In a stash of photos obtained by Hasidic Archives, families who had smuggled across the border between the Soviet Union and Poland—and who later resided in Pocking, Germany, and the suburbs of Paris, France—can be seen in family portraits. Full Story In a stash of photos obtained by Hasidic Archives families who had smuggled across the border between the Soviet Union and Poland—and who later resided in Pocking Among the first batch released today are photos of the Kazen (23) Can you identify any of the others in the photos Sign up for the COLlive Daily News Roundup and never miss a story Δdocument.getElementById("ak_js_1").setAttribute("value",(new Date()).getTime()) Δdocument.getElementById("ak_js_2").setAttribute("value",(new Date()).getTime()) Chim Hille Azimov wife Risheh ( mn Pevzner) Number 18 is the kamintzky family reb moshe zalmen his son reuven his daughter gensha gopin his daughter batsheva zilbershtin his daughter my mother zelda nemes Zalmen and batsheva gansburg .Her mother and their children This fact shows clearly on the tense circumstances they experienced Maybe because of the trauma that these people have gone through Why were these photos taken and where did they suddenly appear from #15 Rabbi lipa and chana Schapiro with 3 of their children it's one Cajun Easter tradition that brings generations together If you haven't heard of or participated in egg pocking before It's a competition in which you take two boiled Easter eggs and you knock them against each other," said Amanda LaFleur and the winning egg can be used again to further test its strength when looking at the history of the tradition an abundance of dyed eggs isn't the only connection between Easter and pocking "Egg pocking refers to a tradition which goes way back way beyond Acadiana's days and actually goes back to Greece," said Kevin Rees and when you cracked an egg—pocking eggs—that represented the rebirth of Christ." pocking eggs has become a playful tradition—a game that brings together families and communities the annual Easter egg knocking contest is an opportunity to return to his hometown and see old friends but even more so—like not living there anymore—what's fun about it is you see people that you haven't seen in a long time," the life-long egg knocker said large group of people there to take part in the Easter egg knocking contest." make sure you grab your strongest eggs this Easter Easter's coming up and we all know what that means: Time to dye those eggs as pretty as possible last person with an uncracked egg the champion I've collected a few egg-pocking "hacks"—back in the day we used to call this "cheating"—to help you best your opponents Or as correctly as possible according to the hot mess that is Cajun folklore and Cajun-French-English linguistics "Let's pacque some eggs." Translated into English Easter some eggs," since supposedly the word derives from the French word Pâques Let's stick with "pocking," because it rhymes with "knocking," and that's a good enough description for what goes on here One competitor holds an Easter egg firmly in hand while the other competitor knocks the egg with his or her egg's pointy end until one of the eggs cracks it's a fun tradition that combines religion and sport both of which are based on strict rules that the less scrupulous among us spend lots of time trying to circumvent The following list is mostly inspired by my godfather a man who was always up for a joke—which is why some of these are less cheat and more prank It was filled out with help from folks on Facebook The shells of chicken eggs are no match for the harder shell of the guinea hen eggs. This is a known fact. It's so well known that people have instituted rules prohibiting cross-species egg smashing. According to this Louisiana Folklife Festivals piece from 1987 one egg-pocking festival created separate categories But will your younger siblings or cousins know that a guinea egg is harder they'll assume the smaller egg is the weaker egg If your Mawmaw doesn't have guinea hens running around her property Ceramic eggs are eggs made from ceramic and typically used to get chickens to lay their eggs in a nesting box rather than under the house or some other random place It goes without saying that a ceramic egg is harder than a chicken egg One of those will break if thrown at your brother's head the ceramic egg is the same size and shape of the chicken egg so it might be quite a while until anyone cottons on to your nefarious ways The only issue with a wooden egg is that PAAS won't do the trick when it comes to coloring If you're the sort of person who puts more work into cheating than it would have required to do something legitimately Poke a hole in a raw egg and drain the interior Replace boring old egg whites and yolk with epoxy Freezing a raw egg will turn its insides solid apply a thin coat of clear nail polish or super glue to the tip of the egg Be careful not to apply so much that it's noticeable you want to start off slowly and lightly with this approach and then surprise with a big payoff The look on your opponent's face will be priceless That last method might be frowned upon in these quarantined times if eggs are hard to come by where you live you can only pock eggs with immediate family members—unless someone's invented a way to pock from a distance of six feet or over Zoom (which would not surprise me in the least) This means you'll have to work extra hard to hide your cheating efforts during the planning and execution stages All I'm saying is you have to adapt to the times someone on a winning streak might have eaten a dozen or so hard-boiled eggs as a palate cleanser between the six or seven pounds of Easter candy consumed that day—with entirely predictable and sulfurous results If you're sequestered in tight quarters with loved ones filling up the old gas tank with that many eggs is somewhere on the spectrum between rude and ruinous (depending on where you are in your relationship) Dyeing boiled eggs in pastel colors and covering them in different designs Hitting them together to see whose egg cracks first The first two are pretty popular ways to celebrate Easter in the U.S The latter is a lesser known tradition that has roots in south Louisiana Egg pocking — also called egg knocking — comes from Pâques, the French word for Easter although some theories say "pock" also refers to the sound made when the eggs make contact.  clinch it in your hand and keep knocking it against someone else's until the other one breaks," Peggy LeJeune explained She and her five siblings grew up pocking eggs every Easter in Eunice and her husband's family did the same in nearby Branch "We Cajun people. I've done this all my life Today they continue the holiday tradition with their children and grandchildren when they gather at their home in Welsh You ought to see the expressions on their faces just pocking stupid eggs." Read about Acadiana Makers: Youngsville glass artist finds beauty in colored fragments like using eggs from home-raised chickens rather than a carton from the store adding slyly, "Or you get a guinea egg Cajun families like the LeJeunes have been knocking eggs together for decades and a group of men in Avoyelles Parish decided to turn the family tradition and friendly competition into a community festival in 1966 The town of Cottonport took over organizing the Pockin' on the Bayou Festival in the 1980s but "original old-timers" like Carl "Pappy" Juneau and James "T-Jim" Moreau stayed involved Juneau worked closely with Scott publicizing the festival each year until he died  in 2018 "He was one of the last old-timers," Juneau said. "He would check the eggs with his teeth.  Folks in Cottonport have been checking eggs with their teeth since January putting in hours of prep for the return of the festival this month "I think it's the adults' Christmas," Scott said For subscribers: The 'best' and 'worst' schools and districts in Louisiana, according to state scores The annual event draws about 2,000 people to participate in egg tosses all before heading over to Bayou Rogue for a pirogue race "It's like a family reunion; everyone comes home for Easter," Scott said Pockin' on the Bayou couldn't take place as usual the last two years but it returns to the rural central Louisiana town April 16 The LeJeunes will be celebrating at home like usual and making sure no eggs go to waste The boiled eggs with broken shells will be peeled and either pickled or deviled And others around the world also will be participating in their own way as the Cajun tradition also has roots (and other names) in France and ancient Greece Contact children's issues reporter Leigh Guidry at Lguidry@theadvertiser.com or on Twitter @LeighGGuidry Louisiana is known for its traditions during the holiday seasons Egg pocking commonly known as egg knocking comes from Pâques Egg pocking is a game that is traditionally played in south Louisiana on Easter Sunday This game consists of two people competing against each other to see whose Easter egg is the strongest Two players take hardboiled eggs and lightly tap them against each other whoever manages to come out of the game with an uncracked egg is the winner The legend is that whoever wins the game will have good luck in the coming year Do you think this year you will be participating in this Louisiana tradition for the chance to receive good luck More: Ever heard of egg pocking? Learn more about the Cajun Easter tradition Makenzie Boucher is a reporter with the Shreveport Times All of my kids are pretty fluent in French I am far from being well versed in any type of French I've picked up words and phrases here and there but I definitely can't hold a conversation in French you know I can barely hold a conversation in English I recently stumbled across this video on YouTube on how to say the days of the week in Cajun French If you have friends and family outside of the Acadiana area you might want to pass this along to them so they can sound like a local the next time they visit If you have friends and family outside of the Acadiana area, you might want to pass this along to them so they can sound like a local the next time they visit\nRead More   This newscast is updated weekdays at 6am a commercial radio station in Ville Platte was awarded the “Uniquely Louisiana” award from the Louisiana Association of Broadcasters The award was due in large part to their Cajun French programming as the station not only continues to provide Cajun French newscasts and music but also has a long history of bilingual hosts who code-switch on air Louisiana Considered managing producer Alana Schreiber spoke to KVPI’s general manager Mark Layne to learn more about promoting Cajun French through the airwaves This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity Alana Schreiber: It's my understanding that the “Uniquely Louisiana” award went to Le Tasse De Café Tell me a little bit about that specific show and its history Mark Layne: The history is pretty interesting Floyd actually began as a part-time DJ in high school as a French announcer Floyd suggested to our then manager Jim Soileau to start a call-in show up but make it bilingual so we can support our Cajun culture So it began very humbly back in the mid sixties And we have a waiting list of sponsors and we have callers with the help of the internet and streaming We're getting calls from all over the country We've actually gotten calls from people in France It's our most listened to show of the week Jim's Soileau was constantly going back and forth between French and English on the air with callers I even have some clips of him doing that years ago … I'm wondering why you think it's so important to have a show that isn't just in French The term we use down here is “Frang-lay,” which is like a way of saying Fringlish But basically I think it's a way to entice people who grew up listening to their grandparents speak French but not knowing themselves how to speak French but hearing a few tasty morsels of French to bring them in and hopefully keep them in AS: So tell me a little bit about the callers into the show ML: We've talked about everything from Mardi Gras food is probably the most important or the most popular topic of conversation a bit old businesses that used to be in our area we've talked about a lot of different things AS: Even though Cajun French is very much promoted on the airwaves today Can you tell me a little bit about the history of the original efforts to stop French speaking in Louisiana and then later the revitalization movement I think it was back in the twenties of that an act by the state legislature banned speaking in French And actually the students were actually punished if they spoke French and they had to write lines and so on So even though they heard it constantly at home But it was through the efforts of such groups as Codafil in the sixties and other groups that Cajun and French became popular and became cool again And that that's when the efforts began in bringing in teachers from France and Canada to get back into the classroom to teach our kids our beautiful French language He passed away a little bit over a year ago Can you tell me a little bit more about the legacy that he leaves behind and everything that he brought to the station throughout his very long career?  