Sunday: Hili dialogue

October 1, 2023 • 6:45 am

It’s October! Welcome to Sunday, October 1, 2023. As always, I begin with the evocative words of Thomas Wolfe, which I always post on this day, adding that “no writer has captured the color and feel of America better than Thomas Wolfe. From Of Time and the River”:

Now October has come again which in our land is different from October in the other lands.  The ripe, the golden month has come again, and in Virginia the chinkapins are falling.  Frost sharps the middle music of the seasons, and all things living on the earth turn home again. The country is so big that you cannot say that the country has the same October. In Maine, the frost comes sharp and quick as driven nails, just for a week or so the woods, all of the bright and bitter leaves, flare up; the maples turn a blazing bitter red, and other leaves turn yellow like a living light, falling upon you as you walk the woods, falling about you like small pieces of the sun so that you cannot say that sunlight shakes and flutters on the ground, and where the leaves. . .

October is the richest of the seasons: the fields are cut, the granaries are full, the bins are loaded to the brim with fatness, and from the cider-press the rich brown oozings of the York Imperials run.  The bee bores to the belly of the yellowed grape, the fly gets old and fat and blue, he buzzes loud, crawls slow, creeps heavily to death on sill and ceiling, the sun goes down in blood and pollen across the bronzed and mown fields of old October.

The corn is shocked: it sticks out in hard yellow rows upon dried ears, fit now for great red barns in Pennsylvania, and the big stained teeth of crunching horses. The indolent hooves kick swiftly at the boards, the barn is sweet with hay and leather, wood and apples—this, and the clean dry crunching of the teeth is all:  the sweat, the labor, and the plow is over. The late pears mellow on a sunny shelf, smoked hams hang to the warped barn rafters; the pantry shelves are loaded with 300 jars of fruit. Meanwhile the leaves are turning, turning up in Maine, the chestnut burrs plop thickly to the earth in gusts of wind, and in Virginia the chinkapins are falling.

It’s also National Pumpkin Spice Day, the bad idea that created a gazillion dreadful lattes at Starbucks.

. . . and these food months:

National Apple Month
National Applejack Month
National Caramel Month
National Cookbook Month
National Cookie Month
National Dessert Month
National Pasta Month
National Pickled Peppers Month
National Pizza Month
National Popcorn Poppin’ Month
National Pork Month
National Pretzel Month
National Seafood Month

And it’s also International Music Day, Model T Day (the first specimen rolled off the assembly line on this day in 1908), International Raccoon Appreciation Day, National Black Dog Day (time to feel down), World Vegetarian Day, International Coffee Day, Homemade Cookie Day, and, in my honor, International Day of Older Persons.

Here’s a heartwarming Dodo video of a woman who rescued three orphan raccoons:

Finally, I’m a bit late to the party, but yesterday’s Google Doodle (click below) honors the 220th birthday of Ferdinand Berthier (1803-1886), identified as “one of the earliest champions of deaf identity and culture”:

In late 1837 Berthier petitioned the French government for permission to create the Société Centrale des Sourds-muets, which was officially founded the following year as the first organisation to represent the interests of the deaf community. The organisation aimed to bring together “all the …ead across the globe… to put speaking and deaf men of intelligence and heart in rapport with each other, no matter the distance, no matter the difference in language, culture and laws,” and offered deaf workers a practical avenue to support each other through “mutual aid” and a way to organize and attend adult education classes. Berthier played a delicate balancing act as a passionate defender of the deaf identity and sign language, while under a repressive social and political climate.

Berthier wrote books about deaf history and deaf culture, noting deaf artists and sign-language poets of his time. He died on 12 July 1886 in Paris.

Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this by consulting the October 1 Wikipedia page.

Da Nooz:

Before we get to politics, some terrific news from reader Jez (click on BBC screenshot):

A baby beaver was spotted in London for the first time in a very long time this summer.

It is thought to be the first baby beaver born in London for hundreds of years.

Enfield council began London’s beaver reintroduction programme in 2022 to bring beavers back to the capital after 400 years.

The initiative is part of a wider rewilding and natural flood management project.

