Monday: Hili dialogue

December 25, 2023 • 6:45 am

Welcome to Monday, December 25, 2023. It’s Christmas, celebrating the day baby Jesus was said to have been born,  (Wikipedia says it’s “Christmas Day: Christian festival commemorating the birth of Jesus. (Internationally observed;  but it’s also THE FIRST DAY OF COYNEZAA, which will extend through December 30. It’s also National Pumpkin Pie Day, best acquired at Costco, where a giant 3.6-pound monster goes for around six bucks (and it’s EXCELLENT).  Sound up on the Instagram post below:

It’s also “No ‘L’ Day”, in which you’re supposed to remove that letter from speech and writing. Get it? (But why bother?)

Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this by consulting the December 25 Wikipedia page.

Da Nooz:

Unless something big breaks, there will be only one news item today—a reader’s contribution.

*THE HARVARD SOAP OPERA:  We have some rumors, which may become news, in this tweet from Bill Ackman, the hedge-fund billionaire who has been on a crusade against Harvard ever since President Claudine Gay testified before a House committee, and was the first donor to withhold future big donations because of Harvard’s climate of anti-semitism. (Click  below to go to the tweet’s site) Ackman also announced that even if Gay resigns, that won’t restore Harvard’s reputation. We don’t know if she’ll resign, but if she does, Ackman’s right. Harvard has a long way to go in fixing its screwed-up rules and principles. It needs to adopt Pinker’s Fivefold Way, which includes freedom of speech and the Kalven principle of Institutional neutrality.

I have no idea what will happen. My best guess is that Gay will refuse to resign and will threaten a lawsuit; then the Harvard Corporation (who hired her) will settle for millions of bucks. But then it still has to reform the University.

You can see the latest doings of the secretive Harvard Corporation in a new article in the NYT, which suggests that the Overseers are divided. It also liberally quotes Pinker, member of a free-speech group at Harvard. For example:

Dr. Pinker, the Harvard psychologist who attended the dinner with corporation members, and has been critical of Harvard, said the board’s fiduciary duty “is to safeguard the reputation of the university over the long term, and under their watch that has not happened.”

“There are deep problems,” he added, “and they are the corporation’s problems.”

The Wall Street Journal also has a big article about the drama, and also quotes Pinker

Both critics and supporters say that it isn’t clear Gay can maintain the confidence of other academics in light of the myriad plagiarism allegations, and that her fundraising ability—a core job of any president—may be diminished.

“There are many practices, particularly the repression of unpopular opinions, that contravene [Harvard’s] commitment to truth,” said psychology professor Steven Pinker.

The Council on Academic Freedom at Harvard, a group Pinker and Flier helped to found earlier this year to advocate for more diversity of thought on campus, has about 150 members.

And they mention the Big Problem:

Gay’s role as Harvard’s first Black president complicates the corporation’s response to the recent furor. There is concern about the optics of so quickly removing the person selected for this pivotal role.

Do we care about “optics” at a time like this? Any President who did what Gay did, be they black, white, or brown, should resign. Such is the Zeitgeist, and merry Christmas!

The silver lining: we got the Euphemisms of the Year:

*I put up a Twitter (“X”) poll yesterday asking readers whether they thought Gay would resign within six months. Here are the results as of 6 a.m. today, with a scant majority saying they think she’d resign.  You can still vote; go here.

*From reader Mike, who says, “This thread by the biological anthropologist Ed Hagen is just the antidote to Fuentes that we all need. [JAC: Agustín Fuentes is the Princeton anthropologist who is making his career by denying that there are two sexes in animals, while accusing biologists like Charles Darwin of misogyny and promotion of genocide.] It’s written at a surprisingly high technical level for twitter. Dozens of links to important primary literature, especially to new work that synthesizes ideas about the origin of sex, the two sexes, and sex roles. Lots to chew on.”

This is a 25-tweet thread, so I’ll post the first and last pair of entries:

*The U.S., apparently desperate to plan a government of Gaza for “the day after”, is trying to get the Palestinian Authority (PA), pretty much hated by Gazans, to agree to take over the strip. (The PA also foments terrorism, but we’ll ignore that.) But it’s not that easy, at least according to The Washington Post:

 In its plan for the day after Israel’s campaign to eradicate Hamas from Gaza, the United States hopes to pave the way for the beleaguered Palestinian Authority to take control, by encouraging the formation of a new government and launching training for its security forces.

But so far, Washington is stumbling at one of the first hurdles — persuading Israel to unblock salaries needed to prevent the authority from collapsing altogether.

In recent weeks, U.S. officials have shuffled in and out of the Mukataa, the walled compound of 88-year-old Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas here in the de facto capital of the occupied West Bank. They have pushed for changes, and new faces in key positions, to improve the unpopular authority’s dire standing among Palestinians, with an eye on an expanded role in the Gaza Strip after the war, Palestinian and U.S. officials say.

Palestinian officials initially balked at the idea of returning to power in Gaza, which Hamas has controlled since 2007, in the aftermath of such a brutal war. But they have gradually become more receptive to seizing a rare opportunity to establish unity between the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.

The Biden administration is talking to Palestinians and members of the international community about a “new government and some fresh blood joining [Palestinian Authority] government ranks alongside and under Abbas,” according to a White House official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive matter.

Not gonna work. The PA lost an election in Gaza that Hamas won; and Israel, for good reason, doesn’t trust the PA, which hasn’t yet condemned Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel. And most Palestinians in the West Bank, where the PA rules, support that attack, while many despise the PA. I don’t know the answer here, but either putting the PA in charge of Gaza, or leaving Hamas in powerare recipes for disaster and the end of any two-state solution in the future (such a solution is of course impossible at present).

*There are lots of pro-Palestinian people who argue that there is no evidence that any Israeli women were raped by Hamas, since all the ones claimed by others to have been raped on October 7 are dead. (To see one example of an academic rape denialist, up for, yes, an important DEI position at the University of Minnesota, go here.) For a few weeks we had only witness testimony.) Well, now that many hostages are free and home, they’ve been examined by doctors, who say that at least 30 of them (including a few men) were sexually abused.

In an update on an earlier report, Israeli doctors say at least 30 of the freed hostages, most women and girls but also some males, were sexually abused during their captivity in Gaza, according to USA Today.

In early December after initial examinations by medical professionals at least 10 freed hostages were reported to have been sexually assaulted by Hamas terrorists, but this number has been revised upward to at least 30 with additional examinations and as released hostages open up about their experiences.

The hostages who were sexually abused range in age from 12 to 48 and the females been given pregnancy tests and have been screened for sexually transmitted diseases.

Although the doctors did not go into detail about the nature of the abuse, they noted that many of the freed hostages showed physical evidence of sexual abuse as well as signs of PTSD and “came to us as patients with the trauma of those who witnessed very severe sexual assaults.”

Zaka workers who were examining the bodies in the kibbutzim and at the site of the Supernova music festival collected physical evidence of sexual assault among the corpses, such as broken legs and pelvic bones and genital mutilation so severe that in some cases it wasn’t possible to distinguish males from females.

Many of the freed hostages who endured sexual abuse have only gradually started discussing what happened to them in captivity.

Of course the denialists will still be denialists, but now we have people who can actually testify that they were victims of war crimes. Let’s hope they catch these raping ^%@(&*(+~s and put them on trial.

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, things are weird. Malgorzata explains:

There was snow yesterday. Hili didn’t manage to catch any mice. So she pretends that she is hunting white mice on white snow. The last sentence is the comment from the editorial team of Listy. After all, among our readers there are people who celebrate Christmas and some kind of greetings are in order. Why for mice? Because a good Christian is kind to animals as well—at least once a year, at Christmas.

The dialogue:

A; What are you doing?
Hili: I’m looking for white mice because the grey ones are not stupid and they stay in their holes.
Merry Christmas to all grey mice.
In Polish:
Ja: Co robisz?
Hili: Wypatruję białych myszy, bo szare nie są głupie i siedzą w norkach.
Wszystkim szarym myszkom życzę spokojnych świąt.

