Why Evolution is True is a blog written by Jerry Coyne, centered on evolution and biology but also dealing with diverse topics like politics, culture, and cats.
Today Doug Hayes of Richmond, Virginia, has sent a batch of pictures showing the primate H. sapiens engaged in a ritual of unknown evolutionary signifiance; it’s called “dancing”. Doug’s captions and IDs are indented, and you can enlarge the photos by clicking on them.
Here’s my latest photoshoot done for Starr Foster Dance to publicize their next show, Page To Stage III at Richmond, Virginia’s Firehouse Theatre December 5th – 8th, 2024. This will be the third Page To Stage presentation, a cross-disciplined project combining the art of writing and dance. Writers were asked to submit short works of prose or poetry, which would be interpreted in dance by chorographer Starrene Foster and her dancers.
The dancers pictured here are the core members of the company: Shannon Comerford, Molly Huey, Fran Beaumont, Angela Palmisano and Madison Ernstes. Other dancers, drawn from the Richmond dance community, will be added as needed. The show will consist of eight pieces, of which three pieces have been choreographed and are in rehearsal.
In addition to the choreography, Starrene is also designing and sewing the costumes as well as collaborating on the original music and lighting design! For more information on the company (and more of my photos), visit www.starrfosterdance.org. The Firehouse Theatre’s website is www.firehousetheatre.org.
Core members of Starr Foster Dance (L to R) Fran Beaumont, Shannon Comerford, Molly Huey, Angela Palmisano and Madison Ernstes:
For this group shot, the flash units were aimed at the ceiling and bounced down on the dancers. Starr loves shadowy and mysterious looking lighting similar to stage lighting. Dresses designed and sewn by Starrene Foster:
Another group shot, this time, Angela and Molly were asked to come up with a unique move while Shannon, Madison and Fran jumped in the background:
Angela Palmisano executing a leap. Each dancer was encouraged to execute a different jump for the individual photos:
Angela Palmisano, Molly Huey and Madison Ernstes:
Fran Beaumont and Shannon Comerford:
Molly Huey in flight!:
Madison Ernstes levitating:
Angela Palmisano, Molly Huey and Madison Ernstes execute a group jump:
Shannon Comerford:
Another double jump by Fran Beaumont and Shannon Comerford. They are actually off the ground, not kneeling:
Fran Beaumont does her jump:
Photo info: All photos were shot with the Sony A1 camera body and Sony FE 24-105 lens – usually set at 35mm for group and duo photos, 50-90mm for solo shots. The camera was set to do a burst of 15 shots per second for the action photos.
Lighting was with two Wescott FJ400WS battery-powered monolights set to “Freeze” mode which allows burst shooting at up to 20 frames per second, enabling the flash to keep up with the camera’s burst speed. The camera’s flash synch speed was 1/350th of a second which eliminates motion blur from ambient light – a problem with older cameras and flash units when photographing fast action. Until recent improvements in camera technology and flash units’ electronics, sync speed was limited to only 1/60th of a second.
The flashes were triggered by a wireless FJ-X3 S (for Sony cameras) radio transmitter capable of controlling 20 flash units per channel simultaneously (32 channels with the capability of independently programming six groups of up to 20 flash units). Photos were shot at ISO 400 and edited in Adobe Photoshop and Topaz Photo AI (noise reduction and enhancement)
Welcome to The Cruelest Day: Tuesday, and July 30, 2024, and National Cheesecake Day. I can’t claim this is an American invention, as they may have had it in ancient Greece, but the Jewish New York version is one I particularly crave—especially from Junior’s in Brooklyn. Here Julia tries many of the cakes from Junior’s; be sure to see the “cake shakes” at the end (22:50):
And the voters are, as I expected, Democrats, favoring Harris by a very large margin—almost seven to one.
*It’s not rare for Presidents, when the Supreme Court goes against their wishes, to want to change the composition of the Court. Often, for example, they want to add more judges to outweigh the ones who vote against the wishes of the Executive Branch. President Biden is now suggesting a change, but in the form of term limits for the Justices.
President Biden said on Monday that he was pushing for legislation that would bring major changes to the Supreme Court, including imposing term limits and creating an enforceable code of ethics on the justices.
In an opinion essay in The Washington Post, Mr. Biden also said that the court’s decision to grant broad immunity to presidents for crimes they commit in office was an example of “dangerous and extreme” decision-making that had put the American people at risk. He added that a number ethical concerns posed a threat to the integrity of the court.
“What is happening now is not normal, and it undermines the public’s confidence in the court’s decisions, including those impacting personal freedoms,” Mr. Biden wrote. “We now stand in a breach.”
. . . . In a social media post, Speaker Mike Johnson called the proposal “dead on arrival” in the House.
Vice President Kamala Harris, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, praised efforts to change the court and said she was a partner in the effort.
“These popular reforms will help to restore confidence in the court, strengthen our democracy and ensure no one is above the law,” she said in a statement sent by her campaign.
In his remarks, Mr. Biden is expected to argue that the current system of lifetime appointments for Supreme Court justices gives a president undue influence for decades. He will propose a process in which a president would appoint a justice every two years to spend 18 years on the bench.
Mr. Biden supports a code of conduct that would require justices to disclose gifts, refrain from public political activity and recuse themselves from cases in which they or their spouses have financial or other conflicts of interest, according to the plan the White House laid out.
