Well, it’s June 1, 2019, and summer begins officially in three weeks. It’s National Hazelnut Cake Day, an odd food holiday if ever there was one, and, to help down the cake, World Milk Day (not an Aryan holiday!)
On the duck front, all ten ducklings are thriving, and eating more than I’ve ever seen: even more than the eight full-grown ducklings that Honey had last year. I now have ordered 75 pounds of Waterfowl Starter chow to get them through the summer. I swear on the paw of Ceiling Cat that all ten will fledge!
This entry a bit dubious, but, as Wikipedia notes, it was on this day in 495 that “a monk, John Cor, records the first known batch of Scotch whisky.” In reality, the Wikipedia entry says this:
John Cor is the name of the monk referred to in the first known written reference to a batch of Scotch Whisky on 1 June 1495.
“To Brother John Cor, by order of the King, to make aqua vitae VIII bolls of malt.” — Exchequer Rolls 1494–95, Vol x, p. 487
Apparently Cor himself didn’t record anything, much less having made a batch of whiskey. Some day we’ll get a perspicacious analysis of Wikipedia’s flaws with Greg Mayer’s post, “What’s the matter with Wikipedia,” which has been languishing in draft, despite my harassment of Greg, for at least four years. But here’s the order to Brother Cor if you can make it out:
On June 1, 1533, Anne Boleyn was crowned Queen of England. She remained Queen until May of 1536 when, of course, her head was lopped off. On this day in 1660, Mary Dyer, a Quaker, was hanged in Boston for the crime of being a Quaker, and repeatedly practicing her faith despite being warned. She was one of four Quakers hanged in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, as there was no “freedom of religion” back then, and states could set their own rules.
On this day in 1812, President James Madison asked Congress to declare war on the United Kingdom, launching the War of 1812. In 1821, James Clark Ross became the first European to reach the North Magnetic Pole, which lay on the Boothia Peninsula in northern Canada. On June 1, 1857, Charles Baudelaire’s influential volume of poetry, Les Fleurs du mal, celebrating hedonism and eroticism, was published. Here’s the title page of the first edition with Baudelaire’s notes on it:
On June 1, 1916, Louis Brandeis became the first Jewish person appointed as a justice of the United States Supreme Court. On this day in 1962, Adolf Eichmann was hanged in Israel for war crimes. And exactly two years later, Kenya became a republic, with Jomo Kenyatta as its first President. He served until 1978, when he died.
Finally, it was on June 1, 1974, that the journal Emergency Medicine published an unrefereed paper detailing the Heimlich maneuver, now called “abdominal compressions.”
Here’s the Heimlich Maneuver, which apparently has a new name (see the second video below). Watch and learn, please. Remember: make a fist with your four fingers, put your thumb in the navel area, then roll your hand upward and make a full fist. Put the hand on top, and then press in and up.
I really need to learn this professionally, as well as how to perform CPR. Does anybody know where lessons are given?
And a revised procedure, combining the Heimlich with blows to the back. This is apparently recommended by the American Red Cross. So watch and learn again:
Finally, it was on this day in 2001 that Crown Prince Dipendra of Nepal, who had been king for three days, shot and killed nine people, including his parents. He then shot himself, dying a few days later.
Notables born on June 1 include Brigham Young (1801), Nelson Riddle (1921), Andy Griffith and Marilyn Monroe (both 1926), Richard Levins (1930), Pat Boone (1934), Morgan Freeman (1937), Heidi Klum (1973), Alanis Morissette (1974), and Amy Schumer (1981).
Those who passed on on this day include Lizzie Borden (1927), Hugh Walpole (1943), John Dewey (1952), Paula Hitler (1960, Adolf’s sister), Adolf Eichmann (1962, executed), Helen Keller (1968), Reinhold Niebuhr (1971), David Ruffin (1991), and Ann B. Davis (2014).
U.S. Army intelligence officers who debriefed Ms. Hitler after the war noted that she bore a striking resemblance to her older brother Adolf, but I don’t see it. Do you?
Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Cyrus is scared and huddles with Hili:
Cyrus: I think there is a mouse in the kitchen.Hili: You are hallucinating. I would have heard it.
Cyrus: Mam wrażenie, że w kuchni jest mysz.
Hili: Masz omamy, ja bym ją słyszała.
From Merillee: a rare photo: a murmuration itself shaped like a bird!
Tweets from Grania. This first one shows an early tattoo on a 2500 year old mummy, and it’s a nice tattoo, too!
This 2,500-year-old female mummy is known as the “Ice Maiden". It is one of few in existence with visible tattoos. pic.twitter.com/27Upuxgo6d
— Marina Amaral (@marinamaral2) May 30, 2019
The response to this report is quite funny:
Ok but are we sure the Victorians didn't use mammoth tusks as drainage pipes
— SolidGarretty Forever (@Garrodactyl) May 31, 2019
I’ve long maintained a theory, which is mine, that medieval artists couldn’t draw cats, often giving them human faces. In fact, this is not a theory but a fact, as shown below:
https://twitter.com/41Strange/status/1134315199970701313
How to recharge a sleeping cat:
https://twitter.com/Mr_Meowwwgi/status/1133984036484001794
Some lovely people at Home Depot. Read more at the link:
THIS IS AWESOME! Two-year-old Logan Moore needs a walker to get around but his family didn't know if insurance would cover for one, so his local Home Depot found parts to make it themselves. 🥺❤️ MORE: https://t.co/V0YoW3FHuk pic.twitter.com/8QLHa2a8Mq
— FOX 5 DC (@fox5dc) May 28, 2019
Tweets from Matthew. This first one is a great Batesian mimic: a fly that’s evolved to resemble a bee:
Look at this swole robber fly (#Asilidae)! At first I thought it was a species of #Mallophora due to the bulk, but realized it's a #Laphria (L. thoracica) after looking more closely. Great #bumblebee mimic – I was certainly impressed! pic.twitter.com/KIeTNBbU8b
— Matt Bertone (@Bertonemyia) May 29, 2019
Most skinks, which are lizards, have very small legs, but this one is ridiculous. Perhaps the legs are becoming vestigial, so it’s on its way to evolve into a snakelike creature:
Skink Incognito: Short-limbed Supple Skink (Lygosoma quadrupes). Occurs in Java, Indonesia. Lives in forested habitats at lower elevations. Not Evaluated. Photo: Thomas Ziegler. pic.twitter.com/AHyrDTyWQi
— IUCN SSC Skink Specialist Group (@skinks_IUCN) May 28, 2019
Syllids are marine polychaete worms, and this one, with its red eyes and transparent body, is particularly striking:
https://twitter.com/rmartinledo/status/1133611850745155584
Albino moose! Two of them!
Deux élans albinos . Sublimes et rares. pic.twitter.com/mmNwTDThHa
— -VÉNOM- (@anthonysarti11) May 27, 2019
Finally, Millennial humor:
[God making coconuts]
ANGEL: Hair on the outside?
GOD: Yes
ANGEL: Milk on the inside?
GOD: Yes
ANGEL: So, this is another mammal?
GOD: [taking bong rip] lmao, no
— Roxi Horror 💀🌸 (@roxiqt) February 3, 2019
That moose reminds me of this story:
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/newfoundland-labrador/what-moose-woman-can-t-recall-dramatic-collision-1.1215223
Which is fascinating; both because the woman drove 25 miles to work after hitting the moose without apparently registering that she had been in a collision, and also because she remembered nothing of the drive afterwards.
It’s weird what the brain can do on occasion.
cr
Yikes!
As a president James Madison does not rank so well. He gets credit for asking congress to declare war but that just says even less for congress. At least he followed the constitution which makes sense as he kind of wrote it. So with no navy or army to speak of they declared war on England, the most powerful country in the world. It did not go well.
Yeah, well, tell it to the Brits who ran through the briers and ran through the brambles and ran through the bushes where the rabbits couldn’t go, buddy. 🙂
Ah yes, such a forgettable tune. Too bad the British had no cell phones in 1815 or they would have known the war was over before this battle took place. Unfortunately it was good for Jackson, greatly loved by Trump, who once said Jackson would have prevented the civil war.
I see a resemblance. Same completely horizontal lips. Their two lips together could form the parallel lines that do not intersect that my geometry teacher was always on about.
Yeah, there’s a certain Schicklgruber set to the mouth.
Vanilla moose
Two, to go.
Vanilla mice
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=CPR+lessons+near+Chicago&ia=web
yields within the first few results:
https://www.redcross.org/local/illinois/chicago-northern-illinois/take-a-class/cpr-training
and
https://cprnearme.com/location/chicago-cpr-classes-il-chicago/
and
https://lessons.com/il/chicago/cpr-classes/
and
https://cpr.heart.org/AHAECC/CPRAndECC/FindACourse/UCM_473162_Find-A-Course.jsp
I fail to see the reason why you posted all these links to Cardiopulmonary resuscitation (worthy as they are).
Has that to do with the Heimlich manoeuvre?
I think that Dr Heimlich in fact saved someone using his manouevre shirtly before his death.
Note that these resus rules change every 5 years or so as far as eg number of heart pulses and breathing go. If somebody is chocking because the airway is blocked, how can mouth to mouth breathing possibly help?
Anyone here watched Quantum Leap ? In one episodethe hero walks up to a man who is choking and performs said maneuver and then goes on his way .
Meanwhile a waitress asks the man “Are you all right Dr Heimlich?”
I was thinking that too. It would probably push the obstruction further in.
I’ve given the Heimlich twice. First time, I was working in a Polynesian restaurant back in the Seventies. I was chatting up a couple of Irish tourists at two-top and there was wedding rehearsal party of about a dozen at a table nearby. They were eating prime rib and swilling champagne when all of a sudden the paterfamilias on the bride’s side, this big rotund guy, started choking. I ran over. I could barely get my arms around his girth, but once I did, I put a fist where I figured his solar plexus must be. I was pumping so much adrenaline, I lifted the guy clean off the ground. Thrice. Somewhere along the line, he spit out a chunk of beef, but I was more worried I’d broken his ribs and he was gonna sue the owner.
Second time was about 30 years later. My ex-wife came over my place for dinner and halfway through the meal stared choking on who-can-remember-what. Fool that I am, I didn’t even think to renegotiate the alimony agreement before applying the Heimlich. 🙂
Constant Chest Compression (CCC) – should look that up.
Wikipedia claims that Brandeis grew up in a secular home.
Yeah, I don’t think Justice Brandeis was religious, though he was a proud ethnic Jew — and a leader of the early 20th century Zionist movement.
Continuous Chest Compression
https://www.mayoclinic.org/continuous-chest-compression-video/vid-20112444
Thank you for posting the video re: choking. I immediately shared it in all my Facebook groups. (Especially, w/ my MS, I have issues swallowing and there’s a chance my family/friends will have to use this maneuver on me one day.) I had no idea the traditional heimlich had been updated. I also had no idea “heimlich” had been removed due to misinformation on the part of Dr. Henry Heimlich. (Christ……seems you can’t trust anyone these days.)
If you can find it, Woody Allen’s ‘A Giant Step For Mankind’, in which he reimagines the invention of the Heimlich Maneuver as a lifelong search by the protagonist, with many dead ends and absurd experimental procedures carried out on choking mice, is very funny. I can’t help thinking of it whenever I hear about the Heimlich Maneuver now.
I can’t hear it without thinking of the Bloom County comic strip, something about Opus the Penguin a lady choking in a restaurant, and the “hind lick” maneuver…
https://arnoldzwicky.org/2016/01/17/oh-the-heimlich-maneuver/
Never seen it before, but it made me laugh 🙂
I’d rather trust Heimlich than an internet video.
Sorry to hear about your health situation, that sounds scary. I have something similar although nowhere near as debilitating physically.
I think the most important things are that you have friends/family that are a. aware of your condition, and b. around on something approaching a regular basis.
I never know how to finish these comments, but…keep your chin up? Take it that I mean that in a supportive way rather than in a ‘cheer up’ kind of way 🙂
I was drawn to read a bit about Crown Prince Dipendra of Nepal. He supposedly murdered all members of the royal family attending an event and then killed himself. However, there is a possibility that the murders were done by the succeeding monarch, the king’s brother. Read about the very suspicious circumstances!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dipendra_of_Nepal
Note that a coconut is only ‘hairy when peeled and dried. The full cocnust has a very smooth surface.
A fresh coconut has at least an inch of compressed impact-absorbing fibre armour on it. Possibly the hardest fruit of all to extract.
I was once given a fresh coconut and I set to work with all the contents of my workshop – hammers, screwdrivers, vicegrips. After half an hour I was about as battered as the coconut was. It’s spherical, so you can’t grip it; its armour is super-tough, so you can’t easily tear it; just bashing it is likely to crack the thin hard shell inside…
cr
Here’s a device – I think it is deadly garbage- yet it is “FDA registered” – specifically “registered” :
https://lifevac.net/
I think it’s deadly garbage because the obstruction can easily be forced further in the airway by simple errors, the choking victim must be face up, and I imagine getting a good deal will not be trivial,
Meanwhile, one could have used back blows, pointing the choking victim face down.
Nothing brings home the political waste land that is US – two parties for the larger part of a continent – as not supporting medical care for children aged two!
In general, I think, that lack of social conscience comes from the frontier nature of our history. Rugged individualism has always been a highly regarded principle. Thus, you can help out a neighbor with a box of canned food, but beyond that it begins to feel like coddling the lazy bastard. Let the sick 2 year old stand on his or her own feet! (sarc). Of course politicians of both parties have to cater to these sentiments in order to hold office. The Republicans in particular have become masters of the art of portraying all poverty and ill health as the fault of the sufferer. “Not my job”.
I think Ms. Hitler has her brothers eyes.
When I did my first aider at work course for the company I used to work for (15 years ago now), we were taught that the Heimlich manoeuvre was the last resort.
We were told you should start with a well timed slap on the back ideally with the patient in a position to allow gravity assist. Babies and toddlers can be physically held upside down.
Our instructor related a story where a rugby player was choking at a rugby club dinner, when he arrived on the scene, six of his mates had him suspended upside down in a toilet cubicle in the hope that whatever was choking him would just fall out because they didn’t know what else to do. Sounds ridiculous, but they saved his life.
+1
The Heimlich Maneuver is pretty easy to do. Any basic first aid class should teach it. The main thing is locating the Zyphoid Process (sp?) and moving your hands below it to heave on the person.
I have saved from choking:
My mother (twice)
My wife
My son
Myself!
I performed a “self-Heimlich” by throwing myself onto the back of a chair. It worked. I was alone in a sleeping house, eating a 4am breakfast and breathed it in, ugh!
Aside from my self-Heimlich, I cleared everyone else by bending them over and whacking their back very sharply above where the windpipe is.
I was prepared for the Heimlich; but didn’t need it. There’s a sequence of steps. Bend over and whack the back is first.
One thing I teach everyone: If you are choking, get up and move to help (another person) and put your hands up to your throat to show you are choking. My son did this, quickly and pulled my shirt: I was able to clear his airway.
CPR – many big workplaces offer it. Does UChicago have a medical school? I wouldn’t be surprised if they offer it as a service, or maybe an occupational health and safety unit. Or, baring that, I believe the St. John’s Ambulance folks do it too.