Category: Leon monologue

Sunday: Hili dialogue (and Leon monologue)

January 27, 2019 • 6:45 am

It’s Sunday, January 27, 2019 and that means it’s National Chocolate Cake Day. It’s also International Holocaust Remembrance Day, honoring the day in 1945 when the Red Army liberated the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp. If you’re ever in Kraków, Poland, do go visit it, as I did a few years ago. I can’t say it’s a pleasant excursion (see my short post on it here), but the visit will remain in your mind the rest of your life.

A tweet to help us remember:

You can read about the liberation of Auschwitz Birkenau here, and here’s a video with interviews of historians and some survivors of the camps:

And a reader sent me a story just a few minutes ago:

Decades ago, when I worked in the anesthesia department of a hospital for special surgery (ophthalmology), one of my patients noted that, as I examined his arms looking for a suitable I.V. site & found his tattoo, a tear well up in my eye; he looked into my eyes, took my hand in his & comforted me!  Such was this survivor who was finally getting his cataracts out.  He did not want pity, but understanding.
On this day in 1302, Dante Alighieri was exiled from Florence for belonging to the wrong faction of a fight between supporters of the Pope and of the Holy Roman Emperor. On January 27, the trial of Guy Fawkes and the other conspirators of the “Gunpowder Plot” began; they were all executed four days later.  On this day in 1820, according to Wikipedia, ” a Russian expedition led by Fabian Gottlieb von Bellingshausen and Mikhail Petrovich Lazarev discovers the Antarctic continent, approaching the Antarctic coast.” On January 27, 1944, the Siege of Leningrad by the Germans, which had lasted 900 days, was lifted. 

Exactly one year later, the Soviet 322nd Rifle Division liberated the inmates of Auschwitz-Birkenau who had not been marched away. On this day in 1967, three Apollo astronauts, Gus Grissom, Ed White, and Roger Chaffee were killed in a fire while their spacecraft was being tested at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Finally, it was on this day in 1996 that Germany first observed the International Holocaust Remembrance Day.

Notables born on this day include Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756), Lewis Carroll (1832), Samuel Gompers (1850), Jerome Kern (1885), Elmore James (1918), Donna Reed (1921), Mikhail Baryshnikov (1948), Mimi Rogers (1956), and Rosamund Pike (1979). Here’s Elmore James, king of the slide guitar, playing “Dust My Broom”:

Those who died on January 27 include Francis Drake (1596), John James Audubon (1851), Giuseppe Verdi (1901), Nellie Bly (1922), Crew of Apollo 1 (1967; see above), Mahalia Jackson (1972), André the Giant (1993), Jack Paar (2004), John Updike (2009), J. D. Salinger (2010), and Pete Seeger (2014). And here’s Audubon’s raven (Corvus corvax) from the Birds of America folio (1840):

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili has a new toy that dispenses cat treats when it’s batted about, but I suspects it annoys her, as she can’t figure out how it works! As Malgorzata wrote me, “This is not a new toy. We had it for about a year and Hili never understood that there are goodies inside and that she could get at them. This cat is not as intelligent as we thought. After a biscuit fell out and she ate it, she looked to Andrzej to produce another one. Last Friday we had a visit from Elzbieta and we gave her the ball to take home. Leon got the trick at once and is now happily pushing the ball and eating biscuits.”

When I wrote back that Leon was smarter than Hili, Malgorzata replied, “Yes, it is definitely so. But we love her anyhow.”

A: Inside this ball are scrumptious cat biscuits. You just have to bat it.
Hili: You do it!
In Polish:
Ja: W tej piłeczce są pyszne chrupki, wystarczy ją popchnać.
Hili: Zrób to.

Leon is still hiking in the mountains of southern Poland. Here he plans a trip:

Leon: I would love to travel where chamois are.
In Polish: Tu chciałbym pojechać,gdzie są kozice.

A tweet from reader Barry, who wonders why the pigeon doesn’t fly away:

https://twitter.com/Koksalakn/status/1089210997884309505

Tweets from Grania. The first is a response by Maajid Nawaz to the “progressive” new Democratic Congresswoman Ilhan Omar, who isn’t that progressive. The incident he refers to is described here. An excerpt:

Omar, who has been under fire for not backing down from anti-Israel rhetoric, and who accused the Covington Catholic H.S. teens on Twitter of “taunting 5 Black men before they surrounded Phillips and led racist chants” (she has since deleted the false accusation), and then accused President Trump of backing a “coup in Venezuela” and installing “a far right opposition” opposed to Socialist Dictator Maduro is now getting heat for a letter that she wrote to a judge in 2016 defending a Minnesota man caught trying to join the terrorist organization ISIS.

Go look at the thread below to see what Germans think Americans eat. It’s funny! Hint to die Deutschen: Wir essen keine Lebensmittel “mini”!

Blissed out cat!

https://twitter.com/EmrgencyKittens/status/1089202556360900609

Like most of us, Shappi Khorsandi is a fan of the unsinkable Titania McGrath. (In the UK, “BAME” refers to black, Asian, and minority ethnic people.) Unlike many, Shappi knows that Titania is a spoof of wokeness.

Tweets from Heather Hastie (via Ann German). This dog is being taught to be nice to birds:

https://twitter.com/StefanodocSM/status/1088741031825293313

Lunch to the right of me; lunch to the left of me. . .

Tweets from Matthew. Laurel and Hardy can’t possibly influence the brainwashed, can they?

A wonderful landing, but not much room for error! This reminds me of flying into the Lukla, Nepal airport in a Twin Otter. Turn the sound on for this one:

Matthew says “zoom in to see”.

Finally, one of the many pictures I took at Auschwitz in 2013. I always intended to do a full post on my visit there, but somehow couldn’t bear to do it. This shows the suitcases of Jews who, told that they would retrieve their belongings after their shower, were then gassed. The Germans kept the suitcases, as they did all the other “saved” possessions. This photo breaks my heart, as the suitcases bear the names and addresses of real people. On display at Auschwitz are also rooms full of toothbrushes, shaving apparatus, prosthetic limbs, and, saddest of all, the dolls of children who were killed.

 

Thursday: Hili dialogue (and Leon monologue)

January 24, 2019 • 6:30 am

It’s Thursday, January 24, 2019, and National Peanut Butter Day (No food for me, as it’s a fasting day).

On this day in 1848, sawmill operator James Marshall found gold in the water by his mill, a discovery that led to the California Gold Rush, which lasted seven years and had huge effects on the state—including the near extirpation of California’s Native Americans.  On January 24, 1857, the University of Calcutta opened, constituting the first real university in South Asia.

On this day in 1908, Robert Baden-Powell founded the first Boy Scout Troop, in the same year he published Scouting for Boys, the fourth best-selling book of all time.

And on January 24, 1972, Japanese Sergeant Shoichi Yokoi was found hiding out in the jungles of Guam, where he had been lurking since 1944. He was originally with nine other Japanese soldiers, which were reduced to three who had contact with each other; but during the last eight years of his nearly 28-year vigil he lived alone in a cave, foraging for food. Discovered and captured in 1972, Yokoi had known since 1952 that WWII was ended, but was afraid to surrender. He returned to Japan, somewhat of a celebrity, collected $300 in back pay and a small pension, and died in 1997.

Yokoi was, however, not the last Japanese soldier to surrender; that honor goes to two others: Second Lieutenant Hiroo Onoda (officially released from duty of March 9, 1974, by his former commander who had traveled to the Philippines from Japan for that purpose) and Private Teruo Nakamura (captured in Indonesia on December 18, 1974).

