Category: Gus

Saturday: Hili dialogue

March 17, 2018 • 6:45 am

It’s Saturday, March 17, 2018, and we’re nearing the beginning of Spring. It’s St. Patrick’s Day! As always, they’ll be dyeing the Chicago River Green, but it’s raining and sleeting, and so the celebrants will have to hie to the pub, which they’d do anyway. Naturally, today’s official food holiday is “National Eat Like the Irish Day.” That, I suppose, means potatoes, shepherd’s pie, cabbage, and Guinness (I won’t touch the malodorous drisheen).

Today’s Google Doodle also celebrates the holiday, with the Doodle explained:

In today’s Doodle, Irish artist Ross Stewart celebrates his homeland’s rich history and heritage.

Standing in for the Google “L” is a tall stone that pays homage to Ireland’s earliest form of writing: ogham. The edge is marked with a series of ancient carvings, each group representing a letter of the ogham alphabet. See if you can read what it says (hint: it goes left to right, bottom to top!).

Meanwhile, a determined stonemason is hard at work against a backdrop of peaceful greens and blues. In the foreground, a sprinkling of native wildflowers rounds out Stewart’s ode to the isle’s vast, natural beauty – sheepish onlooker included.

Not much happened on St. Paddy’s Day in world history.  On this day in 1959, Tenzing Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama, fled Tibet for India, a perilous journey over mountain passes. He and his retinue now live in Dharamshala, India. Exactly a decade later, Golda Meir became Israel’s first female Prime Minister. And on this day in 1973, AP photographer Slava Veder took a photo that won the Pulitzer Prize: Burst of Joy.  It shows an American Air Force officer, a former North Vietnamese prisoner, being reunited with his family:

Sadly, the photo isn’t all it appears to be. As Wikipedia reports, this wasn’t exactly a burst of joy:

Despite outward appearances, the reunion was an unhappy one for Stirm. Three days before he arrived in the United States, the same day he was released from captivity, Stirm received a Dear John letter from his wife Loretta informing him that their marriage was over. Stirm later learned that Loretta had been with other men throughout his captivity, receiving marriage proposals from three of them. In 1974, the Stirms divorced and Loretta remarried, but Lt Col Stirm was still ordered by the courts to provide her with 43% of his military retirement pay once he retired from the Air Force. Stirm was later promoted to full Colonel and retired from the Air Force in 1977.

After Burst of Joy was announced as the winner of the Pulitzer Prize, all of the family members depicted in the picture received copies. They all display it prominently in their homes, except the Stirm patriarch, who says he cannot bring himself to display the picture, given the betrayal he suffered from his wife on the home front.

How sad!

Finally, on March 17, 1992, a referendum in South Africa to end apartheid passed: 68.7% to 31.2%.

Notables born on this day include Roger B. Taney (1777), Lawrence “I may be some time” Oates (1880), Bobby Jones (1902), Nat King Cole (1919), Rudolf Nureyev (1938), Paul Kantner (1941), John Sebastian (1944), Mia Hamm (1972) and Katie Ledecky (1997). Those who passed away on this day include Daniel Bernouilli (1782), Robert Chambers (1871), Irène Joliot-Curie (1956), Amos Alonzo Stagg (1965), Louis Kahn (1974), and Helen Hayes (1993).

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, the animals are olfacting:

Cyrus: I think we’ve sniffed everything.
Hili: I still have to check whether anybody peed on my favorite acacia.
In Polish:
Cyrus: Chyba obwąchaliśmy już wszystko.
Hili: Muszę jeszcze sprawdzić, czy nikt nie obsikał mojej ulubionej akacji.

Among cat aficionados, when a cat is sitting with all paws underneath it or tucked in front, like this, it’s said to be “tugging”, after the fanciful resemblance between such a cat and a tugboat. Here’s Gus tugging in Winnipeg, with staff Taskin calling the photo “Afternoon blanket tug from Gus”:

Matthew sent an optical illusion, but for the life of me I can’t see any wobbling (oh, now I can!):

These tweets are from Grania. One good thing about the Internet, which redeems the trolls, pedants, and obnoxious gits, are the many people with a sense of humor:

https://twitter.com/_youhadonejob1/status/974360553094373378

The “only”, though, should be after the words “costs”.

This woman had the right idea:

More humor from random individuals, but how true it is!:

Cyclone Gita, which affected the South Pacific in February:

And a feather-horned beetle (Rhipicera femorata) from Australia:

Finally, three gifs collected by reader Su (her captions):

 Kitten goes the distance in the small dog bronc-riding competition:
Meerkat really dozes off.
Squirrel foodie enjoying a… something.

Thursday: Hili dialogue

March 15, 2018 • 6:30 am

by Grania

Good morning, welcome to the day where the world got its the first registered domain on the internet in 1985, symbolics.com. Yes, the domain still exists and has been turned into a kind of internet museum.

It’s the birthday of evangelist and fraud Jimmy Swaggart (1935), and musicians Terence Trent D’Arby (1962) & will.i.am (1975).

Deaths today include, Julius Caesar in 44 BC, surely a contender for most dramatic death ever although we probably have Shakespeare to thank for that, and writer HP Lovecraft in 1937 who has taken on a new life in the Age of the Internet as the spawn point of countless Cthulhu memes.

Putin has inspired a new meme all his own this week.

And someone has been spending his time productively and has produced a visual chart aid for Billy Joel’s 1989 song “We didn’t start the fire”.

Here’s something I did not know about walruses. (Okay, there’s a lot I don’t know about walruses, but this was one of them).

https://twitter.com/shingworks/status/973931851873046528

Finally, a remarkable encounter while skydiving.

Onto the cat portion of this post.

Someone has clearly been fat-shaming Hili.

A: What are you thinking about?
Hili: How to lose weight before the next meal.

In Polish:

Ja: Nad czym myślisz?
Hili: Jak schudnąć przed następnym posiłkiem.

And up in Winnipeg, It’s too darned hot for Gus, the spoiled cat of the century….

And as a lagniappe, a public service announcement.

Hat-tip: John H. ; Matthew

Wednesday: Hili dialogue

March 14, 2018 • 6:30 am

by Grania

While Jerry is gallivanting around I’m in charge of putting up the Hili Dialogues. Good morning from a dark and gloomy Ireland where it is actually trying to snow again.

There is sad news this morning: scientist Stephen Hawking has died at the age of 76, which is a respectable age for any human to attain, and all the more so in his case as he had suffered from ALS for over five decades. People are paying tribute to his life and his work over on Twitter.

 

Today is Albert Einstein’s birthday (1879), and also Quincy Jones (1933) and Jerry Greenfield (1951) of Ben & Jerry’s fame. It’s also Pi Day if you are an American and write your dates the wrong way round.

 

In Things On The Internet this morning:

Here’s a baby elephant who thinks she’s a kitten. It’s cute, but I hope she grows out of the habit soon, or things are going to get uncomfortable real fast.

https://twitter.com/Jahkotta/status/972885306868314112

Won’t somebody think of the children?

https://twitter.com/_youhadonejob1/status/973658722839990274

Bats being batty.

https://twitter.com/AnneLouiseAvery/status/973555102312255488

Marine mammals frolicking

Leon the Serious Cat puts in an appearance.

Leon: So, are we going to paint?

In Winnipeg last night, Gus was on the night watch for bunnies:

And we have a few words of wisdom from Poland’s most philosophical cat.

Hili: There are texts worth returning to.
A: Oh yes, and there are some not worth starting on.

In Polish:

Hili: Są teksty, do których warto wracać.
Ja: O tak, ale są i takie, których nie warto zaczynać.

Finally, armchair experts, what’s going on here?

 

Hat-tip: Matthew

Tuesday: Hili dialogue (and Leon monologue)

March 13, 2018 • 6:45 am

It’s March 13: not a Friday but a Tuesday. It’s also Chicken Noodle Soup Day. (Ecch: what about International Matzo Ball Soup Day?) It’s also National Elephant Day in Thailand.

I’m off to Madison today (see my events for the FFRF here), so posting will be light to almost nonexistent until Saturday. Grania, though, has agreed to do the Hili posts. Cheers for her!  As always, I’ll do my best. Please keep your emails to me infrequent until I return.

On this day in 1639, Harvard College was named after the preacher John Harvard. Fun fact: (Professor Ceiling Cat Emeritus went to the two oldest colleges in America: William & Mary, founded 1693, and Harvard College, founded 1636).  On this day in 1781, William Hershel discovered the planet of Uranus (no jokes, please!). On March 13, 1845, Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto was premiered in Leipzig; Ferdinand David was the soloist. On this day in 1930, news of the discovery of Pluto (yes, a planet1) was sent to the Harvard College Observatory.

On March 13, 1943, the Nazis liquidated the Jewish ghetto in Kraków, sending some to the Lager in Plazów and killing many on the spot. On this day n 1991, the U.S. government announced that Exxon had agreed to pay a billion dollars to clean up the oil spill from the Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska.  On this day in 1996, the Dunblane School Massacre took place in Scotland, with 16 children and one teacher shot by Thomas Watt Hamilton, who then committed suicide. This remains the deadliest mass shooting in UK history. Unlike the U.S., however, Scotland took action, passing two laws banning the possession of most handguns in Great Britain (Hamilton had used four legally obtained handguns in his slaughter). Now why can’t the U.S. respond like that? Yes, I know, the Second Amendment, interpreted so broadly as to be meaningless. Finally, on this day five years ago, Pope Francis was elected the 266th Infallible Head of the Catholic Church.

Notables born on March 13 include astronomer Percival Lowell (1855), whose work helped spur the discovery of Pluto, Hugh Walpole (1884), L. Ron Hubbard (1911), Edward O’Hare (1914; WWII pilot whose name remains on Chicago’s O’Hare Airport), and Neil Sedaka (1939). Sedaka sang what I consider the best of the doo-wop songs, “Breaking Up is Hard to Do” (1962), a song he wrote and lip-synchs here on the Dick Clark show:

Those who died on March 13 include Shakespearian actor Richard Burbage (1619), Henry Shrapnel (1842, invented the explosive whose debris retains his name), Susan B. Anthony (1906), Clarence Darrow (1938), Bruno Bettelheim (1990), and Robert C. Baker, inventor of the vile chicken nugget (2006).

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili is trying to see if she really moves:

A: What on earth are you doing?
Hili: I’m trying to understand Zeno of Elea’s paradox of the arrow.
Nevetheless, she moves!
 In Polish:
Ja: Co ty tam wyprawiasz?
Hili: Próbuję zrozumieć paradoks Zenona z Elei.

In nearby Wloclawek, Leon sees no use for decoration. He wants noms!

Leon: And what would anybody do with such flowers? (In Polish: “I po co komu takie kwiaty?”):

And up in Winnipeg, Gus snoozes away. Staff Taskin said this: “The scene as I left for work today. What a life.”

Reader Merilee sent a timely rendition of a famous Peanuts cartoon:

Some tweets found by Grania.

The first tweet about Putin:

And the response:

This cat really wants to come in. Poor kitty!

https://twitter.com/invisibleman_17/status/973092803185119232

And, more seriously, the women of Iran continue their protest against the hijab and other forms of repression. This one engages in the salacious and prohibited act of dancing:

https://twitter.com/ArminNavabi/status/973076706125742081

I love it when regular people become comedians on Twitter:

I can’t vouch for the truth of this tweet, but here you go:

Tom Nichols got this letter after answering one of his readers. I sometimes get emails nearly this entitled:

Finally, Matthew found a cat who doesn’t like mail (I wish it could be trained to just reject junk mail):

 

Friday: Hili dialogue

March 9, 2018 • 6:30 am

Is it Friday already? (Remember to turn your clock ahead this weekend if you’re in the U.S.: the time advances an hour at 2 a.m. on Sunday.) Yes, it’s Friday, March 9, 2018, National Crab Day. But this man, who gently removes dust from a tangled-up wolf spider, is no crab: he’s a great person. Many would have just squashed the spider or put it outside with its legs all tangled up. The spider even seems to cooperate. One of the great animal videos of the year so far. (h/t: Julian)

On March 9, 1566, David Rizzio, the secretary to Mary, Queen of Scots, was murdered in her presence in Holyrood Palace in Edinburgh. On this day in 1796, Napoleon Bonaparte married his great love and first wife, Joséphine de Beauharnais. On March 9, 1946, the Bolton Wanderers stadium disaster took place in Bolton, with 33 people killed and hundreds injured in a human crush as people tried to enter the stadium. Matthew didn’t know about this, though Bolton is near Manchester. Do any readers know about it?  On this day in 1954, CBS broadcast the famous See It Now featuring a report by Edward R. Murrow on Joseph McCarthy. It was this report that began McCarthy’s downfall. Here’s the whole 25-minute report:

On this day in 1959, the Barbie Doll was introduced—at the American International Toy Fair in New York. Finally, on March 9, 2011, the Space Shuttle Discovery made its last landing after 39 flights.

Notables born on this day include Vita Sackville-West (1892), Samuel Barber (1910), George Lincoln Rockwell (1918), Mickey Spillane (also 1918), Yuri Gagarin (1934), Bobby Fischer (1943), Bobby Sands (1954), and Juliette Binoche (1964). Those who died on this day include David Rizzio (1566; stabbed, see above), paleontologist Marry Anning (1847), Menachem Begin (1992), George Burns (1996), and Notorious B.I.G. (1997; shot to death).

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili wants her basket back:

Hili: You are eating the nuts very slowly.
A: Does it bother you?
Hili: Yes, I need this basket.
In Polish:
Hili: Bardzo powoli zjadacie te orzechy.
Ja: Przeszkadza ci to?
Hili: Tak, potrzebuję ten koszyk.

In Winnipeg, Gus’s staff ran out of his crunchies and favorite dried shrimp at the same time. Here he is inspecting the shopping to ensure his noms were there. As staff Taskin says, “I think he approves!”

 

Matthew sent some videos, including this father of a victim of the shooting in Florida attacking the NRA. I’m with him!

Have a look at the teeth in this prepared horse skull:

Here we have a Maru wannabee:

I hope you’re not eating breakfast when you look at this one:

Catfish melee!

Kakapos are among my favorite birds; they’re the world’s only flightless parrots. Have a look at their emerald-green chicks:

 

Cat nightmare!

From Grania: a bee collision:

https://twitter.com/Learn_Things/status/971756784871464960

And a mutual cat exorcism:

https://twitter.com/videocats/status/971335191041118208

Thursday: Hili dialogue

March 8, 2018 • 6:30 am

It’s Thursday already: March 8, 2018, National Peanut Cluster Day (yeech). Better yet, it’s International Women’s Collaboration Brew Day, celebrating women brewmasters (brewmistresses?) who make craft beer.

More important, it’s International Women’s Day itself. Be sure you see the Twitter collection,  “How the world is celebrating International Women’s Day” There are some touching tweets and some funny ones; here’s one that’s both—and very American (this is a McDonald’s in California, and the hamburger company is also changing its website logo for today; see below):

From the webpage (click on screenshot):

Happy IWD from the women of Simon’s Cat!

And if you click on the Google Doodle below, and then on the purple arrow on the linked page, it will take you to a page of twelve women’s stories, each comprising a series of illustrated frames with text.

On this day in 1618, Johannes Kepler discovered the third law of planetary motion. Do you know his three laws? If not, go here. On March 8, 1817, the New York Stock Exchange was founded. And, appropriately for this day, it was on March 8, 1910, that the French aviator Raymonde de Laroche became the world’s first woman to receive a pilot’s license. (Speaking of which, I hope to get to the latest Amelia Earhart “finding” later today.) Sadly, Laroche crashed and died nine years later. Here she is in her  Voisin aeroplane in 1909:

On this day in 1965, the first US land combat forces to engage in Vietnam landed in that country: 3500 Marines. Exactly six years later, in 1971, the “Fight of the Century” between Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier took place in Madison Square Garden in New York City. It was the first time that two undefeated heavyweight fighters faced each other for the championship; Frazier won by unanimous decision after 15 rounds.  On March 8, 1974, Charles de Gaulle Airport opened in Paris, and I’ll be landing there in May.  Finally, on this day in 1979, the Philips company made its first public demonstration of the compact disc. Now they’re almost obsolete!

Notables born on March 8 in include Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. (1841), Otto Hahn (1879), Cyd Charisse (1922), John McPhee (1931; I love his books), Lynn Redgrave (1943) and Rabbi Jonathan Sacks (1948). Those who died on this day include Hector Berlioz (1869), Millard Fillmore (1874), Henry Ward Beecher (1887), William Howard Taft (1930), the Japanese dog Hachikō (1923; the only animal I’ve seen memorialized in this way on Wikipedia), Billy Eckstine (1933), Joe DiMaggio (1999), and the great George Martin (2016).

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili has climbed up on Malgorzata again, always draping herself over the arm. I’ve seen this many times, but Malgorzata is too softhearted to move the moggie:

Malgorzata: I’m afraid you are not helping.
Hili: On the contrary, I’m forcing you to write slowly and reflect deeply.
In Polish:
Małgorzata: Obawiam się, że mi nie pomagasz.
Hili: Przeciwnie, zmuszam cię do wolniejszego pisania i głębszej refleksji.

Up in Winnipeg, where Spring has yet to show its face, our Gus is sleeping soundly and sweetly in the warmth:

From Grania: a cat helps make a bowl. The caption is great:

My white cat Teddy used to ride me like this:

https://twitter.com/EmrgencyKittens/status/971260414481846272

Matthew thinks these are shrews, and I agree; I don’t think mice form these critter trains:

https://twitter.com/TheScaryNature/status/971219515957706757

Look at this wingless wasp; the size of a period!

 

Matthew found a honking big prime number:

A smart bovid; who says cows are dumb?

https://twitter.com/Koksalakn/status/971065109262094336

And more LOLs from Dan Arel, everybody’s favorite Antifa Clown. As of today, he hasn’t yet punched a Nazi (see this website for the Arel Nazi Punching timeline).

https://twitter.com/danarel/status/971255517325742080

 

Tuesday: Hili dialogue

March 6, 2018 • 6:30 am

This is one of those days where I arrive at work, having crept like a snail unwillingly to school, having no idea what I will write. But there’s always Hili!

It’s Tuesday, the Cruelest Day: March 6, 2018, and National Oreo Day. (That’s one American cookie I like, but always with milk. Green tea Oreos, available only in Japan, are even better.) It’s also the Day of the Dude, celebrating the philosophy of Dudeism, which is completely new to me. Wikipedia notes that this philosophy comes from the movie The Big Lebowski:

The Dudeist belief system is essentially a modernized form of Taoism stripped of all of its metaphysical and medical doctrines. Dudeism advocates and encourages the practice of “going with the flow”, “being cool headed”, and “taking it easy” in the face of life’s difficulties, believing that this is the only way to live in harmony with our inner nature and the challenges of interacting with other people. It also aims to assuage feelings of inadequacy that arise in societies which place a heavy emphasis on achievement and personal fortune. Consequently, simple everyday pleasures like bathing, bowling, and hanging out with friends are seen as far preferable to the accumulation of wealth and the spending of money as a means to achieve happiness and spiritual fulfillment.

On March 6, 632, or so it is said, Muhammad gave his ” Farewell Sermon” near Mount Arafat, east of Mecca. On this day in 1665, the first issue of the science journal Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society was published in London. On March 6, 1836, after a siege of 13 days by 3,000 Mexican troops, the 187 Texans defending the Alamo were killed as the fort was finally captured. The dead included Davy Crockett and Jim Bowie.  It was on this day in 1869 that Dmitri Mendeleev presented his periodic table of the elements to the Russian Chemical Society. He then published them in the German chemistry journal Zeitschrift fϋr Chemie. Here is the first published periodic table:

Exactly 30 years later, Bayer registered the name “aspirin” as a trademark. On March 6, 1951, the trial of Ethel and Julius Rosenberg for espionage began in New York. Both were convicted and electrocuted.  Finally, on this day in 1964, the boxing champion Cassius Clay was given his Muslim name by Nation of Islam leader Elijah Muhammad: Clay’s name was henceforth to be Muhammad Ali.

Notables born on March 6 include Michelangelo (1475), Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806), Ring Lardner (1885), Lou Costello (1906), Ed McMahon (1923), Gabriel García Márquez (1927, Nobel Prize for Literature 1982), Kiri Te Kanawa (1944), Corolyn Porco (1953) and Shaquille O’Neal (1972). Today’s Google Doodle (click on screenshot) honors Marquez with some scenes from his books, which I like very much.

Those who died on March 6 include James Bowie and Davy Crockett (1836; see above), Louisa May Alcott (1888), John Philip Sousa (1932), Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. (1935), Pearl Buck (1973), Ayn Rand (1982), Georgia O’Keeffe (1986), Hans Bethe (2005), and Nancy Reagan (2016).

Like many artists, Georgia O’Keeffe had a Siamese cat (any hypotheses?). Here they are:

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Malgorzata took a rare and very cute picture of Andrzej with Hili. What is Hili doing up there? Malgorzata explains:

Sometimes when I’m not at the computer or when she becomes bored with sitting on my arm she goes over to Andrzej and jumps on him. Sometimes she sits on his lap but sometimes she wants to be in his arms. She does it of her own volition. Neither of us is picking her up when we are working. She really slows us down.

And her explanation of the dialogue:  “Everything you learn, no matter how interesting and confirming your opinion, should be verified”.

A: It’s interesting.
Hili: Yes, but how to verify it?
In Polish:
Ja: To interesujące.
Hili: Tak, ale jak to sprawdzić?

And up in Winnipeg, Gus got some leftover tuna meant for the staff!

Is that tuna I smell?

 

Please?

 

Whisker-licking good!

Matthew sent a Japanese tweet; it’s a wasp-mimicking moth, but look at its bizarre legs!

A lovely dragonfly; at first, Matthew said, he thought it was a sculpture. Enlarge the photos to see the amazing patterns, especially in the eye.

How bridges can be built; absolutely amazing!

https://twitter.com/invisibleman_17/status/970682034917199874

Gargoyle lion disgorges an icicle:

I had no idea that beetles could change color! In reality, it doesn’t: it’s the angle of the light, or so says Dr. Cobb.

More jacksnipe bobbing as they walk. Would someone please tell me why these birds do this? (Note everyone freezing at 12 seconds in.)

https://twitter.com/Naturanotitia/status/970343682720362496

A murmuration of geese:

And. . . Cat-Man! Why haven’t they made a superhero movie about him?

Finally, reader Luke sent this tweet, which mirrors the story of Muhammad and his favorite cat Muezza. It’s said that one day Muhammad had to rise to answer the call to prayer but found Muezza was sleeping on his sleeve. He cut off his sleeve rather than disturb the cat. This must be a trope:

https://twitter.com/Jn_7L/status/969935656733609990