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 will not be attending the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner this year,” the President tweeted. “Please wish everyone well and have a great evening!”
Here’s the damn tweet:
I will not be attending the White House Correspondents' Association Dinner this year. Please wish everyone well and have a great evening!
There’s no more information than this. I can’t recall any other President skipping this dinner, which of course is a lighthearted but sarcastic affair, with comedians and others taking the podium to make fun of the President.
Trump, of course, is a narcissist, and narcissists can’t take criticism, especially when they’re sitting there having to listen to it. And this expresses further disdain for the press, which I find reprehensible in a democracy.
Here’s a bunch of Siberian tigers (Panthera tigris altaica: there’s only one species of tiger; all the named versions are subspecies) in a Chinese “tiger park” being photographed by a drone. Although they’re largely fat and out of shape, they take the gadget down handily in the last bit of the video.
I wish they didn’t fence in these magnificent beasts, which have large territories in the wild. Perhaps they’d go extinct without this kind of captivity, but sometimes I think that would be the best alternative if they or their descendants can never be put back in the wild.
Reader Alexander sent a link to an article in Publisher’s Weekly (PW), which Wikipedia describes as “an American weekly trade news magazine targeted at publishers, librarians, booksellers and literary agents. Published continuously since 1872, it has carried the tagline, “The International News Magazine of Book Publishing and Bookselling”. With 51 issues a year, the emphasis today is on book reviews.”
The report on that site is about the retail chain Family Christian Stores, formerly America’s largest chain of stores purveying Christian merchandise (books, jewelry, movies, geegaws and the like) I say “formerly” because the chain is closing. (You can read the CEO’s official announcement here, signed “In His Service”.) After declaring bankruptcy in 2015, the chain is shutting down: lock, stock, and barrel. And it’s no small chain, either, as it has 240 stores in 36 states. As PW reports:
According to various sources, a board meeting was held at FCS’s Grand Rapids, Mich., headquarters on Wednesday afternoon to determine whether the beleaguered retailer would close or finance another year. To continue, sources said, board members said that they needed to see a path to profitability by 2018.
. . . “We prepared for this,” said Jonathan Merkh, v-p and publisher at Howard Books. The planning, though, doesn’t take away the sting. “Financially, it may not affect the industry in the short run, but it will in the long run. There are 240 less stores selling books.”
Mark D. Taylor, chairman and CEO of Tyndale House Publishers, told PW that it will be hard to lose a company which has been a cornerstone of the segment for so long. “The entire Christian community—indeed the entire nation—will be poorer as a result of this pending closure,” he said.
The Christian community may be the poorer, but I think the nation will be the richer, for this not on facilitates the secularization of the U.S., but is a strong sign of that secularization. People just don’t want to buy Christian stuff any more, and that coincides with the rise of the “nones”: those Americans who don’t identify with an established church. While people like Rodney Stark keep claiming that Christianity is doing better than ever, they’re like the captain of a ship proclaiming how sound the vessel is as it’s going down
By the way, here’s PW’s list of subject editors. It’s supposed to deal with the entire publishing industry, but notice that there are three religion editors and no science editors! We still have a way to go.
SENIOR NEWS EDITOR
Calvin Reid
ASSISTANT NEWS EDITOR
John Maher
CHILDREN’S BOOKS
Diane Roback, Children’s Book Editor
John A. Sellers, Children’s Reviews Editor
Emma Kantor, Associate Editor
Matia Burnett, Assistant Editor
Please contact Matia Burnett for queries concerning review submissions of children’s books.
FEATURES EDITOR
Carolyn Juris
RELIGION
Seth Satterlee, Religion Reviews Editor
Emma Koonse
Lynn Garrett
DEPUTY REVIEWS EDITOR
Gabe Habash
SENIOR REVIEWS EDITORS
Peter Cannon
Rose Fox
REVIEWS EDITORS
Alex Crowley
Annie Coreno
Everett Jones
BOOKLIFE EDITOR
Adam Boretz
This is an ex store. Bereft of life, it rests in peace. it’s kicked the bucket, shuffled off the mortal coil, run down the curtain and joined the bleeding choir invisible!!
On February 13, Michael Flynn resigned as Trump’s National Security Advisor, and he’s now been replaced by H. R. (Herbert Raymond) McMaster. Nobody can argue that McMaster is not qualified, what with his extensive experience in the military and as a security specialist in the Middle East. Even Slate approves of him, calling him “the Army’s smartest officer,” though noting that McMaster has little experience in Washington and, as a renegade of sorts (i.e., he doesn’t favor torture), he may not have free reign to diverge from Trump’s plans.
