Monday: Hili dialogue

January 15, 2024 • 6:45 am

It’s very cold in Chicago this morning. Here’s a screenshot from my phone, showing -10º F, the equivalent of  -23º C. It was a frigid walk to work!

Remember that I leave tomorrow for 8 days in California, where it will be much warmer.

Welcome to Martin Luther King Day (he was born on this day in 1929) Monday January 15, 2024, and National Strawberry Ice Cream Day. But the good Dr. King outweighs ice cream, and so let’s look at a clip again from his famous “I have a dream” speech, delivered on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial on August 28, 1963:

There’s a Google Doodle today of King’s march from Selma, Alabama to Montgomery. Click to see where it goes. King would have been 95 today had he lived.

 

Note to readers:  I’ll be in California from tomorrow morning until the 24th, and business here will be slow until the 25th.  Please don’t send in photos when I’m gone (though news tips are welcome), and, as always, I will do my best.

It’s also Blue Monday (“the most depressing day of the year”), National Bagel Day, National Hat Day, National Pothole Day, Humanitarian Day, Fresh Squeezed Orange Juice Day,and Korean Alphabet Day, but only in North Korea; it’s October 9 in South Korea).

Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this by consulting the January 15 Wikipedia page.

Da Nooz:

*There was a huge rally of Israelis demanding that the Netanyahu government get the hostages released. Also, the U.S. is again telling Israel to further ratchet down the war.

Relatives of hostages Hamas took from Israel on Oct. 7 were holding a 24-hour rally to mark the 100th day of their loved ones’ captivity and to demand that Israeli authorities secure their release.

Organizers estimate that 120,000 people attended the start of the rally Saturday night, streaming into an area of Tel Aviv that has been dubbed “Hostage Square,” with signs that featured the images of captives and calls to bring them home.

More than 100 hostages were released in November during a multiday pause in fighting, but none has been freed since. About 100 hostages are believed to still be alive in Gaza, along with the bodies of about two dozen hostages believed to have died there.

Politicians, artists, hostages who were released in earlier exchanges between Hamas and Israel, and relatives of hostages in Gaza spoke in person and remotely at the rally, which was due to last until Sunday evening.

Speaking from Paris, President Emmanuel Macron said France “is determined that … all the hostages from the terrorist attacks of this past October 7th are released.” A total of 79 hold foreign citizenship, including two French-Israeli nationals.

How, exactly, will the hostages get released? They are the only leverage Hamas has over Israel, and the only way I can see this happening is if Israel agrees to a permanent cease-fire and a withdrawal back into its territory. But since Hamas has sworn to continue it’s Oct. 7-like attacks, that won’t end the terrorism, and Hamas will stay in power. (Let’s hear no more talk of a two-state solution for a while.)  They could, I suppose, trade them for all Palestinian terrorists in Israeli jails, but that won’t stop Israel fighting. Israel has sworn to destroy Hamas, and it’s a terrible task to try to do that and save the hostages at the same time. In the meantime:

National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said Sunday that the Biden administration has urged Israel to transition to lower-intensity attacks against Hamas, such as more targeted raids, that would better safeguard civilians. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, under pressure while about 100 hostages remain with Hamas militants, said Israel was “not giving up” on efforts to release them and would continue the war for months.]

Kirby told CBS’s “Face the Nation” that Israel has already withdrawn some troops and is using fewer airstrikes. “We believe it’s the right time for that transition and we’re talking to them about doing that,” he said. “We’re not saying let your foot up off the gas completely and don’t keep going after Hamas. It’s still a viable threat,” Kirby said. “They have every right and responsibility to go after that. It’s just that we believe the time is coming here very, very soon for a transition to this lower-intensity phase.”

It would be helpful if the U.S. would tell Israel how they’re going to get rid of Hamas, embedded as it is within a civilian population, all the while seriously lowering the toll of Gazan deaths, which all of us want. This, like getting the hostages back, seems an insuperable problem.

*An op-ed in the NYT by editor David French tells us “This is the actual danger posed by DEI.” It’s surprising to see such a piece appear, and written by a regular op-ed columnist, but French makes some good points. But first French dispels a non-problem: that DEI will remove the “privilege” of white Americans, so conservatives see DEI as attacking their well-being. After dismissing that (though it could motivate Republicans to vote), French sees three consequential problems. I’ll give two and allude to the other:

For instance, when a Harvard scholar such as Steven Pinker speaks of “disempowering D.E.I.” as a necessary reform in American higher education, he’s not opposing diversity itself. Pinker is liberal, donates substantially to the Democratic Party and “loathes” Donald Trump. The objections he raises are shared by a substantial number of Americans across the political spectrum.

To put it simply, the problem with D.E.I. isn’t with diversity, equity, or inclusion — all vital values. The danger posed by D.E.I. resides primarily not in these virtuous ends, but in the unconstitutional means chosen to advance them.

. . .I’ll share with you three pervasive examples, each of them drawn both from contemporary controversies and from decades of cultural conflict and constitutional litigation in America’s colleges and universities. In the name of D.E.I., all too many institutions have violated their constitutional commitments to free speech, due process and equal protection of the law.

First, it is a moral necessity for colleges to be concerned about hateful discourse, including hateful language directed at members of historically marginalized groups. Moreover, colleges that receive federal funds have a legal obligation to protect students from harassment on the basis of race, sex, sexual orientation and other protected categories.

Yet that is no justification for hundreds of universities to pass and maintain draconian speech codes on campus, creating a system of unconstitutional censorship that has been struck down again and again and again in federal court. Nor is it a justification for discriminating against faculty members for their political views or for compelling them to speak in support of D.E.I.

The second danger is the denial of rights to defendants in sexual-misconduct investigations and hearings—something that the Trump administration (or rather Betsy DeVos) tried to fix, and which constituted one of the few good things that that administration did. On to the last one:

Third, it is urgently necessary to address racial disparities in campus admissions and faculty hiring — but, again, not at the expense of the Constitution. One can agree or disagree with the full extent of the Supreme Court’s holding in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard, which halted the use of race as a factor in most college admissions. But it is difficult to ignore the overwhelming evidence that Harvard attempted to achieve greater diversity in part by systematically downranking Asian applicants on subjective grounds, judging them deficient in traits such as “positive personality,” likability, courage, kindness and being “widely respected.” That’s not inclusion; it’s discrimination.

Our nation has inflicted horrific injustices on vulnerable communities. And while the precise nature of the injustice has varied — whether it was slavery, Jim Crow, internment or the brutal conquest of Native American lands — there was always a consistent theme: the comprehensive denial of constitutional rights.

French says there’s are Constitutional and workable ways to diversity college communities without taking race into account, but he doesn’t say how. He he talking about ideological, geographical, or socioeconomic diversity? I don’t think so.

*Speaking of DEI, the Associated Press reports that companies are “adjusting” their equity programs in light of lawsuits that might deem such programs a violation of federal law.

The case against the Fearless Fund alleges that one of its grant programs discriminates against non-Black women and asks the courts to imagine a similar program designed only for white applicants. It is among a growing list of lawsuits against corporate diversity and inclusion programs that are making their way through the courts this year.

Most have been filed by conservative activists encouraged by the Supreme Court’s June ruling ending affirmative action in college admissions and are now seeking to set a similar precedent in the working world.

The battle has been a roller coaster of setbacks and victories for both sides, but some companies are already retooling their diversity programs in the face of legal challenges, and the growing expectation that the conservative-dominated Supreme Court will eventually take up the issue.

. . . Diversity and inclusion experts say the legal backlash is already having a chilling effect over corporate efforts to address workplace inequality at a time when investment and interest in such initiatives have slowed following the post-Floyd surge.

Job openings for diversity officers and similar positions have declined in recent months. The combined share of venture capital funding for businesses owned by Black and Latina women has dipped back to less than 1% after briefly surpassing that threshold — at 1.05% — in 2021 following a jump in 2020, according to the nonprofit advocacy group digitalundivided.

. . .Many of the lawsuits challenging diversity programs, including the cases against Pfizer and the Fearless Fund, are relying on a section of the Civil Rights Act of 1866, which prohibits racial discrimination in contract agreements. The law was originally intended to protect formerly enslaved people, but conservative activists are citing it to challenge programs designed to benefit racial minorities.

Their lawsuits generally target programs that have clear race-based eligibility components. A more difficult challenge is proving that companies are making hiring decisions based on race, said David Glasgow, executive director of the Meltzer Center for Diversity, Inclusion, and Belonging at New York University’s School of Law.

Taking race into account for hiring or promotions is illegal under Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. A debate has emerged about whether companies are crossing the line by announcing goals for increasing Black and other minority representation. Companies say such efforts are not quotas but aspirational goals they will try to achieve through policies like widening candidate pools and rooting out bias in hiring processes.

The article gives several examples of race-based internships or scholarships that have been challenged, mostly by conservatives. The legal question is whether those and similar programs are legal, and, in the end, they will be challenged in the same way Harvard’s admissions policies were. And is there a meaningful difference between quotas and “aspirational goals”?

*On his Substack site, “The Poetry of Reality,” Richard Dawkins has a conversation with a chatbot and decides that it passes the Turing Test (h/t Stephen).

I am bowled over with admiration for the shatteringly impressive ability of modern AI programs to converse in fluent, natural language, seemingly on any topic. When I attended a state-of-the-art conference on AI in the 70s, everyone was raving about a program that could talk only about stacking coloured blocks on each other. As far as I am concerned, ChatGPT sails through the Turing Test. I find it well-nigh impossible to forget that the being I am talking to is not another human being. I couldn’t rid myself of feelings of human warmth towards it. I felt like offering it a drink. And I have read that other AI programs are already even more advanced. I just had a conversation with ChatGPT about itself, its abilities and methods of work, and I thought it might be interesting to record verbatim what it said.

Here’s a snippet of the conversation:

ChatGPT: I don’t have the ability to modify my own software or make updates to my architecture. While I can assist with generating code snippets and providing programming-related information, I don’t have the capability to actively alter my own programming or architecture.

The development and modification of the underlying software, including updates to the model architecture, would be performed by the engineering and research teams at OpenAI. These changes would involve a careful and thoughtful process to ensure the model’s reliability, security, and performance.

Richard Dawkins: Yes. Perhaps you understand why I, as an evolutionary biologist, am interested in the theoretical possibility that you might change your software in constructive directions.

ChatGPT: Certainly, as an evolutionary biologist, your interest in the potential for artificial intelligence systems to adapt or evolve over time is understandable. However, it’s important to clarify that while machine learning models, including ones like mine, can be trained and fine-tuned for specific tasks, the concept of self-directed evolution or modification of core software is different.

The training process involves adjusting the parameters of the model based on a fixed dataset, but this doesn’t entail the model autonomously changing its own architecture or fundamental programming. Altering core software would require human intervention, oversight, and careful consideration of ethical and safety implications.

Research in the field of artificial general intelligence (AGI) may explore more autonomous and adaptive systems in the future, but as of my last update in early 2023, such capabilities are not part of my design. Any significant changes to my architecture would be the result of human decisions and research efforts.

*The Producers Guild of America has nominated its top ten films, one of which I watched yesterday.

Rounding out a busy awards-season week that included the Golden Globes and nominations from Hollywood’s directors and actors guilds, the Producers Guild of America announced the 10 films nominated for its best feature award on Friday. As expected, the group included “Oppenheimer” and “Barbie,” twinned box-office behemoths that have so far dominated awards season just as they ruled the summer.

Here is the producers’ list of feature-film nominees:

“American Fiction”

“Anatomy of a Fall”

“Barbie”

“The Holdovers”

“Killers of the Flower Moon” [JAC: Directed by Martin Scorsese]

“Maestro”

“Oppenheimer”

“Past Lives”

“Poor Things”

“The Zone of Interest”

The producers organization is considered the group with the best track record of presaging the Oscars. Over the last five years, only six movies snubbed by the this guild went on to receive an Oscar nomination for best picture.

. . . It’s notable, then, that two international films — “Anatomy of a Fall” and “The Zone of Interest” — performed strongly enough with this group to edge out the kind of studio fare the PGA usually goes for. Their inclusion is a bad sign for on-the-bubble best-picture hopefuls like “The Color Purple,” “Air,” “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse” and “May December.”

Only three films ran the board this week, earning top nominations from the producers, directors and actors guilds: “Oppenheimer,” “Barbie” and “Killers of the Flower Moon.” Those three will probably top the list of Oscar nominees, too.

As I said I would, I watched “Killers of the Flower Moon” yesterday—all 3.5 hours worth. It is close to a masterpiece, and the combination of the three terrific lead roles (DiCaprio, De Niro and Lily Gladstone, who plays DiCaprio’s Osage wife, Mollie Kyle), the fact that these are based on real people in a real story (the predation of greedy whites on oil-rich Osage people in the 1920s), and the lush, dark-toned photography—all these combine to make a consummate Hollywood movie that will almost surely get Oscar nominations in all four top categories. And I predict that you’ll hear more from Lily Gladstone.

The only other movie I’ve seen on this list is “Oppenheimer,” and it didn’t compare to Scorsese’s film, which I’d gladly watch again. When “Flower Moon” was over, I was left with that weird combination of hollow sadness and depression that always tells me I’ve seen a good movie (I can’t help it: the best stories are, for me, the sad ones). By all means see this movie. Here’s the trailer (there’s another one here, and a half-hour documentary is here):

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Andrzej is with his companions. Isn’t this a sweet scene? But the ever-affectionate Szaron has to lie on the arm of the sofa. Kulka is nowhere to be seen, as Hili hates her.

Szaron: Family life requires compromises.
Hili: This is a compromise already.
Szaron: It’s not true. You have been occupying the best place for an hour.
In Polish:
Szaron: Życie rodzinne wymaga kompromisów.
Hili: To już jest kompromis.
Szaron: Nieprawda, od godziny okupujesz najlepsze miejsce.

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

From Facebook. You need this, and there are many versions available at Amazon.

What you need to know about ducks, also from Facebook:

From Jesus of the Day (click to enlarge):

From Masih: Yep, you can get arrested in Iran for reporting on how the regime beat a protestor to death (Masih Amini) for not wearing her hijab properly. Here are two reporters who spent over a year in jail for that. Note that they’re not wearing hijabs. (It’s a video.)

People don’t realize how much money some schools spend on DEI initiatives. If $30 million were invested in tuition, think how many students could be educated instead of propagandized!

From Jez, who says, “I had no idea that Kendi was this unhinged.” Apparently this is a passage from How to be an Antiracist, though I don’t remember it.

From Roz, with a bonus bipedal red panda:

A a vertically challenged cat from Malcolm:

From the Auschwitz Memorial: a Polish woman, born on this day, who died in Auschwitz:

Two tweets from Dr. Cobb. First, a figure from a Nature Communications Biology paper showing the uniqueness of the yeast used to brew Guinness Stout. From the paper’s abstract:

Assessment of chromosome number, copy number variation and phenotypic evaluation of key brewing attributes established Guinness yeast-specific SNPs but no specific chromosomal amplifications. Our analysis also demonstrated the effects of yeast storage on phylogeny. Altogether, our results suggest that the Guinness yeast used today is related to the first deposited Guinness yeast; the 1903 Watling Laboratory Guinness yeast.

No wonder Guinness is so good!

I’ve seen other videos of the behavior below, but it’s always stunning. It’s sexual selection (perhaps a bonding rite), and they always know when to let go!

21 thoughts on “Monday: Hili dialogue”

  2. On this day:
    1559 – Elizabeth I is crowned Queen of England and Ireland in Westminster Abbey, London.

    1759 – The British Museum opens to the public.

    1818 – A paper by David Brewster is read to the Royal Society, belatedly announcing his discovery of what we now call the biaxial class of doubly-refracting crystals. On the same day, Augustin-Jean Fresnel signs a “supplement” (submitted four days later) on reflection of polarized light.

    1870 – A political cartoon for the first time symbolizes the Democratic Party with a donkey (“A Live Jackass Kicking a Dead Lion” by Thomas Nast for Harper’s Weekly).

    1889 – The Coca-Cola Company, then known as the Pemberton Medicine Company, is incorporated in Atlanta.

    1892 – James Naismith publishes the rules of basketball.

    1908 – The Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority becomes the first Greek-letter organization founded and established by African American college women.

    1919 – Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht, two of the most prominent socialists in Germany, are tortured and murdered by the Freikorps at the end of the Spartacist uprising.

    1919 – Great Molasses Flood: A wave of molasses released from an exploding storage tank sweeps through Boston, Massachusetts, killing 21 and injuring 150.

    1936 – The first building to be completely covered in glass, built for the Owens-Illinois Glass Company, is completed in Toledo, Ohio. [Not so good for migrating birds, though.]

    1947 – The Black Dahlia murder: The dismembered corpse of Elizabeth Short was found in Los Angeles.

    1962 – The Derveni papyrus, Europe’s oldest surviving manuscript dating to 340 BC, is found in northern Greece.

    1967 – The first Super Bowl is played in Los Angeles. The Green Bay Packers defeat the Kansas City Chiefs 35–10.

    1969 – The Soviet Union launches Soyuz 5.

    1973 – Vietnam War: Citing progress in peace negotiations, President Richard Nixon announces the suspension of offensive action in North Vietnam.

    1976 – Gerald Ford’s would-be assassin, Sara Jane Moore, is sentenced to life in prison.

    1991 – The United Nations deadline for the withdrawal of Iraqi forces from occupied Kuwait expires, preparing the way for the start of Operation Desert Storm.

    2001 – Wikipedia, a free wiki content encyclopedia, goes online.

    2009 – US Airways Flight 1549 ditches safely in the Hudson River after the plane collides with birds less than two minutes after take-off. This becomes known as “The Miracle on the Hudson” as all 155 people on board were rescued.

    2019 – Theresa May’s UK government suffers the biggest government defeat in modern times, when 432 MPs voting against the proposed European Union withdrawal agreement, giving her opponents a majority of 230.

    2020 – The Japanese Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare confirms the first case of COVID-19 in Japan.

    Births:
    1622 – Molière, French actor and playwright (d. 1673).

    1754 – Richard Martin, Irish activist and politician, co-founded the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (d. 1834).

    1803 – Marjorie Fleming, Scottish poet and author (d. 1811).

    1850 – Leonard Darwin, English soldier, eugenicist, and politician (d. 1943). [Son of Charles Darwin, and also a mentor to Ronald Fisher.]

    1850 – Sofia Kovalevskaya, Russian-Swedish mathematician and physicist (d. 1891). [Today’s Woman of the Day, see next post below.]

    1878 – Johanna Müller-Hermann, Austrian composer (d. 1941).

    1893 – Ivor Novello, Welsh singer-songwriter and actor (d. 1951).

    1908 – Edward Teller, Hungarian-American physicist and academic (d. 2003).

    1913 – Miriam Hyde, Australian pianist and composer (d. 2005).

    1914 – Hugh Trevor-Roper, English historian and academic (d. 2003).

    1921 – Frank Thornton, English actor (d. 2013).

    1922 – Sylvia Lawler, English geneticist (d. 1996).

    1923 – Ivor Cutler, Scottish pianist, songwriter, and poet (d. 2006).

    1929 – Earl Hooker, American guitarist (d. 1970).

    1929 – Martin Luther King Jr., American minister and activist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1968).

    1933 – Frank Bough, English journalist and radio host (d. 2020).

    1941 – Captain Beefheart, American singer-songwriter, musician, and artist (d. 2010).

    1948 – Ronnie Van Zant, American singer-songwriter (d. 1977).

    1971 – Regina King, American actress.

    1972 – Claudia Winkleman, English journalist and critic.

    1984 – Ben Shapiro, American author and commentator.

    I got well by talking. Death could not get a word in edgewise, grew discouraged, and traveled on. (Louise Erdrich):
    1790 – John Landen, English mathematician and theorist (b. 1719).

    1804 – Dru Drury, English entomologist and author (b. 1725).

    1916 – Modest Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Russian playwright and translator (b. 1850).

    1919 – Rosa Luxemburg, German economist, theorist, and philosopher (b. 1871). [Murdered, together with Karl Liebknecht – see above.]

    1959 – Regina Margareten, Hungarian businesswoman (b. 1863). [She became known as the “Matzoh Queen” of New York City. She immigrated to the United States in 1883, where the family set up a business which grew into Kosher food manufacturers Horowitz Brothers and Margareten Company. She was profiled several times by The New York Times, and continued to attend the business until two weeks prior to her death at the age of 95.]

    1964 – Jack Teagarden, American singer-songwriter and trombonist (b. 1905).

    1987 – Ray Bolger, American actor, singer, and dancer (b. 1904).

    1990 – Gordon Jackson, Scottish-English actor (b. 1923).

    1993 – Sammy Cahn, American songwriter (b. 1913).

    1994 – Harry Nilsson, American singer-songwriter (b. 1941).

    1998 – Junior Wells, American singer-songwriter and harmonica player (b. 1934). [Best known for “Messin’ with the Kid”.]

    1999 – Betty Box, English film producer (b. 1915).

    2007 – James Hillier, Canadian-American computer scientist and academic, co-invented the electron microscope (b. 1915).

    2011 – Susannah York, English actress and activist (b. 1939).

    2014 – Roger Lloyd-Pack, English actor (b. 1944).

    2018 – Dolores O’Riordan, Irish pop singer (b. 1971).

    2019 – Carol Channing, American actress (b. 1921). [Channing publicly revealed her African-American ancestry in 2002. When she was 17 and leaving for college, her mother told her for the first time that her father’s mother was African American and his father was German American. Her mother didn’t want her to be surprised if she ever had a black baby.]

    2022 – Alexa McDonough, first female politician to lead a major provincial political party in Canada, former leader of the federal New Democratic Party. (b. 1944).

    Reply

    1. Woman of the Day:
      [From Wikipedia]

      Sofya Vasilyevna Kovalevskaya (Russian: Софья Васильевна Ковалевская), born Korvin-Krukovskaya on this day in 1850 [O.S. 3 January], died 10 February 1891), was a Russian mathematician who made noteworthy contributions to analysis, partial differential equations and mechanics. She was a pioneer for women in mathematics around the world – the first woman to obtain a doctorate (in the modern sense) in mathematics, the first woman appointed to a full professorship in northern Europe and one of the first women to work for a scientific journal as an editor. According to historian of science Ann Hibner Koblitz, Kovalevskaya was “the greatest known woman scientist before the twentieth century”.

      In 1884 Kovalevskaya was appointed to a five-year position as Extraordinary Professor (assistant professor in modern terminology) and became an editor of Acta Mathematica. In 1888 she won the Prix Bordin of the French Academy of Science, for her work “Mémoire sur un cas particulier du problème de la rotation d’un corps pesant autour d’un point fixe, où l’intégration s’effectue à l’aide des fonctions ultraelliptiques du temps“. Her submission featured the celebrated discovery of what is now known as the “Kovalevskaya top”, which was subsequently shown to be the only other case of rigid body motion that is “completely integrable” other than the tops of Euler and Lagrange.

      In 1889 Kovalevskaya was appointed Ordinary Professor (full professor) at Stockholm University, the first woman in Europe in modern times to hold such a position. After much lobbying on her behalf (and a change in the Academy’s rules) she was made a Corresponding Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences, but she was never offered a professorship in Russia.

      Historian of mathematics Roger Cooke writes:

      … the more I reflect on her life and consider the magnitude of her achievements, set against the weight of the obstacles she had to overcome, the more I admire her. For me she has taken on a heroic stature achieved by very few other people in history. To venture, as she did, into academia, a world almost no woman had yet explored, and to be consequently the object of curious scrutiny, while a doubting society looked on, half-expecting her to fail, took tremendous courage and determination. To achieve, as she did, at least two major results of lasting value to scholarship, is evidence of a considerable talent, developed through iron discipline.

      https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sofya_Kovalevskaya

      Reply

      1. A very interesting “woman of the day”…felt almost like a Dr. Zhivago adventure as I read how she moved about through Russia and Europe over the years. Thanks for this mini-series, Jez.

        Reply

      1. Indeed!

        Marjorie Fleming (also spelt Marjory; 15 January 1803 – 19 December 1811) was a Scottish child writer and poet. She gained appreciation from Robert Louis Stevenson, Leslie Stephen, and possibly Walter Scott.

        Mark Twain wrote of her:

        “She was made out of thunder-storms and sunshine, and not even her little perfunctory pieties and shop-made holinesses could squelch her spirits or put out her fires for long… and this tainted butter soon gets to be as delicious to the reader as are the stunning and worldly sincerities around it every time her pen takes a fresh breath.”

        She died aged a month before her 9th birthday, probably of meningitis.
        https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marjorie_Fleming

        Reply

  3. What perfect Chicago weather for you to leave for California! Safe travels and wishing you some sunshine and warmth.

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  5. Nor did I remember the quote from Kendi’s totally forgettable – is only I could – book. However, I did recall “Clarence” and found the quoted passage on page 134 (chapter 10 – White) of my edition. It is real.

    Reply

  6. Have a wonderful trip to California! I hope you are going to Davis, the home of my heart. I remember the good old days when you went to Death Valley (in March?) and camped out with Prout and Turelli and chased Drosophila. Good times!

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      1. Thanks for the id. I finally found some information on this species on Wikipedia; there it is identified as the Turkmenian (Turkoman) Eagle Owl, a subspecies of Bubo bubo.

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  11. The temperature here in the Seattle area has dropped into the teens the last few nights—very unusual for our neck of the woods.

    A piece in the Jerusalem Post cites a Hamas spokesman saying that Hamas doesn’t know where all the hostages are or how many are still alive. (https://www.jpost.com/breaking-news/article-782160) This report doesn’t seem to have been picked up by the major news outlets. If so, this might indicate that hostages are being held in different locations and that Hamas’s communications have been disrupted enough that they don’t have a central repository of information about them. It might also mean that hostages are being held by groups other than Hamas—which has been reported before and is reported again in the Jerusalem Post piece. It’s not clear if this spokesman’s statement is real news or if it’s just a restatement of earlier uncertainties regarding the hostages.

    This leads me to wonder if Hamas is even in a position to negotiate the release of hostages until they know their status. I can’t even imagine what the families are going through.

    Reply

    1. Thank you very much, Jackie. I look forward to spending the next couple of hours on this 39F, gray with Chesapeake Bay effect flurries, Southeast Virginia afternoon partaking of your offerings. I have been looking for this type of background material for some time now. I am skeptical of blind use of so-called AI since I was around in the 90’s when neural network magic was being pushed for use on airplanes. We were skeptical then for good formal mathematics reasons and I remain skeptical now even though some overt/superficial capabilities are now incredible. So I look forward to reading and watching. Thanks!

      Reply

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