Good morning on a Camel Day, May 5, 2021: National Enchilada Day. It’s also Oyster Day, World Math Day, Museum Lover’s Day (implying, again, that only one person loves museums, Cinco de Mayo in Mexico and the U.S. (see below), World Portuguese Language Day, and International Midwives’ Day.
This will be a truncated Hili as I have important Duck Business this morning: returning a prematurely-fallen offspring of Honey to her brood. If all goes well, I’ll be back in business tomorrow
News of the Day:
In lieu of news here, please consult your regular news source.
Finally, today’s reported Covid-19 death toll in the U.S. is 578,010, an increase of 720 deaths over yesterday’s figure. The reported world death toll is now 3,242,944, a big increase of nearly 15,000 over yesterday’s total.
Stuff that happened on May 5 includes:
- 1809 – Mary Kies becomes the first woman awarded a U.S. patent, for a technique of weaving straw with silk and thread.
- 1821 – Emperor Napoleon dies in exile on the island of Saint Helena in the South Atlantic Ocean.
- 1835 – The first railway in continental Europe opens between Brussels and Mechelen.
- 1862 – Cinco de Mayo: Troops led by Ignacio Zaragoza halt a French invasion in the Battle of Puebla in Mexico.
- 1866 – Memorial Day first celebrated in United States at Waterloo, New York.
- 1891 – The Music Hall in New York City (later known as Carnegie Hall) has its grand opening and first public performance, with Tchaikovsky as the guest conductor.
- 1904 – Pitching against the Philadelphia Athletics at the Huntington Avenue Grounds, Cy Young of the Boston Americans throws the first perfect game in the modern era of baseball.
- 1945 – World War II: A Fu-Go balloon bomb launched by the Japanese Army kills six people near Bly, Oregon.
- 1961 – Alan Shepard becomes the first American to travel into outer space, on a sub-orbital flight.
- 1973 – Secretariat wins the 1973 Kentucky Derby in 1:592⁄5, an as-yet unbeaten record.
- 1981 – Bobby Sands dies in the Long Kesh prison hospital after 66 days of hunger-striking, aged 27.
- 1985 – Ronald Reagan visits the military cemetery at Bitburg and the site of the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, where he makes a speech.
Notables born on this day include:
- 1813 – Søren Kierkegaard, Danish philosopher and author (d. 1855)
- 1818 – Karl Marx, German philosopher, sociologist, and journalist (d. 1883)
- 1864 – Nellie Bly, American journalist and author (d. 1922)
- 1882 – Sylvia Pankhurst, English women’s suffrage movement leader and socialist activist (d. 1960)
- 1914 – Tyrone Power, American actor (d. 1958)
- 1903 – James Beard, American chef and author (d. 1985)
- 1942 – Tammy Wynette, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (d. 1998)
- 1943 – Michael Palin, English actor and screenwrit
- 1988 – Adele, English singer-songwriter
Those who had their ticket punched on May 5 include:
- 1821 – Napoleon, French general and emperor (b. 1769)
- 1902 – Bret Harte, American short story writer and poet (b. 1836)
- 1981 – Bobby Sands, PIRA volunteer and hunger striker (b. 1954)
Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, I believe Hili is referring to Spring, not efforts to make a Green World:
Hili: I’m not mistaken.A: What about?Hili: The world is greener today than it was yesterday.
Hili: Nie mylę się.Ja: W czym?Hili: Świat jest dziś jeszcze zieleńszy niż wczoraj.
Here’s a picture of Kulka taken by Paulina:
From Facebook via Mark:
From Bruce:
Also from Bruce. I think this constitutes Rover Harassment:
Titania is in favor of the Bible as hate speech:
Now that the UK police have determined that quoting from the Bible is hate speech, isn’t it about time we shut down all churches and turned them into intersectional re-education centres?pic.twitter.com/1YRe4caWV6
— Titania McGrath (@TitaniaMcGrath) May 3, 2021
Tweets from Matthew; the first some amazing art.
Japanese paper artist Chie Hitotsuyama creates sculptures of animals using a technique involving rolled strips of wet newspaper #womensart pic.twitter.com/EiVfiZPisy
— #WOMENSART (@womensart1) May 4, 2021
Cat had kittens in the ceiling, producing a whole litter of Ceiling Cats:
"I watched her run up the wall and into the ceiling!” 😲 https://t.co/7ncWWnd0ch
— The Dodo (@dodo) May 4, 2021
The answer to this is in the tweet’s thread:
Quiz: what are these glyphs? https://t.co/YbZbM2FrO9
— Matthew Cobb (@matthewcobb) May 4, 2021
I’ve posted about Dain Yoon before, but here we also have a nice video. Her art is amazing.
I would like to see a video of her. well here it is:https://t.co/ifBTFdm7Qh
— ᴬᵘᵗⁱˢᵗⁱᶜᴬˢᵗʳᵒⁿᵃᵘᵗ (@aliveliayselale) May 4, 2021
Matthew got his second jab. Welcome to the world, my friend!
2nd jab done. mRNA molecules in tiny balls of fat are currently getting into my cells where they will fool my body into making a bit of the viral protein. Amazing. Now vaccinate the rest of the world! pic.twitter.com/5myPiNQ63D
— Matthew Cobb (@matthewcobb) May 5, 2021
Best of luck with the duck works. The previous president is likely to get his Facebook privileges back this morning, due primarily to Facebook’s gutless processes. For those who put up with Facebook, good luck to you.
Fingers crossed on your efforts with little Bob and on Facebook finding some spine somewhere… somehow I think the second is going to require a good deal more luck than the first…
Update: Facebook found that spine after all! No platform for the Liar-in-Chief Eject!
My apologies to Facebook. Apparently they made the right decision.
That’s not just a Kentucky Derby record; it’s also still the track record for 1 1/4 miles at Churchill Downs.
The fastest mile and a quarter ever run by any thoroughbred anywhere was by another Kentucky Derby winner, Spectacular Bid, on the dirt track at Santa Anita Park in 1980, 1:57.9.
Then of course there was Belmont and Secretariat. (2:24) flat
Still the fastest mile and a half ever run by a thoroughbred, at Belmont Park or anywhere else.
Spectacular Bid had a chance to take the Triple Crown, too, after winning the Derby and the Preakness. But, in a freak accident in its stable, stepped on a safety pin, developing an infection in a hoof. It still ran the Belmont, and was leading at the top of the stretch, but couldn’t hold on and finished to show.
I too just got my 2nd Pfizer jab yesterday. When I got my 1st jab I did my normal weight lifting workout the same evening and felt normal, had a good workout. But last evening I started to workout and it just wasn’t on. I didn’t feel quite as if I were sick but had that subtle hard to describe feeling of general malaise you get when you are about to get sick with something like the flu. And all the regular aches and twinges were at about twice normal intensity. Before I even reached a workout weight I decided to quit.
This morning I feel pretty much the same. Not bad, not great. Like I might just be starting to come down with something, but not quite sure.
It goes something like this. Very tired, really strange feeling, little pains and odd feeling. Maybe goes on for 24 hours, maybe 48 hours. It is Covid lite.
I got mine on Monday. Felt a little woozy in the afternoon. Yesterday achy, headache, slight fever. We’ll see what today is like.
Rode my bike ( 7-8k) to the vaccination site, rode back, an hour or so later could not stay awake, slept for 10 or so hours, next day general aches and pains, day after that back to normal.
Here in the great white north the 2nd Pfizer shot is scheduled 4 months after the first so it will be end of July before I’m done.
After already having had Covid, I had both Pfizer shots, the second on April 14th, and the only symptom I noticed was a little local muscle soreness in the injection site. I wonder if it’s because I’m chronically on NSAIDS…
I am currently taking a light regimen of diclofenac, which I do every 2 or 3 months to deal with a problem hip to allow me to keep lifting, but I’ve stopped for a few days. I’ve come across a few warnings that NSAIDs may inhibit the mRNA vaccines to some degree. Nothing definitive at all, but since it is no real negative impact for me if I don’t take it for a while I figured I’d lay off it for a few days.
It certainly is plausible that there could be SOME effect on vaccine response…but I figure between having had Covid and the vaccine, I’ve had pretty good immune exposure (as good as I’m going to get, anyway), and I can’t really tolerate not taking the NSAIDs very readily. My kidneys will probably kill me before Covid-19 could.
Yes, I think you are right. Based on the sketchy info I’ve seen about this anyone on NSAIDs to treat a more acute condition should not worry about continuing to take them.
I suspect that when people use the singular possessive in expressions such as Museum Lover’s Day, they’re thinking as if of some archetypal museum lover. It’s rather like the way we often refer to animals of types and species with the singular, e.g. “The adult lion has no obvious large spots or stripes, while the tiger has an intricate striped pattern, and the jaguar, the leopard, the cheetah, and some other felines have complex patterns of spots.” Or, for instance, “The mallard is a medium-sized waterfowl species that is often slightly heavier than most other dabbling ducks.”
One can imagine a description: “The Museum Lover is a curious character, in the most straightforward reading of the term.” It doesn’t necessarily refer to or imply a singular person.
But, then again, I suspect you know all this, now that I think about it. Apologies; I suffer from intermittent humor impairment. (Some would say that it’s far more than intermittent, but we need not indulge such unnecessary cruelty.)
Robert, you’re on to something regarding a suitable response to this recurrent bemusement of our host. I, a librarian, understand the use of the singular possessive as opposed to the plural possessive as deriving from the distinction between each and all. In other words, Mother’s Day celebrates each (and ostensibly every) individual mother rather than Mothers’ Day, which would celebrate all mothers as a group. Your idea of an archetypal individual reminds me of biological taxonomy, wherein higher categories are plural nouns, e.g., phylum Chordata, but the genus is a singular noun modified by the adjective designating species, e.g., Homo sapiens. Back to librarianship, we librarians offer a service called Reader’s Advisory, which addresses the unique needs of each individual reader who approaches us for advice.
Nice!
In.other news: Yikes! A woman from Mali has given birth to nonuplets! (Five girls and four boys.)
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-56994408
Today is also the 200th birthday of the Guardian newspaper, which was founded in Manchester in 1821 as the Manchester Guardian, in response to the Peterloo Massacre. I know that PCC(E) sometimes criticises the Guardian for its forays into wokeness, but it does have a strong track record as one of the few British newspapers that relentlessly pursue the government and uncover its misdeeds.
Case in point: The Windrush Scandal. Some years ago, the British government instituted a “hostile environment” policy towards people it characterised as “illegal” immigrants. Many of the people who were caught up because they had no documents to prove their British citizen status were the children of the “Empire Windrush” generation of black immigrants who came over from what were then Britain’s colonies in the Caribbean in the post-WW2 years.
The Guardian’s reporter Amelia Gentleman began investigating reports of black people who had lived and worked in Britain for fifty years or more losing their jobs and homes because they couldn’t provide employers and landlords with the documents that the government demanded as proof of British citizenship. Others were stopped from returning to Britain after they went to the Caribbean for family visits or funerals of cousins or aunts. Many were denied life-saving medical treatment on the NHS. Gentleman’s lengthy and tireless investigation revealed that the government itself had destroyed the very documentation that would have proven the right of all of these people to live in Britain.
Eventually, the Guardian’s reporting of the scandal led to questions in Parliament, and the government was forced to admit its fault and set up a compensation fund.
The Guardian’s current editor has written a retrospective of the paper’s last two centuries, and the values that the paper and its staff hold. It’s worth a read.
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2021/may/05/guardian-200-anniversary-covid-pandemic-journalism-editor-mission
Yes, and there’s an interesting – and humorously self-deprecating – annotated copy of the first ever issue of the paper, too: https://www.theguardian.com/media/ng-interactive/2021/may/05/guardian-200-first-ever-edition-annotated
There’s a fascinating part in the article David linked to above detailing The Guardian‘s contingency plans in the event that the Nazis invaded the UK during World War Two: it was going to carry on publishing with the assistance of the Baltimore Sun; the editor had made preparations to escape by boat; and a sizeable chunk of the trust fund was cashed in and used to buy an emerald necklace which senior executives took turns to wear under their clothing!
“Now that the UK police have determined that quoting from the Bible is hate speech . . . .”
Of course, if we’re being honest, any objective person would rightly consider a number of passages in the Bible to be hate speech, including the idea that people should justifiably be roasted in a lake of fire for all eternity for failing to acknowledge and worship the Judeo-Christian god(s).
Re: 1945 – World War II: A Fu-Go balloon bomb launched by the Japanese Army kills six people near Bly, Oregon:
For any attorney who graces us with his/her presence: in U.S. (state?) law, would this be considered an instance of “attractive nuisance”?
Dain Yoon with the face make-up totally RULES!
So cool.
D.A.
NYC
https://whyevolutionistrue.com/2020/06/10/photos-of-readers-93/