In general, yes, I approve of a code of ethics for the Court (why not?) and think their decision about Presidential immunity was confused and misguided. In principle, I also approve of term limits, as 18 years is a generous period, allowing Justices to get the hang of things and exert their influence. On the other hand, there are two problems. First, as Speaker Johnson said, this simply isn’t going to fly, not at least in this administration. We’ll have a Republican-controlled House until at least January of next year, and so, if Harris is elected, the problem devolves to her. And if the House is still controlled by the GOP, you can forget about it. Further, the Senate may pose a problem as well, at least if a cloture vote is required to stop a filibuster against this significant change. That requires 60 votes, and the Democrats don’t have them. (The GOP, of course, has no appetite to change the Court right now).
Second, I’m not sure whether this will “restore confidence in the court”. Each President gets to appoint two justices at most during his/her term, and those will be justices of the Prez’s political leaning. In other words, the court will remain politicized, and will become more ideologically “unequal” (i.e. to Biden, more favorable to Democrats) only to the extent that we have a succession of Democratic Presidents. And will the GOP accept a court as Left-wing as the court now is Right-wing? Given the fact that American is politically divided, any degree of ideological homogeneity is going to anger half the country. Nevertheless, I am not deeply opposed to this idea; it’s just that it has no chance of passing now, and probably not much of one in our lifetimes.
Finally, ALL federal judges have lifetime terms, so you can’t just limit this to the Supreme Court. That means the President will have to appoint a spate of judges every two years, unless he intends these limits to apply to only one federal court.
The IDF confirms carrying out a drone strike earlier today in southern Lebanon’s Mays al-Jabal, killing two Hezbollah operatives.
Separately, the IDF says fighter jets struck Hezbollah infrastructure in Kfarhamam, used in a rocket attack on the Mount Dov area.
Meanwhile, Hezbollah launched a barrage of 20 rockets at the Gome Junction area, just south of Kiryat Shmona, earlier today. The IDF says the rockets hit open areas, and no injuries were caused.
A short while after the attack, a Hezbollah site in southern Lebanon’s Houla, used to carry out the rocket barrage, was struck by fighter jets, the IDF adds.
Here’s an IDF film of the fighter-jet strikes. Translation:
During the day, fighter jets of the Air Force, in cooperation with the 210th Division, attacked an infrastructure of the terrorist organization Hezbollah in Kfar Hammam, from which launches were made to the area of Mount Dov
במהלך היום, מטוסי קרב של חיל האוויר בשיתוף אוגדה 210, תקפו תשתית של ארגון הטרור חיזבאללה בכפר חמאם, ממנה בוצעו שיגורים למרחב הר דב>> pic.twitter.com/mloCWp4R1a
Earlier today, a drone launched from Lebanon was shot down by the Israeli Navy over Israel’s territorial waters in northern Israel, the military says.
The drone was intercepted by one of the Navy’s Sa’ar 6-class corvettes.
Over the weekend, another Hezbollah drone, thought to be heading toward Israeli offshore gas infrastructure, was shot down by the Navy.
And this is dangerous:
Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich insists there is no solution to the crisis in the north, short of the Israeli reoccupation of southern Lebanon.
During a speech in Jerusalem’s Old City, Smotrich continues to beat the war drums, saying that “there is no way to restore security to the residents of the north without a war that will destroy Hezbollah, that will reoccupy southern Lebanon, and that will return the security strip that is today in our territory back to the territory of Lebanon.”
Israel occupied a strip of land in southern Lebanon from the early 1980s until the IDF’s withdrawal in May 2000.
What angers me most about all this is Biden’s broken promise that the U.S. would prevent any other country from “taking advantage” of Israel’s attack byu Hamas. That was a lie on Biden’s part, and puts me off a bit on the soon-to-retire President. Does he want Israel destroyed? On top of that is the UN’s shameful history of passing binding rules preventing Lebanon from firing rockets at Israel, or moving closer to the border, and then putting thousands of UN troops in Lebanon to enforce that. Was that resolution serious? Of course not! Lebanon has been committing one war crime after another by firing at civilians, but all you get from the ICJ and UN are crickets. This is the kind of double standard that supporters of Israel must live with.
One thing is for sure: if Israel invades Lebanon to stop these attacks, the world will find a way to condemn it. As we all know, Israel is allowed to defend itself only within its own borders. Imagine if the U.S. was held to that policy during World War II!
*While I thought J. D. Vance was a canny VP pick for Trump, perhaps able to glean the vote of Middle America, it turns out that Vance has spent the last week or more chewing on his metatarsals, and may in fact prove a liability to Trump. Vance is still on the defensive about his “cat lady” remark (VERY unwise!), and has yet to find his footing:
Trump later said choosing Vance was a difficult pick, likening it to “The Apprentice,” his former reality television show, in a meeting with Florida’s delegates in Milwaukee. But Trump said it was partially about securing the future of the Republican Party after he was gone. “He is going to be a superstar in the future,” Trump told delegates and donors huddled inside the Baird Center, according to an attendee.
Whether that bet — one of the most consequential Trump will make this year — pays off remains unclear. In the nearly two weeks since, President Biden has dropped out of the race and Vice President Harris is now the likely Democratic nominee, energizing Democrats. Vance, meanwhile, had a rocky first full week on the campaign trail since departing the convention, attracting unwanted attention to the Republican ticket.
The Trump campaign has spent the past week trying to clean up after Vance’s controversial comments, including previous interviews in which he mocked “childless cat ladies” or took a position on abortion much stronger than Trump’s.
In addition, previous emails between Vance and a friend reported by the New York Times show Vance saying he hated the police because they mistreated people, calling Trump a “morally reprehensible human being” and saying that “the more white people feel like voting for Trump, the more Black people will suffer.” A Trump adviser called the emails “not ideal.”
Vance has come under attack from friendly quarters, as well, including the conservative Wall Street Journal editorial board, social media personality Dave Portnoy and conservative media star Ben Shapiro. Some question the vetting from Trump’s team and are asking if picking Vance could now backfire.
I’m just waiting for the world’s most popular childless cat lady (below) to declare for Harris—which, of course, she will. And that will further energize the youth vote for Harris.
*On to the Dems, for I’m worried about Kamala Harris’s seeming indifference to Israel, somewhat of a break with Biden’s policy. The AP reports that she’s “quickly pivoting to convincing Arab-American voters of her leadership” (which of course means dissing Israel, like deliberately skipping Netanyahu’s joint appearance in Congress last week); and of course Harris is closer to the anti-Israeli “progressive” wing of the Democrats than is Biden. It may go this far:
Her first test within the community will come when Harris chooses a running mate. One of the names on her short list, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, has been public in his criticism of pro-Palestinian protesters and is Jewish. Some Arab American leaders in Michigan say putting him on the ticket would ramp up their unease about the level of support they could expect from a Harris administration.
Vice President Kamala Harris became the de facto nominee and gave Hamas an important gift. Never mind her childish boycott of Benjamin Netanyahu’s address to Congress last Wednesday. Why was it necessary to side with the Palestinian narrative that places the blame for the war on Israel? “We cannot look away in the face of these tragedies,” she said the next day, after meeting with Mr. Netanyahu. “We cannot allow ourselves to become numb to the suffering. And I will not be silent.” This is a direct threat to Israel if it continues the war, a war the Biden-Harris administration itself supported and called “just.”
Ms. Harris, who in a recent interview said she was “hearing stories” about people in Gaza “eating animal feed, grass,” is apparently unaware that food prices there are significantly lower than in Israel. In any other war in the past century, has one side regularly supplied food and goods to the enemy’s civilians—and still been attacked by the White House?
By adopting the anti-Israel narrative, Ms. Harris is giving Hamas’s leader, Yahya Sinwar, every reason in the world to refuse a hostage deal. Why give Israel the hostages without ending the war if there is a possibility the 47th president will force Israel to end it anyway? “Let’s get the deal done so we can get a cease-fire to end the war,” Ms. Harris said Thursday, distancing the deal with her words.
This is more than diplomatic incompetence. Ms. Harris’s worldview is troubling in its immorality. Campus protesters “are showing exactly what the human emotion should be as a response to Gaza,” she said recently. “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.” The state of the Democratic Party is such that its presumptive presidential nominee claims that a war between a pro-Iranian murder organization and a democratic state “is not a binary issue.”
She’s wrong; it is indeed a “binary issue” in a moral sense, as Sam Harris has pointed out. This is one of the issues that worries and distresses me. I think that voters for Harris have to realize that there’s a very real chance that she’ll deep-six Israel to cater to the progressives.
*You’ve probably heard that the Olympic surfing competition is not in Paris but in Tahiti, thousands of miles away. For it’s there that one gets the huge—and treacherous—waves that allow surfers to show their mettle. The WSJ reports:
Before Olympic surfers actually see the Teahupo’o wave arrive, in those final pristine moments of calm before all hell breaks loose, they will hear it coming.
Cries rise from the flotilla of boats carrying spectators and rescue teams as they spot the mountain of water rolling towards them roughly 500 yards off the coast of Tahiti. When it arrives, a thick slab of ocean will suddenly surge into the air and fold over on itself. Then it claps down in a movement so powerful that it sounds like a bomb going off.
“It’s not the time to be like, ‘Oh, God…I don’t know if this is going to work out for me,’” says Jessi Miley-Dyer, a pro surfer and Commissioner for the World Surf League. “You’ve got to paddle into it, then pull your head down and go, ‘Okay, I’m going to make this, and this is going to be the ride of my life.’”
To the uninitiated, the idea of holding the surfing competition of the Paris Olympics 9,800 miles from the French capital might sound odd. There’s no shortage of respectable waves on the Atlantic coast of France. But none of those surfing spots can generate the mix of exhilaration and primal fear that gave Teahupo’o its name in Tahitian: the place of skulls.
Teahupo’o swell originates from winter storms at the southwestern edge of the Pacific Ocean, near New Zealand. It then travels virtually unimpeded for days across deep waters, gathering momentum and energy, before slamming into Tahiti. The pitch of this collision is amplified by the unique underwater topography of the island’s coastline, which is bordered by an extremely shallow reef that suddenly drops off into the ocean abyss.
Daring to surf Teahupo’o requires a willingness to place yourself at the intersection of an unstoppable force and an immovable object. As the wave curls along the reef, surfers have a window of a few seconds to shoot the gap as Teahupo’o collapses behind them, generating a massive ball of foam that spits them out of the barrel.
“It wasn’t even thought to be surfable, really. In the late ’80s, early ’90s, everyone was like, ‘Can we really do this?’” said Joe Turpel, the NBC commentator known as the voice of international surfing competitions.
. . . Instead, the path to victory involves starting as deep as possible in the wave’s barrel, a strategy that means overriding your basic survival instincts. It involves paddling into the one wave you might just miss—and miss badly, ending up in its ferocious churn. Once you commit, there’s a nearly vertical take-off that sends the surfer into freefall before catching the bottom of the wave and turning sharply into the tube. Then it’s a race against the giant foam ball to make it out.
Here’s a video of some good rides at Teahupo’o. None of the waves, however, match the world’s biggest and scariest: the giant waves of Nazaré in Portugal. A few daring surfers have essayed those, but they’re too dangerous for the Olympics.
Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hiri would fain go hunting but the pickings are slim:
Hili: This meadow doesn’t rise to my expectations.
From Masih, the usual harassment unveiled women in Iran face from the Pecksniffs or, worse, the Morality Police:
Today in Iran;
While enjoying music in beautiful nature, someone stops you and tells you that the music is Haram, showing your hair is Haram, and walking with a man is Haram—this is what daily life under the Morality Police looks like.
And then you get arrested for simply having… pic.twitter.com/adpljeKb8P
From my feed, the famous dueling “changing of the guards” at the border between India and Pakistan. Talk about a competition (fueled by animosity, of course). It reminds me of a Māori haka:
Like several people I know, I’m caught up in a temporary fit of the downs because the world seems to be going off kilter. I worry about politics, I worry about Israel, I worry about Ukraine, I worry about Iran and its forthcoming nukes, I worry about fulminating wokeness and its effect on science, and, well, the list goes on. But something is keeping me awake at night. Although I don’t lie abed racked with conscious worries, my theory (which is mine) is that the worry has become internalized. Further, it’s hard, for me at least, to avoid converting the worry into anger, as it’s made me short-tempered, so I have to exert more control over my behavior.
So much for the personal stuff. But since all the stuff I have to write about is depressing (in the wings are articles about the ideological capture of chemistry, Wikipedia’s “Jewish problem”, the school curriculum in New Zealand—in other words, the kind of thing you see her regularly), there’s no light at the end of the tunnel. I’m thinking of writing about more personal stuff, just to improve my writing and go off on a different tangent. But there will always be the Hili dialogues with their daily five news items.
Do recall that on Saturday I leave for a month in South Africa, and posting will be very sparse for that month and somewhat sparse from now until Saturday.
So let’s have a couple of polls—about politics, of course. Please vote if you’re reading this and, more important, explain your feelings below if you wish.
First poll:
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Second poll (remember, all answers are anonymous and I don’t know who votes which way):
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Weigh in below. You needn’t tell me that this is not a scientific poll. It’s simply a survey of the readers.
I forgot to put John Avise‘s regular Sunday batch of bird photos up yesterday, as I’m again afflicted with severe insomnia that’s fogging my brain. However, they’re only a day late. John’s notes and IDs are indented, and you can enlarge the photos by clicking on them.
Dominican Republic Birds, Part 1
In 2006, our annual meeting of the Pew Fellows in Marine Conservation was held in the eastern Dominican Republic. Each such Pew Fellows meeting consists of a series of talks, topical workshops, and breakout sessions dealing with conservation biology in the marine realm. This is the first in a two-part series on birds that I photographed during short breaks from our scientific business at this beautiful Hispaniolan site.
Welcome to the start of a new “work” week, though I’ll be in South Africa a week from today. It’s Monday, July 29, 2024, and National Chicken Wing Day. Beware of the so-called “boneless” chicken wings! (click to read):
Another Google Doodle has appeared, marking one sport in the Olympics. Click to see the sport, but try to guess before you do:
Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the July 29 Wikipedia page.
Da Nooz:
First, despite an apparent injury to her calf, Simone Biles did this vault yesterday to qualify for the all-around gymnastic finals. Nobody else in the world can do this (click “watch on YouTube”)
*As expected, the world is telling Israel once again that while it can defend itself against aggression on its own territory, using things like the Iron Dome, it is simply not allowed to defend itself by crossing borders, as it has in Gaza and may well do in Lebanon. The World Israel News tells us that the world is demanding “restraint” from Israel after it’s been the victim of hundreds of missile attacks from Lebanon.
Representatives from the European Union and the United Nations condemned a rocket attack that killed 12 youths in a Druze town in northern Israel over the weekend, while also calling on Israel to demonstrate restraint to avoid escalating tensions on the Israel-Lebanon border.
On Saturday, an explosive projectile launched from southern Lebanon slammed into a soccer field in the Druze town of Majdal Shams in the northern Golan Heights, killing 12 children and youths, ages 10 to 20.
Dozens more were wounded, including 26 evacuated to Ziv Hospital in Tzfat (Safed), four in Baruch Padeh Medical Center, and several more who were evacuated to Haifa’s Rambam Medical Center.
While the Hezbollah terrorist group denied it was responsible for the attack, the IDF has rejected the Iranian-backed organization’s claim, noting that the rocket used was manufactured by Iran.
Hezbollah terrorists have launched hundreds of rockets, missiles, and suicide drones into northern Israel since last October
Hours after the attack, European Union foreign affairs chief Josep Borrell issued a statement condemning the attack, but declined to mention either Hezbollah or Iran, and called for “restraint” after the deadly strike.
“Shocking images from the soccer field in the Druze town of Majdal Shams,” Borrell tweeted. “I strongly condemn this bloodbath.”
Borrell also called for an international probe into the attack to determine who was responsible.
“We need an independent international investigation into this unacceptable incident.”
“We urge all parties to exercise utmost restraint and avoid further escalation.”
The United Nations also urged “maximum restraint” after the attack, with the UN Special Coordinator for Lebanon Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert and UNIFIL Head of Mission and Force Commander Lt. Gen. Aroldo Lázaro issuing a joint statement early Sunday morning.
