Tuesday: Hili dialogue

October 8, 2019 • 6:30 am

It’s Tuesday, October 8, 2019, and we’re still 24 days away from Halloween. Yet skeletons, pumpkins, Halloween candy, and all the accoutrements of the ghoulish holiday are already on offer on the stores.  And oy, it’s National Fluffernutter Day, a particularly noxious American sandwich consisting of peanut butter and marshmallow spread. Wikipedia has a long article on fluffernutters, which apparently made their appearance during World War I! Here’s the components:

(From Wikipedia): “Showing bread slices with peanut butter and marshmallow creme prior to their being combined into a Fluffernutter sandwich.” LOL.

Botany Pond is becoming the equivalent of a singles bar for ducks: yesterday there were thirteen, including four drakes and nine hens. And one of the hens was my beloved Honey, who looks to be in good shape. Here she is:

Honey!!!

It’s also Alvin C. York Day, celebrating the day in 1918 that York earned his Medal of Honor, killing 28 German soldiers (including six who were charging him with bayonets, and then taking 132 prisoners single-handedly (they surrendered in the face of York’s marksmanship). Born in poverty in a Tennessee log cabin, York became an expert sharpshooter by hunting food for his family. His exploits were revisited in the 1941 movie Sergeant York, with Gary Cooper (who nabbed a best actor Oscar) in the title role. The entire movie is on YouTube. Here’s York in 1919:

The trailer. When I was a kid, this and Yankee Doodle Dandy were two of my favorite films:

It’s also Columbus Day, but it’s largely been renamed Indigenous Peoples’ Day, National Kick-Butt Day, World Octopus Day, International Lesbian Day, and National Pierogi Day (blatant cultural appropriation).

Stuff that happened on this day in history includes:

While  about 300 people died in the Chicago fire, between 1500 and 2500 people died in the Peshtigo Fire, which destroyed more than a million acres of land in Wisconsin and Michigan.

  • 1918 – World War I: Corporal Alvin C. York kills 28 German soldiers and captures 132, winning the Medal of Honor. [See above.]
  • 1921 – KDKA in Pittsburgh’s Forbes Field conducts the first live broadcast of a football game.
  • 1944 – World War II: Captain Bobbie Brown earns a Medal of Honor for his actions during the Battle of Crucifix Hill, just outside Aachen.
  • 1956 – The New York Yankees’s Don Larsen pitches the only perfect game in a World Series.

Larsen is still alive at 90, and every baseball maven knows the fact above. Here’s the end of that perfect game (a game in which no player reaches first base). As Wikipedia reports,

Larsen started Game 5 for the Yankees. Larsen’s opponent in the game was Brooklyn’s Sal Maglie. Larsen needed just 97 pitches to complete the perfect game, and only one Dodger batter (Pee Wee Reese in the first inning) was able to get a 3-ball count. In 1998, Larsen recalled, “I had great control. I never had that kind of control in my life.” Brooklyn’s Maglie gave up only two runs on five hits. Mickey Mantle’s fourth-inning home run broke the scoreless tie. The Yankees added an insurance run in the sixth. After Roy Campanella grounded out to Billy Martin for the second out of the 9th inning, Larsen faced pinch hitter Dale Mitchell, a .311 career hitter. Throwing fastballs, Larsen got ahead in the count at 1–2. On his 97th pitch, a called third strike by home plate umpire Babe Pinelli, Larsen caught Mitchell looking for the 27th and last out.  After the pitch, catcher Yogi Berra leaped into Larsen’s arms in celebration, setting up the “everlasting image”. Larsen’s unparalleled game earned him the World Series Most Valuable Player Award and Babe Ruth Award.

And here’s the video of the game’s end, with the famous scene of Berra leaping into Larsen’s arms.

  • 1967 – Guerrilla leader Che Guevara and his men are captured in Bolivia. [Che was executed the next day.]
  • 1978 – Australia’s Ken Warby sets the current world water speed record of 317.60 mph at Blowering Dam, Australia.
  • 1982 – Cats opens on Broadway and runs for nearly 18 years before closing on September 10, 2000.
  • 2014 – Thomas Eric Duncan, the first person in the United States to be diagnosed with Ebola, dies.

Notables born on October 7 include:

The name King Zog I cracks me up, but the dude was a dictator. Look at this martinet!:

King Zog the First

Speaking of dictators,

  • 1895 – Juan Perón, Argentinian general and politician, 29th President of Argentina (d. 1974)
  • 1941 – Jesse Jackson, American minister and activist
  • 1943 – Chevy Chase, American comedian, actor, and screenwriter
  • 1949 – Sigourney Weaver, American actress and producer
  • 1970 – Matt Damon, American actor, producer, and screenwriter

Those who croaked on this day include:

  • 1793 – John Hancock, American merchant and politician, 1st Governor of Massachusetts (b. 1737)
  • 1869 – Franklin Pierce, American general, lawyer, and politician, 14th President of the United States (b. 1804)
  • 1944 – Wendell Willkie, American captain, lawyer, and politician (b. 1892)
  • 1992 – Willy Brandt, German lawyer and politician, 4th Chancellor of Germany, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1913)
  • 2015 – Paul Prudhomme, American chef and author (b. 1940)

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili is, as usual, eating. “Dessert” for her is one of her favorite “cat sausages.”

Hili: This is a sustaining meal.
A: And after that?
Hili: After that a dessert.
Photo by Sarah Lawson
In Polish:
Hili: To jest podtrzymujący posiłek.
Ja: A potem?
Hili: Potem deser.

Here’s a Halloween-themed cat cartoon by Mark Parisi that I posted last year:

Posted by Seth Andrews:

From reader Laurie Ann, who says “Two of Jerry’s mostest favouritest animals!” Indeed!

Well, PNAS finally took down the ridiculous soft-porn tweet showing a woman having an orgasm and advertising a study in RABBITS while implying it was done in humans.  (h/t: Greg Mayer)

This tweet goes to a clickbaity but fascinating New York Times article about injuries to dinosaurs as seen in their bones.

Two tweets from Heather Hastie. The first one is wonderful:

And this d*g is lucky he’s alive!

Tweets from Matthew. This one is lovely, at two species of cetacean are playing with each other:

A talking cat! Well, sort of, but very good. . . better than the retired Henri. Sound up!

75 years ago yesterday there was a revolt of Jewish prisoners at Auschwitz. This is the first of five tweets in a thread you should read:

Also a nice tweet showing an amazing phenomenon:

 

48 thoughts on “Tuesday: Hili dialogue”

  2. Fluffernutters …oog. On a happier note, it’s also National Pierogi Day. Those I’ll gladly sink my teeth into.

    1. I never knew what a fluffernutter was before now – it’s bad enough to combine peanut butter with marshmallow, but then you realise that it could only exist if someone had invented the obscenity that is marshmallow spread.

      I don’t care if either Ken or Michael Fisher tell me that it was actually invented in the Gambia or something – it is an archetypally American food creation. Something that probably passed through Elvis in his final hours.

      Sometimes you guys get it very right(see Ben and Jerry’s, or PB and J sandwiches) but sometimes you get it very wrong indeed.

      1. It’s a New England invention it seems [the creme that is]. It’s not appealing to my palate – a good way of getting rid of the corn syrup ocean – the essential US ingredient to more than half[?] of foods over there [I wonder what the true figure is]

        As to Ben & Jerry’s: I thought it was great, but not any more ~ too sweet an ice cream. Either it’s my taste buds liking sugar less or the recipe has changed since they were bought out by Unilever. I think these two UK supermarket own brands are better, they’re absolutely lovely, they contain no stabilisers [unnecessary IMO] & they’re half the price of B&J’s! MORRISONS Madagascan Vanilla Ice Cream & the WAITROSE Version [I can’t speak for the available B&J’s mashed up exotic flavours, because I only have vanilla ice cream – because I have it as an accompaniment to various hot pies/tarts: apple, blackcurrant & strawberry my three favourites].

        P.S. According to Wiki the Arabs have a food close to Marshmellow Creme called soapwort meringue [natef]. “The original recipe is based on soapwort (roots of Saponaria officinalis) or roots of the marshmallow plant, but modern commercial varieties are nearly identical to marshmallow creme. It was mentioned in a tenth-century Arabic cookbook, Kitab al-Ṭabīḫ (the book of dishes) by Ibn Sayyar al-Warraq” 🙂

        1. Waitrose ice creams are lovely – they make a nice pistachio variety too.

          ‘Soapwort’…what a bloody horrible name for a dessert ingredient. And ‘marshmallow plant’?? I had no idea there even was a marshmallow plant. Every day I learn a little more about how little I know.

  3. Anybody have the deleted tw337 of the orgasm? Also – are we sure it’s really soft porn and not … what’s the other kind?

    Asking for a friend.

    ^^^^this is a joke – for humor only, I don’t really want that tw337!

  4. Think about the rifle Alvin York was using in WWII. No fancy semi-automatic M-16 look alike with 20 round clips. I guess today every 20 year old idiot wants to be like Sgt. York only in the school yard or shopping mall. Just as the founders had wanted.

    2. WWI actually, but a good point – York was using the M1917 ‘American Enfield’ on that day, six round internal 30-06 mag + one round in chamber [movie has the wrong rifle I think].

      1. Yes, my dad had a Remington model 30 which was essentially the same thing. It may have been my grandfather’s originally.

      2. If the ergonomics are similar to the British SMLE, a good marksman get get a pretty good rate of fire out of it – not as fast as a semi automatic but still a round every few seconds.

    3. Without detracting in any way from York’s courage and marksmanship, another possible factor in the huge number of surrendering soldiers is that by this stage of the war German morale was down, desertion and surrender were up. About 50% of all German surrenders on the Western Front occurred in the last three months of the war with entire units led by their officers giving up at times.

      1. At this stage of the war, everybody knew the Germans had lost. The Gernman spring offensives had failed. The British had finally figured out how to win an offensive battle and the US had arrived with masses of extra man power. Really, the war could have ended a couple of months previously, if the Allies had been prepared to accept a surrender on slightly worse terms than they got.

        I don’t doubt that, by this stage of the war, German soldiers would have surrendered under conditions that would have seen them fight to the death earlier.

  5. Re. King Zog – my favourite king/dictator was always this guy:
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/gabon/5472994/Gabons-president-Omar-Bongo-Ondimba-dies-aged-73.html

    I remember seeing a newspaper photo of him at his desk in that white suit, looking like a villain in a Roger Moore James Bond film, and then the caption said his name was Omar Bongo.

    I found it so funny I cut out the picture and the caption and pinned it on the fridge for years, and used to point it out to friends and family, who probably thought I was being vaguely racist.

    1. The one thing I know about King Zog is, he used on occasions to insist on driving the engine of the Orient Express when it passed through his country. Doubtless watched like a deferential but zealous hawk by the real driver.

      The guy can’t be all bad!

      cr

      1. Sorry Saul, didn’t mean to steal your thunder. Omar Bongo is indeed a magnificent name. Doubtless he too would have insisted on driving the train if Gabon had a railway.

        cr

        1. I was once in Libreville, Gabon, waiting to fly to Sao Tome, when President Bongo’s convoy passed by. All traffic was stopped as a motorcade of many cars and armored vehicles conveyed Bongo to his palace, which was heavily guarded by French mercenaries (I don’t think he trusted his own army).

      2. One of the main characters in the new Matt Groening cartoon Disenchantment is called King Zog. I don’t know whether there was any inspiration drawn from the historical Zog, although the fictional Zog is pretty authoritarian and capricious.

        Unfortunately, if you were interested enough to explore further, the show a. requires a Netflix subscription, and b. is kind of terrible.

    2. Knowing that, I found it very difficult to keep a straight face approaching Passport Control (both passports, please!) at Libreville. The airport has a different name (now), but the multitudinous signs and portraits include enough of the previous Dear Leader. It quite catches the eye, while you’re standing around trying to not look nervous.
      Gods and meatballs, but the baggage there reclaim is slow and sweaty.

      1. As is being demonstrated on a daily basis, it’s the most ridiculous, comical leaders you have to be careful of the most. They often seem to be motivated by a burning desire to punish everyone who ever made fun of them or considered them a joke.

        “What brought you into politics mr Trump?”

        “Revenge”

        1. “What brought you into politics, Mrs Trump?” Revenge against my former husband.
          I’m not a very theatrical person, but there was a review on the radio this morning of a play representing Melania Trump and Mrs Macron, locked into a room “backstage” at some summit. (No, I didn’t catch the name or play house ; sorry. My art criticism isn’t up to much either.) It raised some interesting and amusing questions about what is really going on behind … I can’t even remember what colour her hair is, or if it changes or is more convincing than LaTrump’s supracranial display structure.

  6. In my great and unmatched wisdom, I say that the Fluffernutter is the greatest sandwich of all. I had them for lunch at least 2 days a week in elementary school. They have, I’m sure, given me the mental acuity I possess today.

        1. That just sounds completely mad to me, but I have a suspicion it’s probably really nice.

          You are edging into fat-Elvis territory with recipes like that though, not far off deep-fried porpoise or banana-and-t-bone-steak smoothie

          2. Not remotely like that. Nice crisp bacon with crunchy peanut butter on a piece of sour-dough toast😋

  7. The name King Zog I cracks me up, but the dude was a dictator.

    Quite the mustache and caudillo-style uniform on Zog (or “the Zogster” or “el Zogerino,” if you’re not into the whole brevity thing).

    2. The dude was also into surfing. Evidence? – I have a body board** with ‘Zoggs’ on it in big pink letters. What more evidence could you want?

      cr
      ** A sort of sawn-off mini-surf-boardy-thingy, for the information of those of you who don’t do stupid things on perfectly harmless waves that weren’t bothering anybody.

  8. It’s not October 7, it’s the 8th. I know for sure,’cause I’m having a birthday today.

      1. Thanks for the b-day wishes! I got a new pair of Bushell binoculars from my kids and went out last night and found the Andromeda galaxy with them. So exciting. Today I’ll be doing some duck watching on the lake. It’s so nice when your grown-up kiddies give you pressies!

  11. Marshmallow and peanut butter? Ick, and this from a guy who likes peanut butter and dill pickle, peanut butter and sharp cheese, peanut butter and Bulgarian pepper spread …

    1. Yeah, you probably shouldn’t be throwing stones! 🙂

      I like apples with my peanut butter.

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