No wildlife photos today

June 19, 2024 • 8:00 am

Sadly, we’ve nearly run out of wildlife photos. I could put up one, but that’s all I have that contains acceptable photos.  I hope readers will consider using this holiday (well, American readers) to put together some photos to display.  Otherwise, this feature will be sporadic at best.

Help me (and us) out if you can!

Thank you.

Wednesday: Hili dialogue

June 19, 2024 • 6:45 am

Welcome to a Hump Day (“Húfudagur” in Icelandic), Wednesday, June 19, 2024, and it’s National Martini Day (I’ll have a dry Gibson, which is simply a martini with pickled onions instead of olives). Here’s one from Wikipedia:

SteveR-, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

It’s also  Juneteenth, National Pets in Film Day, National Eat an Oreo Day (not the Double-Stuf ones), World Albatross Day (pay homage to Wisdom, who recently found a mate at 72 years old), and World Sickle Cell Day (the first genetic disease whose molecular basis—a mutation in the β chain of hemoglobin) was established.

There’s a Google Doodle in honor of Juneteenth, and when you click on it, the screen comes alive:

Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the June 19 Wikipedia page.

Da Nooz:

*Obituaries first: the great Willie Mays died yesterday at 93.  You can see a video of his career highlights here.  He was famous for making “The Catch”, an over-the-shoulder catch in the outfield that’s regarded by many as the greatest catch of all time:

*There’s some buzz among readers about a new article in the NYT by Dana Goldstein: “Public funding, private education.” It’s about the rise in voucher schools, and is connected to another article in the same issue (h/t Peggy):

An overwhelming majority of American students attend public schools. But that number is falling. In part, that’s because in more than half of states, parents can now use public money to educate their kids — at home, online, in private schools. This year, a million students used some kind of private education voucher, more than double the figure from four years earlier, according to new research from EdChoice, a group that supports private-school choice and tracks the sector.

The result is a growing movement of choose-your-own-adventure education. Parents are permitted to find any program that they think fits their beliefs and their kids’ needs. Yet it’s unclear how, or whether, accountability or standards will be enforced outside traditional schools.

What’s driving this change? The pandemic prompted many families to reconsider how their children learn. Republican lawmakers embraced private-school choice as part of a broader push for parental rights. (They also see the issue as a way to appeal to young parents — often Black and Latino — who are critical of how public schools serve their children.) And teachers are reporting intense burnout, with some leaving public schools to open small businesses that can accept these vouchers.

I wrote about these “microschools” in a story The Times published this morning. In today’s newsletter, I’ll explain why parents are opting out of public schools — and what it might mean for how this country educates all of its children.

And in that article you learn that many of these microschools are religious in nature. What else did you expect?:

Anyone can open a microschool, although more than two-thirds of founders are current or formerly licensed teachers. And these schools can teach anything they like, including biblical versions of science and history. Facilities may not be inspected; staff member background checks are sometimes unnecessary.

And while many microschool founders say they cater to students with disabilities, the programs do not have to follow federal disability law, and most do not provide the therapies and counseling that are often available in public schools. Even Ms. Lopez said that she may not send Nathanael back to Kingdom Seed in the fall, because of the cost and his need for additional support for his autism.’

I don’t think public money should be used to fund private schools. Let the private schools support themselves! I don’t want my tax money used to teach kids creationism, 0r any kind of goddy stuff.

*Also according to the NYT, the pier the U.S. built to facilitate the delivery of humanitarian aid to Gaza is on its last legs. They built it too fast, didn’t consider the ocean currents and waves, and didn’t plan well.

The $230 million temporary pier that the U.S. military built on short notice to rush humanitarian aid to Gaza has largely failed in its mission, aid organizations say, and will probably end operations weeks earlier than originally expected.

In the month since it was attached to the shoreline, the pier has been in service only about 10 days. The rest of the time, it was being repaired after rough seas broke it apart, detached to avoid further damage or paused because of security concerns.

The pier was never meant to be more than a stopgap measure while the Biden administration pushed Israel to allow more food and other supplies into Gaza through land routes, a far more efficient way to deliver relief. But even the modest goals for the pier are likely to fall short, some American military officials say.

When the pier was conceived, health authorities were warning that the territory was on the precipice of famine. In recent weeks, Israel has given relief organizations greater access, but the groups say the situation remains dire.

The Biden administration initially predicted that it would be September before surging seas would make the pier inoperable. But military officials are now warning aid organizations that the project could be dismantled as early as next month, a looming deadline that officials say they hope will pressure Israel to open more ground routes.

President Biden ordered the U.S. military to begin building the pier in March, at a time when he was being sharply criticized for not doing more to rein in Israel’s military response to the Oct. 7 Hamas-led attacks.

In fact, Gaza never was on the brink of famine, and certainly has a surfeit of food now: more comestibles are coming into the territory now than before the war. The U.S. thought too fast and built too fast.  Yes, the humanitarian impulse was good, but has proven, for food, to be misplaced. We never needed that pier.

*One of the last Jews in Yemen has died, though, in contrast to what the French says below, it appears that there’s at least one more Jew in the country as well.

Yemenite Jews are quite interesting; here’s what Wikipedia says about them:

Yemenite Jews, also known as Yemeni Jews or Teimanim (from Hebrew: יהודי תימן, romanized: Yehude Teman; Arabic: اليهود اليمنيون), are Jews who live, or once lived, in Yemen, and their descendants maintaining their customs. Between June 1949 and September 1950, the overwhelming majority of the country’s Jewish population immigrated to Israel in Operation Magic Carpet. After several waves of persecution, the vast majority of Yemenite Jews now live in Israel, while smaller communities live in the United States and elsewhere.  As of 2024, Levi Marhabi is the last Jew in Yemen.

Well, now Levi appears to still be with us although Yehia ben Yossef has gone to the Great Beyond.

