the National Endowment of the Arts and National Endowment of the Humanities drastically cut back their support this year for virtually every art form. She referred to a 2023 study from the research organization Candid that found literary organizations and individuals were receiving less than 2% of some $5 billion in arts grants awarded in the U.S. … Alexander said support will likely extend across a wide range of recipients, from poetry festivals to writer residencies to small publishers. …

“Percival Everett, the Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist, said in a statement that ‘without nonprofit publishers American letters would have stalled long ago.’ Everett himself was published for decades by an independent press, Graywolf, before moving to Penguin Random House and breaking through commercially with James, which received the Pulitzer in 2024.”

More at AP, here. Please let me know if you have experience with nonprofit publishers.

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The Red Crab Migration

December 19, 2025 by suzannesmom

Photo: Parks Australia via AP.
A road closed sign next to red crabs during their annual migration on Christmas Island, Australia, in October 2025.

I’m belatedly checking in on this year’s red crab migration. It happens annually on Australia’s Christmas Island, which, according to Wikipedia, “derives its name from its discovery on Christmas Day 1643 by Captain William Mynors.” I have reports from both Public Radio International’s The World and People magazine.

From AP’s Rod McGuirk via The World: “Tens of millions of red crabs are making their way to the ocean as part of their annual migration on Christmas Island, where a much smaller human population uses leaf blowers and garden rakes to help them on their way.

“Christmas Island National Park acting manager Alexia Jankowski [said] there were up to 200 million of the endemic crabs, also known as Gecarcoidea natalis, on the tiny Australian island territory in the Indian Ocean. Up to 100 million were expected to make their way from their forest burrows to the shoreline where they breed.

“The start of the Southern Hemisphere summer rains [triggered] the annual odyssey.

“The crabs seek shade in the middle of the day, Jankowski said, but early mornings and late afternoons bring about a vast, slow march that sees them move to the coast over roads and gardens. …

“ ‘Some people might think they’re a nuisance, but most of us think they’re a bit of a privilege to experience. They’re indiscriminate. So, whatever they need to get over to get to the shore they will go over it. So if you leave your front door open, you’re going to come home and have a whole bunch of red crabs in your living room. Some people if they need to drive their car out of the driveway in the morning, they’ve got to rake themselves out or they’re not going to be able to leave the house without injuring crabs,’ she added.

“On the shores, the male crabs excavate burrows where the females spend two weeks laying and incubating eggs. The females are all expected to release their spawn into the ocean at high tide. … The young spend a month riding the ocean currents as tiny larvae before returning to Christmas Island as small crabs.

“ ‘When they’re little babies only about half the size of your fingernail, we can’t rake them, because you’d crush them. So, instead, we use leaf blowers,’ Jankowski said.”

At People, Rachel Raposas adds, “The mass migration heavily impacts regular human activity across Christmas Island.

“Footage captured by ABC shows a small road completely overrun by red crabs, slowly but surely all heading in the same direction towards the sea. During the migration, no space is off limits to the crabs, ABC reported, including busy streets and people’s homes. …

“Alexia Jankowski, Christmas Island National Park’s acting manager, told ABC [that] many residents try to avoid driving during the early morning and late afternoons to give the crabs ‘freedom’ during this important time.

“The migration is kicked off by the island’s first rainfall of the wet season, which is usually in October or November but can be as late as January, per the National Park’s site.

“The crabs’ migration is dictated by the moon and the tides, according to the park. The crabs consistently spawn eggs ‘before dawn on a receding high-tide during the last quarter of the moon,’ which the creatures somehow interpret each year.”

Isn’t amazing how critters know when and where to migrate or spawn? Read up on this at AP via The World, here, and at People, here. The pictures of crabs crawling over everything might creep out the uninitiated, but on Christmas Island, most folks love and protect their crustacean neighbors.

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Adorable Ad, in French

December 19, 2025 by suzannesmom

Thanks , Sheree, for permission to share this!

Intermarché’s Christmas Advert

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Dallas Draws New Opera Audiences

December 18, 2025 by suzannesmom

Photo: Amy O’Neil.
Amy O’Neil, the Digital Content Marketing Manager for the Dallas Opera, has earned the organization a new following thanks to her quirky, fun, and innovative videos that explain everything.

Many people adore opera, but there are also many who are sure they wouldn’t like it, even though they’ve never tried. So how is Dallas Opera attracting new, younger audiences?

Bethany Erickson at D magazine interviews the brains behind the change.

“A few of the Dallas Opera orchestra’s musicians were ready to leave after practice, but a handful were still milling around their rehearsal space in the Winspear Opera House. Some of them were gathered around a machete-wielding percussionist as he attempted to mimic the sound a guillotine makes as the blade descends to chop off someone’s head. 

“After tries with other instrument combinations yield OK but not spectacular results, he stands next to a metal pole, then slides the machete against it, the metal-against-metal action creating a ‘snick’ and then a long, slicing ‘hiss’ as the machete descends, followed by a heavy thunk at the end. …

“On hand to capture the behind-the-scenes work for the season’s second production, Dialogues of the Carmelites, [Dallas Opera social media guru Amy O’Neil] says she’s not sure exactly what she’ll use the footage for, but she wasn’t going to miss filming it.

“That sort of infectious creativity has made O’Neil’s work for the Dallas Opera a must-watch. From her fun, punchy synopses of upcoming productions to her award-nominated series ‘Don’t Look Under the Wig,’ she says her work is aimed at making the opera feel more accessible. …

“O’Neil has been with the Dallas Opera for more than six years, starting in group sales before convincing her employer that her talents might just attract a new wave of opera buffs. A UNT graduate, she studied business, music, and communications, and then spent time abroad studying, among other things, classical music and opera history in Vienna. She also does improv and is a musician. …

“O’Neil and I sat down at a table overlooking the Winspear’s expansive lobby to talk about her work. What follows has been edited for clarity and brevity.

