Tuesday: Hili dialogue

March 5, 2024 • 6:45 am

Welcome to the Cruelest Day, Tuesday, March 5, 2024, and National Cheez Doodle Day, a food that stains your hands.  Here’s a two-minute video on how the spherical ones are made, including the spraying-on of the cheesy dye:

 

It’s also National Poutine Day (one of the great contributions of Canada to world fast-food cuisine),  National Absinthe Day, Learn from Lei Feng Day in China (he’s the Horst Wessel of the DPRC), and St Piran’s Day, in Cornwall, where the patron saint is celebrated with parades.

Here’s a poutine I had at La Banquise in Montreal eight years ago. This is about the worst stuff to put into your body, but oy, is it good!

Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this by consulting the March 5 Wikipedia page.

Da Nooz:

*As expected, the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled unanimously that Trump can indeed stay on the Colorado primary ballot. I expected nothing otherwise, for he hasn’t yet been convicted of anything and it wouldn’t be right (or Constitutional, I guess), to punish him before that. But there wasn’t unanimity in everything.  Here are the details from the NYT:

The Supreme Court ruled on Monday that states may not bar former President Donald J. Trump from running for another term, rejecting a challenge to his eligibility that threatened to upend the presidential race by taking him off ballots around the nation.

Though the justices provided different reasons, the decision was unanimous. All the opinions focused on legal issues, and none took a position on whether Mr. Trump had engaged in insurrection.

All the justices agreed that individual states may not bar candidates for the presidency under a constitutional provision, Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, that forbids insurrectionists from holding office. Four justices would have left it at that.

But a five-justice majority, in an unsigned opinion, went on to say that Congress must act to give Section 3 force.

“The Constitution makes Congress, rather than the states, responsible for enforcing Section 3 against federal officeholders and candidates,” the majority wrote, adding that detailed federal legislation was required to determine who was disqualified under the provision.

In a joint concurring opinion, the court’s three liberal members — Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson — expressed frustration at what they said was the majority’s needless overreach. They said it was meant to insulate the court and Mr. Trump “from future controversy.”

“The court today needed to resolve only a single question: whether an individual state may keep a presidential candidate found to have engaged in insurrection off its ballot,” they wrote. “The majority resolves much more than the case before us.”

I’m no lawyer, but I’m wondering what Congress is supposed to do to stop an insurrectionist from becoming President. If you read section 3 (below), it says how Congress can enable an insurrectionist to become a representative, President, or hold a government job.  It seems to me that conviction for insurrection alone automatically disqualifies someone from holding office. Why do we need federal legislation about that. See below:

Section 3.
No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.

*VP Kamala Harris, useless at the best of times, has now joined the “Make Israel Lose the War” brigade by calling for a six-week “pause” in the fighting in Gaza. (The secret plan of the Biden administration is to turn the pause into a permanent cessation of fighting, i.e., letting Israel lose.)

US Vice President Kamala Harris bluntly called out Israel on Sunday for not doing enough to ease a “humanitarian catastrophe” in Gaza and called for an extended pause in hostilities to be implemented immediately, as the Biden administration faces increasing pressure to rein in its close ally.

Harris’s call for an “immediate ceasefire” won loud cheers from the crowd even as she clarified that she was referring to a cessation of hostilities as part of a deal that would free hostages kidnapped from southern Israel by the Hamas terror group some five months ago.

“Given the immense scale of suffering in Gaza there must be an immediate ceasefire,” Harris said to raucous applause. “For at least the next six weeks, which is what currently is on the table.”

US Vice President Kamala Harris bluntly called out Israel on Sunday for not doing enough to ease a “humanitarian catastrophe” in Gaza and called for an extended pause in hostilities to be implemented immediately, as the Biden administration faces increasing pressure to rein in its close ally.

Harris’s call for an “immediate ceasefire” won loud cheers from the crowd even as she clarified that she was referring to a cessation of hostilities as part of a deal that would free hostages kidnapped from southern Israel by the Hamas terror group some five months ago.

“Given the immense scale of suffering in Gaza there must be an immediate ceasefire,” Harris said to raucous applause. “For at least the next six weeks, which is what currently is on the table.”

“Hamas claims it wants a ceasefire. Well, there is a deal on the table. And as we have said, Hamas needs to agree to that deal,” Harris said. “Let’s get a ceasefire. Let’s reunite the hostages with their families. And let’s provide immediate relief to the people of Gaza.”

Her remarks were consistent with long-standing US policy that the best way to secure a truce is through a hostage deal, but reflected the White House’s increasing willingness to support rhetoric backing a halt to Israel’s offensive even if Jerusalem’s goal of eliminating the Hamas terror group remains unrealized.

Harris, speaking in front of the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, where state troopers beat US civil rights marchers nearly six decades ago, directed the bulk of her comments at Israel in what appeared to be the sharpest rebuke yet by a senior leader in the US government over the conditions in the coastal enclave.

Sorry, but why does she blame Israel rather than Hamas? Does she realize that to get the hostages free, Israel would have to agree to the release of hundreds if not thousands of Palestinian terrorists from Israeli jails? Does she realize that the hostages will be dribbled out in bits rather than all that once.  And why isn’t she calling for a surrender of Hamas, which would stop the fighting, rather than making Israel stop attacking the terrorists sworn to erase the country?  The woman is incorrigible, and here was assigned to do the dirty work that Biden won’t do: chiding Israel for fighting on. Check out the demands that Hamas wants for a ceasefire.

In fact, Hamas now says that they won’t even articulate their conditions for ceasefire until every Israeli soldier leaves Gaza, so we’re not even sure what “deal” is on the table.

*The IDF has completed its initial review of the “food battle” incident, and you can see its results at the Jewish News Service.  Conclusion: most people were crushed by trucks or in the stampede, and Israeli soldiers fired a only at a handful of Gazans who were threatening them, and only at their legs. Here’s IDF Spokesperson Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari giving the IDF’s claims. You can believe him, or believe Hamas, or think the truth is somewhere in between. My own view hews closer to the IDF’s explanation, just as it did when the whole world thought that Israel had fired a rocket at a hospital and killed 500 people. (As you recall, it was a misfired rocket from Palestinian Jihad that killed about a dozen people in a hospital parking lot.  The world always runs to judgment in such cases, and the judgment, for some reason, favors the Hamas side.

*From the Torygraph via Malgorzata, bad news from British publishing. Can this really be true?

Half of British publishers are refusing to take books by authors who are identifiably Jewish, a literary agent has claimed.

The major agent, who did not wish to be identified, said many mainstream publishing houses were among those deeming Jewish books as off bounds.

The agent was speaking to Stephen Games, who founded the independent publisher EnvelopeBooks, who said it has been an “emerging problem” for some time that has been “exacerbated” since the Israel-Gaza war began in October.

“A very well-known literary agent of great repute and associated with books that one would immediately recognise said that he is having difficulty with his Jewish authors or writings on Jewish subjects because he just finds that much of literary London is now a no-go zone for Jews,” said Mr Games.

“He said there is no point putting proposals up to commissioning editors as they just are not interested.”

Mr Games said there was “a climate of growing hostility against Jews” but he was “not surprised by it”. There are fewer than 300,000 Jewish people in the UK, which has a population of 67 million.

Given the rising tide of antisemitism in the UK, I can sort of believe this. And now I’m doubly cursed: I can’t publish my Indian children’s book because I’m white, and if I tried to get it published in the UK, I’d also be cursed by my Ashkenazi ancestry. (I bet India will start doing the same thing.)  Or maybe I could not be “identifiably Jewish” by changing my name to Frederick Johnson.

*Vive la France! France just became the first country in the world to create a constitutional right to an abortion.

French lawmakers on Monday overwhelmingly approved a bill that will enshrine a woman’s right to an abortion in France’s constitution, a historic move designed to prevent the kind of rollback of abortion rights seen in the United States in recent years.

In an exceptional joint session of parliament convened at the Palace of Versailles, the bill was approved in a 780-72 vote. Abortion enjoys wide support in France across most of the political spectrum, and has been legal since 1975.

The vote makes France the first country to have a constitutional right to abortion since the former Yugoslavia inscribed it in its 1974 constitution. Serbia’s 2006 constitution carries on that spirit, stating that “everyone has the right to decide on childbirth.”

Nearly the entire hall in France stood in a long standing ovation, and many female legislators in the hall smiled broadly as they cheered. There were jubilant scenes of celebrations all over France as women’s rights activists hailed the measure promised by President Emmanuel Macron immediately following the Dobbs ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2022.

Both houses of parliament, the National Assembly and the Senate, had already adopted a bill to amend Article 34 of the French Constitution to specify that “the law determines the conditions by which is exercised the freedom of women to have recourse to an abortion, which is guaranteed.”

Of all Western countries that I know, including the U.S., France, with its secularist policy of laïcité, has the greatest distance between church and state. And that explains why passing a right to abortion was so easy.

*The Wall Street Journal seems obsessed with the price of food, but then again, so am I. Burgers in particular have seemed pretty pricey, and the paper discusses “The skyrocketing costs driving cheeseburger prices up—and restaurant owners out.”

A $16 bacon cheeseburger may not be enough to save your neighborhood bar and grill.

Independent restaurants are on financial life support, owners say, squeezed between escalating payroll costs and diners’ dwindling tolerance for ever-higher checks. Wages for waitstaff, table bussers and line cooks will grow more expensive for many eateries this year, with 22 states in January raising the minimum wage for hourly workers.

The industry’s economic strains can be seen on the appetizer plate at Chef Zorba’s Restaurant in Denver. Owner Karen LuKanic recently swapped Greek giant beans for homemade stuffed grape leaves to save money, and switched to cheaper shoestring potatoes from thick-cut fries. Denver has increased its minimum wage annually since 2020, most recently in January to $18.29 an hour, while Colorado has expanded paid sick leave and other employee benefit requirements.

“We are just keeping our head above water,” said LuKanic, who estimated about half her restaurant’s sales now go to payroll and other employee-related costs.

Chef Zorba’s charges $15.75 for a bacon cheeseburger, $5 more than in 2018. Even at those prices the 78-seat restaurant can’t turn a profit. LuKanic said she would consider closing if her Small Business Administration loan wasn’t guaranteed by her house.

American restaurants emerged from the Covid-19 pandemic to find their traditional economics no longer work. After struggling to stay afloat through lockdowns, restaurant operators endured surging food costs and supply chain shortages. Restaurateurs raised menu prices. In January, prices for food eaten away from home were up 30% compared with the same month in 2019, Labor Department data showed.

Restaurants’ food bills have stopped their pandemic-era surge. But payroll costs are still climbing.

Everyone wants restaurant workers to earn a decent wage, but it will come at a cost: you can’t haz bacon cheezburger. Here’s the WSJ’s plot of the average wages of restaurant workers and their change over the years.  The big rise began in 2021. But why would cheezburgers in particular be affected?

Cheezboiger, cheezboiger, cheezboiger!  Cheeps. No Coke—Pepsi.

 

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili is frightened:

Hili: Holy Mother of God! A witch on a broom with an umbrella.
A: Take it easy, it’s just a girl from the neighbourhood on a paraglider.
In Polish:
Hili: Matko Boska, czarownica na miotle z parasolem.
Ja: Spokojnie, to dziewczyna z sąsiedztwa na paralotni.

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

A puzzle found by the wife of reader Simon:

From Strange, Stupid, or Silly Signs:

From The Dodo Pet:  Look at that bad ferret!

 

There may be a problem viewing tweets this morning. If you don’t see ’em, apologies.

From Masih, a retweet. I think they mean “chastity,” not “chestity”!!!

*From Jez, pro-Palestinians invade a Miami synagogue. I retweeted the original:

From Luana, which I retweeted as well. SJP needs to clean up its act.

From Malcolm, an athletic feat and very cute kittens. There’s music that you may want to listen to:

 

Is this d*g shopping for himself or its owner?

From the Auschwitz Memorial, an eleven-year-old boy gassed to death:

 

Two tweets from Dr. Cobb. The first one Matthew takes as crab mimicking fish, and he asks, “Here’s a crab riddle for you – is it trying to be one fish or two? I guess the latter. But how could we tell?”

I’m not sure how these color changes would work.  Do marlins not recognize each other as marlins?

42 thoughts on “Tuesday: Hili dialogue”

  1. It’s also National Poutine Day (one of the great contributions of Canada (actually a great contribution of Québec) to world fast-food cuisine),

      1. No, he didn’t.
        Poutine was invented (or created) in the “poutine triangle” formed by the towns of Victoriaville, Warwick and Drummondville in the 1960’s.

  2. 1. SCOTUS:

    Yesterday I learned the SCOTUS decision was referring to the Sc of Colorado in their publication – as in, “did not err” deciding whether Trump was an “insurrectionist” – which I understand even less now.

    Here – to speed things up I searched for “insurrection” or “decision”, etc : https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/23pdf/23-719_19m2.pdf

    … I also heard a joke – which I am sure not many will find funny :
    Knock knock
    Who’s there?
    Owen
    Owen who?
    0-9

    2. Kamala is simply causing good trouble. She says this a lot – and everyone knows this Wokecraft – good trouble. Moral / intersectional self/identity-licensing.

    1. Post-edit deadline :

      The SCOTUS doc says :

      “In December, the Colorado Supreme Court reversed in
      part and affirmed in part by a 4 to 3 vote. […]The court otherwise affirmed, holding[…](5) that the
      District Court did not err in concluding that those events
      constituted an “insurrection” and that former President
      Trump “engaged in” that insurrection; and (6) that former
      President Trump’s speech to the crowd that breached the
      Capitol on January 6 was not protected by the First Amend-
      ment. See id., at 1a–114a.”

      1. It only works if spoken aloud ..

        Imagine describing the latest hockey game shutout… I mean, that’d be a hell of a score, but…

        [ gets rotten fruit shield ]

          1. Sports announcers talk real quick, so they’d say a score is “Oh and nine”.

            The old “Oh” substitution for “zero”.

            [ what have I done ]

    4. Continuing with the dissection of the (humanely euthanized) frog, I’d say that a sportscaster would report the score in a single game as “a nine- nothing shut-out.” The Oh and nine convention would be used to report the won-lost record of a particular team, e.g., “The Blue Jays continued their slump with a 7-3 loss in New York. They are now oh and nine on the road since the All-Star break.”

  3. Or maybe I could not be “identifiably Jewish” by changing my name to Frederick Johnson.

    I suggest changing it to something like Jamal Mohammed Dominique. Should work.

  4. Here is a podcast between Robert Epstein and Michael Shellenberger on how Google manipulates us. The first 30 mins is available to non-subscribers and is utterly gobsmacking. Well worth a listen on how one of the world’s most influential companies is behaving.

    1. +1

      Here’s a thought : ever hear of Google Classroom? Social-Emotional Learning? Psychodata? AI is trained on data – is that included?

      Here’s a thought : is the “manipulation” discussed in fact precisely the objective? The “bottom-up” vanguard (echoing Stalin)?

      So when the CEO says “responsibly”, the results are 100% what the CEO means, the silly pictures we all saw are 100% what the CEO means, consistent will all available and relevant literature on the topic?

      J. of Education Policy V. 36, 2021 – Issue 1
      Psychodata: disassembling the
      psychological, economic, and statistical
      infrastructure of ‘social-emotional
      learning’      , Ben Williamson
      Pages 129-154

      …. and I just got to the “indoctrination of children” section… “undecideds”… Mao Zedong, anyone?

      It’s Not Taught In Schools – It Is Practiced In Schools

    2. … and the “Go Vote” reminder part – “praise” for it. Mao much?!?

    3. And…

      The public schools are responsible for lots – lots – of YouTube and other video traffic. At home or at school, on “Chromebooks” – Google laptops.

      There is even lots of use of video to give multiple choice quizzes/review – students typing input. Searches too, of course, and off-topic stuff they get distracted by – everything stored in Google.

      The potential for data mining insight – including location data and other computers – is astronomical.

  5. Glad that Case Western Reserve is engaging these renegades and at least trying to run down identities as it appears that no one was detained at the scene or in the act. Need more this by more unis.

    So good that Temple Emmanuel had police on duty. So sad that it has come to this. We also have had a policeman on duty at our local shul for all services. I was struck by what appears to be a preponderance of elderly at Emmanuel, much as it appeared was the congregation at Squirrel Hill at their Shabbos service.

