Friday: Hili dialogue

September 16, 2022 • 6:30 am

Is it the end of the work week already? Yessiree Bob: it’s Friday, Sept. 16, 2022 and at sundown begins shabbos for cats. And it’s National Guacamole Day (cultural appropriation, but who could abstain?).

It’s also International Grenache Day, National Cinnamon Raisin Bread Day, National Collect Rocks Day, Mayflower Day (celebrating the day that the Pilgrims left England in 1620), World Play-Doh Day, Stepfamily Day, National Stay Away from Seattle Day (promulgated by its residents, who don’t want more people coming in),  Cry of Dolores, celebrating the declaration of independence of Mexico from Spain in 1810 (Mexican Independence Day), and International Day for the Preservation of the Ozone Layer.

Stuff that happened on September 16 includes:

  • 1620 – A determined band of 35 religious dissenters – Pilgrims set sail for Virginia from Plymouth, England in the Mayflower, jubilant at the prospect of practicing their unorthodox brand of worship in the New World.

Here’s a replica of the original Mayflower called “Mayflower II,” docked in Plymouth Harbor in Massachusetts:. The ship carried 102 passengers and 25-30 crew, and was overcrowded (they had to add 20 passengers from another ship, the Speedwell, that was supposed to accompany the Mayflower but sprung a leak and had to return. The trip across the pond took a bit more than two months.

Dinah Shore advertising a Chevy 45 years later:

  • 1959 – The first successful photocopier, the Xerox 914, is introduced in a demonstration on live television from New York City.

Here’s that commercial, which won an award:

Here’s the present Malaysia, a Muslim state (but with freedom of religion), shown in green. Why was Singapore expelled? Because it didn’t get equal trading rights with the other parts of Malaysia.

If anybody deserves the title “hero,” it’s Karaetvan, whose act of selfless bravery ended his swimming career. The details from Wikipedia:

On September 16, 1976 while jogging alongside Yerevan Lake with his brother Kamo, also a finswimmer, Karapetyan had just completed his usual distance of 20 km (12 mi) when he heard the sound of a crash and saw a sinking trolleybus which had gone out of control and fallen from a dam wall.

The trolleybus lay at the bottom of the reservoir some 25 metres (80 ft) offshore at a depth of 10 metres (33 ft). Karapetyan swam to it and, despite conditions of almost zero visibility, due to the silt rising from the bottom, broke the back window with his legs. The trolleybus was crowded, it carried 92 passengers, Karapetyan started bringing people up from the bottom of the lake, to his waiting brother.[5]

The combined effect of multiple lacerations from glass shards led to Karapetyan’s hospitalization for 45 days, as he developed pneumonia and sepsis. Subsequent lung complications prevented Karapetyan from continuing his sports career.

Karapetyan’s achievement was not immediately recognized. All related photos were kept at the district attorney’s office and were only published two years later. He was awarded the Medal “For the Salvation of the Drowning” and the Order of the Badge of Honor. His name became a household name in the USSR on October 12, 1982, when Komsomolskaya Pravda published the article on his feat, entitled “The Underwater Battle of the Champion”. This publication revealed that he was the rescuer; and he received about 60,000 letters.

He was always modest about his achievements. But wait! There’s more!

On February 19, 1985, Shavarsh was near a burning building that had people trapped inside. He rushed in and started pulling people out. Once again, he was badly hurt (severe burns) and spent a long time in the hospital.

Here’s the trolleybus being retrieved, and a photo of Shavarsh in his swimming days:

Hero in the middle. Apparently the Soviets hushed up his feat, and only reluctantly gave him an inferior award, because it was considered a blot on the USSR for a trolley to get into the water!

  • 1992 – The trial of the deposed Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega ends in the United States with a 40-year sentence for drug trafficking and money laundering.

Here’s a dispirited Noriega “being escorted onto a U.S. Air Force aircraft by agents from the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) on January 3, 1990.”  He died in 2017 because of a brain hemorrhage caused by a tumor.

Gen. Manuel Noriega is escorted onto a U.S. Air Force aircraft by agents from the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA). The former Panamanian leader will be flown to the United States, where he will be held for trial on drug charges.

Da Nooz:

*Saddled with the logistics and expense of housing and feeding all the immigrants coming over our southern border, Florida, Texas and Arizona (all of which have Republican governors) have started flying and busing immigrants to other places, including Washington, D.C. and New York. But now they’ve hit on another tactic: flying them to ritzy places like Martha’s Vineyard, with the attitude of “let those pro-immigration Democrats shoulder some of the burden.” And so we have people from south and central America flying (yes, flying!) to places only the rich can afford:

Republican governors are escalating their partisan tactic of sending migrants to Democratic strongholds without advance warning, including a wealthy summer enclave in Massachusetts and the home of Vice President Kamala Harris, to taunt leaders of immigrant-friendly “sanctuary” cities and stoke opposition to Biden administration border policies.

