Friday: Hili dialogue

January 25, 2019 • 6:30 am

It’s January 25, 2019, and we’ve reached the end of the week at last, but the weekend in Chicago should be grim, as there are predictions of very low temperatures. As I walked to work this morning, the temperature was -5°F (-21° C), but felt colder because of a stiff wind. Below is my attire before leaving: an Eddie Bauer fabric/down jacket layered atop a Mountain Hardwear Ghost Whisperer light down jacket, a sweatshirt, heavy gloves and a balaklava. But my legs, in jeans, froze on the short walk to work. I’m parked in front of a space heater now.

Latest news: Trump’s informal advisor Roger Stone was indicted by Mueller et al. on seven criminal counts, including obstruction of an official proceeding, making false statements, and witness tampering. Stone has a tattoo of Richard Nixon on his back, which will doubtlessly amuse his fellow inmates. As CNN noted in its email:
The indictment’s wording does not say who on the campaign knew about Stone’s quest, but makes clear it was multiple people. This is the first time prosecutors have alleged they know of additional people close to the President who worked with Stone as he sought out WikiLeaksfounder Julian Assange.
It’s also a hot beverage holiday, National Irish Coffee Day (I’m not sure whether this is cultural appropriation of whether the drink is even known in Ireland). In Wales it’s Dydd Santes Dwynwen, described as the Welsh Valentine’s Day.  According to Wikipedia,

A big boost for St Dwynwen’s Day came in 2003 when the Welsh Language Board (Bwrdd yr Iaith Gymraeg) teamed up with UK supermarket Tesco to distribute 50,000 free cards in 43 of its Welsh stores. One card was inserted with a special heart, the finder of which would be entitled to a prize. The board also suggested numerous ways to celebrate the feast besides sending cards, for example, organize a love-themed gig, set up a singles night, prepare a romantic meal and perhaps compose a love poem to read at the local pub.

I can only imagine the moxie it would take to read a love poem at the local pub. Dylan Thomas would be appalled!

On this day in 1533, Henry VIII secretly married his second wife, Anne Boleyn.  After having failed to produce a son, she was beheaded three years later.  On January 25, 1755, Moscow University was established on Tatiana Day, a Russian Orthodox religious holiday.  And on this day in 1858, the famous Wedding March by Felix Mendelssohn was played at the marriage between Queen Victoria’s daughter, Victoria, and Friedrich of Prussia. Although it was first played 11 years earlier, its rendition at the royal wedding made it eternally popular, and it’s still played often today.

On January 25, 1890 the journalist Nellie Bly (photo below) completed her around-the-world trip in 72 days. Completed by steamer and railroad, the trip was a world record, and Bly traveled mostly by herself. Read about her; she had a fascinating life.

On January 25, 1961, President John F. Kennedy delivered the first presidential news conference that was televised live. Exactly a decade later, Charles Manson, Susan Atkins, Linda Kasabian, and Patricia Krenwinkel were found guilty of the Tate/LaBianca murders in 1969. On that same day in 1971, Idi Ami deposed Milton Obote in a coup, becoming Uganda’s brutal President until 1979. As Wikipedia notes, Amin’s “full self-bestowed title ultimately became: ‘His Excellency, President for Life, Field Marshal Al Hadji Doctor Idi Amin Dada, VC, DSO, MC, Lord of All the Beasts of the Earth and Fishes of the Seas and Conqueror of the British Empire in Africa in General and Uganda in Particular’, in addition to his officially stated claim of being the uncrowned King of Scotland.”

On January 15, 1996, Billy Bailey became the last person to be hanged in the U.S., choosing that method of execution over lethal injection. His last meal consisted of a well-done steak, a baked potato with sour cream and butter, buttered rolls, peas, and vanilla ice cream. His mistake there was ordering the steak well done.  Finally, on this day in 2011, the Egyptian revolution began in earnest with demonstrations, strikes, riots, and street fighting.

