Sunday: Hili dialogue (and Mietek monologue)

It’s Sunday, October 18, 2020: National Chocolate Cupcake Day. It’s also National No Beard Day (for some reason you’re supposed to shave off your beard on October 18), National Mammography Day, World Menopause Day, and, in Canada, Persons Day, referring to when a case was decided in 1929 that finally counted women as “persons”  who were eligible to sit in the Senate of Canada.

News of the Day:

The New York Times has an interesting piece on the exponentially increasing use of the term “white supremacy”, and its extension into areas that weren’t thought of as “Klan-like”:

Ten years ago, white supremacy frequently described the likes of the Ku Klux Klan and David Duke, the neo-Nazi politician from Louisiana. Now it cuts a swath through the culture, describing an array of subjects: the mortgage lending policies of banks; a university’s reliance on SAT scores as a factor for admissions decisions; programs that teach poor people better nutrition; and a police department’s enforcement policies.

While many scholars enthusiastically embrace the term’s expansion, others, such as black intellectuals John McWhorter, Glenn Loury, and Orlando Patterson, reject it.

Prof. John McWhorter of Columbia University, a linguist, explained that such expressions are like a crocodile’s teeth. Old ones wear down and are shed; new and sharper ones appear.

“Words lose their rhetorical strength,” he said. “Fifty years ago, in a Norman Lear sitcom like Archie Bunker, if someone was accused of being ‘prejudiced,’ you sucked in your breath.”

Surprisingly for the paper, the article doesn’t wholeheartedly support the expansion of the term.

Here’s Bill Maher on Amy Coney Barrett and the Supreme Court (h/t Enrico)

And, in the Washington Post we have a story of resolution and tenacity in the face of death.  James Wendel Wlliams, a Michigan resident in the final stages of colon cancer, was determined to stay alive long enough to cast his ballot in person.  He did—walking to the deposit box on his own and putting in his vote on the first day of early voting, September 24. I bet you can guess which candidate he voted for.  Here’s a picture of Wiilliams voting, which it makes me tear up:

He died eight days later.

Finally, today’s reported Covid-19 death toll in the U.S. is 219,973, a big increase of about 1,500 deaths over yesterday’s report. The world death toll is 1,115,176, an increase of about 5,400 over yesterday’s report.  

Stuff that happened on October 18 includes:

• 1540 – Spanish conquistador Hernando de Soto’s forces destroy the fortified town of Mabila in present-day Alabama, killing Tuskaloosa.
• 1565 – Ships belonging to the Matsura clan of Japan fail to capture the Portuguese trading carrack in the Battle of Fukuda Bay, the first recorded naval battle between Japan and the West.
• 1851 – Herman Melville‘s Moby-Dick is first published as The Whale by Richard Bentley of London.

The first American edition, shown below, will set you back a cool $65,000:

• 1867 – United States takes possession of Alaska after purchasing it from Russia for $7.2 million. Celebrated annually in the state as Alaska Day.
• 1898 – The United States takes possession of Puerto Rico from Spain.
• 1922 – The British Broadcasting Company (later Corporation) is founded by a consortium, to establish a nationwide network of radio transmitters to provide a national broadcasting service.
• 1944 – World War II: The state funeral of Field Marshal Erwin Rommel takes place in Ulm Germany.

Rommel, of course, was forced to commit suicide rather than be tried for conspiring to kill Hitler. In return for his suicide, the Nazis gave him an elaborate state funeral. A short video of part of it, with the song “Deutschland Über Alles”, is shown below:

• 1945 – Argentine military officer and politician Juan Perón marries actress Eva Duarte.

Here’s a four-minute biography of Evita, who died of cancer at 33:

• 1954 – Texas Instruments announces the first transistor radio.
• 1963 – Félicette, a black and white female Parisian stray cat becomes the first cat launched into space.

The launch was part of the French space program. They euthanized Félicette two months after the launch to examine her brain. But here she is, in an autographed photo with pawprint. They should not have killed this brave cat!

• 2019 – NASA Astronauts Jessica Meir and Christina Koch take part in the first all-women spacewalk when they venture out of the International Space Station to replace a power controller.

Here’s a high-quality video of the walk, showing some of the principals. TRIGGER WARNING!!!!: Trump!

Notables born on this day include:

• 1859 – Henri Bergson, French philosopher and theologian, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1941)
• 1870 – D. T. Suzuki, Japanese author and scholar (d. 1966)
• 1904 – A. J. Liebling, American journalist and author (d. 1963)

Liebling is one of my favorite American writers, and perhaps our best food writer. His book Between Meals: An Appetite for Paris is, in my view, among the very finest food (and travel) books, recounting his youth in Paris and his education in how to eat (he called himself a “feeder” rather than a gourmet). I’d recommend that book highly, or the compendium of his writing in Just Enough Liebling. Here he is (he died at 59 of obesity-related illness):

• 1919 – Anita O’Day, American singer (d. 2006)

Here’s a short clip of O’Day singing jazz:

• 1926 – Chuck Berry, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (d. 2017)
• 1926 – Klaus Kinski, German-American actor, director, and screenwriter (d. 1991)
• 1939 – Lee Harvey Oswald, American assassin of John F. Kennedy (d. 1963)
• 1947 – Laura Nyro, American singer-songwriter and pianist (d. 1997)

If you’ve read her often, you’ll know of my admiration for Nyro, who’s been called “The Emily Dickinson of American songwriters.” I won’t dilate on her virtues, but here she singing (live) one of her classic songs, “Wedding Bell Blues“, a big hit for The 5th Dimension:

• 1984 – Freida Pinto, Indian actress and model

Those who bought the farm on October 18 include:

• 1871 – Charles Babbage, English mathematician and engineer, invented the mechanical computer (b. 1791)
• 1931 – Thomas Edison, American engineer and businessman, invented the light bulb and phonograph (b. 1847)
• 1973 – Walt Kelly, American illustrator and animator (b. 1913)
• 1982 – Bess Truman, American wife of Harry S. Truman, 40th First Lady of the United States (b. 1885)
• 2012 – Sylvia Kristel, Dutch model and actress (b. 1952)

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili, steeped in conspiracy theories that the Jews are plotting to take over the world, has her own analog:

Hili: The mice are conspiring against cats.

A: How do you know?

Hili: Many cats say so.

Hili: Myszy spiskują przeciw kotom.

Ja: Skąd wiesz?

Hili: Wiele kotów to mówi.

Mietek has a monologue, too, but he likes to play with the nuts, not eat them.

Mietek:  Oh, nuts—I like them!

Did you ever wonder what happened to travel guides during the pandemic? Andrew Berry sends us the answer.

Cards for kitties from Divy:

From Facebook:

I retweeted this, but the original tweet came from Simon:

I see this with my mallards all the time. One of the adaptive aspects of this antipredator behavior is that you can never predict where the duck will surface. https://t.co/8T1X3I9wZe

— Jerry Coyne (@Evolutionistrue) October 17, 2020

And one more from Simon (with a followup tweet):

actually she goes nuts for certain greens. here she is with pea shoots https://t.co/vv16reHKt5 pic.twitter.com/xZZPFmhJVx

— Karoun Demirjian (@karoun) October 16, 2020

Gethyn sent in a tweet that’s a perfect followup to the tweets above:

This cat is rlaxd pic.twitter.com/avE7r7bJBh

— Sarah Barker (@mssfax) October 16, 2020

If you’re following the duplicities (yes, several) of the New York Times’s 1619 Project, and the unhinged behavior of its boss, Nikole Hannah-Jones, follow the thread headed by this tweet:

As the person who broke the story about the NYT's textual deletions from the 1619 Project, I'll offer a few thoughts on this response from the paper in the thread below. https://t.co/Zp6MbYNNno

— Phil Magness (@PhilWMagness) October 17, 2020

Tweets from Matthew. First, a lovely weather video:

Shot of a lifetime! 🤯🌪
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
Crazy roll cloud over Lake Michigan.
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
Epic vid Ken Temple. 🙌🏼 pic.twitter.com/KZyox5juDK

— Ricky Forbes (@ForbesRicky) October 16, 2020

There’s a Darwin game! It sounds good, but somehow I get the feeling it’s a snoozer. I hope I’m wrong.

Game night at my place!

Although I haven't even read the instructions yet 😁@TetZoo @dinodadreviews @Himmapaan @TimDrawsFish @dinotoyblog @artanagames from Kickstarter! pic.twitter.com/Dm8QH5fGlT

— Sean 'proud to be a fish' Bell (@FaunaFigures) October 17, 2020

I had no idea octopuses could burrow in the sand! Here’s the Google translation from the Japanese.

By the way, I found an octopus during the investigation yesterday, so when I caught it and observed it, he showed me the technique of diving vividly in the sand. There was such a technique! Tacos Goi!

そういえば昨日調査中にタコをみつけたので捕まえて観察していたら、鮮やかに砂に潜る技を見せつけてくれました。こんな技もあったとは！タコスゴイ！ pic.twitter.com/RcnWd8bDuM

— オイカワ丸 (@oikawamaru) October 17, 2020