Monday: Hili dialogue

April 1, 2019 • 6:30 am

by Grania

Good morning, welcome to a new week!

In history today:

Notable birthdays

Hili is being particularly acerbic today.

Hili: Did you read the latest statement by Pope Francis?
A: What statement?
Hili: That in the Church April Fool lasts for the whole year.

In Polish:

Hili: Czy czytałeś najnowsze oświadczenie papieża Franciszka?
Ja: Jakie oświadczenie?
Hili: Że w Kościele Prima Aprilis jest przez cały rok.

Leon is having a literary day.

Leon: What are we reading today?

 

From Twitter:

A different sort of grasshopper

A tweet that will spawn a host of “Well, actuallys”

https://twitter.com/ZonePhysics/status/1111816881399386112

I don’t know about cool. I think it’s more and more like lemmings after a population explosion.

A tweet that both Jerry and Matthew agree deserves your attention. Click through to the thread that follows it too. Photo by @CrawliesWithCri‬⁩

Something you don’t get to see every day.

https://twitter.com/MichaelGalanin/status/1112399661007020034

Click on the white arrow to play the video.

https://twitter.com/41Strange/status/1112406467712184321

I love this dog. Take your stupid tests and shove ’em.

https://twitter.com/humorandanimals/status/1112102103856701440

A hero for the people.

Something I bet you never thought you’d see.

Not-a-spider

A frog in the sand

A couple of political swipes about Brexit.

And finally, it’s April Fool’s Day, so watch out for silliness.

https://twitter.com/CuteEmergency/status/1111974648449826817

 

 

Hat-tip to Matthew.

20 thoughts on “Monday: Hili dialogue”

  1. The 1945 Battle of Okinawa started on April 1st was the last and largest Pacific battle of WWII. It was particularly hard on the people of Okinawa killing nearly one third of the population. The Commanding generals on both sides died by the end of this battle in late June, one by sniper and the other by suicide.

          1. It sounds better to say sniper. Does not go down so well to know the general was stupid enough to go out there with his stars on the helmet advertising himself. He never gave up the original tactics when others wanted a change, particularly the Navy.

    1. Martha Stewart’s a canny operator. She always poked fun at herself, and her appearances on Conan were always brilliant.

      If you’re wealthy and famous enough, and canny enough with your public appearances, criminality doesn’t really seem to matter much.

    2. I got the impression from his appearance on some “dare you to” show that he is a genius quick learner, he flowed through some on-top-of-careening-bus challenge.

      But even geniuses makes mistakes. I just read that Snoop Dog stashed his accumulated earnings as cash in a sack and forgot it in a hotel room during an impromptu show tour. If it was an attempt at tax defrauding “he did it rong”.

  4. That dog didn’t fail the test. If the rules weren’t explained to him, he just found a different solution.

    Twitter sure is strange. Where else could you find the granddaughter of Benito Mussolini taking umbrage at the criticism of her grandfather? And, even better, the person who provoked her is an absolutely overzealous kook who promotes ideas like anti-vaccination. A crazy person accidentally provoking the granddaughter of a dictator who allied himself with the Nazis and the equally atrocious Japanese empire.

    Let us never forget the many crimes and atrocities the Japanese committed both before and during WWII (in my opinion, they were as bad as the Nazis). They’re almost completely forgotten and go untaught these days. The Rape of Nanking is one of the most horrifying stories one can ever read or see in pictures. DO NOT look up pictures or read descriptions of what the soldiers did if you are in any way faint of heart or wish to not have your mood spoiled for a couple of days. Nanking even had its own Oscar Schindler-type figure, John Rabe. Rabe was a Nazi who was so horrified by the torture, rape, and mass killing he saw that he went around the city trying to stop as many individual atrocities as he could. There were contests between Japanese soldiers to see who could behead 100 civilians the quickest (gleefully reported in Japanese newspapers as if it was a sports match), bayonetting of babies (yes, there are pictures), the incredible amount of rapes, the mass graves of civilians…When even a Nazi is horrified and scarred for life at your actions, you know things have become seriously fucked up.

    It’s also important to remember the differences between Japan and Germany in how they deal with their histories. While Germany teaches its crimes to all its citizens, Japan denies everything and any academic who brings it up is usually committing career suicide. They have never acknowledged or apologized for their crimes. Japan’s textbooks make no mention of their war crimes, nor does anyone speak of them. The current Prime Minister, Shinzo Abe, even said that the Class-A war criminals (it doesn’t get higher than Class-A. Hitler, hat he been caught, would have been considered a Class-A war criminal) memorialized at the Yasukumi Shrine were not criminals under Japanese law, and he visited the shrine in 2013 for “guidance” in making important political decisions and to honor the memorialized. These war criminals were never tried in the tribunals that took place after WWII ended because their ranks were too high, and they had been given immunity as part of the surrender deal.

    1. Slight clarification: Rabe was not a Nazi soldier, but the head of the Nazi Party in Nanking.

    2. Sorry to post yet another clarification, but I should note that the Class-A war criminals that weren’t convicted weren’t technically given immunity, but simply released by MacArthur to keep the peace. In fact, one of those war criminals, Nobusuke Kishi, became Japan’s Prime Minister, a role in which he served from 1957 to 1960. He is also the current Prime Minister’s grandfather.

    3. All those Italian trains running punctually and all some people ever want to remember Il Duce for is that one itsy-bitsy time he “allied himself with the Nazis and the equally atrocious Japanese empire.”

      1. Y’know, some people in this world just can’t catch a break. You ally yourself with the Nazis and the Japanese Empire and your achievements are suddenly forgotten!

        Iannucci should make a movie about this. Maybe it could be about Mussolini somehow being alive today, constantly reading tweets and online media and being befuddled and angered by how he’s remembered. Posting anonymously on social media about all the great things he did and asking why people don’t talk about them. I don’t know. This isn’t a good pitch so far, but Iannucci would know how to build on it.

  6. Just as the wave breaks, at the end of the vid, you can see that the front is breaking up into little curly bits, exactly like the waves that famous-Japanese-artist-whose-name-I-forget used to draw.

    But I’ve never seen this on a video before, it has to be a freeze-frame from that one unusual viewpoint.

    So how the heck did [the Japanese artist] know?

    cr

  7. 2001 – Same-sex marriage becomes legal in the Netherlands, the first contemporary country to allow it.

    Yes, though mind that secular Scandinavia bypassed the state churches earlier; which church in the case of Sweden were later separated out and forced to accept performing marriages.

    “Registered partnership (Swedish: registrerat partnerskap) was granted in Sweden in 1995. It was approved in June 1994 by a vote of 171–141 and took effect on 1 January 1995. Sweden was the third country to legally recognise same-sex unions, after Denmark and Norway.

    Registered partnerships gave the full range of protections, responsibilities and benefits as marriage, including adoption and arrangements for the breakdown of the relationship only available to same-sex couples.”

    [ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Same-sex_marriage_in_Sweden ]

  8. I love how the shoes are untouched in the background of the data breach. That would never happen chez moi!

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