Wednesday: Hili dialogue

November 1, 2023 • 6:45 am

Welcome to a Hump Day (“Lá Hump” in Irish): November 1, 2023; November is upon us, and there’s no hope until Spring. Foodimentary says that it’s National Bison Day, and I guess you’re supposed to eat the meat, but I haven’t and don’t think I will. A photo from Fermilab, which is partly run by the University of Chicago. They have their own bison herd!

It’s also the Mexican Day of the Dead on Nov. 1 and 2.

And it’s these Food Months;

National Fun with Fondue Month
National Georgia Pecan Month
National Peanut Butter Lover’s Month
National Pepper Month
National Stuffing Month
National Raisin Bread Month
November 1-7: National Fig Week

It’s also All Saints’ Day, Eat Smart Day, National Calzone Day (cultural appropriation), National Author’s Day (which author are they referring to?), National Cinnamon Day (best used in rolls), World Vegan Day, National Paté Day, National Deep Fried Clams Day, Coronation of the fifth Druk Gyalpo in Bhutan, International Lennox-Gastaut Syndrome Awareness Day, (a form of epilepsy), National Brush Day (your teeth), National Awakening Day in Bulgaria, and the first day of winter observances, which include Calan Gaeaf in Wales, with celebrations that started at sunset yesterday, and Samhain in the Northern Hemisphere and Beltane in the Southern Hemisphere, with celebrations that started at sunset yesterday(Neopagan Wheel of the Year)

Today’s Google Doodle is a gif that celebrates the Mexican Day of the Dead (click on gif screenshot to go to linked page):

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

Da Nooz:

*The latest war news from the NYT shows that people are starting to trickle into Egypt, though not Americans. But Americans are on the ground in Gaza, helping locate hostages:

Egypt was set to receive hundreds of foreign passport holders and seriously wounded Palestinians through its border crossing with Gaza on Wednesday morning, the first such departure out of the battered territory since the war between Hamas and Israel began more than three weeks ago, according to Western diplomats in Cairo and Jerusalem and the Gaza authorities.

Photos showed people moving through a gate on the Gaza side of the Rafah border crossing and walking toward the gate leading into Egypt. The crossing has been the focus of heated international negotiations as the only possible escape route, as well as the only entry point for relief supplies, as Israel has continued its three-week bombing campaign, sealed off other crossings and sent troops deep into the 140-square-mile enclave.

Egypt told Gazan authorities that more than 80 seriously wounded people from Gaza would be allowed into Egypt on Wednesday to be treated at hospitals there, according to a statement from Gaza’s General Authority for Crossings and Borders. Western diplomats in Cairo and Jerusalem said that foreign passport holders and their families, as well as some Palestinian staff working for international aid organizations, would be able to leave Wednesday.

American citizens are not expected to be among Wednesday’s evacuees, other than those working for certain aid groups, but they are slated to follow in batches later in the week, three of the diplomats said. A U.S. State Department email sent to U.S. citizens in Gaza said “limited departures from Gaza may begin this week.”

Also:

  • On Tuesday, an Israeli airstrike hit a densely populated neighborhood of Gaza. Israel said the strike had successfully targeted Hamas militants who were central to the Oct. 7 massacre of more than 1,400 people in southern Israel. Hamas and hospital officials said hundreds had been wounded or killed in the Jabaliya neighborhood, home to Gaza’s largest refugee camp.

  • Israeli forces continued to press deeper into Gaza on Tuesday, reaching the Al Karama neighborhood north of Gaza City and advancing toward a major highway that runs through the enclave, the Gazan interior ministry said. The Hamas-run ministry said Israel’s military appeared to be seeking “to separate the northern Gaza Strip from its south.”

  • The Pentagon said that American commandos were on the ground in Israel to help locate the more than 200 hostages seized during the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks.

This is going to be a long and bloody war, and who knows how it will come out?

*The NYT describes the uproar that posters of kidnapped Israelis is causing in America, a topic I wrote about three days ago.

“KIDNAPPED,” the posters say, in big block letters above pictures of people taken hostage by Hamas terrorists during the Oct. 7 attack in Israel, urgent reminders of the men, women and children still being held hostage in Gaza.

But on college campuses and in cities around the world in recent weeks, people have been caught tearing them down.

. . .Displaying the posters has become a form of activism, keeping the more than 200 hostages seized by Hamas in full view of the public.

But removing the posters has quickly emerged as its own form of protest — a release valve and also a provocation by those anguished by the Israeli government’s treatment of Palestinians in the years before Oct. 7 and since the bombing of Gaza began.

Some of those caught destroying the posters have been condemned on social media. A dentist in Boston and a person in South Florida, among others, have lost their jobs.

. . . Those who object to the posters have derided them as wartime propaganda. Critics of those tearing them down have characterized the act as antisemitic and lacking basic humanity. Increasingly, the disputes seem to teeter on the brink of violence, a proxy battle for the life-or-death war in the Middle East.

To Nitzan Mintz, one of the artists behind the fliers, watching them go viral in the first place was a shock. Seeing people rip down the posters has revealed what she said was clear antisemitism. “By accident this campaign did more than bring an awareness of the kidnapped people,” she said. “It brought awareness of how hated we are as a community.”

And yay! for Willam and Mary:

Regulations surrounding where fliers are allowed to be posted tend to be made by local governments, and college campuses usually have their own rules, said Tim Zick, a professor of law at William & Mary Law School in Williamsburg, Va.

The salient issue, he said, is one of free expression. “As a matter of free speech, people who oppose the ‘kidnapped’ posters could erect posters of their own, expressing their views,” Professor Zick said.

I believe that if Israelis had kidnapped Palestinians after the kind of butchery of Palestinians that Hamas wrought against Israel on October 7, there could be posters of kidnapped Palestinians, and I would hope that Jewish people would leave them up as a sign of sympathy with those suffering needlessly. I would not tear them down. And of course sympathizers with Gaza would object vociferously if these were torn down, as they should. The posters are political

*And OMG, the NYT also has a big story about the world’s worst confection: “Is it time to give candy corn the respect it deserves?”

This woman needs therapy:

Sitting in her Wiggins, Miss., home one fall afternoon, Wanda King began counting all of the candy corn flavors she has collected over the years.

She quickly ran out of fingers.

There is sea salt chocolate, caramel, peppermint, cookies, Starburst, Sour Patch Kids, apple pie, pumpkin pie, s’mores and three separate coffee flavors. Others are slightly more imaginative, like blackberry cobbler. Some are holiday themed, like eggnog and witch’s teeth, which are off white with green tips. Others in her collection try to mimic meals — like a brunch-flavored bag with kernels that taste like French toast, waffles and pancakes.

“It is the ultimate survival sugar rush,” she said, noting that she’d recently checked the freshness of a batch from 2017. “Candy corn don’t go bad. It’ll last forever.”

Catching her breath, Ms. King, 62, said she had amassed nearly 40 varieties, which she stores neatly in Mason jars in a guest bedroom.

With so much candy corn on the market, who’s eating it? And how? Fifty-one percent of Americans eat the whole piece at once, and 31 percent start nibbling the tiny pieces at the narrow white end, according to a recent survey by the National Confectioners Association. The remaining 18 percent start with the yellow end.

No matter how it’s eaten, candy corn regularly tops the list of most divisive treats alongside black licorice and circus peanuts, Ms. Benjamin said. Each fall, when pumpkins take center stage and candy is sold by the bucket, discord breaks out between the lovers and haters of candy corn.

The haters are right!

. . . it’s been about 30 years since Ray Garton, 60, a horror novelist in Northern California, last had candy corn. “It’s the consistency, how it feels between my teeth and the taste,” he said. “It’s just too sweet. It makes me shudder just thinking about it.”

They discuss the lovers, too (one s above), but I’ll pass on and show this cartoon from the NYT:

*From the WaPo, an article called “Jewish students braced for antisemitism and violence. It’s happening.” Note that it doesn’t refer to Muslim students being assaulted by Jews, and that’s because it almost never happens.

College administrators braced at the start of the Israel-Gaza conflict for an outbreak of antisemitism, Islamophobia, harassment and even violence. Free speech advocates predicted infringements on constitutional rights. Now, as the raid by Hamas against Israeli civilians gives way to wider combat in the region, those fears appear to be coming to fruition. The solemn and peaceable candlelight vigils from earlier this month preceded uglier confrontations, leaving Jewish college students feeling anxious, afraid and unsafe.

Israel’s counterattack against Hamas, the militant group that controls the Gaza Strip, has brought forth intense protests nationwide, including on college campuses. At many rallies for Palestinian sovereignty and human rights, demonstrators have usedvariations of a phrase that some Jewish students call a threat: “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.”

Defenders of the phrase often say that the line refers to a one-state solution to the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians over that tract of land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, in which Arabs and Jews could have equal voting rights. But the U.S. and U.N. position is that Israel has a right to exist as a Jewish state and that the conflict should be solved with a “two-state solution,” one country for each group.

On Thursday, a pro-Palestinian rally near Tulane’s campus turned violent, leaving Dylan Mann, a Jewish student, with broken nose. In video of the event, a protester sought to light an Israeli flag on fire, prompting a pro-Israel demonstrator to try to snatch the flag. In an ensuing melee, a couple of the demonstrators, who appeared to be pro-Palestinian, repeatedly struck Mann, videos show. Mann went to the hospital for treatment, he told The Post in an interview Monday.

Here’s a video of some of that real violence at Tulane, a video embedded in the WaPo article. It’s from Fox News, but take that up with the WaPo:

There’s a much smaller section on actions against Palestinian supporters, because there isn’t much, though Florida governorRon DeSantis tried to get campus chapters of National Students for Justice in Palestine be “deactivated.” Odious and hateful as that group is, it has a right to exist and speak. But Jewish students are not heaping verbal abuse or physical violence on their “opponents” nearly as much, so put the onus of blame on the SJP and its supporters.  In comparison to pro-Palestinian activists, Jewish students, as they are on campus here, are far more peaceful and less disruptive. I hope to write about that soon, as we’ve had some conflict at Chicago.

Meanwhile, the NYT reports this:

Christopher A. Wray, the F.B.I. director, said threats against Jewish people in the United States are reaching “historic levels.”

“The Jewish community is targeted by terrorists really across the spectrum — homegrown violent extremists, foreign terrorist organizations, both Sunni and Shia, domestic violent extremists,” Wray told senators on the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs committee. He said that Jewish people represent less than 3 percent of the American population, but receive about 60 percent of the religious-based hate crimes.

*Kansas, a red state, has been the scene of bitter battles about abortion, but reason has triumphed: a state referendum last year turned down Republican’s attempts to amend the state constitution, saying that abortion was not a “right.”

Now a state district judge has dismantled the few restrictions on abortion that remain:

A Kansas judge on Monday put a new state law on medication abortions on hold and blocked older restrictions that for years have spelled out what providers must tell patients and forced patients to wait 24 hours to end their pregnancies.

The ruling was another big victory for abortion rights advocates in Kansas, where a statewide vote in August 2022 decisively confirmed protections for abortion access under the state constitution. District Judge K. Christopher Jayaram’s order suspends some restrictions that have been in effect for years. The waiting period had been in place since 1997.

. . . Jayaram’s order is set to remain in effect through the trial set for the end of June 2024 for a lawsuit filed by abortion providers, against state officials who would enforce abortion restrictions. The providers filed their case in Johnson County in the Kansas City area, home to two clinics that provide abortions.

. . .Jayaram concluded that the restrictions now on hold violate a patient’s right to bodily autonomy. The judge also ruled that they violate doctors’ free speech rights by giving doctors “no discretion” to omit any of the material mandated by the state.

“In addition, there is no credible evidence that the mandatory delays imposed by the Act for arbitrary periods of time are likely to, in fact, improve either the consent/decision-making process by pregnant patients or conduct by the medical profession,” the judge wrote.

Republican lawmakers argued this year that “reasonable restrictions” are still fair game. A law that took effect July 1 required abortion providers to tell their patients that a medication abortion can be stopped using a regimen touted by anti-abortion groups. The state agreed not to enforce it until another ruling from Jayaram.

Ever since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v Wade, Republican lawmakers (mostly men, of course) have done their best to make abortion illegal, sometimes even after rapes or incest. I hope some of the pushback in Kansas will spread, and that people will come to their senses. But since much of the pro-life movement is based on religion, it’s an uphill battle.

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili is pondering:

A: Are you going for a walk?
Hili: I’m thinking about it.
In Polish:
Ja: Idziesz na spacer?
Hili: Właśnie się nad tym zastanawiam.
And a photo of the affectionate Szaron:

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From reader Smith Powell. I don’t know if this is real; I doubt it but it’s still funny:

A Gary Larson Far Side cartoon from Divy (it’s 40 years old!). As I said, my dad loved liver and onions, but my mother had to cook it and hated the smell (as did my sister and I):

And a Scott Metzger cart00n (sadly, I’ve forgotten the source):

From Masih: the Iranian morality police are still at it, and the women are standing up to it (note the guy taking photos):

A colorized photo by Lewis Hine (read the whole text). Hine (1874-1940) was a great photographer, and his pictures of young children at work help bring about huge reforms in child-labor laws in America.

From Malcolm, who calls this “a true monorail cat”. There’s music:

From gravelinspector. Yes, it’s sort of an ad, but I bought a pair to give to Elzbieta, owner of Leon and Mietek, and a friend of Andrzej and Malgorzata. She loved them and sent me a photo of her feet looking like cats’ feet!

From Simon who said, “She has a point.” I didn’t get the point at first, but then the penny droopped.

From Barry. Note that other primates NEVER open bananas the way we do. We should taken lessons from them:

 

From the Auschwitz Memorial: An author whose children’s books didn’t save her from the gas:

One lonely tweet from Matthew today, but he’s BACK ON TWITTER! And here’s a cheerful video of a guy stroking an axolotl!

18 thoughts on “Wednesday: Hili dialogue”

  1. On this day:
    1348 – The anti-royalist Union of Valencia attacks the Jews of Murviedro on the pretext that they are serfs of the King of Valencia and thus “royalists”. [Needing a pretext makes a change, I suppose…]

    1512 – The ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, painted by Michelangelo, is exhibited to the public for the first time.

    1520 – The Strait of Magellan, the passage immediately south of mainland South America connecting the Pacific and the Atlantic Oceans, is first discovered and navigated by European explorer Ferdinand Magellan during the first recorded circumnavigation voyage.

    1604 – William Shakespeare’s tragedy Othello is performed for the first time, at Whitehall Palace in London. [The Tempest was also performed for the first time on this day in 1611.]

    1755 – In Portugal, Lisbon is totally devastated by a massive earthquake and tsunami, killing an estimated 40,000 to 60,000 people.

    1765 – The British Parliament enacts the Stamp Act on the Thirteen Colonies in order to help pay for British military operations in North America.

    1790 – Edmund Burke publishes Reflections on the Revolution in France, in which he predicts that the French Revolution will end in a disaster.

    1800 – John Adams becomes the first President of the United States to live in the Executive Mansion (later renamed the White House).

    1848 – In Boston, Massachusetts, the first medical school for women, Boston Female Medical School (which later merged with the Boston University School of Medicine), opens.

    1870 – In the United States, the Weather Bureau (later renamed the National Weather Service) makes its first official meteorological forecast.

    1894 – Buffalo Bill, 15 of his Native Americans, and Annie Oakley were filmed by Thomas Edison in his Black Maria Studio in West Orange, New Jersey.

    1911 – World’s first combat aerial bombing mission takes place in Libya during the Italo-Turkish War. Second Lieutenant Giulio Gavotti of Italy drops several small bombs.

    1918 – Malbone Street Wreck: The worst rapid transit accident in US history occurs under the intersection of Malbone Street and Flatbush Avenue, Brooklyn, New York City, with at least 102 deaths.

    1928 – The Law on the Adoption and Implementation of the Turkish Alphabet, replaces the Arabic alphabet with the Latin alphabet.

    1938 – Seabiscuit defeats War Admiral in an upset victory during a match race deemed “the match of the century” in horse racing.

    1941 – American photographer Ansel Adams takes a picture of a moonrise over the town of Hernandez, New Mexico that would become one of the most famous images in the history of photography.

    1950 – Puerto Rican nationalists Griselio Torresola and Oscar Collazo attempt to assassinate US President Harry S. Truman at Blair House.

    1951 – Operation Buster–Jangle: Six thousand five hundred United States Army soldiers are exposed to ‘Desert Rock’ atomic explosions for training purposes in Nevada. Participation is not voluntary.

    1952 – Nuclear weapons testing: The United States successfully detonates Ivy Mike, the first thermonuclear device, at the Eniwetok atoll. The explosion had a yield of ten megatons TNT equivalent.

    1954 – The Front de Libération Nationale fires the first shots of the Algerian War of Independence.

    1955 – The establishment of a Military Assistance Advisory Group in South Vietnam marks the beginning of American involvement in the conflict.

    1956 – Hungarian Revolution: Imre Nagy announces Hungary’s neutrality and withdrawal from the Warsaw Pact. Soviet troops begin to re-enter Hungary, contrary to assurances by the Soviet government. János Kádár and Ferenc Münnich secretly defect to the Soviets.

    1963 – The Arecibo Observatory in Arecibo, Puerto Rico, with the largest radio telescope ever constructed, officially opens.

    1968 – The Motion Picture Association of America’s film rating system is officially introduced, originating with the ratings G, M, R, and X.

    1979 – Griselda Álvarez becomes the first female governor of a state of Mexico.

    1982 – Honda becomes the first Asian automobile company to produce cars in the United States with the opening of its factory in Marysville, Ohio; a Honda Accord is the first car produced there.

    1993 – The Maastricht Treaty takes effect, formally establishing the European Union.

    Births:
    846 – Louis the Stammerer, Frankish king (d. 879). [The Franks / French gave their kings great names.]

    1585 – Jan Brożek, Polish mathematician, physician, and astronomer (d. 1652).

    1762 – Spencer Perceval, English lawyer and politician, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (d. 1812). [The only British prime minister to have been assassinated.]

    1847 – Emma Albani, Canadian-English soprano and actress (d. 1930).

    1848 – Caroline Still Anderson, American physician, educator and abolitionist (d. 1919).

    1871 – Stephen Crane, American poet, novelist, and short story writer (d. 1900).

    1880 – Alfred Wegener, German meteorologist and geophysicist (d. 1930).

    1887 – L.S. Lowry, English painter and illustrator (d. 1976).

    1889 – Hannah Höch, German painter and photographer (d. 1978).

    1898 – Sippie Wallace, American singer-songwriter and pianist (d. 1986).

    1915 – Margaret Taylor-Burroughs, American painter, poet, and educator, co-founded the DuSable Museum of African American History (d. 2010).

    1935 – Edward Said, Palestinian-American theorist, author, and academic (d. 2003).

    1942 – Larry Flynt, American publisher, founded Larry Flynt Publications (d. 2021).

    1944 – Kinky Friedman, American singer-songwriter and author.

    1944 – Rafic Hariri, Lebanese businessman and politician 60th Prime Minister of Lebanon (d. 2005).

    1946 – Ric Grech, British rock musician (d. 1990).

    1946 – Yuko Shimizu, Japanese graphic designer, created Hello Kitty.

    1947 – Jim Steinman, American songwriter and producer (d. 2021).

    1950 – Mitch Kapor, American computer programmer and businessman, founded Lotus Software and Electronic Frontier Foundation.

    1957 – Lyle Lovett, American singer-songwriter, guitarist, and producer.

    1960 – Tim Cook, American businessman and engineer, current CEO of Apple Inc.

    1962 – Sharron Davies, English swimmer. [Cheated of an Olympic gold medal during the era when East German female swimmers were doped with testosterone, she now campaigns to stop another generation of sportswomen losing out to people benefiting from the hormone – this time males competing as women. Her new book, Unfair Play: The Battle for Women’s Sport, has been shortlisted for the William Hill Sports Book of the Year Award, the world’s oldest sports writing prize.]

    1967 – Tina Arena, Australian singer-songwriter, producer, and actress. [Real name Filippina Lydia Arena.]

    1978 – Helen Czerski, English physicist and oceanographer.

    Death….a great Leveler — a king before whose tremendous majesty shades & differences in littleness cannot be discerned — an Alp from whose summit all small things are the same size.
    1496 – Filippo Buonaccorsi (Filip Callimachus), Italian humanist writer (b. 1437).

    1903 – Theodor Mommsen, German archaeologist, journalist, and politician, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1817).

    1952 – Dixie Lee, American singer (b. 1911).

    1955 – Dale Carnegie, American author and educator (b. 1888).

    1972 – Robert MacArthur, Canadian-American ecologist and academic (b. 1930).

    1972 – Ezra Pound, American poet and critic (b. 1885).

    1982 – King Vidor, American director, producer, and screenwriter (b. 1894).

    1985 – Phil Silvers, American actor and comedian (b. 1911).

    1994 – Noah Beery, Jr., American actor (b. 1913). [Best known for playing James Garner’s character’s father, Joseph “Rocky” Rockford, in the NBC television series The Rockford Files (1974–1980).]

    2005 – Skitch Henderson, American pianist, composer, and conductor (b. 1918).

    2008 – Jacques Piccard, Swiss oceanographer and engineer (b. 1922).

    Reply

      1. This Arecibo observatory notice is the result of the destruction of the telescope over the past few years due to a combination of deferred maintenance and significant damage from hurricanes. So it looks like they are planning to use the telescope site and some rehabbed building as a STEM education center, but no more scientific observations or research itself will be done….ever.

