Category: Leon monologue

Tuesday: Hili dialogue (and Leon monologue)

October 20, 2020 • 6:30 am

Good morning on the Cruelest Day: Tuesday, October 20, 2020: National Brandied Fruit Day and National Eggo Day. (If you don’t know what an Eggo is, go here). It’s also International Chefs Day, the Birth of the Bab (see below), and World Statistics Day. 

Here’s a statistic to celebrate the day: the average height of the American male is 5 feet, 9.3 inches (176 cm), and of American women is 5 feet, 3.7 inches (160 cm). That makes me, at about 5’8″,  a shorty.

News of the Day:  This is a pretty funny article about words that were censored (by software filters) in the discussion sessions of the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology online meetings. Those words include “bone,” for chrissake (it’s also American slang for “to copulate”), but also “penetrate,” “stream,” “knob”, “crack”, and “sex”. Hard to have a fossil meeting without some of those words!

 

 

Trump rarely surprises me any more with his rudeness and mendacity, but his latest trashing of Anthony Fauci is beyond the pale. He could only wish he had the integrity and self-control of Fauci.  From CNN:

Referring to Fauci and other health officials as “idiots,” Trump declared the country ready to move on from the health disaster, even as cases are again spiking and medical experts warn the worst may be yet to come.

Baselessly claiming that if Fauci was in charge more than half a million people would be dead in the United States, Trump portrayed the recommendations offered by his own administration to mitigate spread of the disease as a burdensome annoyance.

“People are tired of Covid. have the biggest rallies I’ve ever had, and we have Covid,” Trump said, phoning into a call with campaign staff from his namesake hotel in Las Vegas, where he spent two nights amid a western campaign swing. “People are saying whatever. Just leave us alone. They’re tired of it. People are tired of hearing Fauci and all these idiots.”

“Fauci is a nice guy,” Trump went on. “He’s been here for 500 years.”

Let’s hope Trump is only here for three more months.

BTW, Microphones will be muted during part of Thursday’s Presidential debate. During each candidate’s two-minute initial response to a question, the other candidate’s mike (not “mic”) will be turned off. Do you think that will stop Trump from bloviating? I don’t think so—he’ll just yell across the stage. Trump says he consider the muting “very unfair.”

And OMG—Jeffrey Toobin? Oy gewalt! Read about it here.

How many ideological missteps can you find with this statue of Medusa holding the head of Perseus, just installed in New York as a tribute to the #MeTooMovement (yes, it was reversed in mythology, with Medusa decapitated). But the Offense Brigade is out in force after this one. Read about it at the Washington Post.

Illinois, long one of the lowest states for Covid-19 infections, is now joining nearly every other state in experiencing the dreaded “second wave” (remember when Trump said the virus would disappear in the summer)? Here are the latest Illinois data from the Chicago Sun-Times:

Finally, today’s reported Covid-19 death toll in the U.S. is 220,058, an increase of about 500 over yesterday. The world death toll is 1,123,472, an increase of about 4,600 over yesterday’s report.   

Stuff that happened on October 20 includes:

Here’s what we got from the French (area in white), at $15 million, or about 3¢ per acre:

  • 1935 – The Long March, a mammoth retreat undertaken by the armed forces of the Chinese Communist Party a year prior, ends.

Here’s a map of the Long March (caption from Wikipedia), which lasted almost exactly a year:

Light red areas show Communist enclaves. Areas marked by a blue “X” were overrun by Kuomintang forces during the Fourth Encirclement Campaign, forcing the Fourth Red Army (north) and the Second Red Army (south) to retreat to more western enclaves (dotted lines). The dashed line is the route of the First Red Army from Jiangxi. The withdrawal of all three Red Armies ends in the northeast enclave of Shaanxi.
  • 1941 – World War II: Thousands of civilians in German-occupied Serbia are murdered in the Kragujevac massacre.
  • 1944 – American general Douglas MacArthur fulfills his promise to return to the Philippines when he comes ashore during the Battle of Leyte.
  • 1947 – The House Un-American Activities Committee begins its investigation into Communist infiltration of the Hollywood film industry, resulting in a blacklist that prevents some from working in the industry for years.
  • 1951 – The “Johnny Bright incident” occurs during a football game between the Drake Bulldogs and Oklahoma A&M Aggies.

Bright was a nationally-ranked player for Drake, and was black. The Oklahoma players targeted him because of his race, and he was knocked unconscious three times in the first seven minutes of the game by defensive tackle Wilbanks Smith, the last hit breaking his jaw. Bright stayed in the game for a while as halfback/quarterback, and even completed a touchdown pass.

But there was a photograph showing a deliberate and grossly illegal hit; in fact, it qualifies as assault:

A six photograph sequence of the incident captured by Des Moines Register cameramen John Robinson and Don Ultang clearly showed Smith’s jaw-breaking blow was thrown well after Bright had handed the ball off to Drake fullback Gene Macomber, and was well behind the play. Robinson and Ultang had set up a camera focusing on Bright before the game after the rumors of him being targeted became too loud to ignore. They rushed the film to Des Moines as soon as Bright was knocked out of the game. Ultang said years later that they were very lucky that the incident took place when it did; they had only planned to stay through the first quarter so they could have enough time to develop the pictures before the deadline. The sequence won Robinson and Ultang the 1952 Pulitzer Prize for Photography, and eventually made it into the November 5, 1951, issue of Life.

Oklahoma refused to admit wrongdoing, and Oklahoma didn’t apologize until 2005! Smith never admitted wrongdoing, and Bright went on to a stellar career in the Canadian Football League.

Look at that hit in the last photo!

(From Wikipedia): The Pulitzer Prize-winning sequence of photos showing the first hit on Johnny Bright by Wilbanks Smith.
  • 1973 – “Saturday Night Massacre“: United States President Richard Nixon fires U.S. Attorney General Elliot Richardson and Deputy Attorney General William Ruckelshaus after they refuse to fire special prosecutor Archibald Cox, who is finally fired by Robert Bork.

I remember this well, and once encountered Elliot Richardson on the subway in Harvard Square some years later (a handsome and public figure, he was instantly recognizable). I thanked him for his refusal to fire Cox.

  • 1973 – The Sydney Opera House is opened by Elizabeth II after 14 years of construction.

Notables born on this day include:

In 1831, 28 years before the publication of Darwin’s Origin, Matthew published a book about wood and shipbuilding: On Naval Timber and Arboriculture. In the Appendix’s last 28 pages, Matthew proposed a theory very similar to Darwin’s theory of natural selection. You can read some excerpts here and at Wikipedia, and learn why Matthew doesn’t really get credit for natural selection. Here’s a picture of the book from Wikipedia:

It’s another day for the birth of artists and musicians:

  • 1819 – Báb, Iranian religious leader, founded Bábism (d. 1850)
  • 1854 – Arthur Rimbaud, French soldier and poet (d. 1891)
  • 1859 – John Dewey, American psychologist and philosopher (d. 1952)
  • 1874 – Charles Ives, American composer (d. 1954)
  • 1885 – Jelly Roll Morton, American pianist, composer, and bandleader (Red Hot Peppers and New Orleans Rhythm Kings) (d. 1941)
  • 1925 – Art Buchwald, American soldier and journalist (d. 2007)
  • 1931 – Mickey Mantle, American baseball player and sportscaster (d. 1995)
  • 1950 – Tom Petty, American singer-songwriter, guitarist, and producer (d. 2017)
  • 1971 – Snoop Dogg, American rapper, producer, and actor

Snoop registered to vote for the first time this year—at age 48. Here he shows us how to do it online. (His real name is Calvin Cordozar Broadus.)

Those who cashed in their chips on October 20 include:

  • 1890 – Richard Francis Burton, English-Italian geographer and explorer (b. 1821)
  • 1926 – Eugene V. Debs, American union leader and politician (b. 1855)
  • 1936 – Anne Sullivan, American educator (b. 1866)
  • 1964 – Herbert Hoover, American engineer and politician, 31st President of the United States (b. 1874)
  • 1983 – Merle Travis, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (b. 1917)
  • 1984 – Paul Dirac, English-American physicist and mathematician, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1902)

A four-minute bio of the great but eccentric Dirac:

Here’s Lancaster in a very famous scene: the “beach scene” in From Here to Eternity, playing sergeant Milt Warden, who has an affair with his commanding officer’s wife, played by Deborah Kerr. This scene was considered extremely erotic for the time.  The movie is well worth seeing: it also stars Frank Sinatra (in a role that was a comeback for him), Montgomery Clift, and Ernest Borgnine.

  • 2011 – Muammar Gaddafi, Libyan colonel and politician, Prime Minister of Libya (b. 1942)
  • 2012 – Paul Kurtz, American philosopher and academic (b. 1925)

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili is importuning Andrzej, but for what?

A: Is there something you want?
Hili: I have to think about it.
In Polish:
Ja: Czy jest coś, czego chcesz?
Hili: Muszę się zastanowić.

Here’s Kulka, who no longer qualifies as a “kitten”

Here’s an oldie from 2014 that I don’t think I’ve posted before. Leon went hiking, and has a monologue:

Leon: Learning the world is tiresome.

In Polish: Męczące jest to poznawanie świata.

A good question from Facebook:

From Nicole: I may have posted this before, but if so, here it is again:

From Jesus of the Day:

I tweeted! Many, many readers sent me links to articles about this Nazca-line cat, making it, I think, the story sent to me most often in the history of this website.

Speaking of social-media offense, Titania expresses the feelings of many:

From Simon, a tweet from the famous Harvard Law professor Laurence Tribe, once spoken of as a possible Supreme Court nominee (as you see, he’s a liberal):

And the rest of the tweets from the estimable Dr. Cobb. This way of sleeping seems very maladaptive for avoiding predation, but I suppose they have to rest sometime.

https://twitter.com/rel8ablecontent/status/1318208600167354368

This event partly armed the warheads, but, thank Ceiling Cat, nothing bad happened.

An amazing roadcut showing the distortion of sediments by colliding tectonic plates:

Try this with your cat and get back to me:

What’s the technical name for a huge mess of geckos?

 

Saturday: Hili dialogue (and Leon monologue)

September 12, 2020 • 6:30 am

We’re into the weekend, and fall is coming on strong, as: it’s Saturday, September 12, 2020, National Chocolate Milkshake Day. It’s also International Drive Your Studebaker Day (does anybody have one?), National Iguana Awareness Day, Aunt’s Day (which aunt?), Video Games Day, and National Day of Encouragement, whatever that’s for.

News of the Day: Don’t forget to vote for Clarence to pay off his vet bills. Vote here; it’s free. He’s in first place, and we must keep him there. There are 5.5 days left, and you can vote for free once every 24 hours. Do it for Ceiling Cat!

Clarence and staff.

Regular news: After the UAE voted to normalize relations with Israel, Bahrain just announced it is doing the same. I hope this is the beginning of a trend.

Reader Ken sent a link to a New Hampshire Union-Leader article reporting that a woman in Exeter voted topless:

The unidentified woman cast the bare-breasted ballot after showing up at the Talbot Gymnasium polls wearing a shirt with images of President Donald Trump and the late Sen. John McCain and the legend “McCain Hero/Trump Zero.”

Town Moderator Paul Scafidi told the woman, who appeared to be about 60, that she would have to remove the shirt or cover it up because of laws against electioneering inside polling places — though Trump’s name wasn’t on Tuesday’s state primary ballot.

When the woman, who was wearing a mask, pointed out someone wearing a shirt with an American flag, she was told that was different.

“She said, ‘You want me to take my shirt off? That’s what you want?’” Scafidi recalled.

He told the woman it was her choice, and before he could say anything more, the shirt was gone. She was not wearing a bra.

She was not arrested.

The Washington Post reports that a group of students at Miami University of Ohio were having an unmasked beer-drinking gathering on the front porch of a house. A police check revealed that several had Covid-19, but they apparently didn’t care. Six students were cited (a civil violation) and fined $500 each. But is that enough to deter others? As somebody said, a university rule that depends on 100% voluntary compliance will never be properly obeyed. I’m worried about my own school opening up in a couple of weeks (part virtual learning, part “real” learning).

Finally, today’s reported Covid-19 death toll in the U.S. is 192,853, an increase of about 1,200 deaths over yesterday’s report. We’ll soon hit the dreaded 200,000 mark that nobody thought possible. The world death toll now stands at 913,780, an increase of about 3,700 deaths from yesterday. And here we’re approaching a million deaths. 

Stuff that happened on September 12 includes:

  • 1609 – Henry Hudson begins his exploration of the Hudson River while aboard the Halve Maen.
  • 1846 – Elizabeth Barrett elopes with Robert Browning.
  • 1910 – Premiere performance of Gustav Mahler’s Symphony No. 8 in Munich (with a chorus of 852 singers and an orchestra of 171 players. Mahler’s rehearsal assistant conductor was Bruno Walter).
  • 1933 – Leó Szilárd, waiting for a red light on Southampton Row in Bloomsbury, conceives the idea of the nuclear chain reaction.

Here’s Szilard (right) at the University of Chicago, where the first self-sustaining fission reaction took place in the gym, Stagg Field. That gym is no more, but there’s a Henry Moore sculpture on the site:

(From Wikipedia): Szilard and Norman Hilberry at the site of CP-1, at the University of Chicago, some years after the war. It was demolished in 1957.

Now this is a weird one. Three boys saw a UFO and a weird being that looked like this:

Explanation:

After investigating the case in 2000, Joe Nickell of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry concluded that the bright light in the sky reported by the witnesses on September 12 was most likely a meteor, that the pulsating red light was likely an aircraft navigation/hazard beacon, and that the creature described by witnesses closely resembled an owl. Nickell suggested that witnesses’ perceptions were distorted by their heightened state of anxiety. Nickell’s conclusions are shared by a number of other investigators, including those of the Air Force.

The night of the September 12 sighting, a meteor had been observed across three states—Maryland, Pennsylvania and West Virginia. According to Nickell, three flashing red aircraft beacons were also visible from the area of the sightings, which could account for descriptions of a pulsating red light and red tint on the face of the supposed monster.

How could they mistake an owl for a being twice as big as a human?

A photo of the wedding:

  • 1959 – Bonanza premieres, the first regularly scheduled TV program presented in color.

Hoss: Pass the potatoes, Little Joe.

Here’s Kennedy’s famous statement, and of course we were on the Moon in less than a decade. That’s remarkable!

  • 1984 – Dwight Gooden sets the baseball record for strikeouts in a season by a rookie with 276, previously set by Herb Score with 246 in 1954. Gooden’s 276 strikeouts that season, pitched in 218 innings, set the current record.
  • 2011 – The National September 11 Memorial & Museum in New York City opens to the public.

Notables born on this day include:

  • 1852 – H. H. Asquith, English lawyer and politician, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (d. 1928)
  • 1880 – H. L. Mencken, American journalist and critic (d. 1956)

The great man:

  • 1888 – Maurice Chevalier, French actor, singer, and dancer (d. 1972)
  • 1898 – Ben Shahn, Lithuanian-American painter and photographer (d. 1969)
  • 1913 – Jesse Owens, American sprinter and long jumper (d. 1980)
  • 1931 – George Jones, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (d. 2013)
  • 1944 – Barry White, American singer-songwriter (d. 2003)

Here’s Barry White in a famous scene from the t.v. show Ally McBeal, in which a big fan of Barry gets a special birthday present:

  • 1981 – Jennifer Hudson, American singer and actress
  • 1986 – Emmy Rossum, American singer and actress

Those who began pining for the fjords on September 12 include:

  • 1660 – Jacob Cats, Dutch poet, jurist, and politician (b. 1577)
  • 1977 – Steve Biko, South African activist (b. 1946)
  • 1992 – Anthony Perkins, American actor, singer, and director (b. 1932)
  • 1993 – Raymond Burr, Canadian-American actor and director (b. 1917)
  • 2003 – Johnny Cash, American singer-songwriter, guitarist, and actor (b. 1932)
  • 2008 – David Foster Wallace, American novelist, short story writer, and essayist (b. 1962)
  • 2009 – Norman Borlaug, American agronomist and humanitarian, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1914)
  • 2014 – Ian Paisley, Northern Irish evangelical pastor (Free Presbyterian Church) and politician, 2nd First Minister of Northern Ireland (b. 1926)

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili prepares to edit Listy:

Hili: We have to mobilize our whole strength to work.
A: How?
Hili: First, it’s best to take a nap.
In Polish:
Hili: Musimy zmobilizować wszystkie siły do pracy.
Ja: Jak?
Hili: Najlepiej najpierw się przespać.

And nearby, at the site of their future home, Leon and Mietek are juiced about the weekend:

Leon: The weekend has started, which means there are plenty of things to do.

In Polish: Weekend się zaczął,czyli mnóstwo spraw do załatwienia.

Two photos of kitten Kulka As Malgorzata said, “In a few months we will have trouble telling Kulka and Hili apart.”

From reader Pliny the in Between’s Far Corner Cafe:

From Facebook:

From Jesus of the Day:

All tweets today are from Matthew, who fortunately is not on one of his sporadic holidays from Twitter.

First, chicken training. I’m not sure if this chicken is encountering the situation for the first time here, but even if not, it’s still a good example of “active learning”:

Boris Johnson has threatened to field “covid marshals” to enforce quarantine rules. This swan would be a great one, for it knows how a mask should be worn.

I yearn to be back on my Rollerblades again, but I can’t find ones with a stiff boot rather than a soft shoe. It was great exercise, and, importantly, fun exercise. But I never got to do this:

Okay, some enterprising reader needs to find out more about this:

This is a hydrozoan:

Back to politics and the banality of evil:

Matthew, knowing me, sent me this tweet with the note, “This will trigger you terribly BUT IT ALL TURNS OUT OK.”

As Johnny Carson used to say, “I did not know that.”

 

Wednesday: Hili dialogue (and Leon monologue)

September 2, 2020 • 6:30 am

It’s our first Hump Day in September: Wednesday, September 2, 2020, and National “Grits for Breakfast” Day. Why the scare quotes, though? Don’t be scared of grits!

You either love grits with breakfast or you hate them, and I’m in the first class—the right class. You can’t beat a good Southern breakfast of grits, fried eggs, country ham with red-eye gravy, strong coffee, and biscuits. Yes, there must be biscuits, and you mush up your grits with the runny egg and gravy. Here’s a photo of breakfast at the best place to get it in the South, the Loveless Cafe outside of Nashville. There’s one woman there whose only job is to make biscuits, for which the place is justly famous. In fact, everything is just a side dish to the main course of biscuits. Here are two photos I took when, at my request, my hosts at Vanderbilt took me there for breakfast when I was lecturing there in 2012:

Sure good eatin’, I gare-un-tee!

The first course of biscuits! Homemade preserves, cherry, blackberry, and peach, comes alongside. As the biscuits arrive first, you have to be careful not too eat too many of them lest you have no appetite for the platter above:

It’s also World Coconut Day, National Blueberry Popsicle Day, and the 75th anniversary of Victory over Japan Day (or “VJ Day”), when World War II finally ended for the U.S. when the surrender documents were signed on the USS Missouri.

News of the Day: There’s a fair bit of news about Donald Trump’s mysterious visit to Walter Reed Hospital last November. It was reported by the White House as “the first part of a physical,” but the second part wasn’t completed, and there’s also a report that Pence was asked to stand by in case Trump had to be anesthetized for “a procedure.” That didn’t happen, apparently, but the state of the President’s health seems murky. Matthew says that videos like the one below may constitute evidence for “mini-strokes”, which, he adds, only the President has mentioned.

According to the Washington Post, a committee reporting to the mayor of Washington, D.C. has recommended wholesale renaming of buildings based on ideological impurities. To wit:

A committee reporting to D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser has recommended renaming dozens of public schools, parks and government buildings in the nation’s capital, after studying the historical namesakes’ connections to slavery and oppression.

The honorees whom the committee says should not have public works named for them include presidents Thomas Jefferson, James Monroe, Andrew Jackson, William Henry Harrison, John Tyler, Zachary Taylor and Woodrow Wilson; Revolutionary leader Benjamin Franklin; inventor Alexander Graham Bell; and national anthem writer Francis Scott Key.

Here’s an article from yesterday’s New York Times by Harold Varmus, Nobel Laureate and former director of the NIH, and Rajiv Shah, President of the Rockefeller Foundation. Click on it, but if you can’t read it, it’s about testing, and criticizes the CDC’s new guidelines that fewer asymptomatic people should be tested (I think those guidelines were forced on the CDC by the Trump administration).

Finally, today’s reported Covid-19 death toll in the U.S. is 184,564, an increase of about 1100 deaths over yesterday’s report. The world death toll now stands at 856,214 849,779, a big increase of about 6500 deaths from yesterday.

Stuff that happened on September 2 include:

  • 1666 – The Great Fire of London breaks out and burns for three days, destroying 10,000 buildings, including Old St Paul’s Cathedral.
  • 1752 – Great Britain, along with its overseas possessions, adopts the Gregorian calendar.
  • 1901 – Vice President of the United States Theodore Roosevelt utters the famous phrase, “Speak softly and carry a big stick” at the Minnesota State Fair.
  • 1912 – Arthur Rose Eldred is awarded the first Eagle Scout award of the Boy Scouts of America.

Here’s Eldred (he also saved a child from drowning), the first of nearly two million Eagle Scouts:

Arthur Rose Eldred in 1912, shortly after receiving the Eagle award and his Bronze Honor medal for saving a life.

 

  • 1935 – The Labor Day Hurricane, the most intense hurricane to strike the United States, makes landfall at Long Key, Florida, killing at least 400.

This was the record in terms of the lowest pressure recorded in any US hurricane (892 mbar or 26.34 in Hg).

Here’s the Instrument of Surrender (click to enlarge):

The original cost estimate of the span was $250 million, so it cost more than 25 times the estimate.

Notables born on this day include:

She was the only queen who ever ruled Hawaii, and did so for only two years. Here she is on the throne:

  • 1946 – Billy Preston, American singer-songwriter, pianist, and actor (d. 2006)
  • 1948 – Terry Bradshaw, American football player, sportscaster, and actor
  • 1948 – Christa McAuliffe, American educator and astronaut (d. 1986)
  • 1964 – Keanu Reeves, Lebanese-Canadian actor, singer, and producer
  • 1966 – Salma Hayek, Mexican-American actress, director, and producer

Those whose metabolism ceased on September 2 include:

Here’s “Tiger Cat” by Rousseau.

 

  • 1964 – Alvin C. York, American colonel, Medal of Honor recipient (b. 1887)
  • 1969 – Ho Chi Minh, Vietnamese politician, 1st President of Vietnam (b. 1890)
  • 1973 – J. R. R. Tolkien, English novelist, short story writer, poet, and philologist (b. 1892)

Here’s Tolkien (photo from Tolkien Library):

  • 2005 – Bob Denver, American actor (b. 1935)

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili is avoiding Szaron and Kulka (who often visit) by sleeping in the guest room:

A: Are you sleeping here? On this hard bench?
Hili: Yes, because there are strange cats there.
A: They are not strange cats.
Hili: Everybody has his own definition.
In Polish:
Ja: Tu śpisz? Na tej twardej ławie?
Hili: Tak, bo tam są obce koty.
Ja: To nie są obce koty.
Hili: Każdy ma swoją definicję.

In nearby Wloclawek, Leon and Mietek cuddle and have a chat (their staff are both teachers, and school in Poland opened yesterday):

Leon: They went to school. Finally we have a moment of quiet.
In Polish: Poszli do szkoły? Wreszcie mamy odrobinę spokoju.

From Jesus of the Day: a real photo with the caption, “Meanwhile in Australia Angry Birds 2020 edition has started. View from a rear facing motorcycle helmet camera. Photo credit : Monique Newton.”

A cartoon sent by Woody. I’ve surely alluded to this before, but don’t remember posting a cartoon:

From Charles: A Mike Lukovich cartoon about the GOP Convention:

Singer Adele got accused big time of cultural appropriation when she wore her hair in “Bantu knots”—an African hairstyle—as well as a bikini top with the Jamaican flag on it. The occasion was the Notting Hill Carnival.

Here’s one of the Offended:

I’m on the side of Naomi Campbell (whose mother was born in Jamaica), Zoe Saldana, and Chelsea Handler, whose comments on Adele’s Instagram post are below. There’s no way that Adele is hurting anybody here, and she’s clearly appropriating black culture out of admiration. People really need to lighten up.

Tweets from Matthew: an excellent Beatles/beetles tweet:

Yesterday was the 81st anniversary of the start of WWII in Europe. Here’s a disturbing video of how the Nazis began their attack on Poland:

I didn’t look closely enough to see if the trig calculation is set up properly here, but I hope some reader will freeze the frame and let us know:

To see what the Tweeter means by “the film,” you’ll have to turn the sound up (sorry!):

And, like the awesome cat above, this Polish man nevertheless persisted:

Matthew said, “Wait until they come to the UK”, and helpfully provided a picture of UK outlets (below):

Tuesday: Hili dialogue (and Leon monologue)

August 25, 2020 • 6:30 am

I SAW A COYOTE (Canis latrans) ON MY WAY TO WORK! It ran along a sidewalk perpendicular to me, and it ran quickly and silently. It was not a dog: it was lean, shaped like a coyote (it was dark) and had a fluffy tail. It loped onto the lawn behind Rockefeller Chapel and disappeared.

There are estimated to be up to 4,000 coyotes in the Chicago area, but in my 34 years here, this is the first one I’ve seen.

It’s once again Tuesday, the cruelest day—August 25, 2020. You can mitigate some of the cruelty by celebrating National Whiskey Sour Day, as the drink is not to be sniffed at when made properly. It’s also National Banana Split Day, and, in France, Liberation Day, marking the day in 1944 when the German garrison in Paris surrendered (see below).

Today’s Google Doodle (click on screenshot), honors British sculptor Barbara Hepworth, born on January 10 (1903) and died on May 20 (1975). Celebrating her on August 25 (“honoring her 117th birthday”, as the Evening Standard says) is thus weird. Can a reader explain?

Here’s Hepworth, and note her cat Nicholas, shown in this photo similar to the Doodle (the sculpture is called “Reclining Form”).

Update: Matthew found the significance of the date on Twitter:

News of the Day: I plan to get a haircut today; the first trim since about February. My hair is getting in the way, and I’ll see if I can get an appointment. I am told to ensure that the haircutter wears a mask and has no coronavirus symptoms, and I must also wear a mask. Here’s my hair today: it may never be this long again:

Once again we have a report, this time from the New York Post, that Kim Jong-un is seriously ill—this time in a coma. A similar report in April was apparently false, and this one might be too. Stay tuned. The report adds that his sister, Kim Yo-jung, has taken over some of her brother’s powers. Do not think for a minute that because she’s a woman, North Korea will become less authoritarian. She’s a nasty piece of work.

After yet another scandal, this time involving his wife’s lover, kinky sex, and blackmail, Jerry Falwell Jr. finally agreed to resign as President of Liberty University. His father, looking down from heaven, would surely be displeased. Oh, wait. . . .  Well, he’s still a disgrace to the name “Jerry”!  Here’s a photo that got him into trouble: posed with pants unzipped next to an unbuttoned woman identified as his wife’s assistant. He deleted this photo and then claimed that it was at a “costume party” and that there was no alcohol in the glass (drinking is forbidden at his school).

A Florida court has struck down the governor’s order that all secondary schools open for in-person education. The judge says that by abrogating student and teacher safety, the order violates the state constitution. For now, nearly education will be virtual.

Well, here’s some gloom and doom from CNN, which reports that a 33 year old man from Hong Kong caught coronavirus in two separate episodes 142 days apart. Although the man was asymptomatic during the second episode, genetic analysis suggests that these were two separate infection. This needs confirmation but, as I supposed, it suggests immunity to the coronavirus, like to influenza, does not last forever. Stay tuned, but we’re screwed anyway.

Finally, today’s reported Covid-19 death toll in the U.S. is 177,197, an increase of about 500 deaths over yesterday’s report. The world death toll now stands at 812,180, an increase of about 4,000 deaths from yesterday.

Stuff that happened on August 25 includes:

  • 1543 – António Mota and a few companions become the first Europeans to visit Japan.
  • 1609 – Galileo Galilei demonstrates his first telescope to Venetian lawmakers.
  • 1814 – War of 1812: On the second day of the Burning of Washington, British troops torch the Library of Congress, United States Treasury, Department of War, and other public buildings.
  • 1823 – American fur trapper Hugh Glass is mauled by a grizzly bear while on an expedition in South Dakota.

Glass was abandoned by his companions, and had a broken leg, infected wounds, and severe injuries. Nevertheless, he managed to hobble and crawl and float 200 miles to the nearest settlement. It took him six weeks. This was the basis for the largely fictionalized movie The Revenant (2015), in which Glass was played by Leonardo DiCaprio.

Wikipedia notes this:

The “Great Moon Hoax” refers to a series of six articles that were published in The Sun, a New York newspaper, beginning on August 25, 1835, about the supposed discovery of life and even civilization on the Moon. The discoveries were falsely attributed to Sir John Herschel, one of the best-known astronomers of that time.

The articles described animals on the Moon, including bison, goats, unicorns, bipedal tail-less beavers and bat-like winged humanoids (“Vespertilio-homo“) who built temples. There were trees, oceans and beaches. These discoveries were supposedly made with “an immense telescope of an entirely new principle”.

The author of the narrative was ostensibly Dr. Andrew Grant, the travelling companion and amanuensis of Sir John Herschel, but Grant was fictitious.

Eventually, the authors announced that the observations had been terminated by the destruction of the telescope, by means of the Sun causing the lens to act as a “burning glass”, setting fire to the observatory.

Here’s a published picture of what was on the moon in a place called the “Ruby Ampitheater”:

“Our plain was of course immediately covered with the ruby front of this mighty amphitheater, its tall figures, leaping cascades, and rugged caverns. As its almost interminable sweep was measured off on the canvass, we frequently saw long lines of some yellow metal hanging from the crevices of the horizontal strata in will net-work, or straight pendant branches. We of course concluded that this was virgin gold, and we had no assay-master to prove to the contrary.”

The author of the narrative was ostensibly Dr. Andrew Grant, the travelling companion and amanuensis of Sir John Herschel, but Grant was fictitious.

  • 1875 – Captain Matthew Webb becomes the first person to swim across the English Channel, traveling from Dover, England, to Calais, France, in 21 hours and 45 minutes.
  • 1916 – The United States National Park Service is created.
  • 1940 – World War II: The first Bombing of Berlin by the British Royal Air Force.
  • 1944 – World War II: Paris is liberated by the Allies.

Here’s the surrender order, kindly provided by Matthew. He has a profusely illustrated website supporting his book about the Liberation, Eleven Days in August.

  • 1967 – George Lincoln Rockwell, founder of the American Nazi Party, is assassinated by a former member of his group.
  • 2012 – Voyager 1 spacecraft enters interstellar space becoming the first man-made object to do so.

Notables born on this day include:

  • 1530 – Ivan the Terrible, Russian ruler (d. 1584)
  • 1836 – Bret Harte, American short story writer and poet (d. 1902)
  • 1845 – Ludwig II of Bavaria (d. 1886)

Here’s “mad King Ludwig’s” most famous castle: Neuschwanstein:

Photo by Florian Werner. Source.
  • 1913 – Walt Kelly, American illustrator and animator (d. 1973)
  • 1918 – Leonard Bernstein, American pianist, composer, and conductor (d. 1990)
  • 1927 – Althea Gibson, American tennis player and golfer (d. 2003)
  • 1931 – Regis Philbin, American actor and television host (d. 2020)
  • 1946 – Rollie Fingers, American baseball player
  • 1949 – Gene Simmons, Israeli-American singer-songwriter, producer, and actor
  • 1954 – Elvis Costello, English singer-songwriter, guitarist, and producer
  • 1961 – Billy Ray Cyrus, American singer-songwriter, guitarist, and actor
  • 1987 – Blake Lively, American model and actress

Those who became bereft of life on August 25 include:

  • AD 79 – Pliny the Elder, Roman commander and philosopher (b. 23)
  • 1776 – David Hume, Scottish economist, historian, and philosopher (b. 1711)
  • 1822 – William Herschel, German-English astronomer and composer (b. 1738)
  • 1867 – Michael Faraday, English physicist and chemist (b. 1791)
  • 1900 – Friedrich Nietzsche, German philologist, philosopher, and critic (b. 1844)
  • 1908 – Henri Becquerel, French physicist and chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1852)
  • 1956 – Alfred Kinsey, American biologist and academic (b. 1894)
  • 1967 – George Lincoln Rockwell, American commander, politician, and activist, founded the American Nazi Party (b. 1918)
  • 1984 – Truman Capote, American novelist, playwright, and screenwriter (b. 1924)

In my view, which many share, Capote’s greatest work was In Cold Blood, but up there with it is a story that’s often neglected: “A Christmas Memory,” whose ending always brings me to tears. Here’s a television documentary of the masterpiece (this is the first of six parts, all on YouTube) narrated by Capote. (I once had a chance to buy Sook’s original handwritten cookbook, and I could kick myself for not doing so.)

  • 2009 – Ted Kennedy, American politician (b. 1932)
  • 2012 – Neil Armstrong, American pilot, engineer, and astronaut (b. 1930)

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili tries to avoid the paparazzi:

A: May I take your picture?
Hili: If you have to.
In Polish:
Ja: Czy mogę ci zrobić zdjęcie?
Hili: Jak musisz.

In nearby Wloclawek, Leon has an episode of Cat Intuition:

Leon: I have a feeling that guests are coming.

In Polish: Czuję,że goście jadą.

BFFs Szaron and kitten Kulka are schmoozing on my couch! I’m very sad I won’t be able to get to Poland while Kulka’s still a kitten. It’s been way too long since I’ve visited, but the pandemic forbids it:

From reader Charles:

From Phil Ferguson:

A great cartoon I found on Facebook:

Titania found a story. But though the demands for segregated student housing are true, NYU, to its credit, said through a spokesperson, “NYU does not have and will not create student housing that excludes any student based on race.”

From Simon. This is also me heading to the duck pond and having to return to my office:

From Barry. I don’t think this is an owl, but it does show the remarkable head stabilization of some birds, especially predators:

From cesar. Things are apparently rough in Portland.

