Today’s covert anti-Israel slant on the news

March 22, 2026 • 10:45 am

As usual, I watched the NBC Evening News last night, even though some of its reporting has seemed slanted against Israel.  Since I wrote about the Guardian article yesterday, though, I’ve become more sensitized to how the media uses language to express political opinions—even in supposedly objective news reports.

Here’s a video showing all the NBC Evening News from last night, but you don’t have to watch it all unless you want to see bodycam video of a clearly inebriated Justin Timberlake being arrested for DUI (17:05).  The part that made me prick up my ears is at 4:07, when the news shows cute little Lebanese Muslim kids getting presents at the end of Ramadan. But they are not in their homes.  The narration says this (bolding is mine):

While across the Muslim world, the end of Ramadan means presents for children.  These kids are among the one million people displaced in Lebanon by Israel’s expanding offensive against Hezbollah.

The rest of the short segment seems designed to evoke the viewers’ sympathy for Lebanese people—especially the kids—displaced by the wicked Jewish state.  And indeed, it’s sad that people have to flee their homes. HOWEVER, the report neglects to mention that there had been a cease-fire between Israel and Hezbollah that largely held until March 2 of this year. Then, on March 2, three days after the U.S. and Israel struck Iran, Hezbollah in fired a barrage of missiles and drones from Lebanon at northern Israel, explicitly saying that this was in response to the killing of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and what Hezbollah called were “repeated Israeli aggressions” (there were minor attacks by both sides during the ceasefire, with UNIFIL and the Lebanese government failing to rein in Hezbollah, as they are supposed to. Israel responded big time, but to construe that as an “expanding offensive” minimizes the defensive nature of Israel’s attacks, designed to stop Hezbollah’s rockets and drones for once and for all.

Again, it’s a small remark, but a telling one. “Expanding offensive” implies that Israel started the attacks in Lebanon going on now.  It didn’t, just as Israel didn’t start the war with Hamas on October 7.

But at the end you might want to see the inevitable “there’s-good-news-tonight” segment (several nice pieces starting at 18:05, with an especially moving bit at 19:54 as a woman is assigned to take the final call from an Air Force officer as he leaves the military—an officer who happens to be her dad).    As the world is falling apart, nearly all the major television news stations like to leave viewers with a good taste in their mouths.

Bill Maher’s new rule: Hot take nation

March 22, 2026 • 10:00 am

There’s simply no news today, I’m exhausted from lack of sleep, and as I looked at the latest draft posts I have (there are over 2,600 drafts, most of which will never see the light of day), I was not inspired to write anything, though there are two science posts that I’ll be working on. We’ll see if anybody reads them.

Ergo, enjoy Bill Maher’s comedy-and-politics bit from his latest episode of Real Time. In this 8.75-minute segment,  Maher decries Terminally Online Disease (TOD), one of whose symptoms is the fervent need to express an opinion on everything. (The video begins by excusing cat haters, who include Oscar-winning actress Jessie Buckley—not a propitious start.) Maher then goes on to criticize people who spend all their time doomscrolling through social-media sites on “devices”, mistaking what they read for a national or international consensus and apparently anxious to get outraged.  The scrollers are contrasted with regular people who have “shit to do.”

All told, it’s a pretty curmudgeonly bit and not as funny as his usual shticks.  But it’s all I got.

The guests were Tristan Harris, co-founder of the Center for Humane Technology, Paul Begala, CNN contributor and Democratic strategist, and Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL). 

Readers’ wildlife photos

March 22, 2026 • 8:15 am

Today we have some travel and wildlife photos from reader Jan Malik.  Jan’s captions are indented, and you can enlarge the photos by clicking on them. (Don’t miss the Taiwan barbet!)

Here are a few pictures I took during my short stay in Taipei, Taiwan (Republic of China) in 2016. Business trips usually allow very little time for sightseeing — the familiar, morbid cycle of airport → hotel → conference room → hotel → airport — but on this occasion I had a few free hours in the afternoon. Naturally, I decided to explore the nearby Taipei Botanical Garden with a birding lens that mysteriously strayed into my suitcase:

On my way to the Botanical Garden, I visited the National Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Park and Hall, the latter built in the late 1970s after the President’s death. I include it here for documentary reasons — who knows how long it is going to survive, given the volatile political situation.

Inside stands a larger‑than‑life sculpture of the Generalissimo. Taiwan’s history is typical of right‑wing dictatorships which, like South Korea, Spain, or Portugal, began as oppressive authoritarian regimes and then evolved into genuine democracies. Conversely, left‑wing dictatorships typically resist fundamental change and persist until their eventual collapse:

Onward to wildlife. The entrance to the Mausoleum was guarded by a lion (Panthera leo var. lapideus):

Already in the Botanical Garden, I encountered a cat, doing what cats do best – contemplating:

In one of the alleys I came upon a sizable crowd — people were observing local celebrities, a pair of nesting Oriental magpie‑robins (Copsychus saularis). The birds seemed completely unfazed by the attention, the male singing and standing guard at the nest;

These birds are bold and well adapted to human habitats. The female does most of the feeding; here she brings an unidentified moth to her chicks in a rotted‑out branch stump:

At a nearby pond I spotted a duck. It was likely a domestic bird, possibly with a dash of wild Mallard  (Anas platyrhynchos) ancestry:

The pond was full of lotus plants, which provided excellent habitat for the Common moorhen (Gallinula chloropus). Like all rails, these birds have relatively small wings and strong feet, well suited to foraging on land as well as in water. They swim well despite lacking webbing between their toes. These traits help explain why, when rails successfully colonize remote predator‑free islands, they often evolve reduced flight or complete flightlessness;

Moving further along the park alleys, I spotted a Taiwan barbet (Psilopogon nuchalis) looking out of its nest cavity. As an endemic species, it was a special find for me. Barbets vary widely in sexual dimorphism — in the Taiwan barbet the sexes are practically indistinguishable, in others (like the Coppersmith barbet) the differences are subtle, and in still others (such as the Red‑and‑yellow barbet) they are striking. I wonder why, in this species, bright coloration in females is not maladaptive. Perhaps the fact that they are obligate cavity nesters shields incubating females from predators. The same logic applies to woodpeckers, whose sexes are also similar aside from modest red patches in males:

Shortly after the barbet, I hit another jackpot in my endemics count — the Taiwan blue magpie (Urocissa caerulea). Like other corvids, it is social and omnivorous, and like Taiwanese barbets, it is sexually monomorphic. Corvids also evolved cooperative breeding: fledglings often remain with their parents and help raise the next brood. This likely evolved through kin selection. Why does it work so well in corvids and not in most other birds? Perhaps in environments with limited resources, young birds have better reproductive success by helping relatives than by attempting to breed independently?:

Having spent some time observing the magpie, I moved on — my remaining time before the flight was getting short. Soon I saw another first for me, though a common sight in Southeast Asia: the light‑vented bulbul (Pycnonotus sinensis). An omnivorous bird, here it was about to snatch a ripe fig:

Moving on, I photographed a dragonfly, which I believe is a male Crimson Marsh Glider (Trithemis aurora). These insects are sexually dimorphic, with olive‑colored females. This male appears to be orienting its abdomen toward the sun to reduce the surface area exposed to solar radiation and prevent overheating — a behavior known as “obelisking”:

Near the Botanical Garden exit I saw the last animal in this series, the Eurasian tree sparrow (Passer montanus). They always bring a smile to my face. Unlike many other sparrows, the sexes are alike. In 1958 they were targeted during China’s “Four Pests” campaign, a fine example of how ideology can override basic biological understanding:

While driving toward the airport that evening, I saw a Buddhist temple by the roadside, adorned with a symbol that, in European cultural circles, evokes entirely non‑religious sentiments. It was adopted in the 1920s by the National‑Socialist German Workers’ Party, but in Asia it is an ancient religious emblem. It is not identical to the Hakenkreuz — it “rotates” counterclockwise — and its meaning here is entirely benign:

 

Sunday: Hili dialogue

March 22, 2026 • 6:45 am

Welcome to Sunday, March 22, 2026: Sabbath for goyische cats and International Day of the Seal.  Here’s a seal—I forgot the species)—resting on a piece of iceberg (photographed off Svalbard last July):

It’s also Buzzard Day, National Bavarian Crêpes Day, National Broccoli Day, and World Water Day.

Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the March 22 Wikipedia page.

Da Nooz:

*War news: according to the Wall Street Journal, “Iran believes it’s winning—and wants a steep price to end the war.”

Three weeks into the war, the Iranian regime is signaling that it believes it is winning and has the power to impose a settlement on Washington that entrenches Tehran’s dominance of Middle East energy resources for decades to come.

This attitude may prove to be a dangerous misreading of President Trump’s determination, or of Israel’s capacity to inflict strategic blows on the Islamic Republic’s surviving leadership and military capabilities.

Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have given mixed signals on how long the war would go on, as they try to talk markets down and keep Tehran guessing. Netanyahu said Thursday that the war would end “a lot faster than people think.” Trump said this week the U.S. would wrap up the conflict in the “near future” even as the Pentagon dispatched thousands of additional Marines to the Middle East.

The problem is, Iran also has a say in when the guns fall silent—and, for now, it seems to think time works to its benefit.

Despite optimistic U.S. and Israeli pronouncements about destroying launchers and missile stocks, Iran has retained the ability to fire dozens of ballistic missiles, and many more drones, every day across the Middle East.

Instead of declining, the rate of fire actually picked up in recent days compared with 10 days ago. Iranian strikes inflicted catastrophic damage this week on key energy installations in Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates—while Iran’s own oil exports kept booming.

Shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, the Persian Gulf’s chokepoint, remains only possible with Iranian permission. Surging oil and gas prices, meanwhile, are exacting growing pain on economies worldwide—and putting pressure on Trump to end the war that he began in expectation of swift victory on Feb. 28.

One can hope this will change, but Iran thinks it’s winning, well, what can you say? It’s lost all of its navy, its uranium-enriching facilities, most of its ballistic-missile launching sites, most of its leadership (including leaders of the Revolutionary Guards), and I have a feeling that things in the Strait of Hormuz will change within a week or two. But what do I know? I’m a biologist, not a political pundit.

*In the NYT op-eds, Lis Smith and John Guida discuss “The future of the Democratic Party” (the IDs: “Ms. Smith is a senior adviser to the political organizations Majority Democrats and the Bench. Mr. Guida is an editor in Opinion.”) The article is archived here.

Democrats hardly need reminding that, however unpopular President Trump is at the moment, the Democratic Party is right there with him.

For the midterms, the party is attempting something of a makeover on the fly.

Guida: . . . what good or bad or other practices are you seeing among Democrats in their responses to the war?

Lis Smith: This is exhibit A of why we don’t need more lawyers in Congress and need people who bring different life experiences to Washington. Too many Democrats, when something like this happens, default to playing legalistic hall monitor and complaining about how Donald Trump didn’t fill out the right paperwork before launching strikes. That’s technically true and important, but that is not at all a persuasive argument.

The best messaging we’ve seen on this issue, by far, has come from post-9/11 war veterans like Platner [Graham Platner, a candidate for the Democratic nomination for the U.S. Senate in Maine]. They don’t sound like lawyers, but like people who actually understand what’s at stake because they’ve lived it.

Guida: What about Democrats outside the campaigns?

Smith: We’re seeing a new generation of leaders emerge in this moment. One person I’ve been really impressed by is Representative Pat Ryan of New York (and a Majority Democrats member) — a former Army intelligence officer who served in Iraq and earned two Bronze Stars. He did an interview recently on “Pod Save America” that I sent to all my friends and family because his messaging on Iran was so searing in its simplicity.

He talked about it in language that was plain, visceral and at times profane.

. . . Smith: Yes, you simply cannot succeed in today’s media environment if you can’t communicate in both long-form and short-form mediums. You can’t skate by with tightly scripted, five-minute-friendly cable hits. People want to see politicians who can have two-hour plus conversations that get them off their talking points. They want to see if their politicians are actually real people, willing to engage in cultural conversations.

Ideology in this context matters less than, say, age. Older generations of politicians were taught to always stick to a script, never have a hair out of place, never show any vulnerability and avoid controversial topics at all costs. Younger politicians like Pete Buttigieg and Mamdani, who certainly come from different wings of the Democratic Party, have really thrived in the new media environment. They are incredibly disciplined communicators, but it’s not because someone handed them a script — it’s because they know who they are, they’re comfortable in their own skin, they have very defined values and worldviews.

They’re also willing to let their guards down and have conversations that would give most old-school political consultants heart attacks. Think about Pete on the Flagrantpodcast — in between serious conversations about transportation policy and income inequality, he fielded questions from the hosts about whether the food in Afghanistan turned him gay.

Smith also touts Mamdani as a master of communicating (these are politicians who, like AOC, grew up knowing how to use the Internet), but I’ll let you read that for yourself. As for me, I remain a big fan of Pete Buttigieg. Yes, I know that polls show that gay candidates are largely unelectable as President, but for crying out loud, it’s 2026. Put Mayor Pete up against Vance and see what happens!

*Virtually every column that Andrew Sullivan writes now is against Israel or in favor of leaving Iran alone, and he does seem to become pretty monomaniacal about this, writing virtually the same column again and again. Still, I’ll give him some airtime, but he’s become a curmudgeonly sourpuss about everything. His latest column is “A war against our own values.”

it’s worth asking if Operation Epic Fury is a just war — on classical just war grounds? Let’s investigate.

Jus ad bellum — the first of two just war categories — refers to starting a conflict. Was the process legit? And even many war supporters concede it wasn’t. With no debate by the Congress, let alone a vote, and no attempt even to inform, let alone persuade, the American public in advance, the war is in a constitutional void. Yes, presidents have launched conflicts with no Congressional debate in the past century. But one that could cost well over $200 billion? With all our global alliances and the world economy in the balance? With a global recession possible? Nah, this is more George III than George Washington.

The war was also begun by a surprise attack: Israel’s sudden assassination of the entire Iranian leadership, which Marco Rubio said mandated our involvement (because it would have led to an immediate Iranian attack on us). But a just war requires an explicit declaration or ultimatum beforehand. The Iran War of 2026 is therefore the equivalent of what the Arab states did to Israel in 1967 and 1973, what Russia did to Ukraine in 2022, and what Japan did to the US at Pearl Harbor. FDR called that kind of surprise attack “unprovoked and dastardly.” For a reason.

Just war theory and international law also require an “imminent threat” to justify self-defense. So ask yourself: last month, how was the US “imminently threatened” by Iran? We weren’t. The only faint threat to the US — Iran’s potential nuclear weaponry — had already been “obliterated” last year. Sure, Iran’s conventional weaponry is still dangerous, but a sovereign state is allowed a military and, as we’ve seen, it’s no match for the mighty US and Israeli forces. And no, a potential threat for 47 years does not equate to an imminent one, unless the word imminent is drained of its entire meaning.

That is Sullivan playing “legalistic hall monitor” in the way Lis Smith decries right above.  But wait! There’s more:

Was [the war] motivated by the right reasons? There is indeed a case for the war that is a righteous one: it is designed to remove a toxic theocracy that menaces its neighbors and terrorizes its own people. I sympathize with that case — as it’s the one I made passionately for war against Saddam (and the Dish doggedly covered the Green Revolution against the ayatollahs). But what I learned then is that good intentions are not enough. Regime change in Iraq happened for sure. But over 100,000 civilian deaths, over 3,000 American deaths, over 30,000 wounded, a cost of $2 trillion, and an empowered Iran came with it. And Saddam’s nuclear threat — the casus belli — didn’t exist. Neither does Iran’s anymore.

Is he really sure about Iran? They still have their 60% enriched uranium stockpile, and if the war ended today, as Sullivan wants it to, the bomb program would immediately resume, and, presto, within a few years Iran would have nukes.

Is there a chance of success commensurate with the cost? Another jus ad bellum test. Hard to tell. But right now, it’s clear that a war for regime change without ground troops has no guarantee of success. It could lead to something worse: an entrenched, more extreme Islamist government shutting the Strait of Hormuz and wreaking havoc on the global economy. A war to demolish Iran’s ability to defend itself conventionally? That’s achievable, it seems. Almost done, in fact. But it’s unjust. A world in where a superpower can use force to ensure others cannot defend themselves is raw imperialism.

Well, the “others” trying to defend themselves are a tyrannical regime that not only exports terror throughout the Middle East (and the world), but kills tens of thousands of its own people. Do we need to ensure that that regime can defend itself?

*After two months of investigating Harvard, the Trump administration is suing the school for antisemitism (I thought it already had). The article is archived here.

The Trump administration sued Harvard University on Friday over claims that the school was violating the civil rights of Jewish and Israeli people, an escalation of the government’s yearlong clash with the Ivy League university.

The administration has spent months investigating Harvard and trying to force a settlement on the university, the largest target in the White House’s campaign to remake American higher education. But the lawsuit Friday — more than six months after a judge blocked the administration’s opening push to strip Harvard of federal research funding — represented a new threat to the nation’s wealthiest university.

In its lawsuit, filed in Federal District Court in Boston, the Trump administration said that Harvard had “turned a blind eye to antisemitism and discrimination against Jews and Israelis.” The administration said Harvard had strictly enforced policies against other forms of bias, but had allowed anti-Israel protesters to violate rules “with impunity” after the war in Gaza in 2023.

“Instead of arresting the students or even timely stopping the occupation in violation of university policy, Harvard fed them,” according to the lawsuit, adding that faculty members ”brought them burritos for dinner” and “gave them candy.”

The administration said Harvard had failed to protect Jewish and Israeli students from severe harassment, including physical assault, stalking and exclusion from campus facilities like libraries and classrooms. Some of the episodes, including one where an Israeli student said he was assaulted during a “die-in” protest, have been contested.

“The United States cannot and will not tolerate these failures and brings this action to compel Harvard to comply with Title VI, and to recover billions of dollars of taxpayer subsidies awarded to a discriminatory institution,” the suit added.

The lawsuit asks a court to declare that Harvard is “in material breach” of its responsibilities under Title VI and, therefore, the government does not have to pay Harvard any existing grants. The suit further asks the court to force Harvard to pay back grants it has already received. And it asks for an independent monitor, approved by the government, to oversee the school’s compliance.

Well, the accusations seem valid to me, though Harvard says it’s already doing a lot to reduce antisemitism.  In fact, the “burrito” accusation is true: in November 2023, when pro-Palestinian protestors illegally occupied the administration building, two Harvard deans, Rakesh Khurana and Salmaan Keshavjee, bought burritos for those students. However, even Harvard itself admitted it wasn’t doing enough for its Jewish students, and enrollment of Jews is down substantially as they are voting with their feet.  Harvard’s response:

A Harvard spokeswoman, Sarah Kennedy-O’Reilly, said Friday that the university had “taken substantive, proactive steps to address the root causes of antisemitism and actively enforces anti-harassment and anti-discrimination rules and policies on campus” and that its “efforts demonstrate the very opposite of deliberate indifference.”

“We will continue to prioritize this important work,” she added, “and will defend the university against this lawsuit, which represents yet another pretextual and retaliatory action by the administration for refusing to turn over control of Harvard to the federal government.”

Taking away the grant money was heavy-handed, but a lawsuit accusing Harvard of civil rights violations is not itself “turning over Harvard to the federal government,.” It’s ensuring that a university that takes federal money does not tolerate discrimination.

*The U.S. mint may produce a gold coin with Trump’s mug on it, which is both inappropriate and illegal. But so, probably, was the demolition of the East Wing of the White House. Here is what you need to know!

A federal arts commission on Thursday voted to approve a commemorative U.S. gold coin featuring Donald Trump, the administration’s latest effort to celebrate the president, even as Democrats and members of another federal committee say the idea is deeply inappropriate and potentially illegal.

The proposal calls for a 24-karat gold coin depicting Trump leaning on a desk with clenched fists, based on a photograph taken by his chief White House photographer and now displayed in the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery. Such gold coins from the U.S. Mint typically sell for several thousand dollars. A Mint official told the panel that Trump had personally approved the design.

Members of the Commission of Fine Arts — composed entirely of Trump appointees, including a 26-year-old executive assistant whose only listed credential for the post was managing Trump’s portrait project — spent several minutes discussing potential changes to the coin, including how big to make it, before officially endorsing it.

“I think the larger the better, and the largest of that circulation, I think, would be his preference,” said Chamberlain Harris, Trump’s executive assistant. Harris also said that the image captured Trump looking “very strong and very tough” and that it would be “fitting” to have him on a coin to mark the nation’s 250th anniversary.

James McCrery II, who served as Trump’s first architect on his planned ballroom before wrangling with the president over its size, encouraged Treasury officials to make the coin “as large as possible, all the way to three inches in diameter” as he led the vote to approve it.

But new coin designs are supposed to receive approval from two panels — and that second panel, the bipartisan Citizens Coinage Advisory Committee, refused last month to consider the proposed gold coin. In interviews, members opposed putting a sitting president on currency, saying it would break with democratic norms and reek of subservience to royalty.

“It’s wrong. It goes against American culture and the traditions that drive what we put on our coinage,” said Michael Moran, a Republican coin collector who then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky) recommended for appointment. “I didn’t sign up for this.”

Yep, it’s wrong, it’s big (look at a rule to see the diameter of a three inch coin; half the length of a dollar bill), and have a look at one design below posted online by the U.S. Mint (in the WaPo). I find it particularly funny that right under Trump is the motto “In God We Trust”. And look at that scowl! Although federal law says no living President can appears on U.S. currency, NPR notes that “Megan Sullivan, the acting chief of the Office of Design Management at the Mint, said the Treasury secretary has authority to authorize the minting and issuance of new 24-karat gold coins, which Scott Bessent has used to get around that prohibition and put Trump on a coin.”

The final size and denomination haven’t yet been determined.

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili and Andrzej are discussing noms (Hili is making a purrito):

Hili: Whenever I come across a problem I cannot understand, I remind myself that I have not eaten in a long time.