Bethany Erickson
“I told my coworkers to check out the Dallas Opera social media feed because it was so fun.

Amy O’Neil
“Oh my god, I have so many more things about to come out that are more me, just telling our audience things, because time and time again, that’s what performs well. Like, they just want to see me as a goofy regular person, going, ‘Can you believe this? She’s cursed and on a random island,’ and whatever.

Erickson
“So take me back in time to when you first started.

O’Neil
“I started in ticketing, and then I did group sales, and then I was social media, and now I’m, like, all things digital. … They were coming to me and saying, ‘We want you to do a program or whatever you want where you’re doing makeup stuff,’ and that’s where ‘Don’t Look Under the Wig’ came in. And that really opened the door to not only show the company, ‘Oh, hey, I can do all these other crazy things,’ but also to test how I did with the people out there. …

“The first time I did a synopsis, it was because we didn’t have any ready-to-go assets, and I was like, ‘I’ll come up with something.’ … I wrote it, filmed it, and edited it all within like 2 1/2 hours. And I mean that’s, like, my shortest synopsis, like a minute and a half, so it’s not like impressive or anything. It took off, and then it was like, ‘Oh, well, maybe I should do this for the next opera.’ …

Erikson
“I don’t envy you having to figure out the tone for the Dialogues of the Carmelites synopsis. …

O’Neil
“It’s interesting because we were talking about this recently. I wanted it to be unbelievably clear that Dialogues of the Carmelites is based on a real story about real nuns who were really beheaded and persecuted for their religion and died martyrs. … I can make housewife jokes about Don Carlo, but not about Dialogues of the Carmelites. … I want to do the Dialogues of Carmelites and still have it be a fun video, but not at the cost of disrespecting the art. It’s just a fine line. …

“One of my favorite things that happened last season was when I was just walking around before a show in the hall, taking pictures and whatever. And these two girls ran up to me. And they were like, ‘Oh my god, you’re the reason we’re here.  We just had to tell you because you’re the reason we’re here. When we saw you, we had to tell you.’ ”

More at D Magazine, here. Note that long before Dallas explained opera, both Looney Tunes and Disney took it on. Check out Bugs Bunny, here, and Willie the Whale, here.

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Basic Income for Artists

December 17, 2025 by suzannesmom

Photo: Submitted to CBC by Elinor O’Donovan.
Visual artist Elinor O’Donovan was chosen to be part of the Irish government’s basic universal income program for creatives. She says the money she receives every month is ‘transformative.’ 

A couple years back, I blogged about Ireland’s experiment in basic income for artists, here. Looks like it met its goals, because now the government is making the experiment permanent.

CBC’a As It Happens guest host Saroja Coelho has an interview with a beneficiary.

“Elinor O’Donovan says Ireland’s basic income program for artists completely changed her life and her work for the better.

“The Dublin-based multidisciplinary artist was a participant in Ireland’s three-year pilot program that saw 2,000 artists and creative arts workers receive a weekly stipend of €325 ($528.90 Cdn) between 2022 and 2025.

“ ‘It’s pretty huge,’ O’Donovan told As It Happens guest host Saroja Coelho. ‘It’s been transformative for my work, and for my well-being in general.”

“Now, Ireland has decided to make the program permanent, saying its benefits to society have far outweighed the costs to the government.

“Advocates for basic income in Canada are celebrating the announcement, hoping it drives momentum to enact a similar — and more widespread — program in this country. 

“But, despite evidence from the Parliamentary Budget Office that basic income could alleviate poverty, economists are warning Canadians not to hold their breath. 

“Basic income is any policy in which the government gives individuals unconditional cash transfers to meet basic needs.

“In 2022, Ireland launched Basic Income for the Arts (BIA), a pilot program designed to help the arts sector recover from losses sustained during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“ ‘This scheme is the envy of the world, and a tremendous achievement for Ireland, and must be made futureproof and sustainable,’ Patrick O’Donovan, Ireland’s culture minister, told reporters last week as his government unveiled its 2026 budget.

“The pilot, while expensive, generated a lot of bang for its buck, the minister said. 

“Overall, the government says it spent €105 million ($170.8 million Cdn) on the BIA. But an external report from Alma Economics found those costs were offset by a boost in audience engagement with the arts, increased tax generation, a reduction in social welfare payments, and improved psychological wellbeing for participants.

“With those benefits factored in, the report estimates the net cost of the pilot was €72 million ($117.1 million Cdn). …

“Basic income is something that artists in Canada have long been calling for. 

“In 2020, at the height of the pandemic, 75,000 Canadian artists, writers, technicians and performers, organizations and labour unions launched a campaign and public letter to the federal government calling for a universal guaranteed basic income.

“Now, they’re hoping the news out of Ireland can act as a springboard for the movement here at home. 

“ ‘We’re thrilled. What can I say?’ said Craig Berggold, spokesperson for the Ontario Basic Income Network, the organization behind the campaign. ‘It’s harder and harder for people to not only live, but also to get into the arts.’

“While basic income has massive support in creative industries, Berggold says he and his colleagues are campaigning for something more all-encompassing than Ireland’s BIA — guaranteed basic income for all Canadians who earn under a certain threshold.

“In a report published this summer, the Parliamentary Budget Office, the federal government’s fiscal watchdog, found that a guaranteed basic income program at the federal level could cut poverty rates in Canada by up to 40 per cent.