From Barry. Check out the ninja cat.

Tweets from Matthew. The first is a lovely series of tweets detailing the birth of some cygnets. Check out the thread.

Amazing eyes on this dragonfly:

This bird has definite catlike tendencies:

Monday: Hili dialogue (and Leon monologue)

July 27, 2020 • 6:30 am

Well, here we are back the start of the week:  n = n + 1 on Monday, July 27, 2020. Is anyone dispirited like me, or is everyone ebullient? If so, why? At least we have lots of cat pictures today: all of the Polish cats including Hili, Szaron, Leon, and the tiny new kitten Kulka.

Foodimentary says that it’s National Scotch Day, though I’m not sure Scotch is a food, but make mine a well-aged Springbank. It’s also National Creme Brulée Day (another overrated dessert in the flan family), National Chicken Finger Day (I’ve never had one), and Bagpipe Appreciation Day. In North Korea it’s Day of Victory in the Great Fatherland Liberation War, marking the signing of the Korean Armistice agreement in 1953 (we’re still technically at war with the DPRK), and in the US it’s National Korean War Veterans Armistice Day.

News of the Day: There are renewed calls to rename the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, as it’s named after a Confederate general and a Grand Dragon of the Ku Klux Klan. Normally I’d favor the renaming (one suggestion is to rename it the John Lewis Bridge), but the old name is so imbued with history that I think it should stay. The bridge is the site of “Bloody Sunday”—actually three Sundays in 1965 on which civil rights activists tried to march from Selma to Montgomery and were attacked by police. It was the sight of that police brutality that helped propel passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The contrast between the segregationism embodied in the bridge’s name and its role in furthering civil rights suggests that the name should stay not as a memorial to the Confederacy, but to the great struggle for civil rights.

And there was this: John Lewis’s body ferried in a caisson over the bridge where, 55 years ago, police fractured his skull with a billy club.

The name is important here. If it’s renamed, the letters should nevertheless stay.

Photo: Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images

Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri, a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, says he will not vote to confirm any new Supreme Court nominees unless they vow to overturn Roe v. Wade. Although there are no Court openings in the offing, there are rumors that Clarence Thomas could retire, and of course there’s always RBG’s health.  But what about not voting on a President’s nominees in an election year, a Republican strategy that killed Obama’s nominee? Mitch McConnell pulls a 180:

Although no vacancy is imminent, White House officials and some top Republicans have privately discussed the possibility that Justice Clarence Thomas, a conservative appointed by George H.W. Bush, could retire.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) blocked then-President Barack Obama from making an election-year appointment to the Supreme Court in 2016. He denied Obama’s nominee, Judge Merrick Garland, a confirmation hearing, saying the next president should make the choice.

But McConnell has said he would push through a Trump nominee this year, should an opening occur. The difference from 2016, he maintains, is that now the same political party controls the White House and Senate.

How is that relevant?

The novel To Kill a Mockingbird is finally getting canceled, including in this piece in the Washington Post, which says that the novel is still “reinforcing and normalizing a culture of oppression.” But what are the truths about white people that, according to author Errin Haines, the novel tells? That white folks are all racist, imbued with privilege, perpetrators of systemic racism, and unwilling to lift a finger to help people of color. This is a shameful piece of propaganda by the Post.

Finally, today’s reported Covid-19 death toll in the U.S. is 146,754, an increase of about 400 deaths over yesterday’s report. The world death toll now stands at 648,465, an increase of about 4400 deaths from yesterday.

Stuff that happened on July 27 include:

  • 1299 – According to Edward Gibbon, Osman I invades the territory of Nicomedia for the first time, usually considered to be the founding day of the Ottoman state.
  • 1794 – French Revolution: Maximilien Robespierre is arrested after encouraging the execution of more than 17,000 “enemies of the Revolution”.
  • 1866 – The first permanent transatlantic telegraph cable is successfully completed, stretching from Valentia Island, Ireland, to Heart’s Content, Newfoundland.

It still amazes me that several thousand miles of cable can be strung between continents without breaking it. But it was done. Here’s a painting of the landing of the cable:

(From Wikipedia): Landing of the Atlantic Cable of 1866, Heart’s Content, Newfoundland, by Robert Charles Dudley, 1866.

According to this biography, which I read recently, van Gogh did not shoot himself, but was shot by a rowdy kid in his village. Read the appendix to see the evidence, which I found pretty convincing.

  • 1919 – The Chicago Race Riot erupts after a racial incident occurred on a South Side beach, leading to 38 fatalities and 537 injuries over a five-day period.

The riots began when a group of black men entered a segregated area of the 29th Street Beach. Things mushroomed from there. Here are two pictures from Wikipedia with its captions:

A fifth picture from the series ; an African American man assaulted with stones during the Chicago Race Riot.[34] A subsequent 6th[1] and 7th[2] pictures show the arrival of police officers and the victim.
A white gang looking for African Americans during the Chicago Race Riot of 1919. This and a subsequent picture at The Crisis Magazine 1919 Vol 18 No. 6 is part of a series of the Chicago race riots of 1919.

Banting, along with John Macleod, won the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 1923. Charles Best, who co-discovered the hormone, should also have been honored but wasn’t. Best did give him half of his share of the Prize.

  • 1953 – Cessation of hostilities is achieved in the Korean War when the United States, China, and North Korea sign an armistice agreement. Syngman Rhee, President of South Korea, refuses to sign but pledges to observe the armistice.
  • 1974 – Watergate scandal: The House of Representatives Judiciary Committee votes 27 to 11 to recommend the first article of impeachment (for obstruction of justice) against President Richard Nixon.
  • 1987 – RMS Titanic Inc. begins the first expedited salvage of wreckage of the RMS Titanic.

Some of the artifacts have been auctioned off, including this one, which looks to me like a teapot:

Most of us remember that Richard Jewell was falsely accused of the bombing, which killed one person. Later it was found that Eric Rudolph did the deed, along with other bombings, and Rudolph is serving four consecutive life sentences in a Supermax prison.

Notables born on this day include:

  • 1768 – Charlotte Corday, French assassin of Jean-Paul Marat (d. 1793)
  • 1870 – Hilaire Belloc, French-born British writer and historian (d. 1953)
  • 1881 – Hans Fischer, German chemist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1945)
  • 1905 – Leo Durocher, American baseball player and manager (d. 1991)
  • 1939 – William Eggleston, American photographer and academic

Eggleston, who owns 300 Leica cameras, was a master at color landscape photography, though the landscapes are urban, like this one:

Here’s a 7.5-minute video of A-Rod’s career highlights. He’s not in the Hall of Fame, perhaps because he used performance-enhancing steroids for a time and was suspended from baseball for a year.

Those who conked on July 27 include:

  • 1946 – Gertrude Stein, American novelist, poet, and playwright (b. 1874)
  • 1980 – Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, Iranian king (b. 1919)
  • 2003 – Bob Hope, English-American actor, comedian, television personality, and businessman (b. 1903)
  • 2017 – Sam Shepard, American playwright, actor, author, screenwriter, and director (b.1943)

Here’s Shepard in Terrence Malick’s great film “Days of Heaven” (1978), one of the most beautiful movies ever photographed. This is the scene where locusts take over the farm:

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili, outside, sees Szaron, inside, napping on her blanket:

Hili: What will it come to?
A: I don’t understand.
Hili: This cultural appropriation.
In Polish:
Hili: Dokąd to dojdzie?
Ja: Nie rozumiem.
Hili: To kulturowe zawłaszczenie.

Upstairs, Paulina plays with the new kittten Kulka, who apparently is now a permanent resident:

Caption: Lady with a fast escaping kitten.

In Polish: Dama z szybko uciekającym małym kotem.

When I was told that Kulka was a fearless kitten, and climbed the lilac bush up to the second floor of the house, I demanded pictures. Paulina obliged with these four.  Kulka weights only half a kilo (one pound!):

Caption: Photos taken by Paulina (on order from Chicago). (In Polish: Zdjęcia zrobione przez Paulinę [na zamówienie z Chicago]). 

And nearby, Leon bewails the new week:

Leon: Monday again?

In Polish: Znów poniedziałek?

A groaner from Bruce:

Two from Jesus of the Day:

From Simon: the world’s best dad:

https://twitter.com/xavierkatana/status/1287378913149296640?s=20

Tweets from Matthew. First, Duckling Rush Hour at Marsh Farm:

. . . and an adorable kitten breakfast. Sound up to hear the good mews:

A tweet from Matthew showing how Gosling, Wilkins, and Franklin took the photos that helped show that DNA was a double helix. Condoms and paper clips are essential.

More examples of cancel culture. And they didn’t even include Rebecca Tuvel:

Another tweet from Matthew showing a durable Frenchwoman:

Okay, what are these rabbits doing? Mating? Fighting? Or playing?

A monument to Donald Trump in Northern Ireland:

Wednesday: Hili dialogue (and Leon monologue)

July 15, 2020 • 6:30 am

Good morning on a pandemic Hump Day: Wednesday, July 15, 2020: National Tapioca Pudding Day. It’s also Orange Chicken Day (cultural appropriation), I Love Horses Day, and National Respect Canada Day (Canada don’t get no respect, sheesh!) It’s also Saint Swithun’s Day, and, as the legend goes, “According to tradition, if it rains on Saint Swithun’s bridge (Winchester) on his feast day (15 July) it will continue for forty days.”

And, if you’re an American, your income taxes are due today, thanks to the three-month pandemic extension.

News of the Day: Liberal Supreme Court justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has been hospitalized—again—this time for an infection. If you’re like me, you’re feeling like a bad person for hoping that she hangs on until at least November (assuming that the lame-duck Senate won’t confirm a Trump appointee), because although you don’t want her to die, you especially don’t want her to die in the next six months.

With Trump against him, Jeff Sessions was soundly defeated in the Republican primary race for the Senate seat from Alabama.

As the Washington Redskins football team gets a new name, and rightly so, the offended aren’t appeased. Now the “Texas Rangers” name has to go too, because they are claimed to have oppressed minorities in the past. See the op-ed at the increasingly unreadable Washington Post.

The Trump administration has ditched its plans to force foreign college students to go home if their universities  (like Harvard) plan only online classes this fall.

With 132 deaths yesterday, Florida broke its record for the most deaths in a single day. The state will likely close down again. And so should Disney World.

In an op-ed in today’s NYT, a professor of public health at Tulane calls for a comprehensive (re)shutdown of America lest we face a very deadly resurgence of the virus this fall and winter.

Finally, today’s reported Covid-19 death toll in the U.S. is 136,356, an increase of about 1000 deaths over yesterday’s report (thanks, Florida!). The world death toll now stands at 578,912, an increase of about 6,200 from yesterday.

Stuff that happened on July 15 include:

With the same inscription in ancient Greek, hieroglyphics, and Demotic script, the stone was essential in helping decipher hieroglyphics (photo below; it resides in the British Museum):

No, it’s still here as this Monty Python skit shows (part 2 is here):

  • 1838 – Ralph Waldo Emerson delivers the Divinity School Address at Harvard Divinity School, discounting Biblical miracles and declaring Jesus a great man, but not God. The Protestant community reacts with outrage.
  • 1910 – In his book Clinical Psychiatry, Emil Kraepelin gives a name to Alzheimer’s disease, naming it after his colleague Alois Alzheimer.
  • 1975 – Space Race: Apollo–Soyuz Test Project features the dual launch of an Apollo spacecraft and a Soyuz spacecraft on the first joint Soviet-United States human-crewed flight. It was both the last launch of an Apollo spacecraft, and the Saturn family of rockets.
  • 2002 – “American Taliban” John Walker Lindh pleads guilty to supplying aid to the enemy and to possession of explosives during the commission of a felony.

Here’s Lindh, with the Wikipedia caption: “Lindh photographed after being transported to Camp Rhino.” After a bit more than 16 years in prison, he was released in May, 2019:

And the anniversary of mass futile arguing, shaming, and name-calling:

  • 2006 – Twitter, later one of the largest social media platforms in the world, is launched.

Notables born on this day include:

  • 1573 – Inigo Jones, English architect, designed the Queen’s House (d. 1652)
  • 1606 – Rembrandt, Dutch painter and etcher (d. 1669)
  • 1919 – Iris Murdoch, Anglo-Irish British novelist and philosopher (d. 1999)
  • 1922 – Leon M. Lederman, American physicist and mathematician, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 2018)
  • 1928 – Carl Woese, American microbiologist and biophysicist (d. 2012)
  • 1930 – Jacques Derrida, Algerian-French philosopher and academic, obscurantist and corroder of modern discourse (d. 2004)
  • 1943 – Jocelyn Bell Burnell, Northern Irish astrophysicist, astronomer, and academic
  • 1946 – Linda Ronstadt, American singer-songwriter, producer, and actress

Here’s the only Rembrandt I could find with a cat, “Virgin and Child with Cat” (1564). Can you spot the kitty? (In my view, Rembrandt was the greatest painter of all time.)

Those who expired on July 15 include:

Checkhov, a very great writer, died at only 44 of tuberculosis. Here he is with the venerable Tolstoy in Yalta (1900). What talent in this picture!:

 

  • 1929 – Hugo von Hofmannsthal, Austrian author, poet, and playwright (b. 1874)
  • 1948 – John J. Pershing, American general (b. 1860)
  • 1997 – Gianni Versace, Italian fashion designer, founded Versace (b. 1946)

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Andrzej advises Hili to not be optimistic (remember, the far-right President won re-election the other day):

Hili: What does the future look like?
A: Rather dark until the dawn.
In Polish:
Hili: Jak się przedstawia przyszłość?
Ja: Do świtu raczej mrocznie.

In Wloclawek, Leon is helping his staff drive.

Leon:  Shall I put it in fourth gear?

In Polish: Leon: Włożyć czwórkę?

A true meme from Merilee:

From reader Charles:

Once again, Titania is way ahead of her time!

From Barry: Pandemic information and Monty Python pandemic lagniappe:

Tweets from Matthew. This one is grim:

Matthew says that this is the UK’s biggest gay newspaper.  Matthew also noted: “Indeed. It is not the Onion. The argument is that trans men can get it (obviously) and – get this – that because operated transwomen have reconstructed vaginas they should get smear tests… ”

It’s important that you know this, and it does seem credible.

Translation: “Which of you ate the salami?” It isn’t hard to guess.

This antlion “adult: looks like a jewel, says Dr. Cobb. Antlions are in the order Neuroptera along with lacewings, and are famous for their predatory larvae, not these flying adults.

Sunday: Hili dialogue (and Leon monologue)

July 12, 2020 • 6:30 am

Good morning on Sunday, July 12, 2020: National Pecan Pie Day. Protip: Pecan pie is one of the best pies around, but in its apogee the pecans go throughout the filling rather than forming only a thin layer atop a gelatinous Karo-syrup goo.

Here’s a good pecan pie:

Here’s a bad pecan pie. If you see this in a diner or restaurant, pass it up.

It’s also National Eat Your Jello-O Day (no thanks), Simplicity Day, (Henry David Thoreau, the great advocate of simplicity, was born on this day in 1817), Different Colored Eyes Day (do any readers here have heterochromia?), and Paper Bag Day (treat your cat!).

News of the Day:  Over at the Washington Post, Robert Mueller has a mealymouthed op-ed about Roger Stone, mentioning that Stone “remains a convicted felon, and rightly so,” but saying nary a word about Trump’s pardon. Why did Mueller bother to write this, except to defend himself?

I was surprised to read that many defeated American Southerners fled to Brazil after the Civil War, and there’s still a lively pro-Confederate culture there, with the Stars and Bars everywhere. Now the controversy over the flag has spread to that country.

Despite the resurgence of coronavirus in Florida, Disney World reopened yesterday, and, according to the New York Times, “thousands of giddy visitors” streamed in. Good God! Is there no end to the madness? Even at our duck pond, where the University put up signs advertising the new rule that all visitors must wear masks and socially distance. When I ask people politely to put masks on, many of them just laugh at me. I’d like to tell them: “It’s people like you who are keeping the pandemic going,” but I keep my silence.

Finally, today’s reported Covid-19 death toll in the U.S. is 134,577, an increase of about 700 deaths over yesterday’s report. The world death toll now stands at 564,531—an increase of about 5,400 from yesterday.

Stuff that happened on July 12 includes:

  • 1543 – King Henry VIII of England marries his sixth and last wife, Catherine Parr, at Hampton Court Palace.
  • 1776 – Captain James Cook begins his third voyage.

It was on this voyage that Cook was clubbed and speared to death in Hawaii. As Wikipedia reports:

The esteem which the islanders nevertheless held for Cook caused them to retain his body. Following their practice of the time, they prepared his body with funerary rituals usually reserved for the chiefs and highest elders of the society. The body was disembowelled, baked to facilitate removal of the flesh, and the bones were carefully cleaned for preservation as religious icons in a fashion somewhat reminiscent of the treatment of European saints in the Middle Ages. Some of Cook’s remains, thus preserved, were eventually returned to his crew for a formal burial at sea.

They baked him!

I have met one winner of this prized medal: Lou Millett, a friend of my father’s in the Army. Millett lead the last major bayonet charge of the Army during the Korean War.

As UCR reports:

The Stones played 16 songs that night, an impressive collection of cuts by Robert Johnson, Jimmy Reed, Elmore James, Fats Domino and a whole lot of Chuck Berry. They must have made a good impression, because shortly thereafter they were invited to hold down a residency at the competing Crawdaddy Club by Russian promoter Giorgio Gomelsky. Shortly after that, they found themselves back performing regularly at the Marquee before signing a deal with Decca and cutting their first record. The rest, as they say, is history.

  • 1963 – Pauline Reade, 16, disappears in Gorton, England, the first victim in the Moors murders.
  • 1975 – São Tomé and Príncipe declare independence from Portugal.

I’ve been to Sao Tomé several times, but not in a decade or so. Here are two pictures I took on our last field trip there (we were studying the altitudinal zonation of two sister species of Drosophila).  First, a view down to the sea from the peak of the volcanic island, altitude 2024 meters.

And some schoolkids in the capital, all in pink.

Notables born on this day include:

  • 1849 – William Osler, Canadian physician and author (d. 1919)
  • 1884 – Louis B. Mayer, Russian-born American film producer, co-founded Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (d. 1957)
  • 1895 – Buckminster Fuller, American architect and engineer, designed the Montreal Biosphère (d. 1983)
  • 1904 – Pablo Neruda, Chilean poet and diplomat, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1973)
  • 1908 – Milton Berle, American comedian and actor (d. 2002)
  • 1917 – Andrew Wyeth, American artist (d. 2009)

Here’s an Andrew Wyeth painting, “Cat in a Window”:

  • 1934 – Van Cliburn, American pianist and composer (d. 2013)
  • 1937 – Bill Cosby, American actor, comedian, producer, and screenwriter
  • 1943 – Christine McVie, English singer-songwriter and keyboard player

Those who attained quietus on July 12 include:

Riperton, who died at only 31 of cancer, had a five-octave range, amply displayed in her most famous song, “Loving You”. Those high notes are for real!

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, we have a two-part interaction between Hili and Szaron today. First, Hili takes the veranda shelf but Szaron sasses her:

Hili: I agree to co-habitation but this shelf is mine.
Szaron: I will jump on it anyhow when you go away.
In Polish:
Hili: Zgadzam się na kohabitację, ale ta półka jest moja.
Szaron: I tak tam wskoczę jak sobie pójdziesz.

But. . .

Szaron: She’s gone!

In Polish: Poszła sobie

And in nearby Wloclawek, Leon is famished (as usual):

Leon: The sun went down and I haven’t had dinner yet.
(Photo: Marta Wierzbicka)
(In Polish): Słońce zaszło,a ja jaszcze nie jadłem kolacji.

From Zach Weinersmith’s SMBC, an optical illusion (h/t Rick). Count the dots in the middle panel:

From Jesus of the Day:

A new MAAG hat sent by reader Charles, who added, “A reasonable hat, given inaction by Trump. The mutated, now dominant, strain of SARS-CoV-2 with a spike protein that seems to increase its R0 suggests 200,000 deaths by 11/2020 will be a lowball estimate.”

An overheated squirrel:

This is supposed to be bad?

Two tweets from Simon: First, a new lip syncher to go alongside Sarah Cooper. Meet Meggie Foster doing an incident at the last Democratic Socialists of America convention. (Note that she’s also reading Titania’s latest book.) The incident is real, and you can see it on video here (note the jazz hands).

Where was the line editor on this one?

From reader Barry, a physics lesson:

Tweets from Matthew. First: Cowlift!

It took me a minute to figure this one out:

This would have been better as a video: