JAC: This is from Grania, and will remain so as I’m going into China tomorrow for two days. Then I’ll be back in Hong Kong until the 16th, but busy, so Grania is handling Hili.
by Grania
Good morning, happy Saturday!
Today is Guy Fawkes day in the UK, the anniversary of the Gunpowder Plot in 1605 which essentially aimed to install a Catholic on the British throne. It always makes me cringe slightly when I see one of those “V for Vendetta” masks that are so popular with certain types of activists, for those people almost certainly know nothing about the politics or religious zealotry of the man whose face they wear.
On this day in 1872 in the U.S., Susan B. Anthony became the first woman to cast a vote, illegally of course. She was fined $100. How this fierce activist’s name became linked with an opportunistic “pro-life” lobby in recent years is obscene.
Finally, it is Art Garfunkel’s 75th birthday today (hard to believe the cherubic lad is that old!). Here he is singing Paul Simon’s For Emily, Whenever I May Find Her. [JAC: One of my friends in New York, who dated Simon for a while, says that this song was written about her.]
This is the cutest thing on the internet today:
Three-Banded Armadillo Rolls Around on the Floor with His Favorite Pink Toy https://t.co/loKkMKNWoT pic.twitter.com/PIX1wWjKIj
— Laughing Squid (@LaughingSquid) April 16, 2016
[JAC: I found the video]:
And possibly the coolest photograph on the internet today:
Photo of the Day: Sea Things in a New Lighthttps://t.co/Xq5EeBndcN #photography #pod
— National Geographic (@NatGeo) November 4, 2016
Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili once again encountered her nemesis, who shows up but rarely:
Hili: In principle a progressive cat shouldn’t have any prejudices.A: I can hear a “but”…Hili: I don’t like this black cat.
Hili: W zasadzie postępowy kot nie powinien mieć przesądów.
Ja: Słyszę jakieś ale…
Hili: Nie podoba mi się ten czarny kot.
And a lagniappe from Carol, who sent us a video of Gus with some notes:
We’ve been having unseasonably warm weather and Gus and I went in the front yard to do some tidying up. Occasionally, a rabbit hangs out under the front steps although I have not seen one for some time. Gus knows very well about rabbits and he often looks under the steps but this is the first time he decided to go right in and see if anyone was there.
Well blow me down, and tickle me with a feather. I did not know the mask was based on Guy Fawkes. I have also heard people say ‘the only guy to enter parliament with honest intent’. They are obviously having a go at many or most parliamentarians/members of government in general, but I wonder if they realize what they are actually saying?
They’re actually saying what they think they are saying.
The story of Guy Fawkes and the history of fireworks night is so complicated by now* that reading any intent other than the most obvious into statements is futile, IMO.
*And ‘V for Vendetta’ clouded the issue even further. I quite like the movie but I can’t even tell if the protagonist is supposed to be good or bad.
cr
Except he never actually entered parliament. His gang simply rented a cellar in the same building that extended under the House of Lords.
Rollie doesn’t have the flexibility of a cat, but it makes up for it with amusing intentions.
Speaking of the British Parliament, this is BBC Newsnight’s response to a Conservative M P trying to sound patriotic
https://youtu.be/WwsQ_5Wm4oo
Oh, cool!
(Personally, I support the Royal Family, but I do think demands for patriotism deserve such a response)
cr
“It always makes me cringe slightly when I see one of those “V for Vendetta” masks that are so popular with certain types of activists, for those people almost certainly know nothing about the politics or religious zealotry of the man whose face they wear.”
Why, Grania?
Traditionally ‘Guy Fawkes night’ celebrated the *failure* of the plot to blow up Parliament, so wearing a Guy Fawkes mask doesn’t constitute endorsement of the Gunpowder Plot, rather the opposite.
And anyway, the movie V for Vendetta completely ‘reimagined’ the significance of the mask.
So what does it matter? It’s of even less significance than the Halloween masks that the politically correct in the US worry about.
cr
You really think that the “Anonymous” activists think they are celebrating the overthrow of the Gunpowder Plot?
Really?
They are quite obviously on the side of the plotters, of the anti-establishment. No, obviously not in detail. Like I said I bet most of them don’t even know it’s Guy Fawkes, and even fewer know he was a Catholic zealot prepared to murder people to install a theocracy of his choosing.
As to the rest of it, no, it’s their ignorance of history that arrests my attention. I’m not offended by the actual wearing of the mask if that is what you are worried about. Hey, in a few years time most young people won’t know who Charles Manson is either, so maybe we could repurpose his face into an anti-Establishment icon too.
~ Grania
“You really think that the “Anonymous” activists think they are celebrating the overthrow of the Gunpowder Plot?”
No, certainly not. They’ve repurposed the mask, just as the movie ‘V for Vendetta’ did. (And it was that movie that popularised the current iteration of the Fawkes mask).
Since it’s been repurposed, I don’t think knowledge or ignorance of history is particularly relevant. I guess even those who know of the ‘gunpowder plot’ aren’t familiar with all the details. Any more than Halloween kids are aware that Frankenstein was not the name of Boris Karloff’s monster.
cr
Never mind – Grania – Ireland just beat the All Blacks at rugby!! I cheered my head off!
(Disclaimer – as an unpatriotic New Zealander, I’d cheer if North Korea beat the All Blacks at rugby…)
cr
I think this is a slightly misleading statement. England, at the time was not a secular state and Catholics were subject to extreme measures of oppression. i.e. anybody who failed to attend the C of E church services was subject to a fine and any Catholic priest caught celebrating the Catholic Mass could be hung, drawn and quartered.
The aim of the plotters was merely to install a Catholic monarch whom they could control so that Catholics could openly practice their religion without fear of persecution. Their choice for puppet monarch was the King’s own daughter, Elizabeth.
So, while these people were terrorists, their cause – at least in modern terms – did have some merit.
Tight fit for Gus. The Armadillo video is a killer. Would not expect that.
I never thought to see any cute baby cephalopods on WEIT. But I believe that P.Z. Myers is now morally obligated to show a cute cat video and perhaps a bit of cowboy boot porn.
Simon and Garfunkel were the very first pop act I saw in concert, performing almost solely for folks affiliated with the University of Pennsylvania. Pre-internet, it was remarkably easy to conceal the existence of the concert from the general public.
“For Emily” has lyrics that are very romantic, but the guitar accompaniment is actually quite sensual.
I am smitten by that armadillo. And the octopus eggs are exquisite.
Hili has her “Do not interrupt me, do not mess with me, no time for frivolity. I am fiercely intent on whatever it is that I’m intent on” face. And I’m afraid that Gus will get stuck under the steps and nibbled to nothing by a bunny.
That armadillo looks so much like a pillbug! (Isopod)
Yeah I thought that. Well, actually I thought ‘woodlouse’, which is the same thing.
According to Wikipedia, the ones that can curl up come from the genus Armadillidium, family Armadillidae.
Well, well.
cr