Day Whatever + 6
I missed my grocery pickup from New World yesterday. They had a bit of a snafu over the weekend and have rescheduled me for 2.30pm today, touch wood.
Great to see that yesterday Jacinda Adern declared the Easter Bunny to be an essential worker, but there are no Easter eggs in my order. There are a few dark chocolates though. Looking forward to an after dinner chocolate tonight, with my McGuigan Zero alcohol-free Shiraz. Or maybe an Edenvale alcohol-free Shiraz. Wonderful to have choice in the Season of Lockdown.
E hoa ma, do you know why the Easter Bunny brings Easter eggs wrapped in brightly coloured foil?
Well. Let me tell you. No bullshit. This is the true story.
In springtime in Europe, around about Easter time, hares gather together in open grassy fields for their annual ritual of courtship and mating, to put it politely. What would it be like if we did it only once a year?
Anyway, the Jack Hares compete with each other for the favours of the Jill Hares. Such is the strength of their lust that when humans venture into the same fields randy Jack Hare stands his ground. He’s not going anywhere. Not for anything.
And from time immemorial those human interlopers noticed that the hares were often seen standing alongside nests of coloured or variegated eggs. Those naïve folk put the two together (correlation) and concluded that the hares laid the eggs. Don’t scoff too soon. Because today we celebrate Easter with bunnies, and chocolate eggs wrapped in coloured foil.
The alternative and real explanation (or confounding factor in scientific terms) is that at springtime in Europe the lapwing lays its eggs in nests on the ground in those very same fields. The lapwing doesn’t stand its ground when humans come canoodling or whatever, but quietly disappears, leaving its eggs to be seen in the care of hares (or rabbits if you don’t know the difference).
We celebrate a tradition based on faulty reasoning about cause and effect, confusing correlation with causation. The transposition of rabbits and hares is another matter, probably to do with marketing. Easter Hares. I don’t think so.
Why don’t you tell the kids that the Easter Bunny tradition actually celebrates the fornication of hares. No. On second thought tell them it’s about the lovemaking of bunnies. That’ll make a good lockdown story to keep them amused.
Of course we adults see that correlation is not causation. Blind Freddy can see that the bloody hares don’t lay the eggs.
But Blind Freddy and most everyone else does confuse corrrelation with causation. All the time. Like vaccines cause autism. Like 5G causes cancers. And COVID-19 infection. Like windmills cause the birds to die (that one from the Cockwomble-in-Chief in the White House). Like COVID-19 causes street sign vandalism (that one from some mad lockdown scribbler).
I saw a family of three out today wearing Hi-Vis. Yep. Hi-Vis protects against the virus because they haven’t got it.
The anti-vaxxers are going to be out in force when the scientists do create a vaccine for this one.
43 cars in the New World carpark this morning. A short queue. Could be the beginning of a trend but not enough data yet.
There were three people at the Four Square on High Street. Uncle Lui Paewai’s corner shop used to be on that site, a long long time ago. You know. Uncle Lui. The All Black.
Three people at the Pharmacy. The dairy wasn’t open already.
There were three cars at the Mobil petrol station and one at BP. Insufficient data to draw any conclusions yet.
But those instant experts out there are hard at it advising us of their expert conclusions drawn from bugger all data.
My roses are looking great.