Here’s Yokoi getting his first haircut in 28 years:

On this day in 1984, the first Apple Macintosh personal computer went on sale in the U.S. I got one shortly thereafter and still have it. It may even work, though it’s a cumbersome and useless relic.  Exactly five years after Macs went on sale, serial killer Ted Bundy was executed by electrocution in the Florida State Prison. Finally, on this day in 2003, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security began operation with its first mission to grope my buttocks at TSA checkpoints.

Notables born on this day include William Congreve (1670), Frederick the Great (1712), Edith Wharton (1862), Theodosius Dobzhansky (1900; my academic grandfather), Ernest Borgnine (1917), Oral Roberts (1918), Desmond Morris (1928), Neil Diamond (1941), Gary Hart (1942), Michio Kaku (1947), John Belushi (1949), Alan Sokal (1955), and Mary Lou Retton (1968).

Here’s a short video giving some facts about Dobzhansky. I started as his graduate student at Rockefeller University, but was drafted in 1971 as a conscientious objector. When I got out of hospital service, Dobzhansky had moved to Davis and was semi-retired, so I wound up studying with his student Richard Lewontin at Harvard.  I consider Dobzhansky’s greatest achievement to be his 1937 book Genetics and the Origin of Species, the founding work of the Modern Synthesis.

Those who died on January 24 include Winston Churchill (1965; PM and Nobel Laureate), Larry Fine (1975), L. Ron Hubbard (1986), and Butch Trucks (2017).

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili doubts the wisdom of a popular cliché:

Cyrus: One has to hope
Hili: I’m not so sure. . . 
In Polish:
Cyrus: Trzeba mieć nadzieję.
Hili: Nie jestem pewna.

And in the snowy mountains of southern Poland, Leon and his staff have finally bestirred themselves to go hiking.

Leon: Adventures ahoy!

In Polish: Ahoj przygodo!

A tweet from Sam Harris. Actually, I suppose someone like Ken Ham would consider the hagfish’s slime to be evidence for the divine: a wondrous adaptation conferred by God.

Tweets from Matthew. This first one, he said, defies belief, and I agree. I’ve tweeted it to the Oxford Museum of Natural History, from whence it came, saying that I want the evidence!

Now the poster appears to be wrong; Elsa got 67 comments and 750 retweets, many of which must have taken the claim as fact!

And Elsa gives her take on the kerfuffle:

Spot the caterpillar! Amazing leaf mimic, no?

Spot the toadlet! (Not that easy. . . ):

Tweets from Grania. More ads with out-of-place cats—but cute ones!

The way the world should be:

Grania asks, “Did this film even need to be made?” I am not as negative as she is, but I haven’t seen it.

https://twitter.com/NewstalkFM/status/1088046797875040257

A relaxed neko which Twitter translates as “could sit out chillin”.

I wrote about Faye’s article yesterday. It turns out that it didn’t say exactly what it seemed to say (see here).

 

Monday: Hili dialogue (and Leon monologue)

January 21, 2019 • 7:15 am

Professor Ceiling Cat is BACK! Many thanks to Grania for doing the Hili dialogues (and the Gillette ad post) in my absence. Thanks as well to all the readers who said nice things on my tenth-anniversary post, and to those who sent me Coynezaa presents, which I didn’t expect. One person sent me a passel of Cadbury Crunchie bars from the UK, which are terrific and I don’t know who that is. Please email me so I can thank you properly! Ditto for CM who sent me a lovely cat book, but whose address I don’t have.

It’s wicked cold in Chicago, with the ambient temperature 8º F (-13º C), and -1º F (-18ºC) with the wind. And there was more snow.

Today is Monday, January 21, 2019, and National Clam Chowder Day, which to me means New England style rather than the debased, tomato-based concoction called “Manhattan Clam Chowder”. It’s also National Hugging Day, invented in 1986. If you’ve hugged someone, weigh in below.

