It occurred to me recently that I really don’t have an accurate idea of what I looked like as a child. The only pictures of little Rosie that exist are the very rare formal poses taken in a photographer’s studio — as a toddler, with my parents…in my First Communion dress… my high school graduation portrait. Unlike today’s average kid, whose every move is documented and posted on Facebook daily, there are no candids of me emerging from my mother’s womb (thankfully), sleeping in my crib, splashing in my bath, crawling on the living room floor, playing with my teddy bear…
Come to think of it, I never had a teddy bear — or any kind of stuffed animal. Today, when kids can’t find their beds because they’re buried under mountains of colorful critters, not having a single one would trigger a visit from Child Protective Services; but way back then, I guess it wasn’t unusual because I don’t recall feeling deprived. I had my dolls, after all. No, not a cache of Cabbage Patch Kids or a bevy of Barbies, but a beautiful Shirley Temple doll and a Betsy Wetsy, who drank from a bottle and wet her diaper (a marvel for that technologically unsophisticated era).
Not only do no candid shots of my infancy-through-teen years exist, I also have no pictures of my early houses or places I may have visited. When I say “places” I mean mostly relatives’ homes down the block and occasionally a carousel when a visiting carnival came to town. No Disney World. No water parks. No mini-golf courses. No ski resorts. No anywhere. The first time I left my native Massachusetts was when I was eighteen and a friend borrowed his father’s car (a rare luxury) to take me for a ride to neighboring New Hampshire. Though I’m embarrassed to admit it, I was surprised when we crossed the state border to see that it looked just like Massachusetts. I actually expected to see an immediate dramatic demarcation. And I was supposed to be smart — an all “A” student all through school!
When I said the only pictures of my childhood were the few formal portraits taken in a photographer’s studio, I forgot the annual school picture day ritual. Maybe I was subconsciously repressing the memory because mine were always a disaster, documenting my bad hair days (every day), my self-conscious half-smile, and my ungainly posture. Talk about that awkward stage! I’m hoping to outgrow it soon.
I also often wonder about the kind of clothes I had as a child. I know I never wore jeans because no one did, except maybe for kids who lived on farms and did “chores.” (I always wondered what “chores” were.) But did I ever wear slacks or shorts? Certainly not in any of my formal photos, and certainly not to school, at least on picture days. So since no evidence exists to the contrary, I can only assume that I wore ladylike dresses all the time, even when jumping rope or hiding and seeking. As for other play, I remember sledding in the winter and running through the sprinkler on hot, summer days; but I have no pictures of any of those activities. I also remember flying a kite with my daddy one breezy autumn afternoon…walks to the library with my mom for my weekly allotment of beloved books…pigging out on lasagna at family holiday feasts… How I wish we had captured those precious times on film.
I also regret that I don’t have even one picture of Trixie, my adorable Spitz puppy, a seventh birthday gift from my big Uncle Al (I also had a little Uncle Al). Trixie was my constant companion for ten years until she went to doggy heaven, but I don’t have a single snapshot of her — or either of my Uncle Als.
Maybe that explains my latter-day obsession with cameras. Some people never leave home without their American Express card. I never leave home without a camera. Digitized pictures of the twenty-five countries and forty-plus states of America that I’ve visited since my first tour of exotic New Hampshire constantly flash on my computer monitors and digital frames throughout my home, helping me relive the magic every day. The galleries on my tablet, IPod, and phone teem with images of everything and everyone I love. I was never blessed with children myself, but none of my relatives’ kids are safe from my lens. They groan when they see me coming. They dive under beds and dash behind doors, providing some great action shots and videos. There’s no way to recapture my lost childhood, but I’ll be damned if I will allow theirs to disappear!
Meanwhile, I’m making sure that my second childhood is well recorded. So if you’ll excuse me, it’s time to take another “Selfie”!
Last Spring we noticed that we had bees flying near our front door. They seemed interested in the bushes by our front windows. One bee in particular seemed to be the most aggressive – to other bees, not to us, thank goodness. I had even named it as I watched it flitter around. It was chasing away any other bees that came by.
Well, the bushes are beginning to flower again and Bebe is back! It seems to have even more energy than last year. It is there when I open the door but it isn’t threatening. It keeps its distance as I watch it discourage any other bees that seem interested in the bushes. The strange thing is that I don’t see any nest in the bushes. What is it protecting? Last year we checked the gutters but they were clean, as they are this year.
By now I expect to see Bebe greeting me in the morning. The buzz gets a smile as I open the front door – a delightful way to start the day!
This famous quote by Karl Von Frisch, “The bee’s life is like a magic well, the more you draw from it, the more it fills with water…” truly captures the fascination and bee-witching nature of bees.
There is not a time nor place on earth where the bee has not embedded itself within the imagination and symbolism of humankind. From ancient Egypt through to the Middle Ages, to inclusion in religious scriptures and traditional folklore customs, the humble bee has become renowned as one of earth’s most honoured creatures.
Dec 26, 2019 — In Roman mythology, the importance of bees is shown through story. The story of Jupiter and the bee, told by Aesop’s fables, is as follows:.
Here are a few of my favorite myths, legends and folktales about the honeybee. Messenger Of The Gods. The ancient Greeks and Romans believed that bees were …
Telling the Bees: The Folklore of Bees and Beekeeping
Apr 27, 2022 — Down through the years, farmers have raised bees for our use. … Another story is about Charity Crabtree, a Philadelphia beekeeper.
Bees In Mythology: Myths And Fables Mentioning Bees
Buzz About Bees
https://www.buzzaboutbees.net › bees-in-mythology
Icarus and the wings of beeswax. The story of Icarus comes to us from Greek mythology. Icarus was the son of Daedalus, who created the Labyrinth for King Minos …
Backyard beekeepers are offering a glimmer of hope for bee populations because every swarm that outgrows the hive and leaves to start a feral colony in the …
The Bees In Your Backyard: Home
The Bees In Your Backyard
https://www.beesinyourbackyard.com
Joseph Wilson and colleagues “think like predators,” using generalization approach for species classification… Read the full story Here.
Apr 7, 2021 — Though Zeus’ origin story may be the most prominent example, honey bees and their honey appear all over ancient Greek mythology. Melissa, a …
Shirley Chisholm was a Brooklyn girl. She was also Bajan, shorthand for Barbadian.
Best known for her 1972 campaign for President, where she received over 400,000 votes in multiple primaries, she always represented the views of her constituents in Brooklyn – poor, Black and disadvantaged. Neither the first woman to run for Presidentnor the only woman to run that year, her campaign was highly publicized at a time when the emerging women’s liberation movement was making waves. It put her into the history books.
Although Curwood devotes four of the 19 chapters in this book to 1972, she tells us a lot about the rest of Chisholm’s life.
Born Shirley Anita St. Hill in Brooklyn in 1924 to immigrant parents, she spent six formative years of her childhood living on her grandmother’s farm in Barbados. She credits that experience not only for her West Indian accent but to her devotion to and success in education.
When she returned to Brooklyn she became her father’s favorite daughter. She talked politics with him and got her confidence from his approval. In turn, that loosened her relationship with her mother and sisters.
A strong interest in education led to her work in daycare after graduating from Brooklyn College in 1946. She continued with her own schooling, receiving an M.A. in early childhood education from Teachers College at Columbia University in 1951.
As she moved into politics in the 1950s she ran into the attitude that woman’s place was supporting men. She turned this on its head when she ran for office, making a special appeal to women to vote for her. In 1964, she was elected to the New York State Assembly.
Her famous last name came from her marriage to Conrad, an immigrant from Jamaica, when she was 25. She kept the name when she switched spouses in 1977. She was still a Member of Congress from Brooklyn, adding commuting to Buffalo to be with her second husband to the many demands on her time.
Research published Wednesday from University of California, Berkeley, sleep scientists suggests that deep sleep might help alleviate some of dementia’s most devastating outcomes. (Graphic by Neil Freese. Unsplash images courtesy Peyman Farmani, Nigel Tadyanehondo, Zoe Gayah Jonker and Yan Berthemy)
A deep slumber might help buffer against memory loss for older adults facing a heightened burden of Alzheimer’s disease, new research from the University of California, Berkeley, suggests.
Deep sleep, also known as non-REM slow-wave sleep, can act as a “cognitive reserve factor” that may increase resilience against a protein in the brain called beta-amyloid that is linked to memory loss caused by dementia. Disrupted sleep has previously been associated with faster accumulation of beta-amyloid protein in the brain. However, the new research from a team at UC Berkeley reveals that superior amounts of deep, slow-wave sleep can act as a protective factor against memory decline in those with existing high amounts of Alzheimer’s disease pathology — a potentially significant advance that experts say could help alleviate some of dementia’s most devastating outcomes.
“With a certain level of brain pathology, you’re not destined for cognitive symptoms or memory issues,” said Zsófia Zavecz, a postdoctoral researcher at UC Berkeley’s Center for Human Sleep Science. “People should be aware that, despite having a certain level of pathology, there are certain lifestyle factors that will help moderate and decrease the effects.
“One of those factors is sleep and, specifically, deep sleep.”
Zsófia Zavecz (Photo courtesy Zsófia Zavecz)
The research, published Wednesday in the journal BMC Medicine, is the latest in a large body of work aimed at finding a cure for Alzheimer’s disease and preventing it altogether.
As the most prevalent form of dementia, Alzheimer’s disease destroys memory pathways and, in advanced forms, interferes with a person’s ability to perform basic daily tasks. Roughly one in nine people over age 65 have the progressive disease — a proportion that is expected to grow rapidly as the baby boomer generation ages.
In recent years, scientists have probed the ways that deposits of beta-amyloid associate with Alzheimer’s disease and how such deposits also affect memory more generally. In addition to sleep being a foundational part of memory retention, the team at UC Berkeley previously discovered that the declining amount of a person’s deep sleep could act as a “crystal ball” to forecast a faster rate of future beta-amyloid buildup in the brain, after which dementia is more likely set in.
Years of education, physical activity and social engagement are widely believed to shore up a person’s resilience to severe brain pathology — essentially keeping the mind sharp, despite the decreased brain health. These are called cognitive reserve factors. However, most of them, such as past years of education or the size of one’s social network, cannot be easily changed or modified retroactively.
That idea of cognitive reserve became a compelling target for sleep researchers, said Matthew Walker, a UC Berkeley professor of neuroscience and psychology and senior author of the study.
“If we believe that sleep is so critical for memory,” Walker said, “could sleep be one of those missing pieces in the explanatory puzzle that would tell us exactly why two people with the same amounts of vicious, severe amyloid pathology have very different memory?” (more…)
WASHINGTON – The Internal Revenue Service reminds taxpayers that making certain energy efficient updates to their homes could qualify them for home energy tax credits.
The credit amounts and types of qualifying expenses were expanded by the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022. Taxpayers who make energy improvements to a residence may be eligible for expanded home energy tax credits.
Homeowners who improve their primary residence will find the most opportunities to claim a credit for qualifying expenses. Renters may also be able to claim credits, as well as owners of second homes used as residences. Landlords cannot claim this credit.
IRS encourages taxpayers to review all requirements and qualifications at IRS.gov/HomeEnergyfor energy efficient equipment prior to purchasing. Additional information is also available on energy.gov, which compares the credit amounts for tax year 2022 and tax year 2023.
Energy Efficient Home Improvement Credit
Taxpayers that make qualified energy-efficient improvements to their home after Jan. 1, 2023, may qualify for a tax credit up to $3,200 for the tax year the improvements are made.
