Sunday: Hili dialogue

March 17, 2019 • 6:30 am

It’s Ceiling Cat’s Day: Sunday, March 17, 2019, and if you collect sticks for firewood on this day, the Bible says you should be killed. It’s also Saint Patrick’s Day (in Irish, Lá Fhéile Pádraig”). A Google Doodle celebrates it, and if you click on it it goes to a page about the holiday:

As usual, yesterday they dyed the Chicago River green; here’s a video of yesterday’s pigmentation (the dye is harmless, or so they say). Then everyone got drunk and went to the St. Patrick’s Day parade.

This is filmed with a drone:

It’s National ‘Eat like the Irish’ Day. Why the scare quotes again? Should we only pretend to eat like the Irish?

And, as we often forget, it’s St. Gertrude’s Day; she is the patron saint of CATS:

Make a Gesture of the Day: Amnesty International has a petition you can sign to free the civil rights lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh, sentenced to 38 years in jail and 146 lashes on trumped-up charges, all for defending women who don’t want to wear the hijab—and other victims of Iran’s draconian and anti-woman laws. It may be just a gesture, but it doesn’t cost you anything and who know?—maybe it will work. I’ve signed, and if you’d like to, click on the link above. Later on today I’ll hit you up for a donation to Feline Friends London (this is aimed at those who haven’t given yet), and tell you a story of a rescued cat, with photos.

On March 17, 1861, the Kingdom of Italy was established. 98 years later, Tenzing Gyatso, the 14th  Dalai Lama, fled the Potala in Tibet for India, where he and his followers now reside.  A decade later, on March 17, 1969, Golda Meir became the first woman Prime Minister of Israel.

On this day in 1973, so proclaims Wikipedia, “The Pulitzer Prize-winning photograph Burst of Joy is taken, depicting a former prisoner of war being reunited with his family, which came to symbolize the end of United States involvement in the Vietnam War.”

Here’s that picture, but the story, as told by Wikipedia, isn’t at all a joyful one (my emphasis below):

The photograph depicts United States Air Force Lt Col Robert L. Stirm being reunited with his family, after spending more than five years in captivity as a prisoner of war in North Vietnam. Stirm was shot down over Hanoi on October 27, 1967, while leading a flight of F-105s on a bombing mission, and was not released until March 14, 1973. The centerpiece of the photograph is Stirm’s 15-year-old daughter Lorrie, who is excitedly greeting her father with outstretched arms, as the rest of the family approaches directly behind her.

Despite outward appearances, the reunion was an unhappy one for Stirm. Three days before he arrived in the United States, the same day he was released from captivity, Stirm received a Dear John letter from his wife Loretta informing him that their marriage was over. Stirm later learned that Loretta had been with other men throughout his captivity, receiving marriage proposals from three of them. In 1974, the Stirms divorced and Loretta remarried, but Lt Col Stirm was still ordered by the courts to provide her with 43% of his military retirement pay once he retired from the Air Force.  Stirm was later promoted to full Colonel and retired from the Air Force in 1977.

After Burst of Joy was announced as the winner of the Pulitzer Prize, all of the family members depicted in the picture received copies. They all display it prominently in their homes, except the Stirm patriarch, who says he cannot bring himself to display the picture, given the betrayal he suffered from his wife on the home front.

As the Wicked Witch of the West said, “What a world!”

On this day in 1985, Serial Killer Richard Ramirez (the “Night Stalker”) committed the first two murders in his killing spree that wound up in the death of 14 women and the rape and brutal beating of several more. He died of lymphoma in 2013 while awaiting execution on Death Row. Finally, it was on this day in 1992 that a referendum in South Africa to end apartheid passed by a vote of 68.7% to 31.2%.

Notables born on this day include Walter Rudolf Hess (1881, Nobel Laureate), Bobby Jones (1902), Sammy Baugh (1914), Nat King Cole (1919), Rudolph Nureyev (1938), John Wayne Gacy (1942), John Sebastian (1944), Mia Hamm (1972), Stormy Daniels (1979), and Hozier (1990).

Those who died on March 17 include Marcus Aurelius (180 AD), Daniel Bernoulli (1782), Robert Chambers (1871), Irène Joliot-Curie (1956, Nobel Laureate), Louis Kahn (1974), H. Keffer Hartline (1983, Nobel Laureate), Helen Hayes (1993), and Ferlin Husky (2011).

