Sunday: Hili dialogue

March 4, 2018 • 6:30 am

It’s Ceiling Cat’s Day: Sunday, March 4, 2018, and also National Poundcake Day, a comestible that needs moisture, preferably in the form of strawberries and whipped cream. It’s also National Grammar Day in the U.S., so let’s all resolve to place the word “only” in its proper position, e.g.:

WRONG: “I only have eyes for you.”
RIGHT:  “I have eyes for only you.” (or “only for you”)

I heard on the news this morning that Sir Roger Bannister, the first man to run a mile in less than four minutes, has died at age 88. As the BBC reports:

His time of three minutes 59.4 seconds, set at Iffley Road sports ground in Oxford on 6 May 1954, stood as a record for just 46 days but his place in athletics history was assured.

Bannister also won gold over the same distance at the 1954 Commonwealth Games and later became a leading neurologist.

He was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease in 2011.

Bannister viewed running as something to be done in his spare time away from the demands of his medical studies at the University of Oxford, but that did not prevent him reaching the biggest stages in the sport.

Here’s a video of that great achievement, narrated by Bannister:

The men’s record has dropped 17 seconds since then, now held by Hicham El Guerrouj with a time of 3:43.13. There clearly is a limit (nobody can run a mile in 30 seconds), but what is that limit, and what determines it?

Chuck “Right Stuff” Yeager, still alive and tweeting at age 95 (!!), put this up today:

On this day in 1493, Christopher Columbus, having sailed the ocean blue, returned to Lisbon aboard his ship Niña.  On March 4, 1519, Hernán Cortés arrived in Mexico, seeking for wealth held by the Aztecs. That meeting was to result in the end of the Aztecs (I believe there’s a good new book on the meeting between Cortés and Montezuma).  On this day in 1797, John Adams was inaugurated as the second President of the United States.  In 1837, the city of Chicago was incorporated, soon to become the world’s mecca for pizza, Italian beef sandwiches, hot dogs, and rib tips. On this day in 1917, Jeannette Rankin of Montana became the first woman to sit in the United States House of Representatives, and exactly 16 years later Frances Perkins became the first woman member of the U.S. Cabinet: Secretary of Labor.

Two Nazi episodes of murder took place on this day in 1943; Matthew found these tweets:

I knew about the White Rose organization, which the Nazis also decapitated, but not the Baum Group (read more here). Also, there was a big killing in Auschwitz on the same day:

It was on this day in 1966 when John Lennon declared, in an interview in The Evening Standard, that the Beatles were “more popular than Jesus now.” I remember that well, and how much of a fracas it caused, even though it may have been true—at least in the UK. Finally exactly 20 years ago today, the Supreme Court of the U.S, in the case of  Oncale v. Sundowner Offshore Services, Inc. , ruled that sexual harassment laws in the workplace applied to parties of the same sex.

Notables born on March 4 include Henry the Navigator (1394), Casimir Pulaski (1745), Knute Rockne (1888), George Gamow (1904), Miriam Makeba (1932), Paula Prentiss (1938), and Rick Perry (1950). Those who joined the Choir Invisible on this day include Nikolai Gogol (1852), Amos Bronson Alcott (1888), mountaineer Willi Unsoeld (1979. Along with Tom Hornbein, Unsoeld performed an amazing traverse of the mountain when summiting Everest in 1963, losing nine toes in the effort. A faculty member of The Evergreen State College (!), Unsoeld died in an avalanche on Mt. Ranier). Also expiring on March 4 were John Candy (1994), Minnie Pearl (1996), and Pat Conroy (2016).

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili is overlooking the production of Listy:

A: At last I tidied my desk.
Hili: It looks about the same from here.
 In Polish:
Ja: Wreszcie tu posprzątałem.
Hili: Z góry to inaczej wygląda.

Tweets from Matthew: A baby hare (“leveret”) is rescued from the snow at Dublin Airport:

A honking huge fish!

Why grebes are like penguins:

The diversity of the ocean floor:

And a fascinating observation of one of Saturn’s moons:

Snowmageddon!

SPOT THE D*G! I like this tweet, even if it is a d*g. It’s hidden in the Irish snow:

This cat is chill:

I’d love to feel those tiny feet on my finger:

https://twitter.com/m_yosry2012/status/969588900896432133

A snow cow (clearly male):

And a business cat from Grania. Look at its butt!

 

Chopra and Tanzi: Exercise will reprogram your genes in 60 days

March 3, 2018 • 3:00 pm

While eating my ribtips (I see the termites have already descended on that post), I turned on the PBS channel on t.v. (WTTW in Chicago, if anybody there is listening.) On the show, to my chagrin, appeared Deepak Chopra and Rudy Tanzi, On a show called “Brain, Body, Mind”, they were dispensing health advice to callers—and, of course, flogging their wares.

One older woman called in, worried about her lack of exercise.

Tanzi fielded the question (with support by Deepakity), urging her get some exercise regularly. That’s fine advice, though everyone knows it. But then Tanzi added that after two months of regular exercise, like walking for an hour a day, her genes would get “reprogrammed.”

That’s bullshit, of course, based on the unevidenced claim that human experience can, epigenetically, change your genome in a useful and permanent way.  But there’s not a scintilla of data showing that environmentally based adaptive methylation can occur in human DNA, so the Unholy Duo were talking out of their nether parts. Yes, relaxation, good diet, and exercise are good for all, but why do they drag this gene crap in?

To make themselves seem “scientific”, of course! Otherwise they’d just be telling you what anybody would, much less your doctor. And you wouldn’t buy their CDs and books, which are being flogged at this moment. There has to be a hook, and that hook is attached to your wallet.

This is quackery, pure and simple, and I’ve written about it before. Why, oh why, does PBS present these quacks as if they knew what they were talking about? They’re misleading people at the same time they’re filling their pockets.

It’s a pity, for at one time Tanzi seemed to be a reputable scientist. But the lure of Mammon was too great, and he sold his soul to Deepakity.

Dershowitz on why the Hard Left is more dangerous than the Hard Right

March 3, 2018 • 2:30 pm

Look, there’s no need for you to criticize Alan Dershowitz in the comments; I know his foibles. I’m just presenting a short comment that he made to conservative Dennis Prager about the relative dangers of the “Hard Left”—what I call the Authoritarian Left—versus the “Hard Right”. This comment is what you can address!

I do agree with Dershowitz that we should be very afraid of the increasing Authoritarian Leftism of today’s college students (and many of their professors), for they’ll be running America in the future. There are, after all, not so many conservative students. That said, of course I agree that the Trump Administration, which provides a daily dose of both sadness and amusement in its stupidity and incompetence, is far more injurious to America than any conceivable Democratic administration. And the GOP is far more odious than the Democrats. But the more the Dems embrace Authoritarian Leftism, the less likely they are to regain control of the executive and legislative branches.

In the meantime, I’ll keep calling out the excesses of the “Hard Left,” with the implicit idea that the right-wingers in power now are ruining our country. But there are plenty of people calling out Trump, and not so many on our side calling out the Left. That, of course, is because certain elements of the Left conspire to make you afraid to level such criticism, for those who do are personally attacked and deemed Suppressive Persons.

Rib tips for lunch!

March 3, 2018 • 1:30 pm

Note: the video at bottom is essential viewing for this post.

I’m having only one meal today: rib tips from Uncle J’s Barbecue on the South Side. For $12, you get a huge portion of rib tips—the best in Chicago—slathered with BBQ sauce and accompanied by a pile of fries, two pieces of white bread, and about 15 ml of “coleslaw” in a tiny plastic cup. (The bread and coleslaw are obligatory “sides” for Chicago BBQ.) The preparation is classic Chicago: cooked over hickory wood in a glass “aquarium smoker.”

The large order of tips (delivered through a revolving window in a bulletproof pane, also obligatory on the South Side) will feed me for at least two meals. To prepare for this gluttony, I had a salad for lunch yesterday and a green-pepper omelet that I made for dinner. Today I’ve just had coffee, two pieces of toast, and a banana. I’ll have a late lunch at 2 pm and then no food thereafter.

I used to frequent Uncle John’s BBQ, run by legendary pitmaster Mack Sevier, who died several years ago. Mack was a huge man and ran his operation like Charlie Trotter ran his restaurant: as a food autocracy with no room for slacking.

Mack’s death left a huge lacuna of good BBQ on the South Side, filled only by the overrated Smoque. Then Mack’s former employee, Brian Turner, became the pitmaster at Uncle J’s, which is just as good as its model but a lot closer: on 47th Street. I’ve gone there every few weeks since I found out about it.

As the Chicago Tribune reported in an article about Uncle J’s:

Turner and Sevier have known each other since the ’90s, and Turner’s reverence for his former boss is sincere. “Mr. Mack,” Turner calls him. Turner tells me there was little room for experimentation while working in Sevier’s kitchen. Sevier held a specific idea of how barbecue should be cooked, so there was little deviation from the course. Turner would eventually accept Sevier’s way as the correct way, and so now he has brought Uncle John’s techniques and methods over to Uncle J’s. Using Sevier’s old smoker probably doesn’t hurt in the transfer of cosmic mojo.

What I liked best were the rib tips: chopped into thicker hunks than most places, with a crusty, well-seasoned and vaguely sweet bark. The hickory smoke is subtle but present. For those reasons, it’s always a smart idea to request sauce on the side.

And that’s what I’ll be getting, for rib tips are better than ribs themselves, and offer a panoply of different textures and flavors. Each small chopped tip is different from the last.  I’ll dispense with the hot links (spicy sausages that were a specialty at Uncle John’s), as Uncle J’s don’t make them quite as good. And, truth be told, no Chicago BBQ is as good as rib tips.

I’ve eaten BBQ all over the US, including the touted rib emporia in Chicago like Honey’s, Lem’s, Smoque, and Leon’s. And none are as good as the unprepossessing Uncle J’s.  In fact, I’d say the two best instantiations of BBQ in America are the barbecued brisket of Texas (best sampled at The City Market in Luling) and the rib tips of Chicago, best sampled here:

You’d pass this place right by if you didn’t know about it. Photo: Kevin Pang/Chicago Tribune

 

Watch this 3½-minute video, which tells all. What they’re eating at the end is a SMALL order of tips and links. Mine will be about twice as large, and sans links.

This really is world-class food at bargain-basement prices. If you’re in Chicago and want to eat, this is the place to go. It’s take-out only, so I’ll drive home real fast after I get my prize, and set to the meal with, of course, a cold beer.

Update: Here’s my lunch, accompanied by a Belgian trippel brewski. Note the white bread and pathetically small portion of “vegetables”:

 

Firearm injuries go down during NRA conventions

March 3, 2018 • 12:00 pm

On March 1 this letter to the editor by Anupam Jena and Andrew R. Olenski, with data, appeared in the New England Journal of Medicine (click on screenshot to go to the letter):

The reference is at the bottom of this page, and the 19-page supplementary appendix (to a two-page letter!) is here.

The authors used American insurance data on gun injury rates during 9 years of National Rifle Association (NRA) conventions between 2007 and 2015. The uninsured population was not sampled, a caveat that the authors mention in their Appendix. They looked at firearm injuries on all days for three weeks before and after the dates of the conventions themselves, as well as during the conventions. They explain the controls in the Appendix:

For example, for the 2015 NRA annual convention held Friday, April 10 to Sunday, April 12 in Nashville, TN, the treatment group consisted of individuals who received outpatient (including emergency department) or inpatient care during those dates and the control group consisted of all individuals who received care Friday through Sunday in the 3 weeks before and after the convention.

The data are plotted as the injury rates during the convention versus the same days before and after the convention. Their hypothesis, based on claims of gun owners, was that gun injuries would be higher during NRA conventions, as inexperienced people without proper training would be using the guns, while NRA members, having that training and experience, wouldn’t be using their guns during conventions.

In fact, as these data show, the rate of gun injuries was significantly lower during NRA conventions, and during the periods before and after them. The differences were statistically significant at the p = 0.004 level, which is considered highly significant (anything lower than p = 0.05 is seen as statistically significant).

Among 75,567,650 beneficiary-period observations in the claims analysis, 14.3% occurred on NRA convention dates. The unadjusted rate of firearm injuries was lower during convention dates than during control dates (129 beneficiaries with a firearm injury among 10,883,304 persons [1.19 per 100,000] vs. 963 beneficiaries with a firearm injury among 64,683,254 persons [1.49 per 100,000]; P=0.004; relative difference, 20.1%; 95% confidence interval, 6.7 to 34.0). The findings were unaffected by adjustment for covariates (Figure 1).

They note that gun-related injuries, which include deaths, drop by 20% throughout the US during NRA conventions, and decrease by 63% in the state hosting the convention. They conclude, dryly, that this is not consistent with the “inexperienced gun users cause injuries” hypothesis, but is consistent with the notion that “experienced gun owners” (read: NRA members) cause injuries, and the decrease is related to NRA members holstering their weapons during conventions:

These findings are consistent with reductions in firearm injuries occurring as a result of lower rates of firearm use during the brief period when many firearm owners and owners of places where firearms are used may be attending an NRA convention. Our results suggest that firearm-safety concerns and risks of injury are relevant even among experienced gun owners.

The data:

 

Figure 1. Firearm Injuries among Commercially Insured Persons That Occurred on Dates of National Rifle Association (NRA) Annual Conventions and Control Dates, 2007–2015. Shown are the adjusted rates of firearm injuries during convention dates versus control dates in a beneficiary-level multivariable linear regression of firearm injury as a function of indicator variables for convention and control dates, age, sex, indicators for calendar week and year (to adjust for seasonal trends), and state fixed effects. In Panel A, the adjusted estimates are from a model in which the key explanatory variable was a binary variable for NRA convention dates versus all control dates combined. In Panel B, the adjusted estimates are from a model in which the key explanatory variables were indicator variables for week relative to the NRA annual convention. In both panels, 𝙸 bars indicate 95% confidence intervals.

Now this is a big drop, and it surprised me. As Ars Technica notes, the NRA has the same objection that struck me, but the authors have a potential counterclaim:

In a statement to CNN, NRA’s director of public affairs, Jennifer Baker, called the study “absurd.” She continued: “This study is another example of when data and numbers fly in the face of logic and common sense.”

Baker went on to note that only a small fraction of the country’s gun owners—a group that totals about a third of Americans—attend the NRA’s annual conventions. She questioned how such a relatively small number of gun owners could explain such large decreases in injuries.

In a response to CNN, co-author Jena emphasized that the study was not designed to explain the cause of the drops. But he speculated that gun owners who attend NRA conventions may be those who tend to use their guns more frequently than non-attending owners.

Moreover, he and Olenski noted a potential domino effect from the convention disrupting other group events or trips involving firearms and venues, such as shooting ranges and hunting grounds, where owners may temporarily close up to attend the convention. Last, the researchers noted that many NRA convention goers travel long distances to attend, potentially helping to explain the nationwide declines. For instance, 60 percent of the 81,000 NRA members attending the 2017 convention ventured more than 200 miles to get there.

Good Lord: 81,000 people go to an NRA convention? That is one big meeting! But Baker’s objection does need to be considered.

Remember that this is from nine years of data, though. Perhaps there is some other correlate that explains the significant reduction in gun violence; and, as I noted, this is the insured population only, while many gun users are uninsured. In the meantime, take this as an intriguing result that might be right, but deserves extra careful scrutiny since it conforms to what we gun opponents want to believe.

h/t: Michael

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Jena, A. B. and A. R. Olenski, 2018. Reduction in firearm injuries during NRA annual conventions. New England J. Med.  378:866-867 DOI: 10.1056/NEJMc1712773

Egyptian singers get prison time for joking about the pollution of the Nile and making “debauched” videos

March 3, 2018 • 10:15 am

We take it for granted in Western democracies that we can make fun of everything, including the government and politicians. But of course that’s not the case in much of the world, including Egypt. But it’s even worse: a popular Egyptian singer, Sherine Abdel Wahab, was just sentenced to six months in prison for joking about the pathogenicity of the Nile River.  As the BBC reports (see also PRI):

Egyptian singer Sherine Abdel Wahab has been sentenced to six months in prison for joking about the cleanliness of the River Nile.

Sherine, one of the country’s most famous singers – and a judge on the Arabic version of The Voice TV show – told a fan that drinking from the famous river might give them parasites.

“Drink Evian instead,” she joked.

. . . On top of the legal case against her, the Egyptian Musicians Syndicate announced that it had banned her from performing over her “unjustified mockery of our dear Egypt”.

From PRI:

The World: Tell us about the song that got Sherine in trouble?

Mona Eltahawy: Well, the song comes from this Egyptian phrase that basically says if you drink from the Nile you’re going to come back. Every country has its own version of this. And the song is basically a song for the love of Egypt. And apparently, what happened at one of Sherine’s concerts that landed her into this trouble, was that a fan requested the song “Have you Drunk from the Nile,” and Sherine joked, “Well, you know you’re better off not drinking from the Nile because you’re going to get bilharzia — which is a waterborne disease from a parasite that is found in the Nile that has long plagued Egypt. So, she was making a joke and she was saying, “You know, you’re better off drinking … ,” and she says the name of a mineral water company. So, it was a joke.

So, just to be clear, bilharzia, or some people call it schistosomiasis — this waterborne bacteria — Egypt has made great strides, as you say, in reducing it. But it’s still dangerous to drink from the Nile, right? I mean, that is a problem.