As part of the Inflation Reduction Act, beginning Jan. 1, 2023, the credit equals 30% of certain qualified expenses:
Qualified energy efficiency improvements installed during the year which can include things like:
Exterior doors, windows and skylights.
Insulation and air sealing materials or systems.
Residential energy property expenses such as:
Central air conditioners.
Natural gas, propane or oil water heaters.
Natural gas, propane or oil furnaces and hot water boilers.
Heat pumps, water heaters, biomass stoves and boilers.
Home energy audits of a main home.
The maximum credit that can be claimed each year is:
$1,200 for energy property costs and certain energy efficient home improvements, with limits on doors ($250 per door and $500 total), windows ($600) and home energy audits ($150).
$2,000 per year for qualified heat pumps, biomass stoves or biomass boilers.
The credit is available only for qualifying expenditures to an existing home or for an addition or renovation of an existing home, and not for a newly constructed home. The credit is nonrefundable which means taxpayers cannot get back more from the credit than what is owed in taxes and any excess credit cannot be carried to future tax years.
May 3, 2023 Chair Powell’s Press Conference PRELIMINARY Page 1 of 4
Transcript of Chair Powell’s Press Conference May 3, 2023
CHAIR POWELL. Good afternoon. Before discussing today’s meeting, let me comment briefly on recent developments in the banking sector. Conditions in that sector have broadly improved since early March, and the U.S banking system is sound and resilient. We will continue to monitor conditions in this sector. We are committed to learning the right lessons from this episode and will work to prevent events like these from happening again. As a first step in that process, last week we released Vice Chair for Supervision Barr’s Review of the Federal Reserve’s Supervision and Regulation of Silicon Valley Bank. The review’s findings underscore the need to address our rules and supervisory practices to make for a stronger and more resilient banking system, and I am confident that we will do so.
(Stars and Stripes photo on May 3 of Chairman Powell’s speech)
From the perspective of monetary policy, our focus remains squarely on our dual mandate to promote maximum employment and stable prices for the American people. My colleagues and I understand the hardship that high inflation is causing, and we remain strongly committed to bringing inflation back down to our 2 percent goal. Price stability is the responsibility of the Federal Reserve. Without price stability, the economy does not work for anyone. In particular, without price stability, we will not achieve a sustained period of strong labor market conditions that benefit all.
Today, the FOMC raised its policy interest rate by 1/4 percentage point. Since early last year, we have raised interest rates by a total of 5 percentage points in order to attain a stance of monetary policy that is sufficiently restrictive to return inflation to 2 percent over time. We are also continuing to reduce our securities holdings. Looking ahead, we will take a data-dependent approach in determining the extent to which additional policy firming may be appropriate. I will have more to say about today’s monetary policy actions after briefly reviewing economic developments.
The U.S. economy slowed significantly last year, with real GDP rising at a below-trend pace of 0.9 percent. The pace of economic growth in the first quarter of this year continued to be modest, at 1.1 percent, despite a pickup in consumer spending. Activity in the housing sector remains weak, largely reflecting higher mortgage rates. Higher interest rates and slower output growth also appear to be weighing on business fixed investment.
The labor market remains very tight. Over the first three months of the year, job gains averaged 345 thousand jobs per month. The unemployment rate remained very low in March, at 3.5 percent. Even so, there are some signs that supply and demand in the labor market are coming back into better balance. The labor force participation rate has moved up in recent months, particularly for individuals aged 25 to 54 years. Nominal wage growth has shown some signs of easing, and job vacancies have declined so far this year. But overall, labor demand still substantially exceeds the supply of available workers.
Inflation remains well above our longer-run goal of 2 percent. Over the 12 months ending in March, total PCE prices rose 4.2 percent; excluding the volatile food and energy categories, core PCE prices rose 4.6 percent. Inflation has moderated somewhat since the middle of last year. Nonetheless, inflation pressures continue to run high and the process of getting inflation back down to 2 percent has a long way to go. Despite elevated inflation, longer-term inflation expectations appear to remain well anchored, as reflected in a broad range of surveys of households, businesses, and forecasters, as well as measures from financial markets.