Notables born on January 25 include Robert Boyle (1627), Robert Burns (1759),  W. Somerset Maugham (1874), Virginia Woolf (1882), Theodosius Dobzhansky (1900; note that Wikipedia also lists his birthday on January 24, so somebody should sort that out), Paul Nurse (1949; Nobel Laureate), Peter Tatchell (1952), and Alicia Keys (1981).

Those who died on this day include Lucas Cranach the Younger (1586), Robert Burton (1640), Al Capone (1947), Adele Astaire (1981), Ava Gardner (1990). Fanny Blankers-Koen (2004), Philip Johnson (2005), and Mary Tyler Moore (2017).

Here’s a portrait of Duke August of Saxony by LC the Y, done about 1545:

 

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, the worst possible calamity has struck Hili:

A: Your food has run out.
Hili: I will not comment.
In Polish:
Ja: Skończyła się twoja karma.
Hili: Nie będę tego komentować.

We have report on Matthew’s newest cat Harry, who is, as the Brits say, “poorly”. Matthew calls the photo below “Harry and the Cone of Shame”, adding this:

Speaking of cones of shame:

A Tweet embodying much of what I don’t like about the Regressive Left (and no, I don’t like MAGA hats). Emotions don’t always triumph over intentions and facts. Otherwise we’re in the land of safe spaces with Play-Doh, cookies, and puppy videos. Grania deemed the woman insane, but I think she’s typical of a certain kind of authoritarian Leftist who, as Haidt and Lukianoff note, says that feelings triumph all.

https://twitter.com/DavidGotNews/status/1088258590098509826

Titania McGrath poetizes over the twisted incident involving the Covington Catholic boys, the Native Americans, and the Black Hebrews (oy, what a reportorial mess that was!):

From Heather Hastie via Ann German, a very clever Venn diagram:

Tweets from Grania. I’m pretty sure I posted this first one a while back, but you can’t see it too often.

https://twitter.com/FluffSociety/status/1088221574841290752

If Lake Michigan is turbulent this weekend, and we keep our -5°F temperature, this may happen in Chicago:

A good tweet from God:

Everyone needs a pocket kitten.

https://twitter.com/videocats/status/1087751822884904962

Tweets from Matthew. First, a lovely pair of bobcats:

Look at that snout on this weevil!

I’m not scared of no stinking leeches!

 

55 thoughts on “Friday: Hili dialogue”

  1. Insect taxonomy nit-pick: if the long-nosed critter in the photo is a weevil, then it’s a beetle of the Order Coleoptera, not a true bug, Order Hemiptera. It clearly has hard elytra (wingcases) so is definitely a beetle.

    3. Beetle taxonomists the world over are scanning this genus for species to split off. This genus needs at least one Presidential namesake.
      Oh, I’ll grant a few other political clubs a shot at the schnozzel.

        1. “The Pinnochio Beetle, a.k.a. Buggenus trumpii” – so that his name does live forever in the annals of infamy.
          In a couple of centuries, if there are people with the leisure to pursue academic questions instead of hard-scrabble subsistence farming, then his name is more likely to be remembered as a taxon’s name than as someone in history.

  3. Quote: ” But my legs, in jeans, froze on the short walk to work. ”

    Life Tip: LL Bean sells a very well insulated lined chino slack. Worked just fine on our east-coast cold snap last week for my “short walks”.

    (I am not affiliated with Bean’s)

      1. Both long underwear and overalls pretty much commit the wearer to staying in a cold environment or overheating. The option I like is a thin pair of rain pants that easily pull over any other pants you are wearing, and then can easily be removed. You can get light ones that fold up to a small roll in a backpack.

          2. The problem may be that Chicago is close to water, with the humidity the usual “many layer” principle of winter clothes don’t work as well. You may want those clumsy lined clothes suggested here…

  4. Now the screw turns on Roger Stone so we will see if prime time is ready for hard time. How is the base doing, eh comrade?

    1. Someone (like you, Randall) needs to explain to me how, with all his circle of buddies (“I’ll hire the best people”) seemingly indicted by the Mueller camp do some people keep claiming that it has nothing to do with Trump? It’s astounding.

