Wednesday: Hili dialogue

October 10, 2018 • 7:02 am

It’s Hump Day: Wednesday, October 10, 2018. It’s also National Angel Food Cake Day (I love the stuff, especially when made with fresh strawberry icing), as well as World Mental Health Day.

I’ll be leaving for Croatia tomorrow and posting will be light for a week. But Grania, peace be upon her, has agreed to do the Hili dialogues during my absence, so give thanks to her.

Not much happened on this day in history. Again, as with yesterday, Wikipedia says that in 1582,  “Because of the implementation of the Gregorian calendar this day does not exist in this year in Italy, Poland, Portugal and Spain.” This day does not exist!!! On this day in 1871, the Chicago fire, begun October 8, after a barn accident (probably not Mrs. O’Leary’s cow kicking over a lantern) burned out.  300 people died and 3.3 square miles of the city was destroyed, leaving over 100,000 people homeless. On October 10, 1928, Chiang Kai-shek became Chairman of the Republic of China. In 1938, the Munich Agreement, an act of craven appeasement, ceded the Sudetenland (the German-speaking moiety of Czechoslovakia) to the Nazis. “Peace in our time,” bleated the failed Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain. That peace lasted less than a year.  On October 10, 1971, London Bridge, sold to the Americans and moved to the U.S., opened in Lake Havasu City, Arizona. This is London Bridge, not the Tower Bridge; here’s the difference.

London Bridge in its new home:

Tower Bridge, which everyone thinks is London Bridge:

On this day in 1973, Vice President Spiro Agnew resigned after being charged with evading federal income tax. He never saw the inside of a jail, and died in 1996. Finally, on this day in 1985, U.S. naval fighter jets intercepted an Egyptian plane carrying members of the Palestine Liberation Front who were on their way to Tunisia. The jets forced the plane to land in Italy, where the hijackers were tried, paroled, released to Yugoslavia, and disappeared. I don’t know if Mossad ever tracked them down, but I don’t think so.

Notables born on this day include Giuseppi Verdi (1813), Alberto Giacometti (1901), two jazz musicians, Harry Edison (1915) and Thelonious Monk (1917), Harold Pinter (1930), John Prine (1946), Tanya Tucker (1958), Julia Sweeney (1959), and Daniel Pearl (1963, beheaded 2002).

Those who expired on October 10 include Abel Tasman (1659), Edith Piaf (1963), Yul Brynner and Orson Welles (both 1985), and my Chicago colleague Wayne C. Booth (2005).

Brynner, who had smoked since age 12, quit in 1971 but it was too late. He died of lung cancer 14 years later, and, as he was dying he made this commercial to deter people from smoking:

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili is auditioning for the role of Henri The Existentialist Cat:

Hili: I don’t see any sense in life.
A: You are looking in the wrong direction.
In Polish:
Hili: Nie widzę żadnego sensu życia.
Ja: Patrzysz w złą stronę.
Here’s a cartoon from reader Su:

 

A tweet from reader George; how could somebody be this muddled?:

https://twitter.com/_SJPeace_/status/1049431085405360128

Tweets from Heather Hastie. Who woulda thought that Noam Chomsky would come out against Antifa? In the tweet below that, Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan decries the Offense Culture:

From Heather via Ann German: Is this a case of “monkey see, monkey do,” or was the gorilla trained to do this?

https://twitter.com/Koksalakn/status/1040981206874112001

Also via Ann German: Steve Stewart-Williams sends an illusion that Matthew will love:

Tweets from Matthew: Auden’s translation of the 9th century poem Pangur Bán, by an Irish monk (original test here).  I had a black cat for 18 years named Pangur after this poem.

A true fact, though it should be the singular “larva”:

Tweets from Grania. This one is a jawdropper:

Good morning, neko-san!

Man bites dog!

A refreshing ad. After all, who really cares (except HuffPo) that Taylor Swift endorsed a Democrat?

64 thoughts on “Wednesday: Hili dialogue”

  1. On this day in 1973, Vice President Spiro Agnew resigned after being charged with evading federal income tax. He never saw the inside of a jail, and died in 1996.

    Spiro Agnew was one of the most corrupt political thugs ever to wander out of the state of Maryland. He was still accepting bags of cash across his vice-presidential desk for the chicanery he committed as governor there before Dick Nixon plucked him for the bottom half of the 1968 Republican ticket.

