Category: Hili Dialogue

Wednesday: Hili dialogue

April 30, 2025 • 6:45 am

Welcome to the last day of April, Wednesday, April 30, 2025, and a Hump Day (“Aho ‘o e Hump” in Tongan). It’s also National Bubble Tea Day, a clever invention which I much like (I love chewing on the tapioca balls). It was invented in Taiwan in the 1980s, but has now spread throughout the world.

Howief, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

 

It’s also Adopt a Shelter Pet Day, Mr. Potato Head Day (the first toy advertised on television), Bugs Bunny Day (he first appeared in a cartoon on this day in 1938), Denim Day (check the link), International Jazz Day, National Oatmeal Cookie Day, and National Raisin Day.

In honor of Jazz Day, here’s Bird and Diz in 1952, playing “Hot House”:

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

Da Nooz:

*Although I was glad that Trump favors Israel and criticized universities for creating a climate of antisemitism, I never though hard about why on earth he was worried about it. After all, Trump isn’t really notable as a Friend of the Jews. Now, the NYT’s Michelle Goldberg is explicit in saying, “I can’t believe anyone thinks Trump actually cares about antisemitism.” And I should have realized what she did:

Trump’s treatment of L.G.B.T. people should have been a lesson to anyone tempted to take his campaign against antisemitism seriously, when it is screamingly obvious that it’s just a pretext to attack liberal institutions. Trump and his allies, after all, have mainstreamed antisemitism to an astonishing degree. Elon Musk, to whom Trump has outsourced the remaking of the federal government, is perhaps the world’s largest purveyor of antisemitic propaganda, thanks to his website X. (My “for you” feed recently served me a post of a winsome young woman speaking adoringly of “the H man,” or Hitler.) Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the secretary of health and human services, once said the unvaccinated had it worse than Anne Frank. Just last month Leo Terrell, the head of Trump’s antisemitism task force, shared a social media post by a prominent neo-Nazi gloating that Trump had the power to take away Senator Chuck Schumer’s “Jew card.” Trump himself, of course, dined with the Hitler-loving rapper Kanye West and the white nationalist Nick Fuentes.

Yet I’ve been astonished to learn that some people believe that when the administration attacks academia for its purported antisemitism, it’s acting in good faith. Speaking on CNBC last week, Jonathan Greenblatt, the head of the Anti-Defamation League, cheered Trump’s attempt to exercise political control over Harvard, saying, “It is a good thing that President Trump is leaning in.” In a shocking interview with The New Yorker’s Isaac Chotiner, the Holocaust historian Deborah Lipstadt, who served as a special envoy to combat antisemitism under Joe Biden, praised Trump’s assaults on academia and its attempts to deport some pro-Palestinian activists. While in some cases she thinks the administration has gone overboard, she suggested that those who don’t give the president credit for standing up for Jews suffer from “Trump derangement syndrome.”

But then she says this:

It seems to me that there’s another sort of derangement at play here, rooted in the way Israel’s defenders conflate all but the mildest criticism of Israel with antisemitism. There have certainly been incidents of crude anti-Jewish bigotry in the protests that followed Hamas’s attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. But too many backers of Israel can’t seem to imagine a reason besides antisemitic animus for impassioned opposition to Israel’s merciless war on Gaza. This leads them to vastly overstate the scale of antisemitism on the left and, in turn, to rationalize away Trump’s authoritarianism as he attempts to crush progressive redoubts.

“Merciless war on Gaza?”  When Gaza has been shooting rockets at Israel for years, and finally conducted a brutal attack.  And put the “merciless” part (if that’s the way you construe it) at the door of Hamas, who has forced Israelis to fight them when they’re embedded among civilians. If Ms. Goldberg thinks Israel should provide material support to the enemy (Hamas gets most of the food), then she should also give her solution to the conflict. Would she want Hamas to stay in power? If not, how should Israel destroy it?

I’m not rationalizing away Trump’s authoritarianism, which is absolutely evident, and I do agree with her that Trump isn’t going after, say, colleges because he loves Jews, though I think there is an antisemitism problem on some campuses. But I do disagree with her when she implicitly blames Israel for what has happened to Gaza. Plenty of mercy was given by the IDF, which has produced the lowest ratio of civilian casualities to combatants in any modern war.

*Many of my friends are saying that Senator Chuck Schumer should resign because he voted along with Republicans to prevent the government shutdown. Someone even told me yesterday that he reads his speeches, which means that he’s too old!  But I’m not convinced of that, and I think voting to keep the government running was the right thing for him to do. The thought of him being replaced by AOC, who desperately wants more power, also makes me queasy.  But the WaPo describes how much pushback he’s received from that vote.

In the weeks since Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer infuriated much of his party by voting with Republicans to prevent a government shutdown, the New York Democrat has worked hard to repair the damage.

He called his fellow Democratic senators one by one. He spoke with Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-New York), who during the standoff pointedly declined to rule out challenging him in a primary. And he acknowledged that he needs a different strategy for the next funding fight.

But even at one of his most vulnerable moments in eight years leading Senate Democrats and more than four decades in Washington, Schumer, 74, remains convinced he was right.

In an interview in his office this month, Schumer defended his handling of the showdown with Republicans and imagined the flood of complaints he would be fielding if Democrats had forced a government shutdown.

“I would’ve said: ‘It’s a shutdown. You can’t do anything,’” Schumer said as the sun set behind him on the National Mall. “And then they would’ve said, ‘Why’d you let that happen?’ So I felt I did the right thing.”

Schumer was determined from the start to prevent a shutdown. He believed one could last nine months or longer, giving President Donald Trump and Elon Musk freer rein to slash the federal workforce. But Schumer, who prides himself on his ability to see around legislative corners, was surprised that House Republicans managed to pass a funding bill written without Democrats’ input despite the GOP’s perilously narrow majority. The House vote put Senate Democrats in a jam, giving them only days to decide whether to back a bill that included billions of dollars in cuts — or block it and risk triggering a government shutdown.

Schumer has argued for years that the party that instigates a shutdown gets blamed for it, and he has described his decision to support the bill as “no choice at all.” Still, the tense discussions among Democrats were uncomfortable for a conflict-averse senator who prizes consensus.

I think he’s right: the party held responsible for the shutdown creates bad “optics” for itself, which Democrats don’t need at a time when their optics are bad anyway.  I don’t want Schumer as President, but I see no issues with him staying on both in the Senate and as minority leader. Others will likely disagree.

*Trump has sort of reduced the tariffs on imported cars, but it’s too little and too late.

The Trump administration said it plans to announce measures as early as Tuesday to ease the effects of tariffs on imported cars and car parts to give automakers more time to relocate production to the United States.

Tariffs of 25 percent on imported vehicles and on auto parts will remain in place. But the tariffs will be modified so that they are not “stacked” with other tariffs, for example on steel and aluminum, a White House spokesman said. Automakers will not have to pay tariffs on those metals, widely used in automobiles, on top of the tariffs on cars and parts.

In addition, automakers will be reimbursed for some of the cost of tariffs on imported components. The reimbursement will amount to up to 3.75 percent of the value of a new car in the first year, but will be phased out over two years, the spokesman confirmed.

A 25 percent tariff on imported cars took effect April 3. On Saturday, the tariffs are set to be extended to include imported parts.

“President Trump is building an important partnership with both the domestic automakers and our great American workers,” Howard Lutnick, the commerce secretary, said in a statement. “This deal is a major victory for the president’s trade policy by rewarding companies who manufacture domestically, while providing runway to manufacturers who have expressed their commitment to invest in America and expand their domestic manufacturing.”

So what we have is a reduction in “stacked” tariffs, and perhaps a 3.75% reduction of value of the car, but there’s still a 25% tariff on the car as a whole, and you can bet that most of that will go directly to ther buyer.  I’m just glad my 2000 Honda Civic is still running now, as the prices of both new and used cars, already very high, is going to go up thousands of dollars more.

*Amazon was originally going to display the cost of tariffs when a consumer checked out, which could be considered a political move but I think was a move to let customers know that the company wasn’t raising prices to bilk them. Now however, and for reasons that might be obvious, they’ve decided not to implement that decision:

Amazon was forced to play down a report that it was considering displaying the impact of tariffs during its online checkout process after President Trump called company founder Jeff Bezos and the White House said such a move would be “a hostile and political act.”

The e-commerce giant said Tuesday it had considered displaying how much import charges would increase prices on its ultracheap shopping website Haul, but said the idea “was never approved and is not going to happen.”

Amazon also said it hadn’t considered the idea for the main Amazon site, and no changes had been implemented on any Amazon properties.

Yet the company’s response was too late to avoid White House involvement. Trump called Bezos to raise concerns after Punchbowl News reported that Amazon was planning to display the impact of tariffs during its online checkout process, according to people familiar with the matter.

Criticism from White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt sent company shares down in early morning trading.

“This is a hostile and political act by Amazon,” Leavitt told reporters. “Why didn’t Amazon do this when the Biden administration hiked inflation to the highest level in 40 years.”

Amazon declined to comment on the phone call between Trump and Bezos.

The company considered displaying import charges ahead of the Trump administration’s planned change starting May 2 to a popular tariff exemption, known as de minimis, for small shipments from China, according to a person familiar with the matter.

Trump can bully his way out of everything like this, and clearly Amazon is afraid of what Trump could do to them. Yet the effects of tariffs are going to linger for years, and, as you know, prices are sticky downward.

*From the AP’s reliable “oddities” section, we learn about German finger wrestling. Have a look at the photos in the article!: Men dressed in lederhosen, seated on opposite sides of a table,  hold onto a circular leather loop, with just their middle finger and try to pull their opponents over the table:

Men in short leather pants and embroidered suspenders risked dislocated digits as they vied for the top prize at Germany’s championship in the sport of fingerhakeln or finger wrestling.

Around 180 competitors took part in Sunday’s 64th German championship in Pang, which is about an hour’s drive southwest of Munich.

It’s thought that finger wrestling, popular in Germany’s Alpine region and neighboring Austria, originated as a way to settle disputes. The earliest depictions of the sport date to the 19th century. Participants wore the traditional Bavarian dress known as tracht.

Here’s how it looks:

What a world! What a world!

And this came up as the next video. I couldn’t resist. I missed 2 out of 25.  Take your chances and report below!

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Andrzej makes a botanical pun, but the adjective and flower names are both derived from the Greek myth

Hili: Not many of these narcissuses in the garden.
Andrzej: They know that I don’t love narcissists.
In Polish:
Hili: Mało tych narcyzów w ogrodzie.
Ja; One wiedzą, że nie kocham pięknoduchów.

 

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From I Love Cats:

From Richard:

From Things With Faces, an angry turkey:

Masih is back, highlighting the plight of an Iranian political prisoner (see here) about to be executed. His mother’s plea:

From Luana; This is why science journals should refrain from making political statements. Scientific American was a good case in point:

From Simon, another good New Yorker cover:

Barry Blitt’s cover for this week’s issue, “The First Hundred Days.” #NewYorkerCovers nyer.cm/ysrCZ47

— The New Yorker (@newyorker.com) 2025-04-28T16:20:30.068Z

From Malcolm: Uncle Lynx is here! Sound up; I hear some purring. .

From my feed. It’s well worth going through this thread:

From the Auschwitz Memorial, one that I reposted:

This did not, however, end the killings in the camps.