It is dangerous to drink from parts of the Nile world. You go in, and you will get the parasite that carries this disease. And so you know, she was joking, but she’s joking about something that is real. And I think what it reminds Egyptians of is that Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, our current president, who is from the military and who is military-backed, is showing an increasing sensitivity to any kind of criticism. So, it’s not just unknown university students who are picked up in the middle of the night and forcibly disappeared. And we’ve had hundreds of such cases, but this is also a kind of muscle flexing and saying, “Look, even the most famous pop stars are not immune from this.” This is a message to everyone: “We can get whoever we want.”

But wait—there’s more. Another singer, Laila Amer, was just sentenced to two years in prison for making a video that the government said “incited debauchery and immorality.” The director and another actor were also convicted, but given shorter sentences. From the BBC:

The controversy surrounding Sherin’s case was followed by the arrest in January of Laila Amer, over a video for her song Bos Omak (Look At Your Mother)

Its name is an apparent pun on an Arabic profanity.

The video showed Amer dancing and making suggestive gestures – something the lawyer who filed the complaint called a “great risk” to Egypt and “an attack on society”.

News agency EFE reported that Amer’s defence in court was that she had simply followed instructions from the director and producer.

The director was sentenced to six months in prison, while another man appearing in the video alongside Amer received a three-month sentence.

Here’s that salacious video, which is as tame as milk compared to some music videos in America. I see hand gestures, but nothing “suggestive”. But of course I’m not Egyptian. Yet that doesn’t matter: the regime in censorious, and nobody deserves to rot in jail for two years for a music video. Seriously, do you think this video is a “great risk” to Egyptians, much less “an attack on society”?

Caturday felid trifecta: Andy Warhol’s cat books; man uses cheetah as a pillow; cats steal pizza

March 3, 2018 • 9:00 am

Reader Michael called my attention to the fact that Andy Warhol, in his younger days, created seven hand-illustrated books that you can buy (at a big price!) in a single volume. Two of them are described at (holding nose) Brainpickings, which reproduces the illustrations. The backstory:

When [Warjhol’s] mother, Julia Warhola — an artist herself and one of history’s unsung champions behind creative icons — found out about her son’s destitute conditions in 1952, she boarded a bus from Pittsburgh to New York and moved into Andy’s tiny apartment on East 75th Street, intent on taking care of him and helping him get by. The two shared a love of cats so strong that their squalid home was populated by a multitude of felines, all but one named Sam; the sole outlier, Julia’s most beloved companion, was named Hester. But in addition to cat-rearing, the mother-son cohabitation inevitably led to a series of creative collaborations and an adventure of self-publishing.

The books:

In 1954, Andy and Julia [Julia Warhola, his mom] released a limited-edition artist’s book ungrammatically titled 25 Cats Name Sam and One Blue Pussy (public library), featuring Andy’s signature blotted-line watercolor drawings in vibrant pop-art colors and calligraphy by Julia. Oddly enough, there were only sixteen rather than twenty-five cats portrayed and Julia had accidentally missed the letter “d” from “Named,” but Andy decided to keep the title and fold the idiosyncratic wording into the already quirky yet strangely contemporary concept — not only was it a book solely about cats half a century before the cat meme of the modern web, but it was also practically an illustrated listicle.

The book was conceived as an edition of 190 signed and numbered copies, most of which Warhol gave away to friends and clients as gifts.

Here are a few illustrations:

x

And there was yet another cat book:

But perhaps even more intriguing was the sequel, another self-published book unambiguously titled Holy Cats by Andy Warhol’s Mother (public library) — a playful and irreverent eulogy for Julia’s beloved Hester, which she wrote and illustrated herself.

Warhol would later remark of his mother’s peculiar labor-of-love project: “It featured what she loved to draw most, angels and cats.”

The two books were eventually reproduced and published as a boxed set a few months after Warhol’s death in 1987.

Michael added his own take:

Warhol doesn’t know cat anatomy – he draws them as bags of fur. As you say yourself often, artists are poor with cats [& other animals], they don’t understand the bones, joints, muscle fixture points & motions because at school they draw people & bowls of fruit. That’s my belief anyway – that you can’t draw from the outside in – structure comes first
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Here’s a man sleeping with and on a cheetah, which would be my dream. That loud purr would soothe you right to sleep!
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Finally, I had no idea cats like pizza this much, as I never had any in my house when I had cats. True, pizza has cheese, but also tomato sauce and bread, which aren’t things I’d think cats would like. Nevertheless, here’s a compilation video of cats stealing pizza and holding onto it tenaciously:

h/t: Mizrob