Category: Mietek

Monday: Hili dialogue

July 6, 2020 • 6:30 am

Good morning on Monday, July 6, 2020, a back-to-work day and National Fried Chicken Day. I love fried chicken; please give me some now! But it’s a mess to make at home, what with oil sputtering everywhere, and I haven’t been to Harold’s, our local pullet emporium, for about six months. It’s also International Kissing Day, but only if the person you’re kissing is Covid-19 negative.

Here’s the best fried chicken in the land, at Stroud’s in Fairway, Kansas:

News of the day: Going over to the New York Times this morning to see the latest news, I was greatly put off by the even-woker-than-usual content of the paper—especially the op-eds. Here’s a sample of the madness. The Cancel Culture is in full swing. And of course the Washington Monument should go down, too, along with re-naming everything containing “Washington” and “Jefferson.”

I truly don’t know how much longer I can stand reading the Times (the Washington Post, to which I recently subscribed, is also obnoxiously woke), but what’s the alternative?

Moving on, the Washington Post reports that, for the 27th day in a row, “The rolling seven-day average for daily new cases in the United States reached a high for the 27th day in a row, climbing past 48,000 on Sunday.” And the news is even grimmer, with one expert saying that it looks like we’ve made little progress in stamping out the virus:

“We’re right back where we were at the peak of the epidemic during the New York outbreak,” former Food and Drug Administration commissioner Scott Gottlieb said on “Face the Nation” on CBS. “The difference now is that we really had one epicenter of spread when New York was going through its hardship, now we really have four major epicenters of spread: Los Angeles, cities in Texas, cities in Florida, and Arizona. And Florida looks to be in the worst shape.”

Finally, today’s reported Covid-19 death toll in the U.S. is 129,938, an increase of about 250 deaths over yesterday’s report.  The world death toll now stands at 534,096, an increase of about 4200 from yesterday.

I’m famous! Nothing like a retweet by Steve Pinker to bump up the traffic on WEIT. More important, Pinker truly deserved a hearty defense against the Woke. (I’m allowed a bit of braggadocio now and then.)

Stuff that happened on July 6 includes:

  • 1348 – Pope Clement VI issues a papal bull protecting the Jews accused of having caused the Black Death.
  • 1535 – Sir Thomas More is executed for treason against King Henry VIII of England.
  • 1854 – In Jackson, Michigan, the first convention of the United States Republican Party is held.
  • 1892 – Three thousand eight hundred striking steelworkers engage in a day-long battle with Pinkerton agents during the Homestead Strike, leaving ten dead and dozens wounded.
  • 1917 – World War I: Arabian troops led by T. E. Lawrence (“Lawrence of Arabia”) and Auda ibu Tayi capture Aqaba from the Ottoman Empire during the Arab Revolt.

Auda! He is a river to his people! Played by Anthony Quinn in the movie, here’s the brave Auda for real:

I’ve visited this annex (it’s hard now, with tickets in huge demand), but if you’re in Amsterdam, plan and order tickets well in advance to see the house and annex. Here’s a 4.5-minute video tour of the hiding place:

This was long before Rosa Parks. Although Robinson was acquitted, it was pretty much the end of his Army career, and he wasn’t allowed to see action overseas (which was good for baseball).

  • 1957 – Althea Gibson wins the Wimbledon championships, becoming the first black athlete to do so.
  • 1957 – John Lennon and Paul McCartney meet for the first time, as teenagers at Woolton Fete, three years before forming the Beatles. 

Lennon was in the Quarry Men “skiffle group” and was introduced to Paul that evening, who sang a few songs with the group. The rest is history.

  • 2003 – The 70-metre Yevpatoria Planetary Radar sends a METI message (Cosmic Call 2) to five stars: Hip 4872, HD 245409, 55 Cancri (HD 75732), HD 10307 and 47 Ursae Majoris (HD 95128). The messages will arrive to these stars in 2036, 2040, 2044, and 2049, respectively.

Notables born on this day include:

  • 1747 – John Paul Jones, Scottish-American captain (d. 1792)
  • 1887 – Marc Chagall, Belarusian-French painter and poet (d. 1985)

Here’s Chagall’s “A Cat Transformed Into a Woman“, ca. 1928-1931:

The Cat Transformed into a Woman c.1928-31-1947 Marc Chagall 1887-1985 Presented by Lady Clerk 1947 http://www.tate.org.uk/art/work/N05759
  • 1907 – Frida Kahlo, Mexican painter and educator (d. 1954)

Kahlo’s “Self Portrait” from 1940:

  • 1912 – Heinrich Harrer, Austrian geographer and mountaineer (d. 2006)

Do read Harrer’s great book Seven Years in Tibet. 

  • 1921 – Nancy Reagan, American actress and activist, 42nd First Lady of the United States (d. 2016)
  • 1925 – Bill Haley, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (Bill Haley & His Comets) (d. 1981)
  • 1946 – George W. Bush, American businessman and politician, 43rd President of the United States
  • 1946 – Peter Singer, Australian philosopher and academic
  • 1946 – Sylvester Stallone, American actor, director, and screenwriter

Those who arrived at their terminus on July 6 include:

  • 1415 – Jan Hus, Czech priest, philosopher, and reformer (b. 1369)
  • 1916 – Odilon Redon, French painter and illustrator (b. 1840)

and here is “Bazon, the Artist’s Cat” by Redon:

 

  • 1959 – George Grosz, German painter and illustrator (b. 1893)
  • 1971 – Louis Armstrong, American singer and trumpet player (b. 1901)
  • 1998 – Roy Rogers, American cowboy, actor, and singer (b. 1911)
  • 2009 – Robert McNamara, American businessman and politician, 8th United States Secretary of Defense (b. 1916)
  • 2019 – João Gilberto, Brazilian singer-songwriter and guitarist, pioneer of bossa nova music style (b. 1931)

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili’s shirking her editorial duties (or perhaps Andrzej wanted to give her a tummy rub).

