Monday: Hili dialogue

May 19, 2025 • 6:45 am

Welcome to the top o’ the week: it’s Monday, May 19, 2025, and National Devil’s Food Cake Day (remember, there’s also Angel Food Cake). The origin of the name is obscure, for this is simply a chocolate cake, usually darker than a normal one and frosted with chocolate, comme ça:

Maggio7 from Troy, MI, US, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Wikipedia says this:

The name probably had several sources of inspiration, including the culinary term deviled to describe flavorful foods like deviled eggs and the contrast of this dark, dense, flavorful cake with the light and airy angel food cake. The name has inspired humorous comments; one of the first printed recipes declares it to be “Fit for Angels”, and another early recipe recommends topping it with divinity frosting.

But if you look up the culinary term deviled, you get “grilled with a piquant sauce”!

It’s also World Family Doctor Day, but not much else.

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

Da Nooz:

*Joe Biden has been diagnosed with an aggressive form of prostate cancer, and it’s metastasized to his bones. As they said on the news last night, “It’s not curable, but it’s treatable.”

The diagnosis came after Mr. Biden reported urinary symptoms, which led doctors to find a “small nodule” on his prostate. Mr. Biden’s cancer is “characterized by a Gleason score of 9” with “metastasis to the bone,” the statement said.

The Gleason score is used to describe how prostate cancers look under a microscope; 9 and 10 are the most aggressive. The cancer is Stage 4, which means it has spread.

“While this represents a more aggressive form of the disease, the cancer appears to be hormone-sensitive which allows for effective management,” according to the statement from Mr. Biden’s office, which was unsigned. “The president and his family are reviewing treatment options with his physicians.”

This is very sad to hear, especially given that two of his children also died, one of brain cancer and the other in an accident that also killed Biden’s first wife. He’s also had two dangerous brain aneurysms.  The guy has been through a lot.

*Boss vs. Boss: Trump is trying to get Bruce Springsteen to shut up. It isn’t working (article archived here).

President Trump warned Bruce Springsteen to “keep his mouth shut” until he gets back to the U.S. The rock icon is showing no signs of backing down, delivering a fiery performance from a stage in this city Saturday that reflected the stark political divide in America.

Springsteen echoed earlier criticism of the Trump administration Saturday, saying a “rogue” government was rolling over U.S. lawmakers and institutions designed to keep authoritarianism in check.

“Things are happening right now that are altering the very nature of our country’s democracy,” Springsteen told the audience. To drive the point home, he dedicated one of his songs to our “Dear Leader,” an allusion to the honorific set aside for former North Korean ruler Kim Jong Il.

A similar broadside last week prompted Trump to take aim at Springsteen in a social-media post: “I see that Highly Overrated Bruce Springsteen goes to a Foreign Country to speak badly about the President of the United States. Never liked him, never liked his music, or his Radical Left Politics and, importantly, he’s not a talented guy.”

The escalating confrontation between the president and Springsteen is part of a broader clash between Trump and some pop-culture icons that goes back to the president’s first term. Trump has repeatedly assailed Taylor Swift, who endorsed Kamala Harris in last year’s election but hasn’t engaged in the sort of sharp-tongued criticism delivered by Springsteen.

Trump lashed out at Swift in a separate post Friday: “Has anyone noticed that, since I said ‘I HATE TAYLOR SWIFT,’ she’s no longer ‘HOT?’”

. . . . few artists have been as blunt as Springsteen, who for decades has cast himself as a champion of the working class and, in recent decades, has regularly campaigned with Democratic Party presidential candidates.

Still, Springsteen has generally been able to straddle the partisan divide in America. His 1984 anthem “Born in the U.S.A.” was widely embraced by Republicans including Ronald Reagan, despite its lyrics’ searing criticism of U.S. foreign and domestic policy. Springsteen also counts New Jersey’s former Gov. Chris Christie, a Republican and longtime presidential aspirant from Springsteen’s home state, among his biggest fans.

Still, despite Springsteen’s support, the Democratic Party has seen its longtime strength among blue-collar workers eroded by the rise of Trump. The president has transcended his own gilded upbringing to become a hero to many voters across the Rust Belt states that Springsteen has made a career of singing about—including Youngstown, a working-class city in Ohio that was the eponymous subject of one of the songs Springsteen played on Saturday.

Keep on speaking your mind, Bruce!  Trump can’t do anything to you, because you have freedom of speech. It’s clear that Trump has no ability to ignore criticism, but always answers it with juvenile name-calling.

*From the NYT: “Hollywood couldn’t imagine a star like this one” (archived here). Who is the star? Why, it’s Desi Arnaz from “I Love Lucy”, a show I regularly watched as a kid.

Seventy-five years ago, a fading redheaded movie star and her itinerant bandleader husband were searching desperately for a way to save their careers — and their marriage. She was starring in a network radio show in Hollywood and he was a musician on the road all the time, so they rarely saw each other. In their 10 years together, she’d already filed for divorce once, and was nearing her wits’ end.

The movie star was Lucille Ball and the bandleader, of course, was Desi Arnaz. In 1950, a glimmer of hope appeared for the couple: CBS intended to transfer Ball’s radio show, “My Favorite Husband,” to the untested new medium of television. But there was a problem: Ball wanted to make the move only if Arnaz — who’d helped start the conga dance craze in nightclubs in the 1930s and fueled America’s demand for Latin music after World War II — could play that husband on TV. The network and prospective sponsors believed the public would never accept a thick-accented Latino as the spouse of an all-American girl. “I was always the guy that didn’t fit,” Arnaz would later tell Ed Sullivan.

Arnaz, a Cuban immigrant and self-taught showman, had an idea: The couple would undertake an old-fashioned vaudeville tour of major cities around the country. He and Ball would demonstrate the real-life chemistry that he knew would click with Americans if they only had a chance to see the act.

Miracle of miracles, it worked. Critics and audiences from coast to coast raved at the couple’s onstage antics, as Lucy clowned with a battered cello while Desi sang and drummed his heart out. A.H. Weiler of The Times pronounced the pair “a couple who bid fair to become the busiest husband-and- wife team extant.” Soon enough, they were.

. . . Arnaz’s differences — the very elements that made network chiefs hesitant to feature him — became his greatest strengths, as his charming portrayal of the solid, bread-winning paterfamilias of an intermarried family broke new ground in television and made Ricky Ricardo a beloved figure to the 30 million people who watched his show each week. He was the one TV star who did not look or sound like any other — he was forever telling Lucy she had some “’splainin’ to do” — an immigrant who became the all-American man. The show’s sponsor had been so skeptical about Arnaz’s appeal that the contract with Desilu stipulated that Ricky could sing only if it was absolutely necessary to the plot. The audience’s near-immediate embrace of Arnaz and his music made that a moot point and the clause was eventually dropped.

The title of the inside article is “What Desi Arnaz could teach Hollywood today,” and the lesson is obvious:

He looked and sounded nothing like the preconceived notion that the entertainment business had of a successful star. So he changed the way Hollywood did business, and whom we can imagine as stars. Anyone who can’t understand that has some ’splainin’ to do.

Indeed (and remember Fred and Ethel?)!  I loved that show and knew none of the above. Here’s a short clip of scenes featuring the pair:

*On his Substack site, the well-known physician and writer Eric Topol discusses the first human to be treated for genetic disease with in vivo “CRISPR 2.0 personalized genome editing.” (h/t reader Gingerbaker).  The genetic disease was “severe carbamoyl-phosphate synthetase 1 deficiency, a disease with an estimated 50% mortality in early infancy.”  After determining the infant’s defects, they developed an infusion that was targeted at the prcise base pair that was defective, and then gave it repeatedly to the one-year old. From Topol’s report:

This was unique in many respects. KJ Muldoon was born in August 2024 with lethargy, rigid muscles and other worrisome symptoms. Genome sequencing revealed this was due to a severe urea-cycle disorder that leads to accumulation of ammonia and death in about half of infants affected, and short of death, the high levels of ammonia cause lethargy, seizures, coma, and brain damage. The disease-causing gene was CPS1 (carbamoyl-phosphate synthetase 1 deficiency), a 1 in a 1.3 million births genetic (ultra-rare) disease. KJ was hospitalized and awaited a liver transplant, listed at 5 month of age, if a donor organ became available. In the meantime, therapy consisted of a low protein diet and ammonia lowering (“nitrogen scavenger”) medications.

To get to the basis of KJ’s genomic defect and attempt a cure, the team at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) and Penn Medicine (led by Drs. Rebecca Ahrens-Nicklas and Kiran Musunuru) sequenced KJ and his parents. The father had a truncating CSP1 variant (Q335X) and the mother a different variant, E714X). They developed an adenosine base editor (called K-abe, schematic below) to specifically correct KJ’s defective CPS1 gene. The approach taken was particularly rigorous and comprehensive. Within 6 months they tested the editor in cells with the genomic variants, in mice (bred to specifically have KJ’s CPS1 mutation), in non-human primates, and got FDA approval to give it. It was administered intravenously using delivery via mRNA + nanoparticles beginning in February 2025 and then with 2 subsequent doses. The base editor used was directed against the paternal mutation (a G→A stop variant) at the Q335X site of the CSP1 gene.

What is missing to date is a liver biopsy, due to risk to the infant, to prove the targeted CSP1 editing. There is also lacking evidence of a cure—”just” a reduced need for medications and the restrictive diet. But also encouraging is that KJ is now reaching developmental milestones and although he sustained two viral infections, both were without an ammonia crisis. Further doses of the base editor can be administered with the mRNA approach (rather than a virus vector that can induce an immune response). Regarding uncertainties, we also don’t know about the durability of the editing, any mosaicism impact (only some liver cells edited), and the potential of any off-target effects (rigorously assessed in the 6-months sprint of lab experiments but not yet in KJ).

It seemed to work, though of course fixing a genetic disease by changing some of the cells isn’t guaranteed to be a permanent fix, as there are other, unfixed cells that keep replicating. I’m not sure whether the infant will require lifelong infusions, or whether the disease has bad effects only in infancy, but it’s remarkable that you can target liver cells and change a single base pair in the DNA (out of 3 billion bases) in an attempt to cure a genetic disease. Topol adds this:

This case of KJ represents a human first—-personalized, N-of-1 genomic intervention with base editing (CRISPR 2.0), in the body (in vivo), to directly fix a pathogenic (disease-causing) gene mutation. This bespoke intervention was accomplished in a remarkably compressed timeline that included rigorous assessment in cell and animal models, along with regulatory approval to proceed. It embodies something in medicine we have not and could not have done previously. It involved a dedicated team at CHOP and Penn and collaborators spread out around the world.

There are many specific aspects of the case that deserve attention. The fact that this work culminated from many years of NIH supported research, including the current report, at a time when we’re seeing profound and indiscriminate cutting of such funds

Here’s the paper from NEJM:

There is a lot more of this to come, and it’s amazing that we’re living in an age in which gene editing (which arose as a fortuitous byproduct of pure scientific curiosity about hot-spring bacteria) can be used to ameliorate or cure genetic diseases.

*The Times of Israel reports that the body of Hamas leader Muhammad Sinwar, the target of an attack about a week ago, has (according to a Saudi report) been found in a tunnel in Gaza. The third Sinwar brother, Zakaria, was killed by an airstrike on Sunday night. (Some time ago Yahyta Sinwar, the leader of Hamas, was also killed by the IDF).  The IDF reported the strike, but they don’t take a kill for granted unless they’re sure, and I’m accepting this Saudi version.

A series of Israeli airstrikes last week killed Muhammad Sinwar, the de facto commander of Hamas in Gaza, according to reports on Sunday that said his body was found in a Khan Younis tunnel.

Muhammad Sinwar was the younger brother of the former Hamas leader in Gaza, Yahya Sinwar, who was killed by the IDF in southern Gaza last October.

According to a separate report, Zakaria Sinwar, another brother, was killed in an Israeli airstrike on Saturday night. [JAC: I’ve heard rumors that Zakaria was in the morgue, showed signs of life, and has been taken to the hospital. Stay tuned.]

A series of Israeli airstrikes last week killed Muhammad Sinwar, the de facto commander of Hamas in Gaza, according to reports on Sunday that said his body was found in a Khan Younis tunnel.

The strikes that reportedly killed Muhammad Sinwar on Tuesday targeted an underground command compound below the European Hospital where he was believed to have been sheltering.

The IDF later bombed the area several more times, in an apparent attempt to prevent anyone from approaching the tunnel.

According to the Saudi channel Al-Hadath, his body was recently recovered along with the remains of 10 of his aides.

The report said that there was evidence that the commander of the Rafah Brigade in Hamas’s military wing, Mohammad Shabana, was also killed in the strike.

What effect, if any, these strikes will have on Hamas remains to be seen. After all, some predicted that Hamas would give up after Yahya Sinwar was killed. It did not. But it’s clear that Israel’s big push now is designed to finish the job, and may have led to the proposal in the next item.

*In addition, Israel and the Qataris (and, “indirectly,” Hamas) are pondering one war-ending plan that would return all the hostages (dead or alive) and get Hamas to give up:

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office says Israel’s hostage negotiation team in Doha is exhausting “every possibility” for a deal, including a potential agreement that would see the end of fighting, in an apparent shift in approach.

The PMO says that the team is working toward the possibility of either US special envoy Steve Witkoff’s proposal for a short-term ceasefire and limited hostage exchange, or an agreement to end the war through a comprehensive release of all hostages in Gaza and the complete surrender and exile of Hamas.

“Under the prime minister’s direction, even at this hour, the negotiating team in Doha is working to exhaust every possibility for a deal — whether according to the Witkoff outline or within the framework of ending the war, which would include the release of all hostages, the exile of Hamas terrorists, and the disarmament of the Gaza Strip,” writes the PMO in a statement.

. . . . Israel has consistently said that the war will not end without the destruction of Hamas as a military and governing power. Netanyahu has previously insisted on only agreeing to a temporary ceasefire of roughly 45 days, which would begin with Hamas releasing about 10 hostages.

Will Hamas give up and go into exile? This doesn’t seem likely, as they always say they value death more than the IDF values life, and many truly believe that if they die while “resisting,” they will go to heaven and get those virgins. But surely some members of Hamas don’t want to die. See also this archived article about the IDF’s “excpanded ground operations” in the NYT.

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili is impatient:

Hili: I’m sitting here and waiting.
A: What for?
Hili: For somebody to come and fill the water bowl.
In Polish:
Hili: Siedzę tu i czekam.
Ja: Na co?
Hili: Aż ktoś przyjdzie i uzupełni wodę w tej misce.
And a picture of Szaron, the Dark Tabby:

 

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From the 2025 Darwin Awards!!/Epic Fails!!:

From Annie:

From Cats:

Masih is posting again, though they’re mostly reposts since she’s recovering from surgery. Here’s an old one but of course still relevant to the patriarchal Iranian regime:

Another instance of deplatforming tweeted by Nicholas Christakis at Yale. Salman Rushdie was scheduled to give the commencement speech at Claremont-McKenna College. From the link in the tweet:

The cancellation came as student and local Muslim advocacy groups called the author’s presence “disrespectful” after he said pro-Palestinian protests across college campuses were akin to supporting “a fascist terrorist group,” The Guardian reported last year.

“I’m surprised, relieved and happy,” Claremont Colleges Muslim Students Association president Kumail Afshar said about Rushdie’s decision.

Rushdie, an Indian-born British and American atheist, was forced into hiding by the outrage over his 1988 novel The Satanic Verses, in which he suggests Islam’s Prophet Muhammad may have entertained polytheism.

The College supported Rushdie, but I suspect he was scared of being attacked again:

Talking about losing the plot, look what Naomi Wolf said (“Tim Onion” is Ben Collins, owner of The Onion):

“Since I’ve rearranged my whole identity to call most people unclean and filled with vampire blood, their hugs seem less sincere. Separately, I have discovered the vampire-blooded have a new disease called Soft Hug Disease.”

— Tim Onion (@bencollins.bsky.social) 2025-05-17T17:56:07.455Z

From Simon:

When you post the same thing on X and Bluesky

— Oded Rechavi (@odedrechavi.bsky.social) 2024-11-12T19:52:01.542Z

From my feed; I hope this cured the mantis and it was let go. But crikey, look at that thing!

From the Auschwitz Memorial; one that I reposted:

A Dutch Jewish girl was gassed to death upon arriving at Auschwitz. She was 11, and woiuld be 94 today had she lived.

— Jerry Coyne (@evolutionistrue.bsky.social) 2025-05-19T09:39:28.249Z

From Matthew via Phil Plait; a bad joke. My own personal version, which is mine, is opening a fusion Caribbean-Jewish restaurant called “Bermuda Schwartz.”

I'm gonna open a fusion Italian-Peruvian-Jewish restaurant called Matzah Pizzu

— Phil Plait (@philplait.bsky.social) 2025-01-07T15:25:53.020Z

And a relatively newly discovered jellyfish:

The pink meanie jellyfish was only described in the year 2000 (they even got their own new family!) and we’re totally here for it. The pink meanie hunts the moon jellyfish and helps keep their blooms in check! #coralcitycamera

— Coral City Camera (@coralcitycamera.bsky.social) 2024-11-12T14:37:17.997Z

20 thoughts on “Monday: Hili dialogue”

    1. But can you get Cosher Conch Chowder at any of them? That would be my signature dish at Bermuda Schwartz.

  3. A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
    Red roses for young lovers. French beans for longstanding relationships. -Ruskin Bond, author (b. 19 May 1934)

  4. “.. you had to put on your windshield wipers to get literally the oil slick off the window. That’s why I and so damn many other people I grew up with have cancer.”

    -President Joe Biden
    Speech on Climate Change
    Somerset, MA
    20 July 2022

    Approx 7:35 in this video: youtu.be/YxIjftpHJvU?si=w1dGDC8wLUck1n7o

  5. MAGA is immediately seizing on the idea that Biden has had prostate cancer for a long time and concealed that fact. This is one of the very few conspiracy theories I would give some credence to.

    What I’d really like there to be talk about is placing age limits on people who are eligible for the presidency. In my opinion, 70 – or even 65 – should be the top age of anyone who takes office.

    1. President Biden has probably had prostate cancer for a long time, whether he knew it or not. It’s the nature of the disease to be insidious. It probably didn’t contribute to his frailty — the old men who get it are often frail by then. It almost certainly wasn’t the cause of his apparent and fluctuating mental decline unless he was taking narcotics for painful bone metastases.

    2. Agree, I could get behind a ban on standing in any election occurring on or after a 65th (or so) birthday. (I could easily be persuaded to make that 60!). By this time in my life (65) I want to be voting for people who are younger than I am.

  6. Yes. I read the story about the child treated for the often-fatal genetic disease. The piece I read (I’m pretty sure) said that the disease had been “cured,” which was suspect. If the infusion was injected into the child’s liver, wouldn’t it fix only the genes with which it came in contact and their successors? This would imply that cells not fixed would continue to divide and occupy at least part of the child’s liver. Maybe the infusion was enough to convert a large enough population of cells to limit the child’s disease. Will the effect last? Will the bad cells overtake the good ones eventually?

    1. Norman, carbamoyl phosphate synthase deficiency is inherited as an autosomal recessive disease. Heterozygotes are known to be unaffected phenotypically because one active CPS gene in each liver cell provides enough of the enzyme to maintain the urea cycle in that cell. So it is reasonable to hope that the CRISPR vector will cure enough liver cells to induce what amounts to a mosaic state: enough hepatocytes will be changed from homozygous mutants to heterozygotes to sustain life and brain development. The preclinical work suggests this is realistic. (The two parents have different mutations in their defective alleles. The CRISPR is directed at only one mutation.)

      As the infant’s liver grows by cell division the CRISPRed hepatocytes should (unless there is unexpected toxicity) keep pace with the native ones and maintain biochemical effectiveness. If not, further infusions are in principle possible because the patient’s immune system doesn’t raise inactivating antibodies against the lipid mRNA carrier as would happen with virus vectors. The definitive treatment of the condition is liver transplantation and even if CRISPR “only” buys him enough time to be big and strong enough, that’s still a win. So would partial effectiveness that allows the brain to be fully protected with achievable doses of ammonia scavengers.

      (The details are from the NEJM article.)

    1. HA! Nup, Jezgrove, not clicking or falling for that. I have more than enough to hate read without that hideous individual. 🙂
      best,

      D.A.
      NYC

      1. I certainly don’t blame you – he’s a nasty, self-righteous little man.

    1. The treatment was not a vaccine. Also, the alternative was a certain early death.

      1. Yep, I know that – but for the benighted, they won’t read beyond “mRNA”.

  9. Anybody notice that Muhammad Sinwa was hiding under a hospital? Anybody? Buehler? Buehler?

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