Monday: Hili dialogue

April 8, 2019 • 6:30 am

We’re back at the beginning of the work week: it’s Monday, April 8, 2019. And it’s also National Empanada Day, so have a pastie or its equivalent. Finally, it’s International Romani Day, celebrating the group formerly known as “gypsies,” a group that I was surprised to learn originated in India.

Both historical news and birth/death anniversaries are thin on the ground today. On April 8, 1820, the Venus de Milo was discovered on the Greek island of Milos. It survived World War II by being hidden, along with the Winged Victory of Samothrace and Michelangelo’s “Slaves,” in a chateau in the French countryside. On this day in 1904, “Longacre Square” in Manhattan was renamed “Times Square” after the New York Times, whose headquarters were located in the building where the New Year’s Eve ball drops every year.

Exactly two years later, the first person diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease, a German woman named Auguste Deter, died. Postmortem examination of the brain by Dr. Alois Alzheimer showed the diagnostic brain lesions. On April 8, 1911, Dutch physicist Heike Kamerlingh Onnes, studying the conductivity of mercury cooled by liquid helium,  discovered superconductivity.

On this day in 1924, the great Kemal Atatürk, as part of his secular reforms, abolished sharia courts in Turkey. Erdogan (hopefully on the way out) is, of course, effacing and reversing Atatürk’s legacy. On April 8, 1942, according to Wikipedia, “Soviet forces open[ed] a much-needed railway link to Leningrad,” but I cannot find confirmation of this date and event anywhere else (I didn’t look for long). The siege of the city by the Nazis lasted 872 days and killed as many as 1.5 million people. It was the greatest loss of life in any city due to war.

Finally, it was on this day in 1974 that Hank Aaron poled career home run number 715, breaking Babe Ruth’s 39-year-old record.  Here’s a video of the event. (The current career record is 762, set by Barry Bonds in 2007.)

Notables born on this day include Mary Pickford (1892), Yip Harburg (1896), Sonja Henie (1912), Betty Ford (1918), Jacques Brel (1929), Seymour Hersh (1937), Catfish Hunter (1946), and Barbara Kingsolver (1955).

Those who bought the farm on April 8 include Pablo Picasso (1973), Omar Bradley (1981), Ben Johnson (1996), Laura Nyro (1997), and Annette Funicello (2013).  Picasso painted several works with cats; here’s his “Cat Devouring a Bird”:

In my estimation, Laura Nyro was a musical genius, and hardly anybody remembers her, even though her songs were covered by other famous singers. She died of ovarian cancer at only 49. Live recordings of her performances are rare; here’s one:

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Editor Hili is interrupting her website by napping on an employee’s arm:

Malgorzata: Go lie on the sofa.
Hili: No, your discomfort makes me very comfortable.
In Polish:
Małgorzata: Idź na sofę.
Hili: Nie, Twoja niewygoda daje mi pełen komfort.

Two tweets from Heather Hastie, who’s monitoring the kakapo breeding season. It looks to be a productive year for these flightless parrots. At this age they’re like cotton balls:

I can think of few things more fun than getting down in the mud with a baby elephant:

https://twitter.com/welcomet0nature/status/1110814462263656448

A tweet from reader Barry on the origin and malfeasance of religion:

Two tweets from reader Nilou. The first one is good solid advice (notice that the patterns on this hen’s bill are nothing like Honey’s):

Duck butts! I saw something just like this yesterday:

Tweets from Matthew. The first is about the roundworm Caenorhabditis elegans, a famous experimental organism whose entire cell lineage is known. Not only that, but the lineage of all the scientists who worked on it is known, and depicted below. The Universal Common Ancestor is biologist Sydney Brenner, who started all the work on this worm as a model organism. Matthew visited and interviewed him last year in Singapore. Sadly, Brenner, a Nobel Laureate, died three days ago.

Britain’s PM explains Brexit, with an addition:

Tweets from Grania. First, more fun in the mud, this time with a pangolin:

https://twitter.com/AMAZlNGNATURE/status/1114171127205715968

Look at this pigeon! I wonder if Darwin knew the breed:

https://twitter.com/41Strange/status/1113842018201952256

Look at that nictitating membrane! (Be sure to play the video.)

https://twitter.com/AMAZlNGNATURE/status/1114148728951181315

 

30 thoughts on “Monday: Hili dialogue”

    1. Yes, but there should be one more panel, where an observer is cowed into saying he’s a believer because the other fellow was killed.

  3. One of today’s deceased, Jim “Catfish” Hunter, was the baseball player who (after Curt Flood had fought and lost the initial battle) finally overcame Major League Baseball’s so-called “reserve clause” (which bound a player to a single team for life, or until the team saw fit to trade or dump him) thereby establishing the system of “free agency” that led to the vast increase in ballplayers’ compensation.

    For his deeds both on the pitching mound and in the baseball business world, the Catfish was immortalized in a tune by Nobel Laureate Bob Dylan. As our president is wont to say, not many people know that.

  5. Nice to have those subtitles on the Brexit videos, even though Theresa May speaks sorta understandable English — for a Brit, anyway.

    1. I read an article this morning that suggests May will revoke Article 50 as the “default” option before this Friday’s deadline, thinking it’s better for her legacy than a no-deal exit. My fingers are crossed.

      1. I can’t see that happening as much as I would like it to!

        She’s made so many u-turns during her tenure but she is so invested in the willy of the people and her made up red lines that it would be huge

        Also article 50 had to be invoked using parliamentary procedure (thanks to Gina Miller suing the government) that it would have to be revoked in the same way and I’m not convinced it would pass

        There should have been a consensus built as to what Brexit even meant before the article 50 letter was delivered but such is the stupidity of our current leaders

        1. If it’s a choice between revoke article 50 and “no deal”, with no other option, it will pass.

          I’ve heard that the government assessment of the likely consequences of “no deal” paints a picture of social and economic catastrophe. If the PM stands up in Parliament and says the consequences of No Deal are this, this and this and the only other option is Remain, all the non Tories except the DUP would vote Remain and some Tories would vote Remain too.

          However, I think May is going to try to frame it as a choice between No Deal, Remain and her deal and hope that the MPs will see her deal as the least bad option.

          1. AND the EU said the UK could revoke it anytime, without any repercussions.

      2. Teresa May. Now there’s a woman who’s going to go down in history as the biggest traitor in the history of the United Kingdom if Brexit is further delayed or does not occur at all.

        2. She’ll also go down in history as the biggest traitor in British history if Brexit does occur. It’s just a question of who survives longest to write the last history before people stop caring about ancient history.
          That won’t be Conservative and Unionist Party members – the unity has gone and the 1707 Union won’t last much long.
          When will people stop worrying about such ancient history? Probably not this side of 2300 CE.

    1. The front parts of the cats are in neither world, ask Erwin Schrödinger for details,

  7. RE Brenner. You know someone is a major contributor when they have such an extensive legacy. He’s not popularly known, but has undoubtedly made the world a better place.

  10. Wiki for April 8th:

    “1942 – World War II: Siege of Leningrad: Soviet forces open a much-needed railway link to Leningrad”

    As you suggest Jerry that Wiki entry is suspect even though it’s reproduced all over the place word for word I can’t find another source that validates it.

    MY ANALYSIS:

    See map below.
    The ORANGE area is Soviet held with Finns to the north & Nazis everywhere else.

    GREEN dotted lines are the main supply lines into the city during the blockage

    https://flic.kr/p/2ft6kyH

    Supply during the blockade was in three stages:

    [1] Supplies arrived by rail & ship to ports on the south east shore of Lake Ladoga [right of map]

    [2] then the supplies were floated or driven across the lake by…

    …barges pulled by tugs in summer starting from those various ports

    OR

    …by 48km ‘ice road’ [Road of Life as the Russians called it] using trucks & horse-drawn sleighs in winter [along the lower green dotted line] to the village of Osinovets on the western shore of the lake. The ‘ice road’ became operational on 20th November 1941 & remained in use for 159 days that first winter until the spring thaw on 24th April 1942. Here it is in April 1942:

    https://flic.kr/p/TjRn7y

    Then [3] 45 kms by single track narrow gauge line [Irinovsky railway line] to Leningrad from the lakeshore town of Osinovets

    It is my impression the light rail was operational nearly all the time during the blockade – the Russians held the land along its length nearly all the time, the Finns to the north [reading between the lines:) ] didn’t try too hard to take it & the Germans to the south were held back by nasty fir forest, bogs, fortifications & mean, resentful, crazy armed Ruskies.

    I presume for now that Wiki entry is wrong or it refers to a different railway the other side of the lake supplying the lake ports.

    1. mean, resentful, crazy armed Ruskies

      Is that a typo for “brave patriots fighting to defend their motherland and in many cases home cities from ravening barbarians from the West”?

      2. Exactly – I meant “mean” in a don’t mess with me kinda way. I’m no Nazi fanboi of which there are many popping up over the last handful of years.

  11. We will never know how Venus de Milo lost her arms. It’s one of the great mysteries in life. Mysteries like, why the hell did Private Ryan have to be Matt Damon? We will never know these great mysteries of life.

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