Tuesday: Hili dialogue

December 19, 2023 • 6:45 am

Welcome to the Cruelest Day: Tuesday December 19, 2023, and National Oatmeal Muffin Day. What a lousy food day; they could have at least celebrated blueberry muffins. As Jacques Pepin said to Julia Child on their joint television show, “Jacques, food is not medicine.”  Too many people think it is!

It’s also National Wreaths Across America Day, Saint Nicholas Day (the Christian feast), National Hard Candy Day, and National Emo Day.  Here are some Emos; do they still exist? Here’s a photo of some emos from reddit:

Wine of the Day:  This 2021 Cabernet from McPrice Myers, shown below, has a cute name, but is a serious red, and was cheap for the price at $20.  (Paso Robles is in the Coast Range foothills between San Jose and Santa Barbara, and is known for its cab blends.)  This one, comprising 76% Cabernet Sauvignon, 10% Malbec, 6% Merlot, 6% Petite Sirah, and 2% Petite Verdot, has the mintiness of a California cab with a touch of eucalyptus and flavors of blackcurrant and black fruits. It’s also got and plenty of stuffing from the Malbec and Petite Syrah, and should improve in the next couple of years. There are tannins, but they’re not annoying. It was a great wine to go with my T-bone steak (no, I don’t eat them often).

It’s rare to find a wine this cheap given a 94 rating by my wine guru Robert Parker, but this is the second bottle I’ve had of BBTH and both were excellent. Here’s Parker’s review:

Deep ruby, the 2021 Cabernet Sauvignon Bull By The Horns has pleasingly herbal touches of bay leaves and dried herbs over a core of blackcurrant, game meat, tar and pencil shavings. The full-bodied palate has abundant, grainy tannins, uplifting, juicy acidity and a long finish with iron and herbal tones. This overdelivers for the price!

He’s right! I imagine this wine will not be rare, so if you see a bottle and have two sawbucks in your pocket, you could do worse.

Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this by consulting the December 19 Wikipedia page.

Da Nooz:

*In its continuing attempt to tell Israel how to defend itself, Secretary Lloyd Austin visited Israel yesterday to tell the IDF what the U.S. wants them to do.

Israeli leaders are considering the next phase of the war in Gaza, the country’s defense minister said on Monday, amid mounting pressure from the United States to shift to away from the high-intensity, large-scale warfare that Israeli forces have been waging for most of the last two months.

The acknowledgment, made at a news conference by Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, came as the Biden administration again pushed Israel to better protect civilians in Gaza — what Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III, standing next to Mr. Gallant, called a “strategic imperative” for Israel’s campaign.

Mr. Gallant did not offer details about Israel’s plans to shift the strategy of its campaign, which has so far been dominated by intense bombardments and a ground invasion that swept into the northern half of the Gaza Strip and expanded to a broad swath of the south.

“Soon, we will be able to distinguish between different areas in Gaza,” he said. “In every area where we achieve our mission, we will be able to transition gradually to the next phase and start working on bringing back the local population.”

That could “be achieved maybe sooner in the north than in the south,” he said — but warned that he was only trying to convey “an idea of what we are discussing.”

He added that Israel had “no clock” running on the end of its campaign.

Austin also said that the U.S. had no clock running, but here’s what he wants Israel to do:

The Biden administration envisions that the next phase would involve smaller groups of elite forces that would move in and out of population centers in Gaza, conducting more precise, intelligence-driven missions to find and kill Hamas leaders, rescue hostages and destroy tunnels.

Well, maybe that’s feasible, but I don’t think so. Picking off Hamas members with “intelligence info” one by one will not only not destroy Hamas, but will lead to the death of more Israeli soldiers. Where will they get the intelligence to do this? I still think the U.S., upset by world opinion (how could world opinion be otherwise?), is freaking out and suggesting plans that will lead Hamas to win.  Certainly Israel can do better with humanitarian aid, but remember that this is an extistential war for Israel, whose survival depends on not losing. I wonder if it would make a difference if Austin had been raised in Israel. The existence of the U.S. doesn’t depend on whether Hamas wins.

*Reuters tells us about a poll (which of course you must take with a grain of salt) showing that most Palestinians favor not just Hamas, but its October 7 terror attack on Israel.

