Category: Leon monologue

Sunday: Hili dialogue (and Leon monologue)

October 21, 2018 • 6:30 am

Professor Ceiling Cat (Emeritus) is back, with effusive thanks to Grania for taking over the Hili Dialogues during my stint in Croatia. It’s Sunday, October 21, 2018, and I’m off to Paris in less than two weeks. This means a strict diet between now and then! That abstemiousness is promoted by the unappetizing nature of today’s food holiday: National Pumpkin Cheesecake Day. Oy gewalt! Soon the pumpkin spice lattes will be upon us as well: signs of upper middle class female whiteness. It’s also a day to call attention to a much better snack: International Day of the Nacho, celebrating a dish invented around 1943. Here are some Fun Facts about this snack, vastly superior to pumpkin-flavored cheesecake:

Nachos originated in the city of Piedras Negras, Coahuila, Mexico, just over the border from Eagle Pass, Texas. In 1943, the wives of U.S. soldiers stationed at Fort Duncan in nearby Eagle Pass were in Piedras Negras on a shopping trip, and arrived at the restaurant after it had already closed for the day. The maître d’hôtel, Ignacio “Nacho” Anaya, created a new snack for them with what little he had available in the kitchen: tortillas and cheese. Anaya cut the tortillas into triangles, fried them, added shredded cheddar cheese, quickly heated them, added sliced pickled jalapeño peppers, and served them.

When asked what the dish was called, he answered, “Nacho’s especiales“. As word of the dish traveled, the apostrophe was lost, and Nacho’s “specials” became “special nachos”.

Anaya went on to work at the Moderno Restaurant in Piedras Negras, which still uses the original recipe. He also opened his own restaurant, “Nacho’s Restaurant”, in Piedras Negras. Anaya’s original recipe was printed in the 1954 St. Anne’s Cookbook.

Would you like some of these right now? I would!

On this day in 1512, Martin Luther joined the theology faculty of the University of Wittenburg. Exactly eight years later to the day, Ferdinand Magellan discovered the strait that now bears his name. On October 21, 1797, the USS Constitution (nicknamed “Old Ironsides”) was launched in Boston Harbor. It’s still there with its 44 guns: the oldest commissioned naval vessel still afloat.  On October 21, 1854, Florence Nightingale and her team of 38 nurses were sent to the Crimean War. Here she is four years later:

On this day in 1879, Thomas Edison applied for his patent on an incandescent electric light bulb.  In 1940, this day saw the publication of Hemingway’s novel For Whom the Bell Tolls (in truth, the only novel of his I really like is The Sun Also Rises, but I rank his short stories at the top with that one). Exactly four years later, the Japanese launched the first kamikaze attack against an Australian ship off Leyte Island.

On October 21, 1945, women were allowed to vote in France for the first time, and in 1959 Dwight Eisenhower issued an executive order allowing the transfer of Wernher von Braun and other German scientists to NASA. And so the most excellent Tom Lehrer song:

It was on this day in 1983 that the meter was formally defined as “the distance light travels in a vacuum in 1/299,792,458 of a second.”  Finally, it was on this day in 1994 that North Korea and the U.S. signed a pact that required the DPRK to agree to stop developing nuclear weapons and to agree to inspections. That was one of many agreements broken by the DPRK, and a lesson not learned by “President” Trump.

Notables born on this day include Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772), Alfred Nobel (1833), Oswald Avery (1877; look him up), Don Byas (1912), Georg Solti (1912), Dizzy Gillespie (1917), Ursula Le Guin (1929), Carrie Fisher (1956), and of course Kim Kardashian (1980). Those who expired on October 21 include Horatio Nelson (1805), Jack Kerouac (1969, age only 47), Hans Asperger (1980), François Truffaut (1984), George McGovern (2012), and Ben Bradlee (2014).

I campaigned for McGovern when he ran for President in 1972 and wrote this campaign poem for him.

McG! McG!
Yes, he’s the man for me.
Though his head is bald as a billiard ball,
He’s the savviest one of all.
McG! McG!
Yes, he’s the man for me.