Antibiotic-resistant infections can be difficult or impossible to treat. This testimony covers our work on federal efforts to address the following challenges:
Surveillance—CDC doesn’t have enough data on antibiotic-resistant infections in health care settings
Diagnostics—More studies are needed to help develop and promote the use of tests to diagnose resistance
New treatments—The pipeline of new antibiotics is inadequate and not fully federally incentivized
Antibiotic use—Federal antibiotic-use requirements only apply to hospitals and nursing homes
We also describe actions federal agencies have taken to address our prior recommendations.
Bacterial infections have become more difficult, and sometimes impossible, to treat, as some have become resistant to antibiotics. However, the precise magnitude of this problem is unknown. GAO found in March 2020 that the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) had made progress expanding surveillance of antibiotic-resistant bacterial infections, but faced data and other challenges. For example, to monitor resistant gonorrhea infections, HHS only tracked an estimated 1 to 2 percent of all U.S. cases, and only in males.
2001-2017 Cumulative Spread of One Type of Highly Resistant Bacteria in the United States
Note: This figure tracks a type of carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriaceae, which, according to CDC, is a “nightmare bacteria” resistant to nearly all available antibiotics.
Federal agencies have taken steps to advance the development and use of tests to diagnose antibiotic-resistant bacterial infections, but these efforts have limitations. According to experts and agency officials, more studies are needed to help promote the use of these tests. Without information to guide test usage, clinicians may be unable to select appropriate treatments for their patients.
Experts warn that the current pipeline of antibiotics in development is insufficient to meet the threat of resistance. Several challenges impede the development of new treatments for resistant infections, notably inadequate return on investment for drug companies. GAO found in March 2020 that HHS had not developed a strategy to further incentivize development of new treatments, and that HHS may also need to request authority and appropriations to create and implement certain types of incentives.
HHS has begun taking steps to implement six of GAO’s eight March 2020 recommendations. For example, it has started the process to draft a strategy to incentivize development of new treatments. However, more work remains. HHS still must take additional actions or finalize efforts to address the challenges GAO identified regarding surveillance, testing, and treatments.
Why GAO Did This Study
Concerns about rising rates of antibiotic resistance prompted the federal government to create the National Action Plan for Combating Antibiotic-Resistant Bacteria in 2015 and again in 2020. The plan called for federal agencies to strengthen surveillance, advance the development of diagnostic tests and new antibiotics, and slow the emergence of resistant bacteria, among other things.
This testimony summarizes GAO’s March 2020 report on federal efforts and challenges related to (1) surveillance of antibiotic resistance, (2) diagnostic testing to identify resistant infections, and (3) the development of treatments for resistant infections, among others. This testimony also highlights the recommendations GAO made in that report and includes information on agency progress toward implementing them. For that report, GAO reviewed literature and agency documents; interviewed agency officials and health care industry, drug industry, and other stakeholders; and held a meeting of international and U.S. experts to obtain their views.
GAO made eight recommendations in its March 2020 report. HHS concurred with seven of the recommendations in 2020. It did not concur with the recommendation for a strategy on incentives. However, it has begun taking steps to implement this recommendation and another five. HHS has not taken significant steps on the two remaining recommendations. GAO will continue to monitor HHS’s progress.
The bodies of Native American women, when found, are most likely to be categorized as unidentified in the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System, a study finds.
(Flickr/Heather D) Empty red dresses hang to honor and raise awareness about missing and murdered Indigenous women.
An analysis published recently in the Criminal Justice Policy Review offers new insights and raises new questions about the national public health crisis of missing and murdered Indigenous women in the U.S. — and the news media’s role in helping authorities solve these cases.
When found deceased, Native American women’s bodies are 135% more likely to be unidentified than the bodies of women of other racial or ethnic groups in the U.S., according to the analysis, which examines cases reported to the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System from 2009 to 2018.
