Monday: Hili dialogue (and Mietek monologue)

September 27, 2021 • 6:30 am

Good morning at the start of a new week: Monday, September 27, 2021: National Chocolate Milk Day (my drink of choice at elementary school and junior high school lunch).

It’s also National Corned Beef Hash Day, Family Day, Ancestor Appreciation Day, National Gay Men’s HIV/AIDS Awareness Day, and World Tourism Day.

Today’s animated Google Doodle celebrates its “retroactive claim” that it’s 23 years old today (see below). Click on gif to go to the link.

News of the Day:

*All you covid-watchers should read a NYT op-ed that will surely be widely criticized (not by me, as I haven’t read the research and have nothing to lose by masking): “We did the research: Masks work, and you should choose a surgical mask if possible.” The three authors include a professor of economics at the Yale University School of Management, an assistant professor in environmental health sciences at the University of California, Berkeley School of Public Health, and a professor of medicine in the infectious diseases division at Stanford University. A summary of the trial:

. . . we ran one of the largest and most sophisticated studies of mask wearing, using the “gold standard” of research design, a randomized controlled trial, to evaluate whether communities where more people wear masks have fewer cases of Covid-19.

Many people live in countries where vaccines are not yet widely available. Even in the United States, vaccines are available but used unevenly, and the weekly death rate from Covid-19 remains high. In both of these environments, masks are a critical and inexpensive tool in the fight against the coronavirus.

Our research, which is currently undergoing peer review, was conducted with 340,000 adults in 600 villages in Bangladesh and tested many different strategies to get people to wear masks.

The results of this test of voluntary mask-wearing?

Let us put this in concrete terms. Our best estimate is that every 600 people who wear surgical masks in public areas prevent an average of one death per year given recent death rates in the United States. Think of a church with 600 members. If a congregation learned that it could save the life of a member, would everyone agree to wear surgical masks in indoor, public areas for the next year?

Well, do you think they would? Probably, since it’s a church and everybody is part of the “family”, but perhaps not if you ask a random stranger in a city. Read for yourself.

*More on the pandemic: big trouble in New York City and New York State. On Friday, a federal appeals-court judge overruled a vaccine mandate for teachers, staff, and employees of NYC schools, where 82% of the subjects have been vaccinated.  The order was to go into effect today, with employees required to show at least one vaccination. I don’t know why the judge suspended the mandate, except that this could lead to a severe shortage of teachers. On the other hand, a three-judge court could rule on the issue by the end of the week.

*As for New York State, the same mandate goes into effect today for hospital and nursing home employees. Between 77% and 84% of workers in these categories have had at least one vaccination. Here again we could have a massive worker shortage, which could lead to a declaration of a state of emergency in New York, including the use of medically trained National Guard workers.

*Finally, today’s reported Covid-19 death toll in the U.S. is 688,157, an increase of 2,031 deaths over yesterday’s figure. The reported world death toll is now 4,763,052, an increase of about 4,068 over yesterday’s total.

Stuff that happened on September 27 includes:

  • 1066 – William the Conqueror and his army set sail from the mouth of the Somme river, beginning the Norman conquest of England.
  • 1540 – The Society of Jesus (Jesuits) receives its charter from Pope Paul III.
  • 1590 – The death of Pope Urban VII, 13 days after being chosen as the Pope, ends the shortest papal reign in history.
  • 1822 – Jean-François Champollion announces that he has deciphered the Rosetta Stone.

The Rosetta Stone, now behind glass at the British Museum. What Champollion deciphered was the hieroglyphics on this stone, which has the same message in demotic (ancient but non-hieroglyphic Egyptian) and Greek.

The plant (below) is now a Museum, described by Wikipedia as “The oldest, purpose-built car factory building in the world open to the public.”  It could make over 100 Model Ts per day.

  • 1956 – USAF Captain Milburn G. Apt becomes the first person to exceed Mach 3. Shortly thereafter, the Bell X-2 goes out of control and Captain Apt is killed.

Here’s Apt about to embark on his first (and last) flight in the plane. He ejected the nose capsule when the plane was out of control, but the large parachute failed to open and he was killed. He had gone 3.196 times the speed of sound.  This terminated the X-2 program.

