Category: Hili Dialogue

Monday: Hili dialogue

March 23, 2020 • 6:30 am

Good morning on Monday, March 23, 2020: National Chips and Dip Day and National Melba Toast Day, as well as World Meterological Day.   Most important, it’s Cuddly Kitten Day! (It’s also National Puppy Day, but we’ll leave that aside.)

Here’s a beautiful Bengal kitten, something that’s on my bucket list but I doubt I’ll ever have. Look at those lovely markings!

 

News of the day: Things keep getting worse. Healthcare systems are collapsing in Europe, the virus has reached India, which has poor healthcare and a crowded populace, and in the U.S., the Senate cannot agree on a stimulus/bailout package because of bipartisan disagreement. As the New York Times reports,

Senate Democrats on Sunday blocked action on an emerging deal to prop up an economy devastated by the coronavirus pandemic, paralyzing the progress of a nearly $2 trillion government rescue package that they said failed to adequately protect workers or impose strict enough restrictions on bailed-out businesses.

However, some people have more information than others (h/t: Ken).

Below: I interpret these new signs in my neighborhood (there are several) to people who, feeling a loss of control during these parlous times, try to exert some themselves. (FYI, I do despise people who don’t pick up their dog’s poo). This just seems a tad, well, stern. For example, there’s no “please.” At least they used the apostrophe correctly. (And yes, we had a light snow yesterday.)

And I’m not sure how the police, otherwise engaged as they are, would respond to a call of “unrecovered poo.”

Finally, the jailed Harvey Weinstein tested positive for the coronavirus.

Stuff that happened on March 23 includes:

  • 1775 – American Revolutionary War: Patrick Henry delivers his speech – “Give me liberty, or give me death!” – at St. John’s Episcopal Church, Richmond, Virginia.
  • 1806 – After traveling through the Louisiana Purchase and reaching the Pacific Ocean, explorers Lewis and Clark and their “Corps of Discovery” begin their arduous journey home.
  • 1848 – The ship John Wickliffe arrives at Port Chalmers carrying the first Scottish settlers for Dunedin, New Zealand. Otago province is founded.
  • 1919 – In Milan, Italy, Benito Mussolini founds his Fascist political movement.
  • 1933 – The Reichstag passes the Enabling Act of 1933, making Adolf Hitler dictator of Germany.
  • 1956 – Pakistan becomes the first Islamic republic in the world. This date is now celebrated as Republic Day in Pakistan.
  • 1977 – The first of The Nixon Interviews (12 will be recorded over four weeks) is videotaped with British journalist David Frost interviewing former United States President Richard Nixon about the Watergate scandal and the Nixon tapes.
  • 1983 – Strategic Defense Initiative: President Ronald Reagan makes his initial proposal to develop technology to intercept enemy missiles.

Here is a highlight tape of the Nixon/Frost interviews in 1977. It’s well worth watching, including the part when one criminal praises another (Kissinger):

Notables born on this day include:

  • 1699 – John Bartram, American botanist and explorer (d. 1777)

Linnaeus, no mean botanist himself, called Bartram “the greatest botanist in the world.”

  • 1749 – Pierre-Simon Laplace, French mathematician and astronomer (d. 1827)
  • 1858 – Ludwig Quidde, German activist and politician, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1941)
  • 1882 – Emmy Noether, Jewish German-American mathematician, physicist and academic (d. 1935)

Noether was a great mathematician, but was forced from her position at the University of Göttingen in 1933 because she was Jewish and Jews couldn’t hold university positions. She moved to the U.S., but died in 1935 after an operation for an ovarian cyst. Here’s a photo:

  • 1900 – Erich Fromm, German psychologist and sociologist (d. 1980)
  • 1904 – Joan Crawford, American film actress (d. 1977)
  • 1912 – Wernher von Braun, German-American physicist and engineer (d. 1977)

Those who packed it on on March 23 include:

  • 1842 – Stendhal, French novelist (b. 1783)
  • 1953 – Raoul Dufy, French painter and illustrator (b. 1877)
  • 1964 – Peter Lorre, American actor (b. 1904)
  • 2011 – Elizabeth Taylor, American-British actress, socialite and humanitarian (b. 1932)

Here is “Le Chat” by Dufy:

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili is laconic, but Malgorzata explains Hili’s thinking:

Humans think that cats have no prejudices —they are, after all,  just animals. Cats know that they are much more than “just animals” (hence, pride) and that  they have prejudices like the best of humans.
The dialogue:
Hili: Pride and prejudice.
A: What prejudice?
Hili: That we cats do not have any prejudices.
In Polish:
Hili: Duma i przesądy.
Ja: Jakie przesądy?
Hili: Że my, koty, nie mamy żadnych przesądów.

Posted on Facebook by reader Su:

Also from Su (if you don’t know who these folks are, you’re too young):

A new Tube map from the public FB page of Marcus Bicknell in London (h/t: Stash Krod):

Gal Gadot posted a well-meaning tweet in which she got all her celebrity pals to join in a rendition of John Lennon’s “Imagine.” And then the internet went after them. . .

The response (one of many):

A tweet from Simon. (Here in the U.S. we use The National Enquirer):

A tweet from Heather Hastie via Ann German, showing a prescient Bill Gates:

 

Tweets from Matthew. People find entertainment everywhere these days. Truly though: is one person strolling in the street, not interacting with anyone, palpably dangerous to others? I don’t think so.

 

And a self-entertaining cat!

The Catholic Church is an endless source of amusement (and lunacy):

Matthew says the announcer here is a genuine sports announcer:

Sunday: Hili dialogue

March 22, 2020 • 6:45 am

It’s Sunday, March 22, 2020, and a lousy food holiday: World Water Day. It’s also National Bavarian Crêpes Day, described as “a delicious, very thin pancake-like dessert, typically made from wheat flour or buckwheat flour, then filled, rolled and then often topped with a glaze, fruit, chocolate or whipped cream.” I’ve never had them.

Finally, it’s National Buzzard Day (remember: a buzzard is not a vulture), and, as I said, World Water Day, a UN holiday celebrating the importance of freshwater and the need to buy as much of it as you can in plastic bottles (only kidding about the last bit).

Yesterday at 5 p.m. the City of Chicago, and the rest of Illinois, went on “lockdown”, with no gatherings permitted, most stores closed except for pharmacies, banks, and grocery stores, as well as restaurants. Fortunately, my favorite wine store is still open, but for curbside pickup only. You have to order online, show up at the store, calling when you arrive, and then popping your trunk so that they can put the wine cases in while keeping the “social distance”.. It’s onerous, but worth it for vino. And, of course, I can feed my ducks!

Here are Honey and Dorothy, who are inseparable (Dorothy may be her offspring from last year, but who knows?). By now you should be able to recognize which one is Honey. Can you?

Stuff that happened on March 22 includes:

  • 1622 – Jamestown massacre: Algonquians kill 347 English settlers around Jamestown, Virginia, a third of the colony’s population, during the Second Anglo-Powhatan War.
  • 1638 – Anne Hutchinson is expelled from Massachusetts Bay Colony for religious dissent.
  • 1765 – The British Parliament passes the Stamp Act that introduces a tax to be levied directly on its American colonies.
  • 1872 – Illinois becomes the first state to require gender equality in employment.
  • 1916 – The last Emperor of China, Yuan Shikai, abdicates the throne and the Republic of China is restored.

This is confusing because Wikipedia also says that Pu Yi (protagonist of the movie “The Last Emperor”) was the real last Emperor of China, becoming emperor at age two and reigning briefly in 1917.  This is another example of where Wikipedia needs correction. We all await that when Greg publishes his definitive post, “What’s the matter with Wikipedia?”

  • 1943 – World War II: the entire village of Khatyn (in what is the present-day Republic of Belarus) is burnt alive by Schutzmannschaft Battalion 118.
  • 1945 – The Arab League is founded when a charter is adopted in Cairo, Egypt.
  • 1960 – Arthur Leonard Schawlow and Charles Hard Townes receive the first patent for a laser.

Here’s part of that patent. Shawlow won the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1981, along with two others (not Townes) for using lasers to determine the energy levels of atoms:

The deadline for ratification was in 1979, with 4 states needed for ratification. But three states rescinded their assent, and the deadline was extended to 1982. That deadline expired without any more states signing on, but since then three more states (Virginia, Nevada, and Illinois) have voted to ratify the ERA. Because of the revocations and debates about their legality, the ERA remains in limbo, which is a damn travesty, if you ask me.

Here’s an ABC news report of Wallenda’s fall (note: don’t watch if you don’t want to see him fall off the rope). He was 73 when he died, and said that the only time he ever felt alive was on the high wire.

  • 1995 – Cosmonaut Valeri Polyakov returns to earth after setting a record of 438 days in space.
  • 1997 – Tara Lipinski, aged 14 years and nine months, becomes the youngest women’s World Figure Skating Champion.

I remember watching this, and now Lipinski (a skating commentator for television) is 37.  Here’s her prize-winning performancein 1997:

  • 2016 – Three suicide bombers kill 32 people and injure 316 in the 2016 Brussels bombings at the airport and at the Maelbeek/Maalbeek metro station.
  • 2017 – A terrorist attack in London near the Houses of Parliament leaves four people dead and at least 20 injured.
  • 2019 – Robert S. Mueller III delivers his report on the Russian government’s influence on the election of Donald Trump in the 2016 United States presidential election.

Notables born on this day include:

Here’s a van Dyck portrat of James Stuart, the Duke of Richmond and Lennox with his cat. This was painted some time between 1633 and 1635:

 

  • 1785 – Adam Sedgwick, English scientist (d. 1873)
  • 1887 – Chico Marx, American actor (d. 1961)
  • 1930 – Derek Bok, American lawyer and academic
  • 1930 – Stephen Sondheim, American composer and songwriter
  • 1948 – Andrew Lloyd Webber, English composer and director
  • 1976 – Reese Witherspoon, American actress and producer

Those who became kaput on March 22 include:

  • 1758 – Jonathan Edwards, English minister, theologian, and philosopher (b. 1703)
  • 1978 – Karl Wallenda, German-American acrobat and tightrope walker, founded The Flying Wallendas (b. 1905) [see above]
  • 1994 – Walter Lantz, American animator, director, and producer (b. 1899)
  • 2001 – William Hanna, American animator, director, producer, and voice actor, co-founded Hanna-Barbera (b. 1910)

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, spring has begun and, unfortunately, Hili is watching the birds:

Hili: The birds have started to build their nests.
A: How do you know?
Hili: They are flying around with grass in their beaks.
In Polish:
Hili: Ptaki zaczęły budować gniazda.
Ja: Skąd wiesz?
Hili: Fruwają z trawą w dziobach.

Here’s the latest photo of Szaron, who is getting ever tamer. (And yesterday a feral black cat showed up, ate some food, and fled.)

From Merilee:

From the Celts Facebook page, a thrifty Scot (h/t: Moto). The goods are conveniently located, too:

From Stash Krod:

Titania has a new poem about the pandemic, and it disses science. She can’t help it, being woke:

Two tweets from Heather Hastie via Ann German. This first video has had wide circulation, so I didn’t post it earlier. But I suppose I should put it somewhere, as it’s good. So here it is for the record:

This, too, is brilliant. Does anybody recognize what they’re playing?

Tweets from Matthew. This first one is a strong contender for TWEET OF THE YEAR:

Steve Martin plays the banjo to ease the pain of self-isolation:

Religion not only poisons everything, but also infects everything:

Now this must be worth a lot: a watch set into an emerald!

Perhaps we’ve heard these so often that we’ve become inured to their beauty. Sound on, please.

An unexpected spandrel of the pandemic:

 

Saturday: Hili dialogue

March 21, 2020 • 6:45 am

We’ve reached Caturday, March 21, 2020, National Crunchy Taco Day. There are a ton of holidays today: it’s also Maple Syrup Saturday, National French Bread Day (if that’s not cultural appropriation, I don’t know what is), National California Strawberry Day, National Corn Dog Day, National Flower Day, and National Healthy Fats Day. Finally, its also these holidays:

In honor of the international nature of poetry, I’ll proffer a link to a great poem by Ezra Pound; his rendition in English of a verse written by the eighth-century Chinese poet Li Po, also known as Li Bai: “The River-Merchant’s Wife: a Letter.” I don’t think Pound could read Chinese, so his “translations” are probably poetic renditions of other people’s translations.

News of the Day: The lockdowns of American cities growing, and now include Chicago as of 5 p.m. today.  Fortunately, thanks to our President and Provost, I’ll still be able to take walks and feed the ducks. Also, country singer Kenny Rogers died yesterday at 81.

Stuff that happened on March 21 includes:

  • 630 – Emperor Heraclius returns the True Cross, one of the holiest Christian relics, to Jerusalem.

Here’s one of a gazillion pieces of the True Cross; photo from Wikipedia labeled “Treasure Room, Church of the Holy Sepulchre, Jerusalem. In center: the True Cross. Near the walls: holy relics.”

And a painting depicting the finding of the True Cross, supposedly discovered around 300 AD along with two other False Crosses. The painting was by the Florentine Agnolo Gaddi, and was made about 1380. What a crock cross! It’s remarkably well preserved after being buried for 300 years, no?

  • 1556 – On the day of his execution in Oxford, former Archbishop of Canterbury Thomas Cranmer deviates from the scripted sermon by renouncing the recantations he has made and adds, “And as for the pope, I refuse him, as Christ’s enemy, and Antichrist with all his false doctrine.”
  • 1871 – Journalist Henry Morton Stanley begins his trek to find the missionary and explorer David Livingstone.

Livingston was found on November 10; and here’s the meeting. The famous words, “Dr. Livingtsone, I presume?” are apocryphal,

  • 1925 – The Butler Act prohibits the teaching of human evolution in Tennessee.

This was of course the act that John Scopes was convicted of violating in the famous Monkey Trial. Note that the statute did not prohibit the teaching of evolution—something that many people get wrong, but the teaching of human evolution. Had Scopes simply taught evolution without mentioning humans, it’s doubtful that the trial would have taken place (Scopes volunteered himself as a test case).

  • 1935 – Shah of Iran Reza Shah Pahlavi formally asks the international community to call Persia by its native name, Iran.
  • 1946 – The Los Angeles Rams sign Kenny Washington, making him the first African American player in professional American football since 1933.
  • 1952 – Alan Freed presents the Moondog Coronation Ball, the first rock and roll concert, in Cleveland, Ohio.
  • 1963 – Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary (in California) closes.
  • 1965 – Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. leads 3,200 people on the start of the third and finally successful civil rights march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama.
  • 1986 – Debi Thomas became the first African American to win the World Figure Skating Championships
  • 1999 – Bertrand Piccard and Brian Jones become the first to circumnavigate the Earth in a hot air balloon.

Notables born on this day include:

  • 1839 – Modest Mussorgsky, Russian pianist and composer (d. 1881). He was outlived by his arrogant brother, Immodest Mussorgsky.
  • 1902 – Son House, American blues singer-songwriter and guitarist (d. 1988)
  • 1910 – Julio Gallo, American businessman, co-founded E & J Gallo Winery (d. 1993)
  • 1920 – Éric Rohmer, French director, film critic, journalist, novelist and screenwriter (d. 2010)
  • 1932 – Walter Gilbert, American physicist and chemist, Nobel Prize laureate

Wally Gilbert ‘n’ me in Chicago discussing photography on May 30, 2013 (photo by Manyuan Long). After Wally retired, he took up artistic photography full time, but since I know a bit about it, we had some stuff to talk about. One of his photos is on the computer screen behind us.

 

More births:

  • 1962 – Rosie O’Donnell, American actress, producer, and talk show host
  • 1970 – Cenk Uygur, Turkish-American political activist

Cenk is 50 today. I don’t like him.

Ronaldinho, now retired, was one of the greats of soccer, and a terrific ball handler. (Curiously, he’s now imprisoned for six months in Paraguay for entering the country using a false passport.) Here he demonstrates his pedal dexterity.

 

Those who “passed” on March 21 include:

  • 1556 – Thomas Cranmer, English archbishop and saint (b. 1489)
  • 1617 – Pocahontas, Algonquian Indigenous princess (b. c. 1595)
  • 2017 – Chuck Barris, American game show host and producer (b. 1929)

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn: Szaron appears in his first Hili dialogue. Hili is not letting him onto the veranda (but they still have peaceful relations).

Szaron: May I come in?
Hili: Try.
In Polish:
Szaron: Czy mogę wejść?
Hili: Spróbuj.