    1. Totally agree that the police presence at Temple Emmanuel was fortunate. It’s a sad reality that synagogues have to employ police protection. In this case, the police protected the perpetrators from the congregation. They were about to be impaled by canes!

        1. Did everyone have the sound up and hear the guy on the mic saying how somebody would take a photo only showing how they took the rioter down but not the provocation? He is so right. That’s how this works! Oh jeeze. Inside a temple. Wow! What a world. No “safe places” for elderly Jews! I can’t imagine this situation were the tables turned. Man oh man

  6. On this day:
    1496 – King Henry VII of England issues letters patent to John Cabot and his sons, authorising them to explore unknown lands.

    1616 – Nicolaus Copernicus’s book On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres is added to the Index of Forbidden Books 73 years after it was first published.

    1770 – Boston Massacre: Five Americans, including Crispus Attucks, are fatally shot by British troops in an event that would contribute to the outbreak of the American Revolutionary War (also known as the American War of Independence) five years later.

    1836 – Samuel Colt patents the first production-model revolver, the .34-caliber.

    1912 – Italo-Turkish War: Italian forces are the first to use airships for military purposes, employing them for reconnaissance behind Turkish lines.

    1933 – Adolf Hitler’s Nazi Party receives 43.9% at the Reichstag elections, which allows the Nazis to later pass the Enabling Act and establish a dictatorship.

    1936 – First flight of K5054, the first prototype Supermarine Spitfire advanced monoplane fighter aircraft in the United Kingdom.

    1940 – Six high-ranking members of the Soviet politburo, including Joseph Stalin, sign an order for the execution of 25,700 Polish intelligentsia, including 14,700 Polish POWs, in what will become known as the Katyn massacre.

    1943 – First Flight of the Gloster Meteor, Britain’s first combat jet aircraft.

    1946 – Cold War: Winston Churchill coins the phrase “Iron Curtain” in his speech at Westminster College, Missouri.

    1953 – Joseph Stalin, the longest serving leader of the Soviet Union, dies at his Volynskoe dacha in Moscow after suffering a cerebral hemorrhage four days earlier.

    1963 – American country music stars Patsy Cline, Hawkshaw Hawkins, Cowboy Copas and their pilot Randy Hughes are killed in a plane crash in Camden, Tennessee.

    1965 – March Intifada: A Leftist uprising erupts in Bahrain against the British colonial presence.

    1970 – The Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons goes into effect after ratification by 43 nations.

    1979 – Soviet probes Venera 11, Venera 12, and the German-American solar satellite Helios II all are hit by “off the scale” gamma rays leading to the discovery of soft gamma repeaters.

    1981 – The ZX81, a pioneering British home computer, is launched by Sinclair Research and would go on to sell over 11⁄2 million units around the world.

    1982 – Soviet probe Venera 14 lands on Venus.

    2003 – In Haifa, 17 Israeli civilians are killed in the Haifa bus 37 suicide bombing.

    Births:
    1512 – Gerardus Mercator, Flemish mathematician, cartographer, and philosopher (d. 1594).

    1748 – Jonas Carlsson Dryander, Swedish botanist and biologist (d. 1810).

    1779 – Benjamin Gompertz, English mathematician and statistician (d. 1865).

    1794 – Jacques Babinet, French physicist, mathematician, and astronomer (d. 1872). [Best known for his contributions to optics.]

    1871 – Rosa Luxemburg, Polish-Russian economist and philosopher (d. 1919).

    1879 – William Beveridge, English economist and academic (d. 1963). [His 1942 report Social Insurance and Allied Services (known as the Beveridge Report) served as the basis for the welfare state put in place by the Labour government elected in 1945.]

    1882 – Dora Marsden, English author and activist (d. 1960).

    1883 – Pauline Sperry, American mathematician (d. 1967).

    1887 – Heitor Villa-Lobos, Brazilian guitarist and composer (d. 1959).

    1898 – Zhou Enlai, Chinese politician, 1st Premier of the People’s Republic of China (d. 1976).

    1900 – Lilli Jahn, Jewish German doctor (d. 1944). [Woman of the Day, see next post below.]

    1900 – Johanna Langefeld, German guard and supervisor of three Nazi concentration camps (d. 1974). [Having worked at Lichtenburg, Ravensbrück, and Auschwitz, she was arrested and imprisoned for her role in the Holocaust, but escaped prison and was never tried.]

    1905 – László Benedek, Hungarian-American director and cinematographer (d. 1992). [Most notable for directing The Wild One (1953).]

    1908 – Rex Harrison, English actor (d. 1990).

    1911 – Subroto Mukerjee, Indian Air Marshall, Father of the Indian Air Force (d. 1960).

    1918 – James Tobin, American economist and academic (d. 2002).

    1922 – Pier Paolo Pasolini, Italian actor, director, and screenwriter (d. 1975).

    1929 – J. B. Lenoir, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (d. 1967).

    1934 – Daniel Kahneman, Israeli-American economist and psychologist, Nobel Prize laureate.

    1936 – Canaan Banana, Zimbabwean minister and politician, 1st President of Zimbabwe (d. 2003).

    1936 – Dean Stockwell, American actor (d. 2021).

    1938 – Lynn Margulis, American biologist and academic (d. 2011).

    1941 – Des Wilson, New Zealand-English businessman and activist. [Founding director of the housing charity Shelter, he later ran Friends of the Earth, the Campaign for Freedom of Information, and CLEAR, the Campaign for Lead Free Air.]

    1948 – Eddy Grant, Guyanese-British singer-songwriter and musician.

    1948 – Richard Hickox, English conductor and scholar (d. 2008).

    1948 – Elaine Paige, English singer and actress.

    1957 – Mark E. Smith, English singer, songwriter and musician (d. 2018).

    1958 – Andy Gibb, English-Australian singer-songwriter and actor (d. 1988).

    1970 – John Frusciante, American singer-songwriter, guitarist, and producer.

    1974 – Matt Lucas, English actor, comedian, writer, and television personality.

    1992 – Sam Bankman-Fried, American businessman and fraudster.

    1993 – Joshua Coyne, American violinist and composer. [Included as per our host’s habit with respect to his namesakes.]

    Our nature consists in motion; complete rest is death. (Blaise Pascal):
    1778 – Thomas Arne, English composer and educator (b. 1710).[Best known for his patriotic song “Rule, Britannia!” and the song “A-Hunting We Will Go”, the latter composed for a 1777 production of The Beggar’s Opera, and which has since become popular as a folk song and a nursery rhyme.]

    1815 – Franz Mesmer, German physician and astrologist (b. 1734).

    1827 – Pierre-Simon Laplace, French mathematician and astronomer (b. 1749).

    1827 – Alessandro Volta, Italian physicist and academic (b. 1745).

    1876 – Marie d’Agoult, German-French historian and author (b. 1805). [She wrote under the pen name Daniel Stern.]

    1889 – Mary Louise Booth, American writer, editor and translator (b. 1831).

    1929 – David Dunbar Buick, Scottish-American businessman, founded Buick (b. 1854).

    1945 – Lena Baker, African American held captive post slavery-era (b. 1900).

    1953 – Herman J. Mankiewicz, American screenwriter and producer (b. 1897).

    1953 – Sergei Prokofiev, Russian pianist, composer, and conductor (b. 1891).

    1966 – Anna Akhmatova, Ukrainian-Russian poet, author, and translator (b. 1889).

    1981 – Yip Harburg, American songwriter and composer (b. 1896). [Wrote the lyrics to the standards “Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?” (with Jay Gorney), “April in Paris”, and “It’s Only a Paper Moon”, as well as all of the songs for the film The Wizard of Oz. Known for the social commentary of his lyrics, as well as his leftist leanings, he championed racial and gender equality and union politics. He also was an ardent critic of religion.]

    1982 – John Belushi, American actor (b. 1949).

    1995 – Vivian Stanshall, English singer-songwriter and musician (b. 1943).

    2013 – Duane Gish, American biochemist and academic (b. 1921).

    2013 – Hugo Chávez, Venezuelan colonel and politician, President of Venezuela (b. 1954).

    1. Woman of the Day:
      [Text from the excellent The Attagirls X/Twitter account]

      Woman of the Day doctor Lilli Jahn born OTD 1900 [died ca. 19 June 1944)] in Cologne of German Jewish parents, who was denounced, ostracised, separated from her beloved children and sent to a forced labour camp where she was murdered in 1944.

      Lilli worked at a hospital for the sick and elderly in Cologne but at the end of August 1942, she was denounced for not adding the name Sara – then obligatory for all Jewish women – to the nameplate over the doorbell on her front door and for leaving her qualification as doctor on it. By then, it was a prohibited profession for all Jews.

      She was ostracised by her German neighbours in Immenhausen and divorced by her German Aryan husband – this was an automatic right under Nazi law although I think tomorrow’s Women of the Day could have given him a much needed lesson in courage – after he had a child with a fellow doctor whom he subsequently married. It left Lilli and their five children defenceless.

      She was arrested and interrogated due to a trumped-up violation of Reichsgesetz (Reich law) and sent to Britenau, a “labour education camp” (that is, a forced labour camp) near Kassel. It held political opponents of the Nazis from the entire district of Kassel ranging from Social Democrats, communists, trade union members and persecuted Jews.

      This meant that her five children were left to fend for themselves. Her 12 year old daughter, Ilse, did her best to keep her siblings together while Lilli was forced to labour in a pharmaceutical factory. Rescue efforts by friends of the Avowed Church in Kassel were unsuccessful.

      Lilli was a prolific letter writer. She wrote many letters to her children and her friends, trying to keep up their spirits and hers with hope and optimism, and trying to support Ilse who was managing the family home. In fact, the letters she wrote dating from her courtship in 1923 by her ex-husband to her last letter from Auschwitz in 1944, provide startling insights into the fate of Jews in so-called “privileged” mixed marriages. Her children sent more than 250 letters between 1943 and 1944 to their mother while she was doing forced labour.

      Ilse herself had to brave going into the labour camp to visit her by then weakened mother. Mother and daughter was only able to see each other once.

      In March 1944, Lilli was deported in a collective transport via Dresden to Auschwitz where she was murdered, aged 44. Her children in Immenhausen received the message of their mother’s death in September 1944.

      Prior to deportation, Lilli managed to smuggle her children’s letters out of Breitenau. They ended up with her son who kept them until his death in 1998. Her last preserved letter from Auschwitz – dated 6 March 1944 – was written on her behalf by someone else. “I’m well, I’m working at my profession” said the censored message.

      Throughout it all, Lilli had only one goal. To return to her children. “I’m being careful and my one thought is to come back to you fit and well and, I hope, soon.”

      https://twitter.com/TheAttagirls/status/1764916112716661245

      [Wikipedia says, “She gained international fame posthumously following the publication of her letters to her five children which she wrote during her imprisonment in the labour camp Breitenau”.]

    2. Boston Massacre: Five Americans…

      A massacre that resulted in five deaths! That just makes the poor Brits look incompetent 🙂 Saint Valentine’s Day Massacre (+2?) was more of a massacre.

    3. A couple of comments:
      • When I was a boy, my hobby was building model airplanes. The Spitfire was my favorite. Thanks for stirring up a fond memory, Jez!
      • Another twofer: The SNL cheezboiger skit on the anniversary of Belushi’s death! (All the stars were excellent in this skit, but I had forgotten how good Laraine Newman was.)

      1. I was on a tour of UK aerospace companies, unis and labs giving technical talks for NASA in the late 80’s or very early 90’s I believe. After lunch at BAE Warton, my hosts took me back through winding hallways to a high bay area in which stood a fully restored and flight-ready Spitfire, its nose pointed at the door and grass landing field beyond. They were so proud and I must say that it was absolutely gorgeous under the lights. An unexpected and wonderful experience.

        2. As a boy visiting cousins in small town NZ (late 50’s) we played in a fully made up Spitfire waiting to be scrapped. The cockpit had been gutted. It was sitting in a field down a dirt road with a bunch of two seater AT6 Texan or Harvards. These planes were just the cockpit part of the fuselage.

  7. Re:the invasion of the synagogue in Miami. I have been saying for a while now that large numbers of pro hamas supporters have no interest in the plight of the gazan people, they are only interested in letting their Jew hatred have free rein.

  8. Not mentioned in the AP piece: The French amendment protects the right to abortion up to fourteen weeks.

      1. 18 states? At least 21 are most or very restrictive. In 15 states, it’s banned outright; it’s a euphemism to simply state “more restrictive than France” when the procedure is totally banned. In another 7 states it’s “restricted” and in states like Wyoming, a total ban is working its way through the courts. Here’s the latest I could find from 1/24:

        https://states.guttmacher.org/policies/?gad_source=1&gclid=CjwKCAiAopuvBhBCEiwAm8jaMU3x1pa12SQHYLF8H7tnj1pLkSrnkOMhp-kq9VhNqOlhochpNjRhLhoCjMAQAvD_BwE

        And SCOTUS has yet to rule on the legality of mifepristone. Who knows how the reckless court will rule, but if they outlaw it, that map won’t have any yellow or blue states.

  9. I watched clips of Vice President Harris’s speech. Not having seen all of it, I’m hesitant to opine, but I will say a bit about how her speech fits into the Biden administration’s behavior regarding the war in Gaza.

    It seems that the administration has little backbone nor employs much in the way of principle. It is all over the map in its effort to placate all the constituencies. On the one hand, the administration condemns Hamas for its attack on innocent Israeli civilians on October 7, and it rightly calls for the release of the hostages. On the other hand, it finds it acceptable that only *some* of the hostages be released, the others being sacrificed to placate those on the left who demand an immediate cease fire. On the third hand—given that this is an election year and that Biden’s numbers are in the tank—the administration is attempting for its own benefit to pull off a Hail Mary to end the conflict and put in place the vaunted two-state solution. When administration officials speak, all of these interests come into play, and a muddled mix of messages comes out of their mouths.

    By pursuing all of these aims at once, principle is the loser—and so may be the State of Israel. Lost or diluted is the principle that Hamas is reprehensible, that it needs to be destroyed, that Israel has a legitimate right and obligation to defend itself, that the hostages must be released without condition, and that a Hamas surrender can bring the humanitarian crisis to an abrupt end. Rather than state unequivocally Israel’s right to defend itself, the administration sends Kamala Harris out to deliver the administration’s muddled message. She is the perfect person for the job.

    1. “…principle is the loser-and so may be (the continued existence) of the State of Israel”. Thank you Norman. Good analysis. Too many people throw around the word “existential” too lightly. This is one situation that clearly is existential for the State of Israel.

  10. The John Lewis Partnership (Waitrose) “Peppa the Pig” jigsaw is in extremely bad taste and whoever thought or thinks that this is funny should perhaps visit an intensive pig rearing facility or slaughterhouse and remain there. Animals are treated disgracefully as part of the human food chain and this “humour” leaves me speechless and angry.

  12. I’d guess the d*g was shopping for its owner since citrus seems an unlikely choice for a canine. When I was a child a neighbor had an arrangement with the local grocery store, only one block away. Their German Shepherd would go to the store with a note and cash and the store would put the item(s) and change in a bag which the d*g carried home. It worked well.

    1. Yes. A dog would never select citrus. One of the few things they won’t eat.

      My (gay, rich) neighborhood of Chelsea has all dog friendly stores. I take mine everywhere except the supermarket where he distracts me!
      The puppers at issue: https://whyevolutionistrue.com/2020/06/10/photos-of-readers-93/

      He’s 14 now, in dog years Joe Biden’s age. Both function very well I think. 🙂
      D.A.
      NYC

  13. Regarding “Strange, Stupid, or Silly Signs”:

    “Kansas City welcomes 25 million visitors anally.”

    I have some amateur experience with typography, graphics, and photography. I thought this sign reflected an honest mistake because it “looked” real to me, and because I thought it would have been difficult to fake, especially by an amateur. Also, why would a professional bother?

    My wife has extensive experience as a credentialed school psychologist, and she thought the sign was a digital fake. (The sign would have needed approval from too many people to not be noticed.)

    Silly me. She was right. Snopes:
    https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/does-welcome-sign-kansas-city-typo/

    I will now treat all funny signs as just funny, and I will discount any suggestions that they’re actually “real” unless they come with compelling and corroborating evidence for that.

    Next up: funny videos.

  14. Every day I click on the link for #Auschwitz, shake my head, and ask why. My eyes tear up so I promise myself tomorrow I will not click #Auschwitz again. The next day I click on #Auschwitz, shake my head . .

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