It’s Ceiling Cat’s Day: Sunday, August 29, 2018, and National Chop Suey Day. The best that can be said of that noodle-y glop is that it can’t be deemed cultural appropriation, as it’s an American invention. It’s also the International Day Against Nuclear Tests.
In other news, my co-duck farmer Anna has returned from her vacation, and remarked on how grown up the ducks are, adding that they are “so beautiful.” She didn’t lose any time going to the pond, and in the photo below she poses with the brood. I’m glad she returned to see them all before they take off, though I’m not yet convinced that, having found the Giant Vending Machine on Campus, they’ll ever leave!
Today’s Google Doodle celebrates the birthday of María Rebecca Latigo de Hernández, born on this day in 1896 (died 1986), a Mexican-American rights activist. Devdiscourse describes some of her activities:
In 1929, Along with her husband Pedro, she founded “The Orden Caballeros de América” (The Order of Knights of America), an organization dedicated to civic and political activities to benefit Mexican living in America and Mexican immigrants in educational matters.
Maria published her essay “México y Los Cuatro Poderes Que Dirigén al Pueblo,” in 1945. In her essay, she stated that the domestic sphere was the foundation of the society and mothers were the authority figures who shaped nations.
Maria was also a talented orator, and she became San Antonio’s first Mexican American female radio announcer and spent much of the rest of her life speaking up against injustice and inequality across both the Mexican and African American communities.
On this day in 1756, Frederick the Great started the Seven Years’ War by attacking Saxony. On July 29, 1885, Gottlieb Daimler patented the first gasoline-powered internal combustion engine, the Reitwagen, which was on a vehicle recognized as the world’s first motorcycle. Here’s a reproduction:
On this day in 1911, the native American Ishi, considered the last Native American to contact the white population, wandered out of the wilderness in Northern California, starved and ill. He had spent three years in the wild alone after his tribe was destroyed and then his small band of nomads disappeared (many of you may have read the eponymous book about him in college anthropology classes. Ishi was installed in a room in San Francisco by UC Berkeley, and, not having been exposed to many diseases, was repeatedly ill. He died of tuberculosis in 1916, with his last words reportedly being “You stay. I go.” If you have an hour to spare, here’s a nice documentary on Ishi:
On this day in 1966 there were two events: The Beatles performed their last concert before a paying crowd, playing at Candlestick Park in San Francisco, and the Islamist thinker Sayyid Qutb was executed for plotting the assassination of President Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt. Many trace the beginning of modern militant Islamism to Qutb’s writings. Finally, on July 29, 1997, Netflix began service as an internet DVD rental organization.
Notables born on this day include John Locke (1632), Ingrid Bergman (1915), Charlie Parker (1920), Dinah Washington (1924), Temple Grandin (1947), Neil Gorsuch (1967) and Lea Michele (1986). Those who died on July 29 include Brigham Young (1877), Éamon de Valera (1975), Lowell Thomas (1981), Ingrid Bergman (1982; died on her birthday), and Gene Wilder (2016).
Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili is pondering. . .
Hili: I have a deep thought.A: What is it?Hili: I don’t know, its too deep.
Hili: Mam głęboką myśl.
Ja: Jaką?
Hili: Nie wiem, jest zbyt głęboka.
Some tweets from Grania. First, an aqueous deer crossing:
https://twitter.com/earthvisuals/status/1021821886920105985
Messiest cat eater ever!
https://twitter.com/EmrgencyKittens/status/1022915884346683392
A grammar-correction program screws up badly:
What the fuck @Grammarly pic.twitter.com/9hbbJnV3nh
— Elise Andrew (@Elise_Andrew) July 27, 2018
Dog has puppies; cat moves into doghouse and has kittens:
This mama dog was keeping her puppies warm inside a doghouse when someone else decided to join her 💞 pic.twitter.com/Wlryxa4PKo
— The Dodo (@dodo) July 28, 2018
Tweets from Heather Hastie. For the first one, Heather points out that “this is not how a cat would react.”
SO PURE 🦋🦋🦋 pic.twitter.com/4x0XsoABqQ
— The Dodo (@dodo) July 26, 2018
Somebody find out the story behind this!
https://twitter.com/moododd/status/1022560552881713152
A cat completely immobilizes a person (on purpose, I bet). This is probably what happened when Muezza, falling asleep on Mohammad, forced him to cut off his sleeve before attending prayer:
https://twitter.com/EmrgencyKittens/status/1022508214041174020
Tweets from Matthew. The first one involves employees of London’s Natural History Museum telling natural history jokes. Oy, are they groaners! Be sure to watch, though: I like the one about how mammoths take their hot dogs.
By all means put your favorite natural history joke below. Here’s mine:
Q: What do you call bears that have no ears?
A: B
Go on, tell us your best natural history joke! pic.twitter.com/VuZ5WimNjk
— Natural History Museum (@NHM_London) July 27, 2018
A peacock spider once again demonstrates the marvels of sexual selection:
Male Maratus volans courtship display
Central Coast NSW Australia #peacock_spider pic.twitter.com/poroWizOFz— Michael Doe (@Maratus_spider) July 28, 2018
That’ll do, pig; that’ll do. . .
The exuberance of youth. pic.twitter.com/Bsjv536vnM
— Dick King-Smith HQ (@DickKingSmith) July 28, 2018
Click on the tweet to see the third answer:
The third one is the best.
(From the @NewYorker ) pic.twitter.com/S8q61Ny5TB
— Stephen Curry (@Stephen_Curry) July 28, 2018
An imagined view from the Moon of Friday night’s lunar eclipse:
What last night's lunar eclipse looked like if you were standing on the Moon.
(painting by Lucien Rudaux)https://t.co/TOxBTBaFgE pic.twitter.com/EzQG3wUldS— Chris Hadfield (@Cmdr_Hadfield) July 28, 2018
Brilliant indeed; this is so realistic!
Brilliant insect street art by #odeith via @instagram https://t.co/VfITEL2KzG How good is this beast! @BrytheFlyGuy @flygirlNHM #insects #sciart #urbanecology pic.twitter.com/AQWj7i3pzA
— Dr Cameron Webb (@Mozziebites) July 28, 2018
I predict the ducks will go as families generally do for one reason or another, mostly because they get very tired of each other.
There is a very nice article over at Heather’s place by a guest author.
Having some experience of stray cats, that poor dog owner is going to need quite a lot of strong flea treatment! Many years ago my Burmese got into a fight with a feral cat and in the process picked up some unwanted guests. He and I had a terrible time getting rid of them – they were resistant to the stuff I could buy over the counter, and we had to visit a vet for Frontline Plus, which was unavailable here without prescription in those days.
Here’s something by Charlie Parker not too many have heard, made during the recording strikes of 1943:
That is lovely! Any recording info? The guitarist?
Efferge Ware, guitar; Phil Phillips, drums. Recorded in Kansas City.
Thanks! This is really something.
Sub
Well… As a matter of fact The Bird was born on August 29, but we have a sad piece of jazz news concerning July 29. Tomasz Stanko died last night:
https://www.wprost.pl/kraj/10142391/nie-zyje-tomasz-stanko.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomasz_Stańko
Here’s all the info on the grim reaper video from the creator Justin Leduc himself! https://www.reddit.com/r/Cinema4D/comments/91kpd8/creeping/
Thanks! Fascinating!
Ishi’s tribe was exterminated by a bunch of rogue gun-toters.
I always found that fact so unbelievable, a small bunch wiping out a whole tribe. Horrendous, and so sad.
When and if I have time I’ll watch the documentary.
It was fascinating on multiple levels. I am very glad PCC(E) brought it to our attention, as I had never heard of Ishi.
It was especially poignant to me because my adapted country, Ecuador, is still in that phase of human history. In the Amazon there are still scattered remnant indigenous people who have not been contacted except by bands of murderers, and there are also tribes just recently contacted.
Indeed – I was going to suggest that Ishi was a representative of the last to be contacted in *North* America.
Perhaps the grammar program was thinking of “worm” in the sense of “dragon” (wyrm/wurm).
Q: What’s the different between a bison and a buffalo?
A: You can’t wash your face in a buffalo.
(Say with Australian accent where basin becomes bison.)
RHinoceros THeatre in San Francisco is the world’s oldest gay-themed theatre company. One of their very very few plays NOT based on gay themes was an original play about Ishi in 2008, which was terrific.
(Slightly critical review here: https://www.sfgate.com/performance/article/Ishi-gripping-drama-at-Theatre-Rhino-3277120.php )
Few people know that the anthropologist who kept him, Alfred Kroeber, and his 2nd wife who wrote the famous book about Ishi, Theodora Kroeber, are the parents of sci-fi writer Ursula K. LeGuin. I vividly recall sitting on a bus boarded by a student from a local junior college who was carrying some books including both a novel by LeGuin and her mother’s book on Ishi. I asked him casually if he had decided to do some mother-daughter reading over the weekend.He was perplexed and I clarified. He cried out in astonishment “THeodora Kroeber is Ursula LeGuin’s mother??”
I was thinking yesterday how Earth must appear from the moon during a lunar eclipse. The moon remains very bright during the eclipse, suggesting to me that the the “ring of fire” from Earth’s atmosphere may be much more spectacular than the representation in Chris Hadfield’s tweet. I’m surprised that NASA (or anyone else) has not attempted to photograph it.
Changing the subject, I was not aware that Gene Wilder, one of my favorite actors, died two years ago. Wiki lists the date of death as August 29.
I agree. The face of the earth should be at lest somewhat visible from moonshine, at least to the human eye. It may require some exposure adjustment to record that on camera, however.
Just FYI, Chop Suey doesn’t have noodles. Perhaps you were thinking of Chow Mein. Since you said “noodle-y”, perhaps meaning noodle-like but without noodles, I guess you have an out.
From what I understand, “chop suey” just means “leftovers”, so why not include noodles if there are any?
No problem but then you would have to call it Chow Mein.
Obviously, it’s a free country so, ultimately, you can call it whatever you want. However, I remember from my younger days going to Chinese-American restaurants that Chop Suey always meant a sauteed vegetable dish rather than a noodle dish. I don’t see Chop Suey on menus here in the Los Angeles area anymore but Chow Mein is still common. I suspect the problem with Chop Suey is that it doesn’t say what vegetables are in it. Nowadays we prefer more specific combinations of veggies.
Here’s Pops with Cornet Chop Suey (1926):
Good piece! See? No noodles.