A sign from reader Joshua, who says

The photo of this puzzling sign was taken by me at a business park in Central New Jersey in 2005. “No Geese!” For whom is this intended? Literate geese? I thought you might find this amusing.

From Barry:

Ignatz the Skeptic!:

From Divy:

. . . and from Richard:

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

From Masih decrying Iranian “gender apartheid” on “Meet the Press”.  She’s excellent, as usual.

Lord, the NYT is so biased on the war. Look at this completely erroneous headline.

From my “X” feed. This father is torturing his kid about Santa, but the kid isn’t taking any guff:

From Science Girl: a chemis-tree:

From the Auschwitz Memorial, a grim Christmas Eve, though most of the camp’s inhabitants, who were Jews, didn’t observe the holiday.

FOUR tweets from Matthew. First, this Dublin bus is SMOKING!

A giant Santa:

. . . . and you MUST turn the sound up on this one:

. . . and theology from Calvin and Hobbes:

31 thoughts on “Monday: Hili dialogue”

  1. I bet the Board of Harvard are wishing that they had not prejudged Gay as innocent of plagiarism. They lost the one reason they had to remove her without being sued.

    Happy Christmas to all.
    (Why am I posting here instead of starting a day of cooking and jollification? Well, our Christmas is going to be delayed, as my wife was given covid by a co-worker who came to work when ill. She had him do a test which was positive. The next morning she was feeling off and also had a positive test. So she moved out to a B&B for a week to reduce the risk to me (immunosuppressed). She should come back tomorrow, and will stay in the basement until her test is negative. Hoping we can have Christmas next weekend.

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    1. Wow. Glad that you flagged the virus before it did any more damage, Christopher. Hope your wife is on the mend and that you continue to avoid it. The current strain seems to be particularly nasty and obnoxious, even in mild cases. Basements and empty in-law suites have done yeoman’s duty these past few pandemic years.

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  3. On this day:
    336 – First documentary sign of Christmas celebration in Rome.

    597 – Augustine of Canterbury and his fellow-labourers baptise in Kent more than 10,000 Anglo-Saxons.

    800 – The coronation of Charlemagne as Holy Roman Emperor, in Rome. [A lot of royal dudes were crowned on this day!]

    1013 – Sweyn Forkbeard takes control of the Danelaw and is proclaimed king of England.

    1066 – William the Conqueror, Duke of Normandy is crowned king of England, at Westminster Abbey, London.

    1758 – Halley’s Comet is sighted by Johann Georg Palitzsch, confirming Edmund Halley’s prediction of its passage. This was the first passage of a comet predicted ahead of time.

    1776 – George Washington and the Continental Army cross the Delaware River at night to attack Hessian forces serving Great Britain at Trenton, New Jersey, the next day.

    1809 – Dr. Ephraim McDowell performs the first ovariotomy, removing a 22-pound tumour.

    1814 – Rev. Samuel Marsden holds the first Christian service on land in New Zealand at Rangihoua Bay.

    1815 – The Handel and Haydn Society, oldest continually performing arts organization in the United States, gives its first performance.

    1831 – The Great Jamaican Slave Revolt begins; up to 20% of Jamaica’s slaves mobilize in an ultimately unsuccessful fight for freedom.

    1868 – Pardons for ex-Confederates: United States President Andrew Johnson grants an unconditional pardon to all Confederate veterans.

    1914 – A series of unofficial truces occur across the Western Front to celebrate Christmas.

    1941 – Admiral Émile Muselier seizes the archipelago of Saint Pierre and Miquelon, which become the first part of France to be liberated by the Free French Forces.

    1946 – The first European self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction is initiated within the Soviet Union’s F-1 nuclear reactor.

    1950 – The Stone of Scone, traditional coronation stone of British monarchs, is taken from Westminster Abbey by Scottish nationalist students. It later turns up in Scotland on April 11, 1951.

    1951 – A bomb explodes at the home of Harry T. Moore and Harriette V. S. Moore, early leaders of the Civil Rights Movement, killing Harry instantly and fatally wounding Harriette.

    1962 – The Soviet Union conducts its final above-ground nuclear weapon test, in anticipation of the 1963 Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty.

    1968 – Apollo program: Apollo 8 performs the first successful Trans-Earth injection (TEI) manoeuvre, sending the crew and spacecraft on a trajectory back to Earth from Lunar orbit.

    1968 – Kilvenmani massacre: Forty-four Dalits (untouchables) are burnt to death in Kizhavenmani village, Tamil Nadu, a retaliation for a campaign for higher wages by Dalit laborers.

    1977 – Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin meets in Egypt with its president Anwar Sadat. [It was Sadat’s birthday – he was born on this day in 1918.]

    1989 – Romanian Revolution: Deposed President of Romania Nicolae Ceaușescu and his wife, Elena, are condemned to death and executed after a summary trial.

    1991 – Mikhail Gorbachev resigns as President of the Soviet Union (the union itself is dissolved the next day). Ukraine’s referendum is finalized and Ukraine officially leaves the Soviet Union.

    2003 – The ill-fated Beagle 2 probe, released from the Mars Express spacecraft on December 19, stops transmitting shortly before its scheduled landing.

    2004 – The Cassini orbiter releases Huygens probe which successfully landed on Saturn’s moon Titan on January 14, 2005.

    2021 – The James Webb Space Telescope is launched.

    Births:
    1642 (OS) – Isaac Newton, English physicist and mathematician (d. 1726/1727).

    1652 – Archibald Pitcairne, Scottish physician, anatomist, and scholar (d. 1713).

    1665 – Lady Grizel Baillie, Scottish-English poet and songwriter (d. 1746).

    1745 – Chevalier de Saint-Georges, Caribbean-French violinist, composer, and conductor (d. 1799).

    1771 – Dorothy Wordsworth, English diarist and poet (d. 1855).

    1821 – Clara Barton, American nurse and humanitarian, founder of the American Red Cross (d. 1912).

    1876 – Adolf Otto Reinhold Windaus, German chemist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1959).

    1878 – Louis Chevrolet, American race car driver and businessman, co-founded Chevrolet (d. 1941).

    1878 – Noël, Countess of Rothes, philanthropist, social leader and heroine of Titanic disaster (d. 1956).

    1887 – Conrad Hilton, American entrepreneur (d. 1979).

    1889 – Lila Bell Wallace, American publisher and philanthropist, co-founded Reader’s Digest (d. 1984).

    1899 – Humphrey Bogart, American actor (d. 1957).

    1906 – Lew Grade, Baron Grade, Ukrainian-English film producer (d. 1998).

    1907 – Cab Calloway, American singer-songwriter and bandleader (d. 1994).

    1908 – Quentin Crisp, English author and illustrator (d. 1999).

    1911 – Louise Bourgeois, French-American sculptor and painter (d. 2010).

    1917 – Arseny Mironov, Russian scientist, engineer, pilot, oldest active researcher in aircraft aerodynamics and flight testing (d. 2019).

    1919 – Paul David, Canadian cardiologist and politician, founded the Montreal Heart Institute (d. 1999).

    1919 – Noele Gordon, English actress (d. 1985).

    1924 – Rod Serling, American screenwriter and producer, created The Twilight Zone (d. 1975).

    1944 – Kenny Everett, British comedian and broadcaster (d. 1995).

    1945 – Noel Redding, English singer-songwriter and bass player (d. 2003).

    1949 – Sissy Spacek, American actress.

    1954 – Annie Lennox, Scottish singer-songwriter and pianist.

    1957 – Shane MacGowan, English-Irish singer-songwriter (d. 2023).

    1971 – Justin Trudeau, Canadian educator and politician, 23rd Prime Minister of Canada.

    Here Lies W. C. Fields. I Would Rather Be Living in Philadelphia:
    1938 – Karel Čapek, Czech author and playwright (b. 1890).

    1946 – W. C. Fields, American actor, comedian, juggler, and screenwriter (b. 1880). [An atheist said to have “regarded all religions with the suspicion of a seasoned con man”.]

    1957 – Charles Pathé, French record producer, founded Pathé Records (b. 1863).

    1977 – Charlie Chaplin, English actor and director (b. 1889).

    1983 – Joan Miró, Spanish painter and sculptor (b. 1893).

    1992 – Monica Dickens, British-American nurse and author (b. 1915). [The great-granddaughter of Charles Dickens.]

    1995 – Dean Martin, American singer and actor (b. 1917).

    2006 – James Brown, American singer-songwriter (b. 1933).

    2008 – Eartha Kitt, American singer and actress (b. 1927).

    2013 – Lola Lange, Canadian rural feminist and appointee to the Royal Commission on the Status of Women (b. 1922).

    2016 – George Michael, British singer and songwriter (b. 1963). [His last Christmas. Speaking of which, the song has finally become the UK’s Christmas No. 1 single 39 years after its original release.

    Reply

    1. Apollo 8 Trans Earth Injection (TEI): and a big “whew” was likely heard on Earth from a quarter million miles away! These guys were so close yet so far from the lunar surface.

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      1. As the lunar excursion module was not tested until Apollo 9, and as Apollo 8 did not possess a LEM, one takes comfort in Fortune smiling and Apollo 8 not getting Apollo 13’s service module.

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        1. But then there was Apollo 10, with a May 1969 test run of the lunar module down to about 50,000 feet above the lunar surface — but no landing…

          Oh so close!

          “Reason’s Greetings”: I designed a simple holiday card with that phrase in the early 1980s when I used “Flying Mountain Graphics” as my business name. (The photo at the link below is from a few years ago.)

          https://x.com/Jon_Alexandr/status/1607086616459513856

          I think this may have been the first published use of the phrase. I certainly had not seen it before. If anyone knows of an earlier use, I’d be interested to know.

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          1. Very nice card jon. A pretty ballsy recognition in the Reagon 80’s…maybe inspired little ron?

        2. Yep. We were at war with the Russians and in war many risks were taken and decisions and priorities were made at Nasa that today would be unheard of.

          Reply

          1. Little Ron Reagan, the son of Ronald Raygun? I would be honored to learn that he had been inspired by my modest card, but it seems very unlikely.

            I was then also a cofounder of “Citizens For Space Demilitarization” — though I convinced my colleagues to change our name to the more positive “Progressive Space Forum.”

            (Before “progressive” got its current “woke” associations with DEI.)

            Progressive Space Forum was an organization that I think had more influence than its small membership suggested, with friends in Congress and various scientific institutions. I designed the organization’s logo and newsletter banner:

            https://twitter.com/Jon_Alexandr/status/1682142792548757504

            Corrections to the above posting on X-Twitter:
            “Physics Today” (not “Technology Review”).
            “Banner” (not “masthead”).

  4. If I never hear “Last Christmas” again, it will be too soon😬😖It’s bloody EVERYwhere, every gym class, my dentist’s office, bathroom of Greek restaurant, and now here🙀🙈Oh, the HORROR!
    Had a lovely Xmas Eve dinner chez moi with daughter, granddaughter, s-i-l, s-i-l’s parents, my bf. I cooked a mean roast beast, popovers, and many fixins. When saying goodbye I stepped “funny” on the front porch and pulled my left hamstring so badly I can put virtually no weight on it. Went up the stairs backwards on my bum last night and was brought breakfast in bed this morning. So much for our usual Xmas Day hike. Got lots of books to keep me busy. Will survive as long as I don’t have to listen to Last Christmas😹😹
    Merry Xmas all🤶🏼🧑🏻‍🎄😻

    Reply

    2. Yes, what a bummer, hope you feel better soon! I really thought Fairy Tale of New York would be the #1 song, especially with the demise of Shane MacGowan and today his birthday. Far better than Last Christmas, imo.

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      1. Thanks, Bob. I don’t know that New York song. I’m a total atheist, but really love the old-fashioned classical Xmas hymns/carols.🧑🏻‍🎄🤶🏼

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        1. Bob beat me to it – Bummer! Did you watch the Tabernacle Choir at Temple Square on PBS? David Suchet’s narration had me in tears; it was about a British stockbroker, Nicholas Winton, who saved many children from the Holocaust.

          Get well very soon, Merilee.

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          1. Thanks, Pauline. No, I missed that concert, but did hear a beautiful one in Burlington last week by the Southern Ontario Lyric Opera, with orchestra, chorus, lovely soprano and ok tenor. Mostly classical carols😻🤶🏼🧑🏻‍🎄

  5. Ackman also announced that even if Gay resigns, that won’t restore Harvard’s reputation.
    Indeed. It was bottom of FIRE’s free speech index well before the latest kerfuffle.

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  8. To be fair to that dad, I suspect Jackson is on the Naughty List after he suggested punching the beard off Santa. There is/was a Chicago radio personality named Garry Meier who used to tell the story of the year his parents didn’t get the kids presents because they were bad. I wouldn’t ever do that to a kid.

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  10. There is also an Egyptian proposal emerging for Gaza. It may or may not involve the Palestinian Authority, but it seems more creative than simply shoving the PA back into power. The proposal has been reported in several places now, but the wording is largely the same in each report, suggesting that it all comes from one source. Here’s the AP take on the proposal: https://apnews.com/article/israel-hamas-war-news-12-25-2023-151faf920facb9910a254c2987e00d5f. There seems to be some duplicative language (e.g., copying) in the reports.

    Which brings me to Harvard’s President Gay. As I said the other day, I think she will eventually have to go. I hope that she does so without any drama, but now I’m thinking that she will hold out for a payoff. This could be money, an endowed chair, or both. If it comes down to a payoff, you can bet that there will be some fancy footwork in the wording of the press release. It’s not easy to cover up a bribe, but they’ll give it a try.

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  11. Love the Chemistree! I once strung an outdoor tree with white, blue and purple lights spiraling through it and a neighbor pointed out that I’d made a double helix.

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  12. Is there a way to read through Ed Hagen’s tweets without subscribing to Twitter?
    Thanks, and happy holidays to all.

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    1. Ed Hagen’s 25th posting in the thread:
      ____________________

      25. Addendum. Here’s an excellent blog post by Paul Griffiths that makes similar points

      Sex is real:
      https://aeon.co/essays/the-existence-of-biological-sex-is-no-constraint-on-human-diversity
      ____________________

      I forwarded the link yesterday to some family members with introductory information (see below). I also created a text-only print version PDF copy, without ads or images, a format I prefer to read.
      —Jon

      • • • 

      Sex is real
      The existence of biological sex is no constraint on human diversity
      By Paul Griffiths
      Edited by Sally Davies
      Aeon (a digital magazine since 2012)
      September 21, 2020

      Yes, there are just two biological sexes. No, this doesn’t mean every living thing is either one or the other.

      Paul Griffiths is Australian Research Council Laureate Fellow and professor of philosophy at the University of Sydney. His books include Genetics and Philosophy (2013), co-authored with Karola Stotz, and Sex and Death: An Introduction to Philosophy of Biology (1999), co-authored with Kim Sterelny.

      • • • 

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  13. Oh Gay will sue, for sure.
    Not my field of law… but I HAVE noticed scoundrels and grifters always, but always sue if they can.

    NOT to say that all employee/er lawsuits are meritless but I’ve found it helpful to look at such situations through the lens of: “Try to see how this ISN’T yet another grift from this person…..” You probably won’t find it.

    And in “bias” suits, I can safely generalize it is USUALLY, almost always, a final grasp at dough from robbers on their deserved way out the door.
    In this case as Pinker says a sacrificial lamb won’t fix the larger problem, though.
    D.A. (J.D.)
    NYC

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  14. It’s also “No ‘L’ Day”, in which you’re supposed to remove that letter from speech and writing. Get it? (But why bother?)

    Just for the he of it?

    Reply

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