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili has apparently taken charge of the gardening:

Hili: When this hyacinth flowers we will plant it by the well.
A: If you say so.
In Polish:
Hili: Jak ten hiacynt zakwitnie, wysadzimy go koło studni.
Ja: Jak tak mówisz.
A holiday moggie:

A picture contributed by reader Kevin: Batman pwns Catwoman:

And a fortuitous misspelling:

Tweets from Heather Hastie.  The owner of this developmental anomaly, an albino turtle with an exposed heart, is doing everything he can to help her, but I fear the prognosis is grim. Perhaps not.

https://twitter.com/AMAZlNGNATURE/status/1105315418913165312

The underappreciated seahorse. This one may be pregnant, in which case it would be a male:

https://twitter.com/LlFEUNDERWATER/status/1105403690486161408

Tweets from Grania. Mr. Lumpy, a badger who gets fed by a nice woman, is taking his lumps. Here a fox gets Lumpy’s food—but not his grapes:

I don’t think they know what’s going to happen to their new car. . .

The problem with this tweet, though its premise is partly correct, is that the educational opportunities and quality of instruction offered poor minorities are on average worse than those of richer people and white people:

Tweets from Matthew. Yes, this is a real stool chart used by medical professionals:

A Luddite moose:

A biology groaner, but a very good one. (These “contigs” are unplaced bits of genome with a known sequence.)

First think about this, and then watch the video, or better yet, see here.

 

 

38 thoughts on “Sunday: Hili dialogue”

    2. Bible citation please about collecting firewood?.

      I am surely a multiple felon.

      I don’t take it seriously though since it wasn’t delivered as a Commandment on Moses’ tablet. (by the way, where is that stone Tablet these days anyway? Secretly in the hands of some private collector?)

      1. Numbers 15:32-36

        32 And while the children of Israel were in the wilderness, they found a man that gathered sticks upon the sabbath day. 33 And they that found him gathering sticks brought him unto Moses and Aaron, and unto all the congregation. 34 And they put him in ward, because it was not declared what should be done to him. 35 And the LORD said unto Moses, The man shall be surely put to death: all the congregation shall stone him with stones without the camp. 36 And all the congregation brought him without the camp, and stoned him with stones, and he died; as the LORD commanded Moses.

        Yes, that is the same book of Numbers that later, in chapter 31, commands genocide.

        1. Was that the same one where they got sick of manna and whined about it, so the Lord sent them quail which they guzzled and died horribly of kidney failure?

          If the Lord has a sense of humour it’s a suitably sadistic one.

          cr

  2. Hello, it is about 7:40 am. Are we sleeping in maybe?

    I have to guess the guy’s wife would have been fooling around regardless of his unfortunate situation in Vietnam. Proof of lack of free will maybe and lack of a few other things. I knew a guy who got married shortly before going to Vietnam and while he was away she became pregnant.

    1. Lack of free will or perhaps a surfeit or free love.

      Of course the wives and girlfriends stateside weren’t the only ones with wandering eyes (and other things) but the fact that he was being held captive is what makes that story so miserable, that and the b.s. alimony.

      1. I suspect he didn’t see the kids much if at all. His ex-wife moved to Texas when she remarried & the kids went with her. He has lived in around five towns outside San Francisco [cheaper in the SF satellite towns] for four decades since the mid-70s on 100% disability & he’s had a lot of ill health the whole time due to the beatings, being strung up by the arms & the psychological pressure. His family business was shut in the early 90s. He did some commercial flying in the 70s.

        He shared a cell with ex-Senator John McCain at the ‘Hanoi Hilton’ for a while. Religion kept him going he said a few decades back

        He’s 85 now & I imagine he’s poor & in fragile health despite a determined nature.

  3. “As usual, yesterday they dyed the Chicago River green; here’s a video of yesterday’s pigmentation (the dye is harmless, or so they say).”

    Fluorescein?

    The interesting thing about it is, that as a powder it’s dark rich red.

    cr

    1. I’m surprised that that is allowed. I’m reasonably certain that dying a body of water would be in breach of the Environment Protection Act, even if it were ‘harmless’. In the bad old days, one could tell what colour a local sheet factory was dying their fabric by the colour of the Port River. That was long-since stopped!

  4. I dunno about you but after looking at that Bristol Stool Chart mug I had a different idea about Rhesus Pieces… 💩

  5. On the subject of 0.999… = 1, it really shouldn’t be controversial. Nobody has any issue with 0.333 = 1/3 even though it is essentially the same thing.

    Apologies if this is in the video (which I have only had time to scan quickly) but…

    one way to look at it is like this

    1/9 = 0.111…

    2/9 = 0.222…

    3/9 = 0.333…

    4/9 = 0.444…

    5/9 = 0.555…

    6/9 = 0.666…

    7/9 = 0.777…

    8/9 = 0.888…

    Given all of the above, it shouldn’t be controversial that

    9/9 = 0.999…

    1. Agreed. I think the point is that a recurring decimal is not precisely equal to the fraction it represents. That’s why it keeps on recurring for ever.

      So the fact that three approximations don’t add to the precise total of 1.0 should be no surprise at all.

      In fact calculators, which work in binary, are always working with approximations; they just convert the result back to decimal for the readout.

      Or as the tagline has it, ‘2.0 X 0.5 is almost never equal to 1.0’

      cr

        1. I think the tagline was more aimed at the rounding errors that occur in the ‘real world’.

          It used to be possible in Excel to display “2 + 2 = 5” – if you set the significant figures in a column to zero (i.e. cut off at the decimal point), then entered 2.4 and 2.4, it would show just “2”‘s, and round the result to “5”

          cr

    2. There is this sleight of hand done in the video which I don’t agree with right now. It says:
      If .999… = X
      Then 9.999… = 10X.

      But to me, 9.999… = 9X.

      1. That’s not right. If 9.999… = 9X then X = 1.111…

        When multiplying by 10 it is legit to move the multiplicand’s digits one position to the left.

      3. 0.999… x 10 = 9.999…
        0.999… + 9 = 9.999…
        0.999… x 10 = 0.999… + 9
        0.999… x 9 = 9
        0.999… = 1

    3. As a computer guy, I need to note that a number representation that allows for multiple representations to have equal value is considered a very poor design choice. Of course, rational numbers have the same issue (eg, 1/2 = 2/4).

  6. Hi Jerry:

    OK, I signed the petition (as you said, it doesn’t cost anything), and it lets me ask a question I’ve been meaning to ask for quite awhile.

    Do you (or does anyone else on this website) know of any published scientific study of these on-line petitions, especially whether or not they have any effect at all? Thanks in advance.

    1. Can’t reply with science, but sign/follow on-line petitions, and their effectiveness. The good ones do follow-ups, and notify you if they have an impact.

      Some organizations track their numbers- did we get a bump in donations or not?- but only from a fund-raising perspective. (If unsuccessful they’ll rewrite petition or change their marketing.)So I’m betting spending money on a scientific study would be a priority for them.

  7. Oh poo! That stool chart is unfortunately placed.

    Trivia: A “stol” is Swedish for a simple chair. I am sure many English visitors contrive jokes that it is the butt end of.

  8. Apparently the dye formula is a secret for some reason. Can’t have people going around safely dyeing things I guess.

  9. The LOTTERS lettering is a ‘PhotoShop’ – any suggestions as to who are the jokers in the pic? Identical green-billed caps, green logoed [Texas 5-point star?] tees, khaki trousers & boots. The white socks strike me as peculiar. That’s the Texas flag painted on the storage unit door.

    The two that have graduated to long trousers appear to have wallet badges on their belts [gold is for sergeants in the HPD]. But every man & his dog agency has wallet badges & retirees carry them too.

    Looks like two AR-15 style semi-auto rifles & the left-hander in shorts has something like a Benelli M1 Super 90 semi-auto shotgun with an additional 5 shells in the silly buttstock holder [strap attached is not a good idea either]. I looked it up & these are all among HPD standard issue firearms.

    I can’t find an agency uniformed like that & so half-assed equipped [missing half the stuff they need] – thus I suppose it’s some kind of self appointed militia circa Hurricane Harvey, Houston, 2017. But the wallet badges are confusing me. I don’t know Houston PD culture, but off duty in a different uniform I would think the badge display is a no no.

    https://flic.kr/p/T5Kpoo

        1. Thanks. Peak Hurricane Harvey, Houston floods was fourth week of August 2017 so that makes sense if my hypotheses are correct.

  10. I don’t see any issue with standardized tests. Of course, minority students have been disadvantaged on average and will produce somewhat poorer results. But that is life. Many majority members will be disadvantaged by various factors (low income, incompetent parents, poor health). Life is not fair. But kicking out competent majority students to make space for their less competent minority peers sounds like an awful policy to me.

  11. Standardized tests also fail if testing people not used *to testing*. For example, there are places where it is traditionally unusual for adults to ask questions for which they know the answer.

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