Thursday: Hili dialogue

January 28, 2021 • 6:30 am

Good morning on Thursday, January 28, 2021: National Blueberry Pancake Day. It’s also Data Privacy Day and International Lego® Day.

News of the Day:

The Department of Homeland Security has issued a rare alert warning of domestic terrorism. They weren’t specific, but warned that terrorists, emboldened by the Capitol siege, will pose a threat for at least several weeks to come. My own guess is that some loon will try to kill one or more Democratic politicians.

Cloris Leachman died yesterday at 94. She was in many good shows, but I liked her best in my favorite American movie, “The Last Picture Show” (1971), in which, playing Ruth Popper, the long-suffering wife of a boorish high-school coach, she has an affair with the young Timothy Bottoms.  For that role she won a Best Supporting Actress Oscar.

Here’s her soliloquy at the very end of the movie, when Sonny comes back to see her after a long absence when he was dallying with Jacy (Cybill Shepherd).

This famous Bernie Mittens crocheted doll, created by Tobey King, just sold for $20,300 on eBay after the auction began at 99.  Awesome, for all the money went to Meals on Wheels America, one of Bernie’s favorite charities. Here’s the famous doll, which came complete with the bench:

Meanwhile, over at HuffPost, here’s what you need to know:

Finally, today’s reported Covid-19 death toll in the U.S. is 429,312, a big increase of about 4,100 deaths over yesterday’s figure. We are likely to exceed half a million deaths in less than a month. The reported world death toll stands at 2,186,400, an increase of about 17,000 deaths over yesterday’s total, or about 11.8 deaths per minute.

Stuff that happened on January 28 includes:

  • 814 – The death of Charlemagne, the first Holy Roman Emperor, brings about the accession of his son Louis the Pious as ruler of the Frankish Empire.
  • 1521 – The Diet of Worms begins, lasting until May 25.

That is a long time to subsist on worms!!!

(I’ll be here all year, folks!)

Here’s King Edward at age 13:

Have a look at the story and how they found her “devil’s mark”.

A first edition of this great novel, in three volumes, will run you $40,000:

  • 1896 – Walter Arnold of East Peckham, Kent, becomes the first person to be convicted of speeding. He was fined one shilling, plus costs, for speeding at 8 mph (13 km/h), thereby exceeding the contemporary speed limit of 2 mph (3.2 km/h).

Remember that a decent walking speed is 3 mph; you could be ticketed for driving faster than you walk!

  • 1909 – United States troops leave Cuba with the exception of Guantanamo Bay Naval Base after being there since the Spanish–American War.
  • 1933 – The name Pakistan is coined by Choudhry Rahmat Ali Khan and is accepted by Indian Muslims who then thereby adopted it further for the Pakistan Movement seeking independence.
  • 1935 – Iceland becomes the first Western country to legalize therapeutic abortion.
  • 1956 – Elvis Presley makes his first national television appearance.

The appearance was on the program “Stage Show”, and heeeeere’s Elvis performing “Shake, Rattle and Roll”:

  • 1958 – The Lego company patents the design of its Lego bricks, still compatible with bricks produced today.

Here are copies of the patent drawings; you can buy this reproduction on Etsy:

  • 1965 – The current design of the Flag of Canada is chosen by an act of Parliament.

Here ya go, eh?

Here’s the explosion (it begins at 1:36). I remember watching it live:

Notables born on this day include:

  • 1873 – Colette, French novelist and journalist (d. 1954)
Colette. © La Maison de Colette
  • 1912 – Jackson Pollock, American painter (d. 1956)
  • 1929 – Acker Bilk, English singer and clarinet player (d. 2014)
  • 1929 – Claes Oldenburg, Swedish-American sculptor and illustrator
  • 1954 – Rick Warren, American pastor and author
  • 1968 – Sarah McLachlan, Canadian singer-songwriter, pianist, and producer

Here’s the Divine Sarah (Sarah Silverman’s been demoted) singing one of her most famous songs. It’s a terrific live performance:

  • 1972 – Amy Coney Barrett, American jurist, academic, attorney, and U.S. Supreme Court Justice 

Those who croaked on January 28 include:

  • 814 – Charlemagne, Holy Roman emperor (pleurisy; b. 742)
  • 1547 – Henry VIII, king of England (b. 1491)
  • 1939 – W. B. Yeats, Irish poet and playwright, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1865)1986 – Space Shuttle Challenger crew
    • Gregory Jarvis, American captain, engineer, and astronaut (b. 1944)
    • Christa McAuliffe, American educator and astronaut (b. 1948)
    • Ronald McNair, American physicist and astronaut (b. 1950)
    • Ellison Onizuka, American engineer and astronaut (b. 1946)
    • Judith Resnik, American colonel, engineer, and astronaut (b. 1949)
    • Dick Scobee, American colonel, pilot, and astronaut (b. 1939)
    • Michael J. Smith, American captain, pilot, and astronaut (b. 1945)
  • 1996 – Joseph Brodsky, Russian-American poet and essayist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1940)

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, editor Hili is getting in the way on Andrzej’s desk:

A: Could you find another place for yourself?
Hili: I’ve already been in another place and now I have to sit here.
In Polish:
Ja: Czy możesz poszukać sobie innego miejsca?
Hili: Byłam już w innym miejscu, teraz muszę tu siedzieć.

From Nicole, yet another Bernie meme, and one of the cleverer ones. Soon he’ll pupate and become a curmudgeonly Berniefly:

From Stash Krod:

Another Bernie meme, this time from Diana MacPherson:

Ilhan Omar, who pretended she didn’t support BDS when running for office, has apparently changed her mind (e.g., finally told the truth). But she’s still pretending that the organization doesn’t want to eliminate the state of Israel:

Here’s when she was lying before she took office, and then issued the new Big Lie. Below that, one of the founders of BDS lets the mask slip.

The so-called “right of return” would create, under BDS’s “one state solution” and its own estimates, a country with 9 million Arabs and 6 million Jews (there are already Arab citizens of Israel). Of course the number of Jews would then decrease as the genocide began under this “solution.”

From Facebook, Indy does a risky move:

People have a lot of time on their hands during the pandemic. Too much time. (h/t: Barry)

From Simon: a cool illusion:

Two tweets from Matthew: Sound up to hear the froggies call!

And look at this amazingly cryptic spider:

 

22 thoughts on “Thursday: Hili dialogue”

  1. On that image of the Leachman person, I’m not certain that’s a CNN pixelation of cleavage. It looks more like a microphone shadow cast by multiple stagelights to me.
    That’s MY comment on big important stuff for the day.

    Reply

  2. I have loved Cloris Leachman ever since I saw her (when I was a kid) in “Phyllis”. Her performances as Frau Blücher in “Young Frankenstein” and as Nurse Diesel in “High Anxiety” are genius.

    “Those who are tardy do not get fruit cup.”

    RIP

    Reply

  4. Here are copies of the patent drawings; you can buy this reproduction on Etsy:

    None of the images are from the original patent which was in 1958. They’re all dated from the 60’s and 70’s.

    And CNN seems to have removed the Challenger video.

    Reply

  5. Small correction to deaths: i do not think that judy reskik, ava shalom, was a colonel. She was a NASA employee, going directly from civilian life into the astronaut corps. She was a very bright and vivacious person…sorely missed to this day.

    Reply

  6. Elvis performing “Shake, Rattle and Roll” …

    Covering Big Joe Turner’s R&B hit. There’s no mistaking that the voiceover at the end of the Elvis video is Levon Helm, drummer & singer for The Band and a damn fine actor in his own right.

    Reply

  7. Perhaps the DHS alert refers to the ongoing riots, or an anticipated escalation. I’ve always thought “terrorism” was more of a political category than a juridical one, since anything a terrorist does is otherwise already a criminal offense.

    Reply

    1. From what I understand of their powers, the DHS are pretty terrifying themselves. Why dud the FBI not get that job?

      Reply

  10. My own guess is that some loon will try to kill one or more Democratic politicians.

    I think the fact that it extends to the end of April is very significant. April 19th, in particular, should be watched. I just finished the excellent collaborative podcast from BBC4 & Leah Sottile (I think I posted about it on an earlier thread, hope it’s okay to mention again) called Two Minutes Past Nine. It looks at the impact of the Murrah building bombing on today’s anti-government movement. It is terribly timely.

    Reply

  11. The only thing I have read by Colette is La Chatte, a memorable short novel about the enduring relationship between a man and his Chartreux cat, Saha. Apparently Colette was a cat-lover and had Chartreux cats herself.

    Reply

  14. Once you’ve seen those two blokes bickering in the middle of the Canadian flag, it’s quite difficult to un-see them….

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  15. With “friends” like berserk Ilhan (Mullah) Omar, the ever toxic Linda Sasour and Hamas on their side, what friends do the Palestinians have? They REALLY have to trim their “allies” list. All three manage to be obnoxious, counter productive and dangerous in creatively different ways.

    See (self-plug here, sorry, can’t resist)
    https://themoderatevoice.com/the-woke-and-the-lefts-israel-problem/

    D.A., NYC
    https://whyevolutionistrue.com/2020/06/10/photos-of-readers-93/

    Reply

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