Researchers also find that women, regardless of their race or ethnicity, are much more likely to be found dead and unidentified in urban areas than in rural ones.
Nikolay Anguelov, one of the authors of the paper, says the findings underscore the need to correct the myth that Indigenous women tend to live in remote parts of the country such as Alaska or on tribal lands, including reservations such as the Navajo Nation reservation, which spreads across 27,000-plus square miles of Arizona, New Mexico and Utah.
Of the estimated 9.7 million people in the U.S. who identify as American Indian or Alaska Native, 13% live on tribal lands, data from the 2020 U.S. Census shows.
Most Native American women live in urban areas, which is where they are most often reported missing and their remains, when discovered, are most often unidentified, says Anguelov, a political economist and associate professor of public policy at the University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth.
“This is the story you never hear,” he says. “There seems to be a migration out of native lands that’s making women vulnerable.”
Anguelov and coauthors Morgan Hawes, of Bridgewater State University, and Danielle Slakoff, of Sacramento State University, examined 7,454 cases of women of various demographic backgrounds who had been reported missing or whose remains had not yet been identified.
Regardless of race, women were 250% more likely to be found dead and categorized as unidentified in states with relatively high population densities than in states with lower population densities.
About 48% of all unidentified women’s remains were found in the Northeast, and about 28% were in New England. Meanwhile, about 5% of cases came from the Mountain West, a region that includes Colorado, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Utah and Wyoming and is home to multiple reservations.
There is “a lack of consistent and reliable information about missing persons at the local, state, and national level,” the researchers write. Ten states require authorities to input data on missing people into NamUs. Other states do so on a voluntary basis.
Journalists play a key role in spurring change. “The media set the agenda with regard to important societal issues, and the media have the power to make an issue important by deeming it important,” the researchers write.
It’s unclear what exactly has driven Native American women into densely populated areas, although many of those who left their tribal communities probably sought independence, better job opportunities or a place to hide from abusive partners, Anguelov says.
Another unanswered question: Why are Native American women’s bodies least likely to be identified?
One of the many possible reasons: “Maybe they’re starting new far away and don’t keep in touch or they’re estranged, or their family isn’t alive,” Anguelov says.
New research co-authored at UC Berkeley finds that loyal liberal viewers of MSNBC and CNN and conservative devotees of Fox News have a tendency to get locked in to partisan echo chambers. (Illustration by Neil Freese)
A startling number of Americans are in “partisan echo chambers,” where they only consume TV news that reinforces their existing political and social biases, according to new research co-authored at UC Berkeley.
In a time of growing concern about divisive media and rising polarization, the new study by Berkeley political scientist David E. Broockman and Berkeley alumnus Joshua L. Kalla of Yale University found that one in five registered Republicans watches at least eight hours of right-wing Fox News per month. Some 15% of Democrats watch a similar amount of coverage on networks MSNBC and CNN.
David Broockman (UC Berkeley photo)
These numbers represent tens of millions of American TV consumers, Broockman said, some of them already strong partisans, but many whose views are not yet extreme. That suggests a significant bloc of voters could become more extreme and perhaps polarized by a media diet that does not include a more balanced mix of information.
“Most people who tune in to Fox News lean to the right, but Fox draws them further to the right,” Broockman said. “Likewise, MSNBC is pulling those to the left further left. And neither side almost ever watches the other.”
The new research offers a troubling reflection on the American media environment and on risks to the nation’s democracy.
A case in point came just this week, when Fox News agreed to pay $787.5 million to settle claims by Dominion Voting Systems that the network had repeatedly broadcast erroneous reports about fraud associated with Dominion machines — claims that Fox executives and on-air stars apparently knew to be false.
Still, a recent poll found that nearly two-thirds of Republicans continue to believe that Democrat Joe Biden won the presidential election through fraud.
It follows a related paper published by the authors a year ago in which loyal Fox News viewers, after a month of watching CNN instead, reported a broad shift in their political opinions.
