April Foolishness

A couple of things I picked up from the news from yesterday. 

-- Trump is threatening to "adjourn" Congress because it's not confirming his nominees for various offices. First of all, I didn't know a president could do that (if it's even true). Secondly, why didn't Obama think of that? It would have simplified things for him. Thirdly, that will come in handy for President Biden. 

 -- A key part of the Trump brain trust, Kellyanne Conway, thinks that COVID-19 is named that way because it's the 19th strain of the virus. Doesn't her husband, George, explain to her things like how the "19" comes from the year it was discovered? 

 -- Trump said that the US is past the peak in number of new cases of COVID-19. Mark that date, because yesterday there were 40,000 new confirmed cases. If that number doesn't go down today or tomorrow, then the US is not past the peak, and it's all just part of Trump's world of wishful thinking. 

Meanwhile, it snowed in Helsinki today. April 16th.

Happy Good Friday?

Today is Easter Monday, the end of our four-day Easter holiday. Normally, a four-day holiday on the cusp of vaguely spring-like weather is a Godsend for most Finnish families, often a good opportunity to get out of town for a while or even an end-of-season ski trip to Lapland. Of course, this year in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, it's different, with all restaurants, bars, theaters, swimming halls, sports events, churches, you name it, closed and deserted, and even the possibility of non-essential travel outside the Uusimaa province where Helsinki is located forbidden by law.  There was no trick-or-treating this year. It hardly felt like Easter.

After I moved to Finland many years ago and was adjusting to the social norms here, one thing I learned was the proper way to give Easter greetings. With a lot of holidays here, you use the word “hauska” (which means “fun”). You say “Hauskaa joulua!” (Merry Christmas), “Hauskaa vappua!” (Happy May Day), and “Hauskaa juhannusta!” (Happy Midsummer). So, it seemed natural to me that you would say “Hauskaa pääsiäistä!”, (Happy Easter). After all, in the States we say “Happy Easter”. Seems normal.However, I was quickly corrected that the proper usage is “Hyvää pääsiäistä!” (literally, Good Easter).

The reason was, of course, that Easter is supposed to be a solemn holiday, not a fun one (remember “hauska” means “fun”). In English, "Happy Easter" does seems to work, since the Easter story ends with Jesus rising from the tomb, a happy ending. To think of it as a “fun” happy-go-lucky ending is perhaps to diminish the gravity of the event.

Good Friday is another matter, however. Most Christians probably don’t think of the execution of Jesus as a “happy” event -- well, maybe no one except Donald Trump. I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone say, “Happy Good Friday”. Even though the execution was necessary for the rising, I think most Christians think of it as a sorrowful event. (I haven’t gone to church in decades, so maybe I’m wrong about that.)

Of course, now that Trump has set the example by tweeting that exact greeting, I’m sure it will be quickly adopted by all his followers. Next year, no doubt, MAGA folks will be sending out “Happy Good Friday” cards.