It’s Martin Luther King, Jr. Day in the U.S. celebrating the birthday of the civil rights leader. He was actually born on January 15 (1929), but Ronald Reagan proclaimed the holiday to be on the third Monday in January. It’s a federal holiday, meaning that there’s no mail and that banks as well as most Federal offices are closed. Here’s today’s Google Doodle honoring King, who was assassinated in 1968 at the age of only 39.

It was a rather thin day in history. On January 21, 1789, according to Wikipedia, “The first American novel, The Power of Sympathy or the Triumph of Nature Founded in Truth by William Hill Brown, is printed in Boston.” I have never read it; has anyone? Exactly four years later, after being convicted of treason, Louis XVI, King of France, was executed by the guillotine.

On this day in 1908, New York City, via passage of the Sullivan Ordinance, made it illegal for women to smoke in public. One woman was convicted and fined for flouting the misogynistic law, but the mayor vetoed that law two weeks later. Here’s part of the NYT story (full pdf here):

On this day in 1954, the world’s first nuclear powered submarine, the USS Nautilus, was launched in Connecticut by Mamie Eisenhower, the First Lady. I have vague recollections of boarding that sub in Greece in 1955 or 1956, but I’m probably wrong. Although I don’t have a video of the launching, here’s President Truman participating in the keel-laying ceremony in 1953:

Speaking of firsts (and lasts) in transportation, there were two more innovations on this day that went bust. In 1976, the first commercial flight on the Concorde began with routes from London to Bahrain and also from Paris to Rio. The plane flies no more. And exactly five years later, production of the Delorean DMC-12 sports car began in Northern Ireland. They stopped making them 2 years later. It was distinctive with its gull-wing doors, and here’s a model from its last year. They’re probably worth a fortune now.

 

Notables born on this day include John C. Frémont (1813), Stonewall Jackson (1824), Grigori Rasputin (1869), Christian Dior (1905), Telly Savalas and Paul Scofield (both 1922), Wolfman Jack (1938), Jack Nicklaus (1940), Plácido Domingo and Richie Havens (both 1941), Jeff Koons (1955), Cat Power (1972), and Emma Bunton (1976). Rasputin (the Man who Refused to Die) is one of history’s more interesting figures; here’s a very brief video biography:

Those who died on January 21 include Vladimir Lenin (1924), Lytton Strachey (1932), George Orwell (1950), Cecil B. DeMille (1959), James Beard (1985), Susan Strasberg (1999), and Peggy Lee (2002).

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Her Roundness demands the impossible:

A: What would you like to get?
Hili: A star from the sky.
In Polish:
Ja: Co byś chciała?
Hili: Gwiazdkę z nieba.

Leon’s still hiking with his staff in southern Poland, and sends us the dialogue below. Somehow I think he’s not as happy with the snow as he was in previous years.

Leon: I think I’m more comfortable with the fluff in my pillow.

In Polish: Chyba jednak bardziej mi odpowiada puch w poduszce.

Pi and Loki on my last day in Hawaii, imploring me not to leave by sleeping on my luggage. I miss these boys.

A tweet sent by reader Barry, featuring a greedy red squirrel:

https://twitter.com/AMAZlNGNATURE/status/1086231520375947270

Tweets from Matthew. First up: cat versus hungry turtle:

The remarkable sociality of fire ants:

Bob Jones University should get this right; electricity may come from God, but we know its proximate cause, and it’s not the Sun:

Tweets from Grania. I wouldn’t mind a job as Baby Bat Cleaner:

https://twitter.com/FluffSociety/status/1086832383586754562

I never get tired of looking at murmurations:

Some (but not all) kitties love their brushes:

Proof that seagulls either can’t read or can read but don’t care:

https://twitter.com/SlenderSherbet/status/1085073939217428481

At first I thought this was a burst, but it wasn’t:

What a cat!

Sunday: Hili and Leon

January 20, 2019 • 7:09 am

by Grania

Jerry is still jet-lagged and taking it easy this morning. He will join us later. Welcome to Sunday, have a good one.

History:

Birthdays:

  • 1926 – Patricia Neal, American actress (d. 2010)
  • 1931 – David Lee, American physicist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate
  • 1934 – Tom Baker, English actor
  • 1939 – Chandra Wickramasinghe, Sri Lankan-English mathematician, astronomer, and biologist
  • 1956 – Bill Maher, American comedian, political commentator, media critic, television host, and producer
  • 1967 – Kellyanne Conway, American political strategist and pundit, breathtaking liar.

In Poland Andrzej is living dangerously.

A: You look like a cat with a Rubenesque figure.
Hili: I’m afraid I will become a feminist with her claws out.

In Polish:

Ja: Wyglądasz jak kot o rubensowskich kształtach.
Hili: Obawiam się, że zostanę drapiącą feministką.

 

The other famous Polish cat is pining for warmer days.

Leon: Is it much longer until spring?

Random bits and bobs from Twitter:

The force is with this one.

Click on the arrow to watch it in action.

https://twitter.com/AMAZlNGNATURE/status/1086768104372428801

Cats are dignified.

https://twitter.com/EmrgencyKittens/status/1086722715069923334

How a pangolin climbs.

Modelling the movement of prehistoric animals.

An amazing fossil.

Another outstanding find.

I’m not sure what sort of crab this is. Can anyone identify it?

https://twitter.com/LlFEUNDERWATER/status/1085875112321011713

Puppy pile because it is Sunday.

https://twitter.com/AMAZlNGNATURE/status/1086674744659845120

Let sleeping cats lie.

https://twitter.com/EmrgencyKittens/status/1086665843126222848

A touching letter from Germany to Britain.

Teasing Philistines.

 

Friday: Hili dialogue (and Leon monologue)

January 18, 2019 • 6:30 am

It’s Friday, January 18, and today I take the red-eye flight back to Chicago, arriving at about 5:30 a.m. I haven’t taken a red-eye in ages, but I guess I can try to sleep. (United has some “free entertainment” if you connect your computer (there are no seat-back video screens), but it didn’t work for me last time. And of course there’s no food as it’s an intra-U.S. flight. Cheapskates!

Foodimentary says that it’s National Gourmet Coffee Day, and while I’m a fan of good coffee, I despise the “gourmet” coffee drinks like Caramel Mocha Peppermint Frappucinos, which are not really coffee but liquid candy for adults. To each their own. It’s also the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, but that hasn’t worked in the past and won’t work this time.

On January 18, 1535, the city of Lima, the capital of Peru was founded by Spanish conquistador Francisco Pizarro. But if you go to this link, you see these statements:

The history of Lima, the capital of Peru, began with its foundation by Francisco Pizarro on January 6, 1535.

and

Gabriel Moreira Romaní thus founded the city of Lima in Peru’s central coast on 18 January 1535.

At least one of these statements, and/or the statement that appears on the January 18 Wikipedia entry, is wrong.

On this day in 1778, James Cook became the first European to discover the Hawaiian islands, then named the “Sandwich Islands.” He was killed in Hawaii in 1779.  On January 18, 1884, according to Wikipedia’s bizarre entry, “Dr. William Price attempts to cremate the body of his infant son, Jesus Christ Price, setting a legal precedent for cremation in the United Kingdom.” Price, a Welshman, was an interesting character in many ways. He adopted the Druid “religion” for many years; here he is onstage in 1884 wearing Druidic attire (photo from Wikipedia). At the time he cremated his infant son, cremation was illegal in England, but his action helped change the law.

On January 18, 1943, the first uprising of Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto began, though I also find this on Wikipedia: “The uprising started on 19 April when the ghetto refused to surrender to the police commander SS-Brigadeführer Jürgen Stroop, who then ordered the burning of the ghetto, block by block, ending on 16 May. A total of 13,000 Jews died, about half of them burnt alive or suffocated. German casualties were probably less than 150, with Stroop reporting only 16 killed. Nevertheless, it was the largest single revolt by Jews during World War II.” Apparently the armed resistance started in January.

Here’s a Wikipedia photo of Stroop with the caption “Jürgen Stroop (center, in a field cap) with his men in the burning of Warsaw Ghetto, 1943.  Showing no remorse, Stroop was hanged in Warsaw in 1952.  

On this day in 1977, after Legionnaire’s disease killed 29 people attending a convention in Philadelphia, the causal agent was identified: the bacterium Legionella pneumophilia. Finally, on January 18, 1983, the International Olympic Committee restored Jim Thorpe’s Olympic medals, giving them to his family. (Thorpe won the pentathalon and decathalon medals in the 1912 Olympics, but was then disqualified when it was found that he’d played semi-professional baseball.)

Notables born on this day include Daniel Webster (1782), Paul Ehrenfest (1880), A. A. Milne (1882), Oliver Hardy (1892), Cary Grant (1904, real name Archibald Leach), Danny Kaye (1911, real name David Daniel Kaminsky), Bobby Goldsboro and David Ruffin (both 1941),

Those who died on this day include John Tyler (1862), Rudyard Kipling (1936), Curly Howard (1952), Cecil Beaton (1980), Bruce Chatwin (1989), and Glenn Frey (2016).

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili has a question.

Hili: I have some doubts.
A: What about?
Hili: Whether there is a place in the world that is still normal.

In Polish:

Hili: Mam wątpliwości.
Ja: Na jaki temat?
Hili: Czy gdzieś świat jest jeszcze normalny?

Leon is about ready to go hiking in the snow.

Leon: To go or not to go?
In Polish: Iść czy nie iść?

And Pi and I talk story for the last time. I’ll miss this grumpy-looking but really sweet cat, who has taken to sleeping on my daypack and in my duffel bag:

Jerry: Pi, what are you doing in my duffel?
Pi:  Take me to Chicago with you, bruddah!

A tweet from reader Gravelinspector. Owl vs. cat; guess who wins?

https://twitter.com/FluffSociety/status/1085624405093273602

A tweet from Grania: woman accuses radio announcer of “white privilege,” but he’s not white:

https://twitter.com/PhillyD/status/1085702744466509824

Working as an expert witness for the defense some years ago convinced me that much of forensic science isn’t really “science,” as they don’t do blind tests on matching samples. This supports my conclusion:

The delightful Shappi Khorsandi (ex-president of the British Humanists) is judged by her cat:

Grania says this is a “bad cat,” but I don’t know why:

https://twitter.com/AMAZlNGNATURE/status/1085654122160840713

The Catholic Church can sometimes be gruesome with its reliquary obsessions:

https://twitter.com/41Strange/status/1085630666652307456

Tweets from Matthew. I’m not sure what this first one is about (readers?), but Matthew says it’s “Post-Brexit entertainment.”

https://twitter.com/YoorWullie/status/1021022591421755393

There’s a phoretic mite on this ant. Can you spot it?

Have a look at the link if you want to get worried about the effects of global warming, largely cryptic in this case:

After ten years, a rare bachelor frog, thought to be the last of his kind, has found a potential mate. Sadly, this didn’t work with George, a Hawaiian tree snail who expired in captivity this week, terminating his species.

 

Thursday: Hili dialogue (and Leon monologue)

January 17, 2019 • 6:30 am

It’s Thursday, January 17, 2019, and tomorrow afternoon I wing my way back to the frozen mainland. It will be strange to go back to a city without poi, shave ice, and ducks, but with very low temperatures. It’s National Hot Buttered Rum Day again (I’m starting to remember food days from a year ago), and the Christian feast day of Our Lady of Pontmain, described by Wikipedia as:

Our Lady of Pontmain, also known as Our Lady of Hope, is the title given to the Virgin Mary on her apparition at Pontmain, France on 17 January 1871. These apparitions were approved by Pope Pius IX.

It’s curious that an apparition was “approved” by a Pope, presumably meaning that he decided it was genuine: “I’m Pope Pius and I approve of this apparition.”

On this day in 1773, Captain Cook’s Resolution, on his second voyage, became the first ship known to sail south of the Antarctic Circle. On January 17, 1904, Anton Chekhov’s famous play The Cherry Orchard premiered at the Moscow Art Theatre. More Antarcticana: on this day in 1912, Robert Falcon Scott and his men reached the South Pole, only to find, to their sorrow, that it had been visited a month before by Roald Amundsen. Scott died with three of his men on the return journey.

On January 17, 1929, exactly ninety years ago, Popeye the Sailor Man, created by E. C. Segar, appeared in the comics for the first time. Here’s the spinach-loving swabbie’s first appearance in the Thimble Theater comic strip, reproduced at the First Versions website (spinach had yet to show up):

On this day in 1945, Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg, who saved thousands of Jews during World War II, was arrested by the Soviet agency SMERSH in Budapest. He was never seen or heard from again, and his fate is a mystery, though presumably he was executed by the Soviets.

On January 17, 1961, during his farewell address as President, Dwight D. Eisenhower issued his famous warning against the “military-industrial complex.”

In 1977, after a ten-year hiatus, capital punishment was resumed in the U.S., this time by the firing-squad execution of Gary Gilmore.  Finally, on this day in 1998, Matt Drudge broke the story of the affair between Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky. Here’s the big headline on that day:

Notables born on this day include Benjamin Franklin (1706), David Lloyd George (1863), Al Capone and Robert Maynard Hutchins (both 1899), Betty White (1922, still with us at 96), Eartha Kitt (1927), James Earl Jones (1931), Shari Lewis (1933), Muhammad Ali (1942), Andy Kaufman (1949), Susanna Hoffs (1959), and Jim Carrey (1962).

Those who died on January 17 include Rutherford B. Hayes (1893), Francis Galton (1911), Louis Comfort Tiffany (1933), Dougal Haston (1977, participated in the first ascent of the south face of Annapurna and of the southwest face of Everest, died in an avalanche while skiing in Switzerland), Barbara Jordan (1996), and Art Buchwald (2007).

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili is back to Philosophy.

Hili: So the food was good in the hospital? Were there any mice?
Andrzej: Of course not. It was a very clean hospital.
Hili: Nothing’s perfect.

In Polish:

Hili: Czy jedzenie w tym szpitalu było dobre i czy były tam myszy?
Ja: Oczywiśnie, że nie. To bardzo czysty szpital.
Hili: Nic nie jest doskonałe.

I talk story with Pi:

Jerry: Pi, I am leaving tomorrow to go back home.
Pi: Shoots den. [Hawaiian pidgin; look it up.]

And Leon’s enjoying his hiking trip to southern Poland:

Leon: I’m going to see whether there is much snow on the roof.

In Polish; Leon: Zobaczę, czy dużo śniegu jest na dachu.

A bizarre sign and humanist/comedian Shappi Khorsandi’s response:

https://twitter.com/thephiloffire/status/1085537380919070721

A tweet from reader Michael. You don’t have to shake your head to see the great illusion, but it helps. Now, how did they do this?

Tweets from Matthew. Here’s an adorable wingless fly that lives on bees:

An amazing helicopter rescue (note the synchrony of the blades with the camera). What piloting!

Bouncing starfish:

Two nice sculptures that look very different from different angles. I’ll refrain from commenting on the topic of epigenetics:

A righteously vengeful cat. Matthew’s comment: “From 2013, but still . . . ”

https://twitter.com/AwardsDarwin/status/1085324688937680897

Tweets from Grania. First, a Simon’s cat animation updated for Brexit. Given May’s tremendous defeat in Parliament two days ago, what will happen now? Give your take below:

An internet wag:

Who plays jacks any more? I did when I was a kid, and of course stepped on them often:

This is one of the cleverest stunts ever, but you need to turn up the sound:

https://twitter.com/cctv_idiots/status/1084447521760559104

 

Wednesday: Hili dialogue (and Leon monologue)

January 16, 2019 • 6:30 am

It’s Wednesday, January 16, 2019, and two days before I return to what will probably be a frigid Chicago (I see a big storm is predicted). It’s National Hot and Spicy Food Day and I am in fact going to have some. In the U.S. it’s National Religious Freedom Day, which, given that it’s celebrating Jefferson’s Virginia Statue for Religious Freedom, passed on January 16, 1786, includes freedom from religion as well.