 Almost three in four Palestinians believe the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas on Israel was correct, and the ensuing Gaza war has lifted support for the Islamist group both there and in the West Bank, a survey from a respected Palestinian polling institute found.

The Palestinian Center for Policy Survey and Research (PCPSR) findings were published as international alarm grows over the spiralling Palestinian civilian toll in the Israeli counter-offensive against Hamas, now in its third month.

Seventy-two percent of respondents said they believed the Hamas decision to launch the cross-border rampage in southern Israel was “correct” given its outcome so far, while 22% said it was “incorrect”. The remainder were undecided or gave no answer.

. . .The PCPSR found that, compared to pre-war polling, support for Hamas had risen in Gaza and more than tripled in the West Bank, which has seen the highest levels in violence in years, with repeated deadly clashes between Israeli troops and settlers and Palestinians.

Fifty-two percent of Gazans and 85% of West Bank respondents – or 72% of Palestinian respondents overall – voiced satisfaction with the role of Hamas in the war. Only 11% of Palestinian voiced satisfaction with PA President Mahmoud Abbas.

I think the direction of the figures is to be expected, but of course they could be overestimates. Still, if they’re right, they put the lie to the assertion that non-Hamas Palestinians hate the terror organization that rules them and disapprove of the butchery of innocent civilians. That of course doesn’t mean we should kill those civilians, but it tells you that the likelihood of a two-state solution is almost nil. Further, the disapproval of Abbas tells you that expecting the Palestinian Authority to be an honest broker for peace, and a good ruling party over Gaza, is close to insane.

*Pope Francis has says the Catholic Church can bless same-sex couples, a laudable advance in Catholic morality, but one that runs pretty close to what it still considers immoral.

The Vatican on Monday issued formal, definitive permission for Catholic priests to bless same-sex couples, as long as those benedictions are kept separate from marriage, a decree that amounts to an about-face after decades of discord between the LBGTQ+ community and the Catholic Church, which has long upheld that homosexuals are “disordered” and said any nod to their unions would be tantamount to blessing sin.

The guidance from the powerful Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, issued after papal review and approval, largely reverses a 2021 ruling and expands on a far briefer statement of support for such blessings issued by Francis in September in response to questions raised by conservative clerics.

The document issued Monday says that blessings of same-sex couples should not suggest even the trappings of sacramental marriage — including traditional wedding vestments — or even ceremonies formally recognizing same-sex unions. But it offers guidelines for offering benedictions to people in same-sex relationships and explicitly gives permission to “ordained ministers” to conduct such blessings, while asking priests to use their own “prudent and fatherly discernment” to decide when doing so is appropriate.

Couples in “irregular situations” as well as “couples of the same sex” may receive priestly blessings, the Vatican said, so that these “human relationships may mature and grow in fidelity to the Gospel.”

“With its untiring wisdom and motherly care, the Church welcomes all who approach God with humble hearts, accompanying them with those spiritual aids that enable everyone to understand and realize God’s will fully in their existence,” the Vatican said.

While the Church still doesn’t recognize same-sex unions, it has reversed a previous decision that they can’t be blessed. Well, that’s good if you’re a gay Catholic (which to me is like a vegetarian lion), but did God change His mind?  More important, remember that the Catholic catechism pronounces definitively that homosexual acts are grave sins, acts of “grave depravity” that are against “natural law” (whatever that is). And those sins, if unconfessed before you die, will send you straight to hell. Apparently it’s okay to be in a same-sex union, so long as you don’t have sex. And you’ll have to confess each time you do. If you get hit by a truck before you confess your last homosexual act, you’ll start frying immediately. This all shows how stupid Catholicism, like all religions, really are.  And if they change, as Catholicism has, did someone hear that on the telephone line to God?

*Speaking of Harard’s President Claudine Gay, the author of one of the pieces from which Gay’s accused of plagiarizing has her say in a WSJ op-ed, “Claudine Gay and my scholarship.” The author is Carol M. Swain, “a senior fellow at the Institute for Faith and Culture and a co-author of ‘The Adversity of Diversity: How the Supreme Court’s Decision to Remove Race from College Admissions Criteria will Doom Diversity Programs.’” Her plaint:

I write as one of the scholars whose work Ms. Gay plagiarized. She failed to credit me for sections from my 1993 book, “Black Faces, Black Interests: The Representation of African Americans in Congress” and an article I published in 1997, “Women and Blacks in Congress: 1870-1996.” The damage to me extends beyond the two instances of plagiarism identified by researchers Christopher Rufo and Christopher Brunet.

