Friday: Hili dialogue

June 28, 2019 • 6:30 am

Good morning on Friday, June 28, 2019, which happens to be National Almond Buttercrunch Day, a ludicrous holiday surely confected by Big Almond. It’s also National Camera Day, Great American Picnic Day, and, of all things, National Waffle Iron Day.

Grania’s memorial service was held yesterday in Cork. Michael Nugent tells me that he’s taping the service, and I hope to post it here if it’s put up on YouTube. In the meantime, along with the notice of the service, Grania’s sister Gisela posted this picture of Grania on a public Facebook post:

Today’s Google Doodle (click on screenshot) continues to celebrate the Women’s World Cup of soccer. Today France plays the U.S. at 2 pm Chicago time

Stuff that happened on June 28:

  • 1838 – Coronation of Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom. Here she is; I haven’t seen a single picture of that Queen when she didn’t look stern.

  • 1846 – Adolphe Sax patents the saxophone.
  • 1880 – Australian bushranger Ned Kelly is captured at Glenrowan.

Kelly was hanged on November 11 of that year; his story, at the link, is tortuous and fascinating

Wikipedia describes this incident, which is horrific:

. . . a massacre committed by the North Korea’s Korean People’s Army on 28 June 1950 of 700 to 900 doctors, nurses, inpatient civilians and wounded soldiers at the Seoul National University Hospital, Seoul district of South Korea. During the First Battle of Seoul, the KPA wiped out one platoon which guarded Seoul National University Hospital on 28 June 1950. They massacred medical personnel, inpatients and wounded soldiers. The Korean People’s Army shot or buried the people alive.  The civilian victims alone numbered 900. According to South Korean Ministry of National Defense, the victims included 100 wounded South Korean soldiers.

  • 1969 – Stonewall riots begin in New York City, marking the start of the Gay Rights Movement.
  • 1978 – The United States Supreme Court, in Regents of the University of California v. Bakke bars quota systems in college admissions.
  • 1987 – For the first time in military history, a civilian population is targeted for chemical attack when Iraqi warplanes bombed the Iranian town of Sardasht.
  • 2001 – Slobodan Milošević is extradited to the ICTY in The Hague to stand trial.
  • 2016 – A terrorist attack in Turkey’s Istanbul Atatürk Airport kills 42 people and injures more than 230 others.

Notables born on this day include:

  • 1577 – Peter Paul Rubens, Flemish painter and diplomat (d. 1640)
  • 1703 – John Wesley, English cleric and theologian (d. 1791)
  • 1712 – Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Swiss philosopher and polymath (d. 1778)
  • 1824 – Paul Broca, French physician, anatomist, and anthropologist (d. 1880)
  • 1902 – Richard Rodgers, American playwright and composer (d. 1979)
  • 1926 – Mel Brooks, American actor, director, producer, and screenwriter
  • 1946 – Gilda Radner, American actress and comedian (d. 1989)
  • 1951 – Lalla Ward, English actress and author
  • 1971 – Elon Musk, South African-born American businessman

Gilda Radner was a comedic genius, and it’s so sad that she died young. Remember Baba Wawa? Here’s a trip down memory lane:

And those who bit the dust on June 28 include:

  • 1975 – Rod Serling, American screenwriter and producer (b. 1924)
  • 2001 – Mortimer J. Adler, American philosopher and author (b. 1902)

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili’s appetite has revived (as usual):

Hili: I would like to eat something tasty.
A: And what would you like to get?
Hili: That I don’t know.
In Polish:
Hili: Zjadłabym coś dobrego.
Ja: A co byś zjadła?
Hili: No właśnie nie wiem.
My friend Avis found this in her local store. I wonder what the item would cost if free delivery were included.

A tweet I made after Michael Fisher alerted me to this article and this strange Aussie plant:

A tweet from reader Barry, who says, “Look at the mouth on this guy!” Indeed.

Two of the last four tweets that Grania sent me. She called this one “perfect reflection”:

https://twitter.com/ZonePhysics/status/1114136585858179073

A curly pigeon:

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

Three tweets from Heather Hastie. The first one shows immorality: potchkying with a kitten:

https://twitter.com/AwwwwCats/status/1139326167998193664

Heather says, “The cat must have been trained to do this”:

https://twitter.com/Mr_Meowwwgi/status/1137292014867951616

It’s a bumper year for kakapos in New Zealand. Listen to this one grunt!

Three tweets from Matthew Cobb. I’m not easily grossed out, but this one does it to me:

A clever deer takes a mudbath to protect its skin from midges:

Sex-role reversal in seashorses. The males get pregnant by taking females eggs into their own pouches as soon as they’re fertilized during copulation. There are fewer male pouches available than females with eggs, so females, unlike most other species, have to compete for males. This is why, in many species of seahorses (and pipefish, which have a similar system), it is the females who are ornamented and brightly colored in contrast to the drabber males.

This male seahorse is about to give birth, and it looks painful!

15 thoughts on “Friday: Hili dialogue”

  1. 1838 – Coronation of Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom. Here she is; I haven’t seen a single picture of that Queen when she didn’t look stern.

    That seems to call for The Kinks’ tune in her honor, “Victoria,” from their album Arthur (Or The Decline and Fall of the British Empire). Given her stern visage, I’m not certain Her Majesty would have appreciated the upbeat homage:

    1. The number of things in that video of which Queen Victoria wouldn’t approve is too many to count!

  2. Here’s to Grania, whose writing made us smile.

    … the picture of Queen Victoria seems to show where Tenniel got the idea of how to illustrate The Red Queen.

  3. Baba Wawa – that occurred to me the other day – what is it with that? Indelible – Radner saw “baba wawa” – how many ignored it? I would never have thought it could be funny.

  4. Radner was another one gone far too early.

    You realize this posted at 0230 hrs Hawaii time?

  5. Queen Victoria certainly looked like a Victorian…

    Ever notice how people in photographs from back then always looked stern? There are a few supposed reasons for that. At the time of this picture of Queen Victoria, photographs took quite some time to get exposure, so it was hard to hold a smile. But other experts say that the reason nobody smiled could be anything from bad teeth to the fact that people posing for photograph may have taken their cue from painted portraits, in which nobody ever smiled.

    Here’s a good article I found on the subject: https://time.com/4568032/smile-serious-old-photos/

    Regarding Victorian-era mores, here’s a hilarious video from the wonderful Mitchell and Webb. One of my favorites!

    2. Apparently linden trees (aka callery pears) really do smell like, err, you know.

      I can’t find (with a quick google) any confirmation that any such trees were presented to Victoria, though.

      cr

      1. Yes, I think the skit was more just to make a joke about Victorian culture and to have fun with the idea of Queen Victoria talking about cum.

  7. Ned Kelly’s story is reminiscent of Bonnie and Clyde. Support of the people despite committing egregious acts of civil disobedience.

  8. Wasn’t 28 June 1914 the day Archie Duke shot an Ostrich because he was hungry ?
    June 28 1919 The treaty of Versailles was signed ,like all treaties it was signed on the bottom .

  9. Grania’s death was an awful shock to me, and, I’m sure, to everyone who comes to WEIT. She was obviously an intelligent, enlightened person who made this site much more interesting because of her contributions. I shed tears when I found out about her death. And then I felt anger that such an intelligent and lovely women should die so young.

    Damn it, what did she die of!!?

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