Why Evolution is True is a blog written by Jerry Coyne, centered on evolution and biology but also dealing with diverse topics like politics, culture, and cats.
I didn’t realize how popular Bill Maher is on YouTube: this clip, a fragment of his “Real Time” show on HBO, has garnered over 520,000 views since it was posted on Friday night. At any rate, this week he takes on the recent conspiracy theories that alien spacecraft are appearing regularly, and that some of their spaceships and even their bodies are in possession of companies or the government.
Maher notes that the UFO believers are no longer nutjobs but reputable people: politicians and “people with buzzcuts.” Steven Spielberg even has a movie coming out this summer about UFOs; it’s called “Disclosure Day.”
He then addresses the aliens directly, asking them not to kill us even though they could, and apologizes for America’s once firing a missile at a UFO. He even offers minerals to the aliens and then pleads for them to destroy our nuclear weapons, and to “get us off oil–and our phones.” In the end, he tells the aliens “you should think of the human race as Britney Spears. It would be nice if we needed a conservatorship, but in reality we really do.”
It’s clear that Maher, like me, doesn’t believe that these aliens and their craft really exist. He’s just using the notion to criticize what’s wrong with America. If craft and aliens did exist, and we possess crashed ships and alien bodies, then somehow there has been a massive conspiracy to hide it by both Democratic and Republican governments—as well as by the press— to cover up the greatest news story in the history of humanity.
The panel guests for this show were Laura Coates, CNN chief legal analyst, and Stephen A. Smith, host of Straight Shooter.
Here’s a teaser for “DIsclosure Day”. There are aliens in animal bodies, and it even buys into the discredited idea that aliens make crop circles.
The Free Press has a long article on Calla Walsh, a 21 year old American woman who became radicalized at about 16 and now lives in the Middle East, making propaganda for Hezbollah and Iran.
Here’s a mugshot of Walsh from an earlier arrest in the U.S. for vandalism and trespassing on the grounds of an Israeli-owned company said to be involved with “genocide.” She served two months in prison.
Merrimack, Massachusetts Police Department, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Here she is all growed up (see link below). I’ve put a recent Instagram post at the bottom.
Walsh was the definition of “privileged” when young: the scion of two academics from Cambridge, Massachusetts, and one who attended two fancy prep schools before dropping out of Canada’s McGill University after one semester. She started off advocating against climate change and writing about the Democratic Socialists of America for Teen Vogue (thank goodness that rag went belly-up!), and campaigned for the successful re-election of Senator Ed Markey, as well as other Democrats (see an admiring profile of Calla in a 2021 Boston Magazine ). She then went on to oppose the “genocide” committed by Israel in the Gaza war, visited Cuba, and after that she went full Monty—or should I say full Mamdani? She traveled to Iran and has apparently settled in Beirut.
The Free Press details what happened to her and where she is now. Click below to read; the article cannot be archived. If you want a shorter account, read her Wikipedia bio, which includes the following:
Walsh’s political ideology has shifted over time. In the 2010s, she was a member and activist in the Democratic Party, as well as an environmental activist. In 2021, NPR described her as a “progressive organizer and activist based in Massachusetts”. Later in 2021, she identified as a Democratic Socialist and a member of the Democratic Socialists of America. In 2023, she described herself as a communist and anti-imperialist.
Following the October 7 attacks, Walsh tweeted that “defending their homeland from illegal occupation and genocide isn’t ‘ugly Palestinian retaliation'”. Later that day, Walsh posted a map of the attack sites with the message, “This is what decolonization looks like”. In April, Walsh added, “We will never forget who called Palestinian freedom fighters ‘terrorists’ after October 7 and then turned around and claimed to support Palestine”. On October 12, Walsh tweeted that those living in the US have “an obligation to take direct action against murderous companies like Elbit”.
In December 2025, Walsh was nominated by the pro-Israel group StopAntisemitism for “Antisemite of the Year”.
In February and March 2026, following the 2026 Iran conflict, Walsh wrote a series of posts on X social network calling for the use of global violence against Israeli and American officials. Following the start of the 2026 Iran massacres, Walsh was one of several media personalities that promoted the Iranian state’s claim that the protests had been stoked by the CIA and Mossad.
She’s clearly a hater of both Jews and America, and given what she’s done, she’ll never be allowed back in the U.S., or, if she is, she’ll have to spend a long time behind bars.
A couple of long excerpts of a very long article:
In the weeks since the U.S. and Israel launched their joint assault on Iran, perhaps no American has more aggressively and publicly rallied behind the Islamic Republic than Calla Walsh. From her new base in Lebanon, the 21-year-old Cambridge-raised activist has taken to social media and left-wing podcasts to incite her fellow countrymen and women to sabotage U.S. and Israeli defense contractors wherever they can find them. On March 3, she mocked four American soldiers killed in an Iranian drone strike, posting: “They all died fighting for fascism, genocide, pedophilia, and cannibalism.” She attached pictures of the dead Americans. In recent days she reposted a list of missile-production sites inside the U.S.
“We have a duty to escalate,” Walsh told her host on the Psychic Militancy podcast last Saturday from Beirut, noting that “lockdowns” of weapons factories and vandalism alone are “not sufficient at this point.”
She added: “And as the genocide and these wars of aggression continue to escalate, much more is demanded of people in the West.”
Walsh looks every part the art-school hipster, with her thick-rimmed glasses and a mop of curly hair. But she’s a chameleon of terror.Five years earlier, as a 16-year-old, Walsh was fawned over by The New York Times for being a young, social media-savvy activist who was helping to shake up the Democratic Party in Massachusetts. But as a monthslong investigation by The Free Press shows, she’s thrown her allegiance squarely behind the Islamic Republic of Iran and its Axis of Resistance, which includes the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas and Lebanon’s Hezbollah. The U.S. government has placed her on a suspicious persons watch list for her expansive dealings with the governments of Cuba and Iran, U.S. officials told me, as well as a spiderweb of U.S.-designated terrorist groups.
Over the past few years, Walsh’s radicalization has played out in real time on X and Instagram. She quickly moved from political organizing for the Democrats to the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) to conducting guerrilla-style raids on Israeli defense companies in New England, for which she received jail time in 2024. She has regularly called for the assassinations of Israeli officials and their allies in the U.S. and elsewhere.
In October, she formally relocated to Beirut, The Free Press learned, where she has established herself as a regular contributor to Iranian state media, particularly the English-language site of Tehran’s Press TV on which Washington has imposed sanctions. She is actively engaging in propaganda and information-warfare operations on behalf of the Iranian regime and Hezbollah, which is fighting Israeli forces in south Lebanon.
She’s too far gone, I think, to ever return to the U.S., and perhaps she doesn’t want to. But those who ally themselves with American enemies in this way are rarely either allowed back to where they were born or, when do they are jailed. I suspect that Walsh will be in Lebanon for good. A bit more:
According to U.S. counterterrorism officials I spoke with, any financial or operational ties Walsh has established with blacklisted organizations—whether in Iran, Cuba, or Lebanon—means she could be indicted for providing material support to proscribed groups. Walsh’s latest trip to Tehran places her in even greater legal jeopardy if she ever returns home.
“I’ve never seen someone who’s done jail time so publicly integrate herself into terrorist infrastructure,” a senior national security official told me. “She’s totally exposed now.”
More:
. . . . Walsh’s new role as Tehran’s Gen Z propagandist has her regularly appearing on Iranian state media with other outcasts from Europe and North America. In December, Walsh was a guest on a Press TV show called Palestine Declassified, with two Britons who have been banished from UK politics and academia in recent years for antisemitism. She set up a camera from her Beirut apartment to tape the show and extol the military prowess of the late Iranian general, Qasem Soleimani, whom the U.S. assassinated in a 2020 drone strike.
And this, near the end, show how ideologically captured she is, so much so that she blames Mossad for massacring Iranian civilians:
In February, when Walsh returned to Iran, she provided an American face to spread the message that it was the CIA and the Israeli spy service, Mossad—not the Iranian government—that massacred thousands of Iranians during the prior month’s uprising. (The United Nation’s special rapporteur on Iran estimated the number could be over 20,000.) “The fact of the matter is police in Iran are defending the revolution and are defending their government from U.S. and Zionist-backed regime change,” she said on Press TV.
. . Experts in extremism tell me they’re deeply worried that the American is now too far gone. In recent weeks, she’s crisscrossed the Middle East in support of the Axis of Resistance, placing her in the range of American and Israeli bombs and fighter jets, whether in Tehran or south Lebanon.
“She’s a true believer. It’s over after that, because you’ll do anything for your cause,” said Mubin Shaikh. He was a jihadist in Pakistan and Syria before going through a deradicalization program in Canada and emerging as one of his country’s top counterterrorism experts. “Martyrdom? Don’t think that’s off the table.”
You can imagine how dicombobulated her parents are. They are quoted as saying, “We love Calla deeply and absolutely. . . . And we have serious, fundamental political disagreements with her.”
Here’s a recent Instagram post. Click screenshot to see a video interview from presstvchannel, an Iranian-controlled state media site. Note that she uses “anti-Zionist” instead of “antisemitic”. This euphemistic ploy disgusts me.
Botany Pond now harbors (temporarily, I think) a pair of the most beautiful American ducks: wood ducks (Aix sponsa), in the same genus as mallards. At first I mistook them for mallards on the duckcam, but when I went down to investigate, it was clear that they were a bonded pair of woodies.
