Why Evolution is True is a blog written by Jerry Coyne, centered on evolution and biology but also dealing with diverse topics like politics, culture, and cats.
This will be a truncated Hili as I have important Duck Business this morning: returning a prematurely-fallen offspring of Honey to her brood. If all goes well, I’ll be back in business tomorrow
News of the Day:
In lieu of news here, please consult your regular news source.
1891 – The Music Hall in New York City (later known as Carnegie Hall) has its grand opening and first public performance, with Tchaikovsky as the guest conductor.
Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, I believe Hili is referring to Spring, not efforts to make a Green World:
Hili: I’m not mistaken.
A: What about?
Hili: The world is greener today than it was yesterday.
In Polish:
Hili: Nie mylę się.
Ja: W czym?
Hili: Świat jest dziś jeszcze zieleńszy niż wczoraj.
Here’s a picture of Kulka taken by Paulina:
From Facebook via Mark:
From Bruce:
Also from Bruce. I think this constitutes Rover Harassment:
Titania is in favor of the Bible as hate speech:
Now that the UK police have determined that quoting from the Bible is hate speech, isn’t it about time we shut down all churches and turned them into intersectional re-education centres?pic.twitter.com/1YRe4caWV6
Japanese paper artist Chie Hitotsuyama creates sculptures of animals using a technique involving rolled strips of wet newspaper #womensartpic.twitter.com/EiVfiZPisy
— ᴬᵘᵗⁱˢᵗⁱᶜᴬˢᵗʳᵒⁿᵃᵘᵗ (@aliveliayselale) May 4, 2021
Matthew got his second jab. Welcome to the world, my friend!
2nd jab done. mRNA molecules in tiny balls of fat are currently getting into my cells where they will fool my body into making a bit of the viral protein. Amazing. Now vaccinate the rest of the world! pic.twitter.com/5myPiNQ63D
Today’s Google Doodle (click on screenshot) celebrates the life of HIsaye Yamomoto (1921-2011), who wrote about the experience of Japanese immigrants to the U.S. This is part of the celebration of Asian Pacific American Heritage Month.
Wine of the Day: Below you can read my go-to wine critic, Robert Parker, reviewing the 2013 vintage of Bootleg Proprietary Red, which is now unavailable but the estimated price is $37, and I must have paid somewhere around $25 at my wine store Vin Chicago (I don’t remember acquiring it), which must have been close to the price it sold for at Costco. (Don’t turn up your nose at all Costco wines!) Parker gave it a 94, an excellent score, but I haven’t yet cracked it (it’s Monday evening). My own evaluation follows his, but of course I am now conditioned to find what he found! You don’t often find Cabernet blended with Petite Syrah, much less Zinfandel!
I was in the mood for a big, good wine because it was a long, hard day on the duck pond. I will have this with chicken breast, rice, and green beans. First, the review:
The 2013 Proprietary Red from Bootleg is a major sleeper of not only the vintage, but in its entire concept. There are just over 8,000 cases of this wine, which has been culled from KJ vineyards on Atlas Peak, Oakville, Mt. Veeder, Rutherford and Spring Mountain. The wine is a blend of 27% Cabernet Sauvignon, 22% Petite Sirah, 21% Zinfandel, 12% Merlot, and the rest Malbec and Petit Verdot. That’s like throwing in the entire kitchen sink, but the result is a stunningly delicious, complex, big-time, sexy style of wine with a deep, opaque purple color, a beautiful nose of blackberries and blueberries, with some lavender Provençal herbs, licorice and a touch of espresso. The wine has a fabulous texture, a plush, full-bodied mouthfeel, and beautiful purity and depth. It’s something that could only be made in California, given the blend, but it is off-the-charts in terms of its hedonistic appeal. At the same time, it is complex enough to satisfy the intellectual senses as well. Drink it over the next 5-6 years. A big-time winner.
Let us now see if it’s over the hill . . . .
Answer: NO! The wine, deep purple, is gutsy, fruity, and a pure delight to drink. No, I can’t identify any of the grapes in it (I thought I’d be able to detect the Zin), but the various varietals have melded into pure, fruity pleasure. I’d say this wine hasn’t peaked, but has at least five more years. If you see it and can get it for a decent price, do so. No airing needed, ready to drink right out of the bottle. I can’t tell if there’s a sediment, as I’m pouring gently and haven’t come near the bottom. If you want a heavy, fruity, and yet easy-drinking wine to accompany hearty food, this is your baby. I’m looking forward to another two glasses this evening.
Apparently this is not a surprise for some, but there are questions about what will happen to the couple’s pathbreaking foundation:
Mr. and Ms. Gates have faced relationship struggles over the past several years, two people close to them said. There were several times when the relationship neared collapse, but they worked to keep it together, the people said. Mr. Gates decided to step down from the boards of Microsoft and Berkshire Hathaway, in part, so he could spend more time with his family, these people said.
. . . Even so, the divorce will create new questions about the fate of the Gates fortune, much of which has not yet been donated to the Gates Foundation.
Late last night a subway overpass collapsed in Mexico City, killing at least 23 people and injuring “dozens” (70 are in the hospital). Here’s one photo of the wreckage:
On one side, progressives argued that curriculum and disciplinary changes were needed to make all children feel safe and welcome in Carroll, a mostly white but quickly diversifying school district. On the other, conservatives in Southlake rejected the school diversity plan as an effort to indoctrinate students with a far-left ideology that, according to some, would institutionalize discrimination against white children and those with conservative Christian values.
Joe Biden has done a dramatic turnabout on immigration. After announcing he’ll keep the number of immigrants to the U.S. capped at 15,000 per year, and after facing criticism for that, he’s upped the limit over fourfold—to 62,500.
