The Big Feed: My dinner at Next with Robert Lang

March 8, 2026 • 10:45 am

I am not usually fond of restaurants that serve many small “nouvelle” courses that are lovely and exquisitely curated, as they don’t usually get me full—my prime requirement for a good restaurant. But last night we went to one of these multicourse places and had one of the best meals of my life—and it left me sated. This is the story of that meal.

AT 5:30 I met up with my friend, the engineer and origami master Robert Lang, visiting Chicago to teach a two-day class in origami at a meeting.  And, as I mentioned yesterday, he invited me to a well-known Chicago restaurant for a slap-up dinner, which lasted a full three hours.  It turns out that his niece manages the place, and so we were able to obtain hard-to-get reservations. From Robert:

As I may have mentioned before, my niece Kate is the general manager at Next Restaurant, and she’ll get us in. (You may recall I tried this with you several years ago during a Chicago trip, but the airlines conspired to ruin my arrival. This time, I’m flying in the day before, so there’s more buffer.)
Next is in the family of restaurants owned by the famous chef Grant Achatz, the most famous of which is Alinea. Here’s a Wikipedia photo of Achatz at Alinea, preparing a dish tableside:
star5112, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

There’s a University of Chicago connection with Achatz, and I well remember his diagnosis of, ironically, mouth cancer. I did not expect him to survive, but he did:

On July 23, 2007, Achatz announced that he had been diagnosed with stage 4 squamous cell carcinoma of the mouth, which spread to his lymph nodes. Initially, Achatz was told that radical surgery was necessary, which would remove part of his mandibular anatomy, including part of his tongue and large swaths of neck tissue. Later, University of Chicago physicians prescribed an alternative course of chemotherapy and radiation treatments. This led to full remission, albeit with some side effects including a transitory loss of his sense of taste, which eventually returned. On December 18, 2007, Achatz announced that he was cancer-free. He credited the aggressive protocol of chemotherapy and radiation administered at the University of Chicago Medical Center for driving his cancer into full remission. The treatment regimen, administered under the direction of Drs. Everett E. Vokes, Blair and Haraf at University of Chicago, did not require radical invasive surgery on Achatz’s tongue.

Yay! It’s been nearly twenty years now and he remains cancer-free. Achatz cooks at Alinea, but owns some of Next and, I presume, visits and gives feedback.

Every four months or so, the appropriately named Next changes its themes—themes that are quite eclectic. You can see the history of the changing themes since 2011 at its Wikipedia page, as well as reading about the difficulty of getting reservations. We were lucky to get in, but Robert began the request several months ago, and of course has a genetic connection to the restaurant.

The theme until the end of April is Japan.

From Next’s website:

Robert sent me this photo the menu, so I knew we were in for a treat:  There’s a more complete menu below. as we got a few extra dishes:

Below is Achatz from a FB video. To prepare for the meal, as he says, much of the Next team went to Japan and spent their time eating at a variety of humble and fancy restaurants. They then, said his niece, came back and spent a few months developing a menu that was inspired by what they tasted.  I think the slurring of Achatz’s speech is due to his treatments for mouth cancer.

There is only one menu, and you can get it with or without a wine pairing (this one includes sake) or with non-alcoholic beverages. We got it with booze, of course, and the wines and sakes chosen matched the dishes remarkably well. They were fancy, tasty, and pricey wines. This place is a class act with some good palates working behind the scenes.

This is our menu; we were comped a few dishes because of Robert’s relationship to his niece, and so we wound up with eleven dishes, six wines, and two sakes (I love sake, and these were good ones, not obtainable, I was told, in local stores):

The food menu (this is what we were actually served including the gratis dishes; they apparently made up a custom menu post facto for us as a souvenir):

The wine-and-sake menu (while waiting for me, Robert was given a glass of champagne):

And now for the dishes (all photos by me except Robert’s, which are labeled “RJL”).

First, a glass of bottle-fermented sparkling sake, a real treat. It was served poured to overflowing in a glass inside a cedar box.  After you take a few sips from the glass, you pour the rest of the glass into the cedar box and drink it from there, a traditional practice that gives the liquid a slight woody flavor:

The sake, one of several made by Masumi. It looks to cost about $60 a bottle retail: they did not stint on the wines but that was not near the most expensive libation we were served:

Me, excited before dinner; photo by RJL:

First course: chawanmushi (a savory egg custard), made with sweet corn, umeshu (a Japanese plum liqueur), and black truffle.  Like nearly all the dishes, I had never tasted anything like it before. It was fantastic. Note the dried cornhusk garnishing the plate.  It’s eaten with the wooden spoon:

The next dish arrived at the table as a gift: osetra caviar (the second best in the world after beluga) served with bluefin tuna, wasabi, and crème fraîche. It came with four sheets of seaweed (to the right next to the wasabi), and two already-formed seaweed rolls (left) with unidentifiable goodies inside. You are supposed to roll the caviar, crème, wasabi, and salmon into a sheet of seaweed and eat it as if it were a luxurious Japanese burrito.

The only caviar I’d ever had before was pressed caviar made from irregular eggs, and sevruga caviar (the third rarest).  It was hard for me to resist leaving the caviar out of the burrito and just eating it plain with the mother of pearl spoon (the traditional utensil), so I did eat some plain (fantastic) and also put some into two “burritos” (also fantastic).  The two rolls to the left were eaten separately. Note the two “fruits”, actually pickled vegetables) at the top and bottom of the plate. I believe they are a pickled radish and a pickled cucumber, both decorated with nasturtium blossoms.  Those, too, were amazing, full of complex flavors. The “pickle” was like the most delicious pickle you could imagine, and of course you can’t buy them as they’re made in house.

Photo by RJL. Note the lovely setting with chopsticks (and fancy chopstick rests) and spoons:

The wine: Vermintino, an Italian white wine made by Laura Ascero, light, crisp, slightly saline, and dry, a perfect accompaniment to the creamy burritos with caviar. These people know their wines:

Two cute little “ramen eggs” in a spoon with ginger and togarashi (the red spice on top), made to resemble the flavor of Japanese ramen (there’s no ramen in there, and I can’t remember what is). Two cute and savory bites.

A fancy dish: gyoza (a dumpling filled with shrimp and sweet potato), accompanied by a froth made from carrot ponzu. You can see the dumpling at 10 o’clock next to a savory crunchy thing. AI describes “ponzu” as “a tangy, citrus-based Japanese sauce made from soy sauce, vinegar, and citrus juice (like yuzu or sudachi), often with added mirin, dashi, and bonito flakes for a complex salty, sour, and umami flavor.”  Again, it was like nothing I’d ever tasted.

The wine: a Grüner Veltliner (Austrian white), the “Ried Rosenberg” blend made from the Weingut Ott.  A dry version of the wine, it again was great with the dish:

We continued with a fancy dish comprising three items: king crab to the left, a fancy rice in the middle, and a broth (I can’t remember what kind) to the right, with the broth poured from the traditional Japanese metal teapot. Above on the tray is also a pot with sprigs of fresh rosemary, with coals below them to create a herb-scented smoke while you had this dish. You could eat a bit of the incredibly sweet king crab with some rice, and then wash it down with the broth.

With that dish we move to Burgundy for the white wine, A Premier Cru Chablis, the “Fourchaume” blend by De Oliveira Lecestre, a crisp and fruity but dry wine. Another good pairing.

The seventh dish was kare pan (Japanese curry bread), filled with grilled cabbage and heritage pork belly.  This was very complex, and look at the decorations! I didn’t photograph the inside but yes, it was excellent.  There was no dish in the whole meal that I found less than inventive and tasty.

And with the kare pan we moved to the red wines, this one a 2021 Grenache from Cemetery Vineyard from Newfoundland Winery in Mendocino, California.  It was a light red wine to go with the pork, and very tasty (photo by RJL).

I couldn’t remember why they called it “Cemetery Vineyard” (they told us), but AI had the answer:

The “Cemetery Vineyard” (specifically the noted Rockpile Ridge site) is named for a distinct outcropping of rocks at the base of the vineyard that looks like giant, old-fashioned headstones. This specific block has been referred to by this name for over 140 years, long before the wine was commercialized

And then some fish: a luscious piece of grilled cod with a brown butter and miso sauce, accompanied by seaweed and golden mustard seed.  I’m not much of a fish-eater but I loved this:

And for that dish of course we needed sake, and were poured a whiskey tumbler (with ice) of 2024 Tamagawa “Ice Breaker” sake. We were told it was unfiltered, and it was a stronger, slightly sweet, and luscious rice wine. And there was a penguin on the label! The website says this:

Tamagawa’s Ice Breaker is a cask-strength, fresh-pressed junmai ginjo that is undiluted, unpasteurized and unfiltered. This is a seasonal release always listed with the brewery year (BY).

Pairing Notes: The Ice Breaker sake is designed to be drunk over ice as a refresher in the humid Japanese rainy season. Try it with edamame, mackerel, skipjack tuna and eggplant with zesty grated daikon.

I believe the white stuff with the cod above is grated daikon (white radish), but I’m not sure.

When the cod was served, they also put a mysterious bowl of seaweed containing very hot rocks atop a seaweed packet. We asked what it was, and were told was part of the next course being steamed by the rocks while we ate the fish. See below. (Photo by RJL).

Where’s the beef? It was next in a “wagyu au poivre”, and yes, it was real wagyu beef from Japan, the first I’ve had. It was of course rare, and then the seaweed packet was opened to reveal the cooked accompaniments: pear and trumpet mushrooms, along with kombu (edible kelp). Photo by RJL:

Yummers! The beef was so tender and tasty that although the slice was not large, I ate it in very small bites so I could prolong the flavor. It was great with the meaty trumpet mushroom and the fruitiness of the pear:

Of course with that you need a gutsier red wine, which came as a Cabernet Franc (often found in Bordeaux) from Podere Forte, an Italian winemaker. The designation was “Guardiavigna Orienello” with some age: 8 years. It’s a biodynamic wine, tasting much like a Bordeaux; the website describes it this way:

Guardiavigna is a version of perfectly and slowly ripened Cabernet Franc. An intense, deep and vast bouquet. Full bodied, with a very refined tannic structure. A very elegant and endless wine.

It goes for $150-$180 per bottle.

Photo by RJL:

With two courses left, we had dined for about 2½ hours, eating leisurely and catching up.  Robert’s house is nearly rebuilt after the Altadena fire and should be done by June. His studio will take a bit longer.

We were then treated to “Tokyo toast”, with sake lees (I guess the rice at the bottom of the fermenting tank), sakura (cherry blossom), and kumquat. You see that the dishes are inspired by the flavors the team encountered in Japan, but the dish itself is sui generis. It was a very elegant version of a Rice Krispy treat:

And the eleventh and last course: musk melon with saffron, pine nuts, and spaghetti squash. An inspired combination; you have to have a good palate to even think of putting these things together. They melded well. Again, the presentation was carefully thought out, with matching fancy plates, trays, and appropriate cutlery:

Sauternes, my favorite sweet wine, goes with very few things. I eat it either on its own or with a ripe peach or mango. It does not go with chocolate (Thomas Keller hasn’t learned that lesson.) But it did go with the musk melon, which is not too sweet, and the spaghetti squash, barely sweet. And so we were served a 2019 Château Fontebride 2019.  That wine also counted as dessert.  If you haven’t tried a Sauternes, which gets better and more golden as it ages, you might spring for one. (I brought Robert a half bottle of another Sauternes as a gift; it wasn’t clear whether it would make it back to California since Robert is staying with his brother in Chicago.)

And so we wound up at 8:30, having started at 5:30. I was replete, filled with great food and fancy wine, amazed at what we had eaten, impressed by the thought and care that went into the food and service, and, of course, slightly buzzed.  Next is an amazing restaurant and I’d gladly go again—if I was willing to spring for the meal (I have no idea what it cost) and could get a reservation (the website says there are 10,000 people on the Next waiting list!).

When you have a long, sumptuous, and fancy meal like this, you leave the restaurant with a bracing sense of well being. (A Parisian chef once told me that you know a meal is good if the birds sing more sweetly when you leave.) I had that feeling, and of course it was helped along by the slight buzz from wine and sake.

Many thanks to Robert for inviting me, to his niece Kate, the manager, for greeting us and stopping by to chat during the meal (and of course running things), and the staff who organized, cooked and served.

Oh, two dark pictures of the place, the first of the kitchen by Robert and the second of the main room by me. It’s not a large restaurant. Note the Japanese lanterns.

I know that I’m going to get criticized for putting this up, excoriated for eating fancy food and “privilege.” To those who would say that, take a hike. This was a rare treat, and all I can say is that there have been Japanese emperors who haven’t eaten this well.

Sunday: Hili dialogue

March 8, 2026 • 6:45 am

Welcome to Sunday, March 8, 2026: the Sabbath for goyische cats. It’s also Daylight Savings Time, so make sure you’ve reset your clocks an hour forward (those with iPhones get it automatically, but don’t forget the microwave clock and other antiquated timepieces). Stanford University finds that these time changes, by disrupting our circadian rhythms, can be harmful to our health. Watch this: time changes make us fat and have strokes!  Seriously, we need a system where the time never changes:

It’s also International Women’s Day, Check your Batteries Day, and National Peanut Cluster Day.

There’s a new Google Doodle today, and, well, I’ll let you figure it out, and then click on it to see where it goes:

Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the March 2 Wikipedia page.

Da Nooz:

*War update from the NYT: Trump is vowing to hit Iran even harder, as the Islamic Republic apologized to its neighboring states (save Israel, of course) for firing missiles and drones at them.

President Trump vowed in a Saturday morning social media post that Iran would soon be “hit very hard” and that the week-old Israeli-American aerial onslaught would expand to target new “areas and groups of people.”

Earlier, the Iranian president, Masoud Pezeshkian, said in a televised address that Mr. Trump’s demand for unconditional surrender was “a dream that our enemies will take to the grave.” Shortly after Mr. Pezeshkian’s speech, air-raid sirens rang out in Bahrain and Qatar, a sign Iran’s retaliatory attacks were still continuing.

Mr. Pezeshkian, apparently seeking to blunt anger at Iran in the Arab world, also apologized to Persian Gulf nations for launching strikes into their territories. That comment appeared to prompt Mr. Trump to claim Iran had “surrendered to its Middle East neighbors.”

But the Iranian president said later on social media that Iran would keep trying to damage American bases in the Gulf. “We have not attacked our friendly and neighboring countries,” he said. “Rather, we have targeted U.S. military bases, facilities, and installations in the region.”

The details of American attacks on Iran on Saturday remained unclear. Senior U.S. officials last briefed the public on the fighting two days ago. On Friday, the U.S. military released a statement saying that U.S. forces had struck at least 3,000 targets since the war began last weekend, up sharply from 2,000 strikes earlier this week, but provided few details.

Israeli attacks hit Mehrabad Airport in Tehran overnight, the military said, setting it ablaze. The targets were planes affiliated with Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, the military said. Tehran residents described massive balls of fire and smoke billowing into the air.

In an interview with NBC News two nights ago, Iran’s foreign minister denied a lot of allegations, including that Iran has created an internet blackout, which it clearly has. The Islamic Republic is digging in, and this means, given Trump’s demands for “unconditional surrender” (which he may not mean), the war is going to drag on.  Meanwhile, more and more people on the Left are demonstrating and crying, “Hands off Iran.” If you subscribe to the NYT, look at the front page this morning; it’s all about how bad this war is and so on.  They make no pretense now about not being biased: they are criticizing and not reporting (I’m talking about the news itself; the op-eds are even more slanted).

*Speaking of the war, Andrew Sullivan continues to get my dander up with his continued demonizing of Israel. His latest Weekly Dish column is called, “The war he’s always wanted,” with the subtitle, “A moment of triumph for Benjamin Netanyahu; and of democratic collapse in the US.”  What he means is that the Constitution mandates that only Congress can declare war, but Trump is flouting that. (So did earlier Presidents, including Clinton and Obama).  Some excerpts:

We had a functioning liberal democracy then, a constitutional system that was imperfectly but actually followed, a responsible president, and international law on our side.

Today, we have precisely none of the above.

We’ve had no debate; we’ve had no search for international support or allies; we’ve ignored the UN entirely; the Congress didn’t debate, let alone vote, in advance; and the American people were told about the war after it had already begun. All of this renders this war illegal and unconstitutional and outrageous, and the fact that most people have just accepted it is proof, if we still needed it, that the extinction-level event I predicted in 2016 is now well in the rearview mirror.

In plain English, this is what is in front of our nose: a corrupt, deranged monarch pursuing an illegal and immoral war primarily to benefit a foreign country. This war makes us a textbook case of how democracies stagger into tyranny and endless war.

And how they rot from within. I watched this week as the secretary of defense did his Rumsfeld-On-Meth routine. But Rumsfeld would never express the following indecency:

This was never meant to be a fair fight, and it is not a fair fight. We are punching them while they’re down, which is exactly how it should be.

That’s how fascists describe war, not Americans. It’s the mark of barbarians, not Christians. . .

. . . .How then did this almost incredible thing, the one thing we swore we’d never do again — another regime-change war in the Middle East — happen before most Americans had even heard of it, let alone debated it? It’s stupefying that so many have already moved on from this foundational question.

One answer is that liberal democracy was deliberately crippled — because if we’d actually followed the Constitution, we wouldn’t be at war right now. The public is opposed by a big margin; the House vote on whether to suspend support just narrowly failed 212-219. (If all the Dems had voted for it, it would have won.) A real debate — with Gaza fresh in the minds of Dems and with MAGA deeply divided — and this war would never have started. If it was to happen, it had to be sprung on us.

The other answer, provided by the administration, is that Israel bounced us into it. They did so by deciding to assassinate the entire Iranian leadership (an act that violates all international law and sets a truly terrifying precedent for leaders of all countries, including our own). That Israeli decision instantly guaranteed America’s entry into the war, regardless of the will of the American people

Sullivan really doesn’t like Israel, and this column is, to me, over the top. If we conduct a secret strike, we don’t debate it before Congress, as leaks are almost certain. And Israel has been in an existential crisis with respect to Iran for years and years. Sullivan doesn’t think that: he thinks that Israel is just fine and Jewish Americans are just doing their thing when they lobby the Administration. Perhaps if Sullivan lived in Israel he’d have a different take. Yes, he may be right about the futility of this war, like the futility of other Middle Eastern conflicts, but even our European allies wish for the death of the Iranian theocracy. I’m getting tired of his rants.

*Even more on the war: the WSJ (and other sources) report that it was likely the U.S. who struck a girls school in Iran, killing over 150 people (the number of children isn’t yet known, but surely many were killed).

U.S. military investigators think American forces likely were responsible for a strike that killed dozens of children at a girls elementary school in Iran, a U.S. official said. The investigation hasn’t reached a final conclusion, the official said.

Shajarah Tayyebeh Girls’ School, in the town of Minab near the Strait of Hormuz, was hit Saturday on the first day of the U.S.-Israeli air campaign in what appears to be the deadliest strike of the war. Iran said more than 160 people were killed, including many children, a figure that couldn’t be independently verified.

The school is located on the edge of a compound linked to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, an elite branch of Iran’s armed forces, according to an analysis of images by The Wall Street Journal. There are indications the school building had previously been used as an IRGC headquarters, the official said.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said this week that the U.S. is investigating the strike. The U.S. official cautioned that the investigation was in its early stages. A U.S. Central Command spokesperson declined to comment on the incident.

Reuters first reported that U.S. officials believed the U.S. military was likely responsible for the incident at the school.

The U.S. hasn’t publicly acknowledged that its forces struck the compound. Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Wednesday that the U.S. carried out strikes along the southern coast of Iran to degrade its naval and missile capabilities before bringing its offensive further inland.

Iran has blamed both the U.S. and Israel for the strike. While the U.S. and Israel are coordinating their actions in Iran, they are largely operating in different geographical areas. An Israeli military official said the military was looking into the school incident but wasn’t aware of an Israeli strike in that area.

It’s not certain yet who did this, and if Israel or the U.S. did, it’s a black mark on the American attacks. Granted, the school abutted a military target, and so this could be considered “collateral damage”, but think of the lives of all those girls, and of the grief of their parents.  So far both Israel and the U.S. seem to have been careful to take out only military targets, and this is a sad error (no Western country would try to destroy a school for girls). But it’s not a reason to end military action in Iran.

*We have freedom of speech in the U.S., so you can say whatever you want so long as it doesn’t fall under the exceptions to the First Amendment. You can, for example, applaud Hamas’s attack on Israel on October 7, 2023.  ‘And that in fact is what the wife of Zohran Mamdani, the mayor of NYC did.  The NYT has the story (frankly, I’m surprised the Israel-hating NYT printed it!).

Mayor Zohran Mamdani on Friday sought to create a wall between his leadership of New York City and the private views of his wife, Rama Duwaji, after being asked about her social media activity surrounding the Hamas-led attacks on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.

Ms. Duwaji liked posts on Instagram that were supportive of the Palestinian cause immediately after the attacks, in which roughly 1,200 people were killed and 251 were taken hostage, according to the Israeli authorities. Israeli military forces responded with military action in Gaza that has killed more than 70,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s health ministry.

The mayor said his wife’s views should not be subject to broad public scrutiny. They were not married when she liked the posts; the couple wed in early 2025, and he did not enter the Democratic primary for mayor until October 2024.

“My wife is the love of my life and she’s also a private person who has held no formal position on my campaign or in my City Hall,” Mr. Mamdani said during an unrelated news conference Friday morning. “I, however, was elected to represent all eight and a half million people in this city, and I believe that it’s my responsibility, because of that role, to answer any questions about my thoughts and my policies and my decisions.”

Mr. Mamdani was responding to a Jewish Insider article that highlighted a handful of instances in which Ms. Duwaji had liked Instagram posts supportive of the Palestinian cause immediately after the Oct. 7 attacks.

One post, shared by an account called The Slow Factory, a social justice nonprofit, on the day of the Hamas attack, showed a bulldozer that appeared to breach the barrier between Israel and Gaza. The caption read, “Breaking the walls of apartheid and military occupation” with the date of the attack beneath.

Ms. Duwaji, who is Syrian-American, liked the post. She did not comment for the Jewish Insider article. A City Hall spokeswoman on Friday told The New York Times that Ms. Duwaji had no comment.

In another example, she liked an Instagram post that showed people celebrating atop what appeared to be an Israeli military vehicle with the words “Free Palestine” beneath it. The article also included posts she liked that described resistance as an act of “self-defense” and a “human right” for people under occupation.

Mr. Mamdani, New York City’s first Muslim mayor and a democratic socialist, has long criticized Israel and defended Palestinians — an issue that inspired him to get into politics. He has described the war in Gaza as genocide and has said he does not believe Israel should be a Jewish state.

Here’s a tweet about the NYT’s hypocrisy on the issue (h/t Luana):

And the NYT has changed its headline from the original (h/t Orli). Here’s the latest headline:

and here’s (at bottom) is the original headline.  I’m not sure why they made the change, but I don’t agree that his wife’s views are “no one’s business.” Of course she can have and promulgate such views if she wants, but she can also be detested for them. And knowing Mamdani, I would bet that he actually shares her views but keeps quiet about it. After all, if she really “likes” the October 7 attacks, how can he eat dinner with, or get into bed with, someone who approved of this butchery? I see Mamdani as an Islamist and antisemite, but others of course disagree. What puzzles me is why so many Jewish people voted for him.

Screenshot

*From the AP: a marble bust of Christ in a Roman basilica has now been attributed (by one researcher) to Michelangelo. Who knows—she may be right! Excerpts:

An independent researcher claimed on Wednesday that a marble bust of Christ in a Roman church is by Michelangelo, the latest purported attribution to the Renaissance genius who is one of the most imitated artists in the world.

The unverified claims by Valentina Salerno has unsettled Renaissance scholars, especially since a recent sketch of a foot that was attributed to Michelangelo, but disputed by some as a copy, recently fetched $27.2 million at a Christie’s auction.

Given the stakes — and Salerno’s suggestion that several other works can now be attributed to Michelangelo based on her documentary research — many leading experts have declined to comment.

Salerno has published her theory on the commercial website academia.edu, a non-peer reviewed social networking site academics use, and announced the first “rediscovery” at a news conference Wednesday.

Michelangelo Buonarroti, who lived from 1475-1564, created some of the most spectacular works of the Renaissance: the imposing statue of David in Florence and the delicate Pieta in St. Peter’s Basilica, the Sistine Chapel ceiling and “The Last Judgment” fresco behind the chapel’s altar. Salerno now says she has located another — a bust of Christ in the Basilica of Sant’Agnese Fuori le Mura, listed by Italy’s Culture Ministry as anonymous from the Roman school of the 16th century.

She is not the first to claim it. In 1996, Michelangelo expert William Wallace wrote an article in ArtNews about the well-documented history of wrongly attributing works to Michelangelo. It quoted the 19th century French author Stendhal as writing that at the Sant’Agnese church, “we noticed a head of the savior which I should swear is by Michelangelo.”

. . . Salerno suggests that several documents in the first few hundred years after Michelangelo’s death correctly attribute the work to the artist but that in 1984 a scholar debunked it, erroneously in her view, and it has remained wrongly attributed ever since.

Here’s a video that shows you what the bust looks like. It’s certainly beautiful and of Michelangelo’s style and quality, but stay tuned. You don’t need to understand the Italian.

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili is asking Big Questions again:

Hili: What is eternity?
Andrzej: Difficult to explain, a sort of self-renewing present, with no beginning and no end.

In Polish:

Hili: Co to jest wieczność?
Ja: Trudno wyjaśnić, rodzaj samoodnawialnej teraźniejszości, bez początku i końca.

*******************

From Puns:

From Now That’s Wild:

From Cats Doing Cat Stuff:

Masih’s pinned tweet in which she talks to Bill Maher about how Amercans ignore the plight of Iranians:

Van Jones echoes Masih; he’s getting more “politically incorrect” all the time, and he works for CNN!

Emma always puts some humor in her posts:

Two from my feed. If you mock accordion music, think twice:

Three-handed spontaneous boogie-woogie duet:

One I reposted from the Auschwitz Memorial:

And two from Dr. Cobb. The first one’s from The New Republic, and the guy is horrible!:

Conservative MAGA ideologue Matt Schlapp has attempted to justify the killing of more than 100 young girls at an elementary school in southern Iran, by claiming they were saved from religious extremism.

— Bruce Little (@brucedlittle.bsky.social) 2026-03-06T22:14:16.334Z

. . . and Matthew’s own Lived Experience. Oy!

I was at London Zoo years ago and the vicuna made a noise at me. Feeling clever, I repeated it back; it said the same thing, so I said again. Then it spat me right in the eyes.* It was saying “You lookin’ at me?” and I was unwittingly saying that back. * An unnoticed sign said “this animal spits”.

— Matthew Cobb (@matthewcobb.bsky.social) 2026-03-07T15:04:05.162Z

Bill Maher’s latest New Rule: “Trump Estrangement Syndrome”

March 7, 2026 • 11:30 am

Bill Maher’s latest news-and-comedy shtick on “Real Time” deals once again with the flak he got for having dinner with President Trump. Remember? Despite Maher constantly criticizing the President’s policies durin gthe dinner, he also reported that he found Trump affable and friendly.

That was enough for liberals to come down on Maher like a ton of bricks, despite the fact that he simply gave his reaction. Trump’s policies were reprehensible, Maher averred, but he was a good host.  In today’s world that will do you in. Larry David, for instance, wrote a satire of Maher’s reaction in a NYT op-ed called “Larry David imagines a private dinner with Hitler” (archived here), and I imagine that pissed off Maher.

Apparently Trump posted about his dinner with Maher on Truth Social (on Valentine’s Day), and Trump’s post was full of lies (surprise!). Here Maher corrects the record, and gets a few shots back at Trump for lying, while calling out people with true “Trump Derangement Syndrome.”  (“Get a life: stop making him your whole personality”.) But he adds that Trump bears some responsibility for promoting TDS because his racism, misogyny, anti-democratic acts, and corruption “make people crazy.”  Maher further also ticks off a few good things that Trump did, including asserting that “penises don’t belong in women’s prisons,” which will simply anger “progressives” more.  Maher argues that he may be “the last person from the Lunatic Left that is still an honest broker when it comes to Trump.”

Maher winds up addressing Trump directly, calling him out for his many detestable acts—after he’s given the President plaudits for some things.  Yes, Maher seems defensive here, but he’s honest and I still like the guy.  I don’t have much truck with people who say that Trump never did anything good, and, in fact, it’s impossible for that to happen.

Bill’s guests were Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA), journalist Don Lemon, and author Annabelle Gurwitch/

The story of our Big Dinner will appear tomorrow

March 7, 2026 • 10:30 am

As I mentioned yesterday, Robert Lang invited me to dinner last night at a famous Chicago restaurant called Next, whose metier is mulitcourse menus with a theme. And they completely change the theme every four months, so they’re always working on and testing the dishes to come (see the history of the themes at the Wikipedia link given in the first sentence).  The theme of our meal was “Japan,” inspired by the restaurant chef, manager, and some staff having taken a trip to Japan to absorb the food and culture. They they returned to the U.S. and worked for a few months to develop dishes that were not explicitly Japanese, but inspired by the food they tried in Japan.

While preparing the account of our meal for a post, I realized that it is going to take some time, what with 12 dishes and 8 wines (including 2 sakes), as well photos of the menu and the restaurant. I will say now that it was one of the best meals I’ve had in America—even better than the vaunted French Laundry in California, where years ago I paid a lot for a disappointing meal.

We managed to get into this restaurant, which has a huge waiting list, because Robert’s niece is the general manager; and because of that we got a few gratis dishes.

The meal was terrific, with a largesse of small, lovely, and wonderful dishes and thoughtful and appropriate pairings with wines and sakes. The meal did not fail where many of small-dish places do: making you leave when you haven’t had enough to eat. This was not the case at Next: I left dazzled, sated, and a bit buzzed.

I will ask your indulgence because it will take me a few hours to crop the photos, insert them in a post in the proper order, and try to describe the dishes from a memory clouded by sake.  The post will be up tomorrow morning.

To wet your whistle, here’s a photo taken by Robert, showing the introductory tipple, a glass of sake poured to overflowing inside a cedar box. This is traditional: you sip the full glass until it can be poured into the box, and then drink the rest from the box, which lightly flavors the sake with cedar. This was also a rare form of sake for me: a sparkling one.

All will be revealed tomorrow. Right now I am recovering.

Caturday felid trifecta: What not to do to your cat; Jock(s) the Chartwell cat(s); missing cat in England found in Paris, more than 8 years later; and lagniappe

March 7, 2026 • 9:15 am

We have three cat items and lagniappe today.

This first video was made by Meowtopia, the same people who made the informative video on cat psychology that I posted recently.  Here we have 18 minutes of advice about what not to do to your cats: nine human behaviors that adversely affect cats based on their evolved natures.

The list: failure to greet the cats when you come home; using a laser pointer or other toy that a cat cannot catch (this is a no-no as it violates the predatory sequence that ends with a kill), petting in the wrong places, invasion of a cat’s territory, punishment of trangressing cats by squirting, yelling, or striking them (this conditions them to fear you; the solution is to prioritize a better option), afflicting them with loud noises (their hearing is absurdly sensitive), failure to understand their communications and to respond to it (feral cats don’t meow), picking them up and thrusting them into the hands of a stranger), and, finally, assailing their sensitive vomerine scent-detection system with strange smells like heavy perfumes or air freshener and, worst of all, scented cat litter.

This is a very good and educational effort, not simply a cute cat video. Even if you have a cat, do watch it.

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Winston Churchill was a huge fan of cats, as you can see from this National Trust post below about the lineage of orange (“marmalade”) cats that still roam the grounds of Churchill’s old home, now given to the country. As Wikipedia says in its article about Winston Churchill’s pets (my bolding):

Churchill had many cats in his life, both at Chartwell and in government service. At Chartwell, these included a tabby, Mickey, and a “marmalade colored” cat named Tango. Tango was there in the 1930s and 1940s and appears in anecdotes about those years. But Churchill’s most famous wartime cat was Nelson who was initially a mouser at the Admiralty when Churchill was First Lord. Churchill named him Nelson after the great admiral after seeing the cat chase a large dog away. He then took the cat with him to 10 Downing Street when he became prime minister, where it also chased Chamberlain‘s cat, the Munich Mouser.

In later life, he was given a cat by Jock Colville for his 88th birthday. This was a ginger cat with white markings that he called Jock too. This cat became a favourite in his final years. When he died and Chartwell was donated to the National Trust, the family asked that a marmalade cat with white bib and socks called Jock should always be maintained there. This tradition has continued and Jock VII became the current holder of this position in 2020.

Chartwell was Churchill’s country home in Kent to which he retreated again and again, even when he moved 10 Downing Street as Prime Minister.  Click to read about the two living Jocks:

. . . Generations of ginger cats have lived at Chartwell over the years. Since the National Trust opened the house to the public in 1966, the family of Sir Winston Churchill requested that there always be ‘a marmalade cat named Jock, with a white bib and four white socks, in comfortable residence at Chartwell’.

Here are the last two Jocks that are still alive, though Jock VI retired and, nearly blind, lives with a staff member (see short video below).

Jock VII

In May 2020 Chartwell welcomed Jock VII, a six-month-old rescue kitten, to take up this unique role.

Along with his white bib and white paws, Jock VII has a very mischievous character. His favourite pastimes are investigating what the gardeners are up to and playing down in the long grasses of the orchard. He also likes lots of cuddles on the sofa after an eventful day.

Keep an eye out for him as you tour the property.

Rescued

Jock VII, previously known as Sunshine, was rescued by the RSPCA before being adopted by one of the team at Chartwell.
He was rescued along with 30 other cats from squalid conditions. The kittens were very weak and undernourished but were young enough to be brought back to health quickly. Jock was the most confident of the whole group and was already playful and full of fun.

Jock VI

Jock VII’s predecessor, Jock VI, came to Chartwell in 2014. Sadly, he became almost completely blind and was finding life at Chartwell difficult. After his six years of service, he retired and is now enjoying a much quieter and more peaceful life with a member of staff in a garden of his own.

Here’s Jock VI with his staff; she seems quite loving:

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Finally, from an author called Sean, we have a Medium story about his cat Moon Unit (you may remember that this was the name of  Frank Zappa’s daughter, born in 1967).

Click on the link below to go to the story of a latter-day Moon Unit, a cat who went missing from London and turned up in France, toothless but otherwise okay, 8½ years later!

An excerpt:

A few years passed and we had a new year’s party. The next morning we discovered we had one cat missing. Moon Unit had somehow got out during the party and disappeared. We went out looking, printed out posters, told the local cat rescue places, but no luck. People told us about lots of little black and white cats they’d seen, but none of them had MU’s distinctive white nose or big whiskers. So no luck. And we were very sad.

But about a month ago, out of the blue, I got an email from the Kennel Club saying that a cat with a matching microchip had been found. IN PARIS. Now if that isn’t boggling enough, that party was EIGHT AND A HALF YEARS AGO. We exchanged photos with the French rescue place, and it was definitely Moon Unit. Distinctive nose and whiskers as I said. And she has that fur that is dark on top but white underneath.

She had been found wandering around outside a train station in a French suburb, and taken to a cat rescue place, who checked her chip and got in touch. Well, the chip contact details were a bit out of date (did I mention EIGHT YEARS missing?), but the French people were very stubborn and eventually the KC used newfangled email to get in touch with me.

So this weekend we went over to Paris. In the past few weeks, Moon Unit had been checked at the vet, and given rabies shots and worming tablets, and a Pet Passport organised for her. Two lovely ladies came over to our hotel with her on Saturday (we gave them some chocolates and flowers), and we took her to Calais by train (telling her story to the people around us), and our friends met us at the station and drove us onto the car ferry, and back to London. (There aren’t many foot passenger services that take pets).

.. . .Back in London we closed all the doors and let Moon Unit out into the hallway. She had a look around, and seemed perfectly fine. I spent the rest of the evening in the hallway with her, and she’s been following me around all day. She’s not been doing that “OMG new place I must HIDE” thing that cats often do — in fact she’s curled up next to me on the sofa as I write this. (Remember she only got back yesterday).

So there we have it. A tale of European cooperation and perseverance and international mystery. How did Moon Unit get to PARIS? How has she survived for over EIGHT YEARS? How did she lose all her teeth? Has no vet checked her chip in all that time? Answers we will never get, until she writes her mewmoirs.

. . . And the moral of the story — always get your pets microchipped and keep the contact details up to date, even if they are indoor pets. Moon Unit was an indoor cat while she was with us. Hope you enjoyed reading this.

Here’s a photo labeled “Moon Unit back in the day,” presumably taken by Sean.

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Lagniappe:  Here’s a two-minute cat version of Indiana Jones: “Indiana Jonesy” in “Raiders of the lost treat.” You will remember some of the scenes. No cats were injured in the making of this film.

h/t: Matthew Cobb,

Saturday: Hili dialogue

March 7, 2026 • 6:45 am

Welcome to CaturSaturday, March 7, 2026, and National Cereal Day. I rarely eat cereal, but when I do it’s usually Raisin Bran, Shredded Wheat, or my friend Betsy’s homemade granola. Below you can see most of how they make shredded wheat, but how the wheat shreds are converted into biscuits remains a trade secret.

DAYLIGHT SAVINGS TIME BEGINS AT 2 a.m. TOMORROW (i.e., 2 hours after midnight tonight)!  Don’t forget to set your clocks forward before you go to bed tonight, and we’ll either lose an hour of sleep or be really tired on Sunday.

It’s also National Crown Roast of Pork Day and National Flapjack Day (American argot for “pancakes”).

Our ducks are still here and have been well trained, swimming quickly to me for food when I whistle. I haven’t yet named them.  Oh, and Simon, visiting relatives in Old Blighty, sent me a picture of a pint of my favorite British beer. But it does me little good just to look at a pint across the ocean:

Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the March 7 Wikipedia page.

Da Nooz:

*Israel now seems to want to take out Hezbollah for good. They’ve increased their strikes on the terrorists in Lebanon, and even struck targets in Beirut. In the meantime, Israel has bombed (again) a bunker used by the vaporized ex-Supreme leader Ali Khamenei.

President Trump on Friday demanded “unconditional surrender” by Iran, saying there would be no negotiated end to the war, while Israeli officials said their forces had destroyed a Tehran bunker that had been used by Iran’s supreme leader, in a fresh wave of heavy strikes on Tehran.

The Israeli military also pounded the southern outskirts of Beirut and issued more evacuation warnings in Lebanon as it intensified its campaign there against Iran-backed Hezbollah militants. About 300,000 people in Lebanon have fled their homes since the bombing began, the Norwegian Refugee Council estimated.

Mr. Trump wrote on Truth Social that there “will be no deal with Iran except UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER!” He made the post after Masoud Pezeshkian, the Iranian president, said that some countries had begun what he called “mediation efforts,” without elaborating on who was involved.

The comments highlighted the shifting U.S. stances in the war that began with U.S.-Israeli strikes on Iran six days ago. Mr. Trump told The Atlantic on Sunday, “They want to talk, and I have agreed to talk, so I will be talking to them.” And Iran’s intelligence ministry has reached out to the C.I.A. through intermediaries to discuss terms for ending the war, according to officials briefed on the outreach.

I guess there may be other theocrats hiding in a sub-bunker below the already-bombed bunker. As for Hezbollah, the Lebanese government is still trying to get it to go away:

For much of the past year, Lebanon’s government has walked a tightrope in its dealings with the Iranian-backed armed group Hezbollah as it has moved to disarm the militants and curb their influence in Lebanese politics.

Now, as Lebanon faces a rapidly escalating conflict between Hezbollah and Israel, the country is waiting to see if the government seizes on this moment to take decisive action against Hezbollah — and how the group will respond.

Overnight, the Israeli military pounded Hezbollah in the southern edge of the Lebanese capital with explosions that could be heard across the city. The bombardment displaced thousands of people from the densely packed area who spent the night on the streets of downtown Beirut.

“This is the tipping point,” said Sami Nader, the director of the Institute of Political Science at Saint Joseph University of Beirut. “Either we have the dark scenario where the army clashes with Hezbollah and there is civil strife, or Hezbollah abides by the government decision and they disarm.”

When it comes to Hezbollah, Lebanese officials have had to strike a delicate balance over the past year: appeasing demands from the United States and other allies to act quickly and decisively against the group while proceeding cautiously to avoid clashes between Lebanese soldiers and Hezbollah militants, a scenario that many fear could unleash civil conflict in Lebanon.

Hezbollah will not abide by the Lebanese government’s request, nor by the U.N. Security Council’s demand that they stop attacking Israel.  What will happen? Given that Hezbollah is, like Hamas—a death cult whose member really do think they’re going to Paradise if they die—what impetus do they have to surrender? And the UN really should do its job, but the 10,000 UNIFIL soldiers in the country are cowards, pure and simple. They have a job to do but are too afraid to do it.

*I don’t know if this is an act of war, but it does show Russia supporting Iran by passing onto the Islamic Republic the locations of American military assets.

Russia is providing Iran with targeting information to attack American forces in the Middle East, the first indication that another major U.S. adversary is participating — even indirectly — in the war, according to three officials familiar with the intelligence.

The assistance, which has not been previously reported, signals that the rapidly expanding conflict now features one of America’s chief nuclear-armed competitors with exquisite intelligence capabilities.

Since the war began Saturday, Russia has passed Iran the locations of U.S. military assets, including warships and aircraft, said the three officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the matter’s sensitivity.

“It does seem like it’s a pretty comprehensive effort,” one of the people said.

Reached by The Washington Post on Friday, Dmitry Peskov, the Kremlin spokesman, declined to comment on the intelligence findings. Moscow has called for an end to the war, which it labeled an “unprovoked act of armed aggression.”

The extent of Russia’s targeting assistance to Iran was not entirely clear. The Iranian military’s own ability to locate U.S. forces has been degraded less than a week into the fighting, the officials said.

Six U.S. troops were killed and several others were injured by an Iranian drone attack Sunday in Kuwait. Iran has fired thousands of one-way attack drones and hundreds of missiles at U.S. military positions, embassies and civilians, even as the joint American-Israeli campaign has hit more than 2,000 Iranian targets — including ballistic missile sites, naval assets and the country’s leadership.

Iran is running out of missiles (I don’t know about drones), and if that’s the case Russian intelligence will be of little use. Russia won’t dare attack the U.S. itself, for we’re a member of NATO and that would trigger massive retaliation—World War III in effect.  I’m not sure how we know that the Russians are giving info to Iran, but monitoring of other countries has grown very sophisticated.  Iran has lost, as has Hamas, but in both cases the elimination of both terrorist groups is necessary if the U.S. wants stable and democratic regimes. That ain’t gonna happen in Gaza, and we have no idea what will happen in Iran. There are reports that the reliable Kurds are massing to help attack the Iranian regime. They won’t ever run Iran, but they have been plumping for their own state forever. Maybe they can carve one out of Iran in a settlement.

*The Wall Street Journal and other sources report an unexpected downturn in the economy, with the U.S. losing 92,000 jobs last month.

The U.S. lost 92,000 jobs in February, a sign that the job market continues to struggle across a broad range of sectors.

The employment numbers, reported Friday by the Labor Department, fell far short of January’s gain of 126,000 jobs. They were also much worse than the gain of 50,000 jobs that economists polled by The Wall Street Journal had expected to see.

The unemployment rate ticked slightly higher to 4.4%. While that is still low, the Friday report exposes troubling weaknesses in a labor market that has shown very little employment growth in recent months.

Healthcare jobs, which have propped up the labor market for months, collapsed. A strike in California was partly to blame, but it also highlighted problems in the rest of the market. Private-sector jobs fell by 86,000.

Employment growth slowed markedly last year, and the U.S. has now lost jobs in three of the past six months. Many employers have been unnerved by back-and-forth tariff policies. Expectations that artificial intelligence could reduce staffing needs have cut into hiring plans. What’s more, the Trump administration has also slashed the federal workforce.

“This is about a labor market that is so soft that it cannot withstand a strike” of 31,000 healthcare workers, wrote inflation Insights economist Omair Sharif in a note to clients. “Because no one else is hiring.”

Although my dad was an economist, I don’t know how serious this is, but a report of job loss will hurt the Republicans come November and also in the 2028 election.  But what’s more worrisome is not who runs the country, but the plight of people who are out of work. Below is the WSJ’s figure on jobs growth and loss; note that the green bars below the line indicate job losses. This is the fourth loss during the Trump administration, but not the largest, and a big difference from the Biden Administration’s record on this statistic.

*As usual, I’ll steal few items from Nellie Bowles’s weekly news-and-snark column in The Free Press, called this week “TGIF: Get them before they get me.”

→ Are those bomb instructions? Hasan Piker, a major (perhaps the top) progressive influencer in America, is now telling his followers how one could really easily practice drone warfare. See, suicide bombing is lame now, he explains, unless you’re really just in it for the love of the game (his words). Instead, try this: “Just make fucking drones. . . . You can purchase them in the online marketplace. China literally sells, like, explosive ordnance delivery mechanisms that you can put to a DGI [ed note: DJI] drone that you can purchase, like, at virtually no significant cost.” Wow, that’s so simple. It’s so easy. It’s almost like I, a disaffected bro in Flatbush who just lost his job to AI, should try that. Even terrorism is going remote. No self-respecting millennial would take an in-person terrorism job. It’s 2026; we’re outsourcing to Chinese marketplaces for terror.

→ NPR becomes HOW: NPR changed the iconic letters on their D.C. headquarters. A photo from the NYT’s Ben Mullin:

Apparently they also did WHO. And WHY. The statement they gave: “These three-letter questions are a rallying cry to show that NPR’s mission of providing trustworthy, reliable journalism endures, and that curiosity can’t be silenced.” I do really want to know WHY and WHO and also HOW this got approved, because it seems like something the Wesleyan student newspaper came up with. But I won’t ask more. I don’t want to kick NPR while it’s down, even if it’s called HOW now. HOW NOW? No bad ideas in a brainstorm. Also, I stand by my belief that the head of NPR is a hottie, and we 10s have to stand together, so I’m always rooting for those tote bags. NPR! How! Now! Huh? Who? Us!

→ Not the “diversity is our strength” moment: After a knifeman from Chad went on a stabbing spree in Edinburgh, Scotland, this week, the leader of the Edinburgh City Council used it as a time to remind everyone how great diversity is. “Edinburgh is a proud, welcoming, and diverse city. Our biggest strength lies in those who live here—people from all walks of life, cultures, and backgrounds—and we all have a part to play in making sure it stays that way.” In other words, a classic diversity is our strength quote. I’m all for diversity, personally, but is this the exact right moment? When there’s still blood in the streets? As news comes that the stabber was trying to get into a nursery school, I wouldn’t make this a big political pro-immigration moment, no. Not me. But I guess I’m not the one on the Edinburgh City Council. When a man from Chad goes on a stabbing spree, we can just say it’s very bad and can’t happen. Then we save the diversity is our strength quote for like, a food festival.

*Many of us have been concerned about the erosion of free speech in the UK, largely propelled by dislike of so-called “hate speech”, which, in turn, derives from wokeness. The National Review reports on “A temporary respite for free speech in Britain” (article archived here, there’s another report of this incident at FIRE.) It’s about a Kurdish/Armenian asylum seeker who burned a Quran in London and was relentlessly pursued by the law:

In February of last year, a 50-year-old Kurdish-Armenian man named Hamit Coskun burned a Koran outside the Turkish consulate in London. In June, a court convicted him of a “religiously aggravated public order offense,” but this conviction was subsequently overturned in October. Last week, the High Court dismissed a Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) appeal of this overturning, effectively putting an end to the process, as the case has not been referred to the supreme court.

Coskun’s case represents a rare victory for free speech in Britain. Sadly, it is likely to be short-lived.

Hamit Coskun is not the first person to have suffered legal trials due to burning the Koran. As early as 2010, a British schoolgirl was arrested for burning several pages out of a Koran on a video uploaded to Facebook. In Denmark, a man was convicted back in 2017 after filming himself burning a Koran, though outrage over this conviction led to the repeal of Danish blasphemy laws. In Sweden, Koran burner Salwan Momika was convicted of agitation against an ethnic group. Sadly, Momika was murdered while livestreaming on TikTok from his apartment the day before the conviction was to be announced (the suspect remains at large).

In the Coskun case, CPS [Crown Prosecution Service] bizarrely argued that the fact that Coskun was violently attacked by a man carrying a blade constituted proof that Coskun’s actions were offensive, which the judge agreed with. Had the conviction stood, a dangerous precedent would have been established.

From FIRE; get a load of this (my bold)

Coskun was soon attacked by two men including one carrying a knife, who told Coskun he was “going to kill him” and then beat and kicked him. That man later pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 20 weeks in prison and community service, but his prison sentence was suspended. Ultimately, he would serve no time for the assault.

In June, Coskun was found guilty in the Westminster Magistrates’ Court and fined £240 ($321). Incredibly, Judge John McGarva argued “That the conduct was disorderly is no better illustrated than by the fact that it led to serious public disorder involving him being assaulted by 2 different people.” In other words, being the victim of an attack was evidence of his disorderly conduct because the attack was disorderly.

No jail time for the knife man! But Coskun could have gotten jail.  And of course prosecution’s argument is completely bonkers!  As FIRE notes correctly, there are no blasphemy laws in Britain, but punishing Coskun comes perilously close to that. And he wouldn’t have been punished at all if he’d burned a Bible or the Bhagavad Gita.  We should pay attention to what’s going on in the UK because they are our closest “relatives.”  Yet their treatment of free speech, which our founders saw fit to make the First Amendment to the Constitution, is completely wonky, and is out of control. Part of that is due largely to fear of offending Muslims, who could respond, as they did with Coskun, violently. That is not a reason to allow free speech for some but but not for others, even if they both involve criticizing religion. FIRE:

This is a notable win for free expression in a country where arrests for subjectively offensive speech have become alarmingly common. But UK citizens should remain deeply concerned about their ability to express their thoughts on important matters like religion or politics — even, or especially, in unpopular ways.

This chain of events, from the original charge referencing the “religious institution of Islam” to the guilty finding citing the attack against Coskun to prosecutors’ refusal to let this case drop, represent an alarming effort to enforce what certainly look like blasphemy restrictions.

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili is still asking Big Questions, but they somehow always manage to involve food:​

Hili: Struggle with the adversities of fate, or curl up in a ball and go to sleep?
Andrzej: It is still early – keep fighting until dinner.

In Polish:

Hili: Zmagać się z przeciwnościami losu, czy zwinąć się w kłębek i zasnąć?
Ja: Jest jeszcze wcześnie powalcz do kolacji.

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From The Language Nerds (you should understand this one):

From Now That’s Wild:

From This Cat is Guilty:

Andrzej posted a photo of him walking the upstairs lodgers’ d*g, with the translated Polish caption, “And in spring – let spring come, not Poland, I’ll see.”  I’m baffled, but it’s a good photo.

Masih goes after Spain in Spain, which is taking Iran’s side (video is about 7 minutes long). Translation from the Persian (Masih speaks in English; do listen):

What Masih Alinejad did yesterday at the Spanish Congress was unparalleled. I can’t recall anyone supporting the people of Iran in Spain in this way, or so openly lashing out at the duplicity and hypocrisy of the Spanish government like this. El Mundo and El País have run multiple in-depth reports on her. She’s made headlines. It’s beautiful.

From Luana, who says, “Another lunatic let loose in New York City”:

From Jez, another tweet explaining how Israel managed to track down the Ayatollah and bomb him and his associates:

Two from my feed. First, a cat who really loves music:

Turkeys out for blood (or packages):

One I reposted from the Auschwitz Memorial:

And two from Dr. Cobb, who is now somewhat richer. First, a video of a lovely fox who lives in Kew Gardens in London:

Timeline cleanse. This is Checko, a 4-year-old fox who lives in Kew Gardens

— Rowan Hooper (@rowhoop.bsky.social) 2026-03-01T14:47:33.353Z

Matthew disses herbivores!

It must be really boring being a herbivore – chompchompchomp all day long. If you’re a ruminant, you then have to lie down and chew your own spew (or if you’re a rabbit, stick your nose by your bum and eat your own poo so it goes through a second time). It all strikes me as rather dull.

— Matthew Cobb (@matthewcobb.bsky.social) 2026-02-27T12:45:32.060Z

Possible brief slowdown in posting

March 6, 2026 • 11:00 am

I need a life—even if that is a life outside of writing for this website. That’s by way of informing you that posting here may be a bit light for about a week. I have a writing assignment, which is to answer Michael Shermer’s response to my own post on this site taking issue with his claim (also in his new book Truth) that we have a form of free will.  (My response will appear at Skeptic.) I can do no other than answer a form of compatibilism that gives us free will simply by redefining the folk notion of free will in an un-refutable way so that that we do have free will even if all our behaviors and thoughts derive from and are compatible with the laws of physics. But I digress.

My second task is to go shopping for much-needed Chinese groceries (I ran out of everything during the cold spell), but, most important, to meet my friend origami master and engineer Robert Lang, who’s invited me for splendid dinner at Next. Next is a sister restaurant of Alinea—surely one of America’s most famous restaurants. Next is equally highly rated. Both Next and Alinea are run by the same chef, Grant Achatz (see a Facebook interview with him here). Robert’s in town for an origami convention, and the trip to Next is prompted by his rare appearance in Chicago and the felicitous fact that Robert’s niece happens to be the general manager of Next.  I think that’s how we got reservations given that the site says, “On any given night, there can be 10,000+ guests on our waitlist.”

Next is so named because it changes menus to a new theme every few months.  This most recent theme is Japan, and I have the menu, which has nine courses that look fabulous (Earlier, Robert provided some origami for the menu.)  I’ll save the food experience for a post (with photos) tomorrow or Sunday. There will also be a wine pairing with the many courses, and I’m sure that a great and bibulous time will be had by all.

Stay tuned. As always, I’ll do my best, both at table and at this site. Oh, and don’t forget to set your clocks forward on Saturday night.