Wednesday: Hili dialogue

January 9, 2019 • 6:30 am

It’s Wednesday, January 9, 2019 (I can finally get the year right), and it’s National Apricot Day. In India it’s Pravasi Bharatiya Divas, or “Non Resident Indian Day,” celebrating the contributions of those Indians outside the country who have contributed to its development. (It was on January 9, 1915, that Gandhi returned to India from South Africa.)

We missed yesterday’s Google Doodle, which was an interactive “dino doodle” done by second-grader Sarah Lane. (If you go to the Doodle and click on each item, it moves.) It was the winner in Google’s contest to produce a Doodle about “what inspires me”. Here’s what Google says, and they produced a video that I’ve put below.

[The winner was] 2nd grader Sarah Gomez-Lane, who drew delightful dinosaurs to highlight her dream of becoming a paleontologist! We fell in love with Sarah’s rendering of her dinos, and were blown away by her big (you might even say “dino-sized”!) ambitions for her future, especially at her young age.

For the first time in Doodle for Google’s 10-year history, Sarah got to collaborate with the Doodle team to transform her artwork into an animated, interactive experience. She also received $30,000 toward a college scholarship, and her elementary school in Falls Church, VA will receive $50,000 to spend on technology to help students like Sarah continue to pursue what inspires them.

It was on January 9, 1349 that nearly the entire Jewish population of Basel, Switzerland, accused of having caused the plague of Black Death, was rounded up and incinerated. 600 adults were burned and 140 Jewish children forced to become Catholics. On this day in 1806, Lord Nelson, killed at the Battle of Trafalgar, was given a state funeral and interred in St. Paul’s Cathedral in London. On this day in 1909, according to Wikipedia, “Ernest Shackleton, leading the Nimrod Expedition to the South Pole, plants the British flag 97 nautical miles (180 km; 112 mi) from the South Pole, the farthest anyone had ever reached at that time. He didn’t make it, but Roald Amundsen and his men did on December 14, 1911.

On this day in 2005, Mahmoud Abbas was elected (succeeding Yasser Arafat) as President of the Palestinian National Authority. Meet the new boss—same as the old boss. Finally, four years ago today the killers in the Charlie Hebdo massacre in Paris, the two brothers Saïd and Chérif Kouachi, were killed in a standoff with French police. I can’t believe I forgot to post yesterday about the fourth anniversary of the massacre, in which 12 people were killed over cartoons.

Also on that day (January 9), an ISIS supporter killed four Jewish hostages in a kosher supermarket in Paris.

Notables born on this day include Joseph Strauss (1870; designed the Golden Gate Bridge), Richard Halliburton (1900), Richard Nixon (1913), Bob Denver (1935), Joan Baez (1941), Jimmy Page (1944), and Michiko Kakutani (1955).

Those who died on this day include Caroline Herschel (1848), and that’s about it for notables. Herschel was a pioneering German astronomer, unusual for a woman of that era. She discovered eight comets and her honors include these:

She was the first woman to be awarded a Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society (1828), and to be named an Honorary Member of the Royal Astronomical Society (1835, with Mary Somerville). She was also named an honorary member of the Royal Irish Academy (1838). The King of Prussia presented her with a Gold Medal for Science on the occasion of her 96th birthday (1846).

There are no photographs of her, but here’s a painting:

Physicist Brian Cox also named his calico cat, Herschel, after the astronomer.  Here’s Herschel pretending to be soup:

On the subject of cats, our friend from Poland faces what is possibly the greatest struggle of her life and career.

Hili: I have a serious dilemma.
A: What dilemma?
Hili: How to chase you away from my chair.

In Polish:

Hili: Mam poważny dylemat.
Ja: Jaki?
Hili: Jak cię wygonić z mojego fotela.

Here’s a cartoon by Lee Judge, sent by reader Diane G.

A trenchant cartoon I found on Facebook:

Reader Gethyn says, “Watch this until the end!”

https://twitter.com/FluffSociety/status/1082000444753207297

And reader Barry sent a pet palindrome:

Another from Barry, “When is it my turn to be groomed?”

https://twitter.com/StefanodocSM/status/1081855481516306433

Tweets from Grania, the first showing the moment of hatching of a beautiful cuttlefish:

https://twitter.com/LlFEUNDERWATER/status/1081800571106017280

Civets trying to drink milk. They bite it!

https://twitter.com/AMAZlNGNATURE/status/1020117749207511042

A lovely murmuration of starlings (I can never get enough of these). Sound up, too, to hear the wings:

Tweets from Matthew. First, a pugnacious pussycat. Watch till the end—the cat clearly won!

A heartwarmer: chimp greets former foster parents:

https://twitter.com/invisibleman_17/status/1082541415438213121

Some snark, though I think Adam is more or less right!

Of course, because pi are squared!

Trump’s defense of the Wall

January 8, 2019 • 8:48 pm

I watched Trump’s short defense of his Big Wall and of the government shutdown he’s used as a tantrum to promote it, as well as Pelosi and Schumer’s Democratic response.  My feeling about the situation hasn’t changed: we have an impasse here, with neither side seriously interested in the bipartisan cooperation necessary to deal with immigration.

Trump needs his wall because it was his main campaign promise, and he won’t give it up unless the Democrats propose some serious legislation to stem illegal immigration while dealing with immigrants (legal or illegal) humanely. The Democrats don’t have a serious proposal on the table. Although you may disagree, if you listen to the Democrats you might easily think that they favor open borders. And they see the Wall as a symbol of the Trump they hate, which is a reason why they don’t have serious counteroffers. (Your opinion may differ.) But that won’t fly with the American public.

So we’re at an impasse. I don’t think a government shutdown is an answer, as it punishes thousands of Americans who are held hostage to the Wall. And “state of emergency” is certainly no answer; it’s of of dubious legality anyway.

Trump was as oleaginous as ever, couching his motivations in terms of empathy, of which he has none. CNN is fact-checking the President’s claims, many of which sounded dubious, at this site.

Pelosi and Schumer looked and talked like marionettes, offering only vague promises to “keep talking about immigration.”

Hemant emitted a snarky tweet, but of course what matters is the issue, not a deer-in-the-headlights appearance.

Weigh in below if you saw the give-and-take between Republicans and Democrats.

What’s a Nazi? Jonathan Pie explains

January 8, 2019 • 1:30 pm

Yes, the word “Nazi” is now used, mostly by unhinged Leftists, to mean “someone whose views I don’t like.” I suppose if there were a word more pejorative than “Nazi”, language would ratchet up to that level (“racist” is below Nazi because Nazis are racist as well as other things).

Here mock-newsman Jonathan Pie explains what a Nazi really is:

Flowers and fish

January 8, 2019 • 12:00 pm

First we have some photos from a visit to the University of Hawaii’s Lyon Arboretum, not far from downtown Honolulu. I can’t identify the plants, but some are native and some are not. Readers are invited to weigh in.

First, the source of Hawaiian plants. It wasn’t until about 20 years ago that I learned that most endemic plants on oceanic islands didn’t get there by floating as Darwin hypothesized, but by being carried in bird poop or adhering to bird bodies:

Two views of the Arboretum:

Look at these buttress roots!

Bromeliads. The red centers must be there to attract insects, but for what? To drown in the pool of water in the center? Does that provide nourishment for the plant?

Yesterday was my first beach trip, to the nearby Hanauma Bay, a popular site not far from Honolulu. It’s a quiet bay, filled with coral, formed when a volcanic crater later became attached to the sea. It’s very popular, but we got there early and not many people were snorkeling. And the fish were wonderful: I love snorkeling because you’re entering an alien world filled with great beauty.

Here’s the bay from above: the dark patches are coral, filled with fish.

Professor Ceiling Cat swimming out to the reefs. I’m the one swimming with the snorkel and flipper splashes:

If you want a tropical-fish experience, and don’t mind some crowds, this is a good and safe place to swim. Get there early (you have to watch a 15-minute movie on protecting the reefs and swimming safety); you can rent the gear for $20.

I don’t have an underwater camera but I’ll steal from the web three lovely fish I saw:

The Christmas Wrasse (Thalassoma trilobatum):

Source

The bullethead parrotfish (Chlorurus sordidus), which scrapes algae off the corals. It’s big, too!

Picture from Wikipedia

And everybody’s favorite Hawaiian fish, the reef triggerfish (Rhinecanthus rectangulus), famous for its long Hawaiian name, humuhumunukunukuāpuaʻa, which apparently means “triggerfish with a snout like a pig.” But it’s a lovely thing and happens to be Hawaii’s State Fish. Here’s one from Wikipedia that was photographed in Hanauma Bay:

This fish, with 22 letters in its name, is not the longest Hawaiian fish name, however. The honor belongs to the “Lauwiliwilinukunukuʻoiʻoi”, which I like because it has a bit of Yiddish at the end! It’s the longnose butterflyfish, Forcipiger flavissimus, which looks like this:

The “humu” features in one of the kitschy Hawaiian songs that has become popular, “My Little Grass Shack in Kealakekua, Hawaiʻi”, written by Tommy Harrison, Bill Cogswell, and Johnny Noble in 1933. Here it is in two versions. The humuhumunukunukuāpuaʻa is first mentioned at 1:04:

The Hawaiian words:

Two historic locations on the Big Island of Hawaii are mentioned in the title and lyrics. Kealakekua, where the Fourth of July canoe races took place, is where English explorer James Cook was killed in 1779. The beach at Hōnaunau is now the site of Puʻuhonua o Hōnaunau National Historical Park, the best known and best preserved ancient City of Refuge.

The Hawaiian phrase in the line “I want to be with all the kanes and wahines that I used to know” means “ladies and gentlemen” (literally “men and women”). The line, “Where the Humuhumunukunukuapuaa go swimming by,” refers to the tiny reef triggerfish, Hawaii’s state fish, by its long Hawaiian name. Poi is a Hawaiian food staple, the “two-fingered poi” in the lyrics referring to a medium thickness of poi that requires two fingers to scoop.

There is one full line in Hawaiian, “Komo mai no kāua i ka hale welakahao,” which literally translates to, “Come into our house while the iron’s hot.” Dolly Parton, in her televised live performance of the song in 1987, shouts out after the line is sung that it means, “Come to my house, we’re gonna party!”

This one’s from the 1934 movie short “Mirrors”,  with Freddie Rich and His Orchestra, featuring Vera Van and the Eton Boys.

More food and fun to come.

Addendum: As you may have guessed, Hawaiian names are often long, and here’s the woman with the longest name on record: Janice “Lokelani” Keihanaikukauakahihulihe’ekahaunaele.  For a while the state shortened her name on her driver’s license and omitted the apostrophe:

The old license was also missing an okina, which as the University of Hawaii says is a way to show “a glottal stop, similar to the sound between the syllables of ‘oh-oh.’ ” (We should note that an okina is often used the state’s name — as in, Hawai’i.)

Under the new policy, the state’s cards will have room for 40 characters in “first and last names and 35 characters for middle names,” the AP reports.

And here’s a video of Ms. K. with her full-name driver’s license. Note how the news anchor pronounces the name correctly at the beginning. It’s a jawbreaker!

 

 

Tuesday: Hili dialogue

January 8, 2019 • 6:30 am

It’s Tuesday, January 8, 2019, which means that Helena’s Restaurant re-opens today after the Christmas holidays. It’s National English Toffee Day, which we’ll ignore because it’s a day of cultural appropriation, and International Typing Day, a skill that’s transferred from typewriters to computers. I had a choice of shop or typing in junior high school, and, to my eternal good fortune, I took typing. Now I can type more than 90 words per minute.

On this day in 1790, George Washington delivered the first (Presidential) State of the Union Address in New York City. Trump will give this year’s address on Tuesday, January 29; as usual, it will be given in the House of Representatives but to all of Congress, the Supreme Court, and a number of other officials. On January 8, 1828, the Democratic Party of the U.S. came into being.

On this day in 1877, the Lakota Chief  Crazy Horse and his warriors fought their last battle against the U.S. Cavalry at Wolf Mountain, Montana Territory. He and his band surrendered and, trying to escape imprisonment, Crazy Horse was bayoneted and died on September 5. He was just 33. As Charles Eastman wrote:

Thus died one of the ablest and truest American Indians. His life was ideal; his record clean. He was never involved in any of the numerous massacres on the trail, but was a leader in practically every open fight. Such characters as those of Crazy Horse and Chief Joseph are not easily found among so-called civilized people. The reputation of great men is apt to be shadowed by questionable motives and policies, but here are two pure patriots, as worthy of honor as any who ever breathed God’s air in the wide spaces of a new world.

Crazy Horse

Here’s something I bet you didn’t know. As Wikipedia reports, on this day in 1925, “the All-Woman Supreme Court met for the first time in Texas, the first all-female supreme court in the history of the United States.” On this day in 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson announced the “War on Poverty,” which has had mixed success. Exactly 9 years later, the trial of the “Watergate Seven,” accused of breaking into the Democratic Headquarters in that building, began in Washington. Five people pleaded guilty and two went to prison for refusing to cooperate. Ultimately 48 people were convicted in the Watergate scandal.

On January 8, 1975, Ella Grasso became governor of Connecticut: the first female governor of a U.S. state who was elected and not put into position to fill her husband’s shoes. Finally, it was on this day 8 years ago that the attempted assassination of Arizona Representative Gabrielle Giffords took place in Casas Adobes, Arizona. Six people were shot dead (Giffords, shot at point-blank range in the head, survived (!), and the assassin Jared Loughner, was sentenced to life in prison.

Notables born on this day include Alfred Russel Wallace (1823), Wilkie Collins (1824), Walter Bothe (1891; Nobel Laureate), Gypsy Rose Lee (1911), Soupy Sales (1926), Elvis Presley (1935), Robert May (1936), David Bowie (1947), and R. Kelly (1967).

Those who died on this day include Giotto (1337), Galileo (1642), Eli Whitney (1825), George Bellows (1925), Zhou Enlai (1976), and François Miterrand (1996).

George Bellows (1882-1925) was an underappreciated American realist artist. This painting, “Stag at Sharkey’s” (1909), is probably his most famous work. It shows a private boxing match at a members-only club (public boxing was illegal in New York at that time.

 

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili has made a suspicious discovery.

Hili: Snow everywhere. Is it normal?
A: Quite normal.

 

In Polish:

Hili: Wszędzie śnieg, Czy to jest normalne?
Ja: Zupełnie normalne.

Some tweets from Matthew. First, a remarkably camouflaged snake:

No, this is not a psychologically recognized fear; it was invented by Gary Larson (see below):

Nevertheless, it persisted—and succeeded. Don’t tell me you didn’t have a pang of joy when it landed on the feeder!

A lovely cryptic frog:

Tweets from Grania. Snoop Dogg address the “furloughed” government employees (trigger warning: lots of f-bombs).

Some people apparently haven’t realized that Titania McGrath purveys satire:

https://twitter.com/TitaniaMcGrath/status/1081715439980474369

This, of course, is a parody of PETA’s attempt to purge language dealing with animals:

Kagonekoshiro (“white basket cat”), the world’s chillest cat, a resident of Japan.

And the “world’s most lovely lioness” (video):

https://twitter.com/AMAZlNGNATURE/status/1070533095072223232

A visit to the Laysan Albatrosses

January 7, 2019 • 12:45 pm

Yesterday’s Big Expedition was a hike to Kaena Point, the westernmost spot on the island of Oahu, which you can see below:

Our goal: to see the nesting colony of Laysan Albatross (Phoebastria immutabilis). While it ranges widely through the Pacific, it breeds largely on Hawaii: as Wikipedia notes, “The Northwestern Hawaiian Islands [including Midway] are home to 99.7% of the population.” There are 16 nesting sites, and Kaena Point is one of them. It harbors about 150 of the birds.

The Laysan has a wingspan of about 200 cm (80 inches or 6.5 feet), mates for life, has biparental care, and females produce about one chick every two years. It’s remarkable for its lifespan in the wild: it is, in fact, the longest-lived bird known to exist in the wild, with a longevity approaching 70 years (see below).

Here’s one of these magnificent animals in flight. The picture is from Wikipedia:

You have to hike in and out: a hot trail of about six miles. But the trail is fairly level, and the goal well worth it. The albatross sanctuary is surrounded by a fence to keep out predators like rats and feral cats:

This is the western tip of Hawaii:

Albatross nests are marked with pink flags, and the nesting area is roped off to keep people out. In a famous case, one student from Hawaii was jailed in 2017 for killing more than 15 albatrosses in a purely malicious act.  He got only 45 days in jail; I think a year would have been a better deterrent. People can’t go around illegally killing wildlife and getting just a slap on the wrist.

The first sight of an albatross. They are dead obvious in the low vegetation, where they nest, and I was unable to take a “spot the albatross” picture because their white color sticks out even when I try to hide the bird.

A closer view.

A sleeping albatross by the path. They had extended the rope around it to keep people from disturbing the bird, and we tiptoed by.

A pair. Reader Marlene Zuk told me that many of the pairs are female-female pairs, and a 2008 paper in Biology Letters shows that 31% of the pairs on Oahu are “lesbian” pairs (see below for a song). They do rear chicks; presumably one was inseminated and either abandoned its mate or its mate died. Successful rearing is less than that of male-female pairs, but better than that of solitary females (see graph below). I’m not sure if this pair is male-female or female-female. (Ornithological readers may know.)

Here are the data from that paper: open bars are female-female pairs, and dark ones are male-female pairs.

40% of the time two eggs are laid in female-female nests, but only one of these is incubated. I don’t know a lot about this, but the phenomenon of course raises questions. Why do females help other (presumably unrelated) females rear their young, given the time and expense of rearing a chick. Or are they related? One can think of answers, of course (practice in breeding for young females and so on), but I’ll let readers fill me in if there’s more recent research.

Another nesting female (I think; I can’t tell the sexes apart).

A video by Bruce Carlson of what the albatrosses look like at Kaena Point, with some bonding behavior:

Finally, below is the oldest known wild breeding bird known to exist in Nature. It’s WISDOM, a Laysan albatross confirmed to be at least 68 years old when she returned to Midway Atoll last November 29 to lay an egg. She was first banded in 1956, and has gone through four bands since then! She’s also outlived the guy who banded her.

Wisdom has her own Wikipedia page (this photo, showing one of her chicks, is from that site). Unlike most female Laysans, which lay an egg every other year (it’s seven months from laying to fledging!), Wisdom has laid an egg each year for the past dozen years or so. She’s successfully raised about three dozen chicks. And she’s flown between 2 and 3 million miles during her lifetime. What a bird—may she live much longer!