Month: February 2022

Some readings/discussion

February 26, 2022 • 1:30 pm

Here are three readings to occupy you in lieu of my usual posts. Remember, until about April 5 please don’t contact me very much as email on the ship is slow and I’m likely to lose stuff. On the other hand, if you have a particularly juicy item, send it along.

Some readings:

From Andrew Sullivan. The headline may be familiar, but his analysis of the situation in Ukraine is a bit hard to follow.

But as several people are now doing, Sullivan partly indicts the West and Europe for allow NATO to expand ever eastward, to the borders of Russia (the Baltic countries, thus scaring the hell out of Putin, who, they say, envisions a Russian empire the equivalent of the former Soviet Union:

And so when NATO, in the wake of our Cold War victory, decided to expand membership all the way to Russia’s borders, many Russian specialists feared triggering the worst kind of response. “I think the Russians will gradually react quite adversely and it will affect their policies. I think it is a tragic mistake,” George Kennan told Tom Friedman in 1998. “There was no reason for this whatsoever. No one was threatening anybody else … We have signed up to protect a whole series of countries, even though we have neither the resources nor the intention to do so in any serious way.” (We still don’t, as we have just witnessed.)

Kennan went on: “I was particularly bothered by the references to Russia as a country dying to attack Western Europe. Don’t people understand? Our differences in the Cold War were with the Soviet Communist regime. And now we are turning our backs on the very people who mounted the greatest bloodless revolution in history to remove that Soviet regime.” Then he went even further: “Of course there is going to be a bad reaction from Russia, and then [the NATO expanders] will say that we always told you that is how the Russians are — but this is just wrong.” Similar misgivings over NATO expansion came from figures such as Kissinger, Gorbachev, Yeltsin, Brzezinski, Moynihan, Gaddis, and Burns.

This debate, of course, is unresolvable. We will never know what might have happened if NATO had displayed more magnanimity after our victory in the Cold War, and allowed Russia more dignity and space in the wake of its defeat and collapse. At the same time, it may be that a Putin-style tyrant was always bound to emerge in Russia and bully his neighbors once again — given the long sweep of Russian authoritarianism — and so my friend was also correct. Or it could just be dumb luck or fate that a KGB nationalist who witnessed up close the end of the Soviet Union in East Germany came to dominate the Russian kleptocracy. This debate will go on for a very long time, but it is increasingly academic. Because here we are. Kennan’s and the neocons’ fear have both been borne out. They could both have been right (and wrong) in some measure. And where we are now makes many of these debates moot.

From Heterodox STEM, we have the second part (first part here) of Ilya Reviakine recounting his defense of two papers by Krylov et al:, “Scientists Must Resist Cancel Culture” and Krylov’s article “The Peril of Politicizing Science”. Both of these articles were aimed at keeping STEM from adopting “woke” or ideological viewpoints, and the fact that they were published as op-ed pieces in regular scientific venues is remarkable. Unfortunately, the editors weren’t ready for the social-media opprobrium they received for publishing perfectly defensible viewpoints, and kept going back to the authors, asking them to support views that they already published.

One critical article that appeared just a single day after Krylov’s paper had the temerity to suggest that the German Chemical Society (who published those pieces) simply expel these woke-resisting members. Here’s a quote from Mathias Micheel who objects to Krylov et al.’s paper and maintains that there’s no cancel culture in STEM:

Micheel goes on to propose that the German Chemical Society should be purified from unsuitable members: “… it would be in the best interest of the organization to tell these members: We do not care about you. If we cannot even agree on the very basics of how to do science, then we have no basis for future cooperation” – except it’s not their way of doing science that he is concerned with, but their views and their age: “The Nachrichten tries to not alienate these old members”; “how often do active members have to … make themselves targetable to attacks from the right”. This is an ad hominem attack and a call for cancellation—quite the ironic thing to write in a piece whose thesis is “Cancel Culture in science is just a myth”.

Here’s Micheel’s original quote:

I know that this is probably not gonna happen, but how often do active members have to come out, make themselves targetable to attacks from the right? In particular, this is an inter-generation conflict, with conservative views mostly shared by older, retired members, whereas young scientists at an early career stage share more progressive views. However, their professional future often relies on the goodwill of the old members, e.g., in grant review or appointment committees.

The Nachrichten tries to not alienate these old members, but I’d wish it’d be taking a stronger stance against them. Such insultingly regressive views cannot be arranged with the open community which chemistry so desperately needs.

