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.
There’s no real “rule” here, but simply Maher’s assertion—one that many people won’t sccept in the Time of Demonization—that people can do both good and bad things (it’s better to say that then brand someone as good or evil, though of course people can lean toward one side or another).
This monologue was prompted, of course, by recent revelations that Cesar Chavez was a sexual predator and rapist. Maher mentions others with such ambitendencies, including Thomas Jefferson, Michael Jackson, and Mohammed bin Salman, the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia who’s particularly vexing.
Maher tries to accept the fact that sometimes the bad comes with the good, and that’s really the only life lesson you can derive from this monologue. But it’s worth pondering. For if you see what happens to people like Chavez, who are written off as too evil to extol in any way, you see the inability of many people to accept nuance (and no, I’m not saying that there should be Cesar Chavez high schools.)
The other guests include Lloyd Blankfein (former CEO of Goldman Sachs), Governor Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania, and Anthony Scaramucci, who lasted a mere ten days as Trump’s communications director.
For a long time the otherwise admirable organization Doctors Without Borders (also known as “MSF” for its French name Médecins Sans Frontières) has been accused of antisemitism. The accusations have been credible enough to make me curb my donations to the group. I still regret having donated over $10,000 to the organization after Kelly Houle and I auctioned off a copy of Why Evolution is True that I got autographed by multiple scientists and celebrities, including two Nobel Laureates. Kelly had also beautifully illuminated and gilded the book, so it was quite the showpiece. I don’t know where that money went after we sent it to MSF, but the organization won’t be getting any more dosh from me. That’s a pity, as otherwise they’d be in my will and lined up to get a lot more money: in the six figures. Well, such is the result of Jew hating.
Since the book auction, which occurred well before the Israel/Hamas war, more evidence has come out about MSF’s antisemitism. First, Israel expelled the organization from Gaza this year because it wouldn’t provide the names of its staff and operations in Gaza so they could be checked for membership in Hamas or terrorist activities. Second, as documented in the Jewish Chronicle article below, the organization has repeatedly accused Israel of “genocide” while condemning Hamas only once (for the October 7 attack). The genocide canard, as Maarten Boudry shows in his article “They don’t believe it either,” is without merit; there’s no evidence that Israel has been on a campaign to wipe out Palestinians. And since MSF’s accusations of genocide are public, you can’t say that Israel or Jews are making them up. (You can see one on MSF’s own site.)
Since any support for terrorism or ideological tilting towards Gaza and against Israel violates MSF’s own policy of political neutrality, there’s even less justification for its accusations. I’ve called out the organization before (see my posts here and here), and this will be the third and probably last time. Click below to read the Jewish Chronicle piece.
A few excerpts (indented):
. . . interviews and internal material reviewed by the JC suggest that the organisation’s principle of témoignage, or “bearing witness”, has taken on a political character in relation to Israel.
MSF public statements started using the term “genocide” to describe the Gaza war in November 2024.
One former employee described “pushback” when it was first adopted, citing concerns about the lack of “legal rigour” behind the claim.
MSF leaders have for years made such similar statements about the Jewish state. In January 2025, shortly before becoming international president of MSF, Javid Abdelmoneim reposted a message on X claiming that Israel had “transformed Jewish symbols into symbols of genocide” and was “the greatest threat to Judaism & the Jewish people on planet earth”.
In another repost, Abdelmoneim – who has endorsed a full boycott of the Jewish state – shared a message describing Israel as “a colony of settlers that continue to ethnically cleanse the native Palestinian population”.
Michael Goldfarb spent more than 15 years at MSF US. He claimed anti-Israel sentiment was at times “tolerated” by those at the top.
He said: “European colleagues freely told me, knowing I am Jewish, that Israel doesn’t have a right to exist.”
He recalled one colleague expressing outrage at being mistaken for Israeli while abroad.
At a restaurant with MSF colleagues in northern Italy, in a town’s former Jewish quarter, one colleague told Goldfarb: “There better not be Israeli flags here.”
He said: “Nothing meaningful has been done to address antisemitism, to show solidarity with Jewish staff, or call out this hate. That creates a permissive environment in which it flourishes.”
And there’s this:
On October 17, 2023, after an explosion at Al-Ahli Arab Hospital in Gaza City, MSF’s international account posted that it was “horrified by the recent Israeli bombing… This is a massacre”. The blast was later attributed to a misfired Palestinian rocket. The MSF post remains online.