        Reply

    2. I’ll put Stephen Crane up there with the best of American writers. I consider his semi-autobiographical short story The Open Boat as perfect a story as can be written. I know he was anti-religion, and didn’t trust religious people, though I don’t know if he was an atheist. Died of tuberculosis in a Black Forest sanatorium at the ripe age of 28. As in the case of any brilliant artist cut down so young, it tugs at the imagination, what else would he have written?

      Reply

  2. … it’s National Bison Day, and I guess you’re supposed to eat the meat, but I haven’t and don’t think I will.

    You’ve never had a bison burger, boss? They’re not a staple of my diet (I don’t eat a lot of red meat as it is), but I find them delicious — much better than beef burgers, tastier and juicier.

    Maybe somebody’ll have to send you a box of ’em for Coynezaa this year.

    Reply

    1. Bison meat is very lean, very tasty, and my favorite meat, followed by lamb. Neither of which I can afford to eat on a regular basis.

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  3. With regard to, “I hope to write about that soon as we have had some conflict at Chicago”. I hope that you will let us know what if any action was taken against Dean-on-call Booze (not really a dean but an assistant director in housing according to the University directory) who allegedly was present at a university-approved Jewish rally dressed in Palestinian colors with protestors of the rally and did nothing to stop the protestors from canceling the rally speakers by noise. I would like to know if the allegations are true and, if true, what if any action the UChicago administration took regarding her. To me punishment is not necessary, but some education as to responsibility is….and why is such a low-level functionary given a dean level decision-making responsibility? Thanks!

    Reply

  5. Regulations surrounding where fliers are allowed to be posted tend to be made by local governments, and college campuses usually have their own rules …

    Which makes the areas where fliers are allowed to be posted designated public forums for First Amendment purposes and makes tearing those posters down an abridgment of free speech (as well as an act of vandalism).

    Reply

  6. In video of the event [a pro-Palestinian rally near Tulane’s campus], a protester sought to light an Israeli flag on fire, prompting a pro-Israel demonstrator to try to snatch the flag.

    If the pro-Palestinian protestor owned the Israeli flag at issue, his act of burning the flag constituted protected First Amendment expression. If, OTOH, the pro-Palestinian protestor stole the flag from a pro-Israeli counter protester, then he engaged in an unprotected, prosecutable act of theft and vandalism. In this respect, his act would be indistinguishable from the arrest and prosecution of Proud Boys’ leader Enrique Tarrio for tearing a Black Lives Matter banner off the side of a Washington, DC, church and setting it on fire shortly before the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection.

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  7. For odious confections, Circus Peanuts vastly outrank Candy Corn. Meanwhile, possibly because of my Finnish component of my genetics, Black Licorice is good stuff, as long as it’s something like Switzer’s and not the cheap twisty stuff in a bag.

    But then yesterday, as a hedge against the slight possibility that Trick or Treaters might show up, I went to get my usual two bags of little Heath bars, only to find that there were none to be had, nor did it appear that there ever had been, so I settled for Butterfingers.

    Reply

      1. We are too far apart (physically) for house to house trick or treating to be feasible. What happens is that you take the kids into your nearest little town, and all the businesses, churches, and civic groups have tables up and down main street.
        I have noticed that the crowd always seems to move counterclockwise, for no discernible reason.
        Our kids are older, so we did not go into town. Sadly, we did not even buy candy on the pretense that perhaps some kids will come. Most years we do this, and we buy the sorts of candy we like ourselves, which we eat over the rest of the year.

        Reply

  8. “There’s a much smaller section on actions against Palestinian supporters, because there isn’t much, though Florida governor Ron DeSantis tried to get campus chapters of National Students for Justice in Palestine be “deactivated.” Odious and hateful as that group is, it has a right to exist and speak.”

    This is just a hypocritical political ploy by DeSantis. He’s apparently OK with Neo-Nazis outside Disneyworld taunting with antisemitism and anti-LGBT remarks, waving swastika flags and “vote DeSantis” signs. He didn’t say a word about them, but now that it’s Palestinians, he decides antisemitism is bad. There has been a general influx of Neo-Nazis in Florida for the past two years who have been out and about and vocal and he hasn’t said squat about them. Sorry Ron, you can’t have it both ways.

    https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/28/us/politics/desantis-israel-antisemitism.html

    Reply

  9. Oddly enough one of the nicknames for Tulane (at least decades ago) was “Jewlane”.
    The Hillel website says “3,214 Jewish Students (43.7%*) 7,350 Students”

    Reply

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