    Agnew resigned and snuck out of Washington, DC, in the dead of night, only to show up in court in Baltimore the next morning, where he was allowed to plead nolo contendere — something almost unheard of in federal court — to a tax beef. The nation simply wanted to be rid of Agnew, the way the jungle wanted to be rid of Kurtz.

    His resignation cleared the way for Nixon to appoint Gerald Ford as his new VP. Ford — who had never been elected by anybody outside the voters of his Grand Rapids congressional district — went on to become the nation’s most accidental president when Nixon himself resigned 10 months later and slunk off to his San Clemente, CA, compound, there to spend the rest of his days trying to rewrite the history of his own ignoble presidency.

    1. Can you imagine what would have happened to the nation if Nixon resigned before Agnew was charged and had to resign?

      1. I’d still take a knee-walking thug like Agnew over a filthy unfit nationalist buffoon like Trump, any day of the week.

        I never imagined I’d ever say anything like that about the US presidency.

  3. I feel I must stand up for Chamberlain… a thoroughly decent & much maligned man. Britain was not prepared in any way to go to war over Czechoslovakia in 1938. Britain did not want a war. After the invasion of what was left of Czechoslovakia, opinion turned.

    2. I strongly agree. It really irritates me when people so predictably insult Chamberlain every time his name is mentioned. I suppose I should start going on about “that coward Roosevelt” and just see how well that goes down…

      (Not that I think that of Roosevelt, but then I don’t think it of Chamberlain either)

      cr

    3. One way to look at it is Hitler bullied Britain into giving in. Another way to look at it is to see it as buying a year in order to prepare for war.

      1938 was only 20 years after the most destructive war in history from their point of view. Anybody over the age of about 30 probably had a huge aversion to having another one.

      1. Chamberlain was certainly very naïve in his dealings with Hitler. Signalling an unwillingness to go to war is a fatal mistake when dealing with a bully. Churchill, by contrast, had seen the war coming and been frustrated by the complacency of the pacifists and naïve “internationalist” types. The unpreparedness of Britain can be laid partly at the door of politicians who had spent the pre-war period insulting the “war monger” Churchill. I believe Churchill aided in the development of RADAR ( and maybe other measures) and in the hiding of it for fear that it would be revealed to Germany in an act of good faith.

        To his credit, Chamberlain stepped down willingly and did not join Halifax in trying to undermine Churchill.

    4. Chamberlain was a decent man. One way we know this is he changed his mind and came to realize Munich was a terrible blunder.

  4. I was wandering up to a backpackers’ hostel in Vladivostok – in a rather imposing multi-storey building set back from the road – when a Russian who was parking his car must have spotted me for a tourist and informed me quite proudly that Yul Brynner’s house was next door.

    (I must admit I thought, privately, ‘and I expect Queen Victoria slept there too’ but I was too polite to admit it.) It was only later I noticed the quite impressive statue in front of the building:
    https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/51/Yul_Brynner_Statue.JPG

    I’d never realised that Yul Brynner was of Russian origin before.

    cr

  5. Come on, Jerry.

    You will get tired of exclamating:

    This day does not exist!!!

    In October 1582, when Pope Gregory calendar was introduced, a full 10 calendar days were wiped out, to correct accumulated yearly timekeeping errors.

    October 4th was followed by October 15th.

    Therefore, the correct exclamation is:

    TEN days did not exist!!!

    1. A funny consequence of the introduction of the Gregorian calendar is that in 1616 Shakespeare and Cervantes died on the same date but not on the same day.

    2. My extensive Internet research tells me that we will have to do this eleven times next September because by the time the British adopted the Gregorian calendar, the error in the old Julian calendar was eleven days and 3rd September to 13th September inclusive in 1752 did not exist!!!!!

  6. Re that enhanced Muller-Lyer illusion, video has made many classic illusions so much more effective.

    That video on this page is such a powerful illusion that if I park a straight-edge along the line of arrowheads on the screen I would swear there is cheating going on – that the arrowheads are moving, all except the one I’m concentrating on – but if I concentrate very hard on the point of each arrowhead in turn I can confirm that it doesn’t move. Also, I get dizzy.

    cr

  7. I wonder if, at some point, after the US has completed it’s decline as a world power, some city in China will buy the Brooklyn Bridge and relocate it there. Or even the Washington Monument.

    1. “Tower Bridge, which everyone thinks is London Bridge”

      No, only Americans 😉

      There has been a series of London Bridge’s. The one in Lake Havasu is a reconstruction – the facing stones of Rennie’s bridge on a concrete frame. To be fair, many ‘heritage’ buildings that have reached the end of their practical working life have been preserved in this way.

      From the photo, the rebuild has done justice to the aesthetics of Rennie’s structure.

      cr

      1. Yes, we have a new swanky London Bridge which looks like it’s got concrete facing on a concrete frame.

        Incidentally, the stonework of Tower Bridge is just a facade. If you go inside (well worth it if you are a tourist in London) you’ll see that it is a fairly modern steel latticework construction.

        4. Well ‘fairly modern’ is a relative thing, (1894), though I suppose steel lattice work is definitely more modern than the deliberately antique architecture of the masonry cladding.

          A little bit of faking is not unknown in bridge designs. The towers at each end of Sydney Harbour Bridge are a classic example, they are not connected to the arch and have no function except to visually delimit the ends of the arch – which they do most successfully.

          The suspension ‘cables’ of the Tower Bridge side spans look very weird structurally, being of two different curvatures trussed together. They are in fact curved trusses. Structurally a combination of tension members (like suspension bridge cables) and trusses. Really very odd indeed.

          cr

          1. British history (in the sense of people writing it down) stretches back 2000 years. 1894 is fairly modern.

            Interesting what you say about the “suspension” cables (actually they look more like chains as per the Clifton bridge). I hadn’t noticed before but you are right, although I guess there’s probably a blurred line between cable and truss with the road way suspended from below.

      2. Is it Tower Bridge because the bridge itself has towers, or because it is near the Tower of London?

        1. The bridge is named for The Tower. The footings at the northern end of Tower Bridge are only 20 metres from the south-east corner of the Tower of London site. The Tower itself is only around 100 metres away approx.

    1. Muddled is too polite a word. That was a boatload of f#%*ing morons! How can people that bleeding stupid get themselves dressed in the morning?! That just pissed me off! Whenever I hear how bad eugenics was, I’ll think of those people…!

      Ok. I’m done. Still, what an argument in favor of forced sterilization…

      1. There are many, many people who’ve never set foot aboard a boat and many who do so can’t even swim. So imagine some of those people, already nervous and unsure, get talked into going on a short boat ride (they were near shore as you can see) and then a couple of behemoths twice the size of their tiny boat show up right underneath. Yeah it was ridiculous, but maybe these people were those boating neophytes. I have some sympathy for them and perhaps after this they will have learned something – whales are not intentionally dangerous or aggressive to us even though with a single flip of its tail it could have killed them all.

        FTR – I spent three months on a research vessel as a diver/deck hand with a group studying Humpbacks in Hawaii, so I know how exhilarating and terrifying it is to be near them. They’re huge, immensely powerful and stinky to boot.

  9. Deride Taylor Swift if you will, but 65,000 new voters registered after her endorsement — enough to swing some elections if they turn out.

    Dire times such as these call for artists and intellectuals (and whatever the hell it is that Taylor Swift is) to get all engagé, as the French say.

    2. Ken, my reaction to the fact that the pop singer managed to get 65k fans to register was a twinge of satisfaction followed by desperation for the future. Just wait until the script is flipped. Oh wait, that already happened in 2016. Populism driven by a facile, uninformed mob spells doom.

      2. My own feeling is that everyone eligible to vote should be registered automatically, and that voting should be as easy and convenient as it can be made. But beyond that, I wouldn’t encourage anyone to vote; let the informed and interested voters self-select.

    3. I don’t like the cheap shot directed at intellectuals the advertisment makes.

      Every demagogue targets the “elite”, it’s red meat dog whistle.

      The advert is tailor-(no pun)- made to appeal to current supporters of President Dennison.

  10. Surely the issue with Antifa is that they are thugs with a penchant for property damage, trying to incite violence and assaulting people. Being a gift to the three true neo-fascists is surely a minor issue with Antifa, even less serious than the grating whining sounds they emit when held to account.

  11. WARNING! Re the cat with its head pressed against the register, I think I mentioned this in a previous post but I’m going to mention it again, and if need be, again to warn cat lovers. There is a condition called “head pressing,” when cats and dogs press their heads against walls or other solid objects. THIS IS NOT CUTE. THIS IS A DANGEROUS CONDITION and the animal needs to be taken to the vet immediately to ascertain the cause. https://www.littlethings.com/pet-head-pressing-warning. Here is a site with excellent information on head-pressing specifically in cats, lots of photos of different poses,https://purrfectlove.net/cat-head-pressing/ but it’s screwed up, at least on my browser, I get double printing and overlays. But it’s worth looking at if possible.

    I’m not on Twitter but I wonder if there’s any way to alert the tweeter about the problem?

    1. Wow. Thanks for the alert. I had no idea. Pet owners pay attention.

      BTW despite the good advice, that first link at “littlethings.com” is evil – pop ups and click bait.

      1. Thanks for noting the corrupted link at “littlethings.com”. There’s quite a bit more on the Internet — reputable sites, just Google “cat head pressing.” Here’s a link that should be uncorrupted and not click bait https://www.petmd.com/cat/conditions/neurological/how-treat-head-pressing-cats. Still wish I could get a clear view of the “purrfectlove” site because it seems to have lots of very detailed info. “Seems,” because the display is occluded.

    2. Thanks for the information JH
      It is useless to inform the @chiro_chan_neko Twitter site where we see the kitty. Chiro is just an aggregator of other peoples stuff & doesn’t interact at all with the very few comments.

      I notice it says “catloversclub” in the video itself, but unfortunately there’s loads of sites on YouTube, Twitter etc that use that name!

      However I found the video was posted on an Instagram account eight days ago. The account is an aggregator, but perhaps they’ll remember where they ripped it from. The email address is at the top of the account & the video is on the 12th row here:
      https://www.instagram.com/catloversclub/
      EMAIL: PetsLoversClub@gmail.com

      1. Thank you so much for the info and links. And the screen grab. I was pretty sure that it had very useful information about this condition, and the photos are very helpful.

        I’ll try that Instagram link; that poor cat.

        1. I just sent an email to the PetsLovers Club, along with the screen shot that you provided above. I located the photo on their Instagram page and, you were correct, it said “source unknown.” Nonetheless, I alerted them, and at least, perhaps they’ll spread the word.

          1. Thank you Michael Fisher! I just received this email from PetsLoversClub in response to mine:

            “Hi,
            Thanks for your information.
            Since it’s just 1 video so it’s hard to know what really happened. It shared on fb group which source is unknown. I tried to find real source and this video started from ID: 274260192 ( Douyin ) but it’s all Chinese. I’m not sure that is his video because it’s different with other videos although I still tried to use google translate to send him message.”

            Slim chance that the cat will be identified, but this person put the word out, and at the very least, some others will learn of this malady. Did I mention that dogs exhibit this, too, so dog lovers should also be alerted.

          2. Glad to help a little. Douyin is also known as TikTok – it’s a huge app in China & Indonesia for sharing very short music videos. Likely that cat is in an Indonesian shop from various clues – big minority, oppressed Chinese population there.

  14. Regarding Chomsky and Kagan: I am currently about 50% of the way through The Coddling of the American Mind by Lukianoff and Haidt.

    I recommend it most highly. Wonderfully readable and interesting and right on the money.

    Do read it.

  15. My ex and I had a black cat named Pangur as well, although ours was a female. Sadly, when we went our separate ways, the cat went with her.

  16. “On this day in 1871, the Chicago fire, begun October 8, after a barn accident (probably not Mrs. O’Leary’s cow kicking over a lantern) burned out. 300 people died and 3.3 square miles of the city was destroyed, leaving over 100,000 people homeless.”

    It was also the day of the Great Peshtigo Fire, the deadliest wildfire in US histoty. Anywhere from 1,500 to 2,500 people died, 1,875 square miles of forest had been consumed (an area 50% larger than Rhode Island). Twelve towns were wiped off the map. Compared to that, Chicago’s fire was a birthday candle.

    2. This was all reported by Jerry on his Monday: Hili Dialogue ~ October 8th when both fires started.

  17. Very funny cat and Kim Jong Un photo on G+. Search “Alessia Ancient”.

    (Not a prank or joke.) Maybe one of you guys can figure out how to post it or send it to Professor Ceiling Cat.

  18. The Republic of China is now Taiwan. The People’s Republic of China is the country known as China, ruled by the odious Communist Party of China.

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