— Jerry Coyne (@evolutionistrue.bsky.social) 2025-04-30T10:06:28.219Z

Two posts from Dr. Cobb. First, because I was low, he sent me a leucistic male mallard to cheer me up:

Leucistic mallard #birds

— Laura Gordon (@laurabgordon.bsky.social) 2025-04-29T11:11:39.186Z

Another in the thread of store names that are puns:

An oldie but goodie.

— John Self (@john-self.bsky.social) 2025-04-26T11:06:16.838Z

Tuesday: Hili dialogue

April 29, 2025 • 6:45 am

Welcome to The Cruelest Day: Tuesday, April 29, 2025, so tomorrow is the last day of the month. It’s National Zipper Day.  Here’s a good short explanation of how zippers work, and I swear, I didn’t know until I saw this! Modern zippers were patented in the U.S. by Whitcomb L. Judson, a Chicago inventor, in 1892.

It’s also National Shrimp Scampi Day and National Rugelach Day, celebrating one of the few contributions of Jewish culture to world food cuisine. Here are rugelach cut open to show the filling of these crescent-shaped pastries:

Photo courtesy of Stu Spivack, CC BY-SA 2.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the April 29 Wikipedia page.

Da Nooz:

*The Goose Won.  

— Andy Craig (@andycraig.bsky.social) 2025-04-29T03:29:06.050Z

Mark Carney’s Liberal party won the Canadian elections, a consequential result that barely gets space in the NYT.

Prime Minister Mark Carney led his Liberal Party to a narrow victory in Canada’s pivotal election on Monday, securing a fourth term in power for the party and a renewed mandate to lead the fight against President Trump over trade and the nation’s sovereignty.

Mr. Carney, a former central banker who was running for office for the first time, struck a combative tone toward the United States during his acceptance speech in the early hours of Tuesday at a Liberal Party event in Ottawa.

It was unclear whether the Liberals would win a majority of seats in the next House of Commons, which would allow Mr. Carney to govern relatively unimpeded, or if his government would need to rely on smaller parties to support his legislative agenda.

Mr. Carney has not met Mr. Trump in person since becoming Liberal Party leader and prime minister last month. But he made Mr. Trump’s menacing comments about making Canada the 51st state and the tariffs he has imposed on Canadian goods the center of his campaign.

The two men held what was described as a professional call before the election, though Mr. Carney said during the campaign that Mr. Trump had brought up the 51st state threat during that conversation.

Mr. Carney has said that he will maintain Canada’s retaliatory tariffs against the United States. But he has cautioned that expanding them would harm Canadians more than they would pressure Americans.

. . . . . Mr. Carney’s victory was an extraordinary political comeback for the Liberals. Just a few months ago, they trailed the opposition Conservative Party under Pierre Poilievre by nearly 30 percentage points according to opinion polls, and it was widely expected that the Liberals faced a near-death experience.

But that was before Mr. Trump began talking about annexing Canada and imposing potentially crippling tariffs on the country.

It was also before Justin Trudeau, who many voters had soured on after nearly a decade in office, stepped down as prime minister.

Early in the campaign, polls started to suggest that the Conservatives’ sizable lead had evaporated and that the Liberals under Mr. Carney might be headed for a decisive win.

The Conservatives were leading by over points a few months ago, but fear of Trump, and greater confidence that Carney would deal with the American President better than would Poilievre.  We are losing our trasitional friendship and alliance with Canada, and it’s Trump’s fault. And it’s sad.

Here are the election results from the NYT:

And a tweet sent in by Matthew Cobb:

It's really hard to overstate how hugely favored conservatives were up until two months ago.Here's the graph of Canadian polling between March 2023 and March 2025. (Reminder: blue is conservative.)Those are months and months of 20+ point leads for Tories.

— Taniel (@taniel.bsky.social) 2025-04-29T02:21:21.222Z

*Illinois governor J. B. Pritzker seems to be stepping onto the road of being the next Democratic candidate for President.  Yesterday he spoke in New Hampshire, and certainly made pre-candidate noises with an excoriating attack on Trump:

In a fiery address to New Hampshire Democrats on Sunday night, Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker condemned what he described as President Donald Trump’s “authoritarian power grabs” while also blasting the “do-nothing” Democrats in his party — stating it is “time to fight everywhere, all at once.”

The billionaire Democratic governor repeatedly brought the crowd to its feet with acidic attacks on the morals and ethics of the president, adviser and top donor Elon Musk, as well as members of the president’s Cabinet. He slammed their efforts to dismantle government programs that the most vulnerable Americans rely on and said the Democratic Party must “abandon the culture of incrementalism that has led us to swallow their cruelty.” It is time for his party, he said, to “knock the rust off poll-tested language” that has obscured “our better instincts.”

Pritzker was most searing in his condemnation of what he cast as the Trump administration’s infringement on the rights enshrined in the Constitution, stating that it should be easy for Democrats to say, “It’s wrong to snatch a person off the street and ship them to a foreign gulag with no chance to defend themselves in a court of law.”

“Never before in my life have I called for mass protests, for mobilization, for disruption. But I am now,” Pritzker said to a standing ovation accompanied by whistles and cheers from the audience. “These Republicans cannot know a moment of peace. They must understand that we will fight their cruelty with every megaphone and microphone that we have. We must castigate them on the soap box and then punish them at the ballot box.”

. . . .Turning to his own party, Pritzker argued that Democrats have spent too long listening to voices who “would tell you that the house is not on fire, even as they feel the flames licking their face,” and called out politicians “whose simpering timidity served as a kindle for the arsonists.”

. . . In a 2028 field that is likely to be dominated by governors, Pritzker has positioned himself as one of the most forceful and consistent critics of Trump’s actions while pointing to his record in Illinois as a template for improving the lives of working-class voters.

Pritzker has been a good governor, and attacked Trump early on. What is lacking in the speech above is a program for Democrats; all he says is that Democrats haven’t been sufficiently aware of Trump’s dangers. But that alone won’t win elections.  It’s too early for Pritzker to start touting his accomplishments in our state, which are substantial and admirable, but up to now I thought he wasn’t interested in the Presidency.  Now I’m not so sure, and I, for one, would be in favor of his candidacy.

*Reader Debra sent me the tweet below, and I was puzzled. It must have been a fake ad, right?

But no! A Spectator piece by Jonathan Sacardoti, “Nike’s ‘never again’ slogan is a disgrace,” reveals that, while it may be unwitting and hamhanded, it’s an “insulting and profoundly distasteful” reference to the Holocaust. (The “never again” slogan is  well known referece to the mass slaughter of Jews during WWII.)

Fifty-six thousand runners completing the London Marathon yesterday may well have gasped the words ‘never again’ as they staggered across the finish line. I have never been a runner, but I imagine that even those who willingly endure the 26.2-mile ordeal must feel not only a profound sense of accomplishment but also, at the very least, a fleeting pang of regret.

Yet when I saw the Nike advertisement – hoisted from a crane like an executed Iranian dissident, swaying precariously in front of that modern-day emblem of our capital city, the London Eye – bearing the slogan “Never again. Until next year,” my mind immediately traveled to darker places. What, I wondered, has a running race to do with the Holocaust?

Only last week, my essay commemorating Yom HaShoah, the Jewish Holocaust memorial day, was published in these pages. It focused entirely on the solemn imperative embodied in the promise of “never again,” especially at a moment when Jews worldwide feel increasingly imperilled by a new, unashamed surge of hatred and discrimination. I argued that “never again” cannot simply be reduced to a catchphrase; that remembering the Holocaust is not itself sufficient to fulfil the pledge; that to honour it fully, we must recognise and confront contemporary manifestations of Jew-hatred.

. . .For a moment, I questioned myself. Perhaps I was overreacting. After all, can any single historical catastrophe – or any one persecuted group – claim exclusive ownership over a phrase? Perhaps Nike’s marketing team didn’t even think of the Shoah. Perhaps the creatives who conceived the idea – seated high in their glass towers – simply did not think along those lines. Never. Again. Just two simple words. What else might a runner exclaim upon crossing the finish line to collect a medal and a time slip? Perhaps their managers, toasting another advertising triumph over boozy lunches, were equally oblivious. Perhaps the technician who programmed the screen, and the team that hoisted it skyward for all to see, were simply unaware of the phrase’s gravest historical weight.

But then I remembered how upset it made people when anyone veered too close to ‘black lives matter’ or other popular slogans of our day. My anger only deepened. How could they? How could a giant like Nike – and all the many people involved between conception and execution – fail to recognise the most solemn and famous usage of those words? Or worse, perhaps they did, and decided it did not matter.

It is difficult to extend them the benefit of the doubt. It would have taken just one set of discerning eyes, one solitary voice, one ‘sensitivity reader’ to raise a gentle objection. Did not a single Jew suggest that it might be inappropriate? Did not a single non-Jew, with a grasp of history or an awareness of today’s climate, flag it? If not, why not? Was this ignorance, carelessness, or a chilling indifference?

Well, I will extend them the benefit of the doubt, simply because I cannot believe that they would appropriate a Holocaust trope to advertise a marathon.  Perhaps Nike will issue a statement.

*Somewhat frustrated in his attempt to deport people, Trump is, according to the WSJ, preparing a list of “sanctuary cities and states” that don’t cooperate with the Administration in deportations. This is done, of course, so he can promulgate more deportations as well as punish those who try to protect undocumented immigrants.

President Trump plans to sign an executive order on Monday escalating his battle against Democratic-led states and cities that don’t fully cooperate with federal immigration authorities, a key barrier to the mass deportations he has promised.

The order, which was viewed by The Wall Street Journal, directs the attorney general and the secretary of Homeland Security to identify within a month cities and states that aren’t complying with federal immigration laws, designating them as “sanctuary jurisdictions.”

The cities and states on the list could face a cutoff in federal funding and possible criminal and civil suits if they refuse to change their laws or practices.

“It’s quite simple: obey the law, respect the law, and don’t obstruct federal immigration officials and law-enforcement officials when they are simply trying to remove public safety threats from our nation’s communities,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Monday at a briefing alongside Tom Homan, Trump’s border czar.

Trump will also direct the Justice Department to pursue civil-rights cases against cities or states that, in its view, favor immigrants in the country illegally over U.S. citizens. The order cites policies that treat immigrants more leniently in criminal cases or sentencing and state laws that provide immigrants in-state tuition rates at public universities but deny the lower rates to out-of-state U.S. citizens. At least 25 states have adopted such laws in some fashion.

Sanctuary cities and states have become a major obstacle for Trump as he has sought to drive up deportations in line with his campaign pledge. Most immigrants in the country tend to cluster in large cities like New York, Chicago and Los Angeles, and the administration has a tougher time arresting those here illegally if local police refuse to assist.

I wonder if the American people, seeing the kind of deportations that have occurred, will change their stand from the opposition to illegal immigration (a stand that helped Trump win) to an anti-Trumpism reflecting disgust with how he’s carrying out his campaign promises.  There’s no doubt that the man is on a tear, and doesn’t have much to lose (save what reputation he has).  I do agree with many who thought the “border problem” needed fixing during the Biden administration, but I can’t imagine a worse way of doing that fix.

*Here is a passionate 10-minute speech by Natasha Hausdorff on overcoming the international hatred of Israel.  And it looks as if it was extemperaneous, since she’s not using or looking at notes.  I always feel heartened that a person that I am on the side of a person this learned, smart, and eloquent.