he's an icon and I think a lot of people respect him He's the son of a farmer and he’s always was gifted with speaking He had a fantastic voice and the original first manager of KVPI heard him speak at a Rotary meeting Jim was still in high school and he had won the Future Farmers of America speech contest So he was allowed to go give his speech in front of Rotary members The general manager of the station heard Jim and invited him to come on so that was one of his very first duties as a young announcer to speak French And he's been with the radio station through the rest of his life Even though we no longer have the irreplaceable Jim How has it grown and changed over the years?  ML: We've expanded it to a full hour and people still ask us to go an hour and a half or go two hours because they love it so much We have Charlie Manual who is basically our French announcer And he's a co-host for all of the La Tasse De Café We're co-host with him every day of the week and It's a lot of fun you've been in the radio world for a really long time What do you think is the role of radio and broadcasting in the efforts to revitalize and boost French speaking in Louisiana Why is it so important to keep Cajun French on the airwaves?  I didn't want to hear Louisiana swamp pop music but I had a conversion a few years after I got into radio I started listening to these artists that play French music And these guys are just as talented as these guys in New York or Hollywood And I got into being an announcer at Fred's Lounge We do a weekly broadcast from this little bar that people from all over the world come to and they hear a live Cajun band And it was there that I started loving French And then with the help of Jim Soileau and others and I'm proud that I was able to obtain a love for our culture Not only the music – the music is great and our food is great — but our language is so special I'm wondering if you can tell me a little bit about that award “Uniquely Louisiana.” What do you think it means to be uniquely Louisianan And how does La Tasse De Café really capture that sentiment there aren't too many radio stations like us that still do what we do I think we're the only radio station in the state that still programs news in French And we're just proud that the Broadcasters of Louisiana feel like we do is important That we are trying to keep our culture and our heritage alive Video shows Mexican drug lord's men put up fierce fightThe Associated PressLOS MOCHIS in a central neighborhood of the Pacific coast city of Los Mochis 17 Mexican marines began their assault on a safe house thinking there was a good chance Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman was inside One marine was wounded by gunfire almost immediately and remained outside the front door while his comrades slowly advanced inside behind lobbed grenades and heavy fire according to video from the marines' helmet cameras released by Mexico's government on Monday A marine involved in the assault who gave a tour of the house to a reporter from the Mexican network Televisa said there were more people inside than expected and they were more heavily armed including with rocket-propelled grenades and .50 caliber sniper rifles Attorney General Arely Gomez told local radio that people in the house had ordered food for 13 people the night before the raid An Associated Press journalist who visited the house Monday saw bullet holes pocking its white concrete walls The marines had secured the downstairs rooms first One gunman was killed just inside a front door riddled with bullet holes one marine saw a man at the top of the stairs preparing to fire a rocket-propelled grenade The marine hit the weapon with a couple of shots causing the gunman to toss it The wall above the stairs was particularly damaged by gunfire as defenders tried to keep the marines from advancing Upstairs the marines found two women in a bathroom and two men in a room with a large television The home had four bedrooms and five bathrooms On one upstairs bed were four DVDs from the series La Reina del Sur the Mexican actress who put Guzman in contact with the American actor Sean Penn It took about 15 minutes to secure the house Then the marines followed the attackers across rooftops Four more gunmen were killed in this pursuit Beside a ground floor bedroom littered with clothing marines entered a walk-in closet and found an unusual panel behind a mirror Guides showed the AP how a lever hidden behind a ceiling light operated a mechanism that opened a door behind the mirror A 6-foot (nearly 2-meter) tall tunnel complete with lighting wood-paneled walls and a concrete floor led to more stairs and then a metal hatch opened into the city's storm sewer Guzman and his security chief traveled several blocks through the 3-foot (meter) tall storm sewer before popping out in the middle of an intersection Federal police eventually found them on a highway outside of town and Guzman's flight ended six months after his stunning escape from the same maximum security prison where he now sits Our editors will review what you’ve submitted and determine whether to revise the article Leni Riefenstahl (born August 22, 1902, Berlin, Germany—died September 8, 2003, Pöcking) was a German motion-picture director, actress, producer, and photographer who is best known for her documentary films of the 1930s dramatizing the power and pageantry of the Nazi movement and starred in Das blaue Licht (1932; The Blue Light) Riefenstahl’s films were acclaimed for their rich musical scores for the cinematic beauty of the scenes of dawn Because her films had aided the Nazi cause, Riefenstahl was detained by Allied forces after World War II, and, although she was officially cleared of complicity in Nazi war crimes In 1954 she completed Tiefland (“Lowland”) the production of which had been interrupted by the war but her career as a filmmaker was effectively over Much of her later life was devoted to photography and Korallengärten (1978; Coral Gardens) and Wunder unter Wasser (1990; Wonders Under Water) are collections of her underwater photographs; a documentary on marine life Impressionen unter Wasser (Impressions Under Water) At age 91, Riefenstahl was interviewed for director Ray Müller’s highly praised documentary Die Macht der Bilder: Leni Riefenstahl (1993; The Power of the Image: Leni Riefenstahl, or The Wonderful, Horrible Life of Leni Riefenstahl), in which she reveals herself as an undeniably brilliant woman with profoundly mixed feelings about her association with the Third Reich or The Sieve of Time: The Memoirs of Leni Riefenstahl) is her autobiography A man shows his pitted windshield to a police officer in Seattle in 1954 The nationwide weirdness that was the Windshield-Pitting Mystery began in the spring of 1954 Looking back at the events today may give us a window — OK a windshield — on the makeup and the mindset of mid-20th-century America The epidemic's epicenter, according to HistoryLink — an online compendium of Washington state history — was the town of Bellingham seemingly appeared in the windshields of cars at an unprecedented rate" in late March suspected "everything from cosmic rays to sand-flea eggs to fallout from H-bomb tests." In his Introduction to Collective Behavior and Collective Action, David L. Miller writes that "the testing of nuclear weapons and the threat of nuclear war" have been viewed as one source of the anxiety. The Huffington Post later called it "mass hysteria." The glass-pocking was soon noted in other Washington communities the strange wave of windshield-dinging reportedly swept through the city of Seattle The governor of Washington, a team of university scientists and even President Dwight D. Eisenhower were notified of the mass mystery Bizarre repercussions from nuclear testing America has been host to all three phenomena Historically, mass hysteria in this country is often associated with the 17th century witch trials in Salem graveyard vandalism was prevalent in communities from Pennsylvania to Tennessee to Ohio children all over the country were warned not to eat snow because of possible radiation from nuclear tests law enforcement officials scrutinized the windshields of 15,000 cars during the 1954 episode and discovered that more than 3,000 had been damaged law enforcement officials ruled out vandalism and radioactive fallout A representative of Seattle's police crime laboratory "declared that all of the damage reports were composed of '5 per cent hoodlum-ism and 95 per cent public hysteria.' Puget Sound residents had unwittingly become participants in a textbook example of collective delusion But — despite Seattle receiving most of the attention — reports continued to come in from around the country As International News Service noted on April 19 pitted windshields were reported in at least nine states and Canada Oregon and Wisconsin — as well as Washington — told authorities about mysterious marks on their car windshields pockmarks were found on the glass panes of greenhouses airplane cockpit glass appeared to be affected "Anywhere from 10 to 20 blue-edged pits first appear in the glass although as many as 50 'craters' may be discernible later," the reporter observed but pit depth of 1/16th of an inch have been reported." side windows of cars or other vertically positioned glass "This led one observer to believe that whatever is causing the pitting," the INS reported "is coming straight down from the sky at probably a high altitude." some 1,000 residents notified police that their windshields had been "blemished in a mysterious manner," the Daily Mail of Hagerstown And United Press in New York noted on April 20 that "new reports of mysterious windshield pittings came in today almost as fast as theories about what causes them." A Canadian scientist posited that the marks were made by the skeletons of minute marine creatures that had been propelled into the air by hydrogen bomb testing in the Pacific Ocean someone suggested that acid from flying bugs might be the source of the windshield-denting but a Brigham Young University biologist disproved the theory the Provo Daily Herald reported on June 27 reports of pitting decreased everywhere and the country moved on to building backyard fallout shelters But the question remains: What about those pitted windshields For guidance, we turn to Missouri State University sociologist David Rohall who has taught courses in social movements and collective behavior for more than a decade What was the cause of the windshield-pitting in Seattle and other places "Much of what happens in society is a numbers game," Rohall says any phenomenon starts to appear more common if you focus on any one event or behavior." Even something that is very infrequent may start to appear to be a trend There are millions of cars in Washington state but thousands of cases of pitting While thousands sounds like a huge phenomenon If everyone is looking for and reporting it it would appear to be a conspiracy