Monday: Hili dialogue

January 30, 2017 • 6:32 am

Good morning: it’s the penultimate day of January: Monday, January 30, 2017, and it’s National Croissant Day in the U.S. (as opposed to France, where it’s always National Croissant Day). In India it’s Martyr’s Day, honoring all martyrs, with the day chosen because it was on January 30, 1948 that Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was assassinated in New Delhi.

On this day in 1649, King Charles I of England was beheaded, and, exactly 12 years later, Oliver Cromwell, who died of natural causes, was exhumed from Westminster Abbey and posthumously beheaded. In 1933, Hitler was sworn in as the Chancellor of Germany. Finally, on this day in 1969, the Beatles did their final performance—on the roof of Apple records in London. Here it is from Vimeo, and some of the footage is in the movie “Let It Be”. It’s good! (Be sure to watch it on the original Vimeo site; it’s only 22 minutes long.)

https://vimeo.com/95681569

Notables born on this day include Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882), trumpeter Roy Eldridge (1911; see below), Gene Hackman (1930), Vanessa Redgrave (1937; she’s 80 today), Dick Cheney (1941), Phil Collins (1951), and Christian Bale (1974). Eldridge, nicknamed “Little Jazz,” was one of the best jazz trumpeters of all time, and I’m going to give you the treat of listening to his fabulous solo on the song “Rocking Chair,” performed by Gene Krupa’s band:

Those who died on this day include can-can dancer and model La Goulue (real name Louise Weber, 1929), Mahatma Gandhi and Orville Wright (both 1948), and Coretta Scott King (2006). Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili is going to Carolina in her mind:

Hili: While on a virtual journey I like to look out through a virtual window.
A: And what do you see?
Hili: It’s impossible to describe.
dsc00007b
In Polish:
Hili: Podczas wirtualnej podróży lubię wyglądać przez wirtualne okno.
Ja: I co tam widzisz?
Hili: Nie da się tego opowiedzieć.
Today’s Google Doodle celebrates the life of Fred Korematsu (January 30, 1919 – March 30, 2005), a Japanese-American activist born in the U.S. After Franklin Roosevelt issued internment orders for those of Japanese descent at the beginning of WWII, sending them to the American version of concentration camps, Korematsu became a fugitive, undergoing plastic surgery to try to look Caucasian. He was recognized, arrested, and convicted of a crime, with the U.S. Supreme court affirming the legality of Roosevelt’s order). Korematsu was then placed in an internment camp, living in a horse stall. He challenged the legitimacy of Roosevelt’s orders in the case or Korematsu v. US, but lost. The Executive Order was nullified decades later, Korematsu was later cleared, and he received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from Bill Clinton.

fred-korematsus-98th-birthday-5528997722062848-hp

23 thoughts on “Monday: Hili dialogue”

  1. I think we have to make it clear Cromwell died of natural causes and was later dug up and beheaded.

  2. A footnote on the “execution” of Oliver Cromwell, he had been dead for 12 years, when it was carried out

    His head was displayed on a pole outside Westminster Hall for over 20 years, before it was taken down and sold on to numerous collectors who also displayed it

    It was only finally (re)buried, in 1960, 302 years after he died, (or 290 after he was executed)

      2. You are correct. Thank you

        I confused it with being on the 12th anniversary of the execution of Charles I

        Not to make excuses, (before making excuses) I was taught in 1985 and thought I could manage it without using Google

        1. No problem. You were not far off in the case of Cromwell’s co-conspirator,Henry Ireton, his son in law. Incidentally, for reasons which I have been unable to discover it would appear that the village Oregon in Iowa was named after him.

    1. I was thinking exactly that only the other way…. (?!) 🙂
      I mean, the day after the ultimate day – is that the post-ultimate day?
      Confusing myself…

    3. I think the only time I have heard “antepenultimate” before your comment was in Flanders and Swann’s “Madeira”, where the young lady was warned, with “his antepenultimate breath”, “My dear, should you look on the wine when it’s red, be prepared for a fate worse than death.”

  6. I wasn’t aware of Fred. Thanx for posting that – reposted that para on my FB stream. It also segues to a thought I had on waking up – will the next POTUS’ first exec order be the wholesale nullification of every one of Boss Tw**t’s?

    If more people woke up to this website instead of godawful banter radio (how do they stand that??) the country would be a better place.

Comments are closed.