Wednesday: Hili dialogue

August 12, 2015 • 5:45 am

It’s Hump Day, but if you bring a camel to campus to celebrate, you could get accused of offending those from the Middle East, as recently happened at a college in Minnesota. My interview yesterday afternoon with Milt Rosenberg, a two-hour stint, was fun but exhausting; it should be archived here sometime today. And we’re in for more lovely weather in Chicago. That is all. Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili has somehow got it into her mind that mice are sent by God:

A: Are you hunting?
Hili: No, I’m just walking along and wondering if Providence will provide.

P1030219In Polish:
Ja: Polujesz?
Hili: Nie, idę i się zastanawiam, czy opatrzność mnie zaopatrzy.

16 thoughts on “Wednesday: Hili dialogue”

  1. I am checking Google Earth to get a better idea where Hili is. The body of water could be the Odra river. If she would just flick her tail a bit more, I might be able to spot her.

    1. It is not Odra but Wisla river. Try towns Plock and Wloclawek. Hili is on the Wisla river, in equal distance to both towns. There is a dam in Wloclawek and that’s why the river is so broad here.

      1. Yes, I see. This looks familiar. The river is wide and there are lots of orchards. Maybe that little soft gray dot is Hili, or just mote of dust on my computer screen.

        1. If you are looking just now, it must be a mote of dust. Hili is soundly asleep on Jerry’s sofa inside the house.

          2. “Jerry’s sofa”
            I hope you’re laying in the cherry pies, you’re likely to need them.

  2. It’s Hump Day, but if you bring a camel to campus to celebrate, you could get accused of offending those from the Middle East, as recently happened at a college in Minnesota.

    Huh? Is there some sort of stereotype I don’t know about that all those from the Middle East, and only those from the Middle east, smoke cigarettes?

    Besides, if you really wanted to offend Muslims, you’d do so by bringing in an horse. They’ve got that minor horse god in their pantheon — the one that Muhammad flew into the sunset. And, with the horse, you get a two-for-one deal: the south end when the horse faces north is a dead ringer for every last Social Justice Warrior.

    b&

    1. Is there some sort of stereotype I don’t know about that all those from the Middle East, and only those from the Middle east, smoke cigarettes

      I had to work for a Camel-smoking Jordanian arsehole by name of Basil once in the UAE. Quite put me off what is otherwise a perfectly decent brand of cigarettes.
      How much of a dumbfuck was this guy, who was nominally my supervisor on that job?
      When I was building the sensor spread, out on the mud containers under the midday sun, I asked him to go and get a flat-head screwdriver and a 6mm Allan key from the toolbox which he’d left at the previous sensor while I was pulling the cable. The result was that he brought over a Pozidriv screwdriver and a puzzled look with the comment “what is an Allen key”. He didn’t even have the nous to have picked up the whole damned toolbox.
      Grim. Bloody grim job. How his Somali underling (who did know how to do the job) managed to work for a month without strangling the dumb fuck, I don’t know.
      When I got back to the office and was ranting to the local manager there he explained why we had to use this waste of oxygen : his uncle owned the office building we were working from. Typical oilfield and typical Gulf.

      1. What a colorful life you have lived. I’m sure you conceive of it as a great spiritual journey. 😎

        1. Great spiritual journey? The rock is positively running for the sock draw.

          1. I’m sure the “great spiritual journey” Rick must be referring to is your tour of Scottish distilleries.

            (I’m assuming you’ve made such a tour, but something tells me it’s not much of an assumption.)

            b&

          2. Only 4 or 5 distilleries toured. Built and dismantled more … which is why I’m “Science Officer” to the Celtic Society’s drinking section.

          4. Oh, I’ll drop into one if I’m passing and got nothing better to do – like a mountain to climb. But in an average bar I can choose from 20+ different of their products and in two bars in town in excess of 250 different ones. Long way to go, no particular need to crack on though. They’re hardly going to go extinct.

    1. Oddly, the link seems to be coming down as “Faith_Versus_Fact_with_Jerry_Coyne_Milt_150811_Faith_vs_Fact_Why_Science_and_Religion_are_Incompatable.mp3.mp4.mp4” – some juju going on in the editing pipeline, I guess.
      Oh, hang on – someone in the pipeline doesn’t show the extensions to file names in his workspace? Looks like that.

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