I love these ducks, but one or two show up at Botany Pond only every couple of years, and they do not breed here. We had a post-breeding pair, Frisky and Ruth, a few years ago, but although they hung around a while, it was after they had bred, and they were probably headed south. My photos from that era have disappeared from this site, but here is Frisky nuzzling Ruth. It’s one of my favorite duck photos (I like to imagine that wood ducks are very romantic!):
Frisky was so named because although the mallards chased him, he was very quick and adept at sneaking among them at feeding time to get pellets. After he filled his belly, he’d get quite rotund and then perch on a knob of the bald cypress that used to be in the pond. He used that knob so often we called it The Sacred Knob. Here he is having a postprandial rest. Look at those colors!
Males have satanic red eyes. Here’s a closeup of Frisky’s head. Their bills are short compared to those of mallards.
They’re called “wood ducks” because they nest in treeholes and perch on trees—nearly the only species of duck to do so. Sure enough, when I first saw them a few days ago, they were both up in trees next to the pond. I thought they left, but, sure enough, they were back three days ago and haven’t left since.
Some photos of our new pair. Feel free to suggest names, but they should be fitting for these glorious birds.
The new male:
. . . and the new female. The shots aren’t great as I took them in the early morning when it was light, and the shutter speed was slow:
Wikipedia describes them like this:
The adult male has stunning multicolored iridescent plumage and red eyes, with a distinctive white flare down the neck. The female, less colorful, has a white eye-ring and a whitish throat. Both adults have crested heads. The speculum is iridescent blue-green with a white border on the trailing edge.
Besotted with each other, the ducks are always together. Here are two videos of our new pair swimming together:
In this next video, the male gives her a little kiss 6 seconds in. He then chirps at her (they don’t quack).
The loving couple. Look at that sexual dimorphism! These ducks are in full breeding plumage:
Vashti is nesting nearby, and Armon is always in the pond waiting for her to drop in for a quick snack, a drink, and a preen before she hurries back to her nest. There are seven lovely green eggs in Vashti’s nest, and I anticipate ducklings will hatch around April 20 (a bit early in the season) if all goes well.
Armon chases the woodies, but only in a desultory manner, and they manage to sneak some of the food I give him. At other times he allows them to rest next to him on the rocks.
Here’s Armon halfheartedly chasing the female. He never gets near either of them as they swim faster than he, and they can simply jump out of the pond when they’re tired of being chased.
Ducks on the rocks (a good name for a drink). You can see that Armon doesn’t mind them being nearby so long as it’s not feeding time. The size difference between mallards and woodies is clear:
The male is like a feathered jewel! Here is the range of Aix sponsa from Wikipedia. As you see, Chicago is in their year-round range.
You might be able to see them on the DuckCam if you look now, but keep looking from time to time. In the meantime, feel free to suggest woody names, and get ready for mallard ducklings in a few weeks.
I think the woodies will soon depart to breed in a place where there are trees with holes.
I’ll add a Smithsonian video of a large clutch of hatched woodies jumping about 50 feet down to the water as mother calls them:
Abby Thompson of UC Davis has sent in some pictures of California tidepool organisms, as well as a video. Abby’s captions are indented and you can enlarge her photos by clicking on them.
Late January-early March tidepools, plus an octopus.
Bryozoans:
Lepas anatifera (pelagic gooseneck barnacle). Usually found clinging to something drifting around in the open ocean (the “pelagic” part of their name), these were on a large log washed up on shore:
Intertidal zones, illustrated. A well-placed vertical rock face, like this one, exhibits the idea of the different intertidal “zones”, each of which has its own specific collection of inhabitants. You can see mussels and barnacles clustered at the top (in the “high intertidal”), exposed to the air as soon as the tide goes out even a little. There are smaller colonial anemones next, beneath them the orange and purple ochre stars, and below those, arriving at the low intertidal level, some giant green anemones. If you peer into the water under the open giant green anemone, you’ll see a crab, probably a rock crab. There’s some back and forth- there are a few giant green anemones pretty high up in this photo- but the general idea holds.
This reflects each animal’s differing tolerance for specific conditions- time out of the water as the tide goes out, harshness of wave actions, etc. The nudibranchs (next few pictures) are usually in the very low intertidal:
Doto amyra (nudibranch). Visible through the translucent skin on its back are lobules of the “ovotestis” (thanks inaturalist expert! ). From google AI: “Ovotestes in nudibranchs are specialized, hermaphroditic reproductive glands that produce both male (sperm) and female (oocytes/eggs) gametes simultaneously”:
More eggs, this time from a snail in the genus Amphissa. I like the pointy egg casings, like wizards’ hats:
And here’s an adult of the genus- almost certainly Amphissa versicolor, but it’s an unusual color (they’re usually shades of orange or brown/tan):
In honor of Ghost the octopus, and also because I’ve finally figured out how to include videos, below is a clip from 2021 of an East Pacific red octopus (Octopus rubescens), cruising around the rocks (out of the water!) at low tide. I’ve only seen one twice, probably because they’re too cleverly camouflaged (possibly just too clever) for me to spot. This guy was about the size of a human hand, a miniature compared to the 50 pound Ghost.
