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.
Over at Colossal, they’ve put up gifs from a music video of Roy Kafri’s song “Mayokero” (don’t ask me who he is). The video contains a bunch of famous albums that they’ve animated, but the best one is Carole King’s “Tapestry” which—and I hope you know this—has a tabby cat. You should also know that “Tapestry” is among the biggest-selling albums of all time: Wikipedia claims that it’s sold over 25 million copies worldwide, and it’s a fantastic album.
Here’s the animated gif:
And the music video from Vimeo (note, music not to my taste):
I always considered myself pretty much on the left politically. When the University of California at Berkeley had the Free Speech movement fracas back in the 1960s, in which students vehemently asserted their right to discuss political matters in public on campus, I was fully behind it.
But somehow, now, I feel like the left is closing circles and meeting the right. The Free Speech movement at Berkeley has turned into this, according to yesterday’s Daily Cal (the student newspaper; my emphasis):
In response to an announcement last week that comedian Bill Maher would speak at UC Berkeley’s fall commencement, an online petition started circulating Thursday that demanded that the campus rescind its invitation.
The Change.org petition was authored by ASUC Senator Marium Navid, who is backed by the Middle Eastern, Muslim and South Asian Coalition, or MEMSA, and Khwaja Ahmed, an active MEMSA member. The petition, which urges students to boycott the decision and asks the campus to stop him from speaking, has already gathered more than 1,400 signatures as of Sunday.
Maher, a stand-up comedian and host of HBO’s Real Time with Bill Maher, is best known for his often-polarizing political commentary. Recently, Maher faced some backlash after controversial remarks regarding Islam during a segment on his Oct. 6 show.
“It’s not an issue of freedom of speech, it’s a matter of campus climate,” Navid said. “The First Amendment gives him the right to speak his mind, but it doesn’t give him the right to speak at such an elevated platform as the commencement. That’s a privilege his racist and bigoted remarks don’t give him.”
No, of course not. Only those people with Politically Approved™ viewpoints can have such a privilege. And God forbid that they criticize religion, for that’s bigoted and hateful. Of course, if a left-wing speaker criticized Republican views on, say, fiscal policy or abortion, that would be fine. It’s the criticism of religious ideas (not religious people) that has become an act of bigotry. And it’s worse if the religious ideas are those of Islam. The article continues:
Navid, however, said a different set of expectations must be held for a commencement speaker. According to her, Maher insults people of all religions and backgrounds.
“(Jon) Stewart and (Stephen) Colbert are critical of religion, too, but Bill Maher has, on several occasions, said to rise up against religious people and religious institutions and take action,” Ahmed said.
Navid’s office launched a campaign called “Free Speech, Not Hate Speech” asking students to contact Chancellor Nicholas Dirks and Helena Weiss-Duman, the director of external relations.
Get it: “Free Speech, not Hate Speech”? Doesn’t that sound so reasonable. But one person’s reasonable speech is another’s hate speech, and in a democracy they all should be heard. Who is the arbiter of what is “hate speech”? Why, the fragile students of Berkeley, of course!
Navid and the members of MEMSA should grow up. You don’t need to agree with all of Maher’s views to recognize that a lot of what he says about religion is thoughtful, and, even if you don’t agree with him, he makes you think—and leads you to hone your own arguments if you want to remain a believer in belief. These students are like little kids: stopping their ears and going “nyah nyah nyah nyah” when they hear something they don’t like.
If you don’t like who your college chooses to speak, oppose his or her speech with counter speech, but don’t try to prevent people from speaking. It’s the clash of opposing ideas that I found the most exciting part of college. The coddled and misguided students at Berkeley don’t recognize this, for they want to hear only the words that are soothing to their ears.
On the night before I left Sofia, my friends Vassy and Lubo kindly invited me to their apartment for a home-cooked Bulgarian meal with four of their own friends. It was also a chance to see Toncho (short for Mark Antony, the Roman politician, and don’t ask me why), an 18-year-old Siamese cat who is famous for eating anything. His favorite food, though, is cucumber, and I was eager to him eat the stuff.
This, then, counts as the final documentation of my Bulgarian noms.
First, Toncho. Here he is with Lubo and then me. Doesn’t he look good for an 18-year-old cat? He’s very spry and friendly, and shows no obvious signs of decrepitude.
Toncho has his own wooden comb engraved with the initials of his full name. He likes to be combed on the cheeks and pate, but also enjoys having his ears massaged and gums rubbed with your hands:
As Vassi prepared salad for dinner (she’s the cook in the family; Lubo can cook only one thing: pancakes), Toncho stood around hoping for a bite of lettuce or other vegetables:
Here are photos of Toncho eating a cucumber, which was bought especially for the occasion. But be sure to see the video below, as he emitted unearthly howls while waiting for the vegetable:
Man, does that cat love his cukes!:
And the video I made, showing the cat howling for and then nomming cucumbers. Listen to the noise he makes!
As for our own dinner, it was delicious and copious (qualities of most Bulgarian food). Lubo and I first went to the local liquor store to buy wine for dinner, and we also got, on the advice of a reader, some apricot rakia, which was very good. Here’s the store’s selection of rakias, which are liquors distilled from various fruit (usually grapes). Apricot rakia is on the bottom shelf, fourth from the left.
For dinner, we started with an appetizer of prosciutto wrapped around a Camembert-like cheese, which was great, accompanied by a nice salad:
Vassy then offered up a huge plate of the Bulgarian speciality banitsa (a filo-like dough filled with Bulgarian white cheese), made according to her mother’s recipe. Doesn’t that look good? It was.
The main course was stuffed zucchinis, peppers, and tomatoes (I had the latter two as I cannot abide zucchini [and anyone who reproves me for that will be BANNED]). The filling was minced meat and rice. Delicious, and the leisure fascists will be pleased that it is also healthy. All this was washed down with rakia, beer, and a fine malbec.
Dessert consisted of chocolate “Ebola cupcakes” (the sprinkles are supposed to represent viruses, I think) made by two of the guests:
For postprandial entertainment, Vassi helped Toncho play air guitar (and air drums), and I made a video:
Many thanks to Lubo, Vassy, and the many Bulgarian friends I made on my short visit. I had a great time and recommend the country to those looking for a special European vacation, and the Ratio meetings to those scientists who want to popularize their craft in a country whose people are hungry for science.
Okay, I’m back and there are no wildlife photos in the queue, so go ahead and inundate me. But remember, I want good photos, not blurry pictures of some rodent in the distance. Today we have an experiment in long-distance photography by reader John Scanlon:
it was an interesting experiment. The only camera I use these days is my iPhone, which I use to document fauna and habitat during fieldwork. There are obvious limitations, but it’s so convenient.
The other day, in the suburbs of Perth (Western Australia), I got a good look at this immature Black-shouldered Kite (Elanus axillaris) who was calling constantly, sometimes harassed by Australian Magpies (Cracticus tibicen) or a Nankeen Kestrel (Falco cenchroides) while waiting around for a parent that came back briefly from foraging a couple of times in an hour. The best the phone camera alone could do was barely adequate for identification (first picture), so (just before the battery ran out) I tried lining it up with the eyepiece of my Zeiß 8×30 binoculars. Fiddly to take a shot this way, but it could make the difference between an OK shot and nothing at all.
And here’s a photo of this magnificent bird, which I knew nothing about, from Wikipedia. Satanic red eyes!
It was 23 hard hours of traveling for Professor Ceiling Cat yesterday, and all that after only three hours of sleep. He’s a tough moggie! But, when he awoke this morning, he saw a vision of Chicago, with the rising sun setting a few of the buildings aflame.
Here’s a fantastic safety video from Air New Zealand: a takeoff of Lord of the Rings which, of course, was filmed largely in that country.
And the information from YouTube:
As the official airline of Middle-earth, Air New Zealand has gone all out to celebrate the third and final film in The Hobbit Trilogy – The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies. Starring Elijah Wood and Sir Peter Jackson; we’re thrilled to unveil The Most Epic Safety Video Ever Made.
Special cameos by Sylvester McCoy, Dean O’Gorman and Weta Workshop co-founder Sir Richard Taylor. Directed by Taika Waititi. Enjoy!
You have to admit that it’s a pretty epic safety video, one that will make jaded passengers sit up and pay attention!
Also, doesn’t Elijah Wood bear a resemblance to a younger version of one of our favorite Horsemen?
This is not the first time that Air New Zealand produced unusual safety ads. One from 2009 features the pilot and cabin crew bedecked in nothing but body paint (all naughty bits are strategically hidden), while another from two years later features the bizarre Richard Simmons and a bunch of athletic passengers. But the Middle Earth one is the best.
Now here’s a brave woman: a Pakistani who goes by the name of “Eiynah” and is described in Pakistan Today this way:
Eiynah is a Pakistani-Canadian blogger/illustrator who writes about sexuality in Pakistan. She dreams of a progressive motherland and is also a children’s book author. She blogs at http://www.nicemangos.blogspot.com, and tweets at @Nicemangos
And in yesterday’s issue of Pakistan Today, you’ll find her piece: “An open letter to Ben Affleck“. As a few quotes below will show, she goes after Affleck for trying, as she argues, to minimize the plight of Muslim women like her. Just a bit to give you the flavor:
Noble liberals like yourself always stand up for the misrepresented Muslims and stand against the Islamophobes, which is great but who stands in my corner and for the others who feel oppressed by the religion? Every time we raise our voices, one of us is killed or threatened. I am a blogger and illustrator, no threat to anyone, Ben, except for those afraid of words and drawings. I want the freedom to express myself without the very real fear that I might be killed for it. Is that too much to ask?
When I wrote a children’s book that carried a message of diversity and inclusivity for everyone, my life changed. My book, ‘My Chacha (uncle) is Gay’ has the innocent anti-homophobia message, ‘Love belongs to everyone’. This was not palatable to many of my Muslim brothers and sisters.
Since that project I have been declared an ‘enemy of God’ and deemed worthy of death. All because I want to help create a world where South Asian children too can have their stories told, so they too can know that love comes in all forms, and that that’s okay. My Muslim brothers and sisters were hit hard by this work because it addresses the issue of homophobia within our own community. It is not something they can pass off as ‘Western’ immorality. Just like they deny that any issues exist within the doctrine of Islam, many deny that homosexuality exists amongst good, ‘moral’ Muslims. Just like that, millions of people’s existence is denied. Please do not defend people who think this way, and let me tell you Ben, many ‘good’ Muslims do think this way.
What you did by screaming ‘racist!’ was shut down a conversation that many of us have been waiting to have. . . You became an instant hero, a defender of Islam.
Well, maybe Affleck became a hero to those who willfully overlook the excesses of Islam that are not confined to only a small percentage of Muslims, but to me he’s an ignoramus—and a dangerous one. A 2013 Pew Poll showed that 76% of Pakistani Muslims who favor making sharia the law of the land (and that’s 86% of those Muslims) favor the death penalty for those who leave Islam. That’s at least 50% of all Pakistani Muslims. 89% of that 86% (a minimum of 77% of Pakistani Muslims) favor stoning to death as punishment for adultery. And 88% of that 86% (minimum of 76%) favor corporal punishment for crimes like theft. This is not a small minority or a “fringe,” at least in Pakistan. And Eiynah hits that point hard.
In your culture you have the luxury of calling such literalists “crazies”, like the Westboro Baptist Church, for example. In my culture, such values are upheld by more people than we realise. Many will try to deny it, but please hear me when I say that these are not fringe values. It is apparent in the lacking numbers of Muslims willing to speak out against the archaic Shariah law. The punishment for blasphemy and apostasy, etc, are tools of oppression. Why are they not addressed even by the peaceful folk who “aren’t fanatical, who just want to have some sandwiches and pray five times a day? Where are the Muslim protestors against blasphemy laws/apostasy? Where are the Muslims who take a stand against harsh interpretation of Shariah? These sandwich-eating peaceful folk do not defend those suffering in the name of Islam, Ben, and therein lies our problem.
This is just part of her letter, but I also wanted to put up the ending, because it’s snarky—but in a good way:
If I were allowed to meet a man that is not my father, brother or husband unchaperoned, I would have loved to discuss this over drinks (which I am also not allowed to have) with you. So, you see, things must change.
Sincerely,
Eiynah
The website is apparently produced from Lahore, so I’m at a real loss to understand how this letter got published (Eiynah must be a pseudonym) given the state of Islam there. But I’m also chuffed that it got published.
![IMG_2604[1]](https://whyevolutionistrue.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/img_26041.jpg)