Needless to say, he lost big time—and to Nixon. I was heartbroken, for McG was a good man. I remember watching the election returns on television in the lobby of the Rockefeller University student center (that’s where I began grad school), sitting on a couch next to the philosopher Saul Kripke. As the bad news came in, Kripke davened back and forth like a praying Jew. Bradlee, though a good editor, was a man I had little use for, as on one occasion he insulted me gratuitously. But that’s a story for another time.

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn and all over Poland, today is election day. Malgorzata is on her way to vote, but encounters a campaigning Hili:

Hili: Vote for me.
Małgorzata: Why?
Hili: To make my rule look democratic.
In Polish:
Hili: Głosuj na mnie.
Małgorzata: Dlaczego?
Hili: Żeby moje rządy wyglądały demokratycznie.

Nearby, at the site of his future home, Leon is feeling the change of seasons.

Leon: It’s colllllllld! I’d better be going home!

In Polish:   Ziiiiiiiimno, zbieram się do domu!

Theologists continue to grapple with the problem of Missing Evidence for the Divine (h/t Diana MacPherson):

A tweet from reader Jim, and I hope no readers here make these mistakes:

Reader Rick sent some tweets of X-rays taken at the Oregon Zoo.

From reader Blue, we have a future Alex Honnold:

https://twitter.com/xxlfunny1/status/1051462813410099202

From reader Paul, a real scientist reacts to a pretend scientist:

A few tweets from Matthew, beginning with the weirdest-looking squirrel I’ve ever seen. Apparently it’s both leucistic and melanistic, giving it a Phantom of the Opera appearance:

I still don’t understand the trick here. Some reader please explain it to me!

The first tweet, was posted yesterday by Grania, but there’s a followup from Matthew:

From reader Florian. How did things change so fast? I am dubious.

 

Monday: Hili dialogue (and Leon monologue)

October 8, 2018 • 7:00 am

It’s Monday again: October 8, 2018, and—God help us) National Fluffernutter Day—which refers to a peanut butter sandwich also containing marshmallow-fluff spread. According to Wikipedia, it’s also these days:

On this day in 1871, two fires broke out: the famous Great Chicago Fire and the much less famous but deadlier Peshtigo Fire in Wisconsin, which killed around 1500 people and remains the deadliest fire in American history.

On this day in 1918, Corporal Alvin C. York earned his Medal of Honor by killing 28 German soldiers and capturing 132—singlehandedly.  Here’s part of his story from Wikipedia (he also was, initially, a conscientious objector):

In October 1918, as a newly-promoted corporal, York was one of a group of seventeen soldiers assigned to infiltrate German lines and silence a machine gun position. After the American patrol had captured a large group of enemy soldiers, German small arms fire killed six Americans and wounded three. York was the highest ranking of those still able to fight, so he took charge. While his men guarded the prisoners, York attacked the machine gun position, dispatching several German soldiers with his rifle before running out of ammunition. Six German soldiers charged him with bayonets, and York drew his pistol and killed them all. The German officer responsible for the machine gun position had emptied his pistol while firing at York but failed to hit him. This officer then offered to surrender and York accepted. York and his men marched back to their unit’s command post with more than 130 prisoners. York was immediately promoted to sergeant and was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross; an investigation resulted in the upgrading of the award to the Medal of Honor. York’s feat made him a national hero and international celebrity among allied nations.

On this day in 1939, after invading Poland on September 1, Germany formally annexed western Poland. And on October 8, 1956, Don Larsen of the New York Yankees pitched the only perfect game ever to occur in a World Series (a “perfect game” is one in which no batter reaches first base). Larsen retired 27 Brooklyn Dodgers in a row. Here’s a short video of the last pitch. You may recognize the leaping catcher as Yogi Berra.

On October 8, 1967, Che Guevara and his men were captured in Bolivia. Guevara was executed with nine bullets the next day. On this day in 1978, Australian Ken Warby set the water speed record, which still stands, going a stupendous 371.60 miles per hour (511 kilometers/hr). Here’s a short clip of that record, which occurs at about 1:44. Sadly, he killed a duck on one attempt!

On this day in 1982, Poland banned Solidarity and all trade unions. But it was too late: Communism was on its way out in Eastern Europe. On October 8, 1982, the play Cats opened on Broadway, running almost 18 years before it closed on September 10, 2000. Finally, on this day in 2001, President G. W. Bush established the Office of Homeland Security.

Notables born on October 8 include Otto Warburg (1883, Nobel Laureate), Zog 1 of Albania (1895), Paul Hogan (1940), Chevy Chase (1943), and Sigourney Weaver (1949). Those who fell asleep on this day include Henry Fielding (1754), Franklin Pierce (1869) Wendell Wilkie (1944), Willy Brandt (1992), and Paul Prudhomme (2015).

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili is a bit enigmatic, but Malgorzata explains:

Our new gardener was pruning one of the apple trees. You can see branches on the ground. Hili wanted to know why he was doing it. Andrzej explained that if you don’t care for the fruit trees they go wild and the fruits will not be good. This led to Hili’s conclusion about the tree of knowledge of good and evil.

The dialogue:

Hili: Who trimmed the tree of knowledge of good and evil?
A: There isn’t any information about it.
Hili: The fruits of this tree were probably wormy.
In Polish:
Hili: Kto przycinał drzewo wiadomości dobrego i złego?
Ja: Nie ma na ten temat żadnych informacji.
Hili: Pewnie owoce z tego drzewa były robaczywe.

Nearby, Leon and his staff are going mushroom hunting in the woods:

Leon: I don’t see any mushrooms!
Here’s a cat meme from reader Merilee:
A tweet from reader Jiten, showing people loving wild (and domestic) animals. The first clip shows two chimps reuniting with a man who saved them (I don’t know the story).  The kangaroo hug is especially touching. And even fish come for cuddles!

Some tweets from Matthew. Guess what pops up in the first one.

This tweet refers to this incident.

Tweets from Grania.  The first shows some Trump supporters reacting to the allegations of sexual assault against Christine Ford. Some of the statement defy belief.

The Bella Hadid Nike video, put up just about a year ago, still cracks me up, too. These tweets became “protected” since yesterday, but can see the whole video here.

“If homeboy’s coming through with these? It’s quiet, yeah, no; it’s quiet for him. But, like, if he comes through in, like, theeeeeese … homeboy’s gonna, like, get iiiit.”

A kitty doesn’t know what to do about its shadow.

https://twitter.com/EmrgencyKittens/status/1047875286803599360

I bet you didn’t know that the BBC News had a pidgin service. Here’s one article about injecting fat into the bum-bum:

One small hop for a kitty. . . .

https://twitter.com/EmrgencyKittens/status/1048645323718111232

 

 

Tuesday: Hili dialogue

September 25, 2018 • 6:30 am

It’s the first Tuesday of autumn in this hemisphere—September 25, 2018—and it’s both National Lobster Day and National Food Service Worker’s Day (but who is the one worker implied by the placement of the apostrophe?).

Here’s a lobster joke:

A man walks into a bar carrying a large lobster and orders a double scotch. The barman pours him a drink and remarks “That’s a good sized lobster you have there.”

“Do you like lobsters?” asks the man, who has obviously had several scotches prior to his arriving in this bar.

“I love them.” replies the barman.

“Well, here. Take it.” The drunken sod passed the lobster to the barman.

“Thank you very much.” he said. “I’ll take it home for dinner.”

“No, no, no.” said the drunk. “He’s already had his dinner, why don’t you take him to see a movie or something?”

It’s also the Christian feast day of Finbarr of Cork, the city where dwelleth Grania.

Today’s Google Doodle reminds us that election day is six weeks away, and clicking on it will, if you’re American, take you to information about how to register to vote in your state. I’ll be out of the country on Election Day but have already applied for an absentee ballot. Let’s drain the swamp!

On September 25, 1237, England and Scotland established their common border by signing the Treaty of York.  On this day in 1513, the Spanish explorer Vascu Núñez de Balboa finally reached the Pacific Ocean. This is from Keats, referring to the wrong guy:

Then felt I like some watcher of the skies
When a new planet swims into his ken;
Or like stout Cortez when with eagle eyes
He star’d at the Pacific—and all his men
Look’d at each other with a wild surmise—
Silent, upon a peak in Darien.
On this day in 1789, the U.S. passed 12 amendments to the Constitution, including the ten now called the Bill of Rights. On September 25, 1957, the government desegregated Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas by using Army troops. And, in 1974, according to Wikipedia, “The first ulnar collateral ligament replacement surgery (Tommy John surgery) [was] performed, on baseball player Tommy John.” Finally, exactly four years ago, O’Hare airport here in Chicago regained its title as the world’s busiest airport by passing Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport in Atlanta, Georgia. But now we’re back to #6, passed by these in decreasing order of business (passenger traffic): Hartsfield, Beijing, Dubai, Tokyo, and Los Angeles. How embarrassing! I’ve been to all of these airports but can speak knowledgeably only of Hartsfield and Los Angeles airports, both of which SUCK big time.
Notables born on September 25 include Fletcher Christian (1764), Thomas Hunt Morgan (1866, my academic great grandfather and Nobel Laureate), William Faulkner (1897), Dmitri Shostakovich (1906), 1929, Barbara Walters (she’s 88 today and still going strong), Shel Silverstein (1930), Glenn Gould (1932) and Catherine Zeta-Jones (1969). Those who crossed the Rainbow Bridge on this day include Miller Huggins (1929), Ring Lardner (1933), Emily Post (1960), Erich Maria Remarque (1970), George Plimpton and Edward Said (both 2003), Andy Williams (2012) and Arnold Palmer (2016).

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili guffaws at on something Andrzej just wrote. As Malgorzata explains, “In a way this is Hili’s comment on Andrzej’s article of today, “Will artificial intelligence give us artificial rationality?” (funny, ironic, sad and serious at the same time).

A: Did you read it? Reportedly humans are more and more rational
Hili: Don’t make me laugh.
In Polish:
Ja: Czytałaś? Podobno ludzie są coraz bardziej racjonalni.
Hili: Nie rozśmieszaj mnie.
Yesterday Andrzej and Malgorzata visited Andrzej the Second and Elzbieta, as well as Leon, who got some Japanese “cat’s snacks” sent by Hiroko Kubota:

Leon: I’ve been waiting all year for this Japanese delicacy.

A tweet from reader Blue, once again proving that cats are part liquid:

https://twitter.com/m_yosry2012/status/1043812517192114177

and a tweet from Matthew. Yes, the Bible says this!

Tweets from Grania: The first one is stunning (turn video on to see dolphins having fun):

Emus are just bizarre—the most dinosaurian of ratites:

https://twitter.com/BoringEnormous/status/1043444568308547585

Sound on:

https://twitter.com/EmrgencyKittens/status/1043889030851698688

Baby tabbies are adorable. Here’s on cooling off in a bodega:

Clearly a bird with strongly developed aesthetic tastes. . . .

Grania’s answer to this question is “cat videos!”

Grania calls this “religion as absurdist theater”:

I want one of these! This one’s at University College Cork, but I could use it in my office:

Matthew sent a cartoon from SMBC by Zack Weinersmith. Clearly mortality is weighing on him, as it is on me:

Monday: Hili dialogue (and Leon monologue)

September 24, 2018 • 7:15 am

It’s the first Monday in fall: September 24, 2018. It’s also National Cherries Jubilee Day, but I cannot speak of this comestible since I’ve never had it. In South Africa it’s Heritage Day. I overslept today, which is good as I needed the sleep. This explains why the Hili dialogue is 45 minutes late.

News of the Day: According to the New Yorker, there’s been a second accusation of sexual misconduct by Brett Kavanaugh. Here’s part of the report, which notes that it took six days of memory-trawling and consultation with an attorney to bring it to the woman’s memory:

The woman at the center of the story, Deborah Ramirez, who is fifty-three, attended Yale with Kavanaugh, where she studied sociology and psychology. Later, she spent years working for an organization that supports victims of domestic violence. The New Yorker contacted Ramirez after learning of her possible involvement in an incident involving Kavanaugh. The allegation was conveyed to Democratic senators by a civil-rights lawyer. For Ramirez, the sudden attention has been unwelcome, and prompted difficult choices. She was at first hesitant to speak publicly, partly because her memories contained gaps because she had been drinking at the time of the alleged incident. In her initial conversations with The New Yorker, she was reluctant to characterize Kavanaugh’s role in the alleged incident with certainty. After six days of carefully assessing her memories and consulting with her attorney, Ramirez said that she felt confident enough of her recollections to say that she remembers Kavanaugh had exposed himself at a drunken dormitory party, thrust his penis in her face, and caused her to touch it without her consent as she pushed him away. Ramirez is now calling for the F.B.I. to investigate Kavanaugh’s role in the incident. “I would think an F.B.I. investigation would be warranted,” she said.

If you want to read more about the the Kavanaugh case, Heather Hastie has an incisive analysis at her site, concluding that he should not be confirmed.

On this day in 1789, Congress passed the Judiciary Act, creating not only the federal judiciary system and the office of the U.S. Attorney General, but also ordering the composition of the U.S. Supreme Court. 101 years latter, the Mormon church officially renounced polygamy, though of course scattered sects continue to practice it. On September 24 , 1906, President Teddy Roosevelt created the first National Monument in the U.S.: Devils Tower in Wyoming.  Here’s the Tower:

On this day in 1929, pilot Jimmy Doolittle made the first complete plane flight without any windows, showing that a complete instrument-controlled flight was possible.

This is one I didn’t know about. On September 24, 1950, the Chinchaga fire in western Canada became the largest recorded fire in North American history. Its smoke was visible all the way to Europe.  On this day in 1957, President Eisenhower sent U.S. troops to Little Rock, Arkansas, protecting black students in the “Little Rock Nine” who had enrolled in Central High School. Finally, on September 24, 1975, climbers Doug Scott and Dougal Haston became the first people to reach the summit of Mount Everest by climbing a face rather than a ridge; this was on the British Southwest Face Expedition that climbed the face shown below by the the route shown below that. (Two other men summited two days later.) This is the face you see when you climb the nearby hill Kala Pattar rather than visiting base camp (I’ve done it twice):

Notables born on September 24 include Horace Walpole (1717), John Marshall (1755), Blind Lemon Jefferson (1893), F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896), Howard Florey (1898; Nobel Laureate), Severo Ochoa (1905; also a Nobelist), Fats Navarro (1923) and Jim Henson (1936). Those who died on this day include Paracelsus (1541), Dr. Seuss (Theodore Geisel; 1991), mountaineer Barry Bishop (1994), Françoise Sagab (2004) and Buckwheat Zydeco (2016).

Here’s the Lemon singing “See That My Grave is Kept Clean”:

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili saw a saw:

Hili:What are you going to saw?
A: Wood for the fireplace for winter.
Hili: I delegate such work to others.
In Polish:
Hili: Co będziesz piłował?
Ja: Drewno do kominka na zimę.
Hili: Ja takie rzeczy zlecam innym.
Nearby, in his future home (basement and foundations now poured, wooden house stored for future erection), Leon is a bit chilly:

Leon: I’m going to check where the sun is hiding.

Here’s a tweet in which a pair of Aussies claim to be the reincarnations of Jesus Christ and Mary Magdalene:

Tweets from Matthew; the first is a nice poem. (Remember “Shake and shake the ketchup bottle. . . “?)

https://twitter.com/brian_bilston/status/1043764363943968768?s=11

Moths mimicking toxic beetles, complete with aposematic coloration:

And a bad pun for a Monday morning:

Nothng goes to waste in Nature. I wonder why the bird tolerates it, though.

Some nice illusions. I like how the vertical bars make an animal drawing become an animation:

https://twitter.com/ZonePhysics/status/1043543080442454016

Read Bloom’s paper for yourself at the link:

We all feel like this sometimes:

https://twitter.com/BoringEnormous/status/1043847548962787333

From reader Barry—a Drama D*g:

https://twitter.com/BoringEnormous/status/1043914373591379969

And a really chill cat:

https://twitter.com/DAILYKlTTEN/status/1043365854572765185

 

Monday: Hili dialogue

September 10, 2018 • 6:30 am

by Grania

Good morning!

It’s the birthday of British actor Colin Firth (1960), designer Karl Lagerfeld (1933), Aerosmith lead guitarist Joe Perry (1950) and American journalist & blowhard Bill O’Reilly (1949).

Because of the Aerosmith connection we can listen to this track today, which famously features bandmate Steve Tyler’s daughter Liv and actress Alicia Silverstone in the video. I always find it a little bit weird: getting your kids to sex up your videos is the stuff Greek Tragedies are made of.

Today in history, in 1960 during the Summer Olympics in Rome, Abebe Bikila of Ethiopia became the first sub-Saharan African to win a gold medal, winning the marathon in bare feet. He was tragically badly injured in a car accident in 1969 that left him a paraplegic.

In 1967 the people of Gibraltar voted to remain a British dependency rather than becoming part of Spain. In 1974  Guinea-Bissau gained independence from Portugal. A gristly bit of history: in 1977 Hamida Djandoubi, who had been convicted of torture and murder, was the last person to be executed by guillotine in France. In 2001 Charles Ingram won the TV game show Who wants to be a Millionaire? by cheating. Although he claimed innocence he was in court only two years later on a fraud offence. In 2008 the Large Hadron Collider at CERN, described as the biggest scientific experiment in history, was powered up in Geneva, Switzerland; but initial testing was delayed for 14 months until 20 November 2009, following a magnet quench incident that caused extensive damage to over 50 superconducting magnets, their mountings, and the vacuum pipe.

In 2017 Hurricane Irma wreaked havoc throughout Florida and then later in the Caribbean.

So much for history, onto general weirdness of the Internet.

Illusion optique dans les toilettes d’un bar. I’m not sure this is entirely the wisest decorating decision in a bathroom.

We get a double feature from the felid families of Poland this morning.
Hili: What are these planks for?
A: To stabilize the ladder.
Hili: Can they stabilize me?
In Polish:
Hili: Po co są te deski?
Ja: Żeby ustabilizować drabinę.
Hili: Czy mogą ustabilizować mnie?

And a little bit of solipsism this morning:

Leon: And why would anybody need such a piece of furniture when I’m purring so beautifully?

 

https://twitter.com/CUTEFUNNYANIMAL/status/1038926552011079686

Finally the TRUTH about what those horns are for.

https://twitter.com/BoringEnormous/status/1038851878753378304

Bird’s eye view

https://twitter.com/AMAZlNGNATURE/status/1038419050341101569

Fact of the day: there is an animal known as the Quokkas.

Victorian weirdness

Animals are always helpful

https://twitter.com/BoringEnormous/status/1037024768841732097

Does anyone:

A. use LinkdIn?

B. Find it useful?

In Italy:

And another Rube Goldberg machine,

https://twitter.com/ZonePhysics/status/1037918045405106177

And finally:

Hat-tip: Heather.

Saturday: Hili dialogue (and Leon monologue)

August 25, 2018 • 6:30 am

The weekend has arrived: it’s Saturday, August 25, 2018, and National Banana Split Day. (This is a peculiarly American comestible, and I’ve had many, though not in the past few years.) Honey the Duck was here yesterday, eating more than I’ve ever seen her eat, and in a short while I’ll see if she stayed overnight. It’s the Day of Songun in the DPRK (don’t ask).

CNN reports yet another Trump contract to pay off a man for keeping secret an affair The Donald had with a woman: a housekeeper with whom he’s supposed to have had an illegitimate child. The man with knowledge of the affair was released from his contract with American Media, Incorporated (owner of The National Enquirer, and has made the contract and the affair public. I’m not sure about the legality of the finances here (the affair was in 2015), but I feel sorry for Trump’s wife, having to bear revelation after revelation of his priapic activities. There will be a divorce for sure when Trump is out of the White House, and I hope that will be soon.

Today’s Google Doodle (click on screenshot) takes you to a YouTube animation of some works by Leonard Bernstein, born 100 years ago today (died 1990):

On August 25, 1609, Galileo demonstrated his first telescope to the city fathers of Venice.  And, in a story supposed to have inspired the movie the “Revenant”, it was on this day in 1823 that fur trapper Hugh Glass was mauled by a grizzly bear in South Dakota. With a broken leg and festering wounds, Glass supposedly crawled and floated 200 miles to the nearest American Army fort.

On this day in 1894, Japanese bacteriologist Kitasato Shibasaburō discovered the bacterium that was the infectious agent of the bubonic plague, publishing his findings in The Lancet. Shibasaburō didn’t get the Nobel Prize for this, but should have.

On this day in 1939, shortly before the Germans invaded Poland on September 1, the UK and Poland formed an alliance in which the UK was to defend Poland if it was invaded by a foreign power. It was, and the UK did.  On this day in 1944, Paris was liberated by the Allies (see Matthew Cobb’s lovely book about this, Eleven Day in August). On August 25, 1967, while I was living nearby in Arlington, Virginia, George Lincoln Rockwell, founder and head of the American Nazi Party, was assassinated at a laundromat in my town. I had visited his headquarters once on a dare, and wouldn’t care to repeat that experience.  Finally, on August 25, 2012, the Voyager 1 spacecraft became the first man-made object to enter interstellar space. 

Notables born on this day include Allan Pinkerton (1819), Bret Harte (1836), Ludwig II of Bavaria (1845), Walt “Pogo” Kelly (1913), Leonard Bernstein (1918; see above), George Wallace (1919), Sean Connery (1930; 88 today), Gene Simmons (1949; born Chaim Witz), Elvis Costello (1954), Tim Burton (1958) and Blake Lively (1987).  Those who died on August 25 include Pliny the Elder (79 AD, during the eruption of Vesuvius), David Hume (1776), William Herschel (1822), Michael Faraday (1867), Friedrich Nietzsche (1900), Henri Becquerel (1908, Nobel Laureate), Alfred Kinsey (1956), George Lincoln Rockwell (1967; see above), Truman Capote (1984), Ted Kennedy (2009; was it really nine years ago?), and Neil Armstrong (2012).

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili is showing off:

A: What are you doing?
Hili: I’m waiting for Godot.
In Polish:
Ja: Co robisz?
Hili: Czekam na Godota.

Nearby, at the site of his new home (still not built!), Leon is kvetching:

Leon: Roe deer are scaring my mice.

Reader Merilee sent this MSNBC screenshot, and I suspect it’s real, but whoever wrote it knew exactly what they were doing. . . (If you don’t know the American argot, “Pecker” can mean “penis”.)

Tweets from Matthew: lunacy from Infowars.

More lunacy (my own example was at zoo, where I heard a woman ask her husband, “Are penguins fish?”):

A well preserved foal from millennia ago. Poor thing!

I’m glad this moron got jail time for harassing a bison and having it filmed. Maybe that will deter others from bothering wildlife!

This cloud pattern is new to me!

Matthew asks a question; his editor answers. Can that really be true of philosophers?

Pick your insult; I’ll give a few answers:

I know a few horse-eyed Jacks I’d like to insult. . .

Tweets from Grania. I wouldn’t have thought an albino hedgehog could make it in the wild, even if the wild is a domestic garden:

Read the thread by a Korea expert on the family reunions taking place in North Korea (never in the South, of course); it’s a very interesting take:

And from reader Su, TRANSFORMER DUCKS! Mallards are of course awesome:

Tuesday: Hili dialogue (and Leon monologue)

August 21, 2018 • 6:30 am

It’s Tuesday, August 21, 2018, and National Sweet Tea Day, referring to highly sweetened iced tea. That beverage, called “the table wine of the South” is the perfect accompaniment to heavy Southern food, including barbecue. Fie on those who abjure the sugar!

News: This happened on Sunday: Esraa al-Ghamgam, a Saudi human rights activist, was beheaded in public for opposing the regime and participating in peaceful demonstrations. One can barely find this in the news (certainly not in the New York Times), yet it’s a horrible violation of human rights (she was in jail for three years before execution). It’s time we joined Canada and called out Saudi Arabia for its brutality. If Prince Mohammad bin Salman wants to reform the country, he has to do more than allow women to drive, which is merely a cosmetic gesture. He could have stopped the execution, but didn’t. But of course we mustn’t criticize our ally: reform has to go slowly! Even if people have to die. . .

On August 21, 1770, James Cook claimed eastern Australia for Great Britain, naming the land New South Wales. On this day in 1831, Nat Turner led a rebellion of black slaves and free blacks against whites, killing 55-65 of them. The rebellion was quashed and Turner, after hiding out for several months, was captured, hanged, beheaded, and flayed.  On this day in 1888, William S. Burroughs patented the first adding machine in the U.S., and yes, the writer William S. Burroughs was his grandson, which is why he had the leisure and dosh to write.

On this day in 1911, the painting “The Mona Lisa” was stolen by Vincenzo Perugia, an employee of the Louvre. After keeping it hidden for two years, he returned it, expecting a reward, but got a short time in jail.  On this day in 1945 was a sad event: Physicist Harry Daghlian was, as Wikipedia notes, “fatally irradiated in a criticality accident during an experiment with the Demon core at Los Alamos National Laboratory.” After dropping a brick on the apparatus the pile went critical and he received a massive dose of radiation, dying 25 days later. On this day in 1959, President Eisenhower signed an executive order deeming Hawaii the 50th state in the U.S. Today is thus celebrated as Hawaii Admission Day.

There were two musical events on August 21, 1961:

a. Patsy Cline went into a Nashville studio and recorded her version of “Crazy” (written by Willie Nelson, who is 85 this year). It was her best song, her signature song, and one of the best country songs of all time. Here it is:

b. Motown released its first number one hit: “Please Mr. Postman” by the Marvelettes. It was also a hit for the Beatles two years later. Here it is:

Finally, it was one year ago today that a solar eclipse traversed much of the United States.

Notables born on this day include Count Basie (1904), Princess Margaret (1930, died 2002; the Queen’s sister), Wilt Chamberlain (1936), and Kenny Rogers (1938; 80 today). Those who died on August 21 include Leon Trotsky (1940; hacked in the head the previous day), George Jackson (1971), Buford Pusser (1974; I can’t resist that name), Subrahmayan Chandrasekhar (1995, Nobel Laureate and a fellow Chicago faculty member), and mountaineer Marcus Schmuck (2005).

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili is optimistic:

A: Where are you rushing off to?
Hili: To a better future.
In Polish:
Ja: Dokąd pędzisz?
Hili: Do lepszej przyszłości.

Nearby, Leon went for another hike and pondered his route:

Leon: Let’s see from which direction good news is coming.
Some tweets. I can’t imagine someone being either brave enough or foolish enough to do this. But he made it! A leap of 25,000 feet into a net—without a parachute!

Tweets from Heather Hastie. A cat doesn’t like a plush toy:

https://twitter.com/Elverojaguar/status/1029452722788028423

But this cat finds itself beautiful. Animals and mirrors can be a fantastic combination:

https://twitter.com/EmrgencyKittens/status/1029393564587962370

Butterflies!

https://twitter.com/planetepics/status/1029246335093026816

Chipmunk rescue! What a nice man! (I may have shown this before.)

If you were a peahen you’d find this irresistible:

https://twitter.com/hijakejohnstone/status/1030498221007753216

A dolphin is born. Note how it instinctively heads up for air right after birth:

More nice people in Kerala, India, where there’s been terrible flooding:

Which person is not like the others?