Sunday: Hili dialogue

March 29, 2026 • 6:45 am

Welcome to Sunday, March 29, 2026: Sabbath for goyische cats. We are hurrying towards April, and today is National Vietnam War Veterans Day  Here is the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, designed by novice architect Maya Lin and erected in Washington, D.C. in 1982. It is a moving memorial, with over 58,000 names of the dead inscribed on it.  When I visited it, I can’t help thinking of those young American lives lost in a war that should not have taken place (no comments about Iran, please). This shot shows Christmas decorations.

Mariordo (Mario Roverto Durán Ortiz), CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

It’s also National Lemon Chiffon Cake Day, Palm Sunday, and Piano Day.

Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the March 29 Wikipedia page.

Da Nooz:

*War News from the WSJ and Times of Israel: U.S. Marines have arrived in the Middle East, and the Houthis fired a missile at Israel (it was intercepted). A ground war may be in the offing:

WSJ:

The 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit has arrived in the Middle East, giving President Trump more options in a conflict now entering its second month.

Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi militants claimed responsibility for a second attack on Israel after entering the war this weekend. Their involvement is an unnerving prospect for the oil market, raising fears of disruption to Red Sea shipping in addition to the crisis in the Strait of Hormuz.

ToI:

The US Department of Defense is preparing options for ground operations in Iran, which would fall short of a full-scale invasion but could involve thousands of troops and take weeks or months, The Washington Post reported late Saturday.

According to the report, which cited unnamed American officials, US President Donald Trump has not greenlit any of the plans yet.

The White House, asked for comment for the report, said the Pentagon works to give the president “maximum optionality,” but that this “does not mean the President has made a decision.”

According to the Post, the potential operations could see a mixture of special forces and conventional infantry sent to conduct extended raids into coastal areas near the Strait of Hormuz, including seizing islands controlled by the Islamic Republic and holding them for an extended period of time.

Experts have warned that holding territory would put American soldiers in significantly more danger than they’ve faced so far in the war, which has already seen 13 US servicemembers killed in action, and more than 300 wounded.

In for a penny, in for a pound. I don’t think there’s any way to bring down the Iranian administration—and is victory possible without that?—save sending in ground troops.  Trump keeps vacillating between saying the war is winding down and saying the war will last for a while

*From the NYT; the partial government shutdown continues as there is no funding for Homeland security, though TSA workers will get paid by an executive order.

  • House Republicans rejected the Senate-approved bill to pay T.S.A. workers, which would have eased some of the stresses of the partial shutdown while still withholding funding from ICE.
  • The House passed its own bill to fully fund the Department of Homeland Security into May. But the bill is a nonstarter in the Senate, which just began a two-week recess.
  • The White House ordered the D.H.S. to pay T.S.A. workers using existing funds. They could get checks as soon as Monday.

House Republicans angrily rejected a bipartisan deal to reopen the Department of Homeland Security and pushed through their own plan late Friday, putting themselves on a collision course with the Senate and extending the agency shutdown that has crippled U.S. airports.

Revolting over an agreement their own party struck with Senate Democrats to end the crisis, which had passed the Senate before dawn on Friday, House Republican leaders — with President Trump’s backing — refused to take it up. They derided the Senate plan for hewing too closely to Democrats’ position by omitting money for Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol, the two agencies responsible for carrying out Mr. Trump’s deportation crackdown, which are operating under previously approved funds.

“House Republicans are not going to be any part of any effort to reopen our borders or to stop immigration enforcement,” Speaker Mike Johnson said at a news conference on Friday afternoon. “This gambit that was done last night is a joke.”

Mr. Johnson called the Senate-passed deal engineered by Senator John Thune, Republican of South Dakota and the majority leader, “ridiculousness,” and instead teed up a stopgap measure to fund the entire department until May 22.

I don’t remember in this administration the House Republicans allied against the Senate Republicans. And, as far as I know, the Democratic bill doesn’t “stop immigration enforcement,” but merely makes ICE workers adhere to reasonable behavior, wear bodycams, and stop wearing masks.

As for when the long lines at TSA will stop, it may take a while, especially since some of them have simply quit their jobs to take more reliable positions.

*A Title VI settlement against Berkeley ruled that “anti-Zionism” is equivalent to antisemitism, and cannot be used to discriminate against students.

After years in which Jewish and Israeli students at University of California, Berkeley were told that their exclusion was merely the product of political disagreement, a Title VI case brought by the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law has reached a settlement. It requires the university to end student group practices that excluded “Zionists,” and finally affirms that what Jewish students experienced was, in fact, discrimination.

The settlement forces the university to confront what it had long denied: that Jewish students’ experiences of discrimination and harassment were real. Though the problem accelerated after Hamas’s genocidal massacre on October 7, Kenneth L. Marcus—founder and chairman of the Louis D. Brandeis Center, which brought the suit—accused Berkeley law students in 2022 of having“institutionalized an ancient ideology of hate, incorporating it into the legal DNA of their major identity groups.” He listed clubs as diverse as women’s groups, Asian and Pacific Islander, African American, LGBTQ, and Middle Eastern student organizations, all of which had altered their bylaws to exclude “Zionist” members and speakers.

In Marcus’s words: “Daniel Pearl, a Zionist victim of beheading, would have been constitutionally banned during his lifetime from speaking to any of these groups. His anti-Zionist murderers would not have been.”

The case comes in the wake of StandWithUs v. MIT, which was dismissed by a Massachusetts district judge who held not only that anti-Zionism constitutes protected speech, but that there is no basis for presuming it to be antisemitic—unless it explicitly employs recognizable antisemitic tropes.

The UC Berkeley case is an important victory. But it seems clear that much more work remains to produce lasting institutional change capable of protecting Jewish and Israeli students from anti-Zionist discrimination in the future. Law, as always, follows culture—and nothing less is required than a sea change in how we understand anti-Zionism.

Anti-Zionism transforms the very meaning of Zionism, reconstructing “Zionism” as a form of racial supremacy rooted in Jewish chosenness. This draws on a longer anti-Judaic tradition, running from Hasan Sa’b’s propaganda text Zionism and Racism—a key entry in the Palestine Essays series edited by Fayez Sayegh, the PLO propagandist who coined the term settler colonialism, and which recast Jewish peoplehood as inherently oppressive—to the Soviet-backed “Zionism is Racism” resolution of 1975 that continues to infuse the toxic discoursearound “Zionism,” despite its formal repeal in 1991.

The Berkeley stand was shameful: they totally bought into the view that anti-Zionism was a “political stand,” when in fact Zionism is simply the recognition that Jews should have their own state, WHICH THEY ALREADY HAVE.  If you’re Jew who lives in Israel, or reccognizes Israel’s already-designated right to exist, you can be damned as a Zionist. Is there anybody fool enough to think that “Zionist” is something other than a euphemism for “Jew”?

*The Free Press documents what happened in Chicago when they paid gang members and other locals to defuse conflicts on the street. It was a total disaster, and an expensive one. Who had that dumb idea?

The idea of fighting crime by paying ex–gang members might be new to you, but this sort of program, which often goes under the name of “community violence intervention,” has become the norm in blue cities like Chicago, Los Angeles, and New York City over the past decade.

Proponents of this approach argue that, rather than relying on policing to prevent gang violence and reduce shootings, some amount of police work can be replaced with state-backed, man-on-the-street initiatives. In Chicago, that includes hiring former gang members to counsel current ones and resolve disputes. The programs go by different names: violence prevention, violence interrupters, Peacekeepers.

In recent weeks, I’ve investigated whether this strategy is working—or whether taxpayers and philanthropists are inadvertently funding gang violence in Chicago. Randle is one of many outreach workers, South Side residents, and donors we spoke to who say they’re losing confidence in community violence intervention.

Over the past decade, taxpayers and private donors have spent around $1 billion on community violence intervention (CVI) programs in Chicago, according to an analysis by The Free Press.

CVI is backed by some of the biggest names in Chicago—and the country—including mega-philanthropist Laurene Powell Jobs, the billionaire wife of the late Apple co-founder Steve Jobs, Illinois governor J.B. Pritzker, and Chicago’s mayor, Brandon Johnson, a progressive who has helped secure funding for these programs. But not all city leaders have bought in.

. . . In 2018, CRED helped launch what would become the most controversial arm of the city’s CVI apparatus: a program called FLIP (Flatlining Violence Inspires Peace). Young locals—many of whom have criminal records or are “justice-involved,” as CRED puts it—are paid to de-escalate conflict, monitor social media for gang tensions, and participate in daily check-ins regarding hot-spot activity. They eventually got rebranded as Peacekeepers. They wear neon vests and are meant to hang out in contested areas. When gang violence explodes, more than 1,000 Peacekeepers are sent to hot spots throughout the city to intervene. What began as a privately funded program under CRED is now a state-funded program, which received $33 million for this fiscal year.

. . . .Since January 2023—when the Peacekeepers program expanded from a summer initiative to a year-round operation—The Free Press found 28 additional arrests involving people who identified themselves as Peacekeepers or “violence interrupters” or wore Peacekeeper vests. The charges range from drug possession to violent assault.

In one case, police arrested a man for alleged heroin possession and unlawful possession of a firearm after finding him naked under his bed with $50,000 in cash nearby (he was later acquitted). In another, officers allegedly discovered 24 suspected ecstasy pills on a man who identified himself as a Peacekeeper who had been arrested for battery and resisting the police. Another police report describes a man who said he worked as a Peacekeeper who allegedly beat a woman unconscious, leaving her hospitalized with a brain hemorrhage. Another Peacekeeper, who told police he was a member of the Satan Disciples gang, was arrested twice within the span of 10 days.

Here’s a figure from the Free Press article showing the increase in public funding of the program over time. It ain’t working:

Pritzker is an okay governor, and may even be a candidate for President in two years, but he’s too woke for his own good, and too enamored of harebrained schemes like this.

*Speaking of woke, Mara Gay is a woke NYT op-ed columnist (among many others) who loves Zohran Mamdani and the Democratic Socialists (have a look at her list of columns; nearly all of them praise Mamdani). This week she continues her osculation of Hizzoner (ignoring his downsides) with a column called, “Mamdani shows what it looks like when generational change actually takes place.”

Mayor Zohran Mamdani was on his way to Gracie Mansion this winter when he asked his driver to pull over to help fellow New Yorkers dig their cars out of the snow. He picked up a shovel. So did his press secretary. Members of his security detail did, too.

It was just the kind of scene that had endeared Mr. Mamdani, 34, to voters. It also hinted at a governing style that resembles the scrappy, high-octane feel of a political campaign — and relies on the hustle of a group of young staff members to keep up.

Mr. Mamdani, New York City’s youngest mayor in about a century, has filled City Hall with people who are also in their 30s, or even younger. The mayor’s chief of staff, Elle Bisgaard-Church, is 34. His communications director, Anna Bahr, is 33. Joe Calvello, his press secretary, is 33. His closest outside adviser, Morris Katz, 26, is so young that for several months last year, he told reporters he was a couple of years older than he was.

The arrival of these young Democrats at the helm of one of the most prominent offices in the country has meant all kinds of changes for New York politics, from the congressional primaries in which Mr. Mamdani has involved himself to who holds the political capital in New York.

Then there’s the way they run the government, with a management style that youth allows: working all the time. Mr. Mamdani is younger than most prominent Democrats, needs little sleep, enjoys working weekends and likes to be highly visible in the city he leads, every day. Some of his closest aides haven’t had a day off since Jan. 1, when the mayor was sworn into office. Work calls can begin as late as 10 p.m. Some veterans say the approach is notably intense, like Karen Hinton, who was Mayor Bill de Blasio’s press secretary and said she struggled to imagine her former boss shoveling snow. “He wouldn’t have gotten out of his car,” she said. “He would have called someone.”

Mr. Mamdani is trying to enact a sweeping leftist agenda in a moment when trust in government is exceedingly low. He is the city’s first Muslim mayor. And he came to office promising to champion working people in a moment when those Americans are struggling.

That may be why this mayor seems to approach everything he does with a sense of urgency. If it seems like Mr. Mamdani is everywhere, it’s because he is. So are his exhausted staffers. It’s a group of young and hungry progressives out to prove to voters that the left can govern.

What about his accomplishments? Well, his promise for free daycare has met with some approval with the governor, as it must, so there may be free daycare for two-year-olds within a year. But as for free public transportation and those city grocery stores—criekets.  And then there’s Mandami’s antisemitism, which goes with progressivism and the Democratic Socialists. Nobody seems to care much about that.  As one of my readers wrote me, ” I think Mamdani would expel all Jews from the city if he could. I think he would bankrupt the city and drive anyone with money from its borders.”  But the column, of course is only about the energy he and his young, deluded supporters bring to the city.

Also, my friend Orli Peter, a therapist who works with trauma, has been in the Middle East treating both Israeli and Palestinian trauma survivors. She wrote an article for a Swedish newspaper addressed to Mamdami’s wife, “An open letter to New York City’s first lady,” which is in Swedish but can be automatically tranlated into English by Google. Orli takes Rama Duwaji to task for her approbation for Hamas’s attack on Israel on October 7, 2023. Here’s the ending:

As the First Lady of New York City, you are in a public position to inspire a movement for Palestinian rights and security. The survivors I treat are still trying to rebuild their lives from what they witnessed. Palestinians also deserve to be freed from the same sadistic movement that terrorizes them.

Public gestures matter. When someone in a position of influence treats atrocities as liberation, the signal is sent far beyond a social media post.

The evidence is clear. Admit you were wrong and withdraw your support for the lie.

Some of us spend our days helping survivors rebuild the lives that Hamas shattered. The least the rest of the world can do is stop condoning mass sadism and tell the truth about what was done to the victims of Hamas’s cruelty.

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili has anomie:

Hili: I watch as the present turns into the past.
Me: And?
Hili: I will probably get bored of it soon.

In Polish:

Hili: Patrzę jak teraźniejszość zmienia się w przeszłość.
Ja: I co?
Hili: Pewnie zaraz mi się to znudzi.

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From Cats Doing Cat Stuff:

From Jesus of the Day:

From CinEmma:

From Masih, another peaceful protestor arrested (along with his mom) and tortured.  Iran now has a shoot-to-kill order in dealing with protests:

Good news: diabetics who inject themselves with insulin daily may be able to go to a once-per-week regimen:

From J. K. Rowling, celebrating the IOC’s decision to allow only biological women to compete in women’s sports:

Pinker prefers written rather than video instructions, as do I, and for the same reasons:

One from my feed:

One I reposted from The Auschwitz Memorial:

This Dutch Jewish girl was gassed to death as soon as she arrived in Auschwitz. She was five years old. Had she lived, she would have been 87 yesterday.

— Jerry Coyne (@evolutionistrue.bsky.social) 2026-03-29T14:30:35.433Z

And two from Dr. Cobb, relaxing in Lyme Regis. Look at this lovely siphonophore (a cnidarian):

whoa. stunning siphonophore by @schmidtocean.bsky.social ! youtube.com/shorts/G218j…

— Chris Mah (@echinoblog.bsky.social) 2026-03-26T18:47:13.329Z

I remember this rescue, and now there’s a statue!

A viral dog rescue from 2016 is now immortalized with a statue in Kazakhstan. When a dog fell into the Sayran reservoir, bystanders formed a human chain to pull him to safety. The statue is a reminder of the value of unity, solidarity and collective action. 14/10 for all

— WeRateDogs (@weratedogs.com) 2026-03-25T20:29:25.732Z

Caturday felid trifecat: Library accepts cat photos in lieu of late fees; the history of Downing Street cats; lost cat reunites with family after five years; and lagniappe

March 28, 2026 • 11:00 am

Yes, I know I’ve misspelled “trifecta” in the title, but that’s deliberate. Today we have the usual three items for Caturday, plus two lagniappes.

First, a heartening story from the 100 Libraries Magazine.  Click to read.

The Worcester Public Library in Massachusetts is, well, let them announce it:

Photo courtesy of the Worcester Public Library

From the text:

Embracing the spirit of the program, library patrons are encouraged to swap traditional monetary payments for a simple yet delightful alternative—a photo or drawing of a cat. Executive Director Jason Homer extends a warm invitation to all, regardless of feline companionship status.

“Even if you don’t have a cat in your life, you can still draw one,” Mr. Homer expressed to NBC Boston, highlighting the inclusive nature of the initiative. From domestic cats to majestic big cats like tigers and lions, all submissions are welcome with open arms.

Recognizing that accidents happen and fees can sometimes hinder access to library resources, the library hopes to extend a gesture of goodwill and understanding through this unique initiative.

Why March Meowness?

The inspiration behind “March Meowness” stems from a noticeable increase in overdue fines among young patrons, a trend exacerbated by the challenges posed by the pandemic. However, what started as a simple solution to address financial barriers quickly blossomed into something much more profound. Within just the first five days of its launch, the program had already cleared over 400 accounts, underscoring its immediate impact and resonance within the community.

In essence, “March Meowness” transcends the realm of library fines, serving as a testament to the power of creativity, compassion, and community spirit. Through a simple yet meaningful gesture, the Worcester Public Library not only alleviates financial burdens but also reaffirms its role as a cornerstone of the community—a place where everyone is welcome, regardless of their ability to pay. As patrons flock to share their beloved feline companions or imaginative renditions thereof, the library continues to serve as a beacon of hope, connection, and joy in uncertain times.

And here, from TikTok, is a wall o’cats showing how many people donated photos in lieu of fines (sound up):

@worcesterpublib

It was a valiant effort by our staff to try to get a many cat photos as possible up on our cat walls at several of our locations. We ran out of time and staff, but did our best! We hope you enjoyed this a much as we did! #catsoftiktok #catstagram #cats #librarytok #librarytiktok #library #worcesterma #mywpl #MarchMeowness #viral #fyp #fypシ #fypage #foryou #foryoupage #foryourpage

♬ Come Check This (Quickie Edit) – FETISH

And from the NBC Evening News, where we learn  that photos have been sent to the library from all over the world. The response would not be nearly as awesome if they wanted dog pictures, because cats rule the internet. 

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In honor of Larry the Cat‘s 15th birthday and 5 years of service as Chief Mouser to the Cabinet Office, Mark Felton Productions has put out a lovely 11-minute video detailing the history of Downing Street Cats beginning on June 3, 1929 when the government authorized the position. Rufus was the first Downing Street cat, replaced by Peter, and so on (one was also called “The Munich Mouser,” who was staffed by Neville “Peace in Our Time” Chamberlain.

It’s a great video, so watch.

Here’s a timeline of all the 10 Downing Street cats (via Wikipedia), and the parthy of the PM’s who staffed them. Click to enlarge.

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From the UPI’s “odd news” we have the story of a lost cat who came home after five years:

 

From the text:

A Maryland family whose pet cat went missing five years ago were reunited with the pet when she turned up in a stranger’s basement.

Melissa and Brooke Garci said Aremis, their indoor/outdoor cat, wandered away from home in Hickory in September 2021 and never came back.

The family canvassed the neighborhood and put up flyers, but there was no trace of Artemis.

The Harford County Humane Society said a woman came to the facility in February with a cat she found in her unfinished basement.

The shelter scanned the feline for a microchip, which identified her as Artemis.

“I was like, I couldn’t cry yet because I was in disbelief, but when I saw her, I was like, ‘OMG, she looks exactly the same,'” Brooke Garci told CBS Baltimore. “It was a beautiful thing.”

The humane society said the reunion was a reminder of the importance of having pets microchipped.

Always get your cat chipped, even if it’s an indoor cat. They can escape, you know, as Artemis did.  40% of lost cats with chips are returned to their owners. (Be sure your chip is updated if you move or change your phone number.)

Here’s a video of the grand reunion (warning, there are d*gs as well):

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Lagniappe: Two cat videos from The Good News girl:

Kiki the School Cat:

Reader’s wildlife photos

March 28, 2026 • 8:50 am

Today Athayde Tonhasca Júnior is back with one of his patented text-and-photo posts, which have always been very informative. Today he talks about palms and their pollinators in one area of Brazil.  Athayde’s captions are indented, and you can enlarge his photos by clicking on them.

Beneficial saboteurs

It’s approaching midday somewhere in the caatinga, northeastern Brazil’s hinterland, and the temperature will soon hit the 40o C mark. All is quiet, as most animals are sensibly sheltering from the sizzling sun. The vegetation looks dead and stunted, but it is in fact quiescent, in a state of dormancy that helps plants endure the heat and drought until the rainy season arrives.

Fig.1.  The caatinga vegetation in northeastern Brazil looks dead during dry season, but palm trees are green year round:

One palm tree, however, known locally as licuri (Syagrus coronata), doesn’t seem bothered by the harsh climate; it is verdant and in full bloom. The plant is monoecious, that is, it produces separate male and female flowers in the same individual. Male flowers grow at the end of large (~90 cm long) inflorescences, while the female flowers are at the base. Anthesis (the stage at which a flower is open and functional) is asynchronous: male flowers open first, releasing pollen and scent for 7 to 10 days. These flowers then shrivel and fall off. In about two weeks, it’s the female flowers’ turn; they are open for 10 to 15 days. Plants also bloom asynchronously, so at any given time of the year there are licuri flowers.

Fig.2. Licuri inflorescences © Drumond, 2007:

These flowery details may seem like too much information, but they are important for understanding the plant’s relationship with one of its most important flower visitors, the weevil Anchylorhynchus trapezicollis.

Like the overwhelming majority of the ~83.000 known species of weevil (family Curculionidae), A. trapezicollis feeds on plant tissues. Attracted by the scent of male flowers, a beetle uses its big schnozzle (in fact its rostrum, the snout-like projection from the head) to pry flowers open and take their pollen. While feeding, the beetle ends up with pollen grains attached to its body. As male flowers open at different times, there’s isn’t much food to be consumed in one sitting. The beetle is then encouraged to move to another plant, taking with it pollen that will result in cross pollination if the insect lands on a receptive female flower.

Fig.3. An A. trapezicollis in action on a licuri flower © Bruno de Medeiros, iNaturalist.Lu:

After feeding, a female beetle looks for female flowers to lay her eggs between the petals and sepals. The resulting larvae are cannibals: one larva will eat any competitor in the same flower. As they grow older, the little darlings shift their attention to developing fruits, which are aborted and fall off. Because it destroys forming fruits to complete its life cycle, A. trapezicollis is a seed predator. But for the cost of a portion of its fruits, the licuri palm is pollinated. This form of mutualism is known as brood-site pollination or nursery pollination, a trade-off association that has evolved for the yucca and the yucca moth, figs and fig wasps, and several other plant-insect partnerships.

Fig. 4. The licuri‘s trunk ends in a distinct crown of slightly arched leaves, a feature that inspired its specific epithet coronata (crowned) © Kelen P. Soares, Flora e Funga do Brasil:

Other weevils and bees also pollinate licuri, but A. trapezicollis seems to be the most important agent (Medeiros et al., 2019). This tight relationship has profound ecological consequences.

It is said that everything from a pig can be used except the oink, but licuri is not far behind in relation to its usefulness to humans. Its apical meristem (palm heart) is edible; the leaves are the source of a high quality wax, building materials, hats, baskets, sleeping mats and other handicrafts; ground-up leaves are fed to livestock in times of food scarcity; the tasty seeds (endosperm or nuts) are eaten raw or roasted, or added to confectionery and local dishes; oil extracted from seeds is used for lighting and the manufacture of soap, perfumes and other products.

Fig.5. The greenish pulp (mesocarp), brown hard shell (endocarp) and the nutritious white nut (kernel) of a licuri fruit © B. Phalan, Wikimedia Commons:

Humans are not the only creatures to benefit from licuri: many animals take the wholesome fruits. Among them, the Lear’s macaw (Anodorhynchus leari), an endemic and endangered species, for which licuri nuts represent the bulk of its nutrition.

Fig.6. Lear’s macaws, big fans of licuri nuts © João Quental, Wikimedia Commons:

There you have it: a palm tree of unordinary value, from people’s welfare and economy to endangered macaws and wildlife in general, is greatly dependent on pollination provided by unassuming weevils. And this is not an isolated case. More than 200 palm species (family Arecaceae) are pollinated by weevils, and so are many other plants from different lineages (Haran et al., 2023). The ‘million dollar weevil’ (Elaeidobius kamerunicus) illustrates well the relevance of these insects as pollinators. This beetle was introduced from Africa to Asia to help improve pollination of cultivated African oil palm (Elaeis guineensis), resulting in considerable increase in yields.

When we think of pollinators, bees, flies and moths are most likely to come to mind, as they contribute to the reproduction of crops and wildflowers familiar to us. Adding weevils to this select club may sound peculiar: after all, many weevils are pests capable of inflicting enormous damage on cultivated plants, trees and stored products (you may have had your pantry invaded by weevils). But that would be a parochial view. For millions of people in tropical and subtropical regions, palm trees are more than props in holiday brochures: they are crucial for wildlife food chains, human nutrition, building materials and commodities such as medicines, industrial products and fibre. A great deal of these benefits depends on a range of poorly known, frequently dismissed and often vilified weevils.

Fig.7. Six species of weevil known to be involved in brood-site pollination © Haran et al., 2023:

 

References

Drumond, M.A. 2007. Documentos, 199. Embrapa Semi-Árido.

Haran, J. et al. 2023. Most diverse, most neglected: weevils (Coleoptera: Curculionoidea) are ubiquitous specialized brood-site pollinators of tropical flora. Peer Community Journal 3: e49.

Medeiros, B.A.S. et al. 2019. Flower visitors of the licuri palm (Syagrus coronata): brood pollinators coexist with a diverse community of antagonists and mutualists. Biological Journal of the Linnean Society 126: 666-687.

 

Saturday: Hili dialogue

March 28, 2026 • 6:45 am

Welcome to CaturSaturday,  March 28, shabbos for Jewish cats. It’s also, fortuitously, National Respect Your Cat Day, and here’s an appropriate meme from Kitty Litterposting:

It’s also Eat an Edy’s Pie Day (these were formerly known as Eskimo Pies but the name was changed to reflect the name of a cofounder. But why don’t they call them “Inuit Pies”?), National Black Forest Cake Day, and Weed Appreciation Day (no, not that weed).

Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the March 28 Wikipedia page.

Da Nooz:

The NYT continues to put up only bad news or criticism of the war on its “news” page. Here’s the upper-left corner of the online site yesterday:

Man, I’ll miss those raspberries, which take a lot of fuel to produce.

*The latest war update from It’s Noon in Israel:

It’s Friday, March 27, and the twenty-eighth day of Operation Roaring Lion. The global price of oil has reached $109, up 51 percent since the start of the war. Here are the latest developments while you were asleep:

  • While Trump claims he’s working on a negotiated end to the war, the U.S. is considering deploying up to 10,000 additional ground troops to the Middle East, the Wall Street Journal reported yesterday. The force would likely include infantry and armored vehicles, supplementing the 82nd Airborne Division already in the region, in order to give Trump additional “military options.” Analysts suggest the 82nd Airborne is positioned with Iranian strategic assets—specifically Kharg Island—in mind. It remains unclear where the additional forces would be stationed.
  • Yesterday, Hezbollah fired over 100 rockets at Israel. Uri Peretz, 43, a father of four from Nahariya, was killed after not making it to a shelter in time. A man in his 50s was seriously wounded, and 13 others were lightly injured by shrapnel.
  • Sergeant Aviad Elchanan Volansky, 21, from Jerusalem, was killed recently when an anti-tank missile struck a tank belonging to the Golani Brigade’s combat team. Four additional IDF soldiers—two officers and two fighters from Battalion 77—were lightly injured in the attack. Aviad was the cousin of Elhanan Klein, may his memory be a blessing, who was murdered at the start of the war. He was named after his uncle, who was killed in the 2002 terrorist attack in Eli. IDF fatalities during this war have risen to 5.
  • Naftali Bennett gave his first interview in months last night, attacking Donald Trump’s pardon initiative, the Haredi draft law, and the conduct of the current war. “We’re not winning on any front—not in Gaza, not in Lebanon, and with Iran, we’ll see,” he said. Bennett also used the opportunity to map out his coalition red lines: he will not serve under Netanyahu, will not ally with Ben Gvir, the Arab parties, or the Haredim. He said he would consider Bezalel Smotrich’s Religious Zionist party—but only if Smotrich takes a hard line against ultra-Orthodox draft exemptions

. . . and a bit more:

For all the theatricality of the war, the idea of an abrupt ending is surprising—if not a bit disappointing. It seems the Pentagon agrees, if for strategic rather than presentational reasons. According to reports, the Pentagon and U.S. Central Command are developing plans for a “finishing blow” against Iran.

Four main options are reportedly on the table:

  1. Invading or blockading Iran’s oil chokepoint Kharg Island.
  2. Seizing Larak Island, which anchors Iran’s control of the Strait of Hormuz;
  3. Taking control of Abu Musa and two smaller islands near the strait’s western entrance.
  4. Intercepting Iranian oil tankers on the eastern side of Hormuz.

The military has also prepared plans for ground operations deep inside Iran to seize enriched uranium from nuclear facilities.

After that kind of operation, Trump has options: he can go back into negotiations, dangling new assets, or call an end to the war unilaterally, with something major to show for it.

All of that takes time to prepare—time the global economy doesn’t seem willing to give Trump after his energy ultimatum. If only there were a way to calm the markets—perhaps by letting negotiations drag on and extending the deadline while the military prepares.

I have no idea what Trump’s going to do, since he’s postponed action against Iran’s power and oil infrastructure twice. See next article:

*Trump has decided to give Iran an extra ten days before the U.S. and Israel strike Iran’s energy infrastructure.

President Donald Trump said Thursday that he would delay attacks on Iran’s energy infrastructure by an additional 10 days — extending for a second time his deadline for Iran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, as he cited progress in negotiations with Tehran.

Talks “are going very well,” Trump wrote in a post on social media.

In the same post, Trump said he was halting further strikes on Iran’s energy assets. Trump issued a 48-hour ultimatum to Iran last weekend, saying he would “obliterate” the country’s power plants, beginning with the largest, if it did not reopen the Strait of Hormuz, a vital conduit for global energy supplies that has been effectively shut by the war. On Monday, Trump issued a new five-day timeline, saying negotiations to end the war had begun.

U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran have killed members of the country’s senior leadership and destroyed military infrastructure, but it’s unclear if the attacks have made Tehran more willing to compromise and accept a ceasefire deal with the United States.

Trump’s pursuit of a settlement to the war comes as the conflict approaches the one-month mark and financial markets seem rattled. Stock indexes fell Thursday, as oil prices again rose above $100 a barrel. The S&P 500 lost 1.7 percent, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq fell 2.4 percent, ending the day in correction territory — off 10 percent from its recent high. Markets in Asia were down again on Friday, reflecting continuing unease after Trump’s latest announcement.

In a sign of the Trump administration’s deep concern about spiking oil prices, the Treasury Department last week lifted sanctions on 140 million barrels of Iranian oil already at sea.

Again, I’m just waiting stuff out. I have no idea what they’re negotiating for, as Trump’s 15-point “peace plan” and Iran’s demands are very far apart. And remember, these agreements have a way of being breached. For example, Hamas is still in full military control of areas of Gaza not occupied by the IDF.  The cease-fire agreement stipulated that Hamas was supposed to lay down its weapons. And I doubt that the Iranian military will.

*What a way to treat an ally! The WSJ reports that Iran turned back two Chinese ships approaching the Strait of Hormuz.

In an unusual move, two container vessels belonging to China’s state-owned Cosco Shipping were turned back from crossing the Strait of Hormuz on Friday morning, according to ship tracker MarineTraffic and Chinese crew members near the strait.

The two ships—CSCL Indian Ocean and CSCL Arctic Ocean—made U-turns near Larak Island, about 20 miles from the port of Bandar Abbas in southern Iran. In recent days, some ships have transited the strait via the narrow channel between Iran’s Qeshm and Larak islands, including those signaling Chinese owners and crew members.

Iran’s Revolutionary Guard said Friday that it had turned back three containerships of various nationalities trying to cross the strait, adding that all ship traffic to and from ports of supporters of the U.S. and Israel was prohibited, according to Nour News, which is affiliated with the country’s Supreme National Security Council.

Containership owners told the Journal that the only vessels that can now cross the strait are those with cargoes of Iran-destined household goods, cars, clothing and pharmaceuticals.

In the past week, Iran has allowed four ships loaded with grains to cross the Strait of Hormuz in the other direction, after waiting nearly three weeks in the Gulf of Oman, according to brokers who arranged the cargoes. The bulkers unloaded at Iran’s Bandar Imam Khomeini port, where three-quarters of the cargo handled is grain imports mainly from Russia and South America.

Here’s the WSJ’s figure showing the paths of the two ships as they turned around. The Strait is about 25 miles wide at its narrowest point, with a two-mile-wide shipping lane.

Control of the Strait may well be the dealbreaker for any negotiations going on between the U.S. and Iran, and it is Iran’s trump card.  Absent their control of this straits, they might already have been bombed to the point of surrender.

*More administrative narcissism: Trump has decided to sign his name on all American paper currency, the first time a sitting President has had his signature on U.S. bills. This is supposed to be in honor of our 250th anniversary as a country, but we know better than that, don’t we?

The U.S. Treasury Department plans to put President Donald Trump’s signature on all new U.S. paper currency, the agency announced on Thursday.

The move would be a first for a sitting president, since traditionally, U.S. paper currency carries the signatures of the Treasury Secretary and the Treasurer, not the president.

It’s the latest instance of Trump putting his name and likeness on American cultural institutions, following his renaming of the U.S. Institute of Peace, the Kennedy Center performing arts venue and a new class of battleships, among other tributes.

And the plans come in tandem with an ongoing effort to get Trump’s face on a coin, which has also drawn criticism since federal law prohibits the depiction of a living president on U.S. currency.

Earlier this month, a federal arts commission approved the final design for a 24-karat gold commemorative coin bearing Trump’s image to help celebrate America’s 250th birthday on July 4. The vote by the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts, whose members are supporters of the Republican president and were appointed by him earlier this year, was without objection.

Treasury says the plan to include Trump’s signature on all new paper currency is intended to honor the nation’s 250th birthday, and that Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent’s signature would also appear on the currency.

Bessent said in a statement that “there is no more powerful way to recognize the historic achievements of our great country” than with U.S dollar bills bearing Trump’s name.

Michael Bordo, director of the Center for Monetary and Financial History at Rutgers, said the move will undoubtedly come with political pushback, “but I do not know if he has crossed any legal red lines” since the Treasury Secretary may have the authority to decide who signs the currency.

That’s another good reason to avoid using cash (in fact, I don’t think I’ve paid for anything using real money in months). And presumably that signature will disappear when a Democrat gets elected in 2028 (knock on wood).   The signature we may well see, which is illegible:

*As usual, I’ll steal a few items from Nellie Bowles’s news-and-snark column at the Free Press, called this week, “The truth of the conspiracy of the conspiracy.”

→ Just for a little taste of the streets: You should probably know what is being said in those fun progressive pro-peace protests happening all over the place. Here’s a great example from a protest in Philadelphia this week. A man stands in front of a boisterous crowd: “Until we have done everything in our power to bring the United States to its knees, let us not lose sight of the enemy!” Ok, me too, peace and love,man. He continues: “For every U.S. soldier who comes back in a casket, we cheer!” The crowd cheers.

He also says: “Hamas, Hezbollah, Ansar Allah, all of the resistance forces we celebrate. These popular forces on the ground spend every waking moment in direct confrontation with Zionism and they rely on a strong Iranian state to maintain their fighting capacity.”

It’s just like Woodstock. Just kids swaying, wishing for a better world.

→ And in news of the Jews: A Michigan Democrat campaigning for a U.S. Senate seat opened up about how it was “a risk” for him to condemn the local attack on a synagogue full of small children. But he did it anyway. “It was a risk,” Abdul El-Sayed said. “All of our team was really worried about saying something, but leadership is being willing to say the thing if you believe it to be true that nobody else is going to say.” Which is a nice point about leadership, I guess, but can we go back to that part where everyone was worried about you condemning an attempted mass casualty event on children? To understand how fast the rhetoric has shifted toward mass murder of American Jews, this is what counts as a brave stance now.

Interesting to note:

→ English-speaking countries are very sad:

This is a new World Happiness Report 2025.Why the hell are the Finns so happy?

You got me.  The most atheistic countries in the world are the happiest! But we’ve long known that there’s a negative correlation among countries between religiosity and happiness. The most religious countries are the ones that are the worst off.

→ Kristi Noem’s questionable budget: Remember that anti-border crossing ad Kristi Noem did while heading the Department of Homeland Security? The one that got her in trouble for the big budget? Well, we’ve gotten details. Renting the horses for it cost $20,000. That’s the headline haunting poor Kristi, who just wanted to feel like a real-life cowgirl for a day. What did you want her on, a donkey? She also spent $3,800 on hair and makeup—which, as someone married to a woman who regularly has to dress up—that’s entirely reasonable.

→ Speaking of women on budget journeys: Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez spent nearly $19,000 of campaign funds on a psychiatrist who specializes in ketamine therapy. Caveat: We don’t know who was being treated, and we cannot say it was with ketamine. But let’s imagine for a moment. First of all, aren’t we glad that women are in public office now? Men spend campaign funds on one thing and one thing only: paying off prostitutes. Sometimes it’s paying off people who paid off prostitutes, and probably buying prostitutes. But women with a bucket of campaign funds? Women get creative. Women give us variety. A man never spent 20 grand on horses, or 20 grand on therapists who will give you an IV of horse tranquilizer so you can finally forgive your dad. You know this is just the tip of the iceberg. Botox, special appliances, ecstatic dance lessons. You know it got crazy.

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili has a bad encounter with the pebbles again:

Andrzej: What are you doing?
Hili: I’m pretending I’m comfortable here.

In Polish:

Ja: Co ty robisz?
Hili: Udaję, że mi tu wygodnie.

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

More impetus to respect your cat, also from Kitty Litterposting:

From Now That’s Wild, an excellent birthday present:

From CinEmma:

A tweet from Masih. Put yourself in this Iranian kid’s shoes:

I thought Larry the Cat was dead because he hadn’t tweeted in over a month. Here he explains:

From Bryan. Go here to sign up for the show:

From Luana, with a LOL:

One from my feed. I’m not sure where it is from, but it’s great

One I reposted from The Auschwitz Memorial:

This Italian Jewish girl was gassed to death as soon as she arrived in Auschwitz. She was seven years old.

— Jerry Coyne (@evolutionistrue.bsky.social) 2026-03-28T10:11:13.224Z

And two from Dr. Cobb, taking a vacation in Lyme Regis:

Lyme Regis

— Matthew Cobb (@matthewcobb.bsky.social) 2026-03-27T17:03:19.687Z

Lyme Regis is, of course, where Mary Anning did her fossil work. Here’s a statue of Anning and her dog. Matthew says, “Look at the hem of her dress.”

— Matthew Cobb (@matthewcobb.bsky.social) 2026-03-27T17:09:07.173Z

Indigenous “ways of knowing” invade Canadian science classes

March 27, 2026 • 11:00 am

I’ve spent a lot of time pushed many electrons going after the fallacy in New Zealand that indigenous “ways of knowing”—in this case from the Māori—are just as valid as so-called “Western ways of knowing,” which is what Kiwi progressives call “science”. You can see my pieces here, but there are many.

This sacralization of the oppressed, whereby the beliefs of minorities are given extra credibility, has now spread to Canada, a pretty woke place.  Lawrence Krauss, who now lives in British Columbia, was astonished and depressed to find indigenous (Native American) superstitions treated as science in the secondary-school curriculum.

You can read his lament by clicking the screenshot below, or find the article archived here.

Quotes from Krauss’s piece are indented, and my comments are flush left. This battle apparently needs to be fought in every country where science, which is not “Western” but worldwide, has been diluted via the efforts of “progressives” who think they’re doing a good thing. They’re not: they are impeding the education of kids by conflating superstitions and established science.

Check out the links in the first paragraph:

I now live in British Columbia (B.C.). A colleague recently forwarded me the current B.C. high school science curriculum for grades nine and twelve. It includes an embarrassing amalgam of religious gobbledygook and anti-science rhetoric. It is an insult to school children in B.C. and does a disservice to the students of the province at a time when understanding the nature and process of science is becoming increasingly important to their competitive prospects in a world dominated by technology.

You may wonder how religious fundamentalism could so effectively creep into the curriculum in a progressive place like British Columbia. The answer is simple. The religious nonsense being inserted into the curriculum has nothing to do with Christian fundamentalism; rather, it is Indigenous religious nonsense. And in the current climate, Indigenous “knowledge” is held to a different standard from scientific knowledge—or, rather, to no standard at all.

. . . In the B.C. science curriculum for grade nine, this agenda is explicit. Students are expected to: “Apply First Peoples’ perspectives and knowledge, other ways of knowing, and local knowledge as sources of information.” “Ways of knowing” are defined as “the various beliefs about the nature of knowledge that people have; they can include, but are not limited to, Aboriginal, gender-related, subject/discipline specific, cultural, embodied and intuitive beliefs about knowledge.”

Here’s one example of how indigenous knowledge dilutes superstition. Like me and many others, Krauss has no problem in teaching this stuff as “social science or history”, but bridles at equating it with science:

For example, lesson three of the “BC Grade 9 Student Notes and Problems Workbook,” contains a section entitled “The Universe: Aboriginal Perspectives.” Over the course of two pages, the creation myths of various aboriginal peoples are described in detail, as “beautifully descriptive legends depicting the relationship between Earth and various celestial bodies.” Such subjects as the creation of the universe by a raven; the presence of water everywhere on Earth except on Vancouver Island; the eternal efforts of the Moon to get some of that water to drink; how and why a divine son and daughter team set out to make the Sun traverse the sky, while ensuring that it seems to stop in the middle of the day; how one of the jealous siblings turned into the Moon; how lunar eclipses occur when the spirit of Ling Cod tries to swallow the Moon; how one constellation of stars is the remnants of a giant bird that flew up from Earth; and how the celestial raven eventually released the Moon, stars, and Sun from boxes, in that order. These are quaint myths, and one can imagine how a reasonable science book might describe how we overcame these prehistoric notions to arrive at our modern understanding via the process of science. Instead, the conclusion at the end of this chapter reads, “These stories parallel the Big Bang Theory.”

The only answer to that is, “No they don’t.”  Krauss continues:

As if the insults to the process of science reflected in these curricular statements weren’t bad enough, when the workbook actually discusses science, it gets it all wrong. For example, the book states that, “Indications are that all galaxies are moving away from a central core area. Thus, the universe is said to be expanding.” In fact, the central premise of the Big Bang picture of our expanding universe is that there is simply no centre to the universe. The Universe is uniformly expanding but not from a single central point, but from everywhere. Elsewhere, the process that describes the power generation in stars is listed three times as nuclear fission. This is the opposite of the actual process, nuclear fusion, which explains how light nuclei combine to form heavier nuclei.

This is not surprising, for the people who tout indigenous knowledge as coequal with modern science often are not conversant with modern science. This is also true in New Zealand: advocates for native people simply look for parallels that can be used to say, “Look—indigenous people had a parallel but equally correct way of understanding the universe.” And the answer to that, too, is “No they didn’t.

The damage done to children’s education, and to science itself, are obvious, but summed up by Krauss at the end:

The understanding of the modern world is based on science and that understanding was built up, often at great cost, by overcoming myth and superstition. It is a giant leap backwards to cater to such superstitions in a misguided attempt to somehow pay back Indigenous peoples for historical wrongs. Students today had nothing to do with the sins of the past, and we owe it to them to teach them the best possible science we can. That means separating religious myths from science, and in the process actually trying to get the science straight. The B.C. science curriculum is a disgrace on both counts.

Amen.  I suspect the only reason this tactic hasn’t spread to Europe is that they have—with the exception of the Sámi of Scandinavia—almost no indigenous people to sacralize. But India has plenty, and already science is being diluted there by Hindu “ways of knowing”, including the government’s establishment of institutes tasked with revealing the scientific wonders of cows and their urine, dung, and milk. When I visited India on a lecture tour, I spent a long time listening to credible scientists beef about (sorry for the pun) the stupidity of the government’s dilution of science. Their complaint? “Where’s the beef?”, for despite a big government expenditure, there was little to show. That’s what happens when “scientists” are more or less ordered to come up with results wanted by others.

Now The Atlantic touts religion—or rather, beliefs that don’t need evidence

March 27, 2026 • 9:30 am

I’ve been posting from time to time about how the mainstream media is suddenly touting religion and its benefits—a phenomenon I don’t fully understand. Now The Atlantic has joined the queue with an article by Elizabeth Bruenig, who’s written for the magazine for 6 years, and before that for the NYT, the WaPo, and the New Republic. She also has a master’s degree in Christian theology from Cambridge University.  All this means that she’s fully qualified to tout religion to liberals.

And in the article below she does just that, but in an unusual way.  She dismisses the need for any evidence for gods or specific religions, and takes the position that belief itself, however arrived at, is sufficient to warrant the truths of that belief. It’s bizarre, and another example of a supposedly reputable publication jumping the rails.

You can read the article archived below, or find it archived here.  (Thanks to the many readers who sent me this piece.)


Bruenig begins by dissing the New Atheists (unfairly, of course), and then segues into her Frozen Waterfall Moment: the epiphany that solidified her waning faith.

I grew up in a faithful Methodist household in deep-red Texas during the George W. Bush years, when the political sway of Evangelicals was at its zenith. At the same time, evangelists of a robust atheism—figures such as the biologist Richard Dawkins, the critic Christopher Hitchens, and the neuroscientist Sam Harris—toured the country offending salt-of-the-earth Americans with their contempt for religious belief. It was hard for me to ignore that a number of their assertions were clearly correct: Young-Earth creationism, for instance, instantly struck me as absurd when I first learned about it from a history teacher in my public junior-high school, who confidently told me that the world is only a few thousand years old.

That wasn’t what my family or church taught, but Christians who subscribed to those beliefs were suddenly ascendant, and their thinking colored the country’s religious landscape. Meanwhile, the New Atheists were making hay of the fact that such faithful misapprehensions about nature were easily disproved by scientific discovery. Though I continued to attend church as usual, I privately wondered whether the entire enterprise might be rooted in nothing more than a misunderstanding.

This steady diminishing of faith probably would have continued indefinitely, were it not for one brisk autumn afternoon in 2011 when, standing alone at a bus stop, I happened to witness the presence of God.

The unevenly paved lane where I waited was a quiet one-way street tucked away in a clutch of trees. I gazed down the road, preoccupied with other things—midterm exams, campus-club minutiae—and expecting the bus to trundle around the bend. A sudden icy wind tore around the corner instead, sweeping into gray branches and climbing ivy to send a spray of golden birch leaves spiraling into the sky, taking my breath along with them. And I knew that my soul was bared to something indescribably majestic and bracing—something that overwhelmed me with the unmistakable sensation of eye contact. What I saw, I felt, also saw me. Before I could rationally account for what had happened, a verse of poetry from John Ashbery came to mind:

A look of glass stops you

And you walk on shaken: was I the perceived?

That seemed to explain things perfectly, jarringly so. I was dazed in class as afternoon darkened to evening.

Note that at the same time she sneers at New Atheists for their “contempt” for religion, she notes that they also dispelled misguided beliefs in creationism, so chalk that up to New Atheism. In her case, the ephipany was more mundane than the three frozen waterfalls that brought Francis Collins to Christ: hers involved a wind blowing leaves into the sky.  And for some reason that made her think about a poem that is not at all about God, but (as far as I can see), the creative process of a writer and how that process is perceived by the poet and how it interprets reality. It’s an okay poem, but it doesn’t rhyme, so it’s really a bunch of fragmentary thoughts, as in Ulysses, but put into verse form. At any rate, when Breunig, the wind that blew the leaves around somehow blew faith into her soul.

Surprisingly, given Bruenig’s own contempt for the need for evidence to buttress one’s faith, she spends a long time describing a new big book that appears to make the same old arguments about the facts of science that point to God (fine-tuning, the Big Bang, etc.):

The latest evidence suggests that God most likely exists, argues a big recent book by Michel-Yves Bolloré, a computer engineer, and Olivier Bonnassies, a Catholic author. Tracts that aim to prove the reality of God are hardly novel. What makes this endeavor unique, say the French writers behind God, The Science, the Evidence: The Dawn of a Revolution, is the scientific nature of their work. Medieval monks toiling away at poetic meditations on the divine have their place, the authors allow, but their own arguments are meant to surpass mere abstract justifications for belief. Instead they assert that cutting-edge empirical proof observable in the natural world makes a firm case for God. With this, they strive for the ultimate alchemy, transforming faith into fact.

Bolloré and Bonnassies’s book is part of a burgeoning genre of apologetics that relies on relatively new scientific developments and theories, like quantum mechanics and cosmology, to make an ancient case. Their book, which has already sold more than 400,000 copies around the world, arrives at a time of both bloody religious conflict and rapidly collapsing religious belief, especially among the young and the highly educated. It joins other recent projects—including two new documentaries, The Story of Everything: The Science That Reveals a Mind Behind the Universe and Universe Designed—that propose the same tantalizing theory: that there is incontrovertible proof that a divine power created the cosmos, and that this evidence is mounting.

. . . [the authors] identify a series of scientific breakthroughs that helped undermine religious faith over the centuries, including Galileo’s heliocentrism, Newton’s clockwork universe,

The publisher says pretty much the same thing: scientific discoveries in quantum mechanics, cosmology, the “fine-tuning of the Universe,” and the incredible complexity of living organisms” (i.e., Intelligent Design) have dispelled materialism and naturalism:

Yet, with unexpected and astonishing force, the pendulum of science has swung back in the opposite direction. Driven by a rapid succession of groundbreaking discoveries—thermodynamics, the theory of relativity, quantum mechanics, the Big Bang, theories about the expansion and fine-tuning of the Universe, and the incredible complexity of living organisms—old certainties have been completely overturned. Materialism increasingly has the appearance of an irrational belief.

I’ll admit I haven’t read this 500-page behemoth, whose summaries recycle the same old arguments for God from science, and I’m not sure I want to read it (you can see a critical review of its content archived from Medium), whose author (“Matthew”) confirms the impression I got from above, but adds that the book also throws in some theology. From Medium:

Yet what is strange is how much [the book] feels like a nostalgic throwback, it is reminiscent of the publishing fads of the 00s when New Atheism was in its peak and church book stands were full of books with titles like “The Dawkins Delusion” or “How Science Proves God” or whatever it might have been. The book even approvingly quotes Dawkins’ claim that God is basically a scientific hypothesis that we can prove or disprove, and the authors claim we should be able to look at science and find evidence of God, or at least we shouldn’t find evidence that contradicts the idea that there is a divine creator. Yet it is also far weirder than intelligent design rebuttals of atheists, the book goes beyond science, including lengthy chapters on the bible, the person of Jesus, the continued existence of the Jewish people, the persecution of scientists in the Soviet Union and (sorry Substack) for some reason, the Fatima miracle.

I will be honest up front, I found the book to be absolutely mad, hamfisted and confused. It is error strewn, misrepresents various ideas completely, and in spite of being written by two Catholics claiming to be retrieving a more ancient worldview, it largely constitutes a clumsy argument for a God of enlightenment deism, making some absolutely eye wateringly odd claims along the way. As the reviews all seem to say it is extremely “readable” but mostly because it is presented as a skim over of topics in soundbites and quotes so that it reads like a print out of a load of powerpoint slides.

. . . More to the point, I find it hard to believe we are in an “intellectual paradigm shift” when the authors have offered what is essentially undigested quotes from wikipedia and a bunch of arguments that were in vogue nearly two decades ago. This book is the definition of singing to the choir, except by the choir it must mean a very particular set of Christians inclined to share the author’s theology but not inclined to know anything about the arguments.

You can read the rest of the review for yourself.  The fact is, though, that the quality and arguments of the book are irrelevant, for Atlantic author Breunig says that people don’t need no stinking evidence to accept gods and their natures. The argument from science, she says, is misguided (bolding henceforth is mine):

To imagine that one might find traces of the divine strewn throughout the universe, or that earthly methods of inquiry might uncover some of those signs, isn’t ridiculous. But this latest round of arguments in favor of intelligent design seems aimed mostly at establishing that God could or should exist within the rational frameworks we already employ. This is both weak grounds for belief and a fundamental misunderstanding of faith. The route to durable faith in God often runs not through logical proofs or the sciences, but through awe, wonder, and an attunement to the beauty and poetry of the world, natural and otherwise.

In other words, it’s the “beauty and poetry of the world” that convinced Bruenig of the divine. Apparently she has overlooked the ugliness of the world: the cancers in children, the incessant wars and killings, the death of thousands of innocent people in natural disasters, and even humans’ destruction of the very beauty that inspires her. Is this evidence for Satan?

It’s quite bizarre to read about Breunig’s transformation into a believer, one who rejects science but still touts “objective evidence” for divinity.

She turned her Golden Leaf Epiphany over in her mind, and it is that epiphany—a purely emotional experience—that led her to see reality (OBJECTIVE reality) through a god-shaped lens. And she disses New Atheism again for its supposed claim that believing in gods makes one unsophisticated or dumb.  No, she’s wrong: the argument is that accepting theism means you’re credulous. Breunig:

 I began to ask myself what it would cost me intellectually if I were to choose to metabolize the experience as it had occurred to me. That decision came with several implications. If God is real, then perhaps other things—goodness, righteousness, beauty—that are usually dismissed as matters of subjective experience might also be objectively real. That prospect was much more agreeable to me than another consequential implication of electing to believe: that, as the New Atheists had so vigorously argued, theism meant putting aside any pretensions I had of sophistication or intellect.

As I explored this problem, I spent hours in my college library reading Saint Augustine, a foundational philosopher and theologian. Here I encountered another strange sensation: Every word I read felt like remembering something I had once known but somehow forgotten.

Oh dear God, St. Augustine, a man who was a Biblical literalist (something that Bruenig rejects). Like many early theologians, Augustine argued that the Bible could be read both literally and metaphorically, but insisted on the absolute truth of what’s in print. Augustine accepted instantaneous creation from Genesis, Adam and Eve, Noah’s ark, and the whole Biblical mishigas. Bruenig ignores those parts, for she’s looking to buttress her incipient belief. (And remember that she concluded, apparently objectively, that God exists because of the feeling that swept over her when she saw the wind blow the leaves around.)  And so, after reading Augustine, she decided to accept an “objective” reality that didn’t need empirical support, and re-embraced religion:

And maybe the Christian Neoplatonists, Augustine among them, had some points as well. I contemplated this for a while before I realized that there wasn’t any sense in debating it with myself anymore. I knew what I felt, so I gave up and chose to believe.

Note that she has no evidence for Christianity, but chose to believe, even though she uses the word “objectively,” implying that other people would agree with her “choice”. (They don’t: Christians are in a minority of the world’s people.) At the end of her piece, Bruenig simply asserts that you don’t need anything but emotion to buttress your Christianity. In so doing she simply shrugs off all the arguments that have been raised against belief and says “faith is enough”, effectively immunizing her beliefs against refutation. (Bolding is mine.)

In my years of working out exactly what I believe, I have been relieved to learn that faith does not in fact demand the surrender of logic and vigorous intellectual inquiry—a case Bolloré and Bonnassies convincingly bolster with numerous testimonials from award-winning scientists. Still, to trust in the existence of God is to accept both the appearance and the possibility of being naive or delusional. No accumulation of promising developments in our analytical understanding of the world can delay confrontation with that essential fact. Having faith is a vulnerable thing.

Bolloré and Bonnassies’s arguments are more likely to shore up the faith of wavering believers than to win new converts. This itself is no small thing. The authors may even be right about the growing evidence for the existence of God secreted away in the latest science. But their approach has a history of upsets. The only way to inoculate belief against that cycle of disruption is to treat faith as a decision that transcends scientific proof.

It’s clear here that she wants to inoculate her belief against disruption (i.e., against disproof), and by arguing, “It’s true because I believe it,” she’s succeeded.  Well, good for her, but she’s not going to convince people who think that giving your life to Christianity and its beliefs of a divine Jesus who was also God, the miracles he performed, and the crucifixion and resurrection—you are donning the mantle of a superstitious belief system without a rational reason to do so. Remember, emotions and feelings are not part of rationality.

This whole essay could be summed up on one sentence:  “I believe because I want to believe, and I don’t need reasons (or rationality) to do so.”

Shame on The Atlantic for pushing this pabulum!

h/t: Jim