Welcome to Sunday, August 23: the Sabbath made for goyische cats and National Cuban Sandwich Day. Here’s what Wikipedia has to say about this American-Cuban delicacy:
A Cuban sandwich (Spanish: Sándwich cubano) is a variation of a ham and cheese sandwich that likely originated before the turn of the 20th century in cafes catering to Cuban workers in Tampa or Key West, two early Cuban immigrant communities in Florida, United States, centered on the cigar industry. Later on, Cuban exiles and expatriates brought it to Miami, where it is also very popular. The sandwich is made with ham, roast pork, Swiss cheese, pickles, mustard, and sometimes salami on Cuban bread. Salami is included in Tampa, but is not usually included in South Florida.
Here’s one I got at a Cuban joint in Brooklyn at the Heterodox Academy meetings in June of last year. That was the meeting where Louis Menand argued with me about whether art conveyed truth, leading me to write this essay for Quillette.) But about the sandwich: as Hemingway would say, “It was good”. Note that the pork is chopped. There are platanos maduros on the side. If you have a layover in the Miami airport, there’s a Cuban joint there where you can try one. (Don’t forget the plantains!)
It’s also Buttered Corn Day (I had some last night), National Sponge Cake Day, and Valentino Day, celebrating the short life of silent-movie star Rudolph Valentino, who died on this day in 1926 at only 31 years of age. (cause of death, peritonitis and septic endocarditis).
Here’s a very famous scene from a restored version of the 1921 film “Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse“, with the music and sound added recently. As Wikipedia notes, this movie (and this scene in particular) helped create the tango craze in the U.S.:
Often regarded as one of the first anti-war films, it had a huge cultural impact and became the top-grossing film of 1921 by beating out Charlie Chaplin’s The Kid. The film turned the little-known actor Rudolph Valentino into a superstar and associated him with the image of the Latin lover. The film also inspired a tango craze and such fashion fads as gaucho pants.
H. L. Mencken wrote a good short essay on Valentino that you can read here.
There’s a Google gif today highlighting the U.S. national parks. Click below to go to its destination (the movement in the gif is subtle):
Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the August 23 Wikipedia page.
Da Nooz:
*The WSJ reports that Iran’s top politicans (note, not the theocrats) are urging their country to end the war with America.
Iran’s top politicians said the country needs to focus on ending the war and shoring up its crippled economy, pushing back publicly against hardliners who are taking a more defiant approach in the six-month-old conflict.
The comments by Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian and parliamentary speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf come as the diplomatic track remains stalled and the Trump administration has shifted to a policy of ratcheting up economic pressure via sanctions and the naval blockade of Iran’s ports.
The war and the economic strictures have piled pressure on Iran’s already spiraling economy, further sinking its currency and making it hard for Iranians to afford their daily needs. Tehran’s more moderate leaders worry the pressure will eventually undermine the country’s stability.
It is unclear, however, whether hardliners who recently levied tough new demands for reopening the Strait of Hormuz or the Trump administration, which is demanding deep concessions and called again this week for the regime’s collapse, can come to an agreement.
“The war must come to an end at some point,” Pezeshkian said Friday in comments reported by Iranian media. “It is better that we demonstrate our strength and dignity today and tell the world that we have won and that we are ending the war.”
Ghalibaf was less direct but said there will be no security if the country ignores its economic crisis.
“No matter how much military power we have, if our people are struggling and the country lacks financial circulation and economic growth, we will not achieve progress,” the parliamentary speaker said. “As someone who has experienced war, we understand the true value of peace.”
. . .Analysts saw the comments as notable expressions of Iran’s economic distress but said that further rounds of escalation are more likely than an end to the war given the current lack of viable parameters for a deal.
Iranian hardliners have a deep distrust of the U.S. administration and have taken the lull in the conflict to prepare for more rounds of fighting.
As you might have guessed, these “top politicians” have little power compared to Iran’s theocrats and the possibly dead Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, who hasn’t been seen in ages. But it’s still the religious “politicans” who decide what to do, and we just heard yesterday that economic warfare by the U.S. is not likely to bring an end to the war.
*The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that, for now, Trump can continue building his useless ballroom on the former site of the White House’s East Wing, though the Court is considering the issue further because of an emergency appeal.
It’s unclear how long Roberts’s administrative stay will last, but typically such holds remain in effect for amatter of daysto give the court time to fully consider the appeal.
President Donald Trump praised the decision Friday on Truth Social, saying he was “grateful.”
“The Military/Ballroom Complex being built on the hallowed grounds of the White House, which is so vital for National Security, will be THE GREATEST OF ITS KIND!” Trump said.
The Trump administration has argued that ballroom construction must go on for the safety of the president and national security.
The ballroom construction is intertwined with work on a five-story underground military complex that will feature shelters, a hospital and more to protect the president and senior officials in an emergency, the administration said in court filings. The overall project is estimated to cost $600 million, according to contracting documents obtained by The Washington Post.
Administration officials said the ballroom, which will be hardened with missile-resistant columns and a drone-proof roof, will act as a shield for the military complex and the rest of the White House more generally.
It’s not clear from this article whether there was a published vote on the ruling, or what it was. The appeal may be from The National Trust for Historic Preservation, but that’s not clear either from this poorly written article. What is clear is that construction is continuing as the case wends its way through the courts, and what will happen if the Supremes rules that construction will have to stop? It’s apparently close to completion! The only reasonable thing to do is stop construction until there’s a court ruling, but for some reason that’s no deemed a proper ruling. But we all know that Trump will eventually get his ballroom.
*I haven’t written much lately on the big fracas in New Zealand about indigenous “knowledge” versus modern science, but it’s continuing, and may get worse under the latest government. The latest mishigass, which I’ve heard of from several correspondents, is summarized in this Retraction Watch article, “A New Zealand journal deleted a paper for potential harm to Māori months after publishing it” (h/t Bill)
When Arna Mitchell submitted her article critiquing a proposal for different standards of practice for Māori and non-Māori clients in clinical psychology, she thought it would be too controversial to publish because it challenged views becoming influential among professional and academic circles.
But the Journal of the New Zealand College of Clinical Psychologists (JNZCCP) had the paper peer-reviewed and published it in August 2025. And then, 10 months later, they deleted the article, after deciding the work could perpetuate harm to Māori, the indigenous people of New Zealand, and that it conflicted with the college’s values.
The college defended the deletion by arguing the journal is not an independent, indexed academic journal. But the decision has caused members to quit the college and has drawn criticism from the field, including from a former editor of the journal.
“I have not been shown how my ideas are wrong or inaccurate. I have not been shown how my ideas are not aligned with my professional ethics,” Mitchell told Retraction Watch. “The ideas in my article challenged the dominant narrative in our psychology institutions and were politically and ideologically inconvenient for some of our professional leaders. In my opinion, those are reasons for more robust discussions, not censorship.”
As you see from the abstract (below) of the paper that is still online (here), the paper criticized a report that claimed that science and Māori “ways of knowing” (Mātauranga Māori)are different, and in psychology their claims should be given equal weight, even when there is no empirical support for Māori-based knowledge claims. As you see, the author is criticizing, among other things, that “science is a social construct of white Europeans” which is misguided in several ways (e.g., scientific methods have developed because they help us find the truth).
It’s worth mentioning that the author, Arna Mitchell, is of Māori descent.
From the canceled paper (my emphasis):
In principle, there is no reason why mātauranga Māori should not be widely accepted and implemented within the profession, provided rigorous research demonstrates its effectiveness relative to other approaches in applied psychology settings. If some Indigenous practitioners want psychologists in New Zealand to be required to widely incorporate mātauranga Māori practices, they should be required to follow our profession’s established scientific validation processes and not be permitted to influence practice without a sufficient empirical evidence base. In lieu of scientific evidence, these changes are being made with rules and regulations decided on by highly select reference groups and with oversight from current members of our statutory authority, the NZPB.
A bit more from Retraction Watch:
The journal published it in August 2025 as a viewpoint — a label Mitchell believes was later used to undermine the article and dismiss her opinions. In a letter published in the same issue as the article, Donkin and two associate editors, Paul Skirrow and Zara Mansoor, defended open debate. It began with a Māori proverb: “What is the food of chiefs? It is discussion, discussion, discussion.” They wrote: “academic freedom and professional critique are not threats to our cohesion,” and that “if an article challenges your perspective, we encourage you to sit with that discomfort.”
The president of the NZCCP said they would not be commenting on our questions, the editors of the journal have not responded to our emails.
The editors are blockheads, I’m afraid to say. They are simply canceling views calling for adherence to science and empiricism because that method doesn’t comport with “indigenous ways of knowing.” And the retraction does not comport with scientific principles. From RW:
COPE guidelines state a retraction notice should be freely accessible to all readers and should link to the retracted article. Retraction with removal of an article is a “rare” case when an article “violates personal privacy, is the subject of a court order, or could have a serious health risk to the general public or the environment,” the guidelines state. In these circumstances, the notice “should clearly state why the content of the article has been removed.” There is no retraction notice on the journal’s website, and the article is no longer accessible. It was also removed from third-party platform Zenodo in late July, where it had accumulated more than 9,000 views.
In a statement to media at the time, the NZCCP executive said the journal “is not an independent, indexed academic journal, and editorial decisions must be considered within the context of the College’s governance, values, and constitutional commitments.”
The journal had always been presented as a scientific journal, said Helen Buckland-Wright, a clinical psychologist and former member of the NZCCP who also ran for an executive position alongside Mitchell. If it was a magazine, she said, “why have a peer review? Why have editors who are academics and go through an academic process?”
I had hoped that this scienceis-as-valid-as-mythology nonsense would end when the uber-woke Jacinda Ardern was replaced as NZ ‘sPrime Minister by Chris Hipkins and now by Christopher Luxon, who is more conservative. But it persists, and I still hear complaints about this kind of stuff from many Kiwis. Apparently these complaints are not unfounded, and this mess with the Journal of the New Zealand College of Clinical Psychologists is one more example. New Zealand must rival Canada as the most woke country in the world (and by “woke” I mean “engaged in performative virtue signaling that doesn’t improve society”).
*Matt Calkins, a sports writer for the Seattle Times for 11 years, just resigned, and explains why in a Substack post (it’s about biological men in women’s sports).
I really wanted the column to run. I didn’t think it would, but I felt obligated to try to get it in.
Toward the end of last month, before the Seattle Storm hosted the Indiana Fever, I spoke to people attending a rally in support of Sophie Cunningham outside Climate Pledge Arena. The Fever guard had recently taken a stance against biological males competing in women’s/girls sports, and a few dozen folks showed up to express their gratitude for her position.
One of them was 16-year-old Ahnaleigh Wilson, who’d lost to a biological male in a track and field race in eighth grade and was holding a sign reading “Thank You Sophie for Speaking up for Girls!”
I didn’t know if I was going to write something at that point, but after she allegedly got cussed out by a Storm co-owner during the game, I felt like I had to weigh in.
One thing Wilson emphasized to me at the rally was that she wasn’t anti-trans. Another student-athlete named Frances Staudt — who said she’s endured daily verbal abuse after refusing to play against a biological boy in a basketball game — echoed Wilson’s sentiment.
So that was the thesis of my column (which you can read here) — that supporting the separation of biological females and males doesn’t automatically make you transphobic, so let’s stop throwing those labels around.
I sent a draft after talking to my editor the morning of Friday, July 31, telling him there was no rush to run it. He told me later that day that he and others were looking at it, but that it wouldn’t be ready for Sunday’s paper. Monday night, I got an email saying that his boss was hoping to talk to the top two newsroom editors about it on Wednesday. No feedback had been given to me. Thursday afternoon, my editor informed me that it wasn’t going to run because I didn’t tell him I was doing this in advance. I didn’t buy this reasoning. If that were the case, the piece would have been killed on the spot, not passed through the hands of multiple editors over several days.
My response? To resign on the spot.
. . .I’ve always thought that it was a columnist’s duty to generate discussion on the most hot-button issues. To avoid such topics was to leave the reader shortchanged. I guess in the end, I just didn’t feel like I could do my job properly anymore.
Right now, I’m in the tenuous position of trying to defend my resignation without sounding like a malcontent. So let me say — I’m very grateful for the 11 years I had at the Seattle Times. The talent there is immense, and the editors let me have a lot of fun with other stories. I also realize where the brass is coming from. The mob is frightening and does not forget. Lots of seemingly brave souls have submitted once activists got their hooks in them. If I had more people depending on me, perhaps I’d act similarly.
But in thinking about this decision, I kept going back to an Albus Dumbledore line: “We must all face the choice between what is right and what is easy.”
And Calkins’s last paragraph:
All that’s certain is that I’m done holding back. The best things in life are free — speech being at the top of the list.
Of course there is no First Amendment for columnists, but the fact is that a hefty majority of Americans (see Pew data below) disfavor or are not comfortable with trans-identified males (aka “trans females”) competing in women’s sports, and a column was spiked that aligned with these sentiments.
*The Duke and Duchess of Sussex (Harry and Meghan) have decided to move back to England after a failed attempt to become American Hollywood royalty, and the NYT has three whole articles about it on the front page (the paper is getting more “People Magazine-y” all the time). Still, I have followed this saga though I’m not obsessed with royalty. What does the NYT say?
It began with such high hopes.
The Duke and Duchess of Sussex landed in Hollywood in 2020, flush with a multimillion-dollar Netflix deal and a promise that the duo, scorned by the royal family, would make a slew of inspirational programming.
Two years later, “Harry & Meghan” the Netflix six-part docuseries on the couple’s departure from Britain, generated 23.4 million views in its initial release, immediately topping the company’s charts as the most watched ever for the first four days of a documentary. In total, the program has garnered 70 million views since its debut.
Nothing else Prince Harry and his wife, Meghan, ever made for the service — whether it was “Live to Lead,” a seven-episode interview show with world leaders, or “Polo,” a docuseries about the sport — reached such heights.
In 2025, the Netflix deal was not renewed. A similarly lofty agreement at Spotify also fell short of expectations.
And as Americans asked this week why the couple was leaving their West Coast idyll, Hollywood observers pointed to one of the most enduring themes in the history of Southern California: show business aspirations that failed.
“There has always been this aura here, this magical thinking,” said Leo Braudy, a Los Angeles cultural historian and the author of “The Frenzy of Renown: Fame and Its History.” “Everybody thinks, ‘I’m beautiful,’ or ‘I’m handsome.’ Everybody thinks, ‘If those people can make it in Hollywood, so can I.’”
But most people don’t make it, he said, and throughout history, even otherwise wealthy and powerful people have mistakenly imagined that success in other fields would automatically translate to show business glory.
And that’s all I want to say about these ex-Royals. They irritate me because their ambition to “make it in Hollywood” was so nakedly clear. They have tons of money, but they want fame too. That’s not necessarily bad, but they were ROYALS, for crying out loud. They don’t have to do the jobs of royals, but they don’t have the talent to make it without that cachet. In fact, even in Hollywood they could not make it with that cachet. Stay tuned as the sparks fly as they interact with the other royals after they return to England.
Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili proves herself a Luddite:
Me: I’m too old for all these new things.
Hili: What happened?
Me: I can’t handle technology.
Hili: Use a hammer.
In Polish:
Ja: Jestem już za stary na te wszystkie nowości.
Hili: Co się stało?
Ja: Nie radzę sobie z techniką.
Hiloi: Użyj młotka.
*******************
From Give Me a Sign:
From Now That’s Wild: (note: should be “lying”):
From Masih; Iranian morality police (the women in black) keeping the beaches properly Islamic:
BREAKING: Look at how many morality police the Islamic Republic has sent to the only one beach in Iran to force women to cover their body.
Women in Iran can be punished for going to the beach in ordinary swimwear. The regime expects them to cover their whole bodies even when… pic.twitter.com/NFGtBZdakF
— Masih Alinejad (@AlinejadMasih) August 22, 2026
From Maarten. You can read about Dylan Evans here.
Dr. Dylan Evans is the same guy who just published a “J’accuse” against the “lynch mob” and “modern digital pillory” that supposedly “killed” Jason Arday. In case you don’t recognize me, he made a (slightly) modified version of one of my profile pics with AI.
Dylan Evans is no… pic.twitter.com/RjbNr934Cv
— Maarten Boudry (@mboudry) August 22, 2026
From Luana; the U.S. ambassador to Belgium objects to Ghent University’s treatment of Nathan Cofnas. It may not change anything, but thee rector of Ghent should pay attention.
The United States Mission to Belgium condemns, in the strongest terms, Ghent University’s retaliation against an American scholar following his accurate whistleblower reporting on academic fraud.
The United States government regularly funds and supports research, academic…
— U.S. Ambassador to Belgium Bill White (@USAmbToBelgium) August 21, 2026
From Malcolm; a maze for kitties:
Maze game for kittens..🐈🐾😅 pic.twitter.com/sJPzibXUT6
— 𝕐o̴g̴ (@Yoda4ever) August 5, 2026
A comment from Larry the cat on a very old woman who just passed away:
There have been 25 Prime Ministers in Ethel’s lifetime – a third of those are since she turned 100 https://t.co/ITISiliuFi
— Larry the Cat (@Number10cat) August 21, 2026
One from my feed; crow wins!
The bird even realized he had won pic.twitter.com/D4I8Xs6Htr
— Massimo (@Rainmaker1973) August 21, 2026
And one I reposted from The Auschwitz Memorial:
A Czech Jewish boy and his mother died in Auschwitz soon after they arrived in 1944. He was about three years old, and would be 85 today had he lived. https://t.co/kjEVBaVj1v
— Jerry Coyne (@Evolutionistrue) August 23, 2026
Finally, one from Matthew (buy his audiobook!); interspecific pals:
Finnish nature photographer Lassi Rautiainen followed a female grey wolf (Canis lupus) & a male brown bear (Ursos arctos) for 10 days.They played together, shared meals, napped together. Both were young adults.They appeared to be… friends?(📷: Lassi Rautiainen, http://www.wildfinland.org)
— c0nc0rdance (@c0nc0rdance.bsky.social) 2026-08-22T15:31:47.461Z
All the cool kids are signing a “letter opposing punishment of Nathan Cofnas for whistleblowing”. Here’s the link. (You need to be an academic with an ORCID to sign.)
“The best things in life are free — speech being at the top of the list.” Matt Calkins
Amen to that, my brother!
I don’t think the 117 year old Ethel has passed away. She is alive and kicking.
While I can’t claim to be particularly interested in the Sussexes, or indeed the rest of the royals, I can’t help but notice that the media here in the UK have gone overboard with comment about them. Most of these articles I have ignored, but I have had a look at some of those purporting to explain why they are coming back. Curiously, they all give different explanations despite claiming to give the real reason, so obviously they don’t actually know – it’s just speculation. This says it all about the british medias approach to royalty. They have to fulfill a demand for information even they don’t actually have any.
I suspect Harry has been informed his visa will not be renewed due to his admitted drug usage.
I saw a piece suggesting that Harry wants to secure some place for himself back in England before his dad dies, because his brother doesn’t want anything to do with him.
Not something I’ve really followed closely, but I saw somewhere that Megan is in talks for a Guy Ritchie film role.
Latest news is that’s fallen through. Apparently she’s extremely difficult to work with.
“Useless ballroom”? Even Saint Barack said that it was wrong and embarrassing that the U.S. had to host foreign dignitaries in tents and with porta potties.
This is what I remember was mentioned back when this whole thing started. And that there are Dems on the Hill who privately admitted that a ballroom was sorely needed.
Yes, back when the original design was going to be harmonious with the original White House design.
My discussions with people here in D.C. made it clear that the major issue regarding the ballroom was not whether it was needed, but the appropriate process and chain of authority for building it. In an effort to justify circumventing that process, Trump claimed that it would be paid for, 100%, by private donations, a claim that is not only false, but is irrelevant.
The irony is that Trump would have had little trouble obtaining congressional and various agency approval for constructing a new ballroom, but his unitary executive approach to governance makes any such request for approval a sign of weakness.
If Andrew (formerly known as Prince A.) had a career Meghan must have thought “why not us?” but the queen stopped them. They went to the Us and hoped in a Kardashian style line of work: nada. Reality Meghan is obnoxious and her jam is probably not to die for, Harry is meh, the money was finishing, going back home has always been the solution.
Re the Ballroom: the order was from Chief Justice, not the Court as a whole. So no vote to record and no opinion. It just continued the stay from the Court of Appeals for a short time. Whether the Court acts before construction is done is hard to tell.
Thanks. My question is this: will the Supreme Court make the ultimate decision? And, if so, by a vote of the 9 Justices?
It’s perfect that Calkins quotes Albus Dumbledore in his post!
It is churlish today to inquire into the mere factual basis of claims such as suffering a brain tumor in grad school, or running umpteen marathons in a short time, or having installed water pumps in Brazil for a charity. These claims by definition represent Other Ways of Knowing, and deserve no less respect than assertions tested by the neocolonial methods of white empiricism. Better yet, todays’ etiquette of Diversity and Inclusion presents great prospects for my own group, the trans-animal community. Where transition from one species to another once demanded Lysenko’s burdensome vernalization process, now it is available to us by simple self-ID. We may therefore soon hope to see a trans-animal Professor at Cambridge, the only uncertainty being whether he/she/it will be a trans-fox or a trans-hound. And we look forward to the appointment of a trans-kangaroo to the Rectorship of a University elsewhere in Europe. These will be only the first steps. Once enough of us have assumed authority in academia, we can make sure that our Way of Knowing becomes the only acceptable Way.
Thanks. I got a chuckle out of this.
I always get confused by these trans labels. Is a trans-kangaroo professor a professor who was born human but identifies as a kangaroo, or is it a professor who was born kangaroo but identifies as human?
Thank you. As a Blak indigiqueer neurodivergent Palestinian amputee, I agree wholeheartedly that trans-species ID is the next great rights movement of our time!
Well, if that’s what you are, you better not go to Palestine. That indiqueer stuff may fly in the US, but if you show up in Nablus or Gaza, you may have to run away to Israel. But it’s okay, because there is tomb fornwheelchairs in the Tel Aviv pride parade…
I forgot to add that I am also three-spirit. Sometimes it is hard to keep track of so many intersectional identities!
The Talking Animals in Wicked brought to life.
Thanks to PCC(E) for keeping Maori nonsense in NZ front and center.
He’s about the only person outside NZ publicizing it. And — from a big shot evo biologist like him there’s an asymmetry to the attention. They NOTICE it in NZ I’m sure.
No serious atheist can ignore Islamic or “Indigenous” nonsense any more than we can ignore Christian or Jewish nonsense.
Kudos.
D.A.
NYC
“They NOTICE it in NZ”:
It’s like a breath of oxygen and a reassurance that not everyone has gone insane.
I really hope that psychology in NZ does not go the way of worldwide sociology and social anthropology.
Trump’s ballroom is a classic example of taking an action and apologizing later.* After a career in academia I had a second career in the high tech world, where that dictum occasionally came in handy. Trump should have done it all differently but, if he had, where would we be in the the process and how long would it take? With our Congress, it could take 50 years to build a ballroom.
In time, we’ll come to think of the ballroom as a modern and useful part of the White House complex.
*He won’t apologize, of course.
Fried plantains are great, as long as they are the green kind. And if you see a bag of Mariquitas Plantain Chips (occasionally available at ALDI), buy them!