And yes, this is from an authoritarian who denies that cancel culture exists in science. Well, if he had his way, it certainly would!

A bipartite op-ed in the Chicago Tribune (click below, though it may be paywalled) not only describes the fate of Jason Kilborn, a University of Chicago at Illinois law professor who got into trouble for using the n-word (redacted) in a hypothetical court case on an exam (see post here), but also shows the slimy way the NYT has taken a stab at J. K. Rowling in a video advertisement, presumably dissing Rowling because of her “transphobic” comments. I’ll just quote the bit on Rowling

First, here’s the NYT as which it the Tribune’s Editorial Board op-ed criticizes, discussed in detail by ABC News; I also give the YouTube caption:

We believe that independent journalism has the power to make each reader’s life richer and more fulfilling. It can illuminate, uplift and entertain. Learn more about how our journalism inspires the lives of our subscribers at nytimes.com/life.

From the Tribune:

No less an institution than The New York Times might also do well to remember that, apropos of the rights of J.K. Rowling, the author of the Harry Potter series, to speak her own mind.

The Times invited potential subscribers to ponder how “independent journalism” could be a part of their “independent life.” In one slide, a presumably fictional woman named Lianna is happily “imagining Harry Potter without J.K. Rowling.”

“Lianna” can do whatever she wants in her own head, but The New York Times should be apologizing for this pandering, ad hominem attack, seemingly canceling Rowling as a human being

The Orwellian text dangles the word “without” in the most sinister and threatening fashion. The subway rider is left wondering whether the Times intends to disappear Rowling in the physical sense or merely through the mental doublethink of its subscribers. The paper has always railed against dangerous hate speech: How is this not a subtle example of precisely that?

In fact, how is this different from a Michigan basketball coach throwing a punch at a member of the coaching staff of an opposing team? It’s just a subtler kind of blow.

Moreover, how does a paper so crucial to the literary world justify divorcing one of the most successful female writers in history from her own hugely successful copyrighted works? Does it advocate that for authors with whom it disagrees?

As one Rowling supporter noted on Twitter, the paper surely wouldn’t suggest imagining “Sunday in the Park With George” without Stephen Sondheim. (We’d add: Or one of its own columns without the columnist).

This is all absurd, of course. Works don’t exist without their creator, whatever your powers of imagination. You can use your critical thinking skills and decide that the egregious opinions of the author mean you will no longer consume the work. Fine. Or you can put the author’s freely expressed words in context, decide you disagree with them, respect her right to say what she thinks and still read her fiction.

That is your choice in a country that values free speech, understands the importance of intent and tolerates dissent.

This may be a bit long of a rant against one sentence in a NYT video, but believe me, the NYT knows what it’s doing and to whom it’s pandering.

I’m off for today after a final duck feeding, but feel free to discuss everything in the above, or anything you want.

Caturday felid trifecta: Tabby rescued from Afghanistan finds home in California with her adoring staff; cat muzzle review on Amazon; Istanbul orchestra cat

February 26, 2022 • 9:30 am

Today may be the last Caturday Felid post for a while, but bear with me. We’ll see what happens.

The Vancouver Sun reports on how some of the animals left behind in Kabul during the Taliban invasion got rounded up and, after some carnage, made it back to Canada. Some were reunited with their owners who had left separately; and here are three tails of reunion. Click on screenshot to read:

The report:

Her name on the rescue flight manifest was Cat 0001.

But Tay Tay, a three-year-old grey tabby, was much more than a number to Gary Ash, 59, a NATO officer stationed in Kabul. Ash worked in occupational safety at Resolute Support Mission (RSM) in Kabul, Afghanistan, located next to the American Embassy.

She was a friend.

So when an international mission organized an airlift to Vancouver to liberate Tay Tay and 300 other dogs and cats stranded in Kabul, nothing would stop Ash from coming to get her, and take her home to Vacaville, Calif.

Tay Tay was one of 10 cats at the RSM headquarters in Kabul. Known as the “Fightin Felines of the RSHQ,” the cats had clipped left ears that showed they were working cats, and plenty of official duties, like catching mice.

“We weren’t supposed to touch them, or pet them,” said Ash, who had arrived in Kabul in Nov. 2020 to work as a garrison safety officer.

“I am a cat person,” said Ash. “I had cat snacks and I’d give them a treat. My peers would say, ‘Stop it, they are supposed to be chasing mice.’”

One cat in particular stood out: Tay Tay.

Tay Tay took a liking to Ash, and the feeling was mutual. “She’s pretty, she’s petite, but she’s strong,” said Ash.

Soon Tay Tay was following Ash around the base, even sneaking inside to find him if someone left a door open.

Here they are in a photo from the Sun:

Well, the cat picked its staff, and separating them was not on:

“A bond formed,” said Ash. When he left in June 2021, he was not allowed to take the cat with him, but he left Tay Tay with a friend at the U.S. embassy. “I took comfort in knowing she would be taken care of.”

But then the unthinkable occurred:

As events unfolded during the NATO withdrawal from Kabul in August, Ash learned that Tay Tay had been left by embassy staff in the care of the Kabul Small Animal Rescue (KSAR). Although an evacuation flight had been arranged, “it all fell apart before our eyes,” said Ash.

The dogs meant for that flight were released at the airport under orders of the military, and the cats, still in their cages, were tear-gassed, Ash said. Six of the cats perished, but Tay Tay survived.

She’s a tough one! And, thanks to the intervention of Ceiling Cat, Tay Tay got on a plane.

After an international outcry, months of planning and hard work by KSAR in Kabul, and international fundraising efforts, another flight was arranged. Tay Tay made it onto the plane.

Here’s a video of the nice woman who organized the animal rescue:

I believe Ash drove all the way up from Vacaville California, near Davis, to reclaim his kitty:

When the plane landed in Vancouver on Tuesday, Ash was there to meet her. His fantasy of a warm cuddle dissipated immediately.

“I saw Tay Tay in her giant crate and she was petrified,” said Ash.

Ash took Tay Tay to the hotel, where he let her out of her cage. She found a cosy hiding space in the hotel room, behind the towel rack, and had something to eat. She sniffed Ash now and then, slowly warming up, and even let him slip a harness on her for the trip home — a requirement for going through airport security.

Tay Tay, already traumatized by her last international flight, slipped out of the harness in YVR security. “It took 45 minutes and five security guys to round her up,” said Ash.

And the happy ending:

Now Tay Tay is unwinding in Vacaville, napping under a new favourite chair on a lambskin and a familiar Afghan rug, and, getting used to retirement.

“We’ve been apart for six months and she’s been through hell,” said Ash. “It’s an extraordinary feeling to have her home.”

Tay Tay at home, and I hope she has many years of comfort and can forget the traumas of Afghanistan, tear gas, and the flight. She even has a lambskin!

Finally, Cole and Marmalade report on the reuniting of two other people from Afghanistan with their cats. Both had been separated from their animals for months.

First, Barfi that cat reunited with staff Ali (“Barfi” in Hindi is a kind of Indian sugar fudge):

And Air and Bela, two cats united with their staff, Afghan refugees, in Vancouver

***************

Yes, they do sell lined cat muzzles at Amazon, which appear to be repurposed masks. Here’s the screenshot (click on it if you must have one); they’re now  $19.

An earlier version, though, seems to have had a different purpose, and may even be a ruse.  This one has

 

****************

Finally, a lovely video of a cat causing a bit of a stir as an orchestra in Istanbul warms up (Turkish people really do love their cats; see the movie “Kedi” if you want proof. That wonderful movie gets a 98% critics’ rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Seriously, if you like cats, or Istanbul, see it ASAP.)

I have a feeling that the audience paid a lot more attention to the cat than to the music! And the cat will NOT let itself be caught!

Two comments from YouTube:

h/t: Marie

Saturday: Hili dialogue

February 26, 2022 • 7:30 am

Good morning on Cat Sabbath: Saturday, February 26, 2022: National Pistachio Day. This is one of the Holy Trinity of Nutmeats, the others being the Cashew and the Macademia. This will likely be the last full Hili Report before I am on the ship, but Matthew will be reporting the interchange between Hili and Andrzej for the next few days.

Here I am this morning making final arrangements for Chile and Antarctica. I have a new short haircut and am holding the folder showing all the paperwork required to get into Chile and board the ship. This is why I’ve been so busy!  Later I’ll show all my gear, and I’ve packed very light.

It’s also Levi Strauss Day(see 1829 below), National Skip the Straw Day (or use paper ones). The site announces that it’s the Jewish holiday of Purim, but that’s just wrong: the day of Purim begins on March 16 and lasts one day. Somebody screwed up!

News of the Day:

*Urged on by their leader and their own resolve, the Ukrainians, are bravely fighting on as Russian troops entered the outskirts of Kiyev. There is street-to-street fighting and the outcome is already known—save for the body count—but the people battle on.

The UN Security Council has vetoed a resolution condemning Russia’s invasion, because of course Russia is on the Security Council, and one vote constitutes a complete veto. China and the UAE abstained, but, surprisingly, so did India, saying that diplomacy wasn’t given a proper chance. India is wrong. Finally, both the U.S. and Britain finally said they’re going to impose sanctions on Putin himself. Once again, that will do very little.

*Reader Kieran sent an interview by RTE (Raidió Teilifís Éireann, the Irish National Broadcast stationl) of Yuri Filatov the Russian ambassador to Ireland. As Kieran said, “Interviewer didn’t manage to keep his temper but an interesting interview.” Frankly, when an interviewer is supposed to swallow lies as egregious as this Russian was doling out, I don’t blame him for losing his temper.

Many in the EU are calling for the expulsion of all Russian ambassadors from their country, but for the time being the Ministers of EU countries have not decided to take this step.

And the Russian ambassador didn’t do himself proud. A tweet from Matthew:

*From Ken:

The Ukrainian border guards at the tiny Black Sea outpost of Snake Island went full Gen. McAuliffe. Tragically, it cost them their lives. (This has now been verified.

Ukraine lost contact with its forces on Zmiinyi (Snake) Island, a speck of land south of the port of Odessa, on Thursday after Russia conducted strikes from air and sea, Kyiv said.

A Ukrainian official said 13 soldiers had been killed and he circulated an audio clip that he and media outlet Ukrainskaya Pravda said was an exchange between Ukrainian and Russian forces.

“This is a Russian warship. I propose you lay down your weapons and surrender to avoid bloodshed and unnecessary victims. Otherwise you will be bombed.”

“Russian warship, go fuck yourself,” came the reply.

Anton Herashchenko, an adviser to the interior minister, said Russia then began strikes.

Here’s the audio recording. What brave men, refusing to surrender.

You can argue that they were foolish; they were doomed if they didn’t surrender and so why not give up? I can’t answer that question for them, but it must involve patriotism, duty, and refusing to concede to a hated enemy.

Read this and be depressed. It’s the right, of course, who admire despots and strongmen (click screenshot):

The online conversations reflect how pro-Russia sentiment has increasingly penetrated Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, right-wing podcasts, messaging apps like Telegram and some conservative media. As Russia attacked Ukraine this week, those views spread, infusing the online discourse over the war with sympathy — and even approval — for the aggressor.

The positive Russia comments are an extension of the culture wars and grievance politics that have animated the right in the United States in the past few years. In some of these circles, Mr. Putin carries a strongman appeal, viewed as someone who gets his way and does not let political correctness stop him.

When I read stuff like this, I remember these lines from Sylvia Plath’s great poem “Daddy“, about her love/(mostly) hate relationship with her dad:

Not God but a swastika
So black no sky could squeak through.
Every woman adores a Fascist,
The boot in the face, the brute
Brute heart of a brute like you.
There is no hope for any group who can admire what Putin is doing now.

*And the last depressing news: The Russians have warned Sweden and Finland that if they join NATO they will suffer military and economic consequences.  Can you imagine Russia invading those non-NATO countries? If you can’t, think again.

Russian foreign ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova warned against other countries attempting to join NATO after Russia started a war with Ukraine Thursday.

“Finland and Sweden should not base their security on damaging the security of other countries and their accession to NATO can have detrimental consequences and face some military and political consequences,” Zakharova said in a viral clip of a press conference.

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The ministry later posted the same threat on its Twitter. Finland and Sweden have given significant military and humanitarian support to Ukraine since Russia invaded.

And there’s good news tonight! We have another liberal nominee for a Supreme Court Justice. As Biden promised well before he won the Presidency, he’s nominated a woman to the Supreme Court, Federal Court Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson. She also happens to be black. Her record is admirable; before being on the appeals court, she served time as a public defender and a trials court judge before being appointed to the D.C. District Court of Appeals. I’d like to think that background with leaven the court with some empathy. But Much as I like this nomination, I realize that it’s not going to affect the court’s rightward bent. After all, she’s replacing another pragmatic leftist.

And Matthew tells us that “Hank the Tank” a giant black bear who’s been terrorizing Lake Tahoe, Cailifornia by breaking into houses and stealing noms, is now known from DNA evidence (presumably from poop) to actually be three bears, all of whom must be dealt with (hopefully by relocation). Here’s one of them. Look at this chonk! He’s twice as big as a normal black bear at this time of year. It all goes to show you that to humans, all bears look alike.

Photo by Bear League

*Finally, today’s reported Covid-19 death toll in the U.S. is 946,109, an increase of 1,896 deaths over yesterday’s figure. The reported world death toll is now 5,958,604, an increase of about 9,000 over yesterday’s total.

Stuff that happened on February 26 include:

  • 1606 – The Janszoon voyage of 1605–06 becomes the first European expedition to set foot on Australia, although it is mistaken as a part of New Guinea.

Here’s Janszoon route to Australia:

  • 1616 – Galileo Galilei is formally banned by the Roman Catholic Church from teaching or defending the view that the earth orbits the sun.
  • 1919 – President Woodrow Wilson signs an act of Congress establishing the Grand Canyon National Park.
  • 1929 – President Calvin Coolidge signs an executive order establishing the 96,000 acre Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming.
  • 1935 – Adolf Hitler orders the Luftwaffe to be re-formed, violating the provisions of the Treaty of Versailles.
  • 1993 – World Trade Center bombing: In New York City, a truck bomb parked below the North Tower of the World Trade Center explodes, killing six and injuring over a thousand people.

Here’s the blast damage, which failed to bring down both towers (the intent of the bombing). A vehicle number found in the remains of a rental truck led the FBI to the suspects, four of which were apprehended (and given life sentences, while one escaped:

Here’s the orchestra during that visit playing the Korean folk song “Arirang“.

Notables born on this day include:

Here’s Daumier’s print, translated as “The day of the bachelor. 7 a.m.”:

Born Löb Strauß and an Ashkenazi Jew, he made a mint, and was worth the equivalent of $149,000,000 US when he died.

Here are the oldest known pair of Levis in the world, dating to 1879. And, they look pretty much like the new ones, though were supposedly made much better than today’s. They are kept in a fireproof safe at the company.

Kellogg was a health nut. Here’s an early ad for his most famous product:

Wallace Fard, who moved to Detroit and taught a new form of Islam to black people, is still a mystery. Where he came from and where he went is unknown. After he disappeared in 1934, Elijah Muhammad succeeded Fard as the head of the Nation of Islam. Even his race is unknown: he could have been white, black, an Arab, or something else. Some information from Wikipedia and a photo:

“Although the prophet lived in Detroit from July 4, 1930 until June 30, 1934, virtually nothing is known about him, save that he ‘came from the East’ and that he ‘called’ the Negroes of North America to enter the Nation of Islam. His very name is uncertain. He was known usually as Mr. Wali Farrad or Mr. W. D. Fard, though he used also the following names: Professor Ford, Mr. Farrad Mohammed, Mr. F. Mohammed Ali. One of the few survivors who heard his first addresses states that he himself said: ‘My name is W. D. Fard and I came from the Holy City of Mecca. More about myself I will not tell you yet, for the time has not yet come. I am your brother. You have not yet seen me in my royal robes.’ Legends soon sprang up about this mysterious personality.”

 

  • 1916 – Jackie Gleason, American actor and singer (d. 1987)
  • 1928 – Fats Domino, American singer-songwriter and pianist (d. 2017)
  • 1932 – Johnny Cash, American singer-songwriter, guitarist, and actor (d. 2003)

Cash and June Carter singing one of my favorites, “Jackson“, written in 1963 and recorded by Carter and Cash in 1967. “Jackson” wasn’t meant to refer to Jackson, Mississippi, or any place in particular.

Those who went to the Big Litter Box in the Sky on February 26 include:

Eldridge, known as “Little Jazz,” is one of the great underappreciated jazz trumpeters. Here’s my favorite song of his, which I put up every time he has an anniversary. It’s “Rocking Chair” performed with Gene Krupa’s Orchestra in 1941:

  • 2017 – Joseph Wapner, American judge and TV personality (b. 1919)

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili is scared. Malgorzata explains: “Hili is terrified of our crazy times. Poor Hili, with her scant knowledge of history she doesn’t know that times were never sane.”

Hili: It’s terrifying.
A: What’s terrifying?
Hili: A huge part of it all.
In Polish:
Hili: Przerażające.
Ja: Co jest przerażające?
Hili: Znaczna część wszystkiego.
And a photo of Kulka:

From Divy:

More fun with snow from Peter: Snow bunny!

From Merilee:

God has had enough:

From Barry, who adds his comment on this elaborate Rube Goldberg machine, “Wow, the time it must take to set this up—and to test that it will work!”

A tweet found by Simon. Rechavi makes academic memes from regular videos. But believe me, I’ve felt like this:

From Ginger K.:

Tweets from Matthew: A Martian “flower: with an explanation:

I’m not sure why expelling Jews counts as “de-nazification,” but the rabbi’s comments are passionate and sad. (I’m referring to the last tweet, which I can’t separate from the others). And think of that 14 hour wait at the border!

Matthew also sent this:

All the children are safe. . . .

Bye all! Talk to you from Antarctica, or perhaps Santiago if I have a break.

The invasion brings out the kooks

February 25, 2022 • 2:56 pm

I keep getting flak because I don’t post every single comment that arrives at this website, regardless of content. Well, this is explained in Da Roolz (go here, read comment #22), and if I didn’t exercise a bit of discretion, we’ve have a bunch of Trumpies and loons of other stripes all over the place. That would lead to one-on-one arguments that would dominate the discussion.

I’ve simply decided that those who extol Trump with great ardor are beyond the pale. The man, while you may say he’s canny, is also a narcissistic would-be Putin who is dangerous for American democracy, as we saw on January 6 and in his continuing cries that he really won the election, which was “stolen” from him.. Yes, sometimes I’ll allow someone to praise the Orange Man, but I, for one, am sick of him.

It’s very odd: when I criticize Trump, his supporters swarm out like angry termites, and when I criticize the Democrats I’m called an alt-righter. Comes with the territory, I suppose

The invasion of Ukraine has brought out quite a few people who wish Trump were here to run the U.S. during this stressful time.

But here: if you want a sample of a comment that didn’t get posted, but that you can feel free to answer, have a look at this one from reader “Stuart“:

Trump still bothers you? You ignorant regressive simps, not seeing through the lies of the msm. Djt [JAC: he means, of course, Trump] was hounded his entire term. And now we’re weaker with Brandon thanks to you. You either loathe liberty, merit, and this country or you’re simply imbeciles. Possibly both.

The gullible should not vote.

Perhaps you understand why some comments just don’t get through. In fact, after this I got two other comments from two different people saying that Biden and Obama lost Ukraine and Crimea, and that Trump would have saved it. Ergo we should should hosannahs to Trump. Not only are they shouting up a drainpipe, but they don’t realize that we almost lost DEMOCRACY under Trump, but no under Biden or Obama. All this has done is made me even more stink-eyed toward Trumpites. Anybody who can admire an ex-Pres who admires the killing of civilians and destruction of a democracy can go jump in the lake. But before their baptismal immersion, perhaps they should read this seven-tweet thread by the conservative never-Trumper Joe Walsh. Here’s the first tweet:

Lagniappe from reader Ken, who says, “Prototypical Republican US Senate candidate.” Note how Witze says she respects Putin’s “Christian values” at the same time he’s murdering the citizens of Ukraine.

A small victory: Thomas Henry Huxley not “cancelled” but “contextualized” at Imperial College

February 25, 2022 • 12:15 pm

Over the last few months I’ve reported on misguided attempts to “cancel” the famous biologist Thomas Henry Huxley, who despite making a few statements about race that would considered offensive in today’s world (though some of his “racist” statements actually quote-mined), spent the bulk of his career not only defending Darwinism, but promulgating educational reform, especially for women and those of the working class. He repudiated any racism in the latter part of his life.

Two institutions were engaged in the task of “reevaluating” Huxley’s historic and scientific legacy, a legacy summarized in a scholarly and masterful piece by Nick Matzke at Panda’s Thumb. Matzke’s conclusion is that there is no way in hell that Huxley should be debased, erased, or deplatformed.

Yet he was at one college: Western Washington University (WWU; see my posts here and here). As NIck wrote:

WWU’s Huxley College of the Environment may be renamed after a bizarre report uncritically plagiarising far-right creationist & conspiracist materials gets Thomas Henry Huxley exactly backwards on racism.

And, indeed, after some weaselly waffling, Huxley College of the Environment has been renamed and given the boring name of “College of the Environment“.

But the movement jumped the Atlantic as well, for Imperial College in London (a college which might ponder the rectitude of its own name!) engaged in an investigation of Huxley for the same reasons: his early statements which would be seen as racist today, though Huxley was even more anti-racist than Darwin and was an abolitionist was well.  Well, IMPERIAL College not only harbors a Huxley Building, but a bust of Huxley, and both of those came perilously close to being “canceled”. As I reported last October:, quoting the Torygraph:

Imperial College London has been told to remove a bust of slavery abolitionist Thomas Henry Huxley because he “might now be called racist”, following a review into colonial links.

An independent history group for the Russell Group university has recommended that a bust of the renowned 19th century biologist, dubbed “Darwin’s bulldog”, be taken down and the Huxley Building on campus renamed.

The group of 21 academics was launched in the wake of Black Lives Matter protests last year to address Imperial’s “links to the British Empire” and build a “fully inclusive organisation”.

Its final report, published on Tuesday, said that three buildings and lecture rooms named after influential figures should be changed, along with the removal or redesign of two statues.

One is the Huxley building and a sculpture honouring the anthropologist Huxley, who helped form Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution and first suggested that birds may be closely related to dinosaurs.

Huxley was a vocal slave abolitionist, but the Imperial report said his paper, Emancipation – Black and White, “espouses a racial hierarchy of intelligence” which helped feed ideas around eugenics, which “falls far short of Imperial’s modern values”.

A group of scientists (many from Imperial), cognizant of the unfair treatment that Huxley was getting at Imperial, wrote a letter to Nature organized by Armand Leroi, objecting to the proposed cancellation. (I was one of the signers.) Nature rejected it, but it was published in full, with all the signers, in the Torygraph. (The introductory Torygraph article is still up for free; the letter has disappeared, but you can find in on the first link in this paragraph.

At any rate, the good news is that Imperial has rethought its plans, and it’s now going to keep the Huxley Building and the Huxley bust. However, it will “contextualize” them, the first by adding another name to the Huxley Building—a scientist from a minority group—and the second by putting some verbiage on a placard near the Huxley bust. Here’s the article from the Imperial College news site; click to read.

The short take:

The College will consider a joint name for its Huxley Building – named after biologist Thomas Henry Huxley – with the aim of adding the name of a pathbreaking scientist from a Black, Asian or other minority ethnic background. While the name and bust of Huxley will be retained, it will be clearly put into a fuller context in order to provide everyone with a more complete understanding of Huxley’s complex character and achievements as well as his flaws, including his racially prejudiced writings. Historical context will also be provided for any person whose name is added jointly.

. . .The names of key buildings, including those named after Thomas Henry Huxley or Alfred and Otto Beit, will be retained, but the College will launch an ambitious project to put these figures into context and clarify their histories, the Board concluded.

The College will find new, prominent ways of ensuring that their complexities are fully understood alongside the College’s modern values. This will include acknowledging both their positive contributions to science and to Imperial in parallel with the ways in which they have furthered historic injustice or hampered progress towards racial equality.

I’ll take that as a victory despite the “contextualization”. I just hope they don’t make Huxley look like an out-and-out racist or slaveholder, which he wasn’t. And it seems a wee bit patronizing to pair Huxley’s name with that of a “Black, Asian, or other minority ethnic background.” I’m not sure what that pairing will accomplish. If the name “Huxley” was harmful because he was a racist, well, that name is still there, and will the harm be palliated by pairing a “racist” with a marginalized person?

At any rate, this is better news than it could have been. But there are skirmishes to come. As Armand noted “Nothing was said about the fate of the Hamilton building at Silwood Park or the Fisher and Haldane lecture theatres. A committee has been appointed to implement these changes.” All of these are part of Imperial College, and none of them deserve to be renamed. The names at issue are the evolutionists W. D. Hamilton, J. B. S. Haldane, and Ronald Fisher (Fisher was also the “father of statistics”). 

Here’s the Huxley Building at Imperial College. As I recall, I gave the annual lecture to the British Humanists in this building:

Soon I’ll learn my ancestry: is there any Irish in there?

February 25, 2022 • 10:15 am

Well, I’ll learn it at least insofar as the 23andMe tests are accurate. I guess they did get usable DNA out of my second sample, and so the genetic analysis will be coming very shortly, probably when I’m in Antarctica. (I opted out of the genetic health information as I’m neurotic.)

My prediction:  96% Ashkenazi Jew, 4% Neanderthal. The big question is whether there’s any Irish at all in my genome given that one or more of my distant ancestors may be Irish.

Here’s a diagram of what I know of the ancestry on my father’s side (on my mother’s it’s Jewish all the way down.) Below the diagram is what I wrote four years ago after showing my paternal family tree (“Floyd Coyne” was my dad), with information provided by my cousin Jeffrey. Jeffrey was the son of my dad’s half brother Jack. My dad’s birth mother, whom I believe was named “Rose Bloom”, died shortly after he was born, during the influenza epidemic in 1918. His father Joseph remarried.

My father was apparently badly treated by his stepmother and never spoke of her. And he was estranged from his half brother Jack until they reconciled in Sacramento when my folks visited me as a postdoc in Davis, California (early 80s).

What I knew four years ago (slightly revised:

As the diagram at the top shows, Pauline Zoffer (my father’s grandmother) married Peter Coyne, born in New York in 1862. There used to be an announcement online of my paternal great-grandparents’ wedding in Brooklyn, and it was a small piece titled “Jewish wedding”, announcing that Peter and Pauline were married at a synagogue.  (Sadly, that announcement is no longer there, but I remember it.) That comports with Pauline’s religion (after all, her own dad was “Isadore Zoffer”), but what about Peter’s?  [My cousin] Jeff tells me that their marriage “caused a rift within the Zoffer family” because Pauline married a gentile, and that would mean that my name wasn’t Jewish—wasn’t changed from “Cohen” or “Coyne”.  It would also mean that my paternal grandfather Joseph, whom I never met, was Jewish by Jewish law, for his mother was Jewish. But he would have carried a gentile Y chromosome from his non-Jewish father Peter.

But if that’s the case, why do I have a Y chromosome showing Eastern European Jewish ancestry? For that would mean that Peter himself was not of complete gentile ancestry, but that his Y was Eastern European Jewish. (I have his Y.)

It is a mystery. Peter’s parents were Patrick and Catherine Coyne, with Patrick born in 1823 and Catherine in 1831, both in IRELAND. And Patrick’s parents were John and Ann Coyne, both Irish, too, with John born in 1803 in Galway and Ann born in 1805 in Ireland (no city specified). My name, and my Y chromosome, goes straight back to John W. Coyne.

Already, then, at the beginning of the nineteenth century, the name “Coyne” was still “Coyne”, and perhaps it was never “Cohan” or a variant therefore. All this time I’ve been telling people that my name was changed from something like “Cohan,” which was simply a guess.

While there is a small Jewish community in Ireland around Galway, there are also plenty of pure Irish Coynes. So I have no idea if my name was changed from something else, was always “Coyne”, and whether “Coyne” was even a Jewish name. Was the wedding in Brooklyn a “mixed” one? Why do I have a Jewish Y chromosome if my paternal great-grandfather was a gentile?

But of course when I had my Y chromosome tested way back in 2007, it was a Y characteristic of Jews. and thus I had Peter Coyne’s Y, which was also Patrick Coyne’s Y and John Coyne’s Y.

We’ll find out something soon, I guess. One thing is for sure: eating corned beef won’t violate either a Jewish or Irish heritage.

Stay tuned, and if you have your own predictions for me, let me know.

Readers’ wildlife photos

February 25, 2022 • 9:00 am

This may be the final posting of wildlife photos until I return from Antarctica (assuming I test negative for covid-19 today). The contributor is ecologist Susan Harrison from UC Davis, a place I know well since I did my postdoc there. And the birds are along the creek that flows through campus, Putah Creek. Susan’s captions and IDs are indented, and you can enlarge her photos by clicking on them.

Early fall at the local creek

Birds were active on mid-September mornings at our local creek, and a bridge made a good vantage point for watching them.

Juvenile Hooded Orioles chased each other through the alders.

Hooded Orioles, Icterus cucullatus:

A White-breasted Nuthatch and a California Towhee darted between bridge and pavement.  They appeared to be foraging on grain from the passing farm trucks.

White-breasted Nuthatch, Sitta carolinensis:

California Towhee, Melozone crissalis:

Cedar Waxwings and Orange-crowned Warblers fed on feral wine grapes dangling from a Eucalyptus.

Cedar Waxwing, Bombycilla cedrorum:

A magpie sat in a dead California walnut tree (Juglans californica).  Magpies will drop walnuts on the pavement and eat them after cars crush them. The trees have recently been decimated by an introduced fungus (Geosmithia morbida).

Yellow-billed Magpie, Pica nuttalli:

Also watching from the top of a dead walnut was a Red-Shouldered Hawk.

Red-Shouldered Hawk, Buteo lineatus:

Along the nearby streambank, a Cooper’s Hawk hunted songbirds, and a Great Horned Owl took its daytime rest.

Cooper’s Hawk, Accipiter cooperii:

Great Horned Owl, Bubo virginianus: