Why Evolution is True is a blog written by Jerry Coyne, centered on evolution and biology but also dealing with diverse topics like politics, culture, and cats.
Here we have what looks to be two tiger cubs in a zoo or reserve along with a gibbon who taunts them. The voiceover implies that the gibbon is protecting its territory, but it may also be toying with the cats—to the extent of pulling their ears and tails! The other question I have is whether those cubs could really do any damage to the gibbon.
Regardless, the athleticism and grace of this monkey is simply stunning.
As one reader remarked, gibbons make great cat toys because they can get themselves out of danger.
There are now two lawsuits in the Chicago area brought by transgender students who, granted access to the women’s locker room for changing, were requested to change behind a “privacy curtain” or a secluded area because they have male genitals. The genital aspect of this case isn’t mentioned in the Chicago Tribune article below, but I heard it on the local NPR station. Click on the link for the story of one of these students (the other is anonymous); the story has a video of the student:
NPR also said that Nova Maday is being represented by the ACLU in her lawsuit.
I’m conflicted by this story, and decided to throw it out for discussion. And my conflict is because this student still has male genitalia. Had she fully transitioned, I wouldn’t have any problem with her being allowed to change with other female students. But with a penis?
I suspect that some of the other female students would object to undressing with a student having male equipment, though no news story reports the reaction of the students, and it would probably be a violation of their privacy to ask. But if they do object, don’t we have to balance the transgender student’s wishes against those of the women students? After all, baring your woman’s body in front of a body with a penis could cause substantial distress.
I’m particularly interested in what women readers have to say about this. Think back to when you were in high school, and in the locker room. Would you have cared if there was somebody with a penis in there? At any rate, vote below, but also please leave a comment about your opinion on these two cases.
Why has this perfectly rational analysis of “crime ranking” by Bill Maher (below) turned into Something That Can’t Be Said? As I noted the other day, Matt Damon, for making the statement below, got viciously attacked and demonized, with Minnie Driver being the most vociferous—and irrational—critic:
“I do believe that there’s a spectrum of behavior,” [Damon] said. “And we’re going to have to figure out — you know, there’s a difference between, you know, patting someone on the butt and rape or child molestation, right? Both of those behaviors need to be confronted and eradicated without question, but they shouldn’t be conflated, right?”
“All of that behavior needs to be confronted, but there is a continuum. And on this end of the continuum where you have rape and child molestation or whatever, you know, that’s prison. Right? And that’s what needs to happen. OK? And then we can talk about rehabilitation and everything else. That’s criminal behavior, and it needs to be dealt with that way. The other stuff is just kind of shameful and gross.”
In the clip below from Real Time, Bill Maher goes after the “no spectrum” people who are, by violating common sense, further eroding the image of the Left.
And can someone explain to me why noting that some misdeeds are worse than others—and showing how that’s relevant to how we treat people—has become a no-no? This isn’t unique to #MeToo or threats of sexual harassment, as you’ll know from the recent transformation by some Leftists of “my opponent” into “Nazi!”.
It’s Caturday, and, as usual, there are three items for the ailurophiles.
First, a duck steals a cat’s treats, but it gets revenge on both ducks and geese. You can see more of these videos at the YouTube channel AaronsAnimals, which has some really good stuff. Don’t miss this video!
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Here’s the story of Masha, a Russian hero cat who, according to the Washington Post (and the video below) saved the life of an abandoned infant.
A corpulent cat from the Kaluga region of Russia is being hailed as a hero, after using her own body to shelter an abandoned infant from winter’s deep freeze.
Masha the cat – as the stray is called by the residents of the building she calls home in Obninsk – found the infant in an entryway Saturday night and climbed into the box in which the baby had been left.
One of the building’s residents heard the cat and the baby’s cries. At first, Nadezhda Makhovikova just thought she was hearing Masha in some sort of distress. “When I went down, I saw it was a baby crying,” Makhovikova told REN TV earlier this week.
Reports said the baby had been left with a pacifier, bottle and diapers, and was dressed warmly, wearing a little hat, as residents described him – though he likely would have had difficulty staying warm enough to survive a whole night in the sub-freezing temperatures in the area.
Residents called an ambulance, which whisked the baby away to a local hospital – but not before Masha would try to accompany the baby on the way.
. . . Doctors determined that the child was about 2 ½ months old, and was well-fed, clean and clothed, showing no signs of abuse or neglect – save, of course, that he had been left out in the cold to be found by a concerned cat. The child is staying at the hospital while police search for the baby’s parents.
But the humans in the story are crediting the cat for likely having kept the baby alive during the crucial hours it spent in the cold.
Felissimo, a company based out of Japan, is responsible for this purrfectly adorable (sorry) kitty cradle. The bed itself resembles a flawless fluted crust. “I think you’ve cracked it,” Mary Berry would say of this crust. “Oui,” Dominique Ansel would add. Also included are a few comfy pillows that mimic blueberries, a slice of kiwi, a strawberry, and an orange segment. A sleepy kitty stands in for any custard or fruity filling, obviously.
We haven’t heard from Lou Jost in Ecuador for a while, but he came through this week with some pictures of a spectacular tropical katydid; probably a new species. His notes are indented:
This is most definitely NOT in the your “Spot-the-*” series! Both a male and female of this ornate katydid came to a collecting light at our Rio Zunac scientific station in the Amazon foothills of eastern Ecuador two weeks ago. These were nothing like slow-moving leaf-mimic katydids; they were fast on the ground, quick to take wing, agile in the air, and very eager to use their bright yellow “jaws” to bite down hard on anything that bothered them, especially my fingers. Whenever they took offense at something I did, they would flash their bright underwing pattern at me and spread their silvery blue wings. They escaped and had to be recaptured many times.
I kept them alive for two weeks, photographing them like crazy. They were difficult subjects; I kept them in a mosquito net in my house and would go into the net with them to photograph, so they couldn’t escape. After a while they stopped worrying about me. When they passed away I mounted them in their threat display attitude and photographed them some more (the shots with a white background, and the microscopic detail shots).
I include a picture of the male genitalia which, as you know, are often the main distinguishing feature of insect species. Non-matching genitals leave no chance for crossbreeding, hence indicate good biological species.
Most of these were taken with an Olympus PEN F camera and 60mm macro lens using focus-stacking. The higher magnification pictures were taken with a microscope objective mounted on a telephoto lens on the PEN F.
Lou has some more exciting news for us, but I’ll reveal it when I’m allowed to!
Trump and his representatives had been labeling the event the “Schumer shutdown” after Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, but the New York Democrat was quick to call it “the Trump shutdown.”
Ceiling Cat help our dysfunctional republic!
On January 20, 1783, Great Britain signed a peace treaty with the U.S., officially ending the fighting of the American Revolution. In 1841, Hong Kong Island was occupied by the British; exactly 80 years later, the first Constitution of Turkey was adopted, making Turkey a republic. It was inspired largely by the Great Secularist Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, whose legacy is now being dismantled by Erdogan and his theocratic thugs. On this day in 1942, the famous Wannsee Conference was held outside Berlin, a meeting in which Nazi officials explicitly discussed the “Final Solution to the Jewish question”. For those who doubt the existence of the “Endlösung”, here’s a letter from Reinhard Heydrich, architect of the Holocaust, to Martin Luther, a Nazi diplomat, about the practical implementation of the “final solution of the Jewish question”. Note that it’s dated February 26, 1942. This refuted the Holocaust deniers, unless they claim (as they have) that the “final solution” involved the deportation rather than the extermination of the Jews. Note the stamp that this is a “Geheime Reichssache!”, or “secret business of the Reich”:
January 20 is traditionally Inauguration Day for new U.S. presidents, so on January 20 these people were inaugurated: John F. Kennedy (1961), Richard Nixon (1969), Jimmy Carter (1977), Ronald Reagan (1981), George H. W. Bush (1989), Bill Clinton (1993), George W. Bush (2001), Barack Obama (2009), and Donald Trump (2017, 🙁 )
Notables born on this day include Leadbelly (1888), George Burns (1896, died at 100), Aristotle Onassis (1906), Joy Adamson (1910), Federico Fellini (1920), Buzz Aldrin (1930), Bill Maher (1956), and Republicans Kellyanne Conway (1967) and Nikki Haley (1972).
Those who gave up the ghost on this day include John Ruskin (1900), Johnny Weissmuller (1984), Audrey Hepburn (1993), Gerry Mulligan (1996), and Miriam Rothschild (2005, although enriched with the Rothschild fortune, she chose to spend her time collecting and writing about insects; I once met her and she was patrician but funny as hell).
Here’s the Gerry Mulligan Quartet (with Chet Baker on trumpet) playing a Coo Jazz version of “Stardust”:
Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili is getting more and more depressed that she can’t go out (she hates snow):
Hili: I have a feeling that it’s not OK.
A: What is not OK?
Hili: Generally it’s not OK.
In Polish:
Hili: Mam wrażenie, że nie jest dobrze.
Ja: Z czym nie jest dobrze?
Hili: Tak w ogóle nie jest dobrze.
Some tw**ts from Dr. Cobb. This pair is very good:
And a scene from The Big Sleep; Dorothy Malone, who won an Oscar for “Written on the Wind”, here plays a Hot Bookstore Lady in The Big Sleep. The dialogue just drips with sexual innuendo (be sure to watch the four-minute clip; what a great movie that was!). Malone died yesterday at 93.
Well, it looks as if the government is going to shut down in about 8.5 hours. If you were going to go to the Smithsonian today, do it now. But first, place your bets here, then I’ll show you a cat rapper:
Your reward for voting: Moshow the Cat Rapper making up a spontaneous rap as he bathes his Sphynx cat Ravioli. Moshow has a lot more cat raps on his YouTube channel, which you can see here.
If you’re wondering whether Ravioli needs a bath, the answer is “yes.” Here’s part of an interview with Moshow:
As a person who has four cats myself, I’ve never actually given a cat a bath before while I was in the bath. So I think off top, can you break down what exactly Ravioli’s situation is and why you have to take that extra care with Ravioli?
Well, all four of my cats are really, really special. What you’re actually seeing, when you see me in the tub with Ravioli, all four— I call them my kids— all four of my kids are getting a bath at the same time. They are from the sphynx descent; Sushi, Tali and MegaMam they don’t have fur, they have have skin just like we do. With that comes how we get dirty, so if you don’t give them a bath, with them using their litter, just day after day, dirt builds up, it builds up oil on the skin. You have to give them baths as if they were human.
Ravioli’s a German Rex and he still has that sphynx’s descent, he only has his first two layers of fur to his [directum] which is why he’s so curly. If you see him over the course of two or three weeks, his hair starts knotting up and gets real tangly, so he has to get baths once every two and a half weeks or so.
I, too, got in the tub when bathing my late beloved cat Teddy. He was covered with motor oil when I first got him (he’d lived on the streets for three years and wandered in through the cat door covered with oil from huddling under cars in the winter). It took several baths to get him clean, and to discover that he was snow white and not yellow. To help him feel secure (and protect my nether parts), I donned a bathing suit, put about six inches of lukewarm water in the tub, and then let Teddy stand on my chest while I shampooed him. He was a gentle cat and never balked.
