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.
I never listen to The Young Turks, and this is one reason why. Here co-host Ana Kasparian has what I see as a moral meltdown, claiming that she’s “better than you” if you don’t agree with her political views or if you “attack the powerless”. Now I’m not sure what she’s referring to in particular, but it hardly matters. (Does criticizing Islam, as did Charlie Hebdo, mean “attacking the powerless”? Is any groupcompletely powerless?)
Of course if she’s referring to racism or bigotry, I agree that it’s reprehensible behavior, but what do you accomplish by calling an ideological opponent “garbage” or “a sociopath”? Nothing except that you get to vent—and make a lifelong enemy of the person you insulted.
It is this attitude of moral purity—”yeah, I’m fucking better than you—much better than you. You’re garbage!”—that pollutes much of the Left. We should deal with arguments and behaviors rather than assert what wonderful people we are in comparison. Cenk Uygur projects the same attitude, which is why I avoid this show like the plague. All it takes is one unhinged display like this (or the one linked to below), to get a quick peek into someone’s real attitudes.
This is, of course, the same woman who, in a rage when Alex Jones showed up at a TYT taping, screamed “Get off the stage, you fat fuck!” And that despite her lectures against fat-shaming (see this video). Despite Jones’s bizarre ideas and politics, nobody deserves to be called a “fat fuck”. I’m not so sure Kasparian was “better” then.
Am I Left-shaming? So be it. I’m not saying I’m better than Kasparian, just that her behavior is maladaptive, and won’t advance her agenda.
On this dreary Monday, please enjoy some nice photos of California birds by reader Joe Dickinson, whose notes and IDs are indented:
Here is a miscellaneous set, mostly birds, from recent weeks.
Camping at Bodega Bay, we saw a remarkable concentration of medium waders, mostly marbled godwits (Limosa fedoa) and willets (Catotrophorus semipalmatus), pushed together, I think, by high tide. I will not attempt to identify the gulls in the background.
In a closer view, godwits are brown with upturned bill, willets more gray and straight. I believe the smaller bird front right is an American golden plover (Pluvialis dominica).
Also at Bodega Bay, a great blue heron (Ardea herodias) caught early morning light while perched on a channel marker.
Further north at Jedediah Smith Redwoods State Park, a new species for me: a red-breasted sapsucker (Sphyrapicus ruber). According to my Sibley Guide, they bore neat rows of holes in bark (e.g., upper right), then return to drink the sap and eat the insects that accumulate therein.
Back down the coast at Pacheco Pond by Novato, there was a family of mute swans (Cygnus olor, a European import) with three almost grown cygnets.
Also at Pacheco Pond, a male redwing blackbird (Agelaius phoeniceus) seemed a bit confused, putting on territorial displays as if it were spring.
Back home in Aprtos, I spotted this small butterfly (about 2 cm long) that I can’t identify.
Finally, on my routine morning walk by Aptos creek, I saw a wonderful flight of about 50 great egrets (Ardea alba) flying high and coming straight at me out of a foggy sunrise. “Pelicans”, I thought at first, but the profile and wingbeat was not right. Then, maybe gulls, until I noticed the legs extending behind tail. Great egrets, rather than snowy, resolved at home once I had them up on screen and could confirm that legs and feet were black. I’ve seen large groups of snowy egrets in the past, but never flying “in formation” overhead, and I can’t recall ever seeing that many great egrets at once. Very special!
Well, it’s Monday again, at least in the U.S.: October 30, 2017, the day before Halloween and the day of Devil’s Night. And, Ceiling Cat help us, it’s National Candy Corn Day—perhaps the worst confection commercially available. Yet 35 million pounds of this vile comestible will be produced this year—9 billion pieces—with 3/4 of that produced for Halloween. Somebody’s eating that stuff!
If you have a black cat (of any nationality), send me a photo pronto. In tomorrow’s Halloween special, I’ll put up the first five black cats to arrive (only one photo per reader, please, and email them to me). Two years ago we had an awesome Halloween Black Cat Parade, showing six dozen black moggies staffed by readers, but I’m too busy to put that together this year.
On October 30, 1817, Simón Bólivar established the independent government of Venezuela. Exactly 14 years later, the escaped slave Nat Turner was captured after leading the bloodiest slave rebellion in United States history, killing some 60 white people. He was hanged on November 11, and then, as a warning to other slaves contemplating rebellion, his body was decapitated and flayed. On this day in 1938, Orson Welles did a radio broadcast of the H. G. Wells play War of the Worlds. Wikipedia says this “caus[ed] anxiety in some of the audience in the United States”, but it was worse than that. Many people went nuts, thinking the play (broadcast as a realistic event, complete with news bulletins) described a real invasion of the U.S. by Martians. As my father recounted, some people ran about distraught in the streets (he was 20 at the time). On this day in 1944, Anne Frank and her sister Margot were moved from Auschwitz to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, where they died, probably of typhus, the next year—shortly before World War II ended. Exactly one year later, Jackie Robinson of the Kansas City Monarchs signed a contract for the Brooklyn Dodgers, becoming the first African-American to play professional baseball. And what a player he was, achieving a lifetime .311 batting average as well as Rookie of the Year, despite the early bigotry and catcalls of the crowds. After a decade he retired, but continued to fight for civil rights until his death. The movie “42“ (Robinson’s number), starring Chadwick Boseman as Robinson and Harrison Ford as Branch Rickey, is well worth watching.
Here’s a four-minute video biography:
On this day in 1961, Stalin’s body was moved out of Lenin’s tomb due to a late realization that he wasn’t very “Leninist”, and Papa Joe was buried by the Kremlin wall. Pity; I would have wanted to see both bodies (I did see the embalmed Mao, though). Finally, on this day in 1995, the voters of Quebec decided by a narrow margin (50.58% to 49.42%) that their province would remain part of Canada rather than becoming an independent state.
Notables born on this day include Christopher Wren (1632), John Adams (1735), Ezra Pound (1885), Charles Atlas (1893), Robert Caro (1935; let’s hope he finishes his multivolume biography of Lyndon Johnson), Grace Slick (1939), Diego Maradona (1960), and Ivanka Trump (1981). Here’s Maradona scoring what many regard as the most beautiful goal of all time, getting past five defenders. This was in the quarterfinals of the 1986 World Cup, with Argentina beating England 2-1. (The other goal, also by Maradona, was an illegal handball that wasn’t caught by the referees.) Argentina went on to win the Cup, and the handball still rankles the English.
Notables who died on this day include Joseph Campbell (1987), Steve Allen (2000), and Robert Goulet (2007); what can I say–it was a slow day for the Grim Reaper.
Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Cyrus was distracted by a lovely female dog on the soccer field:
A: What are you looking at?
Hili: I’m watching to see whether Cyrus will bring us the ball or will be more interested in that little bitch.
In Polish:
Ja: Czemu się tak przyglądasz?
Hili: Patrzę czy Cyrus przyniesie nam piłkę, czy zainteresuje się tą suczką.
And here are three tweets from Heather Hastie, including this salacious cat:
Today’s the big day: a perp walk for someone indicted by the grand jury in Robert Mueller’s investigation of ties between Russia and the Trump campaign. Who will it be? Put your guesses below. The first person to guess all today’s indictments correctly will win a hearty congratulations from Professor Ceiling Cat.
I can only imagine how nervous some people were this weekend! And Trump is losing it big time:
…the Uranium to Russia deal, the 33,000 plus deleted Emails, the Comey fix and so much more. Instead they look at phony Trump/Russia,….
I finally got ten cats today, though I had to do that by allowing one reader to submit two separate photos. I thought I’d get the photos within an hour or so, but things went slowly. Anyway, as I noted this morning, in America it’s National Cat Day, and I asked readers to celebrate by sending me photos of American cats. Here are the first ten photos sent by readers, whose notes are indented. They’re all 100% American cats; Make America Cat Again! No cats are as good as American cats!
Reader Rachel:
Twofer! Sophie and Lloyd, judging my television choices.
The second:
Here is American cat, Clementine, age 9, putting in her 18 hours a day while also demonstrating the beauty of animal print on animal print. Sent in by Robin B., her staff in Boca Raton FL
From reader Randy Schenck:
This is our cat Bumper, just hanging around the rocks.
From reader Victoria:
This is my dear 9-year-old Cleo “Sweet Pea” Strayhorn (CSPS), photographed on my lap.
From reader Christopher:
Here’s a photo of me clearly defeated by the massive 19 lb moggie, my son’s cat Magellan.
Me: “Hey, move, I’m trying to watch TV!”
Magellan: “No, you may watch my butt.”
From reader Vernon:
This is my cat, Queen Victoria, snoozing next to my computer chair. It’s a favorite spot for my two cats, with both of them vying for position there. Queen Victoria, or Vickie for short, has developed the habit of pawing my arm when she wants attention which I almost always gladly give her.
From reader Paul, we have pictures of Zing and Brio (Brio is the darker one)::
I enjoy reading Why Evolution is True. I am probably too late with the cat pictures but here’s one nonetheless.
From Roger in Minnesota; I put up both of his photos as we’re running short of time and of photos:
Aeryn [top] was born in one of the window wells of my house in 2003. She and her brother moved in that fall. Rygel is no longer with us due to developing megacolon.
Scotchy [bottom] showed up in my back yard three years ago and said “Hi. I’m moving in here.” Aeryn was not amused by the skinny young blond.
And the last entry, from reader BJ:
Here’s a photo of Bruce in his favorite spot: the heated floor in the master bathroom. He spends about eight hours a day sleeping on one of the bathmats. Alternate sleeping places are under the bed during the winter (where there’s a heat vent) and on the kitchen counter when the dishwasher is on and heats the granite. Bruce is proud, standoffish, and not terribly affectionate most of the day, only deigning to sit on laps late at night for a half hour or so. He likes treats, sleeps, and long walks on the beach, and he’s a rude dude with attitude. Perhaps Bruce isn’t as affectionate as my past cats because he may have been a stray before I gave him a home,. We’ve theorized that he may have been someone’s cat at one time because he was tame when we found him, but nobody is sure of his origins. Bruce is also a polydactyl, and he can catch small balls with one paw.
Lagniappe: At the insistence of reader Taskin, who wants a calico or tortie in here, I’ve included the other cat of Randy Schenck: Emma.
Lagniappe II: from reader Liz (I can’t resist a cat):
This is the only picture I have of the only cat I ever had. Her name was Tia and she was very affectionate. That’s my little sister, MaryKate, who is one of my favorites.
Lagniappe III: Oy! No more cats; it’s my dinnertime! This one’s from reader Paul:
Here is my girl K’ehleyr, feigning innocence after being caught eating plastic flowers. For someone who sleeps 20 hours a day, she’s surprisingly difficult to photograph.
Here we have two clips demonstrating the increasing polarization between Sam Harris and Reza Aslan over a year—or rather, the increasing hostility of Aslan. The first clip is undated, though because Harris cites the Pew Poll on the attitudes of Muslims, which was published in 2013, it would seem to be around then, which means Aslan’s hair got a lot grayer in one year. (This is part of a much longer discussion between Harris and Aslan that you can see here.)
Harris seems fairly conciliatory, asserting that his (Harris’s) rhetorical style is not suited to convincing Muslims to temper their faith (“I’m not a diplomat”); rather, that tempering must come from people like Aslan.
In response, what does Aslan do? At 2:41, he simply asserts his “expertise,” saying that because he doesn’t write books on neuroscience, Harris should shut up about Islam, implying he knows nothing about it. That’s not an answer to what Harris says, but an assertion that Aslan alone should be heard. And Aslan’s Islam isn’t extremist. This is when Harris brings up the Pew results, which, as I’ve said many times before, are disturbing to those who see Islam as a “religon of peace and tolerance”.
As usual, Aslan answers arguments by pulling rank, not by citing figures.
These two clips, put together by HuffPo in 2014, show a brief scene of Aslan accusing Harris of being a Biblical fundamentalist, and then a longer response by Harris. I have to say that Harris shows no stridency here, but rather a calm rebuttal of Aslan’s arguments. I wish I were as eloquent as he!
I append my badge of honor: as far as I know, Aslan is one of only two people who have blocked me on Twitter, despite the fact that I’ve never tweeted at him:
