Welcome to the Sabbath for goyische cats: Sunday, April 14, 2024, and National Pecan Day (only good in pies ,and then it’s terrific). The Foodimentary page states that “The pecan tree is the ONLY tree native to North America,” and I’m not sure that’s true. Readers may wish to check that and comment below. In the meantime, enjoy this piece of pecan pie from Wikipedia. It’s about two pieces, but I’d eat them in one sitting. The ratio of pecans to filling appears to be pretty good here, but is often low in commercial pies (pecans should be in the filling and not just a thin layer on top). If the pie is warm, add vanilla ice cream,
It’s also Children With Alopecia Day, International Laverbread Day (this is a Welsh product made with boiled seaweed!), National Grits Day (too many people spurn this essential breakfast food; see below), Ex-Spouse Day, National Dolphin Day, Dhivehi Language Day in the Maldives, N’Ko Alphabet Day for Mande speakers, and, finally, World Quantum Day, celebrating quantum technology and quantum physics.
Here is the quintessential Southern U.S. breakfast (biscuits not shown) at the Loveless Motel and Cafe outside Nashville. I asked to be taken here when I gave a talk at Vanderbilt in 2012. Note the grits, which go well with fried eggs. Red-eye gravy is in the cup at the left.
Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the April 14 Wikipedia page.
Da Nooz:
*All I can say this morning is עַם יִשְׂרָאֵל חַי, or Am Yisrael Chai (“the people of Israel live”), the traditional chant of Jews who have survived another attack. And so they did last night, surviving hundreds of drones and missiles from Iran, with almost no damage save a severe injury to a ten-year-old Bedouin child and some minor damage to a military base. That is almost nothing, and the question of whether Israel will retaliate. I suspect not; they don’t need another war and Iran has shown itself militarily impotent. But I am not a pundit. From the NYT:
Iran mounted an immense aerial attack on Israel on Saturday night, launching more than 300 drones and missiles in retaliation for a deadly Israeli airstrike in Syria two weeks ago, and marking a significant escalation in hostilities between the two regional foes.
The strikes caused only minor damage to one Israeli military base, and most of the airborne threats were intercepted, Israeli military officials said. The United States said it had helped to shoot dozens of drones and missiles.
But the large-scale attack, aimed at targets inside Israel and the territory it controls, opened a volatile new chapter in the long-running shadow war between Iran and Israel.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps said in a statement broadcast on state television that it had launched “dozens of drones and missiles” toward Israel from Iran “in reaction to the Zionist regime’s crimes.” It later said on social media that it had hit military targets in Israel, warned the United States against getting involved, and threatened more strikes if Iran or its interests were hit.
Here’s what we know:
A total of 12 people were brought in to the Soroka Medical Center in southern Israel overnight, according to a hospital spokeswoman, Inbar Gutter.
One of the areas targeted was the Golan Heights, a strategic area bordering Syria that Israel annexed nearly 60 years ago. Hezbollah, the Lebanese militia backed by Iran, said it had fired dozens of rockets at an Israeli barracks there. But it was not immediately clear if that bombardment was part of the wider Iranian attack.
In the hours after the attacks, as Iranians gathered in Tehran to celebrate them, more air-raid sirens sounded across vast swaths of southern Israel, the West Bank and Golan Heights. The Israeli government also sent out warnings about possible missiles arriving in the Negev Desert, where there are several military bases. And the airspaces of Israel, Jordan, Iraq and Lebanon were closed.
From the Times of Israel:
With its missile and drone attack on Israel, Iran succeeded in rallying the US and top European powers to Israel’s side. Not only did the US, the UK, and France express their unequivocal support for Israel; they actively took part in its defense, using a network of satellite, planes, and radars on the ground and at sea.
And instead of the UN Security Council discussing the need for a ceasefire in Gaza, it will be debating the Iranian threat and Israel’s right to self-defense on Sunday, with three permanent members sure to band together to condemn Tehran and Moscow.
Hamas, meanwhile, defended the attack publicly.
And Jordan also reportedly helped shoot down drones and missiles. All in all Iran’s attack failed miserably, and I bet even the people of Iran, who didn’t want a war, are happy.
The information below on the attack was written yesterday evening, and is largely outdated, but last night there was a post with readers’ comments on the Iranian attack on Israel.
*Well, one can hope. The NYT reports that Biden is closing the electoral gap on Trump; in fact, the two candidates are basically dead even. (Remember, Trump’s New York state criminal trial against Trump for illegal appropriation of hush money for Stormy Daniels begins Monday. He could be convicted, and he couldn’t ever pardon himself!)
President Biden has nearly erased Donald J. Trump’s early polling advantage, amid signs that the Democratic base has begun to coalesce behind the president despite lingering doubts about the direction of the country, the economy and his age, according to a new survey by The New York Times and Siena College.
Mr. Biden and Mr. Trump are now virtually tied, with Mr. Trump holding a 46 percent to 45 percent edge. That is an improvement for Mr. Biden from late February, when Mr. Trump had a sturdier 48 percent to 43 percent lead just before he became the presumptive Republican nominee.
Mr. Biden’s tick upward appears to stem largely from his improved standing among traditional Democratic voters — he is winning a greater share of voters who supported him in 2020 than he did a month ago. Then, Mr. Trump had secured the support of far more of his past voters compared with the president — 97 percent to 83 percent — but that margin has narrowed. Mr. Biden is now winning 89 percent of his 2020 supporters compared with 94 percent for Mr. Trump.
The tightening poll results are the latest evidence of a 2024 contest that both campaigns are preparing to be excruciatingly close. The last two presidential elections were decided by tens of thousands of votes in a handful of battleground states, and this one could be just as tight. In a nation so evenly divided, even the tiniest of shifts in support could prove decisive.
Beneath the narrowing contest, many of the fundamentals of the race appear largely unchanged.
The share of voters who view the nation as headed in the wrong direction remains a high 64 percent. Almost 80 percent of voters still rate the nation’s economic conditions as fair or poor, including a majority of Democrats. And both Mr. Biden and Mr. Trump remain unpopular, for familiar reasons. Most voters think Mr. Biden is too old. A majority believe Mr. Trump has committed serious federal crimes.
I hope Biden pulls farther ahead, as I can’t bear to sit out the election. In the 2016 election I was in Hong Kong, so the results were coming in during the day, and I watched the needle slowly move away from Hillary towards Trump, until they called it for him. I was devastated and went out walking through the city, finally getting back to my hotel a few hours later without any idea about where I’d been. I wonder whether, if Trump loses, he’ll start denying the results agaion.
*As of late afternoon Saturday, Iran hasn’t come through with its promised heavy attack on Israel or Israel’s embassies. The only thing that’s happened so far, according to the Jerusalem Post, Iranian Revolutionary Guards seized a Portuguese ship (partly owned by a Jewish businessman), staffed by Filipinos, that was passing through the Strait of Hormuz. The rumors I hear is that this is about as far as Iran will go in retaliating for the strike on its embassy in Damascus (probably by Israel)
Iranian forces took over the Portuguese ship “MCS ARIES” in the Strait of Hormuz on Saturday, according to Israeli media.
The ship is currently sailing through the Persian Gulf, according to ship tracking site, Marine Traffic. The ship was heading in the direction of India.
MSC is the manager and commercial operator of the MSC ARIES, international shipping company Zodiac Maritime said in a statement.
There were 20 Filipinos on board the ship.
Iran state-run media stated that its Revolutionary Guards had seized the MSC Aries ship, saying it was “linked to Israel” and it was being transferred to Iran’s territorial waters.
A Guards navy special forces helicopter boarded the Portuguese flagged vessel and seized it, the Iranian state-run media reported.
. . . .A US defense official said “we are aware of the situation reported by UKMTO and we are monitoring it” but would not confirm or deny the name of the vessel when asked if it was the MSC Aries, Reuters reported.
Israel’s military spokesperson, Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said in response, “Iran will bear consequences for choosing to escalate this situation any further.”
Unless Iran goes further, this mighy the end of the story for now. Hezbollah did fire “dozens of rockets” at Israel from Lebanon, more than usual, but there was no damage. However, I’ve just learned that Israel remains on high alert:
Israel closed its schools and canceled all extracurricular educational activities starting Sunday as the IDF remained on high alert for an attack from Iran with dozens of planes already in the sky prepared to defend the country.
“Starting tomorrow morning and during the next few days, none of the educational systems, camp programs, and planned trips will take place,” IDF Spokesperson Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said in a video statement.
The directive will be reassessed at 6 am, Hagari said, as he urged Israeli civilians to be vigilant, to head to shelters upon hearing a warning siren, and to remain there for 10 minutes.
Here is a map, courtesy of Malgorata’s friend Dana, showing how long Israelis have to get to the nearest bomb shelter when the siren goes off. Three minutes at most!
The other story is that a 14-year-old Israeli shepherd boy in the West Bank was murdered by Palestinians (head bashed in with rocks), and the Israelis and Palestinians are now battling each other in that area. Several people have been injured, but there have been no deaths so far. It looks as if the fighting in Gaza has had some repercussions in the West Bank.
*The Israel-hating New York Times has a full editorial-board op-ed urging Biden to withhold military aid from Israel: “Military aid to Israel cannot be unconditional.” Here’s the short take: to punish Netanyahu, we must help Israel lose the war. Do you know of another war in which the side that was attacked provides tons of humanitarian assistance to the attacking country? Did we airdrop food on Berlin or Dresden?
The suffering of civilians in Gaza — tens of thousands dead, many of them children; hundreds of thousands homeless, many at risk of starvation — has become more than a growing number of Americans can abide. And yet Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel and his ultranationalist allies in government have defied American calls for more restraint and humanitarian help.
The United States commitment to Israel — including $3.8 billion a year in military aid, the largest outlay of American foreign aid to any one country in the world — is a reflection of the exceptionally close and enduring relationship between the two countries. A bond of trust, however, must prevail between donors and recipients of lethal arms from the United States, which supplies arms according to formal conditions that reflect American values and the obligations of international law.
Mr. Netanyahu and the hard-liners in his government have broken that bond, and until it is restored, America cannot continue, as it has, to supply Israel with the arms it has been using in its war against Hamas.
Yes, Mr. Sulzberger, Israel has to lose the war because you don’t like Netanyahu. Did you know that the vast majority of the Israeli people (75% of Israeli Jews) support an attack on Rafah to get rid of Hamas, all the while that Biden, Blinken, and Kamala “I have looked at the maps” Harris blather on about Israel not going into Rafah? But clearly the U.S. knows butter. The suffering and death of civilians, which is indeed horrible, I put on Hamas, not Israel and applaud Israel for mitigating it while still trying to get rid of Hamas members buried in a big human shield. A bit more:
The question is not whether Israel has the right to defend itself against an enemy sworn to its destruction. It does. The Hamas attack of Oct. 7 was an atrocity no nation could leave unanswered, and by hiding behind civilian fronts, Hamas violates international law and bears a major share of responsibility for the suffering inflicted on the people in whose name it purports to act. In the immediate aftermath of that attack, President Biden rushed to demonstrate America’s full sympathy and support in Israel’s agony. That was the right thing to do.
It is also not a question whether the United States should continue to help Israel defend itself. America’s commitments to Israel’s defense are long term, substantial, mutually beneficial and essential. No president or Congress should deny the only state on earth with a Jewish majority the means to ensure its survival. Nor should Americans ever lose sight of the threat that Hamas, a terrorist organization, poses to the security of the region and to any hope of peace between Palestinians and Israelis.
But that does not mean the president should allow Mr. Netanyahu to keep playing his cynical double games.. . .Confronted with that suffering, the United States cannot remain beholden to an Israeli leader fixated on his own survival and the approval of the zealots he harbors.
*Australia’s biggest mass murder in nearly a decade took place in a Sydney shopping mall yesterrday: six people were killed in a knife attack.
Australian police shot and killed a man on Saturday after a knife attack that left six people dead and several injured, including a nine-month-old baby, at a shopping mall near Sydney’s Bondi Beach.
Police said they did not think the attack was a terrorism incident. They believe the attacker is a 40-year-old man who was known to law enforcement.
The attack began around 3:20 p.m. local time when the man entered the Westfield Bondi Junction mall and started stabbing people as they moved between shops. A police inspector who was nearby confronted the man on the fifth level of the mall and shot him dead after he turned and raised the knife in her direction.
Some shoppers said they huddled in stores, while efforts were made to evacuate the center. Police and other emergency vehicles crowded the street outside the mall, which is one of Sydney’s largest and a popular destination for tourists as well as city residents.
Hussein Osseili, 26, said he had just arrived at the mall with his family around 3:30 p.m. when he heard a commotion. Osseili said he saw a man running with what looked like a hunting knife, about 30 cm long.
“I was worried. I was worried about my family. I was worried about my safety,” he said. “Obviously you’d be scared in that situation.”
Osseili took shelter in a shop and saw the man go onto a bridge that connects two sections of the mall. He saw a police officer chasing the man from behind and soon heard gunshots. Osseili described the attacker as medium build, wearing shorts and a green and yellow sports jersey, with a buzz cut.
This is macabre, but that secne with the foot-long knife made me remember the Crocodile Dundee scene where he pulls out a knife in front of thugs and says, “Now this is a knife.” I don’t mean to be lighthearted about this, but a footlong knife is a big knife, and it’s a horrible way to go to be stabbed with something like that.
*The AP reports that the world’s oldest conjoined twins have died—at the age of 62, twice as long as they were expected to live.
Conjoined twins Lori and George Schappell, who pursued separate careers, interests and relationships during lives that defied medical expectations, died this month in Pennsylvania, according to funeral home officials. They were 62.
The twins, listed by Guinness World Records as the oldest living conjoined twins, died April 7 at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, according to obituaries posted by Leibensperger Funeral Homes of Hamburg. The cause of death was not detailed.
“When we were born, the doctors didn’t think we’d make 30, but we proved them wrong,” Lori said in an interview when they turned 50, The Philadelphia Inquirer reported. George came out as transgender in 2007.