The X-2 in flight showing “shock diamonds” in the exhaust, proving that it had gone supersonic:

  • 1962 – Rachel Carson’s book Silent Spring is published, inspiring an environmental movement and the creation of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
  • 1998 – The Google internet search engine retroactively claims this date as its birthday.

Note that at least six days have been claimed as Google’s birthday, though it was founded on September 4, 1998. Here’s where Google stands in Kantar’s list of most valuable brands:

Notables born on this day include:

  • 1924 – Bud Powell, American pianist and composer (d. 1966)

Bud Powell was one of the best jazz pianists ever. I usually put up “Night in Tunisia” to commemorate him, but here’s 4.5 minutes of his live playing. He died at only 41 of three classic maladies of jazz musicians: tuberculosis, malnutrition, and alcoholism.

  • 1927 – Red Rodney, American trumpet player (d. 1994)
  • 1934 – Wilford Brimley, American actor (d. 2020)
  • 1947 – Meat Loaf, American singer-songwriter, producer, and actor
  • 1957 – Peter Sellars, American actor, director, and screenwriter
  • 1972 – Gwyneth Paltrow, American actress, blogger, and businesswoman

She’s still selling her jade egg, a bargain at $66. You know what you’re supposed to do with it.

  • 1984 – Avril Lavigne, Canadian singer-songwriter, actress, and fashion designer

Those who shot their bolt on September 27 include:

  • 1590 – Pope Urban VII (b. 1521)
  • 1917 – Edgar Degas, French painter and sculptor (b. 1834)

Degas didn’t draw cats, so here’s Manet’s “Woman With a Cat” (1880):

Woman with a Cat c.1880 Edouard Manet 1832-1883 Purchased 1918 http://www.tate.org.uk/art/work/N03295

Wagner-Jauregg won his Prize for one of those advances that was a bit dubious: giving those afflicted with neurosyphilis malaria, with the fever designed to eliminate the bacterium. Surprisingly, it worked a bit, but also killed 15% of the patients. It’s no longer used, as we have antibiotics now. (These won’t reverse damage already done.)

The main work pursued by Wagner-Jauregg throughout his life was related to the treatment of mental disease by inducing a fever, an approach known as pyrotherapy. In 1887 he investigated the effects of febrile diseases on psychoses, making use of erisipela and tuberculin (discovered in 1890 by Robert Koch). Since these methods of treatment did not work very well, he tried in 1917 the inoculation of malaria parasites, which proved to be very successful in the case of dementia paralytica (also called general paresis of the insane), caused by neurosyphilis, at that time a terminal disease.

Sister Aimee. If you don’t know about her, find out:

Here she is in full swing, surrounded by choirs (1929):

  • 1956 – Babe Didrikson Zaharias, American basketball player and golfer (b. 1911)
  • 1960 – Sylvia Pankhurst, English activist (b. 1882)

Pankurst was an activist for many causes, the most famous being women’s suffrage. Here she is in 1932, giving a speech in Trafalgar Square about British policies in India.

  • 1965 – Clara Bow, American actress (b. 1905)

The “It Girl”:

  • 1993 – Jimmy Doolittle, American general, Medal of Honor recipient (b. 1896)
  • 2003 – Donald O’Connor, American actor, singer, and dancer (b. 1925)
  • 2017 – Hugh Hefner, American publisher, founder of Playboy Enterprises (b. 1926)

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili’s irritated by Andrzej’s foolish question:

Hili: I’m going to check out what’s under this walnut tree.
A: What can be under it?
Hili: But I’m saying that I’m going to check it out.
In Polish:
Hili: Idę sprawdzić co tam jest pod tym orzechem.
Ja: A co tam może być?
Hili: No przecież mówię, że idę to sprawdzić.

And in nearby Wloclawek, Mietek is lazy:

Mietek: To get up or not to get up, that is the question.

In Polish: Wstać czy nie wstać, oto jest pytanie.

From In Otter News. It’s true, too: Mary Somerville is on one side, and two otters on the other.

I’ve always thought that candy corn, a noxious mixture of paraffin and sugar, was the worst candy ever invented, but this version, from Facebook, is even more dire:

From Jesus of the Day: Either this is anatomically correct or someone’s tumescent:

From Titania, who’s always ahead of the wave:

Ricky Gervais’s cat (I think his name is Pickle):

From the Auschwitz Memorial:

Tweets from Matthew. The goalie didn’t look behind himself, a rookie move, and this was the outcome:

Two little cuties!

These look like bat wings:

Check out the expression on that cat’s face!

Call me superstitious (as well as the U.S. gub’mint), but I retweeted this because I have at least ten days’ worth of sleep deficit.

20 thoughts on “Monday: Hili dialogue (and Mietek monologue)”

  1. In other news, Keir Starmer, leader of the Labour Party has gone Woke:

    Sir Keir Starmer says it is “not right” to say only women have a cervix amid a row involving one of his MPs.

    Rosie Duffield came under fire after supporting online criticism of a tweet, which referred to “individuals with a cervix” to be inclusive of trans men.

    The incident was called transphobic by trans rights supporters – but Labour MP Ms Duffield rejects the claim.

    Asked about the row, Sir Keir said claiming only women have cervixes was “something that shouldn’t be said”.

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-58698406

    Reply

    1. It’s worth contemplating that all this happens in the context of women. You don’t see fights over whether only men have penises quite as much.

      Reply

    2. Because amid the unfolding chaos that is post-Brexit Britain, this is what voters are clamouring for the main opposition party to be addressing.

      Reply

  3. If the daily loss in the U.S. is around 2000 and the majority of these unvaccinated are from the cult, is the loss minimal? Odd that the number of unvaccinated are about the same as the vote for Trump.

    Reply

    1. An interesting point. If we assume that the deaths are skewed towards Republicans in red states it must be getting harder for them to win. However, I suspect the numbers are such that it would take a very long time. For example, even if everybody who died was a Republican who votes in Florida, it would still take six months to overturn Trump’s margin in 2020.

      Reply

      2. I’m thinking of starting a claim that seatbelt wearing (and motorcycle helmet wearing) is a left-wing, socialist, progressive, woke conspiracy to control free American Patriots, to see if we can get those numbers down more quickly.

        Reply

    2. Half the daily worldwide COVID deaths are from the USA? Can this be explained beyond “under-reporting” in the rest of the nations? STILL….

      Reply

  4. The X-2 in flight showing “shock diamonds” in the exhaust, proving that it had gone supersonic

    Shock diamonds don’t appear because the aircraft is going supersonic but because the exhaust from the engine is supersonic.

    Reply

  6. Has anyone else noticed that, after much hoopla about doing something from the President, OSHA has not actually issued their rule on mandating vaccines? Nor does their seem to be a timeline for doing it. And in other news, a new Pew poll, shows a majority of Americans (56% v. 43%) do not consider Biden mentally sharp, with only 14% having high confidence. [The metric they use is ‘very well’, which fits the other questions better.]

    Reply

    1. Nor does their [sic] seem to be a timeline for doing it.

      The US Department of Labor has strict rules of procedure regarding the promulgation of new OSHA standards, requiring, among other things, publication of the proposed standard, an open period for the public to file objections, and the holding of an informal hearing. See here.

      In related news, Rome wasn’t built in a day (and neither was Syracuse).

      Reply

  7. The COVID stat that doesn’t seem to get so much publicity is the daily number of new cases. My county (Allegheny, PA) is running in the 400 range these days, up from lower double-digits not all that long ago, but even knowing that, the national number of about 100K, mentioned here around 31:00 was somewhat riveting (never mind that it shouldn’t have been, with Allegheny Co having about 0.3% of the population the numbers roughly agree).

    What that means, of course, is that at that rate about 1% of the country is coming down with COVID/month. 12%/yr. If 1/3 of the country is yet-unvaccinated in round numbers, then if you’re unvaccinated your chances of becoming infected are about 36%/yr. 72%/2yrs. Numbers subject to adjustment based on actual unvaccinated %, of course.

    This gets to what I’d like to know – whether the unvaccinated are more likely to play lotteries – I suspect that they are. If so, that means that they have faith in a low probability coming thru for them, while refusing to recognize a high probability.

    Reply

    1. And the daily US death rate now is 2/3 of a Twin Towers collapse, EVERY DAY!!!!! But the Republicans, who were willing to destroy whole countries and give up many of their real freedoms and real civil rights to avenge the 3000 deaths when the towers fell, now do everything in their power to keep killing almost that number of Americans daily in the name of “freedom”..

      Reply

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