Month: April 2021

It’s almost duckling time!

April 30, 2021 • 2:30 pm

I estimate that at least one brood of ducklings (probably Dorothy’s) will hatch in the next week, and Honey’s brood will hatch soon thereafter. Both hens have been sitting tight on their nests for a few weeks, coming down to the pond only for an hour every one to three days for a drink and a snack. (I have to peek at the pond every 15 minutes or so to see if there’s a hen there, as I have to rush down to feed her since they are always eager to get back to their nest.

Today Honey came down, got a hearty feed, and then, as usual, bathed and preened herself for a long time before flying up to her nest. I took advantage of her being on the pond to sneak up to the third floor of Erman hall to have a peek at her nest.

First, the Queen herself: Ms. Honey. She’s in excellent shape, because most hens eat almost nothing while incubating, but she flies down and gets fed a two-course meal (pellets and mealworms). She’s nice and plump, and ready to care for ducklings.

And her vigorous bath:

A happy and immaculate hen:

Her mate Shmuley, of course, was close by:

And her nest. I counted 7 visible eggs, but there are undoubtedly more buried in the fluff. These pictures aren’t great because I had to take them through a screen, and the autofocus focused on the screen. The eggs are nestled in the feathers that Honey plucked from her breast, and are pastel green, as all mallard eggs are.

Four eggs. Just imagine—each of these will become a duckling!

And the moment when Honey decided she’d been off her nest long enough, and flew back up. Just a few milliseconds earlier and I would have had a complete photo, but it’s hard to time when she’s going to take off:

 

Words and phrases I detest

April 30, 2021 • 1:00 pm

Yes, it’s that time again, and what better time than Petulant Friday to bring up the words and phrases that we most dislike? I’ve managed to collect a few, and, as usual, at lest half come from HuffPost, that bastion of Wokeness and “look at us; we’re young and cool” language.

Here are a few words and phrases I dislike, with the source. The object, of course, is to stimulate readers to bring forth their own pet peeves.

Today I have four:

1.) “Bright line” or “bright line in the sand”.  Now I can understand “line in the sand”, as a line over which you’re not supposed to step lest you suffer dire consequences. But “bright” line? What is a “bright” line? According to Wikipedia, “bright line” is a term of law:

In United States constitutional law, a bright-line rule (or bright-line test) is a clearly defined rule or standard, composed of objective factors, which leaves little or no room for varying interpretation. The purpose of a bright-line rule is to produce predictable and consistent results in its application. The term “bright-line” in this sense generally occurs in a legal context.

Bright-line rules are usually standards established by courts in legal precedent or by legislatures in statutory provisions. The US Supreme Court often contrasts bright-line rules with their opposite: balancing tests (or “fine line testing”), where a result depends on weighing several factors—which could lead to inconsistent application of law or reduce objectivity.

But a “line in the sand” means pretty much the same thing in common language: a line that is not to be crossed without consequences.  Ergo, “bright line in the sand” is completely redundant, as well as a mixed metaphor. But that hasn’t stopped HuffPost—and many others—from using it (click on screenshots if you must read them):

2.) “Vacay” for “vacation”.  This irks me the same way that “fam”, short for “family”, and “sesh”, short for “session”, irk me. (I believe even Andrew Sullivan used “sesh” in last week’s column!) It’s close in sound to “vacate”, and could even be mistaken for it in conversation. “Vacation” is good enough for me, for I dislike these “aren’t I cool?” truncated neologisms. Why not say “conflay” for “conflation”? Here’s one from HuffPost:

 

3.) “Impactful” for “consequential” “influential” or “important”.  This is one of those words that sounds so juvenile that it instantly grates on me. Here’s an example from the New York Times, for crying out loud:

The quote:

It was awkward. Even Beyoncé’s recognition for “Black Parade” — a good song, sure, but hardly among her best or most impactful work — felt strangely conciliatory, a mea culpa for not giving “Lemonade” its proper due several years ago.

You can be more specific here, using words like “influential” or “important” (in a critical sense), but in this context it’s unclear who or what is being “impacted.”

4.) “On social” for “on social media”.  I haven’t seen this on HuffPost, which, after all, IS social media rather than journalism, but I hear it on the television news all the time when the anchors say, at the end of the show, “Follow us on social.” Is it too much to ask them to add the word “media” so we know what they’re talking about? Most people use it correctly, but there are those “too cool for my shirt” miscreants who haven’t learned that “social” is not a noun but an adjective. Like this site:

Your turn! Tell us all what words or phrases get your knickers in a twist.

Why do we need free-will compatibilism?

April 30, 2021 • 10:45 am

The laws of physics dictate that, from time to time, random thoughts about the free-will debate cross my mind. The latest one, which popped into my brain for no reason this morning, was the question, “Why are we even bothering with compatibilism?”

As you know, “compatibilism” is the philosophical view that even though we cannot control our thoughts and actions beyond what the laws of physics dictate, and therefore have no “free will” in the traditional sense, we have free will in a nontraditional sense.  Those “compatibilistic” varieties of free will vary among different philosophers; Dan Dennett has expounded several versions, and other philosophers still more versions. (This all makes me wonder what we’re supposed to tell people what really constitutes our [compatibilist] “free will.”)

Opposed to compatibilism are the two forms of incompatibilism that see free will as incompatible with physical law:

a.) Contracausal free will. This is the traditional “you could have done/chosen otherwise” free will in which we are agents whose wills can effect, at a given time, two or more different behaviors or choices. It is the kind of free will that most people think we really have, and is certainly the basis of Abrahamic religions whose gods either save you or doom you based on whether you make the “right” choice about God or a savior.

b.) Free will skepticism (sometimes called “hard determinism”). As you must know, this is the view to which I adhere. Though it’s often called “determinism”, with the implication that the laws of physics have already determined the entire future of the universe, including what you will do, that’s not my view. There is, if quantum mechanics be right, a fundamental form of indeterminism that is unpredictable, like when a given atom in a radioactive compound will decay. It’s unclear to what extent this fundamental unpredictability affects our actions or their predictability, but I’m sure it’s played some role in evolution (via mutation) or in the Big Bang (as Sean Carroll tells me). Thus I prefer to use the term “naturalism” rather than “determinism.” But, at any rate, fundamental quantum unpredictability cannot give us free will, for it has nothing to do with either “will” or “freedom”.

And this question struck me, as my neurons chugged through their program this morning:

Why do we even bother ruminating about compatibilism, much less write long books about it?

To me the really important issues are a) vs. b) above, which in principle can be attacked with science, while compatibilism is more or less a semantic issue. If naturalism be true, then we should trumpet it from the rooftops, as it flies in the face of what most people think and (as I note below), does have real and important implications for society.

But why bother so much with compatibilism? The only reason I can think of—and it’s a reason often voiced by philosophers—is that people need to have a definition of free will that comports with their “feeling” that they have contracausal free will, even if the definition itself isn’t contracausal.

But why this need? Even I feel like I have contracausal free will, but I realize that at best it’s an illusion and, at any rate, I have no use for a philosopher-confected definition of some compatibilistic free will. I do just fine, thank you.

But why, according to philosophers, do people need this assurance? It always comes down to the same thing: if people think that their actions and behaviors are determined by the laws of physics, then society will fall apart. People will either become nihilists, refusing to get out of bed because their whole day is determined anyway, fatalists or pessimists, or criminals who think that determinism frees them from responsibility for their acts (it doesn’t, for social mores dictate that we adhere to a form of “agent responsibility” that justifies punishment (or “quarantine”) and praise). Dennett himself has repeatedly said this:

If nobody is responsible, not really, then not only should the prisons be emptied, but no contract is valid, mortgages should be abolished, and we can never hold anybody to account for anything they do.  Preserving “law and order” without a concept of real responsibility  is a daunting task.

—Dan Dennett, “Reflections on Free Will” (naturalism.org)

That’s not true at all; you don’t need “moral responsibility” that, says Dennett is only provided by compatibilist free will, to have this kind of “responsibility”.

And then there’s the supposedly dire social consequences that flow from naturalism/determinism

There is—and has always been—an arms race between persuaders and their targets or intended victims, and folklore is full of tales of innocents being taken in by the blandishments of sharp talkers. This folklore is part of the defense we pass on to our children, so they will become adept at guarding against it. We don’t want our children to become puppets! If neuroscientists are saying that it is no use—we are already puppets, controlled by the environment, they are making a big, and potentially harmful mistake.

. . . we [Dennett and Erasmus] both share the doctrine that free will is an illusion is likely to have profoundly unfortunate consequences if not rebutted forcefully.

—Dan Dennett, “Erasmus: Sometimes a Spin Doctor is Right” (Erasmus Prize Essay).

As I’ve argued, I don’t believe that a society inculcated in naturalism, and one that rejects contracausal free will, will be profoundly dysfunctional. After all, if nothing else we still retain the feeling we have free will. That alone would get us out of bed every day.

So if you can consider people responsible in some sense for their actions, as you can under naturalism, and there is no social downside to accepting naturalism, why do we need sweating philosophers to produce version after version of compatibilist free will? If you think we do, riddle me this: How would society be palpably worse if we didn’t have philosophers confecting versions of compatibilism?

Finally, I won’t dwell at length on the upside of naturalism, as I’ve mentioned it before. There is the deep-sixing of retributive punishment, a drive to reform the penal system (yes, people say that compatibilism and humanism dictate the same thing, but it’s the free-will skeptics who take it the most seriously), the elimination of the “Just World” theory in which people get what they deserve, and the elimination of the guilt that comes from thinking that you made wrong choices in the past. Naturalism breeds empathy.

In the end, I don’t think that we have a philosophical lacuna that needs to be filled with a variety of compatibilist versions of free will (which, ironically, are incompatible among themselves). To me, at least, there are better things for philosophers to worry about.

A teacher and educator argues for high (and similar) standards and expectations for all students

April 30, 2021 • 9:00 am

The Thomas B. Fordham Institute, whose motto is “Advancing Educational Excellence” has the following as its mission statement:

High Expectations for All Schools

We believe that all schools that are supported with public funds—whether in the district, charter, or private school sector—should be held accountable for helping their students make academic progress from year to year. Under ESSA, most states have built accountability systems that are better than ever. Now the challenge is to make high expectations a reality at the classroom level.

They also say that charter schools and Catholic schools have been successful in giving good educations to children who have grown up in poverty. Wikipedia notes that “The Thomas B. Fordham Institute is an ideologically conservative American nonprofit education policy think tank, with offices in Washington, D.C., Columbus, Ohio, and Dayton, Ohio. The institute supports and publishes research on education policy in the United States.”

I say this because, although articles like the one highlighted here should be judged on their own, one should know the agenda of the venue that’s publishing them. What we have is a statement by Robert Pondiscio, who is described this way:

Robert Pondiscio is senior fellow and vice president for external affairs at the Thomas B. Fordham Institute. He writes and speaks extensively on education and education-reform issues, with an emphasis on literacy, curriculum, civic education, and classroom practice. His 2019 book, How the Other Half Learns, based on a year of observations at New York City’s Success Academy network of charter schools, was praised as “morally disturbing” and “unsparingly honest” by the New York Times. After twenty years in journalism, including senior positions at TIME and Business Week, Robert became a fifth-grade teacher at a struggling South Bronx public school in 2002. [JAC: He did that for five years.] He subsequently served as vice president for the Core Knowledge Foundation, and taught civics at Democracy Prep Public Schools, a network of high-performing charter schools based in Harlem, New York.

A commitment of five years in a South Bronx public school is not to be taken lightly, nor as a mere experiment. My own judgment is that the guy is truly committed to improving secondary-school education for all, and was trying to see if his principles worked in the classroom

While Pondiscio may have an agenda for promoting charter schools, he’s also one of many teachers who seems committed to helping all kids learn, and, in the article below, argues that Kendi-an style “antiracist” teaching is not the way. In fact, Pondiscio says that, while teaching in the South Bronx public school, he says he never taught a single child who was white. Note, too, that it was a public school, not a charter school.

Click on the screenshot to hear his plaint, which is that he thinks that all children should be taught to strive for excellence, with members of different races all held to the same high standards.

This guy hardly seems like a racist. Here are a few statements he makes:

The point is so obvious yet it cannot be said enough: We do not give families of color and those in poverty the same range of options and quality of education that White and affluent families often take for granted. It’s why I became a teacher, starting in 2002. I taught full-time for five years in a public school in the South Bronx, and intermittently since at a pair of Harlem charter schools. What drew me to this work and keeps me engaged in it is the manifest unfairness of American education to low-income, Black, and Brown children who comprise, without exception, every student I’ve ever taught.

For most of those twenty years, I’ve held a set of assumptions and ideals about what it means to be an effective teacher of children of color (and frankly, children of any race or background). It means holding every pupil to high standards and expectations for academics and classroom conduct; offering a rich and rigorous curriculum, taught as engagingly as possible; and fostering a school culture and climate that valorizes student achievement. Above all, it means holding firmly to the conviction that children do not fail. Rather adults fail children when schools do not deliver any or all of these ingredients.

Nor does he favor a “white curriculum” that sanitizes history or ignores contributions of different groups:

. . . . There can be no question that every child in an American K–12 school should have the opportunity to see their history, heritage, and culture reflected in their education. No part of me is interested in imposing a “Eurocentric” curriculum on children, venerating “dead White males,” or presenting anything less than a clear-eyed view of American history. But efforts to “decolonize” curriculum, “disrupt texts,” or other efforts to de-emphasize “Whiteness” in curriculum seems less likely to liberate Black and Brown students than to hold them further back. This is not parochialism, but a reflection of how language proficiency works. It rests on a large body of common background knowledge shared between readers, writers, speakers, and listeners. It is uncomfortable to acknowledge—yet we must—the degree to which this both reflects and grows organically from the knowledge, allusions, and idioms of the culture that dominates it. In a diverse and plural society, language is a vernacular engine, borrowing words and allusions at a dizzying pace, but that is not a process that can be dictated or controlled. A clear-eyed view of language proficiency obligates us to expose children to the full range of taken-for-granted knowledge that their fellow citizens possess. At present, that requires familiarity with a substantial (if perhaps declining) amount of Western thought, literature, history, science, and art. To pretend otherwise is to risk cementing disadvantage in place, or to embrace a separatist impulse, neither of which can be countenanced.

and this:

If the education reform movement has accomplished nothing else, it has made it unacceptable to evince any belief but the opposite one: The achievement gap is evidence of institutional failure, not a failure on the part of Black test-takers. Discrediting any reference to a racial achievement gap is counterproductive to the interests of students of color. The NAACP, the National Urban League, La Raza, and nine other civil right groups have denounced anti-testing efforts to “hide the achievement gap,” noting that test data “are critical for understanding whether and where there is equal opportunity.” Ian Rowe, a Black intellectual, Fordham trustee, and charter school founder, insists that antiracist policies and practices are becoming “the unintended, modern day version of the soft bigotry of low expectations.” I strongly agree. Does saying so render me unfit to teach Black and Brown children?

I wasn’t aware that organizations like the NAACP or the Urban League, as well as other civil rights groups (see the link), have denounced anti-testing efforts, though Ibram Kendi claims that these standardized tests are racist. But, as the groups say in their joint letter, “We cannot fix what we cannot measure.”

What Pondiscio objects to is differential treatment of students of different races, holding them to different expectations. Some of this comes from the view that different cultures (read “different races”) have different styles of learning. But as Pondiscio avers, “close reasoning, the written word, and objectivity” should not be seen as “white” practices that are irrelevant to minority children, as Kendi would argue (as Kendi says, “the only remedy to racist discriminiation is antiracist discrimination”). The constant division of students by race, and the instillation of a victimhood mentality in minority children and a “you are an oppressor” mentality in whites is, says Pondiscio, not only tribalistic, but damaging to children:

Attempts to create “safe spaces” where students never encounter upsetting words, images, or ideas strike many of us as misguided. Education inevitably includes confronting students with ideas, views, and information that they may find upsetting, but it never includes upsetting them because of who they are or what they look like. No element of ethical classroom practice should allow inflicting intentional harm or emotional distress on students—rich or poor, Black or White—or seek to make a virtue of it. It is immoral and educational malpractice. Neither should we encourage in children a sense of insurmountable oppression, victimhood, or grievance—the very opposite of the uplifting formation of mind and character that education should aspire to. Any pedagogy or curriculum that ascribes traits, motives, or mindsets to one particular race—oppressors versus oppressed; perfectionism, urgency, and individualism as “hallmarks of white supremacy culture,” etc.—cannot call itself “antiracist.” It is racist and unacceptable.

[Paul] Rossi speaks for many of us in the profession who share his concern that what is being done in the name of equity “reinforces the worst impulses we have as human beings: our tendency toward tribalism and sectarianism that a truly liberal education is meant to transcend.”

At the end, Pondiscio asks plaintively, after arguing that high standards and expectations should hold for all students, regardless of race, “Would you feel comfortable with me as your child’s teacher? Yes or no?”

Somehow I suspect that in secondary schools, most parents would say “yes,” but at colleges like Smith, Middlebury, and Haverford, the administration would say “no.”

And I wonder what kind of education Ibram Kendi would give to a mixed classroom of black and white students. If you asked me if I’d feel comfortable with him as anybody’s teacher, I’d have to say no, even though I don’t have children.

h/t: Luana

Readers’ wildlife photos

April 30, 2021 • 8:00 am

Send in your good wildlife photos, please. Thanks!

Today we have a new contributor, Michael Schrank of Boise, Idaho.  Michael’s captions are indented, and you can enlarge them by clicking on them.

Our backyard seems to be a haven for all types of wildlife and occasionally we capture some in photos.  The first are of a wild turkey (Meleagris gallopavo merriami) that would appear in our yard last fall and loved to sun itself on the back deck.

 

We often see fawns in the spring. This poor little one was hidden by its mom right by the side door of the house in a garden.

 Mule deer (Odocoileus hemionus) often rest on the lawn for hours, often the whole day if no one disturbs them.

Friday: Hili dialogue

April 30, 2021 • 6:30 am

Once again we’ve reached week’s end, and if I don’t miss my guess, before another week has gone by we will have ducklings. It’s Friday, April 30, 2021: National Raisin Day. We all like raisins, don’t we? It’s also National Oatmeal Cookie Day (I’ll eat them only under duress, even if they contain raisins), National Bubble Tea Day, National Animal Advocacy Day, Adopt a Shelter Pet Day, International Jazz Day, Honesty Day, and  Bugs Bunny Day, celebrating the cartoon rabbit (then known as “Happy Rabbit”) who made his screen debut on April 30, 1938 in a Warner Brothers feature called “Porky’s Hare Hunt.”  Here’s the cartoon, and you can see the incipient Bugs appear after 43 seconds:

And don’t forget that it’s National Hairball Awareness Day; many of us attained this awareness by stepping on a wet one in the dark. Matthew has just informed me that it’s World Robber Fly Day, with the hashtag #worldrobberflyday

Here’s are two nice examples, with the first being a bee mimic and the second sporting shades. Many more of these amazing predators at the hashtag site.

News of the Day:

There’s some good news: gene therapy, involving injection of working genes into tissue that contains faulty genes, is beginning to pay off. The BBC reports that Jake Ternan of County Durham, afflicted with Leber congenital amaurosis, a genetic disease causing vision loss and produced by nonfunctional mutant copies of two genes, has had his vision stabilized and somewhat improved by injection of working copies of the gene directly into his retina. (h/t Jez). More of this will follow; it’s not as easy as one thinks, but the method has great promise to alleviate genetic diseases.

The NYT reports that a very old bottle of whisky has been found—probably the oldest American bottle in existence. Once thought to have dated back to the Civil War era, radiocarbon dating of a sample puts even older: probably between 1763 and 1803! Some experts doubt the age and the provenance, but they’re going to auction it off for about $40,000. That would make each dram worth a ton, but who would drink such whisky? Still, why shouldn’t you drink it? It doesn’t do anybody any good sitting in this bottle:

Photo: Skinner Auctioneers

I am sad to report the demise of John Richards, founder (and later frustrted disbander) of the estimable Apostrophe Protection Society. (It still has a website, but it isn’t active.) From his obituary:

Mr. Richards and his most enthusiastic comrades set about collecting photographic evidence, which they posted on their website, of the extent of modern apostrophe abuse: a line declaring that “Diamond’s Are Forever,” a handwritten store sign advertising “LOT’S MORE TOY’S INSIDE” and a newsstand where readers could find “NEW’S AND MAGAZINES.” They discovered a body art salon that announced itself as offering “TATTOO’S,” a concerning error for an establishment whose primary service was the permanent inking of skin.

More irritating to Mr. Richards than the misuse of the apostrophe was its omission, the careless way in which the little squiggle was so often tossed to the wind. He was particularly dismayed when several English towns, ostensibly to facilitate the use of GPS devices, eliminated apostrophes from the official names of streets and other landmarks, producing such abominations as “St. Pauls Square.”

Another disappointment came when the venerable bookseller Waterstone’s became Waterstones. If “McDonald’s can get it right, then why can’t Waterstones?” he told the Telegraph. “You would really hope that a bookshop is the last place to be so slapdash with English.”

At least 44 ultra-Orthodox Jews were crushed at a crowded religious ceremony in Israel, celebrating and dancing at the tomb of a second-century rabbi. You can see the story and a video here. I won’t comment about religion’s poisonous effects.

In March Stone Foltz, a student at Bowling Green died from alcohol consumption, part of a “hazing” ritual in which new fraternity members are subjected to various challenges and humiliations. This time, though, eight members of the fraternity have been charged with various crimes, including second-degree manslaughter, reckless homicide, hazing, and evidence tampering. I believe some of those charged face up to ten years in jail.

Finally, today’s reported Covid-19 death toll in the U.S. is 574,791, an increase of 697 deaths over yesterday’s figure. The reported world death toll is now 3,181,059, an increase of about 14,500 over yesterday’s total.

Stuff that happened on April 30 includes:

Here’s a painting of that first oath of office:

It was a bargain, at the then price of $18 per square mile. The purchased land is in white:

  • 1812 – The Territory of Orleans becomes the 18th U.S. state under the name Louisiana.
  • 1897 – J. J. Thomson of the Cavendish Laboratory announces his discovery of the electron as a subatomic particle, over 1,800 times smaller than a proton (in the atomic nucleus), at a lecture at the Royal Institution in London.

The electron was the first subatomic particle to be found; here’s a photo of Thomson, who won the Nobel for his discovery:

  • 1900 – Hawaii becomes a territory of the United States, with Sanford B. Dole as governor.
  • 1905 – Albert Einstein completes his doctoral thesis at the University of Zurich.
  • 1939 – NBC inaugurates its regularly scheduled television service in New York City, broadcasting President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s N.Y. World’s Fair opening day ceremonial address.
  • 1945 – World War II: Führerbunker: Adolf Hitler and Eva Braun commit suicide after being married for less than 40 hours. Soviet soldiers raise the Victory Banner over the Reichstag building.

Here’s the banner and a photo of it being raised over the Reichstag (it was made in the field); the banner is still preserved at the Central Museum of the Armed Forces, Moscow (third photo):

  • 1963 – The Bristol Bus Boycott is held in Bristol to protest the Bristol Omnibus Company‘s refusal to employ Black or Asian bus crews, drawing national attention to racial discrimination in the United Kingdom.

This parallels the U.S.’s Montgomery Bus Boycott of 1955-1956; I had no idea this had happened in the UK.

  • 1973 – Watergate scandal: U.S. President Richard Nixon announces that White House Counsel John Dean has been fired and that other top aides, most notably H. R. Haldeman and John Ehrlichman, have resigned.
  • 1993 – CERN announces World Wide Web protocols will be free.
  • 2008 – Two skeletal remains found near Yekaterinburg, Russia are confirmed by Russian scientists to be the remains of Alexei and Anastasia, two of the children of the last Tsar of Russia, whose entire family was executed at Yekaterinburg by the Bolsheviks.

Notables born on this day include:

  • 1777 – Carl Friedrich Gauss, German mathematician and physicist (d. 1855)
  • 1877 – Alice B. Toklas, American memoirist (d. 1967)
  • 1926 – Cloris Leachman, American actress and comedian (d. 2021)
  • 1945 – Annie Dillard, American novelist, essayist, and poet

Those who purchased the farm on April 30 include:

FitzRoy was, of course, the captain of HMS Beagle, who failed as Governor of New Zealand, fell onto hard times in England, and cut his throat 156 years ago today (he was prone to depression, which is one reason Darwin was taken aboard the ship—as the Captain’s companion to keep FitzRoy company).  There are a few photos of FitzRoy; here’s one taken about ten years before his death:

  • 1900 – Casey Jones, American railroad engineer (b. 1863)

Jones is a hero, having saved all the passengers on his train by staying aboard and slowing it before it crashed into another train. He was the only fatality. Here he is:

  • 1983 – Muddy Waters, American singer-songwriter, guitarist, and bandleader (b. 1913)
  • 2016 – Daniel Berrigan, American priest and activist (b. 1921)

Meawhile in Dobrzyn, Hili is walking her beat:

A; Where are you going?
Hili: I have to check what’s growing in the northern part of the garden.
In Polish:
Ja: Gdzie idziesz?
Hili: Muszę sprawdzić, co rośnie w północnej części ogrodu.

And we have four photos of Kulka and Szaron taken by Paulina:

From reader Rick. I make NO claims about the accuracy about the photo, the MRI, or what it shows!

An itinerant wanderer making a selfie in a mural that decorates an underpass leading to the shore of Lake Michigan:

You can buy this tee-shirt at this link.

From reader Frank, an awkward friendship. Grania would have loved this:

Here are some duck-related tweets that were sent to me by many readers. The first story bears reading in toto:

And the video. This is truly a man after my own heart!

Now the vertical duck below, which has gone viral, isn’t a wild mallard, but a domesticated breed (a runner duck) descended from wild mallards. They are flightless and stand erect, and some, like this one, have been selected to retain the wild-duck pattern. But don’t compare this to other mallards!

From Vogue via Titania. Vogue and especially Teen Vogue have become uber woke. Titania singles out the fallacy.

Tweets from Matthew. The caption to the Wadlow picture is great, but remember the one below it!

Remember this caption? (I’m referring to the photo on the right.)