The governors of Texas and Arizona have sent thousands of migrants on buses to New York, Chicago and Washington, D.C., in recent months, but the latest surprise moves — which included two flights to Martha’s Vineyard Wednesday paid for by Florida — reached a new level of political theater that critics derided as inhumane.

Upon arrival in Martha’s Vineyard, where former President Barack Obama has a home, the migrants who are predominantly from Venezuela were provided with meals, shelter, healthcare and information about where to find work.

The vacation island south of Boston, whose year-round residents include many blue-collar workers, appeared to absorb the dozens of arrivals without a hitch.

“We are a community that comes together to support immigrants,” said State Rep. Dylan Fernandes, who represents the area, whose year-round residents include many blue-collar workers.

Lawyers for Civil Rights, based in Boston, said it was providing free legal services — and investigating whether Florida’s governor may have violated human trafficking laws if it turns out any migrants were sent against their will or duped into taking the flights.

I have to admit to a frisson of admiration at this fiendishly clever strategy, but in the end we can’t use displaced people as pawns in a political game. They just got here, they’re disoriented, and if they have relatives, they’re not going to be in Martha’s Vineyard! And I was proud of the Vineyard residents for not beefing but mustering up their resources to take care of the immigrants. Is there perhaps a way that all states can pool resources to take care of those seeking refuge? (By the way, Texas also dropped off two busloads of immigrants on Kamala Harris’s doorstep in Washington. She was, as you recall, tasked with solving the immigration problem, but hasn’t done jack.)

*Well, the railroad strike that was about to begin has been put off, and a good thing, too, as it would have tied up passenger traffic and increased the price of all goods transported by rail. The workers had a good cause: many were required to be on call 24/7. And the deal is good for Biden, too, because he (and the Democrats) won’t be saddled with looking bad by boosting inflation. But the fat lady hasn’t sung yet. (Emphasis below is mine.)

The breakthrough on Thursday morning came just hours before a critical deadline that would have allowed workers to strike and had already begun affecting rail service across the United States. It followed all-night talks between unions and industry leaders that were brokered by Mr. Biden’s labor secretary, Martin J. Walsh. Mr. Biden called in to the discussions around 9 p.m. Wednesday, a person familiar with the talks said.

At the White House on Thursday, Mr. Biden said the agreement would benefit both workers and companies alike, reflecting his effort this week to remain impartial in the talks as he tried to push the sides toward agreement. While Mr. Biden has styled himself as the most pro-union president in history, he avoided publicly taking sides in a fight that carried huge economic and political risks, portraying the tentative deal as an achievement for both unions and corporations.

“This agreement is a big win for America,” Mr. Biden said. “And this is a great deal for both sides, in my view.”

Whether it ultimately prevents a strike remains to be seen. The deal now heads to union members for a ratification vote, which is a standard procedure in labor talks. While the vote is tallied, workers have agreed not to strike.

* An op-ed in the NYT is a big booster for a booster: the “Fifth Jab” omicron-specific booster shot. Zeynep Zufekci, who’s not a science journalist, writes “There’s terrific news about the new Covid boosters, but few are hearing it.”

The thing is, I consider the piece intellectually dishonest, for it talks about the new shot as if we knew how much and how long it will help us, but we don’t know any of that. Clinical trials are in progress, but so far we have results only in mice. And so the NYT simply extrapolates from the effects of previous Covid vaccinations and boosters, assuming that this new one will act the same by raising your antibodies against circulating viruses. Now similar results are indeed the likeliest outcome, but we can only have informed speculation now. I suspect that the new booster even has a tiny chance of being ineffective or even harmful, as there is a difference in the mRNA used to fight the new spike protein. In all probability the vaccine will be safe and will boost your antibody levels, but all indications are that any booster loses efficacy after six months. Don’t expect miracles, and certainly not “terrific news.”

Look at what the NYT says, referring to the new booster (emphasis is mine):

For the first time, the United States is rolling out Covid vaccines updated to match variants that are currently dominant, as well as the original strain. This bivalent character will provide a better response not just to the most threatening variants today but probably to future variants too, because when the immune system faces different versions of the same virus it generates broader protections overall.

This is terrific news, and there’s more. Not only will a booster with the new vaccines decrease the likelihood of infection and severe illness, and help reduce transmission of the virus; it could also decrease the likelihood of developing long Covid.

Nope, nope, nope, and nope. We don’t know that for sure, though it probably will do those things, and for just a limited period. Will it reduce the chances  of hospitalization and death compared to people who have had all the previous shots but not this one? We don’t know. Should you get it? Talk to your doctor and ask these specific questions: what exactly do we know for sure about this vaccine? What I myself will probably do is get it (assuming nothing bad comes out in the trials) but just before I do overseas travel, for antibody levels go back to baseline within six months and you want them raised when you’re most likely to be infected. The NYT is overselling this vaccine.

*The district attorney of Fulton County, Georgia, is placing a sword of Damocles over Republicans. According to the Washington Post, there may be enough evidence to bring criminal charges against those who misrepresented or tried to manipulate the election results. And those people could include T—p:

The prosecutor investigating efforts by Donald Trump and his allies to challenge the 2020 election results in Georgia said this week that her team has heard credible allegations that serious crimes have been committed and that she believes some individuals may see jail time.

“The allegations are very serious. If indicted and convicted, people are facing prison sentences,” Fulton County District Attorney Fani T. Willis told The Washington Post.

No decision will be made for months on whether there will be indictments — and, most notably, if Trump himself will face charges. At least 17 people have been notified they are targets of the criminal investigation, meaning they could eventually face charges. And more targets will be added to the list soon, Willis said in an interview Tuesday in her Atlanta office.
Willis would not discuss any of the targets by name and has not said if she’s willing to charge the former president. Trump could be called to appear as a witness before the special grand jury that was convened this spring as part of the investigation, Willis said Tuesday.

“A decision is going to have to be made,” she said on whether to seek Trump’s testimony, “and I imagine it’s going to be made late this fall.”

*Saturn is of course our only strongly ringed planet, but how and when those rings came into being has been somewhat of a mystery. The WSJ reports that we’re closer to solving it as the Cassini probe sang its swan song by exploring those rings. (The probe entered Saturn’s atmosphere and was thereby destroyed in 2017.) This is what we knew already:

Overall the rings extend about 175,000 miles out from Saturn, but for all their breadth, they are on average only 30 feet thick. As Cassini discovered, the rings have kinks, spokes and ripples. They wobble.

“They flap up and down,” said planetary scientist Jeff Cuzzi at the NASA Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif., who uses Cassini data to study the rings. “Imagine a flag flapping in the breeze.”

But we didn’t know their age or their mass.  So here’s the new stuff:

. . . a new study gives a fresh explanation of how and when Saturn’s rings formed, offering a solution to a mystery that has stymied astronomers ever since Galileo held up his telescope and first observed the planet in 1610.

The rings formed 100 million to 200 million years ago when one of Saturn’s moons, thrown off course by another moon, veered too close to the planet and was ripped to pieces by its gravitational forces, the study suggests. Rubble from the hypothetical moon, which the researchers dubbed Chrysalis, continued to orbit Saturn and over time flattened into the disk of particles seen today, according to the findings, which were published Thursday in the journal Science.

The rings are just 30 feet thick in places but span a diameter of about 170,000 miles. Jupiter, Uranus and Neptune also have rings, but they are smaller, darker and fainter.

Isn’t it amazing they could both date and suss out the origin of the rings?

The new research represents “a completely new scenario that may solve the age of the rings for good,” said Dr. Maryame El Moutamid, a Cornell University astronomer who wrote an editorial accompanying the study but wasn’t involved in it.

In addition to explaining how and when the rings might have formed, the missing-moon scenario offers an explanation for Saturn’s puzzling tilt. Like Earth but unlike Jupiter—the planet in our solar system it most resembles—Saturn rotates at a significant angle with respect to the plane in which it orbits the sun.

“It ties together two puzzles that had previously been treated as separate,” Dr. Francis Nimmo, a professor of planetary science at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and a co-author of the study, said of the scenario. “It turns out that you can explain both in a single story.”

The rings were previously thought to be four billion years old, and the result of the planet’s gravity grabbing comets and asteroids passing by. But why wouldn’t planets like Jupiter have even bigger rings? There’s more, and some scientists doubt these new conclusions, so read the article if you have a subscription.

*Finally, two papers explaining how ducklings swim in a row behind mom have nabbed the Ig Nobel Prizes for physics this year. I posted about one of them a while back, but there were only 11 comments. It broke my heart. (h/t Pyers)

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili and Szaron discuss the most important topic in their lives:

Hili: Do you have a plan?
Szaron: Yes, I will get up and see what’s in the kitchen.
In Polish:
Hili: Masz jakiś pomysł?
Szaron: Tak, wstanę i zobaczę co jest w kuchni.

And a photo of baby Kulka:

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

From Lynne, who notes that “anything can become a religious emblem in this day and age.” At first she thought it was a farce, but not so! It’s a parking barrier dumped in a park, which became a symbol of Shiva (the “lingam”, or penis) to Hindus, an is worshiped effusively.

A Scott Metzger cartoon:

A cartoon by Daniel Beyer:

God tenders an apology (he must have been getting slammed on social media):

From Ken, who says, “There’s nothing funnier than using terrified migrants to troll the libs:

From Malcolm. This is exactly the way I react when this happens:

From Luana. I am dubious about these videos because they seem to represent themselves as a “random sample of Americans”, and that might be true, but I can’t believe that a random sample would reveal such ignorance. Still, I’m amazed that seemingly normal people are ignorant of basic facts.

From the Auschwitz Memorial: a girl gassed at six:

 

Tweets from Matthew.  This first story is amazing, but it’s true: it was on the NBC News last night:

Re the Ukraine, Matthew says “This thread seems correct.” There are eleven tweets beyond the two below:

And a muscovy duck (Cairina moschata): the only species of duck besides the Pekin duck (a breed of mallard,Anas platyrhynchos), that’s commercially bred. Some people find them hideous, but they have their own appeal:

27 thoughts on “Friday: Hili dialogue”

  1. See? That is a kickin’ writeup out of what appears to be merely a “on this day” list. I’ve been reading about the history of Armenia, looking at my globe, and wondering what superhuman powers I might be able to use to rescue anyone… I mean, I’m good at drinking coffee…

  2. “As Cassini discovered, the rings have kinks, spokes and ripples. They wobble.
    “They flap up and down,” said planetary scientist Jeff Cuzzi”

    I did not know that – I’ll never be the same.

    I’ll stop making new comments now! Great Hili Dialogue!

  3. I think sending the immigrants to DC, NYC, and Martha’s Vineyard is brilliant. It brings attention to the Administration’s continued abuse of the border, and to its hypocrisy (Jean-Pierre being just the latest, and least senior, to say that the border is secure). It also exposes the broader hypocrisy of Democratic politicians who, from afar, proclaim their solidarity with immigrants, and turns them into NIMBYs. If you want to talk about dumping, the Federal Government has sent seventy planes of immigrants to Florida, and you can be sure that it wasn’t done in reference to where they might have family. Frankly, this is the only effective policy that the Republicans have come up with.

    1. Pardon me if I disagree vehemently with this sentiment. Rather, I view this stunt not as a “fiendishly clever strategy”, but rather as tantamount to kidnapping and yet another manifestation of the cruelty that appears to be an essential part of MAGA republicanism. Yes, there are problems at the border, and yes, the border states do carry a burden. However, the answer should be in meaningful immigration reform, not in political theatrics.

      1. I said I thought it was a bad and punitive strategy, and one that was unfair to immigrants and should not have been used. But I do think that it’s a clever way for Republicans to make their point, even though they shouldn’t have done it.

        So I don’t know what sentiment you’re attributing to me, but it’s not approval of the strategy. Did you even read what I wrote?

        I should point out, however, that the Democrats promised substantial immigration reform, but never delivered. Instead, Biden more or less opened the borders and invited people in, with a record of about 2 million last year.

        1. What frustrates me is that we hear that there is a shortage of workers and ‘no one wants to work anymore’ and on the other hand we have thousands of people who want to come here and work to make a better life for them and their families. Yet somehow politics prevents us from letting the problem almost solve itself.

          1. Exactly. Texas and Florida have the resources to absorb the immigrants they’re shipping everywhere else. The governors pretend otherwise “to won the libs” and feed the nativist thirst of their most right-wing constituents. Republicans in Congress have frustrated immigration reform for decades, even under Republican Presidents like Bush II.

        2. A critical element of the issue is that these are self-declared “sanctuary cities”, and tend to vote for the policies that have led to the absolutely insane crisis on the border states.
          I am sure the voters in Chicago, Washington, and the Vineyard are mostly comfortable with the idea of millions of people from over 100 countries streaming over the border, as long as they stay in South Texas.
          But 50 migrants in Martha’s Vineyard is a disaster, and warrants mobilizing the National Guard.
          Our people in Texas see this as a terribly serious issue. The Biden administration is united in their message that “the border is secure”. Causing the problem, and simultaneously denying that it even exists, is causing a lot of anger down there.

          Securing the border would be the best solution, only letting in people who will benefit our country or who are in legitimate need, in numbers that we can support.
          The current administration, which is in charge of border security, chooses to let everyone in, apparently only limited by the cartels ability to move people to the border.
          Once the decision to let millions in is made, they need to go somewhere. They cannot all stay at the Super-8 motel in McAllen, Texas.
          Sanctuary states and cities seem to be logical destinations.

      2. How is this worse than the usual policy of processing and releasing migrants to make their own way wherever? I taught English on the border and I know most teenage boys migrating would say, “Martha’s Vineyard, where’s that?” Near Boston? Sure. Okay, I go.” Better than riding boxcars or hanging around bus stations or hitchhiking while looking over your shoulder for the Migra.

      1. Charles Sykes used to be a Republican and conservative, now no longer a Republican and is a firm anti-Trumper. In the article you cite, he quotes another writer, Jonathan Last, who wrote:
        ———————-
        Those planes were filled with actual human beings. People with dignity. People with hopes and dreams, problems and challenges. People with names and families.

        And this Christian man [DeSantis] used them as props. He didn’t clothe the naked or feed the hungry. He literally did the opposite: Evicted them—and not because he felt that he had to, because it was a requirement of the law.

        But because he saw that he could use them as a means to the ends of his personal ambition.
        ———————

        Yes, the right wing is laughing; they enjoy the cruelty they have inflicted. They don’t view the immigrants as human beings. To them, they are nothing more than animals that can be used to embarrass Biden and liberals.

    3. I’m curious about who’s funding the existing detention centers. My wife works at one as an NP providing healthcare, and it’s on an Army base, funded by the federal government. So even though it’s in Texas, the burden isn’t falling specifically on Texas, and is being shared across all taxpayers nationwide. (It kind of helps our economy by bringing in those federal funds to pay the employees at the center.)

      Are other detention centers being funded through state funds rather than federal funds? I could sort of understand this stunt if that was the case. But it’s even more cruel to the immigrants and refugees if it’s entirely for theater.

      1. “…if it’s entirely for theater.”
        What would make you think it wasn’t “entirely for theater”? No need for the conditional “if”.

    4. “Effective policy”…what are you talking about? You think this is a policy that is effective in handling the immigration problem? This isn’t even a policy, it’s a stunt. Nowadays, the GOP doesn’t know how to implement an effective policy- it’s all theater.

    5. Effective policy? A rethuglican governor ships migrants to Martha’s Vineyard, which is in Massachusetts and who’s governor is also a republican, who has used police to force the migrants, including children, onto buses to be housed on a military base. Do you really think setting rethuglican vs rethuglican governor and using people, including children, as political pawns an effective policy? And now the military has to care for these people even though the citizens of Martha’s Vineyard had already stepped up and welcomed them into their homes and churches. One thing I can finally agree with the rethuglicans on, at least in this case, government isn’t the solution; it’s the problem. Republican governance is the problem.

      1. Florida’s Republican governor Ron DeSantis sent the migrants to Martha’s Vineyard on a pair of private chartered jets — certainly an efficient use of Florida taxpayer funds.

        And he made sure the whole thing was captured on video tape, start to finish, as grist for tv campaign commercials for what he fancies will be his 2024 presidential run.

        DeSantis is the whole package — demagoguery and deceit, cruelty and overweening ambition.

        These kind of intentionally cruel stunts wouldn’t’ve happened when Ronald Reagan or the Bushes (or anyone else going back to Dwight Eisenhower) was the leader setting the tone for the once-Grand Old Party.

    1. Amazon Prime has a show Inventions That Shook The World – it’s in there.

      I was dumbfounded by the inventions – and their stories – was completely ignorant, for the most part.

  6. Thanks for the Chevy commercial. It reminded me of traveling to Yellowstone in a Chevy when I was 5 years old. The song/ ad was playing on the radio and my aunt and uncle were singing along with it.

  7. National Guacamole Day (cultural appropriation, but…

    Occurs to me that the Cultural Appropriation types are a lot like YECs, thinking that all has more or less been frozen in time since the start.

  8. From the interwebs re yessirree Bob: It comes from “Yes sir!” The “ee” added to the end of “sir” is an exclamation of informality, positivity, and excitement. During the mid-19th century, “Bob” was used as a euphemism for “God,” as in “So help me, Bob!”

    According to Google N-grams the idiom came into substantial use towards the end of the 19th century.

  9. >And I was proud of the Vineyard residents for not beefing but mustering up their resources to take care of the immigrants.

    They sure did. The Massachusetts National Guard has rounded them up and taken them to Joint Base Cape Cod on the mainland.

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