“Black Faces, Black Interests” received numerous accolades and recognitions. In 1994 it was selected one of Library Choice Journal’s seven outstanding academic books and won the Woodrow Wilson Foundation Award and the V.O. Key Award for political science. It won the D.B. Hardeman Prize for its scholarship on Congress in 1995. My book has been cited in court opinions, including by U.S. Supreme Court justices in Johnson v. De Grandy (1994) and Georgia v. Ashcroft (2003).

Ms. Gay’s damage to me is aggravated because her early work was in the area where my research is considered seminal. Her scholarship on black congressional representation, electoral districting and descriptive representation builds on terrain where I plowed the ground.

When one follows in the footsteps of a more senior scholar, one is expected to acknowledge the latter’s contribution to the field and how one’s own research and ideas refute, affirm or expand knowledge in the area. Ms. Gay ignored the substantive importance of my research, which she should have acknowledged and engaged. A single citation or two wouldn’t usually be considered intellectually honest.

When scholars aren’t cited adequately or their work is ignored, it harms them because academic stature is determined by how often other researchers cite your work. Ms. Gay had no problem riding on the coattails of people whose work she used without proper attribution. Many of those whose work she pilfered aren’t as incensed as I am. They are elites who have benefited from a system that protects its own.

Even aside from the documented instances of plagiarism, Ms. Gay’s work wouldn’t normally have earned tenure in the Ivy League. Tenure at a top-tier institution normally demands ground-breaking originality; her work displays none. In a world where the privilege of diversity is king, Ms. Gay was able to parlay mediocre research into tenure and administrative advancement at what was once considered a world-class university.

OOF!  Actually, I predict that Gay is now doomed as Harvard’s President. It’s the plagiarism that will do her in, not her testimony in the House.  I’m guessing that Harvard’s Board of Overseers will wait a while until the dust settles, and then ask her to resign

*I found this WaPo article, “Ask a doctor: Our 10 best tips to help you live better,” somewhat disappointing, but I guess many of us should know this stuff.  Here are ten questions and their short answers (my own summary of the doc’s responses are indented). One gets the impression this article is directed at gerontocrats.

1.) Should I take a magnesium supplement?

A: Not usually. The doc says “Eat more magnesium-rich foods.”

2.) Are my bowel movements normal?

A: From three per day to three per week is normal. (That’s a huge range!)

3.)  How can I keep my skin looking young and healthy?  Doc’s answer: “In the morning, use a face cleanser, then apply a moisturizer and a broad-spectrum sunscreen. At night, cleanse your face again, then apply a retinoid and your moisturizer. The brand doesn’t necessarily matter. Chose what works for your budget and skin type — such as sensitive, dry or oily.”

4.) How should I be wiping after I use the bathroom? (oy!)

A: Use a bidet. Barring that, use two-ply toilet paper.

5.) What can my nails tell me about my health?

A: Go see this article.

6.) Should I take a vitamin B12 supplement for fatigue?

A: Only if you have a deficiency in this vitamin,

7.) Why do I crave sweets after eating?

A: See this article.

8.) Are hand tremors a bad sign?

A: We all have them to some extent, and they get worse as we get older. ” If you have a new tremor with no obvious trigger, talk to your doctor.”

9.) Is it common to poop your pants?

A: My snarky answer would be “only if you eat your pants,” but the doc says “eat more fiber” and read this article.

10.) Should I let my dog lick my face?

A: Generally not a good idea, but read this article.  However, I think that you can let your cat lick your face (if it wants to), but I’m a real doctor, not an M.D.

*Self aggrandizement of the week: yours truly, along with eleven other worthies, has been elected by the Committee For Skeptical Inquiry as a CSI Fellow (or Fellowess):

The Committee for Skeptical Inquiry (CSI), a program of the Center for Inquiry and publisher of the long-running Skeptical Inquirer magazine, is pleased to announce the election of twelve new CSI Fellows for 2023.

These newly elected fellows, chosen based on their distinguished contributions to science and skepticism, will serve as consultants and ambassadors for CSI and further its mission to promote scientific inquiry, critical investigation, and the use of reason in examining controversial and extraordinary claims.

“These are twelve outstanding individuals who have all demonstrated a true passion and commitment to science, reason, and skepticism,” said Barry Karr, executive director of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry. “We are very proud to welcome such an accomplished group of scholars, researchers, academics, and science communicators as CSI fellows.”

For more than forty years, CSI fellows have been an integral part of the nonprofit Committee for Skeptical Inquiry, advocating on behalf of scientific inquiry and critical thinking. New fellows are nominated and elected by CSI’s Executive Council and elected based on the following criteria:

  • Outstanding contribution to a scientific discipline, preferably, though not restricted to, in a field related to the skeptical movement;
  • Outstanding contribution to the communication of science and/or critical thinking; or
  • Outstanding contribution to the skeptical movement.

Okay, I got to brag. You can see the other Fellows at the link above, and, since there’s no sign of the CSI changing its mission, I’m not worried about having to resign.

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili’s about to invade Kulka’s space upstairs and eat her food (look at her peeved expression!):

A: Are you going upstairs?
Hili: Yes, Kulka gobbled up everything from my bowl and I have a strong desire to retaliate.
In Polish:
Ja: Wybierasz się na górę?
Hili: Tak, Kulka wyżarła wszystko z mojej miseczki i mam silne pragnienie odwetu.

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

A groaner from Facebook:

From Kurt: a letter from Carl Sagan and Ann Druyan to Chuck Berry. This is priceless!

From Anna:

From Masih: the father of a slain Iranian protestor weeps as he dances around his son’s grave holding a cake:

 

A tweet byNikole Hannah-Jones of the 1619 project (“Ida Bae Wells” is the name she uses on “X”) and a response:

From Barry, who says “best reply ever!”:

I had the same feeling as Malcolm: “What a waste!:

This is heartwarming; I hope it worked out:

From the Auschwitz Memorial, a two-year-old girl gassed on arrival:

Two tweets from Professor Cobb. Matthew calls the first one “hardcore”, but at least he didn’t kill her! I have no idea what the antenna-biting is about:

Bird counting!

 

66 thoughts on “Tuesday: Hili dialogue”

  1. On this day:
    1606 – The ships Susan Constant, Godspeed, and Discovery depart England carrying settlers who founded, at Jamestown, Virginia, the first of the thirteen colonies that became the United States.

    1776 – Thomas Paine publishes one of a series of pamphlets in The Pennsylvania Journal entitled “The American Crisis”.

    1783 – William Pitt the Younger becomes the youngest Prime Minister of the United Kingdom at 24.

    1900 – French parliament votes amnesty for all involved in scandalous army treason trial known as Dreyfus affair.

    1912 – William Van Schaick, captain of the steamship General Slocum which caught fire and killed over one thousand people, is pardoned by U.S. President William Howard Taft after 3+1⁄2 years in Sing Sing prison.

    1924 – The last Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost is sold in London, England.

    1924 – German serial killer Fritz Haarmann is sentenced to death for a series of murders.

    1932 – BBC World Service begins broadcasting as the BBC Empire Service.

    1956 – Irish-born physician John Bodkin Adams is arrested in connection with the suspicious deaths of more than 160 patients. Eventually he is convicted only of minor charges.

    1972 – Apollo program: The last crewed lunar flight, Apollo 17, carrying Eugene Cernan, Ronald Evans, and Harrison Schmitt, returns to Earth.

    1981 – Sixteen lives are lost when the Penlee lifeboat goes to the aid of the stricken coaster Union Star in heavy seas.

    1983 – The original FIFA World Cup trophy, the Jules Rimet Trophy, is stolen from the headquarters of the Brazilian Football Confederation in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

    1984 – The Sino-British Joint Declaration, stating that China would resume the exercise of sovereignty over Hong Kong and the United Kingdom would restore Hong Kong to China with effect from July 1, 1997, is signed in Beijing by Deng Xiaoping and Margaret Thatcher.

    1998 – President Bill Clinton is impeached by the United States House of Representatives, becoming the second president of the United States to be impeached.

    2001 – A record high barometric pressure of 1,085.6 hectopascals (32.06 inHg) is recorded at Tosontsengel, Khövsgöl, Mongolia.

    2012 – Park Geun-hye is elected the first female president of South Korea.

    2013 – Spacecraft Gaia is launched by the European Space Agency.

