Category: Hili Dialogue

Monday: Hili dialogue

March 30, 2020 • 7:00 am

Well, one more day until this wretched month is behind us: it’s Monday, March 30, 2020, and it’s both National Hot Chicken Day and National Turkey Neck Soup Day.  It’s also National Doctors Day, Pencil Day, (“on today’s date in 1858, the United States Patent and Trademark Office granted Hyman Lipman the first patent for a modern pencil with an attached eraser”), and Take a Walk in the Park Day.

Here’s the first pencil-with-eraser patent. Lipman also invented the envelope with adhesive on it, and also the blank postcard:

News of the day: Again, depressing. At least Trump has admitted the obvious, extending the social-distancing guidelines until the end of April. So much for the “beautiful” packing of the pews on Easter! But deaths in New York State are now over 1000, the virus continues its onslaught, and Anthony Fauci has floated the possibility of 200,000 coronavirus deaths in the U.S.  In Australia, a physicist trying to invent a device that would sound an alarm if you were about to touch your face has been hospitalized after getting four magnets stuck up his nose. (h/t Jeremy).

Meanwhile, we’re doing our best to cope, even with a parallel onslaught of desk weasels:

Stuff that happened on March 30 include:

  • 1818 – Physicist Augustin Fresnel reads a memoir on optical rotation to the French Academy of Sciences, reporting that when polarized light is “depolarized” by a Fresnel rhomb, its properties are preserved in any subsequent passage through an optically-rotating crystal or liquid.
  • 1842 – Ether anesthesia is used for the first time, in an operation by the American surgeon Dr. Crawford Long.

This was the removal of two small tumors from a student, James Venable, who participated in one of the many “ether parties” that people had then. Long noticed that when the stoned patients staggered about, they felt no pain when they bumped themselves.

  • 1867 – Alaska is purchased from Russia for $7.2 million, about 2-cent/acre ($4.19/km²), by United States Secretary of State William H. Seward.
  • 1899 – German Society of Chemistry issues an invitation to other national scientific organizations to appoint delegates to the International Committee on Atomic Weights.
  • 1944 – Out of 795 Lancasters, Halifaxes and Mosquitos sent to attack Nuremberg, 95 bombers do not return, making it the largest RAF Bomber Command loss of the war.

Here’s a refurbished and reflown Lancaster PA474 (foreground), along with a fighter (Hurricane LF363):

Photo: Cpl Phil Major ABIPP/MOD
  • 1959 – Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama, flees Tibet for India.
  • 1981 – U.S. President Ronald Reagan is shot in the chest outside a Washington, D.C., hotel by John Hinckley, Jr.; three others are wounded in the same incident.
  • 2017 – SpaceX conducts the world’s first reflight of an orbital class rocket.[10][11]

Notables born on this day include:

  • 1135 – Maimonides, Spanish rabbi and philosopher (April 6 also proposed, d. 1204)
  • 1746 – Francisco Goya, Spanish-French painter and sculptor (d. 1828)
  • 1844 – Paul Verlaine, French poet (d. 1896)
  • 1853 – Vincent van Gogh, Dutch-French painter and illustrator (d. 1890)
  • 1914 – Sonny Boy Williamson I, American singer-songwriter and harmonica player (d. 1948)
  • 1937 – Warren Beatty, American actor, director, producer, and screenwriter
  • 1945 – Eric Clapton, English guitarist and singer-songwriter
  • 1968 – Celine Dion, Canadian singer-songwriter

Clapton turns 75 today. Here’s a live rendition, with a terrific solo, of his most famous song, and, to my mind, the best rock song ever (until it gets to the slow part). This is from the Madison Square Garden concert of 1999.

Here’s a nice painting by Goya, “Riña de Gatos” (Cat Fight):

Those who ceased to function on March 30 include:

  • 1840 – Beau Brummell, English-French fashion designer (b. 1778)
  • 1966 – Maxfield Parrish, American painter and illustrator (b. 1870)
  • 1986 – James Cagney, American actor and dancer (b. 1899)
  • 2013 – Phil Ramone, South African-American songwriter and producer, co-founded A & R Recording (b. 1934)

And a lovely Maxfield Parrish illustration for a children’s book:

Source

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili and Szaron continue their wary detente:

Szaron: You don’t have to walk by so cautiously.
Hili: I don’t trust you.
In Polish:
Szaron: Nie musisz tak ostrożnie przechodzić.
Hili: Nie ufam ci.

There’s a new but blurry photo of Szron that’s captioned “Szaron – sofista,” which means “Szaron, Sophist.” He’s also on the sofa.

From Facebook.  They may be coming, but they’re susceptible to infection:

From Nicole:

Retweeted by Queen Titania. Is this a new spoofer along the lines of McGrath and Elfwick?

I made a tweet with a quote from Godless Mom sent to me by reader Barry:

Two tweets from Heather Hastie.  This is a good ad, even better than the famous flower-and-bomb ad used against Barry Goldwater.

Via Ann German. Yep, this is pretty much how those pathetic “press briefings” go:

https://twitter.com/geophphriegh/status/1242246432825868288

Tweets from Matthew. The first is one of the better examples of humor during quarantine:

I think Paul Krugman has a lack-of-attribution issue here. Matthew says, “Worse. Krugman(or someone) trimmed off the credit that is always underneath Murdoch’s graphs, and the FT logo that was at the top.”

The NBC Gang sings the very first rap song. Imagine the time it took to put this together!

No human could ever be this dextrous a goalkeeper, though I think there’s an own goal in there. . .

 

Sunday: Hili dialogue

March 29, 2020 • 6:30 am

It’s the beginning of a new week and almost the end of March, which has refused to go out like a lamb. On this Sunday, March 29, 2020, we can only hope that April will be better. It’s National Chiffon Cake Day, National Mom and Pop Business Owners Day (not a good year for this), National Vietnam War Veterans Day.  and Good Deeds Day. I know this sentiment has been repeated endlessly, but let me join the chorus: kudos and love to all the healthcare workers and first responders who are working during this pandemic, risking their lives to help others. One doesn’t often see such mass altruism (9-11 was another example), and it’s a testament to the better angels of our nature.

News of the day: Again, it’s all bad, almost enough to make me stop watching the evening news. Deaths in the U.S. from coronavirus have reached 2,000. As the pandemic spreads in India, thousands of migrants in New Delhi, now homeless and jobless after the government’s lockdown, are desperately trying to get to their hometowns in the countryside so they won’t starve.

Look at this photo from the NYT; the caption is “Credit: Yawar Nazir/Getty Images.” There’s no better way to spread the virus! (And many of these desperate people, trekking home on foot, were beaten back by the police at the city border.)

Here in the U.S., people are going stir-crazy, often using their cats for amusement. And, since everyone has huge supplies of bogroll, they can combine them (tweet sent by Matthew):

Stuff that happened on March 29 includes:

  • 845 – Paris is sacked by Viking raiders, probably under Ragnar Lodbrok, who collects a huge ransom in exchange for leaving.

Ragnar:

  • 1806 – Construction is authorized of the Great National Pike, better known as the Cumberland Road, becoming the first United States federal highway.

Here’s the route of the original road:

  • 1857 – Sepoy Mangal Pandey of the 34th Regiment, Bengal Native Infantry mutinies against the East India Company’s rule in India and inspires the protracted Indian Rebellion of 1857, also known as the Sepoy Mutiny.
  • 1867 – Queen Victoria gives Royal Assent to the British North America Act which establishes Canada on July 1.
  • 1871 – Royal Albert Hall is opened by Queen Victoria.
  • 1886 – John Pemberton brews the first batch of Coca-Cola in a backyard in Atlanta.
  • 1936 – Adolf Hitler receives 99% of the votes in the 1936 German parliamentary election and referendum.
  • 1951 – Ethel and Julius Rosenberg are convicted of conspiracy to commit espionage
  • 1971 – My Lai Massacre: Lieutenant William Calley is convicted of premeditated murder and sentenced to life in prison.

Calley served only three years, part of that under house arrest. He sold jewelry for a while in Georgia, and is now retired.

  • 1973 – Vietnam War: The last United States combat soldiers leave South Vietnam.
  • 1999 – The Dow Jones Industrial Average closes above the 10,000 mark (10,006.78) for the first time, during the height of the dot-com bubble.
  • 2014 – The first same-sex marriages in England and Wales are performed.

Notables born on this day include:

  • 1867 – Cy Young, American baseball player and manager (d. 1955)
  • 1916 – Eugene McCarthy, American poet and politician (d. 2005)
  • 1918 – Pearl Bailey, American actress and singer (d. 1990)
  • 1929 – Richard Lewontin, American biologist, geneticist, and academic, Ph.D. advisor of Professor Ceiling Cat (Emeritus)

Yes, Dick (aka “The Boss”) is 91 today. Here’s a photo of me paying the proper homage to Dick in October of 2017:

  • 1940 – Astrud Gilberto, Brazilian singer-songwriter
  • 1943 – Eric Idle, English actor and comedian
  • 1968 – Lucy Lawless, New Zealand actress

Those who decamped from life on March 29 include:

  • 1772 – Emanuel Swedenborg, Swedish astronomer, philosopher, and theologian (b. 1688)
  • 1912 – Robert Falcon Scott, English lieutenant and explorer (b. 1868)
  • 1912 – Edward Adrian Wilson, English physician and explorer (b. 1872)
  • 1957 – Joyce Cary, Anglo-Irish novelist (b. 1888)
  • 2016 – Patty Duke, American actress (b. 1946)

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili is up to mischief:

Małgorzata: Leave my notebook alone.
Hili: I’m just checking what this ribbon is for.
In Polish:
Małgorzata: Zostaw mój notes.
Hili: Ja tylko sprawdzam do czego jest ta tasiemka.

From Stephen Law: a children’s book:

 

A leggy bird from Jesus of the Day, with description and photo credits beneath:

Reader Charles Sawicki sent this, and I bet you got one, too (I got THREE). He was peeved for the same reason I was:

We just got this postcard today. Probably all Americans will get one.The orange asshole is using a disastrous pandemic for self-promotion. This pretends that ideas from experts originated with tRump. Using all the government resources he can to promote his reelection!

That’s true; I can’t imagine a postcard like this saying “President Obama’s Coronavirus Guidelines. . . ”  Yes, they’re good guidelines, but they are NOT Trump’s!

A good satirical tweet from The Queen. I have to say, it really irks me when people gloat when a public figure/politician they dislike is diagnosed with the virus. What kind of sphincter behaves like that?

 

From Simon. I may have posted this useful video before, but if I did there’s no harm in look at it again. Don’t forget those thumbs!

From Barry. What is it like to be a cow in love with a pig? (Or vice versa.)

And from Heather Hastie, a pig in love with a dog (and vice versa):

Tweets from Matthew. First an annoying cat:

And then an endearing duck (in this case, a molting mallard drake, so the “she” is a misgendering!). I wish Honey would knock on my office window, though.

It took me about 25 tries to succeed, but when I retweeted this I was excoriated because many people got it within 3 or 4 tries.

This is surely a joke, but it does look “official”!

Saturday: Hili dialogue

March 28, 2020 • 6:45 am

Good morning on Saturday, March 28, 2020: National Black Forest Cake Day. It’s also Eat an Eskimo Pie Day (I haven’t had one for decades, and shouldn’t the name now be Inuit Pie?), Piano Day, National Hot Tub Day, and, most important, Respect Your Cat Day.

News of the day: Everything continues to get worse. The bailout bill passed Congress yesterday, and the number of coronavirus cases in the U.S. also passed—100,000 (I believe it’s now over half a million for the world).  The New York Times reports that if the pandemic continues to spread in the New York City area, it will be worse on a per capita basis than the toll in Wuhan, China and Lombardy, Italy.  I am frightened for the first time, and it doesn’t help to read stories like this.  Chicago’s mayor has closed our lakefront and all our parks to prevent people congregating, and hinted that the lockdown could continue longer than specified (duhhh!). Professor Ceiling Cat Emeritus threw his back out stretching on Thursday, the pain is pretty bad, and the doctor says it may be weeks or even months before it returns to normal.

On top of it all, we’re predicted to have severe storms in Chicago today, including the possibility of hail. I hope my ducks don’t get bopped on the head with hailstones! Click to read the weather report:

I can see lightning and hear thunder as I write this. It’s gonna be gnarly out there.  As my father used to say (but in Yiddish): “Troubles as numerous as poppy seeds.” (I think the phrase is “Tsouris mit Mohn,” but I can’t remember, and call on Yiddish-speaking readers for help.)

Stuff that happened on March 28 includes:

  • AD 37 – Roman emperor Caligula accepts the titles of the Principate, bestowed on him by the Senate.
  • 1842 – First concert of the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Otto Nicolai.
  • 1871 – The Paris Commune is formally established in Paris.
  • 1939 – Spanish Civil War: Generalissimo Francisco Franco conquers Madrid after a three-year siege.
  • 1959 – The State Council of the People’s Republic of China dissolves the government of Tibet.
  • 1979 – A coolant leak at the Three Mile Island’s Unit 2 nuclear reactor outside Harrisburg, Pennsylvania leads to the core overheating and a partial meltdown.:

Notables born on this day were few, and include.

Here’s a picture of an early bottle (it was call “malt”) taken from Spoon University:

And Pabst himself, looking pretty much as you’d expect:

By S.L. Stein – The Pabst Mansion, Public Domain

Others born on this day include:

  • 1868 – Maxim Gorky, Russian novelist, short story writer, and playwright (d. 1936)
  • 1909 – Nelson Algren, American novelist and short story writer (d. 1981)
  • 1936 – Mario Vargas Llosa, Peruvian novelist, playwright, and essayist Nobel Prize laureate
  • 1955 – Reba McEntire, American singer-songwriter, producer, and actress
  • 1986 – Lady Gaga, American singer-songwriter, dancer, producer, and actress

. . . and a Holocaust survivor born on this day. Jerzy Bielecki (who has a Wikipedia entry) and his girlfriend Cyla Cybulska were separated after their escape from Auschwitz (one of only a handful of escapes), and didn’t meet again until 1983, when, living in New York, he learned she was alive and went back to Poland to see her. She died there in 2005, he in 2011. Read their story at the link in the previous sentence or the NYT obituary in the tweet below.

Those who stopped living on March 28 include:

  • 1881 – Modest Mussorgsky, Russian pianist and composer (b. 1839)
  • 1941 – Virginia Woolf, English novelist, essayist, short story writer, and critic (b. 1882)

Woolf, of course, was subject to depression and ultimately killed herself at age 59 by filling her pockets with stones and walking into a nearby river. She was a very great writer. Below is her heartbreaking suicide note (addressed to her husband) and a photo:

Dearest, I feel certain that I am going mad again. I feel we can’t go through another of those terrible times. And I shan’t recover this time. I begin to hear voices, and I can’t concentrate. So I am doing what seems the best thing to do. You have given me the greatest possible happiness. You have been in every way all that anyone could be. I don’t think two people could have been happier till this terrible disease came. I can’t fight it any longer. I know that I am spoiling your life, that without me you could work. And you will I know. You see I can’t even write this properly. I can’t read. What I want to say is I owe all the happiness of my life to you. You have been entirely patient with me and incredibly good. I want to say that—everybody knows it. If anybody could have saved me it would have been you. Everything has gone from me but the certainty of your goodness. I can’t go on spoiling your life any longer. I don’t think two people could have been happier than we have been. V

  • 1943 – Sergei Rachmaninoff, Russian pianist, composer, and conductor (b. 1873)
  • 1953 – Jim Thorpe, American football player and coach (b. 1887)
  • 1969 – Dwight D. Eisenhower, American general and politician, 34th President of the United States (b. 1890)
  • 1977 – Eric Shipton, Sri Lankan-English mountaineer and explorer (b. 1907)
  • 1985 – Marc Chagall, Russian-French painter and poet (b. 1887)
  • 1987 – Maria von Trapp, Austrian-American singer (b. 1905)
  • 2000 – Anthony Powell, English soldier and author (b. 1905)

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Szaron wants inside. Actually, this is misleading now as Margozata relates:

“This is a picture taken before Szaron started to live inside but Andrzej thought it was a good picture and it would be a pity to waste it. So the dialogue is misleading. Just now Szaron is with us downstairs and Hili is outside! But they are not on the opposite sides of the window pane. Szaron is now absolutely tame. He is sleeping upstairs with the lodgers, there’s no more peeing outside the litter box, and he comes to us during the day. Perfect.”

The old picture and its dialogue

Hili: You are here again?
Szaron: Yes, I wonder when I will be inside and you outside.
In Polish:
Hili: Znowu tu jesteś?
Szaron: Tak, zastanawiam się, kiedy ja będę w środku, a ty na zewnątrz.

From Heather Hastie:

From Jesus of the Day.

A wonderful Facebook video (h/t: Mark). If only the deer would fetch the Frisbee too!

The Queen has a new article out:

Reader Barry’s note on this tweet is “This has been a Public Service Announcement from the family Chamaeleonidae.” I have to say that the reptile’s technique is estimable.

Two tweets from Heather Hastie. First, the irredeemably stupid Ann Coulter:

Heather likes Little Humbug’s backwards walk. I guess she doesn’t like potato skins. . .

Tweets from Matthew. I told him that this first one was really cute, and he suggested that perhaps the slipper was stuck on its leg:

Internecine strife:

This is a “tidal” phenomenon as the red dwarf pulls its larger companion out of shape:

Make sure you click on the picture to see the entire front page:

Friday: Hili dialogue

March 27, 2020 • 6:30 am

It’s Friday, March 27, 2020—not Friday the 13th, but, given everything going on, it might as well be.  Perhaps it’s appropriate that it’s International Whisky Day (make mine a Springbank). It’s also National Spanish Paella Day (in the US??), Quirky Country Music Song Titles Day (go to the link to see some, like this one), and World Theatre Day.

News of the day: We’re still headed for hell on the Red Ball Express. Every media site I’ve seen is proclaiming that the U.S. has more coronavirus cases than any other country, which is depressing, but not that informative given the differences in population size.  Boris Johnson has tested positive for coronavirus. In America, there’s no end in sight to the lockdown, and many of us are getting restless. Even cats:

Stuff that happened on March 27 includes:

  • 1794 – The United States Government establishes a permanent navy and authorizes the building of six frigates.
  • 1866 – President Andrew Johnson vetoes the Civil Rights Act of 1866. His veto is overridden by Congress and the bill passes into law on April 9.
  • 1871 – The first international rugby football match, when Scotland defeats England in Edinburgh at Raeburn Place.
  • 1886 – Geronimo, Apache warrior, surrenders to the U.S. Army, ending the main phase of the Apache Wars.

Here’s Geronimo, who died at eighty. He had some regrets at his death:

In February 1909, Geronimo was thrown from his horse while riding home, and had to lie in the cold all night until a friend found him extremely ill. He died of pneumonia on February 17, 1909, as a prisoner of the United States at Fort Sill, Oklahoma. On his deathbed, he confessed to his nephew that he regretted his decision to surrender. His last words were reported to be said to his nephew, “I should have never surrendered. I should have fought until I was the last man alive.”  He was buried at Fort Sill, Oklahoma in the Apache Indian Prisoner of War Cemetery.

  • 1915 – Typhoid Mary, the first healthy carrier of disease ever identified in the United States is put in quarantine for the second time, where she would remain for the rest of her life.

Mary’s real name was Mary Mallon. She was an asymptomatic carrier of typhoid, who during her life infected at least 51 people, of whom three died (there may have been up to 50 who died). She worked as a cook for various families, enabling the infection to spread. After a first quarantine she promised never to work as a cook again, but changed her name to Mary Cook and began cooking, infecting more people. She was re-incarcerated in 1915 and spent her remaining 23 years in Riverside Hospital in New York. Her nickname lives on as someone who spreads contagious or other noxious traits.  Here she is in a hospital bed (foreground):

  • 1964 – The Good Friday earthquake, the most powerful earthquake recorded in North American history at a magnitude of 9.2 strikes Southcentral Alaska, killing 125 people and inflicting massive damage to the city of Anchorage.
  • 1977 – Tenerife airport disaster: Two Boeing 747 airliners collide on a foggy runway on Tenerife in the Canary Islands, killing 583 (all 248 on KLM and 335 on Pan Am). Sixty-one survived on the Pan Am flight. This is the deadliest aviation accident in history.

This is a photo of the collision from the Aviation Geek Club. There were 583 fatalities, and it’s amazing anyone survived. (JAC: A reader suggested that this may be a reconstruction and, given the unlikelihood that someone would have been in a position to take this photo, I agree. If you find out it’s fake, let me know.)

 

Notables born on this day include:

  • 1845 – Wilhelm Röntgen, German physicist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1923)
  • 1857 – Karl Pearson, English mathematician, eugenicist, and academic (d. 1936)
  • 1886 – Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, German-American architect, designed IBM Plaza and Seagram Building (d. 1969)
  • 1909 – Ben Webster, American saxophonist (d. 1973)

Webster’s one of my favorite jazz saxophonists. Here he is playing “Over the Rainbow”:

  • 1924 – Sarah Vaughan, American singer (d. 1990)
  • 1963 – Quentin Tarantino, American director, producer, screenwriter and actor
  • 1970 – Mariah Carey, American singer-songwriter, producer, and actress

Those who found eternal rest on March 27 include:

  • 1900 – Joseph A. Campbell, American businessman, founded the Campbell Soup Company (b. 1817)
  • 1910 – Alexander Emanuel Agassiz, Swiss-American ichthyologist, zoologist, and engineer (b. 1835)
  • 1925 – Carl Neumann, German mathematician and academic (b. 1832)
  • 1968 – Yuri Gagarin, Russian colonel, pilot, and astronaut (b. 1934)[7]
  • 1989 – Malcolm Cowley, American novelist, poet, and literary critic (b. 1898)
  • 2002 – Dudley Moore, English actor (b. 1935)

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, we have our first exchange between Hili and Szaron! Szaron is resting on the veranda:

Hili: This is my armchair.
Szaron: Time will tell.
In Polish:
Hili: To jest mój fotel.
Szaron: Czas pokaże.
And a photo of Szaron alone, with a caption by Andrzej and translation by Malgorzata:

Szaron: We have to focus on what’s important.

In Polish: Musimy skupić się na tym, co ważne.

Szaron continues to be tamed, and jumped into Malgorzata and Andrzej’s bed for the first time. Andrzej used the occasion to thank people here for the birthday wishes they sent him:

I thank everybody wishing me and wish the same to you in return. Szaron made himself a feast: he devoured everything that was in Hili’s bowls and went to sleep in our bed.

In Polish: Wszystkim mi życzącym pięknie dziękuję i życzę zwrotnie tego samego. Szaron urządził sobie ucztę i zżarł Hili wszystko z jej misek, a potem poszedł spać do naszego łóżka.

From Beth:

From Jesus of the Day:

A baby platypus from Wild and Wonderful:

The Queen extols (but really spoofs) makeup-free celebrities, people who can’t resist flaunting their virtue of staying home while pasting themselves all over Instagram. I detest this odious self-promotion. (Have a look at the link.)

A tweet from reader Barry. This is another candidate for Tweet of the Year, as it’s a perfect (Trump word) impersonation of Trump.

Two tweets from Heather Hastie. First, can people really be this stupid? The answer is, “OF COURSE!”

A zinger from Hillary Clinton, mocking Trump:

Tweets from Matthew. First, pareidolia. Be sure to enlarge the photo:

A BBC public-health ad. This would never be shown in the U.S. (profanity!):

As Matthew said, this is “amazing”:

Finally, be sure to watch this lovely video: four whole minutes of kids and kitties:

Thursday: Hili dialogue

March 26, 2020 • 6:30 am

Welcome to Thursday, March 26, 2020: National Nougat Day but also National Spinach Day. And, appropriately enough, it’s Solitude Day, though perhaps it should be declared Solitude Season. And today is Andrzej’s 80th birthday, for which I’ve written my own Hili dialogue along with the usual one from Andrzej and Malgorzata.  See below.

It’s Purple Day in the U.S. and Canada, dedicated to bringing awareness to epilepsy, and, in Hawaii, it’s Prince Kūhiō Day, one of only two U.S. holiday celebrating royalty (the other is Hawaiʻi’s King Kamehameha Day, celebrated on June 11). The Prince, heir to the throne of the Kingdom of Hawai’i, was also a territorial delegate to the U.S. Congress, where he “won passage of the Hawaiian Homes Act, creating the Hawaiian Homes Commission and setting aside 200,000 acres (810 km2) of land for Hawaiian homesteaders.”  Here he is:

Jonah Kuhio Kalanianaole (Prince Kūhiō)

News of the Day: Everything is still going to hell everywhere. The Senate finally passed its $2 trillion stimulus package, but it’s not going to do much. A $1200 check for most Americans won’t go very far, and of course the virus still rages. Nobody can procure sanitizer, and I will die from going to the grocery store.

And there’s this (tweet from Matthew):

 

Stuff that happened on March 26 includes:

  • 1344 – The Siege of Algeciras, one of the first European military engagements where gunpowder was used, comes to an end.

Algeciras, called Al-Jazeera by its Moorish Muslim inhabitants, was retaken after a siege of 21 months by Castilian forces. It was the Muslims who used the gunpowder, in early cannons called “bombards”, but it didn’t save them.

Here’s an iron bombard from 1450 that fired 6-kg stone balls:

Published under the GNU Free Documentation License
  • 1484 – William Caxton prints his translation of Aesop’s Fables.

Caxton was the first person to introduce a printing press to England.

Here’s that first cartoon, with the caption from Wikipedia:

Printed in March 1812, this political cartoon was drawn in reaction to the newly drawn state senate election district of South Essex created by the Massachusetts legislature to favor the Democratic-Republican Party candidates of Governor Elbridge Gerry over the Federalists. The caricature satirizes the bizarre shape of a district in Essex County, Massachusetts, as a dragon-like “monster”. Federalist newspaper editors and others at the time likened the district shape to a salamander, and the word gerrymander was a portmanteau of that word and Governor Gerry’s last name.

And here’s Essex County now:

  • 1830 – The Book of Mormon is published in Palmyra, New York.
  • 1934 – The United Kingdom driving test is introduced.
  • 1942 – World War II: The first female prisoners arrive at Auschwitz concentration camp in German-occupied Poland.
  • 1945 – World War II: The Battle of Iwo Jima ends as the island is officially secured by American forces.
  • 1971 – East Pakistan declares its independence from Pakistan to form Bangladesh and the Bangladesh Liberation War begins.
  • 1979 – Anwar al-Sadat, Menachem Begin and Jimmy Carter sign the Egypt–Israel Peace Treaty in Washington, D.C.
  • 1997 – Thirty-nine bodies are found in the Heaven’s Gate mass suicides.

Here’s a photo. The suicides were bizarre, as members of the cult thought that, after dying, they would board a spacecraft following the Comet Hale-Bopp. The circumstances of the mass suicide were bizarre:

To kill themselves, members took phenobarbital mixed with apple sauce or pudding and washed it down with vodka. Additionally, they secured plastic bags around their heads after ingesting the mix to induce asphyxiation. All 39 were dressed in identical black shirts and sweat pants, brand new black-and-white Nike Decades athletic shoes, and armband patches reading “Heaven’s Gate Away Team” (one of many instances of the group’s use of the Star Trek fictional universe’s nomenclature). Each member had on their person a five-dollar bill and three quarters in their pockets: the five-dollar bill was to cover vagrancy fines while members were out on jobs, while the quarters were to make phone calls. Once dead, a living member would arrange the body by removing the plastic bag from the person’s head. They then posed the body so that it lay neatly in their own bed, with faces and torsos covered by a square purple cloth for privacy. The identical clothing was used as a uniform for the mass suicide to represent unity whilst the Nike Decades were chosen as the group “got a good deal on the shoes”

39 bodies of Heaven’s Gate members were discovered, bags packed and Nike’s laced, lying on beds and mattresses in a San Diego mansion. (Kim Kulish/Getty). Source.

Notables born on this day include:

  • 1874 – Robert Frost, American poet and playwright (d. 1963)
  • 1904 – Joseph Campbell, American mythologist and author (d. 1987)
  • 1908 – Franz Stangl, Austrian-German SS officer (d. 1971)
  • 1911 – Tennessee Williams, American playwright, and poet (d. 1983)
  • 1913 – Paul Erdős, Hungarian-Polish mathematician and academic (d. 1996)
  • 1931 – Leonard Nimoy, American actor (d. 2015)
  • 1940 – Nancy Pelosi, American lawyer and politician, 60th Speaker of the United States House of Representatives
  • 1940-Andrzej Koraszewski, writer, activist, co-producer of Listy z Naszego Sadu (Letters from Our Orchard)
  • 1941 – Richard Dawkins, Kenyan-English ethologist, biologist, and academic
  • 1942 – Erica Jong, American novelist and poet
  • 1943 – Bob Woodward, American journalist and author
  • 1944 – Diana Ross, American singer-songwriter, producer, and actress
  • 1948 – Steven Tyler, American singer-songwriter and actorv
  • 1985 – Keira Knightley, English actress

Those who perished on March 26 include:

  • 1649 – John Winthrop, English lawyer and politician, 2nd Governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony
  • 1797 – James Hutton, Scottish geologist and physician (b. 1726)
  • 1827 – Ludwig van Beethoven, German pianist and composer (b. 1770)
  • 1892 – Walt Whitman, American poet, essayist, and journalist (b. 1819)v
  • 1969 – John Kennedy Toole, American novelist (b. 1937)
  • 2011 – Geraldine Ferraro, American lawyer and politician (b. 1935)

Toole died of suicide of 31, but his novel A Confederacy of Dunces (well worth reading) won the Pulitzer Prize posthumously—in 1981! Here he is:

 

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, the Hili dialogue is complicated, so Malgorzata explains:

Hili means that this ban on gatherings irritate her no end. She hates being banned from doing anything but this time she knows that she has to obey. So to relieve her irritation she decides all of a sudden that she hates huge gatherings. If she hates gatherings, no ban on gathering can irritate her.

Hili: I hate huge gatherings.
A: Why do you say that?
Hili: Because bans irritate me.
In Polish:
Hili: Nie znoszę wielkich zgromadzeń.
Ja: Dlaczego to mówisz?
Hili: Bo denerwują mnie zakazy.

And today is Andrzej’s 80th birthday! In honor of his venerable years and many accomplishments, I’ve written my own Hili dialogue using my own photo from several years ago:

Hili: I understand you are 80 today. Happy birthday, Andrzej!
Andrzej: Why, thank you, Hili.
Hili: To what do you attribute such a long life?
Andrzej: To work that absorbs one completely, to a wonderful and supportive wife, to many helpings of cherry pie, and to a loving cat in the house.
Hili: I think the last item is the most important.

In Polish (translation by Malgorzata):

Hili: Rozumiem, że kończysz dzisiaj 80 lat. Wszystkiego najlepszego!
A: Ach, dziękuje ci, Hili.
Hili: Czemu przypisujesz takie długie życie?
A: Pracy, która całkowicie mnie absorbuje, wspierającej żonie, wielu porcjom placka z wiśniami i kochającemu kotu w domu.
Hili: Sądzę, że ostatni punkt jest najważniejszy.

In the same house, Szaron slept inside: “It was a chilly evening and Szaron decided to sleep at home.”

In Polish: Wieczór był chłodny i Szaron postanowił, że idzie spać do domu.

From Malgorzata:

From Norm:

From Nicole:

From Su.  Poor Vincent!

A tweet from the Queen with a retweeted video:

From Mark Plotkin. I haven’t looked up the data to ensure that this is real, but if it is it’s plenty scary.

People are really being uber-silly during quarantine. Here’s a tweet found by Simon:

Tweets from Matthew. This first one shows a stain (not a shadow), which makes it look as if the bin is floating. Cover the stain and see:

A lovely video of the world’s smallest wild felid, the Rusty-spotted cat (Prionailurus rubiginosus) from India and Sri Lanka. Adults weigh only 0.9-1.5 kg, or 2-3.5 pounds, less than half the size of a house cat.

I like this because I’d be one of the people the Republicans want sacrificed to the Dow Jones Industrial Average:

We can all use a newborn lamb, right? (Sound up, please.)

 

Wednesday: Hili dialogue (and Mietek monologue)

March 25, 2020 • 7:00 am

We’ve reached the hump of the week but are a long distance from the hump of the pandemic. Welcome to Wednesday, March 25, 2020: International Waffle Day, Pecan Day, National Lobster Newburg Day (never had it), Tolkien Reading Day (not coinciding with any events in Tolkien’s life), and Manatee Appreciation Day, celebrating members of the order Sirenia whose ancestors invaded water independently of the ancestors of whales and seals. Remember, marine mammals evolved three times independently (from Nature):

Cetaceans (whales, dolphins and porpoises) and sirenians (manatees and dugongs) emerged during the Eocene epoch through diversification from the Cetartiodactyla and Afrotheria, respectively. Pinnipeds (seals, sea lions and walruses) emerged approximately 20 million years later during the Miocene from within the Carnivora.

Finally, it’s International Day of Remembrance of the Victims of Slavery and the Transatlantic Slave Trade. 

News of the Day: The Senate and President have apparently agreed on the pandemic stimulus package, which involves dispersal of $2 trillion. Prince Charles has tested positive for coronavirus. Otherwise, everything is going to hell as usual and people are getting stir-crazy at home, as evidenced by the following tweet (h/t Matthew):

Stuff that happened on March 25 includes:

From Wikipedia:

Along with suggestions of eczema, tuberculosis, syphilis, motor neurone disease, cancer or stroke, a diet of rich court food has also been suggested as a possible contributory factor in Robert’s death. His Milanese physician, Maino De Maineri, did criticise the king’s eating of eels as dangerous to his health in advancing years. [Bruce was 54.]

Why are they always blaming EELS for deaths in those times? Are eels bad for you?

  • 1584 – Sir Walter Raleigh is granted a patent to colonize Virginia.
  • 1655 – Saturn’s largest moon, Titan, is discovered by Christiaan Huygens.
  • 1807 – The Slave Trade Act becomes law, abolishing the slave trade in the British Empire.
  • 1811 – Percy Bysshe Shelley is expelled from the University of Oxford for publishing the pamphlet The Necessity of Atheism.
  • 1911 – In New York City, the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire kills 146 garment workers.

The story is well known: workers couldn’t escape because the doors were locked, and many died from jumping from windows. Here are some of the bodies of the jumpers on view so that relatives could identify them. The dead included 123 women (mostly Jewish women aged 14-23) and 23 men.

  • 1931 – The Scottsboro Boys are arrested in Alabama and charged with rape.

This is another travesty of justice after a false accusation of rape in Alabama. Read the link. They were all eventually freed, largely due to the efforts (four years of pro bono work) of lawyer Samuel Leibowitz, shown here with the nine suspects, who were initially sentenced to death. Both the defendants and Leibowitz had to be protected by the National Guard against raging lynch mobs.

  • 1948 – The first successful tornado forecast predicts that a tornado will strike Tinker Air Force Base, Oklahoma.
  • 1957 – United States Customs seizes copies of Allen Ginsberg’s poem “Howl” on obscenity grounds.
  • 1965 – Civil rights activists led by Martin Luther King Jr. successfully complete their 4-day 50-mile march from Selma to the capitol in Montgomery, Alabama.
  • 1969 – During their honeymoon, John Lennon and Yoko Ono hold their first Bed-In for Peace at the Amsterdam Hilton Hotel (until March 31).

Here’s a short video of the bed-in. Ah, those were the days, my friend!

  • 1995 – WikiWikiWeb, the world’s first wiki, and part of the Portland Pattern Repository, is made public by Ward Cunningham.

Notables  born on this day include:

  • 1863 – Simon Flexner, American physician and academic (d. 1946)
  • 1867 – Arturo Toscanini, Italian-American cellist and conductor (d. 1957)
  • 1908 – David Lean, English director, producer, and screenwriter (d. 1991)
  • 1918 – Howard Cosell, American soldier, journalist, and author (d. 1995)
  • 1920 – Paul Scott, English author, poet, and playwright (d. 1978)

Scott wrote The Raj Quartet and Staying On, two books that I recommended yesterday.

  • 1925 – Flannery O’Connor, American short story writer and novelist (d. 1964)
  • 1934 – Gloria Steinem, American feminist activist, co-founded the Women’s Media Center

It’s hard to believe that Steinem is 85 today, but she’s still trotting around the globe promoting progressive and feminist causes. Here’s a good article about her from the New Yorker in 2015.

  • 1942 – Aretha Franklin, American singer-songwriter and pianist (d. 2018)
  • 1947 – Elton John, English singer-songwriter, pianist, producer, and actor
  • 1965 – Sarah Jessica Parker, American actress, producer, and designer
  • 1982 – Danica Patrick, American race car driver

Those who gave up the ghost on March 25 include:

  • 1857 – William Colgate, English-American businessman and philanthropist, founded Colgate-Palmolive (b. 1783)
  • 1918 – Claude Debussy, French composer (b. 1862)
  • 1931 – Ida B. Wells, American journalist and activist (b. 1862)
  • 2006 – Buck Owens, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (b. 1929)

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili’s dialogue requires a bit of explanation from Malgorzata:

Hili is just marveling over the play of sunlight falling through the blinds. She knows a bit about how our brains can deceive us and create an illusions and that’s what she is remarking about.

Hili: LIghts and shadows.
A: Nothing extraordinary.
Hili: A world of illusion.
In Polish:
Hili: Światła i cienie.
Ja: Nic nadzwyczajnego.
Hili: Świat iluzji.

And Szaron, also in Dobrzyn, is less pessimistic. Caption by Andrzej:

“Sharon says he’s optimistic. (It’s a trait of youth.)”

In Polish: Szaron mówi, że on jest optymistą. (To cecha młodości.)

Szaron is getting tamer: he slept inside last night. As Malgorzata reports,

Revolution! Yesterday evening, after we sat on the veranda, Szaron just came inside with us. Andrzej closed the door and Szaron started to explore all corners. Hili sat on my desk and was fuming. We got Szaron’s nest, bowls and his litter box into the guest room, filled the bowls and closed the door behind him. And went to sleep. Hili slept with us. In the morning, Andrzej got up much earlier than I did and closed the door to our bedroom. Then he opened the door to the guest room. Szaron didn’t run to the door but went around the rooms, tried to jump on Andrzej’s lap when he sat at his desk, and went out with him when outside for a minute- and returned with him! Just now Szaron is out but was in and out a few times. Now we have to discuss with Paulina [the upstairs lodger who wants to be the staff of Szaron] what to do next – should he stay with us downstairs or will she try to entice him upstairs?  He can be pronounced a tame cat now (I hope my shout of victory is not premature!)

It was a bumper day for cats in Dobrzyn yesterday. The feral black cat reappeared when Paulina (the lodger) was feeding Szaron. The unnamed black cat spoke:

Black cat: I was told that homeless cats are fed here.

In Polish: Podobno tu karmią bezdomne koty.

Neaby in Wloclawek, the rescue kitten Mietek is bored silly and trying to cook up some mischief.

Mietek: I will think of something straight away.
In Polish: Zaraz coś wymyślę.

From Vidya: sexual selection in human males:

Matthew shows us one of his three cats—the one that laid my nose open when I nuzzled it. His comment: “Ollie staring at the hated tom cat in the garden next door.”

From Richard:

Patrick Stewart, as his palliative for isolation (and for our enjoyment) is reciting a Shakespearian sonnet a day on Twitter. Here’s sonnet 116:

Skeptic Jen Gunther takes down Gwynnie for her apparel for visiting the farmers market. Read the thread.

Tweets from Matthew, who is sending a combination of bumming-out tweets and palliatives. One of the former:

. . . And one of the latter (sound up):

 

Another of the latter, posted by Matthew hiimself:

Some underwater crypsis:

Tuesday: Hili dialogue (and Mietek monologue)

March 24, 2020 • 7:00 am

It’s Tuesday, the cruelest day: March 24, 2020: National Cake Pop Day, an overly small dessert rejected by all food mavens, as well as National Chocolate Covered Raisins Day, a snack that one of my friends used to call “rabbit turds”. It’s also National Cheesesteak Day, an indigenous and estimable American sandwich, National Cocktail Day, National Agriculture Day,. and World Tuberculosis Day, honoring the birthday of Robert Koch (see below).

News of the Day: Everything’s going to hell in a handbasket. I can feel my own well-being eroding; for two days I have not spoken to another human being face to face, and I’m becoming grouchy (well, grouchier than usual).

Here’s a useful video about how to wash your hands. Watch it, please:

Stuff that happened on March 24 includes:

And one of these concertos, No. 6 in B flat major (BWV 1051; 1721)—in particular the the last (allegro) movement—may be my favorite piece of classical music. Here it is performed in my favorite version, the one by Trevor Pinnock and the English Concert. As I’ve said before, this piece is very bouncy: if there were music for Tigger, this would be it.

More stuff that happened on this day:

  • 1832 – In Hiram, Ohio, a group of men beat and tar and feather Mormon leader Joseph Smith.
  • 1882 – Robert Koch announces the discovery of Mycobacterium tuberculosis, the bacterium responsible for tuberculosis.

For this discovery, Koch won the Nobel Prize in Medicine or Physiology in 1905. Here’s the great man at the bench (photo from the Koch Institute)

  • 1921 – The 1921 Women’s Olympiad begins in Monte Carlo, first international women’s sports event.
  • 1944 – World War II: In an event later dramatized in the movie The Great Escape, 76 Allied prisoners of war begin breaking out of the German camp Stalag Luft III.

76 men escaped, but nearly all were captured: half were shot and many returned to the camp. Only three men escaped successfully.  They had dug a 103-meter tunnel under the wire and into the woods.

  • 1958 – Rock ‘n’ roll teen idol Elvis Presley is drafted in the U.S. Army.

Here’s a video, sans sound, of Elvis being inducted. During his two years in the Army, Elvis was introduced to both his future wife Priscilla, but also to amphetimines.

  • 1989 – In Prince William Sound in Alaska, the Exxon Valdez spills 240,000 barrels (38,000 m3) of crude oil after running aground.
  • 1998 – First computer-assisted Bone Segment Navigation, performed at the University of Regensburg, Germany
  • 2008 – Bhutan officially becomes a democracy, with its first ever general election.

Notables born on this day include:

  • 1820 – Edmond Becquerel, French physicist and academic (d. 1891)
  • 1874 – Harry Houdini, Hungarian-Jewish American magician and actor (d. 1926)
  • 1886 – Edward Weston, American photographer (d. 1958)
  • 1902 – Thomas E. Dewey, American lawyer and politician, 47th Governor of New York (d. 1971)
  • 1909 – Clyde Barrow, American criminal (d. 1934)
  • 1919 – Lawrence Ferlinghetti, American poet and publisher, co-founded City Lights Bookstore

Ferlenghetti turns 101 today! Here he is in front of the famous San Francisco bookstore he founded:

Poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti poses on Monday, Jan. 15, 1988 in San Francisco in front of the North Beach bookstore he founded more than 35 years ago. The San Francisco Board of Supervisors accepted 13 of Ferlinghettiís recommendations on Thursday to change local street names after 15 of San Franciscoís best known artists and writers. (AP Photo)
  • 1930 – Steve McQueen, American actor and producer (d. 1980)
  • 1944-J. S. “Steve” Jones, geneticist, science writer, and friend of Professor Ceiling Cat.
  • 1976 – Peyton Manning, American football player and entrepreneur

Those who checked out on March 24 include:

  • 1603 – Elizabeth I of England (b. 1533)
  • 1882 – Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, American poet and educator (b. 1807)
  • 1905 – Jules Verne, French novelist, poet, and playwright (b. 1828)
  • 2016 – Johan Cruyff, Dutch footballer (b. 1947).

One of the greats, Cruyff did all this despite smoking heavily. He died of lung cancer in 2016. Here’s a video of some of his great moments in football.

 

Meanwhile, there is no joy in Dobrzyn:

Hili: Do you see what I see?
A: What do you see?
Hili: A catastrophe.
In Polish:
Hili: Czy ty widzisz to, co ja widzę?
Ja: A co ty widzisz?
Hili: Katastrofę.

And in nearby Wloclawek, we have the return of Mietek the rescue kitten, who’s very nearly a cat now. Apparently his staff member Elzbieta is reading a book while Mietek looks on, wondering about the plot.

Mietek: And what happened next?

In Polish: I co było dalej?

And here’s a new picture of Szaron. Since he was taken to the vet, examined, treated for an eye infection, given his shots, and had his testicles removed, Szaron is scared of coming inside. He more or less lives on the veranda, though he likes people (he sits on Andrzej’s lap, where he purrs and gets petted, and where he’s fed), but hasn’t ventured more than a few feet inside the house. The good news is that he seems to be getting tamer, and that he and Hili, though wary of each other, do not fight.

An amusing note from Malgorzata:

The sun is shining and both Hili and Szaron went out. They stopped and lay down on the grass about 2 meters (correct coronavirus distance) from each other, sneaking a look at each other and then pretending that they didn’t see. It was very funny.

From Merilee:

From Jesus of the Day:

 

From reader Su, who posted this as “Best covid meme ever”:

From Gethyn: The cops in Mallorca ain’t your ordinary cops. Does anybody know this song?

The Chief Mouser to the Cabinet Officer has an announcement:

From Heather Hastie via Ann German. I don’t like putting depressing tweets up, but I’ll make an exception here:

Tweets from Matthew. First, Saffy sees a gecko. (Don’t Siamese cats have the most annoying meows?)

These fish are getting the hell out of Dodge, for the Jacks are coming!

My paternal grandmother died in the Spanish Flu epidemic of 1918, right after my dad was born. I haven’t yet read this paper, but you can access it by clicking on the first link:

Oh, man, that poor dude! Be sure to enlarge the video.

https://twitter.com/blayofficial/status/1241477350950404115?s=11

Bats are the most dainty and neatest urinators I’ve seen in the animal world.  Look how it shakes itself off at the end!