Category: Hili Dialogue

Tuesday: Hili dialogue

June 15, 2021 • 6:30 am

Welcome to Tuesday, June 15, 2021: National Lobster Day.  It’s also National Cherry Tart Day, National Electricity Day (see below), Native American Citizenship Day, Magna Carta Day (agreed to on this day in 1215 by King John; see below), Nature Photography Day (take some photos and send them to me!), Global Wind Day and, in the UK, National Beer Day (United Kingdom).  Would some reader in the UK please drink a pint of Landlord for me? I keep asking readers to quaff a pint of my favorite British ale, but everyone says they can’t find Landlord.

I am rather low today, so posting is likely to be light.

Today’s Google Doodle (below), created by senior Milo Golding at Lexington (Kentucky) Christian Academy, was the winning submission among thousands of entries from K-12 in a national contest. Milo wins a $30,000 college scholarship on top of a $50,000 technology package for his school.

The Doodle honors MIlo’s dad, who died of a heart attack when the artist was just 13. As the Lexington Herald-Leader reports:

“Milo’s Doodle, titled ‘Finding Hope,’ speaks to the resilience and hope that lives in all of us,” Google officials said. “The Doodle is inspired by his father’s advice to find hope in all circumstances as a source of strength. It was inspired by Milo’s journey to find hope after the loss of his father”. . . .

“I am strong because I have hope,” Milo said, describing his entry and its inspiration. “I once asked my father how he overcame obstacles and became who he wanted to be. “

His father, Deeno Golding. replied, “Hope, hope keeps me strong.”

“After I unexpectedly lost him at 13 due to a heart attack, it helped me overcome grief and support other children who lost loved ones.,” Milo said.

The Doodle:

An old photo with Milo, his mom, and his dad:

Lexington Christian Academy senior Milo Golding with mom Yanya Yang and dad Deeno Golding. PHOTO PROVIDED

Congrats, Milo, and may you attain your dreams.

News of the Day:

The news is thin as Biden slowly wends his way towards Russia for the big summit with Putin. Some good news for conservationists, though: Interior Secretary Deb Haaland has asked President Biden to restore environmental protections for three national monuments that were eroded by the Trump Administration. From the NYT:

In a report sent to the White House earlier this month that has not been made public, Ms. Haaland recommended that Mr. Biden reinstate the original boundaries, which included millions of acres at Bears Ears National Monument and Grand Staircase-Escalante, two rugged and pristine expanses in Utah defined by red rock canyons, rich wildlife and archaeological treasures.

Mr. Trump had sharply reduced the size of both national monuments at the urging of ranchers and many Republican leaders, opening them to mining, drilling and development. At the time, it was the largest rollback of federal land protection in the nation’s history.

I’m pretty sure Biden will assent; so far, his efforts on the environment have been excellent.

BIG MOUSE PLAGUE DOWN UNDER! As the Washington Post reports, agricultural areas in Southern Australia are overrun with millions of mice, ruining the crops and costing farmers millions. They also carry diseases that can infect humans and die in the walls of houses, making an unbelievable stench. NOTE: if you like mice, don’t look at the pictures! One below just shows the density of the rodents. (h/t Randy)

Photo credit not given at the WaPo

Jump for Joe: You java drinkers should take heart, for a new piece in the NYT gives us good news, “The health benefits of coffee.” Coffee is no longer bad for you! And the benefits are many; here’s an excerpt:

The latest assessments of the health effects of coffee and caffeine, its main active ingredient, are reassuring indeed. Their consumption has been linked to a reduced risk of all kinds of ailments, including Parkinson’s disease, heart disease, Type 2 diabetes, gallstones, depression, suicide, cirrhosis, liver cancer, melanoma and prostate cancer.

In fact, in numerous studies conducted throughout the world, consuming four or five eight-ounce cups of coffee (or about 400 milligrams of caffeine) a day has been associated with reduced death rates. In a study of more than 200,000 participants followed for up to 30 years, those who drank three to five cups of coffee a day, with or without caffeine, were 15 percent less likely to die early from all causes than were people who shunned coffee. Perhaps most dramatic was a 50 percent reduction in the risk of suicide among both men and women who were moderate coffee drinkers, perhaps by boosting production of brain chemicals that have antidepressant effects.

It’s not all positive: coffee can cause insomnia (duh!) but can also increase the rate of miscarriage. There’s also this: “When brewed without a paper filter, as in French press, Norwegian boiled coffee, espresso or Turkish coffee, oily chemicals called diterpenes come through that can raise artery-damaging LDL cholesterol.”  Still, I’ll keep using my espresso machine.

This year’s Westminster Dog Show, held outside because of the pandemic, was won by a male Pekingese named Wasabi.  Here’s a photo of the Best in Show winner from the NYT. Put a stick up its rear and you’d have a mop!

And for you dog lovers, here’s an eight minute video of the competition. Wasabi shows up at 5:58 and wins his crown at 7:20.  I love the way he walks!

And for you lovers of Greece, a group that includes me, there’s a short but colorful article in the NYT on unvisited corners of rural Greece where people still wear their traditional costumes. Now I have a list of new places to visit. (My last visit, to the Peloponnese one September about 20 years ago, was one of the best trips I’ve ever had. The tourists had left, but it was still warm and the seas wonderful for swimming. Go see the Mani!)

Finally, today’s reported Covid-19 death toll in the U.S. is 599,486, an increase of 339 deaths over yesterday’s figure. We will probably pass 600,000 deaths by Thursday.  The reported world death toll is now 3,828,472, an increase of about 8,300 over yesterday’s total. Remember when 200,000 deaths was regarded as an unimaginable toll?

Stuff that happened on June 15 includes:

Here’s one of four surviving copies of the document, though the King’s wax seal has been lost. You can see this in the British Library:

  • 1520 – Pope Leo X threatens to excommunicate Martin Luther in Exsurge Domine.
  • 1648 – Margaret Jones is hanged in Boston for witchcraft in the first such execution for the Massachusetts Bay Colony.
  • 1667 – The first human blood transfusion is administered by Dr. Jean-Baptiste Denys.

Denys performed several transfusion (forcibly) on a madman abducted from the streets. The first one seemed to work, but the man died after the second one.

  • 1752 – Benjamin Franklin proves that lightning is electricity (traditional date, the exact date is unknown).
  • 1844 – Charles Goodyear receives a patent for vulcanization, a process to strengthen rubber.

The original additive to harden rubber was sulfur, discovered by Goodyear when he accidentally dropped a mixture of sulfur and rubber into a hot frying pan, and it didn’t melt.

  • 1877 – Henry Ossian Flipper becomes the first African American cadet to graduate from the United States Military Academy.

Here’s Flipper who, predictably for a black officer, was court-martialed and discharged. He was first exonerated and then pardoned by Bill Clinton:

Here’s that series with the caption from Wikipedia; note that in two photos (second and third in top row) all the horse’s feet are off the ground. This was a long-standing debate that was settled with a single piece of empirical evidence. (Of course, one could argue that other horses’ feet never left the ground.