Yemenite Jews observe a unique religious tradition that distinguishes them from Ashkenazi Jews, Sephardic Jews, and other Jewish groups. They have been described as “the most Jewish of all Jews” and “the ones who have preserved the Hebrew language the best”. Yemenite Jews are considered Mizrahi or “Eastern” Jews, though they differ from other Mizrahis, who have undergone a process of total or partial assimilation to Sephardic law and customs. While the Shami sub-group of Yemenite Jews did adopt a Sephardic-influenced rite, this was mostly due to it being forced upon them, and did not reflect a demographic or general cultural shift among the vast majority of Yemenite Jews.

Levi, sadly, is still detained by the Houthis for various crimes, and was previously imprisoned under terrible conditions. Unfortunately, Yemen really IS an apartheid state, and the Jews got the hell out of there because of persecution (read about Operation Magic Carpet above, which brought 47,000 Jews from Yemen to Israel (others came Aden, Djibouti, Eritrea, and Saudi Arabia).  Talk about apartheid states: no Jews are allowed to live in those countries, and now they’re Judenrein. Plenty of Muslim Arabs are Israeli citizens with all the rights thereof, but mushbrains talk about Israel as an apartheid state. Maybe they should keep their eyes on these other Arab countries!

*Whenever I hear someone describe their profession as “social-media influencer”, I roll my eyes. It’s a narcissistic profession in which you “influence” people by making videos about yourself and posting Instagram pictures of yourself, hoping to “influence”—people to be like you, i.e. buy products from companies that, you hope, will pay you.  Now the Wall Street Journal reveals that most of these people aren’t doing well; the article’s called “Social-media influencers aren’t getting rich—they’re bare.ly getting by.”

Earning a decent, reliable income as a social-media creator is a slog—and it’s getting harder. Platforms are doling out less money for popular posts and brands are being pickier about what they want out of sponsorship deals. The real possibility of TikTok potentially shutting down in 2025 is adding to creators’ anxiety over whether they can afford to stick with the job for the long haul.

Hundreds of millions of people around the globe regularly post videos and photos to entertain or educate social-media users. About 50 million earn money from it, according to a 2023 report from Goldman Sachs. The investment bank expects the number of creator-earners to grow at an annual rate of 10% to 20% through 2028, crowding the field even further. The Labor Department doesn’t track wages for these creators, also known as influencers.

It can take months or years to earn money as a creator, often through a combination of direct revenue from social-media platforms, sponsorship deals, merchandise sales and affiliate links. But those who stick with it eventually see some returns, surveys show. Creators say that’s because you can learn what kind of posts most resonate with an audience, which can lead to more followers and, in turn, more moneymaking opportunities.

But money doesn’t mean big bucks. Last year, 48% of creator-earners made $15,000 or less, according to NeoReach, an influencer marketing agency. Only 13% made more than $100,000.

The gap reflects multiple factors, including whether creators work full- or part-time, the kind of content they put out and when they started. People who jumped into the space during the height of Covid-19 lockdowns—and who focused on a niche such as fashion, investing or lifestyle hacks—say they benefited from the surge in social-media use during that time.

A small number of creators shot to fame, propelling the occupation to the top of career wish lists for many teens (and adults). But behind the scenes, creators say the job is grueling. They need to constantly produce compelling posts or risk losing momentum. They spend their days planning, filming and editing posts while also working to make inroads with advertisers and interacting with fans.

Granted, some of these people work hard, and some even produce useful stuff, like educational videos. But the market is limited! (Do I count as a SMI? I make -$600 per year doing this, as I have to pay for WordPress access.) But really, how long can you stick with a job like this, and competition is fierce.

*And finally, here’s how slow the news is today: I am forced to report that singer Justin Timberlake has been arrested for driving while intoxicated, just one of many Americans who will commit that crime this week.

Pop star Justin Timberlake was charged early Tuesday with driving while intoxicated in a village in New York’s Hamptons, after police said he ran a stop sign and veered out of his lane in the posh seaside summer retreat.

The boy band singer-turned-solo star and actor was driving a 2025 BMW in Sag Harbor around 12:30 a.m. when an officer stopped him and determined he was intoxicated, according to a court document.

“His eyes were bloodshot and glassy, a strong odor of an alcoholic beverage was emanating from his breath, he was unable to divide attention, he had slowed speech, he was unsteady afoot and he performed poorly on all standardized field sobriety tests,” the court papers said.

Timberlake, 43, was released without bond later Tuesday morning after being arraigned in Sag Harbor. He was charged with a DWI misdemeanor, and his next court date was scheduled for July 26, the Suffolk County district attorney’s office said.

Timberlake’s lawyer and representatives did not immediately return requests for comment from The Associated Press.

. . .Last year, Timberlake was in the headlines when Spears released her memoir, “The Woman in Me.” Several chapters were devoted to their relationship, including deeply personal details about a pregnancy, abortion and painful breakup. In March, he released his first new album in six years, the nostalgic “Everything I Thought It Was,” a return to his familiar future funk sound.

Timberlake has two upcoming shows in Chicago on Friday and Saturday, then is scheduled for New York’s Madison Square Garden next week on Tuesday and Wednesday.

And that’s the way it is—on June 19, 2024.

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili and Szaron want to come inside:

Szaron: Do they see us?
Hili: The one with the camera certainly does.
In Polish:
Szaron: Czy oni nas widzą?
Hili: Ten z aparatem na pewno.

*******************

From Cat Memes:

An evil lemon from Science Humor:

That must be a big car! From Strange, Stupid or Silly Signs:

 

From Masih, another Iranian woman arrested by the damn Morality Police (the harridans in black) for wearing an improper hijab. Too much hair showing!


From Luana What do you think about this bill? Can you learn about sex from pornography? Should kids have unrestricted access to porn?

From my feed; two swan rescues. I love the happy endings!

From Malcolm, a FB post showing “paw walking”:

From the Auschwitz Memorial: a monk who gave his life to save the life of another in Auschwitz. You can read about him here:

Two tweets from Dr. Cobb. The first one is his, and I gave him grief about it (his caption was “sorry”):

Another heartwarmer (sound up); Bruno loses his anger:

 

Steve Pinker on why smart people believe stupid things (and much more)

June 18, 2024 • 11:15 am

Speaking of Steve Pinker (see previous press), Free Press‘s Michael Moynihan conducted a new 43-minute video interview with the man (below), who of course is writing another book. (I swear, Pinker has future books lined up in his brain, like planes waiting their turn to land.)

Here are the YouTube notes:

In the latest episode of Honestly,Michael Moynihan talks to the Harvard professor and cognitive psychologist Steven Pinker.

Pinker is the author of nine books including Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress and Rationality: What It Is, Why It Seems Scarce, Why It Matters. He approaches his work with a kind of data-driven optimism about the world that has set him apart from the chorus of doomer voices we hear so much from in our public discourse.

Today, Michael talks to him about why smart people believe stupid things; the psychology of conspiracy theories; free speech and academic freedom; why democracy and enlightenment values are contrary to human nature; the moral panic around AI; and much more.

The discussion begins with a long back and forth on conspiracy theories. Readers will be interested in Pinker’s comments on “the public health establishment”, whose pronouncements were subject to many conspiracy theories during the pandemic; as well as on the theories behind conspiracy theories.  At 12:15, Pinker expostulates on why smart people believe stupid stuff. It turns out that smart people are less likely than others to believe stuff like conspiracy theories, but they are imbued with one common bias (I’ll let you find out what it is, but it’s a bias we all have.)

The discussion then veers to Enlightenment values, which Pinker thinks are “nonintuitive” but still promote progress in the world by dispelling stuff like “magical thinking” (I think that’s his euphemism for religion).  Then it’s onto AI—its benefits and its dangers—a subject that’s very important but still bores me silly.  Those worried about how AI could harm humanity will find plenty of fodder in Pinker’s speculations, though, at you’ll hear, he’s not that worried about those dangers.

At 35 minutes in, Pinker analyzes why people think that there’s a true genocide in Gaza, something contravened by the known facts; he sees the use of that word with respect to Gaza reeflecting both the “myside bias” as well as constituting a “terrible blood libel.”

At the end the discussion turns to the upcoming election, and Pinker emphasizes our lack of knowledge about what will happen between now and November vis-à-vis the lawsuits, and what Trump would do if he does get inaugurated. (Pinker is a big donor to the Democratic party.) He doesn’t however, think there’s enough “hatred of the establishment to allow a civil war to occur,” but does think we should take measures to prevent one, just in case. His final take-home message: “Rely on data and probabilities.”

The opprobrium that’s heaped on Pinker has always baffled me.  Since his arguments are usually based on facts, then if you disagree with him you can simply refute the facts, which isn’t often done. Rather, he’s attacked as a person, often as a horrible person, and since he’s a nice guy I can assume only that critics are partly motivated by sheer jealousy of Pinker’s intelligence and accomplishments.

As lagniappe, I found this NYT article from four years ago, “How a famous Harvard Professor became a target over his tweets“, which you can find archived here. It turns out that, at least back then, the opprobrium came from Pecksniffs trawling his tweets. I wrote about the undeserved tweet-shaming of that time in a popular post called “The Purity Posse Pursues Pinker.”

An excerpt:

Steven Pinker occupies a role that is rare in American life: the celebrity intellectual. The Harvard professor pops up on outlets from PBS to the Joe Rogan podcast, translating dense subjects into accessible ideas with enthusiasm. Bill Gates called his most recent book “my new favorite book of all time.”

So when more than 550 academics recently signed a letter seeking to remove him from the list of “distinguished fellows” of the Linguistic Society of America, it drew attention to their provocative charge: that Professor Pinker minimizes racial injustices and drowns out the voices of those who suffer sexist and racist indignities.

But the letter was striking for another reason: It took aim not at Professor Pinker’s scholarly work but at six of his tweets dating back to 2014, and at a two-word phrase he used in a 2011 book about a centuries-long decline in violence.

“Dr. Pinker has a history of speaking over genuine grievances and downplaying injustices, frequently by misrepresenting facts, and at the exact moments when Black and Brown people are mobilizing against systemic racism and for crucial changes,” their letter stated.

The linguists demanded that the society revoke Professor Pinker’s status as a “distinguished fellow” and strike his name from its list of media experts. The society’s executive committee declined to do so last week, stating: “It is not the mission of the society to control the opinions of its members, nor their expression.”

McGill University faced with harboring an enclave of Hamas

June 18, 2024 • 9:30 am

Reader Alan Garcia-Elfring, a recent Ph.D. graduate of Montreal’s McGill University (he didn’t have qualms about my using his name) sent along an email from the university President about a rather disturbing Instagram post from the Solidarity for Palestinian Human Rights [SPHR] McGill Instagram site.) The first link goes to the post itself, but I’ve put a screenshot below in case they take it down. Have a gander:

I haven’t dug much further, but it looks as if there’s an encampment at McGill and they’re holding a summer program that seems to turn the encampment into a branch of Hamas.  This has caused a kerfuffle promoted by both the press and the understandably disturbed Jewish community of Montreal. For example, here’s one report from CTV News in Montreal (click to read):

An excerpt:

Pro-Palestinian activists who have been encamped on McGill University’s downtown campus since April launched what they call their own summer school on Monday, despite controversy over photos of armed fighters used to promote the program.

The encampment’s youth summer program promises “revolutionary lessons” and political discussions over the next four weeks, including a series of lectures on Palestinian history, the resistance movement and the role of the media since the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel.

But on Friday, federal and provincial politicians called for the encampment to be dismantled after posters for the summer program were published online featuring photos of Palestinian resistance fighters wearing kaffiyehs and holding rifles. The photos date from around 1970, and the militants appear to be reading copies of Chairman Mao Zedong’s “The Little Red Book.”

“Enough is enough, this is hate speech and incitement to hate, pure and simple!” federal Immigration Minister Marc Miller posted on X. “De-escalation at McGill has clearly failed. This needs to end!”

Quebec Higher Education Minister Pascale Dery said the poster was tantamount to “provocation, explicit incitement to violence, even indoctrination.”

Insp. David Shane of the Montreal police told reporters Monday that while the poster doesn’t target any particular group, “it’s clearly in very poor taste and it’s likely to make people feel unsafe.” He said police have opened an investigation and have “been in contact with the RCMP.”

. . .As of Monday morning, online registration for the summer program had closed. Karim said 50 to 80 people have signed up for the first week of lectures, which will take place every afternoon. Organizers, she added, were surprised by the number of registrants, and may open up more spots in the weeks to come.

Most of the attendees will be students, Karim said. ” 1/8They 3/8 were really interested in the idea of being able to come here and get educated on Palestine.”

Members of the encampment have said they will not leave until McGill ends its investments in companies tied to the Israeli military and cuts ties with Israeli institutions. The university has made offers to protesters, the most recent of which included to review its investments in weapons manufacturers and grant amnesty to protesting students. Members of the encampment rejected that offer, calling it “laughable.”

I don’t know how much of this is considered “free speech” (Canada doesn’t have a First Amendment), nor whether the encampment itself violates university rules. At any rate, the poster and press response got sufficient attention that McGill’s President had to write the following letter to the university community (click to read, though I’ve transcribed the letter below):

Dear McGill community,

On the evening of June 12, a group called Solidarity for Palestinian Human Rights (SPHR) published a notice on social media platforms featuring masked individuals holding assault rifles, which called for participation in a “revolutionary youth summer program” on the lower field next week. Their stated aim is to “educate the youth of Montreal.”

This is extremely alarming. It has attracted international media attention, and many in our community have understandably reached out to share grave concerns – concerns that I share.

It should go without saying that imagery evoking violence is not a tool of peaceful expression or assembly. This worrying escalation is emblematic of the rising tensions on campuses across North America, where we have seen many incidents that go well beyond what universities are equipped to manage on their own.

As such, today we have reached out to municipal, provincial, and federal public safety authorities, flagging this social media post and other recent activities as matters of national security, and requesting all appropriate interventions to ensure the safety of our community.

I want to emphasize that this is only the latest escalation in SPHR’s longstanding strategy of intimidation and fear. This is the same group that described the October 7 Hamas assault and taking of hostages as “heroic.” SPHR has invoked offensive antisemitic language and imagery, and claimed responsibility for the harassment of McGill community members. Their incendiary rhetoric and tactics seek to intimidate and destabilize our community.

In recent months, some members of the McGill community have chosen to advocate for their views through open dialogue and peaceful protest. Regrettably, SPHR is not among them.

Next Steps

  • In addition to our appeals to public safety authorities at all levels of government, we will further increase the presence of security staff near the encampment and elsewhere on campus.
  • We continue to pursue legal action to bar SPHR from using the McGill name on social media platforms and elsewhere, and we are working with legal counsel to explore a range of additional measures.
  • We will pursue internal disciplinary processes.
  • We have called upon the Students’ Society of McGill University (SSMU), the independent student union that includes all undergraduate students as members and lists SPHR as an affiliated “club,” to publicly condemn this “summer program,” sever their relationship with SPHR, cease any disbursement of funds to them, and affirm SSMU’s commitment to the well-being and success of McGill students of all identities, beliefs, and lived experiences. We have indicated that, should SSMU fail to take these steps, this will be interpreted as their endorsement of SPHR’s activities.

As a campus community, we need not all share the same views, but it is imperative that we share a common respect for the limits of acceptable behaviour. SPHR’s actions have far surpassed that threshold. We will continue to deploy any and all measures available to us, within the bounds of the law, to keep our community safe.

Sincerely,

Deep Saini

President and Vice-Chancellor

The President is threatening to remove SPHR from being what we at Chicago call a “recognized student organization,” which here gives a group the rights, among other stuff, to use the University name, hold events at the University and get funding. I’m not sure whether that applies at McGill, nor whether the poster above constitutes some kind of violation. But if the encampment violates University rules, blocks off space and creates an atmosphere of exclusion and threat, then McGill might take action. They say they’re pursuing “internal disciplinary processes,” implying that University restrictions have been violated.

There’s a large Jewish community in Montreal (Steve Pinker was part of it and went to McGill as an undergraduate), so of course this is bound to create a fracas. Stay tuned.

In the meantime, the poster by itself seems to me free speech (though unwise speech). But there are those other activities as well as the encampment itself. . . . Weigh in below.

Readers’ wildlife photos

June 18, 2024 • 8:15 am

Neuroscientist Mayaan Levy has sent in a second batch of photos, which are below. I’ve indented her captions and IDs, and you can enlarge the photos by clicking on them.

Come on, feel the Illinoise!

During my years in Chicago I traveled out-of-state often. I longed for the mountains: the Rockies, the Cascades, the Sierra Nevadas, the Smokies, the Whites (NH) and the Catskills. On busy weekends or when we ran out of money, as it tends to happen to grad students, we would stay home in flat yet wondrous Illinois. Blasting jazz or Sufjan Stevens in my then-boyfriend’s (now-husband) ’99 Chevy Lumina with magenta velvet seats, we’d hope to get somewhere where we would see some nature. Only when we left Chicago I realized how much I miss Illinois woods. This is a small, nostalgic tribute.

Our favorite destination was probably Shawnee national forest, which was quite a stretch for the Chevy. Here are some Shawnee turtles:

Box turtle (unsure whether Terrapene carolina or Terrapene ornata, I believe the latter is considered threatened):

Midland painted turtle (Chrysemys picta marginata) – Illinois State reptile!:

 Common Snapping Turtle (Chelydra serpentina) hanging out on trail:

What I find fascinating about turtles is their brumation: I get it that metabolism slows down considerably like in hibernation, but how do they deal with the anoxia underwater?

Shawnee also has world-class mushroom forging. The place is a mycologist’s paradise. As amateurs, we were always after choice edibles – fry them in butter, add them to risotto, throw them into Chicago style stuffed deep-dish. Despite eating nuts, seeds, fruit and eggs, I find it quite weird sometimes that when we eat mushrooms we actually eat their reproductive organs.

Black morels (Morchella elata). Spotted in early April, they are among the first mushrooms to pop up, and boy, are they tasty. If you’ll be nice in the comments maybe I’ll disclose the exact location. While I’ve been told to never eat morels with booze (you’re welcome to weigh in on this if you know more), I’ve seen many moonshiners and rednecks with beers in hand forage for them:

Pear-shaped puffballs (Apioperdon pyriforme). Edible as well, but when mature the puffballs burst and spray spores right into your face:

We think these are a type of honey mushrooms (Armillaria mellea), but we’re not sure. Please let me know in the comments if you can identify:

An epic chanterelle (Cantharellus cibarius) haul from Shawnee in early July 2020. They are my favorites but they are not fun to clean. Unfortunately, this trip was cut short upon discovering scores of deer ticks on our clothes;

Moving west, the Hennepin canal, nowadays an awesome biking trip, started as an ambitious project to link the Mississippi and Illinois rivers to ship goods. It’s a really interesting piece of history, so here’s the Wikipedia page about it

As for wildlife, if you camp you’d be serenaded by frogs and toads, water birds live around, and mosquitos are unfortunately a problem.

One of the locks on the canal (it has about 30, some of them are still functioning!):

Dusk, right after rain, on the Hennepin canal:

The closest destination, and therefore holds a warm spot in my heart is Busse woods. It has a mini-lake / swamp, and I’ve often seen people there taking photos of birds. As usual, we’re after the food: mulberries, black walnuts, and:

Huge Chicken-of-the-woods spiral (Laetiporus sulphureus), a summer mushroom:

Kankakee river state park is where we’d go to put our feet in the water, look at some pretty conic shells and pretend to be pirates on an epic adventure for an afternoon. Several years ago a new pedestrian bridge was built across the river, resulting in a large pile of debris which is overlooked by most. However, rocks in this pile are rich in fossils. I’m unsure from what period exactly, but I (amateur naturalist) would guess Cambrian / Ordovician when aquatic life flourished and before the first big mass extinction. If you know more about the geology of the Illinois basin, but please share your knowledge.

Some sort of crinoid impression fossil:

Trilobite?:

Tuesday: Hili dialogue

June 18, 2024 • 6:45 am

Welcome to Tuesday, the Cruelest Day of the Week. It’s June 18, 2024, and it’s International Sushi Day. For sure it’s cultural appropriation, but of the good kind (nearly all kinds are good).  Here’s the best sushi movie ever made: “Jiro Dreams of Sushi” it’s 80 minutes long, but mesmerizing.  This is, to many, the best sushi restaurant in the world. (If this movie, which is great, doesn’t play in your browser, just go to it on the YouTube site.)

It’s also Autistic Pride Day, Go Fishing Day, National Cheesemakers Day (blessed be them!), National Cherry Tart Day, International Picnic Day, and Waterloo Day in the United Kingdom (the date of the battle in 1815).

Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the June 18 Wikipedia page.

Da Nooz:

*The Jerusalem Post gave the results of a new poll taken by a Palestinian pollster in both the West Bank and Gaza (h/t Robert). and it puts the lie to those who claim that Palestinians who aren’t in Hamas don’t really support it much.

Palestinian pollster Khalil Shikaki released a survey of Palestinian attitudes on Wednesday – the third since October 7 – showing that fully 61% of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza would prefer to see Hamas in control of the Gaza Strip and that support for the terrorist organization far outstrips that of Fatah.

Nevertheless, the headline of a New York Times front page article on Sunday read, “Gazans voice their distress under Hamas.” The online headline to the story was, “As war drags on, Gazans more willing to speak out against Hamas.”

Three days after a prominent Palestinian pollster referred to as such by a senior New York Times writer in November, released a poll indicating one trend among Palestinians, the Times published a front-page article that seemed to contradict those poll findings.

While the poll showed strong support for Hamas among Palestinians, the Times article, based on “interviews with nearly a dozen Gaza in recent months,” portrayed a different narrative of dissatisfaction with Hamas rule in Gaza.The article acknowledged that while gauging public opinion in Gaza is more difficult now even than it was in the past and, in some instances, renders contradictory results, “some recent surveys reflect the weak or mixed support in Gaza for Hamas and its leaders.”

That NYT article is here, and nobody would take this for even a quasi-scientific poll.  From the NYT:

In interviews with nearly a dozen Gaza residents in recent months, a number of them said they held Hamas responsible for starting the war and helping to bring death and destruction upon them, even as they blame Israel first and foremost.

. . . Some of the Gazans who spoke to The New York Times said that Hamas knew it would be starting a devastating war with Israel that would cause heavy civilian casualties, but that it did not provide any food, water or shelter to help people survive it. Hamas leaders have said they wanted to ignite a permanent state of war with Israel on all fronts as a way to revive the Palestinian cause and knew that the Israeli response would be big.

“Nearly a dozen” people? Of course, I can’t find how many people were interviewed by the Palestinian Pollster, either. Here’s another poll:

A poll conducted by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research in Gaza and published this past week showed that support in Gaza for Hamas leaders is slightly higher and that the share who are satisfied with Hamas leadership in the territory has risen since December.”

Shikaki’s poll, unlike the one from March cited by the Times, found that the percentage of satisfaction with Hamas and Sinwar remains very high. Some 65% of all Palestinians said they were satisfied with Sinwar’s performance during this war (76% in the West Bank and 50% in Gaza.)

How do we figure out if the Palestinians, speaking out of fear, are just telling the pollsters what they want to hear? Hamas, after all, doesn’t much like its Palestinian opponents, as we saw in 2006 and 2007, when they killed a lot of Fatah members in Gaza.  We’ll only find out for sure if Hamas is overthrown and then Gazans get to choose their own leadership.

*Every day when I look at the Washington Post it seems lamer and lamer, and that’s probably true, as the paper is bleeding money like a stuck pig. It’s hard to find anything covered there now that isn’t better covered elsewhere. However, here’s one article that caught my eye, “The most common job in America is an incredible three-way tie.” So guess what those jobs are before reading below. The tie is pretty amazing. The piece was written in response to someone who asked what was the most common job in the U.S.—and also the least common job.

If you guessed home health and personal care aide was American’s most common job in 2023, you were correct! And honestly, if you guessed retail clerk or fast-food counter worker, we ought to give it to you anyway. With about 3.7 million workers each,the three jobs cluster together so closely atop the list that the winner falls within the minuscule margin of error produced by the BLS’s critically acclaimed, clunkily named Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics program.\

Here’s the Post’s graph; the top three jobs differ by only about 13,000 workers.

Twice a year, BLS contacts more than 180,000 businesses to find out what sort of workers they employ in 800-plus occupations and what they pay them. Each year’s final release is informed by the most recent three years of surveys, so when all is said and done, this survey tries to get data from more than half of American jobs.

The least common job?

And it turns out that only 260 of America’s jobs go to wood patternmakers — making it the least common job tracked by the federal government. Brad Moore, director of engineering at Badger Alloys, employs two of them.

On the western edge of Milwaukee, where Badger has sprawled across several city blocks since its founding in 1966, the pattern perfectionists take the engineer’s plan for a valve or pump and craft a master. Often it’s wood, but sometimes they use other materials, such as urethane or aluminum. A colleague puts each side of the master into a mold box, a fancy industrial sandbox full of easy-to-shape industrial sand, to create a mold. They fill the mold with molten steel or alloys. Once it hardens, Team Badger busts the metal out of the sand to reveal single-piece parts that can weigh as little as a few pounds or as much as a late-model Chevy Suburban.

“It is unquestionable that those who can build, maintain and understand traditional wooden pattern equipment are artists,” Moore told us. “We aren’t making more, and they are slowly retiring and leaving the industry” now that so much American manufacturing has moved overseas.

But Moore doubts the art will die off entirely. American factories, ships and power plants, especially those critical to the nation’s security, will always need locally made steel bits that can’t easily be fabricated with other techniques. A few of the 10,000-odd wooden masters in Badger’s dry and secure storage facility have been around for a century, and Moore sees no reason we won’t need them for a century longer.

But of course there are unique jobs and jobs less common than wood patternmakers. For example, I’d guess lion tamers. This applies only to jobs tracked by the federal government. We are a white-collar country, but there are quite a few manual laborers: twice as many as software developers, which I found surprising.

*The IDF claims that it has destroyed two of the four brigades of Hamas fighters in Rafah,

The Israel Defense Forces said Monday it has dismantled about half of Hamas’s fighting force in Rafah, killing at least 550 gunmen in the area, as the operation against the terror group in the Gaza Strip’s southernmost city continued.

The IDF’s 162nd Division has been fighting in Rafah for more than 40 days, first taking control of the city’s eastern outskirts and the border crossing with Egypt in early May. In the second stage of the operation, about a week and a half later, the division captured the Brazil neighborhood.

The third stage of the Rafah offensive saw the IDF take control of the entire Egypt-Gaza border, known as the Philadelphi Corridor, and push into the city’s northwestern Tel Sultan neighborhood.

The IDF said it has killed at least 550 gunmen in the Rafah operation — that is, those it was able to physically identify following battles. Many more terror operatives were killed in strikes against buildings and tunnels, it has assessed. Additionally, an unknown number of terror operatives fled the Rafah area as the military began its offensive there.

Of the four battalions in Hamas’s Rafah Brigade, two — Yabna (South) and East Rafah — are considered to be almost completely dismantled, while the capabilities of the other two — Shaboura (North) and Tel Sultan (West) — are somewhat degraded due to IDF operations.

Along the Philadelphi Corridor, the IDF said it located hundreds of rockets, including dozens of long-range projectiles aimed at central Israel. Also in the border area, more than 200 tunnel shafts have been located, leading to many underground routes.

But of course many questions remain. How many Hamas fighters are in tunnels and can pop up in places other than Rafah, as they’ve been doing? When the IDF claims to have destroyed both remaining brigades form Hamas in Rafah, will that somehow end the war? Where is Sinwar? Where are the rest of the hostages? (My guess is that they’ve been farmed out to civilians.)  And, most of all, after Israel “destroys” Hamas, what will happen to Gaza?

*President Biden, while tightening immigration rules on one hand, is loosening them with the other. But the loosening seems fair, so long as the immigrants married to Americans aren’t doing so just to get their green cards:

President Biden is expected to announce a new immigration program Tuesday that would provide a path to citizenship for hundreds of thousands of immigrants in the country illegally who are married to U.S. citizens, according to lawmakers and others familiar with the matter.

Biden plans to make the announcement at the White House alongside members of Congress, immigration advocates and U.S. citizens who, because of arcane immigration rules, haven’t been able to sponsor their spouses for green cards.

The program has the potential to benefit immigrants who have been living in the country at least a decade, offering them work permits, deportation protections—and a route for them to apply for green cards, which is the pathway to citizenship. The program’s size would make it one of the largest immigration initiatives started in recent decades, rivaled only by the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program that former President Barack Obama created to benefit Dreamers in 2012. The White House is also planning to mark the 12-year anniversary of that program, known as DACA, at the event Tuesday.

The Wall Street Journal reported earlier that Biden was weighing the spouses program.

. . . With the new policy, his team homed in on the idea of providing immigration relief to spouses because a much smaller version of the program already haw existed for a decade for military families, according to people familiar with the discussions. His advisers also pointed to internal Democratic polling that found that most Americans support legalizing spouses of U.S. citizens, even if they entered the country illegally.

But this does seem fair, and of course there are ways to ensure that people really are married beyond having that marriage license. Suspected violators are separated and asked questions like “what side of the bed do you sleep on?”, and of course much more probing questions.  But if a couple has been married for a decade, and is living together, it seems cruel not to allow the immigrant spouses to embark on getting citizenship.

*The Biden Administration has a new Title IX law, one that protects LGBTQ+ students (fine with me, but not with Republicans), but also dismantles the salubrious changes made by Betsy DeVos in adjudicating sexual discrimination cases in colleges (DeVos’s changes were for the better, Biden’s changes for the worse), and, apparently, says nothing about what’s going to happen to transgender athletes.  However, the law is being challenged by several states, and apparently for the LGBTQ+ stuff. Ergo, it’s on hold. If it’s still on hold and Trump is elected, all bets are off:

The Biden administration’s effort to expand protections for LGBTQ+ students hit another roadblock Monday, when a federal judge in Kentucky temporarily blocked the new Title IX rule in six additional states.

U.S. District Judge Danny C. Reeves referred to the regulation as “arbitrary in the truest sense of the word” in granting a preliminary injunction blocking it in Kentucky, Indiana, Ohio, Tennessee, Virginia and West Virginia. His ruling comes days after a different federal judge temporarily blocked the new rule from taking effect in Idaho, Louisiana, Mississippi and Montana.

Attorneys general in more than 20 Republican-led states have filed at least seven legal challenges to President Joe Biden’s new policy. Republicans argue the policy is a ruse to allow transgender girls to play on girls athletic teams. The Biden administration said the rule does not apply to athletics.

Still under consideration is a request for a preliminary injunction filed by the Republican attorneys general of Arkansas, Iowa, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota and South Dakota. The Education Department has asked a judge to deny the request.

Set to take hold in August, the rule expands Title IX civil rights protections to LGBTQ+ students, expands the definition of sexual harassment at schools and colleges, and adds safeguards for victims. Title IX, passed in 1972, is a law that bars sex discrimination in education.

Here’s the part that’s worrisome:

The ruling Monday in Kentucky was applauded by the state’s Republican attorney general, Russell Coleman, who said the regulation would undermine equal opportunities for women.

“The judge’s order makes clear that the U.S. Department of Education’s attempt to redefine ‘sex’ to include ‘gender identity’ is unlawful and beyond the agency’s regulatory authority,” Coleman said in a statement.

If “sex” is redefined to include “gender identity,” then yes, student athletics will have to allow transgender women to compete against biological women in school athletics.  I’d have to look up the law, and I’m too lazy to do that now (plus it’s 93°F outside).  But the dismantling of DeVos’s protections for sexual harassment/assault cases in college, which simply gave the accused the same rights he’d get in court, is dire, and for that they should hold the law up. But I don’t have any beef about laws that expand civil rights protections to LGBTQ+ people. Is there any downside to this?

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili remains bellicose:

Hili: I’m afraid that the aphids have returned.
A: So we have to declare war against them.
In Polish:
Hili: Obawiam się, że mszyce wróciły.
Ja: To musimy wypowiedzieć im wojnę.
And a photo of Baby Kulka with Baby Julia:

*******************

From Cat Memes:

From The Absurd Sign Project, Uncensored 2.  The caption, “Suddenly, McDonald’s looks less appetizing since they put rodents on their menu.”

From reader Barry:

From Masih; the Taliban are sending their own kids to the West for education, while permitting only boys to get education in Afghanistan.

Colin Wright is disappointed, as he should be, but it’s not his fault! Either ideology or ignorance of biology (or both) can explain this sad result:

From Malgorzata; People need to know that this kind of Jew hatred is taught as a regular thing in Palestine. This is from MEMRI, so it’s absolutely reliable. Notice that in Palestine they don’t use euphemisms like “Zionist”; they simply say, as they do in this cartoon, “Jew”.

From Malcolm, a man helps a cat play:

Freddy Mercury warming up, with the audience helping, before his famous performance at Live Aid.  I’d never seen this!  He’s singing the opening of the famous Harry Belafonte song.

From the Auschwitz Memorial, one that I retweeted:

Two tweets from Dr. Cobb. First, the self-correcting nature of science (found while Matthew was researching his biography of Crick):

I love this video. Look how politely the raccoon takes its donut.  I’ve watched this maybe twenty times, and I don’t get tired of it.

Coleman Hughes on the death of George Floyd and Derek Chauvin’s trial and conviction

June 17, 2024 • 11:15 am

I’ve been meaning to write about this issue for a while, as I covered the beginning of it (see all posts here).  And the longer I delayed, the more complicated the issue became, until I became unable to remember everything, much less synthesize it.

The story in short: two people made a documentary movie, “The Fall of Minneapolis” (watch it here) maintaining that George Floyd was not murdered by Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin, but died of his many ailments (including a big titer of fentanyl in his blood), not from having his neck compressed so that he was asphyxiated. (Nor, the movie maintained, was his neck really compressed: Chauvin was supposedly using procedures taught him by his department).  The movie convinced both John McWhorter and Glenn Loury, as well as me, that Chauvin was not guilty of murder—at least if you use the “reasonable doubt” standards mandated in such a case.

Then a former Washington Post reporter, Radley Balko, wrote a multipart attack on the movie on his webpage arguing that the thesis of “The Fall of Minneapolis” was wrong on several counts, including its claim that Floyd was not asphyxiated.  Balko’s analysis was enough to convince Loury (and, to some extent, McWhorter) that they were wrong—that perhaps Chauvin really did murder Floyd. Having read all this stuff, and intending to post on it, the sheer magnitude of the task defeated me. But I felt remiss in not calling attention to Balko’s attack. And I couldn’t come to my own conclusions, for essential material, like the training procedure for Minneapolis police, was missing.

In January, Coleman Hughes, now an essayist for The Free Press, wrote a piece arguing that Chauvin was not a murderer but a scapegoat for all those who wanted him convicted for supposedly killing a black man.  Hughes and Balko went back and forth about having a debate, and eventually had one, but one that, says Coleman, was stacked because the moderators were on Balko’s side.

Now we have the longest article yet published in the Free Press, a second piece by Coleman Hughes reiterating his claim that Chauvin should not have been found guilty of the murder of Floyd. His claim, as you’ll see below (click on the headline to read) is not that Chauvin was clearly innocent, but that the standards of evidence supposed to be applied by the jury, involving “reasonable doubt,” would have found such doubt in the prosecution’s evidence against Chauvin. Ergo, Chauvin should have been found not guilty.

The article is informative and, to me, convincing—Chauvin seems to have gotten a bad trial, including jurors biased against the prosecution, a prosecution that didn’t properly give the evidence, a defense that didn’t do its job, a judge who didn’t seem to know what was going on, and the venue (and the judge’s instructions) terrifying the jurors that if they didn’t find Chauvin guilty, there would be riots.

Read it; it has all the links that you need, including to Balko’s work and the debate.

Here’s Coleman’s main points in the essay:

The purpose of this essay is to set the record straight on Balko’s claims, which range from useful counterarguments to misleading assertions and outright errors. Our disagreements fall into two basic categories: the first is the question of how exactly Floyd died. And the second pertains to whether or not Chauvin was following his training.

One final, important note before I dive in: Balko’s series generally mischaracterizes my essay as arguing for the definite truth of various propositions—or doing a “just asking questions” routine—when in fact I was arguing for the existence of reasonable doubt.

In a typical debate, each side is trying to prove a claim by summoning more evidence than the other side—“guns are helpful” vs. “guns are harmful,” for instance. The burden assigned to each side is symmetric. If either side summons more evidence than the other, then that side wins.

Criminal trials are deliberately not like this. They are highly asymmetric—and that’s intentional.

It’s not enough for a majority of the evidence to indicate guilt. And it’s not enough if the defendant’s guilt is “highly and substantially more likely to be true than untrue.” That is the “clear and convincing evidence” standard.

Rather, “beyond a reasonable doubt” means that “there is no other reasonable explanation that can come from the evidence presented at trial” other than the defendant having committed the crime in question. Keep that phrase—no other reasonable explanation—at the top of your mind. My Free Press piecewas written from the perspective of reasonable doubt. In the essay, I summed up my thesis like this: “In short, there are two major justifications to reasonably doubt Chauvin’s felony murder charge: whether he caused Floyd’s death and whether he committed a felony.”

There remains significant uncertainty about the death of George Floyd—uncertainty that was not settled at trial. My purpose in this essay, as in my original column, is not to settle that uncertainty for good by putting forward a definitive version of events—that is not the defense’s burden anyway. My purpose is to convey the existence of other reasonable explanations.

With that throat-clearing out of the way, let’s move on to Balko’s substantive arguments.

The arguments turn on what really killed George Floyd (he had several medical conditions and was full of drugs), whether the restraint technique used by Floyd really involved asphyxiation, whether that technique was part of the regular training, verbal or written, by the Minneapolis police, what “homicide” means to a coroner versus a jury, whether the jury was tainted by people who were pro-Floyd to begin with, and what are the criteria for conviction.  And more.

Read it for yourself; I’ll simply give Hughes’s conclusions in brief:

I think there was clearly reasonable doubt on whether Chauvin caused Floyd’s death. There were two rival theories of his death: the positional asphyxia theory (put forth by Dr. Tobin and endorsed by the prosecution), and the adrenaline surge theory (put forth by Dr. Baker and rejected by the prosecution). Both were reasonable theories, but only the former implicated Chauvin. That alone should have introduced reasonable doubt on all three charges.

As for whether Chauvin assaulted Floyd—that is, whether he used unlawful force outside the scope of MPD training—reasonable people can disagree on whether there was reasonable doubt. Balko would emphasize that MPD [Minneapolis Police Department] officers were trained to worry about positional asphyxia, move people to the side-recovery position as soon as possible, and use the hobble.

. . . .What are the odds that Chauvin received a trial in accordance with these instructions? Given the jurors who spoke about their fears for their physical safety, given the juror who was found wearing a “GET YOUR KNEE OFF OUR NECKS” t-shirt before the trial, given that everyone knew the city would burn if he was acquitted yet the trial location wasn’t changed, and given that the jury wasn’t sequestered in one of the most talked-about trials in modern American history—I would submit that the odds are close to zero.

Ultimately, we’ll never know how a jury might have weighed the evidence under even halfway normal conditions. And it is probably too late for any of this to matter for Chauvin himself. What is clear, however, is that there were many reasons to doubt that Chauvin was guilty of the crimes he was charged with, and the American public should not be afraid to say so.

Once again, this is a complicated issue that you should judge for yourself, ideally after having watched the movie, read Balko’s ripostes, and having read at least Hughes’s second essay: the one quoted here.  Chauvin’s conviction for murdering Floyd spawned the “racial reckoning” that has persisted until today, and regardless of whether we need a reckoning or not, the conviction that started it all needs to be carefully examined. More important, the conviction of a man for a “crime” that carries reasonable doubt is a miscarriage of justice that needs to be rectified (Chauvin is serving 22 years in prison, and will be 60 when he’s released). In my view, they need to try Chauvin again, but bringing in all the evidence and with a jury that is not intimidated.