Yup. Bit of a complicated history. The Cornish miners brought it along when they came to the UP mines, then shared it with the Swedish and Finnish miners who came later. Eventually, the Cornish miners moved on, but the pasty stuck around and ended up associated with the Swedes and Finns of the UP instead.

To add to this, it's pretty much completely non-gendered. I call a group of women "guys" as easily as I call a group of men that. "You guys" is just the ordinary second person plural pronoun for me, regardless of who I'm talking about.

I always wondered if it was some Yooper spilling over—like a Swedish thing or something.

No way, dude, the Mystery Spot was incredibly fun. We went one summer, highlight of the trip, let me tell you! Unfortunately I come from a family of deep committed skeptics so the people working there kind of hated us.

Also, "up north" has varying meanings. If you're from Detroit (which to everyone not from Detroit is the entire southeast corner of the state), "up north" is... everything north of Flint, I think? If you're from the Tri-cities, it's everything north of Clare. If you're from upper lower Michigan, it's the UP.

We're going to banish you to Ontario for the sin of not appreciating pasties.

I've heard arguments responding to 1491 and saying it overstates the effects of disease (the series of posts I've been mentioning has a post on this!), but yeah, whichever way you slice it, disease was definitely a major factor in many areas.

You said, and I quote, "its absolutely incredible they had a civilisation to counter the Spanish at all", which pretty strongly implies that what civilization they did have was kind of on the pathetic side.

No offense, but I can smell the Eurocentrism. Eurasiacentrism if you prefer.

BLESS YOU.

Well, he explains why he thinks they were inevitable. Most historians would disagree pretty strenuously that they actually were inevitable, though. For example, did the Tlaxcala ally with Cortes because of their environment, or because they, as human beings with agency, made the choice to try to use the Spanish…

Eh. It's all right, but readers should be aware that it's not an in-depth resource itself, and has its own flaws. (Also, it has the unfortunate and probably unintentional side effect of making some people reject everything they learned in high school history, even the accurate stuff, but I suppose that's more the…

Eh. Diamond introduces a lot of good points and manages to do it without being particularly racist, but 1491 is a lot better, IMO. GGS has had a lot of criticism from historians for glossing over important factors, probably most importantly the human one—he focuses on geographical factors pretty much to the exclusion…

You know what this world really needs? A blockbuster version of Deborah's story. With copious quantities of Jael being awesome. And I guess there was that Barak guy in there too, but he was kinda lame.

You know what this world really needs? A blockbuster version of Deborah's story. With copious quantities of Jael being awesome. And I guess there was that Barak guy in there too, but he was kinda lame.

Hmm, upon rereading this I realize it sounds like I was claiming just changing my cousin's diet "cured" his ADHD... sadly, the world doesn't work that way. But it did help him. Can't edit anymore, so wanted to clarify for future generations that I'm sure will be hanging onto my every word. :)

Pretty much, yeah.

Yeah, we know at least the Romans did C-sections. Maybe not commonly, but they did happen, and there's evidence that occasionally the mothers even survived. (although the first confirmed record we have of a woman surviving is from the 1580s!)

It did give me a rather different picture on European history when I learned the majority of witch hunts were from the Early Modern period and done by Protestants.

Yeah, what is up with chiropractors getting into all that weird stuff? I have family members with back problems who've benefited greatly from going to a chiropractor on occasion (my sister has a great one, it's a combination chiropracty and massage therapy and it's helped her a ton), but then most of them seem to have…