As yesterday’s New York Times reports, McMaster also differs from Trump on the issue of “Islamic terrorism,” taking the apologists’ view that groups like ISIS, or those who practice terrorism in the name of faith, are “perverting Islam”:
President Trump’s newly appointed national security adviser has told his staff that Muslims who commit terrorist acts are perverting their religion, rejecting a key ideological view of other senior Trump advisers and signaling a potentially more moderate approach to the Islamic world.
The adviser, Lt. Gen. H. R. McMaster, told the staff of the National Security Council on Thursday, in his first “all hands” staff meeting, that the label “radical Islamic terrorism” was not helpful because terrorists are “un-Islamic,” according to people who were in the meeting.
That is a repudiation of the language regularly used by both the president and General McMaster’s predecessor, Michael T. Flynn, who resigned last week after admitting that he had misled Vice President Mike Pence and other officials about a phone call with a Russian diplomat.
It is also a sign that General McMaster, a veteran of the Iraq war known for his sense of history and independent streak, might move the council away from the ideologically charged views of Mr. Flynn, who was also a three-star Army general before retiring.
Well, we know why previous administrations have rejected the connection between Islam and terrorism, despite groups like ISIS explicitly drawing that connection—groups that certainly wouldn’t consider themselves as un-Islamic. One reason is simply to privilege religion in general and Islam in particular: it’s a rule of American government that religion of any sort must not be criticized. Further, some Islamic states give us oil or let us use their land for military bases, and presumably would be angered if Islam were dissed in any way. The Times gives a third reason, one connected to the second:
In his language, General McMaster is closer to the positions of former Presidents Barack Obama and George W. Bush. Both took pains to separate acts of terrorism from Islamic teaching, in part because they argued that the United States needed the help of Muslim allies to hunt down terrorists.
“This is very much a repudiation of his new boss’s lexicon and worldview,” said William McCants, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and the author of “The ISIS Apocalypse.”
I have to say that on this one issue, I think that Trump is closer to the truth than is McMaster, at least acknowledging a connection between Islam and terrorism, even though people like McMaster and Obama were, as we all knew, playing a semantic game. (I’m not, by the way, endorsing the totality of Trump’s views on Muslims or Islam!) But it still puzzles me that even Shia Islamic states like Iraq, who are constantly under religiously-based attack by Sunni Muslims, must also play the game, pretending that religion has nothing to do with these internecine battles. (The possibility that they’d be angered by invoking Islam is what, the Times says, has kept the issue euphemistic.)
In the end, the failure to acknowledge the religious roots of hatred and terrorism will impede a solution. Why, for example, should we turn to moderate or ex-Muslims like Ayaan Hirsi Ali or Maajid Nawaz as a strategy for to de-fanging extremist Islamism if the problems have nothing to do with Islam? A whole group of strategies becomes off-limits if you rule out a priori that religion plays some rule in terrorism.
(From the NYT): President Trump appointed Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster, left, as national security adviser on Monday. Credit Al Drago/The New York Times
We have another three felid-related items today; the first is the 6-minute story of an elderly cat who, after losing her owners and then being abused, found a forever home—even if she won’t last that long. It was sent by reader Diane G., who wrote the following:
I have a strange feeling I should be cynical about this, but I don’t know why…Meanwhile, taken at face value it’s simultaneously the most heartbreaking and, ultimately, uplifting vid I’ve seen in a long time.
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If you’re like me, when you’re in an art museum you eventually ask, “Where are the cat paintings/statues/icons?” Well, the Milwaukee Art Museum anticipated the needs of ailurophiles, and prepared “A comprehensive guide to finding cats at the Milwaukee Art Museum.” Every Museum, especially big one like the Louvre, needs one of these. It shows what cat stuff is on display and where it is. Here are five paintings, with captions showing what they are:
Mihaly Munkacsy’s “The Rivals (Little Kittens)”Two sculptures“Tea Service,” a 1756 painting by Charles-Eloi AsselinDrossos P. Skyllas’ 1955 oil painting “Young Girl With A Cat”Jean-Leon Gerome’s 1883 painting, “The Two Majesties,”
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From Bored Panda we have the story of a “nurse cat”. It’s hard to believe that this cat is doing this, but Malgorzata and Andrzej tells me that the cat is famous in Poland:
Radamenes, an angelic little black cat in Bydgoszcz, Poland, has come through hell and high water to help the animals at the veterinary center there get better. After the veterinary center brought him back from death’s door, he’s returning the favor by cuddling with, massaging and sometimes even cleaning other animals convalescing from their wounds and operations.
Radamenes has become a local attraction, and people have begun visiting him at the center for good luck!
He even helps d*gs!
The people at the office call him a “full time nurse”. What say you—is this cat really dispensing empathy to sick animals?
Today’s Google Doodle celebrates someone I’d never heard of, but should have: Ida Lewis (1842-1911). She tended the Lime Rock Lighthouse off Newport Rhode Island, and saved many lives, winning her the monicker of “the bravest woman in America.”
The Doodle (click on screenshot below to see it) gives ten scenes from her life, which you can see by clicking on the arrows to advance the pictures:
Here’s a bit of her biography from Wikipedia:
Ida Lewis was born in Newport, Rhode Island, the oldest of four children of Captain Hosea Lewis of the Revenue Cutter Service. Her father was transferred to the Lighthouse Service and appointed keeper of Lime Rock Light on Lime Rock in Newport in 1854, taking his family to live on the rock in 1857. When he had been at Lime Rock for less than four months, he had a stroke and became disabled. Ida expanded her domestic duties to include caring for him and a seriously ill sister and also, with her mother’s assistance, tending the light: filling the lamp with oil at sundown and again at midnight, trimming the wick, polishing carbon off the reflectors, and extinguishing the light at dawn.
Since Lime Rock was completely surrounded by water, the only way to reach the mainland was by boat. By the age of 15 Ida had become known as the best swimmer in Newport. She rowed her younger siblings to school every weekday and fetched supplies from town as they were needed. She became very skillful at handling the heavy rowboat. Responding to criticism that it was unladylike for women to row boats, Ida said that “None – but a donkey, would consider it “un-feminine”, to save lives.”
Ida and her mother tended the Lime Rock Light for her father from 1857 until 1873, when he died. Her mother was then appointed keeper, although Ida continued to do the keeper’s work. By 1877, her mother’s health was failing, leaving Ida with increased housekeeping and care-giving responsibilities. Her mother eventually died of cancer in 1878. Ida finally received the official appointment as keeper in 1879, largely through the efforts of an admirer, General Ambrose Everett Burnside, a Civil War hero who became a Rhode Island governor and United States senator. With a salary of $750 per year, Ida was for a time the highest-paid lighthouse keeper in the nation. The extra pay was given “in consideration of the remarkable services of Mrs. Wilson in the saving of lives”.
Lewis made her first rescue in 1854, coming to the assistance of four men whose boat had capsized. She was 12 years old.
Her most famous rescue occurred on March 29, 1869. Two soldiers, Sgt. James Adams and Pvt. John McLaughlin, were passing through Newport Harbor toward Fort Adams in a small boat, guided by a 14-year-old boy who claimed to know his way through the harbor. A snowstorm was churning the harbor’s waters, and the boat overturned. The two soldiers clung to it, while the boy was lost in the icy water. Ida’s mother saw the two in the water and called to Ida, who was suffering from a cold. Ida ran to her boat without taking the time to put on a coat or shoes. With the help of her younger brother, she was able to haul the two men into her boat and bring them to the lighthouse. One of them later gave a gold watch to Ida, and for her heroism she became the first woman to receive a gold Congressional medal for lifesaving. The soldiers at Fort Adams showed their appreciation by collecting $218 for her.
Because of her many rescues, Ida Lewis became the best-known lighthouse keeper of her day. During her 54 years on Lime Rock, she is credited with saving 18 lives, although unofficial reports suggest the number may have been as high as 36. She kept no records of her lifesaving exploits. Ida’s fame spread quickly after an 1869 rescue, as a reporter was sent from the New York Tribune to record her deeds. Articles also appeared in Harper’s Weekly and, Leslie’s magazine, among others. The Life Saving Benevolent Association, of New York, sent her a silver medal. A parade was held in her honor, in Newport, on Independence Day, followed by the presentation of a sleek, mahogany rowboat with red velvet cushions, gold braid around the gunwales, and gold-plated oar-locks. When she was 64, Ida became a life beneficiary of the Carnegie Hero Fund, receiving a monthly pension of $30.
Here’s Ida:
And here’s the lighthouse. The house was 13 feet tall, and the light was 40 feet above the water, but rested on a small island:
