In these upsetting and degrading times, many people around the world think about escaping the ills of their own countries and emigrating to another. Even here in the US, people are thinking about moving to, in large part, Canada. Even though at the moment US citizens may not be all that welcome in Canada. But Canada shouldn’t be the goal. If we all simply emigrated to Sweden, instead of engaging in our usual, mundane, boring lives, we could all, this very day, be celebrating National Cinnamon Bun Day. That holiday comes to Sweden — and only to Sweden — every October 4.
It’s a foundational criticism of the modern world order that despite globalization, trade, and the existence of the United Nations, no other nation has adopted Cinnamon Bun Day.
Along with that failure, it must be recognized that cinnamon buns are not mentioned in any national constitution, not even the one you might, after consideration, deem most likely: the constitution of France. You might argue that the French constitution is surely too steeped in history to mention any sort of foodstuffs, but it’s really not that old; it’s the Constitution of the Fifth Republic and it only dates back to 1958, when it was adopted on October 4. They probably didn’t consider it at the time, but that day was also the first anniversary of the world’s first artificial satellite, Sputnik.
If there had been more cinnamon buns available on October 4. 1936, the violent clash later called the Battle of Cable Street might not have occurred in England. The fight was between the British Union of Fascists and, basically, everybody else. You read that right; in 1936 there was a Fascist party in England that actually used that name. Not only that; the full name of the party was the British Union of Fascists and National Socialists, and sure enough, they modeled themselves after the German Nazi party (which in 1936 hadn’t yet revealed its true nature) as well as the Fascist movement in Italy. The whole idea seems to have come originally from Italy.
Before Italy was “Italy,” in the early days of ancient Rome, the place was (sometimes) a monarchy. and the King was the executive magistrate with absolute power. The only thing unique about the arrangement was that the king was elected, not hereditary; after a king died, the Senate (which wasn’t elected at the time) elected a new one. The symbol of the magistrate’s authority was an axe wrapped in a bundle of sticks — the officials carrying out the magistrate’s orders would actually carry something like that around. The symbol itself was called a “fascio” (which means “bundle of sticks”), and that’s where the term “fascism” came from in the 20th Century.
Fascism seems to be a bit hard to pin down precisely. That’s partly because it’s an ultranationalist movement, and since each nation is slightly unique, being an ultranationalist in any one of them is going to be at least a bit different from any other. They’re mostly “against” things, and what things those are depend on what they find most annoying at the time. Cinnamon bun shortages — which are inescapable, because come on, you can never have too many cinnamon buns — would probably be on the list if they’d thought of it.
One tenet of some forms of fascism in some places has been “autarky” — complete economic independence within a single nation. But since all the resources you need for a modern society don’t honor political boundaries, autarky isn’t usually an option. So the ideals, as usual, are conveniently adapted to the idiosyncrasies of each outbreak.
One thing all fascists seem to agree about, though, is that freedom is definitely a bad idea, at least in the sense that it might apply to anyone but themselves. They would be (and probably are) dead-set against ideas like sharing. Sharing, though, is the basic idea espoused by the Free Software Foundation, which was founded on October 4. The FSF promotes the freedom to study, distribute, create, and modify software, which they originally defined specifically as computer software. The idea has been spectacularly successful, since there isn’t a single modern computer system that would be able to function without the free software it depends on — that’s “free” as in “freedom,” by the way, not “free” as in “doesn’t cost anything.”
But if you look more closely at the idea of “software”, it starts to be a bit difficult to decide what it is and what it isn’t. Software is usually some sort of set of instructions, usually capable of being followed by a computer. But computers can do more and more things, and instructions appear in many different forms. So in the spirit of National Cinnamon Bun Day and the Free Software Foundation’s birthday, here’s some Free Software:
Ingredients
Dough:
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons white sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
3 tablespoons butter, softened
3⁄4 cup milk
1 egg
Filling:
1⁄2 cup white sugar
1⁄2 cup brown sugar
1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
Frosting:
1 cup confectioners’ sugar
4 ounces cream cheese, softened
1⁄4 cup butter, softened
1⁄2 teaspoon vanilla extract
Step 1
Preheat oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C). Brush a 9-inch square baking dish with 2 tablespoons melted butter.
Step 2
Whisk flour, 2 tablespoons white sugar, baking powder, and salt together in a large bowl. Work 3 tablespoons butter into flour mixture using your hands. Beat milk and egg together in another bowl; pour into flour-butter mixture and stir with a rubber spatula until a so dough forms.
Step 3
Turn dough out onto a floured work surface and roll dough into a 1/4- inch thick rectangle. Brush surface of dough with 2 tablespoons melted butter.
Step 4
Whisk 1/2 cup white sugar, brown sugar, and cinnamon together in a small bowl. Sprinkle 1/2 of the cinnamon sugar mixture in the bottom of the prepared baking dish. Sprinkle remaining cinnamon sugar over butter-brushed dough. Roll dough around filling to form a log; cut log into 18 rolls and place rolls in the prepared baking dish.
Step 5
Bake in the preheated oven until rolls are set, 20 to 25 minutes.
Step 6
Beat confectioners’ sugar, cream cheese, 1/4 cup butter, and vanilla extract together in a bowl until frosting is smooth. Top hot cinnamon rolls with cream cheese frosting.
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