Friday: Hili dialogue

June 25, 2021 • 6:30 am

Welcome to Friday, June 25, 2021: National Strawberry Parfait Day. It’s also Global Beatles Day, celebrating the first satellite broadcast of a Beatles song (“All You Need Is Love”) on this day in 1967, National Food Truck Day, National Catfish Day, Bourdain Day (celebrating the day of Anthony’s birth in 1956; see below about a new documentary), World Vitiligo Day, and Take Your Dog Cat to Work Day.

Posting will be VERY light today as I’m going downtown to get my “Real” ID that you can use for flying. It’s time consuming.  Stay tuned.

Here’s a “thought for the day” that came from the A Word A Day feature, sent in by reader Rick:

Scientists do not join hands every Sunday and sing “Yes gravity is real! I know gravity is real! I will have faith! I believe in my heart that what goes up, up, up must come down, down, down. Amen!” If they did, we would think they were pretty insecure about the concept.

-Dan Barker, former preacher, musician (b. 25 Jun 1949)

News of the Day:

Despite their pledge, the Bidens have still not acquired a First Cat for the White House.

The big news in the U.S., which you’ve surely heard, is that most of a high-rise condominium, consisting of 12 floors comprising about 130 units, unaccountably collapsed in Surfside, Florida, near Miami. One person is known dead, a dozen are hospitalized, but 99 people are missing, most likely buried in the rubble. Rescuers are desperately searching for signs of life. Nobody has any idea why the building collapsed.

Many sources, including the WaPo, report that Florida governor Ron DeSantis (a Republican, of course), has just signed a bill mandating that public universities in his state must undergo a yearly “climate survey” of “viewpoint diversity”. That means that students will be asked their political and ideological views. (They don’t have to answer, but of course that creates a huge bias in the results against students expressing unpopular views.) This comes on top of DeSantis’s successful push on June 10 to prohibit the teaching of critical race theory in Florida schools. While I’m not onboard with all aspects of CRT, I don’t favor state prohibition of teaching it. Nor do I favor climate surveys. Why is Florida doing this? The answer, at least to me, seems obvious: punish those schools, perhaps through withholding funds, that aren’t sufficiently “viewpoint diverse.”

More right-wing lunacy. Reader Ken sent this video (and Matthew a shorter version in a tweet) of a commentator on the far-right One America News (OAN) Network calling for th execution of people who opposed Trump’s claims of election fraud!.  Matthew notes, “A terrifying vid that will get people killed, I fear.” Ken says, “This is the kind of big-lie nonsense the rightwing is being fed on a regular basis:”

Finally, today’s reported Covid-19 death toll in the U.S. 602,917, an increase of 314 deaths over yesterday’s figure.  The reported world death toll is now 3,917,107, an increase of about 8,700 over yesterday’s total.

Stuff that happened on June 25 includes:

The first woman Ph.D:

And here is that photo of the barricades on the Rue Saint-Maur:

  • 1876 – Battle of the Little Bighorn and the death of Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer.
  • 1906 – Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania millionaire Harry Thaw shoots and kills prominent architect Stanford White.
  • 1910 – Igor Stravinsky’s ballet The Firebird is premiered in Paris, bringing him to prominence as a composer.
  • 1943 – The Holocaust: Jews in the Częstochowa Ghetto in Poland stage an uprising against the Nazis.
  • 1944 – The final page of the comic Krazy Kat is published, exactly two months after its author George Herriman died.

Here’s that last strip. Herriman was a great cartoonist, ahead of his time, and both Matthew and I love his work. Offisah Pupp appears to save Krazy, though the last panel is enigmatic:

A good copy of the first edition will cost you upwards of $3,000:

 

  • 1950 – The Korean War begins with the invasion of South Korea by North Korea.
  • 1978 – The rainbow flag representing gay pride is flown for the first time during the San Francisco Gay Freedom Day Parade.

There are various versions of the flag, with stripes added from time to time. Here’s the original LGBT Pride Flag:

  • 1993 – Kim Campbell is sworn in as the first female Prime Minister of Canada.

Notables born on this day include:

Here’s Gaudi, with the white beard, showing his masterpiece, the Sagrada Familia (the cathedral where the Spanish cops strip-searched me) to a Church official:

(From Wikipedia): Gaudí shows the Sagrada Família to the Papal nuncio, Cardinal Francesco Ragonesi (1915). On that occasion, Monsegnor Ragonesi considered Gaudí “The Dante of architecture”.[42][43]
  • 1900 – Louis Mountbatten, 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma, English admiral and politician, 44th Governor-General of India (d. 1979)
  • 1903 – George Orwell, British novelist, essayist, and critic (d. 1950)

Here’s Orwell, who died at 46 of tuberculosis. I don’t know anyone who doesn’t admire his writing, even if they disagree with some of his views. What we he say about today’s political climate?

  • 1936 – Bert Hölldobler, German biologist and entomologist
  • 1945 – Carly Simon, American singer-songwriter
  • 1956 – Anthony Bourdain, American chef and author (d. 2018) (see above)

There’s a new two-hour movie about Bourdain (opened June 11) called “Roadrunner”; it gets a 100% critics’ rating on Rotten Tomatoes. See it!  Here’s the trailer:

  • 1961 – Ricky Gervais, English comedian, actor, director, producer and singer

Those who crossed the Rainbow Bridge on June 25 include:

  • 1876 – George Armstrong Custer, American general (b. 1839)
  • 1906 – Stanford White, American architect, designed the Washington Square Arch (b. 1853)
  • 1995 – Warren E. Burger, Fifteenth Chief Justice of the United States (b. 1907)
  • 1997 – Jacques Cousteau, French oceanographer and explorer (b. 1910)
  • 2009 – Michael Jackson, American singer-songwriter, producer, dancer, and actor (b. 1958)

Here’s a video of Michael Jackson’s best dance moves. Oy, could he dance!

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili shows that she’s a good atheist cat.

Hili: It’s a good thing that I don’t believe in God.
A: Why?
Hili: I would have to blaspheme constantly.
In Polish:
Hili: Dobrze, że nie wierzę w Boga.
Ja: Dlaczego?
Hili: Musiałabym ciągle bluźnić.
And a photo of little Kulka in the trees from Paulina:

From Facebook via Lenora:

From Jesus of the Day. I don’t know where this sign is from, but it’s appropriate for the town of St. Ives in Cornwall, where a seagull stole a Cornish pasty right out of my hand:. But the wonky grammar suggests it’s not from an Anglophone country.

OMG Blog shows some product parodies of varying degrees of humor. Here’s one I like:

A tweet from Ginger K.:

Tweets from Matthew. We’ve been following the saga of Wally the Walrus for a while as he makes his way up and down the Atlantic coast of Europe. He’s in Scilly now, and looking pretty good.

A lovely old cat painting:

A retweet from Matthew. Look at the expression on the face of this hapless Kite!

A molting centipede. The orange one is freshly molted; the purple is the exuvia (shed skin):

An old aerial view of Chicago. The station no longer exists, but it’s a cool poster:

I’ll let you figure this one out for yourself:

This is a cool thread of linguistic variants of the “once upon a time” beginning to stories:

There are a lot more, too. Here are two more:

29 thoughts on “Friday: Hili dialogue”

  2. Pearson Sharp, the OAN commentator, speaks in a calm and convincing manner. There is no reason to doubt that people who listen to him on OAN are in the right-wing bubble and will believe every word he says. In addition to the fear that his commentary will induce listeners to violence (although he denies such a thing) there is an equal danger that election poll workers may be intimidated. There are news reports that poll workers in some states are resigning their positions out of fear for their physical safety and other forms of intimidation. Pearson has freedom of speech, which may be protected because he didn’t explicitly call for violence by a mob, but apparently he feels the government should execute these “traitors” that stole the election. But, if his listeners interpret his commentary as a call to violence and actually take action, such is the price of free speech.

    Reply

    1. I think Pearson Sharp’s call to murder is but thinly veiled.
      The man is a seditionist himself, perpetuating a lie, for which there is no evidence, and was thrown out in 60 court cases (often by Trump appointed judges), but which is a direct threat to American democracy.
      Now I would not call for his execution, but by calling for execution he walks a thin line in the freedom of expression limitations (calls to imminent violence). I’m not sure if seditious propaganda is covered by the First. Is it?

      Reply

  5. I’m going downtown to get my “Real” ID that you can use for flying.

    Best wishes for a speedy bureaucracy, but…why not just use your passport?

    it’s appropriate for the town of St. Ives in Corwall, where a seagull stole a Cornish pastie right out of my hand

    San Francisco, Pier 39, 2019: saw a seagull snatch a sandwich from a 3-year-old girl sitting on her dad’s shoulders. It was a sneak attack: the gull flew in from behind.

    Reply

  6. Have fun getting the `real-ID’ upgrade. Hope it is fast and easy. I have had the TSA version for 15 years for work, and, the funny thing is, at the airport, they often won’t accept it and want my non-real-ID driver license (the backlog for the read-ID version here was `call us in six months for an appointment’ last year). TSA still has training issues, as you have experienced.

    Reply

  8. “Musiałabym”–wonderful word! As a student of Latin, ancient Greek, and Sanskrit, I love inflections, and today’s Slavic tongues still got ’em.

    Reply

  9. Probably worth reading the actual Florida bill.

    (b) The State Board of Education shall require each Florida College System institution to conduct an annual assessment of the intellectual freedom and viewpoint diversity at that institution. The State Board of Education shall select or create an objective, nonpartisan, and statistically valid survey to be used by each institution which considers the extent to which competing ideas and perspectives are presented and members of the college community, including students, faculty, and staff, feel free to express their beliefs and viewpoints on campus and in the classroom. The State Board of Education shall annually compile and publish the assessments by September 1 of each year, beginning on September 1, 2022. The State Board of Education may adopt rules to implement this paragraph.

    (c) The State Board of Education may not shield students, faculty, or staff at Florida College System institutions from free speech protected under the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, Art. I of the State Constitution, or s. 711004.097. (p. 3)

    Reply

    1. Gaudí was a brilliant architect, I always liked his studies for the strongest construction with the least amount of material and the like. The ‘Cripta de la Colonia Güell’for example.
      I gather that the ‘Sagrada Familia’ is still not finished, in the tradition of Gothic Cathedrals which could take centuries to complete.

      Reply

      1. The last date established for its finishing is 2026. Will see. It’s image will be quite different to the one it had for mosts of the last part of the XXth, as it will have a massive central tower.

        Reply

  12. Good luck with your “Real ID.” I spent months undocumented when my passport had expired and I had no “proof” I was a US citizen. For 50 years I’ve gotten drivers licenses without proof of citizenship!

    The outcome, after I went to do the deed after being fully immunized, is the most horrible drivers license picture ever, after complaining that I want non-citizens to get a license to drive, rather than force them underground.

    I will have years to be reminded of that ordeal, but at least I’ll always look better in person than on my ID if I’m stopped for a driving infraction.

    Reply

  13. Enjoyed the different “Once upon a time…”. It’s always interesting to see how other cultures do things.
    Paulina gets great photos of Kulka actually looking at the camera. Cats usually act line the camera will steal there souls.

    Reply
  18. Pingback: Friday: Hili dialogue. | Ramblings of an Occupy Liberal

  19. > the Sagrada Familia (the cathedral where the Spanish cops strip-searched me)

    Perhaps they were just upset at you for calling it a “cathedral” instead of a “temple.” ;o) (Needs a bishop to qualify as a “cathedral.”)

    Reply

  20. Looks like good opportunities in Miami for qualified building inspectors/structural enginers! Will it prove to be a sinkhole that caused the collapse? Substandard concrete and deteriorated re-bar?

    In any event, I wouldn’t want to be a guy who closed on a condo in Miami earlier this week.

    Reply

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