Why Evolution is True is a blog written by Jerry Coyne, centered on evolution and biology but also dealing with diverse topics like politics, culture, and cats.
I used to pride myself on being “cultured”—knowing not only science but a decent amount about literature, art, the other humanities, and so on (about classical music, however, I’m an ignoramus). Now, however, I realize I’m a total ignoramus, at least according to the New York Times, which recently published an entire magazine on how to be cultured. Not only does it not include any science, but the “culture” it reveals, in its articles and then the 30-item quiz (which I failed miserably) seems to be largely—but not entirely) “popular culture”. Although I keep up as much as I can with what’s going on today, I don’t have much patience for modern popular music and am very selective in popular literature. To me the quiz was telling: it was the paper’s way of telling you what you need to know to be cultured. It’s part of the “what-you-need-to-know” slant of modern journalism, which strikes me as patronizing.
But let’s hear what an aggrieved article in Physics World has to say:
The New York Times recently published a 124-page special issue of its Style Magazine entitled “How to be cultured”. According to the cover of this glossy, ad-driven supplement, the contents were “idiosyncratic” but amounted to a “compendium of what you need to know right now”. The material had been “chosen by experts” for the purpose of “teaching readers how to be more cultured”.
Curious as to what would be included, my hopes were raised by the magazine’s lead editorial. It said that the issue “celebrates expertise, a quality ever less valued in our culture today, where learnedness and firsthand research can be overshadowed by slick presentation and dumb certainty”.
Now, I’m not naïve. I know that the New York Times Style Magazine caters to advertisers, who in turn cater to wealthy readers who feel the need to spend gobs of money to get culture. It didn’t therefore surprise me to have to leaf through 40 pages of adverts for jewellery [sic], champagne, watches and home furnishings before finally coming across the table of contents.
I saw headings for film, food, music, theatre, fashion and the visual arts. Shakespeare showed up several times: over half a dozen plays, sonnet #94 and one of his monologues. There were entries for 1930s movies, animated videos and films from Brazil. One page on food and drink covered porridge from Norway, meat from Mexico, lemonade from Vietnam and wine from Austria.
There was no mention of science in “How to be cultured”, nothing at all
Novels from the US, UK, France, Japan, India and Brazil made the list, as did selections of music from medieval times to opera and hip-hop. Samples of theatre, puppetry and architecture made it in too. But there was no mention of science, nothing at all. The closest I found were architectural materials such as plaster, glass, steel and textiles.
Shades of C. P. Snow’s lecture and book Two Cultures, famous for bemoaning the ignorance about science of otherwise educated people. A quote:
A good many times I have been present at gatherings of people who, by the standards of the traditional culture, are thought highly educated and who have with considerable gusto been expressing their incredulity at the illiteracy of scientists. Once or twice I have been provoked and have asked the company how many of them could describe the Second Law of Thermodynamics. The response was cold: it was also negative. Yet I was asking something which is the scientific equivalent of: Have you read a work of Shakespeare’s? I now believe that if I had asked an even simpler question – such as, What do you mean by mass, or acceleration, which is the scientific equivalent of saying, Can you read? – not more than one in ten of the highly educated would have felt that I was speaking the same language. So the great edifice of modern physics goes up, and the majority of the cleverest people in the western world have about as much insight into it as their neolithic ancestors would have had.
All of this is missing. Biology is, too. How can you leave out Darwin, gene-sequencing, dark matter, and so on?
You can see the table of contents by clicking the screenshot below, or find the site archived here, though you can’t get to the individual articles. They include:
Film
Literature
Art
Food
Music
Theater
Architecture and Design
Fashion
Each of these has sub-articles. But there is NO SCIENCE!
I won’t go through the selections except to say that while there are some classics (in books: War and Peace, though I would have preferred Anna Karenina; and the 11 unforgettable film performances are decent, with “All About Eve,” “The Wizard of Oz,” “Chinatown”, and “Sophie’s Choice,” though they’re short on foreign films).
As for food and fashion, fuhgeddaboudit it: the wine section, for example, is called “How to sound like a sommelier,” and rather than recommending wines to try, it tells you how to say “sophisticated stuff” about the wine. In other words, the whole section, while good in some places, tells you how to appear cultured without having done the work.
There is simply no way to become acquainted with art, literature, wine, fashion, and the like without having acquired a thirst for learning these areas and absorbing them. It’s in that sense that I object to an au courant list of what the NYT Millennials tell us we need to be cultured, as if you could watch the recommended movies, read the recommended books, and view the recommended paintings, and then be deemed respectable.
Perhaps I sound like a curmudgeon, but so be it. My objection to the whole enterprise is encapsulated in the 30-question “How Cultured You Are” quiz which you can see by clicking below (or find archived here, though the archived version it won’t tell you the answers). An example of the type of question they ask is also given below.
I took the quiz and my score is below: it’s PATHETIC. It even tells me what I need bone up on, including reading Kindred, Quicksand and Passing. And I simply must know these chocolate bars (figure from the article).
Well, that sucks. But my biggest beef is that made by Physics World: WHERE IS THE SCIENCE? How can you be “cultured” unless you know about at least the greatest scientific advances of our age, if not the Second Law of Thermodynamics. C. P. Snow was right, but the NYT (and the New Yorker) ignore his plaint. In the modern sophisticated world that New York supposedly exemplifies, science is not “culture.”
Today’s photos come from Dean Graetz, who notes, “I offer an unusual contribution to Readers wildlife photos. It is an unusual personal story.” Dean’s captions are indented, and you can enlarge the photos by clicking on them.
A Wild Life Extinction
Some 50 years ago, I encountered an unfamiliar way of Life. It was a Wild Life: the lifestyle of Aboriginal people who have lived as nomadic hunter-gatherers in the Australian deserts for the last 60,000 years. I met three old men, likely 60+ years of age, who could recall their first sighting of ‘Whitefellas’. Their early lives were as nomadic hunter-gatherers, one that could be perilously difficult. So, I began to follow any published stories of the desert dwellers from then until now, 50 years later, when they have stopped. Some photos are mine with historic others borrowed from the Public Domain. This was the spirit of the encounter. There were 6 people in that vehicle
The location was Amata, in South Australia: Aboriginal land: home of the Pitjantjatjara, a language which every member of the party spoke but me. It was in one of the 10 named Australian deserts where the landscapes are as spectacular as the night sky. Some important Dreaming stories are based on the constellations interpreted as the activities of animals, such the Emu, or people:
Because it is customary to bring gifts to your hosts, we shot two Red Kangaroos (Macropus rufus) knowing that they would be enjoyed as ‘properly good tucker’:
Our shot kangaroo retriever (effortlessly carrying 30+ kilos) was an important ‘law’ man and hunter. By incredible chance, I knew of him (by name) from reading an anthropologist’s (1972) account of him:
His fame came from his ability to spear eagles in flight. An astonishing skill:
It was difficult to hide the presents that we were bringing:
The three elders were happy to receive us with our gift of kangaroos. Note that they are smallish men, likely protein-limited in early life, now getting ‘fat and shiny’ on store-bought food. As an intruder, I took very few photos. I noticed they were urinary incontinent but was later told that, as a condition of manhood, they had been circumcised as teenagers, then later they had opted to be sub incised (aka ‘whistle-dicked’) and were very proud of the seniority and masculine status that conferred. Their dress and traditional accommodation (‘Wiltja’) in the background was their choice ignoring Whitefella’s available welfare. The desert landscape was exceptionally lush in 1974; it was the wettest year on record:
They were reluctant (hand covering mouth) to talk about their younger days when there were no Whitefellas around. They smiled at recalling their family group’s long travels – walkabout- to hunt and ‘see’ their country. They admitted that they ate more lizards than fat kangaroos, and there were some ‘tough times’ that were not be talked about. Later, the three elders and their wives – who had been hidden – plus a few friends waited, for 20 minutes of cooking on an open fire, to eat the two kangaroos at one long evening sitting. Around the neighbouring Whitefella campfire, the considered opinion of hunter-gatherers was that in 1974, ‘there is no one out there now’. “All gone: all finish him up!”:
This brief contact was an end point of a long personal and professional interest in the desert landscapes and in the people who surprisingly endured their harshness. As a university student (1950s) I was intrigued by photos, such as this, of full grown Aboriginal men (beards) but with teenager-sized bodies. It had to be the result of malnourishment. Why did they live there? And, more importantly, how did they live there?:
In 1974, these questions were now in the past tense. There were no hunter-gathering people still ‘out there’, living out their ‘wild’ lives. Because of government concern for their welfare, efforts ensured they had all been ‘contacted’. The deserts, ‘their country’, were now empty of its intriguing inhabitants.
Not so! In 1977, a search party located a couple hiding for 30 years in the remote Gibson Desert fearing tribal vengeance – ‘The last of the Nomads’. Then, in 1984, a small group, The Pintupi Nine, walked out of the desert and made contact – as below on day 2, first clothes. Next, in 1986, a family group of seven (Richters/Rictors) emerged from the Great Victoria Desert. Now 40 years later, we can conclude that hunter-gatherers are now extinct across the Australian continent:
The hunter-gatherer life requires self-sufficiency. Your food is only what you can find or kill. Your tools are only what you can make. Your only ability to manipulate the landscape is the fire that you ignite, and you control.
Does it matter that this nomadic way of life is no longer pursued in Australia? No: but an understanding of what and when it was is important for our societal memory. This quote from a historian says it all.
“Perhaps all people on Earth need a sense of the continuing existence of ‘nomads’, for all of our ancestors were once so. They remind us of who we are.”
Hemingway did love to drink and while he was a writer, “in moderation” wasn’t part of his vocabulary, especially when it came to rum. He was fond of daiquiris, a classic three-ingredient cocktail made with rum, lime juice, and sugar syrup. But apparently Hemingway didn’t like the sugar syrup component, and the Hemingway Daiquiri was born at El Floridita bar in Havana, which William Grimes called “a close contender with Harry’s New York Bar in Paris for the title of the most famous bar in the world,” where Hemingway liked to drink.
According to Grimes’ excellent book, Straight Up or On the Rocks: The Story of the American Cocktail, Hemingway would drink up to a dozen of these daiquiris at one sitting, made with Bacardi white rum, fresh lime, and grapefruit juice, and six drops of maraschino liqueur blended with ice and served in large goblets.
And here’s Papa with what looks like a daiquiri in hand:
And here’s a classic daiquiri, though they come in frozen versions:
Today’s Google Doodle celebrates the World Cup Final today; click to see where it goes:
Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the July 19 Wikipedia page.
Da Nooz:
*Footy news: Yesterday’s “bronze match” between France and England was wild; ESPN calls it an “instant classic”. England beat France 6-4 after France made up some of the difference after being down 4-0 at the half; see the report and video below.
By the time Spain or Argentina lifts the World Cup trophy on Sunday, the U.S. men’s national team will have been out of the tournament for 13 days.
In that regard, the 2026 World Cup has been a head-shaking failure—especially to the fans in star-spangled jerseys who hopped on the bandwagon only to be violently thrown off a few days later. The Americans squandered a generous draw, a high-price coach and a golden opportunity to capture a new generation by blowing their shot at a first quarterfinal in 24 years.
But in every other respect, America’s World Cup can only be regarded as a triumph. Much more than an excuse to sneak off to the pub in the middle of the afternoon, the monthlong party stretching from Miami to Seattle showcased a side of the U.S. that the rest of the world rarely gets to glimpse. They fell in love with the hash browns at Waffle House. They discovered the brisket sandwich of Buc-ee’s. They lamented the lack of public transportation options, then marveled at Waymo. All of it was eye-opening. The scale of our shopping malls, the size of our highways and the cornucopia that is the Costco frozen-food aisle.
At a time when the Atlantic has never felt wider and U.S. foreign policy has sometimes put the country at odds with even its oldest allies, the World Cup was a pointed reminder that America still possesses a shine dazzling enough to entrance the rest of the world.
“On every single thing, the World Cup here has been amazing,” said Norway’s ponytailed striker Erling Haaland, who became so enamored with the States that he went home with several $750 taxidermied raccoons that he bought in Dallas.
“I like the Americans,” he added later. “I think they are kind of hilarious as well. I like the way they are.”
For sure! You can’t get taxidermied raccoons in Norway!
AI modified photo of Haaland taken from Wikipedia, credit to: Vyacheslav Evdokimov, CC BY-SA 3.0 GFD, via Wikimedia Commons
Yesterday’s summary from ESPN:
MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. — Bukayo Saka‘s hat trick helped England survive a dramatic second-half comeback to beat France6-4 in Saturday’s chaotic third-place playoff and secure their best finish at a World Cup since 1966.
England were up 4-0 at the break as a shambolic France side was dismantled through goals from Declan Rice and Ezri Konsa and two Saka strikes.
Both teams made seven changes following their semifinal defeats, but in his final match in charge after 14 years at the helm, France’s Didier Deschamps introduced four substitutes at halftime, including Ousmane Dembélé and Bradley Barcola, in an attempt to trigger a response.
Six minutes later, Mbappé turned provider, sending Barcola clear to finish inside Henderson’s near post, before Mbappé finished another France chance to score his 10th goal of the tournament.
Mbappé’s brace moved him ahead of Lionel Messi as the men’s all-time World Cup goal scorer at 22 goals. He also is two clear of Messi in the race for the Golden Boot at this tournament ahead of Argentina’s World Cup final against Spain on Sunday.
Olise, whose seven assists in a single World Cup is another record, missed a glorious chance to equalize, somehow side-footing wide from 12 yards out, before England finally steadied themselves.
Djed Spence burst into the box on the overlap and was brought down by Malo Gusto. Saka converted the 87th-minute penalty to become only the fourth men’s player to score a World Cup hat trick for England.
There was still time for France to respond again as Dembélé cut in on his left foot to finish, but substitute Jude Bellingham had the final say, driving into the box before finishing from close range to secure a memorable win.
Bellingham’s late strike made him the first Englishman to score seven goals in a single World Cup.
The combined 10 goals were the most scored in a World Cup match since Hungary beat El Salvador 10-1 in 1982.
Here are the highlights:
Today’s final, featuring Spain versus Argentina, kicks off at 3 p.m. Eastern time (2 p.m. Chicago time).
The United States and Iran expanded the scope and intensity of their attacks on Saturday, striking critical infrastructure sites that included a power station and water facilities, with no sign of an off-ramp to end the fighting.
