Sunday: Hili dialogue

October 24, 2021 • 6:30 am

Welcome to the Sabbath for all cats save those of the Hebrew persuasion: it’s Sunday, October 24, 2021, and National Bologna Day (I spell it “baloney”).

It’s also Food Day in the U.S.; World Tripe Day (yuk, and yes, I did try it); National Good and Plenty Day, celebrating the licorice candy (according to Wikipedia, “[the candy] was first produced by the Quaker City Chocolate & Confectionery Company of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1893 and is believed to be the oldest branded candy in the United States”); World Polio Day, the birthday of Jonas Salk; United Nations Day, the anniversary of the 1945 Charter of the United Nations; and World Development Information Day

In honor of World Tripe Day we honor this man:

News of the Day:

*A new op-ed in the NYT, “Let the punishment fit the crime,” startled me by revealing that Illinois, along with several other states, had abolished discretionary parole for offenders (this was way back in 1978 in Illinois, but parole may soon be reinstated). I was also surprised to see data like this:

Both of us have visited and studied prisons in other Western countries, where 20-year sentences are considered extreme and are exceptionally rare. In Germany, according to a 2013 Vera Institute of Justice report, fewer than 100 people have prison terms longer than 15 years; in the Netherlands, all but a tiny percentage are sentenced to four years or less. In U.S. prisons, life sentences are routine.

Even Anders Breivik, who killed 77 people in Norway in 2011, got the country’s maximum sentence: a minimum of 10 years and maximum of 21 years, at which time he’s evaluated to see if he’s releasable. If not, the sentence is extended in 5-year increments, which could last until he died (and likely will). But everyone gets at least a chance for rehabilitation and release, and there’s no such thing in Norway as a life sentence. The authors of the op-ed propose this:

Many legal scholars and criminologists now agree that whatever prisons are supposed to accomplish — whether it’s incapacitation, accountability, rehabilitation or deterrence — it can be achieved within two decades. The nonprofit Sentencing Project argues that the United States should follow the lead of other countries and cap prison terms at 20 years, barring exceptional circumstances. The Model Penal Code of the American Law Institute, a century-old organization led by judges, law professors and legal experts, proposes reviewing long sentences for resentencing or release after 15 years.

I’m not sure I agree, though. Would you have let Charles Manson go free after 15 years? Some people post a danger to society nearly indefinitely. We can, though, at least make American prisons much less inhumane.

*The Wall Street Journal has a long and fascinating article about two men who got the messenger-RNA vaccines for Covid developed and moving during the pandemic: “The unlikely outsiders who won the race for a Covid-19 vaccine.” One is a scientist, the other a businessman. PCC(E)’s prediction: there will be a Nobel Prize for these vaccines within three years, split between two or three recipients.

*Also from the NYT, “As Broadway returns, shows rethink and restage their descriptions of race.” Among the shows making changes: “The Lion King”, “The Book of Mormon,” and even “Hamilton.” The last is relevant to our discussion yesterday about Jefferson:

“Hamilton” has restaged “What’d I Miss?,” the second act opener that introduces Thomas Jefferson, so that the dancer playing Sally Hemings, the enslaved woman who bore him multiple children, can pointedly turn her back on him.

(h/t Paul)

*Andrew Sullivan has posted an 80-minute conversation with John McWhorter on “woke racism”, which you can hear (for free, I think) here. I haven’t yet listened.

*Ohio has a new license plate to match the motto, “Birthplace of aviation”. (Why, you might ask, Ohio? Well, Orville Wright was born there, and the brothers did some aviation design there before testing their planes in North Caroline.) Unfortunately, the plate designers screwed up. Here’s the one that was issued and recalled. Can you spot the mistake?

Answer at the bottom of the post.