Szaron is developing quite the personality, which right now seems to be skeptical:

Szaron: Most questions still remain without answers.

In Polish: Szaron: Większość pytań nadal pozostaje bez odpowiedzi.

In nearby Wloclawek, Leon and Mietek have been silent for a while, as Elzbieta’s camera broke. Fortunately, here’s one recent photo of Leon and his staff on Elbieta’s FB page, though there’s no caption:

 

From Merilee:

A gif from Nicole:

Predicted Aussie neologisms posted by Stash Krod:

From Pliny the In Between’s Far Corner Cafe (click to read text):

The Queen calls out Ilhan Omar:

I retweeted this, but the original whistling-walrus tweet came from Matthew. Listen to it go!

An excellent tweet from Simon, showing the necessity of science, and the futility of faith, during this pandemic:

Two tweets from Heather Hastie. This first one breaks my heart:

And a surprising hoarder:

https://twitter.com/planetpng/status/1240076780796600322

Tweets from Matthew. First, the director of the National Institutes of Health reacts to another Trumpism:

A black panther, which in this case is simply a leopard with a mutation giving it a dark coat. (In the New World, “black panthers” are jaguars that carry a similar mutation.)

Watch this BBC segment and tell me if you don’t think the Brits produce the world’s best eccentrics. One of my favorite books when I was younger was Dame Edith Sitwell’s The English Eccentrics. 

A cat plays Super Mario Bros 3!!

Friday: Hili dialogue

March 20, 2020 • 6:45 am

It’s the end of a week even worse than the last one: it’s Friday, March 20, 2020, and another celebration of cultural appropriation: National Ravioli Day.

The most important holiday today is Atheist Pride Day, so let your godless flag fly! It’s also a United Nations Holiday: International Day of Happiness. (Remember that sporadically the UN surveys the countries of the world to calculate their “happiness index”. The happiness of the world’s nations is inversely proportion to their religiosity! ). It’s also National Bock Beer Day, French Language Day, “Won’t You Be My Neighbor” Day, celebrating the birthday of Fred Rogers in 1928, and Bibliomania Day, celebrated on this day because:

[It was on] March 20, 1990, Stephen Blumberg’s bibliomania caught up with him. He was arrested for stealing more than 23,600 books (weighing 19 tons) from 268 libraries, universities, and museums. It had taken him over 20 years to steal them, and he got them from 45 states, Washington D.C., and Canada. After originally being thought to be valued at around $20 million, the value of the books was estimated at $5.3 million. He is known as the number one book thief in American history and became known as the Book Bandit. The books he stole, which included a first edition of Uncle Tom’s Cabin among other rare books, became known as the “Blumberg Collection.”

An acquaintance of Blumberg, Kenneth J. Rhodes, turned him in for a $56,000 reward. During Blumberg’s trial, a psychiatric doctor let it be known that Blumberg had gone through psychiatric treatment as an adolescent. The defense claimed that Blumberg had stolen the books because of psychiatric issues beyond his control. According to the defense, Blumberg had thought he was saving the books from destruction by stealing them. He thought that the government was trying to keep them so that everyday people wouldn’t have them, and he thought he was acting as custodian of the books and doing something good. Because he was well-intentioned, he said he would have never sold any of the books for a profit, and hoped they would go to another person who would take good care of them after he was gone. Nonetheless, he was sentenced to 71 months in prison and given a $200,000 fine, and insanity or psychology wasn’t factored into the decision. He was released on December 29, 1995, and has since been arrested for burglary multiple times.

And it’s World Sparrow Day, designed to raise awareness of the lovely but overlooked house sparrow, Passer domesticus. Here’s a photo of a female feeding her offspring:

Photo by L. B. Tettenborn, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution

Today’s Google Doodle (click on screenshot) goes to a YouTube video in which Ignaz Semmelweiss (1818-1865), who saved multitudes of lives by introducing handwashing to medicine, presents the WHO guidelines for how to properly wash your hands. (Note his short life: read the link to see the ironic way he died.)

News of the Day: As usual these days, it’s pretty much bad. The governor of California has issued a “shelter in place” order for his 40 million residents, and the virus continues to spread worldwide, except in China. And Senator Richard Burr of North Carolina benefited from what might be conceived as “insider trading”: selling hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of stock after Trump declared that the pandemic was not as serious as people imagined, even though Burr believed otherwise. (h/t: cesar)

Matthew, who’s teaching remotely from home, is lounging in bed but working, and is wearing his famous dinosaur pyjamas (for Americans, pajamas). After I begged him sufficiently hard, he sent me a photo (oy! he’s wearing fuzzy slippers, too!):

Stuff that happened on March 20 includes:

  • 1616 – Sir Walter Raleigh is freed from the Tower of London after 13 years of imprisonment.
  • 1852 – Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin is published.
  • 1854 – The Republican Party of the United States is organized in Ripon, Wisconsin.
  • 1915 – Albert Einstein publishes his general theory of relativity.

For the life of me, I can’t find an image of the paper with a March, 1915 date on it. Otherwise I would have posted it.

  • 1922 – The USS Langley is commissioned as the first United States Navy aircraft carrier.
  • 1923 – The Arts Club of Chicago hosts the opening of Pablo Picasso’s first United States showing, entitled Original Drawings by Pablo Picasso, becoming an early proponent of modern art in the United States.
  • 1933 – Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler ordered the creation of Dachau concentration camp as Chief of Police of Munich and appointed Theodor Eicke as the camp commandant.
  • 1985 – Libby Riddles becomes the first woman to win the 1,135-mile Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race.

Riddles also loves cats and has two, Ester and Chilkat (a great name). Here she is with Ester:

  • 1985 – Canadian paraplegic athlete and humanitarian Rick Hansen begins his circumnavigation of the globe in a wheelchair in the name of spinal cord injury medical research.

Fox traveled over 40,000 km on his circumnavigation, finishing with a roll across Canada. Here he is:

  • 1995 – The Japanese cult Aum Shinrikyo carries out a sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway, killing 13 and wounding over 6,200 people.
  • 2000 – Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin, a former Black Panther once known as H. Rap Brown, is captured after murdering Georgia sheriff’s deputy Ricky Kinchen and critically wounding Deputy Aldranon English.

Al-Amin remains in prison, having been convicted of murder and sentenced to life without parole.

Notables born on this day include:

  • 43 BC – Ovid, Roman poet (d. 17)
  • 1811 – George Caleb Bingham, American painter and politician, State Treasurer of Missouri (d. 1879)

Here’s Bingham’s most famous painting, “Fur traders descending the Missouri” (1845). It’s at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. Now, is that a fox or a cat in the prow? Why is it there?

  • 1828 – Henrik Ibsen, Norwegian poet, playwright, and director (d. 1906)
  • 1904 – B. F. Skinner, American psychologist and author (d. 1990)
  • 1906 – Ozzie Nelson, American actor and bandleader (d. 1975)
  • 1922 – Carl Reiner, American actor, director, producer, and screenwriter
  • 1925 – John Ehrlichman, American lawyer, 12th White House Counsel (d. 1999)
  • 1928 – Fred Rogers, American television host and producer (d. 2003)

Here’s an appropriate quote from Mr. Rogers:

When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, “Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.” To this day, especially in times of “disaster”, I remember my mother’s words and I am always comforted by realizing that there are still so many helpers—so many caring people in this world.

  • 1940 – Mary Ellen Mark, American photographer and journalist (d. 2015)

Here’s one of Mark’s famous photos, “Ram Prakash Singh with his elephant Shyama, Great Golden Circus, Ahmedabad, India, 1990”.

From the Guardian
  • 1947 – John Boswell, American historian, philologist, and academic (d. 1994)

Boswell, who became a famous historian at Yale writing largely about gay issues, lived across the hall from me in college sophomore year. He was gay (back then it was kept under wraps) and died of AIDS at the age of only 47.

  • 1957 – Spike Lee, American actor, director, producer, and screenwriter
  • 1958 – Holly Hunter, American actress and producer
  • 1925 – George Curzon, 1st Marquess Curzon of Kedleston, English politician, 35th Governor-General of India (b. 1859)

Those who were done for on March 20 include:

  • 1974 – Chet Huntley, American journalist (b. 1911)
  • 1997 – V. S. Pritchett, English short story writer, essayist, and critic (b. 1900)
  • 2017 – David Rockefeller, American billionaire and philanthropist (b. 1915)

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili joins those giving us good advice in the Time of Virus:

Hili: Never lick a door knob.
A: Yes, I’ve read that viruses like them
In Polish:
Hili: Nigdy nie liż klamek.
Ja: Tak, czytałem, że wirusy je lubią.

And Szaron, who’s getting increasingly tame, has a few words to say about the world:

Szaron: I will tell you: not everything is clear yet.

In Polish: Szaron: Ja ci powiem, nie wszystko jest jeszcze jasne.

Szaron: Ja ci powiem, nie wszystko jest jeszcze jasne.

Posted on Frans de Waal’s public Facebook Page, “a Large frogmouth with chick, in Malaysia, by Yfeng Lim”:

Posted by my friend Moto:

A picture from a tweet by TheWitchesHammer (h/t: Muffy)

 

An appropriate analogy here:

Tweets from Barry. First, Anthony Hopkins’s cat keeps him healthy:

. . . and a response:

Two tweets from Heather Hastie. Mr. Lumpy the badger is a nasty piece of work, hoarding bogroll and turning up his nose at cookies:

Not only this, but a dolphin appeared in the city’s canals for the first time in 60 years:

https://twitter.com/ikaveri/status/1239660248207589383

Tweets from Matthew. The first is bittersweet, but mostly bitter (read about the Drancy lager, located just outside Paris, here).

This is a lovely computer-generated image:

From the Arctic to the Antarctic and back: the world’s longest migration.

Thursday: Hili dialogue

March 19, 2020 • 6:45 am

It’s Thursday, March 19, 2020: the first day of Spring in the Northern Hemisphere. That’s celebrated with a Google Doodle that links to the announcement (click on screenshot below).

‘

It’s also National Oatmeal Cookie Day, the worst of all possible cookies, and National Chocolate Caramel Day as well as Oranges and Lemons Day. Finally, it’s National Poultry Day and, appropriately, Let’s Laugh Day and Certified Nurses Day.

Stuff that happened on March 19 includes:

  • 1649 – The House of Commons of England passes an act abolishing the House of Lords, declaring it “useless and dangerous to the people of England”.
  • 1861 – The First Taranaki War ends in New Zealand.
  • 1895 – Auguste and Louis Lumière record their first footage using their newly patented cinematograph.

Here’s a 6.5-minute compilation of those first films from 1895, now 125 years old. These were the first movies that could be projected (Edison’s kinetograph was seen through a binocular-like apparatus, and his films weren’t this sharp). I find these mesmerizing, and the way people dressed seems much fancier than today:

And here’s their early motion-picture camera which was hand cranked:

Uploaded by Victogrigas. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license.
  • 1918 – The US Congress establishes time zones and approves daylight saving time.
  • 1931 – Gambling is legalized in Nevada.
  • 1943 – Frank Nitti, the Chicago Outfit Boss after Al Capone, commits suicide at the Chicago Central Railyard.
  • 1954 – Willie Mosconi sets a world record by running 526 consecutive balls without a miss during a straight pool exhibition at East High Billiard Club in Springfield, Ohio, setting a record that remains unbroken.

That’s an amazing feet of pool. Here’s a short video (2.25 minutes) recounting that record:

  • 1962 – Highly influential artist Bob Dylan releases his first album, Bob Dylan, for Columbia Records.

Can you name one song from that album? (Click the link for answers.) However, I think his later albums, Highway 61 Revisited and Nashville Skyline, are better.

  • 1982 – Falklands War: Argentinian forces land on South Georgia Island, precipitating war with the United Kingdom.
  • 2018 – The last male northern white rhinoceros, Sudan, dies, ensuring a chance of extinction for the species.

This is a subspecies of the white rhinoceros (the other being the northern white rhinoceros), and, since only two females are left, the subspecies will almost certainly go extinct—but not the species. Here’s a photo of one of the two remaining females from Smithsonian Magazine:

Najin, one of only two female northern white rhinos left in the world, walks in the pen where she is kept for observation. (AP Photo/Sunday Alamba)

.Notables born on this day include:

  • 1844 – Minna Canth, Finnish journalist, playwright, and activist (d. 1897)
  • 1848 – Wyatt Earp, American police officer (d. 1929)
  • 1891 – Earl Warren, American lieutenant, jurist, and politician, 14th Chief Justice of the United States (d. 1974)

Reader Rick sent in a quote from Warren, which came as a “Thought for the Day”:

Many people consider the things government does for them to be social progress but they regard the things government does for others as socialism. -Earl Warren, Chief Justice of the US Supreme Court (19 Mar 1891-1974)
  • 1904 – John Sirica, American lawyer and judge (d. 1992)
  • 1905 – Albert Speer, German architect and politician (d. 1981)
  • 1906 – Adolf Eichmann, German SS officer (d. 1962)
  • 1933 – Philip Roth, American novelist (d. 2018)
  • 1947 – Glenn Close, American actress, singer, and producer
  • 1955 – Bruce Willis, German-American actor and producer

Those who died on March 19 but didn’t find eternal life include:

  • 1930 – Arthur Balfour, Scottish-English politician, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (b. 1848)
  • 1984 – Garry Winogrand, American photographer (b. 1928)
  • 1997 – Willem de Kooning, Dutch-American painter and educator (b. 1904)
  • 2008 – Arthur C. Clarke, British science fiction writer (b. 1917)

Winogrand is one of the great “street photographers” of our time, a genre whose master was Henri Cartier-Bresson. Here’s a good Winogrand photo:

New York, 1969. Photograph: The Estate of Garry Winogrand/Courtesy Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco

 

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, the cherry trees are getting ready to bloom!

Hili: We have to hurry with pruning of the trees because everything is coming back to life.
A: Yes, this year everything is happening earlier than usual.
In Polish:
Hili: Trzeba się spieszyć z przycinaniem drzew, bo już się budzą do życia.
Ja: Tak, wszystko jest w tym roku wcześniej niż zwykle.

A manipulated photo posted by reader Avis: Rock in the Time of Virus:

From Nicole:

Posted on FB by Margaret Downey:

Titania has a new piece in The Critic Magazine (characterized as “a contrarian conservative magazine”) criticizing freedom of speech. An excerpt from the Queen’s article:

And in these days of the internet, it’s even easier for people to say wrong things to a wider audience. This is why we must campaign for tighter controls on internet freedom. As committed left-wing activists, our priority must be to ensure that corporations in Silicon Valley are empowered to set the limits of what we can and cannot say.

As the great social justice pioneer Mary Whitehouse put it, “Bad language coarsens the whole quality of our life.  It normalises harsh, often indecent language, which despoils our communication.” Today we call this “hate speech”, a crime for which the death penalty ought to be reinstated. Militant state control of citizens’ thoughts is a small price to pay to enforce a tolerant society.

Two tweets from Heather Hastie. First, a bear who craves a nightly swim:

We all know Trump’s Panglossian view of the pandemic, even now he says he predicted everything. The more he says, the more I despise him. For example, see below:

Tweets from Matthew:

Yes, the Earth has been slowing down over time. In the Devonian, we can tell that there were 400 days per year, and that’s exactly in line with the rate calculated from physics and this bivalve:

Try your hand at this:

I hope this cheers you up:

https://twitter.com/ziyatong/status/1240303392188248070?s=11

The thread below this tweet shows a similarly aberrant lower jaw of a sperm whale. It was apparently somewhat functional, as it’s from an adult. I guess it could open and close, and that was sufficient for survival:

Poor eel:

Wednesday: Hili dialogue

March 18, 2020 • 7:00 am

We’ve made it through this wretched week to Hump Day: March 18, 2020. It’s National Sloppy Joe Day (a sandwich unknown in the rest of the world), as well as National Lacy Oatmeal Cookie Day (whatever they are, and I eat oatmeal cookies only under duress). It’s also two weird holidays: National Forgive Mom and Dad Day, and Awkward Moments Day.

The big news, besides the spread of the coronavirus, is Biden’s sweep in yesterday’s primary elections of Florida, Illinois, and Arizona. Here’s the current delegate count (Biden needs 1,991 delegates to win the nomination.

I think we can assume that Biden is going to be the Democratic nominee. . .  I am, however, chagrined at the many readers who seem to think Trump is a shoo-in come November’s election. Perhaps he is, but I am happy with my bet against him. But will we even have a Democratic convention this summer?

Good luck, Bernie, and thanks for all the fish—and thanks for your honesty and consistency, though I wasn’t completely on board with your platform. I hope you support Biden when the dust settles.

Stuff that happened on March 18 includes:

  • 1850 – American Express is founded by Henry Wells and William Fargo.
  • 1865 – American Civil War: The Congress of the Confederate States adjourns for the last time.
  • 1915 – World War I: During the Battle of Gallipoli, three battleships are sunk during a failed British and French naval attack on the Dardanelles.
  • 1922 – In India, Mohandas Gandhi is sentenced to six years in prison for civil disobedience, of which he serves only two.

Here is Gandhi in 1922:

  • 1940 – World War II: Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini meet at the Brenner Pass in the Alps and agree to form an alliance against France and the United Kingdom.
  • 1965 – Cosmonaut Alexei Leonov, leaving his spacecraft Voskhod 2 for 12 minutes, becomes the first person to walk in space.

And here’s a two-minute video of that spacewalk, which must have required considerable bravery:

Notables born on this day include:

  • 1495 – Mary Tudor, Queen of France (d. 1533)[4]
  • 1782 – John C. Calhoun, American lawyer and politician, 7th Vice President of the United States (d. 1850)
  • 1837 – Grover Cleveland, American lawyer and politician, 22nd and 24th President of the United States (d. 1908)
  • 1869 – Neville Chamberlain, English businessman and politician, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (d. 1940)
  • 1909 – Ernest Gallo, American businessman, co-founded the E & J Gallo Winery (d. 2007)
  • 1932 – John Updike, American novelist, short story writer, and critic (d. 2009)
  • 1941 – Wilson Pickett, American singer-songwriter (d. 2006)
  • 1950 – Linda Partridge, English geneticist and academic

Happy 70th to Linda, with whom I once collaborated on Drosophila field work. I have to say, that work was very clever! Click to see the paper (from The American Naturalist):

  • 1969 – Shaun Udal, English cricketer
  • 1970 – Queen Latifah, American rapper, producer, and actress

Those who packed it in on March 18 include:

  • 1745 – Robert Walpole, English scholar and politician, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (b. 1676)
  • 1768 – Laurence Sterne, Irish novelist and clergyman (b. 1713)
  • 1845 – Johnny Appleseed, American gardener and missionary (b. 1774)
  • 2009 – Natasha Richardson, English-American actress (b. 1963)
  • 2010 – Fess Parker, American actor and businessman (b. 1924)
  • 2017 – Chuck Berry, American guitarist, singer and songwriter (b. 1926)

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili decries the use of ads on websites. But Listy has no ads, prompting Hili’s comeback.

Hili: Ads again!
A: They have to make money on something.
Hili: They will not make much on me.
In Polish:
Hili: Znowu jakieś reklamy.
Ja: Na czymś muszą zarabiać.
Hili: Na mnie dużo nie zarobią.

From Wild and Wonderful. Look at this gorgeous duckling!

Two fake but funny tweets sent by reader Bruce:

From Merilee:

From Jesus of the Day:

From reader Ken: they’re playing pranks on poor Tom Hanks:

From Barry. We all know about social distance and precautions for the aged now, but why not hear it from Mel Brooks and his son?

 

From Simon: more on Chicago’s Shedd Aquarium penguins, who were allowed to walk around the exhibits to relieve their boredom in the absence of people:

Tweets from Matthew. Have some sympathy for this bird displaying his heart out to impress the female. She was not impressed.

I’m not sure what the “experiment” is here, but

Yes, it’s the Cuomo brothers embarrassing themselves on CNN. Jebus, what were they thinking?

 

Tuesday: Hili dialogue

March 17, 2020 • 6:30 am

It’s Tuesday, the cruelest day: March 17, 2020, and it’s also cruel to the American Irish, as it’s St. Patrick’s Day (the traditional date given for the saint’s death in 461 AD). But throughout the U.S., nearly all celebrations and parades are closed. Even the traditional dyeing of the Chicago River to bright green has been canceled.

As I am dispirited, posting may be lighter than normal. I don’t want to write about the pandemic, as I have nothing to say; I have no expertise, and I’m unable to predict what will happen. My only plans are to feed myself and my ducks.

As for food, it’s National “Eat Like the Irish” Day, with scare quotes that imply that there’s something wrong with eating like the Irish. And anyway, the restaurants in Illinois are closed, and isn’t this cultural appropriatio anyway? But, to honor the Irish, it’s also Corned Beef and Cabbage Day: one of my father’s favorite dishes (I prefer my corned beef on pastrami with mustard).  Finally, it’s National Submarine Day; here’s the genesis of the holiday:

On March 17, 1898, St. Patrick’s Day, Irish-born engineer John Philip Holland demonstrated a submarine he designed, the Holland VI, for the U.S. Navy Department, off the coast of Staten Island. During the demonstration, the vessel was submerged for 1 hour and 40 minutes. Holland launched the submarine the year before, on May 17, 1897, after it was built at the Crescent Shipyard in Elizabeth, New Jersey. The submarine was noteworthy for having features that would become the standard for submarines in future years. It and other of Holland’s submarines are also noteworthy for being the first to run on electric batteries when submerged, but on internal combustion engines when on the water’s surface. We celebrate the Holland and all other submarines on March 17 each year.

