Saturday: Hili dialogue

July 26, 2025 • 6:45 am

Welcome to Caturday Saturday, July 26, and we’re almost into August already! It’s National Day of the Cowboy, and, since it’s Caturday, I’ll show you an ad that combines both. You’ve probably seen it before, but watch it again. It is, in my view, the best television ad ever made:

It’s also National Bagelfest Day, National Coffee Milkshake Day, and World Tofu Day.  Do not spurn the tasteless tofu: it’s all about texture.

Da Nooz:

*As I mentioned yesterday, Trump’s pressure on both Columbia University and the University of Pennsylvania have caused these schools to cave: that is, to avoid losing federal money, they’ll abide by some stipulation of the Administration (article archived here):

White House officials have reached deals with two Ivy League universities and are now armed with a proven strategy to pressure other schools to rewrite their policies and reorient campus politics.

First, they strip away hundreds of millions of dollars in research funding, based on vague accusations that a university abets antisemitism or unlawfully supports transgender rights. Then they make demands, wearing down school administrators until making concessions to the White House appears to be the only way forward.

The strategy worked twice in the last month, with Columbia University and the University of Pennsylvania. That leaves at least five more embattled schools — Brown, Cornell, Harvard, Northwestern and Princeton — with decisions to make about whether to fight or to bargain.

The White House has touted the deals with Columbia and Penn as victories. But they also offer frameworks for wary college administrators as they consider which sacrifices are worth making to try to placate a president bent on bringing elite institutions to heel. Now Columbia has shown that a fragile peace can be purchased.

Under the deal announced Wednesday night, Columbia will pay $221 million and stand by an array of previous pledges, like limits on protests and greater internal oversight of certain academic programs. But it secured a provision saying that no part of the agreement “shall be construed as giving the United States authority to dictate faculty hiring, university hiring, admissions decisions, or the content of academic speech.”

Penn did not agree to pay anything, but promised, among other terms, that its athletics policies would align with the Trump administration’s beliefs about participation by transgender people.

“Two hundred million dollars is not a lot of money when you have billions at stake, and any corporate person will tell you that,” said Donna E. Shalala, who was health secretary under President Bill Clinton and has led four schools, including the University of Miami and the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

“Basically, they’re cutting their losses and ensuring their future — for at least a short period of time.”

Assessments like Dr. Shalala’s are deeply unnerving to many people in academia. Professors have spent months warning about how history shows that aspiring autocrats seek to tame and bully universities. They worry that settlements like the ones signed by Columbia and Penn will encourage the White House to conjure reasons to make more demands, and give administrators on campuses across the country cover to make agreements that could poison American higher education.

If this bullying turns out to be legal, and I don’t like it (those who suffer are, by and large, not those who are accused), then Harvard may have to cave as well. Fortunately, the University of Chicago has so far avoided this kind of sanction, but I have my fears. . .

*And the WSJ reports that Trump, having broken the spine of Columbia and Penn, is now pursuing other schools, including the big prize: Harvard:

The White House is seeking fines from several universities it says failed to stop antisemitism on campus, including hundreds of millions of dollars from Harvard University, in exchange for allowing the schools to access federal funding, according to a person familiar with the matter.

The deal that the Trump administration struck with Columbia University on Wednesday is now a blueprint for negotiations with other universities, a White House official said. Columbia agreed to pay $200 million to the federal government over three years to settle allegations it violated antidiscrimination law and to restore its federal grants.

The administration is in talks with several universities, including Cornell, Duke, Northwestern and Brown, the person familiar with the talks said, though it sees striking a deal with Harvard, America’s oldest university, as a key target.

The White House hopes to extract hundreds of millions of dollars from Harvard, in a deal that would make Columbia’s $200 million payment look like peanuts, the person said.

Harvard declined to comment. It has pursued a different strategy than Columbia amid Trump’s attacks, choosing to sue the administration in federal court. Billions of dollars in Harvard’s federal research money remains frozen, and the university has been cut off from future grants.

A spokesperson for Cornell declined to comment. Brown, Northwestern and Duke didn’t respond to requests for comment.

I’m curious to know if Harvard will continue to fight this out in court or will ultimately capitulate. If the courts rule that this kind of blackmail is legal, then Harvard will have little choice but to strike a deal with Trump.

*Damn Nellie Bowles! She keeps going on vacation and leaving others, far less snarky and humorous, to do her weekly news summary at the Free Press. The column this week, called “Skipping town,” is by Will Rahn. Well, I’ll still steal a few items, but I wish Nellie would stay put.

→ Et tu, Rupert? Trump keeps insisting there’s nothing to see here, and if you keep asking questions you’re just a Democrat agent, and it’s making even the most conspiracy-skeptical among us believe that he has something to hide. Fresh off a Wall Street Journal story about a birthday letter Trump allegedly sent to Epstein, the president is so hopping mad he’s suing everyone in sight. That includes Rupert Murdoch, whose paper also revealed that the president was warned in advance that his name appeared multiple times in the Epstein files.

That warning, as delivered by Attorney General Pam Bondi, reportedly came in May. The White House, of course, called it a “fake news story,” and the Journal notes that Trump’s name appearing in the files doesn’t necessarily mean he did anything illegal. It just means that he’s in there. Okay, so it’s illegal to have friends with islands now?! Geez.

The paper likewise reports that FBI Director Kash Patel and his deputy, the erstwhile conservative radio star Dan Bongino, want to release more of the documents. Bongino in particular is worried the administration’s refusal to get more info out will damage his standing with his fans—which is just what you want the FBI deputy director concerned with. God forbid he solves a crime; it may cannibalize his engagement.

→ Melania’s moment: Trump’s enduring (and somewhat endearing) obsession with the Kennedy Center—a glittering Potomac palace where Washingtonians go to feel cultured—is finally starting to pay off. Before Mike Johnson sent them home, House Republicans on the powerful Appropriations Committee introduced an amendment that would rename the Kennedy Center’s opera house after Trump’s third wife and our first lady: Melania Trump.

Now, with the House on the lam until September, we have no idea whether this will actually get done. The language renaming the opera house after Melania was tucked into a routine spending bill for the Interior Department and related agencies by Idaho Rep. Mike Simpson. He says it’s an “excellent way to recognize her appreciation for the arts.”

This would normally be an opportunity for Democrats to trot out a bunch of elderly Kennedys on the Sunday shows to say such a move denigrates JFK’s legacy and this isn’t why their grandfather made a deal with the mob or whatever. But all the old Kennedys—your Eunices, Teds, and Ethels—are dead. They don’t even have anyone in Congress anymore. And the most prominent member of America’s most prominent clan of Irish hooligans is, of course, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who is having way too much fun banning food dyes to weigh in against his boss here.

I don’t see Rahn mention that Beigitte Macron has three children by her previous husband. Isn’t that worth mentioning? I hope Macron sues the pants off the odious Owens.

Rahn thinks that they should “throw Melania a bone,” but I think this naming is horrific. It’s superfluous and stupid. Melania Trump has not been a particularly outspoken patron of the arts.

→ Sacre bleu balls! Far-right podcaster and reliable TGIF content generator Candace Owens is being sued by French president Emmanuel Macron and his wife Brigitte for defamation. Her offense? Insisting that Brigitte Macron is actually a man.

Owens devoted a whole eight-episode podcast series to her belief that Madame Macron is trans or something. That is, objectively speaking, a very funny thing to do. Not that we believe it, but credit it where it’s due: Owens might be insane, she might be an insipid troll and bigot, but getting millions of people to spend their precious free time watching YouTube videos about how the French president’s wife is or was a dude is some kind of accomplishment.

“After looking into this, I would stake my entire professional reputation on the fact that Brigitte Macron is in fact a man,” Owens said on X last year. And she might get the chance to prove it in a Delaware court, which is where the Macrons’ filed their suit.

Now, I’m no expert on defamation, though I was bullied in middle school, so I have some thoughts. America has a long and proud history of letting insane people say whatever they want. So I guess my money is on Owens winning this one? I don’t know. It’s just hard for me to imagine a jury

*While Trump is busy demanding that sports teams re-assume names that used to be seen as disparaging, like “The Washington Redskins,”, he’s also ordered U.S. National Parks and monuments to remove material that is “anti-American.” He presumably means anything that would highlight the racism and bigotry in a lot of American history:

At Cape Hatteras National Seashore in North Carolina, the Trump administration is set to review, and possibly remove or alter, signs about how climate change is causing sea levels to rise.

At Independence National Historical Park in Philadelphia, the administration will soon decide whether to take down exhibits on the brutality of slavery.

And at Castillo de San Marcos National Monument in Florida, Trump officials are scrutinizing language about the imprisonment of Native Americans inside the Spanish stone fortress.

According to internal documents reviewed by The New York Times, employees of the National Park Service have flagged descriptions and displays at scores of parks and historic sites for review in connection with President Trump’s directive to remove or cover up materials that “inappropriately disparage Americans.”

In an executive order in March, the president instructed the Park Service to review plaques, films and other materials presented to visitors at 433 sites around the country, with the aim of ensuring they emphasize the “progress of the American people” and the “grandeur of the American landscape.”

Employees had until last week to flag materials that could be changed or deleted, and the Trump administration said it would remove all “inappropriate” content by Sept. 17, according to the internal agency documents. The public also has been asked to submit potential changes.

In response, a coalition of librarians, historians and others organized through the University of Minnesota has launched a campaign called “Save Our Signs.” It is asking the public to take photos of existing content at national parks and upload it. The group is using those images to build a public archive before any materials may be altered. So far, it has more than 800 submissions.

Since I’ve been gone for three weeks, it looks as though Trump has now assumed the power to do whatever he wants, including whitewashing American history. That’s not to say that the 1619 Project is accurate, but who can doubt that American history involved a ton of oppression of minority groups, including Asians, who have largely overcome that bigotry.  But our history should not be redacted to make American history look more sanitized than it was.

*Finally, zookeepers in Prague are using vulture puppets to save rejected baby vultures:

 Zookeepers in Prague sometimes have to become puppeteers to save newborn birds rejected by their parents. This was the case for a lesser yellow-headed vulture chick hatched three weeks ago.

Bird keeper Antonín Vaidl said Thursday that when a dummy egg disappeared from the nest, it signaled to keepers that the parents were not ready to care for their two babies, despite doing so in 2022 and 2023.

The first-born is being kept in a box and fed using a puppet designed to mimic a parent bird, while another is expected to hatch in the next few days.

Vaidl said the puppet is needed to make sure the bird will be capable of breeding, which it won’t if it gets used to human interaction.

He explained that the puppet doesn’t have to be a perfect replica of an adult bird because the chick responds to certain signals, such as the pale orange coloration on its featherless head and neck.

Lesser yellow-headed vultures live in the wild in Latin America and Mexico. Prague Zoo is one of only three zoos in Europe that breed them.

In the past, the park successfully applied this treatment to save the critically endangered Javan green magpie and two rhinoceros hornbill chicks. The puppet-feeding technique is applicable for birds that live in pairs.

Here’s a video, and it looks like it’s working!

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili seems to have taken over Malgorzata’s chair:

Andrzej: Do you prefer that chair now?
Hili: Yes, I think it’s better here.

In Polish:

Ja: Wolisz ten fotel teraz?
Hili: Tak, wolę ten fotel teraz.

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

From Cinemma:

From Jesus of the Day:

From Stacy:

Masih has a tough problem now that the U.S. and Israel bombed Iran, creating more sympathy for the theocratic regime she’s trying to overthrow. But she’s still posting testimony from women shot in the eye while protesting.  These women break my heart, but they are STRONG.

From Luana. You can read Colin’s whole piece here.

From Barry. Yes, they should eat some fruit before they die, though they used to be called “vinegar flies”:

giving all the lab fruit flies some fruit to eat for the first time in their lives, just to feel something

— Caroline Bartman (@cbartman.bsky.social) 2025-07-11T11:01:24.214Z

From Malcolm: Look at the size of this tree!

From my feed: dog and dolphin pals:

One I reposted from the Auschwitz Memorial:

Gassed to death within an hour or two of arriving at Auschwitz, this Hungarian girl was only two? Her crime: she was Jewish.

— Jerry Coyne (@evolutionistrue.bsky.social) 2025-07-26T10:30:14.746Z

Two posts from Professor Cobb. I think this first one makes a fallacious argument, because things have changed once you’re alive and have been here!

. . . and a mystery fossil. Any guesses?

What the??? At a Miocene fossil track site there's a trackway from huge arthropod moving sideways (like a crab). If it was an insect it would've been 50-70 cm long based on estimates. It's freshwater/marshy deposit. No idea what made it. link.springer.com/article/10.1…

— Fossillocator (@fossillocator.bsky.social) 2025-07-19T17:15:23.371Z

 

22 thoughts on “Saturday: Hili dialogue”

  1. I have no formal background in American history, but speaking simply as a white boy who grew up in the segregated schools and neighborhoods in Virginia in the 50’s and 60’s, I found Frederick Douglas’s second autobiography, “My Bondage and My Freedom” (1855) to be one of the most informative and understandable books on slavery that I have ever read. I recently read the Penguin Classic version, skipping the editor’s introduction until I had finished Douglas’ writing, reading the Intro later as a retrospective. Douglas has a range of experiences from a slave’s life in Maryland, both agrarian and urban, and eventually finds a freedom of types in the North, but also compares and contrasts the border state slavery of Maryland with that of the deep south and the not total freedom in the North. I am sure it will end up on rump’s and Heritage’s banned books list, but (or therefore!) I highly recommend it. Any readers who are actually trained in American history might comment and correct my impressions.

  2. Interesting that you claim Asians have overcome racism. I’ll leave the Harvard reference alone.

    More importantly, the question that needs to asked is: How did they do it?

    1. The success of Asians in American life is broad and deep. Essentially every statistic (household income, college graduation, crime, school discipline, etc.) show Asian success.

      My favorite statistic is murder. In one year, 2 Japanese-Americans were charged with murder. Not 200. Not 2,000,000. Just 2.

      Of course, Harvard discriminated against Asians (see the SFFA case). However, Asians were 22.6% of entering students in 2022. Are Asians 22% of the population?

      How is an interesting question.

      I would say a combination of hard work and education. My favorite Asian-American is Amy Chua (“Tiger Mom”). Note that her father invented part of transistor theory.

      There is nothing new about Asian success. In 1966, the NYT published as article titled “Success Story, Japanese-American Style”. Even that story, was hardly the beginning. In the early 1900s Asian students were know to be doing rather well in San Francisco school. Before that we have the Chinese who successfully built the Western part of the Transcontinental Railway.

  3. “He presumably means anything that would highlight the racism and bigotry in a lot of American history”

    We could start by looking at the executive order:
    “Section 1. Purpose and Policy. Over the past decade, Americans have witnessed a concerted and widespread effort to rewrite our Nation’s history, replacing objective facts with a distorted narrative driven by ideology rather than truth. This revisionist movement seeks to undermine the remarkable achievements of the United States by casting its founding principles and historical milestones in a negative light. Under this historical revision, our Nation’s unparalleled legacy of advancing liberty, individual rights, and human happiness is reconstructed as inherently racist, sexist, oppressive, or otherwise irredeemably flawed. Rather than fostering unity and a deeper understanding of our shared past, the widespread effort to rewrite history deepens societal divides and fosters a sense of national shame, disregarding the progress America has made and the ideals that continue to inspire millions around the globe.
    The prior administration advanced this corrosive ideology. . . .”

    This website has laudably documented many “progressive” excesses within the universities over the last decade. Those excesses also infected the federal government and the media. Reversing them is not tyranny. Restoring balance is not whitewashing. Returning to the universities of pre-2010 is not tragedy . . . even when Trump is the one who forces the change. By all means, let’s be on guard for excess in the opposite direction, but let’s also deal in the entire body of facts as the policies are implemented rather than with generic fears and carefully-selected anecdotes of those who oppose Trump no matter the issue.

    I highly recommend that those who are interested read the rest of the executive order rather than rely on the distortions of it presented by the New York Times. It had to dive down to Section 4, para. a (iii) of the executive order to pull out of context a clause about “the greatness and achievements of the American people” and recast it as the driving force behind the order. You will notice that the NYT doesn’t tell you, for instance, how the Administration notes that “the forthcoming Smithsonian American Women’s History Museum plans on celebrating the exploits of male athletes participating in women’s sports” and bars it from doing so. Or how the directive to the Department of Interior and its subordinate Park Service focuses on changes since January 1, 2020 that “perpetuate a false reconstruction of American history, inappropriately minimize the value of certain historical events or figures, or include any other improper partisan ideology.” Ah, yes, the NYT. You know, that venerable news institution that advanced much of the excess, ideology, and distortion of history that we have all endured for the last decade.

    1. But Trump is not stopping at woke excesses.

      For example: Signs referencing climate change in federal parks are to be removed.

      1. Thanks for this link, Richard. I wouldn’t call either the writers of the EO or the sources in Politico “liars.” It is entirely plausible that informal discussions or staff-level proposals explored this topic as part of an exhibit planning stage, particularly during the Biden Administration. (In fact, given the track record of the Smithsonian under that Administration, it is probable.) It is also entirely plausible that the idea was either never forwarded to or was nixed by senior leadership of the museum.

        I saw this happen all the time in Washington. When people would say, “The White House says,” or “The Pentagon said,” the proper response was “Who at the White House? Who at the Pentagon?” If I were writing the EO, I would want to know who approved the supposed plan. If it were only a low-level proposal, then the inclusion of it in the EO was sloppy and the writer should be slapped in the head, but I highly doubt the example was fabricated out of thin air. In either case, the EO now preempts any such exhibit for a few years. And that is the broader point: the efforts here are to roll back excesses of the last few years—not to shove gays back in the closet, repeal the 19th Amendment, or put blacks back in chains.

        And Frau Katze, please allow me some fun. However will Americans enjoy our vacations in our national parks if we are not harangued at every trailhead and in every gift shop about the pending climate apocalypse?! Seriously, though, this is a process. The signs are under review. In any large government bureaucracy, you can expect many at the lower level to overinterpret their directions. They are inherently risk-averse creatures: they would rather nix something that shouldn’t be nixed rather than allow something through that should have been stopped. The same dynamic applies to FOIA requests, declassification of highly-classified materials, implementation of cabinet-level directives, and so on. It is one reason the system is so maddening. Let’s see whether calmer heads prevail as the process plays out.

    3. We could start by looking at the executive order:
      “Section 1. Purpose and Policy. Over the past decade, Americans have witnessed a concerted and widespread effort to rewrite our Nation’s history, replacing objective facts with a distorted narrative driven by ideology rather than truth. This revisionist movement seeks to undermine the remarkable achievements of the United States by casting its founding principles and historical milestones in a negative light. Under this historical revision, our Nation’s unparalleled legacy of advancing liberty, individual rights, and human happiness is reconstructed as inherently racist, sexist, oppressive, or otherwise irredeemably flawed. Rather than fostering unity and a deeper understanding of our shared past, the widespread effort to rewrite history deepens societal divides and fosters a sense of national shame, disregarding the progress America has made and the ideals that continue to inspire millions around the globe.
      The prior administration advanced this corrosive ideology. . . .”

      Huh? Yeah, great propaganda writing you cited there. I love the grand assertions, the cited examples and reasoning for its sanctimonious changes backed up by nothing but puerile dogma. Sure to change the lives of countless Americans towards a positive pro-American future! What trivial tripe. It reads like a religious tract. I’m sure it was written by one of Trump’s Project 2025 acolytes.

      And this:

      “…disregarding the progress America has made and the ideals that continue to inspire millions around the globe.”

      Sorry, but the Trump regime inspires authoritarianism, pure and simple. Whatever progress America inspires to millions around the globe, it ain’t this. Unless you’re Putin, or Orban and the like

  4. In other news, there is the new episode of South Park that absolutely lays into Trump, recent topics surrounding him, and his tiny penis. You can see clips everywhere. The Orange One is furious.

  5. It’ll be interesting to see if Harvard caves as well. So far, Harvard has come out fighting.

    Settling is like paying protection money to the mob. But the universities know that they will outlast the Trump administration, so paying up in the short term might be worth it. A protracted battle* would be very costly.

    *The Trump administration might itself decide to back off if it turns out that they can’t win in court but, still, a great deal of damage will be done.

  6. I certainly don’t know the truth about Epstein. However, the Democrats had 4 years to reveal the ‘Epstein files’. They had an election where the ‘Epstein files’ (if they exist) would have been quite useful. So far, we have nothing.

    1. Yeah, if (a big “IF”) these files exist, some would say there are reasons why they haven’t been released. You suggest a reason.

      “They had an election where the ‘Epstein files’ (if they exist) would have been quite useful. ”

      I don’t think anyone expects Trump to be the only person on that list, if it exists. There are almost certainly others with motives similar to Trump.

      1. It may not have been reported in the NYT, but the WSJ reports Epstein’s birthday book friends include Leon Black, Alan ‘Ace’ Greenberg, Leslie Wexner, Jean-Luc Brunel, Leslie Wexner, Peter Mandelson, James ‘Jimmy’ Cayne, Alan Dershowitz, Nathan Myhrvold, Vera Wang, Mort Zuckerman and Bill Clinton.

        From Clinton: “It’s reassuring isn’t it, to have lasted as long, across all the years of learning and knowing, adventures and [illegible word], and also to have your childlike curiosity, the drive to make a difference and the solace of friends.”

        “A letter from Nathan Myhrvold, a billionaire and former Microsoft executive, said he was sending photos from a recent trip to Africa. “They seemed more appropriate than anything I could put in words,” said the letter, which ended with a typed “Nathan.” It was followed by photos of a monkey screaming, lions and zebras mating, and a zebra with its penis visible.”

    2. The difference is that Trump campaigned on releasing the files and spread lurid theories about them for years.

  7. I haven’t closely followed the Trump/University conflict, but it seems to me that previous administrations have also compelled universities to alter their policies under threat of funding cuts. For instance, didn’t universities change their sexual assault policies under pressure from Obama’s Dear Colleague letter? The negotiating tactics are different, but the results are the same. Another difference is that the left approved of the Obama changes but dislike the Trump changes.

  8. The latest accommodations between the Trump administration and Columbia U. and U. Penn demonstrate the following. (1) The Trump admin’s method of holding research funding hostage has proven to be therapeutic indeed for the treatment of certain academic maladies. (2) The method’s simple reversibility, with research funding restored to cooperative institutions, shows that the method will by no means “decimate” the progress of science in the US academic world. Academies that prefer to hang on to wokeliness are free to return to their old function of training men of the cloth (nowadays Diversity Consultants). This was Harvard’s primary function when its President in the 1690s, the Rev. Increase Mather, worked on detecting witchcraft and the assessment of spectral evidence. Harvard could well return to these specialties, while other institutions could choose to proceed otherwise.

  9. New Zealand file:

    Seems there is some movement in NZ about genderwang and sports there. I lived there once, they absolutely looove their sport and until recently, they love(d) their gender nonsense.
    From TVNZ

    D.A.
    NYC

  10. The NYT: “First, they strip away hundreds of millions of dollars in research funding, based on vague accusations that a university abets antisemitism or unlawfully supports transgender rights.”

    Vague accusations??? The so-called “vague accusations” were simply statements of fact about the respective universities. Every time I think the NYT cannot sink any lower in its propaganda campaigns, it violates my expectations.

  11. It seems like Macron has never heard of the Streisand effect.

    Also, does anybody remember when Andrew Sullivan questioned Trig Palin’s parentage? And yet now we take him seriously.

  12. Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who is having way too much fun banning food dyes to weigh in against his boss here.

    He’s off on another crusade now – investigating paranoid assertions that organs are being harvested from cadavers that aren’t quite cadavers yet.

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