Sunday: Hili dialogue

May 24, 2026 • 6:45 am

Welcome to Sunday, May 24; the Sabbath that was made for gentile cats, and Asparagus Day.  And here’s the answer to everyone’s question about asparagus (and yes, I am one of the victims):

It’s also Brother’s Day (but which individual brother do they mean?), the Declaration of the Báb, the running of the Indianapolis 500, National Yucatán Shrimp Day, and National Escargot Day.

Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the May 24 Wikipedia page.

Da Nooz:

**PEACE FOR OUR TIME?  The news is full of reports that the U.S. and Iran (and Israel, which appears not to have been consulted) are close to striking a peace deal. See the next post for more on this–and a poll.

*As the New York Times admit, it been besieged by criticism of Nick Kristof’s recent column on Israel’s sexual abuse of Palestinian prisoners. They’ve published a response by Kristof and the op-ed editor, Kathleen Kingsbury, called “Your questions about Nick Kristof’s column on Palestinians and sexual assault.” As you might expect, the Times tries to completely exculpate itself. Here are a few responses:

Many readers asked: Given the volume of the critical response, do you stand by this column?

Kathleen Kingsbury: Yes.Nick built upon a growing body of evidence regarding the mistreatment of detainees in Israel. Numerous human rights organizations and reputable news outlets — including prominent Israeli media — have documented abuse by Israeli security forces and settlers. Previous accounts include reports of sexual violence and physical degradation.

Before publication, Nick’s reporting underwent a rigorous vetting process by Opinion’s fact-checking department to ensure that every testimony and anecdote he personally reported was supported by independent sources, as is the case with all sensitive pieces. The Times’s standards and legal teams also reviewed the column and offered feedback. After publication, we reviewed the factual challenges that readers and others raised, as is standard practice with any published piece. Editors found no errors.

Readers have said the allegations involving dogs abusing detainees is not only impossible but also a “blood libel” against Israel and its citizens.

Kristof: This passage provoked the most disgust and disbelief. A Palestinian journalist detained in 2024 told me he was held down, stripped, blindfolded and handcuffed while a dog was brought in and, with encouragement from a handler, mounted and penetrated him. Before he spoke to me, he confided his account to the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel, an Israeli human rights organization.

I thought carefully about whether to include this. In the end I did because he had told his account previously and because what he described has happened before. Other Palestinian prisoners and human rights monitors have cited reports of dogs sexually assaulting prisoners. The Pinochet regime in Chile used a dog to rape political prisoners. Peer-reviewed medical literature documents rectal injuries caused by canine penetration.

Readers will have their own take on the use of anonymous sources, biased sources, and sources who have changed their stories.  But the last sentence is garbage: the “medical literature documents” cited by Kristof on X were cases of bestiality, not forced rape by dogs.

You might want to read, as a (free) counterpoint, a fairly balanced column by Rabbi Steven Abraham called “This is who Nicholas Kristof is” (h/t Suzy). One excerpt:

So here is where I have arrived.

The abuse inside the Israeli prison system is real, and Israel must reckon with it, both because reckoning is a Jewish obligation and because the alternative is rot. Ben-Gvir is a disgrace to the office he holds. Netanyahu’s coalition is failing in its basic duty to govern sovereign power with discipline. A rabbi who loves Israel must say so, and must keep saying so, regardless of who else is in the room.

And: Nicholas Kristof’s column is a smear built on propaganda from an organization committed to Israel’s erasure. He chose those sources because they travel further than the credible, documented, Israeli-sourced indictment that was available to him. He has done this kind of thing before, against other targets, across decades. He will do it again. The Times will let him.

Both of those sentences are true. Neither cancels the other. The discipline of holding both, at the same time, without flinching from either, that is what Torah asks of us when we read.

This is who Nicholas Kristof is. The Times knows, and lets him be it. We are not obligated to pretend otherwise.

Mi-d’var sheker tirchak. Keep far from a false thing. Even when the false thing is dressed in the typography of the paper of record. Especially then.

*The Trump administration has just made green cards much harder to get., These cards allow immigrant to America to become permanent residents.

Most applicants for green cards will need to go abroad to apply for permanent residency at an American Consulate, rather than filing from within the U.S. as they do now, the Trump administration announced Friday.

Under the new policy, most foreigners—from tech workers to spouses of U.S. citizens—would need to prove they have “extraordinary circumstances” to apply for permanent residency within the U.S., or else risk being denied. Most would need to go abroad to apply at a U.S. Consulate, where they risk losing whatever legal status they held in the U.S. and being unable to return.

The change marks a shift in how the U.S. immigration system has functioned for decades, and will affect immigrants in the country illegally as well as foreign professionals sponsored by U.S. companies.

The new approach would particularly affect the millions of immigrants who are living in the U.S. illegally, but gain legal status either by marrying a U.S. citizen or having U.S. citizen children sponsor them once the children turn 21. If an immigrant without legal status leaves the country, they could face anywhere from a three-year to a lifetime ban on returning.

“This policy allows our immigration system to function as the law intended instead of incentivizing loopholes,” said U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services spokesman Zach Kahler in a statement. “When aliens apply from their home country, it reduces the need to find and remove those who decide to slip into the shadows.”

People with green card applications currently pending may be able to complete the process without leaving the country if they are determined to “provide an economic benefit,” though others may be asked to go abroad to a U.S. Consulate, Kahler said.

This is fair reporting, without opinion. Just the facts. But on the NBC News on Friday, their entire “news” report on this was slanted towards saying how unfair it was, interviewing lawyers and undocumented immigrants who weighed in against the decision (which is clearly made to cut down on illegal immigration).  It was one of the most blatantly biased “news” stories that I have seen on major television news

*The NYT reports on how Netanyahu, and Israel, have been put on the sidelines during the discussion to end the war with Iran,

In the run-up to the Feb. 28 attack on Iran, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel was not only in the Situation Room with President Trump, he was leading the discussion, predicting that a joint U.S.-Israeli strike could very well lead to the demise of the Islamic Republic.

Just a few weeks later, after those sanguine assurances proved inaccurate, the picture was starkly different. Israel was so thoroughly sidelined by the Trump administration, two Israeli defense officials said, that its leaders were cut almost entirely out of the loop on truce talks between the United States and Iran.

Starved of information from their closest ally, the Israelis have been forced to pick up what they can about the back-and-forth between Washington and Tehran through their connections with leaders and diplomats in the region as well as their own surveillance from inside the Iranian regime, said the two officials. Like others for this article, they spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive matters.

The banishment from the cockpit to economy class has potentially significant consequences for Israel, and especially for the prime minister, who faces an uphill re-election battle this year.

Mr. Netanyahu has long sold himself to Israeli voters as a kind of Trump whisperer, uniquely capable of enlisting and retaining the president’s support. In a televised speech early in the war, he portrayed himself as the president’s peer, assuring Israelis that he talked to Mr. Trump “almost every day,” exchanging ideas and advice, “and deciding together.”

He had led Israel to war in February with grand visions of achieving a goal he has pursued for decades: stopping Iran’s push for nuclear weapons once and for all. As the war began with a stunning decapitation of much of the government in Tehran, it seemed as though an even more grandiose dream might come true: the toppling of the regime.

But many in Mr. Trump’s inner circle had always viewed the idea of regime change as absurd. . . .

I’ll say it again: we will not stop Iran from pursuing nuclear weapons unless there is regime change.  Trump now seem satisfied with an Iranian promise that “we won’t pursue nukes for 15 years”. But he’s president for only 2.5 more years, and Iran has violated agreements repeatedly. If people don’t know how much Iran wants nuclear weapons, they must be deaf or blind. The report above jibes with the news about a proposed peace deal that will be the subject of the next post.

*I’ve stopped subscribing to Andrew Sullivan’s column since he went full-on anti-Zio and anti-Israel a while back. But I will still get his lucubrations until my yearly fee runs out,  And of course there are good and thoughtful bits among the bad.  In his piece this week, “The ‘Learned Helplessness’ of 2026,” he had some advice for Democrats and an analysis why they’re advancing a message that will help them win.

Yes, the polls are showing a real slide for Trump. But it’s still incredible that a president this corrupt, this incompetent, and this vile still commands 37 percent support. Yes, this week there were some tiny signs that the constitutional corpse is twitching: maybe paying off violent criminals in a giant, far-right slush fund is not so great, and maybe a ballroom fit for a Russian oligarch can wait — mutter some men pretending to be Senators. But don’t kid yourselves. This is a one-man cult, not a party. They’ll cave. They always do.

And when you look at the alternative that’s supposed to rescue us, the learned helplessness really kicks in.

The Democrats are still ideologically split, have a lame bench of candidates for 2028, and haven’t shifted an iota from the positions that lost them the last election. Their 2024 “autopsy” says nothing of any consequence, and dodges the Biden age issue and the Harris uselessness issue. Even now, with Trump at 37 percent, “70 percent of all registered voters said they were dissatisfied with Democrats. 64 percent said the same of Republicans.” Does it get any more damning than that?\

The next paragraph is a severe but true indictment of what the Democratic party seems to stand for, though it’s largely from the “progressive” part of the party.

And yet the current Dem mood is to do nothing but win the midterms by default — then use that as an excuse to do nothing again. Check out the cross-tabs in the NYT poll. Only 38 percent of Dems think they need to shift on transing children or having boys compete with girls in sports. They still love mass migration and will promise another massive influx in 2028 (as long as it’s “orderly”). “White” is still a term of abuse. Gay men and lesbians are still “queers”. Men are still women and women are still men. When you ask Democrats what they mean by moderation, it’s the exact same far-left policies as Biden’s, but delivered more nicely. Woke isn’t dead. It’s merely waiting.

. . . . So many normie friends of mine have just stopped engaging the news. Every day, another headline is like another electric shock we have become used to. If you actually care — about America, the Constitution, basic decency — the psychic impact is greater: you will be slowly ground down into the dust. There is no point resisting and so, eventually, no point in even paying attention. Reason and deliberation are irrelevant.

That’s why, I suspect, so many very online folks have become crazy caricatures. It’s the only way to survive mentally. It’s psychologically Sisyphean to try to retain intellectual honesty or complexity or a grip on truth in this environment. So many people have just put on a performative partisan mask, and pander. The alternative — to keep being assailed by both sides with brutality and venom most humans naturally recoil from — becomes too much to bear.

I have tried to resist the depression this Weimar culture engenders. It’s my job. I’ve tried to tell the truth about both extremes. I haven’t given up on liberal democracy. But I’d be a fool to believe I have gotten anywhere these past ten years of trying. Trump’s re-election really was an extinction-level event for our former way of life. I was right in 2016. We could have escaped after 2020. But then Biden shat the bed.

All the mountains of ink spilt on Trump’s malfeasance? Hasn’t changed a thing. All the arguments about immigration, crime, transing children, and “white supremacy”? The Democrats are where they were in 2015 and not budging. Only the about-to-die — like Barney — have a chance of saying anything honest, and among Republicans, only those headed for the exits. Obama? A sphinx with a giant ugly stump in Chicago, Netflix gigs, and trips on yachts with billionaires. The few ordinary folks who have stood up in office? Like Massie, they’re just play-putty for the mad king.

Like the rest of us for the foreseeable future.

I am not going to argue about Sullivan’s views on Israel, as there’s nothing novel about them. He just hates the place, and I’m tired of his rants. But ehe lesson in this week’s column is that the Democrats need to clean up their act and realize what the country really wants (and that includes what Democratic voters want).  Many voters have become news-weary, and I suspect that translates into a lack of motivation to go to the polls. I too am news-weary, but have to read it, and I will go to the polls.

*NASCAR driver Kyle Busch, one of the best there ever was, died suddenly last week at only 41. Up until now all we knew is that he called for a doctor while in a race, and was coughing up some blood. Earlier in may he reported a “sinus cold” and a caugh. He was taken to the hospital on May 21, where he died after a short while. Now it’s been revealed that he had “severe pneumonia that progressed into sepsis.”

Kyle Busch died after severe pneumonia progressed into sepsis, resulting in rapid and overwhelming associated complications, according to a statement released by his family.

Dakota Hunter, vice president of Kyle Busch Companies, said in a news release the family received the medical evaluation on Saturday.

Busch, a two-time NASCAR champion, died at 41 on Thursday, a day after passing out in a Chevrolet simulator.

Sepsis is considered a life-threatening medical emergency that occurs when the body has an extreme, overactive response to an infection, causing the immune system to damage its own tissues and organs, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Typically the immune system releases chemicals to fight off pathogens like bacteria, viruses or fungi, but with sepsis the response goes into overdrive. The results can cause widespread inflammation, form microscopic blood clots and make blood vessels leak.

Busch was thought to have had a sinus cold while racing at Watkins Glen on May 10 and radioed in to his team saying that he needed a “shot” from a doctor after the race.

. . .Busch, who was preparing to race Sunday at the Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway, was testing in the Chevrolet racing simulator in Concord on Wednesday when he became unresponsive and was transported to a hospital in Charlotte, several people familiar with the situation told The Associated Press.

During the emergency call placed late that afternoon, an unidentified caller calmly told the dispatch: “I’ve got an individual that’s (got) shortness of breath, very hot, thinks he’s going to pass out, and is producing a little bit of blood, coughing up some blood.”

. . . Busch won 234 races across NASCAR’s top three series, more than any driver in history.

You can read about sepsis here. Busch and his wife had an 11-year old son (who plans to race) and a four-year-old daughter. It’s very sad.  Please get your pneumonia shotl, though they’re recommended mostly for young children and adults over 50.

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Andrzej enlightens Hili:

Hili: History repeats itself.
Andrzej: Yes, but it stutters while doing it.

In Polish:

Hili: Historia się powtarza.
Ja: Tak, ale się przy tym jąka.

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

From Funny and Strange Signs:

From Meow Incorporated; a gentleman lizard.

From This Cat is Guilty:

From Masih: two more Iranian political protestors executed:

From Luana. A mallard tells a bothersome girl, “Leave our kids alone!”

Cooking advice from Emma:

Two from my feed. For the first one, well, they didn’t know. . .

An antisemitic hotel desk clerk goes after some Jewish customers. He got fired.

One I reposted from the Auschwitz Memorial:

Two from Dr. Cobb, who’s visiting his daughter in Norway. First, from the plane, and you can read about Brocken spectres here.

Rather poor photo of our plane as a brocken spectre (you can just make out the plane’s shadow in the centre of the concentric rainbows)

— Matthew Cobb (@matthewcobb.bsky.social) 2026-05-22T19:48:45.171Z

It looks nice!

Spring in Oslo

— Matthew Cobb (@matthewcobb.bsky.social) 2026-05-23T13:53:41.756Z

23 thoughts on “Sunday: Hili dialogue”

  1. Before my sister and her husband got US citizenship, I’m sure they had to leave the US several times in order to file paperwork?

    Reply

    1. I wouldn’t expect so.
      When you’re applying for citizenship, you will generally already be a permanent resident (green card holder), because citizenship generally requires five years as a permanent resident: I say “generally” because there may be some exceptions, I think serving in the US military could be one. So all the paperwork is done in the US. Certainly true in my case; though this was 40+ years back and I can’t swear that it’s universal.
      But applying for permanent residence is another matter. People come in on work visas, find employment and living in the US congenial, and apply for permanent residence. Historically, they could remain in the US even after their work visa expired if they had been approved for permanent residence, just waiting out the queue for issuance of the actual green card (there’s a limit on how many green cards are issued per year per country of origin). However, now Trump wants such people to have to leave the US and apply from outside – and, it seems, therefore not re-enter the US until the green card is issued. This would be a huge life disruption, and it’s not clear to me there would be any gain to the US: people who aren’t approvable for permanent residence under the old rules would have to leave at the expiration of their original work visas, but people who are approvable are presumptively those the US would like to have stick around and do their jobs.

      Reply

      1. Isn’t the leave US and apply at embassy abroad just for illegal/”out of status” people trying to adjust their status to legal permanent resident (green card) though?

        I don’t know whether it applies to “normal” legal residents (temporary work visa etc).

        Bad messaging and wild speculation is a big problem in this issue. I’ll look into it.
        Our immigration system is (necessarily) complicated.

        D.A.
        NYC 🗽

        Reply

      2. My British sister and her Italian husband, who was working for Intel on the basis that they needed him, definitely had to go to Canada (or somewhere outside the US, but they’re in Oregon so Canada was closest) to file paperwork more than once. Maybe it was because of my sister’s (unemployed) status?

        Reply

  2. I first heard “Brocken” from the metal band Fates Warning‘s recording Night on Brocken. (Easy to find.. if not listen to 😁).

    So of course I had to look up “Brocken” and it was like finding a new corner of the world with this fascinating stuff going on – a physical phenomenon, mystical stories woven out of it, etc.

    … reading more just now, looks like Gothe wrote with it as a subject too … actually there’s lots of material …

    🎸🖋️[physics emoji unavailable]

    Addendum:

    There’s a good physics site for rainbows – I haven’t found one for Brocken spectre – that’d be nifty :

    hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/atmos/rbowpri.html

    It categorizes the Spectre under “Atmospheric optics->Coronas->Iridescent clouds”. The site usually has interactive calculators, bit seems not for this.

    Reply

  3. Bulgaria celebrates, on this date, The Day of the Holy Brothers Cyril and Methodius, of the Bulgarian alphabet, education and culture and of the Slavonic literature. Cyril and Methodius, Byzantine monks, are credited with creating the Glagolitic script, the oldest-known Slavic alphabet. Students of theirs created the first Cyrillic alphabet, in Preslav, Bulgaria.

    There are celebrations in cities and towns across Bulgaria. It’s a 3-day weekend.

    Reply

  4. I couldn’t agree more with Andrew Sullivan. Trump‘s corruption is stomach-turning, yet I am repulsed even more by the platform the Democrats are sticking with. I shudder to see them back with more open borders, racist DEI, and compelled denial of reality (gender policy). To me these are remarkably unAmerican ideas, and the Democrats more interested in vengeance against anything even tangentially Trumpian, rather than policies that protect our general welfare.

    For something completely different, here is a lovely short New Yorker interview with the leader of Artemis ll. Refreshing to read a normal, positive, inspiring article. https://archive.ph/J4n6T

    Reply

  5. Oy! For some unknown reason that wound-up Subbable guy can’t pronounce methanethiol. It’s methane-thiol, not methan-ethiol!

    I’m also going to assume that antivaxxers disproportionately populate the NASCAR sphere. I hope that Kyle Busch may help convince them that bacteria exist.

    And Ryan was certainly pleased with himself. GoFundMe for a sacked hotel clerk? GMAFB.

    Reply

    1. But an anti-baby-killer hero hotel clerk, being persecuted by the worldwide evil Zionist conspiracy. Right? Or are you an evil Zionist enabler? (BTW, there are witches.)
      …………
      Damn. Here’s a f-ing footnote, which I reluctantly include solely out of fear that some violent whackjob couldn’t recognise sarcasm even it dropped on him (surely a him) at terminal velocity. I used to be an optimist.

      Reply

  6. I think Trump is desperate to get the Strait open and oil prices down, before the midterms.

    This means fig leaf statements about nukes, throwing Israel under the bus. Improvements in the life of ordinary Iranians has been forgotten long ago.

    He really only cares about himself.

    Reply

  7. Trump may indeed have kept Netanyahu at a distance during these recent negotiations. Part of the problem is that a substantial segment of the public—thanks to the press—blames Netanyahu for wagging Trump’s dog and forcing us into the war. So, Trump cannot appear to be too close to Netanyahu. Rightly or wrongly, Trump may even blame Netanyahu to some extent for the predicament he’s now in.

    I’ve read that the Israelis are worried that Trump might be on his way to accepting a bad deal. But the “deal” that is in play will only be the first step, as it only establishes a framework for future negotiations. Whether it is a bad deal or not will only play out over time. One bad sign is that a deal to work toward a later deal is exactly what the Iranians want and what they do best. It’s a “plan for a plan,” a mechanism for delay. Trump earlier said that a deal that doesn’t include Iran giving up nuclear weapons is not acceptable. Now it may be acceptable. If true, score one for Iran.

    Reply

    1. Re blaming Netanyahu —
      IMO that’s the least damaging plausible outcome.

      It is near certain that, delusionally self-identifying as the most greatest winner ever, personal failure is literally literally not an option. Someone else will inevitably have to take the blame.

      Throwing current allies under a bus is SOP. Todays deemed ally can without pause be tomorrows deemed traitor.

      If that fails to pass the blame, there are some attractive and very much worse options.

      Blame Iran. Demonise them. Use any means necessary to remove that most evil regime. Dream about the eventual Nobel peace prize. Escalate without mercy and without limit until they surrender or die. (I really do mean without any limit.)

      Blame the Republican traitors who were insufficiently supportive. It’s their fault. They deserve any resulting damage to the GOP because they brought it upon themselves.

      Blame the uncaring American people and their stupid obsessions with prices and supplies and no gasoline when there are so much bigger issues at stake. In the limit, when there are no other options, implement a Nero Decree. They were unworthy of him.

      This, sadly, is not sarcasm.

      Reply

  9. Best wishes to my adorable brother, Jerry, who teaches me and keeps me on my toes at all times. Among his many hidden talents, he can recite flawlessly the back label of an old Rolling Rock bottle, starting with “From the glass lined tanks……” Just ask him! Love you Bro.

    Reply

    1. I have five Rolling Rock beer cans in my collection. I am currently looking at the back of the oldest one, a flat top from the Late 50s-Early 60s. There is a statement on the back of the can, which begins “From the glass lined tanks…” So the statement was also on the backs of old cans too.

      Reply

  10. 1) On Kyle Busch:

    -We don’t know that he died of vaccine-preventable pneumococcal pneumonia. Sepsis with Group A streptococci or Staphylococcus aureus, neither of which has a vaccine, can have a pulmonary focus especially after a “sinusitis” prodrome and can kill just as quickly. All three are rare in healthy young adults.

    -Pneumococcal vaccine isn’t recommended for healthy people under 50, as PCC(E) implies (65 in Canada.) This is a partly a number-needed-to-treat question — economics — and partly just a rough calculus of how much low-yield preventive effort primary-care doctors should be exhorted into making, to prevent rare diseases. There are many such. I realize the demographic here skews into the age where we are enthusiastic targets of vaccination drives and other preventive care intended to scratch out another couple of years of elderly life for ourselves. But looking back to when I was 40, the idea of making time out of a busy professional racing schedule to wheedle my doctor into giving me a vaccine intended to prevent a rare disease in old people and the chronically ill would have been the furthest thing from my mind.

    Casting the unfortunate Mr. Busch as poster child against the anti-vaxxers seems a bit of a reach, even if they are NASCAR retards.

    2) On President Trump:

    He isn’t personally affected by the US mid-term elections or by the price of gasoline as he is not a candidate in any election ever again, and the fortunes of “his” party (which he adopted late in his life and seems to hold mostly in contempt) don’t affect him personally. Even if the Democrats get majorities in Congress and impeach him for show, they won’t convict because that would give them JD Vance as President, who would use the ~18 months in office to campaign for his own run in 2028. So if Mr. Trump is looking at the mid-terms it can’t be for selfish reasons. My take is that they are a distraction that he isn’t looking at all, to the frantic dismay of the GOP.

    Reply

    1. “Mr. Trump is looking at the mid-terms it can’t be for selfish reasons.”

      That got a LOL! Trump doesn’t like… anything to do with losing, I think that is clear. Just ask the Ukrainians.

      Reply

  11. Kathleen Kingsbury has a record on Israel. She is not exactly an objective journalist. She is at least partially responsible for the NYT’s anti-Israeli editorial slant. Just ask Bari Weiss.

    The NYT barely pretends to be objective about Israel these days. First of all, such a claim would not be supportable. Second, it’s what their target audience wants.

    Reply

  12. What Matthew saw from his plane is known as a glory. I’ve seen several from airplane windows, but one of the high points of my life was the time I saw a full-spectrum glory while hang gliding at Big Sur.

    A Brocken Spectre is something else: it’s a magnified shadow of the observer. There may be an accompanying glory surrounding the shadow.

    Reply

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