Stuff that happened on March 17 include:

  • 1776 – American Revolution: The British Army evacuates Boston, ending the Siege of Boston, after George Washington and Henry Knox place artillery in positions overlooking the city.
  • 1861 – The Kingdom of Italy is proclaimed.
  • 1942 – Holocaust: The first Jews from the Lvov Ghetto are gassed at the Belzec death camp in what is today eastern Poland.
  • 1950 – Researchers at the University of California, Berkeley announce the creation of element 98, which they name “californium”.
  • 1969 – Golda Meir becomes the first female Prime Minister of Israel.
  • 1973 – The Pulitzer Prize-winning photograph Burst of Joy is taken, depicting a former prisoner of war being reunited with his family, which came to symbolize the end of United States involvement in the Vietnam War.

Every year I post about this, and every year I have to give the sad story of the photo’s aftermath. The picture takes on a while different cast when you read what’s below:

Despite outward appearances, the reunion was an unhappy one for Stirm. Three days before he arrived in the United States, the same day he was released from captivity, Stirm received a Dear John letter from his wife Loretta informing him that their marriage was over. Stirm later learned that Loretta had been with other men throughout his captivity, receiving marriage proposals from three of them. In 1974, the Stirms divorced and Loretta remarried, but Lt Col Stirm was still ordered by the courts to provide her with 43% of his military retirement pay once he retired from the Air Force. Stirm was later promoted to full Colonel and retired from the Air Force in 1977.

After Burst of Joy was announced as the winner of the Pulitzer Prize, all of the family members depicted in the picture received copies. All depicted children display it prominently in their homes except for Colonel Stirm himself, who says he cannot bring himself to display the picture.

Low resolution, fair use image of an historic photograph by Slava “Sal” Veder, 1973. Minnesota Historical Society
  • 1992 – A referendum to end apartheid in South Africa is passed 68.7% to 31.2%.

Notables born on this day include:

Oates, a British Captain known as “Titus”, was one of the five men who made the dash to the South Pole in Scott’s party on the Terra Nova expedition (I talk about this on my “Terra Nova and Science” lecture I gave in Antarctica). Weak and starving, and unwilling to be a burden to the three remaining men who had survived on the way back, Oates walked out of his tent into a blizzard, knowing he would die. As Scott wrote in his diary (a book found with the three frozen bodies months later): “”We knew that poor Oates was walking to his death, but though we tried to dissuade him, we knew it was the act of a brave man and an English gentleman.” Scott also wrote that as Oates left the tent he said, “I am just going outside and may be some time.” He was only 32 years old, and his body was never found. Some day a glacier will expel it at the edge of the ice shelf.

Here’s the altruistic Captain Oates:

 

  • 1881 – Walter Rudolf Hess, Swiss physiologist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1973)
  • 1902 – Bobby Jones, American golfer and lawyer (d. 1971)
  • 1919 – Nat King Cole, American singer, pianist, and television host (d. 1965)
  • 1938 – Rudolf Nureyev, Russian-French dancer and choreographer (d. 1993)
  • 1944 – Pattie Boyd, English model, author, and photographer

Boyd, as you may know, was married to George Harrison and then divorced him to marry Eric Clapton. She is the subject of this Derek and the Dominoes song, which I still consider the best of all rock songs except for the slow second bit. The solo that starts at 2:56 is pure vintage Clapton—a treat for the ears. You can stop listening at 4:00, when the slow bit begins. (Yes, yes, I know that at least one reader will say that the slow part is the best, or an integral part of the whole.)

Here’s Boyd as Layla:

Source
  • 1972 – Mia Hamm, American soccer player
  • 1979 – Stormy Daniels, born Stephanie Gregory, American adult film actress

Those who croaked on March 17 include.

  • 1782 – Daniel Bernoulli, Dutch-Swiss mathematician and physicist (b. 1700)
  • 1871 – Robert Chambers, Scottish geologist and publisher, co-founded Chambers Harrap (b. 1802)
  • 1956 – Irène Joliot-Curie, French physicist and chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1897)
  • 1965 – Amos Alonzo Stagg, American football player and coach (b. 1862)
  • 1974 – Louis Kahn, American architect and academic, designed Jatiyo Sangsad Bhaban (b. 1901)
  • 1993 – Helen Hayes, American actress (b. 1900)
  • 2006 – Oleg Cassini, French-American fashion designer (b. 1913)

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili has her priorities right:

Hili: Friendship is important but don’t forget to fill up the refrigerator.
A: I understand your concern.

In Polish:

Hili: Przyjaźń jest ważna, ale nie wolno zapominać o zaopatrzeniu lodówki.
Ja: Rozumiem twój niepokój.

A great cartoon from Jesus of the Day:

From reader Bruce. (How many Beasts with Two Backs were incited by back rubs?).

From Wild and Wonderful: “A Mosquito’s foot at 800X magnification”:

Godfrey Elfwick, the male equivalent of Titania McGrath, has a spoofy and woke new article at The Spectator:

From reader Barry. Arnold is back, along with Whiskey and Lulu.

 

Tweets from Matthew. Greg Mayer told me about this penguin walk yesterday, adding that he heard that some of the fish behaved weirdly, as if they knew something other than humans were looking at them.

Excited kitty is excited.

I suspect we’re going to have a lot of virus-related tweets in the next few days. Here’s a bored guy playing tic-tac-toe with his cat. The cat will always lose, and it doesn’t like it. You’ll have to watch the video by clicking through to Twitter.

The cat is a sore loser!

Yo-Yo Ma is playing cello remotely for healthcare workers. Ceiling Cat bless those brave and dedicated people!

This happened to me once after lecturing; I headed to the bathroom after lecture and forgot to remove my mike or turn it off. Fortunately, I met someone and chatted with them for a minute, and someone in the lecture hall, hearing me talk over the PA, came out and told me.

But this poor schlub will be tarred forever!

And something to cheer us all up:

https://twitter.com/planetpng/status/1237796725831712768?s=11