The two studies, taken together, “show us that there are a lot of people in partisan echo chambers,” Broockman said. “But our work shows that getting them out of these echo chambers would moderate their views and reduce polarization.”
Episode 1 | Snapdragon: An Extreme Regency Parlor Game, played on Sanditon, this past Sunday, April 23, 9/8c on MASTERPIECE. With obstacles in the way of true love, will anyone get their happy endings?
A mother presides over the Snapdragon bowl
This season in Episode 1 (of Sanditon) we saw the Parkers host an evening game of Snapdragon. This competition was a popular Regency entertainment that had both adults and children snatching buoyant raisins out of a dish of burning brandy. The game involved pouring brandy into a large shallow bowl, tossing in raisins, and setting the alcohol ablaze. (Best played in the dark, of course!) At 50 percent alcohol, the burning brandy wasn’t hot enough to turn the raisins — or snapdragons — into ash, and they could be plucked by hand out of the ghostly blue flames and popped into one’s mouth. Snapdragon was rousing, scary, and relied on speed. The intrepid soul taking the most snapdragons was said to meet their true love that year.
Snap-dragon (also known as Flap-dragon, Snapdragon, or Flapdragon) was a parlour game popular from about the 16th century. It was played during the winter, particularly on Christmas Eve. Brandy was heated and placed in a wide shallow bowl; raisins were placed in the brandy which was then set alight. Typically, lights were extinguished or dimmed to increase the eerie effect of the blue flames playing across the liquor. The game is described in Samuel Johnson‘s Dictionary of the English Language (1755) as “a play in which they catch raisins out of burning brandy and, extinguishing them by closing the mouth, eat them”.[1] According to an article in Richard Steele‘s Tatler magazine, “the wantonness of the thing was to see each other look like a demon, as we burnt ourselves, and snatched out the fruit”.[2] Snap-dragon was played in England, Canada, and the United States, but there is insufficient evidence of the practice in Scotland or other countries.
Children playing snap-dragon (1889)
Meanings
The words snap-dragon and flap-dragon can refer to the game, the raisins used in the game, or the bowl with brandy and raisins. Other senses of flap-dragon are that of something worthless or trivial, as in “A Flap-dragon for your service, Sir!” from William Congreve‘s The Way of the World,[3] and “a contemptuous term for a Dutchman or German”.[4] In The Winter’s Tale, Shakespeare used it to describe a moment when a ship at sea is instantly swallowed up by a storm.[5]
Ingredients
The liquid used in snap-dragon was typically brandy, although similar flammable liquors could also be used. Traditionally, raisins were the treat to be snatched; William Sandys specifies Málaga raisins.[6] Other treats could also be used. Of these, almonds were the most common alternative or addition, but currants, candied fruit, figs, grapes, and plums also featured. Salt could be sprinkled in the bowl.[7] The low bowl was typically placed in the middle of a table to prevent damage from the inevitable splashes of burning brandy. In one variation a Christmas pudding is placed in the centre of the bowl with raisins around it.
Traditions
Most sources describe Snap-dragon as a Christmas tradition, but Blain suggests that in the United States it was played at Halloween,[7] and Platt notes:
The game was one particular to Halloween or Christmas or Twelfth Night; I will not specify which, because in the first place I do not know, and in the second place if I were to make a mistake I would be held up to ridicule and all my statements overthrown[8]
There were several other traditions surrounding the game of snap-dragon. Mary F. Blain describes the belief that the person who snatches the most treats out of the brandy will meet their true love within a year.[7] In another tradition, one of the raisins contains a gold button and becomes “the lucky raisin”. The person who fishes the raisin out can claim a reward or boon (favor) of their choosing. In the short story Master Sandy’s Snapdragon by Elbridge S. Brooks, snap-dragon is played in the royal household of James I of England. Young Prince Charles (later Charles I of England) catches the lucky raisin, and as his favor, requests the freedom of Walter Raleigh.[9]