The YouTube notes explain a bit: “Natasha Hausdorff, UKLFI Charitable Trust Legal Director, addresses the inaugural International Policy Summit of the Jewish News Syndicate (JNS) at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in Jerusalem on Sunday, 27 April 2025, on ‘The UN and International Courts: Law, Legitimacy and Bias’.” (There’s a 12-minute interview with her at the same conference here.)

And, click on the screenshot below to see Fareed Zakaria’s take at CNN on how Trump’s assault on science, including discouraging immigrants who want to do science, is damaging America. Reader Pat, who sent me the link, describes it:

For his opening essay (take) on Sunday on CNN, Fareed Zakaria discussed the rise of science in the USA after WWII, the importance of immigrants to those efforts, the current dismantling by the Trump administration and the fact that those actions may have more long-term negative consequences for the country than things garnering all the attention, like tariffs.  The video is 5:41 long.

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili is pensive. Malgorzata explains, “Just that some decisions have unintended consequences and it would be better without them. They were not neededas they made the problem worse instead of better.”

Hili: We have to make a few important decisions.
A; Sometimes important decisions lead to unnecessary changes.
In Polish:
Hili: Musimy podjąć kilka ważnych decyzji.
Ja: Czasami ważne decyzje prowadzą do zbędnych zmian.
And a picture of Baby Kulka.

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

From Duck Lovers:

From America’s Cultural Decline Into Idiocy:  Look at that bill!

From Now That’s Wild. This cannot be real!

Masih is still quiet, but here’s JKR responding to a video interview, but actually she pens a long tweet in defense of classical feminism:

From Enrico: identity-based publication in the Harvard Law Review:

A funny one from reader Simon.

— George Conway 👊🇺🇸🔥 (@gtconway.bsky.social) 2025-04-25T18:30:19.432Z

From Malcolm. It’s very sad if true, but I always wonder if cats really express sorrow this way:

From my feed. It’s 100 seconds long but listen to the whole thing—it’s amazing!

From the Auschwitz Memorial, one that i reposted:

A Dutch Jewish girl, gassed to death upon arriving at Auschwitz. She was ten.

— Jerry Coyne (@evolutionistrue.bsky.social) 2025-04-29T11:53:37.082Z

Matthew’s getting some feline help with finishing up his biography of Francis Crick:

Pepper helping me with the last stages of proof-reading.

— Matthew Cobb (@matthewcobb.bsky.social) 2025-04-27T11:40:01.876Z

A thread of store names with puns. I like this one:

This is my favourite, the bar is very close to where I live.

— PeteZab (@petezab.bsky.social) 2025-04-27T09:08:59.995Z

Monday: Hili dialogue

April 28, 2025 • 6:45 am

Welcome to the last Monday in April: Monday, the 27th of April, 2025, and National Blueberry Pie Day. As always, I recommend that to get the best blueberry pie in the world, you must visit Helen’s Restaurant in Machias, Main, which uses a mixture of fresh and cooked lowbush blueberries–not the big, bland commercial kind but berries picked by hand, and all topped with a thick layer of whipped cream. Here’s a piece along with a glass of blueberry sangria (skip the sangria):

Photo by David Barker

It’s also Great Poetry Reading Day.  Here’s the Society of Classical Poets’ list of the Ten Greatest Poems Ever Written (note that they all rhyme, confirming my theory) and I’ll put below #1, which surely is at the top of the list of anyone with literary chops. You will recognize the author.  Read it to your boo:

Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer’s lease hath all too short a date:
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimm’d;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance, or nature’s changing course, untrimm’d;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st;
Nor shall Death brag thou wander’st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou grow’st;
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the April 28 Wikipedia page.

Da Nooz:

*The NYT says that is now understands what caused January’s collision between an Army helicopter and a local flight that killed 67 people.  It wasn’t one thing, but several.

As they flew south along the Potomac River on the gusty night of Jan. 29, the crew aboard an Army Black Hawk helicopter attempted to execute a common aviation practice. It would play a role in ending their lives.

Shortly after the Black Hawk passed over Washington’s most famous array of cherry trees, an air traffic controller at nearby Ronald Reagan National Airport alerted the crew to a regional passenger jet in its vicinity. The crew acknowledged seeing traffic nearby.

One of the pilots then asked for permission to employ a practice called “visual separation.” That allows a pilot to take control of navigating around other aircraft, rather than relying on the controller for guidance.

“Visual separation approved,” the controller replied.

The request to fly under those rules is granted routinely in airspace overseen by controllers. Most of the time, visual separation is executed without note. But when mishandled, it can also create a deadly risk — one that aviation experts have warned about for years.

On Jan. 29, the Black Hawk crew did not execute visual separation effectively. The pilots either did not detect the specific passenger jet the controller had flagged, or could not pivot to a safer position. Instead, one second before 8:48 p.m., the helicopter slammed into American Airlines Flight 5342, which was carrying 64 people to Washington from Wichita, Kan., killing everyone aboard both aircraft in a fiery explosion that lit the night sky over the river.

One error did not cause the worst domestic crash in the United States in nearly a quarter-century. Modern aviation is designed to have redundancies and safeguards that prevent a misstep, or even several missteps, from being catastrophic. On Jan. 29, that system collapsed.

“Multiple layers of safety precautions failed that night,” said Katie Thomson, the Federal Aviation Administration’s deputy administrator under President Joseph R. Biden Jr.

Some of the other screw-ups:

The helicopter crew appeared to have made more than one mistake. Not only was the Black Hawk flying too high, but in the final seconds before the crash, its pilot failed to heed a directive from her co-pilot, an Army flight instructor, to change course.

Radio communications, the tried-and-true means of interaction between controllers and pilots, also broke down. Some of the controller’s instructions were “stepped on” — meaning that they cut out when the helicopter crew pressed a microphone to speak — and important information likely went unheard.

Technology on the Black Hawk that would have allowed controllers to better track the helicopter was turned off.

It’s amazing that the NYT was able to figure all this out (given that it’s true) before the FAA did. But of course the FAA is doing a much more detailed investigation. You can bet that a lot of changes will be made, and some have already, in the operation of military helicopters around Reagan.

*In a NYT op-ed, writer David French argues that “Harvard may not be the hero we want, but it’s the hero we need.”  (The article’s archived here.) He starts this way: “Like many of its conservative alumni, I have a complicated relationship with Harvard.”  I’ll give an excerpt:

For the second year in a row, the Foundation for Individual Rights in Expression (where I served as president a number of years ago) has ranked Harvard last in the country in its annual free speech rankings. The environment, FIRE determined, was “abysmal.”

In 2023 the Supreme Court held that Harvard had engaged in unlawful racial discrimination in admissions. There was overwhelming evidence that Harvard discriminated against Asian American applicants.

Sign up for the Opinion Today newsletter  Get expert analysis of the news and a guide to the big ideas shaping the world every weekday morning. 

In addition, Harvard also responded horribly to the unrest that swept campus after the Hamas terrorist attacks on Oct. 7, 2023. Last summer, a federal judge appointed by Bill Clinton described the university’s response to antisemitic incidents said to have taken place on campus as “at best, indecisive, vacillating and at times internally contradictory.”

You might think that this record of censorship and discrimination would mean that I’d stand up and cheer at the Trump administration’s decision to withhold billions of dollars in federal funding from Harvard unless it made radical changes in policy and governance.

But I’m not pleased at all. The Trump administration has gone too far.

. . .At the core of the complaint [Harvard’s lawsuit] is a simple idea: No matter what you think of Harvard’s conduct, it still enjoys constitutional rights, and the Constitution does not permit the president to unilaterally wield the power of the purse to punish his political enemies.

To understand why even critics of Harvard should support Harvard’s lawsuit, perhaps an analogy is helpful. Imagine that there is strong evidence that a person committed a crime. Perhaps he shoplifted from a liquor store.

Months later, you see a police officer beating that person in the street. When you ask why, the officer responds that the man stole from a store and is getting exactly what he deserves.

Even a nonlawyer could immediately identify two problems. First, why are you punishing this person without a trial? Second, the punishment for shoplifting is a fine or short jail time; it’s not a public beating. Demanding that the officer stop his unilateral punishment doesn’t excuse the man’s theft, but it does restore respect for the law.

If Harvard failed to protect Jewish students from harassment, for example, Title VI of the Civil Rights Act would permit the federal government to take action against Harvard (and in fact, the Biden administration opened a civil rights investigation of Harvard in late 2023), but as Harvard’s complaint notes, Congress “set forth detailed procedures that the government ‘shall’ satisfy before revoking federal funding based on discrimination concerns.”

The Trump administration flouted all those procedures.

In addition, as much as any person might reasonably object to the overwhelming leftward tilt of Harvard’s faculty and student body, Harvard’s ideological composition is a choice for Harvard to make, not the federal government.

. . . . While we can applaud Harvard’s decision to confront Trump, the university still needs reform, given its recent history. Harvard’s stand might not make it the constitutional hero that we want, but it is the constitutional hero we need.

I think French is right.  I hope Harvard wins the lawsuit against the government for precisely the reasons he gives, but I also hope Harvard does enact the needed reforms.

*A BBC reporter has been outed as a pretty horrific antisemite from his social-media posts.  Did the BBC get rid of him? Guess!

BBC Arabic journalist Samer Elzaenen has called for Jews to be burned “as Hitler did,” The Telegraph quoted him as saying in a Saturday report.

Elzaenen, 33, who has been reporting from Gaza, has been posting a series of statements on social media that condemns Jewish people, and has also called for violence against them, the Telegraph added, noting that his social media activity in the past 10 years has endorsed and celebrated more than 30 attacks on Israeli Jewish civilians.

He has appeared on the Arabic-language branch of the UK public broadcaster more than a dozen times since Hamas’s terrorist attacks on October 7, 2023. He called the Hamas terrorists who entered Israel that day “resistance fighters.”

Elzaenen had also made similar statements in May 2011 on Facebook, the report added, quoting him saying: “My message to the Zionist Jews: We are going to take our land back, we love death for Allah’s sake the same way you love life. We shall burn you as Hitler did, but this time we won’t have a single one of you left.” 11 years later, he wrote on the social media source, “When things go awry for us, shoot the Jews, it fixes everything.”

The Telegraph noted a post the BBC contributor made over two years ago on a car ramming in Jerusalem that claimed the lives of two boys aged eight and six and a 20-year-old man, saying that the victims “will soon go to hell.”

Elzaenen is working as a freelance reporter for the BBC, or so I see, but a reporter sending news from Gaza shouldn’t be hired (actually, should be fired) if he’s compromised his integrity that way. But hey–it’s the BBC, Jake!

*The WSJ reports that, of all people, Republican lawmakers may scupper Trump’s big tax bill, which is coming up for passage.

Republicans pushed President Trump’s “big, beautiful” tax and spending package closer to the finish line with votes earlier this month approving a budget framework. But as lawmakers return to work this week, hard intraparty fights remain in writing and ironing out the multitrillion-dollar package.

Most GOP lawmakers are on board with the broader plan to extend expiring pieces of the 2017 tax law, introduce new tax breaks such as “no tax on tips,” boost border spending and cut other government outlays. Speaker Mike Johnson (R., La.) wants to get the bill finished by Memorial Day. Still, fights are smoldering over the details, and several small groups of lawmakers have painted certain issues as nonnegotiable.

Republicans are using a process called budget reconciliation that requires a simple majority in both chambers, which allows them to pass the package without Democratic votes. With the Senate split 53-47 and a House divided 220 to 213, any small group of Republican dissidents can block the broader GOP agenda.

These include the following groups (names are given in the article for each one):

A group of so-called budget hawks have hinged their support of the president’s reconciliation bill on the idea that the tax cuts must be paired with significant spending cuts. These Republicans are willing to allow some deficit increases because they assume that economic growth will cover some of the costs. But they’ve indicated that—even though they’ve moved the process along so far—they aren’t automatic yes votes.

. . .  One area likely to be targeted in the pursuit of steep spending cuts is Medicaid, a health insurance program that covers more than 70 million people who are low-income and is a big part of state budgets and the healthcare economy. There is a bloc of Republicans warning that deep reductions in coverage will hurt constituents and make GOP efforts to keep the House majority more difficult in 2026.

. . . A group of Republican lawmakers are vowing that their support for the Trump tax bill depends on raising the cap on state and local tax deductions, which was limited to $10,000 in 2017 as part of Trump’s tax law.

Republicans whose states and districts received billions in funding that went towards clean energy projects through the Biden administration’s Inflation Reduction Act are also warning party leaders against clawing back this funding and limiting tax credits that provide incentives. Such a clawback could be used to help offset the cost of other tax cuts, and Trump has repeatedly vowed to repeal the law.

All it would take to block the tax package would be three Republican senators or four Republican congresspeople defecting. Threats from Trump may not work on Republicans who think that they may not be re-elected unless they stand up for what their constituents want.  I predict the budget will pass, but what do I know?

*I am pretty sure that this kind of arrest and detaining before deportation was NOT what the American people had in mind when they weighed in against an excess of illegal immigration:

The [foreign-born immigrant] wife of an active-duty Coast Guardsman was arrested earlier this week by federal immigration authorities inside the family residential section of the U.S. Naval Air Station at Key West, Florida, after she was flagged in a routine security check, officials said Saturday.

“The spouse is not a member of the Coast Guard and was detained by Homeland Security Investigations pursuant to a lawful removal order,” said Coast Guard spokesperson Lt. Cmdr. Steve Roth in a statement confirming Thursday’s on-base arrest. “The Coast Guard works closely with HSI and others to enforce federal laws, including on immigration.”

According to a U.S. official, the woman’s work visa expired around 2017, and she was marked for removal from the United States a few years later. She and the Coast Guardsman were married early this year, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss an enforcement incident.

The official said that when the woman and her Coast Guard husband were preparing to move into their on-base housing on Wednesday, they went to the visitor control center to get a pass so she could access the Key West installation. During the routine security screening required for base access, the woman’s name was flagged as a problem.

Base personnel contacted the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, which looked into the matter, said the official. NCIS and Coast Guard security personnel got permission from the base commander to enter the installation and then went to the Coast Guardsman’s home on Thursday, the official said. They were joined by personnel from Homeland Security Investigations, a unit within Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

HSI eventually took the spouse into custody, and the official said they believe she is still being detained. Officials did not provide the name of the country she is from.

There needs to be a hearing before trying to deport someone—,always. Even if this case involves a “fake” marriage designed to keep the woman in the U.S. despite being here illegally, there still needs to be a hearing. Instead, the Navy and Homeland Security are keeping the woman in detention, probably without a lawyer.  This refusal to provide lawyers is one of the most offensive thing about these arrests.

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili is deeply concerned with truth.

Hili: Where is the truth?
A: I have a feeling that it’s under the apple tree but I may be wrong.
In Polish:
Hili: Gdzie jest prawda?
Ja: Mam wrażenie, że pod jabłonką, ale mogę się mylić.
And great a picture of Kulka and Szaron playing:

x

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

Here’s a photo I took in the freight elevator yesterday as I went down to do laundry. I think it looks like Abe Lincoln carrying a lantern.  Right?

From Duck Lovers:

From Meow. I have no cat so I’m home free:

 

Masih is still quiet and so we have JKR:

From Luana. While the correlation (0.06) may still be significant with this much data, it’s a lot lower than many of us think. Just throwing money at schools is not a soution:

From Simon, who says, “No comment needed.” Indeed! Bravo for Macron.

Macron shook one hand.

— Ron Filipkowski (@ronfilipkowski.bsky.social) 2025-04-26T13:45:10.390Z

From Malcolm: Inappropriate napping:

From my feed. I trust they extracted the toy!

From the Auschwitz Memorial, one I reposted:

A French Jewish girl gassed upon arrival at Auschwitz. She was just eight months old.

— Jerry Coyne (@evolutionistrue.bsky.social) 2025-04-28T09:48:03.443Z

Two posts from Dr. Cobb. He gives this one the comment “!!!”  Mine is: “It’s impossible, but if it were it might have feathers.”

Well now we've found the biggest grift yet in the de-extinction sphere

— Henry Thomas 🦤🏳️‍🌈 (@zhejiang0pterus.bsky.social) 2025-04-27T18:08:05.279Z

 

A new take on an old meme:

— Brian Williams (@briw74.bsky.social) 2025-04-27T15:03:47.302Z

Sunday: Hili dialogue

April 27, 2025 • 6:45 am

Welcome to Sabbath for goyische cats: it’s April 27, 2025 and we’re coming on to May.  It’s National Gummi Bear Day, a confection I used to love but no longer hanker for (I discovered them as a teenager in Germany). They were created in Germany in 1922. Here’s how they’re made:

It’s also Babe Ruth Day, the day in 1947 that the Bambino, fatally ill with cancer, was honored at Yankee Stadium.  He died the next year.  It’s also International Crow and Raven Appreciation Day, World Tapir Day, National Prime Rib Day, and National Devil Dog Day.

Here’s a short video on the Bambino and his day (you can hear his speech here).

Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the April 27 Wikipedia page.

Da Nooz:

*The WSJ reports that Trump and Zelensky finally met. It was brief, and occasioned by Pope Francis’s funeral, but here’s the latest (archived here):

In their first meeting since a shouting match in the Oval Office, President Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky sat face-to-face on simple chairs on marble floors near the Baptistery Chapel of St. Peter’s Basilica.

The two leaders were among 54 heads of state and 12 reigning monarchs who gathered in Rome Saturday for the funeral of Pope Francis. For Trump, who is at the center of an escalating global trade conflict and fraught negotiations to end two wars, the trip was bound to lead to some tense encounters.

Zelensky described it as a good meeting. “We discussed a lot one-on-one,” he wrote on X shortly after. Steven Cheung, the White House communications director, said the meeting was “very productive.”

The two leaders, looking earnest, sat close together without any staff or interpreters near them and spoke for 15 minutes below a painting of the baptism of Jesus. French President Emmanuel Macron and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer greeted them briefly.

Zelensky said they discussed a full and unconditional cease-fire as well as conditions for a lasting peace. He added it had the potential to become a “historic” meeting and thanked Trump.

Lord, what could have happened in 15 minutes? I do not have a good feeling about it.  But at least Trump continues to criticize Putin, going after him for firing at Kiev.

Trump later criticized Russian President Vladimir Putin in a post on social media, threatening to hit Moscow with further sanctions. “There was no reason for Putin to be shooting missiles into civilian areas, cities and towns, over the last few days. It makes me think that maybe he doesn’t want to stop the war, he’s just tapping me along, and has to be dealt with differently,” he said.

Yes, that sounds about right: Putin, who doesn’t care how many Russian or North Korean soldiers die in the battle for Ukraine, doesn’t want a cease-fire unless it includes a juicy slice of eastern Ukraine.  And I can’t imagine the war ending without that happening–unless Putin wants all of Ukraine. Nobody seems able or willing to stop him, and that, of course, will hearten China in its hunger for Taiwan.

*Two more deportation nightmares, including a U.S. citizen, a girl born here, are in play. The bolding is mine, as ICE’s behavior outrages me:

 Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents have in recent days deported a Cuban-born mother of a 1-year-old girl, separating them indefinitely, and in another case a 2-year-old girl who is a U.S. citizen along with her Honduran-born mother, their lawyers say.

Both cases raise questions about who is being deported, and why, and come amid a battle in federal courts over whether President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown has gone too far and too quickly at the expense of fundamental rights.

Lawyers in the two cases described how their clients were arrested at routine check-ins at ICE offices, given virtually no opportunity to speak with lawyers or their family members and then deported within two or three days.

A federal judge in Louisiana raised questions about the deportation of the 2-year-old girl, saying the government had not proven that it had done so properly.

The American Civil Liberties Union, National Immigration Project and several other allied groups said in a statement that that case and another in New Orleans that involves deporting children who are U.S. citizens are a “shocking – although increasingly common -– abuse of power.”

Lawyers for the girl’s father insisted he wanted the girl to remain with him in the U.S., while ICE contended the mother had wanted the girl to be deported with her to Honduras, claims that weren’t fully vetted by U.S. District Judge Terry Doughty in Louisiana.

Doughty in a Friday order scheduled a hearing on May 16 “in the interest of dispelling our strong suspicion that the Government just deported a U.S. citizen with no meaningful process,” he wrote.

The Honduran-born mother was arrested Tuesday along with the 2-year-old girl and her 11-year-old Honduran-born sister during a check-in appointment at an ICE office in New Orleans. Both the mother and 11-year-old girl apparently had outstanding deportation orders. The family lived in Baton Rouge.

. . .In Florida, meanwhile, a Cuban-born woman who is the mother of a 1-year-old girl and the wife of a U.S. citizen was detained at a scheduled check-in appointment at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement office in Tampa, her lawyer said Saturday.

Heidy Sánchez was held without any communication and flown to Cuba two days later. She is still breastfeeding her daughter, who suffers from seizures, her lawyer, Claudia Cañizares, said.

Cañizares said she tried to file paperwork with ICE to contest the deportation Thursday morning but ICE refused to accept it, saying Sánchez was already gone, although Cañizares said she doesn’t think that was true.

In the case of the girl/citizen, it needs to be made clear who the girl wants to be with, and really, is a two-year-old competent to make that decision? Nope, so just send her away with her mother. In the Cuban case, it’s not clear why the mother was deported, but separating a mother and 1-year-old child nearly instantly is simply cruel. Both of these cases involve depriving the deported from legal help, and one involves deporting a young U.S. citizen (the father seems to be an undocumented immigrant.  The solution to all of these is to have a legal hearing and adhere to the motto: “no deportation with hearings and legal assistance to those who have been detaiined.”  The cruelty and illegality of ICE’s behavior is beyond belief. It falls at Trump’s doorstep, and I don’t think this is what the American people wanted when they figured a curb on illegal immigration into their votes last November.

*UNRWA, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian refugees, a beehive of terrorism and anti-Israel propaganda, has been stripped of its legal immunity by the Trump Administration. This means that Americans can now sue it, and they’re doing that already.

The U.S. Department of Justice told the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York on Thursday that the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees has been stripped of its legal immunity.

The decision was taken as part of a case filed last year in which families of victims of the Hamas-led terrorist attacks in Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, sued UNRWA for its ties to terrorism. Israel has said that at least 18 UNRWA staff members took part directly in the assault across the Gaza border into southern Israel.

The plaintiffs also allege long-term fraud and corruption in handling financial aid routed through UNRWA into the Gaza Strip—$1 billion of which critics say has fallen into the hands of Hamas and other terror groups.

“The complaint in this case alleges atrocious crimes committed by Hamas on Oct. 7, and its factual allegations, taken as true, detail how UNRWA played a significant role in those heinous offenses,” the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York wrote to the U.S. district judge Analisa Torres.

“Previously, the government expressed the view that certain immunities shielded UNRWA from having to answer those allegations in American courts,” per the filing. “The government has since re-evaluated that position and now concludes that UNRWA is not immune from this litigation. Nor are the bulk of other defendants.”

The claim by the U.S. attorney’s office added that UNRWA is not legally considered an affiliated organ of the United Nations since it was formed and continues to hold its mandate as a result of a resolution by the U.N. General Assembly. The U.S. Justice Department said the General Assembly may have lacked the authority to create the agency.

. . .If found not to have immunity, UNRWA, its leaders and employees—and perhaps the United Nations at large—could be ordered to pay large compensation to victims and their families.

Stripping diplomatic immunity from UNRWA might also call into question the future of U.N. headquarters in New York and could impact the Knesset’s decision, effective this past January, to ban UNRWA from operating within Israeli territory.

The UN disagrees, of course, but I’d be delighted if UNRWA, an organ of hatred and propaganda, were put out of business, and its task bundled in with the other UN refugee organization (Palestine is the only territory to have its own refugee organization, and you’ve probably read my posts on UNRWA’s unsavory activities.

*Andrew Sullivan is a Catholic, of course, and if you’re nonreligious you may find his latest piece, “Why I loved Pope Francis,” a bit cloying (The subtitle is “Yes, love is the right word”) but I read it because I pay for it. I know very little about the man save that he’s the prime purvey of a widespread delusion but was also humble, abstemious, and apparently devoted to uplifting individual humans.  I don’t know from Popes, but he seemed to be a decent specimen of the genre.  And of course Sullivan loved him. A few quotes:

Now, here was a man who referred to himself as merely a “bishop for the diocesan community of Rome” and who asked us, the faithful, to pray to God for him. He wore simple vestments, eschewing the intricate and fabulous outfits of his predecessor, remarking as he turned them down: “The Carnival is over.” After the flinty Pole and the prissy German, here, at last, was a warm Italian again, like John XXIII — even though he was from Argentina.

His voice was clear but quiet and softly pitched. And then, rather than assert papal authority as Benedict had done so often and so rigidly, he sought a simple moral authority — by embracing the grotesquely disfigured, listening intently to small children, washing the feet of male and female prisoners, eschewing the Papal palace for a simple apartment, and inviting transgender men and women on the streets to lunch with him in the Vatican.

Faith for Francis was not rigidity, it was not always certain, and it was not words. It was a way of life, of giving, of loving, of emptying oneself to listen to God without trying to force a conclusion — of discernment, as the Jesuits like to say. . .

. . .The church needs doctrine, it needs an infallible magisterium, and those who want this to suddenly change are guilty of a category error. Francis didn’t change an iota of doctrine, to some “progressive” dismay. But he did something more important. He reminded us that doctrine without love is what Jesus rejected.

And he insisted that faith without doubt was not faith at all:

In this quest to seek and find God in all things there is still an area of uncertainty. There must be. If one has the answers to all the questions — that is the proof that God is not with him.

For those who seek in Catholicism a psychological, intellectual, and even political anchor, Francis was maddening. He told them not to be so certain. He told them there was room for dialogue, that the clergy were too full of themselves, and that there were no areas where conversation could not happen. There was divine truth and then there was the mess of human existence, and the church was about where the two meet, denying neither, a field-hospital full of groans and blood, not a pristine, distant, well-kept Cathedral. After the authoritarian papacies of John Paul II and Benedict XVI, it felt as if window had opened and the fetid air banished.

Sullivan said he almost left Catholicism because of its pervasive scandals, but stayed for two reasons: “AIDS and his belief in the tenets of Catholicism: “Because I never lost my faith in Jesus or the Gospels or the Church itself, regardless of its all-too-human priesthood. In fact, I had found faith indispensable to surviving the devastating young death I saw all around me in my twenties and thirties and also faced myself.”

Faith needs doctrine, of course. But it also needs doctrinal perspective — and the obsessive focus on relatively minor issues, like communion for faithful but divorced Catholics rather than, say, the far harder commands to love one’s enemy or to renounce all wealth, is more neurosis than religion. In fact, for faith to live in and respond with new language to modernity, it needs the space Francis has created to breathe again, to get away from petty certainties and doctrinal spats, to discern and embrace the unruly freedom of wherever God seems to be leading us.

And the very person of Francis showed to many, far beyond the ranks of Catholics, that in seeking meaning, the weird, strange figure of Jesus of Nazareth still beckons us, is still essential, still there. Francis showed us this meaning, as Jesus did, not by what he said so much as how he lived. Religion, as Oakeshott put it,

Well, I’m sorry to say that Jesus is not essential for me, and I doubt whether he even existed as a person, much less God made Man.  It always puzzles me when Sullivan professes to accept all of these unevidenced tenets of a rather rigid faith, and he’s never explicit in what tenets he does believe. The essay shows, as always, that Sullivan is a smart and eloquent man. And this makes me even more puzzled, because the part of his rational faculties that keeps him from committing his life ot what is likely a total falsehood seems to have disappeared.

*The latest in the Spring, 2025 series of Futile Pro-Palestinian demonstrations was at the City College of New York (CCNY) campus in Harlem.

CUNY public safety officers and the NYPD quickly quashed an attempt by students to establish a ‘Liberated Zone’ on the quad of City College of New York on Thursday afternoon.

A group of several dozen pro-Palestinian protesters on the campus announced they’d set up a “liberated zone” around 2 p.m. but were swiftly confronted by CUNY officers who forced them out of the area, dousing some in pepper spray. At least one student was arrested, an NYPD spokesperson later confirmed.

One video posted by a photojournalist Marcos Gabriel Quiñones showed a CUNY officer waving the pepper spray at the crowd, which also appeared to waft onto an adjacent public safety officer who covered his face, backing away from the students.

One CUNY undergraduate student named Aria, who declined to give her name and age because of worries about retaliation from administrators, said she’d hopped a fence to avoid the cloud.

“They began indiscriminately pepper spraying us,” she said.

Yes, it’s protest seasons again, and you can get an idea of the scene by watching this tweet:

These are getting boring. It’s always the same: masked, cowardly protestors (it can’t be civil disobedience), megaphones, chants, drums, and kiffeyehs.  This is not going to lead to what the protestors want: divestment, and one wonders what they think they’ll accomplish.  Of course I didn’t know whether it was useful when I protested during the Vietnam War, but I think the huge crowds helped because the cause was moral (an unjust war), was shared by many Americans, and because Walter Cronkite was on our side.

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili is waxing philosophical.  I have put linke to her references:

Hili: Did Cassandra know Murphy’s Law?
A: That’s unlikely.
Hili: Still, she was always right.
In Polish:
Hili: Czy Kasandra znała prawo Murphiego?
Ja: To mało prawdopodobne.
Hili: A jednak zawsze miała rację.

And a photo of Szaron:

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

From Things With Faces, an elephant-shaped strawberry:

From Jesus of the Day: a clothing tag

 

From Wholesome Memes:

 

Masih reports a big explosion in an Iranian port, and you can see more about it here (it’s now over 700 injured). It seems as if a fire ignited containers of missile fuel, and also that it was an accident, not an attack by Israel. We’ll know more later, but you can see a short video of the moment of explosion below the tweet.

The explosion:

From Larry the Cat via Simon: another possible Trupmian gaffe:

"Do you even own a black suit?"

— Larry the Cat (@number10cat.bsky.social) 2025-04-26T11:51:26.839Z

A peeved cat from Malcolm:

From Luana. Remember, the people who were killed in Kashmir were tourists—all but one of the 26 killed from India.  Murder of tourists is not “resistance”, but count on SJP to glorify it.  Since both India and Pakistan claim Kashmir, but India controls it at present, it would be “occupied” no matter who was in control.  But apparently you can’t say you are on the Palestinian side unless you okay the murder of Indian tourists.

From my feed, chickens mimicking mops:

One from the Auschwitz Memorial that I reposted:

A Czech Jewish girl died in Auschwitz; she was seven years old.

— Jerry Coyne (@evolutionistrue.bsky.social) 2025-04-27T10:16:14.390Z

Two posts from Dr. Cobb. First, I didn’t know that Milwaukee had a famous duck (everyone loves hens and their broods!) I sure wish Honey had a statue like this:

Awesome animal history encounter in Milwaukee:Statues of Gertie the mallard and her ducklings on the Wisconsin Ave bridge over Milwaukee River.She became a sensation in May 1945 for nesting in a piling and having her ducklings there.

— Dolly Jørgensen (@dollyjorgensen.bsky.social) 2025-04-26T15:41:54.861Z

Click to read about Gertie:

I hope they left the prints in the cement:

A modern re-make of a Roman tile makers experiences, in Gaul circa 120 AD.

— Pighill (@pighill.bsky.social) 2025-04-25T07:35:06.305Z

Friday: Hili dialogue

April 25, 2025 • 6:45 am

Welcome to Friday, April 25, 2025, the last Friday in April, and National DNA Day, for it was this day in 1953, that the papers on the structure of the molecule were published in Nature.  Here’s the most famous one:

Here’s an image of the DNA double helix taken with an electron microscope. Amazing stuff goes on there.

Electron microscope photograph of DNA’s double-helix structure. Credit: Enzo di Fabrizio

It’s also ANZAC Day, National Crayola Day (remember “burnt umber”?), National Plumber’s Day (which plumber is being celebrated?), Holocaust Remembrance Day, National Hairball Awareness Day, National Steak Day (in the UK), National Zucchini Bread Day (gag), and, best of all, World Penguin Day.  Here’s a photo of a colony I took in 2019:

Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the April 25 Wikipedia page.

Da Nooz: Once again the nooz may be truncated, this time due to duck issues (stay tuned; they are okay, I think).

*Well, Trump’s peacemaking efforts in the Ukraine (“The war will be over on Day One when I take office”, Trump said) isn’t coming to much. Russia launched a big-time attack on Kyiv, and Trump rebuked Putin. That, of course, won’t stop Putin, who badly wants Ukraine. (Article archived here.)

Russia killed at least 12 people and injured 90 others in a huge attack on the Ukrainian capital early Thursday, prompting President Trump to issue a rare public critique of Moscow just hours after he lashed out at President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine.

The assault was the deadliest on the capital, Kyiv, since last summer. Explosions shook buildings and sent more than 16,000 people into the subway system to take shelter; clouds of smoke rose over the city as the sun came up.

One missile hit a two-story building with 12 apartments where emergency workers hunted for survivors. A five-story building next door lost all its windows. People stood outside, staring at the damage and talking on their phones, telling loved ones that they were alive. No military target was visible nearby.

Mr. Zelensky said nearly 70 missiles, including ballistic ones, and about 150 attack drones had targeted cities across the country — although Kyiv was hit the hardest.

Before cutting short a trip to South Africa, Mr. Zelensky said at a news conference there that he saw no indication Russia was being pressured to agree to a cease-fire. He said that with more pressure brought on Moscow, “we will be able to get closer to a complete, unconditional cease-fire.” To him, Mr. Zelensky added, the attack on Kyiv instead appeared intended to pressure the United States.

Lord knows what Trump is doing here, nor do I quite get why

*From the WSJ: “Tipping is everywhere and consumers are fed up. Here’s how some are coping.” (Article archived here.)

The issue:

Tipping quandaries are causing discomfort at checkout counters, sparking fights between spouses and sullying the enjoyment of eating out.

More than 1,000 readers responded to a recent Wall Street Journal article showing that Americans are tipping less than they have in years. Some vented over being asked to tip for transactions as basic as fetching bottled water from a cooler. Others balked at service charges creeping into the fine print of their restaurant checks. Several wished America would follow other countries and include service in meal prices.

Many shared their own tipping strategies: pushing back on proliferating prompts for tips, keeping gratuities cash-only and raising their standards for tip-worthy service. Eating out less or ordering fewer items are other solutions.

Some solutions:

During a recent fishing and hunting trip to South Texas, David Savage surveyed his friends on tipping. Their consensus: Service has declined—and so has their generosity.

Savage, a 64-year-old retired energy executive, too frequently finds his restaurant orders arrive with errors, or take forever. His server forgets to fill his iced tea glass, while his wife’s salad drowns in dressing.

“These servers seem to resent being there or are clearly overworked with too many tables,” said Savage, who eats out multiple times a week. Poor service knocks Savage’s tip to 10% from his standard 18% to 20%, and he won’t return.

Industry data shows that consumer views of full-service restaurants have improved since the pandemic, but Journal readers aired plenty of gripes. Many respondents said they are less patient with bad service or irked about ordering via QR codes, and aren’t afraid to tip less in response.

I haven’t noticed an increase in bad service, and my lowest tip is 15%, but my usual tip at restaruants is 20%.  I do resent being asked by a machine to tip when I am, say, buying a $2.00 baguette in a bakery.  If people think that servers deserve more, no matter how bad they are or how little they do, I think we should go to the European system of raising prices and giving servers a living wage. Some places already do that, but how do you know?  I’d be glad to pay more for food than have to deal with figuring out tips.

Janet Fannin tips restaurant servers, maids and the hairdresser. But the 60-year-old retired occupational therapist draws the line at other businesses, like minimarts or her local soap store.

“I pay the bill and that’s where it ends,” said Fannin, of Cathlamet, Wash. She still tips generously when eating out, recalling when she earned $2 an hour as a waitress in the 1980s.

Many say they’re wearied by digital tipping prompts spun around on screens at coffee shops and concession-stand counters. A survey of around 1,500 adults by market-research firm Intouch Insight found that 46% of consumers dislike the specific tip percentages suggested by digital screens. Only 13% found them helpful.

I hate those digital tipping prompts, so I join the majority about that.  Fortunately, I tip mostly when I get a haircut (20%) or when eating out (usually 20%), but neither of those involve those %^&&%)(^?,%-^@+> screens!

*I have to say that although I think RFK Jr. was Trump’s worst appointment, I am in favor of getting rid of petroleum-based food dyes, many of which, I hear, are banned in Europe. There are plenty of plant-based dyes that have been tested and can add color to food. The science on the dyes we use now, says the WaPo, seems equivocal in some cases:

The Department of Health and Human Services said Tuesday that it plans to phase out petroleum-based food dyes from the nation’s food supply. Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the health secretary, has called the dyes “poison” and long blamed artificial additives for chronic disease and illness in the United States.

Companies add dyes to food, such as candy, cereals, drinks and snacks, for brighter, attractive colors. The dyes are either natural, such as red beet juice, or synthetic.

“The ingredients used in America’s food supply have been rigorously studied following an objective science and risk-based evaluation process and have been demonstrated to be safe,” Melissa Hockstad, the chief executive of Consumer Brands Association, a food industry trade group, said in a statement. “Removing these safe ingredients does not change the consumer packaged goods industry’s commitment to providing safe, affordable and convenient product choices to consumers.”

But consumer advocacy groups said there is sufficient evidence that the dyes may cause some harm to some children. They argue that artificial dyes are not worth the potential risk given their lack of nutritional value.

“From the vantage point of consumers, it boils down to why do we want to take a chance on these things when it comes to the health of our children?” said Brian Ronholm, director of food policy at Consumer Reports. “Even if it doesn’t technically point to causing cancer, there is risk involved in terms of how it impacts neurobehavior in children.”\

Note that the speaker here is with Consumer Reports, a reputable organization.

The Washington Post spoke with food scientists and nutrition experts to answer questions about the synthetic dyes in food.

Here’s one case:

In January, under the Biden administration, the Food and Drug Administration banned red dye No. 3 in food. The dye, which gives food a cherry-red color, has been linked to cancer in animals.

In 1990, the agency banned the use of the red dye in cosmetics because preliminary animal research suggested a link to thyroid cancer. The FDA has said there’s no evidence that ingesting the coloring causes cancer in humans. The agency said its decision was based on a federal law prohibiting additives found to cause cancer in humans or animals at any dose.

. . . In some studies, synthetic food dyes used in the United States have been associated with hyperactivity and behavioral effects in children.

In 2021, the Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment in California published a review of seven food dyes such as red dye No. 3, red dye No. 40 and yellow dye No. 5. The review concluded that the consumption of food with added dyes is associated with hyperactivity, restlessness and other neurobehavioral problems in some children, though sensitivity can vary.

“They’re not needed,” said Alyson Mitchell, a professor and food chemist at the University of California at Davis and a co-author of the California review. “They don’t present the consumer with any benefit. Only a potential risk.”

I’d have to see the studies, especially in humans, but all in all I would prefer my food to have either no dyes or safe vegetable dyes.  The NYT article on this (archived here) says that change will be slow, if it even happens. Go see the NYT article to compare Canadian Froot Loops with American ones.

*Trump’s orders have been overturned in court again, but it’s a lower federal court.

 A judge on Thursday blocked the Trump administration from immediately enacting certain changes to how federal elections are run, including adding a proof-of-citizenship requirement to the federal voter registration form.

President Donald Trump had called for that and other sweeping changes to U.S. elections in an executive order signed in March, arguing the U.S. “fails to enforce basic and necessary election protections” that exist in other countries.

U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly in Washington sided with voting rights groups and Democrats to grant a preliminary injunction to stop the citizenship requirement from moving forward while the lawsuit plays out.

She also blocked part of the Republican president’s executive order requiring public assistance enrollees to have their citizenship assessed before getting access to the federal voter registration form.

But she denied other requests from a group of Democratic plaintiffs, including refusing to block Trump’s order to tighten mail ballot deadlines. Also denied in the order was the Democrats’ request to stop Trump from directing the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Government Efficiency to review state voter lists alongside immigration databases.

The judge’s order halts the Trump administration’s efforts to push through a proof-of-citizenship mandate that Republicans have said is needed to restore public confidence in elections. Voting in federal elections by noncitizens is already illegal and can result in felony charges and deportation.

Almost all of this is going to go up to the Supremes, and I have to say that I have some confidence in Roberts, at least, even though he’s a conservative. He’s made statements about the judiciary having to maintain its power and reputation, and they’re not going to do that by ruling against the Constitution. About the Constitutionality of these election laws, I don’t know.

*At the WaPo, columnist Perry Bacon has a clickbaity piece called, “Democrats need to win moderates. This is how”  (article archived here). I can’t resist a piece like that because I want the Democrats to win and not blow it.  He lists five different kinds of “moderation”, and I’ll give just two examples, which come with suggested candidates for each strategy:

A lot of political commentary implies there is a moderate or centrist playbook that aspiring Democrats can easily follow and win.

The reality is more complicated. Democratic candidates are winning in red and purple areas across the country. Not all is lost. But they are using a variety of tactics and strategies. The real question for Democratic candidates and the party overall isn’t whether to appeal to moderate voters (of course they should) but how.

There are at least five kinds of Democratic moderation.’

Bipartisanship/not being too anti-Republican

Examples: former president Joe Biden, Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar, Nevada Sen. Jacky Rosen, Slotkin

Potential 2028 candidate: Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer

Upside: appeals to anti-Trump Republicans

Downside: may annoy progressive base; minimizes threat of the right

These politicians are stalwart Democrats but take pride in maintaining relationships with some Republican politicians and being able to reach agreements with them. This approach sometimes helps them attract independents and swing voters, including some Trump-skeptical Republicans.

But not always. Biden’s poll numbers dropped dramatically in his first two years in office, even though he repeatedly signed bipartisan bills into law. The endorsements of former Republican congresswoman Liz Cheney and other prominent anti-Trump conservatives didn’t help Harris much last year.

This strategy comes with a substantive cost. To court Republican voters and lawmakers, these Democrats at times downplay the extremism of today’s GOP.

. . . . .Centrism on cultural-social issues

Examples: Clinton, Texas Rep. Henry Cuellar, Arizona Sen. Ruben Gallego, New York Rep. Tom Suozzi

Potential 2028 candidates: former Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, California Gov. Gavin Newsom

Upside: could appeal to culturally conservative swing voters

Downside: bad on policy; may depress progressive vote

In his 1992 campaign, Clinton defended the use of the death penalty, distanced himself from Jesse Jackson and took other steps to address the perception that the Democratic Party was too liberal on values issues. Many centrist Democrats believe the party needs a similar repositioning now, to connect with voters who are more conservative on immigration, policing and transgender rights in particular.

In his Senate campaign last year, Gallego criticized the Biden administration for not doing enough to stop illegal immigration. His approach seemed to pay off, with Gallego winning in Arizona while Harris lost there by six percentage points.

The potential upside of this strategy is obvious. There are more White Americans than people of color; more native-born than naturalized citizens; more who are heterosexual and cisgender than LGBTQ+. Being the party that defends minorities almost certainly turns off majority groups.

There are three more forms of appealing to moderates, each with candidates and upsides and downsides. This is a column worth reading and thinking about.  One of them is my erstwhile favorite Democrat, Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer, who falls in the “bipartisanship/not being too anti-Republican” class.

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili is curious:

Hili: What secrets are hidden in this box?
A: Old papers which somebody may ask about sometime.
In Polish:
Hili: Jakie tajemnice ukrywa ta skrzynia?
Ja: Stare papiery, o które ktoś kiedyś może zapytać.

And a photo of Baby Kulka about to pounce:

 

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

From The Dodo Pet:

From Cats and Coffee, cartoon by Scott Metzger:

From Jesus of the Day, a new ice cream flavor:

Masih is still quiet, so we get JKR, always good for some amusement as well as defense of women’s rights. Here she takes up the quesiton of whether sex is “bimodal” (answer: not really). Do watch the video:

From Luana: two more tweets:

From Malcolm.   I  think I’ve been to this place, which looks like Torres del Paine National Park–one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever seen.

From my feed: sexual dimorphism (but the lioness does all the heavy lifting!):

From the Auschwitz Memorial, one that I reposted:

This Polish Jew lived but one week in Auschwitz.

— Jerry Coyne (@evolutionistrue.bsky.social) 2025-04-25T09:51:01.654Z

Two posts from Dr. Cobb. I’ll see if I can post on the first paper:

New genomic & genetic insights into Mendel’s pea genes, including previously uncharacterised alleles159 years after Mendel published his work, this is a real delight (especially for a geneticist)🧪@nature.com http://www.nature.com/articles/s41…

— Magdalena Skipper (@magdalenaskipper.bsky.social) 2025-04-24T05:37:58.954Z

Vicious comb jellies (ctenophores). There’s a thread.

Watching animals eat is like my biology crack. I don’t need it, I don’t have to do it, I don’t even always like it, but there’s just something about critters noshing on one another that leaves me gobsmacked. And nothing does it like the comb jelly Beroe [Thread 🧵]📽️ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1xkN…

— Rebecca R Helm (@rebeccarhelm.bsky.social) 2025-04-21T20:55:33.379Z

Here’s a full YouTube video of ctenophores nomming other ones:

Thursday: Hili dialogue

April 24, 2025 • 6:45 am

Thank goodness most of my major tasks for the week have been done, and now it’s Thursday, April 24, 2025, and National Pigs-in-a-Blanket Day. These are tasty miniature hot dogs, ideally wrapped in croissant dough: a favorite at adult parties in the Fifties. I haven’t seen one since I was a shaver, but here they are from Wikipedia:

You do not put mustard on them, even in Chicago!

Johnson524, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons

It’s also Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day (yes, Cenk, it happened), and World Day for Laboratory Animals. It always makes me sad to think about them. Here’s a monument to the cats used for lab experiments at the University of St. Petersburg. I (actually someone else) took this at a meeting in Russia in 2011.  At least the cats were honored, though that didn’t help them.

There’s a Google Doodle today with an “April Half Moon” theme, and if you click on it (below) you can play a game against an online opponent (I haven’t tried it):

Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the April 24 Wikipedia page.

Da Nooz: will be short today as I’m still doing writing and also had a new laptop installed and tweaked. Bear with me!

*J. D. Vance, for whom I’ve lost every shred of respect, has not finished humiliating Ukraine’s president Zelensky. Now he’s told Zelensky that Ukraine better accept the U.S. terms for a peace deal with Russia–or else. And they are of course terms that favor Russia.

Vice President JD Vance on Wednesday called on Ukraine to accept an American peace proposal that closely aligns with longstanding Russian goals, including a “freeze” of territorial lines in the three-year war, acceptance of the annexation of Crimea by Russia and a prohibition on Ukraine becoming part of the NATO alliance.

It was the first time a U.S. official had publicly laid out a plan to end the war that favors Russia in such stark terms.

A peace plan that leaves Russian forces deep inside eastern Ukraine would be welcome news in Moscow. President Vladimir V. Putin has said for almost year that he would accept a cease-fire in which Ukraine withdraws troops from the four regions that Russia has claimed as its own and drops its aspirations to join NATO.

The comments by the vice president appeared designed to increase pressure on President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine, who has long refused to accept Russian’s occupation of his country’s lands, including the seizure of Crimea in 2014 and territory taken by Russia after it invaded Ukraine in early 2022.

In a second blow to Mr. Zelensky, President Trump lashed out at the Ukrainian president on Wednesday afternoon, writing on Truth Social, his social media site, that “he can have Peace or, he can fight for another three years.”

Mr. Vance, speaking during a trip to India, said the United States would “walk away” from the peace process if both Ukraine and Russia refused to accept the American terms. But Mr. Zelensky was clearly the target.

This is the way our “democracy” makes peace: by allowing a dictator to invade another country and let it keep its own land. Granted, Russia isn’t going to leave Crimea or eastern Ukraine without a military defeat, but there should be condemnation by the UN and the International Court of Justice for this violation of international law.

*Hamas, in conjunction with Qatar and Egypt, have offered a ridiculous cease-fire deal that will leave the terrorists in power forever. Sorry, but Hamas has to surrender unconditionally and disband, which is the only way Israel can not be constantly threatened.

The Saudi-owned newspaper Asharq Al-Awsat reports that Hamas is expected to propose a new ceasefire framework for Gaza as its representatives arrive in Cairo.

According to the report, the proposal includes the release of all remaining hostages held in the Strip in one phase in exchange for an agreed-upon number of Palestinian prisoners, the withdrawal of IDF forces from the Gaza Strip to the positions held under the recent ceasefire deal, a halt to military operations, and the entry of humanitarian aid.

According to the report, Hamas will also demand a five-year ceasefire with international guarantees.

The report adds that the proposed agreement includes the establishment of a technocratic committee for civilian governance in the Gaza Strip, based on an Egyptian proposal published in recent months, and openness for a reconciliation agreement with rival Fatah.

The report is consistent with other items in recent days. Earlier this week, officials familiar with the matter told the Times of Israel that Hamas had informed Arab mediators it was willing to enter into a long-term truce with Israel, during which it would halt all military operations, including the development of weapons and the digging of tunnels.

This is ludicrous. A FIVE YEAR CEASEFIRE? That will give Hamas plenty of time to rebuild its organization (Fatah won’t survive with Hamas.) We do not know how many hostages are living or dead, as Hamas won’t say (another bit of horror that the world has ignored), and I’m betting that Hamas will demand the release of ALL Palestinian prisoners. The “technocratic civilian government” will be Fatah + Hamas, with Hamas soon killing off Fatah, and of course Hamas still gets to keep its weapons.  I don’t believe a word of thie proposal and Israel should not accept it.

*Trump has apparently realized the foolishness of his tariff wars, especially with China, and he’s starting to walk it back. About time, with inflation and a recession looming.  The markets, at least, believe him, and have risen sharply in the last three days.

The Trump administration is considering slashing its steep tariffs on Chinese imports—in some cases by more than half—in a bid to de-escalate tensions with Beijing that have roiled global trade and investment, according to people familiar with the matter.

President Trump hasn’t made a final determination, the people said, adding that the discussions remain fluid and several options are on the table. One administration official said Trump wouldn’t act unilaterally and would need to see some action from Beijing to lower tariffs.

One senior White House official said the China tariffs were likely to come down to between roughly 50% and 65%. The administration is also considering a tiered approach similar to the one proposed by the House committee on China late last year: 35% levies for items the U.S. deems not a threat to national security, and at least 100% for items deemed as strategic to America’s interest, some of the people said. The bill proposed phasing in those levies over five years.

“President Trump has been clear: China needs to make a deal with the United States of America. When decisions on tariffs are made, they will come directly from the president. Anything else is just pure speculation,” White House spokesman Kush Desai said.

Later on Wednesday, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told reporters that Trump hasn’t offered to take down U.S. tariffs on China on a unilateral basis, Bloomberg News reported.

Trump said Tuesday that he was willing to cut tariffs on Chinese goods and that the 145% tariffs he imposed on China during his second term would come down. “But it won’t be zero,” he said. The development was welcome news to investors who had been spooked by the White House’s aggressive moves in recent weeks.

The thing is the tariffs SHOULD be zero, whatever tariffs China charges on American goods. And If there must be tariffs, 50% or more is still WAY too high!

*Another factor driving the economy to ground is Trump’s senseless attacks on the Federal reserve bank and its chairman Jerome Powell. Trump apparently thought that blaming Powell in advance for a recession or for inflation would exculpate the Orange Man, as Trump (who HIRED Powell) has been beefing about Powell not lowering interest rates.  Trump is now cooling his jets about that. ‘

President Donald Trump’s abrupt shift in rhetoric Tuesday toward Federal Reserve Chair Jerome H. Powell reflected the private lobbying of some of his senior advisers, who had urged the president to back off his incendiary attacks on the central bank, three people familiar with the matter said.

On Monday, the stock market fell precipitously as Trump attacked Powell as a “major loser,” fueling speculation that the president would move to fire the Fed chief. But by Tuesday afternoon, Trump appeared to dial back his rhetoric, saying he had “no intention of firing” Powell and arguing that the “press runs away with things.”

Stock futures jumped overnight, and markets surged Wednesday as trading opened.

The president’s shift followed the counsel of several administration officials, including Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, said the people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe private deliberations. The officials cautioned that the administration did not need further disruption in financial markets from an all-out battle with the Federal Reserve and that it already had several major economic fights on its hands, including new tariffs, the people said. The turmoil in financial markets made Trump more open to leaving Powell in his position than he would have been a month ago, one of the people said.

“I would like to see him be a little more active in terms of his idea to lower interest rates,” Trump said Tuesday. “It’s a perfect time to lower interest rates. If he doesn’t, is it the end? No, it’s not, but it would be good timing. It would be. … It could have taken place earlier. But no, I have no intention to fire him.”

Remember, Trump said he WANTED to fire Powell, so his backing off is a big deal. Note that it was Trump’s advisors who had to advise Cheeto of the damage, as Trump couldn’t see it himself, even though I bet nearly all of us could!

*Finally a 28-minute video from reader Enrico. We’ve seen the identical and amazingly similar Australian twins Bridgette and Paula Powers, who can’t even help themselves from talking the same way, saying the same words, and using the same cadences. They’re called the “twinnies” in Oz, and have established a bird rescue organization. Here’s a stunning half-hour video about the pair.

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili’s getting antsy for her dinner:

Szaron: It’s getting dark.
Hili: Yes, but it’s still a long time until supper.
In Polish:
Szaron: Zapada zmrok.
Hili: Tak, ale do kolacji daleko.

And a photo of Baby Kulka on her window blanket.

 

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

From Animal Antics:

From Strange, Stupid or Silly Signs (Florida State is one of America’s biggest “party schools”):

From The Dodo Pet:

Masih is still quiet but J. K. Rowling is a reliable tweeter. Here’s a new one:

From Luana:

From Simon, emitted byu Mark Hamill:

Wishing you all a peaceful holiday Sunday filled with joy & love rather than nightmares & trauma. 🐰 🥚 🐰 🥚🐰 🥚🐰 🥚🐰 🥚🐰 🥚🐰 🥚🐰 🥚🐰 🥚🐰 #HappyEaster

— Mark Hamill (@markhamillofficial.bsky.social) 2025-04-20T18:28:42.338Z

Jez thought this was funny, and so do I:

More beautiful places from Malcolm:

From the Auschwitz Memorial, one that I reposted:

Gassed to death upon arriving at Auschwitz. He was twelve.

— Jerry Coyne (@evolutionistrue.bsky.social) 2025-04-24T10:36:37.379Z

Two tweets from Dr. Cobb. This first one is great:

The reason for the season:

— Ward Q. Normal (@wardqnormal.bsky.social) 2025-04-20T15:56:45.555Z

. ,. ,.  and a clower of cats:

85 cats escaping from a log cabin in the book 170 Cats by Zhenya Gay and Pachita Crespi, 1939.

— Cats of Yore (@catsofyore.bsky.social) 2025-04-19T18:37:37.129Z

Wednesday: Hili dialogue

April 23, 2025 • 6:45 am

Welcome to a Hump Day (“День горба” in Russian ): Wednesday, April 23, 2025. It’s National Cherry Cheesecake Day, the only viable alternative to plain cheesecake.

Camel sez (from Jesus of the Day):

It’s also National Picnic Day, Talk like Shakespeare Day, English Language Day, German Beer Day, National English Muffin Day, World Laboratory Day, and Spanish Language Day. Here’s a glass of Weizen, or German wheat beer, which I hope to be enjoying in Germany this fall. Its caption is “Augustiner Weißbier, a naturally cloudy Bavarian wheat beer“.  I’ll have it mit Schuss.

Takeaway, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the April 23 Wikipedia page.

If the Nooz is shorter today, it’s because I spent much of the day yesterday dealing with my “writing piece”, which should appear soon in a venue near you. Stay tuned. It was hard and complicated.

Da Nooz:

*Colleges are striking back at the Trump administration’s attempt to blackmail them into behaving the way Trump wants by threatening to withhold government funding. I think Harvard’s refusal to kowtow to the government has heartened other schools. (Harvard has sued the administration; more tomorrow).

A day after Harvard sued the Trump administration over its decision to freeze billions in federal funds to the school, more than 180 higher education leaders from around the country released a joint statement on Tuesday condemning the administration’s efforts to control universities.

The government’s “political interference” and “overreach” is “now endangering higher education in America,” they wrote.

The signers come from a variety of colleges and universities from across the country, as well as higher education associations, illustrating the breadth of the threat they say President Trump poses to academia. Joining in the statement were officials from large public research universities like the University of Virginia and the University of Wisconsin-Madison and smaller private colleges such as Amherst and Kenyon.

The statement, circulated by the American Association of Colleges and Universities and signed by a total of 187 people as of Tuesday morning, focuses on concerns that the Trump administration is attacking academic freedom.

“We must oppose undue government intrusion into the lives of those who learn, live and work on our campuses,” the statement said.

Many of the presidents who signed, including Alan M. Garber of Harvard, also face financial risks as a result of the administration’s deep cuts to research contracts and grants. Dr. Garber on Monday said his school had chosen to sue the administration after it issued a list of demands that included auditing its professors for plagiarism and appointing an outside overseer to ensure its departments were “viewpoint diverse.”

Harvard refused to comply with the demands, and the administration said it would freeze $2.2 billion in federal money.

The link above to the joint statement may not work, but this one should. The University of Chicago, for reasons I’m unclear about, did not sign the statement. It may be because the statement, while rejecting the Big Stick approach, still is timorous in agreeing to “constructive reform” and “constructive engagement,” which to me means “bargaining with the Administration”. Two paras from the statement (my bolding):

As leaders of America’s colleges, universities, and scholarly societies, we speak with one voice against the unprecedented government overreach and political interference now endangering American higher education. We are open to constructive reform and do not oppose legitimate government oversight. However, we must oppose undue government intrusion in the lives of those who learn, live, and work on our campuses. We will always seek effective and fair financial practices, but we must reject the coercive use of public research funding.

. . . The price of abridging the defining freedoms of American higher education will be paid by our students and our society. On behalf of our current and future students, and all who work at and benefit from our institutions, we call for constructive engagement that improves our institutions and serves our republic.

*I knew it and the Wall Street Journal agrees: Trump is fixing to blame any recession or economic downturn on the Federal Reserve Bank and its Chairman Jerome Powell. As usual, he’s claiming that Powell is on a witch hunt against him, even though Trump APPOINTED Powell, who’s a Republican.

President Trump is signaling that he will blame the Federal Reserve for any economic weakness that results from his trade war if the central bank doesn’t cut interest rates soon.

In the process, he might also be seeking to delegitimize the historically independent institution in a way that could undermine its effectiveness.

In a social-media post on Monday, Trump repeated last week’s demand that the Fed reduce interest rates now. “There is virtually no inflation,” he said, blasting Fed Chair Jerome Powell as “Mr. Too Late” and “a major loser.”

He also accused the central bank of lowering interest rates last fall to influence the 2024 election. “Powell has always been ‘To [sic] Late,’ except when it came to the Election period when he lowered in order to help Sleepy Joe Biden, later Kamala, get elected,” he wrote.

His Truth Social post developed one of Trump’s longstanding beliefs about the Fed: that it should be more responsive to what the president wants. His statement and those of other advisers allege that the institution, far from being above Beltway politics, has already become politicized.

By Trump’s account, Powell worked to help Biden during his term and is now unwilling to provide the same support to his own second-term agenda. He put no weight on the fact Trump appointed Powell to the role in 2018, that Powell worked closely with his administration in 2020 to provide unprecedented support when the pandemic hit, or that the Fed was prepared to saddle Biden with a recession in 2023 by raising interest rates sharply to bring inflation down.

Powell and his colleagues have said that the central bank doesn’t take political considerations into account when setting policy. Powell has spent much of his seven years as chair trying to shore up the institution’s apolitical DNA after bruising political attacks following the 2008 global financial crisis.

All of this gives me hope that Trump is going down. If there’s a recession or big-time inflation, will the Democrats win “bigly” at midterm, and will the Republicans still vote for Vance (who I’m sure is going to run) in 2028?  I’d like to see a poll of how those who voted for Trump feel now. UPDATE:  I understand that Trump has backed off on his intention to try to fire Powell.

*I’ve always been leery about young kids being exposed to things like “Drag Queen Story Hour” or “affirmative care” information, because it seems to me like forcing an ideology on people are too young. Now the Supreme Court has signaled that they agree, at least about LGBTQ stories:

The Supreme Court on Tuesday appeared poised to side with a group of religious parents seeking to pull their children from public school lessons with LGBTQ+-themed books — a significant expansion of the long-standing practice of allowing opt outs for reproductive health classes.

At issue for the justices is whether public schools in Montgomery County, Maryland, illegally burden the First Amendment rights of parents to freely exercise their religion when they require children to participate in discussions that touch on gender and sexuality that conflict with their faith. The case, which has implications for public school nationwide, involves the type of diversity and inclusion efforts the Trump administration has targeted on college campuses, and in government and private businesses.

In recent years, the court’s conservative majority has been highly receptive to religious rights claims and expanding the role of faith in public life.

During more than two-and-a-half hours of argument on Tuesday, several justices read aloud from the text of the disputed storybooks, some of which referred to drag queens and same-sex marriage. Conservative justices repeatedly pressed the lawyer for the Maryland school system on why it could not easily accommodate the religious parents and allow their children to opt out of objectionable curriculum.

“What’s the big deal about allowing them to opt out,” asked Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr.

“I’m not understanding why it’s not feasible,” added Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh, who said he was “mystified” by the school board’s actions in the Maryland county where he grew up in and still lives.

Now I don’t see why there shouldn’t be a normalization of things like homosexuality or gay marriage, but it shouldn’t lapse into an ideology that is forced upon children. What I looked for in this article were some opinions of the liberal justices, but there were none given.

*The next government department to be torn apart is, of all things, the State Department, at least according to Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio unveiled a massive overhaul of the State Department on Tuesday, with plans to reduce staff in the U.S. by 15% while closing and consolidating more than 100 bureaus worldwide as part of the Trump administration’s “America First” mandate.

The reorganization plan, announced by Rubio on social media and detailed in documents obtained by The Associated Press, is the latest effort by the White House to reimagine U.S. foreign policy and scale back the size of the federal government.

“We cannot win the battle for the 21st century with bloated bureaucracy that stifles innovation and misallocates scarce resources,” Rubio said in a department-wide email obtained by AP. He said the reorganization aimed to “meet the immense challenges of the 21st Century and put America First.”

State Department spokeswoman Tammy Bruce echoed that sentiment, saying the “sweeping changes will empower our talented diplomats” but adding that it would not result in the immediate dismissal of personnel.

“It’s not something where people are being fired today,” Bruce told reporters Tuesday. “They’re not going to be walking out of the building. It’s not that kind of a dynamic. It is a roadmap. It’s plan.”

There will be a “reimagined” office focused on foreign and humanitarian affairs to coordinate the aid programs overseas still left at the State Department. The reorganization was driven in part by the need to find a new home for the remaining functions of the U.S. Agency for International Development, an agency that Trump administration officials and billionaire ally Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency have dismantled.

The State Department reorganization plan appears to eliminate an office charged with surging expertise to war zones and other erupting crises and scale back work on human rights and justice.

Yes, but how can he cut the staff by 15% without firing anybody, without people “walking out of the building”?  One way is not to replace people who retire, but that doesn’t seem to be what is going on here.  I’m a bit worried about this not only because I don’t think Rubio is so great as a Secretary of State (Blinken wasn’t so great either), but because foreign affairs is going to be a big deal in the next few years.  However, I can’t name a department that the sticky tentacles of DOGE hasn’t touched.

*In its “oddities” section, the AP tells us how Marshmallow Peeps are made. Although most people find them disgusting, they are one of my favorite sweets; I like to cut the package open and leave it for a week or more so they become slightly stale and have a crunch.  If you don’t want yours, send them to me!  They have their own Wikipedia page, too!

How many Peeps are made each year?

On average, about 5.5 million are made each day.

That adds up to 2 billion a year — or roughly 6 Peeps for every man, woman and child across the U.S.

How many different varieties and colors are there?

First hatched in yellow, the sugary chicks and bunnies come in nine colors for this Easter season, including pink, blue and lavender. And there are even more flavors — 14 for Easter — from cookies and cream, to fruit punch and sour watermelon. The varieties and colors vary throughout the year with different holiday seasons.

How long does it take to make a Peep?

Before the early 1950s, making the candies by hand took 27 hours.

Bob Born, who became known as the “Father of Peeps,” came up with a way to speed up the process. He and a company engineer designed a machine to make them in less than six minutes. The same process is used today.

How are they made?

The main ingredients — sugar, corn syrup and gelatin — are cooked and combined to create marshmallows, which are then shaped and sent through a “sugar shower.”

A whopping 400 pounds (181 kilograms) of sugar is used per batch for Peeps’ colored sugars.

Freshly made Peeps — each chick weighs one-third of an ounce — then move along a conveyor so that they can cool before being packaged.

Do not denigrate them at the risk of being banned! Here is how they’re made; 5.5 million Peeps are made every day:

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili is uber-pessimistic again:

Hili: Everything is falling apart.
A: Yes, we are living in times of decadence.
In Polish:
Hili: Rozpada się to wszystko.
Ja: Tak żyjemy w czasach dekadencji.

And a bonus photo of baby Kulka:

 

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

From The Dodo:

From Things With Faces: a sad 3-liter milk carton:

 

From Strange, Stupid, or Silly Signs:

Masih is still silent, and so we have JKR, also fighting for women’s spaces. Here she excoriates Prime Minister Keir Starmer for his cowardice (he said nothing for a long time after the UK Supreme Court decision on sex):

From Malcolm: tweets about the most beautiful places on Earth:

From Simon.  Simon says, “OMG it’s already a meme.” (Remember, the Pope died after the day that J. D. Vance met him.) Has J. D. Vance become Oscar the Death Cat?

JD Vance last person seen with the Beatles.

— weisselberger (@weisselberger.bsky.social) 2025-04-21T16:52:34.423Z

From my feed: can you guess what this is? Put your answer in the comments.

From the Auschwitz Memorial, one that I reposted.

If this Hungarian girl had not been gassed upon arrival at Auschwitz, she would be 92 today. But she was gassed at 10 or 11.

— Jerry Coyne (@evolutionistrue.bsky.social) 2025-04-23T10:28:00.336Z

Two from Matthew: the Powers twins, who are like conjoined twins but not conjoined.  They speak the same thing, and almost simultaneously. Amazing!  Do watch the whole video.

More from the twins youtu.be/MtEdP267TZ0

— (@newingtontrees.bsky.social) 2025-04-21T17:41:50.087Z

Matthew says of this one, “Probably right.”

Love the EarthIt’s the only planet that has cats.Happy Earth Day 😻

— MissyBBBobtail (@missybbbobtail.bsky.social) 2025-04-22T11:26:13.822Z