    2016 – Russian ambassador to Turkey Andrei Karlov is assassinated while at an art exhibition in Ankara. The assassin, Mevlüt Mert Altıntaş, is shot and killed by a Turkish guard.

    2016 – A vehicular attack in Berlin, Germany, kills and injures multiple people at a Christmas market.

    Births:
    1714 – John Winthrop, American astronomer and educator (d. 1779).

    1820 – Mary Livermore, American journalist and activist (d. 1905).

    1875 – Carter G. Woodson, American historian and author, founded Black History Month (d. 1950).

    1875 – Grace Marie Bareis, American mathematician (d. 1962).

    1899 – Martin Luther King Sr., American pastor, missionary, and activist (d. 1984).

    1902 – Ralph Richardson, English actor (d. 1983).

    1903 – George Davis Snell, American geneticist and immunologist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1996).

    1906 – Leonid Brezhnev, Ukrainian-Russian marshal, engineer, and politician, 4th Head of State of the Soviet Union (d. 1982).

    1910 – Jean Genet, French novelist, playwright, and poet (d. 1986).

    1915 – Édith Piaf, French singer-songwriter and actress (d. 1963).

    1916 – Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann, German political scientist, journalist, and academic (d. 2010).

    1918 – Professor Longhair, American singer-songwriter and pianist (d. 1980).

    1922 – Eamonn Andrews, Irish radio and television host (d. 1987).

    1923 – Gordon Jackson, Scottish-English actor and singer (d. 1990).

    1925 – Robert B. Sherman, American songwriter and screenwriter (d. 2012).

    1932 – Lola Hendricks, African American civil rights activist (d. 2013).

    1940 – Phil Ochs, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (d. 1976).

    1941 – Maurice White, American singer-songwriter and producer (d. 2016).

    1944 – Richard Leakey, Kenyan paleontologist and politician (d. 2022).

    1944 – Alvin Lee, English singer-songwriter and guitarist (d. 2013).

    1947 – Jimmy Bain, Scottish bass player and songwriter (d. 2016).

    1958 – Limahl, English pop singer.

    1963 – Jennifer Beals, American model and actress.

    1964 – Béatrice Dalle, French actress.

    1969 – Richard Hammond, English journalist and producer.

    1980 – Jake Gyllenhaal, American actor and producer.

    1985 – Lady Sovereign, English rapper.

    1987 – Ronan Farrow, American activist, journalist, and lawyer.

    Shrinking away from death is something unhealthy and abnormal which robs the second half of life of its purpose:
    1807 – Friedrich Melchior, Baron von Grimm, German-French author and playwright (b. 1723).

    1813 – James McGill, Scottish-Canadian businessman and philanthropist, founded McGill University (b. 1744).

    1848 – Emily Brontë, English novelist and poet (b. 1818).

    1915 – Alois Alzheimer, German psychiatrist and neuropathologist (b. 1864).

    1953 – Robert Andrews Millikan, American physicist and eugenicist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1868).

    1989 – Stella Gibbons, English journalist, author, and poet (b. 1902).

    1993 – Michael Clarke, American drummer (b. 1946).

    1996 – Marcello Mastroianni, Italian-French actor and singer (b. 1924).

    1997 – Masaru Ibuka, Japanese businessman, co-founded Sony (b. 1908).

    1997 – Jimmy Rogers, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (b. 1924).

    2003 – Hope Lange, American actress (b. 1933).

    2009 – Kim Peek, American megasavant (b. 1951). [He was the inspiration for the character Raymond Babbitt in the 1988 movie Rain Man.]

    2015 – Jimmy Hill, English footballer, manager, and sportscaster (b. 1928).

    2021 – Sally Ann Howes, English-American singer and actress (b. 1930).

    1. The three ships that crossed the Atlantic to found Jamestown in 1607 were really small. The largest, Susan Constant was just over 100 feet in length and the smallest, Discovery, was but 38 feet. Replicas of the three are docked on the James River at the Jamestown Festival Park in Virginia and can be boarded by visitors to the park.

  3. I don’t drink wine because the sulfites would kill me, and not to be critical of your “wine guru”, but I’d be willing to bet that if he had ever tasted either tar or pencil shavings, he was probably in the third grade or younger.

    And, why would those “flavors” be desirable, anyway?

    L

    1. It’s the smell. I’ll bet you’ve smelled tar and pencil shavings in the time since you were in 3rd grade!

    2. At UC Davis the enology department would host wine tastings where they bring lots of reference materials (liquids with specific chemical compounds) along with wines. The references are used to train students to recognize flavours or aromas that correspond to words like “buttery” in a Chardonnay or “tar” in a Barolo. The words were just metaphors for a chemical property of the wine ofc but the idea was to help everyone learn a common meaning for the words and a common way to describe each of the properties. Using reference compounds seemed like a clever way to do that, at least to someone like me with no knowledge of wines.

      1. Thanks for explaining this. The sorts of descriptions that oenophiles use never made sense to me before, possibly because I find scents difficult to “envision” when I’m not actually smelling them. Training on a set of standards makes sense.

    3. As someone who has been an aficionado of wine all my life, I rather enjoy some of the more outré descriptions people come up with. The idea is for the descriptions to be evocative. The wine does not literally taste like tar, these descriptions are meant to stimulate the taster and help them explore the various scents and flavors that wine can produce. Sometimes the descriptions may not sound flattering, but the wine may nevertheless be delicious. Attempting to describe what one is smelling and tasting can be an enjoyable creative experience.

  4. This is heartwarming; I hope it worked out
    You missed the bit at the very end when the guy mouths “Wrong ex!”

    1. I was going to write “tell me you didn’t watch to the end without telling me you didn’t watch to the end.”

      But that’ll do.

    2. I was going to say something as well, but then I thought, “maybe something will work out anyway…” I also thought it strange that she didn’t recognize him as being the wrong ex.

    3. Makes me wonder why he didn’t say, “Which one?” when she asked about “Your ex”. Was this staged??

  6. Stanford’s President resigned recently because of some plagiarism or similar academic misconduct, as I recall. How does that and Gay compare.

      1. I’m waiting for someone to say that the “obsession” with originality in academic work is a sign of whiteness and does harm to marginalized groups. Gay sampled other scholars’ work, just as rappers sample other musicians’ work.

  7. Was both happy and proud to see you were selected as a CSI Fellow. What an honor to be recognized by this wonderful organization.

  9. In the three phases of political denial (it’s not happening; it’s happening and it’s good; and it’s old news), I guess we’ve reached the “it’s old news” phase on election fraud.

  10. Ceiling Cat,
    You might enjoy this:
    https://x.com/Rainmaker1973/status/1737126635525001570?s=20

    Sound up!

    (OTS, do you agree that this is mimicry? One of my Devon Rex kittens makes similar sounds when he sees birds outside. I’m not sure he’s mimicking them. But maybe! He has so many vocalizations. I’ve noticed that some of these are only directed at me. He doesn’t use them with his little brother. For instance, when he doesn’t like something I’m doing, like picking him up, he registers the most adorable, whiny “Nooooo!” Also, just because I have to share this with another cat lover, my 10-month-old guy has decided of late that jumping on my back and perching and/or laying there is a fine thing to do. Whenever I crouch down now, I mustn’t be surprised by a thud on my back. It’s so adorable I can’t help but indulge him. In hunchback position, I walk around with him being king of the house! Yesterday, he leapt from my back to the top of the fridge. I was so proud of his acrobatics! I don’t have a “ceiling cat.” I have a back-and-fridge cat.)

    1. Geez, you might be right. At first I thought it was just “chattering” (I call it “machine-gunning”), but the chatters seem to change with the animal it’s imitating!

  11. Re the river of wine: in the RSA crowds would be standing there with buckets and buckets, to ‘salvage the wine.
    What’s going on with the Portugese?

  14. The person who is most pissed at Gay for plagiarizing her work and who is cited in the bit that Jerry includes, Carol Swain, seems to be a bonkers MAGA nut-job. This does not excuse Gay’s plagiarism but perhaps we might not be getting the most objective picture from this person and, given this, it is interesting the she indicates others are not as incensed as she is about what happened. If Gay is guilty of clear and sufficiently extensive plagiarism then my view is that she should go. Do we have a clear sense on the details of the plagiarism. Given Swain’s twitter account postings (praying for Jim Jordan, hanging out with Tucker Carlson, a clear loathing of Obama and deep love of Trump) I would be cautious about taking what she writes at face value, despite her clearly distinguished career.

