Category: Philomena!

Sunday: Hili dialogue

March 12, 2023 • 6:45 am

It’s Monday, March 12, 2023, Chicken Noodle Soup Day (much better with matzo balls). If you’re in America and haven’t moved your clock forward an hour, please do so now:

 

It’s also the Start of Daylight Savings Time, so be sure you set your clocks forward an hour. If you didn’t do it last night, do it NOW.

It’s also National Baked Scallops Day, Girl Scout Day, Check Your Batteries Day, National Working Moms Day, and National Elephant Day in Thailand.

Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this by consulting the March 12 Wikipedia page.

Da Nooz:

*I feel a bit removed from news involving the U.S., but I do my best. Here’s a NYT op-ed, by the entire editorial board, that calls for the U.S. to avoid a confrontational strategy with China and get involved in economic rather than military competition. After mentioning Chinese provocations like military displays around Taiwan and the famous “spy balloon” (whatever happened to that?), it urges a more conciliatory posture:

Yet the relationship between the United States and China, for all its problems, continues to deliver substantial economic benefits to the residents of both countries and to the rest of the world. Moreover, because the two nations are tied together by millions of normal and peaceful interactions every day, there is a substantial incentive to maintain those ties and a basis for working together on shared problems like climate change.

Americans’ interests are best served by emphasizing competition with China while minimizing confrontation. Glib invocations of the Cold War are misguided. It doesn’t take more than a glance to appreciate that this relationship is very different. Rather than try to trip the competition, America should focus on figuring out how to run faster, for example through increased investments in education and basic scientific research.

Chinese actions and rhetoric also need to be kept in perspective. By the standards of superpowers, China remains a homebody. Its foreign engagements, especially outside its immediate surroundings, remain primarily economic. China has been playing a much more active role in international affairs in recent years — a new agreement facilitated by China to re-establish relations between Iran and Saudi Arabia is the latest example — but China continues to show strikingly little interest in persuading other nations to adopt its social and political values.

There are also signs that China’s leaders are not united in supporting a more confrontational posture. It behooves the United States to reassure those who may be open to reassurance. America and China are struggling with many of the same challenges: how to ensure what President Xi Jinping has termed “common prosperity” in an age of income inequality; how to rein in the worst excesses of capitalism without losing its vital creative forces; how to care for an aging population and young people who want more out of life than work; how to slow the pace of climate change and to manage its disruptive impacts, including mass migration. . .

They’re right: Russia is surely far more worthy of disapprobation than China, though if China tries to take over Taiwan with its military, all bets are off.

*The Washington Post describes how a new technology, specifically a phone app that allows would-be immigrants at the southern U.S. border to make appointments with Customs and Border Protection, is glitching, squelching the hopes of those hoping to enter:

As the Biden administration struggles to bring order to the border, some of the most vulnerable migrants are finding themselves stuck in squalid camps in Mexico. A significant number are seeking asylum in the United States and were expecting the sanctuary of the nation’s immigration law, which allows migrants fleeing persecution to request protection no matter how they reach the country. Advocates estimate close to 7,000 people were spread out in encampments in Matamoros and Reynosa in January.

All are trying to use a new CBP app that is supposed to make entering the country more efficient. Each day, migrants awake before sunrise to search for a WiFi signal and try to get one of the 700 to 800 appointments available at eight entry points. Advocates estimate there are more than 100,000 people seeking entry. The appointments fill up within five minutes.

Previously, attorneys could intervene to make a case for asylum seekers to get emergency admission into the United States. Now those fleeing gang violence are fighting for appointments on their own, alongside those facing less dire conditions.

More than 9,900 individuals have used the app to enter the country by getting an exemption from the Title 42 pandemic-era public health restriction since it went live in January, CBP data shows. Over 10,000 more have used the app to obtain humanitarian parole under a new program for those from Haiti, Venezuela, Cuba or Nicaragua — offering a lifeline for many who can avoid embarking on a treacherous journey.

Yet at migrant camps, shelters and safe houses along the U.S.-Mexico border, asylum seekers who arrived before the app was launched or faced such imminent danger that they could not wait to get an appointment struggle to get a WiFi signal. Families scramble to register all their relatives only to find out all of the day’s appointments have been taken. Desperation mounts as they look toward a country within eyeshot but perpetually out of reach.

It’s ridiculous to make people in migrant camps fight to get a Wi-Fi signal within a five-minute window and then fight for others who have better access—all to get an appointment. Surely there’s a better solution. Even online forms put into a hopper, with someone selecting the appointed number randomly, is fairer than this.

*Speaking of asylum, many who have entered America seeking a new life have been disappointed with their prospects, or by long processing times for applications, and have crossed the border into Canada. NYC helps by giving immigrants bus tickets to a town near the Canadian border, where the immigrants then seek asylum in Canada. This has caused Canada to reassess its immigration policies:

A sharp increase in asylum seekers entering Canada through unofficial crossings — including many whose bus fares were paid by New York City and aid agencies — is intensifying the pressure on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to reach an agreement with President Joe Biden to close off the entire land border to most asylum seekers.

Many of the arrivals abandoned plans to seek asylum in the United States, deterred by long processing times and restrictive definitions for asylum, according to aid officials and interviews with asylum seekers.

On a snowy day in late February, about three dozen asylum seekers, some wheeling suitcases, others carrying backpacks, trudged along a snow path from New York State to Quebec.

. . . Almost 40,000 asylum seekers entered Canada through irregular border crossings from the United States last year — nine times higher than in 2021, when pandemic restrictions were still in place, and more than double the nearly 17,000 who crossed in 2019. Almost 5,000 entered in January alone, according to the most recent figures from the Canadian government.

Canadian PM Justin Trudeau will take up this issue when he meets with President Biden at the end of March.

*Want to limit your screen time—or that of your kids—on your phone? SCIENCE (and the WSJ) tells us that the best solution is to switch the display to black and white instead of the more stimulating colored screen.

In the first group, participants weren’t asked to do anything specific with the Screen Time app other than to monitor their phone usage. They also were instructed to put their smartphones in grayscale mode, a feature that changes the phone display to black and white from color. The researchers believed that a less-stimulating screen would make for a less-rewarding user experience.

Members of the second group were asked to set time limits for themselves by using both the “downtime” and “app limits” features of the Screen Time app. With “downtime,” users set aside time where only calls and certain apps can be used; “app limits” puts time limits on certain apps or categories, such as social media.

Lastly, those in the control group were asked only to monitor their phone usage.

All participants completed a subjective well-being survey measuring life satisfaction, stress, sleep and happiness before and after the experiment.

The activation of grayscale mode immediately reduced users’ screen time (by 50 minutes a day—the average screen time being 261.50 minutes per day) compared with the control. Those who were asked to set time limits showed a more gradual reduction in screen time, perhaps indicating participants became better over time at reaching their time limit. This group’s average reduction in screen time was not significantly lower than that of the control group.

So that’s about a 20% reduction in screen time, but I’m still appalled that people with iPhones who used the reduction tool still spent over four hours per day on their phone. No wonder that when you ride on public transportation, about 80% of your fellow passengers will be glued to their phones.  These devices have changed our lives permanently—many times for the better, but the mindless scrolling through Twitter can’t be seen as a good.

*The Academy Awards (America’s biggests Wokeathon) are tonight, and of course I won’t be watching. (There’s no t.v. set in our house, but I wouldn’t watch anyway.) The list of nominees is here, but I’ve seen only  of the nominated films (the ones below in bold). Nine nominations are too many!

“All Quiet on the Western Front”
“Avatar: The Way of Water”
“The Banshees of Inisherin”
“Elvis”
“Everything Everywhere All at Once” (stopped watching after half an hour)
“The Fabelmans”
“Tár”
“Top Gun: Maverick”
“Triangle of Sadness”

There are quite a few people (e.g., here or here) who think that Tom Cruise should win a Best Actor Oscar for “Top Gun: Maverick”, and even more (like the Guardian) who think that the movie, which Cruise produced, should win for Best Movie. Steven Spielberg lauded Cruise for “saving Hollywood’s ass“, but I never equated box-office draw with movie quality, and the latter is supposed to be the criterion for winning. In action movies, the main actor is The Action. Granted, Cruise is a creditable actor (he was better in “The Minority Report” and “Jerry Maguire”), but he ain’t no male Meryl Streep. I still go with “Tár” for both Best Picture and Best Actress (Cate Blanchett), though my cinemaphilic nephew doesn’t agree.

Any reader who predicts the winner in the five categories of Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Supporting Actor, and Best Supporting Actress will win a free book (one of mine) with a cat drawn in it. Put your predictions below.

 

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, I’m in today’s Hili, in which her highness gives me napping lessons. In truth, though, no cat ever had insomnia. (The photo is mine, too!)

Hili: Jerry, look, this is how you sleep.
Jerry: I know, but sometimes it’s just a theory.
(Photo Credit: J.A.C.)

In Polish:

Hili: Jerry, popatrz, tak się śpi.
Jerry: Ja wiem, ale czasem to jest tylko teoria.
(Zdjęcie: J.A.C.)

********************

A B. Kliban cartoon from Stash Krod:

From the Animal Welfare League of Arlington via Merilee. There’s a caption:

What would YOU do if you came home to find sooty paw prints all over your bathroom? Well, this Arlington resident did the right thing by calling Arlington County Animal Control for advice! Officer Knight was dispatched to the resident’s home after they reported an unidentified animal in the house. When she arrived on scene, she was able to identify the sooty footprints in the bathroom as raccoon prints. Officer Knight determined that the raccoon had climbed down the chimney, and being a very tidy animal, decided to take a bath in the toilet bowl, before climbing back up the chimney! Officer Knight closed the chimney flue and referred the resident to Humane Wildlife Services and Humane Wildlife Conflict Resolution to service and re-cap her chimney.

From Mark. This is what keeps me up at night!

Bonus video: Philomena on acting (h/t Merilee).  Diane Morgan found her niche in the role of Philomena Cunk, but was also good as Kath in Ricky Gervais’s series “After Life.” That, by the way, is an excellent series and you should watch it. Morgan hates stand-up comedy, which is how she started, and in truth wasn’t very good at it.

From Masih. You can’t get more defiant of the Iranian regime than burning your hijab (I remember American protestors burning their draft cards during the Vietnam war.) And you can’t get more oppressive and misogynistic than killing a woman who burns her hijab.

The rest of the tweet is

. . . and she was protesting the murder of #MahsaAmini. We the women of Iran do not deserve Islamic republic.

No, the Islamic Republic does not deserve the support of the women of Iran.

From Malcolm, which shows a d*g can accomplish what the owner can’t:

From Ricky Gervais. This is the very last scene of the last season of his show “After Life”, and is one of the most brilliant set pieces I’ve seen on t.v. The woman who appears is his late wife, who died of cancer: the starting point of the show. It’s all about the ephemerality of life:

From Luana. Don’t try to tell me that ChatGPT isn’t nudged by woke programmers! Read the answers:

From the Auschwitz Memorial. It’s no surprise that this gaunt old man of 75 lasted but three days in the camp:

Tweets from Matthew. This first one is a brilliant demonstration that individuals will do whatever best helps them produce offspring. It’s dangerous to crawl to the water’s edge, where there are predators or the change of being landlocked, but you can squirt your larvae a lot farther in the air than in water. Presumably there’s an advantage to dispersal! (The original paper is here.)

Matthew doesn’t really understand baseball (just as I don’t understand cricket), but sent a pair of tweets about a college player called out on strikes. Here, on the second strike, the player has a mini-fit (it looked like a ball to me). The next pitch was clearly a ball but the ump, who must be blind, called a strike. The catcher jumps in to prevent mayhem. (That last called strike may be the ump’s “acting out tax.”

Jonathan Eisen, who does understand baseball, weighs in. The ump was suspended, and I agree about the last call

I am duck #6, drinking coffee (it’s 9 a.m. in Dobrzyn):

An interview with Philomena!

March 8, 2023 • 1:00 pm

Reader Rich sent me this with the note, “Just in case you missed it, a new interview with Diane Morgan here. Funny, lovely lady!  I’m loving Cunk On Earth.”

It’s weird, I can never think of her as Diane Morgan, and once or twice had to look up her real name. I can, however, always conjure up Philomena.

Sadly, she has a boyfriend. I dream of waking up next to her and having her whisper sweet nothings in my ear in that Bolton accent.

 

Diane Morgan does standup

December 8, 2022 • 9:00 am

It’s a slow news day, so let’s have some comedy.

I’m not sure that I’ve ever seen Philomena doing pure standup comedy before—at least on her own—but reader Rodger sent me this five-minute bit of real-life persona, Diane Morgan, onstage. Of course I love her—especially that Bolton accent!  There’s a bit of atheism in one of her jokes, for she’s an unbeliever.

She’s not bad here, but I always like her best as Philomena Cunk. “What is clocks?”

The last episode of “Cunk on Earth”

October 15, 2022 • 1:30 pm

Here’s the fifth and final episode of “Cunk on Earth,” this one called “War(s) of the World(s)?” (That title, of course, comes from the H. G. Wells novel.)  Here Philomena gets a lot of stuff wrong (the first Soviet missile is called “Spunk”) and deals with Karl Marx, the Russian Revolution, World War II , the Cold War, the space race (she’s particularly saddened by the death of Laika, the first dog in space), and rock and roll, which she of course screws up completely.  She also subscribes to a number of conspiracy theories, including “the Moon is not real.”

Finally, she takes on computers, smartphones, and the Internet, baffled by the possibility that we’re all in a big simulation.

“Pump Up the Jam” makes its last appearance at 21:35.

In the end, it’s a good series but not a great one. and, I think, not nearly as good as the segments of Philomena in Charlie Brooker’s Weekly Wipe. Diane Morgan is great (I love the Bolton accent) but she needs better material to work with. Five half-hour segments are simply too much.

Philomena on the Industrial Revolution

October 14, 2022 • 2:15 pm

“Rise of the Machines” is the penultimate episode of the five-part series “Cunk on Earth,” featuring our beloved Diane Morgan as Philomena Cunk.

This one is all over the map, including steam engines, guns, slavery, Marie Curie, and, of course, “Pump Up the Jam” (at 21:44). Why that’s there is beyond my understanding.

Philomena: Part III of her new series

October 11, 2022 • 1:30 pm

Here’s part 3 of Philomena’s “Cunk on Earth” series, this one called “The Renaissance will not be televised.”

Here we see La Cunk encounter the printing press, Renaissance painting, sculpture (“look at his ass”, she says, referring to Michelangelo’s David), and drawing (she’s obsessed with the “bits” of Leonardo’s drawings). She also takes up exploration (“Christopher Columbo”), science, impugning Galileo for his “useless” telescope and for having two nearly-identical names, and philosophy (her take on “I think, therefore I am” is quite good).  She winds up with her take on the American and French revolution, with some lagniappe involving Beethoven (Philomena asks a music expert, “Is it true that in the later part of his life, Beethoven was profoundly dead?”).

Once again techno-pop makes its appearance in a music video of “Pump up the jam,” which doesn’t seem to be an ad, but a bizarre intrusion into the mockumentary.

The fourth and penultimate segment will be on the Industrial Revolution.

Philomena is back in her own BBC series, “Cunk on Earth”

October 9, 2022 • 1:00 pm

My beloved Philomena has returned to television. Apparently there’s a series of five episodes of “Cunk on Earth”, all of which are online. According to the BBC, this is what the “mockumentary” is about:

In this deeply profound and important mockumentary series from Charlie Brooker, Philomena Cunk (Diane Morgan) tells the entire story of Human Civilisation from prehistoric times to the present day, covering all the main bits of History, Science, Culture and Religion.

So this really is the last documentary you ever need to watch.

Along the way, Philomena asks experts hard-hitting questions about humanity’s progress, and stands on or near impressive old ruins and inside museums, before the shot cuts away to some archive of the bits that don’t exist anymore or were too expensive to film at.

In this opening episode Cunk travels the world, heading down caves and up mountains in her search for Mankind’s first moments, and with the help of a variety of experts she explains how the earliest societies were formed: from the easier ones to spell like Rome and Greece, to the ones that are harder to spell, like Egypt and Mesopotamia.

All the videos are a bit shy of half an hour. The one on religion is next, and it’s a hoot. I’ll post one per day. But you have to watch them all!

Here’s Episode 1: “In the Beginnings”. Like the other episodes, it features Philomena interviewing academics and experts, and surely most of them must know that this is a spoof!

Readers’ wildlife photos

December 3, 2021 • 8:00 am

Today’s photos come from reader Tony Eales in Queensland, and they’re lovely pictures of spiders. Tony’s captions and IDs are indented, and you can enlarge the photos by clicking on them.

Here’s a grab bag of spiders I’ve photographed recently.

Firstly, two Arkys, my favourite spider genus.

Arkys speechleyi. These are relatively common in the right habitat but I haven’t seen this colour form before. The reddish-pink cephalothorax and legs are new to me. I like how it looks like it’s offering me some of its wasp(?) meal.

The other Arkys is A. cornutus, a species I haven’t seen in a few years. They are wonderfully colourful spiders in the 5-6mm range.

I recently found my first Carepalxis sp., a genus I’ve been hoping to encounter for a while. I find their bulbous faces quite mournful. They are rarely encountered spiders, hiding in the day and making a small orb web at night. The genus is present not just in Australia but also South and lower North America.

I also found a nice all-green member of the Araneus circulissparsus species complex. These are some of the prettiest small orb-weavers around. They often have yellow orange and deep red patches that look rather like a sherbet lolly we have called a fruit tingle.
The all-green one:

A more colourful one.

One I see commonly at night in the rainforests is the colourful Copa kabana in the family Corinnidae. The spider was described by Robert Raven in 2015. The genus name Copa already existed and I just think Robert Raven couldn’t resist the joke.

Another rather recently described spider from the family Lamponidae. This is a Gondwanan family with most species endemic to Australia but also found in New Guinea and New Caledonia. Two species have been accidentally introduced into New Zealand from Australia. Most members of this family are specialist spider-hunting spiders. I found this one, Centsymplia glorious, hunting through the moss on a tree trunk in the rainforest. This montotypic genus and species were described in 2000 from a specimen collected at Mt Glorious which it is named for and where I found this one.

I watched some interesting behaviour from this pair of net-casting spiders, Menneus sp. The female, on the left, was trying to hunt but constantly had to put down her net to chase off the amorous male, right. She’d pick the net up again, stretch it out, only to have the male come up and disturb her again.

Lastly, a cute little jumping spider that I encounter in the rainforest fairly regularly. Probably an undescribed member of the genus Tara. And when I say “small”, they are small!