In November 2023, as Israeli forces said they would target Hamas operatives allegedly using Al-Shifa Hospital, MSF staff were present at the facility. The organisation said it had “seen no evidence” that Hamas was using the hospital as a military base. Months later, US intelligence confirmed Hamas had used parts of the complex for storing weapons and holding hostages.
This one is particularly telling, as everybody now knows that the rocket that exploded in the Al-Ahli parking lot was fired by Palestinian Islamic Jihad, not Israel. But MSF won’t take down its false accusation. I’ve put its tweet below
We are horrified by the recent Israeli bombing of Ahli Arab Hospital in #Gaza City, which was treating patients and hosting displaced Gazans. Hundreds of people have reportedly been killed. This is a massacre. It is absolutely unacceptable…
Of course MSF says that the “genocide” canard is justified, but read Boudry’s article to see the “genocidal statements” that supposedly support the canard. They were few, were directed at Hamas. and have not been translated into action. Futher, Hamas, despite its agreement for the cease-fire, has not disarmed and is still in charge in southern Gaza, and it’s still stealing and diverting humanitarian aid to Gaza. Hamas must be not only disarmed but dissolved.
The [MSF] spokesperson went on: “Like many others, we were horrified by Hamas’ massacre in Israel on October 7, and we are horrified by Israel’s response. While providing extensive humanitarian assistance in Gaza we have witnessed mass killings, indiscriminate attacks, repeated failures to protect civilians, immense destruction by Israeli forces, the near-total dismantling of the healthcare system, and the weaponisation and restriction of lifesaving aid. Israeli officials have made multiple, well-documented dehumanising statements calling for the annihilation or forced transfer of the population.
“The only reasonable conclusion is that the intention is to erase the Palestinian people from Gaza. For this reason, we believe a genocide is taking place.
So MSF won’t get dime one from me. However, if you do want to donate to the civilians of Gaza through NGOs that have not been banned by Israel, and have a decent reputation, here’s what Grok suggests. I’ve added links:
ANERA (American Near East Refugee Aid): A U.S.-based, non-political, non-religious organization providing food parcels, hygiene kits, medical care, and livelihoods support directly in Gaza (with recent distributions in 2026, often partnering with WFP). It holds 4-star Charity Navigator ratings and GuideStar Platinum Seal for transparency and impact.
PCRF (Palestine Children’s Relief Fund): U.S.-based nonprofit specializing in pediatric medical care, surgeries, mental health, and emergency aid (food, supplies) for children in Gaza. It has earned consistent 4-star Charity Navigator ratings (one of the highest for accountability) and focuses on long-term recovery without political affiliations.
DIRECT RELIEF. Delivers medical supplies, kits, and grants to health facilities in Gaza via partners. It is internationally respected with 4-star ratings and focuses purely on health aid in crises.
I haven’t checked all those organizations myself, so follow the instructions below before you give.
Tips for donating effectively:
Visit the organizations’ official websites and designate funds for “Gaza” or “Palestine emergency” where possible.
Check current Charity Navigator, CharityWatch, or GuideStar ratings for the latest financial transparency data (most listed above score highly).
Aid delivery remains extremely challenging due to access issues, but these groups have documented recent distributions and work within approved coordination mechanisms.
This post-Easter cartoon of Jesus and Mo is presented as a “Friday Flashback: from 8 years ago, now that ‘Easter’ is over”. Note that ‘Easter’ is in quotes. Mo continues to tease Jesus about Christian doctrine.
Once again I present the last photos I have in the queue. If you got ’em, and they’re good, please send them in.
Today’s wildlife pictures come from reader Jan Malik, and concentrate on one act of predation. Jan’s captions are indented, and you can enlarge the pictures by clicking on them.
In early April, I visited the Edwin B. Forsythe National Wildlife Refuge in New Jersey, which encompasses both brackish coastal marshes and lowland mixed forest. The refuge, previously known by the more graceful name Brigantine, features a wildlife drive where a car serves as the ultimate “blind,” allowing for the close observation of birds.In one section, a group of herons assembled, intently staring at a culvert outlet—a sort of fast-food restaurant for wading birds. The Great Blue Heron (GBH, Ardea herodias) in the center has already caught a small fish, though this is not a meal an adult heron finds satisfying:
The same was true for this Great Egret (Ardea alba) with a small fry. All the birds were patiently waiting for a main course:
Finally, one heron caught a fish worthy of the hunting effort. Visible in this picture are the nuptial plumes of this GBH—wispy feathers on the lower neck, similar plumes on the wing coverts, and a long, elegant black plume on the head. These grow only during the breeding season:
The fish, likely a White Perch (Morone americana)—a predator of mollusks, arthropods, and small fish—displays a defense reflex here. It has two dorsal fins: the posterior fin is soft, while the spiny anterior fin is raised when the fish is in danger. This reflex is intended to make the fish harder for a predator to swallow:
The heron has speared the fish through its posterior region, but the prey is still alive, writhing to get free. The heron, now knee-deep in water, must finish the fish off and reposition it to be swallowed head-first:
To do that, the bird first walks to shallower water where it can momentarily drop the fish without risk of escape. Additionally, moving away from the group decreases the chances of the catch being stolen by a competitor:
Catch and release (but not for long): In the shallow, muddy water, the GBH releases the fish; it cannot swim away and is visible as a dark blob below the bird. Whether this GBH is male or female cannot be determined from these pictures, as the sexes are monomorphic. This suggests that both sexes are “choosy” in mate selection, as both provide significant parental care and investment:
The GBH delivers the coup de grâce—the perch is now speared through the head. For me, looking at these pictures raises the question: how many bird species are sexually dimorphic versus monomorphic and why? Some are strongly dimorphic—ducks, songbirds, turkeys, and grouse—while others, like herons, gulls, parrots, corvids, and raptors, are not. Others fall somewhere in between, like the American Robin. While males have darker heads and more vibrant breasts, they do not incubate the eggs, though they do guard the nest and feed the chicks. Are these differences exclusively the result of parental care roles? Or is it an adaptation to the environment? For instance, a GBH cannot be too flashy, or the fish would easily spot its silhouette against the grey sky:
In one smooth move, the heron tosses the fish into the air and catches it head-first. The fish is now incapacitated, no longer resisting, and bleeding heavily. With its defensive fins down, it can finally be swallowed:
Only once have I seen a GBH unable to swallow a large eel—mostly due to its length rather than its girth. Otherwise, once prey is caught—be it a fish, a duck, or a rodent—it is swallowed whole, sometimes after a brief struggle:
The fish is now in the esophagus; the heron’s flexible neck tissue expands to accommodate the meal until it can be digested:
Here is a picture of a Great Egret also in breeding plumage, sporting its long, wispy feathers (aigrettes). These will be lost through molting or wear shortly after the breeding season ends:
A Great Egret in flight, with its head retracted—a trait that makes them easy to distinguish from cranes. While they occupy similar ecological niches to the Great Blue Heron, they are not identical.Egrets often hunt “on the move,” flying or hopping, while GBHs prefer ambush hunting or slow, deliberate wading. Egrets typically target smaller prey, while GBHs:
Welcome to sabbath for goyische cats: It’s Sunday, April 12, 2026, and National Grilled Cheese Sandwich Day, celebrating the perfect accompaniment to a bowl of good tomato soup. Wikipedia even has a page on this sandwich, showing the combo in this photo:
Vice President JD Vance said on Sunday that 21 hours of peace talks between the United States and Iran had failed to produce an agreement to end the war, leaving the fate of a fragile two-week cease-fire, and whether President Trump will resume major combat operations, uncertain.
“They have chosen not to accept our terms,” Mr. Vance said at a brief news conference in Islamabad, Pakistan, although he left open the possibility that terms could still be reached.
“We leave here with a very simple proposal: a method of understanding that is our final and best offer,” he added. “We’ll see if the Iranians accept it.”
Mr. Vance did not provide specifics, but said the United States needed an “affirmative commitment” that Iran would not seek a nuclear weapon or the tools with which to achieve one.
By early Sunday, reopening the Strait of Hormuz remained one of three main sticking points, according to two Iranian officials familiar with the talks. The United States had demanded that Iran immediately reopen the strait to all maritime traffic. But Iran refused to give up its leverage over the critical choke point for oil tankers, saying it would do so only after a final peace deal, according to the officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive diplomatic negotiations.
The other two key issues were the fate of nearly 900 pounds of highly enriched uranium and Iran’s demand that about $27 billion in frozen revenues held abroad be released, the officials said.
Those are major sticking points! In other news, the U.S. claimed that two American warships went into the Strait and began clearing mines. Iran, however, denied that U.S. Navy ships were in the Strait. And Israel continued bombing Lebanon, in the south this time. Right now, it looks like the war will go on.
Earlier, President Trump played down the importance of the peace talks, which took place against the backdrop of a fragile cease-fire. “Whether we make a deal or not makes no difference to me,” Trump said. “And the reason is because we’ve won.”
We did?
*Obituaries second: Jim Whittaker, the first American to summit Mount Everest (in 1963), and latter the CEO of REI, died on April 7. He was 97 years old.
Handpicked for the role from a roster of nearly 20 expert climbers and scientists, Jim Whittaker pressed through blizzard-force winds and minus-30-degree air to become the first American to summit Mount Everest. Mr. Whittaker, an REI manager and veteran climber from Seattle, hammered a U.S. flag into the pinnacle of the planet for the first time on May 1, 1963, stoking a national interest in mountaineering that fed the expanding retailer he would later lead as CEO.
Mr. Whittaker, who died April 7 at 97, vaulted from a little-known mountain guide to a national celebrity, a symbol of American achievement at a time of roiling Cold War anxieties. As a literal flag-bearer, he became a role model who helped popularize climbing and crystallized American pride less than nine months after the Cuban missile crisis, said Broughton Coburn, author of “The Vast Unknown,” a book about the U.S. expedition to Everest.
Charley Shimanski, executive director of the American Alpine Club, later called Mr. Whittaker’s accomplishment “a defining moment in American mountaineering,” saying it signaled U.S. climbers were of the same caliber as the Europeans.
Mr. Whittaker, who was nicknamed “Big Jim” for his rangy 6-foot-5, 200-pound frame, was taller than others on the expedition. He stretched head and shoulders above his climbing partner, Tibetan-born Sherpa Nawang Gombu, with whom he stepped side-by-side onto the top of the world.
Before Gombu and Mr. Whittaker, the people who stood on the globe’s apex were recorded only in the single digits. New Zealand climber Edmund Hillary and Sherpa mountaineer Tenzing Norgay were the first to reach the summit, in 1953.
, , , Mr. Whittaker spent 24 years with the outdoor equipment retailer REI, starting in 1955 as the co-op’s first full-time employee. By the time he retired as CEO in 1979, he had helped build it into a $46 million business with more than 700 employees and 900,000 members. He initiated REI’s signature annual sale to clear out inventory, created a product testing department, added goods such as parkas and sleeping bags, funded conservation groups, and led the expansion to its first stores outside Seattle.
Jim had an identical twin brother, Lou, who died in 2024. Lou was also a mountaineer. Here’s a video about Whittaker’s legacy, including the famous photo of him atop Mount Everest, snapped by Gombu. You can see more photos of Whittaker on the 1963 Everest expedition on his website, And don’t forget that two other Americans, Tom Hornbein and Willi Unsoeld, also reached the summit, but took a far more adventurous (and dangerous) route.
In just six weeks, the Iran War has shattered a system of global trade that has enriched people and nations for more than a century: the freedom to sail the open seas.
The Strait of Hormuz long functioned as an artery for the world’s maritime economy. But that 30-mile-wide waterway is now a monument to a new global disorder. As some 20,000 sailors effectively held hostage at sea digested President Trump’s cease-fire announcement this week—contingent on the complete opening of the strait—Iranian officials stressed they would determine which ships could leave and at what price.
The “Tehran toll booth” was taking effect, as the U.S. Navy watched on, an admission that, at least here and now in the world’s oil corridor, America no longer rules the waves.
Captains, owners and managers of the more than 700 vessels stuck near Iran, carrying tens of billions of dollars in cargo, were messaging one another to try to make sense of Tehran’s shifting rules. After days of drones and missiles flying overhead, Iran’s navy broadcast a radio message clarifying their position: “If any vessel tries to transit without permission, [it] will be destroyed.”
. . .The Strait of Hormuz, sailors said, risks becoming a graveyard for a trading system so integral to the modern economy that most consumers, accustomed to cheap imports and three-day shipping, take it for granted. The price stands to be shouldered by consumers across the world, in inflation, scrambled delivery schedules and the snarls of a new arrangement in which Tehran can choose which countries access Middle Eastern oil.
If Iran continues to charge tankers for safe passage, the added cost will hardwire a higher price for a gallon of gasoline, economists said. Or its Revolutionary Guard Corps could choke the flow entirely, wreaking havoc on energy markets. Either way, shipowners, their insurers and crew remain wary of sailing back into a once-bustling strait that could spring like a trap on the slightest misunderstanding between an aggrieved Iranian regime and an American president who threatened to wipe out its entire civilization in a single night.
Whatever happens next, the precedent of a toll booth in open waters will reverberate across a world order the U.S. helped build. America’s allies worry other players could try to replicate Iran’s example, like empires of the 17th century, when China’s Qing dynasty, the Ottomans and Portuguese taxed passing vessels. Trump has floated his own wish for an American toll on the Persian Gulf, and his expenditure of naval power in the Middle East has given Beijing and its navy—the world’s largest—freer rein to expand control over the South China Sea.
. . . American thinking evolved after World War I to advocate free navigation for all countries, an idea that only came into widespread practice when the U.S. Navy became the global maritime police force after World War II.
I’m trying to think of what other areas of strategically important open ocean don’t already charge for sea transit but could be ripe for tolls. The only one I can think of is the Taiwan Strait, between China and Taiwan, which is 160 km wide at its narrowest point. Taiwan wouldn’t charge to traverse it, but I bet China would. And the Beagle Channel through which Darwin (and I) traveled, could be controlled (it’s 5 km wide at its narrowest point), but it’s free and international (Chile and Argentina), and not of strategic importance.
Iran has been unable to open the Strait of Hormuz to more shipping traffic because it cannot locate all of the mines it laid in the waterway and lacks the capability to remove them, according to U.S. officials.
The development is one reason Iran has not been able to quickly comply with the Trump administration’s admonitions to let more traffic pass through the strait. It is also potentially a complicating factor as Iranian negotiators and a U.S. delegation led by Vice President JD Vance meet in Pakistan this weekend for peace talks.
Iran used small boats to mine the strait last month, soon after the United States and Israel began their war against the country. The mines, plus the threat of Iranian drone and missile attacks, slowed the number of oil tankers and other vessels passing through the strait to a trickle, driving up energy prices and providing Iran with its best leverage in the war.
Iran left a path through the strait open, allowing ships that pay a toll to pass through.
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps has issued warnings that ships could collide with sea mines, and semiofficial news organizations have published charts showing safe routes.
Those routes are limited in large part because Iran mined the strait haphazardly, U.S. officials said. It is not clear that Iran recorded where it put every mine. And even when the location was recorded, some mines were placed in a way that allowed them to drift or move, according to the officials.
As with land mines, removing nautical mines is far more difficult than placing them. The U.S. military lacks robust mine removal capabilities, relying on littoral combat ships equipped with mine sweeping capabilities. Iran also does not have the capability of quickly removing mines, even the ones it planted.
I can see that this would be problematic for any peace agreement!
*John Bolton, Trump’s former National Security Advisor and U.S. ambassador to the UN, asserts in the Free Press that it was “a big mistake to have the ceasefire.” This is an interview conducted by Nicholas Clairmont:
Nicholas Clairmont: I’m just going to start by asking, what is going on with Iran and with the ceasefire? Have we lost? Have we won? And what do you predict is about to happen?
John Bolton: Well, I think it was a big mistake to have the ceasefire. I don’t think the Iranians have any intention of doing any of the things that Trump wants in terms of opening the Strait of Hormuz. I think they needed relief from the pounding they’ve been taking. We’ve been through this in various iterations with them before, and it’s very unclear to me what happens next. Because having basically backed down on the effort at regime change, if there ever was one, by acknowledging now that we can kind of negotiate our way out of the Strait of Hormuz closure, Trump is conceding the key, central point of leverage that we have. And I’m just very concerned that we’re going to be faced with a choice of which concessions we’re going to make that we don’t want to make. And the regime will skate free, basically.
It’s suffered enormous damage. But, from the regime’s point of view, if they survive that amounts to victory for them. And they will rebuild the nuclear program, rebuild the ballistic missile program, rebuild the terrorism program, and reconstitute in full their capacity to close the Strait of Hormuz. So this is what you get for mowing the lawn, as the Israelis call it. You can do a lot of damage, but you don’t resolve the underlying problem.
NC: So what would it take to resolve the underlying problem? What should we be doing differently?
JB: I think there are a lot of things that should have been done differently well before the military attack. Like, for example, coordinating and assisting the opposition. If you take Trump at his word that he wasn’t going to put boots on the ground—and I don’t see he has any inclination to do that, except for limited specific missions—then the role of the opposition internally becomes critical. Because the pounding that the regime has taken on their principal instruments of state power I do think has caused fractures in the top of the regime. Certainly, we’ve caused a lot of fractures by eliminating the top 400 or 500 people. This is how regimes like this can begin to come apart.
“Trump is conceding the key, central point of leverage that we have,” said Bolton.
And I think that’s happening. I think it’s a mistake to say the regime has survived. Pieces of it have survived, but we don’t know that there’s any central authority or that its capacity has very much longer to survive if it does. The Times of London reported on Monday that the Supreme Leader is in a coma being treated for severe wounds in the ayatollah’s city of Qom. If that’s true, and it’s purportedly based on intelligence that they’ve seen, it means that the Revolutionary Guard, the ayatollahs and whomever, are ruling through some kind of council mechanism, and they haven’t picked a new Supreme Leader. We can’t say for certain, but I think they have begun the process of seeing the regime disintegrate. So every time they get a break, which is what the ceasefire is, that’s time that they can come out from wherever they’re hiding and see if they can’t get their act back together.
. . . the logic is pretty straightforward: Unless you’re willing to live under a nuclear terrorist threat, and now a threat to the global economy, if you can’t change the regime behavior, changing the regime is the only alternative.
Bolton thinks the regime is actually beginning to fall apart, but given that whoever’s in charge has the weapons, and the civilian population doesn’t want to get shot during peaceful protests, how do we get regime change? Some have suggested arming civilians, but they are not an organized force, nor can the Kurds topple the regime itself. Bolton sees regime change this way: “I think ultimately in Iran, you’ll get a military government that can restore order after the ayatollahs are overthrown. Hopefully it’ll have the sense to provide some kind of consultative mechanism so the Iranian people can pick whatever kind of government they want to come next. And then, basically, it’s up to them.” But he thinks that Trump simply wants out, and sent Vance to Pakistan to do that.
*Both the NYT and the Washington Post are touting (with glee, I bet), the supposed increase in Catholicism in America. But their data is misleading, as the number of pious Catholics, as well as their church attendance, is declining. It’s just that young ‘uns are converting to Catholicism more often than before. As the WaPo notes, the rate of deconversion far outstripping conversions. From the NYT:
People are joining the Roman Catholic Church in surprising numbers.
This Easter the Archdiocese of Detroit will receive 1,428 new Catholics into the church, its highest number in 21 years. The Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston will have its most in 15 years. In the Diocese of Des Moines, the count is jumping 51 percent from last year, from 265 people to 400.
The first year after the election of Pope Leo XIV, the first pontiff from the United States, many Catholic churches across America are welcoming their highest numbers of new Catholics in recent years. The newcomers are set to officially be received into the church during the Easter Vigil Mass, the night before Easter Sunday on April 5.
Bishops are buzzing about the surge, and confounded by what is behind it.
“Of course we think the Holy Spirit is,” Cardinal Robert McElroy of Washington said. “But we are kind of stymied.”
From the WaPo:
In many places, the converts are disproportionately young. These reports have encouraged talk of a religious revival in Generation Z and generated controversy on social media. Discussion has centered around the sudden prominence of a few “hot” churches, such as St. Joseph’s in New York’s West Village and St. Patrick’s Old Cathedral in Nolita. At these spots, young professionals mingle at post-Mass wine receptions. Meanwhile, Catholic social media influencers have helped make an ancient faith seem trendy.
Is Catholicism undergoing a revival? Not in broad numerical terms. A Pew survey suggests that for every young adult who joins the Catholic Church, a dozen leave it. This year’s conversion wave doesn’t come close to offsetting the decades-long decline in Church membership, or solving the problem of ever fewer infant baptisms. Indeed, the recent wave of converts is best understood as a response to religious decline. In a secularizing world, becoming Catholic has a rebellious cachet.
Of course the papers don’t really concentrated on the data showing the extreme decline of religiosity in America. For example, the Pew survey reported in 2012 that the number of Catholics who consider themselves “strong” Catholics is at an all-time low, and church attendance is dropping rapidly, having fallen nearly 50% cince 1974. Here are the facts, ma’am (note that the rate of Protestants claiming “strong religious identity” has gone up by about 11%.)
Why is the MSM so eager to report the rise in religion in America when it’s actually on the way out? Does the media have a God-shaped hole?
Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili had a good idea:
Andrzej: I don’t enjoy the taste of anything.
Hili: Eat from my bowl, and I’ll eat from your plate. You’ll see everything will taste different.
In Polish:
Ja: Nic mi nie smakuje.
Hili: Jedz z mojej miseczki, a ja mogę jeść z twojego talerza. Zobaczysz, że wszystko będzie ci smakowało inaczej.
This week, three Iranian nationals with ties to the Iranian regime were arrested by federal agents following Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s termination of their lawful permanent resident (LPR) statuses.
Seyed Eissa Hashemi, Maryam Tahmasebi, and their son are now in the custody of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement pending their removal from the United States.
Eissa Hashemi is the son of Masoumeh Ebtekar, also known as “Screaming Mary,” the infamous spokeswoman for the Islamist militants who stormed the U.S. Embassy in Tehran in 1979 and held 52 Americans hostage for 444 days.
Ebtekar was notorious for her role as the leading propagandist for the violent Islamists who perpetrated the Iran hostage crisis.
. . . Last week, Secretary Rubio terminated the legal status of the niece and grandniece of deceased Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Major General Qasem Soleimani. Hamideh Afshar Soleimani and her daughter are now in the custody of Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Masih, of course, is all for this.
Behind me is the luxury home belonging to the son of Islamic Republic Vice President @ebtekarm in Los Angeles.
The same Ebtekar who took American diplomats hostage in 1979. Children of top officials in Iran prefer to live in the US away from the hell their parents have created. pic.twitter.com/l8BftjNAkw
No other species on Earth has a teamwork system quite like ants.
This tiny creature pulls off missions far bigger than its size could ever suggest. pic.twitter.com/GVP799bGry
And two from Dr. Cobb. Look at this deep-sea siphonophore! It was identified as Stephanomia amphytridis, which can apparently grow more than 10 meters long:
Bargmannia? I hope they see a bunch of siphonophores on the next SOI expedition b/c Dhugal is finally going to be on the ship for that one! I've been waiting years for this. This 1 is from @schmidtocean.bsky.social dive 642 #sepacificseamounts #MarineLife
In my view, “Blackbird,” a Beatles song written by Paul McCartney and released on the Beatles’ “White Album” in November, 1968, is one of his finest works. Here we see him rehearsing it in the the EMI’s Abbey Road Studios on the very day it was recorded: June 11, 1968. (The released version is here.)
A few notes on the song from Wikipedia:
McCartney explained on Chaos and Creation at Abbey Road that the guitar accompaniment for “Blackbird” was inspired by Johann Sebastian Bach’s Bourrée in E minor, a well-known lute piece, often played on the classical guitar. As teenagers, he and George Harrison tried to learn Bourrée as a “show off” piece. The Bourrée is distinguished by melody and bass notes played simultaneously on the upper and lower strings. McCartney said that he adapted a segment of the Bourrée (reharmonised into the original’s relative major key of G) as the opening of “Blackbird”, and carried the musical idea throughout the song. The first three notes of the song, which then transitioned into the opening guitar riff, were inspired from Bach.
The first night his future wife Linda Eastman stayed at his home, McCartney played “Blackbird” for the fans camped outside his house.
. . . Since composing “Blackbird” in 1968, McCartney has given various statements regarding both his inspiration for the song and its meaning. He has said that he was inspired by hearing the call of a blackbird one morning when the Beatles were studying Transcendental Meditation in Rishikesh, India, and also writing it in Scotland as a response to the Little Rock Nine incident and the overall civil rights movement, wanting to write a song dedicated to people who had been affected by discrimination.
You can listen to Bach’s Bourréhere, but for the life of me I can’t hear the germ of “Blackbird” in it.
The sound is off at the beginning but starts 16 seconds in. There are a few other breaks in the sound.
It’s clear that the song was tweaked right up to the end, including the tempo, the pause, and the raising of the voice on the word “life” halfway into the song.
The guy speaking to John and Paul is of course George Martin, who contributed so much to the greatness of the group’s songs. Notice that Paul breaks into other songs from time to time, including Helter Skelter and Mother Nature’s Son, both also on the White Album. At about 6:15, Lennon tunes his guitar to McCartney’s, as if wanting to accompany him on Blackbird. But no accompaniment was needed.
Check out Macca’s shoes! The woman sitting in the corner and then next to McCartney is identified by a commenter:
Francie Schwartz is the lady appearing in the video alongside Paul. She was Paul McCartney’s girlfriend during the summer of 1968, which coincides exactly with the White Album recording sessions. She wrote about her time at Abbey Road in her memoir Body Count (1972), giving a firsthand account of those legendary sessions.
This is McCartney at the apogee of his powers. The song is a work of genius. In all my life I will never figure out where the ability to produce songs like this comes from. All I can guess is that there’s a kind of neuronal wiring in such people that can turn thoughts into wonderful music.
Larry the Cat recently turne 19 (and celebrated his 15th year at 10 Downing Street), but the Senior Cat is still going strong. For example, he recently caught his third mouse, though that was nominally his job as Chief Mouser to the Cabinet Office. All Brits love him now (save for the miscreants), and he’s still getting into trouble, as this recent YouTube video shows:
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Quite a few readers called my attention to this Canadian cat, named Louis Vuitton (!), who lives in a town that straddles the border with the U.S. Despite new restrictions on immigration, Louis, as the CBC article below shows, repeatedly enters the U.S. illegally and then slips back to Canada. Click on the headline to read:
An excerpt:
On Zero Avenue in South Surrey, B.C. lives a cat without a care in the world, and a supercilious name to match.
