As you read this, I’ll either be in Tel Aviv or on my way there. I’ll be staying in Israel’s “second city” for a week, and then, saying farewell to Anna and Jay, who are going back to he U.S., I’ll be returning to Jerusalem for another week. I may even get some beach time in, as our hotel is across from the Mediterranean.
Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili and Szaron discuss rationality:
Szaron: Are cats rational?Hili: Yes, occasionally.
She thinks of herself as way over any normal cat. Of course, she is always rational. She is telling Szaron how it is with other cats.
Szaron: Czy koty są racjnalne?Hili: Chwilami tak.
Lagniappe: Here’s FIRE’s new ad for the upcoming football season. It’s long, so I wonder if it will air, but I like it (h/t Luana):
COMEDY VIDEO: With a new season of @NFL football starting tonight, are sports really the place for activism? Well, it depends on if the announcers agree with the activism.😅
Thankfully, when it comes to free speech, FIRE is all in. pic.twitter.com/wWTbzmTny9
— FIRE (@TheFIREorg) September 7, 2023
On this day:
1264 – The Statute of Kalisz, guaranteeing Jews safety and personal liberties and giving battei din jurisdiction over Jewish matters, is promulgated by Bolesław the Pious, Duke of Greater Poland.
1504 – Michelangelo’s David is unveiled in Piazza della Signoria in Florence.
1522 – Magellan–Elcano circumnavigation: Victoria arrives at Seville, technically completing the first circumnavigation.
1565 – St. Augustine, Florida is founded by Spanish admiral and Florida’s first governor, Pedro Menéndez de Avilés.
1727 – A barn fire during a puppet show in the village of Burwell in Cambridgeshire, England kills 78 people, many of whom are children.
1883 – The Northern Pacific Railway (reporting mark NP) was completed in a ceremony at Gold Creek, Montana. Former president Ulysses S. Grant drove in the final “golden spike” in an event attended by rail and political luminaries.
1888 – In London, the body of Jack the Ripper’s second murder victim, Annie Chapman, is found.
1888 – In England, the first six Football League matches are played.
1892 – The Pledge of Allegiance is first recited.
1914 – World War I: Private Thomas Highgate becomes the first British soldier to be executed for desertion during the war.
1916 – In a bid to prove that women were capable of serving as military dispatch riders, Augusta and Adeline Van Buren arrive in Los Angeles, completing a 60-day, 5,500 mile cross-country trip on motorcycles.
1935 – US Senator from Louisiana Huey Long is fatally shot in the Louisiana State Capitol building.
1941 – World War II: German forces begin the Siege of Leningrad.
1944 – World War II: London is hit by a V-2 rocket for the first time.
1945 – The division of Korea begins when United States troops arrive to partition the southern part of Korea in response to Soviet troops occupying the northern part of the peninsula a month earlier.
1952 – The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation makes its first televised broadcast on the second escape of the Boyd Gang.
1966 – The landmark American science fiction television series Star Trek premieres with its first-aired episode, “The Man Trap”.
1971 – In Washington, D.C., the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts is inaugurated, with the opening feature being the premiere of Leonard Bernstein’s Mass.
1974 – Watergate scandal: US President Gerald Ford signs the pardon of Richard Nixon for any crimes Nixon may have committed while in office.
1975 – Gays in the military: US Air Force Tech Sergeant Leonard Matlovich, a decorated veteran of the Vietnam War, appears in his Air Force uniform on the cover of Time magazine with the headline “I Am A Homosexual”. He is given a general discharge, later upgraded to honorable.
1988 – Yellowstone National Park is closed for the first time in U.S. history due to ongoing fires.
2016 – NASA launches OSIRIS-REx, its first asteroid sample return mission. The probe will visit 101955 Bennu and is expected to return with samples in 2023.
2022 – Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom dies at Balmoral Castle in Scotland after reigning for 70 years. Her son Charles, Prince of Wales, ascends the throne upon her death as Charles III.
Births:
1157 – Richard I of England (d. 1199).