We have the obligatory condemnation of terrorism, of course, but it’s closely followed by calls for “restraint”, aimed surely at Israel, which is not allowed to defend itself by pursuing terrorists or attackers. (After all, has anybody called for Hezbollah to restrain itself until now?) And remember, Hezbollah has been violating a binding UN Security Council Order by firing rockets at Israel. There are also UN forces in Lebanon designed to keep Hezbollah in line. Why don’t they do anything? If you know the UN, you’ll know the answer.
*Meanwhile, Israel is for the moment restraining itself, and I don’t know if it’s preparing for a giant attack à la Yemen or waiting to see if, as a Jordanian official said, Hezbollah will pull its forces back to the UN-mandated line that it’s previously ignored. I simply have no guess about what Israel will do. From the WaPo:
Israel’s military said it struck Hezbollah targets deep inside Lebanon Sunday after a rocket strike from Lebanon killed 12 people, most of them teenagers and children, on the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, raising the specter of all-out war.
Sunday’s strikes, on what the Israeli military said was Hezbollah weapons caches and infrastructure, fell short of the furious response Israeli officials threatened after the strike Saturday on a soccer field in the Golan where children were playing. Diplomats worked feverishly Sunday to blunt any Israeli retaliation. Lebanon’s government, which would suffer from any escalation, entreated the United States to urge restraint from Israel, Foreign Minister Abdallah Bou Habib told Reuters.
Israel, citing military intelligence and an assessment of the scene, blamed the strike in Majdal Shams Saturday on Hezbollah. Hezbollah denied any connection to the attack.
Israel described it as the deadliest single attack on Israel since Hamas rampaged through several communities near the Gaza Strip on Oct. 7, drawing Israel’s military response there. The shocking scenes from the Golan — the bodies of children in weekend soccer clothes, blown apart — followed a flood of warnings from the United Nations and other diplomats that months of largely contained fighting between Hezbollah and Israel along the border could ignite if given a deadly spark.
Egypt’s foreign ministry warned Saturday of the “dangers of opening a new war front in Lebanon” that could push the Middle East into a regional conflict, echoing admonitions from other Arab states over the dangers of failing to secure a cease-fire in Gaza. Hezbollah has said it would end its attacks against Israel in the event of such a cease-fire.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who returned to Israel Sunday from his visit to Washington, was set to meet with his security cabinet.
More calls for “restraint”, and that doesn’t mean restraint for Hezbollah. In fact, the UN statement condemning the attack and calling for restraint doesn’t even mention the word “Hezbollah.” Secretary-General António Guterres called for enforcement of UN resolution 1701, which forbids the rocket attacks that Hezbollah’s been mounting, but UN forces are already in Lebanon tasked with enforcing that resolution. Guterres is a spineless liar, and I don’t say that lightly.
*The NYT has an article by Robert Klitzman, a physician and a professor of psychiatry at Columbia University, called “14 questions about our leaders’ health,” with questions for Trump, Biden, and Harris. I’ll just give a couple for each of the three, and the rationale given by Klitzman:
For Trump:
1) Has Mr. Trump taken any cognitive tests in the last six years. If so, which ones? And what were the results?
Mr. Trump has been making cognitive errors, mixing up the names of Nikki Haley and Nancy Pelosi, as well as of Kim Jong-un and Xi Jinping. He said he “aced” a cognitive test four years ago. Doctors have said that the test Mr. Trump is likely referring to was not definitive, nor diagnostic.
2) Did the assassination attempt affect Mr. Trump’s medical or mental health status? If so, how?
The public knows Mr. Trump sustained an injury to his ear, leaving a small wound, but it’s unknown if his hearing or other functioning were affected. His physician arranged for a precautionary CT scan of his head, but the results have not been released. Such secrecy can lead the public to wonder whether he is hiding something.
3) What is his current weight and cholesterol?
Mr. Trump has a history of heart disease and obesity, which along with very high cholesterol, if he has it, can significantly increase the likelihood of heart attacks, strokes and diabetes.
For Biden:
1) When was Mr. Biden last tested for Parkinson’s?
The White House has said Mr. Biden has not been diagnosed with or treated for Parkinson’s disease. The question was raised because a Parkinson’s specialist visited the White House eight times over the past year. Having such a diagnosis, by itself, doesn’t indicate how well a person can function or whether he is fit to serve, but many people are wondering if this diagnosis is present and, if so, if he is still able to do his job.
2) Does he have other serious conditions that might account for his apparent diminished facial expression and restricted physical movement?
In Mr. Biden’s more recent public appearances, his movements and face have appeared more rigid. This is common for aging but could also be a sign of a neurological disorder that could be associated with greater cognitive decline. If he does have such a condition, reassurance that it is being treated and that he is still able to perform his job would bolster public confidence.
. . . 4) Has he recently taken any cognitive tests? If so, which ones? And what were the results?
Just recently, Mr. Biden referred to Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky as “President Putin” and called Mr. Trump his vice president. These mistakes may represent mere slips that we all occasionally make and are normal with aging — but it would be reassuring to know that is the case.
And for Harris:
1) Has she had an annual checkup, and if so, how recently?
Ms. Harris has not yet released any medical information. Most people would probably agree she appears healthy, but it would be helpful to have verification that is indeed the case.
2) Does she see a physician regularly?
Doing so would be important to ensure that she receives treatment for any medical problems, to remain as healthy as possible.
3) Does she have any major medical problems?
The answer could help reassure the public that she would be able to perform the job.
The rationale, as Klitzman puts it, is “Candidates may decline to answer these questions, but in this age of disinformation, political polarization and distrust, transparency through voluntary disclosures of these facts is critical to rebuilding confidence in our fragile democracy.” I’m pretty sure Harris would come out clean, but not the others. Crikey, Trump appears to live on a diet of cheeseburgers!
