Wednesday: Hili dialogue

September 15, 2021 • 6:30 am

Greetings on Wednesday, September 15, my last day in Chicago for a week. It’s National Linguine Day (I prefer bucatini, but it doesn’t have its own Day.)

It’s also National Cheese Toast Day, National Double Cheeseburger Day, Butterscotch Cinnamon Pie Day, National Crème de Menthe Day, National Caregivers Day, National Felt Hat Day, World Afro Day, World Lymphoma Awareness Day, International Day of Democracy, and, in the U.S., the beginning of German American Heritage Month, celebrated until October 15, and the beginning of National Hispanic Heritage Month, celebrated until October 15. You can celebrate the last two at once by having a michelada made with Löwenbräu.

Today’s Google Doodle (click on screenshot) celebrates the life and work of Ildaura Murillo-Rohde, described by Wikipedia this way:

Ildaura Murillo-Rohde (September 6, 1920 – September 5, 2010) was a Panamanian-American nurse, academic and organizational administrator. .  . Murillo-Rohde founded the National Association of Hispanic Nurses in 1975. She was a World Health Organization consultant to the government of Guatemala and was named a Permanent UN Representative to UNICEF for the International Federation of Business and Professional Women. She was named a Living Legend of the American Academy of Nursing in 1994.

News of the Day:

*It looks as if Gavin Newsom handily won the recall election and remains Governor of California. But he’d better remember the issues that brought about the election in the first place. In an interview Monday evening with NBC News, he simply waved them away.

*Speaking of California, in an op-ed in the NYT, Jay Kang takes issue with schools abandoning standardized tests like the SAT, which the University of California did recently (and against the advice of a group of experts the U of C commissioned to study the problem). Kang argues that test elimination has little effect on increasing diversity but reduces transparency of admissions, and recommends as a substitute the community-college transfer route:

State schools that are committed to social justice should make the community college transfer program the first and final word when it comes to diversity, rather than celebrate tiny shifts in minority enrollment while driving down admission rates. Instead of adjusting scores and engaging in the careful engineering that ends with one student being declared more “holistic” than another, they should make the community-college-to-four-year-university-pathway as easy and as normalized as possible. Students would be able to take on less debt, orient themselves in their chosen fields of study and stay in their hometowns.

*Here’s an intriguing headline for an op-ed in the Washington Post: “How Amy Coney Barrett might know she’s a political hack,” written by columnist Jennifer Rubin. This is based on what Coney Barrett said in a talk in Louisville, where she happened to share the stage with Mitch “666” McConnell:

“My goal today is to convince you that this court is not composed of a bunch of partisan hacks,” Barrett said with a straight face. She continued, “Sometimes, I don’t like the results of my decisions. But it’s not my job to decide cases based on the outcome I want.”

If you’ll believe that, you’ll believe anything. Her voting to uphold Texas’s odious anti-abortion law surely was an outcome she wanted, for she’s a pious Catholic. And, after all, the Texas law violates the stare decisis of Roe v. Wade. Here’s why Rubin thinks that Coney Barrett secretly knows that she’s a lying hack:

So are Barrett and Breyer [who also claims that Justices are largely “neutral”] simply lying to us? I would suggest it is something more insidious: They have convinced themselves that their judicial “philosophy” is neutral, rather than a means to turn the court into an instrument of partisan power.

Let’s get real. Conservative justices have been tutored in Federalist Society buzzwords such as “judicial restraint” (except, for example, when rewriting the Voting Rights Act). They have latched onto a brand of jurisprudence in which the only “legitimate” method of interpretation is time-traveling to the 18th century, often neatly bypassing the post-Civil War amendments that federalized rights. That’s how the conservative justices manage to regard themselves as paragons of judicial virtue.

They cannot acknowledge that their reasoning constantly twists and turns, elevating certain rights (e.g., religious freedom, gun ownership) but diminishing others (e.g., those guaranteed by the 14th Amendment). They refuse to concede that their view of executive power expands like an accordion for Republican presidents and contracts for Democratic presidents.

It is precisely because justices lack the discipline and self-awareness to divorce their own judicial “philosophies” from the partisan ends their “side” wants that term limits become a necessity. Judges who no longer feel constrained by precedent and nearly always fulfill the policy edicts of the president who nominated them should not have lifetime tenure. When the highest court is now a forum for raw exercise of political power, a president’s picks should not be empowered to serve for decades.

But would Rubin write the same thing if those statements had been made by the liberal Justices, or if the Court weren’t so damn conservative?

*CNN tells us that Squaw Valley Alpine Meadow Ski Resort, overdue for a renaming, has finally been renamed: it’s now called Palisades Tahoe, which might confuse people with the ski resorts in Lake Tahoe, California. At any rate, I had no idea that “squaw” wasn’t a Native American word:

The word “squaw” was introduced by Lewis and Clark in 1805 and used by early fur traders and trappers, according to the University of Idaho. In today’s social context, Native Americans understand the term to be a slur.

In light of that, it certainly needed a new name. (h/t Simon)

*The trial of Elizabeth Holmes for wire fraud involving her billion-dollar startup company Theranos continues in California. The Wall Street Journal, which broke the case open, has a live feed of the trial, and yesterday two witnesses testified, separately, that the blood-testing device didn’t work, and Theranos knew it, and also that Holmes lied to investors with falsely optimistic estimates of the company’s profits.

*Science Alert reports unusual tool use in a parrot.  A kea (Nestor notabilis, a parrot I encountered in New Zealand) has been found using tools in an unusual way. Named Bruce, the kea was found badly injured in 2013 missing the top half of his beak. He’s been taken care of at the Willowbank Wildlife Reserve in Christchurch. Now, like all birds, keas must groom themselves, but that’s nearly impossible if you’re missing your top mandible. Resourceful Bruce, however, found that he could pick up properly-shaped pebbles, hold them in his half-bill, and use them to preen his feathers. He does this by holding the pebble underneath his tongue and then running his feathers between his lower mandible and the stone. How clever! (h/t Ginger K)

You’ll want to see a video of this, of course, and I found one:

*Woke fashion at the Met Gala, one of the glitziest affairs in NYC.  Here’s AOC with her dress, which is really gonna change some minds at the Met, where a ticket to the Gala costs $30,000.

(From CNN): Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez attends the 2021 Met Gala accompanied by Brother Vellies founder Aurora James, who designed her dress. Credit: Mike Coppola/Getty Images

And Teen Vogue editor Versha Sharma with her pro-choice clutch (her article is here):

I agree with both of their messages, but there’s a time and place. . .

*Finally, today’s reported Covid-19 death toll in the U.S. is 664,231 an increase of 1,888 deaths over yesterday’s figure. The reported world death toll is now 4,664,368, an increase of about 10,000 over yesterday’s total.

Stuff that happened on September 15 includes:

de Rais, a French knight, specialized in sexual abuse and subsequent murder of children; his victims possibly numbered in the hundreds. He was hanged in 1440. Here’s an early rendition of his execution:

Sadly, the Beagle was eventually broken up, but some of its timber possibly remains as part of a dock and a farmhouse. Here’s what she looked like during her first three voyages:

Here’s one of those early tanks with the caption, “This Mark I ‘Male’ Tank broke down crossing a British trench on its way to attack Thiepval on 25 September 1916.” They didn’t do a very good job; several were destroyed by artillery fire while others broke down:

Below is the law depriving Jews of citizenship, followed by an earlier 1933 photo of members of the SA (the Nazi’s paramilitary wing) picketing in front of a Jewish store.

The signs read, “Germans! Defend yourselves! Do not buy from Jews!”

Nationalsozialistische Boykott-Posten vor dem Warenhaus Israel in Berlin.

Here are the four girls killed by a conspiracy of four Klansmen. One of the murderers was convicted in 1977, one died before trial, and the last two were finally convicted in 2001 and 2002. All were given life sentences.

(From Wikipedia): The four girls killed in the bombing (clockwise from top left): Addie Mae Collins, Cynthia Wesley, Carole Robertson, and Carol Denise McNair
  • 1981 – The Senate Judiciary Committee unanimously approves Sandra Day O’Connor to become the first female justice of the Supreme Court of the United States.
  • 1981 – The John Bull becomes the oldest operable steam locomotive in the world when the Smithsonian Institution operates it under its own power outside Washington, D.C.

The John Bull was first run on September 15, 1831 and was restored sufficiently to be operated on its 150th birthday (see video below). I want to know where the tracks were, and how they made the train fit modern track.

  • 2008 – Lehman Brothers files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, the largest bankruptcy filing in U.S. history.

Notables born on this day include:

Here’s an actual photo of Cooper, taken by Matthew Brady the year before Cooper died:

  • 1857 – William Howard Taft, American lawyer, jurist, and politician, 27th President of the United States (d. 1930)
  • 1890 – Agatha Christie, English crime novelist, short story writer, and playwright (d. 1976)
  • 1894 – Jean Renoir, French actor, director, producer, and screenwriter (d. 1979)

I’m ashamed to admit that I’ve never seen a film by Renoir, but I promise to fill that gap.

  • 1903 – Roy Acuff, American singer-songwriter and fiddler (d. 1992)

Here’s Acuff singing the classic, “The Wabash Cannonball” (you can hear an earlier live version by Acuff here).

  • 1907 – Fay Wray, Canadian-American actress (d. 2004)

The Bride of Kong! (1933):

  • 1928 – Cannonball Adderley, American saxophonist and bandleader (d. 1975)
  • 1929 – Murray Gell-Mann, American physicist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 2019)
  • 1945 – Jessye Norman, American soprano (d. 2019)
  • 1946 – Oliver Stone, American director, screenwriter, and producer
  • 1984 – Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex

Those who went belly up on September 15 include:

  • 1750 – Charles Theodore Pachelbel, German organist and composer (b. 1690)
  • 1938 – Thomas Wolfe, American novelist (b. 1900)

Wolfe, one of my favorite writers (a penchant my literary friends despise) died at ony 37 of tuberculosis that had spread to his brain. Here he is with his huge stacks of manuscripts:

  • 1945 – Anton Webern, Austrian composer and conductor (b. 1883)
  • 1980 – Bill Evans, American pianist and composer (b. 1929)
  • 1985 – Cootie Williams, American trumpet player (b. 1910)

Williams played for many years with Duke Ellington’s band. In fact, Ellington wrote the song below, “Concerto for Cootie” in his honor. It’s performed here by the “Blanton-Webster” version of the Ellington band (the best), with Williams on trumpet:

  • 2003 – Garner Ted Armstrong, American evangelist and author (b. 1930)
  • 2017 – Harry Dean Stanton, American actor (b. 1926)

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili is up in the trees again:

A: What do you see?
Hili: Distance.
In Polish:
Ja: Co tam widzisz?
Hili: Dal.

And here’s a lovely photo of Kulka and Szaron sleeping together (as they do) taken by Paulina. Notice that Kulka is licking Szaron:

From Doc Bill:

From Not Another Science Cat page. A cat tank!

And from the same site. Look at that cat’s face!

Titania on AOC’s Met Gala dress (this was sent by Simon and Luana):

More from Simon:

From Barry, who says, “Such a lovely sound. And I do wonder what all the ‘stomping’ is all about. It’s almost surely a “dance” to attract potential mates.”  I suppose, though, that it could be for territorial defense.

From the Auschwitz Memorial, a man who lived but five weeks in the camp:

Tweets from Matthew. Sound up on this one, too.

The decisive moment, and a graceful one:

Oy!

I hope I’m around to see this:

56 thoughts on “Wednesday: Hili dialogue”

  1. I am not sure this was covered on WEIT this year – indeed, I expected it in October :

    “The 31st First Annual Ig Nobel Prize ceremony happened entirely online on Thursday, September 9, 2021, at 6:00 pm (US eastern time). Ten new Ig Nobel prizes were awarded for things that make people LAUGH, then THINK.”

    The winners include :

    “BIOLOGY PRIZE [SWEDEN]:
    Susanne Schötz, Robert Eklund, and Joost van de Weijer, for analyzing variations in purring, chirping, chattering, trilling, tweedling, murmuring, meowing, moaning, squeaking, hissing, yowling, howling, growling, and other modes of cat–human communication.”

    “Sources” :

    https://www.improbable.com/2021-ceremony/

    https://www.improbable.com/2021-ceremony/winners/

    … I love it!

    Reply

  2. in the U.S., the beginning of German American Heritage Month, celebrated until October 15

    Uh huh. Because admitting it’s Oktoberfest would be too gauche or something?

    Kang argues that test elimination has little effect on increasing diversity but reduces transparency of admissions, and recommends as a substitute the community-college transfer route:

    Given that California guarantees college spots for the top 9% of it’s HS graduates, another way to do it is to improve the pipeline…

    CNN tells us that Squaw Valley Alpine Meadow Ski Resort, overdue for a renaming, has finally been renamed: it’s now called Palisades Tahoe, which might confuse people with the ski resorts in Lake Tahoe, California.

    Having skied in Tahoe lots, nope, it won’t confuse anyone. Seems like a perfectly okay name change to me. Though ‘Palisades,’ seems boringly generic (IMO), it’s sufficient to distinguish them from the umpteen other ski resorts in Tahoe.

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  3. According to some archived media from 1981, the John Bull was run on a section of “Old Georgetown Branch” tracks along the 19th century C&O Canal near Key Bridge. I think i can see part of the canal and the tow path in a couple of sections of the video. Perhaps they have been restored or maintained at the proper gauge….or maybe gauge has not changed over the years.

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    1. For international readers: C&O canal and these tracks are in Washington DC along the Potomac River in the Georgetown section of the city.

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  4. “But would Rubin write the same thing if those statements had been made by the liberal Justices, or if the Court weren’t so damn conservative?”

    At one time, at least, she probably would have. For many years her column at the Washington Post was called “Right Turn.” Liberals hated her. Now, she has undergone a complete transformation. I doubt that she would call herself a liberal, but she abhors Trump and the Republican Party. Fox News has skewered her for attacking everything Republican.

    https://www.foxnews.com/media/washington-post-jennifer-rubin-finally-drops-conservative-label-from-twitter-bio

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  5. want to know where the tracks were, and how they made the train fit modern track.

    Standard gauge is 4 ft 8 1/2 inches* and has been since George Stephenson used it on the Liverpool and Manchester railway the world’s first intercity railway line (which opened on this day in 1830 – you seem to have omitted it from the “on this day category”). The “John Bull” was built in Britain to standard gauge.

    There’s a story that goes around the internet that standard gauge is based on the width of Roman chariot wheels but it’s not true really.

    *Not strictly true – it has been rounded down to 1435 mm.

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  7. “1916 – World War I: Tanks are used for the first time in battle” – More than a century on the UK’s £5.5bn (about £4.7 billion spent so far…) new Ajax armoured vehicles can’t even be tested because they vibrate so much that the troops inside start vomiting. The vehicles also have trouble reversing over a barrier of 20cm (just under 8 inches) and there are serious difficulties with the turret and firing mechanism. The government’s Infrastructure and Projects Authority has rated the vehicle’s development “red” meaning “successful delivery of the project appears to be unachievable”.

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    1. I’m surprised the UK couldn’t engineer a workable AFV, especially when you consider the success of modern AFVs like the Abrams M1A1 and the Leopard II. Perhaps too many bells and whistles? Though America’s “Bradley” was sort of a flop too, so I guess I shouldn’t be too surprised. And we’ve wasted lots more money on failed aircraft as well. Do you consider the UK having an “industrial military complex”, where a nation’s military is tied with a private defense industry? I think that’s been a major contributor of why we’ve wasted so much money on failed military projects.

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      1. We gave the contract to General Dynamics…! So far, they’ve delivered 25 out of a total of 589 – although only 12 of them had a turret, which seems problematic although not in a Woke way.

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  8. “The word “squaw” was introduced by Lewis and Clark in 1805”

    Google ngram shows that it was used before 1805, so that is incorrect.

    squaw (n.)
    “American Indian woman,” 1630s, from Massachuset (Algonquian) squa “woman” (cognate with Narraganset squaws “woman”).

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    2. Yes, both OED and H. L. Mencken, in his “The American Language” indicate Massachusetts Native American (Algonquin) use in 1630’s.

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    3. At any rate, I had no idea that “squaw” wasn’t a Native American word

      According to linguist Ives Goddard, squaw comes from the Algonquian family in which it meant “woman.” See his interesting list of the variations the word took in different languages of the Algonquian family.

      This does not appear to contradict the University of Idaho piece, which only claimed that the Nimìipuu (who live near the conjunction of Idaho, Montana, Washington and Oregon) denied that it had ever formed a part of their language (which would then obviously not be a derivation of Algonquian). If so, then it was introduced to them by Lewis and Clark.

      Of course if it is now considered offensive or disparaging (and probably always was to the extent that women were looked down upon in these tribes) then only an offensive person would use it. (I don’t know if it has yet acquired the status of words that may not even be referred to except as Squ*w.)

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  9. It is a mis-characterization of the Court’s decision on the Texas law to say that they upheld it. Reading it makes this clear. What they said was that the application for injunction wasn’t enough for them to rule on:

    In particular, this order is not based on any conclusion about the constitutionality of Texas’s law, and in no way limits other procedurally proper challenges to the Texas law, including in Texas state courts….

    Although the Court denies the applicants’ request for emergency relief today, the Court’s order is emphatic in making clear that it cannot be understood as sustaining the constitutionality of the law at issue. But although the Court does not address the constitutionality of this law, it can of course promptly do so when that question is properly presented.

    It’s only two-pages long.

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  10. But would Rubin write the same thing if those statements had been made by the liberal Justices, or if the Court weren’t so damn conservative?

    Jennifer Rubin is an arch-conservative (albeit an adamant never-Trumper) who wrote for neocon magazines like Commentary and The Weekly Standard before taking her current gig as house conservative at WaPo, so I see little reason to think she’d hesitate to lower the boom with alacrity on liberal justices.

    Amy Coney Barrett was just trolling court-watchers in the speech Rubin criticizes. Barrett delivered her speech about the justices not being political hacks at at University of Louisville’s Mitch McConnell Center — yeah, the same Mitch McConnell who, as senate majority leader, held Antonin Scalia’s seat open for a year so it could be filled by Neil Gorsuch and who then did a volte-face that would’ve made the Roman god Janus’s head spin to ram Barrett on the Court at the last minute ahead of the 2000 election (before I was even done sitting goyishe shiva for RBG).

    Barrett gave her we-are-not-hacks speech at a fête for McConnell from which recording devices and electronic media had been banned and only a select group of print journalists allowed to take notes to get the message out, fresh off one of the Court’s most partisan decisions in recent history, using its “shadow docket” to allow Texas’s blatantly unconstitutional anti-abortion statute to take effect.

    Give us a goddam break, lady.

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      1. WaPo’s Alexandra Petri had a humorous take on it. And Ruth Marcus added another serious essay about “originalism” and how that led to radically different votes.

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        1. “… senators … worked hard to confirm [Barrett] just 30 days after her nomination — less time than it takes many people to know they are pregnant!”

          Good line by Ms. Petri!

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    3. Jennifer Rubin is an arch-conservative

      Let’s get real, as Rubin says. She singles out conservative justices as being puppets of the Federalist Society, as ignoring the Civil War amendments, as being politically oriented and hypocritical. She refers to originalism, associated with conservatives, as “time-traveling to the 18th century.” This is an arch-conservative? If a conservative justice believes that words used in the constitution always retain the meaning they had when added to the constitution, is she exposed as a political hack if she approves of that result as a policy matter?

      This is from Rubin’s Wikipedia page:

      A conservative political commentator throughout her career, she became a vocal critic of President Donald Trump and in September 2020, she announced that she no longer identified as a conservative.

      Reply

      1. Yes, indeed. New Zealand’s flightless parrot is the Kakapo (Strigops habroptilus) It is critically threatened, with only about 200 individuals currently surviviing. https://www.doc.govt.nz/nature/native-animals/birds/birds-a-z/kakapo/

        The Kea, on the other is a competent flyer commonly seen in alpine areas of New Zealand. While the species is threatened, there as still an estimated 5000+ individuals remaining – https://www.doc.govt.nz/nature/native-animals/birds/birds-a-z/kea/

        New Zealand has another indigenous parrot, the Kaka (Nestor meridionalis) which is considered to be at risk in the North Island and vulnerable in the South – https://www.doc.govt.nz/nature/native-animals/birds/birds-a-z/kaka/

        Recently, there have been increasing numbers of Kaka seen around the fringe of several urban areas – https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/ourchangingworld/audio/2018812266/the-kaka-s-return

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  12. The supernova “replay” is astonishing. Almost as astonishing is the fact that people who can understand and predict such phenomena and people who think the earth is flat are members of the same species.

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    1. Replays have been seen before. Time delays this long (and longer) have been seen before. What is interesting is that the supernova is a very rare event and also very short lived. Coupled with the long time delay, its precise measurement can prove quite useful.

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  13. It looks as if Gavin Newsom handily won the recall election and remains Governor of California.

    The leading Republican candidate to replace Newsom — wingnut talk-radio host Larry Elder — started pissing’n’moaning about voter fraud even before the polls opened and the first vote was tallied.

    Anyone here wanna make book on when we’ll next see a losing Republican candidate go down with grace and equanimity, without blaming it on spurious allegations of “voting irregularities” à la their Dear Leader, el caudillo del Mar-a-Lago?

    Reply

    1. Anyone here wanna make book on when we’ll next see a losing Republican candidate go down with grace and equanimity, without blaming it on spurious allegations of “voting irregularities” à la their Dear Leader, el caudillo del Mar-a-Lago?

      Never, I think. That ship has sailed. It’s proven to be lucrative enough so far, I can’t imagine going backwards. Here in WA, Culp still thinks he won (tangentially, there was a great piece on Reason about his drug dog Karma – from when he was the only police officer in his little town – and her 100% find drugs at ever stop even when there are no drugs).

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    2. The GOP is a laughable shit-show. I guess their working strategy is a simple one: if a democrat wins, it’s fraud, if a republican wins, it’s fair. And when it comes to elections being “rigged” what do we make of all the new voter restriction laws and procedural manipulations popping up in red states? I don’t understand why millions of our citizens can’t see beyond this silly ruse. It’s actually just childish, yet millions of adults buy into it (luckily, it’s still a minority of rubes). And the GOP can’t admit the obvious: people hate their policies, and they are staggeringly out of touch with the majority of American citizens.

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    3. Larry Elder:

      “Let’s be gracious in defeat,” Elder said at an Orange County rally for volunteers, even as some of his supporters called on him to not accept the result. “We may have lost the battle but we are going to win the war.”

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      1. Elder is a symbol of what the GOP base wants: Trumpism. He got 46% of the Republican vote, which means the base doesn’t want any form of moderation. It also says that the Republican party doesn’t exist in the most populous state in the union. The GOP base has truly distilled into a basket of deplorables whose beliefs are at odds with reality. Unfortunately for the Trump conspiracy cult, Reality always wins (though it doesn’t always win without many casualties).

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  14. There was a fundraiser active up until 2018 to raise $10 million to build a replica of the HMS Beagle to be used as both an educational and research vessel. The site hmsbeagleproject.org seems to have been bought by a linkfarm, so I don’t think it’s active.

    I think it would be a great way to promote evolution. Rather than sit in a museum, it would have actually sailed and collected data.

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  15. I’m ashamed to admit that I’ve never seen a film by [Jean] Renoir, but I promise to fill that gap.

    You can watch a very nicely restored print of Renoir’s classic 1937 film La Grande Illusion at the Internet Archive here gratis.

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  18. I was pondering the AOC thingy… because at first I thought, well, that seems in poor taste (which in itself is an interesting thought to pop in my head). But she didn’t pay for her ticket, and they wanted her there. And she’s young and probably wanted to go to this very fancy party thing. So, what to do? Slap a slogan on her dress, which has caused people to talk about the dress, and subsequently, its message. Which is not a bad thing, I think. She could have not gone, and we wouldn’t be talking about it.

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      1. Yeah, you want to get a message to the rich, you gotta go where they go.

        And as safecracker Willie Sutton said, that’s where the money is.

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        1. Indeed. Additionally, for folks of AOC’s (and older generations) – the message of tax cuts and fewer taxes is something that has been ubiquitous in conversation since the 80’s. ‘Tax the Rich’ has not been so mainstreamed – maybe she sees it as an opportunity to inject it into the regular conversation of young people so that when it comes time for them to vote, they may be more inclined to see taxation as a positive force for society.

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  19. ” . . . an increase of 1,888 deaths over yesterday’s figure.”

    This morning on NPR’s “Morning Edition” was a segment raking over the coals MD’s who give out misleading/erroneous information, and implying their licenses should be taken away. Perhaps so. I wonder if NPR thinks licenses should be taken from MD’s who hold that human sex is not “a social construct” but a bi-modal biilogical reality.

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  20. Justice Breyer was on the Late Show with Stephen Colbert promoting his new book. Colbert asked him about retirement and he avoided answering. Fortunately, Breyer looks very good for his age and does not, as far as I know have the history of cancer that RBG did. Videos of the interview are easily found on the interwebs. Politics may be depressing these days, but a while ago my wife said she is making Bucatini all’Amatriciana for dinner tonight, so I will be happy and so will our dog.

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  21. From the Wikipedia on Gilles de Rais:

    Although Gilles de Rais was convicted of murdering many children by his confessions and the detailed eyewitness accounts of his own confederates and victims’ parents, doubts have persisted about the verdict. Counterarguments are based on the theory that Rais was himself a victim of an ecclesiastic plot or act of revenge by the Catholic Church or French State. Doubts about Rais’ guilt have long persisted because the Duke of Brittany, who was given the authority to prosecute, received all the titles to Rais’ former lands after his conviction. The Duke then divided the land among his own nobles. Writers such as secret societies specialist Jean-Pierre Bayard, in his book Plaidoyer pour Gilles de Rais, contend he was a victim of the Inquisition.

    Reply

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