Wednesday: Hili Dialogue

September 11, 2024 • 7:00 am

Welcome to Wednesday, Sept. 11, 2025, and a Hump Day (“Laa Hump” in Manx).

Having not yet recovered from jet lag, Hilis are now posted by me, but will be truncated for a while until I get back on my feet.  Today we’ll have a couple of posts, including my take on the debate, which is pretty much the same as everyone else’s. And we have a readers’ wildlife feature, so please begin sending in your wildlife photos if you have them.  There’s 0nly one contribution the tank (today’s), which means that the feature will be sporadic until I begin getting new submissions.

First, today’s Hili dialogue, which began just with the words and one picture.

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili and Andrzej share a deep pessimism:

Hili: The world has gone crazy.
A: Not for the first time.
Hili: And not for the last time I’m afraid.
In Polish:
Hili: Świat zwariował.
Ja: Nie pierwszy raz.
Hili: Obawiam się, że nie ostatni.
And a photo of Szaron, who’s just had a cyst drained on his back for the second time, and is on antibiotics (the vet says that there’s no problem: it’s not a tumor). I’ll be visiting my human and cat friends in Dobrzyn in early December before heading to Katowice, Poland, for the Silesian Science Festival in Katowice, Poland (Dec. 7-9), where I’m to give two talks.

A few pictures and tweets:

From Strange, Stupid, or Silly Signs, contributed by Kathy Harmon.  If your car goes into the water, you may wish that they’d kept these door window-opening handles:

And America’s most famous celebrity tweeted this after last night’s debate:

From Masih, being interviewed by Jonathan Kay. I swear she seems to be wearing cowboy boots!

Yes, Brown University is indeed holding a university board vote on divesting from Israel. You can find Edelman’s WSJ letter here, or find it archived here. A quote from Edelman’s letter:

I don’t wish to imply that any real principles informed Brown’s decision to hold a divestment vote: It was made not based on facts or values but based on weakness toward student activists. The university leadership has for some reason chosen to reward, rather than punish, the activists for disrupting campus life, breaking school rules, and promoting violence and antisemitism at Brown.

Brown’s leadership admits the looming divestment vote is designed to buy good behavior from pro-Hamas activists, many of whom are adherents of the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement, which seeks the destruction of the Jewish state through political and economic warfare. BDS is an attempt to normalize antisemitism in mainstream American institutions. More than a dozen U.S. states have passed laws treating BDS as a form of discrimination.

. . .I don’t wish to imply that any real principles informed Brown’s decision to hold a divestment vote: It was made not based on facts or values but based on weakness toward student activists. The university leadership has for some reason chosen to reward, rather than punish, the activists for disrupting campus life, breaking school rules, and promoting violence and antisemitism at Brown.

Brown’s leadership admits the looming divestment vote is designed to buy good behavior from pro-Hamas activists, many of whom are adherents of the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement, which seeks the destruction of the Jewish state through political and economic warfare. BDS is an attempt to normalize antisemitism in mainstream American institutions. More than a dozen U.S. states have passed laws treating BDS as a form of discrimination.

From the Auschwitz Memorial, a Dutch girl apparently gassed to death soon after arrival in Auschwitz. She was 12.

I guess Shermer has turned seventy. . . .

20 thoughts on “Wednesday: Hili Dialogue”

  1. Glad PCC(E) is back! Magnificent adventure!

    I happened to enjoy the Hili Dialogues on their own – well done Professor Cobb – they have a depth to them that makes good use of the space ….

    Speaking of Shermer, he and Ben Shapiro recorded a great dialogue, well worth listening to IMHO.

    1. Yes, I was wondering about Hili suddenly losing her own, personal spotlight — she was getting so much love!

  2. George, my late, lamented tabby developed a persistent cyst on his back that required periodic draining. After age 18 it seemed to need it more often and by the time he was 22 it was twice per year. Basically it came down to it bothering me more than it did him, he seemed oblivious, whereas I always worried it may develop from benign.

    Welcome back Prof. From the posts I know that the jet jag weariness is well worth it, you obviously had a great time.

  3. Why is Swift more concerned about A.I. than any other false reporting, unless she’s on the censorship bandwagon.

    1. huh?

      a) as stated, she was recently a victim of an AI deep fake
      b) unlike any old false reporting, AI introduces false visuals and audio
      c) what that has to do with some purported “censorship bandwagon” escapes me

    2. Because the AI falsely represented her as endorsing a hate filled misogynistic racist bag of shit.

      I think she should sue for defamation.

    2. Edit: If your car goes in the water and you can’t open the door…
      My 2002 Tacoma has manual window cranks and that’s a feature, not a bug.
      After automatic transmissions, the electronic window controls were the next step in the evolution of driving from operating a machine to being coddled by a personal robot assistant.
      I hates them

    3. But if you accidentally drive your car into a river or a lack and it starts filling up with water, at least you can roll the window down and get out. If the car’s electrical system shorts out because of the water, you could be stuck in the car.

    4. Yes, it is and, as we all know, those damn electric windows are ALWAYS the first thing to malfunction in our vehicles. Who ever minded rolling down a window!?

  5. When I turned 75, years ago, I posted 75 is the New 75.
    That was 11 years ago – 86 is the New 90.

    1. Ha John! When I used to hear Simon and Garfunkel Bookends album in the late60’s and early 70’s I would picture, with some emotion, my elderly uncles sitting in the park. Now I picture, with even more emotion, my surviving friends and me.

  6. Yes, thank you Matthew for your daily Hili postings over the past month.

    I understand Mr. Edelman’s disgust with his fellow board members kowtowing to mob demands. But it is a shame that his reasoned voice will now be missing from the Boardroom. I always believe it better to continue to be in the room to say your piece and have some authority in the decision-making than to make a one-time loud display and then have your voice missing from around the table on future questions.

    1. I agree that it’s better to stay on the Board and have a voice if it will make a difference. But I can also understand Edelman leaving the board if he came to realize that he could no longer make a contribution—if he determined that his voice would no longer be heard. Edelman’s voice may be more effective off the Board than on it at this point. This isn’t a good look for Brown, as they seem to be abandoning principle for expediency. I hope that prospective students, parents, and donors take notice, but I suspect that Brown’s calculation is that “this too will pass” and that their decision will soon be forgotten.

  7. Did anyone else try to access the archived version of Edelman’s letter and get some sort of puzzle (that I’m too stupid to solve) as another roadblock?
    Long story short: I couldn’t read the letter. I’m undecided when it comes to using resignation as a form of protest. I feel we’re conceding a lot of ground. It reminds me up kids who topple the gameboard when they’re losing. I’m guilty of bolting rather than struggling and I see it as a weakness in my character.

    1. I got the puzzle too, and cannot move the damn jigsaw piece, so I gave the archived link. I guess for some reason the WSJ evokes this thing. If you want the letter, email me and I will send you a text version.

Comments are closed.