Friday: Hili dialogue

November 24, 2017 • 6:30 am

Good morning on Friday, November 24, 2017, when most Americans are still on their Thanksgiving holiday.  Sadly, it’s National Sardines Day, a comestible only slightly more palatable than the malodorous and despiséd anchovy. Much more exciting, it’s Evolution Day, for it was on November 24, 1859, that John Murray published Charles Darwin’s Origin of Species. Let’s see the full title (remember the kerfuffle when gleeful haters of Dawkins celebrated his inability to remember the full title?):

On the Origin of Species By Means of Natural Selection or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life

There will be a quiz. Here’s the title page of the first edition. Only 1250 copies were printed, and if you want one it will run you over $125,000. (And why isn’t there a Darwin Google Doodle today?)

Other November 24 events are scanty. It was on that day in 1642 that Abel Tasman became the first European to find the island Van Diemen’s Land, later named Tasmania. On this day in 1963, two days after Lee Harvey Oswald assassinated John F. Kennedy, Oswald was himself murdered by Jack Ruby.  And on November 24, 1971, the famous hijacker “Dan Cooper” parachuted from a Northwest Orient plane over the state of Washington, carrying $200,000 in ransom money. Neither he nor the money was ever found, and it’s not clear if he survived the jump. Finally, and this is appropriate for Darwin Day, it was on November 24, 1974—115 years after The Origin was published—that Donald Johanson and Tom Gray, digging in Ethiopia, found a largely (40%) complete skeleton of Australopithecus afarensis, nicknamed “Lucy” after the Beatles song playing in camp.

Here she is in her museum drawer. Read more about her on Wikipedia, or in WEIT:

Notables born on Evolution Day include Junipero Serra and Laurence Sterne (both 1713), Zachary Taylor (1784), Scott Joplin (1867), Teddy Wilson (1912), William F. Buckley, Jr. (1925), Pete Best (1941), and Billy Connolly (1942). Those whose metabolic processes became history on November 24 include John Knox (1572), Diego Rivera (1957), Freddie Mercury (1991), John Rawls (2002), and Florence Henderson (last year). Here’s Rivera and a kitty:

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili, being solipsistic, compares herself to a beautiful orchid but is found wanting

Hili: Do these flowers close for the night?
A: No.
Hili: I wouldn’t be able to be in bloom like that all the time.


In Polish:
Hili: Czy te kwiaty zamykają się na noc?
Ja: Nie.
Hili: Ja bym nie dała rady tak kwitnąć bez przerwy.

Here are a few well chosen tw**ts from Matthew Cobb. (This week Trump decides whether the U.S. can again allow importation of trophy animals like elephants). Watch the video:

https://twitter.com/invisibleman_17/status/933382427476717568

Be sure to watch the video on this one, too:

https://twitter.com/AwwwwCats/status/933799593720107012

A tweet sent by reader Blue (cool video):

And a ninja kitten from Grania. I love it when then do the sideways crab thingie:

https://twitter.com/CUTEFUNNYANIMAL/status/932381677179097097

31 thoughts on “Friday: Hili dialogue”

  1. I eat sardines all the time. I also like anchovies, it brightens up a Caesar salad and is good on pizza.

    1. I too like sardines and salted anchovies with cheese are delicious. Must be the Spanish in me.

    3. I love sardines. Cooked in an oven with just a little aromatic herbs, salt and olive oil, it is one of tastiest fish dishes. The same for anchovies. Thinking of it makes me salivating.

    4. The sardine sandwich is great. Just a few canned sardines between slices of your favorite bread. Maybe some pepper and mustard. Mmmmmmm…

    5. Sicilian friends who emigrated from Messina introduced us to a fine sardine-based dish. It consist of sardines, fennel, raisins, in a pasta mix. Quite delicious.

      1. In Southern Calif, anchovies and sardines are the preferred bait fish for catching some really delicious ocean sport fish (calico and sand bass, yellowtail, tunas to name but a few). But eat the bait fish? Never. I’m with Jerry on that.

        1. So prey fish are unfit for human consumption because predator fish find them delicious? Not sure I follow the logic of that.

  2. I’m not usually that into cat(and wildlife) vids and gifs, but the ones posted here are so brilliant I can’t help myself. Jerry has a good filter.

    1. My highlight today is the video of the jumping ibexes, to watch them how they one after the other, first hesitate, pause for a moment and then all jump and safely arrive on the other side, wonderful.

  3. A juicy evolution HD, I dig it.

    I think the writing style in the 19th century was generally like that, to write a title like that.

  4. Trump may have bigger things closing in as it appears Mueller and company have Flynn cooperating if stories are correct.

  6. Sardines: I like them, too. They’re even on the menu @ Primanti’s (at the bottom of the list) and I ordered one once, curious to see how it would be. The waitress said, “Huh, someone ordered one of those last month.”

    Orchids: Here’s a song for Hili (Carl Smith was June Carter Cash’s first husband).

    1. O m’golly, Mr Hempenstein, darling old song !
      I had not ever before known of it.

      Thank you for posting it !
      Likely, too: Ms Hili ‘ll find it charming !

      Blue

      1. Yep, isn’t it great! Glad you like it too.

        Hardly anyone’s heard of Carl Smith anymore, either – I hadn’t at the time, but then I didn’t listen to any country at that time.

      2. And I just noticed the ibex video came from you, too. Cool – some of the small ones don’t seem to have fathomed the concept of a running start/momentum, but they succeeded anyway.

        1. As I wrote another, the penultimate one,
          Mr Hempenstein ! of the ibices turns herself
          around and exclaims, ” W h o a ! I did it !
          I actually made it over ! I did it,
          Mr Hempenstein ! ”

          You are correct in re the weer ones:
          Darest Thou, indeed, Littler One !

          Blue

  7. Sardines — I hate’em. I’ve tried and tried to develop a taste for them, but cant, so have given up.

  8. William F. Buckley born on evolution day??

    In the 1990s, he either became or admitted to being skeptical of evolution. There’s a 2 hour Firing Line debate about it somewhere online with 8 panelists, including Ken Miller and Michael Ruse on the evolution side.

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