Welcome to Sunday, March 29, 2026: Sabbath for goyische cats. We are hurrying towards April, and today is National Vietnam War Veterans Day Here is the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, designed by novice architect Maya Lin and erected in Washington, D.C. in 1982. It is a moving memorial, with over 58,000 names of the dead inscribed on it. When I visited it, I can’t help thinking of those young American lives lost in a war that should not have taken place (no comments about Iran, please). This shot shows Christmas decorations.
Mariordo (Mario Roverto Durán Ortiz), CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the March 29 Wikipedia page.
Da Nooz:
*War News from the WSJ and Times of Israel: U.S. Marines have arrived in the Middle East, and the Houthis fired a missile at Israel (it was intercepted). A ground war may be in the offing:
WSJ:
The 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit has arrived in the Middle East, giving President Trump more options in a conflict now entering its second month.
Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi militants claimed responsibility for a second attack on Israel after entering the war this weekend. Their involvement is an unnerving prospect for the oil market, raising fears of disruption to Red Sea shipping in addition to the crisis in the Strait of Hormuz.
ToI:
The US Department of Defense is preparing options for ground operations in Iran, which would fall short of a full-scale invasion but could involve thousands of troops and take weeks or months, The Washington Post reported late Saturday.
According to the report, which cited unnamed American officials, US President Donald Trump has not greenlit any of the plans yet.
The White House, asked for comment for the report, said the Pentagon works to give the president “maximum optionality,” but that this “does not mean the President has made a decision.”
According to the Post, the potential operations could see a mixture of special forces and conventional infantry sent to conduct extended raids into coastal areas near the Strait of Hormuz, including seizing islands controlled by the Islamic Republic and holding them for an extended period of time.
Experts have warned that holding territory would put American soldiers in significantly more danger than they’ve faced so far in the war, which has already seen 13 US servicemembers killed in action, and more than 300 wounded.
The timeline of the potential operations was not entirely clear, with one source telling the Post that the objectives under consideration would take “weeks, not months” to achieve, while another estimated the operations could last “a couple of months.”
In for a penny, in for a pound. I don’t think there’s any way to bring down the Iranian administration—and is victory possible without that?—save sending in ground troops. Trump keeps vacillating between saying the war is winding down and saying the war will last for a while
*From the NYT; the partial government shutdown continues as there is no funding for Homeland security, though TSA workers will get paid by an executive order.
House Republicans rejected the Senate-approved bill to pay T.S.A. workers, which would have eased some of the stresses of the partial shutdown while still withholding funding from ICE.
The House passed its own bill to fully fund the Department of Homeland Security into May. But the bill is a nonstarter in the Senate, which just began a two-week recess.
House Republicans angrily rejected a bipartisan deal to reopen the Department of Homeland Security and pushed through their own plan late Friday, putting themselves on a collision course with the Senate and extending the agency shutdown that has crippled U.S. airports.
Revolting over an agreement their own party struck with Senate Democrats to end the crisis, which had passed the Senate before dawn on Friday, House Republican leaders — with President Trump’s backing — refused to take it up. They derided the Senate plan for hewing too closely to Democrats’ position by omitting money for Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol, the two agencies responsible for carrying out Mr. Trump’s deportation crackdown, which are operating under previously approved funds.
“House Republicans are not going to be any part of any effort to reopen our borders or to stop immigration enforcement,” Speaker Mike Johnson said at a news conference on Friday afternoon. “This gambit that was done last night is a joke.”
Mr. Johnson called the Senate-passed deal engineered by Senator John Thune, Republican of South Dakota and the majority leader, “ridiculousness,” and instead teed up a stopgap measure to fund the entire department until May 22.
I don’t remember in this administration the House Republicans allied against the Senate Republicans. And, as far as I know, the Democratic bill doesn’t “stop immigration enforcement,” but merely makes ICE workers adhere to reasonable behavior, wear bodycams, and stop wearing masks.
As for when the long lines at TSA will stop, it may take a while, especially since some of them have simply quit their jobs to take more reliable positions.
After years in which Jewish and Israeli students at University of California, Berkeley were told that their exclusion was merely the product of political disagreement, a Title VI case brought by the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law has reached a settlement. It requires the university to end student group practices that excluded “Zionists,” and finally affirms that what Jewish students experienced was, in fact, discrimination.
The settlement forces the university to confront what it had long denied: that Jewish students’ experiences of discrimination and harassment were real. Though the problem accelerated after Hamas’s genocidal massacre on October 7, Kenneth L. Marcus—founder and chairman of the Louis D. Brandeis Center, which brought the suit—accused Berkeley law students in 2022 of having“institutionalized an ancient ideology of hate, incorporating it into the legal DNA of their major identity groups.” He listed clubs as diverse as women’s groups, Asian and Pacific Islander, African American, LGBTQ, and Middle Eastern student organizations, all of which had altered their bylaws to exclude “Zionist” members and speakers.
In Marcus’s words: “Daniel Pearl, a Zionist victim of beheading, would have been constitutionally banned during his lifetime from speaking to any of these groups. His anti-Zionist murderers would not have been.”
The case comes in the wake of StandWithUs v. MIT, which was dismissed by a Massachusetts district judge who held not only that anti-Zionism constitutes protected speech, but that there is no basis for presuming it to be antisemitic—unless it explicitly employs recognizable antisemitic tropes.
The UC Berkeley case is an important victory. But it seems clear that much more work remains to produce lasting institutional change capable of protecting Jewish and Israeli students from anti-Zionist discrimination in the future. Law, as always, follows culture—and nothing less is required than a sea change in how we understand anti-Zionism.
Anti-Zionism transforms the very meaning of Zionism, reconstructing “Zionism” as a form of racial supremacy rooted in Jewish chosenness. This draws on a longer anti-Judaic tradition, running from Hasan Sa’b’s propaganda text Zionism and Racism—a key entry in the Palestine Essays series edited by Fayez Sayegh, the PLO propagandist who coined the term settler colonialism, and which recast Jewish peoplehood as inherently oppressive—to the Soviet-backed “Zionism is Racism” resolution of 1975 that continues to infuse the toxic discoursearound “Zionism,” despite its formal repeal in 1991.
The Berkeley stand was shameful: they totally bought into the view that anti-Zionism was a “political stand,” when in fact Zionism is simply the recognition that Jews should have their own state, WHICH THEY ALREADY HAVE. If you’re Jew who lives in Israel, or reccognizes Israel’s already-designated right to exist, you can be damned as a Zionist. Is there anybody fool enough to think that “Zionist” is something other than a euphemism for “Jew”?
The idea of fighting crime by paying ex–gang members might be new to you, but this sort of program, which often goes under the name of “community violence intervention,” has become the norm in blue cities like Chicago, Los Angeles, and New York City over the past decade.
Proponents of this approach argue that, rather than relying on policing to prevent gang violence and reduce shootings, some amount of police work can be replaced with state-backed, man-on-the-street initiatives. In Chicago, that includes hiring former gang members to counsel current ones and resolve disputes. The programs go by different names: violence prevention, violence interrupters, Peacekeepers.
In recent weeks, I’ve investigated whether this strategy is working—or whether taxpayers and philanthropists are inadvertently funding gang violence in Chicago. Randle is one of many outreach workers, South Side residents, and donors we spoke to who say they’re losing confidence in community violence intervention.
Over the past decade, taxpayers and private donors have spent around $1 billion on community violence intervention (CVI) programs in Chicago, according to an analysis by The Free Press.
CVI is backed by some of the biggest names in Chicago—and the country—including mega-philanthropist Laurene Powell Jobs, the billionaire wife of the late Apple co-founder Steve Jobs, Illinois governor J.B. Pritzker, and Chicago’s mayor, Brandon Johnson, a progressive who has helped secure funding for these programs. But not all city leaders have bought in.
. . . In 2018, CRED helped launch what would become the most controversial arm of the city’s CVI apparatus: a program called FLIP (Flatlining Violence Inspires Peace). Young locals—many of whom have criminal records or are “justice-involved,” as CRED puts it—are paid to de-escalate conflict, monitor social media for gang tensions, and participate in daily check-ins regarding hot-spot activity. They eventually got rebranded as Peacekeepers. They wear neon vests and are meant to hang out in contested areas. When gang violence explodes, more than 1,000 Peacekeepers are sent to hot spots throughout the city to intervene. What began as a privately funded program under CRED is now a state-funded program, which received $33 million for this fiscal year.
. . . .Since January 2023—when the Peacekeepers program expanded from a summer initiative to a year-round operation—The Free Press found 28 additional arrests involving people who identified themselves as Peacekeepers or “violence interrupters” or wore Peacekeeper vests. The charges range from drug possession to violent assault.
In one case, police arrested a man for alleged heroin possession and unlawful possession of a firearm after finding him naked under his bed with $50,000 in cash nearby (he was later acquitted). In another, officers allegedly discovered 24 suspected ecstasy pills on a man who identified himself as a Peacekeeper who had been arrested for battery and resisting the police. Another police report describes a man who said he worked as a Peacekeeper who allegedly beat a woman unconscious, leaving her hospitalized with a brain hemorrhage. Another Peacekeeper, who told police he was a member of the Satan Disciples gang, was arrested twice within the span of 10 days.
Here’s a figure from the Free Press article showing the increase in public funding of the program over time. It ain’t working:
Pritzker is an okay governor, and may even be a candidate for President in two years, but he’s too woke for his own good, and too enamored of harebrained schemes like this.
Mayor Zohran Mamdani was on his way to Gracie Mansion this winter when he asked his driver to pull over to help fellow New Yorkers dig their cars out of the snow. He picked up a shovel. So did his press secretary. Members of his security detail did, too.
It was just the kind of scene that had endeared Mr. Mamdani, 34, to voters. It also hinted at a governing style that resembles the scrappy, high-octane feel of a political campaign — and relies on the hustle of a group of young staff members to keep up.
Mr. Mamdani, New York City’s youngest mayor in about a century, has filled City Hall with people who are also in their 30s, or even younger. The mayor’s chief of staff, Elle Bisgaard-Church, is 34. His communications director, Anna Bahr, is 33. Joe Calvello, his press secretary, is 33. His closest outside adviser, Morris Katz, 26, is so young that for several months last year, he told reporters he was a couple of years older than he was.
The arrival of these young Democrats at the helm of one of the most prominent offices in the country has meant all kinds of changes for New York politics, from the congressional primaries in which Mr. Mamdani has involved himself to who holds the political capital in New York.
Then there’s the way they run the government, with a management style that youth allows: working all the time. Mr. Mamdani is younger than most prominent Democrats, needs little sleep, enjoys working weekends and likes to be highly visible in the city he leads, every day. Some of his closest aides haven’t had a day off since Jan. 1, when the mayor was sworn into office. Work calls can begin as late as 10 p.m. Some veterans say the approach is notably intense, like Karen Hinton, who was Mayor Bill de Blasio’s press secretary and said she struggled to imagine her former boss shoveling snow. “He wouldn’t have gotten out of his car,” she said. “He would have called someone.”
Mr. Mamdani is trying to enact a sweeping leftist agenda in a moment when trust in government is exceedingly low. He is the city’s first Muslim mayor. And he came to office promising to champion working people in a moment when those Americans are struggling.
That may be why this mayor seems to approach everything he does with a sense of urgency. If it seems like Mr. Mamdani is everywhere, it’s because he is. So are his exhausted staffers. It’s a group of young and hungry progressives out to prove to voters that the left can govern.
What about his accomplishments? Well, his promise for free daycare has met with some approval with the governor, as it must, so there may be free daycare for two-year-olds within a year. But as for free public transportation and those city grocery stores—criekets. And then there’s Mandami’s antisemitism, which goes with progressivism and the Democratic Socialists. Nobody seems to care much about that. As one of my readers wrote me, ” I think Mamdani would expel all Jews from the city if he could. I think he would bankrupt the city and drive anyone with money from its borders.” But the column, of course is only about the energy he and his young, deluded supporters bring to the city.
Also, my friend Orli Peter, a therapist who works with trauma, has been in the Middle East treating both Israeli and Palestinian trauma survivors. She wrote an article for a Swedish newspaper addressed to Mamdami’s wife, “An open letter to New York City’s first lady,” which is in Swedish but can be automatically tranlated into English by Google. Orli takes Rama Duwaji to task for her approbation for Hamas’s attack on Israel on October 7, 2023. Here’s the ending:
As the First Lady of New York City, you are in a public position to inspire a movement for Palestinian rights and security. The survivors I treat are still trying to rebuild their lives from what they witnessed. Palestinians also deserve to be freed from the same sadistic movement that terrorizes them.
Public gestures matter. When someone in a position of influence treats atrocities as liberation, the signal is sent far beyond a social media post.
The evidence is clear. Admit you were wrong and withdraw your support for the lie.
Some of us spend our days helping survivors rebuild the lives that Hamas shattered. The least the rest of the world can do is stop condoning mass sadism and tell the truth about what was done to the victims of Hamas’s cruelty.
Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili has anomie:
Hili: I watch as the present turns into the past.
Me: And?
Hili: I will probably get bored of it soon.
In Polish:
Hili: Patrzę jak teraźniejszość zmienia się w przeszłość.
Ja: I co?
Hili: Pewnie zaraz mi się to znudzi.
Good news: diabetics who inject themselves with insulin daily may be able to go to a once-per-week regimen:
Today the FDA approved the first once-weekly insulin.
Insulin icodec, now brand name Awiqli, demonstrated superior a1c reduction to daily insulin glargine with a1c reduction of 1.55% compared to 1.35%, in addition to 6 less injections per week in the ONWARDS phase 3 trial.
Today’s ruling by the IOC means a welcome return to fair sport for women and girls, but I’ll never forget the scandal of Paris 2024, when people who consider themselves supremely virtuous and progressive publicly cheered on men punching women. pic.twitter.com/qmQCI2Mks5
Pinker prefers written rather than video instructions, as do I, and for the same reasons:
Like an appreciation of progress, reading and literacy are among the things that are good but cognitively unnatural. That is, they go against our evolved nature. We didn’t evolve with print; it was a recent invention. Reading, for many of us, has become so second nature that we… pic.twitter.com/jEgCL0d1kj
This Dutch Jewish girl was gassed to death as soon as she arrived in Auschwitz. She was five years old. Had she lived, she would have been 87 yesterday.
A viral dog rescue from 2016 is now immortalized with a statue in Kazakhstan. When a dog fell into the Sayran reservoir, bystanders formed a human chain to pull him to safety. The statue is a reminder of the value of unity, solidarity and collective action. 14/10 for all
The Worcester Public Library in Massachusetts is, well, let them announce it:
Photo courtesy of the Worcester Public Library
From the text:
Embracing the spirit of the program, library patrons are encouraged to swap traditional monetary payments for a simple yet delightful alternative—a photo or drawing of a cat. Executive Director Jason Homer extends a warm invitation to all, regardless of feline companionship status.
“Even if you don’t have a cat in your life, you can still draw one,” Mr. Homer expressed to NBC Boston, highlighting the inclusive nature of the initiative. From domestic cats to majestic big cats like tigers and lions, all submissions are welcome with open arms.
Recognizing that accidents happen and fees can sometimes hinder access to library resources, the library hopes to extend a gesture of goodwill and understanding through this unique initiative.
Why March Meowness?
The inspiration behind “March Meowness” stems from a noticeable increase in overdue fines among young patrons, a trend exacerbated by the challenges posed by the pandemic. However, what started as a simple solution to address financial barriers quickly blossomed into something much more profound. Within just the first five days of its launch, the program had already cleared over 400 accounts, underscoring its immediate impact and resonance within the community.
In essence, “March Meowness” transcends the realm of library fines, serving as a testament to the power of creativity, compassion, and community spirit. Through a simple yet meaningful gesture, the Worcester Public Library not only alleviates financial burdens but also reaffirms its role as a cornerstone of the community—a place where everyone is welcome, regardless of their ability to pay. As patrons flock to share their beloved feline companions or imaginative renditions thereof, the library continues to serve as a beacon of hope, connection, and joy in uncertain times.
And here, from TikTok, is a wall o’cats showing how many people donated photos in lieu of fines (sound up):
And from the NBC Evening News, where we learn that photos have been sent to the library from all over the world. The response would not be nearly as awesome if they wanted dog pictures, because cats rule the internet.
********************
In honor of Larry the Cat‘s 15th birthday and 5 years of service as Chief Mouser to the Cabinet Office, Mark Felton Productions has put out a lovely 11-minute video detailing the history of Downing Street Cats beginning on June 3, 1929 when the government authorized the position. Rufus was the first Downing Street cat, replaced by Peter, and so on (one was also called “The Munich Mouser,” who was staffed by Neville “Peace in Our Time” Chamberlain.
It’s a great video, so watch.
Here’s a timeline of all the 10 Downing Street cats (via Wikipedia), and the parthy of the PM’s who staffed them. Click to enlarge.
********************
From the UPI’s “odd news” we have the story of a lost cat who came home after five years:
From the text:
A Maryland family whose pet cat went missing five years ago were reunited with the pet when she turned up in a stranger’s basement.
Melissa and Brooke Garci said Aremis, their indoor/outdoor cat, wandered away from home in Hickory in September 2021 and never came back.
The family canvassed the neighborhood and put up flyers, but there was no trace of Artemis.
The Harford County Humane Society said a woman came to the facility in February with a cat she found in her unfinished basement.
The shelter scanned the feline for a microchip, which identified her as Artemis.
“I was like, I couldn’t cry yet because I was in disbelief, but when I saw her, I was like, ‘OMG, she looks exactly the same,'” Brooke Garci told CBS Baltimore. “It was a beautiful thing.”
The humane society said the reunion was a reminder of the importance of having pets microchipped.
Always get your cat chipped, even if it’s an indoor cat. They can escape, you know, as Artemis did. 40% of lost cats with chips are returned to their owners. (Be sure your chip is updated if you move or change your phone number.)
Here’s a video of the grand reunion (warning, there are d*gs as well):
********************x
Lagniappe: Two cat videos from The Good News girl:
Today Athayde Tonhasca Júnior is back with one of his patented text-and-photo posts, which have always been very informative. Today he talks about palms and their pollinators in one area of Brazil. Athayde’s captions are indented, and you can enlarge his photos by clicking on them.
Beneficial saboteurs
It’s approaching midday somewhere in the caatinga, northeastern Brazil’s hinterland, and the temperature will soon hit the 40o C mark. All is quiet, as most animals are sensibly sheltering from the sizzling sun. The vegetation looks dead and stunted, but it is in fact quiescent, in a state of dormancy that helps plants endure the heat and drought until the rainy season arrives.
Fig.1. The caatinga vegetation in northeastern Brazil looks dead during dry season, but palm trees are green year round:
One palm tree, however, known locally as licuri (Syagrus coronata), doesn’t seem bothered by the harsh climate; it is verdant and in full bloom. The plant is monoecious, that is, it produces separate male and female flowers in the same individual. Male flowers grow at the end of large (~90 cm long) inflorescences, while the female flowers are at the base. Anthesis (the stage at which a flower is open and functional) is asynchronous: male flowers open first, releasing pollen and scent for 7 to 10 days. These flowers then shrivel and fall off. In about two weeks, it’s the female flowers’ turn; they are open for 10 to 15 days. Plants also bloom asynchronously, so at any given time of the year there are licuri flowers.
These flowery details may seem like too much information, but they are important for understanding the plant’s relationship with one of its most important flower visitors, the weevil Anchylorhynchus trapezicollis.
Like the overwhelming majority of the ~83.000 known species of weevil (family Curculionidae), A. trapezicollis feeds on plant tissues. Attracted by the scent of male flowers, a beetle uses its big schnozzle (in fact its rostrum, the snout-like projection from the head) to pry flowers open and take their pollen. While feeding, the beetle ends up with pollen grains attached to its body. As male flowers open at different times, there’s isn’t much food to be consumed in one sitting. The beetle is then encouraged to move to another plant, taking with it pollen that will result in cross pollination if the insect lands on a receptive female flower.
After feeding, a female beetle looks for female flowers to lay her eggs between the petals and sepals. The resulting larvae are cannibals: one larva will eat any competitor in the same flower. As they grow older, the little darlings shift their attention to developing fruits, which are aborted and fall off. Because it destroys forming fruits to complete its life cycle, A. trapezicollis is a seed predator. But for the cost of a portion of its fruits, the licuri palm is pollinated. This form of mutualism is known as brood-site pollination or nursery pollination, a trade-off association that has evolved for the yucca and the yucca moth, figs and fig wasps, and several other plant-insect partnerships.
Other weevils and bees also pollinate licuri, but A. trapezicollis seems to be the most important agent (Medeiros et al., 2019). This tight relationship has profound ecological consequences.
It is said that everything from a pig can be used except the oink, but licuri is not far behind in relation to its usefulness to humans. Its apical meristem (palm heart) is edible; the leaves are the source of a high quality wax, building materials, hats, baskets, sleeping mats and other handicrafts; ground-up leaves are fed to livestock in times of food scarcity; the tasty seeds (endosperm or nuts) are eaten raw or roasted, or added to confectionery and local dishes; oil extracted from seeds is used for lighting and the manufacture of soap, perfumes and other products.
Humans are not the only creatures to benefit from licuri: many animals take the wholesome fruits. Among them, the Lear’s macaw (Anodorhynchus leari), an endemic and endangered species, for which licuri nuts represent the bulk of its nutrition.
There you have it: a palm tree of unordinary value, from people’s welfare and economy to endangered macaws and wildlife in general, is greatly dependent on pollination provided by unassuming weevils. And this is not an isolated case. More than 200 palm species (family Arecaceae) are pollinated by weevils, and so are many other plants from different lineages (Haran et al., 2023). The ‘million dollar weevil’ (Elaeidobius kamerunicus) illustrates well the relevance of these insects as pollinators. This beetle was introduced from Africa to Asia to help improve pollination of cultivated African oil palm (Elaeis guineensis), resulting in considerable increase in yields.
When we think of pollinators, bees, flies and moths are most likely to come to mind, as they contribute to the reproduction of crops and wildflowers familiar to us. Adding weevils to this select club may sound peculiar: after all, many weevils are pests capable of inflicting enormous damage on cultivated plants, trees and stored products (you may have had your pantry invaded by weevils). But that would be a parochial view. For millions of people in tropical and subtropical regions, palm trees are more than props in holiday brochures: they are crucial for wildlife food chains, human nutrition, building materials and commodities such as medicines, industrial products and fibre. A great deal of these benefits depends on a range of poorly known, frequently dismissed and often vilified weevils.
Drumond, M.A. 2007. Documentos, 199. Embrapa Semi-Árido.
Haran, J. et al. 2023. Most diverse, most neglected: weevils (Coleoptera: Curculionoidea) are ubiquitous specialized brood-site pollinators of tropical flora. Peer Community Journal 3: e49.
Medeiros, B.A.S. et al. 2019. Flower visitors of the licuri palm (Syagrus coronata): brood pollinators coexist with a diverse community of antagonists and mutualists. Biological Journal of the Linnean Society 126: 666-687.
