Month: July 2024

Saturday: Hili dialogue

July 20, 2024 • 6:48 am

Welcome to CaturSaturday, July 20, 2024: two weeks before I depart for South Africa, and National Fortune Cookie Day.  Here’s one fortune from Bored Panda:

It’s also International Chess Day, National Lollipop Day, Moon Day (it was on this day in 1969 when men first walked on the Moon, and I remember it well, as I saw it “live”), Nap Day, and Space Exploration Day.

Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the July 20 Wikipedia page.

Da Nooz:

*Despite the many hints that Biden will withdraw, the WaPo says that he’s still bent on running. Here’s one paragraph from them:

President Biden is “absolutely” staying in the presidential race, campaign chair Jen O’Malley Dillon said on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” on Friday, calling him the “best person to take on Donald Trump.” Her assessment comes amid growing calls from Democrats for Biden to step aside. The Republican National Convention in Milwaukee wrapped up Thursday night with a lengthy acceptance speech from Trump in which he spoke about Saturday’s assassination attempt and basked in his party’s nomination. Trump and his new running mate, Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio), plan to appear together at a rally in Michigan on Saturday. Biden is isolating in Delaware after testing positive for the coronavirus this week.

And more bad news (for me, at least), citing a YouGov poll:

YouGov also asked respondents if they thought Harris was more likely to win than Biden and, if she did, whether she’d be a better or worse president.

Among Democrats, about equal numbers said that Harris would be more likely to win, more likely to lose or likely to fare as well in the election as Biden. They were more likely to say, though, that she’d be a better president than that she’d be a worse one.

It’s those Democrat numbers that matter for the current debate. If Biden were to step aside, the natural replacement would be Harris. If that happened, though, their party is generally uncertain whether it would make a positive difference. Many of those who think she would fare worse probably have their own preferred non-Biden, non-Harris candidate in mind, someone they’re sure could outperform both Biden and Harris. The number of those candidates who end up as the party’s nominee ranges from zero to one, meaning a lot of disappointed, pessimistic Democrats regardless.

Well, my preferred non-Biden, non-Harris candidate is Gretchen Whitmer, but America doesn’t really know her, and it’s getting kind of late. Yes, I’d vote for Harris if the Democrats are dumb enough to nominate her (we really need an open convention), but, though Illinois will go Democratic regardless, Harris is not nearly the kind of person I want to lead America.

*I don’t generally read David Brooks, as I see him not much far above the level of mentaion of Thomas “Two-State-Delusion” Friedman, but he does make sense in his new NYT column, “What Democrats need to do now.” Ok, I’ll bite, but it better involve asking Biden to withdraw. Brooks:

Across the Western world, right-wing parties have ceased to be parties of the business elites and have become working-class parties. MAGA is the worldview that accords with this shifting reality. It has its roots in Andrew Jackson-style populism, but it is updated and more comprehensive. It is the worldview that represents one version of working-class interests and offers working-class voters respect.

J.D. Vance is the embodiment and one of the developers of this worldview — with his suspicion of corporate power, foreign entanglements, free trade, cultural elites and high rates of immigration. In Milwaukee this week, with Vance as Trump’s pick for vice president, it became clear how thoroughly MAGA has replaced Reaganism as the chief operating system of the Republican Party.

If Democrats want to beat MAGA, it’s not enough to say: Orange man bad. Talking endlessly about Jan. 6 does no good. If Democrats hope to win in the near future they have to take the MAGA worldview seriously, and respectfully make the case, especially to working-class voters, for something better.

. . . . Now, the problem with MAGA — and here is where the Democratic opportunity lies — is that it emerges from a mode of consciousness that is very different from the traditional American consciousness.

The American consciousness has traditionally been an abundance consciousness. Successive waves of immigrants found a vast continent of fertile fields and bustling cities. In 1910, Henry van Dyke, who later became the U.S. ambassador to the Netherlands and Luxembourg, wrote a book called “The Spirit of America,” in which he observed that “the Spirit of America is best known in Europe by one of its qualities — energy.” In the 20th century, Luigi Barzini, an Italian observer, argued that Americans have a zeal for continual self-improvement, a “need tirelessly to tinker, improve everything and everybody, never leave anything alone.”

Many foreign observers saw us, and we saw ourselves, as the dynamic nation par excellence. We didn’t have a common past, but we dreamed of a common future. Our sense of home was not rooted in blood-and-soil nationalism; our home was something we were building together. Through most of our history, we were not known for our profundity or culture but for living at full throttle.

. . . .  MAGA, on the other hand, emerges from a scarcity consciousness, a zero-sum mentality: If we let in tons of immigrants they will take all our jobs; if America gets browner, “they” will replace “us.” MAGA is based on a series of victim stories: The elites are out to screw us. Our allies are freeloading off us. Secular America is oppressing Christian America.

If Democrats are to thrive, they need to offer people a vision both of the secure base and of the daring explorations.

Here’s where they have a potentially good story to tell. Americans can’t be secure if the world is in flames. That’s why America has to be active abroad in places like Ukraine, keeping wolves like Vladimir Putin at bay. Americans can’t be secure if the border is in chaos. Popular support for continued immigration depends on a sense that the government has things under control. Americans can’t be secure if a single setback will send people to the depths of crushing poverty. That’s why the social insurance programs that Democrats largely built are so important.

But what Democrats really need to do, in my view, is to offer people a vision of the daring explorations that await them. That’s where the pessimistic post-Reagan Republicans can’t compete. American dynamism was turbocharged by the construction of the transcontinental railway, the creation of the land grant colleges, the G.I. Bill and President Biden’s successful efforts to revive our industrial base in the American Midwest.

Personally, I wish Democrats would spend less time on dumb, reactionary policies like rent control. That reeks of panic in the Biden campaign. I wish they would champion the abundance agenda that people like Derek Thompson and my colleague Ezra Klein have been writing about. We need to build things. Lots of new homes. Supersonic airplanes and high-speed trains.

Well, that sounds good, and seriously, yes, we need to stop performative “progressive” policies, but right now I’m not so sure that Americans will vote Democratic if our party extols new homes and supersonic airplanes and high-speed trains. And yes, we have to take on the regressive teachers’ unions. But it’s sort of late for that, and Biden isn’t going to encourage it. Surprisingly, Brooks says not a word about Biden stepping down, which is, I think, a necessary but not sufficient action for Democrats to win the White House in November. Truth be told, I think the chance has slipped out of our hands, and I’m starting to think that I’ll just have to bite my tongue for the next four years. One thing is for sure: “progressive” politics, like those of the Democratic “squad”, aren’t he way forward, and may have helped cost Democrats the Presidency.

*Checking in on Andrew Sullivan, his weekly taken on Biden (what else is there in the news?) is called “Regime change in America?”  First Sully is amazed at the concatenation of events that has unified the Republican Party, and then implies that the change in the Zeitgeist may be permanent:

What makes this narrative feel like something deeper than a mere looming electoral college landslide is that, simultaneously, the entire liberal establishment seems to be imploding. The Democrats’ Biden formula — impose radical social, economic, and cultural change by fronting it with a moderate, easy-to-bully old man — has unraveled as obviously as Biden’s health. One reason is that the president is simply incapable of catching the attention of the country — except in universal cringe — and has singularly failed to construct a compelling narrative of his own.

Another is the incoherence of the Resistance. If you want to protest potential abuse of the justice system by a future president Trump, don’t bring an obviously flimsy, political case in New York City that merely helped Trump sweep back to dominance in the GOP. If you want a saner GOP, don’t demonize every other possibility, from DeSantis to Vance. If you emphasize the danger of political violence, don’t turn a blind eye as BLM burns America’s cities to the ground, or ignore Antifa. If you want to accuse Fox News of propaganda, don’t push out equal and opposite propaganda on toxic MSNBC. If you think democracy dies in darkness, why try to get Trump legally excluded from some state ballots, and prevent any real primary among Democrats?

More saliently, if one of your main lines of attack on Trump is his mendacity, it was probably not a great idea to tell the entire country that Biden was, in Joe Scarborough’s words, “far beyond cogent. In fact, I think he’s better than he’s ever been — intellectually, analytically…”

The lies the Democrats have been telling us these past few years are legion: inflation won’t happen/is temporary/is good for you; the Southern border is secure; “equity” is “fairness”; biological sex is a “spectrum”; Ukraine is about to win the war; Russia’s economy can be sanctioned to death; political violence is entirely on the far right; children can meaningfully consent to sex changes; the only thing holding black Americans back is white bigotry; the mainstream media is fair; and women have penises. Yes, Trump is a shameless liar. But the left’s propaganda has muddied the waters. When NBC’s higher-ups took Morning Joe off the air this week, it was a real moment. Even the muckety-mucks couldn’t take the lucrative propaganda anymore.

Well, this is why I have been criticizing the Left in these pages, often to the opprobrium of some readers.  I will deep-six those who say I’m responsible for a Trump victory for,  if he wins, the factors above, which I’ve constantly decried, have worked against Democrats, not for them. At any rate, Sullivan’s ending is, for me, depressing:

I will never vote for Trump — because he is so psychologically disturbed and so contemptuous of the rule of law that he remains a danger to us and the world. But I can see the logic of Trumpism. Those who feel left behind — culturally, economically — need at least one party to represent them and their values. As Biden has proven, protectionism is not all bad, especially when related to supply chains and national security. Mass immigration is out of control, and only one party gets it. Support for those who have lost the most from globalization seems to me a defensible conservative position, after migrant winners like me have had such a good run of it. And the madness of the neocon war machine demands a president able to spurn it.

Can the Democrats respond with the skill, poise and energy required? If Biden goes, and an open convention can showcase newer, younger talent, there’s still a chance. But it will take nerve to seize it.

We apparently ain’t got that nerve. I can hope against hope, and I will, but my reason is stronger than my hope. The Democrats simply caved in to their far-left wing in ways limned by Sullivan.  If Trump wins, Democrats largely themselves to blame. An open convention is our only hope.

*The International Court of Justice, in a nonbinding resolution, has ruled some of the Israeli occupation illegal:

The United Nations’ highest court said that Israeli settlements in Palestinian territories are illegal under international law, in an advisory opinion issued on Friday.

The findings by judges at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), known as the World Court, are not binding but carry weight under international law.

“Israeli settlements in the West Bank and east Jerusalem, and the regime associated with them, have been established and are being maintained in violation of international law,” President Nawaf Salam said, reading the findings of a 15-judge panel.

The court added that Israel’s continued presence in the Palestinian territories was illegal and that it should come to an end “as rapidly as possible.”

It also said Israel must make reparations for damages caused by its ‘occupation’ of the Palestinian territories.

The case stems from a 2022 request from the UN General Assembly, predating the current Israel-Hamas conflict.

The UN Assembly asked the court to appraise the legal consequences of Israel’s “prolonged occupation, settlement and annexation” of Palestinian territories, including east Jerusalem, and associated Israeli government policies.

In February, more than 50 states presented their views before the court, with Palestinian representatives asking the court to find that Israel must withdraw from all the occupied areas and dismantle illegal settlements.

Israel did not participate in the hearings but filed a written statement telling the court that issuing an advisory opinion would be “harmful” to attempts to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The majority of states participating asked the court to find the occupation illegal, while a handful, including Canada and Britain, argued it should refuse to give an advisory opinion.

The United States, Israel’s strongest backer, urged the court to limit any advisory opinion and not order the unconditional withdrawal of Israeli forces from the Palestinian territories.

Israel will not obey this ruline, of coursg, as not only is it nonbinding, but there are cogent arguments that the settlements are not in fact illegal. I’ve put up some videos in the past by Natasha Hausdorff explaining this, and if you have hours and hours, read this legal paper from Eugene Kontorovich in the Northwestern University’s Journal of Legal Analysis , which shows that Israel’s practices are not at all unusual in world behavior, but only Israel is demonized for it. I’ve printed it out for my own education. What we have is a ICJ ruling whose rationale applies to only one country.

Here’s Hausdorff’s reaction to yesterday’s decision:

*Nellie Bowles is back! And, from her weekly news summary from the Free Press, called “TGIF: Back with a bang!“, I steal my usual three items, She was on maternity leave, but that’s no reason she can’t do her column, for which there is NO substitute:

→ Trump, Hulk Hogan, Biden: Hulk Hogan set up the RNC’s big final act by tearing his shirt off to reveal another shirt that read—what else—TRUMP/VANCE as he screamed “let Trumpomania run wild, brother, let Trumpomania rule again” (Donald then blew him a kiss). And then boom, Hollywood lights came up like it was the musical Chicago! Out strode a new, toned-down, spiritual Trump. His convention speech started strong, normal, even moving. Even those who hate Trump had to admit that the retelling of his brush with death was kind of riveting.

And then. Well, then it just never ended. He said every word there was to say. An excerpt: “Has anyone ever seen Silence of the Lambs? The late, great Hannibal Lecter is a wonderful man. He oftentimes would have a friend for dinner.” He continued, “They’re emptying out their mental institutions into the United States, our beautiful country.” When Trump said the speech was wrapping up, that was Trump just being a silly flirt. The thing finally clocked in at one hour, 32 minutes. . . . [there’s more]

What would a foreigner think seeing this as a speech at the Republican National Convention?

→ Hide the pics: For the mainstream press, the big problem was that there now exists a pic of Trumpo looking brave—bloodied, defiant, standing with his fist in the air. The picture was taken by the incredible Evan Vucci. Here’s Axios on the crisis, quoting an anonymous photo editor from “a major news outlet” who says: “It’s dangerous for media organizations to keep sharing that photo despite how good it is.” As Trump put it: “A lot of people say it’s the most iconic photo they’ve ever seen. They’re right and I didn’t die. Usually you have to die to have an iconic picture.” The mainstream media didn’t seem to want to linger on the attack. The Denver Post simply went with: “Gunman Dies in Attack.” Though some outlets came out with special surprises:

The piece has since been pulled, but I’d like you to take notice of the section that it was filed under. Moving on!

→ DNC [Democratic National Committee] says get down Josh, stay away Kamala, beat it Gavin: The DNC, like any good mob, is not going to go down without a fight. They’re still punishing anyone who questions Biden’s running, like House Democrat Hillary Scholten of Michigan, who was cut off from all Democrat campaign efforts after saying Biden should retire (officials reversed course after a Politico reporter called them). Yes, the Biden mob wants to win. And by that I mean they want to lose in a horrible bloodbath, but they want to lose their way, with their man, Joseph R. Biden. The DNC’s new method of cinching the Biden nom is by declaring that special rules actually make it so delegates have to vote online now, really fast, for Joe. These are the rules, they say. Reader, these are not the rules. The threat they cite (Ohio requiring the candidate’s name early) has long been rescinded (Ohio dropped that a while ago). The DNC chair and the statistician and Substacker Nate Silver fought for a while on Twitter, which was mostly interesting because it shows that the DNC chair has too much time on his hands and is obsessed with Nate Silver (same and same, but I’m not the DNC chair).

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili is thinking of “Bastet”:

Hili: I’m trying to remember the name of the Egyptian goddess.
A: Which one?
Hili: The one who looks like me.
In Polish:
Hili: Próbuję sobie przypomnieć jak miała na imię ta bogini egipska.
Ja: Która?
Hili: Ta podobna do mnie.

And a photo of Baby Kulka:

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

From Cat Memes. People have no business trying to turn carnivore cats into vegans:

A stern house from Things with Faces:

From Jesus of the Day: (I don’t think it’s yet an ex-bluebird):

Tweeted by Masih. I’m a big fan of Inna, whom I know. Here she is on the cover of Paris Match some years ago—and I can’t help but be self aggrandizing by showing this:

I know Inna and have met her; I’m a big admirer of her passion against injustice towards women. Here’s a photo of her that appeared on the cover of Paris Match, and look whose book she’s holding! (Excuse my solipsism.)

From my feed. A baby elephant tries to charge, but gives up:

From Malgorzata. Of course the Jews were behind the attempt to kill Trump, though I’m not sure why given that he’s more favorable toward Israel than is Biden.

From Malcolm. I’m not quite sure I get the new title.

Larry, the Chief Mouser to the Cabinet Office, is guarding 10 Downing Street, but willing to be bribed:

From the Auschwitz Memorial; one that I retweeted:

Two tweets from Dr. Cobb. First, look how low that Spitfire is flying!

Matthew says, “Insane or a liar? You decide.” I vote for the former:

Captive wild animals freed for the first time

July 19, 2024 • 12:45 pm

Here, to end the week on a high note, is a 24-minute video of animals who have been captive their whole lives but are now freed. It’s very heartening. The only reason to keep wild animals in captivity is to rehabilitate them for release or to grow an endangered species to the point when it can be released.

Have a great weekend! I got my seventh Covid shot yesterday and have no reaction save a sore arm. (I got it for traveling to South Africa.)  I’m one of the few people I know that hasn’t caught the virus.

Musings on Why Evolution is True (the book)

July 19, 2024 • 11:00 am

I had a couple hours to read last night, but didn’t want to start a fat novel as I’m leaving the country soon and wouldn’t want to schlep it. I thus picked up an old copy of God is Not Great, by Christopher Hitchens, which is a pretty quick read.  After two nights I’m almost half done with it, but am a bit disappointed because a lot of the science is wrong or outmoded (the latter is, of course, not Hitchens’s fault), and the arguments seem pretty repetitive.

On the other hand, I realize that these arguments were badly needed at the time and made a big impact on nonbelievers and believers alike. It’s one of the books that kick-started the “New Atheism,” and the “New” bit, as I always say, was the use of scientific arguments to rebut religions faith claims.  These arguments are amply in view in Hitchens’s book, and most of them are correct. And, of course, Hitch was a wonderful writer.

One of Hitchens’s arguments against creationism and its gussied-up cousin Intelligent Design is its invocation of vestigial organs like our vestigial tail, the appendix, wisdom teeth, and so on—all as evidence for evolution.  There were also examples of features that were jury-rigged by evolution so that they’re not perfectly adapted to their function: things like the backwards placement of the retina in the human eye, our “blind spot” where the optic nerve comes in, and—my favorite—the placement of the recurrent laryngeal nerve.

When I pondered those examples, I realized that IDers and creationists argue that all of these features are really adaptive.  The appendix, they say (correctly) contains a small number of cells that have immune functions, and the “backwards” retina of our camera eye is said by creationists to confer protection against an overload of short-wavelength light.  But of course whether the immune function of the appendix outweighs the fact that it may become infected and kill you is pure speculation, as is the postulated “useful” function of the backwards retina.

And I haven’t yet heard of an adaptive explanation for nipples in human males, our wisdom teeth, the developmental sequence of our kidney, or our transitory coat of hair in utero (the “lanugo”), but I’m sure that if you look hard enough on the Internet, you’ll find IDers and creationists showing how these aren’t really “senseless signs of history”, but are actually adaptive. And if they’re adaptive, then they reflect God’s plan.

In the end, I realized that the true purveyors of the “adaptationist program” aren’t evolutionary psychologists, but creationists, who aren’t willing to admit that the vagaries of evolution has vouchsafed us with featurs that, if there was a god or a Designer, could have been designed better. Further, they don’t often realize that if a “vestigial” structure is useful in some way, that doesn’t disprove that it had an evolutionary origin. The “halteres”—balance organs of some insects—is one example. They are used for keeping a guided flight, but we know that they are the vestigial remnants of wings, derived from two of the four wings that flying insects used to have. And they’re useful!

I won’t dwell on this, as these things are discussed in detail in my book Why Evolution is True, and you can also see many examples of vestigial organs supporting evolution at Douglas Theobald’s great site, “29+ evidences for macroevolution” (there are multiple pages; vestigial organs, atavisms, and other features testifying to evolution are here).

Finally, I have never seen creationists even try to refute the biogeographical evidence for evolution, like the absence of endemic mammals, fish, and amphibians on oceanic islands (islands that rose, bereft of life, from the sea bed) as opposed to continental islands that were once connected to continents. Biogeography is the true Achilles Heel of both creationism and ID.

I’m often asked if I’ve though about rewriting or updating my first trade book,  Why Evolution is True. My answer is always “no”—mainly because there’s enough evidence in that book to convince any rational person of its title’s assertion. But I suppose that if I did revise it, I would update it with more evidence for evolution, especially from fossils and molecular biology.  I do present plenty of fossil evidence for evolution in the book, and also some molecular evidence. The latter includes the presence of “dead genes” (genes that were functional in our ancestors and in some of our relatives, but have been rendered nonfunctional in us by degrading mutations). Examples are our many dead “olfactory receptor genes, active in dogs but totally inactive in whales, or a dead gene that is key in synthesizizing Vitamin C in other mammals. That gene is defunct, an ex-gene that sings with the Choir Invisible, but its death doesn’t harm because we get the vitamin from our diet.  I see no way that creationists or IDers can explain the fact that our DNA is largely junk, and much of that junk consists of dead genes. Loading our DNA with genes that don’t do anything, but still have to be copied during cell division and meiosis, is a lousy way to design a genome.

But now we have more such evidence, Here’s Ken Miller lecturing on some of the molecular/chromosomal evidence for evolution in humans and other primates from the structure of our chromosome 2.

I don’t mention this in my book, but it’s a convincing bit of evidence that we’re related to other primates.

There’s a lot of stuff like this, but I won’t belabor it now.  The short take is that I don’t think WEIT (the book) needs to be revised because it would just pile additional evidence for evolution on the Everest of evidence that already exists.  The fact is that evidence from a variety of different disciplines—paleontology, developmental biology, morphology (vestigial organs), biogeography, and molecular biology—all cohere to attest to the truth of evolution. IDers will admit of some microevolution, and even some macroevolution, but the more weaselly ones simply play a “god of the gaps” game, saying that there are adaptations that simply could not have evolved via a step-by-step Darwinian process of accumulating helpful mutations.  (The bacterial flagellum used to be one, but has fallen in light of later research.)

Asserting that our ignorance proves the existence of a Designer has never been a good strategy for researchers. It is simply a “science stopper”, implicitly saying, “You don’t need to do any more research; I already know that this phenomenon is inexplicable by materialistic processes and therefore is evidence for supernatural design.”  How many assertions like that have been debunked by later evidence? The answer is TONS OF THEM.

And I need hardly add that unless we have independent evidence for such a designer, we can simply ignore arguments that depend on its existence.

Another government-funded organization encourages staff to chant Māori prayers

July 19, 2024 • 9:30 am

Some of you may be wondering why I persistently post on the efforts of New Zealand to interpolate local superstitions and lore into science classes and other government endeavors.  This is not because I hate New Zealand, but because I love it.  I hate to see the country brought down, especially scientifically, by sacralizing the superstitions of the indigenous population. Yes, I admit that the local “way of knowing,” Mātauranga Māori (MM), does contain some empirical trial-and-error knowledge, though most of that knowledge should be conveyed in anthropology and sociology classes. But what’s going on in the country now is the world’s most pervasive form of “wokeness,” though it’s not purely performative because it actually damages the country. And the authorities have ensured that no objection to this ideological capture will be tolerated.

So my occasional reports about New Zealand on this site are meant to let Kiwis know what’s really going on in their country in the hopes that rationality and science won’t be held hostage to the 1840 Treaty of Waitangi. Many residents know already, but many also send me documents that can’t be criticized publicly because the sacralization of the oppressed has reached the point where New Zealanders who criticize the intrusion of legend, superstition, and local religion into the workplace are liable to be fired or punished.  I can’t tell you the number of emails I get from Kiwis urging me on, but saying that I can’t publish their names for fear of reprisal.  But since I’m in the U.S., I can at least mention this foolishness without fear of retribution. That’s why some NZ outlets, like this one, simply reproduce the posts I’ve written about what seems to be the world’s worst and most dictatorial form of DEI.

So here is yet another email from a New Zealander wanting me to report on this mishigass, but asking to remain anonymous.  So be it.  The other day I reported how the staff at some locations of Health New Zealand, a government health-promoting agency, were encouraged to say Māori prayers or chants (“karakia“) daily. This practice was originally reported on a NZ website, but the link was sent to me anonymously. The author, A. E. Thompson, noted that “voluntary” prayers aren’t really that voluntary if you’re pressured to say them:

Sure, the email to health staff only used the word “encourage” but really, when your employer issues an email saying that, you know it will be expected and that ignoring or opposing it will be held against you and may cost you your job.

Pressuring state employees and even private company employees to participate in karakia sets a dangerous precedent in eroding separation between state and religion. As we speak, Muslim immigrants in Europe are deliberately imposing their religious practices on non-Muslim populations by having their distorting loudspeakers call dozens or hundreds of faithful to prostrate themselves in prayer on public footpaths and roadways (even though nearby mosques are plentiful). The practice reflects their belief that Islam is so important that everyone either needs to convert to it or be discriminated against or killed.

This is why, in the U.S., “voluntary” prayers are banned in school. This not only violates the First Amendment, but pressures kids to conform to public prayers lest they be ostracized.

Well, now New Zealand has done it again, this time in a hospice largely funded by the government, and in the southern part of the country. The hospice even suggests some prayers, which seem to be Māori.  This was sent to me by someone who requests anonymity for fear of losing their job.

Note that this was sent to the staff of a hospice, not to the residents, and, as usual, it’s full of Māori words (I’ve bolded them) that are there simply as a performative act, since they impede understanding (everyone speaks English, but few, even Māori people, speak the indigenous language). In this case, most have already been translated into English. You can look the words and pharses up in the Maori dictionary, but karakia I’ll define for you (here’s part of it):

incantation, ritual chant, chant, intoned incantation, charm, spell – a set form of words to state or make effective a ritual activity. Karakia are recited rapidly using traditional language, symbols and structures.

It can also refer to Christian prayers, but note in the second paragraph that this effort is being guided by a Māori advisory group. Note as well that the introduction of the karakia are being timed to coincide with the new Moon (the phases of the moon have great significance for Māori life).

The email:

Kia ora team,

I’m emailing you all ahead of a change in the way we manage karakia for our IDT hui/meetings.

I want to acknowledge that karakia to begin and end our IDT hui/meetings started quite abruptly to begin with, and it is my hope, and that of the Māori Advisory Group (MAG), to provide some context and to guide this part of our day in a way that is supportive and makes sense.

Firstly I’ll speak to why work places might look to introduce karakia into everyday activities, such as the IDT meeting. Karakia are an integral part of te ao Māori (the Māori world).

On a functional level karakia:

– Provide a predictable structure to everyday interactions i.e. beginning, middle, end;

– Enable the everyday exchange of whanaungatanga (managing relationships/relationship building) and manaakitanga (hospitality).

– Support the normalisation of te reo me ngā tikanga Māori (Māori language and customs), which I believe in turn lends to:

— The development of skills that enhance our capacity to provide culturally safe care to Aotearoa New Zealand’s indigenous people.

— The development of perspectives that foster cultural humility in our engagements with all.

On a deeper level karakia:

– Support us to collectively connect with and focus in on the context (kaupapa) of the interaction;

– Navigate tapu and noa (separate but corresponding states of being within te ao Māori. Inappropriate association between things that are tapu and noa can impact all dimensions of wellbeing) safely.

– Fortify our holistic wellbeing by engaging with Te Taha Wairua (the spiritual dimension of wellbeing).

Making space for karakia within our workplace is particularly important given the intensity of the mahi (work) we are engaged with as individual clinicians, and as a collective. Our mahi straddles the ordinary and the extraordinary: we support patients, whānau and caregivers as they navigate the threshold between life and death, and support each other to provide this care.

We are going to begin refreshing the IDT karakia (or whakataukī – proverb) in concordance with Whio – the New Moon – as an opportunity to consider and acknowledge both the maramataka (Māori lunar calendar) and pūrākau (stories/legends/myths) inherently relevant to our work at the hospice.

 Our hope is that incorporating such an initiative into OCH processes will support us to:

·        Normalise the use of te reo Māori.

·        Enable the everyday exchange of whanaungatanga and manaakitanga.

·        Grow in our personal and organisational understanding of Māori world views within the palliative context.

·        Equip the team with knowledge that may support us to be more culturally responsive.

·        Foster a sense of interest/curiosity in learning more.

So, with this in mind, and given that the next new moon is July 6th, we will be setting this new initiative in motion on the next working day which is Monday 8th July. On the 8th I’ll speak to the initiative briefly, and then provide some context regarding the new karakia or whakataukī, and we’ll go from there. For those that feel comfortable joining in with reciting the karakia – please feel free to join in – otherwise, please feel free to sit back, relax and tune in to the kupu (words) and the kaupapa of the karakia, kei a koutou (its up to you)!

You will find copies of the karakia or whakataukī we are going to use for the next month attached to this email for your reference.

If you are curious about learning more please check out the piece I have contributed to this months OCHeye coming out soon!

The two karakia enclosed are both Māiru incantations: here’s a screenshot of one:

 

Yes, these are non-religious and could be considered as Māori haiku, but the point is that these are “suggested” incantations, and they are Māori.  Note that these are being introduced to the hospice to bring it into “the Māori world”, and one of the stated reasons for the introduction is “The development of skills that enhance our capacity to provide culturally safe care to Aotearoa New Zealand’s indigenous people” and to ·       “Grow in our personal and organisational understanding of Māori world views within the palliative context.”  Now of course one must be sensitive to the culture of hospice patients, and not insult or agitate them, but prayers aren’t the way—they should use Måori healers or spiritual leaders to do this—and I doubt that everybody in the hospice is of indigenous ancestry.

This is in fact one attempt to indoctrinate the staff with the spiritual aspects of Māori culture. Yes, the prayers are “optional”, but you know what that means, and woe to the person who writes to the boss to object to this effort! What is this doing in a hospice? Are there any atheists or Christians there? In the U.S., this kind of effort would be prohibited as discriminatory and perhaps a violation of the First Amendment. Chaplains are allowed to visit hospitals and say prayers with the patients, but hospital staff are not given “suggestions” to say prayers. But this admixture of superstition and government-funded institutions is not prohibited in New Zealand. Many residents object to it, but they’re so cowed that they can’t even voice their objections for fear of punishment. All over the country, speech has been chilled.

So it goes. I hate to think of what New Zealand will look like in thirty years, when this kind of ideological capture has become the norm.

******

I’ll add that in 2021 the leadership of the University of Auckland, Vice Chancellor Dawn Freshwater, promised that there would be seminars, panels and debates on the virtues of teaching MM as coequal to modern science in university science classes.  That was three years ago, and absolutely nothing has transpired. I’m told that the Māori moiety of the administration has prevented any such debate, but I don’t know for sure. All I know is that when I wrote Dr. Freshwater reminding her of her promises, and asking when this important debate would take place, I got no reply.

Readers’ wildlife photos

July 19, 2024 • 8:15 am

Saved by the bell, I have two or three batches of photos left. Today we have arthropod photos from one of our most regular contributors, Mark Sturtevant. Mark’s captions and IDs are indented, and you can enlarge his photos by clicking on them.

Here are more pictures of arthropods from the previous summer. They were taken from the area where I live: in eastern Michigan.

I regularly check out our “sun garden” in the backyard to see what is going on, and there I commonly find small herds of Boxelder Bugs (Boisea trivittata) as shown with this group of nymphs. Boxelder Bugs feed on the developing seeds of various trees, not just Boxelder trees, and their bright colors are a signal that they are chemically protected. The winged adults will seek shelter for the winter, and this will include peoples’ homes, so during the winter they will turn up in the house along with overwintering stink bugs and ladybird beetles. But I don’t mind buggy visitors during the long winters:

Next up is a Caddisfly. Caddisflies are a sister taxon to Lepidoptera, but their larvae are usually aquatic. They can be hard to identify, and so I can suggest only that this is in the genus Banksiola because it sure does look like it. This won’t be the only time that my IDs’are uncertain here:

The next two pictures show Wooly Aphids, aphids that secrete a waxy floof for protection. I have no idea about their identity, although it would help if I remembered their host plant. The colony picture shows nymphs, winged males, and wingless females. It was rather disgusting:

We come next to a kind of beetle that has become a bit of an obsession. This is one of the species of gold Tortoise Beetles, so-named for its lovely metallic gold color. The particular species here is Deloyala guttata.  There is a similar one that I also find that can be pretty much all gold but when even slightly disturbed it rapidly turns a plain orange color so that it resembles a toxic ladybug.  This picture also marks a first attempt to add some digital brush work and other enhancements to the surroundings during post-processing. I commonly see this sort of thing in the hobby, and I would now like to dabble in this trickery from time to time:

Both of our local species of gold Tortoise Beetle feed on the leaves of Morning Glory plants and related species. As lovely as the beetles can be, their larvae and pupae are decidedly the opposite. Next is a picture of one of the pupae, and the larvae are similar. One of course notes the icky mass that is held over the back. That is a repellant collection of their poo and cast skins, and is called a “fecal shield”. If you want to find golden Tortoise Beetles, look on Morning Glories or on related plants like Bindweed. Swiss-cheese holes in the leaves are a sign of the larvae, and there is a fair chance that a sparkly adult or two is hiding under a leaf. But be quick, as the adults are very shy.

Next up is a tiny weevil, which I believe to be Conotrachelus sp. It just sat there, locked in this pose, while did a focus stack:

The wasp shown in the next picture is a parasitic Ichneumon wasp, Therion sp. I don’t know what hosts are used by this one, but I do know that a related species will parasitize caterpillars:

If I have a special treat, I like to put it in last and so here it comes. Besides tortoise beetles, I have lately become very interested in the little cobweb building comb-footed spiders (family Theridiidae), especially because their habits are greater than what I had supposed. Familiar examples of spiders in this family include what we call House Spiders in the U.S., and then there are the Widows. As you all know, these more familiar species favor dark places where they sit and wait to ensnare prey that encounter their tangled-looking cobwebs (although their webs actually have some clever designs to them). But the family is large, and Theridiids don’t all lurk in dark places, nor do they all simply stay in a web to wait for prey to come to them.

See this little spider? Rather pretty, isn’t it? This is the Candy-striped spider (Enoplognatha ovata). The picture is a staged manual focus stack of a spider that had wandered on its own onto our back porch. The “sky” is really a paint swatch. The 2nd picture shows a male in our sun garden:

Well, this little spider is a notable marauder of diurnal (daytime active) insects, and it uses different strategies to hunt prey. Candy-striped spiders make small tangled webs near the tops of plants in gardens and fields, and there they aggressively go after insects that so much as touch their web. More recently, I got to watch one of these spiders, lurking below a flower, attack a much larger bee that happened to be foraging on the flower above. The bee had no chance as the spider steadily thrusted loop after loop of silk up from between the petals of the flower, pinning the bees’ feet down. I have pictures to show later – they are still in the camera.

It doesn’t stop there, though. According to this beautifully done research paper, and summarized further in this article, the spiders become even more pro-active hunters under the cover of night. Diurnal insects often sleep up on plants at night, and that is when the little spiders can venture out and blindly explore the plants around them in order to murder insects in their sleep and eat them. It is through this active hunting that a high percentage of their prey are bees and wasps, and the size of the insect affords them no protection. The research paper has a fabulous picture that made the journal cover that conveys the carnage rather well. Y’all really should zoom in on that journal picture to appreciate the horror of it.

So now I am regularly examining the foliage around plants, looking for small, innocent-looking cobwebs. Just this morning I found another one of these spiders sitting on top of a daisy in the sun garden, eating a Hemipteran –like flower crab spiders do. Last summer and again this summer, I am finding hints that at least a couple other Theridiid species may use similar sneak-outside-of-their-web strategies. In iNaturalist there are quite a few pictures of brightly colored spiders in this family that are just sitting around in the open, without tangled webs. So what are they up to? And here is this little Theridiid (Theridion frondeum) in a park near Detroit. She was tucked away in a leaf, and no web was nearby. So how did this nearly blind spider bring down this big fly? As always, there are more questions:

Friday: Hili dialogue

July 19, 2024 • 6:45 am

Welcome to Friday July 19, 2024, and National Daiquiri Day, one of Hemingway’s favorite drinks when he stayed in Cuba.  Here are two pictures of Hem in Cuba with his drink (daiquiri on right), taken from the from the Post Prohibition site. It gives a bit of background (below), and includes (not shown) a recipe for Hemingway’s daiquiris.

In the moments he took a break from writing, Hemingway whiled away much of the 30s and 40s sitting at the bar of the famous Cuban haunt El Floridita, where they fixed his preferred drink, El Papa Doble, one after another. The Doble is a large drink, and Hemingway was quick to brag that he could put back quite a few. And by a few.. I mean many. Hemingway is famously known to have consumed six of his namesake Daiquiris on the average afternoon, but as many as twelve Papa Dobles in one sitting when he was really looking to let loose. A Papa Doble was compounded of two and a half jiggers [or 3 3/4 ounces] of Bacardi White Label Rum, the juice of two limes and half a grapefruit, and six drops of maraschino, all placed in an electric mixer over shaved ice, whirled vigorously and served foaming in large goblets. Hemingway said these drinks “had no taste of alcohol and felt, as you drank them, the way downhill glacier skiing feels running through powder snow.”

It’s also National Raspberry Cake Day, National Flitch Day (celebrating bacon), and Stick Out Your Tongue Day.  Here’s a famous example of lingual extrusion: 

Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the July 19 Wikipedia page.

Da Nooz:

*Obituaries first: Beloved comedian Bob Newhart died at the ripe old age of 94.  Variety reports:

Bob Newhart, the genteel but sharply satirical comic whose TV series “The Bob Newhart Show” and “Newhart” were huge hits throughout the 1970s and ’80s, died Thursday in Los Angeles. He was 94.

Newhart’s publicist Jerry Digney said he died after a series of short illnesses.

Newhart was also known to younger audiences as Papa Elf in the 2003 Christmas classic “Elf,” his guest spots on “The Big Bang Theory” (for which he won his only Emmy, as a guest star in 2013) and most recently appeared in three episodes of “Young Sheldon.”

Before his TV success, Newhart’s comedy albums were wildly popular for their at-the-time new approach of observational humor. He ruled TV for the better part of two decades, first with “The Bob Newhart Show” as a befuddled Chicago psychologist and then on “Newhart” as an equally at-a-loss New England innkeeper. He drew Emmy nominations for actor in a comedy three years running from 1985-87. Both shows were major successes for CBS, and they ran for a total of 16 years between 1972 and 1990.

Perhaps if you’re of a certain age you’ll remember the last episode of “Newhart”,  when he wakes up next to his wife (Suzanne Pleshette) from his first series to realize that the entire second series was all a dream. Most of us who watched both series recognized the bedroom immediately. It was the greatest ending ever for an American sitcom. Here’s that scene:

*The NYT reports that Biden is becoming more receptive to people telling him that he should step down as the Democratic Presidential candidate:

President Biden has become more receptive in the last several days to hearing arguments about why he should drop his re-election bid, Democrats briefed on his conversations said on Wednesday, after his party’s two top leaders in Congress privately told him they were deeply concerned about his prospects.

Mr. Biden has not given any indication that he is changing his mind about staying in the race, the Democrats said, but has been willing to listen to rundowns of new and worrying polling data and has asked questions about how Vice President Kamala Harris could win.

The accounts suggest that Mr. Biden, privately at least, is striking a more open-minded posture than he did last week when he lashed out at a number of House Democrats who pressed him to step aside.

One person close to the president said that it would be wrong to call him receptive to the idea of dropping out but that he “is willing to listen.” But this person emphasized there was no sign that Mr. Biden was changing course at this point.

The descriptions emerged after Senator Chuck Schumer and Representative Hakeem Jeffries, the two top Democrats in Congress, each told Mr. Biden privately over the past week that their members were deeply concerned about his chances in November and the fates of House and Senate candidates should he remain at the top of the ticket, according to two people briefed on the conversations.

The separate exchanges between Mr. Biden and the congressional leaders, described on the condition of anonymity because they were confidential discussions on an exceedingly sensitive topic, came to light as Democrats’ rebellion against Mr. Biden intensified on Wednesday.

Mr. Schumer and Mr. Jeffries, both of New York, privately prevailed upon party officials to delay the start of Mr. Biden’s nomination by a week, prolonging the debate over the viability of his candidacy.

. . .Democratic leaders have come to their conversations with Mr. Biden armed with grim new data. According to a poll from Blue Rose Research, a firm that formed from but is no longer affiliated with Future Forward, the super PAC supporting Mr. Biden, just 18 percent of voters and only 36 percent of people who voted for Mr. Biden in 2020 believe he is mentally fit and up to the job of being president.

Mr. Schumer, according to the Democrat close to him, was also given data from a leading Democratic super PAC showing Mr. Biden’s deficit growing to 5 percentage points or more in the must-win states of Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, and his deficit in three other key states — Nevada, Georgia and Arizona — outside the margin of sampling error.

Check the polls here at FiveThirtyEight. Of 28 polls pitting Biden against Trump, Trump was the winner in all but one, which was dead even.  Of 12 polls pitting Harris against Trump, Trump won 11, and the other was dead even. But even looking at other candidates like Newsom, Whitmer (my favorite), and even Michelle Obma, Trump takes all of them. Well, the non-candidates haven’t yet been introduced to the public, so we can still hope. . .

*According to the WaPo, even former President Obama has lost enthusiasm for Biden.

Former president Barack Obama has told allies in recent days that President Biden’s path to victory has greatly diminished and he thinks the president needs to seriously consider the viability of his candidacy, according to multiple people briefed on his thinking.

Obama has spoken with Biden only once since the debate, and he has been clear in his conversations with others that the future of Biden’s candidacy is a decision for the president to make. He has emphasized that his concern is protecting Biden and his legacy, and has pushed back against the idea that he alone can influence Biden’s decision-making process.

Behind the scenes, Obama has been deeply engaged in conversations about the future of Biden’s campaign, taking calls from many anxious Democrats, including former House speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), and has shared his views about the president’s challenges, according to people with knowledge of the calls, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private conversations.

A spokesperson for Obama declined to comment.

When you’ve lost Barack, you’ve lost America. I should add that the AP reports that Nancy Pelosi warned Biden in private that if he didn’t withdraw, Democrats could lose the House. It’s pretty much over for Joe now, though he had a good run.

*The AP, however, says that Trump is exaggerating when he claims he’s been “totally exonerated” by the courts.

Former President Donald Trump on Tuesday misrepresented in a social media post what the U.S. Supreme Court’s Monday ruling on presidential immunity means for his civil and criminal cases.

“TOTAL EXONERATION!” he wrote in the post on his Truth Social platform. “It is clear that the Supreme Court’s Brilliantly Written and Historic Decision ENDS all of Crooked Joe Biden’s Witch Hunts against me, including the WHITE HOUSE AND DOJ INSPIRED CIVIL HOAXES in New York.”

But none of Trump’s pending cases have been dismissed as a result of the ruling, nor have the verdicts already reached against him been overturned. The ruling does amount to a major victory for the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, whose legal strategy has focused on delaying court proceedings until after the 2024 election.

CLAIM: The Supreme Court’s ruling that former presidents have broad immunity from prosecution means “total exoneration” for former President Donald Trump.

THE FACTS: Although the historic 6-3 ruling is a win for Trump, he has not been exonerated and his legal troubles are far from over. A delay of his Washington trial on charges of election interference has been indefinitely extended as a result. Also, he still faces charges in two other criminal cases, and the verdicts already reached against him in a criminal and a civil case have not been overturned.

Barbara McQuade, a law professor at the University of Michigan and former U.S. attorney for the state’s Eastern District, told The Associated Press that Trump’s claim is “inaccurate for a number of reasons.”

“The court found immunity from prosecution, not exoneration,” she wrote in an email. “The court did not say that Trump’s conduct did not amount to criminal behavior. Just that prosecutors are not allowed to prosecute him for it because of the special role of a president and the need to permit him to make ‘bold’ and ‘fearless’ decisions without concern for criminal consequences.”

McQuade wrote that Trump’s case over classified documents found at his Mar-a-Lago estate won’t be affected, as it arose from conduct committed after he left the White House. She added that any impact on his New York hush money trial “seems unlikely” since the crimes were committed in a personal capacity.

“In addition, the Court’s opinion is solely focused on immunity for criminal conduct,” McQuade continued, explaining that it will not protect him from civil liability in his cases regarding defamatory statements about advice columnist E. Jean Carroll or fraudulent business practices conducted at the Trump Organization.

As for the January 6 case:

The case has not been dismissed. It was instead sent back to U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan, who must now “carefully analyze” whether other allegations involve official conduct for which the president would be immune from prosecution. The trial was supposed to have begun in March, but has been on hold since December to allow Trump to pursue his Supreme Court appeal.

However, the justices did knock out one aspect of the indictment, finding that Trump is “absolutely immune” from prosecution for alleged conduct involving discussions with the Justice Department.

The opinion also stated that Trump is “at least presumptively immune” from allegations that he tried to pressure Vice President Mike Pence on Jan. 6, 2021, to reject certification of Democrat Joe Biden’s electoral vote win. But prosecutors can try to make the case that Trump’s pressure on Pence can still be part of the case against him, Chief Justice John Roberts wrote.

It is all but certain that the ruling means Trump will not face trial in Washington ahead of the 2024 election, as the need for further analysis is expected to tie up the case for months with legal wrangling over whether actions in the indictment were official or unofficial, the AP has reported.

The man has luck, I tell you. I wonder if he could really shoot somebody in the middle of Fifth Avenue and not lose any support. His lawyers would probably find a way to show that that was part of his official duty as President. . .

*The Knesset (the parliament of Israel) has voted overwhelmingly against giving Palestinians their own state.

The Knesset early Thursday voted overwhelmingly to pass a resolution rejecting the establishment of a Palestinian state.

The resolution was co-sponsored by parties in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition together with right-wing parties from the opposition and even received support from Benny Gantz’s centrist National Unity party.

Lawmakers from Opposition Leader Yair Lapid’s center-left Yesh Atid party left the plenum to avoid backing the measure, even though he has spoken in favor of a two-state solution. The only ones to oppose the resolution were lawmakers from the Labor, Ra’am and Hadash-Ta’al parties.

The initiative was passed just days before Netanyahu’s visit to the US to address a joint session of Congress and meet with President Joe Biden at the White House. The move was likely to further irk Democrats uncomfortable with embracing an Israeli government that increasingly rejects a two-state solution.

Already in February, the Knesset passed a resolution sponsored by Netanyahu rejecting the establishment of a Palestinian state, but that motion specifically addressed the unilateral establishment of such a state amid reports that countries abroad were considering recognizing a Palestinian state absent a peace agreement with Israel.

This resolution — passed 68-9 — altogether rejects the establishment of a Palestinian state, even as part of a negotiated settlement with Israel.

“The Knesset of Israel firmly opposes the establishment of a Palestinian state west of Jordan. The establishment of a Palestinian state in the heart of the Land of Israel will pose an existential danger to the State of Israel and its citizens, perpetuate the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and destabilize the region,” the resolution stated.

“It will only be a matter of a short time until Hamas takes over the Palestinian state and turns it into a radical Islamic terror base, working in coordination with the Iranian-led axis to eliminate the State of Israel,” it continued. “Promoting the idea of ​​a Palestinian state at this time will be a reward for terrorism and will only encourage Hamas and its supporters to see this as a victory, thanks to the massacre of October 7, 2023, and a prelude to the takeover of jihadist Islam in the Middle East.”

Given that the proportion of both women and blacks have increased substantially at the company since 2019, it’s not clear why they’re deep-sixing the program.  Could it be legal issues? Regardless, it now seems that DEI is withering almost everywhere, including academia.  I’m wondering again whether fears of lawsuits is the reason. Note, though, that the first two companies to deep-six DEI were tractor companies: companies squarely representing Middle America.

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili got scared—by gentle Szaron!

Hili: You frightened me.
Szaron: Sorry, I didn’t mean to.
In Polish:
Hili: Wystraszyłeś mnie.
Szaron: Przepraszam, nie chciałem.

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

From Cat Memes (how true!):

A badly affixed sticker from Jesus of the Day. What do you think the name is?

From Strange, Stupid, or Silly Signs, a mean store:

From Masih: a woman speaks who is about to go to prison for 6 years. The video shows women burning their hijabs while crying “Woman, life, freedom!”

From my feed: kitten versus duck. I give duckling the edge:

Marmots from Malcolm. Is this two males battling over an observing female?

This is the last scene from Ricky Gervais’s fantastic series “After Life”, and to my mind is the best series ending ever. But it’s ineffably sad and always makes me tear up.

From Pinkah, pointing out an excellent piece, with a good lesson, by Sally Satel in the Washington Monthly. Read at the link.

From the Auschwitz Memorial, one that I retweeted:

Two tweets from Doctor Cobb. Look at those names! Raygun Steele, Cash Sweat, and so on. One might almost think they were made up. . .

And Republicans are wearing ear bandages! The reference on the right is to a related scene in The Life of Brian (see video here):

Today’s wildlife post misposted

July 18, 2024 • 10:15 am

This morning something got screwed up with the wildlife post, and so it was posted by accident when it was only partially written.  That means that the email went out with about 15% of the post included. If you read posts on the emails, then, I urge you to go back to Bruce Lyon’s original post, which has three videos and many photos of adorable Arctic fox cubs, at the new site.

I have no idea what happened, but it was a pain to restore the post. It is, however, well worth perusing, as those cubs are somethin