Nature extols Jason Arday

September 3, 2026 • 10:00 am

I thought I was through writing about Jason Arday, but I didn’t anticipate that he would become some kind of hero, or at least that many people would emphasize how he was hounded to death—always pushing the “racism” angle and blaming Cambridge and the press but neglecting the fabulism and preferential hiring that got Arday so much attention.  Now the prestigious journal Nature has published an editorial (see below) that completely neglects two of the main reasons why Arday got so much attention, and pinning the blame for his death on nearly everyone. Luana brought the article to my attention by sending this tweet (note the “Community Note” below it).

As I said, I think there are two reasons why the Arday case got so much attention. The first is the breathtaking extent of his fabulism, involving extensive (and now verified) instances of plagiarism in his Ph.D. thesis, claims of appearances on t.v. shows that he was not on, claims of marathons that he actually did not run, claims of extreme autism that have not been substantiated, threats he said he got that also couldn’t be verified, multiple instances of cancer (also not verified), and many other stories he told that were not credible. Not to mention that he padded his c.v., larding it with positions he never held. Beyond the plagiarm, the Times of London reported that Arday stole another researcher’s work (as well as quotes that the researcher obtained in interviews), publishing it as Arday’s own. If true, this is wholesale academic fraud.

Second, Arday was the youngest black full professor at the University of Cambridge (his speciality was the sociology of education), and one of the few at the University. He apparently had an engaging personality and was lionized by his department, with Hilary Cremin (head of Cambridge’s Faculty of Education and the person who oversaw Arday’s appointment) praising him to the skies in the statement below as “the best in the world at some of the research [he did].”

This lionization was wholly unwarranted. Nature doesn’t mention that this is another reason why Arday’s tragic life and death got so much attention: the case was so egregious that it finally became okay to discuss whether ethnicity and disability should override merit in academic appointments. The fact that many people and media sources fault Cambridge University—even blaming (as does Nature) for Arday’s apparent suicide—shows clearly that Arday’s appointment was questionable at best. (As I’ve said, nobody is responsible for Arday’s death save Arday himself.) It is because of the clear-cut nature of this case that the media jumped on it, though, as I said, one cannot reject the notion that some racism (against Arday) was involved.

Instead, Nature takes up several issues about Arday’s life, ultimately blaming his death on “systemic racism” in academia and in the media.

The first issue is Arday’s plagiarism, which Nature fobs off as having been dismissed by Arday’s Ph.D. university. As Nature says below:

Liverpool John Moores University, the UK institution that awarded the PhD, investigated the allegations [of plagiarism] and concluded that the PhD stands.

But the allegations were correct and John Moores University simply dropped the ball on the whole affair, perhaps to protect what reputation it has. Nature doesn’t mention the academic fraud uncovered by the Times of London.

Nature also blames Cambridge—not for appointing an unqualified professor, but for publicly announcing their investigation of Arday, which, says Nature, violates the confidential nature of the UK disciplinary process. But all Cambridge announced, as far as I know, is that they were investigating the charges—and nothing more (I don’t even think they said which issues they were investigating). Since the media was on Cambridge’s case about Arday, I don’t think that announcing an investigation without giving details is out of line: American universities do it all the time, saying things like “We are not commenting pending an investigation of these accusations.”

It is true that Arday apparently killed himself after Cambridge’s announcement, but it’s not clear that the announcement played the decisive role in the apparent suicide.  Yes, it’s very sad that Arday killed himself when, if he’d been fired from Cambridge, he still could have gone on to have a productive life. He also had kids who now have no dad. But the frenzy to blame every person and institution for Arday’s death save Arday himself just shows that virtue signaling is still with us despite the other side: the more open debate of equity versus merit.

Finally, Nature rushes to blame systemic racism on Arday’s death, and by “systemic” they mean that racism is embedded in the rules and structure of the University itself.  That is surely wrong, though of course one cannot rule out that racism was somehow involved in the media and social-media attention that Arday got.

But systemic racism? Many would say the opposite: that anti-racism is pervasive in academia, to the extent that someone like Arday could even be hired.  Anti-racism is embodied in DEI policies in play at many schools. As I said, now it’s possible to discuss this tension without being demonized as a racist, and in that sense Arday’s life and death could constitute a watershed moment in our discussions of race.

You can read Nature‘s editorial below, which answers the question “Who is to blame for the death of Jason Arday?” by answering, “Academia, the University of Cambridge, systemic racism, and the media.” In other words, everyone but Arday himself.

I’ll just quote part of the article in case you don’t want to read the whole thing, but the link is above and it’s free, so you can read it all. I’ve already given my own comments above, except to say that Nature has really outdone itself this time with both virtue signaling and pointing the fingers at the wrong people.

. . . Arday died after relentless media coverage of his professional and personal life. It is an enormous tragedy for his family, friends, students and colleagues. It is also a catastrophe for the research community. The death of an autistic Black scholar who inspired a generation is shocking. The persistent media attention, the racism that pervaded much of that coverage and the plagiarism allegations against Arday, and the University of Cambridge’s handling of his case all raise difficult questions. These are concerns not only for the institutions involved, but for everyone in higher education and the media.

In this Editorial, we focus on two issues in what is a complex and evolving situation. One is how academic institutions should treat investigations into research misconduct amid unrelenting media attention. Investigations need to be carried out according to transparent processes with appropriate confidentiality for those involved, including whistle-blowers, whose testimony is often central to the outcome. These processes exist to ensure that all concerned are treated fairly and protected from harm, but were they followed? The other, related issue is how the media should ensure fairness when reporting on research misconduct and how it can do so without causing harm.

Arday’s fate is distressing, and especially so for Black scholars and those from other communities that are under-represented in academic research, many members of which report feeling vulnerable and unsupported at this time. There is systemic racism in academia. It is an unwelcoming place for many who enter it through hardship and struggle, as Arday’s story illustrates. It is not acceptable that these barriers persist. On top of this, scholars from Black and other under-represented communities fear that the intensity of attention Arday faced could one day be focused on them. The question many are asking is: ‘Could I be next?’

. . . Matt Walsh, head of journalism at Cardiff University, UK, did an initial analysis of UK media reporting of Arday between 25 July this year — when the latest wave of coverage of the plagiarism allegations started — and 20 August. He counted 242 substantive articles published in the print editions of UK national newspapers and concluded that there is strong evidence of racism. “Framing associated with race is present throughout the sample, and some articles explicitly accuse Cambridge of only appointing Arday as a professor because of the colour of his skin,” Walsh wrote in an article for The Conversation news website that describes his analysis.

. , ,Media organizations are not the only ones whose role in events must now be scrutinized. The University of Cambridge must also explain the decisions it made — in particular its announcement on 5 August, amid sustained media coverage, that it would investigate matters. On the same day, Arday resigned.

According to the code of practice from Acas, the independent UK body responsible for workplace arbitration, including at universities, an employee under investigation is entitled to confidentiality. An investigation is not a disciplinary process, but rather a fact-finding effort to explore whether there is a case to answer. But Cambridge’s decision to announce the investigation amid a media feeding frenzy offered no possibility of confidentiality — and risked adding to the impression that Arday had done something wrong before due processes had been completed.

. . .In his resignation letter, Arday wrote: “The relentless accusations, speculation and public commentary have taken a profound toll on me and on those I love.” He added: “For my own wellbeing, for my family, and for those who have stood by me throughout this difficult period, I have concluded that the only way to bring this chapter to an end is to step away.” He also promised to return “stronger, wiser and with the same determination that has always defined my journey”.

Arday did not return, so it is incumbent on all of us in the media and academia to reflect on our roles and responsibilities. Both research and media organizations have an obligation to communicate information fairly and accurately — and to avoid causing harm to the people they employ or report on. We can and must learn from this tragedy.

I think Nature is learning the wrong lessons.

Readers’ wildlife photos

September 3, 2026 • 8:30 am

Today’s arthropod photos come from a visit to Poland from reader Jan Malik.  Jan’s captions and IDs are indented, and you can enlarge the photos by clicking on them (once or twice):

During my visit to Poland in June this year, I spent a few hours with a macro lens, looking for arthropods in three different habitats: a xerothermic dry meadow, a subalpine bog, and an alpine zone in the Tatra Mountains. I did my best to identify the species, but I can offer no guarantees as they were new to me.

First, the dipterans from the hoverfly family, all Batesian mimics of the more ferocious Hymenoptera. The Common Drone Fly (Eristalis tenax) resembles a honeybee or a small bumblebee quite convincingly; it even buzzes like a bee. I believe this is a female, judging by the widely spaced eyes:

Another hoverfly, this time a wasp mimic, is possibly a Sphecomyia vespiformis. Like all Diptera, its antennae are short, but here, to increase similarity to a wasp with long antennae, they grow from an elongated column on the insect’s face:

Rounding up the order Diptera is a possible Marmalade Hoverfly (Episyrphus balteatus). This female is a peaceful pollinator as an adult, but its larva is a predator of aphids:

Moving over to the order Lepidoptera, the first is a moth (genus Gillmeria); at first sight, I thought it was a crane fly, but long antennae place it firmly as a plume moth, even though I’m not sure which species it is. When at rest, these insects are masters of camouflage, resembling dried-out twigs:

Possibly a Ringlet (Aphantopus hyperantus), which is common in this part of Europe:

A final lepidopteran is a skipper (family Hesperiidae), but it is difficult to pin it down to a species. Possibly a Small Skipper (Thymelicus sylvestris), going by the orange tip of its antenna?:

Now for Coleoptera (beetles): a Black longicorn beetle (Spondylis buprestoides). Both adults and larvae have powerful jaws which they use to chew through the wood of dead trees, accelerating the carbon cycle:

The next insect, from the same longhorn beetle family as the previous one, is a Black-striped Longhorn Beetle (Stenurella melanura), probably a female. The larvae feed on rotting wood, but adults prefer pollen:

Another coleopteran is a Common Red Soldier Beetle (Rhagonycha fulva). Its red color is an honest warning—when disturbed, they exude a fluid containing defensive acids that can cause chemical irritation. Here it feeds on pollen, but like other soldier beetles, if an aphid or a caterpillar is found, it is also eaten.

The last coleopteran, hiding in a flower during the rain, is a leaf beetle from the genus Cryptocephalus (I will go out on a limb and say the Dead-nettle Leaf Beetle, Cryptocephalus aureolus). The genus name originates from its head, which is tucked below the protective chitin armor:

Now for the arachnophiles amongst the readers, an orb-weaver spider (family Araneidae) having a meal out of a fly. Orb-weavers are highly variable in color, changing them to match their surroundings. They recycle their webs often by eating them and spinning new ones:

Another araneae, possibly a Wasp Spider (Argiope bruennichi), is a close European cousin of the common American yellow garden spider. Like its New World relative, it spins a ladder-like structure called a stabilimentum. The discussion is ongoing as to what the adaptive purpose of this structure is: possibly a UV reflector to lure bees or flies, or a warning for birds not to fly into it and destroy it, much like our window decals to prevent bird strikes:

The spider waiting inside the flower is a flower crab spider, likely a pale variant of the common Goldenrod Crab Spider (Misumena vatia); I believe the same spiders are also abundant in North America. The flower could be a bellflower (genus Campanula). These spiders also change color, from greenish to yellow to off-white, matching the flowers where they sit in ambush:

Now for a few Hymenoptera—possibly a Black Garden Ant (Lasius niger) tending to a dense colony of Black Bean Aphids (Aphis fabae). Like many other ant species, they tap aphids with their antennae, and if the sucking hemipteran is ready, it releases a drop of sugary honeydew. In return, ants act as bodyguards, protecting the aphids from predatory hoverflies and ladybugs:

A parasitoid ichneumon wasp, possibly a Hoverfly larva parasitoid wasp (Diplazon laetatorius). It lays eggs in hoverfly larvae or eggs, and the wasp larva waits until its host grows big enough to become a substantial meal, then devours it from the inside. This species is said to be mostly parthenogenetic, with males being a rarity:

Another hymenopteran, a sawfly, is probably the Common Green Sawfly (Tenthredo mesomela). These sawflies are active predators of other small insects:

Lastly, I didn’t expect a Red-banded Froghopper (Cercopis vulnerata). Its two chief weapons are a nice red and black aposematic coloration, a habit of making itself scarce via powerful jumps, and joints in its legs that ooze a foul-tasting hemolymph if a predator decides to bite. Did a scientist actually taste that fluid to report on its bitter taste, or are we still waiting for a volunteer?:

Thursday: Hili dialogue

September 3, 2026 • 7:00 am

Welcome to Thursday, September 3, 2026, and it’s Welsh Rarebit Day, celebrating the British concoction of toasted bread covered with melted cheese. It’s supposed to give you weird dreams, which is the subject of Winsor McCay’s fantastic comic strip of the early 20th century, “Dream of the Rarebit Fiend.” The theme: someone would eat a rarebit before bed, and all bets were off: horrible dreams would inevitably ensue. The strip is famous for its unique artistry, especially for the time; here’s one example, and note in the last panel the attribution of the dream to eating a pre-bed rarebit. I’d recommend getting a whole book of these marvelous cartoons.  Click twice to enlarge:

Wikimedia Commons

It’s also International Cabernet Sauvignon Day as well as National Baby Back Ribs Day. I used to buy BBQ rib tips on the South Side (the ends of baby back ribs), and Uncle John’s was by far the best place. It went extinct when pitmaster Mack died, but then his relatives opened a joint just as good, and pretty close to me on 47th Street: “Uncle J’s BBQ.”  That too is gone, and there is no longer a place to get world-class rib tips in Chicago.  What’s the point of living?

The bearded guy to the left is geneticist Michael Turelli, who was visiting and wanted to sample Chicago’s best BBQ:

Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the September 3 Wikipedia page.

Da Nooz:

*As expected given the exchange of fire the other day, attacks between the U.S. and Iran are intensifying, with Iran claiming that one American attack killed four people and injured many more at a wedding (this claim could not be verified; NYT article is archived here).

The United States carried out a new wave of attacks against Iran on Tuesday, the latest surge of violence to puncture weeks of relative calm as President Trump has tried to pivot from a military campaign to one of strangling Iran’s economy.

U.S. Central Command said it had struck military targets in Iran in retaliation for attacks on ships and American forces in the region. Hours later, Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps said in statements that it had launched missiles on an American military base in Jordan and U.S. military equipment warehouses in Iraq. It warned of fierce retaliations on U.S. interests in the region.

The new strikes came three days after the United States and Iran traded fire for the first time in a month. The latest strikes were far broader and more intense, according to initial reports, and Iranian officials said civilians had been killed, including at a wedding. While it was unclear if the violence would escalate further, the hostilities underscored how remote a durable solution to the conflict remains, six months into a conflict that Mr. Trump once predicted would last a few weeks.

Mr. Trump, in a social media post referring to the Strait of Hormuz, said the U.S. attacks were “large and powerful, and in retaliation for the Iranians’ failed attempt at adding sea mines to the Strait.” He added that “if the failed Nation of Iran retaliates for this very justified attack, they will be hit again at a much harder and higher level.”

U.S. Central Command said in a statement that it had struck air defense sites, radar systems, maritime assets and facilities, mine laying capabilities and communications sites.

Iranian state media said projectiles had hit sites in Chabahar and Konarak, southern port cities east of the Strait of Hormuz. Two Iranian officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the U.S. attacks, said the strikes had also hit several other sites across Iran’s southern shores, including a military base in Bandar Abbas, the perimeter of the commercial airport on Qeshm Island and targets in the cities of Sirik and Jask. The officials said the attacks had caused significant damage.

Are you getting tired of a war conducted in dribs and drabs, one that never seems to end? Join the club. But Iran never seems to level “fierce retalizations on U.S. interests in the region,” as its missiles and drones are always shot down.

*Democratic Representative Tom Suozzi (NY) writes in the Free Press why “Democrats must reject the DSA” (Democratic Socialists of America). His reason:

Millions of Americans are losing faith in their government, their institutions, and an economic system that no longer seems to reward hard work. They struggle to afford housing, healthcare, and education while watching wealth become increasingly concentrated at the top. They’re mad as hell, in other words, and they’re not going to take it anymore.

But if Democrats are going to earn the confidence of these Americans this November and beyond, the answer will not be found in the Democratic Socialists of America’s (DSA) platform. Although relatively small in number—the organization counts 120,000 members in a country of some 330 million people—the DSA is aggressive and disciplined. Candidates affiliated with the group are winning Democratic primaries. But we cannot allow them to drag our party to the far left.

Modern political history offers two stark warnings about what can happen when a determined ideological movement catches a party divided, complacent, or unprepared. We’ll start with the Republicans.

In 1964, GOP leaders badly underestimated Barry Goldwater, a fiercely right-wing Arizona senator. Many considered his views too conservative and his appeal too narrow. But Goldwater’s supporters were better organized and understood that party contests can be won by mobilizing passionate voters while the broader electorate remains divided or disengaged.

Goldwater won the Republican presidential nomination but then suffered one of the largest defeats in history that November. Lyndon Johnson carried 44 states and more than 60 percent of the popular vote.

Eight years later, Democrats experienced their own ideological takeover.

South Dakota senator George McGovern was a decent man, a decorated veteran, and a principled opponent of the Vietnam War. His campaign inspired activists who believed the party needed fundamental change.

But his supporters were more representative of the activist class than of the general electorate. His campaign mastered new primary rules while traditional Democrats divided their support and failed to recognize his strength until it was too late.

McGovern won the nomination in 1972 and President Richard Nixon defeated him easily, taking 49 states and more than 60 percent of the vote. At the same time, however, more moderate Democrats defeated Republicans in a slew of downballot races, retaining control of the House and even expanding their majority in the Senate.

The lesson is not that parties should silence ideological movements. It is that intensity is not the same as broad public support, and success in a primary is not the same as electability in November. That distinction could determine control of Congress in this year’s elections.

I remember both of these election, particularly the second as I campaigned for McGovern. I remember sitting in the Rockefeller University student lounge next to the famous philosopher Saul Kripke as the election results rolled it, and it was a rout. As I recall, McGovern won only Washington D.C. and Massachusetts.  But the fact is that “progressives” have won Democratic nominations for both the House and Senate over more moderate Democrats, and it may well happen that those “progresives” (do I have to keep putting the word in air quotes?) will take over the Senate this fall. Where Suozzi goes wrong is in the last paragraph, for some of these progressive victories are in states that are reliably Democratic, so in those cases victory in a primary is prety much the same as victory in November. See the next item:

*Speaking of progressivism, an 80-year-old progressive who’s in favor of biological men competing in women’s athletics, walloped a younger liber in the Democratic Party primary for a Senate seat (sound familiar)? The other day I wrote about 80-year-old Ed Markey, who takes a position on this one transgender “right” that is opposed by a majority of Americans.  Well, Massachusetts apparently either approves of or doesn’t mind Markey’s stand, as he handily defeated 47-year-old Seth Moulton.(article archived here).

Senator Edward J. Markey, a progressive Massachusetts Democrat who has served in Congress for a half-century, swept past a much younger rival in a primary race on Tuesday, according to The Associated Press.

The victory by Mr. Markey, who at 80 is the oldest senator in his state’s history, came at a moment when many Democratic voters are anxious for the party’s aging leaders to make way for a younger generation. Mr. Markey used a fiercely progressive message and the support of many younger left-wing leaders to ward off Representative Seth Moulton, 47, a moderate Democrat who had campaigned on a message of generational change.

With nearly 80 percent of the vote counted, Mr. Markey led Mr. Moulton by about 30 percentage points.

Mr. Markey will be an overwhelming favorite to win the November general election in deep-blue Massachusetts, positioning him to serve in the Senate until he is at least 86.

. . . This year, Mr. Markey targeted Mr. Moulton over his position on transgender rights. The younger congressman had urged his party after the 2024 election to shift its stance on transgender girls’ participation in girls’ sports, saying he did not want his daughters “getting run over on a playing field by a male or formerly male athlete.”

Mr. Markey, in turn, campaigned as a strong supporter of trans rights, declaring that his opponent had thrown trans kids “under the bus.” Mr. Moulton said he was sorry if his comments had hurt anyone, but he stood by their substance.

Elected Democrats, aware that polls indicate that most Americans do not think trans athletes should be allowed to play in girls’ sports, have almost universally shied away from the issue since 2024. But in a primary in a deeply Democratic state, Mr. Markey appeared to have found a winning argument, saying that “I believe you can be right, but too soon.”

A progressive cavalry also rallied to Mr. Markey’s cause. Senators Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts joined him on the campaign trail. And he received endorsements from younger progressives such as Representative Ayanna Pressley of Boston and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, who is selective about wading into Democratic races.

Ms. Ocasio-Cortez, 36, issued a statement hailing Mr. Markey as an “inspiration to many of us who are committed to building a better future for all.”

And an inspiration for those who are committed to ruining women’s sports as well.

*Over at It’s Noon in Israel, Amit Segal describes how Shin Bet (Israel’s internal security organization) captured the head of Hamas’s internal security organization.

Early yesterday morning, under the cover of air strikes, Shin Bet forces raided a building in the heart of Gaza City and walked out with Moain al-Arabid—the head of Hamas’s Internal Security Apparatus. The man is Hamas’s equivalent to Shin Bet Chief David Zini, but where Zini protects the citizens of Israel, al-Arabid is a central node in the oppression of Gazans, his primary tasks involve purging collaborators, enforcing loyalty, and protecting the leadership.

Before Defense Minister Israel Katz confirmed the operation had succeeded, every Hamas channel was boasting that “alert resistance members” had foiled the raid through sheer vigilance. When further details surfaced, they pivoted to damage control: yes, a hostile force had been exposed and made to pay, and yes, three collaborators were arrested—but the Israelis had only managed to grab an unnamed “senior member” who “happened to be present at the scene,” not the figure they were after.

Now that a picture of a captured al-Arabid has been published, Hamas is working to downplay him as a mere commander within the apparatus rather than its head. But official Hamas publications named him head of internal security for Gaza City back in 2015—eleven years and dozens of targeted killings of senior officials ago. He and most of the current Hamas leadership owe Israel’s security forces a debt of gratitude: most of their promotions were provided by the IDF. By any account, he is a treasure trove—the custodian of secrets on the security of Hamas’s leadership, its counter-espionage, its network of collaborators.

there is a more important point made by this operation. Change the setting from Gaza to Hebron or Jenin and the story becomes considerably less extraordinary—Shin Bet and IDF forces routinely extract terrorists from the hearts of those cities. Not to diminish the tradecraft behind the operation, but its success is, in essence, the fruit of the security regime Israel has established in Gaza over the past three years.

Shin Bet is a good organization with many contacts on the “other side”, and members of Hamas still in Gaza, particularly the bigwigs, will be a bit rattled by this.

Right now I’m reading a fascinating yet disturbing book, Rise and Kill First (Ronen Bergman, 2018), about the history of Israel’s targeted assassinations. These involve not just Shin Bet, but also Mossad as well as the IDF’s intelligence division (Israel has three separate intelligence groups). It’s mesmerizing but, in cases where killings went wrong and many civilians were eliminated instead of the “target”, it shows the moral problems surrounding such endeavors.

*From the AP’s odd news section, we learn of the oldest person to complete hiking the Appalachian Trail. It was a guy who was 91!

More than 14 million older adults fall every year in the U.S., perhaps none so often as 91-year-old Dale Sanders.

By his count, Sanders fell 71 times while reclaiming his record as the oldest hiker to complete the Appalachian Trail. Six were what he calls hard falls, including one that led to a brief hospitalization and another just 200 yards from the finish. But none were enough to permanently divert him from the 2,193-mile (3,530-kilometer) trail that runs between Springer Mountain in Georgia and Mount Katahdin in Maine.

The Appalachian Trail Conservancy defines a thru-hike as completing all of the trail’s sections in any order within a year, allowing for pauses. Sanders started Sept. 6 in West Virginia, hopscotched around with some brief breaks and finished Monday atop Maine’s highest peak, where he paused to pray at the sign marking the summit.

“I had to thank God, and I had to thank my support team and everybody that got me here,” he said.

. . .Sanders was born in Kentucky in 1935, two years before the Appalachian Trail was completed. Bullied as a child for his small size, he gained confidence in solo sports like acrobatics and swimming. He later served in the Navy and retired in 2002 after a long career in parks and recreation.

Sanders holds numerous other age-related records, including becoming the oldest person to paddle the entire length of the Mississippi River, an 87-day trip he started on his 87th birthday.

Here’s the intrepid old git!

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Andrzej had to clean the windows by himself, without divine help:

Hili: Was it you who washed the windows on the veranda?
Andrzej: Yes, because the angels have already flown off to warmer countries.

In Polish:

Hili: To ty umyłeś okna na werandzie
Ja: Tak, bo anioły już odleciały do ciepłych krajów.

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

From The Language Nerds:

From CinEmma:

From Cats That Have Had Enough of Your Shit:

From Masih, another nonviolent protestor sentenced to death, and after torture:

Maarten Boudry found a lot of AI in a Skeptical Inquirer article by Armadeo Sarma (see below), including the use of two nonexistent quotes. The whole piece was 78% AI, and I’m peeved as Luana and I published a piece in there (with no fake quotes!). The journal has issued a correction, but the correction is in the middle of the piece (see here).

From Simon, who says, “It’s that time of year again”:

Well I hadn’t heard from Milo Yiannopoulos for a long time, but it looks like ICE got hold of him and deported him for overstaying his visa. Larry the Cat reacts:

Two from my feed. First, what a little water can do.

Translation from the French:

UNUSUAL: A man discovered a hollow in a tree that he filled with water during the heatwave. He set up a camera trap there for a week to show just how much a simple little water source can be a lifesaver for wildlife. 

I love baby skunks! (I had a pet skunk once that I got as a baby; it was descented). Look at their threat displays.

One I reposted from The Auschwitz Memorial:

From Matthew; this well known museum is closing for good, and it’s very sad:/audrajwolfe.bsky.social/post/3muhvtq7gmk2j’

 

x

Gloria Steinem died

September 3, 2026 • 6:11 am

I guess I’m at the time of life when all my heroes are dying off, because of course they were older than I and I’m no spring chicken. The latest to leave the planet is Gloria Steinem, who died yesterday at 92. Activist, feminist, one of the big figures of “second wave feminism” that promoted women’s equality in all spheres, and co-founder of Ms. Magazine which I read regularly, she was perhaps the first response you’d give when asked, “Name a famous feminist.”  This is from her obituary in the New York Times: (archived here):

Gloria Steinem, the feminist crusader who, in galvanizing the modern women’s movement, helped millions of women develop a sense of self-worth and gain a measure of equality at home, at work and in society at large, died on Wednesday in New York City. She was 92.

Her death was announced in a post on social media, which did not give a cause. It said Ms. Steinem had died peacefully at home, surrounded by loved ones.

Calling herself “an entrepreneur of social change,” Ms. Steinem helped usher in sweeping cultural transformations across virtually every facet of American life, from the boardroom to the courtroom to the bedroom.

For more than half a century, she personified the women’s movement and became its most enduring symbol; her tinted aviator glasses and curtain of streaked-blond hair parted in the center made her one of the most recognizable women in the world.

She was an unlikely revolutionary. Growing up a transient in the Midwest, she was 10 when her parents divorced and she was left to mother her mentally anguished mother — a formative experience that reverberated throughout her life. She had scant formal education until sixth grade; her big dream, as a budding tap dancer, was to become a Rockette.

But she read voraciously, graduated from college with honors and believed fiercely that women should be able to live whatever life they chose.

Her own feminist awakening didn’t come until her mid-30s, when, as a journalist in 1969, she attended a “speak out” of women discussing their illegal abortions. Charismatic, articulate, media savvy, deeply empathetic and a workaholic, she evolved into a political and cultural force.

She led protests and consciousness-raising sessions, wrote essays and delivered speeches, delved into political organizing, helped establish rape crisis centers and shelters for battered women, founded numerous groups that promoted women and had the Midas touch when it came to raising money for their causes.

She was a columnist for New York Magazine, and the article below, written in 1969, is touted as having pushed her into the limelight (click to read):

The piece is about the rise of third wave feminism, and this is how it ends:

But there is bound to be a time of, as social anthropologist Lionel Tiger puts it, “increased personal acrimony,” even if the revolution fails and women go right back to darning socks. (Masculinity doesn’t depend on the subservience of others, but it will take us a while to find that out.) It might be helpful to men—and good for women’s liberation—if they just keep repeating key phrases like, “No more guilt, No more alimony, Fewer boring women, Fewer bitchy women, No more tyrants with all human ambition confined to the home, No more ‘Jewish mothers’ transferring ambition to children, No more women trying to be masculine because it’s a Man’s World …” (and maybe one more round of “No more alimony”) until the acrimony has stopped.

Because the idea is, in the long run, that women’s liberation will be men’s liberation, too.

She was one of those figures that you implicitly think will live forever, and who you never imagine might be getting old, and so the announcement of her death was a shock.

Here’s a bit from Wikipedia about Steinem and ageing:

Commenting on aging, Steinem said that as she approached 60 she felt like she entered a new phase in life free of the “demands of gender” she had faced from adolescence onward.  When asked about her desired legacy, she said she hoped her work “might help individual people… to become more the unique, valuable, loved and lovable person that they want to be.” In 2026, Steinem was interviewed as part of a New York Times essay asking about how it felt to reach 80. The article was released to coincide with the 80th birthday of sitting United States President Donald Trump; Steinem said the worst part of turning 80 was “losing people you love”. When asked if she had advice for Trump specifically, she replied: “Resign”.

Here’s Steinem in 1977, when she was 43:

Photo by Lynn Gilbert, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Here’s rare interview with Steinem in her New York condo, conducted in her last year of life. It’s 80 minutes long, and be sure to listen to her claim that “we have an asshole in the White House” (1:03:06).

Readers’ wildlife photos below

September 2, 2026 • 8:21 am

I stupidly set the wildlife post to appear at 6:15 a.m. instead of the usual 8:15, and so you may have received an email that goes nowhere, as I reset the posting for the usual time.

At any rate, you’ll want to see Bruce Lyon’s photos and four videos of Arctic foxes that he took in Alaska, and that post is right below this one—at this link.  Have a look.

Readers’ wildlife photos

September 2, 2026 • 8:15 am

Bruce Lyon has returned with Part 2 of his adventures with Arctic foxes, including photos and several videos.  Bruce’s captions and narrative are indented, and you can enlarge his photos by clicking on them.

Here is a second batch of photos and videos of arctic foxes (Vulpes lagopus) on St Paul island. First batch here.

A parent resting by its den:

Below, a video from a couple of years ago of a very tame fox at the dump. Every time I went to the dump to check on some rosy-finch nests, this individual would run up very close to me and run circles around me, whining and barking and jumping up at me. I was amused and thought the fox was being friendly and curious but another biologist told me that this could be aggressive behavior—perhaps the fox was defending its den a bit too aggressively. That biologist had been bitten by foxes before:

This year we had a similar close encounter of the fox kind but this fox was at the harbor for the food and did not seem to have a den nearby. It seemed genuinely playful and curious and was particularly keen on nibbling my assistant’s rubber boots. Who doesn’t enjoy a chaw of boot rubber once in awhile?:

Earlier the fox in the above video had been munching on a clam that it probably got from the nearby pile of dredge material being scraped up from the floor of the harbor in a harbor improvement project. The dredge sediment seemed to be chock full of inverts like clams and seemed popular with at least a few foxes.

Back to the foxes with dens close to our lodging—one of these adults takes a large salmon tail to its pups:

If the pups are hidden in the den when a parent arrives with food the parent will sometimes just dump the food on the nearby beach for the pups to find later. The thick-billed murre carcass in the photo below was lying on the beach for some time before a pup finally discovered it:

Food fight or play? A couple of pups squabbled over a dead crab. I didn’t see much in the way of them eating the crab—either the crab was too far gone to be worth eating or the shell was a barrier:

A few photos of pups playing around the two dens near my lodging:

The pups do a lot of pouncing—here a pup pounces on a piece of cardboard:

Below, but it’s much more fun to pounce on a sibling:

Sometimes the squabbles among the pups seem like real fights. Below is a video of a family that had a den under a large metal CONEX container in town. Two of the pups seem to be having a serious fight, evidenced by the screaming. Normal play is not accompanies with this screaming. Perhaps these squabbles are used to establish dominance. Some studies have observed dominance hierarchies among the pups—the dominant individuals defend prey items and also take it from subordinates:

Here’s a video of the same family with a more playful scene:

Adult foxes that I at first thought were playing were more likely having a serious fight. This was near the harbor on a day when there were a lot of foxes hanging around, most of them peaceably. I saw these two foxes in the middle of the road, seemingly frolicking. One of the foxes was on its back in the typical dog submissive posture while the other was standing over it. All of a sudden the  one standing went at the submissive one, which ran like hell, right towards me. Look at the glorious fluffy tail on the fleeing animal!  My colleague Paula White, who has studied this population of foxes, tells me that fleeing subordinates often wave their tails in the face of the pursuers. Perhaps it is better to get bit on the tail than the butt? Waving a fluffy tail might also distract and confuse the chaser:

I will end with a family portrait:

Wednesday: Hili dialogue

September 2, 2026 • 6:45 am

Welcome to a Hump Day (“Dina Punuk” in Javanese), Wednesday, September 2, 2026, and National V-J Day, celebrating the surrender of Japan in WWII, ending the war for good. When I was in Hawaii in 2018, I visited the ship U.S.S. Missouri where the surrender document was signed. Here’s a photo of the spot where the war ended, along with the ship itself (you can walk around the living quarters on your own) and a photo from the ship of the surrender:

Here’s a short video of the surrender, showing the ceremony at the end:

It’s also National Blueberry Popsicle Day, National Grits for Breakfast Day (do not eschew the tasty grit), and World Coconut Day, which we’ll celebrate with a very short clip:

. . . and it’s going to be a hot one in Chicago, with a predicted high of 93°F or 34°C. It was hot and humid yesterday, too, and the ducks don’t like it. They had little appetite and were resting in the shade (remember, they’re wearing permanent down jackets). The squirrel were prostrate, too. Here’s one of my sciurid friends flattened under a banch:

Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the August 1 Wikipedia page.

Da Nooz:

*By a vote of 5-4, with Chief Justice John Roberts joining the liberal justices on the losing side, the Supreme Court decided that Trump can continue demolishing the East Wing of the White House to build his ridiculous ballroom (archived article here).

A divided Supreme Court on Monday allowed construction to continue on President Trump’s luxury White House ballroom, which has been steadily rising to replace the East Wing the president tore down last fall.

In a 5-to-4 vote, the court said the preservationists who challenged the construction of the planned 90,000-square-foot ballroom did not have legal grounds known as standing to bring their lawsuit because they were not directly harmed by the project, estimated to cost $400 million.

The majority emphasized that its order was not addressing the legality of the project and instead the question of who could sue to try to block it. But in practical terms, the order was a significant setback to the most serious legal challenge to the project, meaning the president seems likely to be able to complete construction. Halting the project now would probably require a fresh lawsuit from an individual or group with standing, such as Congress, which would be a nonstarter while Republicans control the House and Senate.

In an unusual lineup, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and the court’s three liberal justices dissented, saying the construction was “likely unlawful.”

The White House is “an iconic American building whose symbolism and history are wrapped up in its architecture,” the chief justice wrote in a lengthy dissent that quoted from Winston Churchill and Theodore Roosevelt. “All the more reason to ensure that those responsible follow the rules in deciding what to tear down and what to build up at the People’s House.”

Monday’s order reversed lower-court rulings that would have halted aboveground construction because the judges found that the administration had exceeded its authority by moving ahead with major changes to the White House campus without congressional approval.

It’s effectively all over; by the time this gets adjuciated with the plaintiffs having genuine “standing,” the ballroom will be built. And don’t all Americans have standing, as the White House is owned by the government: us? Aren’t we harmed by our representatives not having a say in this demolition and reconstruction project?

*The jurors in the Lindsay Clancy case have been unable to reach a verdict.

The jury in Lindsay Clancy’s murder trial did not reach a verdict Tuesday and was instructed by the judge to return to court Wednesday for a fifth day of deliberations.

The jury requested to be excused for the day hours after telling Judge William Sullivan that it was deadlocked and could not reach a unanimous decision. Sullivan had told the jury to continue deliberating.

After returning to the courtroom briefly just after 3:30 p.m. ET, Sullivan excused the jury.

Clancy, wearing a green top, looked at the jurors as Sullivan thanked them for their work in the case.

Under Massachusetts law, Sullivan can encourage the jury to go back to the jury room, but not more than twice unless the jury consents to it. If the jury still cannot reach a unanimous verdict, the judge can declare a mistrial.

. . .The jury is weighing whether to convict Clancy of first-degree murder after she was accused of using exercise bands to strangle her three children — Cora, 5, Dawson, 3, and Callan, 8 months — in the basement of their Duxbury home in January 2023. Her then-husband, who was running errands at the time, found her outside underneath a second-story window following a suicide attempt that left her paralyzed from the waist down.

. . . The jury also has the option to convict her of lesser charges, including second-degree murder and manslaughter, or absolve her of the crime or deem her not guilty by lack of criminal responsibility. If the jury finds her not criminally responsible, that means that jurors believe she could not control her actions because she was in psychosis.

If there is a mistrial, the state then has to decide whether to give up or ask for another trial, which will be as long and laborious as the first one.

*The WSJ announced that two oil tankers were hit by rockets as they tried to transit the Omani-controlled waters of the Strait of Hormuz.

Two tankers carrying Saudi oil were hit by rockets and other munitions within minutes of each other while trying to make a midnight crossing of the Strait of Hormuz, maritime security firms said.

Vanguard said a Liberian-flagged tanker was hit by three rockets off the coast of Oman. Eight minutes earlier, a Saudi-flagged vessel also took multiple hits, Marisks said.

Both were traveling through the southern reaches of the strait along a corridor the U.S. has set up to break Iran’s chokehold of the waterway. Iran began attacking ships in the corridor just weeks after signing a preliminary deal with the U.S. in mid-June to reopen the strait.

“The near-simultaneous incidents represent a further escalation in the threat environment within the Omani corridor,” Marisks said. “The incidents also further undermine any assumption that the Omani corridor represents a reliably protected or lower-risk passage.”

The targeted vessels, Liberian-flagged Senegal Prosperity and Saudi-flagged Sidr, both loaded 2 million barrels of crude from the Saudi port of Juaymah near Ras Tanura a few days ago, according to commodities-data provider Kpler.

No one claimed responsibility for the attacks, but Iran has been firing regularly at ships to assert its hold on the waterway, a crucial conduit for energy exports, which Tehran has crimped since the beginning of the war.

. . .The U.S. says it is shepherding several ships a day through the strait to help ease pressure on global oil supplies. The ships typically cross at night with their transponders off to make them hard to track.

Iran is continuing to strike ships nonetheless. It hit a Kuwaiti tanker last week, among more than a dozen fired at during August.

The Liberia-flagged Senegal Prosperity is managed by a unit of Sinokor Maritime of South Korea, according to its safety-certification provider, Bureau Veritas. The Saudi-flagged Sidr is owned and operated by the national shipping carrier of Saudi Arabia, Bahri, according to the company’s website.

I’m not sure why Saudi Arabia, which owns one of the tankers, isn’t really ticked off, and why Oman, whose territorial waters were being traversed, isn’t equally angry. These would seem to be war crimes, and for sure they’re Iran’s proclamation that they think they control the Strait of Hormuz. We really should bomb Kharg Island now, as this dribbling out of attacks serves no clear purpose.

*The Washington Post gives a list of 15 college and universities that charge undergraduates over $100,000 per year for tuition, housing, books and fees (article is archived here). The University of Chicago is #3, and several schools charge between $99,000 and $100,000 (they’re apparently like stores that give sticker prices like “$4.99”).

With remarkable speed, more colleges and universities are crossing a new threshold: charging undergraduates over $100,000 for tuition, housing, books and fees. Fifteen schools cost six figures now, whereas a year ago there were only two, according to the Princeton Review.

At least nine other colleges are on the cusp of joining the $100K club, and higher education experts say the trend will only continue.

But how much does that matter? And what does it say about the state of college affordability?

The prevalence of six-figure institutions seems to give credence to the sentiment that higher education has become unaffordable, but college pricing is far more nuanced than the numbers suggest. In fact, research shows that while the cost of attendance is going up, the actual amount students pay has stagnated or even ticked down a bit for most families.

Sticker prices — the total cost of attendance — are published and widely circulated, but they are not the best indicator of what many families will pay because colleges offer scholarships and grants based on financial need or academic merit that reduce the cost.

One of the best ways for families to figure out whether they can afford a college is to check out the net price — what students pay after grant aid is applied. Net price calculators create estimates based on family income and other financial details.

Some of the most expensive schools provide some of the most generous financial aid to students from low- and middle-income households.

Take the University of Chicago, where the sticker price is $103,821 for the 2026-2027 academic year, but the average need-based scholarship for undergrads is $78,651. The university also covers tuition for families earning less than $250,000 a year — a growing trend among prestigious (and expensive) schools. A Washington Post analysis found nearly 1,000 colleges and universities that offer free tuition (see the list here).

Here’s the chart below; note that all colleges reduce that fee substantially based on need, but, as far as I know, foreign students have to pay the full fare. For others, the highest out-of-pocket price apepars to be at Fordham University, at a bit more than sixty thousand dollars per year. That’s still nearly a quarter of a million dollars over four years.

Elizabeth Weiss, writing at Skeptic Magazine, argues that “Repatriation and reburial of sht needs to be stopped.” Yes, she means actual human feces (why the asterisk?), and gives another example of ridiculous sacralization of Native American “relics” (h/t Luana).

Through the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA),1 the U.S. Department of the Interior’ National Park Service at Mesa Verde National Park in Colorado plans to repatriate bags of human feces to tribes for reburial.

NAGPRA was passed in 1990 to assist federally recognized modern tribes in claiming affiliated human remains, funerary objects, sacred entities, and materials of cultural patrimony from federally funded institutes, such as museums, national parks, and universities. Human remains and these specific types of artifacts insufficiently linked to a modern tribe through a preponderance of evidence, which included historic documents, biological evidence like DNA, archaeological data, geographic links, and oral histories, were to remain at the institutes for further research and exhibition.

Artifacts and other materials found at sites that were not funerary objects, sacred objects or objects of cultural patrimony, regardless of the links to modern tribes, were to remain in institutions for research and exhibition. The definitions for these categories are clear. Funerary objects are “objects that, as a part of the death rite or ceremony of a culture, are reasonably believed to have been placed with individual human remains either at the time of death or later.”2 Thus, for an item to be a funerary object, the object had to be placed in the grave intentionally, for an individual deceased person.

Prior to 2024, these decisions were made by archaeologists based on the archaeological record, historic documentation, and ethnographic data. Then, tribes were consulted about repatriation of the materials determined to fit into these categories.