A: Do you have a moment?
Hili: No, I’m very busy now.
In Polish:
Ja: Masz chwilę czasu?
Hili: Nie, jestem teraz bardzo zajęta.

And in nearby Wloclawek, Leon and Mietek snuggle up. A basket o’ tabbies!

But Mietek wins!

From Charles, a Mike Lukovich cartoon:

. . . and a New Yorker cartoon from Merilee: the simple joys of quarantine:

From Jesus of the Day:

Reader Barry sent a tweet from Matthew, which is technically correct though “living fossils” are generally taken to mean “a living species which looks almost exactly like an ancient species”. Anyway, it’s a crinoid—an echinoderm.

A tweet from Gethyn. What is this thing? Where can I get one?

From Julian; wouldn’t it be lovely to see this front page?

From Simon, a most excellent sand sculpture:

Tweets from Matthew. First, one of his beloved optical illusions:

Bible power (not!):

A biological tweet referring to a Dean Martin song:

I don’t know what this dad is on about, but he really wants his daughter to wear pants!

Monday: Hili dialogue (and Mietek monologue)

June 8, 2020 • 6:45 am

It’s Monday, June 8, 2020, and National Jelly-Filled Donut Day (I get one of these occasionally at the Dunkin Donuts booth outside Midway Airport to treat myself before a flight. I haven’t flown since December, however.) It’s also Best Friends Day, World Oceans Day, World Brain Tumor Day, and Thomas Paine Day, who died on this day in 1809.

News of the Day: The demonstrations sparked by the murder of George Floyd continue, almost all of them peacefully. In many places, including Minneapolis, there are calls to eliminate the police departments, and in that city it may well happen. I will comment later today. I do applaud the peacefulness of the demonstrators as well as their cause, which is just.

Today’s reported Covid-19 death toll in the U.S. is 110,422 , an increase of about 400 from yesterday (the increase in deaths in our country appears to be slowing). The world toll now stands at 402,233, a one-day increase of about 3,000 from the day before.

Stuff that happened on June 8 includes:

The third through the twelfth of these amendments became our present Bill of Rights.

  • 1856 – A group of 194 Pitcairn Islanders, descendants of the mutineers of HMS Bounty, arrives at Norfolk Island, commencing the Third Settlement of the Island.
  • 1887 – Herman Hollerith applies for US patent #395,781 for the ‘Art of Compiling Statistics’, which was his punched card calculator.

Here’s a replica of Hollerith’s machine; as Wikipedia argues, the machine “marks the beginning of the era of semiautomatic data processing systems, and his concept dominated that landscape for nearly a century.”  I remember using punched tapes when I was a lab tech in New York in the early Seventies.

(From Wikipedia): Replica of Hollerith tabulating machine with sorting box, circa 1890. The “sorting box” was an adjunct to, and controlled by, the tabulator. The “sorter”, an independent machine, was a later development.
  • 1906 – Theodore Roosevelt signs the Antiquities Act into law, authorizing the President to restrict the use of certain parcels of public land with historical or conservation value.
  • 1949 – Helen Keller, Dorothy Parker, Danny Kaye, Fredric March, John Garfield, Paul Muni and Edward G. Robinson are named in an FBI report as Communist Party members.
  • 1949 – George Orwell‘s Nineteen Eighty-Four is published.

I was surprised to find that a first edition of this book wasn’t too expensive: a decent copy with dust jacket, like this one from Biblio.com, runs around $300:

 

  • 1953 –The United States Supreme Court rules in District of Columbia v. John R. Thompson Co. that restaurants in Washington, D.C., cannot refuse to serve black patrons.
  • 1972 – Vietnam War: Nine-year-old Phan Thị Kim Phúc is burned by napalm, an event captured by Associated Press photographer Nick Ut moments later while the young girl is seen running down a road, in what would become an iconic, Pulitzer Prize-winning photo.

If you’re of a certain age, you’ll well remember that photo

That is a haunting photo! She was so badly burned that it was doubtful Phuc would survive, but she did after over a year in the hospital and several operations. She’s now a peace ambassador for UNESCO.

  • 1987 – New Zealand’s Labour government establishes a national nuclear-free zone under the New Zealand Nuclear Free Zone, Disarmament, and Arms Control Act 1987.
  • 2009 – Two American journalists are found guilty of illegally entering North Korea and sentenced to 12 years of penal labour.

The journalists, Laura Ling and Euna Lee, were pardoned after only two months in custody, thanks to a visit to Kim Jong-il by former President Bill Clinton. Here are Ling (left) and Lee (right) with Clinton and Al Gore:

Notables born on this day include:

  • 1810 – Robert Schumann, German composer and critic (d. 1856)
  • 1867 – Frank Lloyd Wright, American architect, designed the Price Tower and Fallingwater (d. 1959)
  • 1916 – Francis Crick, English biologist, biophysicist, and neuroscientist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 2004)
  • 1943 – William Calley, American lieutenant
  • 1944 – Boz Scaggs, American singer-songwriter and guitarist
  • 1967- Tina Purcell, long-suffering partner of Matthew Cobb

Here’s my favorite Boz Scaggs song, but “We’re All Alone” (a hit for Rita Coolidge) is a close second.

Those who ended their earthly careers on June 8 include:

  • 1809 – Thomas Paine, English-American theorist and author (b. 1737)
  • 1845 – Andrew Jackson, American general, judge, and politician, 7th President of the United States (b. 1767)
  • 1874 – Cochise, American tribal chief (b. 1805)
  • 1876 – George Sand, French author and playwright (b. 1804)
  • 1889 – Gerard Manley Hopkins, English poet (b. 1844)

I believe I lost a Woodrow Wilson Fellowship to graduate school because, during my interview, I gave the wrong answer when asked to name my favorite poets. Hopkins was among them, and that didn’t go down well, as I recall. But here’s his great poem “Spring and Fall”. (Remember, too, that Hopkins was a Jesuit priest):

Márgarét, áre you gríeving
Over Goldengrove unleaving?
Leáves like the things of man, you
With your fresh thoughts care for, can you?
Ah! ás the heart grows older
It will come to such sights colder
By and by, nor spare a sigh
Though worlds of wanwood leafmeal lie;
And yet you wíll weep and know why.
Now no matter, child, the name:
Sórrow’s spríngs áre the same.
Nor mouth had, no nor mind, expressed
What heart heard of, ghost guessed:
It ís the blight man was born for,
It is Margaret you mourn for.

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili comes bearing gifts:

A: Why did you leave a dead mouse on the verandah?
Hili: It’s a gift for you.
In Polish:
Ja: Czemu zostawiłaś zabitą mysz na werandzie?
Hili: to prezent dla was.

Also, somehow Szaron has occupied Andrzej’s chair:

Andrzej: One would sit down, if only one could!

In Polish: Usiadłby człowiek, gdyby mógł.

And in Wloclawek, Mitek, all grown up, reminds us that the Sabbath was made for cats:

Mietek: A well deserved rest after a week of hard work.

In Polish: Zasłużony odpoczynek po tygodniu ciężkiej pracy.

A graph from Jesus of the Day:

Fromt the CBC News, a breaking story! And I thought Honey had her wings full. Click on the screenshot to read the story:

From reader Charles, who describes this as “From The Guardian: Donald tRump in his bunker formulating his plans to make American great again”:

 

A tweet from Titania:

From reader Simon, who says, “Your people are causing trouble again.”  Well, yes, we do celebrate good fortune with explosive cocktails.

From Gethyn, who calls this “Reservoir Cats”:

Here’s the model: a poster for Tarantino’s of “Reservoir Dogs”:

 

Tweets from Matthew. A young puma caught in a camera trap:

If the date on this tweet is correct, the guy wins the Nostradamus Award:

I’m not sure what species of fish this is, but here’s how it eats:

LOOK AT THIS BIRD! It’s apparently not sexually dimorphic, so what is the horn about?

A faux tiger scares the locals:

Friday: Hili dialogue (and Mietek monologue)

June 5, 2020 • 6:30 am

Welcome to Friday, June 5, 2020, the one-month anniversary of Dorothy’s brood jumping to the pond (they now, of course, belong to Honey).

It’s national Ketchup Day, and my father taught me, correctly, to buy only Heinz regular ketchup (that was the only one made at the time, but now there are many varieties of the classic Heinz formulation). Here’s one:

But does it contain GMOs?

It’s also National Doughnut Day, Sausage Roll Day, National Veggie Burger Day, National Gingerbread Day, and, on the non-food front, Hug an Atheist Day (I’m game, but hugs are verboten during the pandemic, National Gun Violence Awareness Day, World Day Against Speciesism, and World Environment Day.  A lot of good holidays!

News of the Day: I can barely stand to watch the evening news any more, but I soldier on.

In journalism, Republican Senator Tom Cotton wrote an op-ed in the New York Times calling for military occupation of U.S. cities during the latest protests. I disagree violently with his views, but many of the Times‘s own journalists objected, saying that even publishing his views endangers black NYT staffers. Sound familiar? That’s the result of the paper hiring staffers right out of college.

The paper then backed off, saying that the editorial didn’t meet its standards. It was a misguided piece, but of course that’s what you get when you seek a diversity of opinions. And Cotton’s suggestion won’t be implemented, so its publication doesn’t create palpable dangers.

I believe it should have been published to show how both some Republicans and how Cotton thinks (it “outed” him), and to enable us to see what arguments could possibly exist for sending in the military. The New Woke Times, which first defended publishing the op-ed, has backed off, which is not good for freedom of speech in their op-ed section. Bari Weiss discussions the divisions within the newspaper (though she thinks that maybe Cotton’s piece crossed the line); read her whole thread.

Today’s reported Covid-19 death toll in the U.S. is 108,187 , an increase of about a thousand from yesterday. The world toll now stands at 390,771, a one-day increase of about 6,000.

Stuff that happened on June 5 includes:

  • 1851 – Harriet Beecher Stowe’s anti-slavery serial, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, or Life Among the Lowly, starts a ten-month run in the National Era abolitionist newspaper.[6]
  • 1883 – The first regularly scheduled Orient Express departs Paris.
  • 1893 – The trial of Lizzie Borden for the murder of her father and step-mother begins in New Bedford, Massachusetts.

Borden was acquitted and lived the rest of her life, ostracized in the town (Fall River, Massachusetts) where the murder took place. Here she is:

  • 1916 – Louis Brandeis is sworn in as a Justice of the United States Supreme Court; he is the first American Jew to hold such a position.

Brandeis was a great liberal and an advocate of freedom of speech and the right to privacy; we could use his like on the court now. Here he is:

Do you think this is “suggestive”? It’s the Milton Berle performance:

  • 1968 – Presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy is assassinated by Sirhan Sirhan.
  • 1981 – The “Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report” of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that five people in Los Angeles, California, have a rare form of pneumonia seen only in patients with weakened immune systems, in what turns out to be the first recognized cases of AIDS.
  • 1989 – The Tank Man halts the progress of a column of advancing tanks for over half an hour after the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989.

Tank Man, not identified (but see below) was carried away by police and the tanks moved on. History says this:

The Sunday Express, a British publication, reported that summer that his name was Wang Weilin, a 19-year-old student arrested for “political hooliganism.” Varying reports suggested the student was either imprisoned or executed.

Chinese officials have refused to confirm his name or whereabouts in response to numerous queries from Western journalists in the years since the incident. In fact, they claim they were unable to locate him.

  • 1995 – The Bose–Einstein condensate is first created.

Notables born on this day include:

Garrett, of course, was best known for shooting Billy the Kid, who was only 21 when he was killed. Here’s Garrett:

 

  • 1878 – Pancho Villa, Mexican general and politician, Governor of Chihuahua (d. 1923)
  • 1883 – John Maynard Keynes, English economist, philosopher, and academic (d. 1946)
  • 1932 – Christy Brown, Irish painter and author (d. 1981)

Brown, the subject of the well known movie My Left Foot, had cerebral palsy and could write only with the toes of that foot. Daniel Day-Lewis’s portrait of him in the movie won a Best Actor Oscar, and the movie itself nabbed the Best Film award:Here’s a photo.

  • 1939 – Margaret Drabble, English novelist, biographer, and critic

Those who were released from life on June 5 include:

  • 1900 – Stephen Crane, American poet, novelist, and short story writer (b. 1871)
  • 1910 – O. Henry, American short story writer (b. 1862)
  • 2004 – Ronald Reagan, American actor and politician, 40th President of the United States (b. 1911)
  • 2018 – Kate Spade, American fashion designer (b. 1962)

Meawhile in Dobrzyn, Hili now wants a fancy bed like Szaron’s:

Hili: I think I’ll have have a house like this ordered for me, too.
Szaron: These houses are no longer for sale.
(Photo: Paulina R.)
In Polish:
Hili: Chyba też każę sobie taki domek kupić.
Szaron: Takich już nie sprzedają.
(Foto: Paulina R.)

And in Wloclawek, Mietek is all “TGIF”:

Mietek: Weekend is coming soon, there will be a chance to rest.
In Polish: Weekend niedługo to się odpocznie.
And here’s one of Matthew’s three cats, which came with the note, “Here’s Pepper looking daft. He sat like this for several minutes.” Matthew is writing ANOTHER book!
From Ken: the new Charlie Hebdo cover. Translation: “Police violence. We want equality.”

From Jesus of the Day. I’m betting there is some deli somewhere bearing this name:

I always wanted to open a Jewish/Caribbean restaurant called Bermuda Schwartz. I’ll be here all year, folks!

Also from Jesus of the Day:

From Lenora. Be sure you turn the sound up on the second tweet and watch to the end.  Trump doesn’t even believe in God, I think; he’s a fricking hypocrite catering to his faith-head base.

From reader Ken, who calls this “Shanda of the Week”, and added, “Former G.W. Bush press secretary Ari Fleischer (whose parents are solid liberal Democrats, such that he should know better), going full-bore Fox News Trumpist.”

 Rampant looting in New York City sent by reader cesar. He says, “Watch for the Rolls-Royce.”

 

From Simon:

Tweets from Matthew. I’m not used to waterfowl feeding their babies, but coots do it. I believe reader/evolutionist Bruce Lyon has worked on this starvation question:

I guess this was a commercially sold watch. . . . NSFW!

Well, I don’t know what a data logger box is, but if I ever see one, I’m not gonna open it:

 

Saturday: Hili dialogue

May 23, 2020 • 6:30 am

Good morning on Saturday, May 23, 2020: National Taffy Day, a mediocre confection that’s death to those with fillings. It’s also World Turtle Day,  Declaration of the Báb Day for those of the Bahá’í faith, and Red Nose Day.

News of the Day: Things are opening up in much of the U.S. (but not Chicago), and Memorial Day Weekend will see crowds in many places—and perhaps a resurgence of the pandemic.  Meanwhile, there’s an article by Timothy Egan in today’s New York Times titled “Bill Gates is the Most Interesting Man in the World.” Despite excoriation from conspiracy theorists, anti-vaxers, and other loons, he is one of the world’s great philanthropists, and a model of how a billionaire  should respond during the pandemic.

The official death toll for the pandemic stands at 96,370 in the U.S. and about 338,000 worldwide. We’ll break 100,000 in a day or two, one of the estimates that people poo-pooed because it seemed too high.

Here are the results of the poll from two days ago on whether the plea bargain for Lori Laughlin and Massimo Giannulli was appropriate:

The result? Most people thought the punishment (two months in jail for Loughlin and five for Giannulli, plus community service and fines) was too light:

Stuff that happened on May 23 includes:

  • 1430 – Joan of Arc is captured by the Burgundians while leading an army to raise the Siege of Compiègne.
  • 1498 – Girolamo Savonarola is burned at the stake in Florence, Italy.
  • 1533 – The marriage of King Henry VIII to Catherine of Aragon is declared null and void.

She was one of Henry’s wives that wasn’t executed; Henry spurned her because he became enamored of Ann Boleyn and because Catherine failed to produce a male heir (that was, of course, due to the wrong sperm from Henry hiself.)

  • 1701 – After being convicted of piracy and of murdering William Moore, Captain William Kidd is hanged in London.

After one unsuccessful attempt to hang him (the rope broke), Kidd was successfully executed, gibbeted, and hung over the Thames for three years. Here’s a drawing of his fate:

  • 1829 – Accordion patent granted to Cyrill Demian in Vienna, Austrian Empire.
  • 1844 – Declaration of the Báb the evening before the 23rd: A merchant of Shiraz announces that he is a Prophet and founds a religious movement that would later be brutally crushed by the Persian government. He is considered to be a forerunner of the Bahá’í Faith; Bahá’ís celebrate the day as a holy day.
  • 1934 – Infamous American bank robbers Bonnie and Clyde are ambushed by police and killed in Bienville Parish, Louisiana.

Here’s a short video documentary of the ambush and its aftermath, as well as a photograph of the notorious pair. The parts leading up to the ambush itself are re-enactments:

  • 1945 – World War II: Heinrich Himmler, head of the Schutzstaffel, commits suicide while in Allied custody.
  • 1998 – The Good Friday Agreement is accepted in a referendum in Northern Ireland with roughly 75% voting yes.

Notables born on this day include:

  • 1707 – Carl Linnaeus, Swedish botanist, physician, and zoologist (d. 1778)
  • 1883 – Douglas Fairbanks, American actor, director, producer, and screenwriter (d. 1939)
  • 1891 – Pär Lagerkvist, Swedish novelist, playwright, and poet, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1974)
  • 1910 – Artie Shaw, American clarinet player, composer, and bandleader (d. 2004)
  • 1925 – Joshua Lederberg, American biologist and geneticist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 2008)
  • 1951 – Anatoly Karpov, Russian chess player
  • 1974 – Jewel, American singer-songwriter, guitarist, actress, and poet

If you have 45 minutes to spare and like big band jazz (I do!), here’s a video about Shaw’s band, featuring many greats.

Those who made their final exit on May 23 include:

  • 1701 – William Kidd, Scottish pirate (b. 1645) [see above]
  • 1868 – Kit Carson, American general (b. 1809)
  • 1906 – Henrik Ibsen, Norwegian director, playwright, and poet (b. 1828)
  • 1934 – Clyde Barrow, American criminal (b. 1909) (and of course Bonnie Parker)
  • 1937 – John D. Rockefeller, American businessman and philanthropist, founded the Standard Oil Company and Rockefeller University (b. 1839)
  • 1945 – Heinrich Himmler, German commander and politician, Reich Minister of the Interior (b. 1900)
  • 2002 – Sam Snead, American golfer and journalist (b. 1912)
  • 2015 – Anne Meara, American actress, comedian and playwright (b. 1929)
  • 2017 – Roger Moore, English actor (b. 1927)

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili is not finding a proper meal outside (she needs a mouse):

Hili: Grass, a tulip, dandelions and no meat.
A: Enjoy what you have.
Hili: Hypocrite.
In Polish:
Hili: Trawa, tulipan, mlecze, żadnego mięsa.
Ja: Ciesz się tym co masz.
Hili: Hipokryta.

And the handsome Szaron, who now at least can coexist with Hili:

To complete the roster of Polish cats, here are Leon and Mietek. It’s possible that their new home (close to Dobrzyn) will finally be built:

From Laurie Ann, who posted it on my Facebook page.

From Jesus of the Day:

From Bad Cat Clothing:

Two double tweets from Simon. In the first two, Sarah Cooper does the very best lip-synching of Trump’s moronic remarks. Each of his gaffes tops the last one!

WTF? Bringing the country back with . . . Asians? And a recap of the per capita:

Tweets from Matthew. Cat turns off owner’s alarm clock—among other perfidies. This is the worst morning cat ever! (Sound up, please.)

This is very good!:

Now here’s a biological problem:

A science geek gets excited over a fly (as did I). It’s a beautiful metallic color, and what’s with the alternating rows of ommatidia (the “unit” of a compound eye)?

Good Lord, I had no idea! Watch the linked video to learn about the “Cannonball Run”:

Answer: I don’t cut my sandwiches!

 

Friday: Hili dialogue (and Mietek monologue)

May 8, 2020 • 6:30 am

DUCK UPDATE:  All 17 ducklings are still thriving in the pond, and two remain in ICU, with one in great shape , the other being tended and not in terrible shape, but not really vigorous. We are keeping them together as pals (they stimulate and warm each other) and tomorrow may be a release day for at least one. One hen (Honey?) has only two ducklings, while 15 are swimming with the other one (it was too dark to tell the hens apart). The marauding drakes seem to be leaving the hens alone, and Wingman is keeping them away. So, apart from the unequal division of offspring, which may change, things aren’t too bad. Tonight will be freezing and thus rough for the little ones, so keep your fingers crossed.

 

It’s Friday, May 8, 2020, and I’ll slowly try to get back to normal postings—and normal Hili posts—when duck duties are a bit less onerous.  It’s going to be chilly today in Chicago, with a high of only 42° F (6°C), and the low tonight is right at the freezing points (32°F, 0° C).  That’s very cold for newborn ducklings, and I have to say I’m more than a bit worried. I can in fact hear the wind howling as I’m warmly ensconced in bed.

It’s National Coconut Cream Pie Day, as well as National Give Someone a Cupcake Day, National Have a Coke Day, No Socks Day (too cold for that here), and a day to appreciate sharks called Fintastic Friday: Giving Sharks a Voice.

Today’s Google Doodle revives an old favorite game: Pac Man. Click on the screenshot to play:

News of the Day: Still pretty bad. The Justice Department and Attorney General William Barr have dropped charges against Michael Flynn, Trump’s former National Security Advisor. Flynn had already pleaded guilty to two counts of lying to FBI agents. It’s unprecedented for charges—and these are felony charges—to be dropped after a guilty plea, but of course Trump has been campaigning for this for months. Barr and his Justice Department, supposedly an independent government agency, is in the pocket of our moronic “President.”

Reported deaths from coronavirus in the U.S. stand at 76,537 and worldwide at about 270,000. We will surely exceed one lower estimate of 100,000 deaths in the U.S.

The only good news comes from one study that appears to show that those who have recovered from coronavirus carries antibodies to it. That means that those people may be at least partly immune, and that, in turn, is good news for the possible efficacy of a vaccine.

