Good morning on Tuesday, May 10, 2020: the cruelest day, made doubly so because it’s National Liver and Onions Day. As I have related, my father loved this disk, and when my mom made it on occasion, the whole house would stink of that malodorous offal. I don’t understand how people can eat it, but of course de gustibus non est disputandum. (I do enjoy Jewish chopped chicken liver in small doses, but otherwise I do not share the taste of Leopold Bloom’s, who “ate with relish the inner organs of beasts and fowls”. I”m sure I’ll hear from many readers who do enjoy liver and onions, but for god’s sake hold the relish!
I still have a gippy tummy; it’s not abating as quickly as I hoped and the resultant weakness means that posting will be light for a few more days. Bear with me. As always, I do my best.
Here’s today’s Hili, who makes a debatable point:
Hili: If a god created the world, the whole nature is artificial.A: Yes, but the media does not inform us about it.
Hili: Jeśli jakiś bóg stworzył świat to ta cała natura jest sztuczna.Ja: Tak, ale media o tym nie informują.
And Karolina in the yard:
Paulina has some pictures of Baby Kulka
Caption by Andrzej: Paulina went hunting. (In Polish: Paulina poszła na polowanie.)
From Doc Bill:
From Diana:
From Jesus of the Day:
One of Titania’s better spoofs at The Critic. A quote:
Anyone who asks the question “what is a woman?” is thereby revealing that they have the intelligence of your average garden slug. This is why we shouldn’t trust these so-called “archaeologists” who claim to be able to determine whether those ancient skeletons they’ve uncovered are “male” or “female”. This is pure pseudo-science. Next they’ll be telling us they can work out their pronouns by measuring the femurs.
Let me settle this matter once and for all. A woman is anyone who says she is a woman. A woman is a feeling, a shimmering nimbus of possibility, an echo of distant dreams reverberating gingerly through a winter’s gloaming. She is a mewling constellation, a bagful of semi-felched pixies, the enchanted stardust that pirouettes luminously on the spindle of time.
It’s got absolutely nothing to do with tits.
What is a woman?
Scientists and intellectuals throughout history have struggled to answer this question.
In my latest column for @TheCriticMag, I settle the matter once and for all…https://t.co/jJO9zdNEYO
— Titania McGrath (@TitaniaMcGrath) May 9, 2022
From Barry: a funny Attenborough-style description of the life of the Russian tank:
Someone actually made a David Attenborough style voiceover for this video of a destroyed Russian tank. pic.twitter.com/NBmEazYb4F
— Christian Borys (@ItsBorys) May 9, 2022
Keep those pandas rolling—Rawhide!
— Buitengebieden (@buitengebieden) May 9, 2022
A tweet from Ginger K.:
"I fought for same-sex marriage!" say people who today don't believe there's any such thing as sex at all.
— Eva Kurilova (@eva_kurilova) April 15, 2022
Tweets from Matthew. God save the Supreme Leader!
In 2015 someone took the audio from the BBC’s coverage of a parade in North Korea and dubbed it over footage of a royal birthday parade outside Buckingham Palace. pic.twitter.com/l5d9njmFPv
— Laurie Charles (@thestuffofmemes) April 9, 2021
Tweeted by Matthew with his caption “What. A. Newt”. The Google translation: “Ommatotriton ophryticus Shinryu appears. I was overwhelmed by the divine dignity and the extraordinary beauty of the world. After shooting, the individual blew fire from his mouth, destroyed the case, and flew high in the sky (a lie).”
Ommatotriton ophryticus
神龍が現る。神々しい威厳と、この世のものならぬ美しさに圧倒されました。撮影後、本個体は口から火を吹き、ケースを破壊し、空高く飛び去りました（嘘） pic.twitter.com/PL8POop4Vz— katsu (@nolimitsjournal) May 9, 2022
2/19 Visible impact of war on everyday life is still very limited. After the two weeks of initial panic, the economy cheered up. People who rushed to buy foreign currency and withdraw cash are now blaming themselves for not trusting enough in Putin 2/19 https://t.co/xSiidai1fG
— Greg Yudin (@YudinGreg) May 9, 2022
The “same-sex marriage” tweet is amusing. It also reminds us that it is an open question whether the LGBTQI+ brigade really includes the LGB anymore. We are told the new WH press secretary is an LGBT+ person, but surely she is only a lesbian. It’s good for the trans community, though, to inflate their numbers.
> “I fought for same-sex marriage!” say people who today don’t believe there’s any such thing as sex at all.
I don’t know about you, but I fought for ‘gender-blind marriage’. Gender/sex is totally irrelevant in this, and many other contexts. Unfortunately, most of the movement glommed onto the term ‘same-sex marriage’ at the time before shifting to ‘equal marriage’. Now people are using the phrase ‘same-sex marriage is just marriage’.
And thanks to that clip of the Queen’s birthday parade, I now have the slow march from “Les Huguenots” stuck in my head.
My mom used to make liver & onions when I was a kid, and I couldn’t stand it. But it’s an acquired taste. As a young man I used to eat at a diner occasionally where it would show up as the blue-plate special. I tried it and came to like it a lot.
I like chicken livers even more, especially dusted in seasoned flour, sautéed with mushrooms and onions, and smothered in a sauce made from pan drippings and a dollop of sour cream.
And chopped liver ain’t just chopped liver, you know; it’s the workingman’s foie gras. I wouldn’t think of stopping by the local deli without picking up at least half a pound.
I’ve always thought of myself as more Steven Dedalus than Leopold Bloom — though I do share the latter’s fondness for organ meat. 🙂
One rainy night in Bologna, we ordered chicken livers by mistake – they weren’t nearly as bad as I’d feared, although I wouldn’t order them again. (My biggest menu disaster was ordering Sulze in Bavaria – the waitress told me it was a meat dish, stretching the definition of ‘meat’ just a bit.)
I’m sensing a short story here, GSCOTT — “A Rainy Night in Bologna.” It could be written in many styles, but I hear it as Hemingway pastiche: the two waiters from “A Clean, Well-Lighted Place” talking about the tourists who mistakenly ordered the chicken-liver platter. 🙂
I thank my mom for using this topic to teach me that deceit, manipulation, prevarications, and dissimulations don’t require outright lying.
E: “What are we having for dinner?
Mom: “Beef!”
[I eats]
E: “This doesn’t taste like beef! What is this?”
Mom: “Well it’s beef liver. But still beef.”
“M” is for the many ways she manipulates; “O” is for the outright lying …
Put them all together they spell “M.O.T.H.E.R.” 🙂
Would someone explain Jesus of the Day to me? I am not all that familiar with baseball. (I noticed the box on the field.)
It’s a Doctor Who joke. The English style telephone booth on first base (the base to the right) is Doctor Who’s “Tardis.” Note the lack of a question mark.
Thanks! Your place in heaven is guaranteed. (I am well connected.)
I suppose that means I’d better get my sunscreen lotion and a Thermos of iced lemonade.
Based on an old Abbott & Costello routine:
That explanation leaves me none the wiser, I’m sorry. And who is dr Who?
It’s a police box, not a telephone booth. Police boxes did have telephones inside them but they were not accessible to the general public.
Huh, never knew that, thanks. The only police box I’ve seen was on the TV show WPC 56, and they were cabinets, not booths that you went inside of. Apparently there have been a variety of types of police boxes.
The box on first base is Dr. Who’s Tardis.
“Who’s on first”? was an old radio comedy routine by Abbott and Costello. Abridged, Abbott asks, “Who’s on first?” enquiring what base-runner is standing on first base, (imagining that Abbott has just returned from the bathroom and needs to be caught up.)
Misunderstanding him, Costello replies, “No, Who’s on second [base]”, indicating the runner on second base is a man named “Who”, hence the Dr. Who reference. Continuing, “Watt’s on first.”
Misunderstanding him, Abbott replies, “How should I know who’s on second or what’s on first? I just asked you who’s on first.”
“And I’m telling you Watt’s on first. Who’s on second.”
“I dunno who’s on second.”
“No. I Dunno’s on third.”
This continues for much longer in frenetic delivery than you might think possible, each becoming more confused.
I might have the speakers mixed up.
(In baseball, runners attempt to score runs by running around the base paths counter-clockwise. This is normally accomplished by the batter hitting the pitched ball in such a way that the opposing fielders cannot recover it and throw it back to a defending baseman before he and the runners he is trying to advance can reach a base safely. If the base one of more runners reach safely on the play is home plate, each scores a run. The two teams alternate at bat (offence) and in the field (defense), switching over when the defence has made three “outs” against the offence. Because there is no clock and a turn at bat ends only when three outs have been achieved by the defense, baseball games can theoretically last forever.)
The Abbott and Costello sketch is constantly referenced by Dustin Hoffman’s character, Raymond Babbitt, in Rain Man.
Thanks.
I understand unsolicited personal health guidance is about as welcome as Dr. Oz knocking on my door.
So what I’ll write here is carefully worded :
_Soluble_ fiber v. insoluble fiber. There is a distinction with a difference.
I have a hunch (among many) that _soluble_ fiber is important for the digestive system.
There are “gummies” available, usually sourced from chicory root, sometimes blended with probiotic. In fact, _soluble_ fiber is a “prebiotic” – promoting the life of gut flora.
The FDA and NIH ODS has no guidance on _soluble_ fiber that I could find at this time, but I’m keeping a lookout.
(And of course, there’s “soluble fiber”->Google. )
Hoping PCC(E) gets well soon.
It’s the police call box from the TV series Doctor Who – his time machine, the Tardis
Right.
Its on first base.
… meaning, it is not on second (at top), or third (on the viewer’s left). The runners go, from the viewer’s vantage point, counterclockwise. Home plate (or, as it were, base), is closest to the viewer.
There’s a famous Abbott and Costello comedy routine. The routine was roaringly hilarious when it first appeared. The hook was a person who’s first name was, in fact, Who.
I am trying to write with a muted wit. I hope it is not obvious. It means to show that it is easier to explain in-person (not that I need to).
Ken has posted a link to the sketch and I would say that your use of the past tense is incorrect. It’s still roaringly hilarious.
[ drops everything ]
[ play ]
… worth it!
For months I’ve been wondering what happened to the little white kitten Paulina rescued. There’s never any mention of her, so I’ve been concerned.
The white kitten, cured, fattened and happy, went to a friend of Paulina who wanted a cat and didn’r have any. It’s thriving. Some time ago we got a picture of a much bigger kitten now and I’ve sent it to Jerry. I don’t remember whether he posted it.
Thank you so much for the update–I’m so happy the kitten found a good home and is flourishing (though being with Paulina would have also meant a great life). I don’t think Jerry posted it, as I check the website several times a day and rarely miss anything that pertains to cats!
Hili is wise…you know, I’ve never thought that if g*d created the world as described in Genesis, everything would be artificial. What a cool concept. Thanks, Hili, you’re the best!
Comparing us to North Korea? At least we voted for our Royal fam- oh, hold on…
I’m not so sure the end of the tank”s’ life cycle was a makeover, I’d not be surprised it were the Attenborough himself. AFAIK he’s still alive and kicking.
David Attenborough had his 96th birthday two days ago!
Re: Ginger K’s tweet, one of the arguments for gay rights was that there seems to be a genetic basis for homosexuality, that it’s not “a choice.” That’s consistent with my understanding, and I support gay rights for that reason. But the trans rights people deny that sex has any biological basis, or if it does, a biological male can choose to become a female or vise versa. I don’t get it. And as J. K. Rowling noted, “If sex isn’t real, there’s no same-sex attraction.”
In each T-72 there is a crew of three people. When they “pop their turrets”, they do so because the ammunition which is stored on a carousel below the turret has exploded as a result of a direct hit or cooked off in a fire. It’s unlikely that they would find anything recognisable as human remains after that.
I admit I do find these videos poking fun at Russian military inadequacy amusing, but we should remember that people are dying to provide them for us.