Sunday: Hili dialogue

September 24, 2017 • 6:34 am

Good morning: it’s Sunday, September 24, 2017, we all survived the predicted Apocalypse, and it’s going to be another scorcher here in Chicago. And, God help us, it be Cherries Jubilee Day, promulgated by Big Cherry (here’s a recipe if you’re intrigued). In the U.S., it’s National Punctuation Day, so don’t go writing “its” for the contraction!

On September 24, 1780, Benedict Arnold, his spying uncovered, fled from the American Army to the British Army, in which he eventually became a brigadier general and led attacks on the Continental Army. On this day in 1890, the Mormon Church, pressured by the U.S. government, officially renounced polygamy. The operant word, of course, is “officially,” as some sects still practice it. In 1948, the Honda Motor Company was founded, and in 1957, President Eisenhower sent the military into Little Rock, Arkansas, to enforce desegregation. Although the Norman Rockwell painting below, “The problem we all live with,” was painted in 1964 in response to a similar crisis in New Orleans (it was on the cover of Look Magazine, and President Obama later had it hung outside the Oval Office), it’s appropriate. Note the “n word” scrawled on the wall (along with “KKK”)—something that wouldn’t be acceptable for a magazine cover today:

 

On this day in 1968, my favorite news show, “60 Minutes”, had its first broadcast on CBS. On September 24, 1978, Dougal Haston and Doug Scott reached the summit of Mount Everest by climbing its southwest face: the first Everest summit achieved by climbing a face. Finally, I’ll just quote Wikipedia on another event on this day, as I’m on shaky ground with computer firsts: “1979 – CompuServe launches the first consumer internet service, which features the first public electronic mail service.”

Notables born on this day include Horace Walpole (1717), Blind Lemon Jefferson (1893), F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896), Howard Florey (1898), Severo Ochoa (1905), and Fats Navarro (1923). Fitzgerald is one of my favorite modern American writers, and recordings of his voice are rare. Here he is reading Keats’s “Ode to a Nightingale” (Fitz was a huge Keats fan):

Those who died on this day include Paracelsus (1541), Hans Geiger (1945), Dr. Seuss (1991), Françoise Sagan (2004) and Buckwheat Zydeco (2016). Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili, on her wicker shelf, is puzzled:

Hili: I don’t understand people…
A: I don’t always understand them myself.
In Polish:
Hili: Nie rozumiem ludzi…
Ja: Ja też nie zawsze.

Out in remote Winnipeg, Gus’s staff writes this along with a new video:

This is a new game Gus invented the other day. A bit of a dangerous game for me…

Matthew Cobb sent us three animal tw**ts; the first is a splendid example of spider/ant mimicry:

Here’s a murmuration of starling shaped like a whale. Does this mean the apocalypse did happen yesterday?

And this is not injustice, but social justice. Cats, after all, are small and oppressed:

13 thoughts on “Sunday: Hili dialogue”

  1. “so don’t go writing “its” for the possessive!”

    What.

    “Its” *is* the possessive pronoun.

    Muphry’s law?

      1. From Wikipedia:

        Muphry’s law is an adage that states: “If you write anything criticizing editing or proofreading, there will be a fault of some kind in what you have written.”[1] The name is a deliberate misspelling of “Murphy’s law”.

  3. Forty-nine years the 60 minutes program has been going. Since the year I graduated from high school.

  4. I saw my first murmuration of starlings a couple of days ago. It was impressive. The birds flew right at me and passed over my head at low altitude. There must have been thousands of birds. Unfortunately, I had a long lens on the camera.

  5. “On this day in 1980, the Mormon Church, pressured by the U.S. government, officially renounced polygamy.”

    1890.

  8. I wonder what Jerry will think of “60 minutes” after tonight’s show? Now don’t throw up all over your computer screens: They’ve added Oprah Winfrey to their otherwise excellent staff of correspondents. Looks like she may be a “regular” on the broadcast. Of course I must ask: Just what kind of journalistic credentials does she have? (I didn’t watch. “Sunday Night Football” competes in my time zone.) Did you watch, Jerry?

    Here’s my guess why. Recently, Megyn Kelly came over to NBC from Fox News. They gave her the Sunday night slot opposite “60 Minutes” which lasted until the start of football season but will resume after the Super Bowl. I never watched her on Fox but I know she got under Trump’s skin during the campaign for her questions on women’s issues.

    I watched a couple of her NBC broadcasts and, I have to tell you, she’s a top notch journalist and compelling to watch. Currently, she’s on NBC’s daytime schedule. I suspect CBS fears she may cut into the “60 Minute” audience share and hired Oprah to forestall that. We shall see.

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