    1. Swain’s criticism of Gay is important because it clarifies the misunderstanding that plagiarism and miscitation are victimless crimes. Gay stood on the shoulders of a giant but failed to admit as much. Swain is justified to claim she has been wronged. If only liberals are allowed to make that claim then the problems in our universities will only get worse.

      1. I was unclear. I was not implying the plagiarism is OK if it is of someone whose politics we don’t like. My point was that we need to consider the source when taking information at face value. Given what this idiot writes on X, and her unhinged embrace of a stolen election, that the Jan 6 crowd are heroes, etc,, her side of this story may not be fully accurate. Let’s see what the evidence is from others.

    3. Swain’s (crazy) views are irrelevant to the merit of her complaints, but I think that she comes off as obnoxious and boastful in the article, emphasizing that she is “a more senior scholar.” (Does that mean that she thinks it is okay to plagiarize the work of less experienced or successful scholars?)

      1. Swain has complained about being generally ignored or not cited by others writing about black electoral politics. Here she just means that Gay should or would have known about Swain’s work because Swain is older and had already written about the same topics Gay studied.

  15. Congratulations on being chosen a 2023 CSI Fellow!

    Israel. We’ve known from the start that Israel will only have a finite window of time before international, including U.S., pressure forces it to either stand down or to limit its operations. The U.S. is trying to get Israel to change course as predicted but, at the same time, it continues to state that the U.S. is not dictating Israel’s course of action and is not setting any timetables.

    The U.S. has little choice but to publicly call for restraint in order to retain support both internally and abroad, so I’m not surprised about the public rhetoric. But so long as the U.S. continues to state publicly that Israel has a right and duty to protect itself—and so far it has—the IDF should keep going.

    1. Absolutely correct! Israel had to get into Gaza fast, no holds barred, overwhelm the city because they knew that if they were more cautious and slower, the whole world would pounce on them. They were right to use full strength for as long as possible to weaken Hamas and also get time to destroy the tunnels. The world and the UN will now spend lots of time wringing their hands and deploring israel’s response; that’s all they are good for. But that wont’ stop israel nor should it. Success for them required an unrelenting response to fracture Gaza City and weaken hamas terrorists, which they are accomplishing quite well. Every one else can just sit on their tuchas and kvetch.

  16. “The Biden administration envisions that the next phase would involve smaller groups of elite forces that would move in and out of population centers in Gaza, conducting more precise, intelligence-driven missions to find and kill Hamas leaders, rescue hostages and destroy tunnels.” — NY Times

    That’s so brilliant. Just think, aided by intelligence from Admiral Canaris, the OSS could have infiltrated a crack team of commandos — Churchill had coined the word, after all — into Nazi Germany and bumped off Hitler and his henchmen, sort of like in the movie, The Dirty Dozen. Think of all the German civilian war production workers who wouldn’t have needed to die in 3 years of aerial bombing had this simple “surgical strike” been given serious consideration.

  17. ” …if you’re a gay Catholic (which to me is like a vegetarian lion)…” The ne plus ultra in this role category might be Count Duckula, of the 1988-93 British animated cartoon series. Its protagonist was a vegetarian vampire duck, who was also the only character in the series who spoke with an American accent.

  18. Jerry, my heartiest congratulations on your election as a CSI Fellow. That honor is richly deserved and very special!

  19. I have a vegan acquaintance who absolutely believes food is medicine, and food that is not vegan is a toxin. I accused him recently that his diet is like a religion (I know the subject has come up on WEIT before). He refutes my claim, saying: “there are no holy books and nothing to pray to.” As the kids say, whatevs…

    I agree, that letter to Chuck Berry is priceless. I wonder where it resides.

  21. G*d, I was opposed to the initial smear campaign by Rufo, which still strikes me as an authoritarian “own the libs” move, but as more and more is revealed, including from this below, I just think she should resign.

    https://x.com/realchrisrufo/status/1737189672798072990?s=20

    I’m fortunate that I’m a life scientist and don’t need to borrow language from others so much in the form of paraphrase. Direct quotes work much better when dealing with facts, and copying language is simply stupid since journals all have plagiarism tools now. I don’t know how it is in her field, whatever the heck her field is. I hear it’s political science, but it strikes me as humanities mumbo jumbo. Whatever the case, I’ve lost the will to defend her out of institutional loyalty. Pinker and I agree on us having bigger issues to address than her plagiarizing. That is still true. Getting her to resign won’t fix a thing without reform. But she should go. I would be more public about this were I not on the job market right now for assistant faculty positions. I could lose my entire livelihood from coming off as being against Gay on Twitter. So I delete my tweets every so many days. Interestingly, Rufo interacts with me whenever I write him on there, probably because it’s clear I’m not a leftist. I am still concerned about authoritarian impulses on the Right owning the libs. But I am much more sympathetic to Rufo than I am to Harvard, my workplace for the next six months.

