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.
It’s Sunday, and so we have a batch of bird photos from John Avise. John’s captions and IDs are indented, and you can enlarge his photos by clicking on them.
More Avian Young-‘uns
Last Sunday I mentioned that mid-summer would be the doldrums for avian photography here in Southern California, except for the welcome appearance of chicks in resident species.It’s fun to watch them grow.This week’s photos show youngsters (and their parents) in several more avian species that live here year-round.All of these photos were taken near my home in mid-summer.The Egyptian Goose is an introduced species, native to Africa.
Welcome to the sabbath for goyische cats: Sunday, July 21, 2024, and National Ice Cream Day. Here’s the best place to go for ice cream in Chicago: Margie’s Candies, founded in 1921, and looks like it hasn’t changed. The ice cream and hot fudge (and chocolates) are superb, and the portions, as you see, are ample. Plus the Beatles ate here on Aug. 22, 1965.
Evan, falsely accused of espionage, was convicted by a Yekaterinburg court after a brief closed-door trial that the U.S. government has condemned as a sham and sentenced to 16 years in a high-security penal colony.
It was another blow for the gregarious, energetic, ever-smiling 32-year-old who has devoted much of his career to telling the story of Russia—and has spent more than a year in Russian prisons since he was detained by the security services in March 2023.
Evan moved to Moscow in 2017 and threw himself into life in the Russian capital, where he joined broomball and soccer leagues and cycled with friends on a used Soviet-era single-speed bike.
. . .Based in London after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Evan made regular trips back to Russia to report and write stories. In the newsroom, where I met him, he was a constant fount of chatter about Russia—about its politics, about the changes he witnessed during his visits and about the craft of reporting on the country from afar.
Now, instead of writing the news, he has become a global news story of his own—his name popping up on the U.S. presidential campaign trail and at a United Nations Security Council meeting.
Evan was arrested in a restaurant while on a reporting trip for The Wall Street Journal and shipped to Moscow’s Lefortovo prison, where he was locked in a cell for 23 hours a day for almost 15 months. He was recently moved to Yekaterinburg for the trial.
By all accounts Gershkovich, who left the NYT to move to Russia, which he loved, was a great reporter and had many friends. Now he’s facing 16 years breaking rocks, though I have substantial hopes that the U.S., or perhaps Germany, will dig up a jailed Russian spy to trade for him, just like they did with Brittney Griner.
In a recent email to over 1,000 members of the Pennsylvania branch of the American Psychological Association, the PPA’s leadership denounced Britain’s Cass Review, which found that pediatric gender-transition treatment is based on “remarkably weak evidence,” as “failing to meet the professional standard” of the PPA’s adherence to “evidence-based practices.” Accordingly, the PPA forbade any further mention of the Cass Review on the listserv.
Published in April, the Cass Review was nearly four years in the making. The report was commissioned by England’s National Health Service (NHS) and at 388 pages, is the most thorough analysis of the controversial field of pediatric gender-transition treatment to date. It was based in part on seven systematic literature reviews—the gold standard of scientific evidence—by evidence-based medicine experts at the University of York.
The review has led to a major pivot in the United Kingdom, putting the nation’s policies about pediatric gender medicine in line with four Scandinavian nations. The NHS has forbidden its health care providers from prescribing minors puberty blockers to treat gender-related distress. And the outgoing Tories put in place an “emergency” three-month ban of private prescribing of such drugs, one that the new Labour health secretary Wes Streeting has indicated he wishes to make permanent.
The NHS is at least ostensibly following the Cass Review’s recommendation to plan a clinical trial of pediatric gender-transition treatment, which is meant to be the only way for gender-distressed minors to access blockers and hormones. Such a trial would need to pass muster with an ethics review board and is not expected to launch until the beginning of 2025 at the very earliest.
The Cass Review has been met with scorn by the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH), a largely U.S.-based activist-medical association that published updated treatment guidelines for caring for transgender people in 2022 called the Standards of Care 8.
. . .The Pennsylvania Psychological Association, despite being adamant that it was being transparent with its members about the reason for forbidding discussion of the Cass Review, did not specify in its email why it believed that the review did not meet the group’s evidence-based standards. Instead, in explaining its new policy, the PPA said that members of the LGBTQIA+ community on the listserv and their allies felt “targeted, harmed, and hurt” by the sharing of the Cass Review.
As an alternative, the PPA recommended that members reference WPATH’s Standards of Care 8 and the APA’s policy statement on gender-affirming care. This came after the Cass Review found that the WPATH’s guidelines “lack developmental rigor” and that the document “overstates the strength of the evidence.”
WPATH is a gender-activist organization that by no means deserves the word “World” in its title. The U.S. is uniquely resistant to the Cass Review’s conclusions because WPATH and many American doctors favoring “affirmative treatment” have ignored the studies that, to date, show that the treatment doesn’t work, and that puberty blockers should be used only on a clinical trial basis until their long-term effects become clearer. (Patient payments may be involved in this.) What’s worse, in my view, is that if blockers and other hormones aren’t given to kids suffering from gender dysphoria, most of their cases resolve without surgery or drugs, with many kids simply winding up gay. This mandates against a laissez-faire policy of snipping and dosing, although of course someone who’s of greater age, an age of “consent”, is free to transition as they want.
Note that WPATH, thanks to the Biden Administration, no longer has any minimum age guidelines for surgery or drug dispensation for children or adolescents with gender dysphoria. (See tweets by J. K. Rowling and Elon Musk below).
*Israel should be attacking Hezbollah in Lebanon, but are impeded from doing so for two reasons: the war in Gaza that saps IDF manpower, and because it would mire Israel in another war that, despite U.S. intimations that it would help Israel go after Hezbollah. But Israel can expect no help if it goes after Hezbollah big time, but will accrue plenty more hatred from the world. However, Israel did strike at the Houthis in Yemen today after a Houthi drone that killed one man in Tel Aviv and damaged a building.
Israeli fighter jets bombed sites in Yemen affiliated with the Iran-backed Houthi militia on Saturday in retaliation for a deadly drone attack in Tel Aviv a day earlier, the Israeli military said. It was the first time Israel has publicly attacked the group in months of escalating tensions.
The Israeli airstrikes targeted gas and oil depots and a power station in the area of Yemen’s Red Sea port of Hodeidah, two regional officials said. The port is controlled by the Houthis and contains oil export facilities, but also serves as a vital conduit for civilian goods and humanitarian aid to impoverished Yemen.
An Israeli military statement said that fighter jets struck targets near the port “in response to the hundreds of attacks” by the Houthis in recent months. The military said it was not tightening its emergency civil defense regulations after the attack, indicating Israeli officials might not expect a more serious escalation.
Nasruddin Amer, a Houthi spokesman, wrote on social media after the Israeli bombardment that the group would continue to attack Israel in support of Gaza.
“Yemen’s operations in support of Gaza will not stop,” Mr. Amer vowed. “The response to this aggression is inevitable.”
On Friday, the Houthis claimed responsibility for firing a long-range drone that hit the coastal city of Tel Aviv, killing one Israeli and wounding several others. The attack was part of a monthslong Houthi campaign against Israel, during which the Houthis have lobbed hundreds of missiles and drones and menaced ships passing through the Red Sea to try to blockade the Israeli port of Eilat.
. . .The deadly Houthi drone attack in Tel Aviv — which struck close to an American diplomatic compound — was a rare breach of Israel’s vaunted air defenses. Most of the missiles and drones fired by the Houthis at Israel have been shot down by U.S. and Israeli forces.
Until Saturday, Israel had avoided a full-on attack against the Houthis in Yemen, which is more than 1,000 miles away. But the drone attack in Tel Aviv appeared to tip the scales.
“The Houthis attacked us over 200 times. The first time that they harmed an Israeli citizen, we struck them — and we will do this in any place where it may be required,” Yoav Gallant, the Israeli defense minister, said on Saturday.
Now if only the UN (or even a few Western countries) would report Hezbollah to the International Court of Justice for arrant war crimes (Israel only responds to Hezbollah’s rocket attacks and never initiates firing), maybe they could stave off a wider war in the Middle East. Naaah—not with Iran masterminding it.
*Speaking of Iran, I’ve written many, many times how the U.S., and especially Democratic administrations, have tried to bargain with Iran to prevent them from getting nuclear weapons. That’s a fool’s errand, similar to trying to bargain with North Korea to the same end. Iran wants nukes, especially to go after Israel, and it will have its nukes. In fact, it’s almost there:
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Friday said that Iran’s breakout time – the amount of time needed to produce enough weapons grade material for a nuclear weapon – “is now probably one or two weeks” as Tehran has continued to develop its nuclear program.
The assessment marks the shortest breakout time that US officials have ever referenced and comes as Iran has taken steps in recent months to boost its production of fissile material.
“Where we are now is not in a good place,” the top US diplomat said at the Aspen Security Forum Friday.
“Iran, because the nuclear agreement was thrown out, instead of being at least a year away from having the breakout capacity of producing fissile material for a nuclear weapon, is now probably one or two weeks away from doing that,” he said.
“They haven’t produced a weapon itself, but that’s something of course that we track very, very carefully,” Blinken added.
Blinken said the policy of the US is to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon, and that the administration would prefer to stop that from happening through diplomacy.
Blinken is SUCH a sap! Diplomacy hasn’t worked yet, and how on Earth does he expect to diplomacize Iran out of its single-minded purpose? More:
The Biden administration engaged in more than a year of indirect negotiations with Iran aimed at reviving the Iran nuclear deal, from which the US withdrew in 2018 under the Trump administration.
This is one of the big mistakes that the Biden administration made: thinking that they could talk (or sanction) Iran out of its nukes. Well, it’s too late now, and I wonder if Israel will do something to stop it. Since Iran’s nuclear facilities are now deep underground, resistant to even “bunker-busting” bombs, that would be hard.
*Judge Aileen Cannon disposed of a lot of legal precedent when she dismissed the documents case against Trump, but, according to the WaPo, she may be on shaky ground. Shakier, in fact, than the ground that Trump is on, even if he is eventually found guilty.
Judge Aileen M. Cannon’s stunning dismissal this week of the most serious charges faced byDonald Trump put her on shaky legal ground, according to experts, who say she is on track to be reversed on appeal and could even beremoved from the case — an extraordinary, but not unheard of step.
Because of the political calendar, however, any legal repercussions could be short-lived.
Trump’s alleged mishandling of classified national security records and obstruction of government efforts to retrieve the material may not matter if the former president and current Republican nominee is elected in November. If he gets back to the White House, Trump couldpressure his Justice Department to close the case. He could also promote Cannon to the very appeals court that will soon examine her decision to tossthe case.
Yes, he’d have no compunction about doing that, and he’d succeed, too.
Cannon’s finding that special counsel Jack Smith was improperly appointed by Attorney General Merrick Garland to investigate Trump conflicts with numerous past court decisions and the nation’s long history — during both Democratic and Republican administrations — of allowing independent prosecutors to handle high-profile instances of alleged wrongdoing.
. .Smith has filednotice of his plans to appealto the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit, which reviews decisions from the Florida district where Cannon, a relatively inexperienced judge appointed by Trump in 2020, sits.
The court has already rebuked her twice for her handling of other aspects of the classified documents case, sending what Yale Law School professor Akhil Amar described as a message that her decisions had been “way out of line.”
The question now, Amar said, is how quickly and dramatically the appeals court acts on the latest ruling, which dismissed the entire indictment for Trump and his two co-defendants.
“They may not want to stick their head in a buzz saw if they can just let the case take its slow, deliberative course,” he said.
*And from the AP’s ever-reliable “Oddities” section, we learn about a rare orange lobster, appropriately named “Crush”, who’s been saved from the pot:
The Downtown Aquarium in Denver has a new resident — a rare orange lobster that was rescued from a shipment of crustaceans delivered to a Red Lobster restaurant in Pueblo, Colorado.
A long-term employee who is a dishwasher and head biscuit maker spotted the bright orange lobster while unpacking a shipment last Friday and alerted restaurant managers, aquarium officials said. The staff named it Crush after the Denver Broncos’ legendary Orange Crush defense from 1976 to 1986.
“Myself and many of my team are born and raised Denver Broncos fans, so as soon as we saw that orange color, we knew that Crush would be an excellent representation,” said Kendra Kastendieck, the restaurant’s general manager. “And we all want our defensive line to be that good again.”
When the Pueblo Zoo couldn’t take Crush, Kastendieck called the Downtown Aquarium, which she said was interested right away.
. . .Crush will be examined by a veterinarian and after 30 days in quarantine will be placed in the “Lurks” exhibit that houses other cold water North Atlantic Ocean species, aquarium staff said.
“We are thrilled to be able to share this very rare and extraordinary animal with the community and visitors to Colorado,” Ryan Herman, general curator at Denver Downtown Aquarium, said in a statement.
Crush was shipped to the Pueblo restaurant from a supplier in Tennessee. It was caught off a coast of Canada, said Kastendieck, but she was unable to confirm which coast.
Genetic mutations can lead to lobsters that are orange, blue and yellow. Downtown Aquarium has had one orange lobster previously.
The Downtown Aquarium has more than 700 species of fish along with a stingray reef and three Sumatran tigers.
Yay! Lobster diversity preserved! And I always hate it when people throw live lobsters in boiling water. Imagine how the lobster perceives that. We don’t know if they feel pain in the way we do, but their neurons surely send off a huge and disturbing alarm signal.
Meet Crush:
Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili is impressed by the biodiversity of her yard:
Hili: Wherever we look there are organisms.
A: Luckily we do not see all of them.
In Polish:
Hili: Gdzie nie spojrzeć tam jakieś organizmy.
Ja: Dobrze, że nie wszystkie widzimy.
And a blurry picture of Szaron:
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From Science Humor(a terrestrial animal like this–chevrotains spend a lot of time in the water–could have been the kind of ancestor that whales had.
From Kitty Memes. No wonder the cat is, like, “yuk!” Give that moggy a pint of Landlord!
From Masih, with the Google translation below (I helped):
The father was beaten for supporting his daughter without hijab. As long as there is an Islamic Republic, no one will be safe. This video was sent to me by a citizen from the Abroud salt tourist area near Chalus. In his description, he wrote that on the 28th of July, hijab abusers and police officers clashed with a family from Isfahan who had come to Namak Abroud for sightseeing and recreation because of hijab. They severely beat the father of the family in front of the family members. The sender of the video wrote that in the continuation of this conflict, the mother of this family and one of her children were run over by a police car, and he could not record the video of that scene. I ask all the citizens who witnessed this governmental brutality on July 28th in Namak Abroud to publish their observations or pictures if they have prepared them in any way they can. Solidarity is the way to escape from the evil of these violent people. #WomenLifeFreedom #WarAgainstWomen
پدر را به جرم حمایت از دختر بدون حجابش کتک زدند. تا جمهوری اسلامی هست، هیچ کسی در امنیت نخواهد بود.
این ویدئو را شهروندی از منطقه توریستی نمک آبرود در نزدیکی چالوس برای من فرستاده است. او در شرح آن نوشته است که در روز ۲۸ تیرماه آزارگران حجاب و ماموران پلیس با یک خانواده اصفهانی… pic.twitter.com/JlFzNJmlcv
From Luana, a tweet linking to a BBC article reporting that restriction the use of puberty blockers does not, as some gender activists claim, increase the suicide rate (the assumption is that people not allowed to transition will kill themselves). The BBC article is here.
Almost every child goes through some kind of identity crisis during puberty. It is deeply wrong to make them permanently infertile with “puberty blockers”.
If they still wish to transition as adults, provided they are fully informed of… https://t.co/4THoppUaqy
From Richard. I think this book is definitely worth a read. You can order it on Amazon here.
Listening to Coleman Hughes (@coldxman) reading his wonderful book, The End of Race Politics. Scarcely a sentence goes by without my wanting to burst into spontaneous applause. Martin Luther King would be applauding loudest of all. Please read it. With an open mind.
Here’s the latest Bill Maher comedy shtick from his “Real Time Show.” It’s a good one, too. This time he argues “there’s nothing, not even an assassination attempt, that can’t be made at least at little worse by adding religion. Since the bullet that was meant for Donald Trump missed him last Saturday, Republicans have been indulging in an orgy of magical thinking.”
And there’s a lot of this sacralization of Trump, which is sickening. According to Maher, people have said that Trump “wears the armor of God” (Steve Bannon) and is even one of “God’s angels” (Jake Paul). Oy! God’s angels apparently love KFC.
Maher notes that all this amounts to treating Trump like a “demigod,” and “that never turns out well”. Maher shows some scenes from his movie “Religulous,” just to show that he’s still antireligious. And he adds, re the assassination attempt, “It’s the twenty-first century. Enough is enough—interpreting every random event as a DM from Heaven.”
The rest of the piece is a hilarious tirade against religion and about people’s tendency to read religious significance into everything, including dog butts that resemble Jesus. Finally, Maher gets in a few more licks at Trump (and one about Biden).
From the Washington Post, we hear of a cat named Max who’s become a fixture at the Carleton campus of Vermont State University, So much a fixture, in fact, that he got a Ph.D.
Click to read:
Max the cat has hitched rides on top of students’ backpacks, participated in campus tours and more than once has sauntered into a psychology lecture at Vermont State University’s Castleton campus.
The 5-year-old tabby is even listed on the staff roster at the university, where he has his own email address.
So it seemed like an obvious next step when the university bestowed an honorary doctor of ‘litter-ature’ degree upon him, making him officially part of the graduating class of 2024, in addition to being a staff member. Max wears many hats, said Rob Franklin, a photographer and social media manager for Vermont State University.
Last spring, Franklin had just started working at the university when he noticed the cat was everywhere, and he was treated like a celebrity.
“I was talking to a colleague outside Woodruff Hall – the main building on campus – when I noticed this cat wandering around and everyone greeting him,” Franklin said.
“I said, ‘What’s the deal with the cat?’ and I was told he came to the campus every day to socialize, then students would take him home when it got dark,” he said.
Max lives down the street from the main entrance to campus with Ashley Dow and her family, but he rarely hangs out at home, Dow said.
Ever since she started letting Max outside when he was 1, he’d head straight to the college campus and soak up the attention from students.
“He usually goes over in the morning about 8 when I go to work, and he’ll come home in time for dinner, or one of the students will come over and drop him off,” said Dow, a special-education teacher.
. . .Max had been roaming around campus and its 4,000 undergraduate students for four years – the same amount of time it takes to earn a bachelor’s degree, he said.
“We don’t hand out doctoral degrees here, but I thought it would be fun to give Max one,” Franklin said, noting that Vermont Public Radio covered the story.
He had a diploma made with corny cat puns, then posted it on Instagram in advance of the university’s commencement ceremonies on May 18. The photo in the post showed Max wearing a cat-sized graduation cap.
“With a resounding purr of approval from the faculty, the Board of Trustees of the Vermont State Cat-leges has bestowed upon Max Dow the prestigious title of Doctor of Litter-ature, complete with all the catnip perks, scratching post privileges, and litter box responsibilities that come with it,” the diploma reads.
He’ll have to be called “Dr. Max” now! Here’s a screenshot of his degree taken from the video below, which shows Max and his staff:
A one-minute video from Channel 10. What a great cat!
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The NYT has a piece on a new book about Louis Wain (1860-1939), the famous cat artist who supposedly went mad, and whose drawings of cats got more and more bizarre as his sanity waned. Here’s a group of his pictures, not in chronological order, but the most bizarre ones are from later in his life. (He spent the last 15 years of it in a mental hospital.)
Arriving to explore this mystery — and to complicate it further — is “Catland,” by the writer and critic Kathryn Hughes. The title is both literal and metaphorical, a nod to the intertwined worlds the book explores: the imaginary place invented by the Victorian cat illustrator Louis Wain, and the lived landscape we continue to inhabit some 150 years later.
“Catland” is, at its core, an examination of a quickly modernizing, post-Industrial Revolution Britain, where everything was transforming, including cats — who went “from anonymous background furniture into individual actors.” In short order, cats lost their “weaselly faces and ratty tails” as their faces and eyes became rounder. (While Hughes refers to the quick genetic turnaround possible given cats’ reproductive behaviors, it is not entirely clear whether cats really looked like this or were simply represented as such by artists.)
. . . The commercial artist and illustrator Louis Wain’s art evolved alongside this emerging feline paradise, and his cats also grew both rounder in face and elevated in status — until, eventually, their society was as weird and complex as their owners’. At the height of his popularity, Wain’s cats were everywhere, doing everything — selling soap and boots in advertisements, being patriotic on postcards, riding bikes or bickering with spouses in newspapers and magazines.
Unfortunately, Wain’s business acumen was virtually nonexistent. His fortunes, like those of the cats and cat fanciers of his era, had significant highs and lows. (His worsening mental illness did not help financial matters, but it also did not seem to hamper his productivity or creativity.)
How much did Wain actually influence the new cat aesthetic? Despite the author’s claims to the contrary, his work seems less a propellant than a reflection of the zeitgeist — as seen through his own increasingly eccentric perspective.
Indeed, “Catland” is populated by other characters who, in the author’s own telling, were at least as deeply involved in shaping the emerging cat world. There’s Harrison Weir, who organized the first Crystal Palace cat show in 1871, and “kick-started the modern cat-fancy,” and the clergyman’s daughter Frances Simpson, who had enormous influence on cat culture. Alongside her involvement in breeding, showing and judging, she became an authority whose feline-adjacent endorsements, pronouncements and opinions appeared in countless publications and in a column called “Practical Pussyology” (a lost Prince B-side if ever there were one).
. . . The sensitive should brace themselves: Stories of cruelty, violence and animal hoarding abound — difficult, but necessary, context. (Hughes does not bring us to the present moment, but the perceptive reader, particularly one well-versed in cat rescue, TNR and animal welfare, will find plenty of parallels to our current moment.)
Similarly, those looking for a straightforward biography may at first be disappointed, but cat lovers, and even the cat-indifferent, are encouraged to put their trust in Hughes. “Catland” is a delight. This is history as told by someone whose knowledge of and infectious enthusiasm for her subject is matched by obvious delight and warm, expressive writing.
In Louis Wain’s last illustrations of cats, his favorite subjects were freed from their constrained Edwardian interiors, romping through imagined landscapes and, in some kaleidoscopic, almost psychedelic instances, freed from their own forms. Perhaps Wain truly was both of and ahead of his time. In either case, it’s easy to see how much has changed — and strangely, how little.
It’s $25.59 in hardcover (Amazon link above), and would make a great Christmas present for the cat lover with a penchant for the bizarre. Here’s the cover:
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From SK Pop, a Website, we learn of the passing of a beloved cat whose existence I didn’t know about. I can’t copy most of the text, so I’ve put a few screenshots and tweets below. Click the headline to read:
Screenshots of text:
“I am devastated to share that Cala has passed away. I adopted Cala thinking she was young and full of life ahead of her, however, Cala had gotten sick and was not recovering.”
. . . and a few Instagram comments by Cala lovers (her Instagram page is here):
“I wonder if she was meowing so much because she felt her time coming or felt the pain,” @pomkckase stated.
“Her meow did seem like it came from a place of experience. She was a wise old cat,” @woldprospect stated.
“She will stay my favorite singer forever,” @edanmore_ said.
The cat’s official Instagram page, under the username cala_and_elizabeth, had amassed over 500K followers. Other comments online read:
“She will always be remembered, her beautiful voice will live on. Sending you all so much love right now,” @louietheraccoon stated.
“This is the kind of news that really breaks my heart I send my love to her family,” @uriel.calderone said on Instagram.
Multiple Instagram users also attached gifs of people crying. Others also shared loving tributes, which read:
“Thank you so much for the legacy you’ve imprinted on my heart,” @dougggdimmadome said.
“You finally crossed that bridge kitty,” @mikejamesb3 stated online.
RIP Cala:
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Lagniappe from a news site (click to read and see a one-minute video:
Can artificial intelligence tell when your cat is in pain? The Japanese app CatsMe! claims it can. Tokyo resident Mayumi Kitakata, concerned for her 14-year-old cat Chi, turned to CatsMe! in March to help decide when to visit the vet. Buzz60’s Maria Mercedes Galuppo has the story.
The video will tell you that the app uses facial expressions correlated with pain to give an idea whether the cat is in pain. It’s not using pain itself, but something correlated with pain, so I’m a bit dubious. If it worked, vets all over the world would be using it.
It must have been a few years since I posted a video by Tara Tanaka; I think she forgot about me! But I saw one of her video posts on FB and reconnected, asking permission to show her wildlife videos from her Florida property (there are several videos, so we have more to come). This is one of them starring wood storks (Mycteria americana), and here’s her caption:
Last summer at this time the water level in our backyard cypress swamp was about 7′ lower than it is now, and dropping quickly. We had hundreds of Wood Stork nests, and many Great Egret and Anhinga nests as well as those of other wading bird species. We had up to 14 young Roseate Spoonbills visiting on different days in the late spring and early summer. It is rare for the adult storks to feed in our pond – my theory is that they are saving the fish and frogs for their soon to fledge youngsters, since once they begin flying they keep returning to the nest for some time – and having food right in their own backyard makes learning to fish and hunt a lot easier. Last year, however, the water was dropping so fast and there was so much concentrated prey, it’s possible that the adults knew that if they didn’t take advantage of it, the swamp would go dry and the fish would just be wasted. So they did what any intelligent stork would do – they gorged!! This period of time provided the most amazing scenes I’ve ever witnessed in 31 years of living here. It’s taken me a year to finally share it, but I hope you enjoy it!
Be sure to enlarge the video! Most of it save the end is speeded up deliberately, and there’s a great classical-music accompaniment which I, as an ignoramus, don’t recognize. Thanks to Tara for granting permission to repost her videos (her Vimeo channel is here.)
Welcome to CaturSaturday, July 20, 2024: two weeks before I depart for South Africa, and National Fortune Cookie Day. Here’s one fortune from Bored Panda:
Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the July 20 Wikipedia page.
Da Nooz:
*Despite the many hints that Biden will withdraw, the WaPo says that he’s still bent on running. Here’s one paragraph from them:
President Biden is “absolutely” staying in the presidential race, campaign chair Jen O’Malley Dillon said on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” on Friday, calling him the “best person to take on Donald Trump.” Her assessment comes amid growing calls from Democrats for Biden to step aside. The Republican National Convention in Milwaukee wrapped up Thursday night with a lengthy acceptance speech from Trump in which he spoke about Saturday’s assassination attempt and basked in his party’s nomination. Trump and his new running mate, Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio), plan to appear together at a rally in Michigan on Saturday. Biden is isolating in Delaware after testing positive for the coronavirus this week.
YouGov also asked respondents if they thought Harris was more likely to win than Biden and, if she did, whether she’d be a better or worse president.
Among Democrats, about equal numbers said that Harris would be more likely to win, more likely to lose or likely to fare as well in the election as Biden. They were more likely to say, though, that she’d be a better president than that she’d be a worse one.
It’s those Democrat numbers that matter for the current debate. If Biden were to step aside, the natural replacement would be Harris. If that happened, though, their party is generally uncertain whether it would make a positive difference. Many of those who think she would fare worse probably have their own preferred non-Biden, non-Harris candidate in mind, someone they’re sure could outperform both Biden and Harris. The number of those candidates who end up as the party’s nominee ranges from zero to one, meaning a lot of disappointed, pessimistic Democrats regardless.
Well, my preferred non-Biden, non-Harris candidate is Gretchen Whitmer, but America doesn’t really know her, and it’s getting kind of late. Yes, I’d vote for Harris if the Democrats are dumb enough to nominate her (we really need an open convention), but, though Illinois will go Democratic regardless, Harris is not nearly the kind of person I want to lead America.
*I don’t generally read David Brooks, as I see him not much far above the level of mentaion of Thomas “Two-State-Delusion” Friedman, but he does make sense in his new NYT column, “What Democrats need to do now.” Ok, I’ll bite, but it better involve asking Biden to withdraw. Brooks:
Across the Western world, right-wing parties have ceased to be parties of the business elites and have become working-class parties. MAGA is the worldview that accords with this shifting reality. It has its roots in Andrew Jackson-style populism, but it is updated and more comprehensive. It is the worldview that represents one version of working-class interests and offers working-class voters respect.
J.D. Vance is the embodiment and one of the developers of this worldview — with his suspicion of corporate power, foreign entanglements, free trade, cultural elites and high rates of immigration. In Milwaukee this week, with Vance as Trump’s pick for vice president, it became clear how thoroughly MAGA has replaced Reaganism as the chief operating system of the Republican Party.
If Democrats want to beat MAGA, it’s not enough to say: Orange man bad. Talking endlessly about Jan. 6 does no good. If Democrats hope to win in the near future they have to take the MAGA worldview seriously, and respectfully make the case, especially to working-class voters, for something better.
. . . . Now, the problem with MAGA — and here is where the Democratic opportunity lies — is that it emerges from a mode of consciousness that is very different from the traditional American consciousness.
The American consciousness has traditionally been an abundance consciousness. Successive waves of immigrants found a vast continent of fertile fields and bustling cities. In 1910, Henry van Dyke, who later became the U.S. ambassador to the Netherlands and Luxembourg, wrote a book called “The Spirit of America,” in which he observed that “the Spirit of America is best known in Europe by one of its qualities — energy.” In the 20th century, Luigi Barzini, an Italian observer, argued that Americans have a zeal for continual self-improvement, a “need tirelessly to tinker, improve everything and everybody, never leave anything alone.”
Many foreign observers saw us, and we saw ourselves, as the dynamic nation par excellence. We didn’t have a common past, but we dreamed of a common future. Our sense of home was not rooted in blood-and-soil nationalism; our home was something we were building together. Through most of our history, we were not known for our profundity or culture but for living at full throttle.
. . . . MAGA, on the other hand, emerges from a scarcity consciousness, a zero-sum mentality: If we let in tons of immigrants they will take all our jobs; if America gets browner, “they” will replace “us.” MAGA is based on a series of victim stories: The elites are out to screw us. Our allies are freeloading off us. Secular America is oppressing Christian America.
If Democrats are to thrive, they need to offer people a vision both of the secure base and of the daring explorations.
Here’s where they have a potentially good story to tell. Americans can’t be secure if the world is in flames. That’s why America has to be active abroad in places like Ukraine, keeping wolves like Vladimir Putin at bay. Americans can’t be secure if the border is in chaos. Popular support for continued immigration depends on a sense that the government has things under control. Americans can’t be secure if a single setback will send people to the depths of crushing poverty. That’s why the social insurance programs that Democrats largely built are so important.
But what Democrats really need to do, in my view, is to offer people a vision of the daring explorations that await them. That’s where the pessimistic post-Reagan Republicans can’t compete. American dynamism was turbocharged by the construction of the transcontinental railway, the creation of the land grant colleges, the G.I. Bill and President Biden’s successful efforts to revive our industrial base in the American Midwest.
Personally, I wish Democrats would spend less time on dumb, reactionary policies like rent control. That reeks of panic in the Biden campaign. I wish they would champion the abundance agenda that people like Derek Thompson and my colleague Ezra Klein have been writing about. We need to build things. Lots of new homes. Supersonic airplanes and high-speed trains.
Well, that sounds good, and seriously, yes, we need to stop performative “progressive” policies, but right now I’m not so sure that Americans will vote Democratic if our party extols new homes and supersonic airplanes and high-speed trains. And yes, we have to take on the regressive teachers’ unions. But it’s sort of late for that, and Biden isn’t going to encourage it. Surprisingly, Brooks says not a word about Biden stepping down, which is, I think, a necessary but not sufficient action for Democrats to win the White House in November. Truth be told, I think the chance has slipped out of our hands, and I’m starting to think that I’ll just have to bite my tongue for the next four years. One thing is for sure: “progressive” politics, like those of the Democratic “squad”, aren’t he way forward, and may have helped cost Democrats the Presidency.
*Checking in on Andrew Sullivan, his weekly taken on Biden (what else is there in the news?) is called “Regime change in America?” First Sully is amazed at the concatenation of events that has unified the Republican Party, and then implies that the change in the Zeitgeist may be permanent:
What makes this narrative feel like something deeper than a mere looming electoral college landslide is that, simultaneously, the entire liberal establishment seems to be imploding. The Democrats’ Biden formula — impose radical social, economic, and cultural change by fronting it with a moderate, easy-to-bully old man — has unraveled as obviously as Biden’s health. One reason is that the president is simply incapable of catching the attention of the country — except in universal cringe — and has singularly failed to construct a compelling narrative of his own.
Another is the incoherence of the Resistance. If you want to protest potential abuse of the justice system by a future president Trump, don’t bring an obviously flimsy, political case in New York City that merely helped Trump sweep back to dominance in the GOP. If you want a saner GOP, don’t demonize every other possibility, from DeSantis to Vance. If you emphasize the danger of political violence, don’t turn a blind eye as BLM burns America’s cities to the ground, or ignore Antifa. If you want to accuse Fox News of propaganda, don’t push out equal and opposite propaganda on toxic MSNBC. If you think democracy dies in darkness, why try to get Trump legally excluded from some state ballots, and prevent any real primary among Democrats?
More saliently, if one of your main lines of attack on Trump is his mendacity, it was probably not a great idea to tell the entire country that Biden was, in Joe Scarborough’s words, “far beyond cogent. In fact, I think he’s better than he’s ever been — intellectually, analytically…”
The lies the Democrats have been telling us these past few years are legion: inflation won’t happen/is temporary/is good for you; the Southern border is secure; “equity” is “fairness”; biological sex is a “spectrum”; Ukraine is about to win the war; Russia’s economy can be sanctioned to death; political violence is entirely on the far right; children can meaningfully consent to sex changes; the only thing holding black Americans back is white bigotry; the mainstream media is fair; and women have penises. Yes, Trump is a shameless liar. But the left’s propaganda has muddied the waters. When NBC’s higher-ups took Morning Joe off the air this week, it was a real moment. Even the muckety-mucks couldn’t take the lucrative propaganda anymore.
Well, this is why I have been criticizing the Left in these pages, often to the opprobrium of some readers. I will deep-six those who say I’m responsible for a Trump victory for, if he wins, the factors above, which I’ve constantly decried, have worked against Democrats, not for them. At any rate, Sullivan’s ending is, for me, depressing:
I will never vote for Trump — because he is so psychologically disturbed and so contemptuous of the rule of law that he remains a danger to us and the world. But I can see the logic of Trumpism. Those who feel left behind — culturally, economically — need at least one party to represent them and their values. As Biden has proven, protectionism is not all bad, especially when related to supply chains and national security. Mass immigration is out of control, and only one party gets it. Support for those who have lost the most from globalization seems to me a defensible conservative position, after migrant winners like me have had such a good run of it. And the madness of the neocon war machine demands a president able to spurn it.
Can the Democrats respond with the skill, poise and energy required? If Biden goes, and an open convention can showcase newer, younger talent, there’s still a chance. But it will take nerve to seize it.
We apparently ain’t got that nerve. I can hope against hope, and I will, but my reason is stronger than my hope. The Democrats simply caved in to their far-left wing in ways limned by Sullivan. If Trump wins, Democrats largely themselves to blame. An open convention is our only hope.
The findings by judges at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), known as the World Court, are not binding but carry weight under international law.
“Israeli settlements in the West Bank and east Jerusalem, and the regime associated with them, have been established and are being maintained in violation of international law,” President Nawaf Salam said, reading the findings of a 15-judge panel.
The court added that Israel’s continued presence in the Palestinian territories was illegal and that it should come to an end “as rapidly as possible.”
It also said Israel must make reparations for damages caused by its ‘occupation’ of the Palestinian territories.
The case stems from a 2022 request from the UN General Assembly, predating the current Israel-Hamas conflict.
The UN Assembly asked the court to appraise the legal consequences of Israel’s “prolonged occupation, settlement and annexation” of Palestinian territories, including east Jerusalem, and associated Israeli government policies.
In February, more than 50 states presented their views before the court, with Palestinian representatives asking the court to find that Israel must withdraw from all the occupied areas and dismantle illegal settlements.
Israel did not participate in the hearings but filed a written statement telling the court that issuing an advisory opinion would be “harmful” to attempts to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
The majority of states participating asked the court to find the occupation illegal, while a handful, including Canada and Britain, argued it should refuse to give an advisory opinion.
The United States, Israel’s strongest backer, urged the court to limit any advisory opinion and not order the unconditional withdrawal of Israeli forces from the Palestinian territories.
Israel will not obey this ruline, of coursg, as not only is it nonbinding, but there are cogent arguments that the settlements are not in fact illegal. I’ve put up some videos in the past by Natasha Hausdorff explaining this, and if you have hours and hours, read this legal paper from Eugene Kontorovich in the Northwestern University’s Journal of Legal Analysis , which shows that Israel’s practices are not at all unusual in world behavior, but only Israel is demonized for it. I’ve printed it out for my own education. What we have is a ICJ ruling whose rationale applies to only one country.
Here’s Hausdorff’s reaction to yesterday’s decision:
*Nellie Bowles is back! And, from her weekly news summary from the Free Press, called “TGIF: Back with a bang!“, I steal my usual three items, She was on maternity leave, but that’s no reason she can’t do her column, for which there is NO substitute:
→ Trump, Hulk Hogan, Biden: Hulk Hogan set up the RNC’s big final act by tearing his shirt off to reveal another shirt that read—what else—TRUMP/VANCE as he screamed “let Trumpomania run wild, brother, let Trumpomania rule again” (Donald then blew him a kiss). And then boom, Hollywood lights came up like it was the musical Chicago! Out strode a new, toned-down, spiritual Trump. His convention speech started strong, normal, even moving. Even those who hate Trump had to admit that the retelling of his brush with death was kind of riveting.
And then. Well, then it just never ended. He said every word there was to say. An excerpt: “Has anyone ever seen Silence of the Lambs? The late, great Hannibal Lecter is a wonderful man. He oftentimes would have a friend for dinner.” He continued, “They’re emptying out their mental institutions into the United States, our beautiful country.” When Trump said the speech was wrapping up, that was Trump just being a silly flirt. The thing finally clocked in at one hour, 32 minutes. . . . [there’s more]
What would a foreigner think seeing this as a speech at the Republican National Convention?
→ Hide the pics: For the mainstream press, the big problem was that there now exists a pic of Trumpo looking brave—bloodied, defiant, standing with his fist in the air. The picture was taken by the incredible Evan Vucci. Here’s Axios on the crisis, quoting an anonymous photo editor from “a major news outlet” who says: “It’s dangerous for media organizations to keep sharing that photo despite how good it is.” As Trump put it: “A lot of people say it’s the most iconic photo they’ve ever seen. They’re right and I didn’t die. Usually you have to die to have an iconic picture.” The mainstream media didn’t seem to want to linger on the attack. The Denver Post simply went with: “Gunman Dies in Attack.” Though some outlets came out with special surprises:
The piece has since been pulled, but I’d like you to take notice of the section that it was filed under. Moving on!
→ DNC [Democratic National Committee] says get down Josh, stay away Kamala, beat it Gavin: The DNC, like any good mob, is not going to go down without a fight. They’re still punishing anyone who questions Biden’s running, like House Democrat Hillary Scholten of Michigan, who was cut off from all Democrat campaign efforts after saying Biden should retire (officials reversed course after a Politico reporter called them). Yes, the Biden mob wants to win. And by that I mean they want to lose in a horrible bloodbath, but they want to lose their way, with their man, Joseph R. Biden. The DNC’s new method of cinching the Biden nom is by declaring that special rules actually make it so delegates have to vote online now, really fast, for Joe. These are the rules, they say. Reader, these are not the rules. The threat they cite (Ohio requiring the candidate’s name early) has long been rescinded (Ohio dropped that a while ago). The DNC chair and the statistician and Substacker Nate Silver fought for a while on Twitter, which was mostly interesting because it shows that the DNC chair has too much time on his hands and is obsessed with Nate Silver (same and same, but I’m not the DNC chair).
Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili is thinking of “Bastet”:
Hili: I’m trying to remember the name of the Egyptian goddess.
A: Which one?
Hili: The one who looks like me.
In Polish:
Hili: Próbuję sobie przypomnieć jak miała na imię ta bogini egipska.
Ja: Która?
Hili: Ta podobna do mnie.
And a photo of Baby Kulka:
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From Cat Memes. People have no business trying to turn carnivore cats into vegans:
Tweeted by Masih. I’m a big fan of Inna, whom I know. Here she is on the cover of Paris Match some years ago—and I can’t help but be self aggrandizing by showing this:
Inna Shevchenko @femeninna a Ukrainian feminist activist and the leader of international women’s movement #Femen has a message for women in Iran and Afghanistan: “We see you!” Inna, who has been arrested multiple times for her activism, asks the world to raise their voices in… pic.twitter.com/1sTqv1LZaS
— United Against Gender Apartheid (@UAGApartheid) July 19, 2024
I know Inna and have met her; I’m a big admirer of her passion against injustice towards women. Here’s a photo of her that appeared on the cover of Paris Match, and look whose book she’s holding! (Excuse my solipsism.)
From my feed. A baby elephant tries to charge, but gives up:
— Nature is Amazing ☘️ (@AMAZlNGNATURE) July 18, 2024
From Malgorzata. Of course the Jews were behind the attempt to kill Trump, though I’m not sure why given that he’s more favorable toward Israel than is Biden.
It didn’t take long for conspiracists to manufacture theories on who was behind the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump.
If your first reaction is to blame the Jews for any significant world event, we can think of at least one word to describe you… pic.twitter.com/hvKtZ8EIGH
— Campaign Against Antisemitism (@antisemitism) July 15, 2024
From Malcolm. I’m not quite sure I get the new title.
Picasso called this painting ‘Crazy Woman with Cats’. I call it ‘Waking up on a School Day’. pic.twitter.com/0i2aALri4m
Downing Street security: If your name’s not down, you’re not coming in… unless you bribe me with cat treats
(Photo @LightHackers) pic.twitter.com/JO2ddWxPOj
Two tweets from Dr. Cobb. First, look how low that Spitfire is flying!
The incredible low pass of the Spitfire. On this day 18th July 1996, in a notorious bit of flying, New Zealand born fighter pilot Ray Hanna, roared over tv presenter Alain de Cadenet. pic.twitter.com/slyxMTEnfd
Matthew says, “Insane or a liar? You decide.” I vote for the former:
Marjorie Taylor Greene describes how, right before the shooting, she witnessed an angel coming down from heaven that looked like an American flag that saved Donald Trump’s life.
Here, to end the week on a high note, is a 24-minute video of animals who have been captive their whole lives but are now freed. It’s very heartening. The only reason to keep wild animals in captivity is to rehabilitate them for release or to grow an endangered species to the point when it can be released.
Have a great weekend! I got my seventh Covid shot yesterday and have no reaction save a sore arm. (I got it for traveling to South Africa.) I’m one of the few people I know that hasn’t caught the virus.