Andrzej: That is an interesting phenomenon, it should be properly studied on a large, transnational representative sample of cats.

In Polish:

Hili: Ilekroć natrafiam na problem, którego nie mogę zrozumieć przypominam sobie, że dawno nic nie jadłam.

Ja: To ciekawy fenomen, powinien być porządnie zbadany na dużej, ponadnarodowej próbie reprezentacyjnej kotów.

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

From CinEmma, a floury cat:

From Stacy:

From Give Me a Sign:

From Masih.  The excuse the Iranian regime used to execute this man and two others is this:

The three men — whom Mizan identified as Mehdi Qasemi, Saleh Mohammadi and Saeed Davoudi — were convicted for their role in the killing of two law enforcement officers at a police station. According to Mizan, they used swords, knives and machetes in separate assaults on the two officers.

I don’t believe it, and neither does Masih:

The cancellation of Cesar Chavez has begun. This may be the biggest set of cancellations we see this decade:

Luana found this one put up by Colin Wright:

Two from my feed. First, kindness to kitties:

FOUR YEARS OLD!

One I reposted from The Auschwitz Memorial:

And two from the estimable Dr. Cobb. First, Bastet!:

This bronze statue, made in Egypt between 715 and 343 BCE, represents the Egyptian cat-goddess Bastet. While Ancient Egyptians worshipped several male and female lion deities, Bastet is the only who came to be depicted as a domestic cat.

— Ashmolean Museum, Oxford (@ashmoleanmuseum.bsky.social) 2026-03-21T08:00:56.996Z

Sinkfrog! Click to go to the video on Bluehair:

A Guardian hit piece on a London bakery connected to Israel and its “aggression” against a nearby Palestinian restaurant

March 21, 2026 • 10:50 am

There’s been some kerfuffle about a Guardian article describing the arrival in London of a new branch of a bakery connected to Israel. And it looks pretty much like the article was, to its author Jonathan Liew, a metaphor for the war in Gaza, with the piece (because it’s the Guardian, of course) seeing the bakery as an evil Israeli colonizer of a block already harboring a Palestinian “supper club”. The outcry about this cockeyed metaphor was so loud that the Guardian decided the article needed to be changed and given a public correction.

First some background from Grok on for Gail’s bakery:

Gail’s Bakery (a UK chain with around 200 branches) has historical founding ties to Israel and indirect links through its current majority owner, which have sparked boycotts and vandalism by pro-Palestine activists. There are no direct operations, stores, or suppliers in Israel, nor any confirmed company donations to the Israeli government or military.

  • The business began in the 1990s as a wholesale bakery called The Bread Factory, founded by Yael “Gail” Mejia, an Israeli businesswoman (who moved to London in 1978). It supplied artisanal bread to London restaurants.
  • In 2003, American investor Tom Molnar (from Florida) and Israeli investor Ran Avidan (from Tel Aviv) bought half the business. The first retail Gail’s store opened in 2005 on Hampstead High Street, named after Mejia. Early team members included other Israeli bakers (e.g., creative head baker Roy Levy).
  • Mejia was bought out in 2011; Avidan sold his stake later. Neither remains involved. The company has proudly referenced its “Jewish roots” and heritage in interviews and branding

Notice that Jews are not vandalizing Palestinian restaurants, but nobody ever points that out.

Click below to see the original article, now archived:

 

Below are the quotes that caused the problem. First, the background. One branch of the chain of Gail’s bakery moved near a long-established Palestinian restaurant. (Guardian quotes are indented):

The cafe itself has existed since the 1980s, proudly blazons its Palestinian heritage, and has long attracted a small but loyal clientele. In recent years, however, a number of predators have appeared on its doorstep. Costa Coffee arrived a decade ago. Starbucks and Greggs followed soon after. Then, a few weeks ago, on the site of the former corner shop two doors down, came a new branch of the upmarket bakery, Gail’s.

Gail’s has long been feted as a purveyor of luxury baked goods and is an unmistakable barometer of local affluence. In recent years, however, as the brand has expanded to almost 200 shops across the UK, its presence has become increasingly contested. Critics accuse it of accelerating gentrification and squeezing out smaller outlets. Campaigners point out that its parent company, Bain Capital, invests heavily in military technology, including Israeli security companies. And so even though Gail’s describes itself as “a British business with no specific connections to any country or government outside the UK”, its very presence 20 metres away from a small independent Palestinian cafe feels quietly symbolic, an act of heavy-handed high-street aggression.

The night before it was due to open, Gail’s was daubed with red paint. Less than a week later, all its windows were smashed in. Slogans reading “reject corporate Zionism” and “fuck Bain Capital” were written on its walls. To date, no arrests have been made. A spokesperson for the Board of Deputies of British Jews has described it as “part of a wider trend to try to drive Jews out of wider civil society” (Gail’s was founded by an Israeli baker in the 1990s). The local branch of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign made it clear it had no involvement. It should scarcely require saying that Mahmoud, a mild-mannered man in his 60s, had nothing to do with it. “We compete with them legally,” he says. Mahmoud believes rivals seek to dominate the local trade, “but our cappuccino is £2.95 and theirs is £4.50. That’s how we compete.”

Here are the two the troublesome quotes. The first one is. to me, unbelievable, and by that I mean the part in bold:

Gail’s has long been feted as a purveyor of luxury baked goods and is an unmistakable barometer of local affluence. In recent years, however, as the brand has expanded to almost 200 shops across the UK, its presence has become increasingly contested. Critics accuse it of accelerating gentrification and squeezing out smaller outlets. Campaigners point out that its parent company, Bain Capital, invests heavily in military technology, including Israeli security companies. And so even though Gail’s describes itself as “a British business with no specific connections to any country or government outside the UK”, its very presence 20 metres away from a small independent Palestinian cafe feels quietly symbolic, an act of heavy-handed high-street aggression.

Only someone with an anti-Israel agenda could describe the proximity of the bakery to the Palestinian cafe as “an act of heavy-handed high-street aggression.” The bakery is a COLONIZER!

And the next part seems to imply that because Palestinians are voiceless and weak, the attack on the Jewish bakery was justifiable simply because there’s nothing else supporters of Palestine can do to express their views:

Does any of this move the dial in the occupied territories even one iota? Almost certainly not. But perhaps this is simply the nature of an increasingly disenfranchised age. Palestinian activism has arguably never been less capable of exerting a meaningful influence on global events, and so is increasingly defined by small acts of petty symbolism. A smashed window. A provocative sticker. You can’t lay a glove on the US-Israeli military-industrial complex, and you can’t get your local council to boycott Israeli goods, and you couldn’t stand with Palestine Action and the protest march on Sunday has been banned by the Metropolitan police. So some people then direct their ire at the bakery with distant links to Israeli security funding.

Here is a tweet with the full caption here; the video features an angry journalist (see below):

𝗧𝗛𝗘 𝗚𝗨𝗔𝗥𝗗𝗜𝗔𝗡 𝗝𝗨𝗦𝗧 𝗪𝗥𝗢𝗧𝗘 𝗔 𝗛𝗜𝗧 𝗣𝗜𝗘𝗖𝗘 𝗢𝗡 𝗔 𝗕𝗔𝗞𝗘𝗥𝗬

Not a war. Not a weapons manufacturer. Not a government contractor. A bakery that sells croissants and lattes.

The Guardian published a piece treating the existence of a GAIL’s Bakery near a Palestinian café as — and this is a direct quote from the article — 𝘢𝘯 𝘢𝘤𝘵 𝘰𝘧 𝘩𝘦𝘢𝘷𝘺-𝘩𝘢𝘯𝘥𝘦𝘥 𝘩𝘪𝘨𝘩 𝘴𝘵𝘳𝘦𝘦𝘵 𝘢𝘨𝘨𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘴𝘪𝘰𝘯. The entire case against GAIL’s? Its parent company has worked with Israeli companies. That’s the chain of guilt. That’s the smoking gun.

Julia Hartley-Brewer — who actually worked at the Guardian and knows exactly how that newsroom operates — didn’t mince words. She called the piece 𝗯𝗹𝗮𝘁𝗮𝗻𝘁𝗹𝘆, 𝗼𝗽𝗲𝗻𝗹𝘆 𝗮𝗻𝘁𝗶-𝗦𝗲𝗺𝗶𝘁𝗶𝗰 and the author a horrific human being. She’s right on both counts.

Notice what the Guardian finds worth writing about and what it doesn’t. A bakery opening near a Palestinian café? Front of the comment section. Iran executing tens of thousands of young protesters in the streets? Silence. Hamas executing Palestinians in Gaza? Nothing to say. Israeli-linked croissants twenty metres from a falafel shop? 𝗡𝗼𝘄 𝘄𝗲’𝗿𝗲 𝘁𝗮𝗹𝗸𝗶𝗻𝗴.

Hartley-Brewer nailed the real name for this ideology: it’s not anti-Zionism. Anti-Zionism is a political position about a state.

This is a bakery. There’s no Zionism in a sourdough loaf. What’s left when you strip the political cover away is just Jew-hating — targeting businesses because of who owns them, who funded them, who they might be connected to six degrees away. The British public apparently agrees. Israeli-owned restaurants in London that were targeted by protestors now can’t get a table. GAIL’s will probably see the same bump.

Buy the brownie. Order the latte. Do it on principle.

And the original tweet with the video in which Julia Hartley-Brewer gets upset. I gatber that Hartley-Brewer, who isn’t Jewish, has no Jewish background, and is an atheist, is a well-established journalist in England and hosts an eponymous show on TalkTV and TalkRadio

After some outcry, the Guardian “corrected” the article in both its corrections section and now at the bottom of the article. But the inflammatory title and “heavy-handed high street aggression” remain.

The correction:

Corrections and clarifications:

Gail’s bakery vandalism

 An opinion piece (In my corner of London, food has become an act of defiance, 14 March, Journal, p4) included a comment contrasting pro-Palestinian activism capable of influencing global events with “small acts of petty symbolism”. This was not intended to minimise the described vandalism of a local Gail’s bakery but rather to suggest the misdirected futility of such acts; the reference has been removed from the online version to avoid misunderstanding. Also the piece referred to the arrival of Gail’s close to a small Palestinian cafe as feeling like “an act of heavy-handed high-street aggression”; to clarify, this meant to refer to concerns about its impact, as with other large chains mentioned, on independent outlets. This has been amended online.

Misdirected futility of antisemitic vandalism? My tuchas! And if the reference to Gail’s wasn’t supposted to conjure up a metaphor for the war, why is the Guardian now saying that the “heavy handed high-street agression” was only about large chains outcompeting independent businesses. Does the Guardian expect anybody with two neurons to rub together to believe these are just “clarifications”. All they’ve done is repositioned the “high street aggression bit” and removed the “petty symbolism” bit.

Here’s the current bowdlerized article, which isn’t very bowdlerized.

This whole business may seem to be a tempest in a teapot, but if it’s bad enough for the Guardian to correct because of implied antisemitism, it’s pretty bad. And this kind of anti-Israeli/anti-Jewish rhetoric is getting so common that it’s becoming normalized, so it pays to be aware of it.

Caturday felid trifecta: Cat gets rave bath; Turkish cat ladders; why falling cats land on their feet; and lagniappe

March 21, 2026 • 10:00 am

Today we again have three items plus lagniappe, and I will keep on with Caturday posts for at least a month.

First, we have a four-minute video of Marvin the Cat getting a “rave bath”, whatever that is.  The YouTube notes give a link and a caption:

So I asked Grok what a “rave bath for a cat” is. The AI answer:

A “rave bath” is a fun, creative bath-time setup for a cat (specifically one that actually enjoys water—rare for most cats!) where the owner turns the bathtub into a glowing “party” atmosphere.

It comes from a popular 2024 viral video by The Dodo featuring a cat named Marvin, who is obsessed with baths. His owner came up with the idea to make bath time even more exciting:

  • They turn down the lights in the bathroom to make it dark.
  • They add glow sticks (the kind you crack and shake) floating in the water for Marvin to swat, chase, and play with.
  • Sometimes they include a light layer of pet-safe bubble bath or bath bombs for extra splashing fun.

The result looks like a mini rave or underwater wonderland with colorful glowing lights reflecting in the tub. Marvin goes wild splashing around and clearly loves it.

The term “rave bath” stuck because of how the owner describes it in the video: “We came up with the cutest thing ever. It’s a rave bath… It’s like a Wonderland.” The video has millions of views across YouTube, TikTok, and Facebook, and people now sometimes use the phrase for any glow-stick-enhanced bath for water-loving pets.It’s basically the opposite of a normal stressful cat bath—pure pampering and play for cats like Marvin who beg for water time instead of running away from it. If your cat hates baths, this probably won’t convert them, but it’s adorable to watch! You can find the original video by searching “Woman Throws A ‘Rave Bath’ For Her Cat Who Loves Bath Time | The Dodo.” [JAC: note the disco music during the rave bath.]

This is a woman who loves her cats!

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You should all know by now that Turkey is probably the most cat-loving country in the world. I’ve seen it for myself on several visits: one of the notable aspects is the groups of cats that congregate in outdoor restaurants, with the customers occasionally feeding them. Here’s a photo I took in March, 2008 in Istanbul:

From the Facebook site Fact Fuel: we learn that some Turks erect minature ladders to keep cats dry (and note the cat houses):

Winter in parts of Turkey can blanket cities in heavy snow, leaving stray cats searching for warmth along icy streets. In response, some apartment residents have installed small, cat-sized ladders leading from the ground up to their balconies. These narrow wooden or metal pathways are carefully secured against building walls, giving outdoor cats a safe route upward instead of forcing them to remain exposed to freezing temperatures below.

Once on the balcony, many residents place insulated boxes, blankets, or small shelters where the cats can curl up and rest. The ladders act as bridges between street life and temporary refuge, especially during storms. For animals accustomed to navigating rooftops and alleyways, the climb becomes a familiar path to safety.

The gesture reflects a cultural affection for street cats that runs deep in many Turkish communities. Rather than ignoring their presence, neighbors adapt their living spaces to include them. In the quiet snowfall of winter nights, these modest ladders stand as vertical lifelines — proving that compassion can be built step by step, right alongside everyday homes.

The ladders:

And if you click on the screenshot below you’ll go to an Instagram video:

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And we return to the perennial problem described in this NYT column, which refers to a paper in the Anatomical Record by a team of Japanese authors (second secreenshot). You can access both sites by clicking on the titles (the NYT goes to an archived link).  The key is the way a cat’s spine is configured.

From the NYT article:

In a paper, published last month in the journal The Anatomical Record, researchers offered a novel take on falling felines. Their evidence suggests new insights into the so-called falling cat problem, particularly that cats have a very flexible segment of their spines that allows them to correct their orientation midair.

Greg Gbur, a physicist and cat-falling expert at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte who was not involved with the paper, said the study was the first he knew of that explored “what the structure of the cat’s spine tells us about how a cat turns over while falling.” He added that the research uncovered many remarkable details about how cats maneuver while falling.

People have been curious about falling cats perhaps as long as the animals have been living with humans, but the method to their acrobatic abilities remains enigmatic. Part of the difficulty is that the anatomy of the cat has not been studied in detail, explains Yasuo Higurashi, a physiologist at Yamaguchi University in Japan and lead author of the study.

“Physicists have tried to model the behavior in relatively simple equations,” said Ruslan Belyaev, a zoologist at the Severtsov Institute of Ecology and Evolution in Moscow who was not involved in the study. But, he added, “the real cat” is anything but simple.

Modern research has split the falling cat problem into two competing models.

The first, “legs in, legs out,” suggests that cats correct their falling trajectory by first extending their hind limbs before retracting them, using a sequential twist of their upper and then lower trunk to gain the proper posture while in free fall.

The second model, “tuck and turn,” suggests that cats turn their upper and lower bodies in simultaneous juxtaposed movements.

In the new study, Dr. Higurashi and his colleagues scrutinized different segments of cat spines using donated cadavers. They also conducted dropping experiments on a pair of live cats, from about three feet up.

But wait! There’s more:

The researchers found that the feline spine was extremely flexible in the upper thoracic vertebrae, but stiffer and heavier in the lower lumbar vertebrae. The discovery matches video evidence showing the cats first turn their front legs, and then their lower legs. The results suggest the cat quickly spins its flexible upper torso to face the ground, allowing it to see so that it can correctly twist the rest of its body to match.

They measured the spinal flexion in cat cadavers whose spines had been removed, and they twisted the removed spines until they “failed”. Here’s a figure from the paper:

(from the paper): (a) Schematic diagram of the testing apparatus used to twist a spinal region until failure. The rotary table was operated manually to rotate the caudal end of the spinal region counterclockwise relative to the immobilized cranial end at a quasi-static loading rate. Torque was measured using the transducer between the table and specimen. The rotation of both the table and specimen was filmed using a digital camcorder. (b) Torque-angular displacement curves obtained for Cat A, illustrating the mechanical properties measured in this study. Torque was recorded at every 5° of angular displacement. The neutral zone (NZ) was defined as the part of the curve with minimal resistance to vertebral rotation. The lumbar spine had no NZ. Stiffness was measured as the ratio of the change in torque to the change in angular displacement in the linear part of the curve. Max, maximum torque; ROM, range of motion.

“The thoracic spine of the cat can rotate like our neck,” Dr. Higurashi said.

Experiments on the spine show the upper vertebrae can twist an astounding 360 degrees, he says, which helps cats make these correcting movements with ease. The results are consistent with the “legs in, legs out” model, but definitively determining which model is correct will take more work, Dr. Higurashi says.

The results also yielded another discovery: Cats, like many animals, appear to have a right-side bias. One of the dropped cats corrected itself by turning to the right eight out of eight times, while the other turned right six out of eight times.

Here’s a figure from the paper showing the cats being dropped (onto soft pillows, mind you). Note that in (b) the anterior part of the cat rotates faster than the rear part,  This cat looks scared, with its tongue sticking out. The caption tells you what’s going on.

From the paper: (a) A representative frame sequence illustrating sequential rotation of the anterior and posterior trunk without counterrotation during air-righting. In this sequence, a cat rotates to the right. (1) The dorsal sides of both the anterior and posterior trunk are initially oriented downwards. (2) Upon release, the anterior trunk becomes oriented laterally, while the posterior trunk remains oriented downwards. (3) The anterior trunk is oriented upwards, indicating that its rotation has been completed, whereas the posterior trunk is oriented laterally. (4) The anterior and posterior trunk are both oriented upwards, indicating the completion of posterior trunk rotation. (b) Bar charts with individual data points showing the time required to complete anterior and posterior trunk rotation during air-righting for each of the two cats (Cats H and I). Error bars represent ±1 SD from the mean. The start of free fall was defined as time zero. Significant differences were assessed using paired Student’s t-tests. **p < 0.01.

If you want to see the paper, click below:

Here’s an enlightening video of how cats spin their bodies (front first) to land on their feet. It’s clearly instinctive, i.e., reflecting a behavioral-genetic program molded by natural selection:

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Lagniappe: Larry the 10 Downing Street cat has put out a video about what’s going on in his block. Most important, the Brits have decided to replace historical figures on their banknotes (they once included Darwin), with wildlife. Larry makes a strong case that he’s both wildlife and a historic figure!

 

Extra lagniappe: A CBS news report on the rescue of Biscuit, a stranded moggy:

And a third lagniappe item. This photo and caption arrived just half an hour ago from Robert Lang. His caption:

Yesterday I and some friends did a hike to a little-visited waterfall in the San Gabriels. At the trailhead, which is shared with some other popular trails, we met this person who was bringing his moggie along for their hike:’

h/t: Carl, Robert

Readers’ wildlife photos

March 21, 2026 • 8:15 am

James Blilie is back with some black-and-white photos from his perambulations and climbs.  Jim’s captions are indented, and you can enlarge his photos by clicking on them. And Jim tells us he’s recovering well from a knee replacement.

Here is another set for your consideration:  Black and white landscape images from those I posted on that previously mentioned FB page for B&W images.

First up are two shots from our attempt to climb Mount McKinley (as it was named at the time) in May 1987.  We did not summit (“worst May weather since 1960-something”):

Rocky outcrop in the Kahiltna Glacier, scanned Tri-X Pan

Camp on the Kahiltna Glacier with the summit in the background, scanned Tri-X Pan:

Our local mountain, Mount Adams, but from the other side, the north side, 1987.  I climbed it three times, always from the north.  The “standard” route is on the south side.  Scanned Tri-X Pan:

Skiers in Garibaldi Provincial Park, British Columbia, 1988, scanned Kodachrome 64:

Dinner preparation, Nepal, 1991, scanned Tri-X Pan:

The Vietnam War Memorial, Washington, DC, January 1992, scanned Tri-X Pan

Letchworth State Park, New York, November 1992, scanned Tri-X Pan:

Elephants, Amboseli National Park, Kenya, 1991, scanned Kodachrome 64:

Bonneville Salt Flats, Nevada, June 2013:

Mount Hood, taken from our driveway, December 2023:

Kalaloch Beach, Olympic Peninsula, June 2025:

Equipment:

Current:

Olympus OM-D E-M5, micro-4/3 camera (crop factor = 2.0)
LUMIX G X Vario, 12-35MM, f/2.8 ASPH.  (24mm-70mm equivalent, my walk-around lens)
LUMIX 35-100mm  f/2.8 G Vario  (70-200mm equivalent)
LUMIX G Vario 7-14mm  f/4.0 ASPH  (14-28mm equivalent)
Leica DG Vario-Elmar 100-400mm, F4.0-6.3 II ASPH., Power O.I.S. (200mm-800mm equivalent)

The scanned images:

Pentax camera bodies:  LX, K-1000, ME-Super, MX
Various Pentax M-series and A-Series lenses:
20mm f/4
20mm f/2.8
50mm f/2.0
200mm f/4
Tokina ATX 80-200mm f/2.8