Saturday: Hili dialogue (and Leon lagniappe)

October 3, 2015 • 1:22 am

Time flies when you’re having pies: it’s only a week before I head back to Warsaw and then, the next morning, to Uppsala (to give a talk) via Stockholm. My cold (or whatever it is) lingers, but fortunately has not dulled my sense of taste (see next post). Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili continues to insist that the world respect her needs. But, after all, she’s a cat.

A: Hili…
Hili: Do not disturb. I’m sorting my priorities.

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In Polish:
Ja: Hili…
Hili: Nie przeszkadzaj, sortuję priorytety.
*******

And here’s Mr. Leon, in a photo taken a week ago when I got to take him out for walkies:

Leon: I haven’t seen any fish but I have a supply of tuna at home.

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Atheist Alliance of America meeting in two weeks

October 2, 2015 • 3:00 pm

I’m just back from speaking in Torun, which was great fun, including a slap-up traditional Polish lunch in the dean’s office, which is the fanciest office I’ve ever seen (some of the furniture dates from the sixteenth century). I also saw Copernicus’s house, but I’m getting ahead of myself; there will photos of all this tomorrow. In the meantime, I’m announcing a secular meeting whose organizers seem to have been rather dilatory about publicizing it. Here goes:

The Atheist Alliance of America (AAA) has finally put up the program for its annual meeting, held this year in Atlanta, Georgia between October 15 and 18. I’ll speak briefly (less than 10 minutes) as recipient of the Richard Dawkins Award, but there is a big slate of other speakers—including Jeff Tayler (his strident secular Sunday sermons summarized here), and Inna Shevchenko, head of FEMEN—who will be giving full-length talks.  I’m also scheduled to talk to the kids of Camp Quest about the wonders of evolution—another a longish talk.

I’ll look forward to meeting any readers there, and although I don’t think the conference will be selling my books, I’ll be glad to sign any that you bring (if you want a cat drawn in, you must say the magic phrase, which in this case is the Latin binomial for the tiger).

 

Ben Carson opens mouth, inserts metatarsals again: says it would be “very dangerous” to register guns

October 2, 2015 • 1:30 pm

If this man gets to be the Republican Presidential candidate (and I’ll bet one reader $50 he won’t: first taker accepted), I’ll be overjoyed, because there’s no way Carson could beat any of the viable Democratic candidates. In fact, I’m baffled why he’s a candidate at all.

His latest gaffe was made in conversation with radio host Hugh Hewitt, a conversation about gun control. Listen for yourself:

His solution is to examine the mentality of prospective gun owners (I think we often do that already), but NOT register the guns themselves.  His statement:

“What I worry about is when we get to the point were we say we need to have every gun registered, we have to know where the people are, and where their guns are, that’s very dangerous,” he said. “And that I wouldn’t agree with at all.”

Yes, of course, because when Big Brother takes over, he’ll know where all the guns are and can come and take them away from us, preventing the American people from using their handguns and rifles to defeat the U.S. Army. And how do you vet people for “early warning clues” about mental illness without registering people and their guns?

I say we go to the British system, where guns in private hands are very strictly controlled, but of course that’s a no-go in our country. For a wonderful and cogent defense that the Second Amendment to the Constitution was truly intended to promote militias rather than allow any deranged citizen to shoot up a campus or a movie theater, read Garry Wills’s twenty-year-old piece in the New York Review of Books, “To keep and bear arms.“

Kim Davis and the Pope, Volume MCMDXXVIII of ‘I am not a homophobe’

October 2, 2015 • 8:15 am

by Grania Spingies

Regular contributor Pliny The In Between has created a new satirical poke at the strange logical contortions from the school of Special Pleading.

All That Glitters Is Not Gold

As Jerry noted recently, there is nothing particularly liberal about the Pope’s position on anything; not unless you apply a really low standard to what liberal is: his organization bars women from all high level management positions, in spite of his saying “women are more important than men because the church is woman” (whatever that is supposed to mean). Uttering the phrase “who am I to judge?” is on charitable interpretation only basic human decency on the question of homosexuality, it is not liberal. When put in context of the entire of the entire comment the tone takes a certain slide towards the Right:

A gay person who is seeking God, who is of good will—well, who am I to judge him? The Catechism of the Catholic Church explains this very well. It says one must not marginalize these persons, they must be integrated into society. The problem isn’t this (homosexual) orientation—we must be like brothers and sisters. The problem is something else, the problem is lobbying either for this orientation or a political lobby or a Masonic lobby.

That is not a liberal position. That is a I’ll tolerate you so long as you don’t ask for legal equality position. Not so liberal now, eh?

I’m still unsure if I understand exactly why the media fawns so much over religious leaders; but then they also fawn over the Kardashians (and I hate that I had to investigate who they are, thanks America) so perhaps that isn’t the right question.

Perhaps the question is: when did sounding like a mostly decent human being rather than a Westboro Baptist Church representative suddenly get re-branded as liberal?

 

Friday: Hili dialogue

October 2, 2015 • 1:04 am

I must rush, as I have only fifteen minutes before I don the monkey suit and head for Torun for the Big Lecture. Unless my writing colleagues pitch in, posting will be almost nonexistent today, but indulge me as I have to go about my Father’s (Ceiling Cat’s) work. In the meantime, Hili is, as always when she’s not napping, in search of noms (that’s me photographing her):

A: Hili, where are you escaping to?
Hili: Into the valley because here people are scaring the mice away.

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In Polish:
Ja: Hili, gdzie uciekasz?
Hili: W dolinę, bo tu ludzie myszy płoszą.

Dobrzyn: around Retirement Day

October 1, 2015 • 1:30 pm

Here are a few holiday snaps from the last two days in Dobrzyn. It’s gotten a bit chilly and they’ve turned on the central heating.

First, as befits her status, we have the Furry Princess of Poland, who is now deigning to give me substantial Quality Cat Time on the couch:

Hili resting

Hili’s World #1:

A cat's world

Hili’s World #2:

Cat's world 2

Walkies by the Vistula:

Walkies

Malgorzata is taking seriously her promise to have a cherry pie for me (or some kind of pastry) every day. I photographed the process, starting with the filling of the crust (below we have a traditional crust instead of the more laborious walnut crust):

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It’s far easier to grate dough on top of the pie than to make fancy latticework, and it looks (and tastes) just as good:

Pie 1

Pie 2

Gratings spread over the top:

Pie 3

Baking (I’ve given Malgorzata’s recipe here):

Pie 4

And the completed product (I had a piece just ten minutes ago):

Pie 5

Dinner two nights ago: a dish of kasha (buckwheat groats) larded with both sausage and pork shoulder, cooked with mushroom sauce, and served with cucumbers in yogurt. This is traditional Polish fare:

Dinner

When I woke up on retirement morning yesterday, I found an envelope in the living room. It contained two things, including this note:
 Retirement card

And indeed, there was a watch (the pikers in my department didn’t give me anything, not even a goodbye email or fete). The watch had been ordered in advance via Amazon in advance, and a professional in Dobrzyn assigned to insert a picture of Her Highness. What a lovely gift!

Retirement watch

We also had a special lunch: open-faced “sandwiches” (a Jewish recipe) made from a savory puff pastry covered with grapes, fresh figs, Camembert cheese, and cashews, baked until the pastry is done and the cheese melted. One can also use Roquefort cheese and pecans:

Retirement sandwiches

And dinner: chicken baked with soy sauce and sesame seeds, served with an olive salad and boiled potatoes, all washed down with Zubr beer.

Chicken breasts

For dessert we had a choice of cherry pie or a cheesecake purchased by Gosha, the upstairs tenant. I opted for cheesecake, and it was delicious. As always here, I am eating well but not gaining weight:

Retirement cheesecake

Cheeesecake