Sunday: Hili dialogue

December 20, 2020 • 6:30 am

Good morning (if you’re in the U.S.) on Sunday, December 20, 2020: National Sangria Day, a day to culturally appropriate a drink invented by people of color. The “nation” isn’t the U.S., but Spain. It’s also International Jewish Book Day (Portnoy’s Complaint will do) and International Human Solidarity Day.

Today’s Google Doodle (click on screenshot) commemorates Sudan, the last male of the subspecies the Northern White Rhino (Ceratotherium simum cottoni), who died in Kenya of old age on March 18, 2018 2018. Only two females are left, so the subspecies is doomed.

Here’s Sudan in 2010. He had guards watching him 24 hours a day:

Wine of the Day: I’m going to be drinking some of my nicer bottles over the holidays, especially ones that I think are ready to drink. It’s a bummer not being able to share them, but so it goes in Pandemic Year.  I can’t even remember when I bought the wine below, and it’s listed on the Internet as “hard to find”. The Googling showed, even before I opened it to drink with pizza,  that it was highly rated by critics I respect.

I concur with the experts. This is a gutsy wine, with at least a decade to go, and I may have drunk it too soon even though it’s 8 years old. Bursting with fruit flavors, and not overly tannic, it’s was a great accompaniment with pizza. (My philosophy is to drink fancy wines with simple food and vice versa.)

News of the day:

Matthew Cobb is on Wikipedia’s main page in the “Did you know?” section, as he has a new biographical entry. Click on screenshot!

Malgorzata told me that all over Poland people are cleaning their houses and getting ready for the big Christmas Eve dinner. The feast traditionally involves 12 separate and unvarying dishes, a number whose symbolism is contested. But never mind: you can see the list of dishes here, which is mouthwatering—except three fish dishes, two of which include carp and one of herring. Yech! (You can see that I’m not a piscivore.) But what largesse beyond the teleosts! Pierogi! Cabbage rolls! Braised sauerkraut! Borsht with mushroom dumplings! And four—count them, four—desserts! I wish I were in Poland and someone would invite me to this feast.

Citing a new mutant strain of coronavirus said to be much more transmissible than the previous strains, Boris Johnson has locked down London and much of southeast England, banning all holiday gatherings outside individual households.  I’m sorry for those who can’t gather in groups, but it’s for the best. This, however, worries me:

The government’s chief scientific adviser, Patrick Vallance, said there was no evidence that this version of the virus was more lethal or more resistant to vaccines than others. But Dr. Vallance, a physician and medical researcher, said scientists had identified 23 changes in the new variant, an unusually large number, including several in the part of the virus that binds it to other cells. That, he said, could increase its transmissibility.

Well, have they tested it against the vaccine? 23 mutations is a lot, and the “part of the virus that binds it to other cells” is the spike protein, which is exactly the protein used by the mRNA vaccine.

Finally, today’s reported Covid-19 death toll in the U.S. is 316,378, a big increase of about 2,600 from yesterday’s figure, with deaths occurring at about 1.8 per minute. The world death toll is now 1,693,585, a huge increase of about 10,200 over yesterday’s report—about 7.1 people dying per minute.

Stuff that happened on December 20 includes:

  • 1803 – The Louisiana Purchase is completed at a ceremony in New Orleans.
  • 1860 – South Carolina becomes the first state to attempt to secede from the United States.
  • 1915 – World War I: The last Australian troops are evacuated from Gallipoli.
  • 1924 – Adolf Hitler is released from Landsberg Prison.

That was a pretty fancy prison, as evidence by the photo below, with Hitler wearing Lederhosen. He was in for a scant ten months after the failed Beer Hall Putsch. Hess was the person to whom Hitler dictated Mein Kampf, written during the one-year incarceration:

From left to right: Hitler, Emil Maurice, Oberstleutnant Kriebel, Rudolf Hess, Dr. Friedrich Weber

You can see the entire movie on Vimeo (though I won’t, as I’ve seen it a gazillion times). Here you go:

https://vimeo.com/280022699

  • 1955 – Cardiff is proclaimed the capital city of Wales, United Kingdom.
  • 1968 – The Zodiac Killer kills Betty Lou Jenson and David Faraday in Vallejo, California.

The killer still hasn’t been caught, and may be deceased. He was in the news this week, for, after 50 years, a cryptogram he sent to three Bay Area newspapers in 1969 was finally deciphered. (It was a hard one.) It’s below, and you can read the translation at the link (click on screenshot):

  • 1987 – In the worst peacetime sea disaster, the passenger ferry Doña Paz sinks after colliding with the oil tanker ‘MT Vector in the Tablas Strait of the Philippines, killing an estimated 4,000 people (1,749 official).
  • 1989 – The United States invasion of Panama deposes Manuel Noriega.
  • 2007 – Elizabeth II becomes the oldest monarch of the United Kingdom, surpassing Queen Victoria, who lived for 81 years and 243 days.

The Queen, still going strong, was 94 years old last April 21.

Notables born on this day were very few, and include but two (“notorious” is a better adjective for Geller):

Here’s a nice de Hooch, “The Golf Players” (1658):

(c) National Trust, Polesden Lacey; Supplied by The Public Catalogue Foundation
  • 1946 – Uri Geller, Israeli-English magician and psychic

Here he is bending a BBQ fork.  The Wikipedia article tells how it’s done, and nobody has ever won Randi’s Million Dollar challenge, which includes spoon-bending done under Randi-specified conditions.

Those who began pushing up daisies on December 20 include:

  • 1812 – Sacagawea, American explorer (b. 1788)
  • 1968 – John Steinbeck, American novelist and short story writer, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1902)
  • 1973 – Bobby Darin, American singer-songwriter and actor (b. 1936)

Darin, who died at just 37 of an infection following a dental procedure (he had a heart condition and forgot to take his antibiotics before visiting the dentist), was a great entertainer. Here’s a long live version of my favorite Darin song, “Beyond the Sea”. (Be sure to see Kevin Spacey’s version, which is remarkably like Darin’s.)

Milgram is, of course, known for his experiments in which people were urged to give (fake) shocks to other people.

  • 1996 – Carl Sagan, American astronomer, astrophysicist, and cosmologist (b. 1934)

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili and Andrzej are arguing the virtues of cats:

Hili: Cats are more rational than humans.
A: What basis do you have for this statement?
Hili: Have you ever seen a cat demagogue?
A: I’ve seen a cat who cheats.
Hili: That’s quite a different matter.
In Polish:
Hili: Koty są bardziej racjonalne niż ludzie.
Ja: Na jakiej podstawie to stwierdzasz?
Hili: Widziałeś kota, który uprawia demagogię?
Ja: Widziałem kota, który oszukuje.
Hili: To zupełnie inna sprawa.

Hili came upstairs, though she hates Kulka.  Malgorzata’s comment: “Hili climbed on the roof of the verandah and Paulina let her in through the window. Kulka is in her post-operative jacket.”

The caption: Kulka was spayed and she has to wear a jacket until Wednesday to prevent her licking the wound. She is not at all happy about it!  (Photo: Paulina R.)
In Polish: Kulka została wysterylizowana, więc ma kubraczek, żeby nie lizała rany. (Zdjęcie Paulina R.)

And here’s a video of Matthew’s cat Ollie (the one who scratched my nose open) sitting in a very small box. Sound up to hear the guffaws.

From Bruce:

From Nicole:

From Jesus of the Day:

Titania has a series of her predictions about the Woke that came true. And indeed, you don’t have to be Nostradamus to make predictions like this:

From Barry (and Matthew): a beetle that eats a frog! I have to say: I couldn’t bear to watch this all the way through.

 

Tweets from Matthew. I call him a “curmudgeon,” and he said that yes, sometimes he feels like that octopus. “Damn fish!”

It’s not Christmas without lynx prints in the snow:

The man has neither memory nor integrity:

And a cool bit of biology to end the week:

20 thoughts on “Sunday: Hili dialogue”

  1. Poor Ollie. Are you ever going to let him live it down that he scratched you?

    Your description of Ollie reminds me of a story told years ago by the humorist H. Allen Smith. A debutante, at her coming out luncheon, ate a brick of ice cream which was on a doily, and then she ate the doily. She was, according to Smith, henceforth always known as “The One, You Know, Who Ate the Doily”.

    L

  3. Speaking of Uri Geller.
    My friend in Poland, showed me a “trick” and moved the phone by force of will. I don’t know how he did it, I didn’t come up with a mechanism for how it’s done.

    Somehow he “cheated my senses” but how the magician refused to explain the mechanism of the “trick.”

    I don’t believe in magic either. If “Angels” assured me that I would be able to move coal wagons by force of will or throw cars like pencils, I would not believe it either (such a joke, skeptic)

    🙂🙂🙂

  4. One has to wonder if Bobby Darin’s dentist did not get some trouble from the death? Having Rheumatic fever which caused the need to replace two heart valves (I assume the mitral and aortic) you have to wonder why his dentist did not make sure on the antibiotics. I know it is the patient’s responsibility but should also be the dentist.

  5. In re. the number 12, and why it appears so often, I suspect that this comes from being able to divide a circle into sixths with ease just using a compass. That must have appeared magical to early people. Once divided, it’s easy to divide anything in half. I can’t imagine any other reason for having 12hrs on a clock face – only 12 hrs in a whole day may have made each hour seem too long, so they doubled-up on that. In any event, the aura of 12 likely comes from that.

    This must have been noted many times over but I don’t think I’ve ever run across it. I just searched Why 24hrs in a day and got some mumbo jumbo about ancient Egyptians going with 10 for the day and then adding two for each twilights, but I can’t imagine that that would have lasted without the ease of making 12 points on a circle when it came to making clocks.

    I guess now I need to go find out who built the first mechanical clock.

  6. “Well, have they tested it against the vaccine? 23 mutations is a lot”

    No they haven’t. That’s why it is too early for Andrew Sullivan’s party….

    1. Just one reason it’s too early. The list is too long for this comment. The best Russian agent ever has not even left the bulding.

      1. It has also spread to Denmark, so traveling from both nations are getting closed down by other nations.

        Just in time for the likely UK hard brexit – EU claims they are out of time to push it through – since UK wanted that rather than getting a deal on fishing (which is 0.1 % of their trade to EU).

  7. <blockquote (My philosophy is to drink fancy wines with simple food and vice versa.)

    Treat a dame like a lady, and a lady like a dame, was Sinatra’s philosophy.

  8. It’s also International Jewish Book Day …

    You can read “Gimpel the Fool,” the title story from Nobel Lit laureate Isaac Bashevis Singer’s first collection, here (in a translation from the original Yiddish by Singer’s fellow Nobel Lit laureate Saul Bellow).

    You can hardly get much more Jewish and international than that.

  9. Well, that’s no ordinary rabbit! That’s the most foul, cruel, and bad-tempered rodent you ever set eyes on!

  10. 2016 Tenuta Olim Bauda Superiore Nizza (750ml) –
    I like to read expert descriptions of wines. They can read like romantic poetry:

    Aromas of forest floor, dark-skinned berry and cooking spice form the nose. The full-bodied palate offers dried black cherry, clove and tobacco alongside fine-grained tannins. Drink through 2026.

  12. I was taken aback for a short while when I read a wine label that said the wine ‘may contain milk products’. I guessed that maybe casein was used to flocculate/polish the wine, which causes suspended particles to settle out before it is bottled. Fish bladders can be used for the same purpose, and is given the fancy name of isinglass.

    Isinglass, and wine, has the makings of a pun, but we would all be the pourer for it.

  13. Thx, But dividing a circle into sixths, you get four equilateral triangles inside the circle all made up of 60deg angles. Initially the number of degrees assigned to that would’ve been arbitrary, but there’s that 6 again. Multiplying the 6 by the closest number at hand, which I guess is a pun of sorts, you get 60, with the convenient characteristics associated with it.

    And that might be regarded as mathematical evolutionary fitness, or something like that. Whatever the route, it proved convenient and useful, and was retained.

  14. Fancy wine and plain food : Some years ago we had planned to have a great home cooked dinner with champagne to celebrate our wedding anniversary. The champagne was in the fridge and we both ended up having to work late getting home at 9pm. There is an excellent chippy up the road so we opted to go with fish and chips with the bubbles. This is now our favourite anniversary dinner.

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