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili gets “shut down” for her witticism.

Hili: People play with mice all the time.
Małgorzata: But at least we don’t harm them.
In Polish:
Hili: Ludzie ciągle bawią się myszami.
Małgorzata: Ale przynajmniej nie robimy im krzywdy.
Today Mietek is going on a trip, but his monologue needs some explanation from Malgorzata:

This is difficult to translate. In Polish: Podróże kształcą?

Which means verbatim: Journeys educate?

There is a saying in Polish which says just that but without the question mark. It’s taken for granted that journeys can educate you. Here Mietek is not happy going on a journey and he questions this common wisdom. He repeats it sarcastically and puts question mark after it.

A cat meme:

I suspect Matthew had me in mind when he sent me this, as I’m known for kvetching about science posts that receive few comments!

And a few tweets (as I said, this site is opening up slowly, like the U.S.)

Titania has a new article in The Critic (a spoof, of course):

From Simon. Andrew, like many, is doubting the Swedish model of dealing with coronavirus:

Two tweets from Heather Hastie. The first, of course, plays the video in reverse, but it’s still funny:

https://twitter.com/planetpng/status/1256731461421588483

via Ann German. This is not a good boy; it’s a sore loser:

Tweets from Matthew: His cat Pepper is not a bad cat, just a cat!

Note Tina (Christina Purcell’s response to the one below; she’s Matthew’s spouse):

And this is the malefactor Ollie, who laid my nose open with a wicked claw. Although Matthew loves dinosaurs, Ollie isn’t impressed. He is a bad cat.

Saturday: Hili dialogue

May 2, 2020 • 6:45 am

It’s May 2, 2020, perhaps one day from D-Day (Duckling Day).  I’d dearly love to see the ducklings jump, but there’s only a narrow window for that, and I’d have to be on the spot. I will try, checking the nests every half hour or so starting tomorrow. Fingers crossed that all the babies make it safely to the pond!

It’s National Chocolate Mousse Day, as well as National Truffle Day, World Tuna Day, National Homebrew Day, Astronomy Day, and International Scurvy Awareness Day.

News of the Day: It’s dire, of course. The reported death toll from coronavirus in the U.S. stands at 65,605, but, as Andrew Sullivan noted yesterday, this is likely to be a severe underestimate (he posits that the ultimate toll may be,  as Fauci estimated in March, between 100,000 and 200,000). Worldwide, the reported death toll now stands at about 239,000. As I feared, the pandemic is beginning to ravage India.

Anthony Fauci has been blocked by the White House from testifying before Congress. CNN reports:

“The Appropriations Committee sought Dr. Anthony Fauci as a witness at next week’s Labor-HHS-Education Subcommittee hearing on COVID-19 response. We have been informed by an administration official that the White House has blocked Dr. Fauci from testifying,” House Appropriations Committee spokesman Evan Hollander said in a statement Friday.

The New York Times has a sad, heartbreaking story of long-time couples dying of coronavirus within days of each other. Finally, Kim Jong-un appears to have reappeared at a factory opening, but the report has not been confirmed.

Stuff that happened on May 2 includes:

  • 1536 – Anne Boleyn, Queen of England, is arrested and imprisoned on charges of adultery, incest, treason and witchcraft.
  • 1559 – John Knox returns from exile to Scotland to become the leader of the nascent Scottish Reformation.
  • 1611 – The King James Version of the Bible is published for the first time in London, England, by printer Robert Barker.

Here’s that first translation. I still like this version the best, although of course our take is heavily affected by the group of translators, or “God’s Secretaries” (an excellent book, by the way):

  • 1920 – The first game of the Negro National League baseball is played in Indianapolis.
  • 1945 – World War II: A death march from Dachau to the Austrian border is halted by the segregated, all-Nisei 522nd Field Artillery Battalion of the U.S. Army in southern Bavaria, saving several hundred prisoners.
  • 1952 – A De Havilland Comet makes the first jetliner flight with fare-paying passengers, from London to Johannesburg.

Here’s a Pathé video of that first trip; there were a lot of stops back then!

Here’s Shishapangma; it’s the big mountain at the extreme left:

  • 1986 – Chernobyl disaster: The City of Chernobyl is evacuated six days after the disaster.
  • 2000 – President Bill Clinton announces that accurate GPS access would no longer be restricted to the United States military.
  • 2011 – Osama bin Laden, the suspected mastermind behind the September 11 attacks and the FBI’s most wanted man, is killed by the United States special forces in Abbottabad, Pakistan.
  • 2012 – A pastel version of The Scream, by Norwegian painter Edvard Munch, sells for $120 million in a New York City auction, setting a new world record for a work of art at auction.

Notables born on this day include:

  • 1729 – Catherine the Great of Russia (d. 1796)
  • 1860 – Theodor Herzl, Austro-Hungarian Zionist philosopher, journalist and author (d. 1904)
  • 1892 – Manfred von Richthofen, German captain and pilot (d. 1918)
  • 1895 – Lorenz Hart, American playwright and lyricist (d. 1943)
  • 1903 – Benjamin Spock, American rower, pediatrician, and author (d. 1998)
  • 1921 – B. B. Lal, Indian archaeologist
  • 1921 – Satyajit Ray, Indian director, producer, and screenwriter (d. 1992)
  • 1946 – Lesley Gore, American singer-songwriter (d. 2015)
  • 1969 – Brian Lara, Trinidadian cricketer
  • 1975 – David Beckham, English footballer, coach, and model

Here’s a short documentary of the life of Brian Lara, one of the best cricket players of history.  Can you spot the cat?

Those who handed in their dinner pails on May 2 include:

  • 1519 – Leonardo da Vinci, Italian painter, sculptor, and architect (b. 1452)
  • 1957 – Joseph McCarthy, American captain, lawyer, judge, and politician (b. 1908)
  • 1972 – J. Edgar Hoover, American 1st director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (b. 1895)
  • 2011 – Osama bin Laden, Saudi Arabian terrorist, founder of Al-Qaeda (b. 1957)
  • 2014 – Efrem Zimbalist, Jr., American actor (b. 1918)

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, the cherry orchard is in glorious full bloom, and Hili and her staff are enjoying their walkies:

Hili: This are the best walks during a year.
A: I think so too.
In Polish:
Hili: To są najlepsze spacery w roku.
Ja: Też tak uważam.
And, nearby at their future home, Leon and his stepbrother sidekick Mietek are trying to prognosticate.  As always, one has to guess who’s speaking, but I suspect that it’s Leon, as he’s older and wiser.
Leon: Let’s look deep into the future now.
In Polish: Spójrzmy teraz głęboko w przyszłość.

From Pradeep:

From reader Barry:

A Facebook meme. If you don’t get it, you’re too young (go here).

Titania addresses the pandemic, but this tweet doesn’t make a whole lot of sense.

Tweets from Matthew. He loves Laurel and Hardy, and here Laurel, despite his promises, gets into Big Mischief:

Cat on a hot tin roof! Fortunately, it was rescued:

Needy ducks don’t want their staff to go away. The playful mallard (the domestic variety “Pekin”) in the second video is a drake, as you can tell from its inability to quack properly:

Two denizens of the American Southwest: tumbleweed and tornadoes:

More documentation of humanity as a virus for animals. Sadly, when the pandemic’s over, these lovely animals will retreat to their refuge:

 

Wednesday: Hili dialogue

April 29, 2020 • 6:45 am

Good (?) morning on Hump Day: Wednesday, April 29, 2020, about four days from Hatch Day. It’s going to rain today and tomorrow in Chicago, but the weather should improve for the ducklings.

It’s also National Shrimp Scampi Day (more cultural appropriation), International Dance Day, Denim Day (you must read about the origin of this day), International Guide Dog Day, International Noise Awareness Day, and Zipper Day, celebrating the data on which this most useful closure was patented in 1913 by Gideon Sundback.

Today’s Google Doodle is part of the site’s continuing attempt to keep people amused by playing computer games. When you click on the screenshot below, you go to a game, “Fischinger,” in which you can compose your own music:

News of the Day: No worse than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick. Confirmed coronavirus deaths in the U.S. are currently at 58,964; worldwide they stand at roughly 217,000. But remember, as they say annoyingly and frequently, “we’re all in this together.” Who decided that that mantra was going to cheer us up?

The New York Times has an interesting article today detailing how Sweden has handled the pandemic: no lockdowns, trust in citizens to keep social distance, wash their hands, and so on, and no closing of stores or schools.  It has not been a disaster. Excerpts:

While other countries were slamming on the brakes, Sweden kept its borders open, allowed restaurants and bars to keep serving, left preschools and grade schools in session and placed no limits on public transport or outings in local parks. Hairdressers, yoga studios, gyms and even some cinemas have remained open.

Gatherings of more than 50 people are banned. Museums have closed and sporting events have been canceled. At the end of March, the authorities banned visits to nursing homes.

That’s roughly it. There are almost no fines, and police officers can only ask people to oblige. Pedestrians wearing masks are generally stared at as if they have just landed from Mars.

The results? Much better than one would have predicted:

Trust is high in Sweden — in government, institutions and fellow Swedes. When the government defied conventional wisdom and refused to order a wholesale lockdown to “flatten the curve” of the coronavirus epidemic, public health officials pointed to trust as a central justification.

Swedes, they said, could be trusted to stay home, follow social distancing protocols and wash their hands to slow the spread of the virus — without any mandatory orders. And, to a large extent, Sweden does seem to have been as successful in controlling the virus as most other nations.

Before you pooh-pooh this because you think that U.S. lockdowns must surely be the right solution, at least read the piece. And I calculated this:

U.S. population size/Sweden population size: about 32.1
U.S. coronavirus deaths/Sweden coronavirus deaths: about 25.0.

I think those figures are correct. Sweden still has more per capita deaths, but the difference is not huge. Of course other countries with lockdowns have even lower death rates than does America, and the U.S. has the huge aggregations of people in places like New York and Chicago.

Stuff that happened on April 29 includes:

  • 1429 – Joan of Arc arrives to relieve the Siege of Orléans.
  • 1770 – James Cook arrives in Australia at Botany Bay, which he names.
  • 1834 – Charles Darwin during the second survey voyage of HMS Beagle, ascended the Bell mountain, Cerro La Campana on 17 August 1834, his visit being commemorated by a memorial plaque.

Here is that mountain, which is 1880 meters tall:

  • 1916 – Easter Rising: After six days of fighting, Irish rebel leaders surrender to British forces in Dublin, bringing the Easter Rising to an end.
  • 1944 – World War II: British agent Nancy Wake, a leading figure in the French Resistance and the Gestapo’s most wanted person, parachutes back into France to be a liaison between London and the local maquis group.
  • 1945 – World War II: Führerbunker: Adolf Hitler marries his longtime partner Eva Braun in a Berlin bunker and designates Admiral Karl Dönitz as his successor; Hitler and Braun both commit suicide the following day.
  • 1945 – Dachau concentration camp is liberated by United States troops.
  • 1967 – After refusing induction into the United States Army the previous day, Muhammad Ali is stripped of his boxing title.
  • 1968 – The controversial musical Hair, a product of the hippie counter-culture and sexual revolution of the 1960s, opens at the Biltmore Theatre on Broadway, with some of its songs becoming anthems of the anti-Vietnam War movement.

Here’s a performance by the revival cast of the musical at the 2009 Tony Awards. This is one of the enduring songs from that musical, along with “Aquarius”.  Wikipedia says the songs weren’t well received by the cognosecenti:

The music did not resonate with everyone. Leonard Bernstein remarked “the songs are just laundry lists” and walked out of the production. Richard Rodgers could only hear the beat and called it “one-third music”. John Fogerty said, “Hair is such a watered down version of what is really going on that I can’t get behind it at all.” Gene Lees, writing for High Fidelity, stated that John Lennon found it “dull”, and he wrote, “I do not know any musician who thinks it’s good.”

Ah, the good old hippie days! We thought we’d change the world, and what do we got we got now? TRUMP!

  • 1974 – Watergate scandal: United States President Richard Nixon announces the release of edited transcripts of White House tape recordings relating to the scandal.
  • 1992 – Riots in Los Angeles, following the acquittal of police officers charged with excessive force in the beating of Rodney King. Over the next three days 63 people are killed and hundreds of buildings are destroyed.
  • 2015 – A baseball game between the Baltimore Orioles and the Chicago White Sox sets the all-time low attendance mark for Major League Baseball. Zero fans were in attendance for the game, as the stadium was officially closed to the public due to the 2015 Baltimore protests.

Notables born on this day include:

  • 1854 – Henri Poincaré, French mathematician, physicist, and engineer (d. 1912)
  • 1863 – William Randolph Hearst, American publisher and politician, founded the Hearst Corporation (d. 1951)
  • 1893 – Harold Urey, American chemist and astronomer, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1981)
  • 1899 – Duke Ellington, American pianist, composer, and bandleader (d. 1974)
  • 1901 – Hirohito, Japanese emperor (d. 1989)
  • 1933 – Willie Nelson, American singer-songwriter, guitarist, producer, and actor
  • 1945 – Brian Charlesworth, English biologist, geneticist, and academic

It’s the 75th for my pal, collaborator and ex-chair, now retired (but still working hard) at the University of Edinburgh.  Here’s a photo of Brian:

  • 1951 – Dale Earnhardt, American race car driver (d. 2001)
  • 1954 – Jerry Seinfeld, American comedian, actor, and producer
  • 1970 – Andre Agassi, American tennis player
  • 1970 – Uma Thurman, American actress

Since it’s the Duke’s birthday, and tomorrow is International Jazz Day, let’s have a video of his band playing his signature song, “Take the A Train.”  The main was a fricking genius, and employed some of the best musicians of that era as well as composer and arranger Billy Strayhorn, who wrote this song. (The original release by the “Blanton/Webster” version of his band didn’t have vocals, and is better; listen to it here.)

The man loved his food, and it shows. Brain Pickings has a summary of his diet taken from Terry Teachout’s biography (his dessert is amazing, and the items were combined in one bowl):

Duke, who is always worrying about keeping his weight down, may announce that he intends to have nothing but Shredded Wheat and black tea. . . . Duke’s resolution about not overeating frequently collapses at this point. When it does, he orders a steak, and after finishing it he engages in another moral struggle for about five minutes. Then he really begins to eat. He has another steak, smothered in onions, a double portion of fried potatoes, a salad, a bowl of sliced tomatoes, a giant lobster and melted butter, coffee, and an Ellington dessert — perhaps a combination of pie, cake, ice cream, custard, pastry, jello, fruit, and cheese. His appetite really whetted, he may order ham and eggs, a half-dozen pancakes, waffles and syrup, and some hot biscuits. Then, determined to get back on his diet, he will finish, as he began, with Shredded Wheat and black tea.

Those who croaked on April 29 include:

  • 1951 – Ludwig Wittgenstein, Austrian-English philosopher and academic (b. 1889)
  • 1980 – Alfred Hitchcock, English-American director and producer (b. 1899).

Matthew sent a tweet honoring the laconic director:

  • 1997 – Mike Royko, American journalist and author (b. 1932)
  • 2008 – Albert Hofmann, Swiss chemist and academic (b. 1906)

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Szaron is trying to cadge food from Hili:

Szaron: Share with me.
Hili: You had exactly the same in your bowl.
Szaron: Yes, but I’m growing and you are already too big.
In Polish:
Szaron: Podziel się.
Hili: Miałeś dokładnie to samo w twojej misce.
Szaron: Tak, ale ja rosnę, a ty już jesteś zbyt duża.

Here’s another a picture of Szaron:

. . . and of the Vistula river that abuts the property of Hili, Andrzej, and Malgorzata. After you walk through the cherry orchard, you come to a cliff that runs down to this view:

 

In nearby Wloclawek, Leon and Mitek are in charge.

The cats: We’re taking over!

In Polish: Przejmujemy kontrolę

 

From Bad Cat Clothing:

I guess it’s All Cats Day. This is from Jesus of the Day:

Fricking Pence! He went to the Mayo Clinic to visit the staff and patients and learn about antibody testing, was told that everyone had to wear a mask, and he didn’t, even though he was informed well in advance. He stood right beside a coronavirus patient unmasked! What point is the dumbass VP trying to make?

For some reason the Mayo Clinic took down this tweet (I suspect Trumpites were beserk), but Matthew had a screenshot:

From Simon: Randy Rainbow sings about drinking Clorox:

A tweet from Heather Hastie via Ann German. Nobody hates Trump like Ricky Gervais!

Tweets from Matthew. First: why the planets don’t really orbit the Sun.  Good luck figuring this mess out! Matthew says the explanation is in the thread, but if you need to do that, you shouldn’t be tweeting. Tweets should be self-contained!

Any idea what this burrowing owl is doing with the antenna?

https://twitter.com/backt0nature/status/1254887294122766337

This is just mean and unfair!