Capel Manor College, with advice from the Beaver Trust, will capture the young beaver to give it a thorough health check with an experienced exotic-animal vet and to confirm its sex, which at this stage remains undetermined.

Beavers were hunted to extinction in England but have been reintroduced recently to some areas across the country.

They better put it back after they give it a checkup!

Here it is!!!!

*Well, the US government shutdown has been prevented, at least for 45 days, and even that’s not a certainty What happened is that Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy helped forge a bipartisan bill that puts off the shutdown until mid-November.  This has no provisions, as originally intended, to dampen immigration, and it has not money for Ukraine, but it does allow money for disaster relief.  The Ukraine cutoff is anathema to Democrats, but enough of them joined with moderate Repubicans to pass the bill in the House.  As I write this on Saturday afternoon, the Senate hasn’t yet passed the bill, which it has to do by midnight Saturday, and at least one Democrat seems to be getting cold feet.

Congress narrowly averted a government shutdown on Saturday as the House, in a stunning turnabout, approved a stopgap plan to keep the federal government open until mid-November. After Senate passage, President Biden signed the bill shortly before midnight.

In a rapid-fire sequence of events on Capitol Hill, a coalition of House Democrats and Republicans voted to pass a plan that would keep money flowing to government agencies and provide billions of dollars for disaster recovery efforts. The bill did not include money for Ukraine despite a push for it by the White House and members of both parties in the Senate, but House Democrats embraced the plan anyway, seeing it as the most expedient way to avoid widespread government disruption.

Speaker Kevin McCarthy, who had for weeks brushed off demands to work with Democrats on a spending solution, outlined the proposal for Republicans in a closed-door meeting Saturday morning and then rushed to get it on the floor under a special procedure that meant it could only pass with substantial Democratic help.

Democrats initially complained that Mr. McCarthy had sprung the plan on them and was trying to push through a 71-page measure without sufficient scrutiny. But they also did not want to be accused of putting the U.S. aid to Ukraine ahead of keeping government agencies open and paying two million members of the military and 1.5 million federal employees.

So we have a six-week respite before the mishigas begins again. One issue is that McCarthy is now in danger of losing his Speaker seat because—Ceiling Cat forbid—he cooperated with Democrats, and the GOP doesn’t like bipartisan initiatives. I’m not that worried, though, is that there is no clear replacement for the Speaker of the House. Remember that it took over a dozen votes to choose McCarthy in the first place.

*If you want to know how insane the gun problem is in some places, consider the WaPo article, “In Texas, guns are everywhere, whether concealed or in the open.”

To live in Texas is to live surrounded by guns.

Each morning, men here strap guns inside suits, boots and swim trunks. Women slip them into bra and bellyband holsters that render them invisible. They stash firearms in purses, tool boxes, portable gun safes, back seats and glove compartments.

Neighbors tuck guns into bedside tables, cars and trucks. They take guns fishing, to church, the park, the pool, the gym, the movies — even to protests at the state Capitol. The convention center hosts gun shows where shoppers peruse AR-15s and high-capacity magazines outlawed in other states. Texas billboards offer an endless stream of advertisements for ammunition, silencers and other accessories.

It has been legal here to openly carry long guns like rifles for generations. But Texas’s gun-friendly attitude isn’t just a relic of the Old West and ranching: Many restrictions on handguns were loosened only recently. Two years ago, state lawmakers gave those 21 and older the right to carry handguns without a permit; in 2015, they gave those with concealed handgun permits the right to carry on public college campuses.

. . .Unlike California and some other blue states, Texas has no state firearm sales registry, no required waiting period to buy a gun, no red flag law guarding against the mentally ill or violent having weapons, no restrictions on the size of ammunition magazines and no background checks for guns purchased in a private sale.

While a majority of Americans favor stricter gun laws and say it’s too easy to obtain a gun, many Texans see guns as a solution to the problem, not the problem itself.

This is lunacy; it would be a problem only if the problem was the “lack of a well regulated militia.” Also, remember that for every criminal killed with a gun in self-defense, 34 innocent people die. Does that seem like a good tradeoff?