    2. I am wondering now about the unexpected possibility of Julian Assange dropping a break big 2nd shoe into all of this.

    4. I’m reading the Stone indictment right now. Paragraph 12 on page 4 says that, on July 22, 2016 — the day of the initial Wikileaks stolen email dump — a “senior Trump Campaign official was directed to contact Stone about any additional releases and what other damaging information [Wikileaks] had about the Clinton Campaign.” (emphasis added).

      Seems to me there’s a very small universe of people who were empowered to direct the actions of “senior Trump campaign official[s]” (including, foremost, the fella that’s known as “Individual 1” in the SDNY indictment against Michael Cohen).

      “NO COLLUSION!”, my ass.

      1. Isn’t ‘conspiracy’ the operative term?
        I think Ms Bly should have a long stern look at Mr Trump. Just put that portrait on his desk. I bet a good bottle of Laphroig he will shrivel.

  5. Since jokes are not children, I think the author of the Venn diagram joke should have marked the union (as opposed to the intersection) as a set of things that never get old.

  6. The funniest part of this post in my opinion was the comment about Billy Bailey’s mistake of ordering the steak well done. Hilarious.

  7. It is a balmy 18F on the digital this morning so I don’t quite feel your pain. Dressing for 5 below is not practical for short periods as you spend longer putting it on and taking it off. At least you know about covering the head, very important if you want to make it in the cold. Next week comes the Polar Vortex in case you are thinking of Hawaii.

  8. Happy birthday Somerset Maugham. I absolutely love Of Human Bondage and The Moon and Sixpence. A brilliant writer.

  9. Titania McG. is a marvel, but I do wonder if her site could be trolled by someone pretending to be outraged, then everyone has fun with them, then the troll just comes back and says “Ha! Kidding!”

    1. I think it is an exaggeration to suggest that the red hat is the new white hood. However, the two groups in the MAGA hat video both scare me. On one hand we have a member of the left who suggests that emotions are more important than facts (and I assume hypotheses and theories) and suggests that they are near spirit as if that has any meaning at all. The MAGA supporters are equally frightening as they seem to like the idea of facts but don’t know how to use them as they suggest that facts will help us determine that Trump is not a racist. In order to make that leap we’d have to look at declining unemployment in African Americans and assume that was a goal rather than consequence of actions to achieve another goal (corporate tax cut, already rising economy) while ignoring all data that suggest Trump is a racist.
      Neither group gives me any hope.

      1. On one hand we have a member of the left who suggests that emotions are more important than facts

        She’s not left-wing, she’s deranged.
        She can assert that she feels left-wing, and thereby miss the point that she’s proving my point.

        1. Identifies as left wing maybe, though I like the “feels” left wing idea as it is apparently about feeling. I had a discussion with someone (very similar to the young woman above) who derided me for identifying as a liberal (liberals are bad, old, white males – making me wonder how she feels about conservatives) by suggesting she was a leftist. I assume she meant ignorant radical, but leftist was the term she chose.

  11. It is also, of course, National Haggis Day in Scotland, in honour of Robert Burns. That splendid Scottish delicacy is also available in England, and I shall be enjoying it for my dinner, accompanied by the obligatory tatties and neeps. Followed, I think, by a glass of Lagavulin.

    1. A year or two-three ago I tasted all the available single malts with a friend (his initiative), pure and with ice (no, not all at once, but over months, just 2 or 3 a week). Lagavulin scored well, one of the best, albeit quite peaty (which I do like, but not everyone agrees), but in a price to quality ratio the unanimous winner was Laphroig quarter cask.

  12. The bobcats are gorgeous. Looks like a remote camera was used. At the end the cat seems to be staring directly at us, perhaps wondering about the camera and it’s role in the ecosystem.

    1. , perhaps wondering about the camera and it’s role in the ecosystem.

      Using the feline equivalent of words that mean “What’s that? Is it dangerous? Is it edible?”

  13. heavy gloves and a balaklava.

    The normal EN_UK spleeung of that placename is “Balaclava”, and that spleeung is well fixed in my head from many “Balaclava” Squares, Roads, pubs etc all over the country (ditto “Alma”, for the same reason). So seeing that (perfectly valid) alternative spelling made my eyes do a double take and ask my brain “why is Professor Ceiling Cat putting a baklava on his head?” Shortly followed by “Well, if anyone was going to do it, PCCE is high on a short list.” Then “the layered structure and air pockets would probably make it a decent insulator.”

    But my legs, in jeans, froze on the short walk to work.

    The wife continually nags me when hill walking because I very rarely bother to put on waterproof over-trousers, even in quite heavy rain. I just find them uncomfortable. But when it’s looking likely to be a solidly below-freezing day, on they go, before the boots. The trickle of melting snow down the back of the leg is decidedly distracting. The hassle of putting them on and taking them off has always been one of my beefs with overtrousers of all sorts, and on more than a few occasions I’ve wondered about the possibility of a pair of chaps as an alternative to conventional overtrousers.
    Actually, considering the predilection for cowboy boots, PCCE probably sees them advertised regularly.

  14. Titania McGrath poetizes

    … better than many a crate of claret (*) who I’ve heard.

    (*) Traditional payment of a Poet Laureate, though the actual liquor, quantity and cash equivalent has varied.

      1. Hah! I’m a poet myself:

        Trumpty Dumpty sat on a wall,
        Trumpty Dumpty had a great fall,
        And all the GOP shut-downs and all Putin’s men,
        Couldn’t put Trumpty together again.

        (Was ‘published’ earlier in Heathers’s Homilies, and it remains ‘wishful poetry’, of course)
        Seriously, McGrath’s poetry is kinda sharp, I mean really good.

  15. I would be leary of anyone who I did not know who was wearing a MAGA hat. Much like I would give a wide berth around someone driving around with a over-big pickup truck and an automatic rifle decal on the back window.
    But I do have a very close friend who wears the hat on occasion (although his wife hates it). I have known him for many years, and I can confirm that this person is not a racist or homophobe or any such thing. He is just conservative and blue color and is still very upset about all the manufacturing jobs that went to Mexico. It does bother me that he voted for Trump on the promise of getting those jobs back, since Trump is racist and all manner of other wretchedness. But I suppose that many MAGA hat wearers are not intersectional. They can set aside one issue in favor of moving forward on another issue.

    1. I never thought I’d wake up one fine morning and find myself agreeing with somebody wearing a MAGA hat, but this morning I sure did.

    3. I’m sure there are MAGA hat wearers who do so for reasons other than Trump’s racist and anti-immigration policies. However, most (all?) of those other reasons are also wrong. For example, Trump will never bring back those manufacturing jobs. Going around to a few companies and bullying them into committing to not layoff some American workers or build a US plant instead of one outside the US won’t work and hasn’t worked. First, they are a drop in a very large bucket. Second, these companies revert to their old behavior as soon as Trump and the public aren’t looking. It is simply a matter of economics and good business. The economy is global and there’s nothing Trump can do to change it for the better. All he can do is screw it up.

  17. Bitterly cold across central Canada today. The Weather Network tells me it is currently -33°C (-27°F), and feels like -40°C (-40°F) with a clear blue sky. Not the coldest I have experienced on the prairies, but getting there. Heated car seats are wonderful!

  18. But as a human being, we should pay attention to fear and not logic.

    FDR is spinning in his grave.

  19. I note a few comments about cold temperatures in the USA. Meanwhile here in Adelaide, South Australia, we reached 46.6 Celsius (which is 115.88 Fahrenheit), on 24 January, with regional centres higher e.g Port Augusta 49.5 c/ 121.1 Fahrenheit.

    https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-01-24/sa-heating-up-with-records-expected-to-be-broken/10745220

    Extract from the article:
    “Adelaide has hit a sweltering 46.6 degrees Celsius, surpassing the previous record set in Melbourne a decade ago to officially become the hottest capital in the country.”

    Sue Smalldon
    Archaeologist
    Australia

Comments are closed.