*Here’s the real opportunity cost of upgrading your phones. I’m still using a old iPhone 5s, which is completely serviceable (I had the battery replaced), and very small, so I can put it in my pocket, even in its Otterbox. But now my carrier is upgrading to 5G and my phone won’t work after Dec. 31. (I want an iPhone, but one that is small and not too pricey. Can readers help?  Anyway, the fact that people are always upgrading their phones has puzzled me, and the article above says this:

The irony of Mr. Cook’s coffee analogy isn’t lost on Suze Orman, the financial adviser who once famously equated people’s coffee habits to “peeing $1 million down the drain.” The seemingly small amount of money that people mindlessly spend on java — and now phone upgrades — could be a path to poverty, she said.

“Do you need a new one every single year?” asked Ms. Orman, who hosts the “Women and Money” podcast. “Absolutely not. It’s just a ridiculous waste of money.”

Apple and Samsung didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.

*Finally, today’s reported Covid-19 death toll in the U.S. is 735,964, an increase of 1,513 deaths over yesterday’s figure. The reported world death toll is now 4,959,587, an increase of about 4,200 over yesterday’s total.

Stuff that happened on October 24 includes:

I love that Cathedral, an easy 75-minute train ride from Paris. Here’s a photo I took of some of its famous windows in November, 2018. Sadly, the day was overcast and the hand-held camera blurred the natural-light photo a bit:

 

  • 1648 – The Peace of Westphalia is signed, marking the end of the Thirty Years’ War.
  • 1795 – Poland is completely consumed by Russia, Prussia and Austria.

Poland has never gotten a break!

  • 1857 – Sheffield F.C., the world’s oldest association football club still in operation, is founded in England.

Here it is: the Shefffield FC in 1857:

Below is the route, which had to be detoured through Chicago to avoid the Confederates from cutting the line. Sending a transcontinental telegram then cost $1 a word, equivalent to about $33/word today! But, barring accidents like bison who brought down the lines by rubbing on the poles, it was a big success: the Pony Express shut down two days after the line was completed.

Click on the photo to see the route:

  • 1901 – Annie Edson Taylor becomes the first person to go over Niagara Falls in a barrel.

Taylor did the feat on her 63rd birthday, and, unlike many, survived! Here she is with her barrel and a CAT. This cat was actually sent over the falls in Taylor’s barrel two days before her own trip, and the moggy survived, too.

  • 1926 – Harry Houdini‘s last performance takes place at the Garrick Theatre in Detroit.

Houdini (real name Eric Weisz, a Hungarian Jew) died after a visitor tested the magician’s abdominal strength by repeatedly punching him in the abdomen; Houdini wasn’t prepared. He died a week later of peritonitis, though it’s not known whether the blow caused it or Houdini had an independently ruptured appendix. Here’s a photo of a different punch, with the Wikipedia caption, “Heavyweight boxer Jack Dempsey mock-punching Houdini (held back by lightweight boxer Benny Leonard).”

This huge drop in the stock market marked the beginning of America’s Great Depression. Crowds gathered on Wall Street, as if their presence could somehow bring an end to the debacle:

  • 1945 – The United Nations Charter comes into effect. [see above]
  • 1946 – A camera on board the V-2 No. 13 rocket takes the first photograph of earth from outer space.

The rocket was launched from the White Sands missile range in the U.S., and here’s that photograph, taken at the apogee of 65 miles:

They killed ten people, often shooting from within the trunk with a small hole cut in the Chevrolet Caprice, comme ça:

Muhammad was convicted and died by lethal injection, the younger Malvo is spending the rest of his life in prison.

  • 2003 – Concorde makes its last commercial flight.
  • 2004 – Arsenal Football Club loses to Manchester United, ending a row of unbeaten matches at 49 matches, which is the record in the Premier League.

Notables born on this day include:

  • 1632 – Antonie van Leeuwenhoek, Dutch biologist and microbiologist (d. 1723)
  • 1903 – Melvin Purvis, American FBI agent (d. 1960)

Purvis (below) was a crack FBI agent who led the teams that captured Baby Face Nelson, John Dillinger, and Pretty Boy Floyd.  He was so famous for this that J. Edgar Hoover sidelined him, or so the story goes:

  • 1911 – Sonny Terry, American singer and harmonica player (d. 1986)

Here’s Terry with his partner Brownie McGhee (on guitar) singing “Hooray, hooray, these women is killing me.”

  • 1930 – The Big Bopper, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (d. 1959)

His real name was Giles Perry Richardson, Jr., and he had one hit before he was killed in the plane crash with Buddy Holly and Ritchie Valens on The Day  the Music Died (Feb. 3, 1959). His big hit:

  • 1936 – Bill Wyman, English singer-songwriter, bass player, and producer
  • 1985 – Wayne Rooney, English footballer

Here are some highlights of Rooney’s career. He spent most of his career with Manchester United, and now manages the Derby County football club.

  • 1986 – Drake, Canadian rapper and actor
  • 1989 – PewDiePie, Swedish YouTuber

Those who were no more on October 24 include:

  • 1537 – Jane Seymour, English queen and wife of Henry VIII of England (b. c.1508)
  • 1601 – Tycho Brahe, Danish astronomer and alchemist (b. 1546)

Here’s a portrait of Brahe from 1586, while he was still alive. He had a formidable ‘stache:

  • 1824 – Israel Bissell, American patriot post rider during American Revolutionary War (b. 1752)
  • 1852 – Daniel Webster, American lawyer and politician, 14th United States Secretary of State (b. 1782)
  • 1935 – Dutch Schultz, American mob boss (b. 1902)
  • 1945 – Vidkun Quisling, Norwegian soldier and politician, Minister President of Norway (b. 1887)
  • 1958 – G. E. Moore, English philosopher and academic (b. 1873)
  • 1972 – Jackie Robinson, American baseball player and sportscaster (b. 1919)

Robinson was of course the first black player in major league baseball, but came up through the Negro League. In the majors, he faced no small amount of racism, but became a superstar for the Brooklyn Dodgers and helped them win the World Series in 1955. When he retired the next year, his number (42) was also retired (i.e., it wouldn’t be used again on a Dodger uniform). Here’s a photo from 1954.

  • 1991 – Gene Roddenberry, American captain, screenwriter, and producer, created Star Trek (b. 1921)
  • 2005 – Rosa Parks, American civil rights activist (b. 1913)
  • 2017 – Fats Domino, American pianist and singer-songwriter (b. 1928)

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili is being extraordinarily affectionate:

Hili: Don’t worry, in case of an emergency you can always cuddle me.
A: I know.
Isn’t that a cute picture of Andrzej and Hili? It was taken by Malgorzata.
In Polish:
Hili: Nie martw się, w razie potrzeby możesz mnie zawsze przytulić.
Ja: Ja wiem.

And here are Szaron and Kulka having a meal together:

From Barry; this is a hoot:

From Amy:

From Not Another Science Cat Page: a cat that is NOT pleased at his faux doppelgängers:

From an unknown reader: a tweet from Ricky Gervais:

From Barry: “A budding friendship.” Indeed!

From the Auschwitz Memorial, a rare example of a prisoner striking back. But of course that didn’t go unpunished:

Tweets from Matthew. This first one is an amazing example of camouflage but wait until the end to see that it’s also an example of aposematic (warning) coloration:

Yes, there’s a face in there:

BAT FACT (and note the modified finger bones, with one sticking out:

I don’t understand how you can be comfortable sleeping like this:

Constitutional amendments that didn’t make the cut. I like the first one from 1893:

Ohio license plate error. The banner is affixed to the leading end of the plane, not the trailing end, so it looks as if the plane is flying backwards. The designer just made an assumption without checking. Here’s what the plane looked like, with its propellers in the rear (this is the original plane, now restored, at the Smithsonian):

They’ve fixed the license plates, though I wonder if the originals (if they were sent out) will become collectors’ items, like that upside down airplane on a postage stamp. And here’s the famous “Inverted Jenny” stamp of 1918. Only 100 were printed before the error was discovered, and each one is now worth about $1.6 million!

48 thoughts on “Sunday: Hili dialogue”

  1. I had to laugh at the photo under the line: “In honor of World Tripe Day we honor this man:”. I was reminded of some lines from one of my favorite Robert Frost poems — this is from memory, but something like this: “…We learn from the forbidden fruit, for brains there is no substitute, unless it’s sweetbreads you suggest with innuendo i detest. You drive me to confess in ink, I was once fool enough to think brains and sweetbreads were the same until I was caught and put to shame, first by a butcher, than a cook and then by a scientific book ….” The last line of the poem after the (…) doesn’t apply to the pictured individual. Still laughing.

    Hope your hand is better.

    Reply

    1. Regarding Tycho Brahe, there’s a good book entitled Tycho & Kepler by Kitty Ferguson which I found really informative. I had heard of both individuals, but knew nothing of their lives until I read it. “ He had a formidable ‘stache”, and a brass nose.

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      1. Tycho Brahe was a favorite character to teach about. A raucous and a heavy drinker, who got into a sword fight and lost his nose (I thought his artificial nose was made of silver). His naked eye observations were accurate enough for Kepler to build his planetary hypothesis.Interestingly portraits of Brahe seem to not show an artificial nose.

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        1. You’re correct about the nose. After i posted, I double checked — actually, he used a combination of gold and silver. As far as the portraits go, I suspect the painters knew how to keep their head bones connected to the neck bones.

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  2. I believe the iPhone 12 Mini is the smallest available new. I don’t know about carriers in the US, but the rapacious thieves at Bell Aliant in Canada often have older models (maybe smaller and cheaper unsold and available for “free” – ie with a new and much more expensive contract that pays off the cost of the phone over two years). I find no reason to upgrade iPhones until either they are abandoned by software/security updates, or updates to the OS on my Mac won’t let phone and Mac talk to each other any more. The latter was particularly irritating in the days of iTunes when Windows machines could often interact with older iPhones that Macs no longer could.

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    1. The current iPhone SE is smaller than the iPhone 12 mini.

      My mistake. That’s just the screen size. The 12 mini is physically smaller. The SE is likely to be cheaper though.

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        1. I thought the SE had all the internals like the standard iPhone.

          Also:

          If the objective is to get a phone and make it last, the difference in cost has to be considered spread out over that many years.

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          1. I thought the SE had all the internals like the standard iPhone.

            The SE’s are often based on older model standard iPhones but with uprated processors. The previous SE looked exactly the same as the 5/5S. The current one looks a lot like a 6/8 from the pictures. In any case, Apple’s web site says it doesn’t support 5g. That probably means it is due for an update fairly soon.

            If the objective is to get a phone and make it last, the difference in cost has to be considered spread out over that many years.

            Jerry’s current phone is a 5s. It’s possibly seven years old. Assuming, Jerry’s news phone is an iPhone 13 mini, and it lasts just as long, that’s $100 per year, plus any battery replacement costs. That seems eminently reasonable to me, but then I just sprung for a 13 pro and I will probably replace it in under five years. I’m averaging three years per iPhone.

        2. Also must consider:

          expected end of iOS updates.

          In my view, and experience, it adds up to :

          To get the most lifespan out of one of these things, it means getting the latest greatest available (modulo firm factor/size), and riding that out for the long haul.

          If I were to do that again, I might stock up on a few replacement batteries now, so Amazon doesn’t run out when they need R&R.

          … then I’d get myself into more calculations for cost, then how realistic it is that my stockpile of batteries will survive or get lost…

          Reply

          1. The iPhone 5S still receives security updates five years after they stopped selling it. That’s one advantage that Apple phones have over a lot of (all?) the competition. Were Jerry to buy a 12, it’s likely he will have security updates at least for the life time of the phone. Having said that, I follow your strategy and buy the latest phone I can get.

    2. Like Jerry, I’m still using a 5s. But AT&T just sent me a new phone which they claim is ‘comparable’ – turned out to be the XR, which is a lot bigger and heavier. I’ll be taking the XR back to them and seeing if I can get a 12 or 13 mini. I keep phones until they aren’t supported any more – I still have my iPhone 3 around somewhere.

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    3. There are two versions of the SE, an old one (which I have) and a new one, which starts at $399. You can see it on the Apple site. But the new SE is a little larger – 4.7″ screen compared to 4″ in the old one. I like the old one because it does fit in my pocket. I assume the new one will be 5G compatible.

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  3. For years, I bought replacement batteries on Amazon to replace the absolutely worn ones on my two iPhone 6, that also has tape holding the broken shards of glass together on one (which I viewed as my pathetic Badge of Honor). It takes a while to repair even when I know what to do, and there’s always something new. The TouchID sort of worked afterwards.The screen sort of forgot when the phone is on a call so my face mutes the call. The battery would have good performance curves for maybe a year.

    I finally said to hell with that and got the 13 mini with Apple Care +.

    FaceID is wonderful to use.

    The form factor – the size – is perfect. It essentially is the size of the 6. The screen size is perfect. Squared off bezel gives good grip. I do not understand huge phones, huge screens, though I understand the amazing cameras.

    The phones are so sealed up that I am giving up replacing batteries – I decided to put that huge amount of quality time and tiny amount of money into an upgrade or care program and get on with more important things. I think the battery performance is enhanced by the low-level software (firmware?) that adapts charging of the battery to when the user plugs it in most often. iOS with the modern chips is supposed to be more efficient.

    There are always little things to discover heuristically – for instance, the text recognition in photos. That can be useful.

    We shall see how it works out.

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  4. I think Ohio might find an argument with North Carolina on that birth of aviation. Wichita, Kansas has long called itself the capital of aviation although they say noting about it on the license. Maybe because they only put the license plate on the rear of the auto. In any case, it is not the capital it use to be in this regard. Boeing has left the area and many other are gone or have been bought out. Beechcraft, Cessna and even Lear Jet. They once made B-17s here and one still remains on display in it’s own hangar at the airport. They take it out once or twice a year and flying it around.

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    1. Birth of powered flight was certainly the Wright Brothers’ flights in December of 1903 on the wind-swept sand dunes of Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. The windy conditions on the North Carolina outer banks were carefully chosen by the brothers and were so important that when they returned to Dayton, Ohio to develop their prototype into a practical airplane, they needed a catapult assisted launch even on the open fields of Huffman Prairie. The Huffman Prairie area is adjacent to Wight Patterson AFB and the really nice Air Force Museum there which houses lots of historical airplanes. If it is still open to the public, I highly recommend a visit if you are in the Dayton area.

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      1. Yes, the Air Force kind of settled on Wight Patterson as the place for their biggest Museum. There are other smaller versions such as the one not far from Omaha but it is kind of out in the middle of nowhere. I would hope the one at Wight Patterson even has one of the jets I worked on many years ago, the F-100. It was already pretty old when I got there in late 1968, early 69. The one I had back then was tail number 2800 build in 1955 when I was 5 years old. I should also say they have a really nice Museum over in England as well.

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        1. I just checked their list of exhibits and it looks like they have the entire “century series” on display with several examples of some. They even have an F-102 and F-106 so one can compare the coke bottle fuselage shape of the supersonic 106 to the prototype 102.

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          1. Yes, the delta wing jets. I believe the 102 had the same jet engine as the 100. These were early interceptors as apposed to the F-100 as a fighter bomber.

        2. In a few days, Richard Dawkins will publish a new book entitled Flights of Fancy which. I understand, is about the evolution of flight, including our own ability to fly,

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        3. The Dayton museum has on display three aircraft that my Dad flew combat missions on in SEA, and an F-4 (Olds Mig Killer) that he flew extensively after the war. The museum, and especially the SEA exhibit, are solemn and emotional experiences for me.

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    2. The Wrights were based in Dayton, OH. That’s where their bicycle shop was, I believe. They only took trips to NC because of the more consistent winds. While the main event happened in NC, OH has a fair claim. Still, putting the flyer backwards on their license plate should disqualify them.

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      2. Yes. Certainly the major concept, design, and preliminary development work was done in the Dayton, Ohio shop. Then the proof of concept actual powered flight of the prototype was in NC, followed by years of final development to a practical flying machine back in Dayton (Huffman Prairie).

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    3. Considering that hundreds of people must have been involved in the design and production of the Ohio Wright Bros. plate, I find it disconcerting that not one saw and reported the error involving the orientation of the plane, not to mention the questionable truth of the banner. First in Aviation, the public demonstration of controlled flight, occurred on July 13, 1901 when Alberto Santos Dumont flew a powered dirigible approximately 7 miles back and forth along a fixed course that looped around the Eiffel Tower. He was also, I believe, the first conduct a public demonstration of a heavier than air aircraft that took off under its own power. The early Wright inventions were initially thrown into the air with a catapult, generally in the face of strong head winds, and, probably because of commercial considerations, the tests hidden from public viewing.

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  5. Unfortunately, the plate designers screwed up. Here’s the one that was issued and recalled. Can you spot the mistake?

    Without looking at the answer or anybody else’s comments, my guess (not a guess actually, if you know what the Wright Flyer looks like, which I do) is: it’s clear that the Wright Flyer – top left – is going backwards. The banner is attached to the elevators which are at the front.

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  6. “Many legal scholars and criminologists now agree that whatever prisons are supposed to accomplish — whether it’s incapacitation, accountability, rehabilitation or deterrence — it can be achieved within two decades.”

    What imprisonment in the US is supposed to accomplish is not on that list, and it IS accomplished, time and again.

    It’s revenge.

    L

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  7. The iPhone 12 or 13 mini ($599 & $699 respectively) are the smallest iPhones with 5G. My advice is to get the 13 since you are replacing a really old phone.

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  9. When I finally caught up with the BBC’s ‘Who Do You Think You Are’ featuring Judi Dench I learned that she is distantly related to Tycho and there is a Shakespearian connection in the picture with “Rosenkrans” and “Guldensteren” (left base of arch and left column base) – the speculation in the show was interesting, if a little overblown, but Will Kemp made a documented visit to Denmark so Elsinor (which is a variation on an actual castle name) and R&G may well have their origins in that visit.

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  11. In Germany, a life sentence is understood to be a deprivation of liberty for an indefinite period. After 15 years of imprisonment at the earliest, the sentence may be suspended, in which case the probationary period lasts 5 years.

    https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lebenslange_Freiheitsstrafe#Deutsches_Strafrecht

    In the vast majority of cases, offenders are actually released after 15 years. For those convicted, who in the opinion of the court, have no prospect of rehabilitation, preventive detention (German: Sicherungsverwahrung) may be ordered at the end of the life sentence. This preventive detention can actually last until the end of life. However, it is rarely ordered by courts.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preventive_detention#Germany

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  12. …Illinois, along with several other states, ha[s] abolished discretionary parole for offenders …

    Parole for federal offenders was abolished in 1987 (at the same time the federal sentencing guidelines were adopted), and about a third of all US states have done likewise. Of course, under the US constitution’s Ex Post Facto clause, statutes abolishing parole apply only to offenses committed after those statutes became law.

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  13. Would you have let Charles Manson go free after 15 years?

    Manson — whose death sentence was commuted to life imprisonment after SCOTUS invalidated then-extant death-penalty statutes in Furman v. Georgia (1972) — had his initial parole hearing in 1978, just six years after his conviction in the Tate-LaBianca murders had become final. In all, Manson received a dozen parole hearings. (That’s just on that particular sentence. He’d been before parole boards numerous times regarding prior convictions and sentences. From the time he was a minor, except for a couple years in the late Sixties and early Seventies, Charlie was essentially doing life on the installment plan.)

    Reply

    1. Still though, it doesn’t hurt to have these hearings. We’d want him to be kept off the streets, of course, if he is an insane, incurable, killer. But, what if he had suffered from a brain tumor causing his malice? And what if the tumor shrank away with time and he became docile? Not especially likely, but still… I wonder if he’s had a brain scan to see if there are abnormalities. I’ll bet there are.

      Reply

  14. The designer of the 1978 Bank of England one-pound note also made an egregious error, albeit one that would have been noticed by only a handful of people. The note featured Sir Isaac Newton, with a prism to commemorate his experiments with light and colour, a reflecting telescope (which he invented), and a diagram taken from the Principia showing the elliptical orbit of a planet around the Sun. Unfortunately, the designer of the note embellished Newton’s original diagram, placing a stylised Sun at the centre of the ellipse. As every astronomer has been taught since Kepler, the Sun is actually at the focus of the ellipse, which is offset from the centre. Newton even labelled it ‘S’ in the diagram in Principia.

    Alas, one-pound notes were phased out in England in the late 1980s, to be replaced by a coin, so if you want to see a Newton one-pound note, you have to go online or buy one from a specialist.

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  15. 1947 – Famed animator Walt Disney testifies before the House Un-American Activities Committee, naming Disney employees he believes to be communists.

    The cooperation with HUAC by Disney, known in the story by the pseudonym Raymond Dieterling, served as a major subplot of James Ellroy’s 1990 novel L.A. Confidential, that final installment in his L.A. Quartet series. That subplot was omitted from Curtis Hanson’s 1997 film adaptation of Ellroy’s novel, in the interest of concision.

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  17. When he [Jackie Robinson] retired the next year, his number (42) was also retired (i.e., it wouldn’t be used again on a Dodger uniform).

    In 1997, Jackie’s number was retired by all of Major League Baseball. There is not now, nor will there ever again be, another No. 42 to grace a big-league uniform.

    The last player to wear the number was the Yankees’ great reliever and unanimous Hall of Fame pick Mariano Rivera, who began his playing career in 1995 and retired in 2013.

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  18. I like the photos of the Chartres Cathedral windows – I like pretty much any stained glass windows.
    When my wife and I saw Chartres about six years ago, in a tour led by an Englishman long time resident in France, he commented on the side windows, of which one is darker than the others. The story he gave was that the windows, which had been in the cathedral for centuries, were removed and stored safely during WW2 and put back in place after the war. One had been broken, and was replaced by a new window, donated by a US group led by the then US ambassador to France (I think I have that right). Naturally it was made to match the old windows. Some years later, as the cathedral was being cleaned of hundreds of years of accumulated soot and dirt, the windows were also cleaned. The old ones came out sparking new; but the new one, of course, had been made darker; so even though it didn’t need cleaning, it never came out as bright as the old ones. [I have not verified the story, though I don’t doubt it – the tour leader was a professional historian.] At that time, roughly half the stone had been cleaned, and there was a remarkable difference between old and new: I forget when the cleaning was scheduled to finish, but I think some years ago.

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  19. re: Changing Broadway shows depictions of race; it’s been done before. When “Showboat” opened ion in 1928, “Old Man River” contained the line “Niggers work on the Mississippi while the white folks play.” In 1936, it became “darkies;” in 1946, “colored folks.” Today, it is often sung as “We all work on the Mississippi while the rich folks play.” When Paul Robeson sang it, he changed the line “You get a little drunk and you land in jail” to “You show a little grit and you land in jail,” and changed words like “dere” to “there.” Good for him.

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    1. There’s also a version of “Chattanooga Choo-Choo” sung by Dorothy Dandridge; she replaces the line “Boy, you can give me shine” with “It’s the Tennessee line.” I have no problem with this.

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  20. Loved the Peacock Katydid…mind blowing.

    And to answer a question you posed yesterday: yes, I believe Kulka and Hili are related. Would it be difficult/expensive to find out? Maybe a WEIT crowd source could help…heehee

    Reply

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