Category: Hili Dialogue

Tuesday: Hili dialogue

June 22, 2021 • 6:30 am

Welcome to Tuesday, June 22, 2021: National Chocolate Eclair Day. It’s also National Onion Rings Day and World Rainforest Day.

Here’s a photo of a “blue jeans frog”, one morph of the “strawberry poison-dart frog” (Oophaga pumilio) that I took in the Costa Rican rainforest (La Selva field station) in January, 2012. It’s a tiny frog, smaller than your thumb.

News of the Day:

Reader Ken reports on a new and unanimous Supreme Court decision about compensation of college athletes. As he wrote me yesterday in an email titled “About damn time department”, (backed up by CNN):

A unanimous SCOTUS ruled today that college jocks can receive limited payments. I think this will prove to be an interim decision on the way to at least quasi-professional status for college athletes. Justice Keggers said as much in a concurring opinion — and on this, I agree with him.

I bet you can guess who “Justice Keggers” is!  At any rate, he and all the others ruled that the existing caps on scholarship compensation, ostensibly in place to protect a false distinction between “amateur” and “professional” athletes, was unconstitutional.

Before there was Rosa Parks there was Martha White, who was thrown off a public bus in Baton Rouge, Louisiana for sitting in the “whites only” section.  This was in 1953, 2½ years before Rosa Parks was arrested for the same “crime”. White’s defenestration didn’t move the country the way that Parks’s did, but she was brave nonetheless. White died on Saturday at 99. (h/t verotaxis). Here’s a pictureof her and her friends as well as the caption from the NYT:

Martha White, seated at right, in 2018 when she reunited with civil rights activists and other residents of Baton Rouge, La., on a 1953-era bus. Her refusal to give up a “whites-only” seat sparked a pivotal bus boycott in the civil rights movement.Credit…Russell L. Kelly Sr.

Another death: one of my French mentors, Jean David, has passed away at the age of 90. He was the force behind the evolutionary genetics of Drosophila in France, and produced a number of students and postdocs who carry on the tradition today. A lovely guy and a hard worker. In 1989 I did a six-month sabbatical in his lab at Gif-sur-Yvette outside Paris at the CNRS. What a time it was! (That’s where I met Matthew.)

Au revoir, Jean.  (Photo below.)

Reuters reports that Laurel Hubbard, a 43 year old transgender woman, has joined the New Zealand women’s weightlifting team.  She meets the Olympic criteria, based on testosterone titer, to compete with other women, but there are issues with a hormonally based criterion. Some women athletes have objected to her competing, but the New Zealand government and Olympic organization are supportive. (h/t: Luana)

An excerpt from Reuters (source tweeted by Colin Wright via Luana):

Hubbard has been eligible to compete at Olympics since 2015, when the International Olympic Committee (IOC) issued guidelines allowing any transgender athlete to compete as a woman provided their testosterone levels are below 10 nanomoles per litre for at least 12 months before their first competition.

Some scientists have said the guidelines do little to mitigate the biological advantages of those who have gone through puberty as males, including bone and muscle density.

Advocates for transgender inclusion argue the process of transition decreases that advantage considerably and that physical differences between athletes mean there is never a truly level playing field.

As I reported a while back, though, two new studies show that even three years of testosterone suppression does not eliminate all the strength advantages of being born a biological male, which first appear at puberty. (Second tweet.)

Animal encounter news of the week: the Guardian reports, with cool video, that an elephant poked its head through a kitchen wall in a Thai village in search of noms. It wasn’t hurt, but it didn’t get any noms, either (h/t: Jez):

Most villagers were respectful of and sympathetic toward the elephants, Plotnik said. “They are frustrated that this is happening, and really want to find solutions to stop it, but they don’t usually blame the elephants.”

Itthipon said volunteers from the local community and an officer of the national park work together to monitor the elephants, and use loud noise and other deterrents to try to push them back towards the forest.

Finally, today’s reported Covid-19 death toll in the U.S. 601,730, an increase of 311 deaths over yesterday’s figure.  The reported world death toll is now 3,889,455, an increase of about 6,800 over yesterday’s total.

Stuff that happened on June 22 includes:

Here are the King and Queen:

Here are the Germans preparing that car (of course a deliberate attempt to humiliate the French) for the second armistice in 1940:

  • 1941 – World War II: Nazi Germany invades the Soviet Union in Operation Barbarossa.
  • 1942 – The Pledge of Allegiance is formally adopted by US Congress.

The words “under God” weren’t added until 1954. Remember that!

  • 1969 – The Cuyahoga River catches fire in Cleveland, Ohio, drawing national attention to water pollution, and spurring the passing of the Clean Water Act and the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency.

I remember this, and here’s a photo:

Original Caption: Firemen stand on a bridge over the Cuyahoga River to spray water on the tug Arizona, as a fire, started in an oil slick on the river, sweeps the docks at the Great Lakes Towing Company site in Cleveland Nov., 1st. The blaze destroyed three tugs, three buildings, and the ship repair yards. ( Bettmann / Contributor via Getty Images)

Here’s that famous goal, which, experts agree, was indeed a handball. Of course Maradona’s other goal was both legit and superb.

Here’s the checkpoint photographed in 1963 from the American sector. My family and I actually walked through it when my Dad (in U.S. Army uniform) took us to East Berlin around 1964 (such tours were allowed then so long as my dad wore his uniform):

Notables born on this day include:

  • 1837 – Paul Morphy, American chess player (d. 1884)
  • 1887 – Julian Huxley, English biologist and academic (d. 1975)
  • 1898 – Erich Maria Remarque, German-Swiss soldier and author (d. 1970)
  • 1903 – John Dillinger, American criminal (d. 1934)

The Biograph Theater in Chicago, photographed six days after Dilliger was shot after going to a movie:

  • 1933 – Dianne Feinstein, American politician
  • 1936 – Kris Kristofferson, American singer-songwriter, guitarist, and actor
  • 1941 – Ed Bradley, American journalist (d. 2006)
  • 1949 – Meryl Streep, American actress and singer

Note that Streep is just six months older than I, so I can judge how I’m aging relative to her. She still looks damn good, so I am heartened.

  • 1953 – Cyndi Lauper, American singer-songwriter, producer, and actress
  • 1960 – Erin Brockovich, American lawyer and environmentalist

Here’s Brockovich; Julia Roberts won a Best Actress Oscar for playing her in the eponymous movie (which is very good):

Those who ceased to exist on June 22 include:

  • 1956 – Walter de la Mare, English poet, short story writer and novelist (b. 1873)
  • 1987 – Fred Astaire, American actor and dancer (b. 1899)
  • 1988 – Dennis Day, American singer and actor (b. 1916)
  • 2008 – George Carlin, American comedian, actor, and author (b. 1937)

Of course I must show this classic bit by Carlin on God and religion:

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn: Hili is sniffing about:

Hili: This smell reminds me of something.
A: Do you know what?
Hili: I have no idea.
In Polish:
Hili: Ten zapach coś mi przypomina.
Ja: A wiesz co?
Hili: Nie mam pojęcia.

Two memes from Facebook:

What is this about?

From Jesus of the Day:

 

Two tweets from Ginger K. The first shows exactly what kind of Father’s Day card a cat would send to its staff:

And a great exchange on Twitter:

Tweets from Matthew. I have no idea what this sport is, but seems to be about getting butted by a bull:

I don’t know if this is a horse or a donkey, but it loves having its bum scratched. Sound up:

 

A good one!

As Matthew said, “If only it were a duck”:

Barnacles were one of Darwin’s great biological interests (he wrote a big and important monograph on them). This one is sculpted in metals—a fabulous work of animal art.

Monday: Hili dialogue

June 21, 2021 • 6:30 am

Welcome to Monday, June 21, 2021: National Peaches and Cream Day. That means that you can not only eat this dish, but that things will be fine. It’s also Take Your Cat to Work Day (if you’re working from home, that’s okay, otherwise forget it!),  National Selfie Day, World Giraffe Day, and, most important, Atheist Solidarity Day.

It’s the first full day of summer (the summer solstice started just before midnight last night) and today’s Google Doodle celebrates this with an animated gif (click on screenshot; there’s a different Doodle for the Southern Hemisphere, where winter just began).

Finally, it’s also these holidays (the solstice was at about 11:30 pm yesterday):

News of the Day:

The Bidens still don’t have a cat. I will report daily until they get one.

The shootings and killings continue to escalate in Chicago: I know when it’s bad when I drive to the grocery store early on Saturday or Sunday morning and pass the University of Chicago Emergency Room. When there are more than two cop cars outside, and when there are a bunch of cops milling about  in front of the ER door, I know it was a bad weekend. That’s what I saw this morning and, checking up, I found that five people were killed and 40 hurt in this weekend’s shootings. And that report was filed at 9 a.m. Sunday morning! (Note: the total hasn’t yet been updated.) The shootings thus occurred between Friday evening and early Sunday morning. It’s not over yet as I write this on Sunday evening. No wonder there were news trucks and live reporters from local stations also stationed outside the ER.

According to the Washington Post, scientists are still fighting about whether Covid-19 came from a natural host transmitting it to humans or a leak from a Wuhan lab. Both scenarios have problems—for the former it’s that the animal host has still not been identified. I suspect this will eventually be settled, though I don’t have a dog in this fight.

Also from the WaPo, click on the screenshot to watch a 5½-minute video on whiteness.  I gave in and watched how I’ve failed in many ways. Be my guest by clicking on the screenshot below. It’s  pure Kendi-and DiAngelican ideology, with not a word of dissent. The Washington Post is no longer an organ of objective journalism; like the New York Times, it’s become a vessel for social engineering and for purveying ideology, even to schoolchildren.

According to the narrator, this is only the first in a series of videos on the invidious nature of whiteness.

Via the Toronto site BlogTO, Diana MacPherson tells us that Toronto is installing “duck platforms” in its harbor to prevent ducklings from drowning. Ducklings have to get out of the water several hours a day to dry off as they have no way to waterproof their feathers (they get feather oil from their mother sitting on them). To prevent waterlogged babies, Toronto is installing these platforms that ducklings can climb onto and dry off:

Speaking of rescues, reader Debra sent this sign photographed by her cat-loving friend Paul in the New York City subway yesterday:

Finally, today’s reported Covid-19 death toll in the U.S. 601,442, an increase of 300 deaths over yesterday’s figure.  The reported world death toll is now 3,882,633, an increase of about 6,400 over yesterday’s total.

Stuff that happened on June 21 includes:

  • 1900 – Boxer Rebellion: China formally declares war on the United States, Britain, Germany, France and Japan, as an edict issued from the Empress Dowager Cixi.
  • 1915 – The U.S. Supreme Court hands down its decision in Guinn v. United States 238 US 347 1915, striking down Oklahoma grandfather clause legislation which had the effect of denying the right to vote to blacks.
  • 1942 – World War II: A Japanese submarine surfaces near the Columbia River in Oregon, firing 17 shells at Fort Stevens in one of only a handful of attacks by Japan against the United States mainland.

Nobody was hurt and no damage was done to the Japanese target, Fort Stevens.

The Japanese used child soldiers, aged 14-17, as front line combatants on Okinawa. Here’s a photo of some of them:

(From Wikipedia): Tekketsu Kinnōtai child soldiers on Okinawa

Here’s the FBI’s wanted poster before they found the killers: seven men, including KKK members, were convicted (maximum sentence was ten years in jail!), and one additional killer was not convicted until 2005 (see below).

Their remains uncovered on August 4. 1964:

Here’s a famous picture of two defendants who got off. The caption: “The main suspect were the local sheriff, Lawrence A. Rainey (above right), his deputy Cecil Price (above left) and 16 other men, all of whom were allegedly members of the Ku Klux Klan. They were charged with violating the civil rights of the victims.” Rainey is dipping a chaw of tobacco.

The Miller test for obscenity. It’s now of course violated regularly.

  • Whether “the average person, applying contemporary community standards”, would find that the work, taken as a whole, appeals to the prurient interest,
  • Whether the work depicts or describes, in a patently offensive way, sexual conduct or excretory functions specifically defined by applicable state law,
  • Whether the work, taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value.
  • 1982 – John Hinckley is found not guilty by reason of insanity for the attempted assassination of U.S. President Ronald Reagan.
  • 1989 – The U.S. Supreme Court rules in Texas v. Johnson, 491 U.S. 397, that American flag-burning is a form of political protest protected by the First Amendment.

As I wrote five days ago, some Republican Senators are trying to get a Constitutional Amendment through Congress to prohibit flag burning (it would then have to be approved by 3/4 of the states). This will not stand.

  • 2005 – Edgar Ray Killen, who had previously been unsuccessfully tried for the murders of James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Mickey Schwerner, is convicted of manslaughter 41 years afterwards (the case had been reopened in 2004).

Killen, Jailed in 2005, died in prison in 2018.

  • 2009 – Greenland assumes self-rule.

Notables born on this day include:

  • 1892 – Reinhold Niebuhr, American theologian and academic (d. 1971)
  • 1921 – Jane Russell, American actress and singer (d. 2011)
  • 1948 – Ian McEwan, British novelist and screenwriter
  • 1953 – Benazir Bhutto, Pakistani financier and politician, 11th Prime Minister of Pakistan (d. 2007)
  • 1957 – Berkeley Breathed, American author and illustrator
  • 1982 – Jussie Smollett, American actor and singer

This bit by Dave Chapelle on Jussie Smollett (said to be a French actor pronounced “Juicy Smole-yay”) is one of his funniest pieces. Trigger warning: strong language including n-word.

The unfortunate but endearing cat carried several mutations. Here’s a photo from the WaPo:

Photo: Mike Bridavsky/lilbub.com

Those who “passed” on June 21 include:

  • 1652 – Inigo Jones, English architect, designed the Queen’s House and Wilton House (b. 1573)
  • 1874 – Anders Jonas Ångström, Swedish physicist and astronomer (b. 1814)
  • 1908 – Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, Russian composer and educator (b. 1844)
  • 1964 – James Chaney, American civil rights activist (b. 1943)
  • 1964 – Andrew Goodman, American civil rights activist (b. 1943)
  • 1964 – Michael Schwerner, American civil rights activist (b. 1939)
  • 2001 – John Lee Hooker, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (b. 1917)

Here’s Hooker with “Boom Boom”, live at Montreaux in 1990:

  • 2015 – Gunther Schuller, American horn player, composer, and conductor (b. 1925)

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn: Hili is full of herself, as usual (her views are always correct, so she’s made a tautology):

Hili: I’m proud of my correct views.
A: Which ones?
Hili: All of them.
In Polish:
Hili: Jestem dumna z moich słusznych poglądów.
A: Których?
Hili: Wszystkich.

From Bruce. BYU is “Brigham Young University” in Provo, Utah, a Mormon school. When I was younger and collected college tee-shirts, I went into the BYU bookstore to get one of theirs, but was kicked out because I had a beard and mustache. Jesus couldn’t go to BYU!

A photo from Barry, which he labels, “Cut your own fucking grass!” Let’s hand it to the Scots, though: they mowed a couple of feet into England!

From Jesus of the Day:

Masih talks about the new election for Iran’s President, won by a hard-liner. You may not agree with her on the boycott of Iran, which Biden is going to soften considerablyu, and I dislike imposing hardships on the Iranian people, who by and large oppose their theocracy, but if you don’t want Iran to have the bomb, what does one do? I am convinced that any Biden deal may marginally stall Iran’s acquisition of nuclear weapons, but won’t by any means stop it.However, I don’t agree that foreign heads of state should be barred from entering the U.S. unless they’re liable to arrest.

Tweets from Matthew, who, like me, loves ferrets and stoats, even though they’re voracious predators. Here’s Moose the Ferret having a great time.

Bats, whales, and now add tree mice to the groups of mammals who use echolocation! Mice in the genus Typhlomys have very small eyes and are nocturnal.

Of this tweet, Matthew notes, “n.b.: the cladogrm isn’t quite right (e.g., “marine mammals”) but the variety of vaginas, etc. is”. Can you spot the phylogenetic errors?

I got this too late to put up yesterday, but by gum, FIFTY FIVE YEARS? Sunrise, sunset. . . .

A while back, I went through a few days when I was obsessed with watching watch restoration videos. As it says at the end, “Watch again.” The original video with the restorer is below the first one.  I can’t fathom the dexterity, patience, and skill required to do this kind of work.

Sound up, please.

A whole thread of medieval cats licking their butts! They observed the behavior fine, but the depiction of the moggies, as usual, leaves a lot to be desired. There are more in the thread:

Sunday: Hili dialogue

June 20, 2021 • 6:30 am

Welcome to Sunday, June 20, 2021: National Vanilla Milkshake Day, which means it’s going to be a bland day. And it’s the longest day of the year! The summer solstice begins at 11:32 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time in the U.S.

It’s also Father’s Day, for which Google has an animated Doodle (to see it, click on screenshot). The Doodle also links to information about Father’s Day.

And it’s Plain Yogurt Day, National Ice Cream Soda Day, American Eagle Day, National Turkey Lovers’ Day (at least they put the apostrophe in the right place!), West Virginia Day (in West Virginia), World Refugee Day, and World Humanist Day. 

Wine of the Day:  This is a 2018 California Deperada “Kleio” chenin blanc that I paid $16.99 for some time ago, but the price is now listed as much higher. At the price I paid it’s a bargain, a good accompaniment for pizza (it’s hot and I wanted a cool white). It’s a complex chenin blanc, quite dry but with a floral, perfume-y bouquet with (I swear) a slight odor of bananas and minerals. But look at this tasting note, which is over the top!

The seashell minerality in this sustainably-farmed Chenin is densely backed by bruised quince, kumquats, lime blossom and hints of beeswax. The bright acidity mingles with nutty notes of raw almonds and white sesame seeds, making this bottle a great candidate for shellfish and poultry pairings.

Beeswax? Sesame seeds? I can’t smell it, but you know how these things are. Anyway, I think that now this bottle would be both pricey and hard to find, but I’ll have two days to enjoy it. (Depending on the bottle, I’ll drink it over either two or three days; the latter if it’s a gutsy red that may get better.) This is a textbook example of a good, dry chenin blanc, which, with sauvignon blanc, should be on your list of go-to whites in this hot season.

News of the Day:

The Bidens have announced that their beloved German Shepherd “Champ” has died at the age of 13. They have another younger dog, but remember the promises by the President and First Lady that they were going to put a cat in the White House? As I predicted, that hasn’t happened. Well, Joe, now it’s time. If not now, when?

In a tepid election, with less than 50% of voters casting a ballot (the lowest since the 1979 Iranian Revolution), Iranians have elected hard-liner Ebrahim Raisi as their new President. Raisi is a theocrat and the handpicked choice of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the “Supreme Leader” of the country. The citizens clearly weren’t enthused:  only 48.8% of the populace bothered to vote. Raisi, though a bigger opponent of the U.S. than his predecessor, is said to be in favor of reviving the nuclear agreement with the U.S. and other countries that Trump canceled. As I’ve said, this agreement is futile, as anybody with two neurons to rub together knows that Iran will get nuclear weapons some day and has been developing them all along.

I’m glad they made Juneteenth a holiday, which starts immediately, but the NYT editorial page is already grousing about it in multiple ways. Juneteenth tee shirts? Can a national holiday be kept as a black holiday, or will it be coopted by white folks and greedy commercial interests? Have we made much progress in the struggle against racism? Let’s just celebrate what the day stands for and leave the kvetching for a while. In fact, three of the NYT’s 11 front-page editorials are kvetches about the holiday (click to read):

 

As they say at the end of each episode of the NBC News, “there’s GOOD news tonight”.  Today’s good news: a kitten in Pennsylvania has been rescued from a storm drain and adopted. The Facebook post is below. I love animal rescue stories.  (h/t GInger K)

Finally, today’s reported Covid-19 death toll in the U.S. 601,352, an increase of 301 deaths over yesterday’s figure.  The reported world death toll is now 3,876,269, an increase of about 8,500 over yesterday’s total.

Stuff that happened on June 20 includes:

Only 23 of the 146 prisoners survived; the rest died of thirst, trampling, or suffocation.

Here’s the great seal with the meaning of its symbols:

Obverse:

Reverse (the Big Eye always freaks me out):

Here’s a photo of Victoria when she was relatively young, though I couldn’t find the date:

Here’s that patent:

  • 1877 – Alexander Graham Bell installs the world’s first commercial telephone service in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada.
  • 1893 – Lizzie Borden is acquitted of the murders of her father and stepmother.
  • 1900 – Boxer Rebellion: The Imperial Chinese Army begins a 55-day siege of the Legation Quarter in Beijing, China.
  • 1942 – The Holocaust: Kazimierz Piechowski and three others, dressed as members of the SS-Totenkopfverbände, steal an SS staff car and escape from the Auschwitz concentration camp.

Here’s a tweet Matthew found to commemorate the successful escape:

  • 1943 – The Detroit race riot breaks out and continues for three more days.
  • 1944 – The experimental MW 18014 V-2 rocket reaches an altitude of 176 km, becoming the first man-made object to reach outer space.

This, the world’s first guided ballistic missile, crossed the Kármán line, the legal boundary between space and the Earth’s atmosphere: it’s 100 km above the Earth’s mean sea level. The rocket (below) was designed by the Germans to attack allied cities, and were used to attack places in five countries. Fortunately, they were developed too late to be of much use to the Nazis; had Germany had them in reliable form at the beginning of the war, England might have lost. Here’s a V-2 replica:

von Braun was in fact a leading figure in designing the developing the V-2 rockets described above.

  • 1963 – Following the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Soviet Union and the United States sign an agreement to establish the so-called “red telephone” link between Washington and Moscow.
  • 1972 – Watergate scandal: An 18½-minute gap appears in the tape recording of the conversations between U.S. President Richard Nixon and his advisers regarding the recent arrests of his operatives while breaking into the Watergate complex.

Nixon’s secretary had a dubious explanation for that gap (from ABC News):

Rose Mary Woods, Nixon’s loyal private secretary, was tasked with transcribing the tapes before they were turned over to prosecutors. Woods testified in front of a federal grand jury in 1974 that she was using a dictaphone, which had a pedal that would pause the recording when she lifted her foot off it, and she claimed she had erased part of the tape by mistake.

“Her explanation was that she was listening to the tape and … the telephone rang,” said Wine-Banks. “So she kept her foot on a pedal, pushed the wrong button. She pushed record instead of off and reached for the phone.”

And that funny re-enactment by Woods:

(AP photo): Rose Mary Woods, President Richard Nixon’s secretary at her White House desk, demonstrates the “Rose Mary Stretch” which could have resulted in the erasure of part of the Watergate tapes, 1973.
  • 1975 – The film Jaws is released in the United States, becoming the highest-grossing film of that time and starting the trend of films known as “summer blockbusters“.

A famous scene from the movie:

Notables born on this day include:

  • 1875 – Reginald Punnett, English geneticist, statistician, and academic (d. 1967)
  • 1905 – Lillian Hellman, American playwright and screenwriter (d. 1984)
  • 1909 – Errol Flynn, Australian-American actor (d. 1959)

Flynn was a handsome devil, and beloved by the ladies. There’s a still-used phrase that may derive from him (from Wikipedia):

The expression “in like Flynn” is said to have been coined to refer to the supreme ease with which he reputedly seduced women, but its origin is disputed. Flynn was reportedly fond of the expression and later claimed that he wanted to call his memoir In Like Me. (The publisher insisted on a more tasteful title, My Wicked, Wicked Ways.)

 

  • 1924 – Chet Atkins, American singer-songwriter, guitarist, and producer (d. 2001)
  • 1942 – Brian Wilson, American singer-songwriter and producer
  • 1945 – Anne Murray, Canadian singer and guitarist
  • 1952 – Vikram Seth, Indian author and poet

Those who reached their pull date on June 20 include:

  • 1925 – Josef Breuer, Austrian physician and psychologist (b. 1842)
  • 1947 – Bugsy Siegel, American mobster (b. 1906)

Bugsy was a Jewish gangster who nevertheless was hand in hand with the Italian mafia, and he was largely responsible for getting organized crime into Las Vegas (see The Godfather). He was killed at 41. Here’s one of his mugshots, taken when he was 22:

  • 2002 – Erwin Chargaff, Austrian-American biochemist and academic (b. 1905)

No, as he said, “I did not find the double helix.” But he did find the key to the pairing rules of DNA: the number of As and Ts are the same, as are the number of Cs and Ts, but the first pair is not equal in proportion to the second pair. Ergo, A pairs with T, and G with C. He did not get the Nobel Prize for this.

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn: Hili refuses to be a Popperian:

Hili: This is a dead spider, probably.
A: You have to try to falsify it.
Hili: You do it.
In Polish:
Hili: To jest prawdopodobnie martwy pająk.
Ja: Musisz to spróbować sfalsyfikować.
Hili: Ty to zrób.
And a picture of baby Kulka in the garden:

From Barry, though I don’t know if the data are correct:

From Bruce:

From Jesus of the Day:

Tweets from Matthew. First, the magic of Christiano Ronaldo. Want a Coke? Just ask him! (See here for recent news showing that perhaps Ronaldo is no longer so keen on the soft drink.)

76 ducklings in the Big Parade! Some were clearly ducknapped; no merganser could have incubated that many eggs.

This is a gynandromorph stag beetle, split right down the middle, with the big pincer on the male side. (See another one here.)

This is a good question; how stupid of me not to ask it before. On the other hand, one could say that they do replicate in terms of being able to serve as a template for a twin DNA strand.

So many people risked their lives to save Jews during the Nazi regime! Here’s one, part of a thread that tells the story. Read more about his story here, which includes his allowing his daughter to horsewhip Gestapo agents trying to arrest Jews.

Matthew says this is an excellent book for the layperson; you can buy it read about it here (only £15 for a lavishly illustrated hardback about insect behavior. Matthew adds that the thread below the book includes some great insect pictures and videos. One is shown below: a moth pupa that’s a pretty good mimic of a dead leaf.

Another moray eel hunting on land. NOBODY IS SAFE NOW!

Saturday: Hili dialogue

June 19, 2021 • 6:30 am

Welcome to Saturday, June 19, 2021: National Martini Day (I prefer the Gibson, a martini with pickled onions rather than olives). Do note that  it’s Juneteenth, since yesterday a federal holiday passed by Congress and signed into law by Joe Biden. Here are Galveston residents (some surely former slaves) celebrating the day in Texas on June 19, 1900—35 years after the news of emancipation reached their state (see below).

Today’s Google Doodle (click on screenshot) celebrates Juneteenth, specifically the artistic contributions of African Americans.

It’s also National Eat an Oreo Day, World Juggling Day, and World Sickle Cell Day. 

News of the Day:

Joe Biden is a Catholic, and that’s why he’s in trouble now. The Roman Catholic bishops in the U.S. have voted by a wide margin (73% to 24%) to draft a statement that would support denying communion to Biden because he’s pro-choice. Clearly Catholics are polarized (the NYT article notes that two-thirds of American Catholics accept transubstantiation), and I wonder whether a priest who does give Biden communion could be excommunicated.

A federal judge threw out the Center for Disease Control’s phased-in restrictions for cruises, allowing cruises to proceed with a mixture of vaccinated and unvaccinated passengers. I’m not quite sure why it’s okay for companies to require employees to be vaccinated, but it’s not okay for cruise ships to require passengers to be vaccinated. The first scheduled cruise will have slightly different procedures for the two groups, including different dining hours for the unvaccinated and a fee of $126 for Covid testing of the unvaccinated.

Frank Bruni’s last regular column has just appeared in the New York Times, and bears the provocative title “Ted Cruz, I’m sorry“. (Bruni is about to take up an endowed chair in journalism at Duke University). The topic is how one (including Bruni) debases journalism to take the easy route of snide, thoughtless criticism of a political opponent (Cruz in his case). It’s not that Bruni likes Cruz; he was just ashamed of phoning in a hit piece. An extract:

But I qualified “no regret” with “almost” because there is the matter of tone. Trump’s penchant for mockery gave those of us who covered him a green light to follow suit, and I was among many who seized on that permission. There wasn’t any shame in that, and it afforded us flights of verbal fancy that plenty of readers enjoyed. But there wasn’t any honor in it, either. We sank toward Trump’s level, and he cited that descent as validation of his hostility. The reciprocal ridicule went on and on.

Will the vestiges of it pollute post-Trump journalism? My wager is yes. And it’s a sorrowful bet.

Good news for those who love to travel, especially to Paris: the EU has recommended that its 27 members gradually lift restrictions on Americans traveling for nonessential reasons (i.e., FUN). Each country, though, must decide when and how to lift the restrictions.

At last—a sensible article on food in the New York Times that doesn’t engage in snack-shaming or kale-pushing. It’s “There’s no shame in kids snacking“, though it was first published two years ago. Excerpt:

Jenny McGlothlin, a feeding therapist at the University of Texas Dallas Callier Center, said she hears two common refrains from parents about snacks: “It’s either ‘I get dirty looks when I pull out the Cheetos’ or it’s ‘I don’t ever let them snack!’ ” she said. Both responses are rooted in a culture that categorizes every food — and often, the sheer act of eating itself — as unequivocally good or bad. “Snacks” are associated with treats, and “snacking” with a kind of mindless, undisciplined style of eating, both of which, we’ve been told, are unhealthy. But it’s a mistake to write off your child’s burning desire for goldfish crackers at 10 a.m.

Finally, today’s reported Covid-19 death toll in the U.S. 601,183, an increase of 301 deaths over yesterday’s figure.  The reported world death toll is now 3,867,805, an increase of about 9,100 over yesterday’s total.

Stuff that happened on June 19 includes:

Here’s a painting of that council. What a gala event!

  • 1586 – English colonists leave Roanoke Island, after failing to establish England’s first permanent settlement in North America.
  • 1846 – The first officially recorded, organized baseball game is played under Alexander Cartwright’s rules on Hoboken, New Jersey’s Elysian Fields with the New York Base Ball Club defeating the Knickerbockers 23–1. Cartwright umpired.
  • 1862 – The U.S. Congress prohibits slavery in United States territories, nullifying Dred Scott v. Sandford.

Scott, pictured below, was a slave who lost his case but was eventually manumitted, and the prohibition fell three years before the event celebrated as Juneteenth (today) occurred.

  • 1865 – Over two years after the Emancipation Proclamation, slaves in Galveston, Texas, United States, are finally informed of their freedom. The anniversary is still officially celebrated in Texas and 41 other contiguous states as Juneteenth. Juneteenth officially became a federal holiday in the United States in 2021.
  • 1865 – Over two years after the Emancipation Proclamation, slaves in Galveston, Texas, United States, are finally informed of their freedom. The anniversary is still officially celebrated in Texas and 41 other contiguous states as Juneteenth. Juneteenth officially became a federal holiday in the United States in 2021.
  • 1953 – Cold War: Julius and Ethel Rosenberg are executed at Sing Sing, in New York.

The Rosenbergs on their way to jail after being found guilty of spying for the Soviet Union against the U.S.

  • 2012 – WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange requested asylum in London’s Ecuadorian Embassy for fear of extradition to the US after publication of previously classified documents including footage of civilian killings by the US army.

Assange is still in prison in England, still fighting extradition to the U.S.

Notables born on this day include:

  • 1623 – Blaise Pascal, French mathematician and physicist (d. 1662)
  • 1896 – Wallis Simpson, American wife of Edward VIII (d. 1986)
  • 1897 – Moe Howard, American comedian (d. 1975)

His real name was Moses Harry Horowitz (changed for obvious reasons), and here he is with his famous haircut:

 

  • 1903 – Lou Gehrig, American baseball player (d. 1941)
  • 1906 – Ernst Boris Chain, German-Irish biochemist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1979)
  • 1910 – Paul Flory, American chemist and engineer, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1985)
  • 1914 – Lester Flatt, American bluegrass singer-songwriter, guitarist, and mandolin player (d. 1979). Here are flat and Scruggs playing “Fireball Mail”:
  • 1919 – Pauline Kael, American film critic (d. 2001)
  • 1947 – Salman Rushdie, Indian-English novelist and essayist
  • 1964 – Boris Johnson, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and former Mayor of London

Those who exhaled for the final time on June 19 include:

Barrie was, of course, the creator of Peter Pan, named after the son of family friends. He told the stories to the children in Kensington Park, where a statue of Peter Pan now sits. Barrie and the statue are shown below:

(From Wikipedia): Peter Pan statue (1912) by Sir George Frampton in Kensington Gardens, London
  • 1953 – Ethel Rosenberg, American spy (b. 1915)
  • 1953 – Julius Rosenberg, American spy (b. 1918)
  • 1966 – Ed Wynn, American actor and comedian (b. 1886)

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili is pursuing her usual activities:

Hili: I’m very tired after the long day.
A: You have to have a nap.
Hili: That’s what I intend to do.
In Polish:
Hili: Po długim dniu jestem strasznie zmęczona.
Ja: Musisz się przespać.
Hili: Właśnie zamierzam.

A bonus photo of little Kulka:

From Nicole:

From Bruce:

From Jesus of the Day:

Titania presents a black man who isn’t a fan of CRT:

From Simon; look at the size of that spider web! Given that every critter in Australia is venomous, I wouldn’t go near the thing:

Tweets from Matthew. He says this about the first one, part of a thread from which I’ve extracted four tweets:

Amazing thread of a mayfly moulting. They are the only insects to moult when they have wings. First vid is sped up, subsequent vids show it in real time. Even the wings moult!

The molting wings can be seen in the fourth tweet below, and it’s a fantastic sight!

Wally the Wandering Walrus, way off course, is apparently back in the UK after a jaunt to Spain. I hope he finds his buddies!

I didn’t get this in time to post yesterday, but it’s only a day late:

Clearly there are adaptive costs in other fly species that would prevent the eye from evolving to this size, but we have no idea what they are. For I’m sure it’s not for a lack of genetic variation, which is ubiquitous:

Friday: Hili dialogue

June 18, 2021 • 6:30 am

Welcome to Friday, June 18, 2021: International Picnic Day.  It’s also International Sushi Day, National Flip Flop Day (I’m with the plan), Ugliest Dog Day, and, in the UK, Waterloo Day. 

The World’s Ugliest Dog Contest was cancelled in 2020, but here’s the 2019 winner, Scamp the Tramp. He doesn’t look so bad to me!

I forgot to note that it was two years ago yesterday when I learned that Grania died, though she had died the day before—on June 16. It’s better late than never, though, to pay tribute to someone who was not only a good friend and counselor, but a valuable contributor to this website. She was also one of the founders of Atheist Ireland and its first secretary. I never met her, but we spoke via Skype nearly every day. And I still often think about what she’d have to say about today’s events.

Here are photos of Grania young and old (though she was never old, since she wasn’t even 49 when she died); both sent by her sister Gisela.

News of the Day:

It may seem weird that a conservative Supreme Court could issue a ruling supporting Obamacare, and by a vote of 7-2 (Alito and Gorsuch dissented), but the decision (here) was based solely on “standing”.  The state of Texas, the court ruled, hadn’t shown that it suffered a direct injury by the contentious bit of Obamacare: the requirement that all Americans be insured. The court avoided ruling on that issue, which is a big one. Courts often rule on standing when they’re not comfortable about making a big, meaningful decision. But in effect they said that Obama care is probably here to stay.

From the WaPo’s piece on this decision:

The case posed three questions: Have the challengers — 18 states and a couple of individuals — suffered injuries that give them legal standing to bring the challenge? Did changes Congress made in 2017 render unconstitutional the ACA’s requirement for individuals to buy insurance? And if so, can the rest of the law be separated out, or must it fall in its entirety?

Breyer [who wrote the opinion] said that answering the first question negated the necessity of deciding the others.

I’ve mentioned before that several big publishers assert that they won’t consider publishing Trump’s memoirs, though he says that he’s had two offers from prestigious publishers and turned both down. According to a new short piece in Vanity Fair, though,

According to Politico, none of the editors and publishers contacted at the Big Five publishing houses—Penguin Random House, Hachette Book Group, HarperCollins, Macmillan Publishers, and Simon & Schuster—said they were aware of any such offer. One source was openly “skeptical” of his claims. “He’s screwed over so many publishers that before he ran for president, none of the big 5 would work with [him] anymore,” the source told Politico.

The reason, beyond a fear of a mass staff walkout, is in the tweet below from CNN’s chief media correspondent:

Speaking of enforced patriotism, the Washington Examiner reports that Republican senators are pursuing a Constitutional amendment that would ban burning the American flag. Doing so now is perfectly legal, regarded as a form of free expression protected by the First Amendment. This new proposal, surely doomed to failure, would presumably carve out an exception for Old Glory. The paper adds, “In 2019, former President Donald Trump called the amendment a “no-brainer,” saying he was “all-in” for the proposal.”  The amendment is doomed as it requires passage by 2/3 of both houses of Congress and then passage by three-quarters of state legislatures. (h/t Ken).

Amazing biology news: A study of the coelacanth, a “living fossil” fish whose appearance hasn’t changed much in 400 million years, revealed that the females don’t reach sexual maturity until they’re 50 years old, and males between 40 and 69. They can live to be 100 and, oddly enough, the embryos appear to have a gestation period of five years. Now this appears based on an somewhat questionable way to age fish using scale “rings” (only dead fish can be analyzed since they’re rarely caught) and on a very small sample. The paper is here in Current Biology, and I haven’t read it yet.

Here are unborn embryos up to five years old taken from caught fish. The bottom fish was already free-living:

Author Janet Malcolm died, one of my favorite writers for The New Yorker. She was 86.

Here are the top searches that got readers to my website yesterday. Number four is a hoot. I’ve never written about that in my life!

Finally, today’s reported Covid-19 death toll in the U.S. is 600,524, an increase of 312 deaths over yesterday’s figure.  The reported world death toll is now 3,858,704, an increase of about 9,400 over yesterday’s total.

Stuff that happened on June 18 includes:

  • 1178 – Five Canterbury monks see what is possibly the Giordano Bruno crater being formed. It is believed that the current oscillations of the Moon‘s distance from the Earth (on the order of meters) are a result of this collision.

Geologist Jack B. Hartung believes that the monks’ account explains the crater’s formation, probably by impact with a comet or an asteroid. From Wikipedia:

Five monks from Canterbury reported to the abbey’s chronicler, Gervase, that shortly after sunset on 18 June 1178, (25 June on the proleptic Gregorian calendar) they saw “the upper horn [of the moon] split in two”. Furthermore, Gervase writes:

From the midpoint of the division a flaming torch sprang up, spewing out, over a considerable distance, fire, hot coals and sparks. Meanwhile the body of the Moon which was below writhed, as it were in anxiety, and to put it in the words of those who reported it to me and saw it with their own eyes, the Moon throbbed like a wounded snake. Afterwards it resumed its proper state. This phenomenon was repeated a dozen times or more, the flame assuming various twisting shapes at random and then returning to normal. Then, after these transformations, the Moon from horn to horn, that is along its whole length, took on a blackish appearance.

Here’s an “LRO mosaic” photo of the crater:

  • 1429 – French forces under the leadership of Joan of Arc defeat the main English army under Sir John Fastolf at the Battle of Patay. This turns the tide of the Hundred Years’ War.
  • 1812 – The United States declaration of war upon the United Kingdom is signed by President James Madison, beginning the War of 1812.
  • 1858 – Charles Darwin receives a paper from Alfred Russel Wallace that includes nearly identical conclusions about evolution as Darwin’s own, prompting Darwin to publish his theory.

Although Darwin kept nearly all his correspondence, this most famous letter is missing. It’s thought that Darwin handed it to his colleagues for their joint publication in the Journal of the Linnean Society in 1858, and it was lost or destroyed at the printer’s.

Here’s Anthony, who dressed in black for 50 years; the color was because of her Quaker religion and also as a symbol of her suffragism:

  • 1928 – Aviator Amelia Earhart becomes the first woman to fly in an aircraft across the Atlantic Ocean (she is a passenger; Wilmer Stultz is the pilot and Lou Gordon the mechanic).
  • 1940 – The “Finest Hour” speech is delivered by Winston Churchill.

Here are 5.5 minutes of that speech. The famous phrase occurs at 4:47.  What a speechwriter he was!

Here’s Joyce (he had been shot in the leg while being arrested). He was the last person to be executed for treason in the UK, and died an unrepentant Nazi sympathizer and anti-Semite:

  • 1948 – Columbia Records introduces the long-playing record album in a public demonstration at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York City.
  • 1983 – Space Shuttle program: STS-7, Astronaut Sally Ride becomes the first American woman in space.

Here’s Ride on the Space Shuttle Challenger in 1983. She died at only 61.

Notables born on this day include:

We still don’t know if Mallory and Irvine made it to the summit of Everest. His body was found in 1999, but with few clues about whether he’d made the top.  Here’s a photo of the 1924 expedition on which Mallory and Irvine died; Mallory is highlighted:

George Mallory (midden, met cirkel rond het hoofd) en andere leden van de Engelse expeditie die in 1924 als eerste de top van de Mount Everest wilde bereiken. Mallory verloor zijn leven bij de expeditie.
  • 1918 – Franco Modigliani, Italian-American economist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 2003)
  • 1942 – Roger Ebert, American journalist, critic, and screenwriter (d. 2013)
  • 1942 – Paul McCartney, English singer-songwriter and guitarist

Here’s McCartney doing one of my favorite of his songs (2004 at Glastonbury):

  • 1952 – Isabella Rossellini, Italian actress, director, producer, and screenwriter

Those who paid their fee to Charon on June 18 include:

  • 1464 – Rogier van der Weyden, Flemish painter (b. 1400)
  • 1902 – Samuel Butler, English novelist, satirist, and critic (b. 1835)
  • 1936 – Maxim Gorky, Russian novelist, short story writer, and playwright (b. 1868)

Here’s Gorky in 1906, when he was about 38:

  • 1982 – Djuna Barnes, American novelist, journalist, and playwright (b. 1892)
  • 1989 – I. F. Stone, American journalist and author (b. 1907)
  • 2020 – Vera Lynn, English singer who was the “Forces’ Sweetheart” in World War II (b. 1917)

Lynn, known as “The Forces’ Sweetheart” for boosting morale of UK troops in World War II, was perhaps most famous for the song below:

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili once pretends to be a “green cat”. But I suspect her”care” involves removal of rodents:

A: What are you doing?
Hili: Be quiet, I’m caring for the environment.
In Polish:
Ja: Co robisz?
Hili: Cicho, dbam o środowisko.

A photo of Szaron:

From Divy:

From Nicole:

From Bruce:

Reader Rupinder found a good cat Twitter site, “place where cat shouldn’t be“. There are a gazillion moggies in unseemly places, like this pair:

The famous “dress illusion” tweeted by Steve Stewart-Williams. Is this for real? You be the judge.

Tweets from Matthew. This one, made by the good Dr. Cobb himself, came with a note, “I made a meme to open with (this is a very fashionable meme right now, and shows what happens when you tell your family you have published an article). Indeed, I had exactly this conversation with my mom when I published my first paper!

There was an old picture in Life magazine similar to this. The dairyman has good aim (and a good heart)!

Watch the whole video; it’s heartwarming.

Another tweet by Matthew himself. His note: “My tweet of wisdom today. It was after I spent some time explaining something to Ollie, to no avail.” Matthew doesn’t realize that catsplaining doesn’t work.

Click on the “visit the cave” link for a fabulous virtual tour of Lascaux. It’s closed for good, so this is the only way you can really see it. The paintings are estimated at about 17,000 years old.

This goalie should be fired, if not shot:

Thursday: Hili dialogue (and Mietek monologue)

June 17, 2021 • 6:30 am

Welcome to Thursday, June 17, 2021: National Apple Strudel Day, a cultural appropriation from Austria.  It’s World Day to Combat Desertification and Drought, World Croc[odile] Day, National Eat Your Vegetables Day (didn’t we just have that?), and Global Garbage Man Day (surely there are Garbage Women too!).

News of the Day:

We’ve finally passed the mark of 600,000 deaths in the U.S. due to Covid-19 (see below). I remember when a mark of 200,000 seemed unimaginable, but we’re now three times higher than that. According to the CDC, though,  only 44% of Americans have been fully vaccinated.  But the range among states is wide: at the top is Vermont, with about 63% of the population fully vaccinated; at the bottom is Mississippi with only 28.5%.

As I predicted (that was a no-brainer), the Putin-Biden summit did not appear to be going well, at least in terms of agreements. Putin denied that the big hacker attacks in the U.S. came from Russia, and Biden pressed an unimpressed Putin on Russia’s human rights record and Navalny’s imprisonment. All Biden could say was, “I did what I came to do.” I was nonplussed by all the news describing the summit as “historic” when, at least for now, there’s little evidence that anything was accomplished.

Trump asserts that he’s writing a memoir, “the book of all books,” he calls it, but the Guardian reports that reputable publishers are unlikely to bite, especially because Trump was only a one-term President. Trump says he’s already had two offers from publishers but turned them both down. The Guardian adds:

On Tuesday, Politico reported that senior figures at Penguin Random House, Hachette, Harper Collins, Macmillan and Simon & Schuster said they would not touch a Trump book.

“It would be too hard to get a book that was factually accurate, actually,” one was quoted as saying. “That would be the problem. If he can’t even admit that he lost the election, then how do you publish that?”

(h/t Eli)

The Senate unanimously passed legislation making Juneteenth (June 19) a federal holiday, “Juneteenth National Independence Day”. As I write this on Wednesday evening, the House is expected to approve the bill as well, and of course Biden will sign it into law. Earlier on Wednesday, our own governor, J. B. Pritzker, signed a bill making Juneteenth an Illinois state holiday. By now you should know what the date commemorates, but if you don’t know, go here. It’s a celebration of emancipation from slavery, announced in Texas on this date in 1865, three years after Lincoln had signed the Emancipation Proclamation.

Botanical News: A rare “corpse flower” has bloomed, albeit briefly, in Poland. From the Associated Press:

The endangered Sumatran Titan arum, a giant foul-smelling blossom also known as the corpse flower, went into a rare, short bloom at a botanical garden in Warsaw, drawing crowds who waited for hours to see it.

The extraordinary flower, which emits a dead-body odor to attract pollinating insects that feed on flesh, bloomed Sunday. It was already withering early Monday. Those wishing to avoid the smell and crowds could watch it on live video from the Warsaw University Botanical Gardens.

Hundreds, if not thousands, lined up long into the night Sunday and Monday morning at the conservatory just to be able to pass by the flower and take a picture.

Here’s a video of the same species blooming in Cornwall. It’s amazing!

Finally, today’s reported Covid-19 death toll in the U.S. is 600,024, an increase of 332 deaths over yesterday’s figure. We’ve finally passed the 600,000 mark.  The reported world death toll is now 3,849,345, an increase of about 10,500 over yesterday’s total.

Stuff that happened on June 17 includes:

And the world’s most beautiful mausoleum (and building):

Photo from Wikipedia
  • 1673 – French explorers Jacques Marquette and Louis Jolliet reach the Mississippi River and become the first Europeans to make a detailed account of its course.
  • 1767 – Samuel Wallis, a British sea captain, sights Tahiti and is considered the first European to reach the island.
  • 1885 – The Statue of Liberty arrives in New York Harbor.

Here’s part of it before it was sent to the U.S.

1878 World Fair in Paris, Park of the Champ-de-Mars, (Photo by Léon et Lévy/Roger Viollet/Getty Images)

Nash was being escorted by train to the penitentiary, but was killed in the assault (Pretty Boy Floyd was one of the assailants). Here’s the scene outside the station soon after the attack:

  • 1939 – Last public guillotining in France: Eugen Weidmann, a convicted murderer, is executed in Versailles outside the Saint-Pierre prison.

As Wikipedia notes, “The “hysterical behaviour” by spectators was so scandalous that French President Albert Lebrun immediately banned all future public executions. Executions by guillotine continued out of public view until the last such execution, of Hamida Djandoubi on September 10, 1977.” You can see photos of the trial and the guillotine here.

  • 1944 – Iceland declares independence from Denmark and becomes a republic.[6]
  • 1963 – The United States Supreme Court rules 8–1 in Abington School District v. Schempp against requiring the reciting of Bible verses and the Lord’s Prayer in public schools.
  • 1967 – Nuclear weapons testing: China announces a successful test of its first thermonuclear weapon.
  • 1972 – Watergate scandal: Five White House operatives are arrested for burgling the offices of the Democratic National Committee during an attempt by members of the administration of President Richard M. Nixon to illegally wiretap the political opposition as part of a broader campaign to subvert the democratic process.
  • 1987 – With the death of the last individual of the species, the dusky seaside sparrow becomes extinct.

The last aged male, between 9 and 13 years old, died at the Walt Disney World resort. Here’s a photo:

Here’s the classification (with numbers) in a South African Identity document during apartheid:

Remember watching that ride on television? Here’s a news report with video:

Notables born on this day include:

  • 1882 – Igor Stravinsky, Russian pianist, composer, and conductor (d. 1971)
  • 1898 – M. C. Escher, Dutch illustrator (d. 1972)

Here’s a self-portrait of Escher followed by a photograph:

  • 1920 – François Jacob, French biologist and geneticist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 2013)
  • 1943 – Newt Gingrich, American historian and politician, 58th Speaker of the United States House of Representatives
  • 1943 – Barry Manilow, American singer-songwriter and producer
  • 1980 – Venus Williams, American tennis player

Those who reaped their heavenly reward on June 17 include:

There is one picture of a cat and kitten by Edward Burne-Jones (below), but I can’t establish that he really painted it. I doubt it!

  • 1986 – Kate Smith, American singer (b. 1907)
  • 2008 – Cyd Charisse, American actress and dancer (b. 1922)
  • 2012 – Rodney King, American victim of police brutality (b. 1965)

This was captured on video (below, note that it’s distressing), something that is more common these days, for video is powerful evidence:

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili is once again supervising the gardening:

A: Are you asleep?
Hili: No, I’m waiting for you to start weeding the vegetable patch.
In Polish:
Ja: Śpisz?
Hili: Nie, czekam aż się zabierzesz za pielenie warzywnika.

And a rare Mietek monologue; he queries Elzbieta as if he was an impatient child:

Mietek: Is it far yet?

In Polish: Daleko jeszcze?

From Bruce:

From Nicole:

From Jesus of the Day:

From Titania, who must have read the bird article I discussed yesterday:

From reader Ken (via the GOP Twitter feed), who describes this as “Republican self parody”:

Another urban duck-saving story from Jean. I can’t get enough of these, but only when they have a happy ending:

A 45-year-old rock photo sent by Ginger K.

Tweets from Matthew. This is not likely to be evolved mimicry, but who knows? Predators could avoid the whole concatenation of eggs since it resembles a snake, and laying in such a pattern might then be adaptive.

A double treat: science combined with a clever parody of a Dean Martin song:

In honor of Stan Laurel, even though his birthday was yesterday:

One of Matthew’s beloved optical illusions. I’m sure I’ve posted it before, but it’s well worth seeing again. Be sure to turn the sound up and watch the whole thing.

Wednesday: Hili dialogue

June 16, 2021 • 6:30 am

Welcome to Wednesday, June 16, 2021: National Fudge Day. It’s also Fresh Veggies Day (I’m having tomatoes), National Vinegar Day, World Sea Turtle Day, and, of course Bloomsday—the day on which Joyce’s novel Ulysses takes place in 1904. Celebrations continue annually on June 16.  That day in 1904 is when Joyce had his first assignation with Nora Barnacle, his future wife (see below), and Joyce’s character in the novel is of course called Leopold Bloom.  Mrkgnao!

And if you’re in Sussex, it’s Sussex Day. Have a pint of Landlord to celebrate—if you can find one! I’m still a bit low, and could use a pint or two myself. Warning: I see it’s in the U.S. in bottle form, but I’m told the contents of those bottles is not nearly as good as a well-kept pint drawn from the tap in Britain.

Wine of the Day:  Sauvignon blanc is a reliable go-to white, you can find good examples, like this 2019 version, for not too much dosh ($13.79). A fresh-tasting wine, straw-colored and with notes of lemon zest and herbs in the nose, it was bone dry, and a good accompaniment for an abstemious vegetarian dinner of black beans and rice with a bit of Greek yogurt and a fried egg on top. I’d recommend this one if you want a non-expensive classy dry white that will go with many summer dishes (note: for spicy or Chinese food, though, I always recommend an off-dry white like Riesling or Gewurztraminer, though I myself prefer beer). This bottle is recommended.

News of the Day:

The Israeli/Palestinian ceasefire didn’t last long. After Hamas sent incendiary balloons and fire kites into Israel (these weapons have burned thousands of acres of Israeli agricultural land and forest), the new government has launched airstrikes on the Gaza strip. Note the New York Times headline that doesn’t mention the Gaza provocation: “Israeli aircraft bomb Gaza just days into new government.” The fire attacks aren’t mentioned until the subheadline. Such is the NYT: this is a conscious decision of a headline writer.

Other news remains thankfully thin. Biden is now in Geneva, preparing for his big face-off with Putin, though I predict the results will be scant. Putin, after all, has little to lose, and Biden is the one who requested the meeting. It’s not a very friendly meeting, either: there will be two sessions, neither of them one-on-one, there will be no joint meals, and there will be no joint post-summit press conference.

A judge ruled that Harvey Weinstein, 16 months into his 23-year sentence in New York, will now be extradited to California to face five women who accused him of sexual assault. He’s already serving what is in effect a life sentence, so this will just be more years added to that, but it’s meet and just that all of his accusers get to put him in the dock.

Speaking of law, Ruth Marcus, an editor at WaPo, is calling for Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer to retire at the end of the current term. Breyer, 82, is getting up there, and if the GOP takes the Senate in 2022, Mitch “666” McConnell is making noises that a Republican senate will not confirm a Biden nominee (who, of course, would be liberal). Marcus’s is an opinion designed to keep the court as liberal as possible for the long term.

You don’t like to hear the sound of your own voice? It’s common, and I’m one of those who can’t stand to hear myself on videos or podcasts. As CNN reports,  there are two reasons for this dislike. One is physiological (we hear our voices partly through bone conduction, while others hear them via air alone), but the other reason is psychological, and I’ll let you read about that. (h/t: Peter)

Below are the results of yesterday’s readers’ poll about which form of capital punishment is better: the Japanese system (in which you find out the date of your execution only on the morning you’re killed) or the American system (in which your execution date is known well in advance). Most people preferred the U.S. system, but many voted “no opinion,” some explaining that they couldn’t answer as they opposed the death penalty.

In light of that, I should have posed the question this way: “If YOU were condemned to execution, would you prefer it to be under the Japanese or the American system?”

And here’s yesterday’s “most searched terms” that have led browsers to this website. Bizarre, no? Deepak Chopra feud with Brian? And where did the Hawaiian shirt business come from (I wear them, but haven’t mentioned them in ages.)

Finally, today’s reported Covid-19 death toll in the U.S. is 599,869, an increase of 340 deaths over yesterday’s figure. We will probably pass 600,000 deaths by tomorrow.  The reported world death toll is now 3,838,808, an increase of about 10,400 over yesterday’s total.

Stuff that happened on June 16 includes:

  • 1779 – Spain declares war on the Kingdom of Great Britain, and the Great Siege of Gibraltar begins.
  • 1858 – Abraham Lincoln delivers his House Divided speech in Springfield, Illinois.
  • 1871 – The Universities Tests Act 1871 allows students to enter the universities of Oxford, Cambridge and Durham without religious tests (except for those intending to study theology).

I guess that to study theology then you had to believe in a religious creed.

Here’s that roller coaster, which is pretty tame compared to the thrill-inducing rides we see today (I haven’t been on one since I was a kid):

  • 1903 – The Ford Motor Company is incorporated.
  • 1904 – Irish author James Joyce begins a relationship with Nora Barnacle and subsequently uses the date to set the actions for his novel Ulysses; this date is now traditionally called “Bloomsday“.

A first edition of Ulysses, one of 1000 numbered copies, will cost you around $95,000:

  • 1944 – In a gross miscarriage of justice, George Junius Stinney Jr., age 14, becomes the youngest person executed in the United States in the 20th century after being convicted in a two-hour trial for the rape and murder of two teenage white girls.

Stinney was electrocuted in a gruesome way, sitting on a Bible because he was so small and sobbing as they put the hood over his head. (A good video reconstruction, which is distressing to watch, is here.) Here’s his mugshot. 14 years old, for crying out loud, and almost certainly innocent (his conviction was overturned in 2013—69 years too late. Another argument against the death penalty.

  • 1961 – While on tour with the Kirov Ballet in Paris, Rudolf Nureyev defects from the Soviet Union.
  • 1963 – Soviet Space Program: Vostok 6 mission: Cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova becomes the first woman in space.

Tereshkova, still with us at 84, spent nearly three days in orbit. Here’s a photo from four years ago:

  • 2010 – Bhutan becomes the first country to institute a total ban on tobacco.
  • 2019 – Upwards of 2,000,000 people participate in the 2019–20 Hong Kong protests, the largest in Hong Kong’s history.

Those born on this day include:

  • 1723 – Adam Smith, Scottish philosopher and economist (d. 1790)
  • 1821 – Old Tom Morris, Scottish golfer and architect (d. 1908)

Here’s Old Tom, born, played, and died in St. Andrews, the “home of golf”. He’s posing on the Old Course at St Andrews:

  • 1890 – Stan Laurel, English actor and comedian (d. 1965)
  • 1902 – George Gaylord Simpson, American paleontologist and author (d. 1984)

Here’s Simpson, the most famous paleobiologist of the Modern Synthesis:

  • 1909 – Archie Carr, American ecologist and zoologist (d. 1987)
  • 1917 – Irving Penn, American photographer (d. 2009)
  • 1938 – Joyce Carol Oates, American novelist, short story writer, critic, and poet

Happy birthday to Joyce. Here’s a photo I took of her at the New Yorker Cats and Dogs debate in 2014; she’s holding one of Anthony Hutcherson’s Bengal cats (she was on Team Cat):

  • 1941 – Lamont Dozier, American songwriter and producer
  • 1971 – Tupac Shakur, American rapper and producer (d. 1996)

Notables who popped their clogs on June 16 were few, and include these two:

  • 1939 – Chick Webb, American drummer and bandleader (b. 1905)
  • 1977 – Wernher von Braun, German-American physicist and engineer (b. 1912)

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn: Hili spots an AOI (animal of interest):

In Polish:
Paulina: Co tam widzisz?
Hili: Obiekt mojego pożądania.

From Divy:

From Michael:

From Jesus of the Day. This person (or his carwash) has a hard job ahead!

From reader Ken, who writes: “Arizona Republican state senator Wendy Rogers seems unclear on how ‘federalism’ (and the Supremacy Clause of Article IV, section 2 of the US constitution) works”. Sound up. What a pity that Mitch “666” McConnell blocked Merrick’s nomination to the Supreme Court.

From Luana. What is wrong with the claim made in the linked article?

A tweet from Ginger K. Science fun!

Tweets from Matthew. I don’t understand why the cat shouldn’t be taking a nap on a bunch of green bananas on the tree:

A very beautiful moth; read more about it here (I’m not sure about the cobra-head mimicry).

One of Matthew’s beloved optical illusions. The illusion is produced by inserting same-sized pictures of dolls on a picture of a corridor; the dolls are not actually in the picture, and of course the illusion is produced by our expectations produced by perspective.

What are the chances of this—not just the event but being there to photograph the event?

Johnny Cash, with a. . . . .kitten???