Obama to announce Supreme Court nominee this morning

March 16, 2016 • 8:30 am

Get your popcorn: this morning President Obama is going to nominate a Supreme Court justice to replace Antonin Scalia. There are, as announced by both the New York times and CBS News, three nominees on the short list.

Among the finalists are the federal appellate judges Sri Srinivasan, Merrick B. Garland and Paul Watford.

My money is on Garland, who’s seen as the candidate least likely to be opposed by Republicans, as he’s a moderate. Srinivasan seems more liberal, was born in India, and would be the first Hindu Justice. Watford, like Garland, is a moderate who’s received support in the past by both parties.

It’s canny of Obama to nominate all three, since none fall on the overtly liberal side of the spectrum, making it hard for the Republicans to find a reason to oppose them. Nevertheless, Senate Republic leader Mitch McConnell is still vowing to oppose any nomination until after the election. Such is the obstructionist nature of a party in the process of shredding its credibility. Trump’s nomination (which now seems likely) would be its swan song.

A New York Times graphic shows that, since 1900, six of eight Supreme Court nominees proposed by an incumbent President during an election year were confirmed (a couple of these were to fill vacancies the year before election year, but so what? In all cases the vacancies would be filled by a President whose term was ending.

Amy Winehouse: “Back to black”

March 16, 2016 • 8:00 am

I don’t want to leave without posting moar Amy Winehouse. This song, “Back to Black,” is from her last studio album of the same name. She was the Taylor Swift of her era (but more talented)—rehashing her romantic debacles in her music. The affair mentioned here was with the sleazeball Blake Fielder-Civil, who not only introduced Winehouse to heroin, but left her to return to an old girlfriend. The song was written by Winehouse and Mark Ronson, and this live performance is stunning:

Wikipedia has a long entry about the song, including this:

“Back to Black” was inspired by her relationship with Blake Fielder-Civil. He had left Winehouse for an ex-girlfriend, leaving her going to “black,” which to the listener may appear to refer to drinking and depression. However, the “black” to which she refers is more likely heroin, to which she was openly addicted; “black” is the second most common street name for heroin in Los Angeles.

“Back to Black” explores elements of old school soul music. The song’s sound and beat have been described as similar to vintage girl groups from the 1960s. Its production was noted for its Wall of Sound. Winehouse expresses feelings of hurt and bitterness for a boyfriend who has left her; however, throughout the lyrics she “remains strong” exemplified in the opening lines, “He left no time to regret, Kept his dick wet, With his same old safe bet, Me and my head high, And my tears dry, Get on without my guy”. The song’s lyrical content consists of a sad goodbye to a relationship with the lyrics being frank. Slant Magazine writer Sal Cinquemani suggested that the protagonist’s lover may be committed to cocaine instead of another woman. John Murphy of music OMH compared the song’s introduction to songs by Jimmy Mack, adding that it continues to a “much darker place” than the aforementioned artist’s work.

Readers’ wildlife photographs

March 16, 2016 • 7:30 am

Reader John O’Neall sent us some wildlife photos from a place we rarely see: India! He hasn’t identified some of them, so feel free to suggests your IDs in the comments:

These were taken in Madya Pradesh, India, an hour’s drive (or less) from Khajuraho at Panna National Park in 2006 and the Ken River Reserve 2014. The two are separated only by the Ken River, which is now threatened byan upstream dam(n) project. Unfortunately, I am not sure what they all are. Hope you have some Indian readers who might know what.

Some sort of deer, maybe a female Sambar (Rusa unicolor):

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A colorful Indian Roller [Coracias benghalensis] in flight. Good thing it’s colorful, because colors are about all you can see.

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Here’s a photo of the roller from Wikipedia:

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Nice spots on this chital (Axis axis):

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Langurs (Simia entellus):
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Not sure, might be a nilgai (Boselaphus tragocamelus):

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Magnificent male chital:

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Nice antlers on the same chital:

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A vulture:

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Mother and child, but what?

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Wednesday: Hili dialogue

March 16, 2016 • 6:30 am

Just a reminder: I’m off today for India: Delhi, Bangalore, and Bhubaneswar; and I’ll return April 3. There’s little doubt that posting will be lighter and sporadic, but it will resume on its regular schedule after my return.

Today is March 16, the Day of the Book Smugglers in Lithuania. On this day in 1190, on of England’s worst massacres of the Jews took place in York Castle, while in 1294, there was a massacre of Cathars (believers in two gods: a good one and an evil one) at Montségur in France. In 1872, the Wanderers F.C. beat the Engineers A.F.C. in the very first F.A. cup, the world’s oldest soccer competition. On March 16, 1872, Robert Goddard launched the first liquid-fueled rocket in Massachusetts, and in 1968 the infamous My Lai Massacre took place, in which American troops slaughtered hundreds of Vietnamese civilians.

Notable births on this day include James Madison (1751), Pat Nixon (1912), Jerry Lewis (1926), Jerry Jeff Walker (1942), reader Ursula Goodenough (1943), hearthrob Kate Nelligan (1950), Alice Hoffman (1952), and Isabelle Huppert (1953). Deaths on this day included Aubrey Beardsley (1898), Judge Roy Bean (“the Law West of the Pecos”) in 1903, and Arthur Godfrey (1993).

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, there’s been a sudden cold snap, and the Princess is worried about the welfare of the rodents—but not out of empathy!

Hili: It’s cold today.
A: Indeed it is.
Hili: I’m worried that the mice are freezing.
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In Polish:
Hili: Chłodno dziś.
Ja: Faktycznie.
Hili: Martwię się, że myszy zmarzną.
And out in Winnipeg, Gus’s box has almost bit the dust. His staff notes this:
Looking through the box (through the looking box?)
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Harry Potter and the Ivory Tower of Offence-Takers

March 15, 2016 • 1:58 pm

by Grania Spingies

Full  disclosure: I’m not a huge Harry Potter fan. I have read them all and enjoyed some more than others, but I think that J.K. Rowling’s adult novels are far superior. That said, there can be no doubt that her books for children have gripped (at a conservative estimate) the hearts and minds of at least a generation of kids, and probably even more.

Neither the books themselves nor their writer are strangers to controversy and abuse, either. Rowling has managed to offend the very religious to the point of getting her Potter books banned by groups ranging from several flavors of Christianity to two of Islam – a fairly impressive feat. She even managed to annoy Wiccans for portraying their craft incorrectly (do please at least try to keep a straight face). Evidently, writing fantasy fiction for children is a metaphorical walk in a minefield, because while children may love and understand that this is pure fantasy, some adults are clearly incapable of doing the mental arithmetic required to separate this from Real Life.

The latest chapter in the “Oh my god, I am so offended by your Harry Potter book” saga comes from Dr Adrienne Keene; and this time the offended party is pulling out the Big Guns by using words with lots of syllables in them: cultural appropriation and colonialism.

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The cause of all the outraged foot-stamping and furious finger-wagging is this: History of Magic in North America published on the online Pottermore website as an expansion of the Harry Potter universe. You can read all about Rowling’s numerous sins here, if you wish. That’s just Part 1 in the link. There are other parts before and after.

These sorts of tooth-gnashing episodes that break out from time to time on the Internet are such a  waste of an opportunity and ultimately counter-productive.

First, when a highly-educated academic starts complaining that all this is mine and you may not touch or even look at without my permission; they resemble nothing so much as a spoilt brat stomping their feet at a party because someone has dared to arrive in a dress that resembles their own. It does poor service to any marginalised and underrepresented community that one might claim to speak for.

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Secondly, no-one can correctly claim that they speak for an entire community, let alone a collection of communities. Your offence may not be shared by other members of your community, as was evidenced recently by the Kimono Wednesday debacle in Boston recently.

Finally, this is the most bone-headed way of  trying to communicate a culture or facilitate an outreach program. Harry Potter has millions of fans worldwide. The books have been translated into 68 languages. The outreach is huge and global. The smart thing to do if one really wanted to promote an underrepresented and hitherto marginalised group would be to launch a social media campaign on the back of the new addition to the Potter world. Something like: You read the Harry Potter version, now come and explore the rich treasures of the real cultures and peoples! 

I guarantee that hundreds of thousands of Potter fans would have clicked through and started to learn some real history, and learn about cultures and people and communities that they had previously known nothing about.

Instead, Keene’s shenanigans have produced a somewhat bitter taste in the mouths of all involved, and the well has been poisoned by its own self-appointed guardian—and that goes for the many Potter fans who might have really wanted to learn more but are now too intimidated to ask.

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Mother Teresa to attain sainthood in September

March 15, 2016 • 12:00 pm

Yes, the Pope announced today that old fraud, Agnes Gonxhe Bojaxhiu, otherwise known as Mother Teresa, will ascend to the pantheon of Roman Catholic saints on September 4. As CNN reports:

In December, Francis announced that Mother Teresa would become a saint after recognizing a second miracle attributed to her: the healing of a Brazilian man with multiple brain tumors after loved ones prayed to her to heal him, the Italian Catholic bishops’ association’s official newspaper Avvenire reported. That miracle occurred after her death.

The nun was beatified in October 2003 by now deceased Pope John Paul II. He approved a first posthumous miracle.

A 30-year-old woman in Kolkata said she was cured of a stomach tumor after praying to Mother Teresa. A Vatican committee said it could find no scientific explanation for her healing and declared it a miracle.

Bojaxhiu died in 1997, after long opposing birth control (in India!), and having run a string of institutions where dying people were given Jesus instead of medicines. On top of that, at least one of the two miracles required for sainthood was a hoax. As I discussed in Faith Versus Fact, the “cure” of the Indian woman Monica Besra, supposedly afflicted with ovarian cancer that regressed after she looked at a picture of Bojaxhiu, was actually a cure of a tubercular tumor, and her doctor, who gave her conventional medical treatment, took the credit. I know nothing about the other “miracle” (a cancer as well), but of course some cancers spontaneously regress.

Never mind: the Church needs saints to keep feeding its supplicants. If you want to know what Bojaxhiu was really like, read Christopher Hitchens’s The Missionary Position: Mother Teresa in Theory and Practice (great title!), or dig out the free 2013 paper (in French) by two Montreal researchers that pretty much comes to the same conclusion: Mother Teresa was a fraud, unworthy of even an encomium. (I have a summary in English here.)

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