“ ‘Poverty is expensive for people and for the government,’ said Berggold, an artist based in Kingston, Ont.

“Berggold says basic income reduces spending on social welfare systems that don’t allow recipients to live with dignity and independence.

“ ‘It empowers people to make choices so that they can be bettering their lives, rather than having the kind of a system we have now which is surveillance based, which is checking in on you,’ he said.”

More at CBC, here. I’ve had a number of posts on basic income around the world. Search this site on the phrase.

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Hot Dog Santa

December 16, 2025 by suzannesmom

Photo: Boston Globe.
A headline in the Boston Globe from 1924.

I didn’t get to post this story about a charitable Gothenburg-born Boston immigrant last year, but I think you’ll agree that it’s a bit of Christmas history that will always be fresh.

Jenny Ashcroft wrote about it at Fishwrap, the official blog of Newspapers.com.

“On Christmas Day in 1921, a Swedish immigrant quietly wheeled his hot dog stand to a street corner in Boston’s North End and distributed 500 free hot dogs to hungry children. Axel Bjorklund was no stranger to poverty. He barely made ends meet himself, but he wanted to give back. His cart was soon swamped with hundreds of shivering children wearing tattered clothing that did little to stave off the cold. Their hungry faces beamed when Axel handed them a steaming hot dog. Eventually, the food was gone, but Axel’s determination to repeat the event wasn’t. The Hot Dog Santa tradition was born. Over the next eight years, Axel gave away some 10,000 hot dogs before he died in 1930.

“Born in Gothenburg, Sweden, on August 6, 1869, Axel Bjorklund emigrated to America in 1889, eventually settling in Boston’s North End neighborhood. The area had become a melting pot of immigrants, most of whom were impoverished as they struggled to establish lives in a new country. The Spanish Flu Pandemic hit the North End particularly hard, leaving families even more destitute and many children orphaned.

“The first Christmas hot dog giveaway in 1921 was so successful that Axel decided to expand in 1922 and doubled the number of hot dogs to 1,000. His hot dog giveaway grew with each year until he distributed 3,000 annually. The children loved Axel and nicknamed him ‘Hot Dog Santa.’ …

“Axel’s annual Christmas Day hot dog giveaway eventually moved to New Year’s Day, but it was an event the children anticipated all year. As Axel’s generosity expanded, so did his health challenges. He was plagued with rheumatism, which led to frequent hospitalizations. His finances struggled, too, and he could no longer pay his rent. Not wanting to end the hot dog giveaway, he appealed to the public to help him continue the tradition.

“In December 1928, just before the annual hot dog giveaway, Axel’s landlady kicked him out because he hadn’t paid rent. The Salvation Army stepped in to help, but Axel was broke. The next two years saw Axel skipping between the poor house, the Cambridge Home for the Aged, or obtaining temporary lodging from generous benefactors. Despite his circumstances, in 1929, he participated in his final hot dog giveaway.

“On November 10, 1930, Axel Bjorklund passed away, penniless and alone at a Massachusetts hospital. He had no relatives and was set to be buried in a potter’s field when newspapers published word of his death. Citizens stepped forward, offering to contribute to a fund to give Axel a proper burial. The Swedish Charitable Society coordinated, and Axel was laid to rest in the Cambridge Cemetery.

“If you would like to learn more about the Hot Dog Santa or discover other heartwarming Christmas stories, search Newspapers.com.”

It hurts to think that today there are still plenty of shivering, hungry American children who could use this 1920s Good King Wenceslas.

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A Shaky Start for Charlie Brown’s Xmas

December 15, 2025 by suzannesmom

Photo: Apple TV.
The 1965 broadcast A Charlie Brown Christmas has become a holiday staple. But it almost didn’t get on the air. 

Have you watched A Charlie Brown Christmas lately? There’s a backstory. I find it fascinating how projects like this get broadcast in the first place. Gian Carlo Menotti’s Amahl and the Night Visitors was under crazy time pressure before NBC showed it on Christmas Eve, 1951. (The singers “received the final passages of the score just days before the broadcast.”) The one-act opera has since been performed the world over, not just on television.

Stephen Lind, Associate Professor of Clinical Business Communication at the University of Southern California, wrote about Charlie Brown at the Conversation.

“The 1965 broadcast has become a staple . … But this beloved TV special almost didn’t make it to air. CBS executives thought the 25-minute program was too slow, too serious and too different from the upbeat spectacles they imagined audiences wanted. A cartoon about a depressed kid seeking psychiatric advice? No laugh track? Humble, lo-fi animation? And was that a Bible verse? It seemed destined to fail – if not scrapped outright.

“And yet, against all the odds, it became a classic. The program turned ‘Peanuts’ from a popular comic strip into a multimedia empire – not because it was flashy or followed the rules, but because it was sincere. …

“The ‘Peanuts’ special came together out of a last-minute scramble. Somewhat out of the blue, producer Lee Mendelson got a call from advertising agency McCann-Erickson: Coca-Cola wanted to sponsor an animated Christmas special.

“Mendelson had previously failed to convince the agency to sponsor a ‘Peanuts’ documentary. This time, though, he assured McCann-Erickson that the characters would be a perfect fit.

“Mendelson called up ‘Peanuts’ comic strip creator Charles ‘Sparky’ Schulz and told him he had just sold A Charlie Brown Christmas – and they would have mere months to write, animate and bring the special to air.

“Schulz, Mendelson and animator Bill Melendez worked fast to piece together a storyline. The cartoonist wanted to tell a story that cut through the glitz of holiday commercialism and brought the focus back to something deeper.