of some sort." Since there was physical evidence of windshield-pocking did that put the incidents in a different category from other invisible phenomena that have triggered collective behavior "may be more like crop circles in which there is physical evidence that 'something' happened but no one is certain of the cause people utilize special equipment to make those crop circles The cause of the pitting is different because it would be very difficult to capture someone creating them." Is America still susceptible to a kind of mass hysteria that would lead to similar events "Most people in the field no longer believe in mass hysteria as a cause of large-group behavior," Rohall says a French theorist trying to explain the strange behavior of large groups during the French Revolution in which average citizens began killing large numbers of people via the guillotine What would cause them to do such a heinous thing?" "it is designed to be applied to situations of heightened emotional arousal — for example: large crowds While the ideas about pitting may have 'caught on' among people in the region I doubt it was an emotional contagion that drove them to act in a particular way." that caused large numbers of people to report pocked windshields "War of the Worlds is a wonderful example of how the media emphasizes the few 'real cases' of hysteria without recognizing that the vast majority of people knew that the radio program was fictional and did nothing," Rohall adds the media may have had people start noticing the pits that had already been there." He likens the experience to this: "It is very common for people to believe that they have contracted an illness when they hear a doctor describe a medical problem and the symptoms associated with that problem I suspect that most people already had these pits all along and only attributed it to the mysterious cause when they heard other people doing it Still others may have resulted from vandalism or new cases from simple accidents — debris from the roads Is this hysteria or simply logical thinking utilizing information from the media and their own situation — a pitted car Some research about supposed 'hysteria' really shows that people are not hysterical at all." Follow me @NPRHistoryDept; lead me by writing lweeks@npr.org Become an NPR sponsor There will be a whole lot of pockin’ going on Saturday in Cottonport Egg Pockin’ on the Bayou will take place all day Saturday along Bayou Rouge in Cottonport Billed as an Easter festival and “an old French family tradition,” Egg Pockin’ On the Bayou will feature an Easter egg hunt sponsored by the Cottonport Women’s Commission Saturday with a 5K Run/2 Mile Walk along the banks of Bayou Rouge with Sharon Lemoine Juneau and Elaine Juneau serving as masters of ceremony which will include visiting festival queens a balloon launch and “Tie a Yellow Ribbon around the Old Oak Tree” in memory of troops The schedule also includes: an Easter Egg Hunt 10:30 a.m.; Easter Bonnet Contest and arrival of Peter Cottontail 11:30 a.m.; Egg Toss Contest and Crawfish-Eating Contest 1 p.m.; Official Easter Egg Pockin’ Contest Boudin-Eating Contest and Crawfish-Eating Contest will take place under a big blue tent Filled Easter baskets will be prizes for winners of the Wagon Parade A $100 cash prize will go to the winners of the Crawfish- and Boudin-Eating Contests Cash prizes are also awarded in divisions in the Egg Pockin’ Contest the festival will be held at the Cottonport Community Center on Bryan Street Are you planning to dye Easter eggs this year there is a bit of good news -- prices have dropped significantly Louisiana Farm Bureau spokesperson Avery Davidson said prices of eggs have dropped quite a bit the southern average for a dozen eggs was $4.17 last year but this year it's down to $2.71 “Although they’re starting to trend just a little bit higher so you can expect to spend between about $2.89 and about $3.40 for a dozen eggs right now,” said Davidson the prices now are still a bit higher than two years ago when we were paying from $1.50 to $2.00 per dozen Davidson said the effects of the deadly avian influenza outbreak last year continue to linger because everything is supply-demand plus inflation when you put all those together that’s why we’re still seeing the prices not as low as they were just two years ago,” said Davidson while we might be paying $2.89 to $3.40 per dozen this Easter Davidson said to keep in mind that farmer's profits continue to be really low “You can pretty much say that about $.08 for every dollar that you spend actually makes it back to the farmer Everything else is covering transportation But then again, consumers are doing much better than last year (At least for this commodity.) The average price for a dozen eggs in Louisiana reached a peak of almost $5.00 in January 2023 Prices have gone down significantly since the beginning of last year.\nRead More Louisiana Farm Bureau spokesperson Avery Davidson said prices of eggs have dropped quite a bit - Average life expectancy: 75.2 years (same as statewide average)\r\n- Health outcomes statewide rank: #19\r\n--- Length of life rank: #18\r\n--- Quality of life rank: #24 Paques in the Parc an Easter celebration in downtown Lafayette is returning and will be taking place on Saturday The 2nd annual event will feature Cajun and Zydeco bands and the opportunity for the King of Paques to be crowned Bring your favorite decorated Easter egg and compete in the traditional egg knocking competition for a chance to be crowned King or Queen of Paques There will also be children's games hosted by the Children's Museum of Acadiana In addition to the great Cajun and Creole food Here is the complete band and event schedule for the day: 2:00 pm - 3:00 pm: Jamie Bergeron and the Kickin' Cajuns3:00 pm: Paquer Contest3:30 pm - 4:30 pm: Geno Delafose & French Rockin' Boogie4:30 pm: Paquer Contest5:00 pm - 6:00 pm: Horace Trahan and the Ossun Express6:00 pm - 7:30 pm: Rusty Metoyer & Zydeco KrushSpecial Guest: CG The Ordinary Man and Bezel8:30 pm - 10:00 pm: Lil Nate and the Zydeco Big Timers For more information on this fun event, visit PaquesInTheParc.com or follow the Facebook page Tickets for the day are only $15 and you can purchase them at EventBrite.com Paques in the Parc is put on by Good Tymes Cares a non-profit organization dedicated to promoting cultural diversity and supporting the arts in our community The 2nd annual event will feature Cajun and Zydeco bands, Cajun and Creole food, and the opportunity for the King of Paques to be crowned.\nRead More Paques in the Parc \nSAT...March 30th Easter Weekend\n\n click the Blue link and go to EventBrite .. For more information on this fun event, visit PaquesInTheParc.com or follow the Facebook page Tickets for the day are only $15 and you can purchase them at EventBrite.com and we pretty much celebrate just about anything And after the crazy winter weather in Acadiana it's time for us to look forward to spring Even though the pandemic is still a huge part of our lives some of the restrictions in Louisiana are being eased so we are cautiously proceeding with a lot of hope for a return back to "normal" activities chocolate eggs are not the only thing we want in our baskets this year I'm just hoping that everyone is healthy and happy for the rest of 2021 It's not all about chocolate bunnies in Louisiana\nRead More PROVIDENCE — The drive-by shooting brought grave danger to open spaces outside the city's only Walmart store.  Three bullets hit a known gang member and nearly killed him on that evening in October 2016 another burst of bullets targeted an innocent woman in the Wanskuck neighborhood the timing and geographical proximity suggested a potential link between the two drive-by shootings But a faulty report on the color of the car at the second shooting seemed to undercut that suggestion Surveillance video of the car was not immediately forthcoming; securing the video would demand a canvassing effort But the casings definitively linked both shootings to the same gun analysis of the casings would eventually identify meaningful connections between the gunfire that night and eight other shootings in 2016 At one of these shootings just months before Rhode Island's system for linking bullet casings to guns was not an on-demand operation Providence police detectives would embark on their investigation without the benefit of an immediate analysis of bullet casings And the criminals responsible for the shooting outside Walmart would continue their campaign of gunfire on local streets Ballistic Information Network creates 'fingerprints' of bullet casingsIn August a new $140,000 machine joined the lineup of computers and other technology at the attorney general's Bureau of Criminal Identification and Investigation in Cranston Financed with cash forfeited by drug dealers the state gained a second point of access to systems that can help criminal investigators find links between bullet casings in as little as five hours Providence police BCI Detective Michelle Braga took her training on Aug immersing herself in the basics of Brass Trax A gun's firing pin stamps a distinct marking into the casing of the bullets it fires Braga has learned how to create a digital image of this stamp She enters the image into the National Integrated Ballistic Information Network (NIBIN) The network is similar to the national database that helps police collect and compare fingerprints Braga figures she's used her new skill to enter images from 40 to 50 casings into the system since early August Rhode Island had just one terminal in the Rhode Island State Crime Laboratory at the University of Rhode Island in South Kingstown BCI investigators like Braga typically drove bullet casings down to URI images of the markings were created and entered into NIBIN in-house Public Safety Commissioner Steven Paré and others in law enforcement recognized both the potential and the need for faster turnaround times Clements says he pressed for greater speed investigators had received analysis on casings in a matter of days The turnaround was slower in other situations Clements says he concluded the department needed its own Brass Trax technology Clements publicly noted a trend: gunmen were firing more rounds and leaving greater numbers of casings at shooting scenes Attorney General Peter Neronha says he delved into the issue after his office helped establish the Urban Violent Crime Task Force with police in Providence He learned about slow processing at the lab and a backlog of cases "They're handling a lot of things from across the state."  "is if you have to wait three to six months to turn around your ballistic analysis We should be able to turn that analysis around for an existing shooting within hours of that shooting … It was pretty clear to me that we just needed a second NIBIN machine."  Neronha says investigators can now process bullet casings with the new terminal at prosecutors' Cranston offices at 2 a.m The shooting outside Walmart had been the work of Chad Brown gang members. Montrel Johnson had spotted an East Side gang member Delacey Andrade arrived outside with Keishon Johnson Ed Troiano was one of the investigators who grappled with the two shootings Troiano was an ATF agent near the end of a long career at the federal agency He says he believes the investigation could have gained greater momentum early on if detectives had learned almost immediately that the two shootings that night were linked – definitively – by ballistic evidence as detectives dealt with challenges such as a lack of easily obtained surveillance video in the vicinity of the Wanskuck shooting and a misleading report on the color of the shooters' car the investigation had focused on Andrade and on a home on Cleveland Street in North Providence Investigators hoped to find evidence linking Andrade and other gang members to the shooting perhaps even a handgun equipped with the same firing pin that had pounded its own identifier into the bullet casings found at the shooting scenes They also found four rounds of .40-caliber ammunition But their search 25 days after the two shootings did not find the Beretta Troiano says he believes their chances would have been much better if police had shown up "You can see how that delay was a missed opportunity," says Troiano who is now chief of the attorney general’s BCI unit the gang members responsible for the shooting outside Walmart could look forward to more violence in 2017 Recovering the silver Beretta broke the case openIn March 2017 Montrel Johnson shot a 35-year-old mother and her 15-year-old daughter set out to eliminate an "archrival," according to prosecutors They saw their target driving a black Jaguar on Douglas Avenue Prosecutors would later describe what unfolded as a "complete menace to society."  