1462 – Henry Medwall, first known English vernacular dramatist (d. 1501).
1841 – Antonín Dvořák, Czech composer and academic (d. 1904).
1886 – Siegfried Sassoon, English captain, journalist, and poet (d. 1967).
1897 – Jimmie Rodgers, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (d. 1933).
1914 – Denys Lasdun, English architect, designed the Royal National Theatre (d. 2001).
1919 – Maria Lassnig, Austrian painter and academic (d. 2014).
1921 – Harry Secombe, Welsh-English actor (d. 2001).
1922 – Sid Caesar, American comic actor and writer (d. 2014).
1925 – Jacqueline Ceballos, American activist, founded the Veteran Feminists of America.
1925 – Peter Sellers, English actor and comedian (d. 1980).
1927 – Marguerite Frank, American-French mathematician.
1932 – Patsy Cline, American singer-songwriter and pianist (d. 1963).
1933 – Michael Frayn, English author and playwright.
1934 – Peter Maxwell Davies, English composer and conductor (d. 2016).
1941 – Bernie Sanders, American politician.
1945 – Ron “Pigpen” McKernan, American singer-songwriter and keyboard player (d. 1973).
1954 – Michael Shermer, American historian, author, and academic, founded The Skeptics Society.
1960 – Aimee Mann, American singer-songwriter, guitarist, and actress.
1971 – Martin Freeman, English actor.
1979 – Pink, American singer-songwriter, producer, and actress.
“O Charidas, what of the underworld?”
“Great darkness.”
“And what of the resurrection?”
“A lie.”
“And Pluto?”
“A fable; we perish utterly.”
1894 – Hermann von Helmholtz, German physician and physicist (b. 1821).
1949 – Richard Strauss, German composer and manager (b. 1864).
1969 – Alexandra David-Néel, Belgian-French explorer and activist (b. 1868).
1970 – Percy Spencer, American engineer, invented the microwave oven (b. 1894).
1977 – Zero Mostel, American actor and comedian (b. 1915).
2003 – Leni Riefenstahl, German actress, director, producer, and screenwriter (b. 1902).
2006 – Hilda Bernstein, English-South African author and activist (b. 1915).
2016 – Prince Buster, Jamaican singer-songwriter and producer (b. 1938).
2017 – Jerry Pournelle, American author and journalist (b. 1933).
2017 – Don Williams, American musician (b. 1939).
Thanks for the heads up, Jez. NASA’s OSIRIS-REx returns its sample to Earth in just two-weeks time..on Sept 23/24 with a parachute controlled landing in the Utah desert. I continue to be in awe at how these guys and gals carry off these incredibly complex and unique high scientific value missions. NASA summary at. https://www.nasa.gov/osiris-rex
I must say, when the Hili Dialogue got truncated last month, I could focus on the actual dialogue part – and really got into them. This one is especially good.
That video is funny – I’d say anywhere, anytime, and anything is the condition for activism. That’s how activism works, right?
So polka activism : in a library. Or when I’m sleeping. That’s very effective activism.
Polka activism in football – actually that might be fun! So that wouldn’t be activism because it won’t get under people’s skin.
1944 V2 rockets hit London… hmm, the same bat channel 2023 style hitting Keiv. Never thought they’d make a sequel but here we are.
What’s on the other channels? World Cup rugby starts tonight. Might see a few high tackles, a red card, hope not, spoils the game.
A relevant and funny video! And while on the subject of the NFL, the game turned out to be terrific. My favorite perennial underdogs, the Detroit Lions, actually beat the Super Bowl champs (Kansas City Chiefs). It was awesome!
You forgot the Spoiler Alert for those who haven’t watched it yet. Though that is quite the spoiler. 😉
Was the format the same as last year on prime? I didn’t like the format…I forget now why I disliked it…iirc you couldn’t start a game from the beginning if it was still being played. You had to wait for the game to finish. Plus commercials which on “normal” tv I can fast forward since I tape all the games I’m interested in.