“While Snoopy tries to win a Christmas lights contest, and Lucy names herself ‘Christmas queen’ in the neighborhood play, a forlorn Charlie Brown searches for ‘the real meaning of Christmas.’ He makes his way to the local lot of aluminum trees, a fad at the time. But he’s drawn to the one real tree – a humble, scraggly little thing – inspired by Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tale ‘The Fir Tree.’

“Those plot points would likely delight the network, but other choices Schulz made were proving controversial.

“The show would use real children’s voices instead of adult actors’, giving the characters an authentic, simple charm. And Schulz refused to add a laugh track, a standard in animated TV at the time. He wanted the sincerity of the story to stand on its own, without artificial prompts for laughter.

“Meanwhile, Mendelson brought in jazz musician Vince Guaraldi to compose a sophisticated soundtrack. The music was unlike anything typically heard in animated programming, blending provocative depth with the innocence of childhood.

“Most alarming to the executives was Schulz’s insistence on including the heart of the Nativity story in arguably the special’s most pivotal scene.

“When Charlie Brown joyfully returns to his friends with the spindly little tree, the rest of the ‘Peanuts’ gang ridicule his choice. … Gently but confidently, Linus assures him, ‘I can tell you what Christmas is all about.’ Calling for ‘Lights, please,’ he quietly walks to the center of the stage.

“In the stillness, Linus recites the Gospel of Luke, Chapter 2, with its story of an angel appearing to trembling shepherds. …

“ ‘Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men,’ he concludes, picking up his security blanket and walking into the wings. The rest of the gang soon concludes Charlie Brown’s scrawny tree isn’t so bad, after all – it just ‘needs a little love.’ …

“ ‘The Bible thing scares us,’ CBS executives said when they saw the proofs of the special. But there was simply no time to redo the entire dramatic arc of the special, and pulling it was not an option, given that advertisements had already run.”

And thus, commercialism pushed something nocommercial over the finish line.

More at the Conversation, here.

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Chicago River Restored

December 14, 2025 by suzannesmom

Photo: Linda Barrett.
The Chicago River, once badly polluted, has been cleaned up. Above, 265 swimmers participated in a public swim this year.

When humans make up their minds to do something, miracles can happen. Remember the river that caught fire and led to the Clean Water Act? Today’s article points to a more recent river success.

The environmental radio show Living on Earth reports that “on September 21st, hundreds of people leapt into the Chicago River for the first public swimming event since 1927.” Here’s an interview between Friends of the Chicago River Executive Director Margaret Frisbie and Aynsley O’Neill of Living on Earth. (I edited out the verbal pauses.)

Aynsley O’Neill
“This public swimming event was a fundraiser, but its impact actually goes even further than that. What does it mean to you to have public swimming in the Chicago River for the first time in nearly 100 years?

Margaret Frisbie
” ‘I was a magical day that’s hard to describe, seeing hundreds of people in the water swimming so joyfully, really represented all the work that Friends of the Chicago River and so many organizations and agencies have done to improve the health of the river, not only for people, but for wildlife too. The morning of the swim, people just were beyond thrilled. People were watching from the bridges. They were watching from the Riverwalk. … For people who’ve lived here a long time, I think it’s a game-changer. Seeing people in the water makes you believe that it’s possible. …

“We had Olympic athletes. We had … Becca Mann, who’s an Olympic athlete who swims 10Ks in open water, which is really impressive and amazing. She got out and she was just beside herself, and she said, I cannot wait to come back to Chicago and do this again. …

O’Neill
“Give us a sense of the difference between maybe now and maybe 50 years ago in terms of sewage spills into the river.

Frisbie
“When friends of the Chicago River was founded in 1979, on average, there was sewage in the river every three days. Fast Forward 46 years, and basically there’s never sewage in the river ever. …

“The one thing that’s always fun for us to talk about at Friends of the Chicago River is how alive the river is and how different it is. .. We’re seeing our aquatic animal life going up, and that’s because of the work of Friends of the Chicago River, the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District, the forest preserves at Cook County and so many partners. In the 1970s, when friends was founded, there were less than 10 species of fish in the river system. Now there’s nearly 80, and we have beavers and muskrats and turtles, and we’re seeing the return of river otters, who are really an excellent sign of river health, because they depend on clean water to keep their coats clean and their bodies healthy, and then they’re also dependent upon mussels and fish and other aquatic and macro invertebrates to eat. …

O’Neill
“For those who are unfamiliar, how did we get here? …

Frisbie
“Over the last 50 years, Friends of the Chicago River has been chipping away at both the actual water quality through advocating for cleaning up the river system, but also by using the Clean Water Act and building support for a river that was swimmable. And so the water quality has changed since 1979 when we were founded, bit by bit, you know, using the rules of the Clean Water Act and partnering with government agencies like the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District that dug a huge tunnel and reservoir system that’s virtually eliminated sewage from the river system, and then also disinfecting sewage affluent that goes to the river, and just also creating public access so people can get down to and in the water.

O’Neill
“How much of this was from a government level versus a volunteer level? How did that work?

Frisbie
“[It] really it takes both. The Tunnel and Reservoir Plan is 110 miles of tunnel, three enormous reservoirs that can store 17 billion gallons of sewage and storm water and industrial waste. However, it’s not just about building it; it’s having support for that system and also making sure that the government agencies who are working on it are on task, and making sure that they’re getting the work done. … Advocates encouraged and pushed a long way. So while we partner with this agency, the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District, on many, many programs, we also were engaged with forcing a permit that included an enforceable deadline of 2029 so they have to be done and wrap up the project and not say, hey, we ran out of money, we just can’t finish it yet. …

O’Neill
“What would you consider the biggest challenge during this process of cleaning up the Chicago River?

Frisbie
“People got used to the river systems being a place where sewage and waste could go, as opposed to we’re on the shores of Lake Michigan, which everyone fights for. …

“The river comes to us. It flows through communities. It’s a community connector, and it provides access to nature for people who live in an urban area. We also know that with the impact of the climate crisis, heat is the number one killer, and it is incumbent upon all of us to take seriously the fact that people need public open space where they can go and they can get away from the heat. … We know that nature actually improves public health, and, you know, mental wellness. So it plays so many, many, many roles. And then also we have major biodiversity loss, and cities can play a role in protecting biodiversity. … We are getting massive amounts of migratory animals, birds, bats, insects, and they depend on natural areas, and so it’s really important for that too. …

O’Neill
“For many of us, we might hear about the Chicago River once a year, St. Patrick’s Day, when it gets dyed green. What do you think about this tradition? …

Frisbie
“At Friends of the Chicago River, we think that we have outgrown that tradition. It’s really a fun morning. It builds community. … But we think a river that’s alive with wildlife really needs to be treated like a natural resource.”

More at Living on Earth, here.

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Teen Helps Elders Avoid Cybercrime

December 13, 2025 by suzannesmom

Photo: Time magazine.
Time has named Tejasvi Manoj, a 17-year-old at Lebanon Trail High School in Frisco, Texas, Kid of the Year.

Gone are the good old days when cybercriminals used dead giveaways like terrible English! Today they are more and more plausible, laying new traps for anyone not internet savvy, especially old folks like those in my retirement community. I hear the stories.

Jeffrey Kluger reports at Time magazine about teenager Tejasvi Manoj, who wanted to do something about that.

“The unnamed cybercriminals trying to scam seniors out of their money got more than they bargained for when they targeted Tejasvi Manoj’s grandfather back in February 2024.

“Tejasvi, then a 16-year-old junior at Lebanon Trail High School in Frisco, Texas, was driving home from Scouting America camp with her father when he suddenly noticed five missed calls on his phone — all from his 85-year-old father. He called back, and the older man reported that he had received an urgent email from another relative, Tejasvi’s uncle, asking for $2,000 to settle an unexpected debt. Given the apparent emergency, Tejasvi’s grandfather was prepared to transfer the funds — but her father urged him not to and the grandfather, at the suggestion of his wife, then called the uncle to see if the request was legitimate.

“ ‘I never asked you for money,’ came the response. ‘Please don’t send anything until I can look into what’s going on.’

“It was a near miss for the unsuspecting senior. The fact that criminals would seek to take advantage of an old man’s lack of sophistication about the workings of the internet galled Tejasvi. When she got home she went to her room and immediately began researching how common such scams are. Very common, it turns out. …

“Seniors represent a target-rich cohort for the bad guys. They’re typically retired, sitting on pensions and 401(k)s, and may be naive to the techniques favored by con artists. … . According to the Federal Trade Commission, the number of older adults who lost more than $10,000 to online scams increased fourfold from 2020 to 2024. For those who lost $100,000 or more, the increase was seven-fold, for a total of $445 million in 2024 alone. …

“Older Americans clearly need protection, and Tejasvi was determined to provide it. Within the year she had built and launched Shield Seniors, a website designed to educate the 60-plus demographic about what online scams look like, analyze suspicious emails and messages users upload, and, if the communications prove fraudulent, provide links to report them. The site is currently available in a private preview mode only, pending more R&D and fundraising, but is already — like its creator — making itself known. Tejasvi was recognized with an honorable mention in the 2024 Congressional App Challenge; delivered a 2025 TEDx talk in Plano, Texas, about the need to build ‘digital bridges’ to all demographics; and makes occasional appearances at local assisted-living facilities, demonstrating her website and teaching seminars about cybercrime.

“ ‘I remember going to my first seminar and I was super nervous,’ says Tejasvi, whose work has earned her recognition as TIME’s Kid of the Year for 2025. …

“Shield Seniors didn’t come easy. For one thing, Tejasvi had a lot of other activities to attend to. She is active in Scouting America — recently receiving her Eagle Scout rank — and plays violin in her school orchestra. She tutors Bhutanese refugees online in math and English through an organization called Vibha, a nonprofit involved in workforce and scholastic development in India. She also does volunteer work — serving on the leadership board of the North Texas Food Bank Young Advocates Council and packing meals, with the social-enterprise company TangoTab, for families facing food insecurity.

“ ‘I started volunteering in sixth grade,’ she says. ‘I think it’s really important; if you’re lucky yourself, you want to make sure other people feel loved and lucky too.’

“Shield Seniors presented another way to do that, and Tejasvi was well prepared to do the coding that would make the project possible. … Tejasvi began coding in eighth grade, taking cybersecurity classes and attending summer programs sponsored by the nonprofit Girls Who Code. She has also gotten involved in Cyber-Patriot, a joint Air Force and Space Force program to spark interest in cybersecurity and STEM disciplines among young people. …

“In February, after an early version of the site was ready, a story about Shield Seniors and Tejasvi appeared in the Dallas Observer, bringing her to the attention of the people at AARP. ‘They set up a meeting where I walked them through the website, and they were very impressed,’ Tejasvi said. …

“The website that has resulted from all of this work is equal parts intuitive, smart, and artful. Shield Seniors is divided into four principal sections. The first is labeled ‘Learn,’ and helps users master the basics of internet security, such as the importance of creating strong passwords, understanding privacy settings, knowing what information to share and what not to share, and, most important, recognizing what a scam looks like. … ‘Be careful with unexpected messages, especially those that rush you or seem too good to be true.’