Louis Vuitton has become a local legend for doing with ease what most humans wouldn’t dare.
Each day, he leaps back and forth across a narrow ditch that sits smack dab on the Canada-U.S. border.
“He hasn’t always been such a rebel, but he is extremely friendly,” Deb Tate, Louis’ owner, told As It Happens host Nil Koksal.
He just loves people, says Tate, and he doesn’t care what side of the border they’re on.
“He will walk up, greet people, get his pats and belly rubs and then continue on when he’s done.”
On one side of the ditch is a row of charming homes, including his own, on Canadian soil. On the other are the green fields of Peace Arch Historical State Park in the United States.
There aren’t any fences, just a street in between and a shallow divide. According to Tate, there are plenty of cameras and hawk-eyed border guards patrolling nearby, ready to pounce on illegal crossers.
But none of that seems to concern Louis, who trapezes across whenever he wants, with the air of someone who knows the rules, and chooses to ignore them.
Louis, who turns six on Canada Day,has been lapping up all the attention from locals since he caught the eye of Instagram user @pnwdaily360, who posted a now viral video about “the border-hopping kitty.”
There’s a cat that doesn’t really give a f–k about borders,” says the user in the video. “And he comes over and hunts in the ditch. There he is. What’s up buddy?”
The video has since garnered over 220,000 likes and three million views on Instagram.
Tate says Louis even has a habit of smuggling things across the border, dropping it ever so thoughtfully on her doorstep.
“He’s been known to bring home a treat or two from his adventures,” said Tate. “We’ve received everything from snakes and mice and squirrels, much to my chagrin.”
As for his name, Tate says it wasn’t given to him because he has a penchant for luxury goods at duty-free prices.
“He’s a rescue kitty, and we decided that coming from humble beginnings, he deserved a designer name,” said Tate. “We just named him Louis and … he has just grown in to fill the personality, and more.”
Click the video below to see a two-minute video of Louis in action. I wonder if ICE will go after him. After all, he not only enters the U.S. illegally, but commits crimes (murder!) in our country, bringing mice, snakes, and even squirrels back to Canada.
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Finally, from 1000 Libraries Magazine we hear about a cat who got an honorary doctorate from a university in Vermont, so he is now known as “Dr. Max Dow.” Click the screenshot below to get the details:
An excerpt:
That’s Dr. Max Dow, to you. Max Dow, a once feral kitten, has been granted an honorary PhD from Vermont State University Castleton. After making a name for himself around campus for the last five years, Max has become a staple on the grounds and a famously friendly mascot for the school. He is beloved by students and faculty alike — so much so, the university bestowed an honorary doctorate of ‘litter-ature’ to him at this year’s commencement ceremonies.
Much like many other great scholars, Max’s life started with humble beginnings. He was living on the streets of a neighboring city in Vermont as a feral kitten before being adopted by his loving family and owner, Ashley Dow. Dow and her family live in a neighborhood shared with Vermont State University Castleton, and about a year after moving into their new home, Max began to explore the campus for the first time.
In an interview with USA Today, Ashley Dow shares the first memories of Max making his way to campus. She and her family were worried when he hadn’t returned home. They went searching for Max and quickly found that he was exploring the university and was familiarizing himself with curious students and staff.
Max is well taken care of by students, much to the relief of his owner. Students have been responsible for looking out for Max’s well-being and regularly check in with his owners about his health and safety. Many residents on campus have Dow’s number and will send her update texts when Max is seen or is being cared for by a student or faculty member. After a run with some not-so-friendly stray cats in the neighborhood, Max was injured.
In response, Dow asked the school’s faculty and students to be vigilant about returning Max home by 5:00 PM so his family could keep an eye on him during the night. She shared that everyone has complied with her request on numerous occasions and goes out of their way to make sure he is looked out for when he’s around campus.
. . . Max has benefited from the many perks of being a ‘student’ on campus. According to Vermont State University, Max can be seen hitching rides across school grounds in students’ backpacks and has even been the artistic muse and subject of many photography major projects.
. . . After five years of dedication to Vermont State University and its students, the school decided it was time for Max to earn his degree. During the Spring 2024 commencement, Max was celebrated and met with applause when he earned his doctorate in “Litter-ature” alongside over 1,000 other students.
. . . Vermont State University shared their feelings about Max in one quote saying, “We are incredibly proud of Max and deeply grateful for the role he plays within the culture of our University and for his part in elevating VTSU’s reputation for academic excellence and outstanding commitment to animal welfare.”
Here’s Max’x doctoral diploma from the site:
. . . and a short video about Max—I mean Doctor Max.