More than a week after President Trump said the cease-fire with Iran was effectively over, American forces stepped up their assault, targeting “surveillance sites, military logistics infrastructure, underground weapons storage, and maritime capabilities,” according to U.S. Central Command.
The bombardment has failed to break the deadlock over the Strait of Hormuz, the vital waterway for global oil and gas shipments that Iran has blockaded. The United States has also reinstated its own blockade on Iranian ports. With no apparent negotiations taking place, the two sides appear to be sliding back toward a wider war.
Iranian state media reported on Saturday damage to bridges and roads in the south of Iran, and said that a water desalination plant in Jask was hit. It cited a local official as saying that about 10,000 people were facing water shortages. The U.S. military did not immediately respond to a request for comment on those claims.
Iran has responded with its own attacks on American allies in the Persian Gulf. Air-raid sirens continued to ring out in Bahrain on Saturday morning, warning of new Iranian strikes. And the Jordanian military said it had intercepted 10 Iranian ballistic missiles overnight, without reports of major damage.
On Saturday, Iranian missiles and drones pummeled the Gulf state of Kuwait, where the government said another power and water treatment plant had been attacked — the second in two days — sparking fires. An oil facility was also struck, leading to injuries and “severe material losses,” according to Kuwait’s state-run petroleum corporation.
Kuwait’s Army said late Friday night that several of its personnel had been wounded by Iranian drone strikes on military facilities. Iran’s military has said it is targeting U.S. bases in Kuwait and elsewhere in the region.
So much for the new regime which, as I recall, Trump said was composed of “reasonable people” who would negotiate. And the Fracas is all about the Strait of Hormuz; nobody has mentioned nuclear weapons lately.
A coalition of Catholic healthcare providers filed suit in federal court in Albany on Friday, arguing that New York’s new assisted dying law would force them to choose between their faith and their ability to provide care for the sick, the elderly, and the dying.
The lawsuit, filed in the Northern District of New York, names 13 plaintiffs, including multiple congregations of nuns such as the Dominican Sisters of Hawthorne, the Carmelite Sisters for the Aged and Infirm, and the Little Sisters of the Poor. The Diocese of Rockville Centre and Catholic Health, a network of five Long Island hospitals, are also named.
New York’s Medical Aid in Dying Act, signed into law in February and set to take effect August 5, allows terminally ill patients with a prognosis of six months or less to request drugs to end their lives. Governor Kathy Hochul called it a matter of bodily autonomy when she signed the bill. “New Yorkers deserve the choice to endure less suffering, not by shortening their lives, but by shortening their deaths,” she said.
. . . The law works in tandem with an existing New York statute, the Palliative Care Information Act, which requires doctors and nurse practitioners to inform terminally ill patients of all their end-of-life options. Now that assisted dying is one of them, medical professionals must proactively raise it with patients—whether or not the patient asks.
For the Dominican Sisters of Hawthorne, who care for those dying of incurable cancer at Rosary Hill Home, a small nursing facility about 35 miles north of New York City, compliance with the Medical Aid in Dying Act is not an option. The Catholic Church teaches that human life is sacred and that deliberately ending it—or facilitating its ending—is gravely wrong. The sisters consider any participation in that process, however indirect, a violation of their faith.
. . . Mother Marie Edward, the superior of the Dominican Sisters of Hawthorne, said it’s her duty to “support the person to the natural end of their life.”
“Everyone is made in the image and likeness of God, and there is a dignity about the human person,” she told The Free Press. “We are only the guardians of this body. We do not take the charge of whether or not we live or we die. That’s up to God.”
Up to God! Not up to the patient! But what if the patient wants to be relived of their suffering?
There’s more:
New York’s law includes a provision permitting religious facilities to opt out of prescribing or administering lethal drugs on their premises. But according to the sisters’ lawyers, the opt-out is among the narrowest in the nation, narrower than similar laws in California, Oregon, and Washington, where religious providers can opt out of all participation if their faith requires it.
Even facilities in New York that invoke the religious exemption must still require physicians to counsel patients about assisted dying, assess their mental fitness, and walk them through every step of the qualification process on that facility’s premises—everything short of writing the prescription and administering the drugs.
The whole thing reminds me of a story Hitchens tells in his indictment of Mother Teresa in his book The Missionary Position:
Mother Teresa apparently considered pain sacred – as long as it happens to somebody else, and as long as that person is poor. Hitchens mentions (p. 41) a filmed interview in which Mother Teresa says with a smile what she told a patient suffering unbearable pain from terminal cancer: “You are suffering like Christ on the cross. So Jesus must be kissing you.” The patient’s response: “Then please tell him to stop kissing me.”
Apparently the Catholics, who have a responsibility under law to tell patients of their options, don’t want to tell suffers that they can choose to have God stop kissing them. Note that the law does not require the Catholics to give drugs to patients or help them end their lives. They need only tell patients (or have a doctor tell patients) of their options—their rights.
*I have often thought that the UN should be abolished, but then I think of the good projects it sponsors, like UNICEF, the United Nations Children’s Emergency Fund. dedicated to giving humanitarian aid to children and fostering their development. How could that be a bad thing? Well, it is in one way: it helps foster hatred against the Jews. I guess I’ve been paying attenching to UNRWA and not UNICEF, because the latter has been supporting Hamas and promoting Jew hatred for a long time. Have a look at this:
A Gazan religious school funded by U.N. Children’s Fund (UNICEF) held a contest for children to illustrate “the suffering of our brave prisoners inside the occupation’s prisons,” just a month before the State Department awarded the embattled U.N. charity more than $200 million. This latest example of UNICEF’s ties to anti-Israel extremists could fuel fresh concerns about American investment in the troubled U.N. charity.
Al Itqan Educational School in Gaza, a religious school for children which boasted as recently as February about receiving “generous funding” from UNICEF, announced in late April that it was organizing a “drawing competition” around “the prisoners’ issue,” a reference to Palestinian militants in Israeli detention for terrorism and related crimes. Just several weeks later, the school hosted Musbah Abd Rabbuh, director of the Waeed Association for Prisoners and Released Prisoners, which had been designated just months earlier as a covert Hamas support network by the Trump administration. Previously public photos posted on Al Itqan’s Facebook page show Rabbuh speaking in a visibly marked UNICEF structure with several children’s drawings hanging on the wall. The post became inaccessible on Wednesday afternoon, after the Washington Free Beacon sent an inquiry to UNICEF that went unanswered.
“We will be collecting drawings related to the prisoners’ issue” on May 3, the school announced in an Arabic-language Facebook posting that was independently translated for the Free Beacon by the Middle East Media Research Institute, an organization that monitors extremist rhetoric. “The best drawing that expresses the suffering of our brave prisoners inside the occupation’s prisons.”
“Don’t forget the issue of our prisoners,” the flyer added. “It is our issue too.”
. . .The school’s May competition, which awarded the winner “a prize by the school administration,” was held just over a month before the State Department announced a fresh injection of “more than $218 million in assistance to UNICEF” as part of a $1 billion “humanitarian and disaster response” funding package, fueling questions from watchdog groups about how America’s latest investment in the U.N. organization will be spent.
While the State Department maintained that the funds would be contingent on “rigorous performance standards” and “measurable results,” the research organization NGO Monitor expressed concern that UNICEF’s spending in Gaza will help pay for the radical programming most recently seen in Al Itqan’s classrooms.
“Open source evidence clearly shows that UNICEF, like UNRWA and other U.N. agencies that operate in Gaza, has cooperated with individuals and NGOs linked to terror groups,” said professor Gerald M. Steinberg, founder and president of NGO Monitor, a research organization that first unearthed evidence of the radical programming at Al Itqan. “As NGO Monitor reported last year, UNICEF coordinates distribution of cash payments and vouchers with a Hamas ministry in Gaza, likely resulting in significant diversion of donor funds. And this case provides another example of UNICEF’s failure to vet their partners.”
Here’s the poster announcing the drawing competion. Note that the boy is wearing a keffiyeh, and he’s drawing a Palestinian prisoner chafing in his cell:
Poster posted by Al Itqan Educational School in Gaza
The U.S. government gives about $218 million per year to UNICEF, The solution is simple: withhold all money from schools that participate in this kind of one-sided indoctrination (is that redundant?). If you donate to UNICEF, make your feelings known. (I give no money to the UN but instead to humanitarian organizations that are ideologically neutral.)
*This may be the greatest thrift-store find of all time: a guy paid $3 at Goodwill for a jacket with “Chamberlain” stitched on the back. It turned out to be a genuine Wilt Chamberlain warm-up jacket that could be worth several hundred thousand dollars (we’ll find out tomorrow when the auction ends).
Ellie [Brown] was home from college. Quinn [hyer brother] was on the brink of something big. They roamed the aisles talking everything but business until Quinn spotted three graphic tees in near-mint condition.
“I think these are pretty good T-shirts,” he said. “And all from the same person!”
“How can you tell?” Ellie asked.
Quinn has sold nearly 10,000 items over the past four years, and he’s learned how to decode things. (The three T-shirts were black, extra-large and looked like they’d been owned by a meticulous heavy metal fan.) But the one mystery he hadn’t yet solved was the one everyone wanted to talk about. How had a Wilt Chamberlain warmup jacket from the 1972 NBA finals ended up in a suburban thrift store? And how had a teenager — a young man whose mom wasn’t even alive when Chamberlain wore it — snagged something so special?
. . . Even before he found the Wilt Chamberlain warmup jacket, that January morning was Quinn’s best day ever at the bins. He’d already found a vintage Carhartt Detroit jacket he figured was worth $150 or $200 when he saw a guy a few years older than him holding up what looked like a short-sleeved Los Angeles Lakers button-up shirt.
Quinn could tell the guy wasn’t sure about the jacket. It was a weird piece of clothing — longer than a lab coat, and skinny, the kind of cut only a man more than 7 feet tall could wear. The other guy examined the item for a moment, then tossed it back into a bin. Quinn grabbed it right away.
Quinn is not a sports guy. He didn’t know exactly what the Lakers jacket was, but he knew it was special. Someone had stitched “Chamberlain” across the back. Even Gen Z guys uninterested in hoops recognize that name. Chamberlain is a legend — the only player to score a hundred points in a single game, holder of 72 records, and winner of two NBA championships and four regular season Most Valuable Player awards.
. . .Usually, Quinn takes his haul to the family garage, scrunches the best pieces to give them a hint of movement, then photographs them to post on the reselling app Depop. His average sale price is $13.
This time, he posted the pictures on Instagram, and one of his favorite vintage sellers called it “the greatest thrift find potentially in history.” The head of collectibles for Sotheby’s commented, too, and asked Quinn to message him. Soon, he’d agreed to let the famed auction house handle the sale.
A few weeks later, the Sotheby’s collector sent Quinn a message: They’d authenticated his discovery. Chamberlain wore the warmup jacket during the 1972 finals run against the New York Knicks, the last championship Chamberlain ever won. It could be worth as much as a quarter-million dollars.
Anything that valuable is too precious to mail, so Sotheby’s sent an armored vehicle to Quinn’s house. He watched as the movers packed his jacket into a little parcel, then a box, then a blue bag and finally a safe in the back of the van. They scheduled the auction for July.
We’ll know tomorrow; stay tuned.
Here’s a video:
Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, it’s hot and there are mosquitoes:
Hili: The shade of this hazel tree makes this heat bearable. Andrzej: True. It’s just a shame it doesn’t kill mosquitoes.
In Polish:
Hili: Cień tego orzecha laskowego pozwala wytrzymać w tym upale.
Ja: To prawda, szkoda tylko, że nie zabija komarów.
From Masih, who vows to be the voice of the worst-off voiceless. Translation from Farsi:
Today, a message reached me from behind the tall walls of Ward 2 of Vakilabad Prison in Mashhad. A message from those in the dungeon of oblivion, asking one thing of us: “Be our voice; do not forget us.”
Ward 2 of Vakilabad is a stark image of silent torture:
A ward with a capacity of 300 people is today the living grave of 700 human beings! 15-person rooms that now hold more than 30 people.
For 700 people, there are only 12 toilets and 14 shower stalls. 16 telephone booths for a population that burns for days with the longing to hear their family’s voices. –
A ward infested with bedbugs, lice, and insects; without a shred of medical care. Worse still, the deliberate separation of crimes has been violated; political prisoners have been abandoned among dangerous criminals, leaving their physical and mental security at risk every moment.
Their message was short, but earth-shattering: “Be our voice; especially the voice of the children who breathe under the ominous shadow of the death penalty.”
The freedom-seekers of Ward 2 of Vakilabad have issued their ultimatum; if this inhumane situation does not change, they will turn their lives into a bulwark of hunger strike.
With all my strength, I will be the echo of your voice. You who have paid the heaviest price for the freedom and human dignity of us all. We will not leave you alone.
امروز پیامی از پشت دیوارهای بلند بند ۲ زندان وکیلآباد مشهد به دستم رسید. پیام کسانی که در سیاهچال فراموشی، یک چیز از ما میخواهند:
«صدای ما باشید؛ ما را فراموش نکنید.»
بند ۲ وکیلآباد، تصویری عریان از شکنجه خاموش است:
From Luana, a Princeton anthropologist comments and Agustín Fuentes makes two minor corrections but agrees on the main point, that it’s harder to do classical scholarship in anthropology because it’s a “colonial discipline.” You can count poetry or fiction instead!
Umm, this notion, that there are many modes of dissemination of scholarship is widespread across disciplines. There is not a thing weird about it. Plus, she’s not chair of our dept, I am. And that’s not her “presidential address”. And that is not at all what she is saying.
One from my feed, and as far as I know this is true:
This is what the internet was invented for.
In 1996, a King Penguin called Lala became a local celebrity in Shibushi, Japan. After being rescued from a fishing net by the Nishimoto family, he refused to return to the wild.
Two from Doctor Cobb. The first one is amazing, but surely adaptive, for meals are rare in the dark and briny deep:
Black swallower fish — swell dining in the deep!During a recent ROV dive near Trinidad & Tobago, the #DeepWonders science team — led by @divaamon.bsky.social — collected spectacular footage of a black swallower fish (Chiasmodon sp.) at a depth of 1259 meters.
I found this video on Facebook (below) and investigated further:
It’s the story of a cat named Riley who became the “village cat” of the town of Ambleside in Cumbria, and was so beloved that she’s remembered with a statue. You can see the story at the BBC article below (archived here) and at the Westmoreland Gazette site (second headline). Click screenshots to read the story of Riley.
From the BBC:
A statue has been unveiled of cat found in a snowstorm and later adopted by a town.
Riley, who died in January, was discovered in Ambleside, Cumbria, in 2011 and became a regular face there over the years.
More than £4,000 was raised to create the bronze figure as a way to remember her.
It was made by Cumbrian artist David Cemmick, and will be located in Millans Park, in the spot where she spent most of her time lying in the sun.
Laszlo Papp, who organised the online fundraiser, said: “She never really went into anyone’s home, she was no-one’s pet but also everyone’s”.
He said she was found on an “especially cold day” and he thought she had been abandoned.
Because she was “only little”, he felt sorry for her and started to feed her.
Mr Papp said he did not realise how many people Riley had touched until he had set up the fundraiser.
He added tourists and locals all looked after Riley, and it was a “big sadness for everyone” when she died.
A photo of Riley and her bronze statue credited to Laszlo Papp:
From the Gazette:
The statue will be unveiled on the garden wall of No1 Millans Park, which is where she used to sit, and people would visit her.
There will also be a blue plaque commemoration. The unveiling will be at midday on June 21.
Riley was known by other names in the community, such as the Millans Park Cat and The Dodd’s Cat.
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The YouTube site Latent Creations has several AI-generated cat songs, and we’ve featured one before. Here’s a new one about someone stepping in fresh cat poop; it’s called “You stepped in it.” It must take a lot of work to do this; note that the cat mouths the lyrics properly. (All cat owners are familiar with this experience—either that or stepping in cat vomit.)
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Here’s another beloved cat who recently passed away: this one, a long-haired orange tomcat, died at 19. Curiously, Nutmeg loved to hang out in the local CVS store (an American pharmacy chain). An evil local tried to get Nutmeg booted out of the store, but I gather it didn’t work.
You can read Nutmeg’s story by clicking the headline below from The Oregonian:
In a Saturday Facebook post, Gabi Moore, the owner of Nutmeg, a cat known for frequenting the CVS at Southeast 17th Avenue and Tacoma Street, wrote that the 19-year-old feline had died.
“He led a beautiful, full life, and he’ll forever be remembered by so many people who got to know him and love him,” Gabi Moore wrote
In a Saturday phone call with The Oregonian/OregonLive, Gabi Moore said that she and her husband, Joe, were glad that they could spend Nutmeg’s last years with him.
“It means a lot to us that we were able to give him his retirement life,” Gabi Moore said. “He really fulfilled his purpose in his life here by touching the lives of so many people.”
In May, community members rallied around the elderly cat after someone filed a complaint against Nutmeg with CVS’ corporate offices. Residents circulated a petition in support of their furry friend and sent messages to the pharmacy chain’s customer-service team online.
Age-wise, Nutmeg was literally off the charts. A cat age chart on Chewy.com, an online retailer of pet supplies, tops out at 16, which the site says translates to about 87 for a human. At 19, Nutmeg would’ve been pushing 100.
Nutmeg’s fans mourned his passing in the comments on Moore’s post.
“Devastating news, but grateful to have known this incredible feline who captured the hearts of the neighborhood,” Catherine Pollock-Robinson wrote.
Angela Thompson wrote that she was one of the residents who wrote CVS customer service in support of Nutmeg.
“I was proud to see Nutmeg at my visits. Always gave me a positive purpose for picking up yet another Rx to chase my failing body’s needs,” Thompson wrote. “Our precious animal babies provide us with an elevated life experience and must be honored.”
Elise Friedrich wrote that she met Nutmeg for the first time two weeks ago while out on a walk.
“I had seen so many posts about him on this group and he definitely lived up to the hype. So friendly and enchanting. Walked right up to greet us as we approached the CVS block,” Friedrich wrote. “Thank you for your service, Mr. Mayor, you will be truly missed.”
Here’s a news report about Nutmeg:
The customer who claimed about Nutmeg is BAD. Nutmeg loved being inside, and was even considered an employee. I have no patience for the complainer.
An earlier video about Nutmeg, made when he was still alive.
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Lagniappe: This is true, and you can read some of Li You’s cat poems here.
Here’s one poem translated by by writer Xiran Jay Zhao:
Today we have photos from Ephraim Heller continuing his series on a recent trip to Namibia. Ephraim’s captions and IDs are indented, and you can enlarge his photos by clicking on them.
I continue my series on a May-June 2026 visit to Namibia. I’m organizing the posts by habitat, in the order of our visits, so that you get a sense of the ecosystems. Today’s post features the south-western black rhinoceros (Diceros bicornis bicornis) and southern white rhinos (Ceratotherium simum simum) of Etosha National Park and the adjacent, private Ongava Game Reserve. This is one of the most important rhino populations in Africa. In other African national parks I was happy to see one or two rhinos. On this trip I was surprised and pleased to view dozens of individuals.
[Note to readers: I have a lot of difficulty distinguishing the two species. I would appreciate corrections from experts if I have made an identification mistake.]
White rhino in morning light:
My previous posts documented Namibia’s desert coastline. Etosha National Park lies inland. The region is semi-arid with mean annual precipitation of 300-430 mm (12-17 in) and hot summers with typical temperatures around 40 °C (104°F).
Proclaimed as a reserve in 1907 by the German colonial administration and later reduced by the South Africa administration to just a quarter of its original size due to political and agricultural pressure, the park today encompasses over 22,000 km² (8,500 mi²). It is Namibia’s flagship conservation area. The park is dominated by the Etosha Pan, a ~5,000 km² (1,930 mi²) saline depression that is the remnant of an ancient inland lake.
White rhino at night. You can see the impressive scarring along its torso:
On the southern boundary of Etosha National Park lies Ongava Game Reserve, a private conservation area whose name means “rhino” in the Herero language. Starting in 1991 with the purchase of ~30,000 hectares of former cattle farmland, the Reserve’s ecology has slowly recovered. While the Park is closed to visitors at night, the Reserve caters to photographers with lodges and photo blinds overlooking illuminated waterholes.
White rhino baby nursing at the waterhole at night:
I wondered whether the two rhino species compete with each other. I learned that despite being closely related, they occupy distinct ecological niches. The mopane and mixed woodlands provide critical browse for black rhinos, and the grasslands support white rhinos.
This young male white rhino came too close to a baby. The baby’s mother inflicted this wound as a helpful reminder to respect her baby:
The southern white rhino is the larger of the two species, with adult bulls commonly exceeding 2,000 kg and occasionally approaching 3,500 kg. Despite the name, both African rhinos are grey and no one knows why are they called “white” and “black.” White rhinos are obligate grazers that crop grasses. Their large head is held low and supported by a pronounced hump at the neck.
White rhino with an impressive horn. Note the hump at the neck:
Socially they are more gregarious than black rhinos, often forming small groups of cows and calves, with territorial bulls maintaining more solitary ranges. Southern white rhinos recovered from a severe population bottleneck in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and are currently listed as Near Threatened. They disappeared from Etosha and were reintroduced in the 1990s from South Africa.
White rhino in the grass:
White rhino in dawn light. I love the ear tufts:
Black rhinos are smaller and more compact, typically weighing 800–1,400 kg. Allegedly, their most distinctive feature is the prehensile, hooked upper lip used for browsing leaves, twigs, and shoots from bushes and trees (I can’t distinguish the difference in their mouths). The head is held higher than in white rhinos, and the back shows a saddle-like dip. They are generally more solitary and can be more aggressive.
Rhinos on the way to the waterhole at dusk. I’m told that these are black rhinos, but those sure are big humps:
In the mid-20th century, remaining black rhinos from elsewhere in Namibia were relocated into Etosha. With improved protection and habitat, the population recovered strongly to over 500 black rhinos. Namibia has the south-western subspecies. Etosha is a global stronghold for this population. The species as a whole remains Critically Endangered following catastrophic declines in the 20th century.
Black rhino baby at the waterhole at night:
Poaching remains the primary threat to African rhinos. The news here is mixed. Etosha National Park has not fared well due to its large size and public management, with dozens of rhinos poached annually in recent years. On the other hand, and to their great credit, Ongava has had zero poaching incidents in recent history due to its private ownership, smaller size, and intensive security (dedicated, armed, anti-poaching teams conducting foot patrols; trained canine units; aerial support; and continuous high-tech monitoring). Tourism revenue helps fund security. Dehorning is used selectively in some high-risk areas as an additional deterrent.
This black rhino appears to be a veteran of many battles:
Welcome to CaturSaturday, shabbos for cats of the Tribe and July 18, 2026, as well as Nelson Mandela International Day, celebrating his birthday (he was born on July 18, 1918, and died at in 2013 at 95). Mandela is one of my heroes, and when I was in South Africa two years ago I visited the prison on Robben Island where he was confined for 18 years (it’s now a World Heritage Site). Here’s the sparsely furnished cell that I photographed, with only a table, a pad and blanket for sleeping on the floor and a slop bucket. I didn’t see any pillows. And, as I recall, the lights were left on 24 hours a day.
And here from Wikipeida is a photo of “Mandela casting his vote in the 1994 election”, the country’s first election in which citizens of all races could vote. That resulted in a big victory for the African National Congress and the appointment of Mandela as the country’s first black President.
Paul Weinberg, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the July 18 Wikipedia page.
Da Nooz:
*Footy news. First, if you’re a soccer tan, I urge you to read this post from 2012, in which I interviewed soccer broadcaster and journalist Seamus Malin about the greatest performance, players, and teams in the game. There are videos, too. Seamus, who’s seen all the greats of modern soccer live, considers Lionel Messi the best player in the history of the sport.
At 39, Messi, one of the oldest players in the tournament, sprints less often than he once did and covers less ground. On Sunday, he will play what is almost certainly his final World Cup match. In past tournaments, Argentina has doubted his genius, blamed him for every failure. But he has, without doubt, transformed soccer; he changed not only what a player could do with the ball but also what a player could see before the ball arrived. He made patience an attacking act.
A match contains more than one clock. There’s the official one, bright and remorseless, and there’s the quieter time in which a defender tires, a midfielder loses half a yard, a passing lane remains open one second longer than it should. Messi moves slowly enough to watch that second clock: who follows him, who stops following, where the next space will be. The running belongs to the match everyone can see. Messi waits for the one concealed inside it.
Messi walks not because he’s left the game.
He walks in order to enter it.
He walked like that at 29. He walked like that at 19, too.
The mythology of young Messi was his speed: his low center of gravity, the ball so close to his feet that it appeared less controlled than persuaded, the sudden passage through spaces that didn’t seem to exist until he entered them. But even then his deeper skill wasn’t simply that he moved faster than the game. It was that he saw the game sooner than anyone else.
. . .From 2014 to 2016, Argentina lost three finals in three summers. Germany scored late in the World Cup final. Chile defeated Argentina on penalties in each of the next two Copa América finals. Messi converted his kick in the first shootout and missed in the second; teammates missed, too. But the cameras kept returning to him.
By that third defeat, Messi was no longer merely the greatest player on the losing side. He had become the explanation for why Argentina lost. His genius had become Argentina’s emergency service: Whatever the team failed to solve, he was expected to solve alone. Afterward, he said he was finished with the national team.
But he returned.
In 2018, Lionel Scaloni took over as coach and stopped asking Messi to be the beginning, middle and end of every attack. He assembled midfielders who could win the ball and carry it forward, forwards who could run beyond Messi and pull defenders away, defenders willing to step toward danger rather than retreat from it. Their work created choices. Messi’s genius remained exceptional; it was no longer the entire plan.
Scaloni also surrounded him with younger players who had grown up watching him. They ran for him, argued for him, sang with him. They didn’t ask him to prove his love of Argentina. They played for him, and for one another, as if it were already known.
The transformation became visible in the 2021 Copa América final against Brazil. That victory gave Argentina its first major trophy in 28 years and Messi his first with the senior national team. At the final whistle, he disappeared beneath his teammates’ bodies. He had carried Argentina through the tournament. Now they carried him.
Messi hadn’t outrun England. Argentina had organized the night so that he could outlast it.
The final will have its official clock, bright and remorseless. Messi will be watching the other one.
Well, that’s what a poet sees in Messi’s story. I can’t disagree as a don’t follow Messi that much. But I am rooting for Argentina to win the whole hog. The final, Argentina vs. Spain, will be tomorrow at 2 pm Chicago time, 3 pm Eastern time. Today France battles England for the third-place slot; that game is at 5 p.m. Eastern time (4 p.m. Chicago time), and will be played in Miami.
Here are 20 great goals by Messi. There’s a great bicycle kick for goal #7.
Andy Burnham has declared himself ready to “beat Britain’s new right” with a fresh, united approach as he becomes the leader of the Labour party before taking over as British prime minister on Monday.
The former mayor of Greater Manchester won the overwhelming support of MPs, trade unions and party branches, making him the only choice to take over from Keir Starmer.
At a special party conference at TUC headquarters in London on Friday, Burnham was declared leader by Shabana Mahmood, the frontrunner to be his chancellor, who is also chair of the party’s ruling executive.
Addressing a room of senior Labour politicians and supporters, Burnham said the country was “crying out for a new politics”. But he also warned that it was Labour’s “last chance to change” and the party must do so together, as a united movement.
“This is a proud moment you have given me and my family, and an emotional one,” he said. “It is one for which I am ready – ready to lead and to build on the foundation laid by one person more than any other. Under Keir Starmer’s leadership we went from our worst defeat to one of the best victories in history.”
He said Labour was now united, “and we put the power that comes from that unity at the service of people and places who have been waiting too long for politics to bring them hope again”.
Despite praising Starmer, Burnham sought to draw a line under the past by asking whether Labour has “been good enough”, and pledging to “do better”.
“First, I will work relentlessly to build a culture of one Labour team, because change starts with us,” he said. “We won’t beat Britain’s new right if we are consumed by infighting and pulling in different directions. That is an indulgence.”
I asked Matthew Cobb, who lives in Manchester, if he could give me a quote for publication, and he said this:
“He’s from in between Liverpool and Manchester (supports Everton) but has been mayor of Manchester for the last decade.
“He is a good communicator (unlike Starmer) and doesn’t take himself too seriously. Not clear yet what his government will actually do, although he has made clear his intention to devolve power – his speech correctly identified the 1980s as the source of all Bad Things: neoliberalism, deindustrialisation, denationalisation and loss of local power. (Strikingly and disappointingly he did not mention climate change.)