    OTS, I interviewed for a faculty job at Boston University. They spent the entire hour asking me about DEI. I haven’t heard back from them despite the fact that I did my best to signal I support everyone, especially the poor. Didn’t matter. I didn’t talk out my ass about LBGTQ+ or race. I mentioned neither. And I won’t ever mention these in job talks or interviews.

    I think I’m moving to Pennsylvania. I’ve had two interviews with faculty there about neurogenetics. Nobody has asked me any fealty tests for DEI, though they are hiring a young, female department chair soon at the university, who will likely be woke. G*d. But so far, it’s been about science.

    I have ZERO hope for Harvard, where I am now, for the immediate future. Zero hope for most all institutions in Boston.

    Yes, Gay should go. And everyone who can should continue pressing for reform after, as her leaving won’t change a darn thing.

  22. No, Dr. Coyne, doggie licking is completely safe! And so are dog bites ands scratches. But cat saliva and claws? Potentially deadly. if you get a cat bite that breaks your skin, rush to the doctor and get an antibiotic! No kidding. Your new puppy’s sharp teeth bit you and you screamed in pain and there was blood? Just wash it off. no kidding. Conclusion: dogs are cleaner than cats.

    1. What a funny random happenstance. While I read your comment, I was reaching for a scalpel to try to clean out an infected cat scratch.
      Last week, we were given a new barn cat, and warned that although the others in the litter are nice and kid friendly, this one is pure evil.
      I brought it over in the trap the other owner had used to catch it, and while gently and patiently coaxing it out of the trap, I ended up bleeding in three places. I immediately washed them, and bandaged them with antibiotic ointment. A week later, the deepest of the scratches is infected, because of course it is.

      1. The danger is cat-scratch (or -bite) fever caused by Bartonella henselae. Cat bites have a tendency to go deep enough to inoculate saliva into the tendon sheaths of the fingers and hand which can be nasty as the infection spreads up the spaces where antibiotics have a hard time reaching. Any hand infection is a big deal.

      2. For completeness, the more serious infection from cat bites or scratches is Pasteurella multocida which usually occurs within a day or three following the bite. You are probably out of the woods on that one. If you have it, you’ll know it. It’s nasty.

        1. Well, that is all super happy information.
          Luckily, this infection is on the fleshiest part of my thumb. I experience a lot of minor cuts, scrapes, bites, and burns. Enough that I keep a scalpel handle, blades, and high-magnification glasses on an end table in my living room.
          Also, the infection is very localized, which usually means some foreign matter that needs to be excised.

          1. Débridement, drainage, and source control cure all ills. Amputate as necessary to save life. (The body part, not the cat.)

      1. It hasn’t been so for me, but my experience is of course anecdotal and totally non-scientific. But my cat has licked, scratched and bitten me (playfully) hundreds of times and I’ve never had the slightest problem from it. Any wound that has bled (and there have been a few) I’ve just cleaned with alcohol. Never an issue. Is it that my cat is a (mostly) indoor cat, or am I just lucky?

        1. If your cat’s an indoor cat you’re probably good. I’ve had a couple over the years that played a little too hard, and one of the two I have now has remarkably sharp teeth & a heckuva bite strength for a kitty that weighs about 8-9 pounds, but I’ve never suffered anything worse than scratches and a minor bruise or two.

        2. My boy cat (also and indoors) gets carried away in reaching for me with his paw, and always is surprised when he pricks me, and I immediately go and wash it off with alcoholl Because if I don’t within 4 seconds it will start to itch and will not abate. But prompt action takes care of it.

    3. My daughter works as a veterinary nurse assistant and got bitten by a cat last week. (Usually a nice cat, but not this time!) Had antibiotics and luckily no ill effects. My sister’s friend in Oregon was in hospital for nearly a week after being bitten by her own cat – they struggled to find an antibiotic that worked. Very expensive!

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