“The second section, labeled ‘Ask,’ takes users to a chatbot that answers questions. Interacting with a population that was already approaching middle age when the internet appeared, Tejasvi’s bot keeps its answers simple—holding them to two sentences or even less. …

“The third section, labeled ‘Analyze,’ is where the true brains of the site live. When users click this tab they’re directed to a page that allows them to upload a suspicious text or email, which an AI system will then analyze with what Tejasvi says is 95% accuracy at determining what’s a scam and what’s not a scam. Then, it goes beyond just providing a digital thumbs-up or down.

“ ‘It will also explain why,’ she says, ‘because our goal for Shield Seniors is to make sure older adults are independent and know what to look for.’ …

“Finally, the site includes a ‘Report’ section that allows users to rat the fraudsters out. The site provides links to 14 private and government groups that accept and act on complaints, including the FBI, the Better Business Bureau, the Social Security Administration, AARP, the SEC, and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Just which group is the right one to contact depends on just which kind of fraud was committed. The FBI, for example, is a sort of one-stop-shopping site for all manner of cybercrime, including identity theft, computer intrusions, investment fraud, phishing, and ransomware. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau responds to complaints involving financial products and services including bank accounts, credit reports, and payments made or requested.”

More at Time, here.

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The Rise of College Radio

December 12, 2025 by suzannesmom

Photo: Olivia Glinski.
DJ Maya, WCBN (University of Michigan).

Whenever radio seems to be dead, something happens to revive it. And it’s never just one individual thing, but many individual things that roll up into a wave. Take a look at today’s college radio and why young people are gravitating toward it.

Emily White writes at her Substack, emwhitenoise, “It’s been a weird summer for the music industry. The fewest new hits in U.S. history. No song of the summer. An AI artist just signed a $3M record deal. The biggest band on the charts? HUNTR/X, a fictional K-pop girl group from a Netflix movie. …

“In September, a bombshell report from MIDiA Research crystallized the mood: ‘music discovery is at a generational crossroads,’ it argues: ‘Music discovery is traditionally associated with youth, but today’s 16-24-year-olds are less likely than 25-34-year-olds to have discovered an artist they love in the last year.’ …

“Even when they do discover artists, they are less likely to stream that artist’s music, according to the report. If you stopped reading here, you might conclude young people just don’t care about music anymore. However, one unexpected source of music discovery is quietly booming among Gen Z listeners: college radio. …

“I spoke to seven student general managers and surveyed 80+ DJs at stations across America: ACRN (Ohio University), WCBN (University of Michigan), WEGL (Auburn University), WHRW (Binghamton University), WRFL (University of Kentucky), WVBR (Cornell University), and WZBC (Boston College).

“They told me student interest in college radio has dramatically increased in recent years. Stations that once struggled to fill airtime are now turning people away, shortening shows, alternating time slots, and running training programs just to keep up with the demand from aspiring student DJs.

“For decades, college radio championed underground artists before they hit the mainstream. Against all odds — COVID shutdowns, FCC regulations, and the long decline of FM radio — college radio is thriving again. …Ten years ago, WCBN (Michigan) was struggling to fill three-hour programming blocks, says GM Anja Sheppard. Today, it’s the ‘fullest schedule we’ve had in recent memory,’ with shows reduced to one-hour due to ‘such demand from students to be on air.’

“At WRFL (Kentucky), ‘we’ve had some of the most exponential growth this station has seen in its 37 year history,’ says GM Aidan Greenwell. ‘We’ve gotten to the point where we simply don’t have enough time to allow everybody on the show schedule.’ …

“Demand for on-air slots is out-pacing ‘hours in the day’ at WEGL (Auburn), GM Rae Nawrocki says. The station has grown from roughly 30 members four years ago to 120 students and 60 on-air shows today.

“Some stations have so many aspiring student DJs, they have internships and apprenticeship programs for those waiting for their chance to go on-air: WHRW (Binghamton) has 150–200 active DJs and another 80 apprentices, WZBC (Boston College) counts 70 interns for its online stream in addition to 90 FM DJs.

“When Anna Loy, the president of the student media guild at WVBR (Cornell), first got involved with the radio station there were about 15 student DJs. ‘I’d sit around with my friends and kind of joke, “should we try to save the radio station?” ‘ she says. But now the station is thriving. …

“Students consistently described radio as an authentic, community-driven refuge from the passive, isolated, algorithm-driven digital experiences that have defined their adolescence. ‘You can’t scroll on reels and run a radio station at the same time,’ says Greenwell (WRFL) ‘You have to be in the present.’

“In our survey of 80+ DJs, students under 25 years old named ‘friends/word of mouth’ as their favorite way to discover music (69%), with TikTok (21%), YouTube (10%) or other social media (16%) relatively low-ranked.

“When asked ‘Who is your favorite artist you discovered recently, and how did you discover them?’ open-ended responses were split almost evenly between friends/word of mouth (27%) and algorithmic/streaming discovery (26%). …

” ‘I’m 21. I grew up in the age of algorithms. The way music is right now scares me because of the rise of AI. Not even AI made music (I hate it) but even just “Daily Mix, 1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and 5.” It’s not made by someone. It’s made by an algorithm. I wish more of that stuff was person curated.’ — Mari McLaughlin, WHRW (Binghamton)

“ ‘What attracts a lot of people to college radio is the idea of putting somebody on. Showing them a new song they haven’t seen before, outside of the algorithmic nature of streaming.’ — Aidan Greenwell, WRFL (Kentucky)

“ ‘I’ve started learning a lot more about music from other people’s recommendations than I ever had before. These experiences are shaping me more than algorithms or Spotify.’ — Anna Loy, WVBR (Cornell).

“ ‘Diehard music lovers are shifting away from Spotify. The trend I am seeing is people want ownership and community instead of this vague green app.’ — Rae Nawrocki (WEGL)

More at emwhitenoise, here. Do you listen to any college stations? I like WERS, especially for its weekend Broadway show. What’s funny about Emily White’s article is that young people are rebelling against Spotify algorithms that choose music for them when I’m so retro I haven’t even gotten to the algorithm stage. I think I’ll skip it.

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A Smelly, Beloved Fruit

December 11, 2025 by suzannesmom

Photo: Erika P. Rodríguez.
The stinky durian has loyal fans. Says one, “I consider it the No. 1 fruit on the planet.”

My husband remembers the smelly Limburger cheese his father used to keep in the refrigerator. It seemed like a horrible thing for anyone to choose to eat. And yet some people loved it. No accounting for tastes. The durian, a fruit, inspires similar reactions.

Thomas Fuller has a report from Puerto Rico.

” ‘I don’t like to use the word “smell,” ‘ said Juan Miranda Colón, a self-described fanatic of the world’s most odoriferous fruit. ‘I prefer to say it has an aroma.’

“Mr. Miranda, a farmer in Puerto Rico, was minutes away from feasting on the fruit, durian, and as its stink wafted through the humid, sticky air of the rainforest around him, he said his tongue tasted sweet with anticipation.

“ ‘I consider it the No. 1 fruit on the planet,’ he said resolutely as he watched others messily shove gobs of custardy durian flesh into their mouths. ‘I start eating, eating, eating. I can’t control myself. I wish I had a second stomach.’

“It was early August, and Mr. Miranda was taking part in an annual ritual at Panoramic Fruit, a farm 30 dizzying minutes up a potholed, zigzagging road from the western Puerto Rican city of Mayagüez. A multinational collection of durian fanatics had gathered for the harvest.

“An electrician had trekked from Tennessee to get his fix. A doctor had flown in from central California. There was a couple from Florida, and a family from Texas. Desperate would-be buyers from the other side of the island had also come, unannounced and imploring the farm manager for durian.

“ ‘I call them the rare-fruit nuts,’ said Ian Crown, the owner of the 94-acre farm, who lives most of the year in Massachusetts but treasures his trip to Puerto Rico for the summer harvest of tropical fruits obscure to most Americans: rambutan, mangosteen, pulasan, cupuaçu and many others.

“But it’s durian, unlike perhaps any other fruit, that grips its enthusiasts with obsession.

“Much is made of durian’s odor, which Anthony Bourdain, the food adventurer, compared to that of a dead body left out in the sun, but the fruit’s appearance is also particular and somewhat otherworldly.

Covered in very sharp and dangerous spines, the fruit looks like a giant puffer fish tethered to a tall tree.

“Calling it rare is of course relative. Durians are plentiful in their native Southeast Asia. … But in North America, fresh durian is hard to come by, not least because the odor makes it difficult to transport. H Mart, a chain specializing in Asian foods, recently posted a sign on a bin of durian at one of its stores in Queens. ‘DO NOT WORRY IT IS NOT A GAS LEAK,’ the sign said. …

“Yen Vu and Gleb Chuvpilo, a couple who drove to the farm from their home in San Juan, bought eight medium-size durian at $5 per pound. It was enough to feed a large, hungry family for a week, but the couple said they would probably polish them off in a weekend. Their love for the fruit has taken them on much longer journeys: Twice they have traveled to Borneo just to gorge on it.

“Ms. Vu says durian was an early litmus test in their relationship. After meeting at a salsa lesson in New York City, she queried Mr. Chuvpilo, an entrepreneur and venture capitalist born in Ukraine, on whether he had tried the fruit. He liked it. But what if he had hated it?

“ ‘It definitely would have put a strain on the relationship,’ said Ms. Vu, who is originally from Vietnam and has enjoyed durian since she was a child. …

“Teresa Chang, a family doctor who lives in Santa Ynez, Calif., remembers excitement growing up in western New York when someone came into the house with a haul of durian. ‘Oh my God! Get the cleaver!’ someone would yell before attacking the thick olive-green husks that surround the flesh. ‘They would eat it and then dance through the living room,’ Dr. Chang said. …

“For the uninitiated, the taste of durian is difficult to describe, partly because even when they’re from the same tree, durians can have such a variety of flavors.

“Dr. Chang bit into the ochre-yellow flesh of one durian and paused to consider what she was tasting. A hint of graham crackers, she concluded. Someone else mentioned burned sugar. Durian can be bitter or bubble-gum sweet. With the texture, and sometimes the taste, of crème brûlée, they resemble dairy products that happen to grow on a tree, Mr. Crown, the farm owner, says.

“He cut a small sample of one durian with the tip of his knife and dabbed the flesh into his mouth. ‘It’s like a kick in the head with a creamy, delicious, sweet taste on the back end,’ he said.

“Mr. Crown, a former commodities trader with a degree in agriculture and a curiosity about Southeast Asian fruits, bought the farm in 1994 after spending years scouting for a place that had the right climate and soil. …

“The first trees Mr. Crown planted were rambutan, the hairy, walnut-size fruit similar to lychees. Then he put in mangosteen trees, which produce sweet, bright white fruit encased in purple orbs.

“But his rare-fruit friends insisted that he was missing a key crop.

“ ‘Everybody said, “You have to have durian!” ‘ Mr. Crown recalled. So before even tasting it, he planted the trees. Fortunately, he doesn’t mind strong smell. ‘I have some cheese experiments in my fridge that would frighten the board of health,’ he said.”

So interesting that the durian, even from the same tree, has different tastes. Doesn’t a children’s book describe something like that? Alice in Wonderland? The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe? Help me out.

And please let me know if you eat this fruit. More at the Times, here.

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The Right to a Joyful Childhood

December 10, 2025 by suzannesmom

Photo: Jackie Mader/The Hechinger Report.
In Norway, a joyful, secure childhood is a legal right.

I was intrigued by today’s story on Norway’s approach to childhood. One point that made me smile was that the children in early-education programs take naps outdoors, bundled up in sleeping bags. My younger grandson took naps that way. Maybe because he’s half Swedish. Those Northerners don’t believe in bad weather.

Jackie Mader writes at the Hechinger Report via the Christian Science Monitor, “Just north of Oslo, Sylvia Lorentzen’s two child care programs straddle a narrow, winding road that leads up to the lush forests that encircle parts of Norway’s capital.

“In Norway’s system of universal child care, children ages 5 and under immerse themselves in nature. In the winter, those in Ms. Lorentzen’s care learn to ski and sled. In the summer, they swim, canoe, and rock climb – and then rest in hammocks.

“Around age 4, they learn how to safely use a knife. Then they huddle together outside, whittling wooden figures out of sticks to practice. By age 5, they are cutting logs with a saw and building fires. Toddlers nap outside, bundled inside puffy, miniature sleeping bags affixed to their strollers.

“Universal child care is ‘both seen as an investment for the society and an investment for the child,’ says Kristin Aasta Morken, a program leader in the city of Oslo. Public funding covers 85% of operating costs for child care programs in Norway. Parents pay about $182 per month.

“In the United States, it’s parents, mostly, who cover the costs for this care – though some employers and local jurisdictions may offer partial reimbursement.

‘Social differences are something Norway does not accept.’

“ ‘Kindergarten is so important to level out social inequities,’ says Robert Ullmann, head of a consortium of child care centers. ‘In Norway, we think it’s democratic that everyone can have the same opportunities and move out of being poor. Social differences are something Norway does not accept.’ …

“ ‘A really important pillar of Norway’s early ed philosophy is the value of childhood in itself,’ says Henrik D. Zachrisson, director of the Centre for Research on Equality in Education at the University of Oslo. ‘Early ed is supposed to be a place where children can be children and have the best childhood possible.’

“It’s an idea that undergirds Norway’s nationalized approach to its ‘kindergartens,’ which here serve children age 5 and younger, including toddlers and infants. …

“On a drizzly morning earlier this year at Preståsen Kanvas-barnehage, one of Mr. Ullmann’s kindergarten programs in south Oslo, children roam around an expansive play yard, building sandcastles under the canopy of a large pine tree. Others zoom down a hill on bikes.

“In another playground on campus, children shriek as they splash through a large puddle. This draws more children hoping to play. Rather than caution the children about getting wet, a teacher walks over and hands them buckets to have at it.

“Children with disabilities, who are often segregated in American child care programs, are included in activities. Some of them have a city-funded aide who attends to their needs.

“In some rooms, posters on the wall show pictures of common items or common requests, so children still learning Norwegian can point to what they need. In one room, children are learning about the Muslim holiday, Eid al-Fitr. …

“Ironically, Norway’s policies have been inspired in part by American studies that found troubling language skills gaps between higher- and lower-income children. Other influential American scholarship also revealed high educational returns from investing in early childhood programs.

“ ‘The argument I’ve heard is that if you don’t send your children to kindergarten, then you steal some possible experiences from them,’ says Adrian Kristinsønn Jacobsen, a doctoral candidate at the University of Stavanger in Norway who studies early childhood science education rooted in experiencing nature.

“There are important contexts affecting each country’s approach, however. Norway is home to about 5.5 million people, and about 82% are ethnically Norwegian. This population lives in an area roughly the size of Montana. Norway is also a top producer of oil, which helped generate a per capita household income that was over $104,000 in 2022, according to the International Monetary Fund.

“The U.S., on the other hand, has 62 times the number of residents that Norway has and a far more diverse population. In 2022, per capita household income in the U.S. was about $77,000.

“In Norway, nearly 1.4% of the country’s gross domestic product goes toward early childhood programs. The U.S. spends less than 0.4% of its GDP, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

“Public funding covers 85% of operating costs for child care programs in Norway. As of this summer, the tuition parents pay has been capped at about $182 per month. This applies to both public and private programs, and includes in-home kindergartens, which preserve a certain amount of choice for parents. Programs receive funding on a per-child basis. Kindergartens that care for children under 3 years old receive twice the funding of those ages 3 to 5, since toddlers and infants require more individualized care.

“Norwegian children are guaranteed a spot in a kindergarten after they turn 1 year old – about the time many parents’ paid leave ends. If parents decide not to send their children to a kindergarten, they receive financial assistance to stay home.

“Norway’s understanding of kindergarten is deeply ingrained in its culture. But these benefits, signed into law in the Kindergarten Act of 2006 – which repeats the word ‘play’ 56 times – also express some of the country’s deeply held values.

“Child care programs must acknowledge ‘the intrinsic value’ of childhood, according to the 63-page law. ‘The Kindergarten must be based on fundamental values in the Christian and humanist heritage and tradition, such as respect for human dignity and nature, on intellectual freedom, charity, forgiveness, equality and solidarity, values that also appear in different religions and beliefs and are rooted in human rights,’ the law declares. …

“The law proclaims, too, that kindergartens should ‘promote democracy and equality and counteract all forms of discrimination.’ ”

More at the Monitor, here.

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