Sunday: Hili dialogue

January 22, 2017 • 7:01 am

by Grania

 

Good morning everyone. Jerry is poorly so I am putting up the Hili Dialogue for him. I’m hoping he will rally later on. Andrzej and Małgorzata are also ill so it is a credit to their perseverance that we have a dialogue this morning.

Today is the anniversary of the decision in Roe v Wade. Who would have dreamed that four decades later the debate would still rage over this issue?

It’s also the birthday of Michael Hutchence, lead singer of INXS (pronounced In Excess for those of you who have never heard of it before) who died at the very young age of 37.

It’s also the anniversary of the death (1964) of Marc Blitzstein, American composer most famous for his 1937 musical The Cradle Will Rock which was shut down when it was first performed for being “too radical” as it was pro-union and anti corporate greed.

Anyway, with that onto the doings in Poland.

A: Did you eat Malgorzata’s ham?
Hili: Give her some cheese.

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In Polish:

Ja: Ty zjadłaś Małgorzaty szynkę?
Hili: Postaw jej ser.

As a lagniappe:

A cartoon by Gustavo Viselner, sent in by reader Josh Lincoln.
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It’s National Squirrel Appreciation Day!

January 21, 2017 • 2:00 pm

How could I forget? Well, I am still feeding my gang 3 times per day: sunflower seeds, pecans, and peanuts.

Be good to your squirrels, even though there are some nasty people on the Internet who want to hurt them.  And you can get bonus points here if you do something nice for a squirrel. Send a photo of your sciurophile activities
 and, if there’s a really good one (has to be taken today or tomorrow), I’ll send out a copy of Faith Versus Fact with a squirrel drawn in it.

squirrel-2Here’s a new photo freom reader Diana MacPherson:

Black Eastern Gray Squirrel (Sciurus carolinensis), Sheltered from Winter Weather, Eats a Nut

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h/t: Nicole

Welcome to the Regressive Left in the Trump era: no “safe spaces” for those you oppose

January 21, 2017 • 1:15 pm

I was saddened to hear about the violence in D.C. this weekend, with over 100 people arrested and substantial damage to property.  If a march is to succeed, it should be nonviolent, as was the case with the civil rights and Vietnam marches in the Sixties (yes, I know there was some violence).  If the Left is to keep the moral high ground, we simply can’t go around physically attacking those whose views we don’t like. In fact it’s ironic, because when progressives do this, they’re implicitly denying someone a REAL safe space: a space to be free to express your opinions and remain physically safe. “Safety” refers to freedom from physical attack or illegal harassment, not to freedom from hearing views you don’t like.

As a conscientious objector, I’ve always adhered to the nonviolent philosophies of Martin Luther King and Mahatma Gandhi, for if you start violence, you lose credibility.

Here’s a white supremacist, Richard Spencer, getting punched in D.C. during the anti-Trump rallies:

Spencer is odious, but he doesn’t deserve to be punched. And yet here’s atheist Dan Arel, whose behavior has become increasingly bizarre, defending that punch on Twitter: 

https://twitter.com/danarel/status/822628038462607360

Stephen Knight (“Godless Spellchecker”) weighs in:

And a few other unhinged tweets by Arel:

https://twitter.com/danarel/status/822819738220777482

https://twitter.com/danarel/status/822645608766930944

I guess Arel thinks that gives us license to punch anyone we don’t like. I no longer have any use for Arel, even though at one time he wrote a good book on godless parenting.

But wait, there’s more!

https://twitter.com/danarel/status/822715039433900032

More excuses for violence; this one is particularly pernicious:

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Dave Rubin chimes in with a tw**t by CNN correspondent Jake Tapper, probably referring to Rosie O’Donnell’s claim that Barron Trump was autistic (no evidence for that, I think):

One more from Rubin:

Peter Boghossian decries the violence:

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More people defending the violence against Spencer:

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And Sarah Silverman strikes back:

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We were all worried about Trump supporters creating violence if Hillary Clinton won, but here we have exactly the opposite outcome.  Let’s knock off the violence, the punching, and the destruction, folks. It’s neither productive nor progressive. Even a white supremacist deserves to have his say without being physically attacked.

Yet another accommodationist book

January 21, 2017 • 10:15 am

Yes, it’s called Let there be SCIENCE: Why God loves Science and Science Needs God. The first part of the title presumes, without evidence, that there is a God, and the second part is just bogus: science operates best by ignoring God, operating as if gods did not exist. It’s appropriate that the book is coming out on April Fools’ Day of this year.

The authors? Amazon says this:

Tom McLeish is a physics professor, chair of the Royal Society’s education committee, and an Anglican lay reader. He is the author of Faith and Wisdom in Science. David Hutchings is a physics teacher.

Chair of the Royal Society’s education committee? What the bloody hell is a theist doing in that position?

Why, do you suppose, that people are always trying to comport religion with science instead of, say, religion with business or with sports? It’s obvious! Science and religion are both areas that make truth statements about the universe, and are in that sense competitors. But only science has a valid way of adjudicating its findings, and thus is infinitely superior to religion, which has no way to justify its “truths.” (Evidence: all religions have different truth statements about the universe, and they can’t be reconciled.)

At any rate, here’s part of the Amazon blurb, which is pretty truthful about science but tells two big lies about Christianity. (Any why are they comporting science with Christianity instead of some other religions?)

Too often, it would seem, science has been presented to the outside world as a robotic, detached, unemotional enterprise. Too often, Christianity is dismissed as being an ancient superstition. In reality, neither is the case. Science is a deeply human activity, and Christianity is deeply reasonable.

I suspect someone’s been reading Plantinga. Christianity is no more reasonable than Hindu mythology or the pantheon of Greek Gods.

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From the book’s website, we learn about the “fatal glass of beer“. Beware of the dregs!

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. . . and we get this palaver:

Like its background text, Faith and Wisdom in Science (good for further reading by the way), it’s main task is to blow away the myth that science and orthodox Christian faith are in any necessary conflict now, or at any time in history.

On the contrary, we find that throughout the ages, the faith required to do science, that our minds might just be up to the job of perceiving the inner structures of the universe, as well as its cosmic glories, is motivated by the same ‘Faith’ that dares to suppose that those very minds reflect in some way that of their Creator.

Furthermore, we find that the reason to do science is also theologically grounded.  Historically, the great scientists at the start of the early modern period when experimental science got off the ground, had a worked out theological reason for acquiring knowledge of the natural world.

There is of course no “religious-like faith” required to do science; there is confidence that the scientific toolkit—what I call “science broadly conceived”—will help us find truths about the cosmos and solve problems like curing diseases and landing rockets on comets. And unlike faith, which is belief without evidence, the confidence in science is there because, as they say, “Science works, bitches!” In other words, there’s evidence that science approaches the apprehension of truth. (See my article on this issue here.) In contrast, the faith that supposes that God created our minds is garden-variety religious faith: confident belief without sufficient evidence to command assent from all reasonable people (that’s philosopher Walter Kauffman’s definition).

Finally, while it may be true that some scientists like Newton had theological reasons for studying the natural world, that was by no means always true, even in the past: think of the ancient Greeks. And even if it were true, scientists no longer have religious reasons for doing science; in fact, most of us are atheists. We do science because we’re curious, because some of us want to help society or the afflicted, and so on; and the best way to do that, we’ve found, is to take no notice of gods.

h/t: Matthew Cobb

Caturday felid trifecta: Sneaky cat barks like dog until caught, girl gets replacement for her late cat, and a sledding moggie

January 21, 2017 • 9:15 am

I may have shown this before, but it’s worth seeing again. Here’s a sneaky cat showing that it can bark like a dog; when caught, though, it reverts to kitty noises:

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From the reliable ailurophile site Love Meow, we have the story of nine-year-old Marley and her new kitten:

Last summer Marley had just turned nine when her mother, Nikki Frost, brought home something that she had been longing for since the day she lost her best friend Simon the black cat.

“Marley’s a big animal lover. She’s always putting her change in the donation cans at the pet supply store, and we already have two dogs, two cats and a guinea pig in our family,” Frost told Love Meow.

“Our elderly black cat Simon had passed away the year before and she’d been asking for a kitten since.”

With two cats, the family was not looking for another one until Ella the kitten came along.

“Ella was actually found under a friend’s porch with a sibling, their mother believed to have been killed on the road,” Frost told Love Meow.

They were bottle fed and when they were ready for adoption, Frost happened to meet her that day. “I had no intention of bringing another cat home, but… sometimes you just know these things are meant to be.”

She brought little Ella home and placed her in Marley’s room, waiting for her daughter to return. “Marley had NO IDEA, she had come home from a friend’s house and the rest is history!”

Here’s Marley receiving her kitten an; it’s a heartwarmer:

Ella has grown by leaps and bounds since this summer. The two buddies share a very special bond. “Ella is a great cat, very friendly and cuddly.”

Something was missing in Marley’s heart after she lost Simon. Little Ella the rescue kitten came to her home to fill her heart with joy.

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Here’s Weston the cat, who appears to enjoy sledding. For more of Weston and his buddy’s adventures, see the Facebook page “Westin and Ellinore: Adventure Cats“.

h/t: Bob T. and another reader whose name I’ve lost (sorry!)

Readers’ wildlife photos

January 21, 2017 • 7:45 am

Let us have grasses today! We never get enough plants here, so I’m delighted to show these photos taken by reader Amanda Ingram. Her notes are indented:

This loyal reader, a fellow William & Mary alumna (who also studied population genetics with Bruce Grant!), thought you might enjoy some wildlife photos from a charming but underappreciated group of plants, the grasses. I’m a systematist, and focus on Eragrostis (the lovegrasses) and their relatives; these photos came from a collecting trip I took several years ago to South Africa and Namibia. 

This is Eragrostis bergiana, a charming little grass that grows in what the South Africans call “pans” (slight depressions that are seasonally inundated). I wish I could replace my lawn with it—the plants are just a few centimeters tall, so no mowing required!

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The spikelets (clusters of flowers, and yes, grasses have flowers) are especially charming. Here’s a closeup:

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The next grass, Stiburus alopecuroides, is a close relative of Eragrostis and is quite beautiful with its purple spikelets and hairy foliage:

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A closer look at the spikelets (with anthers in a beautifully contrasting color; AKA plant porn):

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And finally, Cladoraphis spinosa, one of the strangest grasses I’ve ever seen:

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…and its spikelets (see—it really is a grass!)

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For the ailurophiles, here are our two cats:  Julius and Cleo, snoozing on the William & Mary seal (in blanket form):

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Saturday: Hili dialogue

January 21, 2017 • 6:30 am

Well, I’d say “good morning” but it’s not so good, for it’s January 21, 2017, the first full day of Donald Trump’s Presidency. And now I find myself worrying—way too far in advance—that he might even get reelected!  What if the Democrats can’t field a decent candidate in 2020? I have received all sorts of despondent emails from friends, but one reader also sent me a photo of a lovely California sunset, adding “our world is still a beautiful place.”I would like to think so, but there are certain folks without whom it would be more beautiful.

Trump is losing no time taking out petty revenge on people, as well as starting to dismantle the Affordable Care Act. (Did you hear his divisive Inaugural Address?). His latest antic, according to Gizmodo (h/t: reader Bryan) is to punish the National Park Service (NPS) for retweeting items that could be construed as anti-Trump. Here are the two original tweets; the first is from the Washington correspondent for the New York Times:

https://twitter.com/BCAppelbaum/status/822478866035986435

I mentioned this issue yesterday; the tweet comes from landscape architect Anne Trumble:

https://twitter.com/annetrumble/status/822537934616330243

Both of these were retweeted by the National Park Service yesterday at about 4:340 pm, but before that happened the retweets were noticed by Mr. Applebaum:

https://twitter.com/BCAppelbaum/status/822550063658532865

These have been removed by the NPS, but, as Gizmodo reports, “the NPS has been ordered by its Washington support office to ‘immediately cease use of government Twitter accounts until further notice,’ according to an internal email obtained by Gizmodo.

Apparently because of these retweets, which could have been an accident, the NPS has been ordered to cease tweeting, with its employees receiving the following email yesterday

All:

We have received direction from the Department through [the Washington Support Office] that directs all [Department of Interior] bureaus to immediately cease use of government Twitter accounts until further notice.

PWR parks that use Twitter as part of their crisis communications plans need to alter their contingency plans to accommodate this requirement. Please ensure all scheduled posts are deleted and automated cross-platform social media connections to your twitter accounts are severed. The expectation is that there will be absolutely no posts to Twitter.

In summary, this Twitter stand down means we will cease use of Twitter immediately. However, there is no need to suspend or delete government accounts until directed.

This does not affect use of other approved social media platforms. We expect further guidance to come next week and we will share accordingly.

Thanks for your help!

Now perhaps it was unwise for a government department to retweet things like this, but they could have been quietly removed after a private word from the Trump Administration. What we’re seeing here is the petty vindictiveness that will characterize the next four (or eight) years.

Back to our regular message. Today is both National Granola Bar Day and National New England Clam Chowder Day. I have little use for granola bars, which are gradually morphing into candy bars (I predicted this years ago), but New England clam chowder is one of the glories of American cuisine:  far superior to the tomato based “Manhattan clam chowder.” Am I right? In Poland it’s “Grandmother’s Day”; while “Grandfather’s Day” is tomorrow.  On this day in 1954, the world’s first nuclear-powered submarine, the U.S.S. Nautilus (I once went aboard) was launched in Connecticut by First Lady Mamie Eisenhower. In 1976, commercial service of the Concorde began (now terminated), and, exactly five years later, the iconic DeLorean DMC-12 car, the only model ever made, was first manufactured in Northern Ireland. (For a while they shut down production, but now the company is said to be producing more.) The DMC-12 was famous for its gull-wing doors:

delorean_dmc-12_side

Notables born on this day include John C. Frémont (1813), Telly Savalas (1922), Jack Nicklaus (1940) and Geena Davis (1956). Those who died on this day include Vladimir Lenin (1924), Lytton Strachey (1932; be sure to read his great books Eminent Victorians and his biography of Queen Victoria), George Orwell (1950 ♥) and Peggy Lee (2002). Here’s a portrait of Strachey by painter Dora Carrington, who was in love with him—a hopeless relationship given that Strachey was gay. She committed suicide with a gun two months after Strachey died of stomach cancer (the movie “Carrington,” starring Emma Thompson, is a good account of their relationship and the Bloomsbury Group:

dora-carrington-lytton-strachey-1880-1932-1916

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Andrzej is down with a bad cold (as am I), and is also being bothered by Hili as he tries to write on Listy:

Hili: We work together well.
A: Yes, for the moment, but stay off my lap.
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In Polish:
Hili: Mamy dobrą współpracę.
Ja: W tej chwili tak, ale nie wchodź mi na kolana.

A beetle to end the week

January 20, 2017 • 3:15 pm

What better way to console ourselves in Times of Trouble than to look at animals? Here, from biologist/photographer Piotr Nackrecki’s Facebook page (his website is here), is a gorgeous beetle with a political caption:

We are only hours into the new presidency and I have already been attacked for merely documenting how the nation reacts to this new reality. To lighten the mood, here is a beautiful rhinoceros dung beetle (Coprophanaeus lancifer) from Suriname.

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