Wednesday: Hili dialogue

66 thoughts on “Wednesday: Hili dialogue”

1. FOX Soccer haven’t made their video available in the UK. This one works, Highlights: England 1-2 USA | Fifa Women’s World Cup 2019 | BBC Sport:

   https://youtu.be/qxT3A3_AV84

   1. The ‘tea-cup’ celebration was rather douchey from the Americans. They got in trouble earlier on for over-celebrating a 13-0 win too. They were overwhelming favourites, and England have said nothing but kind words about them. It was charmless and pointless. I don’t think they’ll have won many new fans, but that’s why they win and England don’t I suppose.

      The script for the match was entirely predictable from an English standpoint. A heartbreaking loss in the semi-finals. The details of exactly how England will break our hearts are always different, so there’s an element of surprise in that I suppose, but everything else is visible in advance from a mile away.

      I was trying to find a reliable feed for the game for an hour and a half and only tuned in just as the late penalty was awarded – ten minutes left, a chance to level the game and push for extra time. That would be a lifeline to any other footballing nation on earth. For England it is simply an opportunity to smash supporters’ hearts into a fine powder.

      1. The fluffed penalty: more steel, focus & bottle required. Toughen ’em up.

         That Phil Neville seems unreal to me – he’s trying very hard to be nice. I’d prefer a martinet & right b**tard for head coach – do something about the extraordinarily loose marking [US players had space given to them by our lot throughout], poor situational awareness & players not working hard enough.

         The right team won.

      2. We have more semi-final heart-break to look forward to as soon as next Thursday in the cricket world cup. I predict India will win (England having been in an unassailable winning position at least twice)but at least India will display some class and charm in the process. As they say, it’s the hope that kills you.

2. I don’t know the purpose of those antennae, but I suspect in addition that the beetle, which is a Cerambycid, is a wasp mimic.

3. After the disaster on the third and final day at Gettysburg the south never marched into the north again. It was very hot during this first week of July and the dead bodies of horses and men were everywhere. Burial groups spent days in the hot sun attempting to bury the dead in shallow graves. Lincoln fired generals again for failure to press the south in retreat and let the enemy fight another day. Not until Grant and Sherman did Lincoln have generals who knew how to finish a battle.

   1. The commander of the Army of the Potomac at Gettysburg was George Meade. Although he was criticized for not following up the victory, he remained that army’s commander until the end of the war. As Wikipedia puts it: “In 1864–65, Meade continued to command the Army of the Potomac through the Overland Campaign, the Richmond-Petersburg Campaign, and the Appomattox Campaign, but he was overshadowed by the direct supervision of the general-in-chief, Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant, who accompanied him throughout these campaigns. Grant conducted most of the strategy during these campaigns, leaving Meade with significantly less influence than before. His image was harmed by his notoriously short temper and disdain for the press. After the war, he commanded several important departments during Reconstruction.”

      I have wondered how Meade must have felt with Grant always looking over his shoulder, starting in May 1864 when Grant, who commanded all Union forces, traveled with the Army of the Potomac in the Overland Campaign.

      1. Yes, you are correct, Mead was not fired. I guess Lincoln had tired of firing generals by then, but he did live in the shadow of Grant through most of the remaining war. I believe he did offer to resign at some point but did not. Most of the earlier generals did not understand management of such large armies because they had never done it before. They also found it hard to think beyond the battle field. Grant and Sherman were the first to establish total war on the South and simply use their superior advantage in men and material to beat the south. Lincoln had learned this but had a hard time finding the people to do it.

   2. Not strictly true that the South never marched into the North again. On July 30, 1864, some of Jubal Early’s men under the leadership of Brig. Gen. John McCausland burned the town of Chambersburg, PA,(about 20 miles west of Gettysburg) after demanding and failing to receive a ransom of $100,000 in gold or $500,000 in greenbacks as recompense for Yankee “atrocities” in Virginia. Chambersburg is the only northern town burned by the Confederates. They stage a reenactment (without a real fire) every year.

4. Had me scratching my head as to what a “whafter” might be (sounds like one of those weird things the English might name their snacks) until I clicked on the link and saw it was a typo. 🙂

5. I must say, I watched most of that match between the U.S. and England and the U.S. was very lucky to win. England missed out on a score being slightly off sides and later managed to stop a penalty kick. Could have easily been 3-2 England.

6. Alex Morgan: That’s an espresso or a tea cup from a doll’s house. Anyway it’s a fail – the pinkie needs to be pointed & she should be holding a saucer in her other hand.

   Some style tips:

   https://youtu.be/N20wHvMPTGs

   1. Ah go on.

      No thankyou mrs Doyle I’m not thirsty.

      Go on.

      No I-

      Go on go on go on go on go on…

7. The ss united states, designed by gibbs and cox of new york and built at newport news shipbuilding and drydock co in virginia would return to newport news every year during the 1950’s for annual inspection and upkeep. As a child, i joined People who would come to cliffs above the james river just downriver from the shipyard to watch this majestic ship be guided by tugs on the last mile of her annual journey to the drydocks of her birthplace. There is a good book on the ship, including the design, interesting politics of her funding,nice pictures of her ocean going lines (built for speed and rough water), Her speed records, and unfortunate demise: “ss united states” by william miller.

   1. Her internal fittings were eventually sold at auction. Some of them including stairways, the First Class Bar and First class dining furniture were part of the fittings of the old Windmill Point restaurant at Nag’s Head NC. I still miss that place, that closed some years ago; especially evenings with a very dry martini watching the sunset over Roanoke Island from a stool once occupied by the Duke of Windsor or John Wayne.

8. … It’s also Eat Beans Day and Stay Out of the Sun Day …

   Does this have anything to do with the autoignition temperature of certain combustible gases?

9. The whale footage is incredible. An amazing moment that few humans will ever get a chance to experience for themselves. But everybody is watching it through their phones…it’s crazy.

   I’d want to see it happening with my own eyes rather than on an iphone screen. It seems like such a waste – you’re five feet away from this astonishing natural phenomenon and your instinct is to immediately start viewing it on a tiny little screen.

   1. My eyes cross when I try to view things on a vertical 16:9 aspect. Turn it sideways you pimples and germs!

10. The last tweet looks like a beetle James Bond being held in Goldfinger’s lair.

11. 🐾🐾

12. How would you be able to test to find out if the antennae are olfactory and if they are used for food or for mating?

    1. Also, is it possible that the pom-poms have anything in common with sex combs?

13. The Confederate soldiers wouldn’t be welcomed so heartily today!

    Oh, hell, John McCain went back to Hanoi to help open diplomatic relations; Dutch Reagan visited Bitburg cemetery, and Barack laid a wreath at the Hiroshima memorial.

    I think accepting those who fought on the wrong side of the Civil War back into the family fold is a thing to be welcomed by all Americans (even those of us who think their statutes should be moved from their sentry positions at courthouses and city squares to cemeteries and museums).

    1. I’ll respectfully disagree, Ken. I suspect that many on the Left would say that welcoming back the ex-Rebels just helped prolong institutional racism in America. They’ve shown that the larger goals of concord and commity mean very little to them. If Joe Biden can’t talk about ‘sometimes you had to bite your tongue, and work with segregationists’, then the presence of an actual Confederate would cause the Wokiees to. . . well, I don’ t know what. When you are already completely outraged, can you be more outraged? It’s like Infinity plus one.

       1. You may be right, DrBydon. I don’t think the situation was helped by the “Lost Cause” advocates who glorified the Confederacy and the antebellum South after the war, or by today’s neo-Confederates, either.

          1. However we want to slice it, the racism and segregation is a large part of this country today. The left and the right continue to talk around it today and very little progress is made. Maybe another 100 years?

          2. Wasn’t the stated aim of the Federal Government to preserve the union? Hard to do that without welcoming the confederates back into the fold. There might have been federal jurisdiction over the whole nation, at the point of a bayonet, but there sure wouldn’t have been any unity.

14. I found it fascinating that, in women’s cup, an analyst pointed out that England lost because of poor coaching. They were set up in the first half in an unusual pattern which put players into positions that they were unaccustomed to – thus performance suffered. I suspect he’ll be fired.

    1. I can’t watch that video here, but the analyst is right.

    2. If you’re referring to Phil ‘Steptoe’ Neville there’s no chance he’ll be fired, for a couple of reasons:

       1. he’s English footballing royalty, and
       2. he got an England football team to a WC semi-final and only narrowly lost.

       He’s more likely to get knighted tbh.

       1. Usual story – honours for the losers, punishment for the uninvolved. who will get the axe?

    3. It was one of the better games .

       As a neutral (Dutch) I would say USA was overall the better team. Both have similar style and tactics (power football/soccer). Missing a penalty-kick can happen, c`est la vie.

       Tonight’s other semi-final will probably be a lot slower.

    4. He got England to the world cup semifinals losing a close game to the number one ranked team with his starting goalkeeper injured. That is a good result for England (and other country except the US.) You can nitpick his decisions but it would be idiotic to fire him.

15. This first one, called “legendary”, seems to me to be a display of bad sportswomanship.

    I dunno; I see your point, and I think it pushes the boundaries, but it had a touch of wit and made me chuckle.

    I’ll gladly defer to our Brit commenters’ greater expertise on such matters, but I think a spot of good-natured razzing is still considered sporting, even on the most Etonian fields of play.

    1. “…even on the most Etonian fields of play”

       A myth. Eton was a factory for churning out psycho bosses who believed in Queen, Country & their right to rule the peasants [ie everyone else] of the world. Damian Lewis, an old Etonian:

       “Jon Ronson deals with it very entertainingly in his book on psychopaths. Are we governed and ruled by sociopaths who have been through that experience? By people who compartmentalise their emotional life so successfully that they can go straight to the top?”

       1. Boris Johnson?

          1. Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson is indeed Eton

             1. I just read an excellent article on that clown in last week’s New Yorker. Among other factoids, I learned that he got his straw-blond hair from Turkish ancestry, of all things. I’m sure the blond is now from a bottle, however.

             2. I hate Boris. I only despise Trump.

             3. I would rate despise as worse than hate?

             4. I’ll call your Boris, play my Trump card, and raise you one Pence. Is this the way the world ends?

             5. Not to forget Mitch Mc.

       2. What of Wellington’s claim that “[t]he Battle of Waterloo was won on the fields of Eton”? (And isn’t that where the ranks of the Spitfire and Hurricane pilots were said to have come from?)

          Or perhaps that proves your point? 🙂

          So the tradition of the lads from public schools being jolly good sports on the playing fields is all a popular (perhaps American) misconception?

          1. WATERLOO:

             18 of 32 infantry regiments in Wellington’s army were British & seven of those 18 were Scottish. So that’s around 11 infantry regiments regarded as English, but 1/3 of the rank & file in “English” regiments were Irish. Half of the cavalry brigades were not British & some of the “British” brigades were filled out with Germans. Half the gun batteries were from the Low Countries.

             Apart from the above what saved our arse on the day were 50,000 Prussians who turned up late on & won the day – if they’d been later…

             Yes, he was Etonian & called his men the scum of the Earth when they looted Vitoria a couple of years before – showing him up by nicking all the gold & jewels. And yet the normal course of events on campaign requires that an army must live off the land [ie some poor bugger else’s land that is] as it’s only the officers who had personal baggage trains & servants & potted supplies for their own consumption.

             BATTLE OF BRITAIN:

             7% OF BoB fighter pilots were public school [meaning privately schooled] educated “Tally Ho!” types. 93% were from a ragtag of backgrounds – 20% came from overseas:
             New Zealanders, Canadians, Australians, South Africans, Ireland, US.

             There were more Poles, Czechs, Belgians, Frenchmen than Tally Ho boys & the highest scoring unit was the Polish No 303 Squadron. Twas the foreigners in the RAF who had the gut hatred & the pre-BoB flying experience.

             SPORT:

             The Iron Duke was watching a cricket match at Eton [he was an old boy] & his quote is apparently somewhat stretched, his point was that sport built the qualities needed for waging war – he wasn’t particularly referencing.

             THOSE BLOOMIN’ YANKS:

             We Brits had more in common with the Germans than our allied Canadians & Yanks! Shocking people those tall well fed fellows – if there’s a problem they fix it rather than waiting on a command from on high. No spare parts? Let’s go & find some bloody spare parts then! Amazing people – every other Yank/Canuck [it seemed] could drive anything, milk a cow, butcher a hog, hunt a beast with a rifle. Myunstinting.

             The citizen armies from over the pond & from the colonies were remarkable people & they adapted far quicker to circumstances than the sorry hooray Henrys running our lot early on. And if you want to learn infantry squad tactics then the ideal background is American Football which is a ballet of practised, pre-planned moves. It’s war by another name.

          2. Good sports only in that the posh English chaps know how to belittle on a pro level that was not always apparent to the guileless, straightforward North American. That standoffish air wasn’t entirely about the arms length English approach to relationships, it was also a lingering sense of superiority [God is an Englishman]. Fair play was the norm among equals, but not against those who weren’t in your ‘set’ – not paying the butcher on time & messing with the second under-parlour girl was par.

             AN INSPECTOR CALLS by J.B. PRIESTLEY

             I used to read a lot of war bios & looking back the level of disdain for ‘Johnny Foreigner’ among the English [all classes] is gobsmaking. T.E. Lawrence & a few others that went native – a rare thing 80 years ago.

             1. Damn, Michael, you’ll wring the last measly little drop of Anglophilia from me yet! 🙂

             2. I’m an Anglo-Irish peasant so you can imagine the potential conflicts there Ken. I’m an Anglophile to, but I can do without the landed class of Ruperts who are at the head of the queue for influence & gongs even today.

          3. Most Battle of Britain pilots came from the University auxiliary squadrons or the RAF reserve. Others came from Canada, USA, South Africa, the then Phodesias, Poland, Czechoslovakia, France, Australia or New Zealand and other parts of the empire and beyond.

             http://fp-reg.onecount.net/onecount/redirects/index.php?action=get-tokens&js=1&sid=&return=https%3A%2F%2Fforeignpolicy.com%2F2017%2F05%2F30%2F1940-middle-class-pilots-saved-england-and-what-that-meant-for-british-politics%2F&sid=79emktk6d7fckqtlqa6143cj35

             1. okay Rhodesias then!

    2. Old Etonians seem to be getting a hard time. Let’s redress the balance a little. From a BBC article on World War 1 (Eton lost over 1,000 former pupils)
       “Myth 4. The upper class got off lightly
       Although the great majority of casualties in WW1 were from the working class, the social and political elite were hit disproportionately hard by WW1. Their sons provided the junior officers whose job it was to lead the way over the top and expose themselves to the greatest danger as an example to their men.

       Some 12% of the British army’s ordinary soldiers were killed during the war, compared with 17% of its officers. Eton alone lost more than 1,000 former pupils – 20% of those who served. UK wartime Prime Minister Herbert Asquith lost a son, while future Prime Minister Andrew Bonar Law lost two. Anthony Eden lost two brothers, another brother of his was terribly wounded, and an uncle was captured.”

       1. Boo-hoo!! In that war Canada lost about 65,000 dead (not including Newfoundland)and about 150,000 wounded all for a pointless war started by the british upper class elites. Too bad Eton wasn’t totally destroyed. Maybe you wouldn’t have the likes of Boris Johnson to deal with today

          1. Amen to that!

          2. The First World War was started by the British elites? That’s quite a revisionist view of history.
             1 Aug 2014 Germany declares war on Russia
             3 Aug 2014 Germany declares war on France
             Germany invades Belgium
             4 Aug 2014 Britain demands Germany withdraw from Belgium. Germany. There is no indication Germany will withdraw and therefore Britain declares war on Germany.

16. I think that poor sportsmanship has become the norm. It is ingrained in US culture and politics now as well.

17. I am always a little bothered by the deaths in wars numbers. For all the other wars, the number is US service personnel killed. For the Civil War they lump the Confederate deaths in with the Union, and while that is actually the total of American deaths, it’s not apples to apples with the other conflicts. The British don’t lump colonial deaths in for the War of the Revolution, although, technically, they were all British subjects. Looking at the dis-aggregated numbers of deaths, the Civil War was less bloody for the US military than World War II.

    1. Another thing to remember about the death/casualty numbers is during the civil war many of the deaths were by other than bullets, mostly common diseases. Large numbers in close camps and little understanding of what was killing them. This held up during WWI with nearly half the deaths from other causes. Penicillin was first used in WWII.

    2. It is very difficult to breakdown the Union and Confederate deaths although most historians now accept recent research that the aggregate total was about 750,000. This article explains the problems in estimating the deaths, particularly on the Confederate side.

       https://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/09/20/recounting-the-dead/#more-105317

       1. I remember reading some about this after the civil war. A very big effort to go out and search for the dead and then create new places to bury them. It was mostly a northern effort with little regard for the south.

          https://www.historynet.com/harvesting-the-dead.htm

          1. In 1862 my great-great grandpappy was shot dead with a Union Minié ball and his body dumped into a mass grave, dug by local farmers, with other Confederate dead, where it remains until this very day.

18. Love the black and white cats rubbing their scents on each other. Somewhere I can hear Paul McCartney singing the 1980’s cheese song, “Ebony and Ivory”.

19. I wish sports would stay focused on the sports. I don’t want to hear about Trump or any other politics. I don’t want to hear about goal celebrations. I don’t want to hear about anyone’s sexuality. I don’t want to have pride celebration in a soccer match. If you are showing spouses, show both men and women. Focus on the soccer and the players.

    I am a women’s soccer fan. I have season
    tickets to the Portland Thorns and it is clear that they have great lesbian support and I don’t care. I watch women’s soccer because I love the game and don’t care for the men’s theatrics.

    Get off of my lawn!

    1. American sport has always reflected the sturm and drang of the society whence it springs. That’s been true at least since the days of Jack Johnson (and was certainly true regarding the man for whom today’s Hili dialogue celebrates entry into the Major League Baseball Hall of Fame: Jackie Robinson).

       The two are likely inseparable.

       1. Good point about Jackie Robinson. Is he really that different than Rapinoe? He changed society more and faced a tougher road. To be a top baseball player, he had to fight his battle. Rapinoe could have been a great player without controversy and has probably benefited more than been hurt.

          I am too biased to give a real opinion. I admire Robinson and his style. I am repelled by Rapinoe’s basic brattiness on and off the field.

          My daughter is a very good soccer player and Rapinoe and Morgan are the two US players, I do not want her to emulate on the field.

20. That ‘revenge is sweet’ meme would be fervently echoed by every movie/TV ‘sound man’ in Auckland. (And probably many other places). When the cicadas are buzzing, location shooting becomes a nightmare and every bit of dialog has to be ADR’d.

    cr

21. Entomology fail in the “revenge is sweet” photo: a cicada’s ears are on its abdomen, not its head.

22. Magpies are apparently corvids – no wonder that one seems intelligent and tool-attracted.

    Also, catalytic decomposition of peroxides … always fun for the whole family!

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