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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 Atlanticon 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.
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 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.
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.
کاری که دیروز مسیح علینژاد در کنگره اسپانیا کرد بینظیر بود. به یاد ندارم کسی اینطور از مردم ایران در اسپانیا حمایت کرده باشه و اینطور عیان به این دودوزهبازی و ریاکاری دولت اسپانیا تاخته باشه. الموندو و الپائیس ازش چندین گزارش کارکردهن. رفته توی سرخط اخبار. زیباست. https://t.co/T60mbCBfUN
From Jez, another tweet explaining how Israel managed to track down the Ayatollah and bomb him and his associates:
Iran built the most comprehensive civilian surveillance network in the Middle East. Cameras on every street. Facial recognition at universities. License plate readers that automatically fined women for removing their hijab in their own cars. A mobile app called Nazer that let… pic.twitter.com/iLiTZnJr8L
— Shanaka Anslem Perera ⚡ (@shanaka86) March 4, 2026
Two from my feed. First, a cat who really loves music:
— Wholesome Side of 𝕏 (@itsme_urstruly) March 6, 2026
One I reposted from the Auschwitz Memorial:
This Dutch Jewish girl was gassed as soon as she arrived in Auschwitz. She was four years old, and would be 87 today had she lived. https://t.co/bhg5FnNklg
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.
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.
I told you that Matthew’s new biography of Francis Crick was good! Now Crick: A Mind in Motion has been given the imprimatur of quality by winning a big book prize in England. Matthew sent me his Bluehair post below, and when I asked him what prize he won, he replied:
Hatchard’s First Biography Prize. Hatchards is a posh bookshop on Piccadilly where the King buys his books. I will get a proper cheque. £2.5k!
Hatchards has teamed up with The Biographers’ Club to support the Best First Biography Prize.
The prize awards £2,500 to the best biography or memoir published that year, and has been won in recent years by Daniel Finkelstein, Katherine Rundell and Osman Yousefzada, Lea Ypi, Heather Clark, Jonathan Phillips, Bart van Es, Edmund Gordon and Hisham Matar.
This year’s winner is Crick by Matthew Cobb.
Go buy it, or take it out from the library to read it. (This advice is for people who are interested in science, but if you’re not, you shouldn’t be reading here.)
Congratulations to Matthew! I told him to use the £2500 prize to treat himself to something nice, like a vacation.
Reader Todd Martin sent some photos from the Yucatán (don’t miss the Ocellated Turkey!). Todd’s captions are indented and you can enlarge the photos by clicking on them.
WEIT Yucatán
Here are some photos from a trip in November to the Yucatán in Mexico. The original purpose of the trip was to see Mayan ruins, but the natural beauty of the area turned out to be equally remarkable.
The first few pictures were taken during a boat tour of the mangroves in the Ría Lagartos Biosphere Reserve along the northern coast of the Yucatan Peninsula. The tour began at dawn and we were greeted by the rising sun and a welcoming committee of Monohelea maya, a species of predaceous midge discovered with some fanfare by scientists in 2000 (and with somewhat less fanfare on this very morning by myself):
The reserve is home to many species of birds, the most famous of which is the American flamingo (Phoenicopterus ruber), which can be observed trawling for brine-shrimp in the brackish water:
This is a Magnificent Frigatebird (Fregata magnificens). The male is easily recognized by the bright red throat pouch which looks like a life vest when inflated but actually serves to attract females. The females can be recognized by their frequent calls of ‘Well, if you’re so magnificent why can’t you take out the trash’:
The largest avian species we saw was this haughtily regal Brown pelican (Pelecanus occidentalis):
This is a Neotropic Cormorant (Nannopterum brasilianum) a diving bird sometimes used by the indigenous people of Bolivia and Peru to catch fish:
Hopefully this Wood Stork (Mycteria americana) has a good personality because it is (as my grandmother might have quipped) ‘not conventionally attractive’. It is, however, the only native stork in North America:
The Osprey (Pandion Haliaetus) is sometimes known as a fish hawk because fish make up the majority of its diet (not unlike Kevin Bacon or the singer Meatloaf):
Some birds are naturally elegant like this Great Egret (Ardea alba).In case you want to know how to avoid confusing it with a Snowy Egret … a Great Egret has a yellow bill and black feet, while the smaller Snowy Egret has a black bill and yellow feet:
Green Heron (Butorides virescens). Here’s a fun fact I cribbed from Wiki: “Green herons are one of the few species of bird known to use tools. In particular, they commonly use bread crusts, insects, or other items as bait. The bait is dropped onto the surface of a body of water to lure fish. When a fish takes the bait, the green heron then grabs and eats the fish”:
This American White Ibis (Eudocimus albus) was quite accustomed to people, which allowed me to get a pretty good close-up:
Morelet’s crocodile (Crocodylus moreletii). They look somewhat fearsome, but our one-armed tour boat operator said this one was ‘practically domesticated’”
Yucatan Jay (Cyanocorax yucatanicus) Jays are the noisy, argumentative neighbors of the animal kingdom. They are often described as ‘gregarious’ which I take to mean that they’ll take food from your plate without asking:
Those who frequented Glamour Shots in the 1980’s might confuse this photo with others of the genre, but it’s an Ocellated Turkey (Meleagris ocellata). The bird was the original inspiration for the marketing tag-line ‘taste the rainbow’. Unfortunately the bird is considered ‘Near Threatened’ by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) with numbers that are sadly on the decline:
Whoever named the Black Spiny-tailed Iguana (Ctenosaura similis) wasn’t particularly creative, but I’m inclined to give them a pass because … that spiny tail!:
Finally – we stopped by Florida before returning home and my wife couldn’t resist adopting one of those hairless sphynx cats from the local shelter (Alligator mississippiensis). We love him very much, though he does have the unusual habit of sleeping in his water dish:
