Monday: Hili dialogue

August 22, 2022 • 6:30 am

Welcome to Monday, August 22, 2022: National Pecan Torte Day. Warning: my insomnia is worse than ever, and if you get any value from this battered brain today, you’ll be lucky.

It’s also National Bao Day (steamed dumplings), World Plant Milk Day, Take Your Cat to the Vet Day (they’re probably not open on Sunday), International Day Commemorating the Victims of Acts of Violence Based on Religion or Belief, and National Eat a Peach Day (not in the Allman Brothers sense!).

The famous album, released after Duane Allman’s death, has no title on the cover. (Note: the the rumor that “Eat a Peach” refers to Duane’s death by crashing his motorcycle into a peach truck is false.)

Stuff that happened on August 22 includes:

Every couple of days I note that the Jews were expelled from somewhere. But they persist:

Cook was stabbed to death by native Hawaiians for trying to kidnap their local ruler.  Here’s a painting by an eyewitness, John Webber, called  Death of Captain Cook. I’ve put an arrow by Cook. 

  • 1902 – Theodore Roosevelt becomes the first President of the United States to make a public appearance in an automobile.

Here’s the Prez in that first car ride (he’s in the back seat):

Hulton Archive/Getty Images

This means that the people of D.C. have no representation in Congress, but they do have some representation in the Electoral College and can vote for President.

Here’s the famous strikeout. Ryan remains the only major league pitcher to surpass that figure, finishing his career with 5,714 “K”s.

Here’s Moore showing his fealty to the commandments inscribed in the lobby rock.  He served as Alabama’s chief justice twice, and both times was removed for judicial misconduct.

A video of that debacle:

Da Nooz:

*It looks as if Democratic candidates aren’t overly eager to link themselves to Joe Biden. In this respect, the situation differs from that with Republican candidates, who can’t wait to insert themselves up Trump’s fundament. Here’s what the WaPo has to say:

Joe Biden on Thursday will effectively launch his midterm campaign efforts, attempting to capitalize on one of the best stretches of his presidency and beginning the hard task of persuading voters to keep Democrats in control of the House and the Senate.

But he has also been in an uncomfortable position, as an anchor for many in his party — and for Biden, who for decades has prided himself on being one of the most sought-after Democratic surrogates, it’s also an unfamiliar one.

He’s being attacked more often in televised ads than Obama was at this point in 2010, or Trump was in 2018. He goes largely unnamed on Democratic campaign websites and Twitter accounts. And candidates in key races in battleground states are either not asking him to come — or actively avoiding him when he does, according to a Washington Post survey of more than 60 candidates in the most competitive gubernatorial, U.S. Senate and congressional campaigns in the country.

Few candidates said they wanted Biden to campaign for them in their state or district, with many not responding to the question at all. The Post also asked if candidates wanted Vice President Harris as a surrogate campaigner for the Biden administration and got the same set of unenthusiastic responses.

“No comment from the campaign at this time,” said a spokeswoman for Sen. Michael F. Bennet (D-Colo.), who is a Republican target in a state that Biden won by more than 13 points.

“We have not asked President Biden or VP Harris to campaign in Ohio and have no plans to do so,” said a spokeswoman for Rep. Tim Ryan (D-Ohio), who is the Democratic nominee in a tight U.S. Senate race. Pointing to a range of surrogates for Republican nominee J.D. Vance, the spokeswoman, Izzi Levy, added, “Tim has been very clear that he wants to be the face of this campaign, and that’s not changing anytime soon.”

I am a bit puzzled by this, but attribute it to Biden’s low ratings, even among Democrats. Although he’s too woke for my taste, and I’d prefer another candidate to replace him (don’t know who yet), he’s done pretty damn well lately. His handling of Ukraine has been excellent.

*Over at the NYT, columnist Damon Linker weighs, as did Andrew Sullivan on Friday, the merits and demerits of legally going after Trump. And Linker’s column, “There is no happy ending to America’s Trump problem,” comes to the same conclusion as Sullivan’s: it’s really risky to go after Trump legally, and comes with the possibility of ripping the country even further apart. On the other hand, Trump doesn’t get prosecuted despite having broken the law, he might (Ceiling Cat help us) have a chance to be President again, which is equally unthinkable. Linker concludes that we should depose the lunatic with votes, not with verdicts:

If the matter culminates in an indictment and trial of Mr. Trump, the Republican argument would be more of what we heard day in and day out through his administration. His defenders would claim that every person ostensibly committed to the dispassionate upholding of the rule of law is in fact motivated by rank partisanship and a drive to self-aggrandizement. This would be directed at the attorney general, the F.B.I., the Justice Department and other branches of the so-called deep state. The spectacle would be corrosive, in effect convincing most Republican voters that appeals to the rule of law are invariably a sham.

But the nightmare wouldn’t stop there. What if Mr. Trump declares another run for the presidency just as he’s indicted and treats the trial as a circus illustrating the power of the Washington swamp and the need to put Republicans back in charge to drain it? It would be a risible claim, but potentially a politically effective one. And he might well continue this campaign even if convicted, possibly running for president from a jail cell. It would be Mr. Trump versus the System. He would be reviving an old American archetype: the folk-hero outlaw who takes on and seeks to take down the powerful in the name of the people.

. . .That’s why it’s imperative we set aside the Plan A of prosecuting Mr. Trump. In its place, we should embrace a Plan B that defers the dream of a post-presidential perp walk in favor of allowing the political process to run its course. If Mr. Trump is the G.O.P. nominee again in 2024, Democrats will have no choice but to defeat him yet again, hopefully by an even larger margin than they did last time.

Mr. Trump himself and his most devoted supporters will be no more likely to accept that outcome than they were after the 2020 election. The bigger the margin of his loss, the harder it will be for Mr. Trump to avoid looking like a loser, which is the outcome he dreads more than anything — and one that would be most likely to loosen his grip on his party.

There is an obvious risk: If Mr. Trump runs again, he might win. But that’s a risk we can’t avoid — which is why we may well have found ourselves in a situation with no unambivalently good options.

Well, we already know this much. My vote is still to go after him with the law, assuming that a conviction is feasible. If a Republican like DeSantis wins, he can pardon Trump only regarding federal crimes, not state ones. But no American should be able to flout the law and get away with it just because he’s President.

*This is one I can’t figure out:

The daughter of Alexander Dugin, a far-right Russian nationalist who helped shape the Kremlin’s narrative about Ukraine, was killed Saturday when the car she was driving exploded near Moscow, according to Russia’s main investigative authority.

A Toyota Land Cruiser “went off at full speed on a public highway” and caught fire, it said, after an “explosive device planted under the bottom of the car on the driver’s side” blew up. The driver, identified by the committee as “journalist and political scientist Daria Dugina,” died at the scene. It said early evidence pointed to “a murder for hire.”

It makes no sense if you assume that the Russian government did it, as both Dugin and his daughter are stalwart supports of Putin and his bellicosity toward Ukraine. Usually, these kinds of murders are directed at opponents of Putin, not his supporters. It may also be true that the target of the bomb was not Dugin’s daughter but Dugin himself.  But who would have the motivation to do this? My first thought was “Ukrainian special forces”, but I don’t think they have the reach and it would be politically hamhanded to target Russian civilians.

*From reader Ken:

A Texas law passed last year requires that public schools — including state universities — display signs with the motto “In God We Trust” if such signs have been donated to the schools (or purchased by the schools with money donated) by private organizations. The signs must be posted in a “conspicuous place” in the school and must include an American flag.
I shudder to think what our theocratic Supreme Court will do if and when this issue reaches it.
In terms of the law, this is a no-brainer to me. I don’t care who donates the posters, making a show of religion in public schools violates the Constitution. From the relevant article:

“I strongly believe that the proud and patriotic display of ‘In God We Trust’ can only have a beneficial effect on our communities and our schools,” Oliverson said in a statement to ABC13. “I ask people of all faith traditions to join me in support of this unifying, positive, and powerful message.”

However, a parent who wishes to remain anonymous said he doesn’t like the fact that his daughter must walk past that sign on her way into school every day.

“It seems like a clear aggression against the separation of church and state and I don’t know why it’s necessary,” he said. “I don’t understand what it’s for other than some kind of political stunt.”

Randall Kallinen is a civil rights attorney who has represented both sides on the issue of religious freedom.

He said the answer to whether or not these signs violate the Constitution is up to the highest court in the land.

Well, you can kiss that case goodbye. Our impending theocracy will ensure that those posters stay up, and atheist kids told just to not look at them. Somehow the court will allow the posters to stay on the grounds the the motto “is tradition, Jake, not religion”, just as they said when they allowed “In God We Trust” to remain America’s motto.

*From The New Yorker we have a humorous piece “God’s Grant Proposal”, in which Y*hw*h importunes the National Science Foundation for a $50,000 grant to create humans.

Dear National Science Foundation,

My name is God the Almighty, creator of Heaven and Earth and founder of Species Development Solutions L.L.C. I’m writing to request a one-time grant of fifty thousand dollars to aid in the creation of a new bipedal, mostly hairless, fairly bad-smelling mammal. Capable of both linguistic communication and salsa dancing, this life-form will represent a bold departure from the trilobites, raptors, and weird dragonflies with two-foot wingspans that have populated the globe in past millennia.

. . . But these mammals won’t spend all their time trying to have as much sex as possible before dying—just most of it. In their spare moments, their brains will allow them to perform a brand new cognitive function that I call “thinking about stuff,” which, in rare cases, will lead to the dazzling breakthrough of “coming up with stuff.” Haiku poetry, quantum physics, electric toothbrushes, Abstract Expressionism, lava lamps—the sky’s the limit! These new animals might even build a few churches and worship me, because, between us, the crocodile has been a pretty big letdown in that department.

It goes on, and it’s pretty funny. In the end the NSF offers this seemingly impotent God a grant of $4,000, and He takes it.

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili had a dream about cheese (used to bait mousetraps):

Hili: I had a dream that you scattered pieces of cheese in the garden.
A: And what happened?
Hili: Nobody come close to them.
In Polish:
Hili: Śniło mi się, że wyłożyłeś w ogrodzie kawałki sera.
Ja: I co?
Hili: Nikt do nich nie podchodził.

And here’s Baby Kulka:

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

From Marie, a Far Side cartoon that could have been designed just for me:

From Jesus of the Day:

A salacious cartoon from Facebook:

God addresses atheists. But he made us!

From Titania:

From Simon, another scientist who can’t abide the wokeness of Scientific American and Science.

From Malcolm, clearly a staged video on the principles of economics. But it’s still funny.

From the Auschwitz Memorial: A girl gassed at six:

Tweets from Matthew. I didn’t think there was such a thing as caring too much for your cat, but I think this person is over the line. Matthew explains that “Mumsnet is a UK site for mothers (generally of smaller kids) to exchange views, tips etc…”

Oh, man—someone is in big trouble! (The content is NOT sensitive!)

A newborn Cayuga duck (a domestic breed of mallard):

Hippo fight! I hope nobody got hurt.

40 thoughts on “Monday: Hili dialogue”

  1. I sympathize with what you’re going through. I am also sleeping erratically and it just makes me feel like I am in a brain fog. (Some who know me might ask, “How can I tell?”)

    Last night’s poor sleep came courtesy of a failure of our second floor HVAC system in the middle of an Arizona summer. This is the same system that was replaced just last year.

    On a more serious note, as the child of Jewish Holocaust survivors I am frightened by the current rise in anti-Semitism, but as you note it’s a long-held sentiment.

  2. Some great stuff in today’s Hili – I loved the “When imprinting studies go awry” cartoon.

    The aunt who was supposed to be checking on the newly built house is going to be er… in deep doodoo.

  3. Allman Brothers’ album name: as an engineer, i am not good at these things, but maybe a reference to mortality in Prufrock- do i dare…do i dare…do i dare to eat a peach?

    I can only empathize with your sleep issues, Jerry. I have had only one truly restful night of sleep in at least six months if not longer. On nights when I get to sleep for several hours, it is very light sleep, waking every hour or so. It may be deep awareness of the fact that more than 70 million people voted for tR**p and there appears to be no shame in those we used to refer to as one percenters going mainstream nihilists.

    1. I had always heard the story that a journalist asked the AB Band what they were doing for the peace movement and one of the bandmembers said “Eat a peach for peace,” but I could be wrong.

    2. I figure it’s more likely a reference to “peach” as a euphemism for female genitalia.

  4. With regard to the death of Captain Cook, I recommend Marshall Sahlin’s Islands of History.

  6. The daughter of Alexander Dugin, a far-right Russian nationalist who helped shape the Kremlin’s narrative about Ukraine, was killed Saturday when the car she was driving exploded near Moscow, according to Russia’s main investigative authority.

    My first thought, as always, was “disgruntled (ex)husband/ boyfriend.”

    1. She was driving her father’s car. But she was no gem either. There’s some thought that this may be an indication of internal fracture, and if so that would be great.

      1. That was my first thought, too — possible Russian internal dissent aimed at Dugin himself.

        But Sastra’s cherchez l’homme approach is probably consistent with Occam’s razor — or would be here in the US of A anyway. For solid statistical reasons do cops take a long, hard look at husbands and boyfriends whenever a woman is murdered or disappears.

        1. For solid statistical reasons do cops take a long, hard look at husbands and boyfriends whenever a woman is murdered or disappears.

          Shortly followed by ex-wives, ex-girlfriends, etc.
          TBH, my money would be on some disgruntled “Moscow Mafiosi”, but I’d restrict my stake to two beers. “Baltika” being the only passable beer I could find in Nowheresville, Siberia.

        2. Is it also a truism that the farther away the husband was, physically, from the wife at the time of her death, the more likely he was the perpetrator?

          And nowadays you have to include the father and the brothers on the list in order to not miss an honour killing.

      2. Alternatively, it’s an effort to inspire paranoia amongst different factions within the Kremlin of a war of “all against all” ; the inciter could be Ukrainian “Specials”. Or a home-grown “clean hands” sympathiser (with moderately worrying degrees of car-bomb experience). Or a commercial Russian assassin (off duty “Special”?) being paid with bitcoin by almost anyone with an @mail.ru email address (hmmm, got one of those myself!). Or … there are lots of possibilities, but pretty much all of them will make most of the Kremlin’s courtiers decidedly more uncomfortable. Of course, it’s also going to make the Moscow underground uncomfortable too, so retaliatory attacks (whether misdirected or not) are to be expected – which will guarantee “peace in our time” as much as it ever would.
        I don’t condone murder like this, but I’ve got to admire the pure efficiency of whoever was thinking “how much effect can I get out of 100g of C4, a det and some wiring?”

        A Toyota Land Cruiser

        Ah – a nice high ride-height vehicle. Easy to get underneath to attach the bomb and wire it to the wiring loom. Every petty Mafiosi world-wide is going to be looking at their fleet of scary black, tinted-window SUVs and thinking “are they really safer to drive than regular cars?” worlds-tiniest-violin.gif

    5. Dugina’s public criticism of the lack of progress in Ukraine was a big problem for the Kremlin.

  7. > Democrats will have no choice but to defeat him yet again, hopefully by an even larger margin than they did last time.

    Anyone think that his true believers care how many votes he did or did not getlast time? He’s the leader of their Holy Crusade, and he won, but was cheated out of victory. He will always win in their minds.

    But Dems want to hope we can defeat him? Thoughts & prayers against an armed cult acting in his name?

    Maybe we should throw in a disapproving look. Yep, that will put us over the top, for sure.

    1. You make an important point. Trumpism (with or without Trump) is a fascist cult with the aim of destroying democracy and establishing a white Christian theocracy. As you note, its members will never accept the results of an election they lose. The threat of violence will always be hanging in the air. The reason the cult is so large that its members live on fantasies about how the country supposedly was and the necessity to return it to that condition. Nothing motivates people more than when they perceive their core values being challenged, which results in their self-worth and dignity being demeaned. This is why the so-called “elites” are their bogeymen. Change, whether on a personal or group level, is difficult for many people to accept and adjust to. The country is changing and the cult is trying to reverse the incoming tide. As this is impossible, violence may be the last gasp reaction.

      1. Thank Historian. I always find your viewpoint enlightentening, and pretty much always trust and accept it…even when it scares the devil out of me.

        1. As a Canadian, I do not understand the hesitation of non-Trump cultists to prosecute Trump for his many crimes, some of which he boasts about on video. All the arguments made by Trump’s followers can be ignored as they are not connected to reality. But, it seems that many American’s are of two minds about what, to the residents of all other civilized countries, is an obvious decision: a criminal should be prosecuted. I’ve seen two main threads why Trump should not be prosecuted. One, the Office of the President will be put into disrepute. This is backwards. The only way to restore the honour of the office IS to prosecute Trump and show that no one is above the law. That the USA is not a banana republic. Second, a fear of a civil uprising. This is just plain cowardice. When you pay the kidnappers you encourage others to do the same thing as you have made it pay. When you ignore the lying fascist you simply embolden the other lying fascists and make the hour of reckoning that much worse when you are finally forced to act. Always easier to nip it in the bud.

          1. Your remarks are so obviously partisan that they can (one hopes) be ignored and coming from a foreigner are particularly unhelpful.

            It’s called the public interest, which is a political decision. As a Canadian you will recall the SNC-Lavalin affair which claimed two cabinet ministers, one the justice minister and attorney-general who wanted to prosecute, refusing to yield to the prime minister who cited the public interest (I.e., his own local re-election) and so he fired her, letting the company escape prosecution. Details too picayune and small-stakes to bore Americans with but the principle is the same. Many Canadians were furious that the company walked, and a saintly but disloyal Indigenous Cabinet Minister walked the plank. If a prosecution would damage the national interest, it has to be quashed.

            Foreigners, especially notoriously anti-Trump Canadians who foam at the mouth at the mention of his name, have no business preening themselves about the rule of law when it is a well-established principle in Canada too that you can’t always prosecute people just because you think you can convict them. The crowd here has no shortage of Americans who do think Trump should be prosecuted, and hanging reinstated just for him, to make sure the people can never democratically re-elect him. I’d let them work this out. They, after all, are the only ones who can argue what their national interest means.

  8. He [Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore] served as Alabama’s chief justice twice, and both times was removed for judicial misconduct.

    That rather suggests there is something non-functional about either Alabama’s rules about judicial misconduct, or it’s eligibility criteria for standing for elected office. Probability of this being “fixed” (legislatively) in the foreseeable future this side of the Second Trump Presidency (what – you think the Tangerine Shitgibbon is going to be the last of that brood to stand?) is approximately zero.
    I also note that the person who designed this monument clearly does not believe that words of the bible are capable of standing on their own, uninterpreted, in their original [Jacobian?] English.

  9. and comes with the possibility of ripping the country even further apart.

    US Moscow embassy seismic station detects a low frictional sounds from under the Kremlin ; interpreted as the sound of palms rubbing together.

    (Hand-palms, not date-palms.)

  10. “…the situation differs from that with Republican candidates, who can’t wait to insert themselves up Trump’s fundament.”

    Some Republicans are trying to ignore their tRumpian connections. Case in point, my own reptilian senator, Ron Johnson. It won’t work, I think/hope.

    1. Johnson’s got his work cut out in extracting himself from Trump’s fundament.

      RoJo is widely considered the nation’s dumbest US senator — though he could probably get a run for his money these days from former football coach Tommy Tuberville of Alabama, or the over-ripe sorority girl and Home Ec major from Mississippi State, Marsha Blackburn, who serves as the senior senator from Tennessee.

      I see Mandela Barnes has opened up a seven-point lead on Johnson in the latest Marquette poll. Sure hope you cheeseheads don’t let us down. 🙂

      1. My great age has led me to cease making predictions, but Barnes is such a better candidate and Johnson is such a buffoon that…

  11. *From reader Ken:
    A Texas law passed last year requires that public schools — including state universities — display signs with the motto “In God We Trust” if such signs have been donated to the schools (or purchased by the schools with money donated) by private organizations. The signs must be posted in a “conspicuous place” in the school and must include an American flag.

    So, whenever someone makes a cash donation to one of these organizations, which IIRC includes the motto “In God We Trust”, the recipient cannot put it into their bank account, but must spend considerable resource on “posting it [in a] conspicuous place”.
    How convenient that large numbers of such posters are widely distributed in America, with convenient unique serial numbers.
    Some poor schmuck is going to have to develop software to keep track of each donated motto, and where, in which prominent place, each serial-numbered motto is posted, in perpetuity – so the donors can view their contribution.
    Does this qualify as “modern art”, and is that the distant sound of Texan legislator’s heads exploding?

  12. According to my FB feed
    Atheist activist Chaz Stevens is sending Arabic-language “In God We Trust” posters to schools in Texas.
    A state law requires public schools to display donated IGWT posters, but it doesn’t say the signs have to be in English…
    Loophole!

    (I’m too inept technologically to embed the image; no idea if this link works)

    https://external-sjc3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/emg1/v/t13/8152575607268861606?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi0.wp.com%2Fonlysky.media%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2022%2F08%2FChazGod.png%3Ffit%3D1400%252C776%26ssl%3D1&fb_obo=1&utld=wp.com&stp=c0.5000×0.5000f_dst-jpg_flffffff_p1000x522_q75&ccb=13-1&oh=00_AT-SG0WvHzzb66_bGb1j-M-n9yX-Od16T5JRNrSyElkLhQ&oe=63052DA8&_nc_sid=c504da

    1. A state law requires public schools to display donated IGWT posters, but it doesn’t say the signs have to be in English.

      If English was good enough for Jesus Christ, as Ma Ferguson said, it damn well ought to be good enough for Texas school kids.

    2. The link worked for me, CR – and it will be interesting to see how Texan schools handle Chaz Stevens’ er… generous gifts!

  13. Is not the answer to the Texas “In God We Trust” law to flood every school with hundreds of “privately funded” posters/banners/billboards?

    Assuming that each poster includes a picture of same sex couples, or the devil, or a close up of smiling Joe Biden, or something equally silly. If the posters HAVE TO be displayed prominently, have at it.

    Could definitely have some fun with that one.

  14. It makes no sense if you assume that the Russian government did it, as both Dugin and his daughter are stalwart supports of Putin and his bellicosity toward Ukraine.

    Thoughts from Kamil Galeev:

    1) The Mastermind Dugin theory is interesting for two reasons:

    1. Those who know Russia consider it false
    2. Those who don’t know Russia presume it’s true

    Dugin had never been the Kremlin’s brain. But he launched a successful PR campaign to persuade the outer world that he is
    https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1561337962230697987.html

    2) On Darya Dugina’s death

    Darya was an ambitious young woman. She leveraged her father’s *international* brand to build herself a network in Russia. She was indeed smarter than an average golden kid and viewed herself as a potential national leader
    https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1561703185210818566.html

    3) Darya Dugina’s assassination was almost certainly organised by the Russian FSB. Assuming this is true, then:

    1. Order must’ve been explicitly/implicitly given by Putin
    2. It was Darya, not Alexander who was the target
    3. Alexander knew it ofc. He’s just making show for a public
    https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1561753746870337539.html

  16. Mumsnet is a UK site for mothers (generally of smaller kids) to exchange views, tips etc…”

    It’s also been one of the few public spaces in which feminists have been able to criticise gender identity issues without being shut down or blocked (although the moderators can sometimes be overvigilant, so some issues have to be mentioned in rather circumlocutory ways).

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