Wednesday: Hili dialogue (and Leon monologue)

June 26, 2019 • 7:00 am

Greetings on Wednesday, June 26 2019, the first Hump Day of Summer.

It’s National Chocolate Pudding Day, a comestible once endorsed by Bill Cosby,  It’s also International Day in Support of Victims of Torture, World Refrigeration Day, and, in Hamelin, Germany, Ratcatcher’s Day.

A lot of stuff happened on June 26, including three advances in gay rights:

  • 1483 – Richard III becomes King of England.
  • 1541 – Francisco Pizarro is assassinated in Lima by the son of his former companion and later antagonist, Diego de Almagro the younger. Almagro is later caught and executed.
  • 1917 – World War I: The American Expeditionary Forces begin to arrive in France. They will first enter combat four months later.
  • 1948 – William Shockley files the original patent for the grown-junction transistor, the first bipolar junction transistor.
  • 1953 – Lavrentiy Beria, head of MVD, is arrested by Nikita Khrushchev and other members of the Politburo.
  • 1959 – Swedish boxer Ingemar Johansson becomes world champion of heavy weight boxing, by defeating American Floyd Patterson on technical knockout after two minutes and three seconds in the third round at Yankee Stadium.
  • 1974 – The Universal Product Code is scanned for the first time to sell a package of Wrigley’s chewing gum at the Marsh Supermarket in Troy, Ohio.
  • 1977 – Elvis Presley held his final concert in Indianapolis, Indiana at Market Square Arena
  • 2000 – The Human Genome Project announces the completion of a “rough draft” sequence.
  • 2000 – Pope John Paul II reveals the third secret of Fátima.
  • 2003 – The U.S. Supreme Court rules in Lawrence v. Texas that gender-based sodomy laws are unconstitutional.
  • 2013 – The U.S. Supreme Court ruled, 5–4, that Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act is unconstitutional and in violation of the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution.
  • 2015 – The U.S. Supreme Court ruled, 5–4, that same-sex couples have a constitutional right to marriage under the 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution.

Notables born on this day include:

  • 1819 – Abner Doubleday, American general (d. 1893)
  • 1892 – Pearl S. Buck, American novelist, essayist, short story writer Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1973)
  • 1898 – Chesty Puller, US general (d. 1971)

I used to play poker with a Marine general who was friends with Chesty Puller, regarded as “the Marine’s Marine.” But I never learned how Puller got his nickname (his real name was Lewis Burwell Puller).  Apparently Puller didn’t, either. As one site notes,

Some say Puller got his famous nickname because of his big, thrust-out chest; the myth was that the original had been shot away and the new chest was a steel plate. Others state that “chesty” was an old Marine expression meaning cocky. The following letter shows that Puller himself was not sure of how he came by it. . .

Here’s Chesty, looking exactly as a Marine general should look:

More born on this day:

  • 1903 – Big Bill Broonzy, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (d. 1958)
  • 1904 – Peter Lorre, Slovak-American actor and singer (d. 1964)
  • 1974 – Derek Jeter, American baseball player
  • 1976 – Dave Rubin, American political commentator

Derek Jeter was a great hitter, with a lifetime average of .310, and he’s a sure Hall-of-Famer, but it was his defensive performance at shortstop that always thrilled me. I love those impossible throws from deep in the infield. Here’s a few of his stellar moments:

Those who died on June 26 include:

  • 1541 – Francisco Pizarro, Spanish explorer and politician, Governor of New Castile (b. c. 1471)
  • 1793 – Gilbert White, English ornithologist and ecologist (b. 1720)
  • 1957 – Malcolm Lowry, English novelist and poet (b. 1909)
  • 1993 – Roy Campanella, American baseball player and coach (b. 1921)
  • 2003 – Strom Thurmond, American general, lawyer, and politician, 103rd Governor of South Carolina (b. 1902)
  • 2012 – Nora Ephron, American director, producer, and screenwriter (b. 1941)
  • 2014 – Howard Baker, American lawyer, politician, and diplomat, 12th White House Chief of Staff (b. 1925)

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili is stopping to smell the flowers.

Hili: They are starting to wither but they still smell.
A: Do you like this smell?
Hili: No, I prefer the fragrance of mice.
In Polish:
Hili: Zaczynają przekwitać, ale nadal pachną.
Ja: Lubisz ten zapach?
Hili: Nie, wolę zapach myszy.

Summer is passing and they still haven’t started putting up the new home of Leon and his staff near Dobrzyn. In the meantime,  the Dark Tabby is amusing himself in the already-completed garden of his incipient house.

Leon: Attention! Aliens are attacking!

In Polish: Uwaga,obcy atakują!

Two chuckles from Facebook:

A tweet from Nilou: a fuzzy condor chick goes for a popsicle:

Two more from the Lost Tweets of Grania. This kitten passes the mirror test:

Amazing nature. Notice how the parasites make the tentacles move, calling attention to them:

https://twitter.com/41Strange/status/1114579669901123584

Three tweets from Heather Hastie. Heather has kindly offered to fill the kitten-tweet niche left behind by Grania:

https://twitter.com/AwwwwCats/status/1142565870029484037

What a useful kitten!

https://twitter.com/EmrgencyKittens/status/1142598649437966336

A mighty cat!

https://twitter.com/AwwwwCats/status/1142415588519763973

Tweets from Matthew. Translation of this one: “This is my little godchild Abraxas, whom I visited yesterday in the Wildtierhilfe (Wild animal rescue orgnization) Schäfer and was also allowed to hold.”

https://twitter.com/FrauFabelhaft/status/1139413141203251200

Ferrets aren’t claustrophobic and at one time, as I recall, were used to clean the tubes in nuclear reactors, running through them dragging a balled-up rag behind them:

Amazing but true! But WHY?

https://twitter.com/TerrifyingPixs/status/1142301193747628032

A nice trick; the explanation is in the thread:

 

35 thoughts on “Wednesday: Hili dialogue (and Leon monologue)”

    1. It was a most accurate prophecy: Made to fit something by waiting a few decades until something happened.

      Having grown up among fundamentalist Catholics, I got to know some conspiracy theories about the third secret, along with countless hogwash tales about Fatima (e.g. sun miracle). Later, a sceptical assessment showed me how shamelessly invented all of it was.

      Reply

  2. Leon, let’s get going on that house.

    Guadalcanal, Peleliu, Inchon, Chosin Reservoir. Chesty Puller was there. I worked with a retired Marine in Okinawa who served with Chesty in Korea.

    Reply

  3. Jeter was a terrible fielder. Those plays looked spectacular because he had to reach and dive to get balls better shortstops could field standing up.

    Reply

  4. USMC English Bulldog mascot Cpl [now Sgt] Chesty Pullerton [Chesty XIV] greets green recruit English Bulldog Chesty XV last year. Chesty XV earned his Pfc stripe in March 2019 & is now the USMC mascot for four years:

    Woof. Grrrr.

    https://youtu.be/CA7hoYG8HkM

    Reply

  7. Francisco Pizarro, the destroyer of the Inca empire, by disease, steel as well as deceit, lies and treasonous behaviour. He considered lying and treacherous behaviour towards a pagan of no consequence (What doe that remind us of nowadays?). Not a hero in my pantheon. I’m sure that nowadays he would be considered a war criminal. He was killed when 70, the same age that Mr Trump usurped the US presidency. Would history have been different had he been killed 30 years earlier? Probably not.

    Reply

    1. As John Huston explained to Jack Nicholson in Chinatown, “politicians, ugly buildings, and whores all get respectable if they last long enough”:

      Reply

  8. 2003 – The U.S. Supreme Court rules in Lawrence v. Texas that gender-based sodomy laws are unconstitutional.

    Seventeen years earlier, in Bowers v. Hardwick, SCOTUS had upheld the constitutionality of Georgia’s sodomy statute as against two gay guys who’d been interrupted in flagrante delicto, in their own bedroom, when local police executed a (subsequently determined to be invalid) warrant on their home.

    Lawrence v. Texas overruled Bowers and struck down all laws prohibiting private homosexual conduct among consenting adults. The Court’s three most conservative justices — Scalia, Rehnquist, and Thomas — dissented. Two other Republican appointees — Kennedy and Souter — joined the majority. This, and the softness of Kennedy and Souter (and fellow Republican appointee Sandra Day O’Connor) on abortion issues, is why conservatives are now so batshit about having Republican SCOTUS nominees vetted to a fare-the-well by groups like the Federalist Society for potential ideological impurity.

    Reply

      1. That’s funny. Ol’ Nino had a gift for hyperbolic invective, especially in dissent. But at some point during his last decade or so on the bench he gave up on trying to persuade anyone of anything, in favor of doing hand-to-hand combat with his ideological enemies.

        He remained a favorite of the rightwing, though — kinda like a pitbull in a spiked collar that a redneck keeps chained up in the bed of his pick-up truck. Useless for getting most anything accomplished, but great for pointing at and saying, “Look at him; ain’t he a pisser?!”

        Reply

  9. I don’t believe it was noted yesterday, perhaps because PCC(E) was so busy chowing down on Hawaiian delicacies like Spam, but Anthony Bourdain was born yesterday, June 25, and now chefs have proclaimed June 25th to be “Anthony Bourdain Day,” and the 25th will be celebrated as such henceforth.

    Those of us who didn’t know that can celebrate belatedly today. I doubt that he’d mind.

    Reply

    1. The mouse is too savoury to be a pudding & it just will not stay still on the plate unless absolutely drenched in chocolate?

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      1. True! I did just acquire a new vehicle with a high clearance, hand’t considered the mousse-risk I’ve taken along with that change. Duly noted!

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  14. Maybe the mouse is just a “pack rat”? 😉

    Actually, I have heard that rodents often do like keeping a clean environment. Our gerbils we had as a kid used to like to move things around, reformat their cage, etc.

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  16. “Ferrets … used to clean the tubes in nuclear reactors”. I guess that explains that glowing, 50 foot tall one wreaking havoc in the heartland…

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  17. 1819 – Abner Doubleday, American general (d. 1893

    Hmmm, I used to associate the name “Doubleday” with honourable professions like publishing. No more.

    Reply

  19. I believe the proper inscription on the soap should be:

    Its so easy to get under you’re skin.

    (I threw up in my mouth a little typing that.)

    -Ryan

    Reply

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