Saturday: Hili dialogue

October 6, 2018 • 6:30 am

Yes, it’s Saturday, October 6, 2018, and National Noodle Day It’s also the third day of National Space Week.

The News of the Day is that Brett Kavanaugh will almost certainly be confirmed as a Supreme Court Justice today. This is most depressing: almost as depressing—or perhaps even more so—than the election of Trump. Kavanaugh’s presence will tilt the court to the right for decades, and it will only get worse if Ruth Bader Ginsburg retires in the next few years. We are well and truly screwed. Kavanaugh is not only an extreme Right winger, but a perjurer (or so I think) and now bears a huge animus against liberals. There’s no silver lining in this cloud.

Here’s Saturday on the Cheezburger site’s new calendar: “A typical week through the eyes of a [Pallas] cat“.  The manul is exultant today, as it’s Caturday!

Not a lot happened on this day in history. On October 6, 1600, the earliest surviving opera, Euridice by Jacopo Peri, was premiered in Florence with Peri singing one of the parts. On this day in 1927, the movie “The Jazz Singer,” regarded as the first popular and feature-length”talkie” (a movie with sound), opened. Starring Al Jolson, it is a movie about a Jew but also has some blackface. Here’s the plot summary from Wikipedia:

The film depicts the fictional story of Jakie Rabinowitz, a young man who defies the traditions of his devout Jewish family. After singing popular tunes in a beer garden he is punished by his father, a hazzan (cantor), prompting Jakie to run away from home. Some years later, now calling himself Jack Robin, he has become a talented jazz singer. He attempts to build a career as an entertainer but his professional ambitions ultimately come into conflict with the demands of his home and heritage.

Here’s the movie’s most famous song, with Jolson in blackface, a trope that would not, of course, be tolerated in today’s movies. His Jewish “mammy” is sitting in the audience weeping with pride. Curiously, “My Mammy” was first performed in 1918 by William Frawley, who played the landlord Fred Mertz in the television show “I Love Lucy.”

On this day in 1973, Egypt and Syria began the Yom Kippur War with a coordinated strike on Israel. Israel won, but this led to the Camp David Accords. Exactly 8 years later, Egyptian President Anwar Sadat was murdered by Islamic extremists. On this day in 2007, Jason Lewis completed the first human-powered circumnavigation of the Earth, using a combination of rollerblades, boats, and bicycles.  Finally, a black day in Internet history: it was on October 6, 2010 that Instagram was launched. With over fifty billion solipsistic pictures now on view, it is the premier way for people to avoid social interaction while touting their bodies and achievements.

Notables born on this day include Jenny Lind (1820), George Westinghouse (1846), Le Corbusier (1887), mountaineer Willy Merkl (1900, died on Nanga Parbat in 1934), Carole Lombard (1908), Thor Heyerdahl (1914), and the odious Gerry Adams (1948).

Those who died on October 6 include Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1892), Will Keith Kellogg (1951), Otto Fritz Meyerhof (also 1951; Nobel Laureate), Bernard Berenson (1959), Elizabeth Bishop (1979), Anwar Sadat (1981, see above), and Bette Davis (1989). I also hear that the famed Spanish soprano Montserrat Caballé died in Europe this morning.

Here’s a short video of the assassination of Sadat (note, it’s not very gory but does show the shooters taking him down at a distance:

Here’s a joke “meme” (I don’t like to use that word) from reader Merilee:

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Andrzej makes a timely pun:

Hili: There is another nut here.
A: Nuts are everywhere.
In Polish:
Hili: Tu jest jeszcze jeden orzech.
Ja: Wszędzie są orzechy.

A tweet from Heather Hastie: angry bird!

Reader Blue sent a tweet showing a ragdoll cat apparently auditioning to be Maru’s understudy:

https://twitter.com/videocats/status/1048184058814115840

From reader Barry, who adds, “What am I looking at here? Or as one commenter asked, “What the actual fuck is that thing?”  I don’t know. A catfish having a brewski?

From Gethyn, staff of Theo, who sends a kitten on a giant lily pad:

Tweets from Grania; do watch the Moon video:

Here’s the original tweet;

Watch the 2.5-minute video below and then read the whole thread if you can:

This demands that you turn up the volume;

https://twitter.com/EmrgencyKittens/status/1047150470450556928

Too true!

https://twitter.com/BoringEnormous/status/1047571331372539904

Tweets from Matthew. This guy may have dementia, and the goalie gave him a break, but the guy had the aim!

This land-dwelling planarian, Bipalium sp., truly is a nightmare.

This is new to me: a bee who wraps up its offspring, individually, in leaves. Beeritos! (It’s a video.)

 

20 thoughts on “Saturday: Hili dialogue”

  1. Kavanaugh is a liar in this moment. We will see how that plays out with the other justices – perhaps they’ll react in some way.

    … is there ANYTHING a justice can do that will get them removed from the court?

    1. From CBS News:

      “Impeachment proceedings for a member of the high court follow a similar process as it would for a president: requiring a simple majority vote from the House and approval from two-thirds of the Senate. Article II Section Four states that “the President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.” And Article III Section One states that “the Judges, both of the supreme and inferior Courts, shall hold their offices during good behavior.””

      Only one Supreme Court justice has ever been impeached: Samuel Chase in 1804. He was acquitted by the Senate.

      In other words, the chance of Kavanaugh ever being removed from office by Congress is virtually zero. This is because getting 2/3 of the Senate to vote for removal is almost impossible.

      https://www.cbsnews.com/news/brett-kavanaugh-proceedings-can-a-supreme-court-justice-be-impeached/

  3. I think there is a silver lining, although it’s a bit of a reach. First, if Kavanaugh hadn’t been confirmed Trump would have nominated someone as bad or worse, and they probably would have sailed through. Second, if Kavanaugh hadn’t been confirmed the Republican base would have been furious and energized for the midterms. Instead, the Democrats (especially women) are furious.

  4. Kavanaugh was picked because he is a reliable fifth vote to close down the Mueller investigation, which will happen before the end of this year.

    We will now never find out the truth about the 2016 election.

    L

    1. If this is true, will USA not come closer to be a banana republic? There was a joke in 2016, saying that Trump could be the last president of the US. If he is never held responsible for anything, this could occur.

      I certainly do not claim to understand the legal and political subtleties. It’s just that there is something disturbing to see how (harmful) partisanship could erode democratic values at the highest levels.

      1. I think if the Dems make significant gains in this election, there is still a glimmer of hope. But, I’m not holding my breath. If Democrats don’t actually get out and vote in large numbers, which they don’t usually for midterms, it will be close, and the House could go either way. The Senate is still a long shot.

        And, we don’t know what the Russians have planned, either. All efforts to safeguard this election have been stopped by Republicans.

        I don’t think this will be the last election, but it might be the last genuine election. Trump will surely want to be validated by an “election”, but he will want it Russia-style, where he wins by 98%.

        I read in the last couple of days that he is very focused on 2020, not in a policy sort of way, but wanting to win again. The author of the article said that the highlight of his Presidency so far was getting Hillary Clinton’s concession phone call. How gross is that? He has no sense of public service, only hurting other people gives him satisfaction.

        I am not nearly as bothered by Trump himself as I am by the knowledge that 40% of this country is behind him.

        Ugh.

        L

        1. Mr Trump is dismantling -well, he’s not alone- the very alliances, agreements and institutions that have kept (more or less) World peace for 70 years.
          His populist jingoism comparable to Mr Putin’s, isolating the US, is one of the great threats this (usurped) presidency poses.

  5. Hey, Jerry, that catfish, or whatever it is, must be a Kavanaugh fan: “I like beer.”

  6. I’m curious Dr PCC(e) why is it you don’t like the word “meme”? Is it the context of that tweet you dislike?

    1. My guess is that he hates that the word “meme” has been hijacked to refer to images with words that are so common on social media. We can no longer use the word meme to refer to Dawkins’ coinage, at least not without explaining it to some people. I had a mild argument on Facebook with an acquaintance over this a few years ago. It’s impossible to convince them as it is the only “meme” they know. It was such a good word too!

  7. After Kavanaugh takes his seat on the Supreme Court, there will be an assured four votes against the Affordable Care Act and four for it the next time it is litigated. Justice Roberts has shown himself to be less than fully reliable in this regard, so the Republicans face the danger that Obamacare might survive a new court challenge. This unfortunate turn of events would be a blemish on the legacy of Mitch McConnell, damaging his reputation as a master parliamentary strategist in the mould of Stephen A. Douglas or Franz von Pappen.

    We can therefore look forward to Senator McConnell introducing new legislation, to be enacted before the present (115th) Congress ends, requiring Supreme Court Justices to retire at age 80. This rule would force the retirement of just two sitting members of the present Supreme Court. Senator McConnell will doubtless explain that the legislation reflects only his American emphasis on youth and vitality, and of course his concern for the well-being in their golden years of Justices Ginsberg and Breyer.

    1. One thing to remind ourselves in these dark days is that if the Dems gain control of Congress and the Presidency by 2020, they can pass some of these things as actual laws. Then the right-leaning Supreme Court would have to declare them unconstitutional to get rid of them, which is a pretty high bar.

      1. On the other hand, this is precisely what the Supreme Court did about the National Industrial Recovery Act of 1933 and several other New Deal statutes, typically by 5:4 or 6:3 majorities. Perhaps our new Supreme Court, working on behalf of Mitch McConnell’s principles, can return to the 1930s GOP project and overturn the entire New Deal.

  8. in re “There’s no silver lining in this cloud.”

    We did .this. to ourselves. From before the election unto … … now.

    We are .not. better than this.
    We .are. this.

    No silver. Squat. Zero, zip, zilch. Nada.
    Blue

  9. With over fifty billion solipsistic pictures now on view, it is the premier way for people to avoid social interaction while touting their bodies and achievements.

    I was curious what the research says, and I found it was “not that”:

    “As these questions continue to be debated, research is showing that the internet is not destroying relationships or causing people to be anti-social.4 To the contrary, the internet is enabling people to maintain existing ties, often to strengthen them, and at times to forge new ties. The time that most people spend online reduces the time they spend on the relatively unsocial activities of watching TV and sleeping. Moreover, the relationships maintained through online communication only rarely are with an entirely new set of individuals who live far away. Instead, a large amount of the communication that takes place online is with the same set of friends and family who are also contacted in person and by phone.”

    [ http://www.pewinternet.org/2006/01/25/what-is-the-internet-doing-to-relationships/ ]

    That was old data of course, but Instagram specifically seems to be too new to have much research done yet.

  10. For anyone who is into the cult of the cat, IG is the place to be. One doesn’t have to look at the vain human accounts unless one wishes; there are plenty of non-human animal IG accounts to satisfy cravings for cuteness.

    For example, check out @station57cat or @carlow_fdny_cat or #firecats

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