The consultation first system has led to a list of absurdities. The latest of which include a notice of inventory completion from Colorado that identifies “bags of human feces” as “funerary objects” and, thus, subject to repatriation.4 From Mesa Verde National Park, Montezuma County, Colorado:

At site 5MV640 (Spruce Tree House) “[t]he 148 associated funerary objects are 91 human-chewed fiber quids, one bag of human feces, and 56 animal bones.”
At site 5MV650 (Square Tower House) “one bag of human feces” was listed as a funerary object.
At site 5MV1200 (Long House) “46 lots of human feces” were listed as funerary objects.
At site 5MV1452 (Badger House) “one bag human feces” was listed as a funerary object.

. . . One may wonder whether Native Americans really did intentionally bury their ancestors with feces. Are feces funerary objects? No archaeological evidence of this practice exists in the Americas. There are many articles on coprolites, paleofeces, and feces in the archaeological literature, but none of them point to evidence that feces were funerary objects in the Americas.

. . .Regardless of the reason for the increase in repatriation of feces, there’s clear evidence that feces–whether human or other species–are not funerary objects. By accepting the repatriation and reburial of feces, archaeologists are opening the door to even more absurd repatriations. The field will be lost to activists–if it has not already been lost. Narratives about America’s past will be controlled by those with no interest in the truth.

When all the collections–from human remains to feces–are reburied, our ability to truly understand the past–and, therefore, our shared humanity–will be buried too.

You can read about all this mishigas, in which the sacralization of Native Americans keeps objects out of the realm of scientific and historical study, in Weiss’s book Reburying the Past: The Effects of Repatriation and Reburial on Scientific Inquiry. Needless to say, she’s been drummed out of her job because of her stand. 

*Clickbait for me: ducks and insomnia together! Here’s a book that just came out, and though the author is E. B. White (1899-1995), it’s a children’s book based on a poem that White wrote. Click on the cover to go to the publisher’s page:

The publisher’s notes (their bolding):

Even the most restless reader will find peace and quiet in this breathtakingly illustrated book about the magic of nature, nighttime, and a duck who can’t sleep, based on a poem by the renowned E.B. White which was published in The New Yorker in 1928 and now appears for the first time in book form.

How surprised I was to see

A duck as wide awake as me.

Long past bedtime, two creatures sleeplessly wander around and around the reservoir in New York’s Central Park. What woes and wonders keep them awake so late?

Based on a poem originally published in The New Yorker by the legendary author E.B. White, and marvelously illustrated by two-time Caldecott Honoree Melissa Sweet, the book you hold is a love letter to nature in unlikely places, a testament to the power of imagination, and a balm to restless readers everywhere.

The poem was called Natura in Urbe (“Nature in the City”) can be found at this site, but only if you have a New Yorker subscription.  I’d love to see it!

From an archived article in the Portland Press Herald:

White’s latest book, published some 40 years after his death, is called “The Duck Can’t Sleep.” The text is a poem he wrote for The New Yorker magazine in 1928 called “Natura in Urbe,” with new art by Portland author and illustrator Melissa Sweet. It’s full of whimsical wonderings about a sleep-deprived duck and what might be keeping him awake. It goes on sale Sept. 1.

Martha White, who lives in the Midcoast, rediscovered the poem and thought it would make a good children’s book, with its fun rhymes and vivid images. The duck swims around New York’s Central Park reservoir long after dark, while the rest of the natural world is in slumber, his “head a-wobble” and his “tail a-bobble.” In the poem, White seems worried about the duck and what was weighing so heavy on his mind.

“I wondered if he’d left his kind / Because of something on his mind / A midnight sail to clear his vision / And help him reach some duck decision.”

The duck is a male, of course; nobody has any respect for hens.  Remember that White wrote both Stuart Little and Charlotte’s Web.

. . . “The Duck Can’t Sleep” includes a two-page foreword by Martha White, tracing her grandfather’s love of waterfowl back to childhood trips to Belgrade Lakes, where his family rented a camp on Great Pond. He raised squabs at the family home in Mount Vernon, New York, and later, after buying his farm in Brooklin, Maine, in the 1930s, he raised “gray geese for the table and Muscovy ducks for fun.”

She explains that her grandfather was a young bachelor living not far from The New Yorker offices and the Central Park reservoir when he published the poem in 1928. In his own journal, he had written about having trouble sleeping, and walking around the reservoir to figure things out. On one walk he debated whether to quit his job. The New Yorker is now well known for its writing and wit, but at that time it was just three years old.

“Like the small duck in this poem, White was a man who worked out his word tangles or life’s conundrums by perambulating, and he was never a sound sleeper,” Martha White wrote. “He’d once had a mattress delivered from the Algonquin Hotel (in Manhattan) to his place in Maine because he had enjoyed an unusually good night’s sleep while there for work.”

Sweet decided to write her book about White after illustrating several picture book biographies. She was fascinated with how White wrote three children’s books that, in her mind, were masterpieces: “Charlotte’s Web,” “Stuart Little” and “The Trumpet of the Swan.” As a children’s book writer herself, and a fellow Mainer, she wanted to know how he did it.

This book would make a great Christmas (or Hanukah or Coynezaa) present for a duck lover.

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili and Andrzej have a cuddle:

Hili: You finally tore yourself away from the computer.
Andrzej: Yes, because I have to do the dishes.
Hili: But you picked me up.
Me: Because it puts off a less pleasant task.

In Polish:

Hili: Nareszcie oderwałeś się od komputera.
Ja: Tak, bo muszę pozmywać naczynia.
Hili: Ale wziąłeś mnie na ręce.
Ja: Bo to oddala mniej przyjemne zajęcie.

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

From CinEmma:

From Cheryl’s Amazingly Positive, No Politics Allowed, Interesting People Grouop:

From Funny and Strange Signs:

From Masih: Another death sentence from Iran for nothing serious, only closing a curtain shop and going to a protest.

From Luana; another day, another made-up story from Jason Arday:

From Loretta, a captcha:

From Anna; Canada is poaching the wrong academics, and hiring for equity rather than excellence is costing Canada a lot of money.

Two from my feed. First, cygnets!

And then, religiously based immorality:

One I reposted from The Auschwitz Memorial:

One from Doctor Cobb; the Nepal deluge:

The sheer force and scale of the Nepal landslide is far beyond anything I've seen before. New footage from @ pilulaespacial on IG.

— Dave Vetter (@davidrvetter.bsky.social) 2026-08-30T18:54:53.563Z