Welcome to the Sabbath that was made for goyische cats: Sunday, April 19, 2020, and Rice Ball Day. Here’s my favorite kind of rice ball: zongzi, rice wrapped around a savory or sweet filling and steamed in bamboo leaves. Here’s one unwrapped and one still in the bamboo leaves. It looks as though it’s filled with red beans.
It’s also Bicycle Day, National Amaretto Day, National Chicken Parmesan Day, and National Garlic Day.
I am now in Savannah, Gerogia for some R&R. Food reportage in the offing but Hili is truncated today. And oy, is it hot! Temperature predicted to reach 89° F (32° C) tomorrow.
Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the April 19 Wikipedia page.
Oh, and there’s a Google Doodle for the NBA playoffs; click to see where it goes. Basketball in April! This conforms to Coyne’s Sports Theory: “All major sports—baseball, football, basketball and hockey—will eventually be played at one time, as their seasons will overlap.”
Da Nooz:
*Well, the Strait of Hormuz is closed again, at least according to Iran:
Iran said Saturday that it had reasserted control over the Strait of Hormuz because the United States was maintaining a naval blockade, just hours after Iranian officials and President Trump had said that the critical waterway was open, raising hopes for an end to the six-week war.
The announcement added more confusion to the status of transit through the strait, where Iran had choked global energy supplies by menacing nearby ships during the war with the United States and Israel. Iran’s military, in a statement carried by government media, said it was now “under strict control” unless the United States ended its own blockade of Iranian ports.
A day earlier, Iran’s foreign minister called the strait “completely open.” At the same time, however, Iranian officials had insisted ships would still need Iranian permission and must travel an Iranian-designated route.
Nonetheless, Mr. Trump framed the Iranian announcement as a breakthrough and presented the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran as all but concluded. He immediately added, however, that the American naval blockade of Iran’s ports would remain in place until a deal was reached to end the war.
The president has often made overly optimistic claims about the war, which began in late February. Although Mr. Trump expressed confidence late Friday about the negotiations with Iran that he said would be happening over the weekend, no new face-to-face talks were announced as of Saturday morning.
Mr. Trump also claimed in a phone interview with CBS that Iran had “agreed to everything.” But Iran’s top negotiator, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, quickly denied Iran had agreed to any of their adversaries’ core demands.
And Iran fired on two Indian ships:
On Saturday, India summoned the Iranian ambassador about what it called “a serious incident” involving two Indian-flagged ships that were fired on. TankerTrackers.com, a company that monitors oil shipments, said two Indian-flagged vessels sailing through the strait had turned around.
A shipping monitor run by the British Navy, the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations, said it had received a report that one tanker had come under fire from two Iranian gunships. Another vessel, a container ship, was hit by an “unknown projectile,” it said.
The gratuitous Trump-dissing is par for the course at the NYT, but they happen to be right. The most egregious lie from the “President” is his claim that Iran really has undergone regime change, implying that the government could be taken over by the people and turned into a modern democracy. Ain’t gonna happen,
*The latest from the WSJ is that the U.S. Navy is preparing to board ships going to or coming from Iran in the Strait of Hormuz, and seize the commercial ships. And apparently those ships can be boarded anywhere in the world!
The U.S. military is preparing in coming days to board Iran-linked oil tankers and seize commercial ships in international waters, according to U.S. officials, expanding its naval crackdown beyond the Middle East.
The planning comes as the Iranian military continues to tighten its grip on the Strait of Hormuz, attacking several commercial vessels on Saturday as it declared the waterway was being “strictly controlled” by Iran. The developments sent shipping companies scrambling a day after Iran’s foreign minister said the strait was fully open to commercial traffic—an announcement that was welcomed by President Trump.
The Trump administration’s decision to step up the economic pressure on Tehran is intended to force the regime to re-open the strait and make concessions on its nuclear program, which has been the focus of negotiations between the U.S. and Iran.
Trump said Friday that Iran has already agreed to hand over its stockpile of highly enriched uranium to the U.S., though Iran has rejected that claim. Also at stake is how long Iran might agree to forgo enriching uranium and whether Tehran would receive billions of dollars in frozen funds from foreign countries as part of a deal.
The U.S. has already turned back 23 ships that have sought to leave Iranian ports as part of a naval blockade of Iranian ports, according to U.S. Central Command. The broadening of the campaign will enable the U.S. to take control of Iran-linked vessels around the world, including ships carrying Iranian oil that are already sailing outside the Persian Gulf and those carrying arms that could support the Iranian regime.
Whether this will precipitate more violence in the war is unclear. I’m still worried that Trump is now backing off, and won’t insist that Iran completely abandon its mission to produce nuclear weapons. That prohibition was declared Goal #! in the Iran campaign, at least in Trump’s initial announcement.
*I didn’t know that this series was running at the NYT, but apparently each month they give you links to five good movies you can watch for free. Here are the latest five (with links): films that will discomfit you:
Safe (1995). Stream it on Tubi.
Are you allergic to the 20th century? Suffering and lost, Carol (Julianne Moore), a housewife from the San Fernando Valley, takes the flier bearing this message that she hopes will lead her to a solution about the mysterious physical maladies plaguing her. But ultimately, this is an omen for the century to come, for our pervasive sense of unease and overload in times that leaves you alienated at best, and perhaps genuinely sick at worst.
In Todd Haynes’s haunting masterwork, we follow Carol, struggling with an onset of various medical illnesses, as she goes down a rabbit hole to find answers. Decades later, a question still stirs fans: Is Carol actually sick?The Parallax View (1974) Stream it on PlutoTV.
A cheerleader, a barn, naked bodies, Hitler. Connect those images as you see fit — that’s the ominous montage flashing before Joseph Frady (Warren Beatty), a kind of psychological test, in this searing scene from Pakula’s film.
During this sequence, Frady, the cowboy journalist investigating a mysterious string of murders following a political assassination, has perhaps reached some inner sanctum. And yet, the quietly devastating revelation of “Parallax” is that there really isn’t one. When he follows the trail of the group’s latest violent conspiracy, he is only met by more shadows and the barrel of a gun at the end of a dark tunnel.
The Conversation (1974). Stream it on YouTube.
Coppola wrote the script before Watergate, but this is a defining work of the paranoid reality the scandal opened our eyes to, one in which you never know who’s listening and what’s operating in the dark. In the film, Harry (Gene Hackman) is an expert audio bugger who slowly spirals after believing he’s learned of a murder plot in a conversation he’s been hired to record.
Even if you already know where the movie goes, what makes it spellbinding each time is its profound sense of melancholy in observing Harry’s solitary life. When you know that anyone might be watching or listening, it’s only logical to not only accept but insist that it’s better if we’re all alone in this world.
Blow Out (1981). Stream it on Tubi.
“Nobody wants to know about conspiracy, I don’t get it!” says Jack Terry (John Travolta) in Brian De Palma’s spiraling stunner. After inadvertently recording the audio to a car crash that kills an American governor and presidential hopeful, Jack begins to suspect foul play. A sound man for B-movies, he uses his footage to meticulously reconstruct the sequence of events, like a filmmaker mapping out the montage to a murder scene.
But is anyone paying attention? As Jack’s rabbit hole leads him to the film’s thrilling climax at a patriotic Philadelphia parade, full of stars and stripes, he’s the only one attuned to the possibility of sinister agents — everyone else is too busy marveling at the fireworks.
The Assistant (2019), Stream it on Tubi.
For both how harrowing and humdrum Kitty Green’s film is, it stands as one of the best works to speak to the #MeToo era. As we follow Jane (Julia Garner), an assistant to a production executive, across one single day in the office, we observe the small signs that begin to tell her of the routine sexual harassment that happens behind closed doors.
We never see what really happens or who her boss is, but instead how the casually manipulative and misogynistic rhythms of the corporate setting make these dark realities just part of the furniture of a workplace. The more Jane reacts, the more she’s glaringly out of step with the program. Green is intentional about the film’s structure, never really moving the story into a climax or reveal — the insidious mundanity of it all is what is most horrifying.
I’ve seen only “The Conversation,” but it’s a fantastic movie.
*Tabloid item! Who remembers Kyrsten Sinema, the renegade Senator who didn’t run again and has dropped out of sight? The Wall Street Journal reports that she likely had an affair with her married security guard, and the guard’s wife is suing Sinema not for adultery, but for “homewrecking.”
In October 2024, Heather Ammel found a message from another woman on her husband’s phone. “I miss you. Putting my hand on your heart. I’ll see you soon,” it said.
Ammel decided to write back: “Are you having an affair with my husband?” she texted from her spouse’s phone. “You took a married man away from his family.”
Then Ammel took a surprising step: She sued—not her cheating husband, but the woman who was having a romantic relationship with him. This was Kyrsten Sinema, the former U.S. senator from Arizona. Ammel’s husband, Matthew Ammel, was employed as a security guard for Sinema at the time.
North Carolina, where the Ammels lived, is one of just a handful of states with a “homewrecker law” that allows a jilted spouse to sue a third party for damages for a marital breakup. And it isn’t just illicit lovers who might find themselves in the crosshairs. Meddling in-laws, persuasive friends, even a therapist or clergy member are all fair game.
To win an “alienation of affection” claim, as it is known legally, a plaintiff must prove three points: that there was genuine “love and affection” between the spouses before the third party intervened. That this love and affection was alienated and destroyed. And that the defendant’s “malicious acts” caused the loss of affection.
. . .Notably, plaintiffs don’t have to prove that adultery was involved, as the alienation-of-affection claim covers emotional persuasion. A sexual affair is covered by another homewrecker charge—called “criminal conversation”—that many spurned spouses file simultaneously.
While proponents of these cases say that they support and strengthen marriage—serving as a deterrent for bad behavior—most states have scrapped them as relics of a distant past.
A few other states have such laws, but they’re not as “aggressive” as North Carolina, which once awarded a wife who sued her husband’s mistress $30 million. I wondered what Sinema had been up to since she left the Senate. And do you think that the mistress should be the one to be sued? I guess a wife can’t get monetary damages from suing her husband; most states have “no fault” divorce laws in which the cheated-upon spouse gets no extra assets because of the adultery,
*The news is thin as the Middle East wars in Gaza, Lebanon, and Iran are in a pause. So let’s look at an item just auctioned for nearly a million dollars: a lifejacket worn by a woman who got off the sinking Titanic in a lifeboat.
A life jacket worn by a passenger on RMS Titanic as she escaped the sinking steamship on a lifeboat sold at auction on Saturday for 670,00 pounds ($906,000).
The flotation device was worn by Laura Mabel Francatelli, a first-class passenger on the doomed ocean liner, and is signed by her and other survivors from the same lifeboat.
It was the star among items in a sale of Titanic memorabilia by Henry Aldridge & Son auctioneers in Devizes, western England, and sold to an unidentified telephone bidder for well over the presale estimate of between 250,000 and 350,000 pounds.
A seat cushion from one of the Titanic lifeboats sold at the same auction for 390,000 pounds ($527,000) to the owners of two Titanic museums in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee, and Branson, Missouri.
The prices include an auction-house fee known as the buyer’s premium.
“These record-breaking prices illustrate the continuing interest in the Titanic story, and the respect for the passengers and crew whose stories are immortalized by these items of memorabilia,” auctioneer Andrew Aldridge said.
A short video:
Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili is licking her chops
Hili: What a beautiful little bird.
Andrzej: I’m afraid you’re hiding your true thoughts.
In Polish:
Hili: Jaki piękny ptaszek.
Ja: Obawiam się, że ukrywasz swoje prawdziwe myśli.
*******************
From America’s Cultural Decline into Idiocy:
From Now That’s Wild:
From Jesus of the Day:
Masih reminds us not to forget the executed protestors of Iran:
A hundred days since a massacre in Iran, and you know what? The bodies didn’t disappear, they just disappeared from your timeline.
We’re talking about body bags stacked in hospitals across Iran. This is only one video that I have received from one hospital in Tehran thanks to… https://t.co/BbrtJve7c5
— Masih Alinejad 🏳️ (@AlinejadMasih) April 18, 2026
From Simon; the Strait of Hormuz, rated:
lol who did this. pic.twitter.com/UVeCZwCBYU
— Brandon Beylo (@marketplunger1) April 18, 2026
From Luana, who is particularly interested in “Fat Studies” these days as its proponents often tell outright lies:
A new paper in Fat Studies is fighting for “social justice and equity in death” for fat people, and claims that fat people are “particularly likely to die of anti-fatness” (as opposed to obesity-related health complications?).
According to the author, fat people face “postmortem… pic.twitter.com/5FrV7zjqNM
— Colin Wright (@SwipeWright) April 16, 2026
From Malcolm; cats that have grown up with d*gs:
Cats that grew up with dogs be like pic.twitter.com/T7PivkteOV
— Cat Knows Nothing (@CatKnowsNth) March 23, 2026
One from my feed; don’t mess with ‘roos! (Sound up.)
People don’t talk enough about how scary kangaroos are. pic.twitter.com/6jS20KouOO
— Nature is Amazing ☘️ (@AMAZlNGNATURE) April 17, 2026
And one I reposted ffrom The Auschwitz Memorial:
A Czech Jewish boy and his mother were likely gassed as soon as they arrived in Auschwitz. He was thirteen years old https://t.co/GLclOb1YuN
— Jerry Coyne (@Evolutionistrue) April 19, 2026
One from Dr. Cobb, sent with a frown emoticon:
The Pompei galleries in the Naples Archaeological Museum are endless, amazing and also so sad. Here’s Terentius Neo the Baker and his wife looking intellectual. You hope they got out, or simply weren’t there that terrible day.
— Matthew Cobb (@matthewcobb.bsky.social) 2026-04-18T09:07:07.546Z
“And oy, is it hot!” … It’s the South, Jake.
That’s hot for this time of year! The saving grace is that the humidity will probably be low since the south is in a drought.
I was expecting high humidity, but I don’t know.
But it’s only mid-April!
What does the cat-dog video say about genes and environment?
In Australia I only saw kangaroos in zoos and an occasional drive in the countryside.
I think the one above is AI but…there’s lots of real footage of ‘roos and humans fighting.
(apologies if I wrote this recently here…) Apparently in those cases usually a dog is involved as the two species seem to hate each other with a deep passion.
Have fun in Georgia PPC(E) – looking forward to the food we’ll see!
D.A.
NYC
I was once at a popular place where kangaroos were frequently fed by tourists, against all advice. I was young, so I fed a couple. But the roos wanted more and began to rake me with their paws. I sort of bunched up, but the roos surmised I was just hiding the food, and became more vigorous, so I rammed the remainder down my sweater, and showed them my bare, open hands. “All gone”, said the kangaroos to themselves, and hopped away to harass somebody else. It was a threatening moment.
In real life, in the outback, I saw a Kangaroo jump over a road, in a single bound. I was quite impressed. No one (including the Kangaroo) was in any way hurt. My kids have petted (small) Kangaroos.
I wouldn’t want to look out my window at night and see a kangaroo looking in.
Have a great visit to Savannah!
I used to write a newspaper column in North Carolina. As a Arizona transplant, I intended to go after NC’s “homewrecker” law writing it was a relic. However, after researching the piece, I changed my mind. Affairs that result in alienation of affection demolishes many lives and often causes economic hardship that is rarely overcome.
It’s a good law. I’m rooting for Mrs. Ammel. And Mr. Ammel, you’re a pig.
Well.. Given he was in her employment, there was a significant imbalance of power. So what makes you think he consented and did not just do what he had to to keep a lucrative job and support his family?
Perhaps even Ms. Ammel sees it that way.* The beauty of this case is that she is suing Ms. Sinema. Mr. Ammel is not a defendant and doesn’t have to mount a defence. It’s the two women squaring off, a “she-said, she-said.” Pop some popcorn. If he had simply resisted his employer’s advances and then made a complaint of sexual harassment against her, no one would have believed him. But they’ll believe his wife. Dam’ straight. And as merely a witness for his wife’s case, not a respondent trying to get out of paying alimony in a divorce, he’ll be more credible.
(* It’s said that a man can’t be guilted into an erection. Can he be intimidated or harassed into one, if he wasn’t at least a teensy bit down with the idea already? “Aw honey, I hated myself the whole time. But I did it for us.”)
We learned about alienation of affection (“cheatin'”) laws/suits in law school. I think they might exist still in NY but are never used or something. NC is becoming famous for it due to some rap star kerfuffle, two famous-ish women suing each other over it. Very few states still have it.
D.A.
NYC
And to women who love cats: this is National Cat Lady Day (no “crazy” involved); celebrated in England on April 15, but on the 19th in the U.S.
Have a lovely time in Savannah!
OH! I like the Khalil Gibran bit, I’m a fan. I particularly liked his poem “Pity the Nation” (possibly about Lebanon). If you read his bio he lead a deeply unhappy, pretty drunken life which killed him in his 50s.
Great writer though – didn’t know about the painting.
D.A.
NYC
My guess (and it just a guess) is that Iran is headed for internal conflict over the Strait of Hormuz. Could a civil war happen? Possibly. As I have mentioned before, China wants to Strain open. Russia does not.