Hani Almadhoun had no plans to vote for President Biden this year after his brother was killed in an Israeli airstrike in Gaza.
Almadhoun said that Biden, who has supported Israel and sent U.S. weapons toward its war effort, has “blood on his hands.” Now, with Vice President Kamala Harris expected to replace Biden as the Democratic nominee, Almadhoun isn’t only ready to cast his ballot for her; he is prepared to help get out the vote for her campaign.
“She has centered Palestinian voices,” said Almadhoun, a Palestinian-American who spoke to Harris about the war by phone in November and received a personal condolence letter from her following his brother’s death. “She has talked about Palestinian suffering, casualties and spoken about this situation on a more human level.”
Biden’s staunch backing of Israel, despite concerns over high civilian casualties and a humanitarian crisis in Gaza, had imperiled his re-election campaign amid backlash from Democratic constituencies such as progressives, Muslim and Arab-Americans, young voters and Black voters. Some White House and campaign aides privately voiced concern in recent months that voters disillusioned with the war would sit out or vote for a third-party candidate, putting battleground states such as Michigan, Georgia and Pennsylvania at risk.
“I think it is necessary for her to set herself apart from Biden and to break with him on this issue,” said Lily Greenberg Call, a former Biden political appointee at the Interior Department who in May became the first Jewish American to resign from the administration over its Gaza policy. Greenberg Call also was a field organizer for Harris’s 2020 presidential campaign. “Not only are there morally correct things that she can do…but I also think it’s the politically savvy thing for her to do.”
I suspect that Harris cares a lot more about being politically savvy than being morally correct, and I’m absolutely certain she’s going to pull the U.S. back in its alliance with Israel. She knows that Jews are few (2.4% of the American population), that many Americans equate Israel with Netanyahu, and that the Democratic Party is tilting towards anti-Israel “progressives,” becoming about as anti-Semitic as Labour was under Corbyn in the UK. To me, Harris is a person not of principle, but of expediency, and that doesn’t bode well for the fate of the only democracy in the Middle East. Just remember, those who call for a cease-fire are usually calling for a victory for Hamas in Gaza, even though they don’t see it that way.
Paris Olympics organizers apologized to anyone who was offended by a tableau that evoked Leonardo da Vinci’s “The Last Supper” during the glamorous opening ceremony, but defended the concept behind it Sunday.
Da Vinci’s painting depicts the moment when Jesus Christ declared that an apostle would betray him. The scene during Friday’s ceremony featured DJ and producer Barbara Butch — an LGBTQ+ icon — flanked by drag artists and dancers.
Religious conservatives from around the world decried the segment, with the French Catholic Church’s conference of bishops deploring “scenes of derision” that they said made a mockery of Christianity — a sentiment echoed by Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova. The Anglican Communion in Egypt expressed its “deep regret” Sunday, saying the ceremony could cause the IOC to “lose its distinctive sporting identity and its humanitarian message.”
The ceremony’s artistic director Thomas Jolly had distanced his scene from any “Last Supper” parallels after the ceremony, saying it was meant to celebrate diversity and pay tribute to feasting and French gastronomy. Paris 2024 spokesperson Anne Descamps was asked about the outcry during an International Olympic Committee news conference on Sunday.
“Clearly there was never an intention to show disrespect to any religious group. On the contrary, I think (with) Thomas Jolly, we really did try to celebrate community tolerance,” Descamps said. “Looking at the result of the polls that we shared, we believe that this ambition was achieved. If people have taken any offense we are, of course, really, really sorry.”
“My wish isn’t to be subversive, nor to mock or to shock,” Jolly said. “Most of all, I wanted to send a message of love, a message of inclusion and not at all to divide.”W
When I read that, I thought it might offend people because they mixed religion with the Olympics. (France has a well known policy of secularism.) But no, it wasn’t that, and I don’t think it was the performative “diversity” theme, either though it could have been. No, it must have been the drag queens, who offended the Christians (I haven’t yet figured out why drag queens, who aren’t always gay, are considered as woke icons, but so be it). But what a thing to put in the Olympics! At least the French aren’t dumb enough to have a Muslim tableau with a diversity theme. Can you imagine the reaction if they showed Muhammad surrounded by drag queens?
I found one video that shows an image of the scene:
Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Szaron gets a lesson in journalism. Malgorzata’s explanation: “Szaron is supposed to follow the Journalism 101 rule: NOT: ‘Person A says it rains. Person B says it doesn’t rain.’ BUT GO OUT AND CHECK WHETHER IT RAINS.”
Szaron: There is something that’s worrying me.
Hili: Go and check it but don’t behave like a journalist.
In Polish:
Szaron: Tam jest coś, co mnie niepokoi.
Hili: Idź i sprawdź, a nie zachowuj się jak dziennikarz.
URGENT: Pakhshan Azizi, a Kurdish journalist, has been sentenced to death by Islamic Republic judiciary in Iran. This brave political prisoner is now in Evin prison, facing execution. Last week, the regime sentenced another female political prisoner, Sharifeh Mohammadi, to death… pic.twitter.com/IMHKvdj246
J. K. Rowling responds, forcefully as ever, to some unidentified and hapless tweeter:
Women haven’t been oppressed for millennia by their own menstrual cycles and capacity to give birth, they’ve been oppressed by men on the basis of their biological functions. This will not be fixed by pretending some women have dicks. pic.twitter.com/onWpePJd7I
Two tweets from Professor Cobb. Børsum survived two years in concentration camps and died in 1985.
Lise Børsum, a Norwegian resistance heroine, aided Jews that risked deportation to German camps during WWII. Arrested in 1943, she herself endured Ravensbrück concentration camp.
Post-war, she wrote about her experiences as a POW and the realities of these concentration camps. pic.twitter.com/6fGWbUcdR3
— Helen Fry | WWII Historian (@DrHelenFry) July 28, 2024
These big-tusked males are rare as they are poached heavily. What a crime!
The rarest thing in Africa!
A Forest Elephant Supertusker in Rwanda ❤️🐘❤️
🎥 Bench Africa pic.twitter.com/JiHwMjQEeq
Last October I posted a critique of a new National Science Foundation (NSF) initiative designed to combine indigenous knowledge with modern science—in the U.S. this time, and to the tune of $30 million. The NSF was very optimistic, as you can see from the article below in Science (click to read; see also a similar report in Nature):
My main beef with that study is that it conflated a fusion of indigenous and modern knowledge with an attempt to create equity among researchers themselves. As I wrote at the time:
Thus, if you’re going to use money to improve science, and help indigenous people at the same time, virtually all of that money should be earmarked for training indigenous youngsters to learn science, and ensure that there’s no bigotry against them. That is, indigenous people should have equal opportunity from the outset to learn STEM. Then, those with talent and desire can become scientists using modern science. To my mind, this is better than simply scouring indigenous cultures for bits of knowledge that can be further investigated, or giving money to indigenous people without fixed projects to fund, simply as a form of reparations. To fund education rather than cultures themselves is preferable because the results are permanent and self-sustaining (once the pipeline is open, it tends to stay open).
But I was unaware that another “braiding” project—yes, they both use that word—attempting to fuse two “ways of knowing” had been undertaken by a different funding group: the U.S. National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM). This project had a mere $2 million in funding, with the dosh provided by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, and NASA.
I don’t know the fate of the NSF project, but the NASEM one didn’t last long, with the joint effort collapsing after a short period of time, and for two reasons.
Click the Science article below to read about the failure of the new endeavor:
The purpose of this endeavor, which involved a panel whose lucubrations were then to be published by NASEM, was this:
. . . to explore how best to pursue coproduction, the process by which scientists, Indigenous community members, and other scientific stakeholders jointly create and share knowledge in a way that values diverse perspectives.
. . . Gregory Symmes, NASEM’s chief program officer, confirmed the panel’s job was “to summarize what’s known about … coproduction,” and that he was aware of the committee’s desire to use the concept in its study early on. But, he says, “The study itself was not intended to be coproduced.” Instead, “We thought we could work through those differences” by, for example, including a discussion in the final report of the obstacles the committee faced.
Note that “coproduction” links back to the first NSF-funded study, involving “two-eyed seeing,” the notion that you can increase our knowledge of the world most efficiently if you combine vision from one “eye” (modern science) with vision from the other eye (indigenous “ways of knowing”). The original NSF project, which largely involved trying to fix climate change, reported this:
The center will explore how climate change threatens food security and the preservation of cultural heritages through eight research hubs in the United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. (Ranco co-leads the U.S. Northeast hub.) Each hub will also serve as a model for how to braid together different knowledge traditions, or what its senior investigators call “two-eyed seeing” through both Indigenous and Western lenses.
The new NASEM study, which involved a committee of 11 members including three Native scholars, began well, with a harmonious initial meeting. But then things fell apart, and for two reasons (my headings below; quotes are indented):
1.) The committee was not tasked with producing the final report. Normally, National Academies reports are written by a National Academies-designated committee that includes both Academies members and selected experts who are not Academies members. In addition, every study has many other ‘participants’ who are not members of the committee, but interviewees or presenters who bring information into the discussion, while not participating in the committee’s internal deliberations or report writing. Also excluded from writing the report are people who could conceivably profit from what that report says, and this may have involved people excluded below.
Committee members knew the approach ran counter to NASEM’s rules for what it calls a consensus study. “The traditional way in which a National Academies report works is that you go and meet with people, and they can inform you, but they can’t participate in the [committee’s] deliberations or help shape the report,” says committee member ecologist F. Stuart “Terry” Chapin, emeritus professor at the University of Alaska Fairbanks.
But in this case some of the members of the committee, realizing that they wouldn’t be writing the final report, were upset. The deliberations about “coproduction of knowledge” apparently didn’t involve the coproduction of the report. The indigenous members also felt that they were marginalized in the deliberations:
Many committee members who spoke to Science say they believed their assignment—to explore the “challenges, needs, and opportunities associated with coproduction of environmental knowledge between scientists and local and Indigenous experts”—would require them to take a different approach given the subject matter. “At our first meeting [in August 2023], several people raised concerns that here was a project talking about coproduction of knowledge, but we weren’t allowed to use those processes to carry out the study,” says Gordon, who runs a company that advises scientists and government agencies on coproduction.
In the following, Kyle White is an “environmental justice expert at the University of Michigan and a member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation.”
. . . Whyte also vented his frustration that the committee’s statement of task did not require that the study be coproduced. However, he told participants at the February workshop he “was willing to keep working on the project” to “figure out a way to do this right.” But in late March, he and three other committee members wrote to their colleagues and NASEM staff calling for the study to be “paused.” The four proposed instead writing an interim report on how to “allow equitable participation by Indigenous partners” that could be the basis for a new study on coproduction.
. . . Another participant who was not a committee member, Philomena Kebec, says comments she and other Native people made about coproduction during discussions at breakout sessions weren’t brought back up during plenary sessions and felt like sidestepping. Kebec, a member of the Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa and its head of economic development, says Native representatives were hoping for a dialogue about traditional knowledge across a range of scientific topics as well as “about the power dynamics affecting the ability to share information effectively.”
The issue of “power dynamics” will come up in a second.
2.) The second workshop was to be held in an indigenously-owned casino, and the NASEM didn’t want that.
But that high didn’t last long. Before a second workshop in February, tensions arose over the choice of its venue, which was the Kewadin casino owned by the Sault Ste. Marie tribe of Chippewa Indians in Michigan. Tribal casinos hold important meaning to Native nations as places of gathering and bastions of tribal sovereignty. Yet several sources told Science NASEM leaders saw the venue as inappropriate for a meeting the institution was sponsoring.
The tension made four members of the committee write to the NASEM asking that the deliberations be “paused” and that they be allowed to write an interim report. But that didn’t fly. Shortly thereafter, Whyte was told that he was dropped from the committee, and then the committee (and the whole study) were dropped and removed from the NASEM’s website.
The whole thing was a big failure. Yes, the casino fracas looks a bit trivial, but there are really two issues, not emphasized in the report, that doomed this project to failure, as it will doom others like it.
First, while there is indeed indigenous knowledge, and some of it can indeed be “braided” with knowledge coming from modern science, the latter is far more broad and important than the former. Indigenous knowledge, as far as I can see from reading about it, involves conclusions, based on trial and error, that help local people lives their lives in their environment. It involves things like when to plant and harvest crops, where and when to hunt and fish, how to navigate (in the case of Polynesians) and so on. It’s practical knowledge, which still makes it knowledge, but does not involve empirical studies of the wider world like the ambits of modern chemistry, physics, and biology.
Even if we think about the knowledge that we “colonists” use to live our lives in our environment, that depends heavily on modern science: we take antibiotics, use cellphones, fly in planes, rely on scientifically-generated weather predictions, and so on. When you think of how indigenous knowledge not derived from modern science can be braided with it, almost all of the braid will consist of knowledge coming from modern science. There is simply no way to make indigenous knowledge coequal in breadth or social importance to modern science. It sounds patronizing and colonialist to say that, but that’s really the way it is. (Note that Science buys into the erroneous “Western knowledge” trope in the title above; this trope is insulting to the many people around the world who do science.)
This lack of coequality is exacerbated by the second observation: these discussions are as much about power as about science. It’s an attempt of “minoritized” groups to wield as much scientific power as do majority (“Western) groups—a way, I suppose to compensate for historical bigotry against indigenous people. The power trope is most obvious—and successful—in New Zealand, where the attempt to equalize science with local “ways of knowing” has already infiltrated science, secondary schools, and colleges. Here are two expressions of it in the article:
“There’s a dearth of knowledge on how to apply other ways of knowing,” said Chad English of the Packard foundation, speaking at the panel’s kickoff meeting. “And it’s not just scholarship,” English noted about the scope of the study. “It’s also about addressing the power dynamic—who is at the table, and whose voices are being heard.”
and from the quote above:
Kebec, a member of the Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa and its head of economic development, says Native representatives were hoping for a dialogue about traditional knowledge across a range of scientific topics as well as “about the power dynamics affecting the ability to share information effectively.”
It is of course churlish to mistreat indigenous people or make them feel inferior, especially when they’re invited to participate with others on an equal basis on a panel like this. But perhaps the “power imbalance” ultimately reflects the “knowledge imbalance” that I describe above. If your group isn’t really coequal in scientific knowledge to another, you can hardly expect to have as much influence in the conclusions as does the group espousing the more effective and important “way of knowing.”
That, of course, is no excuse to ignore people or talk over them. But perhaps it’s time to have a hard look at the “indigenous science versus modern science” issue and lay out which “way of knowing” is most important in doing things like fixing anthropogenic climate change or ameliorating epidemics of infectious disease. People avoid this discussion because it’s uncomfortable—indeed, the University of Auckland, after promising such a discussion, has avoided it for three years. But eventually it’s a discussion that must be had, and it helps nobody to pretend in the interim that all “ways of knowing” are equal.
We have four batches left if I include singletons, and thank Ceiling Cat I’m leaving for a month so I don’t have to beg for photos. But that will give you a month to get some good pictures together for my return at the beginning of September. If you do have a contribution, please save it until my return so it doesn’t get lose in the deluge of email.
Today’s photos come from Mary Rasmussen, who took them in Michigan. Her captions and IDs are indented, and you can enlarge the photos by clicking on them.
Hairy Flower Scarab Beetles Feeding and Sleeping in My Garden
The Hairy Flower Scarab beetle (Trichiotinus assimilis) uses bee mimicry to ward off predators. They are fairly common here in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan and some years we have a large number of them feeding on wildflowers and flowers in my small garden:
These harmless, furry-looking beetles feed on pollen and nectar:
Hairy Flower Scarab beetles mating. The male has larger, orange antennae:
Just after dawn I noticed a few beetles “sleeping” in flowers in my garden. They stayed motionless in the flowers until the sun warmed them up. Not only were they cute, but really easy to photograph!:
I made it a point to go out in the morning at first light to catch these bugs snoozing:
A beekeeper friend says that insects just stop wherever they are when the temperature gets too cold, but this looks pretty intentional to me. This flower is on an old rose bush from a kind neighbor. It is wonderfully fragrant and I’d sleep in it too if I could:
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