Welcome to Wednesday, May 12, 2021: National Nutty Fudge Day. It’s also International Nurses Day, National Root Canal Appreciation Day, National Numeracy Day, and Day of the Finnish Identity (are we all allowed to identify as Finns today?)
Posting may be light today as I’m quite low about the events of the world. As always, I do my best.
News of the Day:
The violence in Israel and Gaza continues to escalate, with more than 500 rockets fired at Israel, and Israel retaliating, it claims, only against military targets, including Hamas officials and those involved in Hamas-fired missiles. The Washington Post reports this on Tuesday evening:
By Tuesday night, 30 Palestinians had been killed in Israeli airstrikes, including 10 children, and 203 others were wounded, according to Gaza health officials. One airstrike toppled a tower that houses the offices of several Hamas officials.
UPDATE Wednesday morning: The NYT adds this. Things are very grim.
ASHKELON, Israel — The worst fighting between Israelis and Palestinians in seven years intensified on Tuesday night, as Israeli airstrikes began targeting Hamas offices in Gaza City and militants in Gaza fired rockets at the metropolis of Tel Aviv, the southern city of Ashkelon and Israel’s main airport.
In Gaza, at least 35 Palestinians, including 10 children, had been killed by Tuesday night, and 203 others were wounded, according to health officials. In Israel, five people were killed in strikes on Tel Aviv, Ashkelon and Lod, and at least 100 were wounded, according to medical officials.
Away from the military conflict, a wave of civil unrest spread across Arab neighborhoods as Palestinian citizens of Israel expressed fury at the killings in Gaza and longstanding complaints of discrimination inside Israel itself.
There goes any hope for a two-state solution, which became an impossible dream in the last few years.
According to the NYT, the positive drug test produced by the Kentucky Derby winner Medina Spirit was, the horses’s trainer claimed due to an antifungal ointment used to treat Medina Spirit for dermatitis. They are running other tests, and if the colt fails again, his Kentucky Derby win will be taken away and given to the second-place horse. Curiously, though, Medina Spirit will be allowed to race in the second of the Triple Crown races, the Preakness, on Saturday.
Airline passengers are becoming increasingly unruly, and at an exponential pace. Since February, the FAA has received 1300 “unruly passenger” reports, with four people facing nearly $70,000 in fines. Compare the 1300 reports to the 142 in all of 2019, 159 in 2018, and only 91 in 2017. The increase is due to resistance to pandemic precautions by the airlines, which has angered passengers. Lock ’em up!
Finally, today’s reported Covid-19 death toll in the U.S. is 582, 362, an increase of 619 deaths over yesterday’s figure. The reported world death toll is now 3,332,764, a big increase of about 14,000 over yesterday’s total.
Stuff that happened on May 12 was very sparse, including this::
- 1551 – National University of San Marcos, the oldest university in the Americas, is founded in Lima, Peru.
- 1932 – Ten weeks after his abduction, Charles Jr., the infant son of Charles Lindbergh, is found dead near Hopewell, New Jersey, just a few miles from the Lindberghs’ home.
This was one of the biggest stories of that era; here’s the headline after the infant was found dead. Bruno Hauptmann was convicted of the crime, but many still doubt whether he did it.
- 1937 – The Duke and Duchess of York are crowned as King George VI and Queen Elizabeth of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland in Westminster Abbey.
- 2002 – Former US President Jimmy Carter arrives in Cuba for a five-day visit with Fidel Castro, becoming the first President of the United States, in or out of office, to visit the island since Castro’s 1959 revolution.
Fidel, Carter and Rosalynn in Cuba; note that Jimmy is wearing a Cuban style shirt.
Notables born on this day include:
- 1812 – Edward Lear, English poet and illustrator (d. 1888)
Here’s Lear in 1887 holding his cat Foss, who was about to jump off his lap:
- 1820 – Florence Nightingale, Italian-English nurse, social reformer, and statistician (d. 1910)
Here’s Nightingale at about 40:
- 1889 – Otto Frank, German-Swiss businessman and Holocaust survivor; father of diarist Anne Frank (d. 1980)
- 1907 – Katharine Hepburn, American actress (d. 2003)
Hepburn’s yearbook photo from Bryn Mawr College when she was 21:
- 1910 – Dorothy Hodgkin, English biochemist, crystallographer, and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1994)
Look at these headlines when she won her prize! This would never stand today. A “wife”!
- 1925 – Yogi Berra, American baseball player, coach, and manager (d. 2015)
- 1928 – Burt Bacharach, American singer-songwriter, pianist, and producer
- 1937 – George Carlin, American comedian, actor, and author (d. 2008)
Here’s a great half-hour by Carlin on religion, which he despised. It’s very good:
- 1948 – Steve Winwood, English singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist
- 1966 – Deborah Kara Unger, Canadian actress
Those who met Cerberus on May 12 include:
- 1700 – John Dryden, English poet, playwright, and critic (b. 1631)
- 1925 – Amy Lowell, American poet and critic (b. 1874)
- 2001 – Perry Como, American singer and television host (b. 1912)
Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili is worried that the 1930s are going to repeat themselves:
Hili: A new era is coming.A: How does it look?Hili: I have a feeling I’ve seen it somewhere before.
Hili: Idzie nowa era.Ja: Jak wygląda?Hili: Mam wrażenie, że już ją gdzieś widziałam.
Szaron licking little Kulka (photo by Paulina):
From Divy:
From Thomas:
From Bruce:
Israel’s “Iron Dome” intercepts Hamas rockets, with an explanation below. To read more about the system, go here.
This, apparently from Tel Aviv minutes ago, is the most amazing Iron Dome video I've ever seen. pic.twitter.com/LK98ZIArJG
— Elder of Ziyon 🇮🇱 (@elderofziyon) May 11, 2021
Every light coming from the right is a Hamas rocket. Every light from the left is Iron Dome trying to hit them.
— Elder of Ziyon 🇮🇱 (@elderofziyon) May 11, 2021
Tweets from Matthew. I don’t quite get the advantage of this: it’s easy to mix but you’re left with a messy countertop:
what a normal and ultimate spaghetti hack! pic.twitter.com/UAc0rjRqmV
— jarvis johnson (@jarvis) May 10, 2021
Two Tik-Tok tweets. Matthew sez: “Two more brilliant Tik Tok vids, the second from a couple of years back. Damn, there are some talented people out there with too much time on their hands!”
It made me remember this video pic.twitter.com/FerFCvSFCd
— Renato (@the_rendriguez) May 11, 2021
A fabulous nature photograph:
A Red-winged Blackbird looking like it's getting a free ride on an Osprey's broomstick. The Blackbird was focused on driving the Osprey away from the marsh, while the Osprey was focused on bringing back a good stick for the nest. pic.twitter.com/vGxbSkKQ32
— Jocelyn Anderson Photography (@JocAPhotography) May 11, 2021
And a fabulous astronomy photo taken from the Moon:
Apollo 8 Earthrise remastered from raw pic.twitter.com/dsg6bLJg2i
— Seán Doran (@_TheSeaning) May 11, 2021
The world’s chillest rodent (and the largest) enjoys a good soak in a hot tub. What other mammal can compare? Matthew and I both love capybaras.
✨timeline cleanse✨ pic.twitter.com/m1mhI3ZeZ1
— CAPYBARA MAN (@CAPYBARA_MAN) May 11, 2021
If I’d seen the way that spaghetti was made, I’d probably refuse to eat it.
Me too – and it’s got to be pretty much cold by the time it’s done so inedible in multiple ways.
But, but! OH MY GOD! This is SOOOO Amazing! Look at that! It’s, like, steaming!
[Huh? What’s amazing or interesting about this? Don’t have large enough mixing bowls? Can’t figure out how to batch process?]
Sauce from a jar? Fuhgeddaboudit! The only way to go is with what my paisan friends in New York call “Sunday gravy.”
And Prego to boot. Not worth Eating.
That video could tank US / Italian relations for decades.
Even if you don’t have all day for “Sunday gravy,” you can whip up a good, basic marinara sauce in well under an hour.
There’s no excuse for commercial jarred sauce.
Exactly. Good quality San Marzano canned tomatoes, some sliced or smashed garlic, olive oil, salt & pepper, much rough chopped basil, and in 15 – 20 minutes you’ve got sauce that is to Prego what a 90 point Burgundy is to MD 20/20.
It was the ‘cheese’ from a jar that I found most disturbing.
There is some good news out there but of course, good news does not get many reporters going. The NRA is just about finished. That is excellent news:
https://www.cnn.com/2021/05/11/politics/national-rifle-association-bankruptcy/index.html
That is good (and surprising) news.
As people who have read comments threads on this site will know, I am in favor of gun rights; but not the way the NRA wants them (no holds barred).
Many of the people I grew up with (older than me, my Dad’s friends and their kids) are/were lifetime members of the NRA. I never agreed with their stands on things. (I’ve never voted Republican in my life — every election since 1980.)
Back in the day — once upon a time, a long time ago — the NRA was a sportsmen’s group, promoting firearm safety, back before it became a hack lobby for gun manufacturers (and, later, a conduit for illegal Russian campaign contributions and personal slush fund for Wayne LaPierre).
Doubtful. LaPierre and three of his cronies are probably finished, because the NY case is about their financial mismanagement. But the bankruptcy was filed by LaPierre without the knowledge or approval of the Board of Directors or the CFO. They, AFAIK, do not agree that the NRA is bankrupt. So I wouldn’t read “the NRA is bankrupt” from this filing. What I’d read was: “LaPierre tried a reckless stunt that put the NRA in jeopardy to get himself out of hot water, but it failed.”
Note also that the judge who ruled against the bankruptcy didn’t rule ‘with prejudice.’ Meaning that if the organization (not just the four criminals at the top) really is in trouble, they will be allowed to file bankruptcy later, when doing so doesn’t protect LaPierre from NY prosecution.
At least, that’s my understanding.
Not my understanding. The Attorney General back in New York was in the process of taking the NRA apart via law suit and was going to remove the NRA from existence. The leader of the NRA tried to escape this fate by going to Texas with a plea for bankruptcy. This has now failed and the Attorney General of New York will now proceed as planned.
We are both correct. The prosecutor is seeking to dissolve the organization (you) due to the financial mismanagement of four of the top executives (me).
I’m skeptical she (AG James) will get that ruling from the judge. What are the precedents for dissolving a major nonprofit organization due to the fraud conducted by it’s CEO and three of his cronies? Typically the result of such fraud is we just throw the specific offenders in jail, right? And in a quixotic part of the charges, NY is demanding they pay the organization back the money they stole, even as they seek to dissolve it. Which paints the organization more in the victim light than the offender light.
Victim you think? I am not here to argue with you, check it out with some of our lawyers here. I have followed this case since the NY AG filed suit on this corrupt organization and I am pretty sure she will finish the job.
The NRA evidently disagrees with you. Otherwise they are unlikely to have tried this bankruptcy gambit.
Well there’s question over whether “they” tried it or not. Specifically, the board is saying they were never informed of the bankruptcy decision, while LaPierre’s lawyer is saying they were. Given LaPierre clearly lied and defrauded the organization, lying to them about the bankruptcy is, IMO, very believable. I think they’re suckers, groupies, easy marks. He’s got himself a cult of personality where he can steal $60 million from the pot and tell them ‘oh no, I didn’t do anything wrong,’ and they still take his word for it.
It’s a big mess. Plenty of corruption to go around. I’m just not convinced NY is going to get fraud by individuals -> corporate dissolution and they go to jail, vs. fraud by individuals -> they go to jail.
As Ray Paulick said of Medina Spirit’s connections when they floated the Otomax explanation: “Don’t they read the labels on these things?” From the Merck site: “Otomax contains gentamicin sulfate, betamethasone valerate and clotrimazole in a mineral oil-based system containing a plasticized hydrocarbon gel.”
The guayabera — practically de rigueur for the habitués of Miami’s Calle Ocho.
At least Jimmy and Rosalynn look normal sized, unlike the weird recent photo with the Bidens! https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2021/may/04/why-do-the-carters-look-so-tiny-alongside-joe-biden-and-his-wife-jill-in-this-picture
1925 – Yogi Berra, American baseball player, coach, and manager (d. 2015)
And oft-quoted aphorist. 🙂
When you come to a fork in the road….take it.
AIUI, Baffert first claimed anyone (i.e. implying not his team) could have given the horse the drug.
Then he claimed some other horses’ urine could have splashed over.
Only after nobody bought either of those excuses did he admit that they used an ointment with the drug in it.
IMO the guy’s a liar and the horse should not be allowed to run in the Preakness. Also IMO, the only reason the community is letting it run is because the possibility of a triple crown significantly increases public interest in the two other races.
Baffert could probably drug his horse to the moon at this point, and if it wins, they’ll find some bullflop reason to let it run in the Belmont, because of the money to be made.
Whole thing is starting to sound like the kinda phone call I’d get from a client as a probation officer was slapping on the bracelets after a failed pee test.
“Nobel Prize for British Wife”
The headline could be read as a dig at her husband – perhaps wasting time down at the pub.
The husband :
Thomas Lionel Hodgkin (3 April 1910 – 25 March 1982) was an English Marxist historian of Africa “who did more than anyone to establish the serious study of African history” in the UK.[1] He was married to the Nobel Prize-winning scientist Dorothy Hodgkin.
…
Hodgkin was an exhibitioner at Winchester and from 1928 to 1932 a classics scholar at Balliol College, Oxford, where he also held a Higgs Memorial scholarship in English.[3] He obtained a Second in Classical Moderations in 1930 and a First in Literae Humaniores or “Greats” (philosophy and ancient history) in 1932.[4]
“Source” : Wikipedia
Love the capybaras!
And Liz Cheney got ousted out of her House leadership position. The GOP is now in full cult mode. Dick Cheney got in trouble because he lied about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, Liz Cheney got in trouble because she told the truth about the lack of massive voter fraud. Gotta love the irony.