Wednesday: Hili dialogue

June 10, 2026 • 6:45 am

NOTE TO READERS:  The next week will be a busy one for me: I have to prepare for a big podcast; we’re expecting Vashti’s second brood to hatch (we are going to try to rehab mother and ducklings since I don’t want to lose a third brood in the pond), and I have a big writing assignment to deal with.  For the next week or so posting may be limited to Hili Dialogues, readers’ wildlife, and perhaps some persiflage. Bear with me; I do my best.

Welcome to a Hump Day (“হাম্প ডে (সপ্তাহের মাঝের দিন)” in Bengali): Wednesday, June 10, 2026 and National Black Cow Day, referring not to melanistic bovids but to the drink—usually a “root beer float“: root beer with ice cream. They’re very good, and a speciality of the A&W Root Beer chains. Some info from the first link:

Today we celebrate the black cow, which in many locations is simply another name for a root beer float—a drink consisting of root beer and vanilla ice cream. They are sometimes called chocolate cows or brown cows when chocolate ice cream is used in place of vanilla. In some locations, a black or brown cow is made with cola instead of root beer. In other locations, root beer and ice cream are mixed together, instead of the ice cream sitting on top.

Frank J. Wisner, owner Cripple Creek Brewing in Colorado, made the first black cow on August 19, 1893, after observing the snow caps of Cow Mountain the night before, and thinking they looked like ice cream scoops on top of soda. The first drinks were made by combining Myers Avenue Red root beer and vanilla ice cream. He soon began making the drink using cola, and it became known as the Black Cow Mountain drink. It is said that children shortened the name to the black cow.

See below for an appropriate song. It’s also Ballpoint Pen Day (it was on it was on June 10, 1943, that László Bíró applied for a patent for his pen). National Herb and Spice Day, and National Iced Tea Day, celebrating what’s fondly called “the table wine of the South.”

And Steely Dan’s song, “Black cow”:

Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the June 10 Wikipedia page.

Da Nooz:

Breaking Nooz, ripped from the headlines: After an Iranian drone shot down a U.S. Army Apache helicopter (both pilots were saved from the water by a drone boat), the U.S. launched attacks on Iran. Iran retaliated with strikes on U.S. bases in Iran.  Iran also fired at U.S. targets in Jordan, Bahrain, and Kuwait

The United States and Iran traded strikes across the Middle East early Wednesday after the U.S. accused Iran of downing an American helicopter, threatening a fragile two-month cease-fire and challenging President Trump’s repeated claims that the countries are close to a deal to end the war.

The U.S. military said its jets struck Iranian targets, including air defenses and radar sites, near the Persian Gulf. Iran said it had retaliated by launching drone attacks against U.S. naval targets in Bahrain, and firing missiles at American military facilities in Jordan. It was unclear whether the new clashes could be contained.

. . . The Jordanian military said it had intercepted five missiles launched from Iran toward a region that includes Jordan’s Muwaffaq Salti base, which has been used for U.S. air operations and was also targeted in the early days of the war. Bahrain’s military said it had taken out several Iranian drones and missiles. And the Kuwait Army said its air defenses intercepted hostile targets.

This war is not going to go gentle into that good cease-fire. . .

*After the WaPo reported that Israel and Lebanon agreed on Monday to stop attacking each other, the NYT reports that Israel attacked Lebanon yesterday morning.

First from the WaPo:

After trading volleys of long-range missile strikes that defied calls for restraint from President Donald Trump and threatened to tip the region back into all-out war, Israel and Iran signaled Monday that the attacks had concluded for now.

That lasted exactly one day. From the NYT:

The Israeli military struck areas across southern Lebanon on Tuesday, testing the shaky two-month cease-fire again, just a day after direct hostilities between Iran and Israel threatened to unravel the truce.

At least eight people were killed and dozens more wounded in an attack on Tyre, one of southern Lebanon’s largest cities, Lebanon’s health ministry said. The latest attacks underlined how Lebanon has emerged as a major wedge issue in efforts to negotiate an end to the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran.

Tehran has insisted that any peace agreement include security for Lebanon, while Israel has rejected any such link, insisting it will keep striking there to target the Iran-allied Hezbollah militia. After an Israeli strike near the Lebanese capital, Beirut, set off a brief round of clashes with Iran on Sunday and Monday, Tehran warned that it would attack Israel again if it resumed its “aggression and hostile acts,” including in southern Lebanon.

Hezbollah, for its part, has rejected any cease-fire with Israel, and has continued firing on Israel from its positions in southern Lebanon. Israel has occupied large parts of southern Lebanon, arguing that it is needed to defend itself against Hezbollah attacks, and the Israeli military issued new evacuation warnings in the region early Tuesday, warning of imminent strikes. Some of the attacks were in areas that were not covered by evacuation warnings, according to Lebanon’s state-run news agency.

President Trump said early Tuesday that both Iran and Israel had agreed to stop their attacks on each other, and that “a very, very good deal” between the United States and Iran could be finalized within days.

Yeah, well let’s see what Trump’s conception of “very, very good deal” is. Lebanon agreed to stop the attacks by Hezbollah, but of course Lebanon (and the UN) are powerless to do it, so who else but Israel.  And any deal that leaves Hezbollah in place is a very bad deal indeed—just like Trump’s “peace plan” for Gaza that has so far left Hamas in power. The demand by Iran that Hezbollah stay in power shows, clearer than anything else, that it wants to continue fostering terrorism in the Middle East through its proxies.

*The NYT also describes how both Iran and the U.S. need to construct a peace deal that  allows both sides to claim victory.

For weeks, the parameters of a preliminary agreement to end the war between the United States and Iran have been clear to its negotiators. The hang-up? How to devise a deal so each side can claim a win.

Washington and Tehran — both neither fully victorious nor completely defeated in the war — badly want a deal. But they also need something they can present as favorable to the hawks and hard-liners back home.

Added to this fundamental dispute are the peculiarities of the two countries’ leaders. One of them is in hiding and slow to sign off on any proposal; the other is so unpredictable, his own envoys struggle to negotiate on his behalf.

Unsuccessful efforts at devising this alchemy of wording have mired the two sides in a state of neither war nor peace. They have left the global economy in limbo, too, as both sides continue their blockades of the vital Strait of Hormuz.

The longer this uncertainty persists, mediators warn, the higher the risk the whole peace process will be derailed. The tenuous nature of it all was reinforced on Monday when Israel and Iran exchanged strikes for the first time since the April cease-fire, bringing the Middle East back to the precipice of full-blown war before both sides backed down.

Any framework for a peace agreement is likely to require Iran to allow normal maritime traffic through the strait and the United States to halt its blockade of Iranian vessels. It is also likely to include a pledge to hold a second phase of negotiations culminating in Iran’s giving up its highly enriched uranium stockpile and Washington’s easing economic sanctions in return. And any deal is widely expected — perhaps most problematically for President Trump — to unlock some of Iran’s frozen assets.

The dilemma is how to sequence the terms, said Sanam Vakil, director of the Middle East and North Africa program at Chatham House.

“The U.S. wants to get everything and not give too much at the beginning,” she said. “And the Iranians want to get things at the beginning and give things along the way.”

But does anybody really know what they’re talking about vis-à-vis the war? Yes, of course each side wants to look like a winner, And that’s a problem—but not the way the Israel-hating NYT thinks.  Returning to reality, one side should look like a winner, and it should be Israel and the U.S.  When did the world come up with the notion that “winners’ and “losers” in wars are bad things? Do they not remember WWII?

*And Amit Segal weighs the same question at It’s Noon in Israel in a piece called “Israel vs Iran: Aftermath“, with the subtitle “Who won the latest exchange?”

Choosing sovereignty, Israel struck early yesterday, destroying air defense assets and a Mahshahr petrochemical plant producing missile materials. The strike proved to the free world that Tehran is not shielded from consequences, even in an era of Trump diplomacy. However, Iran refused to back down, firing another barrage of missiles by morning. Ultimately, Donald Trump’s 12:30 p.m. tweet demanding an immediate halt to the Israeli strikes ensured that Tehran landed the final blow.

According to Army Radio’s Doron Kadosh, the Israeli defense establishment had spent the night preparing a massive afternoon follow-up aimed at broader national infrastructure to cripple the regime economically. The plan was aborted on the tarmac by Trump’s declaration of peace. Whether this second wave was purely a contingency plan in case of an Iranian response or whether it was the second part of Israel’s initial strike remains unknown.

Militarily and strategically, this brief exchange was neither a resounding victory nor a crushing defeat for either side. For Israel, it was simply the baseline response. So, back to the initial question: who won?

We still don’t know.

The silence of the ceasefire has quickly been filled by opposing narratives, kicking off what is now a staple of Middle East ceasefires: firing and testing for responses. So far, Hezbollah has been quiet regarding declarations of resistance, but its patron sought to establish a clear red line. Iran warned that any further Israeli aggression—specifically “including in southern Lebanon”—would be met with “much more severe and crushing measures.”

Israel swiftly and explicitly rejected this attempt to link Lebanese territory to Iranian deterrence. Defense Minister Israel Katz declared that the IDF will continue its operations against Hezbollah, warning that any Iranian reprisal will be met with the same “great force” demonstrated yesterday. Meanwhile, Lebanon’s president issued a call for diplomatic engagement—a declaration whose impact is as significant as the rest of the Lebanese state’s actions in this conflict: non-existent.

I guess Israel has no choice but to do what Trump says. but that’s tying its hands. Lebanon is none of Trump’s business, but it’s been made his business by Iran. I would have preferred that Israel enact its “massive afternoon followup. . . to cripple the regime economically.”  What does Trump have to lose by that? (A cease-fire with Iran, I suppose.)  But once again Israel is not allowed to win a war; the only country, says Sam Harris, subject to such strictures.

*The Iranian/French graphic novelist Marjane Satrapi, just died at the young age of 56. The Free Press honors her as “The woman who warned the world about Iran” with her series of graphic novels called Persepolis. And the article is by our own Masih Alinejad!

Before Persepolis, Iran was a headline. The Revolution. The hostage crisis. The long war with Iraq. The nuclear standoff. The name Iran had fused, in the Western imagination, with images of burning flags and chanting crowds. It was a country of events, not of people. A problem to be managed, not a civilization to be understood.

The Islamic Republic worked to keep it that way, sending articulate diplomats to Western capitals, managing media access carefully, making sure that even serious newsrooms published a version of Iran that was, in effect, sanitized. Where was the story of the women who had never agreed to any of this? In the years before social media, those voices had almost no path to the outside world.

Long before morality police became a phrase that Western journalists knew, long before millions of people took to the streets under the banner of Women, Life, Freedom, one woman sat down with ink and paper and did something that had not been done before.

Through her book, which followed her coming of age story in Iran, exile in Europe, and yearslong struggle to say goodbye to a country slipping off a cliff into brutal oppression, people in the West learned that women in Iran were being stopped on the street, beaten, arrested, imprisoned for the way they wore (or didn’t) a piece of cloth on their head. They learned that the hijab in Iran was not a cultural expression, or faith freely worn. It was a law, enforced by men with authority and batons, by a government that had decided women’s bodies belonged to the state.

No wonder the novel was censored in Iran. But the regime couldn’t stop its truth from reaching the world: Marjane Satrapi was the first person to make compulsory hijab a global story.

. . .There is a video of her, in Persian, that I keep returning to. She recites the rules, the ones every Iranian girl absorbs before she absorbs anything else. “A good woman never does this. A real woman always behaves like that.” The list is long. And after reciting every rule, she declares that she intends to do exactly as she pleases. That if the price of freedom is being called impolite or difficult, then she will pay it, and gladly.

“I would rather be impolite,” she says, “than a woman who is not free.”

It is like a manifesto for women like me.

Based on this, I’ve just ordered the first two graphic books of Persepolis from U Chicago’s interlibrary loan.  I’m looking forward to reading them, and yes, they were banned not just in Iran, but in many places in America.

*From the AP’s reliable “oddities” section, we learn about cockroach smuggling in Australia!

More than 100,000 live cockroaches illegal to keep in Australia were confiscated from a single breeder in the country’s largest-ever seizure of exotic invertebrates, officials said Friday.

The haul of Madagascar hissing cockroaches and dubia cockroaches, worth 200,000 Australian dollars ($142,000), was seized in May from a commercial breeder in the city of Bathurst in New South Wales state, according to Australia’s Department of Climate Change, Energy, Environment and Water.

The Madagascar hissing species is one of the world’s biggest cockroaches, measuring 2 to 3 inches (5 to 8 centimeters) in length. Photos released by the department showed a shiny, brown invertebrate larger than a person’s finger.

It’s much bigger than the country’s common Australian cockroach, which measures between 0.9 and 1.4 inches (2.3 and 3.6 centimeters) long. Cockroaches flourish in Australia due to its sub-tropical climates and the country is home to hundreds of species.

Bathurst snake catcher Stefanie Lesser told the Australian Broadcasting Corp. that the larger exotic species were likely being sold as as a cost-effective reptile food because their large size meant fewer insects were needed. Officials urged pet owners to seek out crickets or wood roaches to feed their lizards instead.

When I was at Harvard in graduate school, I kept about five or six tarantulas as pets, and every once in a while I’d walk over to the BioLabs, where they kept a giant breeding colony of hissing cockroaches, Gromphadorhina portentosa (don’t ask me why).  The little ones were good food for tarantulas. And yes, the cockroaches hiss (through their spiracles); see the video below.  It’s clearly an antipredator adaptation. Why is keeping them illegal in Australia? Guess! (Think about cane toads and rabbits.)

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, the upstairs d*g is temporarily sequestered upstairs:

Szaron: Freedom has returned.
Hili: That’s true, but it’s limited.

In Polish:

Szaron: Wróciła wolność.
Hili: To prawda, ale jest limitowana.

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

From Meow Incorporated:

From Terrible Maps:  U.S. counties bordering on four or more states:

From CinEmma:

From Masih; Afghan women being shot at by the Taliban for wanting an education:

Luana sent a video (yes, from Tommy Robinson) showing a man in trying to behead someone in the street in Belfast. Apparently he gouged the victim’s eyes out as well.  I can’t embed the video but you can see it here (WARNING: blood!). Two locals beat the guy off. You can read the story at Reuters:  the guy survived–plus the accused attacker, a Sudanese national, was apprehended.

The suspect, a 30-year-old Sudanese national, has been detained on suspicion of attempted murder.
Police said it was understood he lived locally, having been granted leave to remain in the UK in September 2023 after claiming asylum. He had travelled to Belfast ​in February that year by ​bus from Dublin, having ⁠flown there from Paris on an unknown date. Two posts from Emma on this:

Also from Luana, a rescue of a street dog from Thaliand (Luana is a dog fan). There are more heartening tweets about the dog at the site.

Two from my feed. First a repentant gorilla (he’s much bigger than his wife!):

Dog ablutions, self-petting, or both?

One I reposted from The Auschwitz Memorial:

This Hungarian Jewish girl was gassed to death as soon as she arrived in Auschwitz. She was 13 years old, and had she lived, today would have been her birthday.

— Jerry Coyne (@evolutionistrue.bsky.social) 2026-06-10T10:12:00.771Z

And one from Dr. Cobb, on hols for a while. Of the video he says, “They even self-eject”:

They even self eject 😂😂😂www.jalopnik.com/hot-wheels-h…

— Luca (@lucagalletti.bsky.social) 2026-05-30T21:11:51.666Z

3 thoughts on “Wednesday: Hili dialogue”

  1. A war’s end where both sides can claim victory would be unusual. Certainly, only American’s enemies would find it useful for Iran to “win”.

    The door in the car wash is hilariously. The best scritches ever.

    Reply

  2. Apparently, root beer is not widely sold in Europe, so most over there will never know the admittedly strange joy of a root beer float during a hot summer day.

    Reply

  3. My father, a professor of biology, got hold of some Madagascar Hissing Cockroaches when I was a child, and kept them in the basement. My mother was not a fan. He donated a few to my high school biology teacher, who made me hold one in front of the class because she figured I’d be fine with it. I wasn’t at first, but honestly, the thing was kind of cute – like a giant pill bug. They don’t bite, and their little legs just kind of tickled my palm.

    Reply

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