*It’s tine to get those fall immunizations, and on Friday I got the flu and RSV vaccines, which made me feel out of it and grotty yesterday. I didn’t get covid, as my doctor recommended against it, but I advise all readers not to follow me: ask your own doctor. The AP insists that you should get that covid shot:

This year’s vaccine is updated to protect against newer versions of the constantly evolving coronavirus. Already there’s been a late summer jump in infections, hospitalizations and deaths. And so far the new vaccine recipe appears to be a good match to the variants currently circulating.

Protection against COVID-19, whether from vaccination or from an earlier infection, wanes over time — and most Americans haven’t had a vaccine dose in about a year. Everyone 5 and older will need just one shot this fall even if they’ve never had a prior vaccination, while younger children may need additional doses depending on their vaccination and infection history.

As for flu: GET ONE if there are no contraindications. I got the high dose vaccine for gerontocrats:

Fewer Americans got a flu vaccine last year than before the coronavirus pandemic –- a discouraging gap that CDC hopes to reverse.

People need a flu vaccine every fall because influenza also mutates each year. Like with COVID-19, flu is most dangerous to older adults, the very young and people with weak immune systems, lung, heart or other chronic health problems, or who are pregnant.

There are multiple kinds of flu vaccines, including a nasal spray version for certain younger people. More important, three kinds are specifically recommended for seniors because they do a better job revving up an older adult’s immune system.

My doctor wasn’t that enthusiastic about me getting the RSV vaccine, as it protects against only one of many respiratory viruses going around, and infection isn’t usually harmful.  Still, he said I had nothing to lose by getting it:

RSV is a cold-like nuisance for most people, and not as well-known as the flu. But RSV packs hospitals every winter and kills several hundred tots and thousands of seniors. The CDC says already, RSV cases are rising in the Southeast.

RSV vaccines from GSK and Pfizer are approved for adults 60 and older.

Drugstores have adequate supplies but some seniors are reporting hurdles such as requirements to get a prescription. That’s because the CDC recommended that seniors talk with their doctors about the new vaccine. Cohen said it was meant just for education about a virus that people may not know much about.

*Writer Roger Rosenblatt, who’s 83, has a NYT op-ed called “What they don’t tell you about getting old.” Seriously? Haven’t we seen enough old people to know what’s in store with us? Well, Rosenblatt says that you’re not considered wiser when you’re older, but remember, that may be true in the U.S but not elsewhere:

Old age isn’t what the books promised it would be. Literature is littered with old people for whom the years have brought some combination of wisdom, serenity, authority and power — King Lear, the ageless priest in Shangri-La, Miss Marple, Mr. Chips, Mrs. Chips (I made that up), Dickens’s Aged P, crazy Mrs. Danvers. In fiction, old folks are usually impressive and in control. In life, something less.

I can’t think of anyone who has come to me for wisdom, serenity, authority or power. People do come to sell me life insurance for $9 a month and medicines such as Prevagen, which is advertised on TV as making one sharper and improving one’s memory. Of course, that is beneficial only to those who have more things they wish to remember than to forget.

All I can say is that I wish what I know now about people I knew when I was 25. That knowledge is hard-earned, and often valuable. .But, of course, there is the BIG DOWNSIDE: the approach of the Reaper:

One thing I need to remember is which day for which doctor. Two years ago, my wife and I moved back to New York City after 24 years of living by the sea. The city is safer, we thought — just in case we may ever need to be near medical facilities. Since our move, not a day has passed without one of us seeing a doctor, arranging to see one or thinking or talking about seeing one.

Nothing can compensate for that, though of course such article always finish with the “good side” of aging:

To be sure, old age has compensations. Grandchildren. Their company is delightful, partly because they think you have something useful to impart, if you could remember to impart it. Waitresses tend to treat you sweetly. Doormen and maintenance crews show respect. And there are positive or harmless activities for the over the hill. Women take up watercolors and form book clubs. Men find loud if pointless camaraderie in diners and on village benches all over the country. Hey, old-timer.

I have none of these “advantages”. All things considered, I’d rather be immortal, and live forever at an age between 25 and 32.

*Adidas is producing a lightweight “super shoe” that costs $500 and is designed to be used only once: to win a race.

The new Adidas “super shoe” is designed to be worn only once—and to break world records.

Weighing in at 138 grams, or less than a third of a pound, the shoe is so lightweight that elite runners initially doubted it could hold up over a long race. Amanal Petros, a German runner who in 2021 set the national record in the men’s marathon, laughed uncontrollably when he first held it.

So when a handful of runners laced up the Adizero Adios Pro Evo 1 at the Berlin Marathon last weekend, the German sneaker giant’s executives and designers gathered in a tent near the finish line without knowing exactly what to expect.

Then Ethiopia’s Tigst Assefa smashed the women’s world record by more than two minutes, while also beating her own time from last year’s race by nearly four minutes—huge margins in elite running. Five other athletes who wore the shoes also produced exceptional times, among them Petros, who broke his own national record in the men’s race.

“We were confident someone could run fast in the shoe,” said Charlotte Heidmann, Adidas’s senior global product manager, “but breaking the record by two minutes is something everyone was astonished about.”

I read about the demolishing of the women’s marathon record, but had no idea that it might be connected with a shoe. Still, think about it: if you take your typical running shoe, which weighs between 184 and 368 grams, this one effectively takes about half the weight off your feet. That has to make a difference. If you’re an elite runner, the $500 is probably well worth it.

Here it is (caption from WSJ):

The Adizero Adios Pro Evo 1. Adidas made 521 pairs of the shoe available for sale in mid-September. PHOTO: ADIDAS

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili is doing CAT YOGA:

A: What are you doing?
Hili: I’m doing feline yoga.
In Polish:
Ja: Co ty robisz?
Hili: Uprawiam kocią jogę.
And a picture of the loving Szaron:

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

From Facebook:

From a reader whose name I’ve forgotten (sorry, but thanks!), a Gary Larson Far Side cartoon:

And another one from Facebook, a bit salacious for this site:

From Masih, a brave Iran protestor taking a big chance:

A clip from the Antiques Roadshow. The guy is gobsmacked. And it’s just a watch!

This is adorable:

Ducks love lettuce:

From the Auschwitz Memorial, one that I retweeted. Being gay was the equivalent of a capital offense in Nazi Germany:

Tweets from Dr. Cobb. First, some cool biology. Look at that caterpillar!

If this were the Olympics, it would be a 10/10. What a lovely and neat jump!

This is a campus in China.  Talk about cultural appropriation!

43 thoughts on “Sunday: Hili dialogue”

  1. “… and in Virginia the chinkapins are falling.”

    There it is – right on cue.

    [ sssssss ](inhale)

    Ahhhhh…..

    1. I wonder if biology major and careerist PCC(E)’s interest in and broad knowledge of literature and art derives from required 1960’s college courses or just general interest over the years.

      1. “… falling upon you as you walk the woods, falling about you like small pieces of the sun …”

  3. Being within a year of PCC(E)’s age, I am explicitly forbidden by my wife from giving academic advice to our grandchildren…though I was reasonably successful academically and in a career associated with my major coursework. She points out that they exist in a much different world than mine was and that pulling them into what was a successful pathway for me could doom them to overall failure….and she might be right! Apparently the idea of spending a Saturday afternoon in the library at a U.S. college while your peers are at a football game is not considered an advantage in 2023. So it goes.

    Meanwhile pediatrician and vaccination educator, Paul Offit breaks out age groups, for purposes of guidance in considering Covid vaccinations into the elderly (60-75y.o.) and the elderly elderly (not a misprint) (80 and above). His videos and weekly newsletter, “Beyond the Noise” are very helpful.

    1. “… I am explicitly forbidden by my wife from giving academic advice to our grandchildren …”

      If I may – without getting too deep :

      There’s a lot at stake – wisdom is precious – stories. They are important. It is a form of wealth. It is food for thought.

      Good luck.

  4. On this day:
    959 – Edgar the Peaceful becomes king of all England, in succession to Eadwig. [I don’t think most Brits, myself included, have heard of this dude.]

    1800 – Via the Third Treaty of San Ildefonso, Spain cedes Louisiana to France, which would sell the land to the United States thirty months later.

    1861 – Mrs Beeton’s Book of Household Management is published, going on to sell 60,000 copies in its first year and remaining in print until the present day.

    1890 – Yosemite National Park is established by the U.S. Congress.

    1891 – Stanford University opens its doors in California, United States.

    1908 – Ford Model T automobiles are offered for sale at a price of US$825.

    1910 – A large bomb destroys the Los Angeles Times building, killing 21.

    1928 – The Soviet Union introduces its first five-year plan.

    1931 – Clara Campoamor persuades the Constituent Cortes to enfranchise women in Spain’s new constitution.

    1936 – Spanish Civil War: Francisco Franco is named head of the Nationalist government of Spain.

    1938 – Pursuant to the Munich Agreement signed the day before, Nazi Germany begins the military occupation and annexation of Czechoslovakia’s Sudetenland.

    1939 – World War II: After a one-month siege, German troops occupy Warsaw.

    1940 – The Pennsylvania Turnpike, often considered the first superhighway in the United States, opens to traffic.

    1946 – Nazi leaders are sentenced at the Nuremberg trials. [The last of the surviving Nuremberg prosecutors, Ben Ferencz, died in April this year aged 103.]

    1949 – The People’s Republic of China is established.

    1955 – The Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region is established. [It isn’t so autonomous anymore…]

    1957 – The motto In God We Trust first appears on U.S. paper currency.

    1958 – The National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics is replaced by NASA.

    1960 – Nigeria gains independence from the United Kingdom.

    1961 – The United States Defense Intelligence Agency is formed, becoming the country’s first centralized military intelligence organization.

    1961 – The CTV Television Network, Canada’s first private television network, is launched.

    1962 – James Meredith enters the University of Mississippi, defying racial segregation rules.

    1964 – The Free Speech Movement is launched on the campus of the University of California, Berkeley.

    1964 – Japanese Shinkansen (“bullet trains”) begin high-speed rail service from Tokyo to Osaka.

    1969 – Concorde breaks the sound barrier for the first time.

    1971 – Walt Disney World opens near Orlando, Florida. [I visited as a kid three years later.]

    1971 – The first practical CT scanner is used to diagnose a patient.

    1975 – Muhammad Ali defeats Joe Frazier in a boxing match in Manila, Philippines.

    1982 – Sony and Phillips launch the compact disc in Japan; on the same day, Sony releases the model CDP-101 compact disc player, the first player of its kind.

    1989 – Denmark introduces the world’s first legal same-sex registered partnerships.

    2009 – The Supreme Court of the United Kingdom takes over the judicial functions of the House of Lords.

    2015 – Heavy rains trigger a major landslide in Guatemala, killing 280 people.

    2017 – An independence referendum, later declared illegal by the Constitutional Court of Spain, takes place in Catalonia.

    2017 – Fifty-eight people are killed and 869 others injured in a mass shooting at a country music festival at the Las Vegas Strip in the United States; the gunman, Stephen Paddock, later commits suicide.

    Births:
    1847 – Annie Besant, English-Indian activist and author (d. 1933).

    1881 – William Boeing, American engineer and businessman who founded the Boeing Company (d. 1956).

    1885 – Louis Untermeyer, American poet, anthologist, and critic (d. 1977).

    1890 – Stanley Holloway, English actor (d. 1982).

    1903 – Vladimir Horowitz, Russian-born American pianist and composer (d. 1989).

    1910 – Bonnie Parker, American criminal (d. 1934).

    1912 – Kathleen Ollerenshaw, English mathematician, astronomer, and politician, Lord Mayor of Manchester (d. 2014).

    1920 – Walter Matthau, American actor (d. 2000).

    1924 – Jimmy Carter, American naval lieutenant, politician, 39th President of the United States, and Nobel Prize laureate. [Aged 99, he is both the longest-lived president and the one with the longest post-presidency. He is also the third-oldest living person to have served as a nation’s leader.]

    1924 – William Rehnquist, American lawyer and jurist, 16th Chief Justice of the United States (d. 2005).

    1930 – Richard Harris, Irish actor (d. 2002).

    1932 – Albert Collins, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (d. 1993).

    1935 – Julie Andrews, English actress and singer.

    1947 – Martin Turner, English singer-songwriter and bass player.

    1950 – Susan Greenfield, Baroness Greenfield, English neuroscientist, academic, and politician.

    1950 – Randy Quaid, American actor.

    1952 – Earl Slick, American rock guitarist and songwriter.

    1964 – Harry Hill, English comedian and author.

    1966 – George Weah, Liberian footballer and politician, 25th President of Liberia.

    Death is a delightful hiding place for weary men:
    1972 – Louis Leakey, Kenyan-English archaeologist and paleontologist (b. 1903).

    1975 – Al Jackson, Jr., American drummer, songwriter, and producer (b. 1935).

    1985 – E. B. White, American essayist and journalist (b. 1899).

    1992 – Petra Kelly, German activist and politician (b. 1947).

    2007 – Ronnie Hazlehurst, English conductor and composer (b. 1928).

    2012 – Eric Hobsbawm, Egyptian-English historian and author (b. 1917).

    2012 – Shlomo Venezia, Greek-Italian Holocaust survivor and author (b. 1923).

    2013 – Tom Clancy, American author (b. 1947).

    2014 – Lynsey de Paul, English singer-songwriter, pianist, and actress (b. 1948).

    2018 – Charles Aznavour, French-Armenian singer, composer, writer, filmmaker and public figure (b. 1924).

  5. Got my flu and Covid shots, but couldn’t get the RSV. It cost $380 for those of us who are uninsured. 🙁

    1. I got the RSV at the grocery store after discovering CVS did not have it. I believe covered by my insurance.

    2. Me too…didn’t get the RSV though. Thankfully, I was non-grotty. Next on the list: shingles… I told my doctor I have never had chickenpox, but he said even if never infected, I probably still have the virus circulating around. Argh!

      I see more people wearing masks, but I don’t plan to.

      1. You certainly want to get the shingles shots. That is two of them. Your arm will be sore for a couple of days on this one

      2. My former employer developed shingles. She said run, don’t walk, to get the vaccination. The pain she suffered was unbearable and will not go away because it got into the nerves in her spine. She in chronic pain now. 🙁

  6. A clip from the Antiques Roadshow
    I was surprised that the US had Antiques Roadshow because I didn’t think you had enough old stuff. Then I realised it’s a watch from 1971. Normality is restored…

    1. Yes, in the U.S. “old” varies from the Atlantic coast to the Pacific coast in general as that was the direction that European settlement moved. In Virginia or Massachusetts on the Atlantic coast, we have buildings and furniture from the 1600’s; in the midwest 1750’s to 1800’s are old; on the Pacific coast, 1850 to 1900 (other than very early Spanish and Russian settlements) are considered old. Of course all of this ignores some 5000 years or more of indigenous peoples’ settlements throughout the U.S.

      I once took visiting colleagues from the old RAE in the U.K. on a tour of the reconstructed museum-like village of Colonial Williamsburg to see our old buildings of 17th and 18th century. The next year as I spent some time visiting them at university in the U.K., I was assigned a desk in a 15th century building still being used on an everyday basis! Sure opened my eyes to the normalization of “old”.

    2. I actually remember seeing that specific clip as I’m an avid watcher of the show…both the US and UK versions. Though I agree with your observation; imo, the UK series is more better. 🙂

  7. Why is it that “bipartisanship” is always Republicans doing what the Dems want, and not the other way around? Meanwhile, Rep. Jamaal Bowman was so flustered about the whole thing that he pulled a fire alarm to try to open a door. And that’s the story they think is better than the obvious one.

    1. The house speaker was forced to go to the democrats to stop the shut down even for 45 days. Now the crazies in the republican party will try to throw out their leader for stopping the shutdown. What is the obvious story in this congress. Bipartisanship is just a tired political word. Getting the republicans to stop wetting their paints in the presents of their great leader is another thing.

  9. Disclaimer: This is just critical appraisal, not an ideological position.

    >Also, remember that for every criminal killed with a gun in self-defense, 34 innocent people die. Does that seem like a good tradeoff?

    Since Jerry asks, the answer is, “It depends on who the ‘innocent people’ are.” Do they matter to the people defending their own homes?

