Let's Skip April Fool's Day this Year

 Checking out my RSS feeds and blogs this morning, I saw a few items that gave me pause until I remembered the date.  And then wondering how all of this silliness began, I checked Wikipedia for the origin of April Fool's Day.  According to Wikipedia, its origins are "obscure:"

"April Fools' Day or All Fools' Day, although not a holiday in its own right, is a notable day celebrated in many countries on April 1. The day is marked by the commission of hoaxes and other practical jokes of varying sophistication on friends, family members, enemies, and neighbours, or sending them on fool's errand, the aim of which is to embarrass the gullible. Traditionally, in some countries, the jokes only last until noon: like UK, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and South Africa, someone who plays a trick after noon is called an "April Fool".^[1] Elsewhere, such as in Ireland, France, and the USA, the jokes last all day."

So stay alert today for the foolery. But frankly, in my humble opinion, a lot of the real news over the past year has been so fantastical -- from banks, financial institutions and now automakers going bankrupt to one man wiping out the savings of hundreds of trusting investors -- that there's really no need for April Fool's Day this year. We've been living it every day for a while now.