The Biden administration announced that it will try to ban the manufacture and sale of menthol cigarettes. Why? It’s not that they are more dangerous per se than regular cigarettes, it’s that the idea is that people get hooked more easily on them. It’s also going to be harder on African-Americans. As Eugene Robinson, an African-AmericanWaPo columnist and Pulitzer winner, notes:
Public health experts can reasonably argue that the pending rule targets African Americans in the best possible way. The real disparate impact, so this thinking goes, is in the way tobacco companies have aggressively marketed menthol cigarettes in Black communities over the decades. I understand all of that. But I can’t rush to cheer a new policy that puts a terribly unhealthy — but perfectly legal — practice enjoyed so disproportionately by African Americans on the wrong side of the law.
1626 – Dutch explorer Peter Minuit arrives in New Netherland (present day Manhattan Island) aboard the See Meeuw.
Imagine! A boat named after a cat!
1776 – Rhode Island becomes the first American colony to renounce allegiance to King George III.
1814 – Emperor Napoleon arrives at Portoferraio on the island of Elba to begin his exile.
1886 – Haymarket affair: A bomb is thrown at policemen trying to break up a labor rally in Chicago, United States, killing eight and wounding 60. The police fire into the crowd.
1904 – The United States begins construction of the Panama Canal.
Here’s Capone’s mugshot. Suffering from syphillis in the brain, Capone was released from prison in 1939, retired to Florida, and died of a stroke in 1947:
This camp practiced “extermination through labor”:
The Neuengamme concentration camp was run under the SS practice of “extermination through labour” (German: Vernichtung durch Arbeit). Prisoners worked for 10–12 hours per day and were killed both due to the inhumane conditions in the camp as well as active violence from the guards. 42,900 prisoners died from difficult slave labour combined with insufficient nutrition, extremely unhygienic conditions contributing to widespread disease, and arbitrary brutal punishments from the guards.Although hospitals existed in the camp, medicine was scarce and entrance into the hospital was almost always a death sentence. In 1942, a typhus epidemic entreated the SS to allow former doctors imprisoned in the camp to work at the camp hospitals; prior to this reversal, the hospital staff comprised almost no former medical professionals. The hospitals were also used as a place to murder large groups of weakened Soviet prisoners via lethal injection.
Here are the sleeping quarters for the prisoners; I suspect there were at least three per tier, including on the ground:
Because this is a fairly recent book and because the first print run was 50,000 copies, you can pick up a first edition for the paltry sum of $5000-$17,000, with the higher prices for signed editions.
Here’s a photo of some Freedom Riders being beaten up by segregationists. The Wikipedia caption is “A mob of white people beat Freedom Riders in Birmingham. This picture was reclaimed by the FBI from a local journalist who also was beaten and whose camera was smashed.”
1970 – Vietnam War: Kent State shootings: The Ohio National Guard, sent to Kent State University after disturbances in the city of Kent the weekend before, opens fire killing four unarmed students and wounding nine others. The students were protesting the Cambodian Campaign of the United States and South Vietnam.
1979 – Margaret Thatcher becomes the first female Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.
1989 – Iran–Contra affair: Former White House aide Oliver North is convicted of three crimes and acquitted of nine other charges; the convictions are later overturned on appeal.
Kaczynski, who killed three and injured 23, now sits in Supermax prison ADX Florence, the toughest prison in the U.S. He will never get out. Here’s his mugshot:
Notables born on this day include:
1825 – Thomas Henry Huxley, English biologist, anatomist, and academic (d. 1895)
Huxley, aka “Darwin’s Bulldog,” with a sketch of a gorilla skull, taken about 1870.
Liddell was of course the recipient of and model for the story Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll. Here’s a photo of Alice taken by Carroll in 1858, when she was six or seven:
Here’s a print of what is thought to be that faithful dog, who is supposed to have sat by the grave of his deceased master for FOURTEEN YEARS. The story has been challenged, but still appeals to people from around the world, including me, who come to Edinburgh to visit the grave of Bobby and his staff (and heft a pint at the nearby tavern). Here’s what purports to be a photo of Bobby along with his actual collar:
1922 – Eugenie Clark, American biologist and academic (d. 2015)
1929 – Audrey Hepburn, Belgian-British actress and humanitarian (d. 1993)
1941 – George Will, American journalist and author
Stevens, whose work was undervalued because she was a woman in what was then a man’s field, never got a real job at a university. I have read old papers in which she’s acknowledged as “Miss Stevens”, even though she had a Ph.D. Here she is:
1975 – Moe Howard, American actor, singer, and screenwriter (b. 1897)
2013 – Christian de Duve, English-Belgian cytologist and biochemist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1917)
Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili is being very pompous:
Hili: Behind this bush a different reality is hidden.
A: Slightly different.
In Polish:
Hili: Za tym krzakiem ukrywa się inna rzeczywistość.
Ja: Nieznacznie inna.
And here’s little Kulka in the trees, photographed by Paulina:
From Stash Krod. If there’s any sign that would make you wear a mask, this is the one. From Meanwhile in Canada:
From Jean:
From Bruce:
A tweet from Dom. These otters have found a FEAST!
A pretty amazing sight! Otters wrestling a large Conger Eel. Shetland Islands. pic.twitter.com/SM9PcDgqOq
The next time someone complains that Twitter is full of culture warriors spouting nonsense, just show them this exchange to prove that it can actually be an effective forum for amplifying progressive values and educating the masses. pic.twitter.com/2XjxaeWgf1
Tweets from Matthew. I don’t know who Mr. Fantastic is, but he doesn’t know much biology:
Even before we realised the cataclysmic end of the non-avian dinosaurs, Mr Fantastic’s grasp of evolutionary biology was poor. pic.twitter.com/CGEbIQCEzv
Everthing’s bigger in Texas, including the hailstones. For some reason Texas gets tons of hail (when I recently rented a car there, although the vehicle was nearly new, its roof was pocked from hailstone strikes). And, according to the Washington Post, a storm in South Texas dropped hailstones that the paper describes as “the size of grapefruits”. GRAPEFRUITS! Somebody could have been killed! Below is a Texas record hailstone, more than six inches across! (The U.S. record is an eight-inch behemoth that fell on South Dakota.) h/t: Tim
Catilyn Jenner, who you might know is running as a Republican for the governor of California, has declared that she doesn’t favor transgender women competing in women’s sports (see also here). She is of course facing serious backlash, including the usual accusations of being transphobic, which means she’s afraid of herself. It goes to show you can be both transgender and a transphobe. (h/t: Divy) A tweet:
I didn’t expect to get asked this on my Saturday morning coffee run, but I’m clear about where I stand. It’s an issue of fairness and we need to protect girls’ sports in our schools.https://t.co/YODLDQ3csP
Slavery in this era? Apparently sometimes! A black South Carolina man with a cognitive disability was forced to work 100 hours per week for five years without pay or benefits. Not only that, but he was beaten and tortured. The “enslaver”, though is now in jail for ten years, and the abused employee has been awarded nearly half a million dollars in restitution.
1715 – A total solar eclipse was visible across northern Europe, and northern Asia, as predicted by Edmond Halley to within 4 minutes accuracy.
1802 – Washington, D.C. is incorporated as a city after Congress abolishes the Board of Commissioners, the District’s founding government. The “City of Washington” is given a mayor-council form of government.
Here’s a clip, with a movie poster below that. Most of the movie appears to have been lost.
1921 – Ireland is partitioned under British law by the Government of Ireland Act 1920, creating Northern Ireland and Southern Ireland.
1948 – The U.S. Supreme Court rules in Shelley v. Kraemer that covenants prohibiting the sale of real estate to blacks and other minorities are legally unenforceable.
1952 – The Kentucky Derby is televised nationally for the first time, on the CBS network.
Here’s the first Kentucky Derby that was televised; the winner was Hill Gail, ridden by the legendary Eddie Arcaro
1957 – Walter O’Malley, the owner of the Brooklyn Dodgers, agrees to move the team from Brooklyn to Los Angeles.
Here ia a short video of the Birmingham police attacking protestors in 1963:
1978 – The first unsolicited bulk commercial email (which would later become known as “spam”) is sent by a Digital Equipment Corporation marketing representative to every ARPANET address on the west coast of the United States.
1979 – Margaret Thatcher wins the United Kingdom general election. The following day, she becomes the first female British Prime Minister.
Notables born on this day include:
1849 – Jacob Riis, Danish-American journalist and photographer (d. 1914)
1860 – Vito Volterra, Italian mathematician and physicist (d. 1940)
1903 – Bing Crosby, American singer and actor (d. 1977)
1919 – Pete Seeger, American singer-songwriter, guitarist, and activist (d. 2014)
Here’s Seeger with one of his banjos, inscribed with a slogan:
I’ve shown the music video of Hopkin’s most famous song, “Goodbye,” before, but here it is again. It was written by Paul McCartney, shown in the video, but who thought it was pretty schlocky. I happen to like it, and it reached #2 on the British charts. (You can here McCartney’s demo here.) From Wikipedia:
For the recording, Hopkin sang and performed acoustic guitar, while McCartney played bass guitar, an acoustic guitar introduction and solo, along with lap-slapping percussion and drums. Backing vocals, horns and strings, in Hewson’s arrangement, were overdubbed. The session was filmed by Apple’s Tony Bramwell for a promotional clip. In the footage, Hopkin can be seen miming to the song inside the studio, combined with shots of her and McCartney in the control room listening to a playback.
Those who expired on May 3 include;:
1779 – John Winthrop, American mathematician, physicist, and astronomer (b. 1714)
1991 – Jerzy Kosiński, Polish-American novelist and screenwriter (b. 1933)
2007 – Wally Schirra, American captain, pilot, and astronaut (b. 1923)
— Steve Stewart-Williams (@SteveStuWill) May 2, 2021
And here’s some Commie Cats who come running when they hear the Commie Anthem, which seems to be as attractive to them as hearing a tuna can being opened (second tweet):
Tweets from Matthew. I love aged fruit bats, though I don’t know why. Remember Statler, who lost his ability to fly and had to have his wings exercised in faux flight. Well, meet Enzo, who is depilated.
Meet Enzo! Enzo is a 29 year old Jamaican fruit bat, and as you can see, has suffered some hair loss in his old age. Join Enzo for a bit of lunch! 🦇 https://t.co/iN8hNlxXwX
Actress Olympia Dukakis, who you may remember from the 1987 movie “Moonstruck” (both she and Cher won Oscars for their performances in the film) died yesterday at 89.
DANGER! Everybody to get from street! Space News announces that Long March 5B, a Chinese booster rocket, is going to enter the Earth’s atmosphere in an uncontrolled manner:
. . . this core stage is now also in orbit and is likely to make an uncontrolled reentry over the next days or week as growing interaction with the atmosphere drags it to Earth. If so, it will be one of the largest instances of uncontrolled reentry of a spacecraft and could potentially land on an inhabited area.
I don’t think it will (I think the vast amount of the Earth’s surface is uninhabited (think of the oceans), but still. And if somebody gets hurt (this being America), who do they sue? (h/t Ken).
What’s Bill Nye the Science Guy up to? Well, he’s pitching Bombay Sapphire Gin since he likes that brand for his martinis. I’m not a fan of Nye, but I won’t comment.
In India’s capital, New Delhi, a hospital treating coronavirus patients ran out of oxygen on Saturday. It took an hour for fresh supplies to arrive. In the meantime, at least eight patients died, among them one of the hospital’s own doctors, said S.C.L. Gupta, the medical director of Batra Hospital.
The incident marks the second time in recent days in which an oxygen shortage at a Delhi hospital proved fatal. On April 23, a different hospital ran out of oxygen and 26 critically ill coronavirus patients died.
1536 – Anne Boleyn, Queen of England, is arrested and imprisoned on charges of adultery, incest, treason and witchcraft.
1559 – John Knox returns from exile to Scotland to become the leader of the nascent Scottish Reformation.
1611 – The King James Version of the Bible is published for the first time in London, England, by printer Robert Barker.
Here’s the first page of the first version of the King James Bible with the Wikipedia caption:
The title page’s central text is: “THE HOLY BIBLE, Conteyning the Old Testament, AND THE NEW: Newly Translated out of the Original tongues: & with the former Translations diligently compared and revised, by his Majesties speciall Comandement. Appointed to be read in Churches. Imprinted at London by Robert Barker, Printer to the Kings most Excellent Majestie. ANNO DOM. 1611 .” At bottom is: “C. Boel fecit in Richmont.”.
1945 – World War II: The Soviet Union announces the fall of Berlin.
Here’s a photo of a meeting of the Russian and American armies
(From Wikipedia): 2nd Lt. William Robertson, US Army and Lt. Alexander Sylvashko, Red Army, shown in front of sign East Meets West symbolizing the historic meeting of the Soviet and American Armies, near Torgau, Germany.
1945 – World War II: The US 82nd Airborne Division liberates Wöbbelin concentration camp finding 1000 dead prisoners, most of whom starved to death.
Citizens of a nearby town were ordered to inspect the concentration camp; here’s a photo of that. Did they know what was going on?
Wikipedia caption: “Citizens of Ludwigslust inspect the concentration camp under orders of the 82nd Airborne Division.”
I think it was a good move for the Army to force civilians to confront what their military was doing (I’m sure many of them knew). Here are some inspecting the dead from a death march. Wikipedia caption:
“German civilians, under direction of U.S. medical officers, walk past a group of 30 Jewish women starved to death (Czechoslavkia) 1945”
Here’s a short reconstruction of the killing. Although it’s said that the Navy Seals had instructions to either kill or capture him, and Bin Laden wasn’t armed when confronted (he could have been wearing a suicide belt, though), the guy below says that it’s clear it was always a “shoot a shoot-on-sight/kill mission.” I think that’s true, but I always wonder if they couldn’t have captured the guy without harm to the soldiers. I always prefer life without parole to simply killing a guy like Bin Laden, who was apparently unarmed.
Notables born on this day include:
1860 – Theodor Herzl, Austro-Hungarian Zionist philosopher, journalist and author (d. 1904)
Richthofen, the “Red Baron”, wearing his “Blue Max”, Prussian’s highest military award. He was shot down at 25; by that time he’d had 80 victories in combat.
1903 – Benjamin Spock, American rower, pediatrician, and author (d. 1998)
1921 – Satyajit Ray, Indian director, producer, and screenwriter (d. 1992)
Ray was a very great director, and you might want to see his films. Here he is with Ravi Shankar recording the music for Pather Panchali (1955), the first movie of his famous Apu Trilogy
1946 – Lesley Gore, American singer-songwriter (d. 2015)
Here’s my favorite Leonardo, “St. John the Baptist” (1613-1616, said to be his last painting).
1957 – Joseph McCarthy, American captain, lawyer, judge, and politician (b. 1908)
1972 – J. Edgar Hoover, American 1st director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (b. 1895)
2011 – Osama bin Laden, Saudi Arabian terrorist, founder of Al-Qaeda (b. 1957)
2014 – Efrem Zimbalist, Jr., American actor (b. 1918)
Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Malgorzata explains Hili’s thoughts:
Hili is full of disdain for all people who make prognoses about the future of humanity, from Malthus to the Club of Rome to Paul R. Ehrlich and his successors. So she is asking what new predictions such people have produced.
The dialogue:
Hili: What are the predictions?
A: Predictions of what?
Hili: Of things which cannot be predicted.
In Polish:
Hili: Jakie są prognozy?
Ja: Czego?
Hili: Tego co jeszcze daje się przewidzieć.
And “another batch of Paulina’s pictures” (“Jeszcze jedna porcja zdjęć Pauliny.”) We see both Kulka and Szaron, as well as a snail:
Several readers sent me this cat meme:
From Jesus of the Day. At last—a tattoo with practical value!
Matthew says this: “A of nice encounters with strangers, often involving wildlife.” Here are a few:
Taking my garbage out, dark alley, late at night. Shared the alley w. a dive bar. 3 drunk young men started yelling at me: "Hey! HEY!" I looked up, bracing myself. "There's an owl behind you!!" I looked up just in time to see the owl swoop by silently. A+ interaction.
National Barbecue Month
National Loaded Potato Month
National Egg Month
National Hamburger Month
National Salad Month
National Salsa Month
National Strawberry Month
Today’s Google Doodle (click on screenshot) is a gif that urges us all to get vaccinated against covid:
News of the Day:
The news is scant today. If you have an interesting and not widely-read news item, do sent it to me from time to time.
Britain has stopped most incoming flights from India because of the coronavirus, which continues to ravage the country (I suspect both new cases, officially tallied at about 400,000 per day) and deaths are severely underreported). The New York Times has a report on the anguish suffered by Indians overseas, who have little way to help their relatives or relieve the anguish of the country. In a NYT op-ed, Armand Sethi describes how cremations are being conducted.
Here’s the cover page of that famoous treatise. I found a listing for what appears to be a first edition, but it’s only $7500, which seems remarkably low.
1807 – The Slave Trade Act 1807 takes effect, abolishing the slave trade within the British Empire.
Here is Josiah Wedgewood’s famous anti-slavery medallion from 1786, which helped promote abolition. Wedgewood was the grandfather of both Charles Darwin and his wife Emma:
Here’s one, featuring the likeness of Queen Victoria. They aren’t particularly rare as 68 million were produced in the print run, and one in mint condition can cost as little as £5000.
1851 – Queen Victoria opens The Great Exhibition at The Crystal Palace in London.
1852 – Santiago Ramón y Cajal, Spanish neuroscientist and pathologist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1934)
Here’s a tweet about Ramón y Cajal (h/t Matthew):
Born #OTD 1852: Spanish neuroanatomist Santiago Ramón y Cajal whose incredibly detailed investigations of the brain and other tissues embodied in illustrations as elegant as works of art made him one of the founding fathers of neuroscience. Nobel Prize for medicine in 1906. pic.twitter.com/6TWQEIbCOv
1886 – Rallies are held throughout the United States demanding the eight-hour work day, culminating in the Haymarket affair in Chicago, in commemoration of which May 1 is celebrated as International Workers’ Day in many countries.
A bomb went off, seven policemen and four civilians died, and four of the accused “anarchists” were hanged, while four were sent to prison. There was almost no evidence against most of the convicted. though one may have built the bomb. Here’s a contemporary depiction of the hanging (one man slowly strangled to death).
198 Americans were among the 1,198 people killed in the sinking by a German U-boat, and although we didn’t enter the war until several years later, the sinking of this passenger vessel helped bolster U.S. support for entering the war. Here’s the Lusitania:
1931 – The Empire State Building is dedicated in New York City.
Here’s Salk injecting a young girl. Given how many lives he saved, what he did, and that he refused to profit from or even patent the vaccine, he surely deserved a Nobel Prize for Medicine or Physiology, but he never got one. I well remember the polio scares when I was a young kid; we weren’t even allowed to go swimming in public pools:
I also remember this, and worried that we’d go to war with the Soviet Union. After two years of imprisonment, Powers was eventually returned to the U.S. in a prisoner exchange, and died in a helicopter crash in 1977. Here’s a photo of him in Soviet custody:
35174 16.11.1960 Американский летчик-шпион Фрэнсис Гарри Пауэрс, чей самолет-разведчик “Локхид У-2” был сбит советской зенитной ракетой под Свердловском. Чернов/РИА Новости
1961 – The Prime Minister of Cuba, Fidel Castro, proclaims Cuba a socialist nation and abolishes elections.
Here’s part of his story from Wikipedia: ” (February 12, 1941 – disappeared February 13, 1984) was a Japanese adventurer who was known particularly for his solo exploits. For example, he was the first man to reach the North Pole solo, the first man to raft the Amazon solo, and the first man to climb Denali solo. He disappeared a day after his 43rd birthday while attempting to climb Denali in the winter.” Here he is with his dog sled:
It was identified as Mallory because he had a name tag on his clothing. Here’s the body that was found, bleached white after so many years. We sill don’t know whether he and Irvine successfully summited the mountain. You can see a video of the expedition that found his body here (there are five parts).
2003 – Invasion of Iraq: In what becomes known as the “Mission Accomplished” speech, on board the USS Abraham Lincoln (off the coast of California), U.S. President George W. Bush declares that “major combat operations in Iraq have ended”.
People born on this day include:
1852 – Calamity Jane, American frontierswoman and professional scout (d. 1903)
Theo looked a lot like his brother Vincent, and early photos of Theo have been mistaken as photos of Vincent. Below is a photo of Theo, and below that is the only known authenticated photo of Vincent van Gogh, who was 19 at the time:
Theo
Vincent
1881 – Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, French priest, palaeontologist, and philosopher (d. 1955)
1923 – Joseph Heller, American novelist, short story writer, and playwright (d. 1999)
1925 – Scott Carpenter, American commander, pilot, and astronaut (d. 2013)
1939 – Judy Collins, American singer-songwriter and guitarist
1945 – Rita Coolidge, American singer-songwriter
1951 – Sally Mann, American photographer
Those who, bereft of life, began resting in peace on May 1 include:
Goebbels and his wife of course committed suicide as the Russians approached the Hitler Bunker, but not before Magda, in collusion with Hitler’s doctors, dosed all their children (save the adult son Harald) with morphine and then, when they were unconscious, crushed cyanide capsules in their mouths. Here’s a picture of the family with Harald’s picture artificially stuck in (he survived the war).
Here’s a reenactment of that murder from the movie “Downfall”. I can’t imagine how it would be to kill all your children this way. I understand that Magda and Josef feared what would happen to their children should they fall into the hands of the Russians, but still, they had had offers to have the children smuggled out of Berlin and given into the care of others. . . . . (Don’t watch if you’re squeamish!)
1965 – Spike Jones, American singer and bandleader (b. 1911)
1998 – Eldridge Cleaver, American author and activist (b. 1935)
2000 – Steve Reeves, American bodybuilder and actor (b. 1926)
Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, a rare woodpecker has visited Andrzej and Malgorzata’s yard. Hili is warned away:
Darwin did indeed have wide tastes; see part of his reading list here.
The London Library has published for the first time a list of the books that Charles Darwin borrowed between July 1843 and July 1845, when he was developing his theory of evolution, and the variety is wonderful, far beyond nature and science. https://t.co/prIArivdGN
A response to the “Long Boi” mallard, which for some reason has gone viral. You’d think that nobody had ever seen an Indian runner duck before.
With an estimated height of just under 2m, the seldom seen @lewis__mallard has been spotted in parks and around the streets of Hamilton, Canada. pic.twitter.com/Ula3dp1Kfm
Once again we’ve reached week’s end, and if I don’t miss my guess, before another week has gone by we will have ducklings. It’s Friday, April 30, 2021: National Raisin Day. We all like raisins, don’t we? It’s also National Oatmeal Cookie Day (I’ll eat them only under duress, even if they contain raisins), National Bubble Tea Day, National Animal Advocacy Day, Adopt a Shelter Pet Day, International Jazz Day, Honesty Day, and Bugs Bunny Day, celebrating the cartoon rabbit (then known as “Happy Rabbit”) who made his screen debut on April 30, 1938 in a Warner Brothers feature called “Porky’s Hare Hunt.” Here’s the cartoon, and you can see the incipient Bugs appear after 43 seconds:
And don’t forget that it’s National Hairball Awareness Day; many of us attained this awareness by stepping on a wet one in the dark. Matthew has just informed me that it’s World Robber Fly Day, with the hashtag #worldrobberflyday
Here’s are two nice examples, with the first being a bee mimic and the second sporting shades. Many more of these amazing predators at the hashtag site.
There’s some good news: gene therapy, involving injection of working genes into tissue that contains faulty genes, is beginning to pay off. The BBC reports that Jake Ternan of County Durham, afflicted with Leber congenital amaurosis, a genetic disease causing vision loss and produced by nonfunctional mutant copies of two genes, has had his vision stabilized and somewhat improved by injection of working copies of the gene directly into his retina. (h/t Jez). More of this will follow; it’s not as easy as one thinks, but the method has great promise to alleviate genetic diseases.
The NYT reports that a very old bottle of whisky has been found—probably the oldest American bottle in existence. Once thought to have dated back to the Civil War era, radiocarbon dating of a sample puts even older: probably between 1763 and 1803! Some experts doubt the age and the provenance, but they’re going to auction it off for about $40,000. That would make each dram worth a ton, but who would drink such whisky? Still, why shouldn’t you drink it? It doesn’t do anybody any good sitting in this bottle:
Photo: Skinner Auctioneers
I am sad to report the demise of John Richards, founder (and later frustrted disbander) of the estimable Apostrophe Protection Society. (It still has a website, but it isn’t active.) From his obituary:
Mr. Richards and his most enthusiastic comrades set about collecting photographic evidence, which they posted on their website, of the extent of modern apostrophe abuse: a line declaring that “Diamond’s Are Forever,” a handwritten store sign advertising “LOT’S MORE TOY’S INSIDE” and a newsstand where readers could find “NEW’S AND MAGAZINES.” They discovered a body art salon that announced itself as offering “TATTOO’S,” a concerning error for an establishment whose primary service was the permanent inking of skin.
More irritating to Mr. Richards than the misuse of the apostrophe was its omission, the careless way in which the little squiggle was so often tossed to the wind. He was particularly dismayed when several English towns, ostensibly to facilitate the use of GPS devices, eliminated apostrophes from the official names of streets and other landmarks, producing such abominations as “St. Pauls Square.”
Another disappointment came when the venerable bookseller Waterstone’s became Waterstones. If “McDonald’s can get it right, then why can’t Waterstones?” he told the Telegraph. “You would really hope that a bookshop is the last place to be so slapdash with English.”
At least 44 ultra-Orthodox Jews were crushed at a crowded religious ceremony in Israel, celebrating and dancing at the tomb of a second-century rabbi. You can see the story and a video here. I won’t comment about religion’s poisonous effects.
In March Stone Foltz, a student at Bowling Green died from alcohol consumption, part of a “hazing” ritual in which new fraternity members are subjected to various challenges and humiliations. This time, though, eight members of the fraternity have been charged with various crimes, including second-degree manslaughter, reckless homicide, hazing, and evidence tampering. I believe some of those charged face up to ten years in jail.
It was a bargain, at the then price of $18 per square mile. The purchased land is in white:
1812 – The Territory of Orleans becomes the 18th U.S. state under the name Louisiana.
1897 – J. J. Thomson of the Cavendish Laboratory announces his discovery of the electron as a subatomic particle, over 1,800 times smaller than a proton (in the atomic nucleus), at a lecture at the Royal Institution in London.
The electron was the first subatomic particle to be found; here’s a photo of Thomson, who won the Nobel for his discovery:
1900 – Hawaii becomes a territory of the United States, with Sanford B. Dole as governor.
1905 – Albert Einstein completes his doctoral thesis at the University of Zurich.
1939 – NBC inaugurates its regularly scheduled television service in New York City, broadcasting President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s N.Y. World’s Fair opening day ceremonial address.
Here’s the banner and a photo of it being raised over the Reichstag (it was made in the field); the banner is still preserved at the Central Museum of the Armed Forces, Moscow (third photo):
1963 – The Bristol Bus Boycott is held in Bristol to protest the Bristol Omnibus Company‘s refusal to employ Black or Asian bus crews, drawing national attention to racial discrimination in the United Kingdom.
This parallels the U.S.’s Montgomery Bus Boycott of 1955-1956; I had no idea this had happened in the UK.
1973 – Watergate scandal: U.S. President Richard Nixon announces that White House Counsel John Dean has been fired and that other top aides, most notably H. R. Haldeman and John Ehrlichman, have resigned.
1993 – CERN announces World Wide Web protocols will be free.
2008 – Two skeletal remains found near Yekaterinburg, Russia are confirmed by Russian scientists to be the remains of Alexei and Anastasia, two of the children of the last Tsar of Russia, whose entire family was executed at Yekaterinburg by the Bolsheviks.
Notables born on this day include:
1777 – Carl Friedrich Gauss, German mathematician and physicist (d. 1855)
1877 – Alice B. Toklas, American memoirist (d. 1967)
1926 – Cloris Leachman, American actress and comedian (d. 2021)
1945 – Annie Dillard, American novelist, essayist, and poet
FitzRoy was, of course, the captain of HMS Beagle, who failed as Governor of New Zealand, fell onto hard times in England, and cut his throat 156 years ago today (he was prone to depression, which is one reason Darwin was taken aboard the ship—as the Captain’s companion to keep FitzRoy company). There are a few photos of FitzRoy; here’s one taken about ten years before his death:
1900 – Casey Jones, American railroad engineer (b. 1863)
Jones is a hero, having saved all the passengers on his train by staying aboard and slowing it before it crashed into another train. He was the only fatality. Here he is:
1983 – Muddy Waters, American singer-songwriter, guitarist, and bandleader (b. 1913)
2016 – Daniel Berrigan, American priest and activist (b. 1921)
Meawhile in Dobrzyn, Hili is walking her beat:
A; Where are you going?
Hili: I have to check what’s growing in the northern part of the garden.
In Polish:
Ja: Gdzie idziesz?
Hili: Muszę sprawdzić, co rośnie w północnej części ogrodu.
And we have four photos of Kulka and Szaron taken by Paulina:
From reader Rick. I make NO claims about the accuracy about the photo, the MRI, or what it shows!
An itinerant wanderer making a selfie in a mural that decorates an underpass leading to the shore of Lake Michigan:
Here are some duck-related tweets that were sent to me by many readers. The first story bears reading in toto:
My Dad lives in an apartment near a canal and a certain duck has taken a liking to his balcony. So much so that she nested there last year and is nesting there again this year. But there are some things you need to know about this situation.
And the video. This is truly a man after my own heart!
Now the vertical duck below, which has gone viral, isn’t a wild mallard, but a domesticated breed (a runner duck) descended from wild mallards. They are flightless and stand erect, and some, like this one, have been selected to retain the wild-duck pattern. But don’t compare this to other mallards!
"The tallest mallard duck to have ever lived (since records began) known as 'Long Boi.' He lives on the campus of the University of York, England. He stands just over 1m tall (3.5ft)." pic.twitter.com/YMQVRlfCb5
Grease the new day (as a friend used to say)! It’s Thursday, April 29, 2021: National Shrimp Scampi Day (that’s a dish I’ve never had). It’s also National Zipper Day (this convenient fastener was patented on this day in 1913) and Viral Video Day. In honor of the last day, here are the 25 most viral videos of 2020. #2, near the end, is the best!
Wine of the Day: To drink with my big pot of turkey chili, which should last a few days, I’ve chosen one of my favorite genres of red wine: Rioja! This one, ten years from vintage was about $25.
2 hours later (Wednesday), very good again, but not a world-beater. Juicy with ripe cherry fruit, well balanced, but nothing to mark it as a superb wine. I’ll drink another two glasses tonight and see if it improves.
News of the Day:
Joe Biden gave his first speech to Congress last evening, proposing sweeping reforms. Hold your thoughts on that, as we’ll have a discussion post later.
“F— school, f— softball, f— cheer, f— everything,” 14-year-old Brandi Levy typed into Snapchat one spring Saturday. Like all “snaps” posted to a Snapchat “story,” this one sent to about 250 “friends” was to disappear within 24 hours, before everyone returned to Pennsylvania’s Mahanoy Area High School on Monday.
Levy was suspended from her junior varsity squad for a year, whereupon her parents filed suit in federal court, and it’s gone all the way up to the Supremes. I think they’re likely to rule in her favor, as Levy’s “speech” was on social media, so why should she be punished for her private free speech? This is not harassment, bullying, or any other form of speech prohibited by the First Amendment. But it’s not a trivial case:
The Court may be conservative, but if it rules in Levy’s favor in this case, I think it will have ruled properly. This kind of incident will become increasingly frequent as speech is disseminated on social media.
The federal authorities have largely focused on whether Mr. Giuliani illegally lobbied the Trump administration in 2019 on behalf of Ukrainian officials and oligarchs, who at the time were helping Mr. Giuliani search for damaging information on Mr. Trump’s political rivals, including Mr. Biden, who was then a leading contender for the Democratic presidential nomination.
The United States attorney’s office in Manhattan and the F.B.I. had sought for months to secure search warrants for Mr. Giuliani’s phones and electronic devices.
Reader Ken, who knows his law, told me this:
To secure such warrants, the government would have had to establish, to a federal magistrate’s satisfaction, fresh probable cause to believe that the search would yield evidence of a crime. The agents reportedly seized Giuliani’s computers and electronic devices.
. . . The search of a lawyer’s premises (not to mention the premises of a lawyer for a former US President) is a big friggin’ deal. Seesection 9-13.430 of the US Justice Department Manual. Main Justice has to sign off on it, and the government had to be convinced that Giuliani couldn’t be trusted to turn over the materials sought in response to a subpoena.
On a sadder note, astronaut Michael Collins, who stayed in the command module during the Apollo 11 mission to the Moon, and who helped ensure tht the lunar module containing Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin docked properly before their return to Earth, died yesterday at 90 of cancer. He wrote extensively about his journal (they trained for six years for the mission), and memorial tweets show some of his writing:
Ad astra, @AstroMCollins, heroic solo passenger of Apollo 11’s command module. The Earth is an emptier place today without him.
Here’s a brief thread of some favorite Collins comments on his mission, the space program, and the Moon pic.twitter.com/uB0q5On1tm
Probably the most famous line from Collins’ lovely, lyrical memoir, “Carrying the Fire”
“I am alone now, truly alone. I am it. If a count were taken, the score would be 3 billion plus 2 over on the other side of the Moon, and one plus God only knows what on this side.” pic.twitter.com/Zg92Le9yzs
There are two big vertebrate genome papers in Nature. One paper reports complete genome sequences of 16 vertebrate species in the 8 major lineages, and the other reports a complete sequence for the playtpus and partial sequence of one echidna species, both monotremes—egg-laying mammals. I have yet to read either paper but wanted to call them to your attention. (h/t: Matthew)
Stuff that happened on April 29 includes:
1429 – Joan of Arc arrives to relieve the Siege of Orléans.
1770 – James Cook arrives in Australia at Botany Bay, which he names.
1910 – The Parliament of the United Kingdom passes the People’s Budget, the first budget in British history with the expressed intent of redistributing wealth among the British public.
1916 – Easter Rising: After six days of fighting, Irish rebel leaders surrender to British forces in Dublin, bringing the Easter Rising to an end.
Here’s a 6½-minute BBC video summarizing the Easter Rising:
1945 – World War II: Führerbunker: Adolf Hitler marries his longtime partner Eva Braun in a Berlin bunker and designates Admiral Karl Dönitz as his successor; Hitler and Braun both commit suicide the following day.
1945 – Dachau concentration camp is liberated by United States troops.
1967 – After refusing induction into the United States Army the previous day, Muhammad Ali is stripped of his boxing title.
Here’s a short video about Ali’s refusal of induction. He had applied for conscientious objector status but was refused. After a trial, he was sentenced to five years in jail but remained free until the Supreme Court overturned that decision on the grounds that the refusal of CO status was not accompanied by a reason.
1968 – The controversial musical Hair, a product of the hippie counter-culture and sexual revolution of the 1960s, opens at the Biltmore Theatre on Broadway, with some of its songs becoming anthems of the anti-Vietnam War movement.
1970 – Vietnam War: United States and South Vietnamese forces invade Cambodia to hunt Viet Cong.
The invasion of Cambodia energized all of us in college, leading to widespread protests and, at Kent State, to the shooting of unarmed students.
1974 – Watergate scandal: United States President Richard Nixon announces the release of edited transcripts of White House tape recordings relating to the scandal.
1992 – Riots in Los Angeles, following the acquittal of police officers charged with excessive force in the beating of Rodney King. Over the next three days 63 people are killed and hundreds of buildings are destroyed.
This was the first time video was taken of a brutal police beating of a suspect. You can see it below, and yet the officers were acquitted. This would never stand today:
2015 – A baseball game between the Baltimore Orioles and the Chicago White Sox sets the all-time low attendance mark for Major League Baseball. Zero fans were in attendance for the game, as the stadium was officially closed to the public due to the 2015 Baltimore protests.
Notables born on this day include:
1854 – Henri Poincaré, French mathematician, physicist, and engineer (d. 1912)
1893 – Harold Urey, American chemist and astronomer, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1981)
1899 – Duke Ellington, American pianist, composer, and bandleader (d. 1974)
There aren’t a lot of videos of Ellington’s band, particularly in its best years—the early forties. This one, of his signature tune “Take the A Train” (written by Billy Strayhorn), was made in 1943. I prefer the all-instrumental version. I’m reading a biography of Ellington now.
1929 – Walter Kempowski, German author and academic (d. 2007)
1933 – Willie Nelson, American singer-songwriter, guitarist, producer, and actor
My colleague and former chairman of my department, Brian is now retired but still very active at Edinburgh. He was a great colleague (we wrote some papers together) and an excellent chair:
1954 – Jerry Seinfeld, American comedian, actor, and producer
1957 – Daniel Day-Lewis, British-Irish actor
1970 – Andre Agassi, American tennis player
1970 – Uma Thurman, American actress
Those who went to their Just Reward on April 29 include:
Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili is concerned with enforcing the rules. As Malgozata notes,
This old sign says: “It’s forbidden to dump tires under the penalty of shooting your brains out”. It’s written in a “slangy” language. We found it many years ago on a dump outside a closed, abandoned and ruined factory.
A: What are you looking at?
Hili: I’m checking to see whether people are breaking bans.
In Polish:
Ja: Na co patrzysz?
Hili: Sprawdzam, czy ludzie nie łamią zakazów.
And we have a Leon monologue!
Leon: “What kind of wonder of nature is this?”
In Polish: A coż to za cud natury?
Leon:
Here’s little Kulka:
A meme from Bruce:
From Facebook via Mark: the Jean-Paul Sartre Parking Garage. But how can you pay if you don’t exist?
From Su: A duck trying to connect with the Beyond:
Tulsi Gabbard, who surely counts as a woman of color, here decries the increasing racialization of America, using the Hawaiian conception of “aloha”:
Please, let us stop the RACIALIZATION of everyone and everything. We are all children of God, and therefore family in the truest sense, no matter our race or ethnicity. This is aloha – love & respect for others. This is what our country & the world need. pic.twitter.com/W8wqqMj1jf
From Facebook. It’s time to do our occasional check-in with Iranian women’s rights activist Masih Alinejad. Here’s her reaction (yes, it’s on Fox News) to Iran being chosen to be a member of the UN Commission on Women’s Rights. (The UN is such a joke these days!):
Tweets from Matthew. I believe I’ve posted about Ricky Gervais adopting a foster tabby that he named “Pickles”, but here’s a tweet and some new video:
From the University of Chicago! Two days ago the temperature was about 82°F (28°C), and it was glorious. But they should have included a photo of Botany Pond with the ducks!
This link would make good background music while you’re working; it’s almost like working in the jungle:
For your listening pleasure: DrongoJukebox, an ever-changing soundscape radio station comprised of wildlife sounds recorded in Singapore https://t.co/Wifs7S5v0h