“Sallie Gardner,” owned by Leland Stanford; ridden by G. Domm, running at a 1.40 gait over the Palo Alto track, 19th June, 1878 (1878 cabinet card, “untouched” version from original negatives)

Alcock and Brown landed in a bog in Ireland, and the result is below, but neither were hurt and both feted as heroes:

The mountain, called the “Killer Mountain” was finally summited by Hermann Buhl in 1953. It’s a lovely peak:

  • 1970 – Charles Manson goes on trial for the Sharon Tate murders.
  • 1977 – After the death of dictator Francisco Franco in 1975, the first democratic elections took place in Spain.

Latest news: Franco is still dead.

  • 1992 – The United States Supreme Court rules in United States v. Álvarez-Machaín that it is permissible for the United States to forcibly extradite suspects in foreign countries and bring them to the United States for trial, without approval from those other countries.
  • 2012 – Nik Wallenda becomes the first person to successfully tightrope walk directly over Niagara Falls.

Here’s Wallenda’s walk; he seems to have no safety rope!

Notables born on this day include:

Here’s one of Steinberg’s cat cartoons:

  • 1937 – Waylon Jennings, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (d. 2002)
  • 1941 – Harry Nilsson, American singer-songwriter (d. 1994)
  • 1943 – Johnny Hallyday, French singer and actor (d. 2017)
  • 1963 – Helen Hunt, American actress, director, and producer
  • 1970 – Leah Remini, American actress and producer

Those who relinquished their ghost on June 15 were few, and include:

  • 1849 – James K. Polk, American lawyer and politician, 11th President of the United States (b. 1795)
  • 1996 – Ella Fitzgerald, American singer and actress (b. 1917)
  • 2014 – Casey Kasem, American radio host, producer, and voice actor, co-created American Top 40 (b. 1932)

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn: Hili has a rodential “present” for Paulina:

Paulina: You brought something from the garden to the verandah, again.
Hili: It’s a still life meant for later consumption.
In Polish:
Paulina: Znowu przyniosłaś coś z sadu na werandę.
Hili: To martwa natura przeznaczona do późniejszej konsumpcji.

From the Harnish Vet Service’s Facebook page. The best thank-you note ever!

From Divy:

A bad groaner from Bruce:

A tweet from reader Ken, who helpfully adds, “Trump daughter-in-law Lara (wife of son Eric) tells Fox New’s Jeanine Pirro that the solution to problems at the US border (which consist in large measure of crossings by unaccompanied minors) is for locals on the border “to arm up, get guns, and take matters into their own hands”:

 

Tweets from Matthew.  Lovely photo in the first one. But where are the clowns? Well, maybe next year.

A lovely portrait of a lion:

I believe this is a fruit bat who needs something to cuddle:

Speaking of fruit bat, here’s a lovely video tweet from Bat World, home of Statler the geriatric fruit bat:

You do remember Statler, don’t you. He’s too old to fly, but the workers carry him about so he can flap his wings and remember the old days. . .

Even though his cinematic roar was fearsome, Leo must have been pretty tame!

And the only cat gargoyle I know of, complete with a kitten as lagniappe!

Monday: Hili dialogue

June 14, 2021 • 6:30 am

Welcome to Monday, June 14, 2021: National Strawberry Shortcake Day (sure beats strawberry-rhubarb pie, the favorite dessert of Satan).  It’s also National Bourbon Day (make mine Woodford Reserve), International Bath Day (I have not taken a bath in ages; I much prefer showers), and Army’s Birthday, celebrating the formation of the Continental Army on this day in 1775 (see below).

Finally, it’s Flag Day in the U.S. (see below), and World Blood Donor Day.

News of the Day:

The decision of federal Judge Lynn Hughes that workers at a Houston Hospital can be required to get the COVID-19 vaccine seems to me eminently sensible. 178 workers at the hospital were suspended after refusing to get the vaccination, and brought a suit against the hospital. Judge Hughes ruled

“This is not coercion. . . . Methodist is trying to do their business of saving lives without giving them the COVID-19 virus. It is a choice made to keep staff, patients, and their families safer.”

The objections raised by the plaintiffs seem even more off base given that many healtcare workers are already required to get various vaccinations, including MMR and an annual flu shot.

How readily even the New York Times gets duped! Read the article (click on the screenshot), ponder the NYT’s “solutions,” to the problem of Iran getting nuclear weapons and then guffaw at the credulous assumption that Iran doesn’t really want nuclear weapons. (No, the NYT’s solutions don’t involve getting Israel to give up its nukes anor involve the only possible thing that could work: ironclad sanctions.)

The fat lady has sung, and Benjamin Netanyahu is history. The Israeli parliament narrowly approved a coalition government (one of the eight “coalescing” parties is an Arab one, consigning Bibi to the pages of history books as Israel’s longest-ruling prime minister. He remains, however, a member of Parliament.

Astro Sam is going back to the ISS, this time as commander! Yes, Samantha Cristoforetti, the first Italian woman in space and one of the astronauts who stayed on the ISS the longest, will be returning to the ISS in 2022, this time as commander. I was smitten by her when I watched her “how to” videos from her first jaunt. (“Astro Sam” is how she posted on Twitter.)

(From Wikipedia): Samantha Cristoforetti in a special sleep bag that stops the person from drifting around in the micro-g environment of ISS.

In line with Andrew Sullivan’s theory that the George Floyd murder and its sequelae, which include widespread disdain for police and calls for defunding them, has led to widespread resignations of police officers. As the NYT reports, “Retirements nationwide were up by 45 percent and resignations by 18 percent in the 12-month period ending in April.” The paper attributes this, as did Sullivan, to a decline in police morale, and adds this:

There is widespread consensus that another reason retention has suffered is that police officers are asked to do too much. In addition to confronting crime, they also deal with mental health problems, addiction and homelessness, as well as the occasional lost dog. Body cameras and bystanders’ cellphones, which increase the likelihood that officers will be held responsible for misconduct, put them under high levels of scrutiny.

“We have asked too much from police, and it has caught up with us nationally,” Chief Zack in Asheville said.

Finally, today’s reported Covid-19 death toll in the U.S. is 599,781,, an increase of 363 deaths over yesterday’s figure. We will probably pass 600,000 deaths by tomorrow.   The reported world death toll is now 3,820,195, an increase of about 8,700 over yesterday’s total.

Stuff that happened on June 14 includes:

  • 1158 – The city of Munich is founded by Henry the Lion on the banks of the river Isar.
  • 1775 – American Revolutionary War: the Continental Army is established by the Continental Congress, marking the birth of the United States Army.
  • 1777 – The Second Continental Congress passes the Flag Act of 1777 adopting the Stars and Stripes as the Flag of the United States.

Here’s the first flag; the 13 stripes and 13 stars represent the 13 original states:

  • 1789 – Mutiny on the Bounty: HMS Bounty mutiny survivors including Captain William Bligh and 18 others reach Timor after a nearly 7,400 km (4,600 mi) journey in an open boat.
  • 1822 – Charles Babbage proposes a difference engine in a paper to the Royal Astronomical Society.

And here’s the first “difference engine” built to Babbage’s design. The caption from Wikipedia is “The London Science Museum‘s difference engine, the first one actually built from Babbage’s design. The design has the same precision on all columns, but in calculating polynomials, the precision on the higher-order columns could be lower.”

They landed in County Galway, Ireland. Remember that Lindbergh’s flight was more famous because he did it alone. Here’s Alcock and Brown’s plane, with an open cockpit. Their electrically heated suits failed, so they were very cold most of the way.

(From Wikipedia): Captain John Alcock stowing provisions aboard Vickers Vimy aircraft before trans-Atlantic flight 14 Jun 1919
  • 1937 – U.S. House of Representatives passes the Marihuana Tax Act. There were taxes on medical cannabis, and you had to buy a stamp to pay the tax. Here are two such stamps:

It was ruled unconstitutional since to buy the stamps for non-medical use, you’d incriminate yourself. The first convictions were not for possessing marijuana, but for failing to pay the tax.

  • 1940 – World War II: The German occupation of Paris begins.
  • 1940 – Seven hundred twenty-eight Polish political prisoners from Tarnów become the first inmates of the Auschwitz concentration camp.
  • 1951 – UNIVAC I is dedicated by the U.S. Census Bureau.
  • 1954 – U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower signs a bill into law that places the words “under God” into the United States Pledge of Allegiance.

I just read the other day that ours is a Christian nation because the Pledge of Allegiance included the words “under God.” But the writer didn’t realize that those words were added only in 1954, and as a wy to distinguish the U.S. from the godless Communist nations during the Cold War.

Here’s the title page of the index, printed in Venice in 1564:

  • 1982 – Falklands War: Argentine forces in the capital Stanley conditionally surrender to British forces.

Notables born on this day include:

Here’s the author of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, the best selling book of the 19th century—after the Bible.

  • 1864 – Alois Alzheimer, German psychiatrist and neuropathologist (d. 1915)
  • 1904 – Margaret Bourke-White, American photographer and journalist (d. 1971)

Here’s Bourke-White’s famous picture of Gandhi, taken in 1946:

  • 1909 – Burl Ives, American actor and singer (d. 1995)
  • 1946 – Donald Trump, American businessman, television personality and 45th President of the United States
  • 1961 – Boy George, English singer-songwriter and producer

He’s Old Man George now!

  • 1969 – Steffi Graf, German tennis player

Those who encountered the Grim Reaper on June 14 include:

  • 1801 – Benedict Arnold, American general during the American Revolution later turned British spy (b. 1741)
  • 1883 – Edward FitzGerald, English poet and author (b. 1809)
  • 1926 – Mary Cassatt, American-French painter (b. 1843)

Here’s Cassatt’s “Children playing with a cat” (1908):

  • 1936 – G. K. Chesterton, English essayist, poet, playwright, and novelist (b. 1874)
  • 1986 – Jorge Luis Borges, Argentine short-story writer, essayist, poet and translator (b. 1899)

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn: Hili asks Paulina for a formal glamor portrait: Did Paulina do a good job?

Hili: Please, Paulina, use your talent to reflect all my beauty.
Paulina: I will try.
In Polish:
Hili: Proszę Paulino, użyj swojego talentu, żeby oddać całe moje piękno.
Paulina: Spróbuję.

A cartoon from reader John:

From Bruce:

From Jesus of the Day:

From reader Barry. Sound up and watch the bird on the left at the end:

Two tweets from Ginger K. First, a chicken-eating lynx gets a stern lecture from the chickens’ owner. (I wonder how he caught the lynx!) Listen to that lynx growl!

And a very unusual observation:

Tweets from Matthew. First an advocate and a detractor of the stupid “Covid shot magnet effect”. Sadly, I just noticed that the linked tweet had vanished, but I put the tweet below:

Now this is a LOUD call. The tymbal is a very complicated adaptation; read more about it here.

A herd of tumbleweed:

Marjorie Taylor Greene: the gift that keeps on giving!

Oh man, would I like to have seen this. I don’t know if this is one brood of stoats, but it’s a lot of them!

Sunday: Hili dialogue

June 13, 2021 • 6:30 am

Welcome to Sunday, June 13, 2021: Cupcake Lover’s Day (again, the apostrophe implies that only a single lover of cupcakes is being honored). It’s also National Children’s Day, Weed Your Garden Day, World Softball Day, and Race Unity Day.

Wine of the Day: I wanted a good heavy red to go with my weekly steak, and I had a hankering for my first love: the Rhones. Lord knows when I bought this bottle, but the price is written on the label along with the advice “decant”, meaning the wine store guy probably told me that this would have a sediment. Well, it had better, being an 11-year-old southern Rhone.

I just looked up my favorite wine guy’s assessment of this wine, which is this:

Robert Parker’s Wine Advocate
The powerful, rich 2010 Chateauneuf du Pape Cuvee Anonyme reveals an off-the-chart level of extract, lots of glycerin (nearly 16% natural alcohol) and copious black cherry, blueberry, forest floor, lavender and graphite characteristics. This full-throttle red requires 3-4 years of cellaring and should keep for two decades.
Rating: 95+
(For Parker, a rating that high means a spectacular wine.) I’m not going to say I detected lavender and graphite, but there was a hint of loam from Northern Ireland, damp grizzly bear fur, and, seriously, dark black cherry. The wine was dark ruby, could evolve for some additional years, and the second glass was much better than the first. I put it under vacuum and left it for tomorrow, when I expect it will be even better.

News of the Day:

Yes, there were three mass shootings on Friday night in three separate states, with two killed and at least 30 injured.

Austin, Texas: 14 wounded, two critically
Savannah, Georgia: one killed and seven wounded
Chicago, Illinois: one killed, nine wounded

As Neil Young sang in “Ohio,” “How many more?” Or to quote Bob Dylan, “How many deaths will it take till we know that too many people have died.”

CNN reports that a scuba diver got swallowed by a humpback whale and spent 30 seconds in the whale’s mouth before the leviathan spit him out! Michael Packard, a lobster diver, was ingested about 45 feet down before the whale realized it had bit on something it couldn’t chew. This situation seems to be a first, though there wasn’t really any danger of Packard being swallowed since the throat of humpbacks are too narrow to accommodate humans.   (h/t: Bill, who adds, “I’m sure those in the Abrahamic tradition will use this story as affirmation of the story of Jonah.”)

An op-ed by Timothy Egan in the NYT, “Biden may be the calm between two storms“, warns of Democratic wokeness sabotaging our chances of governing the country by losing elections in 2022 or 2024. The message: stay on positive accomplishments like economics and vaccination, and stay away from defunding the police and forcing schools to teach CRT.

Bad idea of the year department: An old plantation in North Carolina tweeted this, canceling the Juneteenth event meant, as reader Ken says, “commemorate the hardships that Emancipation visited upon plantation owners and returning Confederate soldiers.” OY!  You can read more about this misstep, and the troubles ahead for Latta Plantation, here.

Finally, today’s reported Covid-19 death toll in the U.S. is 599,678, an increase of 384 deaths over yesterday’s figure. We will pass 600,000 deaths by tomorrow or Tuesday.  The reported world death toll is now 3,811,523, an increase of about 9,700 over yesterday’s total.

Stuff that happened on June 13 includes:

Here’s a portrait of “Die Luterin”, as von Bora was called, painted during her lifetime by Lucas von Cranach the Elder.  She helped Luther develop important elements of his new doctrine, and they even had kids (are there any Luthers left?)

  • 1774 – Rhode Island becomes the first of Britain’s North American colonies to ban the importation of slaves.
  • 1893 – Grover Cleveland notices a rough spot in his mouth and on July 1 undergoes secret, successful surgery to remove a large, cancerous portion of his jaw; the operation was not revealed to the public until 1917, nine years after the president’s death.

Here’s the last known photograph of Cleveland, taken the year before he died (1907). Note, though, that Wikipedia says it was not a cancer but a benign epithelioma. Fix it, Wikipedia!

  • 1898 – Yukon Territory is formed, with Dawson chosen as its capital.
  • 1927 – Aviator Charles Lindbergh receives a ticker tape parade down 5th Avenue in New York City.

Here’s a film of that parade, though the sound cuts out after about five seconds (it resumes after a minute):

Here’s Marshall in 1957. As a lawyer, he’d successfully argued the case of Brown v. Board of Education, which eliminated segergation in public schools, before the Supreme Court.

Here’s the Times’s front-page article about the papers:

  • 1997 – A jury sentences Timothy McVeigh to death for his part in the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing.

Notables born on this day include:

  • 1831 – James Clerk Maxwell, Scottish physicist and mathematician (d. 1879)
  • 1865 – W. B. Yeats, Irish poet and playwright, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1939)

Here’s Yeats (one of my favorite poets) as a young man; there’s no date for this photo. Irish poets learn your trade!

  • 1897 – Paavo Nurmi, Finnish runner and coach (d. 1973)
  • 1918 – Ben Johnson, American actor and stuntman (d. 1996)

I will keep showing this scene from The Last Picture Show with Ben Johnson starring as Sam the Lion. This is his Soliloquy at the Water Tank, just as good as any soliloquy of Shakespeare. (Johnson won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor for this role).

Those who “passed” on June 13 include:

  • 1965 – Martin Buber, Austrian-Israeli philosopher and theologian (b. 1878)

Buber!

  • 1986 – Benny Goodman, American clarinet player, songwriter, and bandleader (b. 1909)
  • 2010 – Jimmy Dean, American singer and businessman, founded Jimmy Dean Foods (b. 1928)

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn: Hili is impatiently waiting on the windowsill to come inside (Andrzej has to go out and carry her in; she refuses to walk in on her own!)

Hili: Could you let me inside?
A: Wait. I will just finish this sentence.
Hili: You always have excuses.
In Polish:
Hili: Czy możesz wpuścić mnie do domu?
Ja: Zaczekaj, tylko dokończę to zdanie.
Hili: Zawsze masz jakieś wymówki.

 

From Facebook:

From Bruce:

A groaner from Nicole:

This tweet was sent to me by reader Jay (I retweeted it; do read the article), who adds “Twitter is now hiding links to the article as ‘potentially sensitive content.'” What the hell?

Two tweets from Ginger K.  The first is via our friend Masih, showing the natural reaction to being forced to cover your head for school.

And some science:

Tweets from Matthew. This quote comes from a contrarian “scientific” journal:

This is a modern day ripoff of Winsor McCay’s fabulous cartoon strip Dream of the Rarebit Fiend:

Matthew tweeted one of his beloved optical illusions:

I’m curious about whether a plane will even start after 435 days of inactivity.

This isn’t exactly true. For instance, you can swap “rectangular” with “green” or  “little” with “old” without changing the meaning:

Saturday: Hili dialogue

June 12, 2021 • 6:30 am

Welcome to Saturday, June 12, 2021: National Peanut Butter Cookie Day. It’s also World Gin Day, National Rosé Day (the wine), National Jerky Day, Loving Day (celebrating the 1967 Supreme Court decision of Loving v. Virginia, striking down laws against interracial marriage), World Day Against Child Labour, Superman Day (celebrating the release of the 2013 movie), and Red Rose Day (the flower). 

News of the Day:

First, the results of yesterday’s poll about whether Wokeism will hurt the Democrats in the mid-term elections of in 2024. The overwhelming majority (84%) said “yes it will”, a result that surprised me:

The news is pretty boring, but perhaps, after the drama of the last year, that’s not a bad thing. Biden is in England meeting with Boris, but he also had dinner with the Queen and is having tea with her at Windsor Castle before heading on to the Big Summit with Putin. Merrick Garland is doubling the number of investigators in the Justice Department’s “voting rights” unit, trying to ensure that the spate of new state laws restricting voting doesn’t violate any federal law.

A piece in the NYT by environmental writer Emma Marris, “The case against zoos,” happens to be a piece I largely agree with. I think their educational function is minimal (people go to gawk, not to learn) as is their conservation function (almost no animals are bred for release, and what we learn about them from captivity is almost nil). It’s cruel to animals to isolate them in jails where they can’t exercise the behaviors and desires instilled by their genes. We’ve all seen animals behaving neurotically in zoos, pacing back and forth and doing repetitive movements—a sure sign of captivity-induced distress.  Maybe we could have zoos for some animals, like insects, that probably don’t suffer much in a decent captivity, but people go to zoos to see tigers and bears, not insects. This also goes for aquaria, especially those that display mammals like beluga whales and dolphins.  Marris makes a convincing case. Education and conservation can, I suspect, be done equally well through lectures and videos, and no animal gets neurotic or traumatized.

An article in City Journal by Abigail Shrier, When the State Comes for your Kids”, paints a scary picture of how youngish teenagers can leave their homes and go to shelters where they receive “gender affirmation” if they have feelings of being transsexual. And it’s damn hard to get your kid back, even if you’re legally entitled to. The laws that allow children to do this are pretty lax and take effect when the kids are pretty young, especially in California, Oregin, and Washington.  (h/t: Luana)

Meanwhile, over at HuffPost the clicking is deafening:

Finally, today’s reported Covid-19 death toll in the U.S. is 599,510, an increase of 413 deaths over yesterday’s figure. We will pass 600,000 deaths this weekend. The reported world death toll is now 3,801,848, an increase of about 12,200 over yesterday’s total.

Stuff that happened on June 12 includes:

  • 1240 – At the instigation of Louis IX of France, an inter-faith debate, known as the Disputation of Paris, starts between a Christian monk and four rabbis.
  • 1776 – The Virginia Declaration of Rights is adopted.
  • 1817 – The earliest form of bicycle, the dandy horse, is driven by Karl von Drais.

Here’s a “drasine” (the other name for a dandy horse), which was ridden by pushing yourself along with your feet. I guess it’s marginally more efficient than walking. As expected, however, the craze for these things didn’t last long. The chain-driven model wasn’t devised until 1885.

Here’s a trailer for that horror film:

  • 1939 – The Baseball Hall of Fame opens in Cooperstown, New York.
  • 1942 – Anne Frank receives a diary for her thirteenth birthday.

Here’s the outside of her diary, and two pages; it’s in the possession of the Anne Frank Museum in Amsterdam:

Evers was murdered by a white supremacist who wasn’t convicted until nearly 30 years after the murder. Here’s his grave; he died at 37. Note the stones on top; a sign of remembrance. Because he was a veteran, he’s buried in Arlington National Cemetery.

 

Here’s Mandela’s cell at Robben Island Prison, where he spent nearly all his 27 years in captivity. Note that he slept on the floor.

credit: Jeff Overs/BBC News & Current Affairs via Getty Images

Here’s the rollout and takeoff of the Gossamer Albatross:

Here’s Reagan’s famous demand:

  • 1991 – Russians first democratically elected Boris Yeltsin as the President of Russia.
  • 1994 – Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman are murdered outside Simpson’s home in Los Angeles. Her estranged husband, O.J. Simpson is later charged with the murders, but is acquitted by a jury.
  • 2016 – Forty-nine civilians are killed and 58 others injured in an attack on a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida; the gunman, Omar Mateen, is killed in a gunfight with police.
  • 2017 – American student Otto Warmbier returns home in a coma after spending 17 months in a North Korean prison and dies a week later.

Notables born on this day include:

Part of a self-portrait of Schiele I took in Vienna in 2012:

  • 1892 – Djuna Barnes, American novelist, journalist, and playwright (d. 1982)
  • 1899 – Weegee, Ukrainian-American photographer and journalist (d. 1968)

Weegee specialized in photos of the seamier side of New York. But many of his most famous photos were staged, like this, perhaps his most famous photo. Caption from Wikipedia: “Marie Muller Kavanaugh, Elizabeth Wharton Drexel, and an unnamed observer, photographed by Weegee at the old Metropolitan Opera House on November 22, 1943. Photo: Weegee/Courtesy of International Center of Photography.”

  • 1924 – George H. W. Bush, American lieutenant and politician, 41st President of the United States (d. 2018)
  • 1929 – Anne Frank, German-Dutch diarist; victim of the Holocaust (d. 1945)
  • 1933 – Eddie Adams, American photographer and journalist (d. 2004)

Here’s Eddie Adams’s most famous photo, of the execution of a Viet Cong prisoner, a photo that won the Pulitzer Prize:

Adams’ photograph of Nguyễn Ngọc Loan executing Nguyễn Văn Lém on February 1, 1968
  • 1941 – Chick Corea, American pianist and composer (d. 2021)
  • 1962 – Jordan Peterson, Canadian psychologist, professor and cultural critic

Those whose life drew to an end on June 12 include:

  • 1957 – Jimmy Dorsey, American saxophonist, composer, and bandleader (The Dorsey Brothers and The California Ramblers) (b. 1904)
  • 1963 – Medgar Evers, American soldier and activist (b. 1925)
  • 1972 – Edmund Wilson, American critic, essayist, and editor (b. 1895)

Here’s Wilson, a fantastic critic and writer, and one of my literary heroes. Here’s a tidbit from Wikipedia:

Throughout his career, Wilson often answered fan mail and outside requests for his time with this form postcard:

“Edmund Wilson regrets that it is impossible for him to: Read manuscripts, write books and articles to order, write forewords or introductions, make statements for publicity purposes, do any kind of editorial work, judge literary contests, give interviews, conduct educational courses, deliver lectures, give talks or make speeches, broadcast or appear on television, take part in writers’ congresses, answer questionnaires, contribute to or take part in symposiums or ‘panels’ of any kind, contribute manuscripts for sales, donate copies of his books to libraries, autograph books for strangers, allow his name to be used on letterheads, supply personal information about himself, supply photographs of himself, supply opinions on literary or other subjects”.

  • 2003 – Gregory Peck, American actor and political activist (b. 1916)

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn: Hili and Szaron inform Andrzej and Malgorzata that they can’t use the chairs on the porch today.

Hili: You can sit on the steps.
Szaron: It’s the only solution.
In Polish:
Hili: Możecie usiąść na schodach.
Szaron: To jest jedyne rozwiązanie.

Posted by Seth Andrews. Should be called “Regrets nobody has.”

With apologies to my colleague Neil Shubin, one of the discoverers of Tiktaalik:

From Fat Cat Art, captioned, “You know what I need.”:

From Titania, directed at a person—Charlotte Clymer—who thinks that Iran is gay-friendly. LOL; it’s not: gender-changing surgeries are subsidized so that gay people (who are committing capital crimes in Iran) can officially change their sex and thus are no longer engaging in illegal sexual activity with someone of the same sex. This is “trans-affirming” medical care only to ignorant westerners. And it’s the only way that gay people can legally have sex.

A tweet from Ginger K. Like Ibram Kendi, Robin DiAngelo tries to avoid debating her views at all costs—even if that cost is to deprive poor kids of aid:

From Simon. E. O. Wilson turned 92 two days ago. Here’s a great quote from him that I hadn’t heard. Clearly he’s referring to the wrong species being humans, but the “right ones” presumably the social insects, most probably ants.

Tweets from Matthew. First, a potted cat:

These aren’t real French trams; they’re video creations of Ia Padgham, and very good ones!

Crikey, I didn’t know that crocodiles could walk so. . . .upright!

I’ve seen this photo before, and always wondered what happened to the cat:

Friday: Hili dialogue (and Kulka dialogue)

June 11, 2021 • 6:30 am

Welcome to Friday, June 11, 2021: National German Chocolate Cake Day (cultural appropriation?). It’s also Corn on the Cob Day, National Marriage Day, Kamehameha Day in Hawaii, and Cousteau Day (Jacques was born on this day in 1910).

Wine of the Day: Bummer! I don’t know when I bought the chardonnay below, nor what I paid for it (it goes for about $40 now, but stay away); I found it in the oldest section of my wine collection, which I must organize. I knew I was in for trouble when the cork crumbled as I was opening it, despite it having been stored horizontally.  That’s a sign of age, and a California chardonnay stored at 65 degrees (I have no colder storage) for 14 years or so is dubious at best.

And so it was. It was darkish gold, another sign of oxidation and overage. While it was (barely) drinkable, with the sherry-like flavors of wine dotage, I had only one glass before I poured the bottle down the drain. What a pity, as in its prime the ratings were very good. So it goes.

News of the Day:

The Biden administration continues doing good stuff, now pledging to send 500 million (half a billion!) doses of Pfizer cornavirus vaccine to the 100 poorest countries in the world. I hope my tax dollars helped finance this donation.

Meanwhile in the US, a poll described on last night’s NBC Evening News says that about 20% of healthcare workers refuse to be vaccinated. Reasons vary, but most are born of ignorance. And in Houston, 178 workers at Houston Methodist Hospital were suspended for refusing to be vaccinated. This is not for religious or medical reasons, as the WaPo reports that “285 employees received a medical or religious exemption from the vaccine, and 332 employees were granted deferrals for pregnancy or other reasons.” The other objectors show sheer bloody-mindedness—except as with other ignorant decisions, like rejecting evolution, this one puts others at risk.

Did the COVID-19 virus enter humans from animals in a wet market, or through a lab leak in Wuhan? We don’t know for sure, but a new article in Nature looks at the evidence.  Their conclusion: a natural origin is still the most plausible hypothesis, but we can’t completely rule out the lab-leak theory.  (h/t: Greg)

A group of over 200 journalists has signed a petition vowing to be more anti-Israel in the coverage of the news. The petition says that it’s time to be realistic and apply the terms like “apartheid state”, “war crimes” and “ethnic superiority” more readily to Israel. The kicker is that the petition doesn’t say that these terms, which more accurately characterize the Palestinian territories but aren’t used for them, should be applied to Palestine as well. Once again we have anti-Israel double standards in the media. (See here for a more ascerbic take than mine.)

Speaking of anti-Zionists, a group that includes representative Ilhan Omar, the Minnesota Congresswoman put her foot in it once again, as she’s simply unable to hide her hatred of Israel. She issued this tweet with a video of an exchange with the Secretary of State::

She was roundly criticized by many for equating the U.S. and Israel with Hamas and the Taliban, including the Democratic leadership:

The six-person Democratic leadership team, which includes House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, issued a rare joint statement following Omar’s statement, writing they “welcome [Omar’s] clarification.”

“Legitimate criticism of the policies of both the United States and Israel is protected by the values of free speech and democratic debate. And indeed, such criticism is essential to the strength and health of our democracies,” their statement read. “But drawing false equivalencies between democracies like the U.S. and Israel and groups that engage in terrorism like Hamas and the Taliban foments prejudice and undermines progress toward a future of peace and security for all.”

The NYT adds this:

Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California cannot afford an internal rift, even with a small number of progressives. Democratic leaders had to beg Ms. Omar and other members of the progressive clique known as the squad to vote present rather than “no” last month on a $1.9 billion bill to finance Capitol security improvements, to prevent the measure’s defeat after they objected to more funding for the police. Ms. Omar seemed to allude to those pleas in her combative tweet.

Omar “clarified” what she said in a tepid press release, saying

“To be clear: the conversation was about accountability for specific incidents regarding those ICC cases, not a moral comparison between Hamas and the Taliban and the U.S. and Israel.

“I was in no way equating terrorist organizations with democratic countries with well-established judicial systems.”

Of course she was. The woman is a misguided ideologue (or rather, a “hater”). HuffPo, as usual, bought Omar’s palaver, asserting that the Democratic criticism of Omar just gave fuel to the GOP (click on screenshot):

No, it’s Omar’s own bigotry and anti-Semitism that gives the GOP talking points against the Democratic Party.

Onward: I won’t vouch for the accuracy of the plot below, which is on reddit (h/t: smipowell), but if true it’s pretty amazing. Who would have thought that the election results could be tied so closely to ancient geology through a series of causal links?

Finally, today’s reported Covid-19 death toll in the U.S. is 598,770, an increase of 387 deaths over yesterday’s figure. The reported world death toll is now  3,789,644, an increase of about 11,800 over yesterday’s total.

Stuff that happened on June 11 includes a lot o’ news:

  • 1184 BC – Trojan War: Troy is sacked and burned, according to calculations by Eratosthenes.
  • 1509 – Henry VIII of England marries Catherine of Aragon.
  • 1748 – Denmark adopts the characteristic Nordic Cross flag later taken up by all other Scandinavian countries.

I didn’t realize until now that yes, all Scandinavian countries have variants of this cross. Here they be:

(From Wikipedia): Nordic flags, from left to right: Finland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden and Denmark.
  • 1770 – British explorer Captain James Cook runs aground on the Great Barrier Reef.
  • 1776 – The Continental Congress appoints Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Roger Sherman, and Robert R. Livingston to the Committee of Five to draft a declaration of independence.
  • 1895 – Paris–Bordeaux–Paris, sometimes called the first automobile race in history or the “first motor race”, takes place.

One of the racers:

  • 1919 – Sir Barton wins the Belmont Stakes, becoming the first horse to win the U.S. Triple Crown.
  • 1920 – During the U.S. Republican National Convention in Chicago, U.S. Republican Party leaders gathered in a room at the Blackstone Hotel to come to a consensus on their candidate for the U.S. presidential election, leading the Associated Press to coin the political phrase “smoke-filled room”.
  • 1937 – Great Purge: The Soviet Union under Joseph Stalin executes eight army leaders.
  • 1955 – Eighty-three spectators are killed and at least 100 are injured after an Austin-Healey and a Mercedes-Benz collide at the 24 Hours of Le Mans, the deadliest ever accident in motorsports.

Here’s a video of the accident from British Pathé, but warning: it’s pretty horrifying:

It was scenes like this that helped galvanize the public, leading to the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Look at this guy!

  • 1963 – Buddhist monk Thích Quảng Đức burns himself with gasoline in a busy Saigon intersection to protest the lack of religious freedom in South Vietnam.

I remember it well; here’s a photo that Wikipedia labels, “Journalist Malcolm Browne‘s photograph of Quảng Đức during his self-immolation; a similar photograph won the 1963 World Press Photo of the Year.”

  • 1970 – After being appointed on May 15, Anna Mae Hays and Elizabeth P. Hoisington officially receive their ranks as U.S. Army Generals, becoming the first women to do so.
  • 1987 – Diane Abbott, Paul Boateng and Bernie Grant are elected as the first black MPs in Great Britain.
  • 2001 – Timothy McVeigh is executed for his role in the Oklahoma City bombing.
  • 2010 – The first African FIFA World Cup kicks off in South Africa.

Here’s the lively official song of the world cup by Shakira; I believe she adapted it from a Cameroon military marching song:

Notables born on this day include:

  • 1572 – Ben Jonson, English poet, playwright, and critic (d. 1637)
  • 1776 – John Constable, English painter and academic (d. 1837)
  • 1864 – Richard Strauss, German composer and conductor (d. 1949)

The great composer:

  • 1910 – Jacques Cousteau, French biologist, author, and inventor, co-developed the aqua-lung (d. 1997)
  • 1925 – William Styron, American novelist and essayist (d. 2006)
  • 1933 – Gene Wilder, American actor, director, and screenwriter (d. 2016)
  • 1956 – Joe Montana, American football player and sportscaster
  • 1959 – Hugh Laurie, English actor and screenwriter

Those who bought the farm on June 11 include:

  • 1979 – John Wayne, American actor, director, and producer (b. 1907)
  • 2001 – Timothy McVeigh, American terrorist (b. 1968)
  • 2003 – David Brinkley, American journalist and author (b. 1920)
  • 2013 – Robert Fogel, American economist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1926)

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn: Hili and Szaron hatch plans:

Hili: Are we going over there or are we staying here?
Szaron: This requires thinking through.
In Polish:
Hili: Idziemy tam, czy zostajemy tu?
Szaron: To wymaga przemyślenia.
And we have our first Kulka dialogue:
Kulka: Let me in tp Paulina immediately.
Andrzej: What for?
Kulka: So she could let me out
In Polish: Kulka: Wpuść mnie natychmiast do Pauliny! Andrzej: Po co? Kulka: Żeby mogła mnie wypuścić na dwór.

From Meanwhile in Canada:

From Su; the Creation of Ducks:

From Nicole:

A tweet from reader Ken, who notes: “Texas Rep. Louie Gohmert — still the nation’s reigning stupidest congressperson despite stiff competition from QAnon conspiracists Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert — has come up with the Republican plan for addressing climate change (nota bene: the BLM he mentions is the Bureau of Land Management not Black Lives Matter). . . .”On the bright side, he seems to have accepted, at least provisionally, the heliocentric theory of the solar system!” (tweet also sent by Barry):

Tweets from Matthew. Sound up on this thriller, and watch to the very end:

There are a number of reasons why biological mimicry might be imperfect, among them a lack of genetic variation for “better matching”. This paper in Proc. Roy. Soc. tests some of them and settles on the “predators have incomplete information” hypothesis (i.e., predators don’t visualize all the aspects that could be mimicked):

Duck of the Day. I need to get Honey on that page!

A lovely trip through a larval gut made from successive visualizations:

This is very clever, but deadly for birds and their young:

Here’s how one person who lectures on space to the average person handles flat-earthers. There are 17 tweets in all, but read them. Her technique is empathic, clever, and well-honed, and, according to her, has a high “conversion” rate.

Matthew wonders how this tactic would work with creationists. I would guess not as well because religion plays more of a role in creationism than in flat-earthism.

Thursday: Hili dialogue

June 10, 2021 • 6:30 am

Welcome to Thursday, June 10, 2021: National Iced Tea Day. It’s also National Black Cow Day (a tassty American fountain drink made with root beer and ice cream, also known as a “root beer float”), National Herb and Spice Day, and World Art Nouveau Day.  Here’s a nice piece of Art Nouveau furniture that I would love to own.

News of the Day:

The Keystone Pipeline, designed to convey oil from northern Alberta to the lower 48, is dead, defunct, singing with the Choir Invisible. It is an Ex Pipeline. The Biden administration, continuing its truly progressive environmental policy, revoked the pipeline’s permit yesterday. In light of that, the pipeline developer abandoned the project.

The Washington Post reports that some of the Capitol rioters in jail for their actions are being kept in jail by the continual pronouncements of Trump and his minions that the election was stolen. From the paper:

In keeping a Trump supporter and felon in jail in Michigan pending trial, Jackson highlighted a message in which the man said he was in D.C. on Jan. 6 because “Trump’s the only big shot I trust right now.”

The man has been charged with obstructing a congressional proceeding and related crimes, and his “promise to take action in the future cannot be dismissed as an unlikely occurrence given that his singular source of information . . . continues to propagate the lie that inspired the attack on a near daily basis,” Jackson wrote. [Judge Amy Berman Jackson denied the man bail.]

This isn’t the only person in this situation, for such folks are deemed dangers to public safety so long as the “stolen election” scenario is promulgated. I had no idea that Trump is still banging this drum, as I’ve been happily ignoring and/or unaware of his actions since he became President-Eject.

Have you wondered what’s up with Elizabeth Holmes, accused (with her Theranos colleague Sunny Balwani) of wire fraud and conspiracy, and now of destroying evidence about the efficacy of her blood-testing machines? Preparations for a July trial are in fact underway, and we’re at the jury selection stage. Prosecutors have accused her legal team of trying to stack the jury, since the team submitted 41 pages of questions (112 questions), many of which, say the prosecution, are irrelevant.  Holmes faces 20 years in jail. If you read John Carreyrou’s fascinating book about Holmes and Theranos (highly recommended by yours truly), you’ll want to see her in a prison suit.

Queen Elizabeth has been canceled! According to the BBC, Oxford students at Magdalen college have voted to remove the Queen’s photo portrait from one of their common rooms. The reason? Colonialism!:

“. . . for some students, depictions of the monarch and the British monarchy represent recent colonial history”.

As far as I know, the Queen hasn’t engaged in acts of colonialism. But it doesn’t matter, for her ancestors did!  (h/t Jez)

You probably didn’t know this (nor did I), but judges can increase the sentences of someone who was acquitted of a crime and later convicted of a lesser crime. That is, if you’re acquitted of a murder, and later convicted of a robbery whose normal penalty is four years in jail, your prior acquittal could lead the judge to more than double your sentence. This procedure, called “acquitted conduct sentencing”, seems manifestly unjust, but is widespread. Reader Paul informs me that, according to this article in Persuasion, the Senate Judiciary Committee will begin considering a bill that bans this kind of sentencing.

Also from the BBC, a remarkable body-surfing duck (named “Duck”) in Ausralia. He spends up to two hours a day riding the waves. Click on the screenshot to go to the video:

Finally, today’s reported Covid-19 death toll in the U.S. is 598,355, an increase of 417 deaths over yesterday’s figure. The reported world death toll is now 3,777.879, an increase of about 14,200 over yesterday’s total.

Stuff that happened on June 10 includes:

Here’s a memorial to Bishop I photographed when I visited Salem two years ago. I wonder who left the flowers.

  • 1793 – The Jardin des Plantes museum opens in Paris. A year later, it becomes the first public zoo.
  • 1829 – The first Boat Race between the University of Oxford and the University of Cambridge takes place on the Thames in London.
  • 1886 – Mount Tarawera in New Zealand erupts, killing 153 people and burying the famous Pink and White Terraces. Eruptions continue for three months creating a large, 17 km long fissure across the mountain peak.

Sadly, these silica deposits, once the tourist sight in New Zealand, are no more. They may exist underwater, but it’s unlikely anybody will ever see them again. No color photos exist, but here’s a painting of the White Terraces:

Here’s the Sharif. In the movie Lawrence of Arabia, Alec Guinness played his son Faisal.

  • 1942 – World War II: The Lidice massacre is perpetrated as a reprisal for the assassination of Obergruppenführer Reinhard Heydrich.
  • 1944 – In baseball, 15-year-old Joe Nuxhall of the Cincinnati Reds becomes the youngest player ever in a major-league game.
  • 1947 – Saab produces its first automobile.

Here’s a prototype for the first Saab, the “Ursaab”:

  • 1963 – The Equal Pay Act of 1963, aimed at abolishing wage disparity based on sex, was signed into law by John F. Kennedy as part of his New Frontier Program.
  • 1964 – United States Senate breaks a 75-day filibuster against the Civil Rights Act of 1964, leading to the bill’s passage.
  • 1991 – Eleven-year-old Jaycee Lee Dugard is kidnapped in South Lake Tahoe, California; she would remain a captive until 2009.
  • 2002 – The first direct electronic communication experiment between the nervous systems of two humans is carried out by Kevin Warwick in the United Kingdom.

Notables born on this day include:

Here’s part of a larger Courbet painting, “The Painter’s Studio: A Real Allegory Summing Up Seven Years of My Life as an Artist, 1854-5“, and there’s a cat:

McDaniel was of course the first African-American to win an Oscar: for Best Supporting Actress (in Gone with the Win) in 1940. Her role now makes people cringe, but it was a breakthrough. Here’s her award; note that she says she hope she will “always be a credit to her race.”

  • 1915 – Saul Bellow, Canadian-American novelist, essayist and short story writer, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 2005)
  • 1921 – Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh (d. 2021)
  • 1922 – Judy Garland, American singer, actress, and vaudevillian (d. 1969)
  • 1928 – Maurice Sendak, American author and illustrator (d. 2012)
  • 1929 – E. O. Wilson, American biologist, author, and academic.

Happy birthday to Ed, who is 92 today, the same age as my own Ph.D. advisor (and Wilson’s erstwhile nemesis), Dick Lewontin.  Here’s a photo I took of Ed talking to Patty Gowaty at a lunch for bigwigs (I was a littlewig there) at Harvard in 2007:

  • 1965 – Elizabeth Hurley, English model, actress, and producer
  • 1982 – Tara Lipinski, American figure skater

Those who packed it in on June 10 include:

  • 323 BC – Alexander the Great, Macedonian king (b. 356 BC)
  • 1926 – Antoni Gaudí, Spanish architect, designed the Park Güell (b. 1852)
  • 1967 – Spencer Tracy, American actor (b. 1900)

Tracy had a famous, l26-year relationship with Katherine Hepburn though, as a Catholic, he remained married to another. Here are the pair in “Adam’s Rib” (1949):

 

  • 2004 – Ray Charles, American singer-songwriter, pianist, and actor (b. 1930)
  • 2016 – Gordie Howe, Canadian ice hockey player (b. 1928)

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn: Hili is watching the birds carefully.

Hili: Young starlings are bigger and bigger.
Paulina: Focus on what’s obtainable.
(Photo: Paulina R.)
In Polish:
Hili: Młode szpaki są coraz większe.
Paulina: Koncentruj się na tym co osiągalne.
(Zdjęcie: Paulina R.)

A photo of Szaron by Andrzej;

From Nicole:

From Bruce:

A groaner from Jesus of the Day:

From Titania. A reader sent me this paper from The Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association, but at first I thought it was surely a hoax (just glance at the paper for a minute!). But it seems to be real! The world is going to hell. If any reader wants to navigate the paper and report back in the comments (free link in the previous sentence), you’re welcome to do so.

 

From a reader. I suppose this kind of word salad is why Kendi refuses to debate anyone who disagrees with him:

From Luana: a new paper that says neo-Darwinism still rules okay:

Also from Luana. I’m not a big fan of Greenwald, but here he highlights on area in which liberalism is getting devoured by termites. I wrote about the ACLU article here.

Tweets from Matthew. Keep watching this video, and tell me how many shelduck ducklings you see. I wonder if any were kidnapped?

Odonate peekaboo:

Just when you think people can’t get any loonier about the COVID vaccine:

Wednesday: Hili dialogue

June 9, 2021 • 6:30 am

Welcome to Wednesday, June 9, 2021: National Strawberry Rhubarb Pie Day. I decry, deplore, and denounce this pie, made as it is with a sour and stringy VEGETABLE. I know many readers are fond of this sorry excuse for a pie, but give me a straight strawberry pie any day.

It’s a very thin day for holidays, for the only other one of note is Donald Duck Day, celebrating the anniversary of the pantsless mallard’s first appearance in the cartoon “The Wise Little Hen” on this date in 1934. Well, here’s Donald. who appears at 2:06 dancing a hornpipe. 

Today’s Google Doodle is a gif (click on screenshot) celebrating the life of Shirley Temple (1928-2014). As C|Net reports, this is neither the day on which she was born or died, but rather “the anniversary of the 2015 date that the historical museum in her hometown of Santa Monica, California, opened Love, Shirley Temple, a special exhibit featuring a collection of her rare memorabilia.”

News of the Day:

The Moral Arc Bends Upward: Reader Ken sent this link, adding, “A Gallup poll released today shows that support for same-sex marriage among Americans has gone from 27% in 1996 to 70% today. That’s the most amazing 25-year public-attitude turn around of my lifetime, I think. For the first time, even a majority of Republicans (55%) support SSM. Only among evangelicals does support remain low.” Who says that morality doesn’t improve?

Why do Uber rides (and other amenities) cost so much more than they used to? For me, an Uber to Midway Airport used to cost about $20, cheaper than a cab. Now the Uber ride could be $55 and the cab fare is about what it was: $24 sans tip.  The NYT explains the rise in prices of stuff once considered a bargain.

The BBC reports on a new paper in Current Biology showing that a parthenogenic bdelloid rotifer (a species that reproduces asexually) has been carbon-dated at 24,000 years old after being defrosted from the Siberian permafrost. As far as I know, only worms, bacteria, and plant seeds can survive biological “stasis” for this long. Matthew is quoted in a Guardian article on this Lazarus rotifer.  (h/t: Jez)

Reader Ginger contributed a link to a BBC article describing a reconstruction of Noah’s Ark in England. Unfortunately, the faux-ark has been detained in Ipswich as “unseaworthy”. And that is in normal conditions, not those obtaining in the Biblical description!

Reader Laurie sent a link to this BBC video (made by Isabelle Rodd with a drone) showing a remarkably huge pod of humpback whales migrating and feeding en masse. Pods are usually only a handful of individuals, but this one has 20-90 whales. It’s also the only video of “bubble-net feeding” from Australia (It’s a mystery whether this efficient behavior is innate or must be learned from other whales.)  Click on the screenshot to go to the video and short article:

Finally, today’s reported Covid-19 death toll in the U.S. is 597,906, an increase of 438 deaths over yesterday’s figure. The reported world death toll is now 3,763,628, an increase of about 10,700 over yesterday’s total.

Stuff that happened on June 9 includes:

  • AD 53 – The Roman emperor Nero marries Claudia Octavia.
  • AD 68 – Nero commits suicide, after quoting Vergil’s Aeneid, thus ending the Julio-Claudian dynasty and starting the civil war known as the Year of the Four Emperors.
  • 1856 – Five hundred Mormons leave Iowa City, Iowa for the Mormon Trail.

Here’s a map of the entire Mormon Trail from Nauvoo, Illinois to Salt Lake City, Utah:

Lingle is shown below. His murderer, caught after a $55,000 reward was offered (the equivalent of almost $900,000 today), got only 14 years in jail and served but eight. It’s Capone, Jake!

Broad Peak, 8,047 meters high (26,414 ft) lies on the border between Pakistan and China. Here’s the mountain, the 12th highest in the world:

  • 1968 – U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson declares a national day of mourning following the assassination of Senator Robert F. Kennedy.
  • 1973 – In horse racing, Secretariat wins the U.S. Triple Crown.

Here’s Secretariat’s Belmont Stakes victory, giving this horse the Triple Crown. Look at that victory—by 25 lengths!

Notables born on this day include:

Here’s the tomb of Peter the Great, which I photographed in St. Petersburg in July, 2011, nearly a decade ago:

Avril, a can-can dancer, was made famous by the paintings of Toulouse-Lautrec; here’s a photo of her and a poster by the painter:

  • 1915 – Les Paul, American guitarist and songwriter (d. 2009)
  • 1960 – Steve Paikin, Canadian journalist and author
  • 1963 – Johnny Depp, American actor
  • 1981 – Natalie Portman, Israeli-American actress

Portman turns 40 today.

Those who croaked on June 9 include:

  • AD 68 – Nero, Roman emperor (b. 37)
  • 1870 – Charles Dickens, English novelist and critic (b. 1812)

Here’s a Daguerreotype portrait of Charles Dickens taken by Antoine Claude in 1852:

  • 2017 – Adam West, American actor and investor (b. 1928)

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili is having a spring kvetch:

Hili: There will be grass mowing again.
A: So what?
Hili: I don’t like the noise.
In Polish:
Hili: Znów będzie koszenie trawy.
Ja: No to co?
Hili: Nie lubię hałasu.

From Paulina: Kulka and Szaron sniff a tasty “cat sausage”:

From Bruce:

Reader Divy isn’t much on making cookies, but when she saw this unique cookie cutter she changed her mind. You can get one for only $5 on Etsy.

From Fat Cat Art via On the Prowl cat cartoons:

It’s time to remind ourselves of the plight of women in Iran. Be sure to watch the video with Masih:

Two tweets from Ginger K. Turn the sound up on this first one to hear the blissed-out cheetah:

This isn’t the famous “pale blue dot” photo, but it’s even better. And yep, that’s Earth at the tip of the arrow:

Tweets by Matthew. His assertion is right, but he still doesn’t comprehend America:

Here I am touting Dr. Cobb’s writing (the book is excellent, by the way):

I love the captions on these old paintings. That moggie is BAKED!

Crypsis!

This tweet even explains leucism: