Category: Hili Dialogue

Thursday: Hili dialogue

April 7, 2022 • 7:45 am

Welcome to a chilly Thursday: April 7, 2022. It’s National Beer Day. And Wikipedia gives us the annual beer consumption per year (I don’t know if they counted just adults or everyone, but I don’t think it matters much for the ranking. The Czechs take top billing, while the U.S. is number 20. The article lists 61 countries, with Indonesia weighing in at a pathetic consumption of 0.7 liters of beer per person per year. I could drink the average Lithuanian’s yearly consumption of beer during one dinner! But oy, those Czechs:  140 liters per person per year; that’s nearly twice the annual consumption of the US and 1.4 times the consumption of Germany.

Stuff that happened on April 7 includes (I’m truncating this section from now on as it’s time-consuming):

  • 451 – Attila the Hun sacks the town of Metz and attacks other cities in Gaul.
  • 1141 – Empress Matilda becomes the first female ruler of England, adopting the title ‘Lady of the English’.
  • 1724 – Premiere performance of Johann Sebastian Bach’s St John Passion, BWV 245, at St. Nicholas Church, Leipzig.
  • 1805 – German composer Ludwig van Beethoven premieres his Third Symphony, at the Theater an der Wien in Vienna.

Two great pieces of music premiered on this day. Here’s a portrait of Beethoven painted in 1820 when he was still alive, so this is surely what he looked like:

Portrait by Joseph Karl Stieler, 1820
  • 1922 – Teapot Dome scandal: United States Secretary of the Interior Albert B. Fall leases federal petroleum reserves to private oil companies on excessively generous terms.
  • 1940 – Booker T. Washington becomes the first African American to be depicted on a United States postage stamp.

Here it is (it doesn’t show the M.G.s):

  • 1943 – The Holocaust in Ukraine: In Terebovlia, Germans order 1,100 Jews to undress and march through the city to the nearby village of Plebanivka, where they are shot and buried in ditches.

The Ukraine (and the Jews) don’t get a break. Out of thousands of Jews who lived in that town before the war, only 50-60 survived.

  • 1955 – Winston Churchill resigns as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom amid indications of failing health.
  • 1968 – Two-time Formula One British champion Jim Clark dies in an accident during a Formula Two race in Hockenheim.

Here’s a short bio of one of the greatest drivers of all time, and, by all accounts, a truly nice human being. Many consider him the best racing driver of all time.

For an excellent movie about this massacre, see the 2004 movie “Hotel Rwanda“.  It’s a very, very good film.  Over half a million people were killed in a bit more than three months. Here’s the trailer.

  • 2020 – COVID-19 pandemic: China ends its lockdown in Wuhan.
  • 2020 – COVID-19 pandemic: Acting Secretary of the Navy Thomas Modly resigns for his handling of the COVID-19 pandemic on USS Theodore Roosevelt and the dismissal of Brett Crozier.
  • 2021 – COVID-19 pandemic: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announces that the SARS-CoV-2 Alpha variant has become the dominant strain of COVID-19 in the United States.

Notables born on this day include:

Here’s a portrait though he’s not one of my favorite poets:

  • 1897 – Walter Winchell, American journalist and radio host (d. 1972)
  • 1915 – Billie Holiday, American singer-songwriter and actress (d. 1959)

Greatest jazz singer ever, male or female. Here she is wearing her customary gardenia. She died at only 44

CIRCA 1939: Jazz singer Billie Holiday poses for a portrait in circa 1939 with a flower in her hair. (Photo by Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images)
  • 1929 – Joe Gallo, American gangster (d. 1972)
  • 1931 – Daniel Ellsberg, American activist and author
  • 1954 – Jackie Chan, Hong Kong martial artist, actor, stuntman, director, producer, and screenwriter.

I’ve never seen a Jackie Chan movie, but here are 6 minutes of highlight fight scenes:

Those who kicked the bucket on April 7 include:

  • 1614 – El Greco, Greek-Spanish painter and sculptor (b. 1541)

El Greco painted elongated figures. Some historians have attributed this to a case of astigmatism, asserting that he painted the way he actually saw people.  Explain in the comments why this can’t possibly be true:

Barnum (below) is often credited with saying “There’s a sucker born every minute,” but there’s no record that he ever said that.

  • 1947 – Henry Ford, American engineer and businessman, founded the Ford Motor Company (b. 1863)
  • 1968 – Edwin Baker, Canadian co-founder of the Canadian National Institute for the Blind (CNIB) (b. 1893)
  • 1968 – Jim Clark, Scottish race car driver (b. 1936)
  • 1972 – Joe Gallo, American gangster (b. 1929)
  • 2020 – John Prine, American country folk singer-songwriter (b. 1946)

I was never a big fan of Prine, though many were. In fact, this is the only song he wrote that I really like:

I don’t have time to reprise the news reports today, but presumably you can see the major news for yourself. Here’s the NYT headlines (click to read):

And the NYT’s headlines:

As Ukrainian leaders stepped up their demands on Western allies to provide further support, NATO foreign ministers were meeting in Brussels on Thursday to discuss expanding military aid to Ukraine, and the European Union was considering yet another round of sanctions on Russia, including a possible ban on Russian coal.

Dmytro Kuleba, the Ukrainian foreign minister, who was also in Brussels, said his agenda for the NATO meeting contained only three items: “Weapons, weapons and weapons.”

Ukraine has said that more military supplies from Western countries are needed to save lives and defeat Russian forces, which have pulled back from most of northern Ukraine but are believed to be refocusing for a fuller offensive against the east and south. But the NATO allies’ discussions were expected to focus on how to help Ukraine without entangling the alliance in direct combat with Russian forces.

Meanwhile, Mariupol still has not been evacuated by the Red Cross despite repeated Russian promises that a humanitarian convey would be let through

*The NYT has video footage of an armored Russian vehicle shooting at an unarmed bicyclist in Bucha, Ukraine. Although you can’t tell from the video what happened to the cyclist. Evidence collected after the fact strongly suggested he was killed. It’s not just Putin who should face war-crimes charges, unless these soldiers argue that they “were just following orders.”

*To match that, the Russians are using a new type of land mine in Ukraine that is brutal. The POM-3 mines are launched by rockets, and fall to earth. You don’t have to step on them to trigger them: a human walking nearby can detoate the mine, which can throw lethal fragments up to 50 feet away. This is not only barbaric, but will make the job of clearing unexploded mines unbelievably harder.

*The Washington Post reports that both of Putin’s adult daughters, Katerina Vladimirovna Tikhonova and Maria Vladimirovna Vorontsova, are to be sanctioned as well.  What’s not clear is whether they are his daughters, as nobody at the Kremlin, including Putin, has admitted that they’re his offspring.  Nor have they. But the U.S. suspects that some of Putin’s wealth is hidden among his relatives, like these two daughters. An excerpt:

Identified by the U.S. Treasury Department as Putin’s children, both women appear to work with and benefit from the Russian state apparatus. According to the department, Tikhonova is a tech executive whose work supports the Russian government and the country’s defense industry, and Vorontsova leads state-funded genetics research programs that have received billions of dollars from the Kremlin and are personally overseen by Putin.

Here is a photo and caption of the two from the Indian Express:

(From Indian Express): Russian President Vladimir Putin has two children, Maria and Katerina, from his marriage to Lyudmila Putina, a former Aeroflot steward whom he divorced in 2013. (Reuters)

*Matthew sent me a link to a piece on the BBC News with a really wonderful finding: a fossil has been found of a dinosaur that was probably killed by the famous asteroid strike, with its death due directly to the strike on the death the object hit Earth!

Scientists have presented a stunningly preserved leg of a dinosaur.

The limb, complete with skin, is just one of a series of remarkable finds emerging from the Tanis fossil site in the US State of North Dakota.

But it’s not just their exquisite condition that’s turning heads – it’s what these ancient specimens purport to represent.

The claim is the Tanis creatures were killed and entombed on the actual day a giant asteroid struck Earth.

The day 66 million years ago when the reign of the dinosaurs ended and the rise of mammals began.

Very few dinosaur remains have been found in the rocks that record even the final few thousand years before the impact. To have a specimen from the cataclysm itself would be extraordinary.

. . .Along with that leg, there are fish that breathed in impact debris as it rained down from the sky.

We see a fossil turtle that was skewered by a wooden stake; the remains of small mammals and the burrows they made; skin from a horned triceratops; the embryo of a flying pterosaur inside its egg; and what appears to be a fragment from the asteroid impactor itself.

“We’ve got so many details with this site that tell us what happened moment by moment, it’s almost like watching it play out in the movies. You look at the rock column, you look at the fossils there, and it brings you back to that day,” says Robert DePalma, the University of Manchester, UK, graduate student who leads the Tanis dig.

I don’t think this finding has been reviewed in a scientific journal, but will be presented on a show by David Attenborough. And some scientists think that the other findings implying death on the Day of Impact, like early fish with particles stuck in their gills, could have resulted from the post-impact fallout.  So right now we have a suggestive but not conclusive hypothesis, but not one that’s passed formal scientific review. It’s pretty clear that the impact had a major influence on the death of the dinosaurs, but the excitement is about Death on the Day of Impact, not the causal influence of the impact itself on extinction.

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili is hungry. That is “dog bites man” news.

Hili: The bowls are empty.
A: So what can I do?
Hili: Fill them up.
In Polish:
Hili: Miseczki są puste.
Ja: Co mam zrobić?
Hili: Napełnić.

x

From Jesus of the Day. Another problem with poor grammar and punctuation:

From Facebook:

Umm. . . is this a good idea? That damn cat will be walking or running around underneath your bed all night. (from Beth):

From Masih:

From Geth, who says “The eyes follow you around the room.” (He is half the staff of two black cat sisters.)

Look at the speed of that color change! The most amazing this is that the pigment cells are caused by the squid’s perception of its environment, and yet are instantaneous:

From the Auschwitz Memorial, detailing a successful escape from the camp on this day in 1944:

Tweets from Matthew. Translation of the first one: “There was a giant salamander.” Indeed! This is in a river near Hiroshima, Japan. I don’t think this is a radiation-produced mutant!

This is depressing but true: read the NYT story here.

These are free-swimming marine gastropods (molluscs):

A parrot trying (successfully) to be a cat. Be sure to watch till the end:

I have NO idea what’s going on here but I’m pretty sure that bird doesn’t eat mustelids. Maybe the stoat-like creature’s just practicing it’s “play dead” behavior.

 

Wednesday: Hili dialogue

April 6, 2022 • 7:40 am

I have landed will produce a truncated Hili dialogue today as I recover from my trip and get up to speed. Greetings on a Hump Day (“Araw ng ubok”, as they say in Filipino), April 6, 2022: National Caramel Popcorn Day. And of course the absolute best caramel popcorn in the world can only be obtained at Garrett’s Popcorn Shops in Chicago. (You can order it in tins, but it’s best freshly popped. What you really want is half caramel popcorn and half cheese corn, which Chicagoans in the know call “Garrett mix.” It sounds weird, but it’s absolutely scrumptious:

One more time: please add any events, births, or deaths on this day that you find worthy of note: consult the Wikipedia page for April 6.

Here’s the banner headline from today’s New York Times (click on screenshot to read):

Here is their news summary:

President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine pushed world leaders to impose more “powerful sanctions” on Russian banks and energy companies as he criticized their response to the invasion of his country. Hours earlier, he showed the U.N. Security Council a graphic video of what he called war crimes committed by Russian forces against civilians in the city of Bucha.

“Now is a crucial moment, especially for Western leaders,” said Mr. Zelensky in a translation of his evening speech to Ukrainians. “After what the world saw in Bucha, sanctions against Russia must be commensurate with the gravity of the occupiers’ war crimes.”

While Russia has denied committing war crimes, European leaders are scheduled to vote on Wednesday on measures that could cut off imports of Russian coal. It will be a test for the continent, which depends on oil, natural gas and coal from Russia. So far, Europe remains divided on blocking Russian gas.

Biden has announced a new ratcheting-up of sanctions on Russia, though it involves restrictions on only two banks. And the Red Cross convoy supposed to bring aid to and evacuate people from Mariupol STILL hasn’t it through, thanks to Russian interference. It seems like at least two weeks since they’ve been trying, but the latest report, yesterday, says this: “The latest hurdle for the convoy came on Monday, when members of the team were detained on the outskirts of Mariupol. The team was released Monday night.”

Finally, it’s no been confirmed that Russians wantonly killed civilians in areas around Kyiv. The NBC Evening News last night had a heartbreaking piece on some of these murders, showing the dead, their graves, and interviews with some who were there. Apparently Russians just broke into apartments looking for males, and some of them were summarily executed in the streets. One woman recounted how her husband was simply taken in to the streets, stripped of his warm clothing, and shot in the head. I hope, but do not expect, that Russian leaders will be tried for war crimes for incidents like this (and many others.

*There is also lots of non-war news, most of it not as depressing.

*The bad news is that Oklahoma is set to pass the strictest abortion law in the county, which is so unconstitutional that I can’t believe it passed. Here’s what PBS New Hour says, which also calls the bill “A tipping point in the fight against Roe v. Wade”

Oklahoma’s state House voted 78-19 to pass a near-complete ban on abortions in mid-March, legislation that would go farther than the Texas six-week ban on which it was modeled.

Under the Oklahoma bill, abortions would be banned immediately after conception unless it met one of two exceptions: “to save the life of a pregnant woman in a medical emergency” or if the pregnancy was the “result of rape, sexual assault, or incest that has been reported to law enforcement.”

The bill, which abortion rights advocates call the strictest anti-abortion bill in the country if passed, is now headed to the state Senate next week for a vote. [JAC: This was from March 31 so it may be passed this week, and the state’s governor has vowed to sign it if the Senate passes it, which of course it will:

Oklahoma’s state House voted 78-19 to pass a near-complete ban on abortions in mid-March, legislation that would go farther than the Texas six-week ban on which it was modeled.

The law would make performing an abortion a felony, but only the doctor would be punished, and could get up to ten years in stir.

*Thanks to many people who reported that some of Darwin’s notebooks, which were priceless bits of science history, and had been stolen from the Cambridge University archives, were mysteriously returned. The BBC reports:

Two “stolen” notebooks written by Charles Darwin have been mysteriously returned to Cambridge University, 22 years after they were last seen.

The small leather-bound books are worth many millions of pounds and include the scientist’s “tree of life” sketch.

Their return comes 15 months after the BBC first highlighted they had gone missing and the library launched a worldwide appeal to find them.

“I feel joyous,” the university’s librarian Dr Jessica Gardner says.

. . But who returned the two postcard-sized notepads is a real whodunit. They were left anonymously in a bright pink gift bag containing the original blue box the notebooks were kept in and a plain brown envelope.

The wrapping (all photos from Cambridge University Library):

On it was printed a short message: “Librarian, Happy Easter X.”

The note:

And one of the two missing notebooks contained the first sketch by anyone of a tree showing a genealogical relationship between species, along with Darwin’s famous “I think” comment (below).

This was a major heist, and wasn’t even announced until 15 months ago. Those notebooks (one show below the diagram) are worth millions of pounds:

Notebook “B”. There’s a lot more in the article, so do read it if you’re a Darwin or evolution aficionado.

*Reader Steve sent a link to a paper in ScienceAlert reporting that Ecuador has become the first country in the world to recognize the rights of individual animals, though there are animal-welfare laws in many countries.

While some countries struggle to uphold human rights, Ecuador has forged ahead and ruled wild animals possess distinct legal rights, including the right to exist.

This 7-2 court ruling in February was a landmark interpretation of the country’s “rights of nature” constitutional laws and elevated the legal status of nonhuman animals.

“In America, the rights of nature sounds like a fringe idea, but people don’t realize how mainstream it is around the world,” Kristen Stilt, an expert in animal law, told Inside Climate News.

The case involved a woolly monkey named Estrellita that was a pet for 18 years in a home, and learned to socialize with the family. The locals then seized the monkey and put it into captivity, where it had a cardiac event and died:

Before hearing of her death, Burbano filed a case to get Estrellita back, citing the distress Estrellita was likely experiencing, having been so abruptly torn from everything familiar to her.

The case relied on scientific evidence of the cognitive and social complexity of woolly monkeys (Lagothrix sp.) to argue Estrellita “should at minimum possess the right to bodily liberty” and the “environmental authority should have protected Estrellita’s rights by examining her specific circumstances before placing her in the zoo.”

The court ruled that both the authorities and Burbano [the family who had her] violated Estrellita’s rights, the former for failing to consider her specific needs before relocating her and the latter for removing her from the wild in the first place.

Oh, and a bit more. Ecuador is leading the world in animal-right legislation!

The decision follows a landmark ruling in Ecuador last year that found mining in a protected cloud forest violates the rights of nature.

Ecuador was the first country in the world to recognize the rights of nature at a constitutional level back in 2008.

I hope reader/biologist Lou Jost, who works in Ecuador, will comment on this.

*You may remember that in his latest book, John McWhorter gave three cures for racism, and that was all, he said, was needed. They were teach everyone to read using phonics, end the war on drugs, and stop making everyone go to college. He expands on the latter in his latest column in the New York Times, “College became the default. Let’s rethink that.” He not only criticizes college as a requirement to succeed in the work force, but also attacks the notion that you have to finish high school before you go to college (that’s what McWhorter did). An excerpt:

True, in-class instruction, with its required attendance and the availability of professors for questions, has its advantages, as does the experience of spending four years interacting with a wide range of people. But the question is whether those advantages are so very important as to justify continuing to think of college, including the expense and debt involved, as a default American experience. There is no sacrosanct reason for keeping students in high school through 12th grade, and even less for enshrining eight further semesters of formal education as something we quietly pity people for having done without.

We think of four years of high school and four years of college as normal, because it’s what we know. But we could be a society of solidly educated people if we improved and bolstered public education while reclassifying a college education as a choice among many. Call this a pipe dream — I realize it wouldn’t happen overnight. But I suspect quite a few would see Botstein’s idea as valuable if we rolled back the tape and started over. That kind of hypothetical is invaluable to assessing where we are and where we might like to go.

*A piece read. On March 31 writer Margaret Atwood was awarded the sixth annual Hitchens Prize, to honor “writers whose work exemplifies “a commitment to free expression and inquiry, a range and depth of intellect, and a willingness to pursue the truth without regard to personal or professional consequence.”  I didn’t even know there was a Hitchens Prize, but you can see more details and a list of the five other winners here.

The Atlantic reprinted Atwood’s speech in response, called “Your feelings are no excuse“, mostly reprising her interactions with Hitchens, imagining what he’d think of today’s messes, and limning the ways they were similar. (h/t Stephen). A quote:

Having feelings was not a thing back then. We would not have admitted to owning such marshmallow-like appendages, and if we did have any feelings, we’d have considered them irrelevant as arguments. Feelings are real—people do have them, I have observed—and they can certainly be plausible explanations for all kinds of behavior. But they are not excuses or justifications. If they were, men who murder their wives because they’re feeling cranky that day would never get convicted.

You can’t exist as a writer for very long without learning that something you write is going to upset someone, sometime, somewhere. Whether you end up with a bullet in your neck will depend on many factors—there are lots of bullets, and some necks are thicker than others—but let us pause to remember that the most important meaning of freedom of expression is not that you can say anything you like without any consequences whatsoever but that the bullet should not be your government’s, and it should not be fired into your neck for an expression of political views that don’t coincide with theirs.

The New York Times should have adopted this concept of freedom of speech instead of using their own misguided definition in their pompous op-ed on the topic. To them, freedom of speech gives people “the right to speak their minds and voice their opinions in public without fear of being shamed or shunned.” Only a bunch of doofuses could write that.

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili and Andrzej engage in their usual repartee:

A: What are you doing?
Hili: I’m searching for a smart answer to your question.
In Polish:
Ja: Co robisz?
Hili: Szukam mądrej odpowiedzi na twoje pytanie.

From Nicole: the best cat poem ever! And drawings!:

From Divy:

I posted this on Facebook two years ago, but can’t remember where I got it:

He’s infallible, you know!

From Barry, who uses this as an example of places where secular education never took hold in America:

From the Auschwitz Memorial:

Tweets from Matthew. Chocolate bilbies have long been a fashion at Easter in Australia, but now there’s a monotreme. I’d eat the bill first:

I’ve never heard of this cuvée, but I guessed the wine would be good, and one comment on the thread says as much:

I haven’t read this paper yet, but I suppose it suggests that the cost of being colorful, either in both sexes (as in macaws) or in one sex (birds of paradise), is less when food is abundant. But I don’t see why that should be, unless “when life is easier” also means “there’s less chance of predation.” But I refuse to buy the argument that bright colors are fripperies. They could be to help you recognize other individuals of your species or, in the case of sexual selection, could appeal to female preferences:

This is fantastic!:

Sound up. I’m surprised at how much music is being made outside by Ukrainians as the Russians try to destroy their country. Sound up.

Tuesday: Hili dialogue

April 5, 2022 • 6:03 am

Jerry is in transit so his British amanuensis is filling in. Normal service will soon be resumed.

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili is pondering the fundamental question of cat existence.
A: What are you waiting for?
Hili: I’m thinking whether to go in or out.
Ja: Na co czekasz?
Hili: Zastanawiam się, czy wejść, czy wyjść.

 

Apart from the horror of the war, the big news of the day is that two of Darwin’s notebooks, including one with the famous ‘I think’ diagram in it, have been mysteriously returned safe and sound to Cambridge University library, together with this enigmatic note:

 

Here’s Dr Jessica Gardner, one of the librarians, with one of the notebooks:
No one knows who the culprit is. Adam Rutherford denies all knowledge:

Monday: Hili dialogue

April 4, 2022 • 6:45 am

Where I am now: writing on my laptop in bed at the Santiago Airport Holiday Inn. It was a nightmare getting here from the ship: TONS of paperwork to disembark and then, in the heat, a packed, un-airconditioned bus with a crazy driver who first got us stuck in a traffic jam and then GOT LOST and had to get out and ask directions. Then he let all the crew off about a 15-minute hike in the heat from the hotel, with many of them had havingbeen on the ship for months and trying to haul tons of luggage. What should have been a 1.5 hour trip maximum took about four, and I’m still recovering after quaffing tons of water. (Once again my thirst was slaked within seconds.)

My lovely view of Terminal 1:

(I’ve recovered after breakfast.)

See how much I can kvetch when I just came back from a fantastic month in Antarctica? It should have chilled me out literally and figuratively, but here I am back in the rat race of documents, schedules, and airports, and the anxiety is already seeping back into my psyche.

Well, welcome anyway to Monday, April 4, 2022:  National “Cordon Bleu” Day.  What is that, you ask? Wikipedia is your friend!

A cordon bleu or schnitzel cordon bleu is a dish of meat wrapped around cheese (or with cheese filling), then breaded and pan-fried or deep-fried. Veal or pork cordon bleu is made of veal or pork pounded thin and wrapped around a slice of ham and a slice of cheese, breaded, and then pan fried or baked. For chicken cordon bleu chicken breast is used instead of veal. Ham cordon bleu is ham stuffed with mushrooms and cheese

And what does the name mean?

The French term cordon bleu is translated as “blue ribbon”.[4] According to Larousse Gastronomique cordon bleu “was originally a wide blue ribbon worn by members of the highest order of knighthood, L’Ordre des chevaliers du Saint-Esprit, instituted by Henri III of France in 1578. By extension, the term has since been applied to food preparation to a very high standard and by outstanding cooks. The analogy no doubt arose from the similarity between the sash worn by the knights and the ribbons (generally blue) of a cook’s apron.”

I’ve never had any dish of this type. Here’s chicken cordon bleu:

And for a couple more days I’ll ask readers to help me out by going to the Wikipedia page for April 4 and singling out in the comments any notable events, births, or deaths.

*Here’s today’s banner headline (online) from the New York Times. Click to read:

The top news:

As the world reacted in horror to images of dead bodies lying in the streets of Kyiv’s suburbs — some with their hands bound — President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine called on Western leaders to take tougher steps to ensure that the killings blamed on retreating Russian forces were the “last manifestation of such evil on earth.”

The photos of civilians, who Ukrainian officials said had been executed, prompted some European leaders to demand further sanctions against Russia, potentially including a cutoff of Russian gas. But European Union nations remained divided on Monday over such a drastic step, underscoring the bloc’s dependence on Russian energy, even as some Western allies said that Russia had committed war crimes.

Russia denies executing civilians, and these incidents have not been absolutely confirmed, but I doubt that the Ukrainians would fake these executions. That would involve shooting their fellow citizen in the head and then binding their hands! Here’s one example:

In Bucha, bodies lay in yards and roadways days after Russian troops withdrew from the area. A mother described burying her daughter under plastic sheeting and boards after Russian forces shot her. At a mass grave, a pile of excavated dirt lay nearby to pile onto bodies, as shoes and body parts protruded from a thin layer of earth.

And nobody can claim that these civilians were executed because they were acting as soldiers, bearing weapons, firing at Russians, and therefore “available” to be shot. That doesn’t fly because these people had been captured, and even if they were apprehended in combat they should at worst be POWs. Plus some of them are children. This is the sign not of war, but of genocide.

*The EU, dependent on Russian gas, is still reluctant to tighten the sanctions further by cutting off that gas, but it’s very strange that the EU would still do business with a regime that is involved in genocide of Ukrainians.

*I would have thought that Biden’s handling of the war in Ukraine would have boosted his popularity, but that doesn’t seem to be the case. An op-ed in the Washington Post frets about the Prez’s low approval rating and why it remains so low (41%!):

Democrats who hoped that the strong monthly job numbers and the war in Ukraine would buoy Biden’s poll numbers have been thoroughly disappointed. After a brief rise in early March, the president’s approval rating sits at a lowly 41 percent in the RealClearPolitics average. The party’s chances of holding the Senate rest on a knife edge at best, and the prospects of a Democratic House next year grow dimmer by the day.

“I’m not quite sure what the disconnect is between the accomplishments,” [Hillary] Clinton told NBC’s Chuck Todd, “… and some of the polling.” But the answer is clear: In a new Harvard CAPS-Harris poll, the top two issues for Americans were inflation (32 percent) and the economy (27 percent). Bloomberg economists estimate that inflation will cost households an extra $5,200 this year. And as I noted last fall, though the administration may be proud of its achievements, many Democrats and most independents think Biden has accomplished little as president.

And he’ll accomplish even less if the Democrats lose big in the midterms. The author, James Downie, recommends that the Dems adopt the tactics that Amazon workers used in Staten Island to successfully unionize:

Like those Amazon workers, Democrats cannot be afraid to fight. Just because a handful of moderate holdouts have derailed key parts of Biden’s legislative agenda doesn’t mean the struggle is over. While a president has no boss to “antagonize,” Democrats can take on other people’s bosses — both proverbial and literal. Building on the president’s “billionaire minimum income tax” with executive actions to lower drug prices, strengthen overtime, boost worker protections and tackle student debt will provide immediate relief to millions and reinvigorate unmotivated voters.

Well, I’d like to hear what James Carville has to say.

*Former basketball great Kareem Abdul-Jabbar has an eponymous Substack site, and it’s a good one, ranging thoughtfully over a range of topics. The man is a polymath: the next thing you know he’ll be making breakfast foods: “Kareem of Wheat.” But seriously, folks, his pieces are well worth a look, and one of the best is his take on Slapgate, called “Will Smith did a bad, bad thing.”   (h/t: Richard) An excerpt:

Some have romanticized Smith’s actions as that of a loving husband defending his wife. Comedian Tiffany Haddish, who starred in the movie Girls Trip with Pinkett Smith, praised Smith’s actions: “[F]or me, it was the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen because it made me believe that there are still men out there that love and care about their women, their wives.”

Actually, it was the opposite. Smith’s slap was also a slap to women. If Rock had physically attacked Pinkett Smith, Smith’s intervention would have been welcome. Or if he’d remained in his seat and yelled his post-slap threat, that would have been unnecessary, but understandable. But by hitting Rock, he announced that his wife was incapable of defending herself—against words. From everything I’d seen of Pinkett Smith over the years, she’s a very capable, tough, smart woman who can single-handedly take on a lame joke at the Academy Awards show.

This patronizing, paternal attitude infantilizes women and reduces them to helpless damsels needing a Big Strong Man to defend their honor lest they swoon from the vapors. . . .

*Reader Malcolm recommends we read the post by David Lat at Original Jurisdiction: “Is free speech in American Law schools a lost cause?”  There’s no firm prognostication, but Lat says this:

One final thought: I can’t believe I’m having to write a defense of a free-speech regime in which people listen respectfully to the other side, even when they find the other side’s views abhorrent, as opposed to a free-speech regime where “freedom” belongs to whoever can yell the loudest. You would have expected—and hoped—that law students, as future lawyers, would understand the value of the former and the problems with the latter.

When these law students become lawyers, and many of them have to go to court or a negotiating table, they will have to listen to the other side—whether they like it or not, and no matter how “offensive,” “triggering,” or “violent” they find the views of the other side to be. Shouting down opposing counsel, then claiming that you’re just engaging in your own form of “free speech” or “zealous advocacy,” will not fly in the world beyond Yale Law School.

*And another op-ed article for your delectation, with the link sent by several readers. From Microsoft News via Newsweek: “Scientific institutions are going woke—and hemorrhaging credibility.” This is not news to many of us immersed in academic science, but people might be startled at the degree to which ideology has infused science.  The piece is a bit exaggerated (for example, I don’t think that the fulminating wokeness of science is the reason people are resistant to science like covid advice, but there’s certainly truth it it:

This phenomenon is called institutional capture, which refers to what happens when organizations get caught in a moral puritanical movement and lose sight of their primary missions—as places of knowledge, objective learning, and the free exchange of ideas.

And then these same organizations are befuddled when the public doesn’t trust them on critical issues such as vaccines or climate change.

Part of the issue is that scientific institutions are signaling allegiance with progressive culture war causes. This not only turns off half the population on the other side of these debates (as well as many on the center), but it makes these organizations appear ideological rather than neutral. They appear untrustworthy—or even nuts.

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn: Hili muses on how the war puts things in perspective:

Hili: I wonder.
A: What about?
Hili: What were we worried about before the war?
In Polish:
Hili: Zastanawiam się.
Ja: Nad czym?
Hili: Czym martwiliśmy się przed wojną?

And here is Karolina cuddling an unhappy Kulka, with a caption and the explanation:

Caption: “Today there is an Advent retreat in school and Karolina stayed at home, for she would as soon sit in a Polish Mass as in a Turkish sermon.”

In Polish: Dziś w szkole rekolekcje, więc Karolina zostaje w domu, bo siedziałaby na polskiej mszy jak na tureckim kazaniu.
Malgorzata’s explanation:  “In the strange hidden theocracy in Poland,  all nominally secular schools are obliged to send all Catholic pupils to the church a few times a year for a religious retreat. Non-Catholic pupils stay at home. And the explanation for ‘Turkish sermom’:. It’s a popular description of something totally incomprehensible.

Some takes on Slapgate sent by Divy:

And a cat toy (for staff, actually), sent by Nicole:

From Jesus of the Day:

 

Here are the top recent searches on this website. The answer to the second question is “YES!”

I don’t know which of the cakes in the second tweet below is the most amazing, but I have to say that the oyster cake is truly remarkable. I have no idea what that first tweet is about, but I couldn’t embed the second without the first (I’ll have to learn to do that some day):

As I mentioned earlier, for some reason I get a small selection of tweets sent to me daily in my Gmail account. I don’t know how this happened, but there’s some good ones. Here’s one:

And here’s another (I really AM sick of long threads). If you often have a lot to say, get a website!

And yet another:

Tweets from Matthew. Go to the reddit video for full appreciation:

Ukrainian soldiers and their cats (there’s some other animal in there, too):

Well, I’ll be! Did you know there were gastropods with two shells?

Translation of the tweet below from Google:

One of the shellfish in Okayama prefecture that must not be forgotten is the snail Tamanomidorigai, which has a bivalve-like shell but is actually a snail. In 1959, Professor Shiro Kawaguchi (at that time) of the Tamano Seaside Experiment Station, Okayama University, surprised the world by reporting raw shellfish for the first time. It has antennae, eyes, and radula, and the fetal shell at the top of the shell is rolled, so it is a clear snail. It grows on Iwazuta in the tide zone. …

Would you put this in your home?:

Sunday: Hili dialogue

April 3, 2022 • 6:30 am

Where we are now: The ship’s real-time map shows us where we should be: at the docks in Valparaiso, the port for Santiago. I was awake when we pulled up alongside the pier at 5:30 or so, and docking was surprisingly smooth:

The passengers will begin leaving the ship at about 8 a.m., and, as crew, we leave last: a bit before noon.  Then to the airport hotel to cool our heels. I have a PCR test tomorrow morning and my flight leaves tomorrow evening, arriving in Houston about 5:30 a.m. Tuesday morning

The harbor at Valparaiso; it seems that half the Chilean Navy is here:

And its fabled hills. I spent four or five days in this town in 2019, waiting for our late ship to arrive.

Rabbit at rest: A panorama of the docks; we’re moored next to a bunch of cargo containers.

Greetings on a Santiago Sunday: it’s, April 3, 2022, National Chocolate Mousse Day, an estimable dessert when made properly, as at Chez Denise in Paris.

If you want to help out with “this day in history”, go to the Wikipedia page for April 3 and give us your favorite notable events, births, and deaths.

Before you read the news below, take today’s New York Times news quiz, with eleven questions. I got eight, and failed the pop-culture and sports questions, as well as the Coors question.

*The NYT “big story”, which was a banner headline last night, says that Russian troops seem to have given up trying to take Kyiv. An especially horrifying report involves evidence (not yet verified by the media) that the Russians executed some civilians directly. Click screenshot to read:

However, it is a banner in the Washington Post (click to read):

The major news from the NYT:

As Russian troops retreated from areas outside Kyiv, the Ukrainian capital, they left behind devastation that is only now becoming clear. Civilians have emerged from basement shelters to clamor for bread distributed by the Ukrainian soldiers retaking territory. The husks of destroyed tanks clutter roads. Mines and booby traps have been hidden amid the wreckage. Bodies lay uncollected in streets littered with debris.

The dead include civilians, some of whom Ukrainian officials have accused Russian forces of executing. Footage posted by Ukraine’s Defense Ministry and photographs from The New York Times and Agence France-Presse showed the bodies of men in civilian clothes on the streets of Bucha, a town northwest of Kyiv. In one photo, three people were seen lying on a roadside beside a pile of wooden pallets, blood darkening the ground beside them, one with white cloth binding his hands.

It’s not clear if the Russians will renew their assault on Ukraine’s capital or have retreated and regrouped for a fresh attack, but what is clear is that much of the city is in ruins and the assault continues in the eastern part of the country, with missile attacks on Odesa. This picture of people grabbing for loaves of bread in Kyiv, given (uncredited) in the NYT, shows how desperate the situation is:

Despite reports that Zelensky and Putin would meet for peace talks in Istanbul, that appears to be b.s.:

Russia’s chief negotiator in peace talks, Vladimir Medinsky, rejected a Ukrainian counterpart’s suggestion that Presidents Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine and Vladimir V. Putin of Russia could soon hold direct talks. Mr. Medinsky said the two sides remained far apart on the status of Crimea and the eastern Donbas region, both of which are claimed by Russia. Russia says the status of Crimea, which it annexed in 2014, is settled, while Ukraine has proposed a 15-year negotiation process.

And, the “evacuation” of Mariupol by the Red Cross, scheduled for yesterday, once again failed as the relief convoy didn’t reach the city. It’s clear that the Russians don’t want this to happen, but the Red Cross will try again today.

From the Post, discussing Russia’s withdrawal from around Kyiv:

The shift reflects a recognition in Moscow that Russia can no longer accomplish its original goals, analysts say. After making initial gains, its forces have stalled on most of the fronts they advanced on, and they have meanwhile suffered huge losses in terms of equipment and soldiers.

*Remember Oberlin College’s battle with Gibson’s Bakery, with the court ruling that Oberlin, after repeatedly libeling the bakery by accusing it of racism, awarded $50 million in damages? That seems ages ago, and it was (see my posts here), and one of the bakery’s owners has since died, but there’s good news for Oberlin now. According to the Wall Street Journal, an appeals court has upheld the huge fine on the College, which has been having severe financial troubles:

A unanimous three-judge panel of the Ohio Court of Appeals handed down a long-awaited decision Thursday in the case of Gibson’s Bakery v. Oberlin College. The court dismissed all of Oberlin’s appellate claims and confirmed the jury’s finding that the college, a small private liberal arts institution in rural Ohio, was liable for libel, intentional infliction of emotional distress, and intentional interference with a business relationship. It then upheld the trial jury’s award to Gibson’s Bakery of $11.1 million in compensatory damages, $33.2 million in punitive damages and $6.3 million in attorneys’ fees.

The appellate judges held that while the trial court had properly found that “the student chants and verbal protests about the Gibsons being racists were protected by the First Amendment,” what separated Oberlin and placed it in a financial vise was the active, irresponsible and defamatory actions of several of its senior administrators. Rather than try to resolve the matter early on or use the resulting guilty pleas as a lesson, Oberlin actively sought to punish Gibson’s Bakery for having a different perspective, for standing by the arrest of the three Oberlin students, and for exercising its right of legal redress.

If I know Oberlin, they’ll further bankrupt the school by appealing higher up (if they can under the law). They’ve already had to put $36 million in escrow, and will eat up more in lawyers’ fees if they pursue this case. It’s time for them to cut their losses.

*The Washington Post gives a number of suggestions (with illustrations) about how to sleep on a plane. They don’t show the best way, which is to have an entire row of seats to yourself and lie down on them. Barring that, and when I have an aisle seat (my favorite), my own position is “The Risky Business,” which does get your legs bumped by people walking by and by passing carts.

*How can you resist reading an article, like this one in the NYT, called “I got lost in a Tokyo station and found the perfect comfort food”?

Kakuni translates to “square simmered” in Japanese. It’s pork belly cooked in a trinity that’s largely synonymous with the country’s cuisine: sugar, sake and soy sauce. The most expensive ingredient is time. But cooking kakuni is wildly simple: After frying your pork lightly for color, you simmer the meat until it’s soft to the touch, rendering most of the fat. This allows the base ensemble to imbue your meal with silky, molten flavor. For all of its simplicity, the dish is wildly consoling. You’re just as likely to find it chalked across the menu board of a bar as in the weeknight rotation of somebody’s home.

. . .Before my first bites of kakuni, my interactions with pork belly were seldom and sporadic: It generally wasn’t my cut of choice. I didn’t eat much bacon as a kid. I hadn’t yet fallen in love with Korean barbecue. Among the Jamaican pork dishes I grew up on, thicker cuts were generally used. And the same was true of the many banh mi I’d wolfed down across Houston, and of the backyard cookouts I’d been privy to in Texas: Great care was taken to avoid the pig’s fattiness. I didn’t know what I was missing.

So I took one bite. And then another. Each chew felt like strumming an entirely new set of chords: velvety and heartening, heightened by its directness. Then it was gone.

A photo and its caption from the article. Be sure to have plenty of rice and cold beer on hand!

Chris Simpson for The New York Times. Food stylist: Maggie Ruggiero. Prop stylist: Sophia Pappas.

*Finally, the Theranos/Elizabeth Holmes saga has been made into an 8-hour Huli miniseries called “The Dropout”. Reviews are generally positive, with Rotten Tomatoes giving it a critics score of 89%.  Amanda Seyfried is particularly singled out for her portrayal of Holmes, even getting that voice accurate. Here’s a trailer, though. I can’t watch it as I’m still on the ship:

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili and Szaron are protective:

Szaron: Do you see this crow?
Hili: I do; she probably thinks that it’s her garden.
In Polish:
Szaron: Widzisz tę wronę?
Hili: Widzę, pewnie myśli, że to jej ogród.
Here’s Karolina kuddling Kulka:

A cat meme from Barry, which is true:

A news sign photographed by Dom. How did this happen?

From Anna:

An Scottish search-and-rescue dog named Skye retires and gets a well-deserved award (retweeted by Ricky Gervais; sound on):

From Simon: An April Fool’s tweet, but one from New Jersey’s real governor:

From Barry, another April Fool’s tweet:

And one more:

Tweets from Matthew. Yes, the story is well known of Darwin’s orchid and the later discovery of the moth he predicted could pollinate it. Now, though, it’s even more interesting: the linked paper shows (for a fee if you don’t have library access!) that male moths (but not females) can respond to bat sonar by jamming it, stymying the predator. Why not the female moths? I don’t want to pay for the paper when I can get it free in Chicago. A minimum of $10, and it goes higher: highway robbery!

I think I’ve posted this one before, which Matthew called “light hearted relief” from the war. It is. If you’ve seen it, well, here it is again:

I’m always amazed by how much stuff these creatures can pack into their cheek pouches.

The best for last: Mother duckling, helped by staff, walks her 10 ducklings, who hatched in the enclosed courtyard of a hospital, though the maternity ward of a hospital to “freedom”. I’ve put the Facebook video below, though I can’t tell whether “freedom” involves what it should: a safe pond or lake (I can’t see the video on the ship).

 

Saturday: Hili dialogue

April 2, 2022 • 7:30 am

Where we are now: The ship’s real-time map shows us heading inexorably towards Valparaiso, the port city for Santiago, where we’ll disembark tomorrow morning (as crew, I leave the ship at about 11). From there it’s an hour by bus to the Santiago airport, where I spend one night, leaving on the evening of April 4 (after yet another PCR test to get into the U.S.).

A closer view showing us recently passing Coronel and Concepción (see below):

Since we’re passing Concepción and Coronel (red arrow above), I did what reader Pyers asked me, and saluted the shore from the ship:

Tip a hat to the 1,600 men killed at the Battle of Coronel which was fought on the 1st of November 1914.  It was the first defeat suffered by the Royal Navy in 100 years and was inflicted by Graf von Spee’s East Asiatic Squadron, which itself would be destroyed a few weeks later on 8 Dec 1914 at the Battle of the Falkland Islands, with the loss of 1,800.

Coronel is on Chile’s central coast, only 32 km from Concepción. Wikipedia says this about the battle:

The engagement probably took place as a result of misunderstandings. Neither admiral expected to meet the other in full force. Once the two met, Cradock understood his orders were to fight to the end, despite the odds being heavily against him. Although Spee had an easy victory, destroying two enemy armoured cruisers for just three men injured, the engagement also cost him almost half his supply of ammunition, which was irreplaceable. Shock at the British losses led the Admiralty to send more ships, including two modern battlecruisers, which in turn destroyed Spee and the majority of his squadron on 8 December at the Battle of the Falkland Islands.

Greetings on the Cat Sabbath: it’s Saturday, April 2, 2022: National Peanut Butter and Jelly Day. I’m willing to bet that of all sandwiches consumed in America on any given day, more of them are PB&J sandwiches than any other type. In fact, perhaps more than half of all sandwiches are PB&J, but I wouldn’t bet on that.

If you want to help out with “this day in history”, go to the Wikipedia page for April 2 and give us your favorite notable events, births, and deaths.

Below are today’s headlines from the New York Times, now compressed to the upper-right corner (click on screenshot to read):

The news summary:

Russian troops are in retreat from areas surrounding Kyiv, the Ukrainian capital, military analysts and Ukrainian officials say, a stunning reversal in what could signal a broader shift in Russia’s assault in the sixth week of war.

It is unclear if the Russian troops are gone from the areas near the capital and further north for good or are trying to regroup after weeks of intense Ukrainian resistance and crippling logistical failures. But they appear, at least for now, to be following through on Russia’s stated intentions to focus more on the east where they already have a strong foothold and where military analysts said they are already scaling up their attacks.

. . . In the eastern part of the country, Russia’s main efforts are now focused on capturing the port city of Mariupol and solidifying control of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, according to an analysis from the Institute for the Study of War, a Washington think tank. Local officials on Saturday said that fighting had intensified in some parts of the region.

The Red Cross convoy scheduled for yesterday, which was supposed to escort citizens out of Mariupol and to deliver supplies, was canceled as the Russians didn’t provide the needed security guarantees. They’re going to try evacuating again today but the convey keeps getting canceled over and over. Who can doubt that it’s the Russians’ fault—that they want those citizens trapped and starved?!

*In other news, the U.S. is going to deliver Soviet-made tanks to the Ukrainians (where are those tanks coming from?) and Russia has announced that it’s ending its cooperation with both the U.S. and Europe on the International Space Station.

*The Washington Post reports that Ukrainians are rushing to evacuate children with cancer. The stories are heartbreaking, as much of the treatment of these children was done in Russia, which is no longer possible, and treatment shouldn’t be interrupted. As we see so often, people are pitching in to help:

Even brief disruptions in the finely calibrated chemotherapy and radiation protocols of the young victims can be disastrous, oncologists say, meaning their transport has to be fast, reliable and supervised even in the calmest of times.

During this war, what has emerged is an elaborate network focused on evacuating some of Ukraine’s sickest kids. Doctors, nurses and specialized volunteers from dozens of countries have cobbled together a pipeline of way-station clinics, buses, ambulances and a hospital train to funnel cancer patients and their families out of the country, to a “Unicorn Clinic” in central Poland, and from there to pediatric centers around the world.

Those who make it out — more than 700 children so far — are becoming some of the most celebrated refugees. One flight to Paris was met by the French first lady. Jill Biden last week visited patients who had been flown to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis.

*The Hill, following up a report from Axios, reports that Biden’s press secretary Jen Psaki will be leaving her position some time this spring for a job at MSNBC. It’s not a sure thing, but here’s what The Hill says:

Psaki’s upcoming departure was first reported by Axios on Friday, with the sources confirming it to The Hill. Psaki will leave the White House for the network around May, according to Axios.

The news follows speculation over whether the press secretary was looking for a job at MSNBC or CNN and while Psaki has been out of the briefing room this week with COVID-19.

Deputy press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre has also been out with COVID-19. White House communications director Kate Bedingfield has held most of the briefings, which was seen as an opportunity to effectively audition for the post.

. . . Psaki has worked with the White House counsel’s office about her departure and no contracts have been signed yet, Axios reported. Additionally, she has talked to senior officials about the move but has not formally announced it to the press team.

Presidential Press Secretaries seem to last about a year these days. Is it a matter of a higher salary at MSNBC? I don’t blame her, actually, because the job of Press Secretary must be a trying one; you have to lie, dissimulate, or coddle the Chief Executive. As of 2021, Psaki was making about $180,000 per year, and you can expect that to be considerably higher if she becomes a correspondent for MSNBC.

*John McWhorter’s NYT column this week draws a parallel between two spontaneous but unfortunate incidents: Biden’s off-the-cuff remark that we can’t let Putin stay in power, and Will Smith’s infamous slap of Chris Rock at the Oscars after Rock joked about Smith’s wife’s baldness. McWhorter attributes the slap to a black “beef” culture which resembles the new “get personal” kind of discourse that Biden used:

In this vein I suspect that Smith was, on a certain level, performing for Black America, supposing that many of his Black fans would see him as going to a perhaps unideal extreme, but one that might be warranted when a man decides to “stand up” for his woman. Smith seems to have been trying for something vernacular, as it were, not unlike Biden letting go with his unfiltered personal take on Putin. But the Oscars incident was a smack seen around the world, where so many saw not “how we do it,” but violence, period.

. . [Smith] was correct to apologize, however awkwardly and self-servingly. Hitting somebody at the Oscars — or at all — cannot qualify as a valiant refusal to put aside what are widely thought of by people of all races as accepted norms. Anyone who harbors the idea that Smith’s actions are understandable should reconsider. There is no lens, including one that reckons racially, through which we ought process assault as a kind of permissible vigilantism.

We live in times when we are taught that authenticity, however defined, is the enlightened default. There’s something to that — at times. But both Biden and Smith would have been better off allowing that sometimes uptight is just right.

*Andrew Sullivan has just had a run-in with a once-popular comedian; an interaction Sullivan he summarizes in his latest Weekly Dish piece, “The problem with Jon Stewart.” I used to like Stewart, but, as Sullivan points out, he’s getting woker and woker. This was on full display when Stewart basically conned Sullivan to fly up to New York to do an interview on race. Sullivan agreed to the request so long as it would be a one-on-one and not a debate. Stewart’s people lied and said, yes, that’s it. But it wasn’t:

But just before the taping, as I emerged blearily from Dishing, I found out, in fact, that there would be two other guests, and that it would, indeed, be a debate. Surprise! As the show started, I also realized for the first time there was a live studio audience and that the episode was called “The Problem With White People” — a title I’d never have been a party to, if I’d known in advance. (I wouldn’t go on a show called “The Problem With Jews” or “The Problem With Black People” either.) At that point I should have climbed carefully off the stake, tamped down the flames, made a path through the kindling, and walked away.

It was the whole 1619+ mishigass, and I’ll give one more excerpt:

Jon Stewart’s insistence that Americans had never robustly debated race before 2020 is also, well, deranged. Americans have been loudly debating it for centuries. There was something called a Civil War over it. His claim that white America has never done anything in defense of black Americans (until BLM showed up, of course) requires him to ignore more than 300,000 white men who gave their lives to defeat the slaveholding Confederacy. It requires Stewart to ignore the countless whites (often Jewish) who risked and gave their lives in the Civil Rights Movement. It requires him to erase the greatest president in American history. This glib dismissal of all white Americans throughout history, even those who risked everything to expand equality, is, when you come to think about it, obscene.

[The problem of black inequity] is much more complex than that. And it’s that complexity that some of us are insisting on — and that Stewart wants to dismiss out of hand in favor of his own Manichean moral preening. His final peroration ended thus: “America has always prioritized white comfort over black survival.” Note: always. There has been no real progress; white people have never actually listened to a black person; America is irredeemably racist. Those fucking white men, Lincoln and LBJ, never gave a shit.

It gets even more acrimonious and interesting when Sullivan is forced to debate the head of an organization called “Race2Dinner.” But I’ll let you read that for yourself. It’s a good column.

*Finally, Will Smith, who slapped Chris Rock during the Oscar awards, has resigned from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences after the whole world came down on him. (The Academy is in fact who gave Smith his Best Actor Award for his performance in “King Richard”):

[Smith] described his actions in a written statement as “shocking, painful, and inexcusable.”

“The list of those I have hurt is long and includes Chris, his family, many of my dear friends and loved ones, all those in attendance, and global audiences at home,” he continued. “I betrayed the trust of the Academy. I deprived other nominees and winners of their opportunity to celebrate and be celebrated for their extraordinary work. I am heartbroken.”

Smith said he “will fully accept any and all consequences for my conduct.”

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Karolina is being a little overenthustic in her love for the cats. She tends to grab them and move quickly around them as she’s so energetic, and so the kitties tend to run away when she’s around! Andrzej is trying to teach Karolina to be gentle with Hili, Szaron, and Kulka. Here Hili objects a bit to being rousted:

Karolina: I love cats.
Hili: Can you do it more quietly?
In Polish:
Karolina: Kocham koty.
Hili: A czy możesz to robić ciszej?

First axolotls on Mexican currency, and now the new Scottish ten-pound notes have OTTERS on them! I like this trend. (From In Otter News).  I’m glad they’re not muskrats chewing on cheese.

An artist cat by Harry Bliss, sent in by reader Elsie:

There are tons of pictures of Ukrainians with cats, fleeing with cats, and Ukrainian soldiers with cats. Conclusion: Ukrainians love cats!

From Titania. She’s had a realization, and it has some truth in it. I can’t help but wonder if this signals that her satirical account might soon end. . .

i

Sarah’s tweet below got considerable attention, both pro and con. I tend to agree with her, but then what do you call your dentist—with whom you’re friendly but not on a first-name basis— when you meet him in the street? “Hi, Joe”?  Maybe just “hi”,or “hi doc”?   Using titles is fine in a professional context, though. Read the thread to see all the vehement agreement and dissent.

A tweet from reader Ken with some commentary (reader Andrew also sent this tweet):

Turns out, Ginni Thomas (wife of SCOTUS justice Clarence) was in another cult before Trumpism — Lifespring (although the embedded deprogramming video was recorded in 1986, not 1989):

From Dom. I’m not sure this is a real eBay item, but if it is, didn’t the seller wonder why the scoops would look so strange?

Tweets from Matthew. About this first one he says “This was in Oxford. Crick had his PhD viva in August 1953.” (Note that Crick’s highest degree at the time was a master’s.)

Look at the shiny butt on this bug!

A chemistry lesson with cats:

And some excitement in Dodo Land:

Friday: Hili dialogue

April 1, 2022 • 6:45 am

Where we are now: We left Castro later than expected last night as there was a problem affixing the lifeboat or tender to the ship. The ship’s real-time map shows that we’re now cruising north toward Valparaiso, where we expect to land on April 3.

We are bypassing the large city of Puerto Montt, and will pass through a strait that takes us to the open sea for the rest of the trip.  Puerto Montt is at the end of the Reloncaví Sound, the north terminus of the inland passage along the coast.

From the dining room at breakfast: the Sun makes a crack between the sea and sky:

Greetings on the first day of the month; it’s Friday, April 1, 2022, and April Fool’s Day, but I promise not to fool you. It’s also National Sourdough Bread Day and National Soylent Green Day (but Soylent green is people!).

And as for the month (and one included week), all of April celebrates these comestibles:

National Florida Tomato Month
National BLT Sandwich Month
National Soft Pretzel Month
National Soyfoods Month
National Grilled Cheese Month
National Garlic Month
April 12-18: National Egg Salad Week

If you want to help out with “this day in history”, go to the Wikipedia page for April 1 and give us your favorite notable events, births, and deaths.

*Here’s this morning’s NYT headline. For the second day in a row they’ve replaced a banner headline with a smaller headline at upper left (the place where the most important news goes). Click on screenshot to read:

And the top three latest developments:

Weeks into a relentless Russian siege of the southern Ukrainian city of Mariupol, there were hopeful signs on Friday amid the deepening humanitarian crisis there, with an aid convoy on its way to the port city.

Peace talks between Russian and Ukrainian officials were also expected to resume by video link on Friday. Ukraine’s government has said it is willing to discuss forsaking any aspirations of joining NATO, as well as making territorial concessions if other nations provide security guarantees.

After discussions in Turkey this week, Russia vowed to reduce its presence around Kyiv, Ukraine’s capital, and in the country’s north. But Western defense officials have said that Russia appears to be holding ground around Kyiv and repositioning troops rather than withdrawing them. And Britain’s Defense Ministry said in an assessment on Friday morning that air and missile strikes had continued in the Chernihiv and Kyiv regions.

The second item is the one that most concerns me, as it’s Zelensky saying that he’s willing not only to forsake joining NATO, but is also willing to make “territorial concessions”, i.e., give up part of Ukraine to the Russians. That is precisely what should not be happening. And another NYT article about these “security guarantees” spells them out:

Ukrainian officials envision an arrangement in which a diverse group of countries — potentially including NATO members like the United States, Britain, Turkey, France and Germany — would commit, if Ukraine were attacked, to defending it. To some security analysts, however, that sounds very much like NATO’s doctrine of collective defense by another name.

It’s not just another name for collective defense; it is NATO’s doctrine of collective defense. And it commits us and our allies to fighting Russia if it goes for other parts of Ukraine not covered in the “concessions.”

The advantage of this arrangement is that it stops the killing. The disadvantage is that it is a genuine victory for Putin: in the end he’s gotten what he wants, and I don’t think he cares that much about the death of Russian soldiers (and surely not about the death of Ukrainians), nor about the sanctions imposed on Russia. If this is the way that peace will be brokered, then I think the sanctions on Russia should remain in place so long as Putin remains in power. (And if his successor keeps his policies in place, the sanctions should also remain.)

*The Red Cross is traveling to Mariupol to ensure that the safe passage promised by the Russians actually takes place. It’s estimated that 100,000 people are still trapped in the city. And these “humanitarian” promises by Russia have failed before. But there are no guarantees:

It was not clear if the ICRC [The International Committee of the Red Cross] would be able to enter the besieged city — an adviser to the Mariupol mayor’s office warned residents that “the city remains closed to entry and very dangerous to leave in private vehicles.”

*A surge of terrorist attacks has again ignited clashes between Israelis and Palestinians, and, as usual, it’s Palestinians who initiated the attacks.

Clashes with the Israeli military in the West Bank left two Palestinians dead and an Israeli was stabbed on a bus by a Palestinian amid the deadliest surge of terrorist attacks in the country in years.

In the northern West Bank town of Jenin, Israeli forces conducting an arrest raid came under fire and a shootout ensued, leaving two Palestinians dead and 15 injured, including three seriously from bullet wounds, according to the Israeli military and the Palestinian Health Ministry.

Separately, a 30-year-old Palestinian stabbed and seriously injured an Israeli on a bus near the West Bank settlement of Elazar, near Jerusalem, according to the Israeli military. An armed civilian on the bus shot and killed the assailant, the military said.

Israel has been hit by a wave of terrorist attacks in which 11 Israelis have been killed in the past week. On Wednesday, Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett told civilians in a video message, “Whoever has a license to carry a weapon, this is the time to carry it.”

The attacks have come before the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. The month is usually a time of heightened tensions, especially around Jerusalem, where tens of thousands of Muslim worshipers travel to the Aqsa Mosque to pray. Israel earlier this week also hosted a summit of American, Arab and Israeli diplomats aimed at boosting economic and security ties and helping build an alliance against Iran.

Palestinians are angered up not just by Ramadan, but by the fact that Israel is actually fostering better relationships with Gulf States like the UAE, Qatar, and Bahrain. As these ties strengthen, Palestine’s influence in the Middle East wanes.

*There may be a new covid-19 wave coming—and this useful article will help you prepare. (h/t Jean):

The culprit this time is BA.2, a subvariant of the highly infectious Omicron variant. Nobody knows for sure how much havoc it will cause, but BA.2 has already led to a surge of cases in Europe and is now the dominant version of the coronavirus in the United States and around the world.

Researchers are tracking an uptick in cases in the United States, and they’ve detected a rise in the viral particles recovered from nearly 150 wastewater-surveillance sites. Because people can shed the coronavirus even if they never develop symptoms, pieces of the virus collected in wastewater can serve as advance warning several days before official case counts rise, said Bronwyn MacInnis, who directs pathogen genomic surveillance at the Broad Institute in Cambridge, Mass. Over the past two weeks, Dr. MacInnis’s group has seen a rapid increase in levels of the BA.2 subvariant in the Northeast.

“I don’t think we’re looking at a crazy lockdown scenario in this part of the world with BA.2,” Dr. MacInnis said. “But we can’t be sure that we won’t have another curveball from this virus in the future.”

The suggestions for preparation including keeping those masks on hand, getting some rapid test kits just in case, get that second booster shot when you’re eligible and if you’re 65 and older or immunocompromised (my doctor disagrees, but ask your own physician), make sure you’ve at least gotten your first booster, get a pulse oximeter to monitor your blood oxygen (!), and familiarize yourself with the new oral antiviral medicines for people at high risk.

*You’ll certainly want to read this NYT article, “Want to see the weirdest of Wikipedia? Look no further“, especially after you read the first two paragraphs. This is how to grab a reader:

Did you know that there’s a Swiss political party dedicated to opposing the use of PowerPoint? That some people believe Avril Lavigne died in 2003 and was replaced by a look-alike? Or that there’s a stone in a museum in Taiwan that uncannily resembles a slab of meat?

Probably not — unless, that is, you’re one of the hundreds of thousands of people who follow @depthsofwikipedia. The Instagram account shares bizarre and surprising snippets from the vast, crowdsourced online encyclopedia, including amusing images (a chicken literally crossing a road) and minor moments in history (Mitt Romney driving several hours with his dog atop his car). Some posts are wholesome — such as Hatsuyume, the Japanese word for one’s first dream of the year — while others are not safe for work (say, panda pornography).

I’ve left the links in because you’ll surely want to look at them—and others. the Instagram account was started by Annie Rauwerda, 22, as a pandemic project, and now she has nearly 780,000. The world is hungry for weirdness!

Her followers often pitch her Wikipedia pages to feature, but these days it’s hard to find an entry that will impress Ms. Rauwerda. “If it’s a fun fact that’s been on the Reddit home page, I’m definitely not going to repost it,” she said. “For example, there are only 25 blimps in the world. I’ve known about that for a long time, and it went around Twitter a couple days ago. I was shocked. I was like, ‘Everyone knows this.’”

Here’s one Wikipedia entry that I found on her page:

And here’s the “Meat-shaped stone” in Taiwan, which, according to Wikipedia, is a famous tourist attraction. I looked it up because I had to see it:

The Meat-Shaped Stone (Chinese: 肉形石; pinyin: ròuxíngshí) is a piece of jasper carved into the shape of a piece of Dongpo pork, a popular Chinese way of cooking pork belly. It is part of the collection of the National Palace Museum in Taipei, Taiwan. Although of only moderate importance from the point of view of art history, it is a great popular favourite with visitors and has become famous.

Well, you be the judge!

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili has been reading Sartre:

A: Where are you going?
Hili: In quest of freedom.
In Polish:
Ja: Gdzie idziesz?
Hili: W poszukiwaniu wolności.

A great meme from Diana MacPherson:

From Science Humor (I was born in St. Louis):

From Su. How Ceiling Cat makes rain:

From Titania. For once I think she’s been conned, as I can find no record of these people participating in that event. And even this item, especially the person on the right, is too bizarre to be real—even in these days when you can’t tell satire from truth. I’ve never seen Titania wrong, but this may be a first. Still . . . there is an announcement.

A tweet from Barry:

From Andrew, interspecific play:

From Dom. I wasn’t aware of these flies, and am having it checked out. But if it is real, I suspect it’s not to fend off ants but other predators who are afraid to attack ants (they can taste nasty, bit, and especially squirt formic acid on predators.

Tweets from Matthew. I still have my Christmas wreath up, but it’s a round pillow on the door of my flat, and I think it’s festive to leave it up. But these people have an even better reason:

This boy has a brilliant future ahead of him!

The difference here seems to be mainly sartorial:

The world would be a better place if it were like Dodo World:

 

Thursday: Hili dialogue

March 31, 2022 • 6:30 am

Where we are now: The ship’s real-time map shows that we’ve sailed a ways up the coast of South America and proceeded inland, where there’s a north-south channel. We’re heading toward Chloé Island, where we’ll dock and spend the day in Castro, the largish town that’s the capital of Chloé Province. The town is especially notable for its houses built on stilts (palafitos) to keep the water at bay. There are several paid excursions ashore, but I will forego the bus and wander around on my own. Pictures should be forthcoming.

In the map below, “Castro” is covered up by the blue symbol with an anchor, and at this writing (6:15 a.m.)., we appear to be close to the town.

And a photo of the sunrise at breakfast:

Welcome to the last day of the month: Thursday, March 31, 2022: Oysters on the Half Shell Day.

O Oysters,’ said the Carpenter,
      You’ve had a pleasant run!
Shall we be trotting home again?’
      But answer came there none —
And this was scarcely odd, because
      They’d eaten every one.”

If you want to help out with “this day in history”, go to the Wikipedia page for March 31 and give us your favorite notable events, births, and deaths.

*The NYT has dispensed with its large banner headlines about the war, and today we see this (click on screenshot to read):

And the latest NYT developments:

Despite Russia’s promises to scale back its offensive in parts of Ukraine, the war ground on into its sixth week on Thursday with no end in sight — and worrisome signs that its consequences for Ukrainian civilians and global economies were widening.

Diesel prices are soaring. Germany is taking steps toward rationing natural gas in anticipation of Russia’s potentially cutting off deliveries. The number of Ukrainian refugees has surpassed four million, half of them children. And the United Nations is forecasting the most dire hunger crisis since World War II for a world ordinarily reliant on Ukraine and Russia as major exporters of wheat and other grains.

Video negotiations between Ukraine and Russia will resume Friday, but don’t expect much. Once again the Russians have promised to create a humanitarian corridor out of Mariupol (don’t expect much again; they’ve promised this before), and the NYT adds that “Russian forces have accidentally shot down their own aircraft and refused to carry out orders, one of Britain’s spy chiefs said on Thursday.”

*In his NYT column “What if Putin didn’t miscalculate?“, Bret Stephens raises the possibility that Putin didn’t screw up after all—that everything he’s doing conforms to a nefarious but misunderstood plan:

Suppose for a moment that Putin never intended to conquer all of Ukraine: that, from the beginning, his real targets were the energy riches of Ukraine’s east, which contain Europe’s second-largest known reserves of natural gas (after Norway’s).

Combine that with Russia’s previous territorial seizures in Crimea (which has huge offshore energy fields) and the eastern provinces of Luhansk and Donetsk (which contain part of an enormous shale-gas field), as well as Putin’s bid to control most or all of Ukraine’s coastline, and the shape of Putin’s ambitions become clear. He’s less interested in reuniting the Russian-speaking world than he is in securing Russia’s energy dominance.

“Under the guise of an invasion, Putin is executing an enormous heist,” said Canadian energy expert David Knight Legg. As for what’s left of a mostly landlocked Ukraine, it will likely become a welfare case for the West, which will help pick up the tab for resettling Ukraine’s refugees to new homes outside of Russian control. In time, a Viktor Orban-like figure could take Ukraine’s presidency, imitating the strongman-style of politics that Putin prefers in his neighbors.

It sounds weird, and the conventional scenario may be right, but I’ve thought of rational answers to objections. Why is he attacking Kiev and western Ukraine? Because he wants to destroy so much of the country that they’ll concede to Putin what he wants. What about his despotic censorship of dissent at home? Perhaps that’s exactly the kind of autocracy he wants, and the dissent gives him the chance to impose it.  I’m no pundit, but I don’t think we should sell Putin short. And I don’t want Zelensky to concede one inch of his country.

*The media have finally admitted that the Hunter Biden laptop issue is a Thing, after claiming it was a right-wing fiction. The Washington Post analyzes the deals with the Chinese found on the laptop, deals that, while not directly implicating Joe Biden, show that Hunter benefited from his position as Biden’s son (and didn’t Joe know about this?):

 . . . the new documents — which include a signed copy of a $1 million legal retainer, emails related to the wire transfers, and $3.8 million in consulting fees that are confirmed in new bank records and agreements signed by Hunter Biden — illustrate the ways in which his family profited from relationships built over Joe Biden’s decades in public service.

*Two days ago President Biden signed the Emmett Till Anti-Lynching Act of 2022 into law. (If you don’t know the horrifying story of this Chicago lad, read about it here.) When I saw that on the MSNBC News, I thought “but there hasn’t been a lynching in decades.” It turns out that “lynching” is being used to denote “a hate crime that results in death or serious bodily injury.” And it’s a federal hate crime that can get you up to 30 years in prison (that’s on top of state laws against assault and murder). In a NYT column, for example, Charles Blow argues that Ahmaud Arbery was lynched.”  I suppose assaults on anyone because of their ethnicity or gender can now be considered “lynching”, but I don’t much care because we already have hate-crime laws.

*New York Magazine has a fawning article on AOC, who is worried about the midterm elections coming up in a few months.  She’s worried about Biden’s low approval ratings sinking the Democratic control of the House, but her solution is this: more progressive Democrats. She faults Biden for promising to reach across the aisle, which implicitly calls for an end to bipartisanship.

“I think that there is a sense among more senior members of Congress, who have been around in different political times, that we can get back to this time of buddy-buddy and backslapping and we’ll cut a deal and go into a room with some bourbon and some smoke and you’ll come out and work something out. I think there’s a real nostalgia and belief that that time still exists or that we can get back to that.”

But those days, she says, have been over for a long time. And the fact that Biden and others don’t realize it, she says, could spell disaster in the fall’s elections. With Biden’s low approval numbers and the historic tendency of the president’s party to lose, on average, 26 House seats in the midterms, the Democrats face an uphill battle to keep control of Congress — a situation that requires firing up the party’s progressive base, Ocasio-Cortez said.

“We need to acknowledge that this isn’t just about middle of the road, an increasingly narrow band of independent voters. This is really about the collapse of support among young people, among the Democratic base, who are feeling that they worked overtime to get this president elected and aren’t necessarily being seen,” she said.

Now some of the reforms that she’s been calling for are fine with me (environmental efforts, etc.), but others, like immigration reform, aren’t going to fly well with Democratic voters who aren’t “progressive”.  And of course one could make a good case that if the Democratic Party becomes more “progressive”, our chances of staying “in the game” are even worse.

*This Is a Job for the Webb Space Telescope Department: According to the Washington Post, reporting on a new paper in Science, the old Hubbell Space Telescope has detected the farthest individual star yet seen.

In a report published Wednesday in the journal Nature, a team of astronomers asserts that this is the most distant individual star ever seen. They describe it as 50 to 100 times more massive than our sun, and roughly 1 million times brighter, with its starlight having traveled 12.9 billion years to reach the telescope.

That makes the star 4 billion years older (or its light 4 billion years older) than the next-oldest star, a substantial difference. But there are a few caveats:

As with any stunning claim, this carries caveats and uncertainties, starting with the possibility that it is not a singular star at all. It’s possible Earendel is a pair of stars, or even a trio or more, a common stellar phenomenon in which one bright member of the group does most of the illumination. (Alpha Centauri, the closest sun-like star, is part of a triplet).

Another possibility is that Earendel is, at its core, a black hole — the remnant of a massive individual star that has collapsed. Black holes are invisible, of course, but their gravity can lure rapidly moving and visible material, known as an accretion disk.

The James Webb Space Telescope, scheduled to go online in a few months, should be able to sort out these possibilities.

*The NYT has a short profile on one of my favorite bluegrass guitarists: Molly Tuttle.  (SHe and Billy Strings are the Doc Watsons of our era.) Tuttle actually spurns the label “bluegrass musician”, but in my view that’s what she’s best at. (Here new bluegrass album, “Crooked Tree,” comes out tomorrow.) It also discusses her extreme case of alopecia areata, an autoimmune disease that attacks hair follicles. In her case, it’s taken every hair off her body, so she wears wigs in concert. Hair loss seems to be the only effect, and she’s otherwise healthy. (She discusses the condition openly on her website.) There’s also a video of a song from her new album, though I can’t see it on the ship.

*Finally, according to the Daily Fail, an unnamed teacher at the well known Colchester Grammar School in Essex has been suspended for carrying a Jesus and Mo mug on the playground  (h/t  Steve)

The staff member is said to have been photographed carrying the item in the playground at Colchester Royal Grammar School in Essex.

The white mug appears to feature a cartoon of Jesus Christ and the Prophet Muhammad.

In speech bubbles, the Jesus figure appears to say ‘Hey’, with the Prophet Muhammad figure responding: ‘How ya doin?’

How damning! (That’s the same image that got two University Students threatened by their college when they wore it on tee shirts at a UCL fresher’s fair in London.) There’s more:

Launched in 2005, the simply-drawn webcomic chronicles the lives of two religious prophets – Jesus and Mo – based on the Christian and Islamic faiths and generally understood to represent Jesus Christ and the Prophet Muhammad.

The cartoons poke fun at various aspects of religion, such as arguments for the existence of God.

A school spokesman said: ‘We have been notified that an image has been shared online of an individual appearing to use a cup that has an offensive image on it.

‘At this time we are looking into the matter.

The worst part is this: the paper reproduces a picture of the cup, but blotted out the image:

(From the Fail): said to have been photographed carrying the white mug (above), which appears to feature a cartoon of Jesus Christ and the Prophet Muhammad, in the playground at Colchester Royal Grammar School in Essex

What a cowardly thing to do, but of course the consequences of showing an innocuous depiction of Mohammad could be dire.

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili wants to fly, but you know it’s only so she can more easily catch birds!

Hili: I’m looking and thinking.
A: And?
Hili: I would like to be able to fly.
In Polish:
Hili: Patrzę i myślę.
Ja: I co?
Hili: Chciałabym umieć fruwać.

And here is Andrzej with Karolina from Kyiv, who’s now going to the school in Dobrzyn and picking up Polish rapidly. Malgorzata sent a report on Karolina’s progress:

She goes to school and she loves it. There is another Ukrainian girl her age in her class and the two are now friends but they do not isolate themselves from others: they play with and talk to their Polish classmates. Karolina and the other refugee girl understand more and more Polish and all the kids manage to communicate somehow. The Polish kids have accepted the two girls and when I hear how well it’s  going I have trouble believing in this idyllic picture. But a huge smile on Karolina’s face when I ask her how the school was does much to convince me that this idyll really exists.

Good news! She’s smiling below, too:

From Ducks in Public (but do NOT give them bread!)

From Nicole:

A perpetually surprised cat from Divy:

x

Titania is remarkably prescient (second tweet)!  I haven’t read the article in which “science” is stymied by defining “men” and “women”, but the simple biological answer is the disparity in gamete size. However, it wasn’t fair to ask Justice Jackson to give the biological answer, since few people know it. The first tweet is from last year, also showing La McGrath’s prescience.

From tweets that now come suggested to me by email (how did that happen?):

I can’t vouch for it, but this reminds me of Palestinian propaganda videos in which children bearing arms swear to destroy Israel:

I think this d*g has been trained to do this!

Reader Ken has two tweets for us, with commentary:

Here is a member of the Russian State Duma, on Russian State TV, calling for “regime change” in the US, so that Russia’s “partner” Donald Trump can be restored to the US presidency:

This is on top of Donald Trump’s appearance on the right-wing  tv show “Real America’s Voice” calling on Vladimir Putin (in the middle of the war in Ukraine) to release political dirt (relating to an unfounded conspiracy theory) on sitting US president Joe Biden:

Two tweets from Matthew:

Something has gone badly wrong at this journal!