It was a "rolling gunfight in broad daylight."  Mothers and children ducked for cover at Tomato City Pizza Providence police tracked a vehicle after yet another shooting on Hendrick Street As the shooting suspects tried to evade police Police recovered it from an area along Mount Pleasant Avenue The weapon became a piece of evidence in a complex federal prosecution. Prosecutors argued that the gang members' violence and other offenses were part of a racketeering enterprise And this past summer the case put Andrade and the three Johnsons in prison for terms ranging from six to 12 years 'People are dying needlessly':Judge sentences Chad Brown gang members to lengthy terms the investigators’ analysis of the bullet casings came together long before the racketeering case had run its course  Troiano and other investigators had charted out a web of connections among 10 different shootings in 2010 Their diagram was labeled “RI NIBIN HITS” with a case number It linked bullet casings from the .40-caliber Beretta to five shootings over a 19-month period One of those shootings had been in 2015 outside a market on Camp Street Another casing from the Beretta had been recovered in 2016 after a man was shot outside the same market Analysis of the casing revealed links between the second shooting outside the market and five other shooting scenes from a location on Pleasant Street where someone had shot out a streetlight in 2015 to a place on Nebraska Street where someone had shot up a Jeep Troiano and others say that faster analysis of bullet casings can help police develop such diagrams much more quickly and head-off extended sprees of gun violence Neronha’s office has hired an intelligence analyst to help illuminate connections in bullet-casing data the analysis of bullet casings has greatly improved What are ghost guns? Police say they pose a growing threat in Rhode Island. Through a donation in 2018, the Stiftung Preußischer Kulturbesitz received the complete estate of Leni Riefenstahl (1902–2003) consisting of films and photographs, manuscripts, letters, documents, ethnographica, textiles and film-related materials. The holdings, which are stored at the Kunstbibliothek and Ethnologisches Museum (both Staatliche Museen zu Berlin) the Staatsbibliothek and the Deutsche Kinemathek will be indexed in databases and digitised A joint portal will make the holdings accessible to researchers and the public Leni Riefenstahl is one of the most famous and controversial artists in the history of German film and photography Her biography spans the entire 20th century and is remarkable not only for its marked artistic creativity that lasted into her old age but also for the artist’s adaptability to various political systems materials with which she worked with throughout her life It is an archive that has been largely closed to critical research until now which includes documents of varying extent from all phases of her life and work is a unique biographical research source on her oeuvre The estate confronts the institutions managing the collection with a challenging ethical responsibility and related scholarly issues Dealing with objects associated with problematic National Socialist topics or with gender-coded representations of Africans shaped by a colonial-primitivising view requires a high degree of sensitivity and critical reflection the cross-institutional cooperation is accompanied by an international scholarly advisory board The publication of the collections in a joint online portal is intended to create a platform for dealing with this ‟difficult heritage” Academic team: Dr. Ludger Derenthal, Katrin Peters-Klaphake, Kunstbibliothek Cooperation partners: Ethnologisches Museum Staatsbibliothek – Handschriftenabteilung and the Stiftung Deutsche Kinemathek Supported by: the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and Media (BKM) Project duration: 2019 to 2024 Staatliche Museen zu Berlin Be one of the first to try our new activity feed Apples no one has ever tasted are still out in the wild has spent a decade searching for these 100-year-old heirlooms Dave Benscoter leads me into a thicket of trees rising from a slope along the edge of Steptoe Butte in eastern Washington We trudge until a mess of branches—some bent low others soaring toward the sun like Icarus—obscure the outline of his five-foot-nine-inch frame currently draped in a T-shirt bearing the image of a whitetail buck he fixes his bespectacled eyes on an object the size of a tennis ball local legend James “Cashup” Davis erected a hotel at the top of the butte a popular destination until travelers figured that navigating a rickety wagon up 3,600 feet was a surefire way to join the departed the abandoned hotel became an after-hours booze-soaked hangout.) But Cashup also planted several hundred apple trees in the ravines below scattered like patchwork between overgrown brush and tilled wheat fields Benscoter carries a long pole topped with a metal basket resembling the pocket of a lacrosse stick he maneuvers it between a tuft of green and orange leaves then plucks an apple with the hue of a highlighter off a branch my all-time favorite apple,” Benscoter says after hauling it in “It looks like a butt.” A vertical indent creased it down the middle and promptly spits out a chunk of partially masticated fruit hoping to find one that people haven’t tasted in decades By 1900, about 20,000 known varieties of apples grew across North America. Now there’s less than half that number. Some are extinct, while others grow on trees more than a century old These heirloom varieties fell out of favor when new transportation and storage methods nullified the need for locally grown apples As commercial agriculture supplanted family orchards about 20,000 known varieties of apples grew across North America A self-styled sleuth of forgotten fruit, Benscoter pursues these rare heirlooms. He’s the founder of the Lost Apple Project a nonprofit whose mission is to rediscover heritage apples in the Pacific Northwest he has found 29 different varieties that were previously thought to be gone some dating back to Grover Cleveland’s first presidency in the 1880s “It is difficult to describe how it feels to taste apples you’ve never tasted before,” he says I’d flown 3,000 miles to Washington to join the hunt and experience it for myself I wanted to find an apple I’ve never eaten—maybe even one that Benscoter himself hasn’t rediscovered Many of the trees we investigate are already dead but without knowing whether our quarry is an old variety Is there a fruit more closely entwined with American culture than the apple? Soldiers in World War II told reporters they were fighting for two reasons: their mothers and apple pie. During a lecture in 1858, transcendentalist poet Ralph Waldo Emerson described the apple as “our national fruit.” Recall the tale of pioneer nurseryman John Chapman who voyaged down the Ohio River with a boatload of apple seeds planting orchards throughout the early American frontier (a feat that earned him his storied nickname during which hard cider was consumed by the barrelful because in the 1770s the average colonist knocked back more than 30 gallons of fermented apple juice every year that the quintessential American fruit was also an immigrant edible apple traces back thousands of years to somewhere near present-day Kazakhstan From there human growers carried these wild The only apple indigenous to this continent is a cousin Lilliputian in size and extraordinarily sour due to the presence of excess malic acid—the same compound which and supermarket varieties are all members of the Malus genus; the ones available in grocery stores American propagation of apples began as early as the 1600s along the eastern seaboard but the apple’s golden age really started during the Civil War With the 1862 passage of the first of several Homestead Acts millions of Americans flocked west of the Mississippi River to stake claims to newly opened public land usually by planting immature trees rather than sowing seeds which possesses the frustrating creativity of an unsupervised toddler with a box of crayons and a blank living-room wall a plant physiologist with the National Laboratory for Genetic Resources Preservation in Fort Collins Apple trees need pollen from another source and what usually happens is that bees carry pollen from an unrelated apple variety The trees that grow from the resulting seeds are genetically distinct “The seeds in the fruit are the result of maternal tissue crossing with pollen from somewhere else,” Volk says “That means a different dad is coming in and fertilizing the mom This is wonderful for generating multitudes of genetically diverse progeny—which is why apple varieties number in the thousands ensure the preservation of specific apples Most American apple trees were first grown from seeds and backyard gardeners determined which seedling trees produced desirable Grafting is the only assurance of reproducing a cultivar is nipped from the apple tree and tied onto rootstock Before that Red Delicious was a Red Delicious Orchards of the 1800s were populated by cultivars with eccentric names: Surprise There was even an apple dubbed the Anti-Know Nothing a dunk on the nativist political party that sprung up mid-century Orchards were also vital to homesteaders’ livelihoods Apples were used in pie-baking and cider-making Fermented hard cider left to sit eventually became apple cider vinegar a potent pickling elixir that kept harvest foods edible for years Even rotten apples served a purpose: pigs and cows had to eat “Apples were the most important fruit homesteaders planted and possibly the most important food they planted,” says Benscoter Crossbreeding between named apples to achieve different attributes was common practice varieties that ripened in the fall were denser than those ready by late summer which meant they kept over winter and were still good come spring From the late 1800s through the turn of the century nurseries and family orchards expanded the pool of cultivars Yet just as the Homestead Acts of the 1800s created the conditions for orchards to thrive a new set of macroeconomic circumstances transformed apples from a family pursuit into a market commodity Advancements in refrigerated railroad cars and the ability to patent and trademark apple varieties for the first time where large orchards pumped out a limited number of cultivars “We’re always looking for that new, shiny apple. And if a nursery can’t sell that anymore, they move on to something else,” says apple historian Dan Bussey, whose 2016 book on the history of apples in North America is a resource for hunters like Benscoter These days just 15 different varieties make up nearly 90 percent of all production, according to the U.S. Apple Association, with Gala, Red Delicious, Fuji, Honeycrisp, and Granny Smith among the most popular types (Gala recently overtook Red Delicious as America’s most-grown apple.) Washington still grows more than half of the apples in America today And while the commodification of agriculture precipitated the demise of many antique cultivars not every apple from the fruit’s golden age is gone waiting for someone with the inclination to wonder—and then wander out to broken-down homesteads where old trees still survive and where rare apples might be found I arrive during what Benscoter calls “pristine apple-hunting season.” An affable 68-year-old which is where he picks me up on my first day in his Toyota Tacoma to the home of a man with several apple trees on his land that were holdovers from a previous homestead Benscoter restricts his searches to a manageable geographical area: eastern Washington His apple-picking pole was in the truck bed he had a five-gallon bucket filled with plastic bags When Benscoter locates what he suspects is a lost apple then plots it on hand-drawn maps of each location he visits This methodical nature is a relic of his past life Benscoter spent six years with the Federal Bureau of Investigation tracking down con men and money swindlers One such caper involved a bank president who embezzled more than $6 million and stole his 95-year-old aunt’s life savings “A big part of the case was putting shredded documents together,” recalls Benscoter he worked for 17 years with the criminal division of the Internal Revenue Service Lost apples became his passion six years later while he was tending the property of a disabled friend a woman whose family had owned the land and its old orchard since the early 1900s She knew only a couple of the apples’ names but Benscoter wanted to identify the others his online search led him to old county-fair records and newspaper articles that included names and descriptions of local apple varieties “I am all about the history that would be lost if these trees become extinct,” he says “Every orchard I enter tells part of the story of the homesteading family.” “It’s like being Sherlock Holmes,” says Bunker “I think that’s why Dave jumped into it so well because his career in the FBI totally fit with the work he’s now doing.” One of Benscoter’s early finds was the Fall Jenneting an apple with a deep orange color he uncovered in 2013 on the site of the old Colfax College He thought it was a genuine rediscovery—until he called Bunker who said he’d found the same apple the year before Is there a fruit more closely entwined with American culture than the apple In 2014, he located his first lost apple, a dark red heirloom called Nero that was dangling from a tree at the bottom of Steptoe Butte Shortly after he started the Lost Apple Project which he funds by selling scions to people interested in growing their own lost varieties To find a lost apple, you can either begin with its name and try to locate the tree, or you start with an apple and determine whether it’s a named cultivar from decades past. Benscoter consults nursery logs and county records, which include the names of old varieties. For visual cues, he checks the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s pomological watercolor collection an online directory of 3,807 apple paintings commissioned by the federal government between 1886 and 1942 As for where to look: Benscoter fields hundreds of leads a year by phone and email He had been told two trees on the property might be a pair of lost apples called Olive and White Catline Picture an arcade claw game—now flip the claw upside down balance it 20 feet in the air underneath an apple fixed tightly to a branch It’s also softer and less crisp than the Gala apples I normally enjoy He logs the GPS coordinates before filling two gallon-size Ziploc bags one of the few tried-and-true apple-identification experts in the country Shepherd helps run the Temperate Orchard Conservancy in northwest Oregon where more than 3,000 apple varieties are grown It’s primarily a visual exercise: you learn what’s what by studying for decades “It’s like recognizing someone’s face,” says Shepherd plus dozens more traits​​—everything that makes apples “stupid complicated,” as he puts it Shepherd also consults a spreadsheet he has compiled for the past 20 years one that lists groups of apples—heirloom cultivars and modern varieties—that share similar attributes “and in order to know what a given apple is Benscoter knows some of the phenotypic stuff mailing some 200 bags to the conservancy annually “He just drives me crazy sometimes,” Shepherd says Trying to identify heritage apples by phenotype alone is where hunters run into trouble Benscoter isn’t usually fooled by common cultivars: show him a Granny Smith suspected rare varieties sometimes resemble other apples Benscoter has been relying on an additional method If the conservancy suspects an apple Benscoter has located might be lost and stuffs them inside of small tubes filled with drying crystals if you would have asked me what part apple DNA has in bringing back lost varieties Genotyping apples is changing the game, thanks to the work of Cameron Peace, a horticultural scientist at Washington State University in Pullman Peace works in a laboratory inside the Vogel Plant Biosciences Building just across from the Cougars’ football stadium I had hunted with Benscoter for two days; now I was going to get a look inside the apple—sort of where he had opened a computer spreadsheet containing more than 2,000 different named cultivars and their individual chromosomal makeup Peace and Benscoter first met about five years ago, when Benscoter came to campus to deliver a guest lecture about his apple work. At the time, Peace was analyzing the DNA profiles of modern cultivars and their ancestors, an effort to understand the genetic factors behind good apple attributes—crunchiness, sweetness, resistance to disease, and the like—for U.S. apple breeders as part of a decade-long project and today’s breeders follow the methods of yesteryear by crossing different cultivars and selecting offspring for taste sought to assist apple breeders by gathering and analyzing the genetic data of different apples to inform decisions about which apples to cross in order to generate a particular flavor profile The scientific term is DNA-based diagnostics the DNA work sounded like a missing puzzle piece: the lab could check the genetic profiles of any apples he plucked during his hunts he convinced the university to make space in its research orchard so he could graft historic cultivars native to Whitman County the region in Washington where he has rediscovered many lost apples “To have someone like that is really valuable for the world because he inspires lots of other people.” Next to Peace are dozens of leaf-sample collection tubes that Benscoter has sent along with hundreds of other samples from fruit enthusiasts across the country are in fact wildly complex: They contain 42,000 genes The leaf samples Peace receives are analyzed through a multistep process the lab ends up with a spreadsheet that shows its genetic makeup across 18,000 spots on the apple genome to about 2,400 of the most reliable genetic markers which are cross-checked against the lab’s reference dataset of several thousand cultivars If virtually none of those markers are identical to an existing cultivar in Peace’s database then it’s possible the apple is a lost variety then it shouldn’t match anything else exactly,” Peace says The parentage of the apple would also need to be appropriately old If the DNA profile analysis determined that the parent of the sample tree was Honeycrisp then there’s no way the apple is an heirloom fruit On the computer, Peace clicks on a row representing what’s suspected to be Regmalard who works on the Lost Apple Project with Benscoter The data shows that the apple’s genetic markers are distinctive and the few matches along the chromosomal sequence are with old homestead varieties like Ben Davis and Yellow Transparent Genetic profiling alone won’t tell you if an apple is lost But it does cut out time that might otherwise be spent gazing at images in the USDA’s pomological database or sifting through records looking for descriptions of old apples in an effort to identify an heirloom Yet there’s another, more fundamental reason why collecting the DNA profiles of heritage apples is important. What drives hunters is the connection to the past. Rescuing these apples is the agricultural equivalent of protecting an endangered species since most apple trees don’t live longer than 140 years and some of them could have been lost varieties,” Benscoter says The genotypic record is another historical preservation tool—and something that could also drive breeding programs of the future The apples of the homestead years lived through pestilence and plague Could it be that the characteristics embedded in their DNA profiles tell us about the types of apples that can feed us well into the current century Peace and I finish at the lab and drive several miles off campus to the university’s research orchard Apple trees are planted across two one-acre plots Four rows are reserved for the Whitman County apples Benscoter is grafting The plan is to have two of each of the 250 cultivars that once grew in this area including the land around Pullman and the cascading slopes of Steptoe Butte Baby apple trees are already beginning to sprout we walk the other rows of mature apple trees One tree standing about seven feet tall is weighed down with softball-size red apples Peace picks a couple of them and hands me one I hold every morsel in my mouth like a sip of good Scotch as if he’s getting ready to share a secret It’s a new cultivar that the university created in the mid-1990s and patented in 2012 Both apples were created via crossbreeding and a bit of crabapple for extra crispness Rescuing these apples is the agricultural equivalent of protecting an endangered species a modest rancher off a gravel road in the woods Apples aren’t all he grows—two five-gallon buckets by the garage are filled to the brim with pears—but they are the main attraction He’s lived here for 18 years and has planted 25 apple trees with multiple branches of different apples grafted onto the same large trunk Benscoter is busy taking photos of the apples we bagged up during our two days of searching The possible Olives and White Catlines are there along with the bag of unknown apples we collected on Steptoe Butte Apples of various colors—deep reds and pale yellows some small—dangle from branches in Benscoter’s orchard making them hard to spot in the branches of an old apple tree “A few times you get lucky,” Benscoter says I turn the thought over in my head and recall our walk through the ravines of Steptoe Butte When we emerged from the groves of apple trees with just one bag But when we climbed back into Benscoter’s pickup he decided to double-back to the start of the road leading up to the butte’s peak He parked and walked over to a lone apple tree standing a few feet away But it was an apple I had never seen before I cradled it in my hand like a piece of antique jewelry Then I did as Benscoter taught me: cleaned it off with my shirt and took a bite we looked at each other and knew: it was a good apple and tech with access to unlimited digital content from Outside Network's iconic brands There's a long list of things that will be new to audience members at the reopening of Cincinnati's Music Hall on Oct There's a shorter list of things that are unchanged $135 million renovation of the iconic and historic cultural venue is the ultimate question: How will the freshened Springer Auditorium essentially a 21st century concert hall carefully installed in a 19th century building sound?Here's a rundown of some of the biggest changes to the public spaces of Music Hall, which is actually three connected structures Chandelier still the star of renovated auditorium CSO to debut 'Stories of Home' it commissioned CET documentary takes you inside renovation project the CSO posted this quote from music director Louis Langrée on its Facebook account: "The acoustic improvements of the renovated Music Hall are amazing The sound of the orchestra is warmer than ever mixed now with wonderful clarity and presence." All of the details about the refurbished hall's materials that could affect how it sounds –the materials used in the seats for example – had to be approved by the acoustic consultants hired for the renovation project including the underlayments and how the stage was constructed The acousticians were in the hall on last Wednesday making tweaks after comments from orchestra members in an acoustic test concert the night before that included an audience (Remember an audience is a "soft" surface that absorbs sound so including an audience in tests is essential.) a brief ceremonial reopening of the doors by leaders of each of its five resident companies The building will be open for free from 10 a.m where you’ll learn the history of the building as well as information about the renovation take a “Beyond the Bricks” tour to learn the history of the black bricks There will be performances and exhibitions throughout the building as well as in Washington Park You’ll see a display of Cincinnati Opera and Cincinnati Ballet costumes performances by various groups and much more there will be street-side performances and shows on the main stage and band shell in Washington Park including the new Cincinnati Shakespeare Co theater as well as the newly renovated Memorial Hall and Ensemble Theater Cincinnati will be open and free as well.  Finally and Contemporary Arts Center also will celebrate with free admission For a detailed schedule, go to cincyartsguide.com/categories/renewed-celebration/ While researching and interviewing for an upcoming story I have written I was reminded of the power of family unity Even in a time when traditional families are being frowned upon I was once told by a mentor of mine that once you leave college and take part in a newspaper office you will learn three times more than you learned in school Click here to read Ruston Leader Everyone knows about the Summer and Winter Olympics but did you know that Louisiana hosts its own Olympic Games But this is what they’d look like if we did people have their favorite events like Gymnastics or Curling Here are the 5 most popular events at the totally real and not at all made up Cajun Olympics While most Louisianans can’t agree on how to spell it this popular event involves two competitors smacking a couple of hard-boiled eggs together to see whose cracks first Paqueing/Pocking usually takes place over Easter where representatives from towns across the state converge on Breaux Bridge to test their mettle in fierce competition against some of the best egg smackers in the world NOTE: Much like doping scandals have plagued the “real” Olympic Games, the Cajun Olympics has had its fair share of cheaters. Paqueing/Pocking athletes have been known to substitute polished “rock eggs” for actual hard-boiled eggs, so the COC (Cajun Olympics Committee) has developed extensive testing protocols to keep the games honest. (Read more about the great “rock eggs” scandal of ‘83 here.) While the “real” Olympics frowns on gambling the Cajun Olympic Committee not only has no problem with it but one of its most popular events is centered around athletes taking as much money from their opponents as possible by way of playing Bourré Bourré is a card game where the winner of each hand takes the majority of tricks and goes home with all of Boudreaux’s money There are some other rules and specifics involved but they don’t really matter right now All you need to know is that Bourré is one of the most heated events in all of the Cajun Olympics and fights have been known to break out on more than one occasion During the famous final round between Remy Hebert and Mary Landry in the summer of ’92 both athletes leapt from their seats and dove over the table where they proceeded to beat the living snot out of each other until Maw-Maw turned the hose on 'em but everyone knows Mary got the better of him with that last swing This event is held over the span of three nights every two years in Rayne where athletes from around the state meet up to see who can catch the most frogs by the end of the event A secondary game is then held for bonus points where each athlete cooks up their best frogs and the ultimate winner is determined through a combined score of total frogs caught plus the tastiness rating of each dish No Cajun Olympic game is without controversy the only permitted way of catching each frog was leaning off the front of the boat and grabbing dem critters with your bare hands after several Frogging athletes successfully petitioned the COC gigging was allowed as a permissible method The hand-catcher earns one extra bonus point per frog which is seen as an acceptable way to balance the two methods a cottage gig stick industry has developed around the event where professional quality sticks are hand-sharpened by skilled artisans to conform to the unique needs of each athlete NOTE: The Cajun Olympic Committee neither endorses nor oversees the execution of the frogs for the second phase of the event This is done out of respect for each athlete’s preferred method of whacking the frogs on their heads and also due to avoiding potential litigation issues with animal rights groups seeing as how it involves both tossing and catching Mardi Gras beads where one athlete acts as the thrower and the other as the catcher Points are awarded for style during the toss Each team is allowed to set their own conditions for the toss but due to the highly competitive nature and the Olympic skill level of the athletes most teams choose difficult setups where the catcher is positioned higher than the tosser while both athletes must negotiate various hazards but hardly done since fewer points are awarded due to the increased height the float gives to the tosser thus making it easier for the beads to reach the catcher.) Additionally spectators are encouraged to participate in the event by way of offering them free alcohol if they’ll crowd the street and stumble around while incoherently shouting random phrases to best approximate tourists in the French Quarter The Cajun Olympic record for this event is the stuff of legend It was won in 2003 by a husband and wife team from Plaquemine and involved a toss with the astonishing difficulty rating of Poo-yie The tosser asked that one of the spectators shout ROLL TIDE before spitting cheap beer in his face and gut-punching him and leapt back up like an armadillo on fire as the beads smoothly left his hand in a perfect arc toward the catcher the catcher was positioned at the back of a small balcony crowded with a dozen bridesmaids and one confused groomsman The scenario decided upon by the team had the tosser “giving up” and turning her back to the street as she began to walk inside she had to catch a glimpse of their reflection in the glass of the balcony door as she opened it then turn and raise her arm up and over Becky as she pushed forward through the bridesmaids to just barely snag the edge of the necklace between her fingertips but this is the most popular event in all the Cajun Olympics You might think it’d be the Head Sucking and/or Tail Pinching events as are the Gator Wrestling and Tabasco Chugging events but none of them compare to the turnout for Bobbing Even the Crawfish Boil during the closing ceremonies doesn’t draw as much of a crowd Each athlete’s hands are bound behind their backs and they’re blindfolded with a ripped up piece of Paw-Paw’s old coveralls They then need to plunge their heads into a pot of live crawfish to see how many they can get out of there before the timer runs out The crawfish bobbing is the last game played before the closing ceremonies so the pot dem crawfish is in is for the boil Each athlete gets their own pot of mudbugs and the game starts as the seasonings are dumped in and the fires underneath all the pots are lit you wouldn’t add the crawfish until after your water has come to a boil but the Cajun Olympic Committee makes an exception to that rule for this event No one has to eat the crawfish from the bobbing game due to this change but it’s generally considered bad form if you don’t What gives the game its challenge is all the mudbugs scrambling to escape the pot so they’re scurrying and snatching and clamping on any old thing they can It’s not uncommon for one bob to yield a dozen or more crawfish all clamped on to various parts of an athlete’s face this event requires a high pain tolerance due not only to the crawfish themselves but also with the way the seasonings start to burn your eyes out after a minute or two as the water heats up and works its way to a boil The game is over once the last athlete can’t bear to stick his face back in the hot pot anymore, after which and it’s on to the closing ceremonies where everyone eats the crawfish Everyone knows about the Summer and Winter Olympics, but have you heard about the Cajun Olympics? Here are the 5 most popular events.\nRead More While the “real” Olympics frowns on gambling, the Cajun Olympic Committee not only has no problem with it, but one of its most popular events is centered around athletes taking as much money from their opponents as possible by way of playing Bourré. For those unfamiliar with it, Bourré is a card game where the winner of each hand takes the majority of tricks and goes home with all of Boudreaux’s money. There are some other rules and specifics involved, but they don’t really matter right now. All you need to know is that Bourré is one of the most heated events in all of the Cajun Olympics, and fights have been known to break out on more than one occasion. During the famous final round between Remy Hebert and Mary Landry in the summer of ’92, both athletes leapt from their seats and dove over the table where they proceeded to beat the living snot out of each other until Maw-Maw turned the hose on 'em. To this day, Remy claims victory, but everyone knows Mary got the better of him with that last swing. This event is held over the span of three nights every two years in Rayne, Louisiana, where athletes from around the state meet up to see who can catch the most frogs by the end of the event. A secondary game is then held for bonus points where each athlete cooks up their best frogs, and the ultimate winner is determined through a combined score of total frogs caught plus the tastiness rating of each dish. No Cajun Olympic game is without controversy, and Frogging is no different. For years, the only permitted way of catching each frog was leaning off the front of the boat and grabbing dem critters with your bare hands. However, after several Frogging athletes successfully petitioned the COC, gigging was allowed as a permissible method. The hand-catcher earns one extra bonus point per frog, which is seen as an acceptable way to balance the two methods. As an added benefit, a cottage gig stick industry has developed around the event, where professional quality sticks are hand-sharpened by skilled artisans to conform to the unique needs of each athlete. NOTE: The Cajun Olympic Committee neither endorses nor oversees the execution of the frogs for the second phase of the event. This is done out of respect for each athlete’s preferred method of whacking the frogs on their heads, and also due to avoiding potential litigation issues with animal rights groups. The Bead Toss has a misleading name, seeing as how it involves both tossing and catching Mardi Gras beads. Contestants are divided into teams of two, where one athlete acts as the thrower and the other as the catcher. Points are awarded for style during the toss, and for the difficulty of the catch. Each team is allowed to set their own conditions for the toss, but due to the highly competitive nature and the Olympic skill level of the athletes, most teams choose difficult setups where the catcher is positioned higher than the tosser, while both athletes must negotiate various hazards. The Cajun Olympic record for this event is the stuff of legend. It was won in 2003 by a husband and wife team from Plaquemine, and involved a toss with the astonishing difficulty rating of Poo-yie! Mais garde des don! The tosser asked that one of the spectators shout ROLL TIDE! before spitting cheap beer in his face and gut-punching him, whereupon he folded in on himself, then tucked, rolled, and leapt back up like an armadillo on fire as the beads smoothly left his hand in a perfect arc toward the catcher. Mais, but this is the most popular event in all the Cajun Olympics. You might think it’d be the Head Sucking and/or Tail Pinching events, but you’d be wrong. The Air Boat Races are popular, sure, as are the Gator Wrestling and Tabasco Chugging events, but none of them compare to the turnout for Bobbing. Even the Crawfish Boil during the closing ceremonies doesn’t draw as much of a crowd, and that’s saying something. The rules of the event are pretty simple. Each athlete’s hands are bound behind their backs, and they’re blindfolded with a ripped up piece of Paw-Paw’s old coveralls. They then need to plunge their heads into a pot of live crawfish to see how many they can get out of there before the timer runs out. Except there isn’t any timer. Not really. The crawfish bobbing is the last game played before the closing ceremonies, so the pot dem crawfish is in is for the boil. Each athlete gets their own pot of mudbugs, and the game starts as the seasonings are dumped in and the fires underneath all the pots are lit. NOTE: Normally, you wouldn’t add the crawfish until after your water has come to a boil, but the Cajun Olympic Committee makes an exception to that rule for this event. No one has to eat the crawfish from the bobbing game due to this change, but it’s generally considered bad form if you don’t. What gives the game its challenge is all the mudbugs scrambling to escape the pot, so they’re scurrying and snatching and clamping on any old thing they can, from each athlete’s nose, to their ears, and everything in-between. It’s not uncommon for one bob to yield a dozen or more crawfish all clamped on to various parts of an athlete’s face. Naturally, this event requires a high pain tolerance due not only to the crawfish themselves, but also with the way the seasonings start to burn your eyes out after a minute or two. It’s also a race against the clock, as the water heats up and works its way to a boil. The game is over once the last athlete can’t bear to stick his face back in the hot pot anymore, after which, the crawfish are counted up, a winner is declared, and it’s on to the closing ceremonies where everyone eats the crawfish, drinks a lot of beer, passes a good time and asks each other, "How's ya mama and dem?" POCKING, Germany, Dec. 6 (UPI) -- Ravens may be even smarter that previously thought, using gestures to communicate among themselves, a European study suggests. Simone Pika and Thomas Bugnyar observed ravens in Austria for three years, witnessing social interactions between raven pairs such as using their beaks to show objects to other ravens, mainly members of the opposite sex, they said. The objects were clearly being presented so a partner would notice them, they said, which often led to interaction between the birds such as manipulating the object together. Researchers in Alaska say they've seen similar signs of intelligence in that state's ravens. "We think they learned from other ravens who I was and they'd react aggressively to me. That, to me, was a pretty obvious sign that I was dealing with a really smart animal," she told the Fairbanks News-Miner. ROCHESTER – Rita Raab, 84, passed away Thursday September 26, 2013 at Watson Fields in Dover, NH following a period of failing health. Born January 16, 1929 in Pocking, Germany, she was the daughter of the late Marcus and Theresa (Wagner) Frankenberger. Mrs. Raab worked for many years as a French Cord Turner at Hubbard Shoe. Rita was a member of the Emblem Club, she loved spending time with her grandchildren and great-grandchildren. She also enjoyed camping, hunting, fishing, gardening and yard work. Members of her family include: her children Barbara Philbrook and husband John of North Berwick, ME; and Harry Caplette and wife Mary of Berwick, ME; her grandchildren Melissa, John, Christin, Nicole, Heather, and Peter; and her great-grandchildren Emma, James, Madeline, Owen, Garrett, Zachary, Cole, Bryleigh; three sisters Maria Caplette of Rochester, NH; Genofeva Glidden of Dover, NH; and Helga Mayerhofer of Pocking, Germany; and nieces and nephews. She was predeceased by her husband Arthur Raab in 2004. Family and friends may visit Monday from 5-8 p.m. at the R.M. Edgerly and Son Funeral Home, 86 S. Main St. Rochester, NH. A funeral service will be held Tuesday at 11 a.m. in the chapel of the funeral home. Burial will take place in the New Cold Spring Cemetery in East Rochester. To sign an online guestbook please visit www.edgerlyfh.com In lieu of flowers donations may be made to the American Cancer Society, 2 Commerce Dr. Suite 110, Bedford, NH 03110. Visit www.fosters.com/obits for an online guest book. An unusual elongated Martian crater tells tale of a train of impacts but the European Space Agency's Mars Express orbiter recently sent back this image of a long oval crater pocking the Red Planet's southern hemisphere If you're enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today Subscribe to Scientific American to learn and share the most exciting discoveries innovations and ideas shaping our world today Scientific American is part of Springer Nature which owns or has commercial relations with thousands of scientific publications (many of them can be found at www.springernature.com/us) Scientific American maintains a strict policy of editorial independence in reporting developments in science to our readers What happened here?ESA scientists think a series of impacts created this unusual shape two projectiles—or possibly two halves of one projectile that broke in transit—plowed into this spot at a shallow angle Deeper areas inside the crater suggest even more projectiles hit afterward.Spread out in wings around the crater is the \\"ejecta blanket,\\" which was formed from the material that the projectiles threw aside when they hit The blanket includes several small channels Scientists think these features may be evidence that this area of Mars was once covered with material—possibly water—that would have melted or boiled when exposed to the heat from the impacts and then flowed the Rebbe’s maamar is finally being released for this Shabbos His father was among the students of Tomchei Temimim in Lubavitch he was among those who merited to establish Vaad L’hafotzas Sichos dedicating himself to spreading the Rebbe’s Sichos he dedicated himself to publishing Tanyas throughout the world During the Shiva for Reb Shalom (who passed away on 18 Av this month) Lahak Hanochos received the private notes that were written by Reb Shalom 53 years ago when the Rebbe delivered the maamar of Hashomayim Kis’i (Re’eh 5728) No known hanacha is available of that maamar the team at Lahak Hanochos worked hard throughout the days of the Shiva to understand and develop his shorthand into a Maamar which will be studied by thousands of Jews worldwide — in memory of someone who dedicated his life to spreading the Rebbe’s Sichos and publishing Tanyas in every location To download the booklet for print, click here: https://www.lahak.org/media/pdf/1165/eeNq11654112.pdf To download it in regular pages, click here: http://www.lahak.org/5207906 [pdf-embedder url=”https://crownheights.info/assets/2021/08/1056-12-ppa.pdf”] LBV Magazine English Edition Since the existence of the art of painting artists have created self-portraits or included themselves in representations of mythological way to create a self-portrait was to look in a mirror owning a mirror indicated a certain economic capacity It is in this century that we find the curious artist of whom only one work is known and it is so strange that it has given rise to multiple speculations an Austrian painter born in Innsbruck around 1626 and little is known about him except that he belonged to a family of artists active in Tyrol and Bavaria between the 16th and 18th centuries where in 1646 he created two copies of his only known work whether he remained in the Italian city or moved elsewhere are two self-portraits (actually two copies of the same painting) one in a circular format with a diameter of 89 centimeters preserved in the Vasari Corridor of the Uffizi Gallery in Florence and another rectangular one that belongs to a private collection in Pocking The work is a kind of triple self-portrait where the artist represents himself three times: the first with his back to the viewer without showing his face the second through his reflection in the mirror where he is looking and the third in the painting where he is portraying himself Both copies of the work are signed and dated 1646 on the sheet of paper depicted at the top edge of the canvas whose presence experts interpret as an allegory of the fidelity and autonomy inherent in painting (which the painter wants to emphasize) compared to the image reflected in the mirror According to Pino Blasone in “Mirrors what our philosopher painter wanted to say is that the subject of a real person is often a mystery to others and even to oneself What we can see are the objects of their reflection either “exact” in a mirror or autonomously interpreted by an artist although it may seem more like a transfiguration than a simple representation this multiple and even redundant representation of the subject is a paradoxical challenge to the precariousness and imminent absence of the subject with all its personal characteristics and individual limits the American artist Norman Rockwell made his own ironic version of the theme appropriately titled “Triple Portrait” what Gumpp wanted to convey through such a strange and unique self-portrait remains subject to speculation and interpretation Why he did not paint more works or if he did under another name or pseudonym will continue to be a mystery This article was first published on our Spanish Edition on June 25, 2019. Puedes leer la versión en español en Johannes Gumpp, el pintor cuya única obra es un misterioso triple autorretrato Peter Mühlbauer Schloss Schönburg | Gabriella Baptist, Jean-Luc Nancy, Le Regard du portrait | Pino Blasone, Mirrors, Masks and Skulls | Wikipedia Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email Archaeologists from universities in the United States and Denmark found deep within the Actun Uayazba Kab cave in Belize two small stone tools dated between 250 and 900 AD that… men and women gathered to play a game called Cuju A team of researchers has succeeded in recreating for the first time in a laboratory experiment a phenomenon that until now only existed as a theory in the realm of… the Cantonal Archaeology of Aargau carried out a rescue excavation between early May 2024 and the end of March 2025 The Egyptian archaeological mission affiliated with the Supreme Council of Antiquities announced the discovery of a group of defensive structures and a system of moats that could indicate… In the southeastern area of the city of Rome archaeologists excavating inside the Triton Baths within the monumental complex of the Villa di Sette… Why did some animals from ancient eras become fossils while others simply disappeared without a trace A recent study on the cave paintings of the Altamira Cave in Santillana del Mar Cantabria (Spain) has concluded that some of the artworks it contains could be much older… A team of paleontologists from the University of Leicester has managed to decipher one of the many enigmas of the dinosaur era—the exact moment when pterosaurs Rome achieved numerous military victories that allowed it to grow and dominate nearly the entire known world in Antiquity Receive our news and articles in your email for free You can also support us with a monthly subscription and receive exclusive content SubscriptionOffers Give a Gift Subscribe The heart of the last heir to the Austro-Hungarian Empire was buried on July 17th in Hungary the last heir to the Austro-Hungarian Empire His funeral took place on Saturday July 17th in Vienna where his body was interred in the Imperial Crypt alongside his wife the German Princess Regina of Saxe-Meiningen who died in February 2010 His heart was taken to Hungary and buried a day later in the Benedictine Pannonhalma Archabbey in accordance with the Habsburg tradition Otto von Habsburg’s full name is Franz Joseph Otto Robert Maria Anton Karl Max Heinrich Sixtus Xavier Felix Renatus Ludwig Gaetan Pius Ignatius von Habsburg was Emperor of Austria and King of Hungary; his mother was Zita of Bourbon-Parma His great-uncle was the Archduke Franz Ferdinand and according to genealogists his ancestry could be traced back to the sixth century To continue reading this article you need to purchase a subscription If you have already purchased access, or are a print & archive subscriber, please ensure you are logged in Please email digital@historytoday.com if you have any problems Feed your chickens left over crawfish bits They will clean out the heads and the shells are high in calcium Posted by South Louisiana Patriots on Monday, March 7, 2016 I saw a post on Facebook that suggested if you feed your chickens leftover crawfish shells it will make their eggs stronger!! that is GREAT news for all of us in south Louisiana the post says that crawfish shells are high in calcium thus it would make the chickens eggs stronger Great for "egg pocking" during Easter I don't know if this is suggestion is true please inform me in the comment section below I should note here that some have stated that they have tried this and that the eggs taste different Perhaps someone in south Louisiana can either confirm or deny this claim or simply give it a try in the days/weeks ahead and let us know I saw a post on Facebook that suggested if you feed your chickens left over crawfish shells it will make their eggs stronger.\nRead More fjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0]; if (d.getElementById(id)) return; js = d.createElement(s); js.id = id; js.src = \"//connect.facebook.net/en_US/sdk.js#xfbml=1&version=v2.3\"; fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js Posted by South Louisiana Patriots on Monday, March 7, 2016 I saw a post on Facebook that suggested if you feed your chickens leftover crawfish shells it will make their eggs stronger!! Sign In Subscribe Now Surrey council awarded a more than $1.6 million contract to Grandview Blacktop Ltd to fix potholes that are pocking the city’s roads The $1,669,556.91 contract was awarded Monday night with the expenditure limit set at $1.8 million Council has an option to extend the contract for up to two more years indicated in a corporate report that the work is to be completed by December provides for supply and delivery of materials equipment and labour for asphalt pothole repairs as well as “minor utility trench repairs on arterial collector and local streets at various locations throughout the city.” as well as provide smoother and quieter travel for both vehicle and cyclist movement along these roads.” tom.zytaruk@surreynowleader.comLike us on Facebook Follow us on Instagram  and follow Tom on Twitter Dialogue and debate are integral to a free society and we welcome and encourage you to share your views on the issues of the day. We ask that you be respectful of others and their points of view, refrain from personal attacks and stay on topic. To learn about our commenting policies and how our community-based moderation works, please read our Community Guidelines the Easter Bunny will fight you with furious anger watch this video of the Easter Bunny handing out a beatdown Sunday night Instagram user Workfth caught it all on his Instagram account showing the Easter Bunny in an all-out brawl Easter Sunday night on Orange Avenue in downtown Orlando There's no information yet about what started this fight or what it's about Video via fox9.com Don't mess with the Easter Bunny. Seriously, the Easter Bunny will fight you with furious anger. If you don't believe me, watch this video of the Easter Bunny handing out a beatdown Sunday night.\nRead More Video via fox9.com As soon as Tom Segura's latest comedy special hit Netflix folks in South Louisiana got whipped into a fury over some disparaging remarks he made about Cajuns Segura suggests "we build a wall" around Louisiana to shut out the "inbred" Cajun people who live there Recently Segura gave his thoughts about the Louisiana backlash on "Your Mom's House Podcast" and clears up some misunderstandings Segura speaks with Christina P about the backlash from Louisianians about his "jokes" about Cajuns Segura says his comments have nothing to do with anyone he met while in Lafayette doing a show He claims it's about someone he met from Louisiana in while in Kansas City The audio he and Christina P are referencing is from KPEL's "Offsides" show he made his comments about Cajuns without really knowing what the hell he's talking about He met some guy at a meet and greet in Kansas City from Louisiana The guy he met may not have even been Cajun I've seen the comments about Cajuns he made and I can have my opinion about his "comedy" right He's also obviously milking this "controversy" to get attention for his mediocre Netflix special as well The video below is obscenity free until about the 8:00 mark Segura suggests \"we build a wall\" around Louisiana to shut out the \"inbred\" Cajun people who live there, among other things. Recently Segura gave his thoughts about the Louisiana backlash and clears up some misunderstandings.\nRead More This article was published more than 14 years ago The snow is melting and as it does one of our country's most cherished national treasures is making its glorious return pushing forth through the earth's surface like crocuses signalling the first blush of spring as snow and rain seep into our porous roads the asphalt puckers up and the weight from automobiles driving over it breaks apart the surface This process gradually tears the asphalt apart until finally potholes appear fully grown - glorious gaping cavities pocking our roads and highways wheel realignments and chipped windshields they are tended to by dedicated road crews These caretakers travel around cities and rural lanes by truck and are easily identified by their bright orange hats and vests a road crew will stand around the pothole and smoke (this can take two or three hours) traffic is diverted (scientists have shown that the muffled anguished cries of the delayed motorists helps the pothole to breathe) the team's leader will wave a yield sign over it a road crew will throw loose asphalt into it Surviving a pothole is much like surviving a bear attack You must convince the pothole that you mean it no harm Do not make any sudden movements or swerve out of your lane to avoid a pothole as you may hit another automobile or cyclist There is usually a five- to 10-second wait as you approach a pothole U - Underneath your car you may feel some fairly severe damage being done There is nothing you can do now that your suspension is shot and there is a crack in your windshield that looks like a miniature diagram of the border we share with the United States P - Prepare yourself for the bill your mechanic is going to give you Where is the best place for pothole watching Some environments are particularly good for sighting potholes the Oak Street Bridge in Vancouver and Calgary's Crowchild Trail are fertile ground for Canadian pothole populations the mighty Glebe Avenue was shut down due to a pothole infestation transit officials had to reroute a bus in the city's St There were so many potholes it was giving the driver backache the city of Toronto cared for 275,000 potholes Montreal expects to spend $3-million this year maintaining its pothole population Most municipalities encourage their residents to report potholes Simply telephone your local government and your call will be directed to a civic employee Your conversation will go something like this: You: "I want to report a pothole on Prince Edward Street." it's around 15 metres wide and I'm not sure how deep." We'll have five or six guys in orange vests standing around it and smoking in 10-to-14 business days." all pothole cultivation falls under the Federal Government's Economic Action Plan Have you had any major problems with your car this year due to potholes Share and compare in the comments section of this story Report an editorial error Report a technical issue Editorial code of conduct Authors and topics you follow will be added to your personal news feed in Following Andrew Clark is a contributing writer for The Globe and Mail and Director of the Comedy Writing and Performance program at Humber College in Toronto Andrew has won a gold award and been nominated several times for his writing at the National Magazine Awards and was nominated for a Governor General's Award for Literary Non-Fiction for his most recent book,A Keen Soldier: The Execution of Second World War Private Harold Pringle He has written for publications including The Globe and Mail Welcome to The Globe and Mail’s comment community. This is a space where subscribers can engage with each other and Globe staff. Non-subscribers can read and sort comments but will not be able to engage with them in any way. Click here to subscribe If you would like to write a letter to the editor, please forward it to letters@globeandmail.com. Readers can also interact with The Globe on Facebook and Twitter Welcome to The Globe and Mail’s comment community This is a space where subscribers can engage with each other and Globe staff We aim to create a safe and valuable space for discussion and debate If you do not see your comment posted immediately it is being reviewed by the moderation team and may appear shortly We aim to have all comments reviewed in a timely manner Comments that violate our community guidelines will not be posted UPDATED: Read our community guidelines here We have closed comments on this story for legal reasons or for abuse. For more information on our commenting policies and how our community-based moderation works, please read our Community Guidelines and our Terms and Conditions Max comment length: 100 words; Please don't use bad language otherwise your comment will be removed you probably think about baskets full of your favorite candy a mysterious bunny who hides eggs for children the resurrection of Jesus Christ on the third day The most interesting thing about holidays is how differently they're celebrated from person to person You probably have your own family traditions: a specific food cooked every Christmas In Louisiana, a well-known Cajun tradition is Easter egg pocking. So, what exactly is pocking? Pelican State of Mind explains it as a contest to see which player has the strongest Easter egg the word pocking comes from French word paques this Easter tradition wasn't always all fun and games; it has deeply religious roots and a promise of a fulfilling year ahead If you want to try the tradition out, you won't have to worry about the mistakes everyone makes when cooking eggs. The first step of pocking is to choose an appropriate egg. Per The Town Talk library director Celise Reech Harper states "You select your egg and check it to make sure it's appropriate and that there are no small cracks in it And that you think it's a good-looking egg." Harper was a key part of Rapides Parish Library's French Heritage Festival where pocking was explained and performed According to The Town Talk, after selecting an egg, a pocker will hold their egg pointy side up with only the face exposed. Then, the second pocker will tap the front of the egg with the tip of their own egg to check its strength. The game repeats itself several times until only one egg is remaining without any cracks, as explained by Pelican State of Mind The player holding the last un-cracked egg is slated to have good luck the following year Although this light-hearted game is obviously fun, its origins are based in Christian belief. A piece from Pelican State of Mind explains that pocking's origins can be traced back to ancient Greece which means "clashing" or "clinking together." Before the game begins the eggs are dyed red to represent the blood of Christ You may be surprised to learn that eggs are used in many other traditions as well. According to Cape Gazette eggs are used as symbolism for the Jewish Passover ritual The article informs that a roasted egg represents grief and loss over the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple; the tougher the egg people were engraving eggs as far back as 60,000 years ago and remnants can be found in Egyptian tombs Next year, as families enjoy dying and hiding eggs, keep in mind all the different ways eggs can be used. Perhaps even give pocking a go to secure your luck into the new year while you celebrate with other traditions, like eating boiled eggs on Easter.