Welcome to Thursday, August 14, 2025, and National Navajo Code Talkers Day. Read about the unbreakable WWII code here, and there’s a short video below. (There were also Native American code talkers besides the Navajo.) A few words from Wikipedia:
Because Navajo has a complex grammar, it is not mutually intelligible with even its closest relatives within the Na-Dene family to provide meaningful information. It was still an unwritten language at the time, and Johnston believed Navajo could satisfy the military requirement for an undecipherable code. Its complex syntax, phonology, and numerous dialects made it unintelligible to anyone without extensive exposure and training. One estimate indicates that fewer than 30 non-Navajo could understand the language during World War II.
It’s also National Creamsicle Day and Social Security Day, honoring the day when this system was founded in 1935.
Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the August 14 Wikipedia page.
Posting will definitely be light today as I have an appointment downtown with yet another sleep doctor in my desperate search for a cure for insomnia. My doctor now sees it as a chronic condition that will wax and wane, but I won’t accept that! Do not expect more than this post—not even Readers’ Wildlife. My apologies, but sleep calls (or does not call!). As always, I do my best.
Da Nooz:
*Now Trump is trying to dominate the arts in America, at least judging by the Kennedy Center Honors, which he insisted on hosting this year (and chose the honorees himself). The NYT reports:
President Trump is scheduled to visit the John F. Kennedy Center for Performing Arts in Washington on Wednesday morning to announce this year’s Kennedy Center honorees.
Who might those honorees be? The Kennedy Center teased the announcement in a social media post Wednesday. “Coming soon,” the post read, “A country music icon, an Englishman, a New York City Rock band, a dance Queen and a multibillion dollar Actor walk into the Kennedy Center Opera House….”
Mr. Trump has taken a strong interest in the Kennedy Center’s affairs ever since naming himself chairman in February, when he purged its traditionally bipartisan board of Biden-era appointees and restocked it with loyalists.
In March, Mr. Trump toured the center and met with his new board for the first time. He floated the idea of hosting the Kennedy Center Honors ceremony himself, according to an audio recording of the meeting obtained by The New York Times. Mr. Trump referred to himself then as “the king of ratings.”
He boycotted the ceremony during his first term after several of the artists who were being honored criticized him.
In his post on Tuesday hyping the new honorees, he wrote: “GREAT Nominees for the TRUMP/KENNEDY CENTER, whoops, I mean, KENNEDY CENTER, AWARDS.”
(The above is from an earlier post; Trump’s announcement was over the top). This is from the new article
“Since 1978, the Kennedy Center honors have been among the most prestigious awards in the performing arts,” he said before a small group of top aides, Kennedy Center employees and a bank of television cameras. “I wanted one. I was never able to get one. It’s true, I would have taken it if they would’ve called me. I waited and waited and waited, and I said to hell with it, I’ll become chairman, and I’ll give myself an honor. Next year we’ll honor Trump, OK?”
. . .The faces of the sufficiently unwoke were revealed.
Among them were the men of Kiss, the glam rock metal band known for the way the members do their makeup. “They made a fortune, and they’re great people, and they deserve it,” Mr. Trump said.
There was also Gloria Gaynor, a disco queen who sang “I Will Survive,” widely considered to be one of the most popular gay anthems of all time. “I will say, ‘I Will Survive’ is an unbelievable song,” Mr. Trump said. “I’ve heard it, you know, like everyone else here, thousands of times, and it’s one of those few that gets better every time you hear it.”
Sylvester Stallone’s mug was up there, too. Mr. Trump recalled the first time he saw the first “Rambo” movie, which came out in 1982. “I’ll never forget, I was a young guy, and I went to see a thing called ‘Rambo,’” he said. “It had just come out and I didn’t know anything about it. I was in a movie theater. We used to go to movie theaters a lot … .”
The other honorees are Michael Crawford from Phantom of the Opera, and singer George Strait. Truly a distinguished bunch!
*Here’s an essay from The Hill: “Performative virtue-signaling has become a threat to higher ed.“; the authors are two researchers at Northwestern University.
On today’s college campuses, students are not maturing — they’re managing. Beneath a facade of progressive slogans and institutional virtue-signaling lies a quiet psychological crisis, driven by the demands of ideological conformity.
Between 2023 and 2025, we conducted 1,452 confidential interviews with undergraduates at Northwestern University and the University of Michigan. We were not studying politics — we were studying development. Our question was clinical, not political: “What happens to identity formation when belief is replaced by adherence to orthodoxy?”
We asked: Have you ever pretended to hold more progressive views than you truly endorse to succeed socially or academically? An astounding 88 percent said yes.
These students were not cynical, but adaptive. In a campus environment where grades, leadership, and peer belonging often hinge on fluency in performative morality, young adults quickly learn to rehearse what is safe.
The result is not conviction but compliance. And beneath that compliance, something vital is lost.
. . .To test the gap between expression and belief, we used gender discourse — a contentious topic both highly visible and ideologically loaded. In public, students echoed expected progressive narratives. In private, however, their views were more complex. Eighty-seven percent identified as exclusively heterosexual and supported a binary model of gender. Nine percent expressed partial openness to gender fluidity. Just seven percent embraced the idea of gender as a broad spectrum, and most of these belonged to activist circles.
Perhaps most telling: 77 percent said they disagreed with the idea that gender identity should override biological sex in such domains as sports, healthcare, or public data — but would never voice that disagreement aloud. Thirty-eight percent described themselves as “morally confused,” uncertain whether honesty was still ethical if it meant exclusion.
Usually, surveys of self-censorship involve five criteria, including views on race, politics, the conflict in Gaza, and so on. I find the 77% figure heartening, but what is disheartening is that most students will not say out loud that, in sports, biological sex should override gender identity when they conflict—even though they agree with that. This is why denial of the sex binary is going to last a long time: it’s passed on from generation to generation through academics. Trump will be long gone before students are empowered to say what they really feel about this issue—or about other issues.
*This is unbelievable. Reader Williams Garcia sent this headline from the Times of Israel. Click to read:
The Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) announced this week that it had canceled its invitation to screen a documentary about the October 7, 2023, Hamas attacks, due to ostensible copyright concerns stemming from the fact that the filmmakers did not receive permission from the Hamas terrorists whose clips are featured in the film.
The festival was set to show “The Road Between Us: The Ultimate Rescue,” which tells the story of Maj. Gen. (res.) Noam Tibon, who set out to save his son, journalist Amir Tibon, and his son’s family as they were attacked by Hamas-led terrorists at their home on Kibbutz Nahal Oz. The film was created by Canadian filmmaker Barry Avrich.
The movie features footage taken from the cameras of terrorists, who filmed their atrocities as they marauded through Israeli communities. Over a quarter of Nahal Oz’s 400 residents were killed or taken hostage that day.
News of the movie’s disinvitation was first published in Deadline, which said TIFF pulled the screening due to fear of anti-Israel protesters disrupting the festival, as well as the copyright issue.
Sources close to the film’s production said the festival’s claimed reason for the cancellation was that the filmmakers had not received explicit permission to use videos of the Hamas operatives during the attack, with the festival fearing a potential lawsuit.
A potential lawsuit? Give me a break! Those clips were filmed TO BE SHOWN, and I’d love to see Hamas go to court and say that nobody can show them without permission. They’ve already been shown widely, and there have been no lawsuits. That’s why I’m pretty sure that the TIFF is acting not out of prudence, but pure cowardice. More:
The Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) announced this week that it had canceled its invitation to screen a documentary about the October 7, 2023, Hamas attacks, due to ostensible copyright concerns stemming from the fact that the filmmakers did not receive permission from the Hamas terrorists whose clips are featured in the film.
The festival was set to show “The Road Between Us: The Ultimate Rescue,” which tells the story of Maj. Gen. (res.) Noam Tibon, who set out to save his son, journalist Amir Tibon, and his son’s family as they were attacked by Hamas-led terrorists at their home on Kibbutz Nahal Oz. The film was created by Canadian filmmaker Barry Avrich.
The movie features footage taken from the cameras of terrorists, who filmed their atrocities as they marauded through Israeli communities. Over a quarter of Nahal Oz’s 400 residents were killed or taken hostage that day.
News of the movie’s disinvitation was first published in Deadline, which said TIFF pulled the screening due to fear of anti-Israel protesters disrupting the festival, as well as the copyright issue.
Sources close to the film’s production said the festival’s claimed reason for the cancellation was that the filmmakers had not received explicit permission to use videos of the Hamas operatives during the attack, with the festival fearing a potential lawsuit.
The truth is what I’ve put in bold below:
A TIFF spokesman told Deadline: “The invitation for the Canadian documentary film The Road Between Us: The Ultimate Rescue was withdrawn by TIFF because general requirements for inclusion in the festival, and conditions that were requested when the film was initially invited, were not met, including legal clearance of all footage.”
“The purpose of the requested conditions was to protect TIFF from legal implications and to allow TIFF to manage and mitigate anticipated and known risks around the screening of a film about highly sensitive subject matter, including potential threat of significant disruption,” they added.
Yep, they were scared that sympathizers with Hamas would cause trouble: “significant disruption.” What a bunch of invertebrates!
*You meteorology buffs probably know that we recently recorded the world’s longest lightning strike: 515 miles long! It touched ground in five locations. The details from the WSJ:
There is a new king of lightning: A record-setting strike that lasted more than seven seconds and stretched 515 miles, from eastern Texas almost to Kansas City, Mo.
The massive size of the megaflash, which touched ground in five states in 2017, was revealed by a new analysis of satellite imagery from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
The next largest lightning flash, recorded in the Great Plains in 2020, was 38 miles shorter. The average lightning strike is between 2 and 10 miles long.
NOAA’s Geostationary Lightning Mapper, the instrument that detected the flash, launched in 2016 and routinely records lightning flashes across all of North America. The data helps forecasters watch storms grow in real time.
While researchers have been tracking lightning flashes for decades with ground-based instruments, they have only recorded such large megaflashes since the launch of the instrument, according to Randall Cerveny, professor of geographical sciences at Arizona State University and an author of the paper, published in the July issue of the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, that described the event.
Lightning is a giant spark of electricity between the atmosphere and the ground. As thunderstorms grow, air acts as an insulator between the positive and negative charges in the cloud and between the cloud and the ground. At some point, the differences in the charges become too great, and there is a rapid discharge of electricity.
Megaflashes happen when a charge accumulates over a large area and then spreads for miles behind a line of thunderstorms, according to Michael Peterson, senior research scientist at the Georgia Tech Research Institute, who analyzed the NOAA data for the study.
Here’s a short video about the megaflash, which was recorded using satellite technology that can monitor the atmosphere. The WSJ link has a “visualization” of the strike from above.
*Quillette reports that an LGBTQ+ literary prize is endangered because one of the authors long-listed for the prize admires—get this—J. K. Rowling. He didn’t admire her in his book, he simply admires her. But that was enough to talk about stripping him of his semi-honor and endangering the prize itself.
The Polari Prize, which annually honours the best books written by LGBT authors in the British isles, is the latest arts institution to be rocked by identity politics. This year’s Polari jury selected John Boyne’s Earthfor its Book of the Year longlist. Controversy erupted immediately, and has since metastasised on so large a scale that it threatens not only this year’s award but the viability of the fifteen-year-old Polari Prize itself.
The problem isn’t the book, a compelling read that focuses on two football players charged with rape and accessory to rape, while touching on important themes such as social class, privilege, and institutional corruption. Rather, it’s the opinions of the author—the best-selling gay Irish novelist best known for his 2006 novel, The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas (and its 2008 film adaptation). Boyne had the temerity to publicly celebrate Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling on her sixtieth birthday. In The Irish Times, he wrote of her, “As a writer, I’m in awe of her achievements. As a reader, I love her work. And as a fellow TERF, I stand four-square behind her.”
Oops! The activists swung into action, and petitions are being signed as I write. The article describes other pushback, too.
. . . American-British author Patrick Ness led the charge on Bluesky: “You can’t call yourself a prize for LGBTQ+ literature and longlist a self-proclaimed TERF. Anyone can give any prize to anyone they like, of course. But don’t pretend you’re a prize for my community when you’re platforming someone who’s actively fighting against it.” His intervention, and that of others who piled on, led trans juror Nicola Dinan—a British-Malaysian novelist whose debut novel won the Polari First Book Prize in 2023—to resign her position. Four authors longlisted for a Polari prize (there would be more) withdrew their books from consideration.
But—surprise!—the Polari People defended their decision!
On 7 August, rather than bend the knee to the righteously offended, the Polari Prize organisers issued a statement in defence of freedom of expression and the merit principle:
The Polari Prize was founded on the core principles of diversity and inclusion. We are committed to supporting trans rights and amplifying trans voices… The role of the prize is to discover the best LGBTQ+ books written in the UK and Ireland each year. The books are read and deliberated over by the jury, and progress through the competition stages on the merits of craft and content. The Polari prize is awarded to books in a spirit of celebration of the work and the stories they tell. We have always cherished freedom of expression in our determination to find our voice both as writers and readers. It is inevitable given the challenges we face and the diversity of the lived experience we now represent under the LGBTQ+ Polari umbrella, that even within our community, we can at times hold radically different positions on substantive issues. This is one of those times. John Boyne’s novel Earth was included on The Polari Prize longlist on merit as judged by our jury, following the process and principles stated above.
The organisers also made it clear that they “do not eliminate books based on the wider views of the writer,” and that “books are one of our best means to explore the most difficult and divisive issues, and we encourage an open dialogue across our community.” While they nodded to the importance of trans and non-binary people feeling “welcome, safe, and supported,” their refusal to be bullied was extraordinary given the radicalised state of Alphabet politics.
That is so rare! Now it’s certain that Boyne will not win (how could he after this?) but the statement above, extolling the merit of Boyne’s book rather than how odious the community sees him, is something nice to behold.
Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili and Szaron are pondering time. (It’s been a while since we’ve seen the Dark Tabby):
Hili: I’m thinking about the future.
Szaron: Let’s focus on the present.
In Polish:
In Polish:
Hili: Myślę o przyszłości.
Szaron: Zajmijmy się teraźniejszością.
*******************
From Cat Memes:
From Arriza:
From Things With Faces; a boat giving you the raspberries:
Masih is still quiet, so again we default to JKR, this time her retweet of censorship of a “gender-critical” book. It’s described here, and “Wheesht” is Scots for “shut up”. (Rowling has an essay in this collection, which seems to have been a bestseller.)
We have written to the National Librarian about her decision to remove The Women Who Wouldn’t Wheesht from the centenary exhibition for the National Library of Scotland, Dear Library, in response to complaints from its LGBT staff network. 1/2 pic.twitter.com/lQlv2x0tsO
— The Frontline (@EthelWrites) August 12, 2025
From Luana: antisemitism at Harvard:
BREAKING: Witness testimony confirms it was a “mob” outside @Harvard.
“It started when someone in the crowd noticed my wife’s Star of David necklace… Moments later, she was followed and surrounded by a mob… Then a man slammed his fist into her hand, sending her phone flying.” https://t.co/gsHreIHtDT pic.twitter.com/r0yKlVKEqc
— Will Sussman (@realWillSussman) August 11, 2025
Barry sent an xkcd cartoon, wondering what an evolutionist would say. You got me! I guess I’d say, “from the union of gametes from the two sexes.”
Where Babies Come Fromxkcd.com/3127/
From Malcolm: cat gives d*g the stinkeye, intimidates the cur:
Cat vs dog.. 😂 pic.twitter.com/PxjKLrHAKD
— Buitengebieden (@buitengebieden) July 18, 2025
One from my feed: an independent toddler:
7-month-old baby was spotted walking like a pro and refused Mom’s help.😮♥️🍼 🔥
pic.twitter.com/B7uTRhnlfd— Rain Drops Media (@Raindropsmedia1) August 12, 2025
One I retweeted from the Auschwitz Memorial. Read more about Kolbe here.
This man volunteered to be executed (by carbolic acid) in place of another prisoner. Kolbe was imprisoned for refusing to accept certain Nazi dictates for Catholic monks. He was declared a saint.
— Jerry Coyne (@evolutionistrue.bsky.social) 2025-08-14T10:03:20.680Z
Two from Professor Cobb. First, some photobombing of ducks:
I don't know what's happening in this video?? But, i support it… 👀😅🤣 #bluesky
— I Post Animal Vids… 😊 (@realjfairclough.bsky.social) 2025-08-13T00:15:12.853Z
Mr. Cigarette handing out ciggies in a hospital!
— Paula- The Blue Warrior (@resist61.bsky.social) 2025-08-13T15:08:55.343Z
A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
Usually, terrible things that are done with the excuse that progress requires them are not really progress at all, but just terrible things. -Russell Baker, columnist and author (14 Aug 1925-2019)
Trump is trying to dominate the arts? One could ask, Why is the Federal government running a theater?
Excellent point. The answer is the feds should not.
If that’s one’s position, then go for it, and try to apply it consistently across the board.
In the meantime, I think it must be admitted that Trump’s takeover of the Kennedy Center is ham-fisted and self-aggrandizing, which was the point of today’s entry on this subject.
When has governing not involved theater and the art of performative posturing?
It’s a national cultural center so there are many bureaucrats on the board, and it is a part of the Smithsonian Institution. Why wouldn’t a democratic government fund and/or run a theater as an effort to promote performing arts and artists. It’s a living museum of sorts. Or maybe you don’t think the government should be involved at all in institutions like museums. Either way, it’s a private/public enterprise. According to AI, most money comes from private donations and the Feds money is used to maintain the building.
And Larry’s correct re. Trump’s new distraction… I wonder how much it will cost to change the name? Rebranding a 50+ year-old institution like the Kennedy Center won’t be cheap.
Lightning pictures and data are amazing. Also we see the relationship between government agencies like NOAA, university faculty, and university cased research institures in analyzing these data…capabilities that could well disappear through cuts in research funding.
We used to live about thirty feet above the mouth of the James River witl an infinite fetch to the north and Chesapeake Bay. I was amazed at the length of some cloud to cloud streaks…20-40 miles I estimated on occassion. Also I think that the length (closest to you to farthest from you) of a bolt can be approximated by how long the thunder rumble lasts: a mile for every five seconds given that sound travels a mile in five seconds. So a a one minute rumble would be from a 12 mile long strike.
And it is often the case that several agencies funding and expertise combine. For atmospheric research, NASA and NOAA work together with NASA often leading the development of instruments, their orbital or aircraft platform, and the launch, placement, and operation of those platforms. Data requirements for instrument design as well as data taking and analysis are often carried out by university professors, post docs and grad students. The support for the university and institute people comes as a combination from NASA, NOAA, and NSF. So loss of funding from any one of these federal sources can imperil a research program.
That’s a good observation! Next time I see lightening, I won’t just count the seconds until I hear thunder, I’ll also count the number of seconds that the thunder lasts.
However, I imagine that the length of extra long bolts couldn’t be guesstimated by this method, since thunder that is from too many miles away becomes inaudible.
Good for the Polari folks, even though it’s pathetic that such a rational decision is considered “brave” in these crazy times. On a related note, Graham Linehan appeared on Joe Rogan the other day (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O-L5sUPTJFg ). In case you don’t know who that is, he’s the (formerly beloved) creator of several successful comedy shows in Ireland & the UK (Father Ted, The IT Crowd). He was one of the earliest folks to get cancelled by the trans maniacs, and not just on social media – producers wouldn’t touch him either. It was all crazy and very sad. He’s got a new book out, I guess that’s why he ended up on Rogan.
Just read recently that there are only two Navajo Code Talkers left alive, one aged 96, the other 100.
Yes, that’s right. I put up a video earlier that had both of them, but took it down in favor of a more informative one. Just google “Navajo code talkers” in the video section, and it’s one of the first ones.
The one you chose was indeed informative. As is often the case on WEIT, I discovered how little I actually know about these amazing people. As the saying goes, “The older I get, the less I know”. Appreciate your efforts here, PCC(E). Particularly in light of your recalcitrant insomnia!
I have heard and read about Navajo code talkers. What a fascinating story, not least because of the ingenious idea of Philip Johnston, who was very familiar with the language and customs of the Navajo due to his youth spent on the reservation.
I think it is a shame that the story of the code talkers is still relatively unknown in Germany and rarely discussed in the media.
I’m a lifelong language student and I’ve noticed (re Navajo) that the more indigenous a language the more wildly complicated it is. Greenlandic, for eg, has been mastered by less than a dozen foreigners.
Aboriginal languages (there are hundreds of them!) in my (now idiotic) country of birth are brain crushingly complicated, etc. Ditto Navajo I believe.
Makes my variously successful or less successful attempts at Japanese, Russian and Arabic look quite tame. Though…. with most indigenous languages you usually don’t have a written script to torment you!
DavidAnderson_JD_NYC
@DavidandersonJd
It’s variable. Navajo is notable for being exceptionally complicated. By contrast, I’m given to understand that Quechua is an exceptionally easy language to learn: https://lingweb.eva.mpg.de/quechua/Eng/Main/i_LEARN.HTM#Is_It_Easy
The “Polari Prize” (a niche, unimportant subculture circle jerk*) scandal reminds me of the PEN Ass’n letter after the Charlie Hebdo massacre where many American, Euro and African “intellectuals” sided with the Islamist terrorists.
D.A.
NYC
*Like many awards given by peers, for literature, art, wines, restaurants, etc.
I’m not sure if what I’m about to write logically follows what you’re describing, but it makes me think of our local situation with non-profits. We have gobs of them here in Tucson and there’s a profligate duplication of service. All these little organizations beating their chests about the good deeds they do. Why don’t they combine their efforts? Instead, they support one another, pat each other’s backs and accomplish very little. They’re all so proud of accomplishing so little. That sounds grumpy, I know. It’s tiresome to me, though. Was that a complete non sequitur?
This is the theme of The Simpsons season 34 episode 19, “Write Off This Episode”, of which IMDB says:
That’s too funny. I worked for non-profits for years which has a lot to do with my current economic situation. I’ve lost a lot of respect for the whole 501(c)(3) racket. Every yahoo in town has got one. They’re as bad as churches. You wouldn’t believe all of the so-called “animal rescues” in town who have never helped anyone,ever who found themselves in urgent need of a loving place to leave an adored pet. They are, for the most part (in my opinion), grifters.
Again,
“Every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a racket.”
(Eric Hoffer, The Temper of Our Time)
First, I hope that you can get some relief from your insomnia. It’s a difficult and discouraging problem.
Yes. I read about TIFF un-inviting the October 7 film. It was all over the press, but it’s not clear why such a local act got such global coverage. A normal person might suppose that the coverage is aimed at showing how pathetic TIFF is. Lacking in backbone, opposed to free expression, weak-kneed and timid. But it could also be that the various news outlets were covering the topic in support of TIFF’s decision, that they were good with TIFF’s move to keep the evil colonialist Zionists from spreading their propaganda. Hard to say.
+1 on both paragraphs Norman.
Jerry, I hope that one of these docs can get to thebottom of your insomnia. With mine, I have just decided to live with it. It goes in phases and on bad weeks I (and my wife) just live with me falling asleep in my reading chair for an hour or so during the day. I go to bed and read at 10-1030 each night and continue to wake up and get going at 6:00 every morning and of course my productivity mileage varies depending on the night’s sleep. Sometimes I fall right to sleep; sometimes I am still reading at 2 or 3; sometimes I fall asleep right away but wake up an hour later and cannot get back to sleep until 2, 3 or 4. In any case, I sure hope they can help you out.
I don’t think you’ll find this in the NYT or Washington Post, which suggests the latter explanation!
The Times does have a piece on the tiff with TIFF: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/14/world/canada/tiff-israel-oct-7-documentary-canceled.html. But today I read in the New York Post that the film will be shown after all: https://nypost.com/2025/08/14/world-news/tiff-reverses-course-will-ensure-oct-7-doc-is-screened-following-swift-backlash/. Oh well.
Hope your medical appointment went well and that you start to get some relief!
Recently in Nature: The journal has once again turned its attention to identity politics activism.
“Decolonize scientific institutions, don’t just diversify them
Indigenous scholars set out eight steps to stop marginalization in academia and to enable a shared Indigenous agenda in science.”
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-025-02516-8
Neolithic cultures have their strengths, but compatibility with the modern world isn’t one of them. Personally I strongly prefer the modern world, and where they seek to replace it they are not my friend.
Youtube is strict but twitter/x has a laxer copyright regime. I wonder if the Hamas Gaza footage can be put on X.
The releasers would have to be careful and consult with the victims’ families of course, but it’d get around the stupidity of Toronto.
There is a 43 min. video of this the IDF showed journalists after the event.
I’m particularly interested in the reactions of ordinary Gaza shoppers that day when the hostages were brought into town. It says a lot.
D.A.
NYC
Today is also World Lizard Day – https://www.nationaldaycalendar.com/international/world-lizard-day-august-14
And who doesn’t love lizards? I missed this earlier. Thanks for noting it.
The study showing 88% of college students misrepresent their own views to succeed socially and academically is particularly troubling, given that their fellow students — and, I would bet, even their professors — are doing the same thing. Everyone faking their views to fit in. Self-perpetuating derangement.
But they are trying to “fit in” with a noisy, aggressive, censorious small minority. If most of them realized how widely their views are shared, they might find the courage to speak their minds again. This is what seems to be happening in the UK right now with the anti-migrant protests.
A collective-action problem. But maybe some good news is that social psychology experiments have shown that it often only takes a smaller minority of contrarians to burst the bubble. But of course being one of those contrarians can be costly.
Adding to comments of sympathy around the insomnia. I have some of that, but yours seems to be big league compared to mine. I hope there’s a solution for you.
In other news, Jk Rowling’s review of Nicola Sturgeon’s memoir is a scorching delight to read.
The review is hilarious! Everyone should read it, even if you have no interest in Scottish politics.
https://www.jkrowling.com/opinions/the-twilight-of-nicola-sturgeon-j-k-rowling-reviews-frankly/
TIFF has just announced that it is reversing its decision and will show the Oct 7 documentary at the Festival.
Now we just have to make sure we all go to see it.