It was not a huge day in history. In 1707, the Scottish Parliament ratified the Union with England Act, assuring that the two “states” would be part of the same kingdom and ruled by the same monarch. As noted above, it was on this day in 1786 when Virginia enacted Thomas Jefferson’s Statute for Religious freedom, one of the three accomplishments he wanted chiseled on his tombstone (do you know the other two?).

On January 16, 1909, three men from Ernest Shackleton’s expedition reached the magnetic South Pole but not the geographic South Pole, which was “conquered” by Roald Amundsen’s team in 1911. Exactly ten years later, the U.S. formally ratified the Eighteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, bringing prohibition into effect within a year. The prohibition of alcohol was rescinded when the Twenty-First Amendment was ratified in 1933.

On this day in 1945, Adolf Hitler moved into the Führerbunker as the Russans approached Berlin. He committed suicide there on April 30. Exactly forty years ago, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi fled from Iran to Egypt with his family. After surgery for cancer in New York and a brief stay in Panama, Pahlavi died in Egypt in 1980. Finally, on January 16, 2003, the Space Shuttle Columbia took off off for its 28th mission, but 16 days later it disintegrated due to heat-shield damage, killing all 7 astronauts aboard.

Notables born on this day include: André Michelin (1853), Eric Liddell (1902; remember him from “Chariots of Fire”?), Dizzy Dean (1910), Susan Sontag (1933), Sade (1959), and Kate Moss (1974).

Those who died on January 16 include Edward Gibbon (1794), Arnold Böcklin (1901), Marshall Field (1906), Carole Lombard (1942), Herbert W. Armstrong (1986), Andrew Wyeth (2009),

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili is having a new experience: having to be patient.

A: I will see to you in a moment, but first I have to check my emails.
Hili: He is trying to catch up with lost time.
In Polish:
Ja: Zaraz się tobą zajmę tylko sprawdzę pocztę.
Hili: On goni czas utracony.

 

Leon is in southern Poland with his staff for their annual winter hiking trip, but there will be no hiking today:

Leon: I’m afraid that today’s weather is not conducive to hiking.
Leon: Obawiam się,że dzisiejsza aura nie sprzyja spacerom.
A cartoon sent by reader David, who found it on Michael Shermer’s Twitter feed (@MichaelSchermer).

And one from reader Brujo, who titles this cartoon “TSA Agent Moses,” and added, “Considering your recent unfortunate experiences with TSA, and that you come from Jewish forebears, I thought that you might get a kick out of this.”

Tweets from Grania, starting with a beautiful and friendly domestic mallard:

https://twitter.com/round_boys/status/1084877791261278210

Cat’s Paradise, or the feline version of the Garden of Earthly Delights:

https://twitter.com/arthurkflam/status/1085027178792644609

A nice man helps a thirsty pigeon (I may have posted this before, but it’s always good to see an act of kindness towards animals):

A male cedar expends much of its resources on pollen (from male cones) to fertilize distant female cones:

And a really nice video of cats and dogs escaping from confinement:

Tweets from Matthew. I’m not sure how this first one illustrates the point given that there’s an English translation:

This is some library! I wonder how Jenkyns found anything?

Another great example of a spider that mimics an ant (count the legs):

The first rule of Cat Fight Club: put the cat to sleep:

I’m not sure how much the whales are enjoying this, but the dolphins sure seem to be having a good time.