Tuesday: Hili dialogue (and Mietek monologue)

Good morning on the cruelest day: Tuesday, December 22, 2020. But cheer up: we have two vaccines now, it’s only three days until Christmas and the beginning of Coynezaa, most people will have a week’s break until the New Year, and most Americans will have a $600 stimulus check to defray those holiday expenses. It’s also National Date Nut Bread Day, which nobody eats any more, National Cookie Exchange Day (I got some but didn’t have any to exchange), and, in India, it’s National Mathematics Day.

News of the Day:

The big news for science buffs is the closest conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn since the 13th century!  For many, like those in Chicago, it was too cloudy to see anything. But, And, as I’d hoped, a reader sent in photos. These are from Terry Platt, and you can make out Saturn’s rings in its shape! Terry’s caption is indented, and please click on the photos to enlarge them.

The weather is bad today, but I got some quite nice shots of Jupiter and Saturn last evening (20th). Here’s a moderately wide shot with a nice old oak tree framing the pair, plus a closer shot to show the disks of the planets with Jupiter’s moon Callisto a little up and left of Jupiter. Taken with a Nikon D7200 + telephoto lens.

But damn NBC News, anyway! They finished their final piece of the evening on the conjunction by asking whether that could have been the star of Bethlehem (was there even a conjunction at the purported time of Jesus’s birth?). They said astronomers don’t think so, but in these dark times we can always use a little added light. And then Harry smith said, “Behold” showed the conjunction behind a CROSS on top of a church. We can’t get rid of these Christian myths! To see this juxtaposition, go here and then go about 20 minutes in.

There’s been a big cheating scandal at West Point: 73 cadets at the U.S. Military Academy were accused of cheating on a remotely-given calculus exam. Most admitted they did it:

After an investigation by an honors committee made up of trained cadets, two cases were dropped for lack of evidence and four were dropped because the cadets resigned, Ophardt said. Of the remaining 67 cases, 55 cadets have admitted cheating and have been enrolled in a six-month rehabilitation program focused on ethics. They will be on probation for the rest of their time at the academy. Three more cadets admitted cheating but weren’t eligible for the rehabilitation program.

The evening news characterized this by saying “the honor code is working well.” Yes, I suppose so since the miscreants admitted they cheated, but this is West Point, in the business of turning out military officers. Why weren’t the 55 booted out of the Academy?

Joe Biden got his first injection of the coronavirus vaccine yesterday—on live television. Here’s Joe’s Jab. He was a good boy and didn’t flinch or cry!

Finally, today’s reported Covid-19 death toll in the U.S. is 319,762, an increase of about 2,000 from yesterday’s figure and roughly 1.4 deaths a minute. The world death toll is 1,710,967, an increase of about 9,900 over yesterday’s report and the equivalent of about 6.9 deaths per minute.

Stuff that happened on December 22 include:

• 1807 – The Embargo Act, forbidding trade with all foreign countries, is passed by the U.S. Congress, at the urging of President Thomas Jefferson.
• 1808 – Ludwig van Beethoven conducts and performs in concert at the Theater an der Wien, Vienna, with the premiere of his Fifth Symphony, Sixth Symphony, Fourth Piano Concerto (performed by Beethoven himself) and Choral Fantasy (with Beethoven at the piano).
• 1885 – Itō Hirobumi, a samurai, becomes the first Prime Minister of Japan.

Here’s Hirobumi, who was assassinated in 1909 by an advocate for Korean independence:

• 1894 – The Dreyfus affair begins in France, when Alfred Dreyfus is wrongly convicted of treason.
• 1944 – World War II: Battle of the Bulge: German troops demand the surrender of United States troops at Bastogne, Belgium, prompting the famous one word reply by General Anthony McAuliffe: “Nuts!”

As I’ve said before, when I was a teenager in Germany, with my father, an Army officer, stationed in Heidelberg he drove the family especially to Bastogne so he cold see where McAuliffe said “nuts”! He admired the man’s persistence!

• 1968 – Cultural Revolution: People’s Daily posted the instructions of Mao Zedong that “The intellectual youth must go to the country, and will be educated from living in rural poverty.”

This is being re-enacted now in the U.S., except the books are not by Mao but by Robin DiAngelo. And “re-education” courses are springing up in dozens of U.S. colleges.

• 1984 – “Subway vigilante” Bernhard Goetz shoots four would-be muggers on a 2 express train in Manhattan section of New York, United States.

Goetz, a folk hero to many, served eight months in prison as well as probation for five years and also paid a $5,000 fine. A civil suit saddled him with $42 million dollars as well, but he couldn’t pay it, and declared bankruptcy.

His photo is below; as PopSugar reports, he’s in the same place but playing with squirrels. 

Goetz chose not to be a part of the Netflix docuseries, but a snippet at the end of the episode notes that as of 2017, he was still living in the same apartment on 14th Street as he was back in the 1980s. He has run for public office twice in recent years and currently spends his time advocating for legal marijuana and playing with squirrels. Trial by Media even mentions that Goetz still rides the New York City subways regularly.

• 1989 – Berlin’s Brandenburg Gate re-opens after nearly 30 years, effectively ending the division of East and West Germany.

Here’s a news clip of the re-opening. Freedom!

• 1990 – Lech Wałęsa is elected President of Poland.
• 2001 – Richard Reid attempts to destroy a passenger airliner by igniting explosives hidden in his shoes aboard American Airlines Flight 63.

Reid, shown below along with his explosive shoes, was sentenced to three consecutive life sentences plus 110 years with no possibility of parole. He’s also serving them in the Florence Supermax prison—the worst place to be incarcerated in America.  Have a look at his prison mates at the Wikipedia article on the prison.

• 2010 – The repeal of the Don’t ask, don’t tell policy, the 17-year-old policy banning homosexuals serving openly in the United States military, is signed into law by President Barack Obama.

Notables born on this day include:

• 1639 – Jean Racine, French poet and playwright (d. 1699)
• 1858 – Giacomo Puccini, Italian composer and educator (d. 1924)
• 1912 – Lady Bird Johnson, American beautification activist; 38th First Lady of the United States (d. 2007)
• 1945 – Diane Sawyer, American journalist

Here’s Sawyer with Nixon in 1972, when she was about 27. Sawyer worked at the Nixon White House, initially writing press releases and then working her way up to Staff Assistant to Nixon.

• 1949 – Maurice Gibb, Manx-English singer-songwriter and producer (d. 2003)

Of the three Bee Gees and their brother Andy Gibb, only Barry Gibb (now “Sir Barry) is still alive. Robin (below), Maurice’s fraternal twin, is gone, and yet they were only a week older than I.

• 1949 – Robin Gibb, Manx-English singer-songwriter and producer (d. 2012)
• 1962 – Ralph Fiennes, English actor
• 1970 – Ted Cruz, American lawyer and politician

Those who found Eternal Rest on December 22 include:

• 1880 – George Eliot, English novelist and poet (b. 1819)
• 1940 – Nathanael West, American author and screenwriter (b. 1903)
• 1942 – Franz Boas, German-American anthropologist and linguist (b. 1858)
• 1943 – Beatrix Potter, English children’s book writer and illustrator (b. 1866)

You can’t get better than this illustration from Potter. Tom Kitten AND ducks!

• 1989 – Samuel Beckett, Irish author, poet, and playwright, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1906)
• 1995 – Butterfly McQueen, American actress and dancer (b. 1911)
• 2014 – Joe Cocker, English singer-songwriter (b. 1944)
• 2019 – Ram Dass, American spiritual teacher and author (b. 1931) ^[

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili mourns how technological progress has reduced the thrill of hunting.

A: There already is the first restaurant serving meat produced in a lab.

Hili: That is cruel.

Ja: Jest już pierwsza restauracja z mięsem produkowanym w laboratorium.

Hili: To okrutne.

And in nearby Wloclawek, Mietek’s getting ready for Christmas:

Mietek: I will check whether this is edible.

A meme from Bruce:

From Nicole:

And, speaking of Jesus, this is from Jesus of the Day:

 

A tweet from Jez in the UK, who adds this:

I don’t know if the Thomas the Tank Engine books made it across to the US (Ringo Starr narrated the later popular TV adaptation for quite a while). Given that no trains, trucks, or planes can travel from the UK to France at the moment this tweet of the illustration from one of the original books is quite apt! And we haven’t even got started on the mess that will be Brexit…

"Sorry Henry", said the Fat Controller, "you've got the new strain of Covid and we can't let you through the Eurotunnel". pic.twitter.com/e1tzjN7qzC

— Most highly flavoured gravy (@DanElphick) December 21, 2020

Julia Galef on her favorite letter not just from Charles Darwin, but from any scientist. It shows Darwin’s graciousness in responding to critics. As to that critic’s claim that Darwin couldn’t show that the change that produced “macroevolution” was gradual, well, that’s true: Darwin didn’t have a fossil record worth speaking of. Now, though, we have direct fossil evidence of macroevolution: fish evolving into amphibians, amphibians into reptiles, reptiles into birds on one hand and mammals on the other, and so on.  As for Darwin being underrated for his intellectual honesty, I don’t agree: every Darwin scholar and maven knows about that virtue.

New video! In 1860, Charles Darwin wrote a letter to another scientist who had criticized his book, On the Origin of Species. Here I explain why I love this letter so much, and what it tells us about Darwin: https://t.co/48jjMnkwbJ

— Julia Galef (@juliagalef) December 21, 2020

Matthew sent me the tweet, I explained it while retweeting it:

In case you didn't get the joke, ducks do have corkscrew-shaped penises. https://t.co/uCuiCf7R7s https://t.co/QZ8ztnQAJ8

— Jerry Coyne (@Evolutionistrue) December 21, 2020

Tweets from Matthew. Sound up to hear these deer enjoying a hearty wallow in the mud:

For some welcome Christmas Cheer watch these joyful Exmoor deer ! #mondaythoughts #MerryChristmas @DickKingSmith @BBCSpringwatch @BritishDeerSoc pic.twitter.com/1C4r98Pw5a

— Langbein Wildlife (@JochenLangbein) December 21, 2020

The rescue ducks at Marsh Farm are being moved. Listen to them quack! And how they love their water!

Matthew, Mark, Luke and John our rescue ducks looking forward to moving to the bigger yard pond tomorrow #tescueducks pic.twitter.com/aNTJMQ42fz

— caenhillcc (@caenhillcc) December 21, 2020

I think the little specks are Jupiter’s moons, right?

Just to clear peoples minds up

here’s the photographer Sajal chakravorty & link Conjunction from today (20.12.2020) 9:30 pm AEDT

Canon 60D, ISO 1000, 75-300 @ 300 0.70 sec https://t.co/ySRntV7B1f pic.twitter.com/YnK9Bu9hKX

— rebecca hill (@beccidee17) December 21, 2020

Click on the photo to see the cat-eaten bit:

my cat fucking ate my degree!!!!!!! pic.twitter.com/dIhabGALUH

— guy *whose cat ate his degree (@mamblonumber5) December 21, 2020

his name is mika and no, he isn’t an oyen https://t.co/GYPuBuFJsY

— guy *whose cat ate his degree (@mamblonumber5) December 21, 2020