The twins, born Sept. 18, 1961, in West Reading, Pennsylvania, had distinct brains but were joined at the skull. George, who had spina bifida and was 4 inches shorter, was wheeled around by Lori on an adaptive wheeled stool. Despite each having to go where the other went, it was “very important” to both “to live as independently as possible,” the obituary said.
Both graduated from a public high school and took college classes. George went along for six years as Lori worked in a hospital laundry. Lori — “a trophy-winning bowler,” according to the obituary notice — gave up the job in 1996 so her sibling could launch a country music career.
The article gives more details about how they lived; they refused to be separated
Separation was deemed risky for the Schappell twins, but Lori Schappell told The Associated Press in a 2002 interview at the twins’ apartment in a high-rise seniors complex that she didn’t think such an operation was necessary in any case.
“You don’t mess with what God made, even if it means you enjoy both children for a shorter time,” she said. In the 1997 documentary, George also strongly ruled out the idea of separation, saying, “Why fix what is not broken?”
I wonder if they died nearly simultaneously, as the original “Siamese twins,” Chang and Eng Bunker did. Here’s a short video (remember, George is transgender).
Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili has read the news, and is on the windowsill unable to come in. When I asked her what “theoretically honest” meant, Malgorzata explained, “They are honest only in theory, not in practice. They announce that they are human rights defenders, that they always stand with the underdog but in reality their underdogs are terrorist organizations supported by over a billion people against a democratic state of 9 million and the Jews in Diaspora (another 8-9 million). And they definitely do not act as if Jews had any human rights. So their honesty is only theoretical.”
Hili: This window is a window of apartheid.A: I’m afraid you have been reading too many statements by people who are theoretically honest.
Hili: To okno jest oknem apartheidu.Ja: Obawiam się, że czytasz za dużo wypowiedzi ludzi teoretycznie uczciwych.
*******************
From Science Humor via Sheri Hensley, with the caption: “- the only talent i have 
“. But it’s a great talent!
Speaking of frogs, here’s a very short video filmed by my Chicago colleague Peggy Mason as she visited Painesville, Ohio, where there was totality during the April 8 eclipse. The frogs went nuts and started calling when the sky went dark:
From somewhere on Facebook (I’ve forgotten):
From The Dodo Pet:
From Masih: the Iranians prevent an arrest of a woman. The translation from Farsi:
Today, the guidance patrol wanted to take a woman, but the people of Kermanshah didn’t let them! A citizen from Kermanshah sent me this video and wrote that on the first day of the plan to intensify the treatment of women, a number of police officers and hijab abusers tried to take a woman with them, but the people gathered and did not let her go. The sender of the video wrote that the people there also chanted slogans and finally the officers did not succeed in arresting the woman. Let’s be together and behind each other against the persecutors of hijab. The Islamic Republic and its persecutors are more afraid of the unity of the people than you think and they always like to trivialize the freedom of women, make them alone and isolated, and then with the same oppressive minority, they can suppress those brave women who do civil disobedience. put The streets, passages and squares belong to the people, and the one who should feel insecure about being there, are the oppressors of the people and the supporting arms of the government, not women. Please, wherever you see a woman resisting, don’t leave her alone. Because these women are saying to the government today, we are not short-tempered.
امروز گشت ارشاد میخواست زنی را ببرد اما مردم کرمانشاه نگذاشتند!
این ویدئو را یک شهروند از کرمانشاه برایم ارسال کرده و نوشته است که در اولین روز طرح تشدید برخورد با زنان تعدادی از ماموران پلیس و آزارگران حجاب قصد داشتند زنی را با خود ببرند اما مردم جمع شدند و نگذاشتند. فرستنده… pic.twitter.com/HKBzelirdY
— Masih Alinejad 🏳️ (@AlinejadMasih) April 13, 2024
From Luana, a pro-Palestinian activist in Bakersfield, CA threatens to show up at the houses of City Council members and murder them. Jebus!
In the second tweet, she is in court facing jail time for making “terroristic threats”. You do the crime; you do the time.
Update: FAFOhttps://t.co/j79p9TuL18
— Eitan Fischberger (@EFischberger) April 13, 2024
From Simon. Why doesn’t Lauren Boebert’s son have any money. As Simon said, “Your girl needs to help her kid.”
Lauren Boebert’s son appeared in court today for his arraignment after his crime spree of car break ins and thefts and told the judge he didn’t have any money to hire a lawyer. https://t.co/lCJYgGVBV1
— Ron Filipkowski (@RonFilipkowski) April 11, 2024
JKR calls out the head of the odious organization Mermaids after the Cass Report just came out saying the puberty blockers are not reversible and that most gender-dysphoric children will resolve their issues before hormonal or surgical treatment.
Absolute, total, shameless lies. Your ex-CEO referred children to the Tavistock gender clinic. Mermaids has repeatedly claimed puberty blockers are reversible, sent out breast binders to girls as young as thirteen and insisted publicly that unless children are affirmed in their… https://t.co/LViY2GJ1Zb
— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) April 11, 2024
A happy goat but a mean one, too. It’s GAMBOLING!
Happy goat.. 😂 pic.twitter.com/eE7LHr8HMW
— Buitengebieden (@buitengebieden) April 13, 2024
From the Auschwitz Memorial: a woman who died in Auschwitz at 42:
14 April 1902 | A Czech Jewish woman, Gertruda Hübscherová, was born in #Prague.
She was deported to #Auschwitz from #Theresienstadt ghetto on 18 May 1944. She did not survive. pic.twitter.com/m4tjNoHbg8
— Auschwitz Memorial (@AuschwitzMuseum) April 13, 2024
Tweets from Professor Cobb, back in the USA at Cold Spring Harbor. He will retire this fall. First, an obedient black bear:
Guy telling a bear to get off his tree stand pic.twitter.com/axpmzjiTXM
— Nature is Amazing ☘️ (@AMAZlNGNATURE) April 6, 2024
And some juvenile humor:
I went to grad school for English Lit and I can say with some authority that no book or text has ever come close to the power and the glory of “Lady Damp-fart of Her-fart-shire” pic.twitter.com/WQFw7SNo3h
— Mike Drucker (@MikeDrucker) April 6, 2024
The foodimentary site says I do not have the privilege to see it.
You wonder if Trump will deny the election results if he loses?
“Waiter, I’ll have whatever Jerry is drinking…”
Of course grits played a central role in the movie, “My Cousin Vinny”: “What’s a grit?”. I think that the name, “grits”, may be a bit off-putting. Though born, raised, and having lived in the South all of my life, I never tried grits until in my 50’s, when my grit-loving Yankee wife finally talked me into it. Wow, had I missed out all my life. Since then I have enjoyed grits with eggs at breakfast and, sometimes as a side dish at dinner.
Grits also played a small role in the TV Miniseries “Roots”
https://youtu.be/1O2OGJp_kYc
I love grits. I first had them at a geology department camping trip for new graduate students. I was a new assistant professor at the time. They were a pleasant surprise, and I still have them for breakfast fairly often.
Well, Israel can thank Joe Biden for the Iranian attack, as he’s given them around $80 Billion in sanctions relief (approx $70B as itemized here plus another $10B as reported here). Why does Biden love Iran?
Hate Iran’s mullahs as I do I think you’re misreading the money situation Dr. B.
D.A.
NYC
On this day:
966 – Following his marriage to the Christian Doubravka of Bohemia, the pagan ruler of the Polans, Mieszko I, converts to Christianity, an event considered to be the founding of the Polish state.
1561 – A celestial phenomenon is reported over Nuremberg, described as an aerial battle.
1775 – The Society for the Relief of Free Negroes Unlawfully Held in Bondage, the first abolition society in North America, is organized in Philadelphia by Benjamin Franklin and Benjamin Rush.
1816 – Bussa, a slave in British-ruled Barbados, leads a slave rebellion, for which he is remembered as the country’s first national hero.
1865 – U.S. President Abraham Lincoln is shot in Ford’s Theatre by John Wilkes Booth; Lincoln dies the following day.
1881 – The Four Dead in Five Seconds Gunfight is fought in El Paso, Texas.
1894 – The first ever commercial motion picture house opens in New York City, United States. It uses ten Kinetoscopes, devices for peep-show viewing of films.
1909 – Muslims in the Ottoman Empire begin a massacre of Armenians in Adana.
1912 – The British passenger liner RMS Titanic hits an iceberg in the North Atlantic and begins to sink.
1928 – The Bremen, a German Junkers W 33 type aircraft, reaches Greenly Island, Canada, completing the first successful transatlantic aeroplane flight from east to west.
1935 – The Black Sunday dust storm, considered one of the worst storms of the Dust Bowl, sweeps across the Oklahoma and Texas panhandles and neighboring areas.
1958 – The Soviet satellite Sputnik 2 falls from orbit after a mission duration of 162 days. This was the first spacecraft to carry a living animal, a female dog named Laika, who likely lived only a few hours.
1981 – STS-1: The first operational Space Shuttle, Columbia completes its first test flight.
1986 – The heaviest hailstones ever recorded, each weighing 1 kilogram (2.2 lb), fall on the Gopalganj district of Bangladesh, killing 92.
1994 – In a friendly fire incident during Operation Provide Comfort in northern Iraq, two U.S. Air Force aircraft mistakenly shoot-down two U.S. Army helicopters, killing 26 people.
1999 – A severe hailstorm strikes Sydney, Australia causing A$2.3 billion in insured damages, the most costly natural disaster in Australian history.
2003 – The Human Genome Project is completed with 99% of the human genome sequenced to an accuracy of 99.99%.
2003 – U.S. troops in Baghdad capture Abu Abbas, leader of the Palestinian group that killed an American on the hijacked cruise liner MS Achille Lauro in 1985.
2014 – Boko Haram abducts 276 girls from a school in Chibok, Nigeria.
2022 – Russian invasion of Ukraine: The Russian warship Moskva sinks.
2023 – The Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer (JUICE) is launched by the European Space Agency.
Births:
1819 – Harriett Ellen Grannis Arey, American educator, author, editor, and publisher (d. 1901).
1827 – Augustus Pitt Rivers, English general, ethnologist, and archaeologist (d. 1900).She
1866 – Anne Sullivan, American educator (d. 1936). [Best known for being the instructor and lifelong companion of Helen Keller.]
1876 – Cecil Chubb, English barrister and one time owner of Stonehenge (d. 1934).
1903 – Ruth Svedberg, Swedish discus thrower and triathlete (d. 2002).
1904 – John Gielgud, English actor, director, and producer (d. 2000).
1912 – Robert Doisneau, French photographer and journalist (d. 1994).
1924 – Shorty Rogers, American trumpet player and composer (d. 1994).
1924 – Mary Warnock, Baroness Warnock, English philosopher, and academic (d. 2019).
1925 – Rod Steiger, American soldier and actor (d. 2002).
1929 – Gerry Anderson, English director, producer, and screenwriter (d. 2012). [Thunderbirds are Go!]
1929 – Inez Andrews, African-American singer-songwriter (d. 2012). [Referred to in 2012 by the New York Times as “the last great female vocalist of gospel’s golden age”.]
1932 – Loretta Lynn, American singer-songwriter and musician (d. 2022).
1936 – Frank Serpico, American-Italian soldier, police officer and lecturer.
1940 – Julie Christie, Indian-English actress and activist.
1945 – Ritchie Blackmore, English guitarist and songwriter.
1950 – Francis Collins, American physician and geneticist.
1951 – Julian Lloyd Webber, English cellist, conductor, and educator.
1957 – Mikhail Pletnev, Russian pianist, composer, and conductor.
1958 – Peter Capaldi, Scottish actor.
1961 – Robert Carlyle, Scottish actor and director.
1977 – Sarah Michelle Gellar, American actress and producer.
Death is certain, replacing both the siren-song of Paradise and the dread of Hell. Life on this earth, with all its mystery and beauty and pain, is then to be lived far more intensely: we stumble and get up, we are sad, confident, insecure, feel loneliness and joy and love. There is nothing more; but I want nothing more. (Ayaan Hirsi Ali):
1759 – George Frideric Handel, German-English organist and composer (b. 1685).
1916 – Gina Krog, Norwegian suffragist and women’s rights activist (b. 1847).
1917 – L. L. Zamenhof, Polish physician and linguist, created Esperanto (b. 1859).
1925 – John Singer Sargent, American painter (b. 1856).
1935 – Emmy Noether, German-American mathematician and academic (b. 1882). [Today’s Woman of the Day, see next post below.]
1964 – Tatyana Afanasyeva, Russian-Dutch mathematician and theorist (b. 1876).
1964 – Rachel Carson, American biologist and author (b. 1907).
1983 – Pete Farndon, English bassist (The Pretenders) (b. 1952).
1986 – Simone de Beauvoir, French novelist and philosopher (b. 1908).
1992 – Irene Greenwood, Australian radio broadcaster and feminist and peace activist (b. 1898).
1995 – Burl Ives, American actor, folk singer, and writer (b. 1909).
1999 – Anthony Newley, English singer-songwriter and actor (b. 1931).
2013 – George Jackson, American singer-songwriter (b. 1945. [Wrote or co-wrote many hit songs for other musicians, including “Down Home Blues,” “One Bad Apple”, “Old Time Rock and Roll” and “The Only Way Is Up”.]
2015 – Percy Sledge, American singer (b. 1940).
2020 – Carol D’Onofrio, American public health researcher (b. 1936).
2021 – Bernie Madoff, American mastermind of the world’s largest Ponzi scheme (b. 1938).
Woman of the Day:
[Text from Wikipedia]
Amalie Emmy Noether (US: /ˈnʌtər/, UK: /ˈnɜːtə/; German: [ˈnøːtɐ]; born 23 March 1882, died on this day in 1935) was a German mathematician who made many important contributions to abstract algebra. She proved Noether’s first and second theorems, which are fundamental in mathematical physics. She was described by Pavel Alexandrov, Albert Einstein, Jean Dieudonné, Hermann Weyl and Norbert Wiener as the most important woman in the history of mathematics. As one of the leading mathematicians of her time, she developed theories of rings, fields, and algebras. In physics, Noether’s theorem explains the connection between symmetry and conservation laws.
Noether was born to a Jewish family in the Franconian town of Erlangen; her father was the mathematician Max Noether. She originally planned to teach French and English after passing the required examinations but instead studied mathematics at the University of Erlangen, where her father lectured. After completing her doctorate in 1907 under the supervision of Paul Gordan, she worked at the Mathematical Institute of Erlangen without pay for seven years. At the time, women were largely excluded from academic positions. In 1915, she was invited by David Hilbert and Felix Klein to join the mathematics department at the University of Göttingen, a world-renowned center of mathematical research. The philosophical faculty objected, however, and she spent four years lecturing under Hilbert’s name. Her habilitation was approved in 1919, allowing her to obtain the rank of Privatdozent.
Noether remained a leading member of the Göttingen mathematics department until 1933; her students were sometimes called the “Noether boys”. In 1924, Dutch mathematician B. L. van der Waerden joined her circle and soon became the leading expositor of Noether’s ideas; her work was the foundation for the second volume of his influential 1931 textbook, Moderne Algebra. By the time of her plenary address at the 1932 International Congress of Mathematicians in Zürich, her algebraic acumen was recognized around the world. The following year, Germany’s Nazi government dismissed Jews from university positions, and Noether moved to the United States to take up a position at Bryn Mawr College in Pennsylvania, where she taught doctoral and post-graduate women including Marie Johanna Weiss, Ruth Stauffer, Grace Shover Quinn, and Olga Taussky-Todd. At the same time, she lectured and performed research at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey.
Noether’s mathematical work has been divided into three “epochs”. In the first (1908–1919), she made contributions to the theories of algebraic invariants and number fields. Her work on differential invariants in the calculus of variations, Noether’s theorem, has been called “one of the most important mathematical theorems ever proved in guiding the development of modern physics”. In the second epoch (1920–1926), she began work that “changed the face of [abstract] algebra”. In her classic 1921 paper Idealtheorie in Ringbereichen (Theory of Ideals in Ring Domains), Noether developed the theory of ideals in commutative rings into a tool with wide-ranging applications. She made elegant use of the ascending chain condition, and objects satisfying it are named Noetherian in her honor. In the third epoch (1927–1935), she published works on noncommutative algebras and hypercomplex numbers and united the representation theory of groups with the theory of modules and ideals. In addition to her own publications, Noether was generous with her ideas and is credited with several lines of research published by other mathematicians, even in fields far removed from her main work, such as algebraic topology.
In April 1935 doctors discovered a tumor in Noether’s pelvis. Worried about complications from surgery, they ordered two days of bed rest first. During the operation they discovered an ovarian cyst “the size of a large cantaloupe”. Two smaller tumors in her uterus appeared to be benign and were not removed to avoid prolonging surgery. For three days she appeared to convalesce normally, and she recovered quickly from a circulatory collapse on the fourth. On 14 April, Noether fell unconscious, her temperature soared to 109 °F (42.8 °C), and she died. “[I]t is not easy to say what had occurred in Dr. Noether”, one of the physicians wrote. “It is possible that there was some form of unusual and virulent infection, which struck the base of the brain where the heat centers are supposed to be located.” She was 53.
See the Wikipedia article for her full biography.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emmy_Noether
Einstein was not a particularly good mathematician by the standards of theoretical physicists. Hilbert and Klein, two of the greatest mathematicians of the century, helped with general relativity, but, even so, an apparent paradox concerning energy conservation baffled all three. Hilbert, who had a very high regard for Noether, called on her to help and she solved the problem. Intrigued, she took that work further and developed her theorems linking symmetry and conservation laws. It took decades before the full implications became apparent: that most of the fundamental laws of physics depend on symmetries. Victor Stenger gives quite a good account in The Comprehensible Universe. If she had lived long enough she would have assuredly won a Nobel prize.
Interesting – many thanks, Richard.
Israel should not retaliate for the Iranian attack. It needs to take advantage of the fact that the U.S., our European allies, the Jordanians, and the Saudi’s all came to Israel’s aid and that the U.N. Security Council will meet this afternoon. Also—and perhaps most importantly—the U.S. is convening a G7 conference to plan a diplomatic response. (Clearly the U.S. message here is to let the international community deal with this.) It is critical for Israel not to squander the robust and substantive defense provided by allies and by neighbors in the region.
With this attack, the U.S., Europe, and countries in the neighborhood were reminded of the very real risk that Iran poses to the region and the world. It’s time to let the entire international community coalesce around a near-term plan and long-term strategy. Israel should not take on Iran unilaterally at a time when others are stepping up to help.
Please Israeli leadership—assuming that you read the commentary on this web site—don’t mess this up!
+1
Well said.
Not to play armchair quarterback, but I’ve been puzzled by Israel’s original decision to strike Iran’s consulate in Damascus at the particular time it did. Yes, Hezbollah and co are causing all sorts of problems for Israel but I was a stunned to hear about the April 1 strike. With all that is going on and its (Israel’s) claims to not want the war to widen further… Was that not provocative act? I’ve just assumed that Israel had strong enough intelligence to convince them it was worth it. To an amateur outsider like myself, that strike appeared much like poking a stick in a hornet’s nest.
Me too about the Israeli attack in Damascus. I don’t recall the specific reason, but countries keep score and sometimes take an action to even the score at the most inopportune time.
So happy they threw the book at little Miss FAFO Pal sympathizer in California.
I was surprised!
I don’t think Iran directly is the greatest threat to Israel at the moment – their return address limit their scope of action and the mullahs are extremely unpopular already.
A greater threat by far is the Hezb arsenal of 50-100K-ish rockets – professional rockets – more powerful than Hamas’ – from Lebanon. Hezb don’t give much of a damn about any return address – they’ve long abused and controlled the Lebanese state and are more martyrdomy than their paymasters in Tehran.
I’ve been sort of predicting a(nother) Israeli invasion of Lebanon up to and further than the Litani for awhile. It gets more likely all the time.
And the shipping thing in Yemen but there also there’s little solution there. Which houthi, for eg., do we bomb? Disabling their supply lines from Iran is possible but I don’t think the US has the stomach for that even though it was done before in the 1980s when we sank a lot of the Iranian navy in the Persian Gulf in the War of the Tankers era.
D.A.
NYC
“I wonder whether, if Trump loses, he’ll start denying the results again.”
Of course he will. He has his own idiotic precedent . . . as well as that of others.
“Hillary Clinton dismissed President Trump as an ‘illegitimate president’ and suggested that ‘he knows’ that he stole the 2016 presidential election in a CBS News interview to be aired Sunday.” That was in late 2019, not during the emotional period immediately after the election. Jimmy Carter was also on record in 2019 saying that Trump lost the election.
Denial is a bipartisan disease.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/hillary-clinton-trump-is-an-illegitimate-president/2019/09/26/29195d5a-e099-11e9-b199-f638bf2c340f_story.html
Sorry, but there is a world of difference between Clinton or Carter denying a Trump victory, and Trump, who first used the Big Lie to fan an insurrection, has continued with his Big Lie to this day, shouting it from the rooftops for all to hear. It’s plain silly that you even compare these denials. As I’ve stated before, you like to normalize Trump.
To the contrary, my friend. One doesn’t normalize a “disease.” One seeks to [re]normalize lost standards of civic behavior.
The difference between us is that you apparently consider whether you like or dislike the party making the claim, and then you judge whether they pursue the claim of denial to levels you deem excessive or dangerous.
I have a much lower tolerance for bad behavior. I find it unacceptable to deny election results—whether by questioning the processes without either substantive proof of wrongdoing or evidence that any proven wrongdoing was determinative, whether by calling the elected president “illegitimate” or the election “stolen,” or even by declaring “not MY president” when the opposing party won. My position holds no matter which person or party makes the claim. The deniers are all scoundrels to various degrees.
So what’s your schtick on Cederic?
Then perhaps you ought to recognize that some scoundrels are bigger than others. A one-time comment quickly walked back by Clinton is not the same thing as four years of steady denial of the election results by Trump. The “both sides are the same” gimmick has little to do with reality, regardless of what RFK Junior’s fan club thinks.
Not to mention Trump et al. filed something like 60 lawsuits, all of which failed.
There was no insurrection. Nobody has even been charged with insurrection.
People wandering around a public building taking selfies is not an insurrection.
Next pecan pie, this is the recipe I’m trying. No egg whites – yolks only. I hope it’s going to come out like the pies of my youth that Minnie Jackson made. The filling was yellow translucent, gelatinous and wonderful. I’ll just say that she was from Alabama and so knew a thing or two about pecans.
And that part about the only tree native to N America probably should have read that it was native-only to N America.
Thanks for sharing the link. I may try this, but my favorite is Bittersweet Chocolate Pecan Pie. Not so sweet, but still delicious.
In contrast to one that someone once made for me that had cane sugar AND molasses in it. Most disgusting pecan pie I ever encountered. I felt sorry for the pecans.
The gravy is for the grits because they are bland. Also for the ham. I prefer
regular corn meal because the skin of the kernel isnt removed. Otherwise corn is great in hush puppies, johnny cakes, corn bread and corn mush (cooked with
butter and scallions after being mashed) and also for coating fish fillets before frying.
If you ever find hard pork rinds – not air puffed like the snacks but hard enough to break your teeth, try those in corn bread along with jalapenos. The rinds get soft enough during baking. Good eating!!