Thursday: Hili dialogue

July 11, 2024 • 6:45 am

Welcome to Thursday, July 11 2024, and National Blueberry Muffin Day, another great contribution of America to world cuisine. Below is one made with someone having a light hand with the fruit. But remember, these puppies, full of carbs, are not diet food. As Harvard’s School of Public Health says:

The average coffee shop blueberry muffin is hardly what you’d call a health food: It’s got almost 470 calories—nearly double what you’d get from a chocolate frosted donut—and most of those calories come from refined carbohydrates, primarily white flour and sugar.

And remember, blueberry muffins are often much larger than the one below—considerably bigger than the “average coffee shop blueberry muffin.”

Renee Comet (photographer), Public domain, Wikimedia Commons

It’s also Bowdler’s Day, dishonoring the infamous censor known for expurgating Shakespeare), National Mojito Day (good drink when made well), National Ranier Cherries Day, Day of the Flemish Community (in Belgium), and World Population Day (you can check it here on the World Population Clock; as I write it’s 8,121,143,175  and going up fast. There’s also a Death Clock).

Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the July 11 Wikipedia page.

Da Nooz:

*Quick morning update.  Top congressional Democrats are beginning to express reservations about Biden’s candidacy and some are calling for his withdrawal. Michael Bennet and Peter Welch became the first Democratic Senators to call for that withdrawal, Nancy Pelosi hedged her opinion, but good old AOC has endorsed him (I can’t figure out what she has to gain by this, unless he wins and puts her in his cabinet).  Democratic donor and erstwhile supporter George Clooney has followed suit in saying Biden should withdraw. As the support continues to withdraw I predict he’ll drop out. If not, we can welcome President Trump. . .

*A news analysis from the NYT has appeared, called “On Capitol Hill, Democrats panic about Biden but do nothing.”

Senator Christopher S. Murphy, an ambitious young Democrat from Connecticut, went on television on Sunday with a carefully worded warning to President Biden about the viability of his campaign.

“This week is going to be absolutely critical; I think the president needs to do more,” Mr. Murphy said, arguing that Mr. Biden needed to hold a town hall and participate in unscripted events because “the clock is ticking” for him to put to rest the doubts about his candidacy raised by a disastrous debate performance. Multiple times, Mr. Murphy emphasized his deadline, saying that he, as well as voters, must see more action “this week.”

Senator Michael Bennet, the Colorado Democrat who briefly ran for president himself, said Mr. Biden had to “reassure the American people that he can run a vigorous campaign to defeat Donald Trump.”

Senator Patty Murray of Washington, a senior member of the Democratic leadership team, put out a statement that passed for fighting words, saying that the president “must do more to demonstrate that he can campaign strong enough to beat Donald Trump.”

So far, Mr. Biden has done none of that.

And yet, Democrats on Capitol Hill are stifling their doubts and falling in line behind him anyway.

Having spent the last week and a half in various stages of private panic and public skepticism about Mr. Biden’s viability as a candidate and whispering among themselves about what the best way to push him aside might be — a strongly worded letter? a White House meeting? a high-level intervention? — top Democrats on Tuesday settled on a strategy many of them conceded could be disastrous: They would do nothing, at least for now.

The Democrats are like lemmings running over a cliff: a cliff that leads to the election of Donald Trump as President.  If they were smart, they’d tell Joe to step aside for the good of the country. The problem is that Biden has shown absolutely no inclination to DO that.

*Over at the Times of Israel, Kamala Harris (in an interview in The Nation), expresses empathy for the pro-Palestinian protestors, but gets her sentiments all garbled, as usual:

United States Vice President Kamala Harris has expressed sympathy with the pro-Palestinian, anti-Israel protesters who have been staging campus encampments in colleges around the country, while adding that she doesn’t agree with all of their positions, as speculation grows that she could potentially end up as the Democratic presidential candidate.

Young Americans protesting Israel’s war against the Hamas terror group in Gaza are “showing exactly what the human emotion should be,” Harris said in an interview with the left-wing magazine The Nation, an excerpt of which was published on Monday.

What the deuce does she mean by that? What human emotion?

She noted, however, that “there are things some of the protesters are saying that I absolutely reject, so I don’t mean to wholesale endorse their points. But we have to navigate it. I understand the emotion behind it.”

The comments came amid widespread talk of Harris possibly replacing US President Joe Biden as the Democratic candidate for president in November, though the interview was conducted before the president’s poor debate performance last month that ignited many of the calls for him to step aside.

. . . “Okay, the trucks are taking flour into Gaza. [But] I like to cook. So I said to my team: You can’t make shit with flour if you don’t have clean water. So what’s going on with that?” Harris said.

Here’s the bit from The Nation (link above):

“Listen, I strongly believe that our ability to evaluate a situation is connected to understanding the details of that situation. Not speaking of myself versus the president, not at all. From the beginning, I asked questions. OK, the trucks are taking flour into Gaza. But here’s the thing, Joan: I like to cook. So I said to my team: You can’t make shit with flour if you don’t have clean water. So what’s going on with that? I ask questions like, What are people actually eating right now? I’m hearing stories about their eating animal feed, grass… so that’s how I think about it.

“Similarly, I was asking early on, what are women in Gaza doing about sanitary hygiene. Do they have pads? And these are the issues that made people feel uncomfortable, especially sanitary pads.”

Apparently, it’s clearly Israel’s responsibility to provide the Palestinians with sanitary pads, and we should have dropped them over Japan and Nazi Germany, too!  More from the ToI:

Though Harris has not deviated from the administration’s policy positions on the war, she has taken what some identify as a sharper tone in her criticism of Israel.

In March, Harris said that “the Israeli government must do more to significantly increase the flow of aid,” invoking reports of “families eating leaves or animal feed” and “children dying from malnutrition and dehydration,” and calling for “an immediate ceasefire.”

At the time, NBC reported that administration officials had “toned down” parts of Harris’s speech, which the vice president’s office denied.

*George Stephanopoulos, who interviewed Biden a few days ago, was caught expressing doubts about the President’s fitness to run again.

George Stephanopoulos, the ABC News anchor who recently interviewed President Biden about his fitness for the presidential race, was caught on camera Tuesday indicating that he doesn’t think Biden can serve another four years.

Stephanopoulos, a former Democratic operative turned news anchor, is seen in gym clothes in a video published by TMZ when he is asked by a passerby: “What do you think, do you think Biden should step down? You’ve talked to him more than anybody else has lately. And you can be honest.”

Stephanopoulos, then just off camera, is captured on fuzzy audio responding that he doesn’t think “he can serve four more years.”

In a statement late Tuesday, Stephanopoulos acknowledged that he was the person seen in the video. “Earlier today I responded to a question from a passerby. I shouldn’t have.”

An ABC spokeswoman said that Stephanopoulos “expressed his own point of view and not the position of ABC News.”

The remarks come days after the pivotal interview with Biden, during which Stephanopoulos firmly asked the 46th president whether he could serve another term in the wake of a shaky debate performance.

When Biden maintained that he has the stamina for another term, Stephanopoulos pressed him: “Are you sure you’re being honest with yourself when you say you have the mental and physical capacity to serve another four years?”

Biden asserted that he did.

Here’s a neurologist (and a Democrat) on NBC News asserting that Biden almost surely has Parkinson’s. Granted, he hasn’t examined Biden, and I thought it was unethical for doctors to publicly “diagnose” well known people whom they haven’t examined, so perhaps this neurologist will get into trouble. But I’m interested to hear what he says, and it’s not pretty.  Tomorrow we’ll have another neurologist who isn’t on board with the diagnosis of Parkinson’s, but is deeply concerned about Biden and thinks he has to have several days of neurological testing.

But not so fast!  The President’s doctor has released a letter saying that White House staffers and over 1000 military personnel were “serviced” by doctors in the White House.  Here’s the text. which says that the doctor found no evidence of any neurological condition save peripheral neuropathy in the President’s feed. This seems pretty dispositive. (h/t Ruthann)

*According to the Instagram post below, Harvard has rescinded the suspensions of some pro-Palestinian encampers. The Harvard Corporation overruled the faculty decision last May and denied degrees to 13 students. “harvxrdpsc” is the Harvard Undergraduate Palestine Solidarity Committee. But the Harvard Crimson reports that only 5 of the 13 people suspended get a break:

The Harvard College Administrative Board reversed its decision to suspend five students for participating in the pro-Palestine encampment earlier this year after the Faculty Council criticized its handling of the cases.

The College informed students on Tuesday of their updated disciplinary charges, which saw the suspensions downgraded to probations of varying lengths, according to a person familiar with the decisions who was granted anonymity to discuss disciplinary matters.

The most severe probation charge will last for just one semester, a remarkable change from the initial punishments which required at least one student to withdraw from the College for three semesters. Some students who were initially placed on probation in late May also had the length of their probations reduced.

The students faced disciplinary action days before Harvard’s graduation ceremony in late May after College administrators deemed they were active participants in the 20-day pro-Palestine encampment staged in Harvard Yard during the end of the spring semester.

The decision to drop the suspensions and ease charges against other disciplined students represents a dramatic reversal less than two months after the the Ad Board — an administrative body responsible for the application and enforcement of Harvard College policies — prevented 13 seniors from receiving their degrees at Commencement.

This is the way it goes: universities suspend students for their activities, and then quietly rescind or lighten the punishment, and for no clear reason. At least the other 8 students still face suspension. I think expulsion is too hard a punishment for encamping, so I’m pretty sure the other eight will eventually return to Schmarvard.

 

*Apropos, NYU and the plaintiffs have announced a settlement in the Title VI lawsuit brought against the University for tolerating antisemitism. The settlement bodes well for those opposing antisemitism:

NYU and the student plaintiffs in the federal court action, Ingber, et al., v. NYU, are pleased to announce that they have agreed to a settlement of the case, under which NYU has committed to take groundbreaking measures to address antisemitism, including in the wake of the October 7, 2023 terrorist attack and ensuing violence in the Middle East. These actions align with and strengthen NYU’s existing measures to safeguard its community’s Jewish and Israeli students and others who may experience discrimination or harassment. NYU President Mills said, “We are committed to continuing our vigorous efforts to confront discrimination, including antisemitism, and the settlement in this litigation is yet another step in this direction.”

As part of that commitment, and consistent with NYU’s existing Non-Discrimination and Anti-Harassment Policy (NDAH), which incorporates the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of antisemitism, NYU, which takes seriously all allegations of discrimination, confirms that NYU treats all allegations of discrimination against Jews and Israelis in the same manner that it treats conduct prohibited under Title VI and other civil rights statutes when directed at other protected groups.

The parties have agreed to a confidential settlement of the litigation, including monetary terms. None of the confidential terms detracts from NYU’s obligations to combat antisemitism under the agreement. As a result of the agreement, NYU is creating a new Title VI Coordinator position—among the first major universities in the country to do so. Meant to parallel the responsibilities of the Title IX Coordinator, who oversees university-wide compliance with sex and gender-related discrimination laws, the Title VI Coordinator will oversee compliance with Title VI, including ensuring that NYU responds adequately and consistently to allegations of discrimination and harassment based on all protected traits. To fulfill this mandate, the Title VI Coordinator will review and implement all applicable regulations and guidance from the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR), including OCR’s 2021 and 2024 guidance regarding the use of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of antisemitism and the accompanying examples. Additionally, to promote consistency in NYU’s response to allegations of discrimination based on protected traits, the Title VI coordinator will prepare an annual report for the NYU Board of Trustees on disciplinary data, as well as a backward-looking report on NYU’s disciplinary response to allegations of discrimination or harassment since 2018.

NYU is also committing to provide additional resources to its community to prevent antisemitism by updating the discussion of antisemitism in NYU’s Guidance and Expectations for Student Conduct document and including antisemitism in training on the NYU NDAH that is mandatory for all NYU students and staff. Furthermore, NYU has committed to send an annual message from the Office of the President to NYU students, faculty, and staff conveying NYU’s “zero tolerance” for antisemitism and all other discrimination and harassment prohibited by the NDAH; and to dedicate additional academic resources and opportunities that will include a focus on the study of antisemitism and Hebrew and Judaic studies, as well as to strengthen NYU’s existing relationship with Tel Aviv University.

It is lawsuits like this one that will be the one of the major forces reducing antisemitism in American universities.  Money and publicity talk.

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili is on the beat:

A: Where are you going?
Hili: To make a round of my property.
In Polish:
Ja: Dokąd idziesz?
Hili: Na obchód moich włości.
And a photo of the loving Szaron:

 

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

From Malcolm, this is the road out of Death Valley, California, one I’ve driven many times (that’s sand there, not snow). This is the hottest place on Earth, with the temperature there reaching 128º F (53.3º C) on Sunday, when a visitor died of heatstroke. I’ve experienced 120º F there, and believe me, it was like walking into a furnace. (There’s a reason that the place where the Visitors Center is located is called “Furnace Creek.”)

From Cat Memes:

From the FB group Weird Stuff You’ll Only See In/Near Tucson (note the misplacement of “only”), sent by Nicole. A duck cloud from the Oro Valley!

From Masih. The NPR story about how a Zoom call saved her life is here:

Here’s a funny skit by Key and Peele, sent in by Barry:

A beach cat from Malcolm:

Two days late but worth posting. Gervais is a comic genius.

One happy moggy!

From the Auschwitz Memorial, one I retweeted:

Two tweets from Dr. Cobb. His comment on this one: “Rats are so smart!”

Larry in the limelight:

18 thoughts on “Thursday: Hili dialogue”

    1. Money quote from the article:

      There are more problems with the abstraction of on-paper mathematics. Carr grounds his “2+2=5” concept in the ways statistical models can cause harm to marginalized groups across certain parameters. “Whenever you create a numerical construct like IQ, or an aggression score, or a sentiment score, it’s important to remember that properties of this score might not mirror the real things being measured,” he says.

  2. Wow, you mean I actually hit THE DAY?

    Blueberry muffins will be baked today at Alpine Alley Cafe.

    Our muffins are scooped with a 4 oz. portion scoop, and the recipe makes 18 muffins, considered to be “jumbo” size. The recipe calls for 4 cups of blueberries, so each muffin contains a little less than 1/4 cup. I start out with about 8 cups of frozen blueberries, and by the time they are thawed and macerated and drained of excess juice, I end up with 4 cups.

    L

    1. Where is your cafe? I’ll visit someday if I can.

      Coincidentally, I’m planning to make blueberry muffins today because I happened to find wild blueberries for sale at Walmart (in the frozen section). Hiking in Maine in the summer has given me a taste for wild blueberries in particular.

      1. We are located in Mountainair, NM.

        There are Pueblo ruins around which attract tourists, and the one closest to me, Quarai (3 miles away from our farm), is also on migratory routes for birds. We get birders from all over visiting in spring and fall. They used to hold a birding event the first weekend in May, but I don’t know whether they still do.

        A local friend and I were over there one year in October, and we ran into another birder (you can always tell by the binoculars). We asked where she was from, and she said Vermont. She had traveled all the way here to go birding at Quarai.

        L

        1. I know! I googled the cafe. I will definitely stop in if I’m ever by that way.

  3. Well, when you think about it, Bowdler was really fated for his role; his name was in the word Bowdlerize.

  4. Former White House physician Ronny Jackson has pointed out that the White House staff are not treated in the clinic there, but in the Old Executive Office Building. That would make the latest story about the Parkinson specialist another lie.

  5. Obviously, the reason that Biden doesn’t want to be diagnosed with Parkinsons (assuming he has it) is because he knows that he’d be forced to cede his candidacy. Yet, by refusing to be diagnosed, he’s refusing to be treated with levodopa (which can hugely improve patients) – which means he’d rather be a cognitively compromised two-term president than to be a fit one-term president.

    Biden is proving to have something ugly in common with Trump – a desire to hold on to the presidency that far exceeds his concern for the country.

    1. A Parkinson’s diagnosis is not easy to get without resting tremors. Alzheimers and PD are the go-to guesses because everybody knows them, but Biden’s condition could be idiopathic. As happens with many mental problems: there are obvious problems, but the neurologist is powerless to help.

    2. Levodopa does not improve cognition in that subset of Parkinson’s patients who have dementia. It just improves rigidity and tremors, often for several years. It, and other drugs used in PD, can produce delirium, which would not be something to be lumbered with during that 3 a.m. phone call. If President Biden has any medical condition, he might well decide for the good of the Nation to tough it out without any drug treatment, given that almost any drug can impair cognition in a person of his age.

  6. Kamala Harris may like to cook, as she is quoted as saying above, but her true culinary calling is the word salad.

    1. And she can’t blame it on age. She’d be a poor president. With Trump, Biden, Harris: can’t America find anything better?

    2. OMG. I can’t believe she said that! I mean, actually, I can and that’s the clencher. As I said in a comment last week, she really seems stoned, doesn’t she? She is an absolute goon!

  7. “You can’t make shit with flour if you don’t have clean water. So what’s going on with that?” Harris said.”

    She sells herself short. I trust that Kamala could turn anything into shit.

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