He took responsibility in the name of his generation of politiicians for letting down people’s hopes and contributing to the current state of public opinion (pessimistic), and said that this was their last chance. Which again seems accurate.”
A liberal Brit has spoken! I need say no more.
*Conor Friedersdorf writes in TheAtlantic about the pathetic defense of Carolyn Rouse (President of the American Anthropological Association) against accusations that her discipline (as well as much of the humanities) has been captured by “progressive” ideology (see my recent post here). Friedersdorf’s article, “Explaining sex to an anthropologist“, is good and also free to access. (Paul Boghossian also has a clearly-written summary of his committee’s report in The Philosopher’s Magazine.)
Rouse, who is also a tenured professor at Princeton, addressed the question during a lengthy interview with The Chronicle of Higher Education. “The idea that there are two sexes is just factually incorrect,” she stated, arguing that “all you need to do is literally type into Google” to see that we know “there are different types of ‘sexes’ and ‘genders.’” In a curious aside, she added, “You may not like it. I don’t know, maybe you want to kill babies that aren’t just XX presenting XX or XY presenting XY, but that’s what we have in this world.” In Rouse’s telling, scholars who believe that biological sex is a useful analytic category are not only wrong but engaging in “nonsensical” speech that is no more fit for consideration in their field than astrology is fit for astronomers. “I still don’t know what people mean” when they assert that sex is binary, she said, or “why that matters to people so much.” She called the belief “very strange.”
Rouse’s comments reveal that she does not even understand the position that she is dismissing. Anthropology is the study of humanity, and scholars in the field are charged with understanding our species, past and present, in all of its diversity. Their ambit includes our belief systems. And a belief in two sexes is one of the most common in human history. That a belief is common does not make it correct, but it is jarring for a leader representing anthropologists to talk about a position held by billions of humans in wildly different times and places as if it is both “very strange” and beyond comprehension.
Scholars are well within their rights to reject the notion that sex is binary—many anthropologists share this view, including Princeton’s Agustín Fuentes, who explains his logic in Sex Is a Spectrum. But instead of a fair-minded appraisal of the matter, Rouse showed conspicuous incuriosity about other scholars’ work. It is striking how little she seems to know about the particular reasons that many fellow scholars believe that biological sex is binary. Just as striking is how she responds to not knowing. She could apply her scholarly tool kit to understand what others think and why. Instead, she treated their view as unworthy of debate and said that academics might be right to keep it out of conferences. She doesn’t “know what people mean”––yet she is certain that their wrongness is settled.
Her interviewer, Stephanie M. Lee, reacted by pointing out that in 2022, in a survey of forensic anthropologists, 42.4 percent of respondents expressed the belief that sex is binary, implying that the question simply isn’t settled in the field. Lee said, “I was wondering how you explain that.” Rouse responded, “I don’t believe in opinion research,” then added, “Not to disparage them, but a lot of forensic people, they’re coroners, they’re doing it in a practicing level, where they’re actually asked on forms to determine whether this body is male or female, oftentimes they haven’t had advanced schooling.” In fact, the journal Forensic Anthropologypublished data on the respondents: 57.9 percent had a doctorate, and another 25.7 percent had received a master’s degree; the most common degree concentrations among respondents were forensic anthropology and biological or physical anthropology. Just 20.5 percent worked in a coroner’s office. And flimsy claims aside, these attacks on survey respondents’ credentials evaded the substance of the matter.
All of this seems contrary to the spirit of anthropology. If the goal of the field is to understand humans, what kind of scholar professes ignorance of a common viewpoint andwhy its adherents value it, and rejects surveys, panels, and debates that clarify what others believe?
. . .In popular discourse, one can doubtless find many weak and flawed arguments for why sex is binary. What hope does anthropology have for understanding those beliefs––which its scholars should try to do, given their overall mission of understanding people––if the field can’t even give a fair shake to scholars with the steelman version? These academics have presented a coherent, internally consistent, scientifically grounded case for sex as binary that many scholars share.
Anthropologists would do their discipline’s reputation some good if they collectively signaled that they have no confidence in leaders who behave this way. To understand humans, anthropologists must be able to understand the humans with whom they disagree.
Well, there may be “many weak and flawed arguments for why sex is binary,” but those are made by ignorarmuses. It remains that if you recognize biological sex among organisms as having to do solely with gamete type, then although some arguments may be poorly made, biological sex is as close to binary as you can come, with the number of exceptions to the concept (not really a “definition”) being roughly between 1 in 20,000 and 1 in 5000. That’s as binary as it gets, and the “exceptions” do not produce a third type of gamete.
*As always, I’ll steal a few items from Nellie Bowles’s weekly news-and-snark column at The Free Press, called this week “TGIF: The high-T Department of War” (she’s referring to Pete Hegseth’s plan to measure the testosterone in U.S. military men, and offer replacement therapy for those with low titers).
→ Joe Biden’s memoir: Joe Biden this week announced his new memoir coming out in November, called Promise Me, America. I keep repeating the title out loud to sort of understand the tone. I guess it’s supposed to be like, promise me you’ll do good. Like a “keep your head up, kid, I’ll be watching from the sky.” But it reads more like, “America was promised to me on my Christmas list.” Anyway, he released a video announcing the book, and it’s very sad to watch. Biden has declined further, as happens in life. The camera cuts every two seconds. His voice is slurred and hushed. Some of his longer words are barely intelligible. After 80, why even be on camera? Who is the one saying “we need him to be doing more on-camera stuff”? And why do I feel like Dr. Jill is gearing up to get him onto Dancing with the Stars?
I don’t say this to be mean. The brutal hands of time come for all of us, if we’re lucky. I say this because the mainstream American media tried to convince us that Biden was completely capable of serving a second term, and that it was conspiratorial and ageist to question it. Does anyone else remember Robert Hur’s report and how brutally he was dragged for it?
Please, Bidens, let this man retire from public life. He’s earned his cantaloupe, and to eat it in peace.
→ Gender-affirming care for all: Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has announced that the government is now going to provide testosterone replacement therapy to troops. He’s calling it “The High-T Department of War.”
“I’m authorizing a new screening program for testosterone deficiency for our service members.” And: “This initiative, it’s not about artificial enhancement. It’s about restoring and optimizing your natural capabilities.” Injecting yourself with testosterone cypionate or enanthate is not artificial enhancement. It’s just rediscovering your natural self, says our chief war man. Also: Breast implants are not artificial, they are a repair; they are the large, perky tits you were supposed to have at age 50 but modern life and evil feminists took from you. We’re simply going back to the natural order of things—and restoring your natural capabilities. Botox is required now too, since you can’t be expected to wage drone warfare with crow’s feet.
Honestly, I support this. I’m pro-optimizing! Give ’em the drugs. Boost up, baby. I’m too lazy and beautiful for plastic surgery, personally, but when I see someone nipped and tucked I salute them. I think to myself: That’s another valiant soldier fighting certain death. We have one life to live—why not risk it all for an extra whistle or two at a construction site? I’m serious. God be with you, I think, when I see a 60-something woman with pillowy, billowy lips. Mine are two pieces of linguini, soon spaghetti, eventually angel hair. In our new, optimized future, people like me will look like Día de los Muertos costumes here for a haunting.
→ DO NOT WATCH THIS MOVIE: Netflix is very upset aboutGone with the Wind. How would we describe the movie? Evil. You want a plot summary? Racism. This is, honest to god, how Netflix summarizes the classic (until people noticed and made fun of it this week and so Netflix deleted it).
I mean, fair enough. I forget the racist parts but I’m sure it’s a racist epic. It was made in 1939. I’m sure it’s also homophobic, if you asked it, and also skeptical of women’s suffrage. We cannot simply light every piece of art on fire because it does not conform to our 2026 morals, I’m sorry, I say, as I flip though my beloved Leni Riefenstahl photography collection, but this is just the way of the world.
My favorite part is that Netflix still describes the movie as “romantic.” Not even “known for its racism” can dim the flame of a steamy romance.
→ Welcome to the DSA: An activist attending Denver’s biggest DSA general meeting to date posted a pic from inside.
“Packed house, line out the door. Big things are happening!” said the caption. Nothing says “I am easily manipulated” like wearing a mask fiveyears past when it is necessary. It’s perfect. Welcome to the DSA! We’re here to make your windows tiny and your breathing difficult.
*The NYT has given a rave review to Christopher Nolan’s new film “The Odyssey,” based of course on Homer’s poem. The movie is nearly 3 hours long, and since it’s the first movie ever filmed in IMAX 70mm format, you’ll have to find a theater with a screen that can handle it properly.
Nolan’s love of movies and commitment to them — to what they can do, what they can be, what they should be — runs like an electric current through his filmography, lighting it, and oftentimes you, up. That passion is in every frame of his monumental adaptation of “The Odyssey,” one of the most Nolan of Nolan spectacles in its thematic concerns, formal playfulness, kinetic thrills and unabashed showmanship. Few directors close the divide between the art film and the blockbuster like Nolan does; fewer still give the audience something to not simply look forward to but also be excited by. Even as he has continued to refine his filmmaking, notably in his narrative experimentation, he always aims to please.
. . .It seems inevitable that Nolan would eventually take on “The Odyssey,” one of the foundations of Western literature. And why not? The story is a trippy, far-out blast, and has the kind of sinuous, complex layering that has become one of his signatures. Credited to Homer, the original poem consists of 12,109 lines of nonlinear, nonstop talk and action featuring gods, mortals, monsters, weird doings, hospitality rituals and oceans of blood, tears and wine. Whatever the adaptation, the tale is so ingrained in our cultural DNA that even those who haven’t read the original — or Joseph Campbell on the hero’s journey — will be familiar with it, having seen a movie or two. It’s Luke Skywalker’s path and WALL-E’s, too.
The most striking thing about this film, other than its being the first feature shot entirely in IMAX, is that it exists. It is an anomalous big-studio entertainment that Nolan has filled with stars — Matt Damon is Odysseus! Zendaya is Athena!— and polished to a high gleam, turning a 3,000-year-old poem into a smart, thoughtful film with Old Hollywood allure. It’s a throwback and of its moment, including in how it adjudicates the costs of war. (Who benefits, and who suffers?) Its hero is, to a degree, the cunning, complicated Odysseus who leaps off the page, but he’s been sweetened and made more psychologically legible for contemporary sensibilities. He’s also played by an appealing actor who excels at elevated everymen.
. . . . The performances are uniformly good, though Damon’s Odysseus is tamped down and notably devoid of charisma, as if he were as hollow as the wood decoy. In action-adventure terms it’s a counterintuitive choice even if it serves Nolan’s tricky, more non-triumphalist ends. One upshot, though, is that few of the actors, Damon included, manage to hold you with the same emotional force that Nolan’s filmmaking does. Both Holland and especially Hathaway have bracingly strong moments, but his character has too little presence and hers remains shrouded in mystery, which Nolan expresses by filming her behind a latticed screen or the threads on her loom. Mother and son are sympathetic; they’re also routinely upstaged by Pattinson’s wildly enjoyable flop-sweating suitor whose demise you hunger for.
. . . .After watching “The Odyssey” again, I flashed on something that Martin Scorsese once said about another film: “The emotion is the emulsion.” Nolan’s gifts are excessively obvious, and even when his characters don’t stir you, his filmmaking does. Among other qualities, he doesn’t know how to make an ugly image and this one is filled with rapturous beauty. Nolan employs beauty strategically, using it to seduce viewers into stories that can seem needlessly byzantine to some — especially by impoverished mainstream industry standards — more the province of the art house than the multiplex. Nolan asks us to dream bigger. His “Odyssey” is a classic in every sense, a transporting affirmation of the art and a work of pure cinema.
Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Andrzej got a gift. He said it was from his “book’s editor used to restore stained glass windows, and she brought this flower for me as a gift. ”
Hili: I know who you got that weird little flower from. Andrzej: So do I.
In Polish:
Hili: Wiem od kogo dostałeś ten dziwny kwiatek.
Ja: Ja też wiem.
From Masih; an Iranian woman talks back to the Morality Police, and then sends the video to Masih:
Now in the middle of the war the Islamic Republic’s intelligence service warns that anyone who sends me videos to Masih Alinejad could face up to 5 years in prison.
Watch it yourself ! This is how Iranian women responded when you criminalized this simple act of civil… pic.twitter.com/ygP1U9NtO3
— Daniel Di Martino (@DanielDiMartino) July 16, 2026
From reader joolz, who says this:
Amnesty UK is in serious trouble. JKR set up a fund a while ago to cover legal fees for women being persecuted by trans activists. She is now offering support for most of the other 117 groups libelled by Amnesty UK….
Also, the Scottish Express reports that the Charity Commission is conducting an investigation of Amnesty International after Rowling lodged a complaint:
Amnesty UK was already smearing feminists as ‘anti-rights’ back in May, according to @thetimes. It appears that, far from being an accidental slip up or an editorial error, the latest defamatory report accurately represents Amnesty UK’s deep-seated hostility to all organisations… https://t.co/U6ldT0134Q
The Young Turks with Cenk and Ana have become Antisemitism Central. Instead of Ana today, let’s look at Cenk, who’s taken to calling all Congressmen who vote to support Israel “Israelis”:
Cenk is upset that the US Congress does not want more Jews to die. So much so that he reverts to labelling (literally) ALL those who disagree with him as “Israeli”, when in fact these members of US Congress are elected, exclusively, by the American public — which he knows.
One from my feed. This is amazing, and I wondered how they got up on those stilts:
A traditional technique used by young shepherds of Ethiopia’s Banna tribe. They use stilts to watch over their livestock in tall grass, move through wetland areas, and avoid snakes and predators like lions and leopards. It requires strength, balance, and training from a young… pic.twitter.com/ef6Rw1T26Z
This Belgian Jewish boy was gassed as soon as he arrived in Auschwitz. He was seven years old, and woul dhave been ninety today had he lived. https://t.co/QRXm3JPGTl
And one from Dr. Cobb: a fabulous fossil—bird tracks!
For #FossilFriday, abundant Eocene (~50 mya) shorebird tracks from the Green River Formation, WY; seen last week in the Tellus Museum of Science, Cartersville GA. 🧪🪨⚒️🐾🐦
Today we have a Friday Flashback fist published 20 years ago (!) The artist notes, “Bad pun. Sorry!”
The theological conundrum here is real, but of course theologians have weaseled their way to an answer (see here, for example). Mo tacitly admits, though, that there’s something to determinism.
