April Fool’s Day

Today, of course, is April Fool’s Day. No one seems to know who started it, but nearly everyone the world over celebrates it. And some influencers use it, not to have fun, but to give warning.

How did April Fool’s Day start?

No one seems to know definitively when or how April Fools’ Day began. It could date back to the Roman festival of Hilaria. This festival took place about four days before the Kalends of April, which at the time was the day after the vernal equinox. It meant,

Spring is here! Let’s all give a cheer!

Which is what hilarious literally means: cheerful.

Now all you Roman scholars out there: yes, four or five days before the Kalends of April didn’t always mark the vernal equinox. It didn’t when several Pontifices Maximi forgot to throw in an extra two weeks after February every now and again, to keep the calendar in synchrony with the seasons. The first Pontifex Maximus to fix that for all time was Julius Caesar. And even his calendar slowly drifted out of sync, until Pope Gregory IX reformed the calendar yet again.

Which brings us to the other theory of April Fool’s Day. Namely that, in 1582, when continental Europe switched over from the Julian to the Gregorian, some people were slow to make the change. Part of the change was to declare that the new year would take place on January 1 instead of March 1. So when people didn’t like that idea, others called them April Fools! But you can find references to April Fool’s Day in the Middle Ages, so it likely started earlier.

All perfectly true, by the way. Read about it in USA Today and National World.

Greatest pranks of all time

Now most people don’t know this, but you’re not supposed to continue an April Fool’s Day prank past noon. If you do, you are the April Fool, not your target.

In France they call it April Fish Day. Pranksters will paste paper fish on people’s backs, then run away crying, “April Fish! April Fish!” Or rather, poisson d’avril, which is how you say it in French.

From The Gadsden Times and Lifestyle Asia, as well as USA Today, come lists of the biggest April Fool’s Day pranks of all time. Some of these are really hilarious, if you’ll pardon that Greco-Latin pun. Like the time the BBC convinced viewers that spaghetti grows on trees.

Or whether Taco Bell bought the Liberty Bell. Then we hear the one about the Alabama legislature voting to make pi an even 3. Lifestyle Asia thinks that started in 1998, but that one’s been around since the Sixties. I know – because I heard it in geography class, back when they still called it Junior High.

More pranks

Then we have:

• Swedish Television telling people how to watch a black-and-white show in color,
• An iceberg in Sydney Harbor,
• Rich Little giving his Richard Nixon impression in 1992, saying Nixon would throw his hat in the ring,
• The Wisconsin capitol dome collapsing,
• Jupiter and Pluto aligning to lessen the gravity of Earth,
• A digital Big Ben, and
• The Sports Illustrated deepfake about Sidd Finch, who was supposed to have the most wicked fastball of all time.

But sometimes the prankster is the April Fool. Like Volkswagenkonzern announcing they would change their American brand name to “Voltswagen.” People took them seriously until they had to fess up, and then – what a letdown!

And does anyone remember the Google Mail Mic Drop? You get an email, and it comes with a GIF of Despicable Me dropping a microphone. In case you didn’t know, GIF is the only graphical format that does animation, because it’s a layered graphic. The problem was: someone at Google forgot to turn it off. So here you are, trying to send a serious message, and it comes through with Despicable Me dropping a mic. I mean, there’s a time and a place, right?

April Fool’s Day as warning

But now we come to one of my favorite influencers: Joseph R. Mercola, D.O. He is the bane of conventional medicine. His one video that sums it all up is his Town of Allopath video – perfect. A sendup of the medical establishment, the FDA, and Big Pharma., and a plug for simple – and time-honored – remedies.

“Skid Marks Disease.” You wish that was a joke. It isn’t.

But today he released an article he intended, not as a prank, but a warning. His newsletter hits your inbox, and you read:

FDA to Ban Real Meat in 2024.

The gist of it is: Bill Gates has been promoting his genetically engineered sheet mushroom as a meat substitute. So the FDA is going to ban actual meat in 2024, to strike a blow against climate change. It dovetails brilliantly with AOC’s Green New Deal.

The good news is: the FDA has made no such plan that we know about. Hey – it’s April Fool’s Day.

The bad news is that Bill Gates really has been promoting a genetically modified sheet mushroom, and does want you to eat that instead of real meat. Go to Rumble.com; you’ll find his video telling you why.

Dinesh D’Souza also weighs in on Mushroom Guy:

It seems that mushroom is real, and Ikea is extruding this out of a 3D printer and recruiting staff to sample it. And that is not an April Fool’s Day joke.

By the way … !

While I’m on the subject, I have a novel out in e-book last Tuesday, and it will be out in paperback on April 5. The title: Matthew’s Run.

It depicts the kind of future Bill Gates – again, no joke – would like to make real. In the world of 2417, all your food comes out of the ultimate 3D printer. No real meat, no real fish, not even real lettuce or tomato. The only thing is, all the printers lace all food and drink with an antipsychotic drug to keep you quiet. But then the society does a foolish thing. They build a cyborg as a prototype for a super-soldier to wipe out the Enemies of the State. And as a cyborg, he doesn’t have to eat. No drug for him. And one day he has a crisis of conscience. So what does he do about it? Just – imagine. Then go to wherever e-books or paperbacks are sold, order it, and find out.

So that’s our history of April Fool’s Day, with memorable pranks, and a prank that serves to warn you. And do check out that novel. Read it now – while you can be sure it’s still fiction, like the FDA banning meat by 2024. And this is definitely no joke: the only way to stop that kind of ugliness, is with your vote.