Category: Leon monologue

Sunday: Hili dialogue, Leon monologue, farm rush hour and a handful of tweets

November 17, 2019 • 5:17 am

by Matthew Cobb

In Poland, Hili, like all cats, is solipsistic. [JAC: the two people below are Andrzej and Malgorzata’s new lodgers, who live upstairs. Malgorzata tells me, “They are very, very nice young people. They bought treats for Hili and keep them upstairs to entice her to come to them. Both love cats!”]

When I asked her if this treat-feeding would make Hili even fatter this winter, Malgorzata responded that Hili’s regular staff is cutting down on her treats.

Hili: They are petting me but they do not talk about me.
A: You are not the navel of the world.
Hili: You may be mistaken.
In Polish:
Hili: Głaszczą, ale rozmawiają nie o mnie.
Ja: Nie jesteś pępkiem świata.
Hili: Możesz być w błędzie.
Leon, meanwhile, poses a question to which there is only one answer:
Leon: Never mind autumn colors, am I not more beautiful?

In Polish: Co tam barwy jesieni, czyż ja nie jestem piękniejszy?
Note by JAC: I was writing the Hili dialogue this morning as it wasn’t clear whether Matthew’s home internet was working. Apparently it is, as he posted the stuff above and beneath, but I’ll add what I was going to say below (indented):

As for news, it’s good vis-à-vis politics in the US, for the election for governor of Louisiana, a deeply red (i.e., Republican) state, just went narrowly to the incumbent Democrat John Bel Edwards, who got 51% of the vote. There’s no way to interpret this except as a stinging rebuke to Trump. Trump had campaigned in the state for Edwards’s Republican opponent Eddie Rispone twice in the last month, and won the 2016 Presidential vote in Louisiana by 20%.  He’s got to be fuming this morning.

The governorship of Kentucky also went to a Democrat earlier this year. That, on top of the control of both legislative houses and the governorship of Virginia by Democrats after the latest elections, makes three Democratic victories in traditionally Republican states. And things don’t dire for Trump. My prediction, which I made about a month ago, is that Trump no longer stands much of a chance to be re-elected President, and so I’ll start taking bets from readers now.

On the home front, my shipboard lecture on adaptations in Antarctic animals went well, I think, though attendance was lower because people were on Half Moon Island seeing their first penguins. I hope I get to give the other two talks on this trip. After all, I have to earn my keep somehow, which I do by talking for my supper (and my penguins).

And now, back to Matthew:

Down on the farm, Sunday rush hour is exactly the same as every other day, except it is also completely different:

Some animal tweets:

…the achieve of, the mastery of the thing!

The first of two model tweets:

And finally, I don’t know why this is surprising, but it is. Rod Stewart insists that he has made 90% of this extraordinary model railway lay-out. Click here to see more pics – it is quite the work of art. He particularly liked making the buildings, he said, which he often did in his hotel room while on tour. Ah, that rock and roll lifestyle!

https://twitter.com/tplagge/status/1194665223535374336?s=11

Saturday: Hili dialogue, Leon monologue, farm rush hour and some curious tweets

November 16, 2019 • 7:43 am

by Matthew Cobb

Hili is observant:

Hili: We are carefully watching the surroundings.
A: What surroundings?
Hili: I’m watching the one close by, Malgorzata the one further away.
In Polish:
Hili: Wszyscy uważnie śledzimy otoczenie.
Ja: To znaczy?
Hili: Ja bliższe, Małgorzata dalsze.
Meanwhile, Leon is uncertain:
Leon: Who came with the idea that journeys educate?
In Polish: Kto to wymyślił,że podróże kształcą?
Finally, Mietek has a bit of a monologue too—his first!
Mietek: Does a bookworm look like this?
Down on the farm, it’s a muddy old Saturday morning rush hour – no lie-in for them!

 

Some curious tweets:

This is a Magellanic Woodpecker from Ushaia in Argentina, not that far from where Jerry has been:

We’ve all been here. BUT LOOK AT THE KITTENS!

Now this is the way to travel:

Beautiful silver spider:

This is actually pretty interesting. Leaving aside the creepy filters, and the way the cats look, some of these cats clearly understand what a mirror does. However, before you go thinking this shows they are self-aware (the mirror self-recognition test is often used as a proxy of this), remember that B. F. Skinner trained pigeons to use mirrors to locate objects they couldn’t see. HIs whole point was that this was merely a conditioned reflex, just like our self-awareness… Anyway, these cats may realise that the things they see in the mirror are behind them, without necessarily realising that the cat-shaped thing they see is them…

This is simply astonishing. When was the first US woman train driver signed up?

Bizarre, bizarre. Click for the full dream-like letter:

Finally, a fabulous fossil fly

 

Friday: Hili dialogue and Leon monologue and some tweets

October 25, 2019 • 5:19 am

by Matthew Cobb

In Poland, Hili has an itch:

Hili: Something has bitten me.
A: But what?
Hili: I don’t know but I hope my claws will find it.

Hili: Coś mnie ugryzło.
Ja: Ale co?
Hili: Nie wiem, mam nadzieję, że mój pazurek na to trafi.

Nearby, Leon is on the lookout for mushrooms. Malgorzata explains:

It’s an exceptionally “mushroomy” year in Poland and people are filling huge baskets with them. I got one basket full of beautiful mushrooms. Part are now pickled in jars the rest are deep frozen for soups, sources etc.

Leon: I don’t see any mushrooms.

In Polish: Nie widzę żadnych grzybów.

From Twitter: A glorious autumn spectacle in the UK

 

A Hallowe’en quiz

 

The ever-reliable Paul Bronks, sent in by Simon Hayward:

 

And a couple of sad tweets about the state of England’s chalk streams. England has 80% of the world’s chalk streams, but many of them are dying, because of over-subtraction of water. Nothing is being done about this by the relevant agencies, except to turn a blind eye. There is a one-man campaign led by Feargal Sharkey – one-time lead singer of Belfast punk band The Undertones – and here are a couple of his tweets, the first showing what has happened, the second being interviewed on the BBC. Remember that even if the water does eventually come back, the invertebrates and many of the fish will not. This is ecological vandalism – if it were being carried out in the Amazon there would be an outrage:

 

Finally, to remind you that the world is still wondrous, a gorgeous ray, filmed in the Caribbean:

 

Monday: Hili dialogue (and Leon monologue)

October 14, 2019 • 6:30 am

Well, a week from today I’m off to Chile and then Antarctica. Remember that posting will be almost nonexistent for over a month, but, barring my ingestion by an orca or leopard seal, I’ll be back.

It’s Monday, October 14, 2019, and National Dessert Day. It’s also Columbus Day, but since he was a colonizer it’s been changed for many to Indigenous Peoples’ Day.  And it’s World Standards Day, National Kick-Butt Day (Action This Day!), National Chocolate-Covered Insect Day, and, for Jews, the beginning of the one-week autumn holiday of Sukkot.

There are supposed to be three animated Google Doodles today, but I see only one, and it’s not even animated (maybe it’s my browser). If you click on the picture below, you go to a bunch of links honoring Joseph Plateau, a physicist born on this day in 1801.  In 1832, Plateau invented the phenakistiscope, an animation device that produced an illusion of movement.  What I see is the first picture.

But The Verge has a gif showing what’s supposed to happen if the disk was in a phenakistiscope:

Lots of stuff happened on October 14, which includes these things:

Here’s the Battle of Hastings as depicted on the Bayeux Tapestry, supposedly embroidered only a few years after the battle. This bit is supposed to depict the death of Harold II, the last Anglo-Saxon King of England. He was supposedly done in by an arrow in the eye, and the Latin above him says, “Harold the King has been killed”.

And, just for grins, here is the whole tapestry, scheduled to be on exhibit in England next year—the first time it’s left France in 950 years! It’s 68 meters long and was “owned” by Heinrich Himmler during World War II.

  • 1322 – Robert the Bruce of Scotland defeats King Edward II of England at the Battle of Old Byland, forcing Edward to accept Scotland’s independence.
  • 1586 – Mary, Queen of Scots, goes on trial for conspiracy against Queen Elizabeth I of England.
  • 1656 – Massachusetts enacts the first punitive legislation against the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers).
  • 1888 – Louis Le Prince films the first motion picture, Roundhay Garden Scene.

The film runs for only 2.1 seconds, and here it is several times over:

  • 1908 – The Chicago Cubs defeat the Detroit Tigers, 2–0, clinching the 1908 World Series; this would be their last until winning the 2016 World Series.
  • 1912 – Former president Theodore Roosevelt is shot and mildly wounded by John Flammang Schrank. With the fresh wound in his chest, and the bullet still within it, Roosevelt delivers his scheduled speech.
  • 1926 – The children’s book Winnie-the-Pooh, by A. A. Milne, is first published.

I loved Milne’s books, which I was given on a childhood visit to London on the way to Greece. Here is my spirit animal:

  • 1943 – World War II: Prisoners at the Sobibór extermination camp in Poland revolt against the Germans. [JAC: read the story at the link]
  • 1947 – Chuck Yeager becomes the first person to exceed the speed of sound.
  • 1962 – The Cuban Missile Crisis begins when an American reconnaissance aircraft takes photographs of Soviet ballistic missiles being installed in Cuba.
  • 1964 – Martin Luther King Jr. received the Nobel Peace Prize for combating racial inequality through nonviolence.
  • 1968 – Jim Hines becomes the first man ever to break the so-called “ten-second barrier” in the 100-meter sprint with a time of 9.95 seconds.
  • 1977 – Anita Bryant gets a pie thrown in her face at a news conference in Des Moines by gay rights activist Tom Higgins for her anti LGBT commentary. 

Here’s a video of the homophobe Bryant getting pied. I object to this kind of thing, of course, but I also object to her homophobia. Note how Bryant prays after she gets smacked. (She’s still alive at 79.)  Curiously, the pie-thrower didn’t face charges:

  • 1994 – Yasser Arafat, Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres receive the Nobel Peace Prize for their role in the establishment of the Oslo Accords and the framing of future Palestinian self government.

It didn’t work, like all the peace initiatives. Very sad.

Notables born on this day include:

  • 1644 – William Penn, English businessman who founded Pennsylvania (d. 1718)
  • 1882 – Éamon de Valera, American-Irish rebel and politician, 3rd President of Ireland (d. 1975)
  • 1888 – Katherine Mansfield, New Zealand novelist, short story writer, and essayist (d. 1923)
  • 1890 – Dwight D. Eisenhower, American general and politician, 34th President of the United States (d. 1969)
  • 1893 – Lillian Gish, American actress (d. 1993)
  • 1894 – E. E. Cummings, American poet and playwright (d. 1962)
  • 1906 – Hannah Arendt, German-American philosopher and theorist (d. 1975)
  • 1938 – John Dean, American lawyer and author, 13th White House Counsel
  • 1946 – Craig Venter, American biologist, geneticist, and academic
  • 1974 – Shaggy 2 Dope, American rapper and producer

Those who died on October 14 include:

You probably know that Rommel, implicated (perhaps wrongly) in the plot to kill Hitler, was given the choice of being tried (and of course convicted and his family shamed), or committing suicide with a cyanide capsule, followed by a state funeral and no damage to his family or staff. He chose the latter. Here’s the announcement of his death in the Nazi paper “Bonzer Tagblatt” on October 16 of 1944. It says that he died of head injuries following a car accident, and that Hitler ordered a state funeral:

  • 1959 – Errol Flynn, Australian-American actor, singer, and producer (b. 1909)
  • 1977 – Bing Crosby, American singer-songwriter and actor (b. 1903)
  • 1990 – Leonard Bernstein, American pianist, composer, and conductor (b. 1918)

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili makes a wise connection:

Hili: Such are the results of revolving around the Sun.
A: What do you mean?
Hili: Leaves are falling down.
Photo by Sarah Lawson
In Polish:
Hili: To są skutki kręcenia się wokół Słóńca.
Ja: Co masz na myśli?
Hili: Liście opadają.

In nearby Wloclawek, Leon is befuddled:

Leon: What’s going on?

In Polish: Co się dzieje?

From the Purrfect Feline Page: If cats were bigger than we are.

From ScienceBlogs, the worst package design ever.  Is this even real?

A recent Doonesbury. You may have to enlarge it to see the candies:

I haven’t looked up this Forbes article, but this has to be the worst advice ever:

From Gethyn. Who says animals don’t have fun?

https://twitter.com/thehumanxp/status/1183103317892837376

From reader Barry, who adds, “I don’t get them, either.”

https://twitter.com/Mr_Meowwwgi/status/1183151631468322819

From Heather Hastie. I may have posted this before, but so what? This cat flunks the mirror test!

https://twitter.com/AwwwwCats/status/1178080011800195073

And four tweets from Professor Cobb.  This one gets Tweet of the Week, as the Brits counted cats and dogs in their 1911 census. Enlarge and check out the cats!

Well, actually, this one is a tie for Tweet of the Week. Read the thread to see a nefarious malefactor mutt. It pushed kids into the Seine repeatedly and then rescued them, all to get beefsteaks!

 

Monday: Hili dialogue (and Leon monologue)

October 7, 2019 • 6:30 am

It’s another damn Monday: October 7, 2019, and school at the University of Chicago has been in session for a week. Yesterday there were eleven ducks in Botany Pond: four drakes and seven hens, all jockeying for mates. They were so frenetic that I couldn’t descry whether one of them was Honey. I have ordered more duck chow in case they decide to hang around for a while. And once again I am disappointed at the tepid response to my science post, though I realize that many readers don’t think they have anything to add.

It’s National Frappe Day (what New Englanders call a milkshake), Blue Shirt Day® (to highlight bullying; does this really accomplish anything?), National Flower Day, National Inner Beauty Day, and World Architecture Day.

Stuff that happened on October 7 includes:

  • 1868 – Cornell University holds opening day ceremonies; initial student enrollment is 412, the highest at any American university to that date.
  • 1916 – Georgia Tech defeats Cumberland University 222–0 in the most lopsided college football game in American history.

Here’s the scoreboard for that game, and Wikipedia’s note on lopsided American football games (there hasn’t been another 100+ score in over 50 years):

Since World War II, only a handful of schools have topped 100 points in a college football game. The modern-era record for most points scored against a college opponent is 106 by Fort Valley State of Georgia against Knoxville College in 1969. In the previous year Houston defeated Tulsa 100–6 to set the NCAA record in major college football. In 1949 the University of Wyoming defeated University of Northern Colorado 103–0. The Division III football scoring record was set in 1968 when North Park University defeated North Central College 104–32, using ten passing touchdowns along the way.

 

  • 1949 – The communist German Democratic Republic (East Germany) is formed.
  • 1958 – The U.S. manned space-flight project is renamed Project Mercury.
  • 1959 – The Soviet probe Luna 3 transmits the first-ever photographs of the far side of the Moon.

Here’s the first image of the “dark side” of the moon from Luna 3, with the caption “The first image returned by Luna 3 showed the far side of the Moon was very different from the near side, most noticeably in its lack of lunar maria (the dark areas).”

  • 1985 – Four men from the Palestine Liberation Front hijack the MS Achille Lauro off the coast of Egypt.
  • 1988 – A hunter discovers three gray whales trapped under the ice near Alaska; the situation becomes a multinational effort to free the whales.
  • 1996 – Fox News Channel begins broadcasting.
  • 1998 – Matthew Shepard, a gay student at the University of Wyoming, is found tied to a fence after being savagely beaten by two young adults in Laramie, Wyoming.

I still remember this brutal assault. Shepard lived six days (in a coma) after the assault; both of his assailants are serving life terms in prison. And here’s Shepard, an unwilling martyr to homophobia:

  • 2001 – The U.S. invasion of Afghanistan begins with an air assault and covert operations on the ground. [JAC: We’re still there, with no signs of leaving.]

Notables born on this day include:

  • 1885 – Niels Bohr, Danish physicist and philosopher, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1962)
  • 1900 – Heinrich Himmler, German commander and politician (d. 1945)
  • 1923 – Irma Grese, German SS officer (d. 1945)

Grese, a vicious woman who was a guard at the Ravensbück and Auschwitz concentration camps, was hanged under British law for war crimes. At 22, she was the youngest woman executed under British law in the 20th century.  She was as the “Hyena of Auschwitz” because of her brutal behavior, and you can read more about her here.  A photo (and boy, does she look mean!):

 

  • 1931 – Desmond Tutu, South African archbishop and activist, Nobel Prize laureate
  • 1934 – Ulrike Meinhof, German far-left terrorist, co-founder of the Red Army Faction, journalist (d. 1976)
  • 1939 – Harry Kroto, English chemist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 2016)
  • 1952 – Vladimir Putin, Russian colonel and politician, 4th President of Russia
  • 1955 – Yo-Yo Ma, French-American cellist and educator
  • 1964 – Dan Savage, American LGBT rights activist, journalist and television producer
  • 1975 – Tim Minchin, English-Australian comedian, actor, and singer

Those who died on this day include:

  • 1849 – Edgar Allan Poe, American short story writer, poet, and critic (b. 1809)
  • 1925 – Christy Mathewson, American baseball player and manager (b. 1880)
  • 1992 – Allan Bloom, American philosopher and educator (b. 1930)
  • 2009 – Irving Penn, American photographer (b. 1917)

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili is asking about the library. (I’m told that she can read, but prefers not to!)

Hili: What is in these books?
A: Mainly words, some wise, some beautiful, and some not worth returning to.
In Polish:
Hili: Co jest w tych książkach?
Ja: Głównie słowa, jedne mądre, inne piękne i jeszcze są takie, do których nie warto wracać.

And in nearby Wloclawek, Leon rests and philosophizes:

Leon: I am where my pillow is.

In Polish: Tam ja, gdzie poduszka moja.

Bored Panda has a really nice post of interesting and amazing teachers. Here are a few photos from it (h/t: Su):

From someone’s physics teacher:

Caption: “After Not Taking Attendance All Quarter, My Teacher Assistant Was Out Of Town On Exam Day. This Was The Last Question”

 “My biology professor was wearing an awesome tie yesterday.” Indeed!!

There are 47 more at the site; go over and look!

From reader gravelinspector, a history lesson imparted by the Ohio State University marching band.

Three animal tweets from Heather Hastie. First, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. But who’s imitating who?

https://twitter.com/AwwwwCats/status/1176210287684456450

Cats taking over dog beds are now an Official Internet Thing™:

I love this one!

The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences goes all soft porn with a racy picture; but the study cited is ONLY IN RABBITS! Matthew calls out PNAS:

Three more tweets from Matthew. First, where physics equipment goes to die:

I have no words for this one, except that it’s in India:

And another fantastic find by Dr. Cobb:

https://twitter.com/mr_meowwwgi/status/1180438803036692480?s=11

 

 

Saturday: Hili dialogue (and Leon monologue)

October 5, 2019 • 6:30 am

I am cooling my heels in the Baltimore airport en route to Chicago, writing in advance to wish you a happy October 5, 2019, and a joyous National Apple Betty Day, a toothsome dessert better known as “Apple Brown Betty” or “Apple Crumble.” It’s also Do Something Nice Day, Global James Bond Day (don’t ask me why they picked October 5), National Get Funky Day,  and World Teachers’ Day.

Stuff that happened on October 5 includes:

Here’s the plane. Wikipedia adds: “On October 5, 1905 Wilbur made a circling flight of 24 miles (38.9 km) in 39 minutes 23 seconds, over Huffman Prairie, longer than the total duration of all the flights of 1903 and 1904. Four days later, they wrote to the United States Secretary of War William Howard Taft, offering to sell the world’s first practical fixed-wing aircraft.”

  • 1914 – World War I: An aircraft successfully destroys another aircraft with gunfire.

See here for the story. The successful plane was a French two-seater Voisin biplane, and the German plane, both of whose occupants were killed was an Aviatik biplane. Here’s the French plane. Note that the machine gun was in front of the propeller, so no synchronization of bullets with propeller was necessary.

  • 1938 – In Nazi Germany, Jews’ passports are invalidated.
  • 1943 – Ninety-eight American POWs are executed by Japanese forces on Wake Island.
  • 1944 – The Provisional Government of the French Republic enfranchises women.
  • 1970 – The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is founded.
  • 1982 – Tylenol products are recalled after bottles in Chicago laced with cyanide cause seven deaths.

Notables born on this day include:

  • 1829 – Chester A. Arthur, American general, lawyer, and politician, 21st President of the United States (d. 1886)
  • 1864 – Louis Lumière, French director and producer (d. 1948)
  • 1902 – Larry Fine, American comedian (d. 1975)
  • 1902 – Ray Kroc, American businessman and philanthropist (d. 1984)
  • 1926 – Willi Unsoeld, American mountaineer and educator (d. 1979)
  • 1936 – Václav Havel, Czech poet, playwright, and politician, 1st President of the Czech Republic (d. 2011)
  • 1943 – Steve Miller, American singer-songwriter and guitarist, worst rock and roll “artist” of our time [added by JAC]
  • 1950 – Edward P. Jones, American novelist and short story writer
  • 1951 – Bob Geldof, British singer-songwriter and actor
  • 1958 – Neil deGrasse Tyson, American astrophysicist, cosmologist, and author
  • 1959 – Maya Lin, American architect and sculptor, designed the Vietnam Veterans Memorial and Civil Rights Memorial

Those who crossed the Rainbow Bridge on this day include:

  • 1813 – Tecumseh, American tribal leader (b. 1768) [JAC: Read the entry; the man was a great warrior and a great leader, and died in battle. His goal was to establish a pan-Native-American nation east of the Mississippi in league with the British.
  • 1880 – Jacques Offenbach, German-French cellist and composer (b. 1819)
  • 1941 – Louis Brandeis, American lawyer and jurist (b. 1856)
  • 2004 – Rodney Dangerfield, American comedian, actor, producer, and screenwriter (b. 1921)
  • 2004 – Maurice Wilkins, New Zealand-English physicist and biologist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1916)
  • 2011 – Bert Jansch, Scottish singer-songwriter and guitarist (b. 1943)

There aren’t many videos of Jansch, one of my musical heroes. Here he is performing Black Waterside:

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili isn’t hungry (mirabile dictu!), but she wants to be hungry. The reason: she just ate. Malgorzata reports: “Yes, I’m holding Hili and she just came from the kitchen after eating a huge meal with her favorite sausage. She just couldn’t fit another bite into her stomach.”

Hili: I’m starting to long for the moment when I will be hungry.
Malgorzata: Aren’t you hungry yet?
Hili: Perhaps not yet.
In Polish:
Hili: Zaczynam tęsknić do chwili kiedy będę głodna.
Małgorzata: A jeszcze nie jesteś głodna?
Hili: Chyba jeszcze nie.

It’s some kind of anniversary for Leon: either his adoption day or his birthday; I don’t know which. If you wish, send me greetings and I’ll forward them to his staff.

Leon: Such an important day and no wishes, no presents?

In Polish: Taki ważny dzień i żadnych życzeń, żadnych prezentów?

From Pictures in History via Stash Krod: a real hammerhead shark. As Stash said, “Nailed it!”:

An amazing Facebook post by my friend Moto. The caption recounts the early life of Hank Aaron, who is still with us and will be 86 next February 5.  I can’t vouch for the truth of the narrative, but what I have checked out seems right.

And a motorcycle made from balloons, taken from the Amazing Things FB page (Caption: “ok this guy is an artist! the whole thing made of balloons https://www.facebook.com/sam.cremeens”)

Two tweets from reader Barry. First a photo taken in the Library of Congress cafeteria, of all places. We have a plant in there!

Barry thinks this is a marmoset, but I’m sure it’s not. I believe it’s a sugar glider. What say you?

Two tweets from Heather Hastie. First, a miscreant tortoise, now with music:

And a real Chinese lucky cat. I suspect the owner is offstage giving cues, though.

From Matthew: Teddy, the vociferous porcupine, noms pumpkin. Sound up to hear both the nomming and Teddy’s lovely voice.

A goose and his staff go shopping at Wal-Mart. A lovely relationship, though the staff’s narration is a bit annoying;

This kauri tree lived for about 1500 years, long enough to document a near reversal of the Earth’s magnetic poles. Click on the link to read more:

 

What Matthew calls an “oldie but goldie” from Doonebury. It’s of course from the Nixon era, but it’s strangely relevant today:

Friday: Hili dialogue (and Leon monologue)

October 4, 2019 • 6:30 am

It’s Friday, October 4, 2019, and National Taquito Day (I doubt I’ve ever had one of these; what’s the point of a tiny taco?).  It’s also Cinnamon Roll Day, World Animal Day, National Denim Day (I’m wearing jeans), National Vodka Day, and the beginning of World Space Week.

I’m writing most of this on Thursday morning, as tomorrow I leave early to travel to Albany and then fly back to Chicago—via Baltimore! Will any ducks be at Botany Pond when I return? Stay tuned.

As of Thursday night, there were three ducks swimming around: a lovely drake (probably not Ritz), an unknown hen, and . . . HONEY!!!! I hope to see her at least one more time before she heads down the Mississippi Flyway. Yesterday I have reports that Wounded Warrior, the injured hen, now seems to have completely recovered and is swimming normally and flying in and out of the pond. This makes me very happy.

Stuff that happened on October 4 includes:

  • 1535 – The Coverdale Bible is printed, with translations into English by William Tyndale and Myles Coverdale.

This was the first translation of the entire Bible into modern English, and here’s the frontispiece:

  • 1582 – The Gregorian Calendar is introduced by Pope Gregory XIII.
  • 1853 – The Crimean War begins when the Ottoman Empire declares war on the Russian Empire.
  • 1883 – First run of the Orient Express. 

Here’s a poster from 1888 or 1889 advertising that luxury train, which went from London to Istanbul; the regular runs stopped in 1977 though there’s still an expensive tourist train that does the run from Paris to Istanbul:

  • 1927 – Gutzon Borglum begins sculpting Mount Rushmore.
  • 1936 – The British Union of Fascists and various anti-fascist organizations violently clash in the Battle of Cable Street.

This was a famous pushback by the British public against Oswald Mosley’s “black-shirt” British Union of Fascists, who were Nazi sympathizers. I suppose you could call the protestors the first Antifa, but I like them a lot more than today’s Antifa. Here’s a short film:

  • 1991 – The Protocol on Environmental Protection to the Antarctic Treaty is opened for signature.
  • 1997 – The second largest cash robbery in U.S. history occurs in North Carolina

The details of this one and and of the biggest cash robbery:

The Loomis Fargo Bank Robbery was a robbery of $17.3 million in cash from the Charlotte, North Carolina, regional office vault of Loomis, Fargo & Co. on the evening of October 4, 1997. .  This robbery was the second-largest cash robbery on U.S. soil at the time, as only seven months earlier, on March 29, 1997 in Jacksonville, Florida, Phillip Noel Johnson stole $18.8 million from the Loomis Fargo armored vehicle he was driving.

The perpetrators of both robberies were caught and most of the money recovered.

  • 2004 – SpaceShipOne wins the Ansari X Prize for private spaceflight.
  • 2006 – WikiLeaks is launched.

Notables born on this day include:

  • 1542 – Robert Bellarmine, Italian cardinal and saint (d. 1621)
  • 1861 – Frederic Remington, American painter, sculptor, and illustrator (d. 1909)
  • 1880 – Damon Runyon, American newspaperman and short story writer. (d. 1946)
  • 1895 – Buster Keaton, American film actor, director, and producer (d. 1966)
  • 1923 – Charlton Heston, American actor, director and gun rights activist (d. 2008)
  • 1943 – H. Rap Brown, American activist
  • 1976 – Alicia Silverstone, American actress, producer, and author

Those who passed on on October 4 include:

  • 1669 – Rembrandt, Dutch painter and illustrator (b. 1606)
  • 1904 – Carl Josef Bayer, Austrian chemist and academic (b. 1847)
  • 1944 – Al Smith, American lawyer and politician, 42nd Governor of New York (b. 1873)
  • 1947 – Max Planck, German physicist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1858)
  • 1951 – Henrietta Lacks, American medical patient (b. 1920)
  • 1970 – Janis Joplin, American singer-songwriter (b. 1943)
  • 1974 – Anne Sexton, American poet and author (b. 1928)
  • 1982 – Glenn Gould, Canadian pianist and conductor (b. 1932)
  • 2004 – Gordon Cooper, American colonel, engineer, and astronaut (b. 1927)

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili shows an unsual (but bogus) empathy:

Hili: This chair is not comfortable.
Sarah: So go on the bed.
Hili: I will lie here a moment in solidarity with cats who don’t have access to soft beds.
Photo: Sarah Lawson
In Polish:
Hili: To krzesło nie jest wygodne.
Sarah: To idź na łóżko.
Hili: Poleżę tu chwilę w ramach solidarności z kotami, które nie mają dostępu do miękkich łożek.

And in Wloclawek, Leon has clearly recovered from his illness:

Leon: Is supper ready yet?

In Polish: Jest już kolacja?

Would you get a tattoo like this? They are lovely, but I think my body shall remain unmarked:

Three tweets from Heather Hastie. Notice how the sneaky student hides the kitten from the teacher:

https://twitter.com/AwwwwCats/status/1176267910400135168

A classic meme, this time with a bear:

A VERY hungry bird!

Tweets from Matthew Cobb. The first is an interesting case of convergent evolution, and in species with bright colors. The “super black” plumage exaggerates the brightness of adjacent color patches.

Do you think this pig is blowing bubbles for the fun of it?

This shows two things: Matthew has been feeling down, and there are dolphins swimming in the Potomac. I’m amazed (by the latter):

The Tribune Tower, the world’s only Gothic skyscraper, was the former home of Chicago’s best newspaper, and my favorite building in the city. Now it’s being turned into luxury condos.

Here’s what the building looks like. Flying buttresses!