    A non-paywalled story that quotes this same 2015 report from the FBI is here:
    https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/charleston-shooting-for-every-criminal-killed-in-selfdefence-in-the-us-34-innocent-people-die-10333734.html

    Note that the FBI just calls these 34 deaths victims of criminal homicide. It doesn’t speculate that they were all “innocent” upstanding citizens. Obviously their conduct was not put before a jury to determine posthumously if they were guilty beyond reasonable doubt. An armed gang-banger who loses a shoot-out over drug turf or “respect” gets put in with the 34, and these deaths are not rare.

    There were only two (2) accidental gun deaths for every self-defence killing. This has to be taken with caution, also. Careless use of a firearm is a crime in itself and a death that results would still be a criminal homicide, unless the gun wielder accidentally shot himself. Most accidental shootings belong in the 34, also. But in any case, the true accidents and the homicides sum to 36.

    So if a suburban gun owner who would never shoot anyone gratuitously and will probably never use his gun in anger believes he is protecting his family and if he also believes that the 36 deaths occur among, and at the hands of, the dangerous classes or the careless classes, the very ones he fears, his answer to Jerry’s trade-off question will be, “Hell Yes!”

    Of course elimination of all guns would eliminate all gun deaths and reduce the incentive for homeowners to arm themselves illegally. But the homeowner knows there is no political will or police capacity to disarm the dangerous classes in the cities they live in. Confiscation of guns only from him is a non-starter, even if he didn’t like the trade-off.

    2. Books should not be banned.

      Also, true:
      Per the website, six the top “most challenged” books contain LGBTQIA content. Some, if not all, are aimed at the youth market.

      The president of the American Library Association refers to herself as a “Marxist lesbian” and is very much an activist, and not just for literacy. https://www.libraryjournal.com/story/emily-drabinski-steps-into-ala-presidency-ala-annual-2023

      Pay attention to what ideologies are being promoted by those with influence. That includes activist publishers, as Jerry saw with his sweet cat story.

      2. Susan, first my bona fide, if you don’t know already: I’m a professional librarian and a member of the American Library Association for 31 years. I wouldn’t be worried enough to participate in the right-wing pearl clutching over President Drabinsky proclaiming herself a “Marxist lesbian.” I can assure you that that ALA is not turning into a Marxist organization nor, for that matter, a lesbian organization (though I would have no problem if lesbians were in charge of it). The ALA presidency is for one year, and it is largely a ceremonial position. The president comes up with a yearly theme emphasizing and publicizing a particular issue. As you can see from the LJ article you referenced, her theme of fighting censorship is fairly standard and even anodyne in the world of librarianship. Indeed, Drabinsky herself seems like a standard-issue librarian, not very revolutionary.
        The LGBTQIA+ themed books in the latest list on the Banned Books site are all, in my estimation, appropriate for teenagers. I would pay attention to the use of the term “youth market” to be more specific what age group is being referred to. At any rate, all of this reminds me of what Judy Blume and her young adult books went through in the 1970s and indeed what she’s still going through today. https://www.npr.org/2023/04/21/1171363516/judy-blume-has-never-been-afraid-to-speak-her-mind

        1. Thanks, that’s interesting and reassuring. I don’t think anyone has a problem with lesbians in charge, but Marxist activism not so much.

        2. “Queer theory has its roots in disruption of, rather than assimilation to, norms of identity. Politically, queer emerged as part of a political movement of gender and sexual minorities in the 1960s. Distinct from mainstream lesbian and gay movements, groups like Queer Nation resisted assimilationist strategies that sought rights on the basis of stable and unchanging identities. Queer theory also found roots in a postmodernism that challenged the idea that truth could be final. For queer theory, knowledge—both of the self and about the world—is understood to be discursively produced, socially powerful, and always already undergoing revision. Queer theory resists the idea that stable identities like lesbian or gay exist outside of time. Rather, these identities exist only temporarily in social and political contexts that both produce and require them. Queer theory sees claims to universal and unchanging identities as both unattainable and undesirable, particularly in the sense that they elide the social power of uncontested claims to truth. In the library context, queer theories can refocus attention away from the project of producing “correct” knowledge organization systems, pointing toward a project of dialogic pedagogical interventions that push all users to consider how the organization of, and access to, knowledge is politically and socially produced.”

          -Emily Drabinski
          The Library Quarterly
          Volume 83, Number 2

          And the Dialectic, as always, progresses Left – and upward.

    3. It is important for Banned Books Week to emphasize:

      It is about the evil of books getting banned.

      It has nothing to do with:

      • the myth of “age-appropriate”
      • the myth of discernment
      • antiracism
      • redefinition of library subject headings
      • book retirement
      • dialectical political warfare

  11. “Meanwhile the leaves are turning, turning up in Maine, the chestnut burrs plop thickly to the earth in gusts of wind, and in Virginia the chinkapins are falling.”

    How said to read this … native chestnuts no longer fall to earth there or anywhere else in eastern North America. While Wolfe was writing those lines, virtually every single chestnut tree (and it was the dominant species in many forests) was being wiped out by an introduced disease. Four billion trees died. These were the largest trees in those forests.

    The roots still sprout new saplings, but they get the disease and die before they can make any more chestnut burrs.

    However, there has been a lot of progress towards engineering a resistant tree, and maybe someday the chestnuts will once again plop onto the ground in the eastern US.

  12. I was surprised that Rosenblatt placed King Lear among the “old people for whom the years have brought some combination of wisdom, serenity, authority and power.” Lear grew foolish in old age and inadvertently gave away his power, banished his good daughter, and allowed his two bad ones to abuse him. He eventually achieved wisdom and serenity, but only after going mad and seeing the consequences of his foolishness, not because of the benefits of old age. And his reawakening came at the expense of his authority and power and unleashed a tragedy that destroyed his entire family. The play is a cautionary tale about how people can make horrible mistakes when they’ve grown old; it hardly serves Rosenblatt’s purpose.

    1. Yes, terribly annoying, since it loses your place in the post and shoots you back to the title when in the middle of reading comments. Really crazy, WordPress!

    1. Besides the other new bugs recently added to the WordPress platform, they also now make a new comment completely disappear after pressing “Reply”, fooling the commenter into thinking their comment has disappeared, so the commenter posts a duplicate comment. I see it happened to you too.

    2. It happened to me too in the above comment complaining about disappearing comments. I am not falling for it though, I trust my complaint about disappearing comments will appear above this one when I press reply, though I suppose this one will seem to disappear. Here goes the test…will my previous comment reappear?

  15. Yes! My previous comment starting off with “Besides the other new bugs…” is now visible but the comment following it is now invisible as I write this,

  16. That the Huawei campus looks like Europe does not surprise me. In the early aughts my employer sued Huawei for patent and copyright infringement. During discovery, we found that they had stolen our software when we noticed their “engineers” misspelled the same words as ours in the code.

  17. “I didn’t get covid, as my doctor recommended against it, but I advise all readers not to follow me…”

    This surprises me since the new vaccine protects against the latest variants, which seem potent. What’s the harm, anyway. I don’t think I’d listen to the doctor…

      1. I took a look at one video version of Paul Offit’s “Beyond the Noise” mentioned in the second paragraph of comment#3. A shorter version (~7 min.) is here: https://www.medpagetoday.com/infectiousdisease/covid19vaccine/106511
        He argues that he would have preferred a more targeted approach to who should get the new COVID vaccine and that not everyone needs one if they have already had 2-3 COVID vaccines or vaccine plus a mild infection and are otherwise healthy. This targeted strategy is being followed in a number of European countries. There is the small risk of myocarditis/pericarditis that was seen in a few people getting COVID vaccine and we don’t understand it well and may not for 10+ years. His targets for vaccination were: people 75+, those with co-morbidities (obesity, diabetes, heart disease, lung disease, immuno-suppression, etc.), those over 6 mo. and under 4 yr. who have not had a vaccine previously and perhaps anyone who has not had a vaccine or COVID itself. He is clear that he believes flu vaccine is important for everyone. I am NOT a doctor, so view one of his videos or read his article and/or talk to your doctor.

        1. Interesting. He does at one point say that “anybody who wants to get a vaccine certainly should be encouraged to get it”,and that he’s just questioning the official recommendation. He never mentions risk of side effects. I wonder how much is of this (and the European approach) is based on ensuring that there is an adequate supply of the vaccine for the “target” groups.

Comments are closed.