Category: Mietek

Sunday: Hili dialogue

April 12, 2020 • 6:45 am

We have a special Easter edition today, with holiday-themed posts. Or so I plan. Welcome to Sunday, April 12, 2020:  National Licorice Day, National Grilled Cheese Sandwich Day, and National Baked Ham with Pineapple Day. (That’s a fine holiday for Passover! When I was a kid and we had ham for dinner, my father would always pronounce it “a good kosher ham.” He also called our Christmas tree “the Hanukkah bush.” Yes, we were truly secular Jews.)

It’s also Drop Everything and Read Day (I suspect most of us are doing this anyway), International Day for Street Children, and International Day of Human Space Flight, honoring Yuri Gagarin, who became the first human in space on April 12, 1961. Gagarin made one  108-minute orbit around the Earth. Here’s a short (2½ minute) NBC News film reporting on Gagarin’s orbital flight:

Gagarin died in 1968 in a plane crash; he was only 34.

It is of course Easter Sunday, and Passover is also underway until next Thursday evening. Let’s celebrate them both!:

Here’s something I published for Easter in 2017:

Don’t stop me if you’ve heard this before (and if you’ve read this site consitently, you have). I love a good Jewish joke, and this is an excellent one for Easter. It comes from the site Southern Jewish Humor, which gets the story from Eli N. Evans, who wrote The Provincials: A Personal History of Jews in the South. (I’m allowed to tell this because I’m Jewish.)

Evans said he searched for the best example he could find of Southern Jewish humor.  He told the story of a Jewish storekeeper in a small town who was approached by the Christian elders to show solidarity for their Easter holiday.

Mr. Goldberg was chagrined but when Easter came, after sunrise services on a nearby hilltop, the mayor, all the churchgoers, and the leading families in the city gathered in the town square in front of his store.  The store had a new sign but it was draped with a parachute.

After an introduction from the mayor, at the appointed hour, the owner pulled the rope and there it was revealed in all its wonder for all to see: “Christ Has Risen, but Goldberg’s prices remain the same.”

News of the Day: Need I say that it isn’t good? As of this morning, the death toll for coronavirus in the U.S. stands at 20,601; in the world it’s 108,994. All over the U.S., but especially in the South, the faith-ridden yokels are preparing to gather en masse in church, either considering themselves immune to the coronavirus because they’re “washed in the blood of Jesus”, or because to them the need to worship (and thereby gain eternal life) outweighs the chance of infection. I guess they think their God would send them to hell if they deigned to worship remotely.  Some God! In Florida, the (Republican) governor refuses to prevent church gatherings today (he did warn about social distancing).  More on the rest of the U.S. later.

A new multi-authored New York Times investigative piece details the missteps and waffling by Trump and the administration in handling the early stages of the coronavirus pandemic.  Excerpt:

There were key turning points along the way, opportunities for Mr. Trump to get ahead of the virus rather than just chase it. There were internal debates that presented him with stark choices, and moments when he could have chosen to ask deeper questions and learn more. How he handled them may shape his re-election campaign. They will certainly shape his legacy.

And where the global sports calendar stands can be seen here. Major league baseball—our “national sport”—is merely postponed, but I predict the season will be canceled in toto. (Once again, I hope I’m wrong—if it can be played safely.)  Only Wimbledon and the British Open have been formally canceled.

Stuff that happened on April 12 includes:

  • 1204 – The Crusaders of the Fourth Crusade breach the walls of Constantinople and enter the city, which they completely occupy the following day.
  • 1606 – The Union Flag is adopted as the flag of English and Scottish ships.

Yes, we’re talking about the Union Jack here:

  • 1862 – American Civil War: The Andrews Raid (the Great Locomotive Chase) occurs, starting from Big Shanty, Georgia (now Kennesaw).

Have a read about this act of derring-do. It resulted in the award of America’s first Medal of Honor.

  • 1937 – Sir Frank Whittle ground-tests the first jet engine designed to power an aircraft, at Rugby, England.
  • 1945 – U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt dies in office; Vice President Harry S. Truman becomes President upon Roosevelt’s death.

And here’s an appropriate anniversary:

Let us note again that, unlike many modern researchers (and their greedy institutions) who develop innovative and useful medicines or techniques (e.g., CRISPR), Salk gave away his vaccine, refusing to patent it. It’s calculated that that patent would have been worth $7 billion in profits.  Here’s Salk affirming that to Edward Murrow:

Salk giving an injection. The man was a fricking hero, but the scientific community didn’t like him much. He never got a Nobel Prize, which he truly deserved, nor was he even elected to the National Academy of Sciences. See this video for some explanations.

  • 1961 – Cold War: Space Race: The Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin becomes the first human to travel into outer space and perform the first manned orbital flight, Vostok 1. [See above]
  • 1983 – Harold Washington is elected as the first black mayor of Chicago.
  • 1999 – United States President Bill Clinton is cited for contempt of court for giving “intentionally false statements” in a civil lawsuit; he is later fined and disbarred.

Notables born on this day include:

  • 1777 – Henry Clay, American lawyer and politician, 9th United States Secretary of State (d. 1852)
  • 1883 – Imogen Cunningham, American photographer and educator (d. 1976)

Cunningham, famous for her pictures of plants, of nudes, and for her portraits, was an extremely influential photographer throughout most of the 20th century. Here’s “Three Dancers, Mills College, 1930.”

  • 1916 – Benjamin Libet, American neuropsychologist and academic (d. 2007)
  • 1932 – Tiny Tim, American singer and ukulele player (d. 1996)
  • 1947 – David Letterman, American comedian and talk show host
  • 1950 – David Cassidy, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (d. 2017)
  • 1981 – Tulsi Gabbard, American politician

Those who snuffed it on April 12 include:

  • 1945 – Franklin D. Roosevelt, American lawyer and politician, 32nd President of the United States (b. 1882)
  • 1981 – Joe Louis, American boxer and wrestler (b. 1914)
  • 1988 – Alan Paton, South African historian and author (b. 1903)
  • 1989 – Abbie Hoffman, American activist, co-founded Youth International Party (b. 1936)
  • 1989 – Sugar Ray Robinson, American boxer (b. 1921)

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili still isn’t comfortable with Szaron:

Hili: I will jump down in a moment.
A: Don’t do it—you will frighten Szaron.
Hili: That’s exactly my intention.
In Polish:
Hili: Zaraz zeskoczę.
Ja: Nie rób tego, bo wystraszysz Szarona.
Hili: Taki właśnie jest mój zamiar.

And nearby, at the site of his future home, Mietek is sad because, although Easter celebrations should be taking place in Poland, Elzbieta and Andrzej II have no guests because of the country’s lockdown.

Mietek: No guests can be seen.
In Polish: Gości żadnych nie widać.

From Merilee: an old-timey solution to a new problem.

From Moto, cartoon from Mr. Fish:

A cat meme from Heather Hastie:

Somebody made a video of one of Titania’s “poems”; this one’s about veganism:

From Muffy: what sports commentators do when there are no sports.

From Craig (and tweeted by CNN journalist Jake Tapper): a wonderful Ogden Nash poem about DUCKS:

A tweet for science geeks from Simon, also a science geek. If you’re not one, guess what the issue is here:

A tweet from Heather Hastie: cat magic!

https://twitter.com/planetpng/status/1246267514742616065

Tweets from Matthew. Spot the stupidity in the first video:

A lamb is born (appropriate for Easter, no?):

Crikey, Trump chews on his metatarsals again!

 

Friday: Hili dialogue (and Mietek monologue)

April 10, 2020 • 7:00 am

Welcome to Friday, April 10, 2020; it’s National Cinnamon Roll Day, and boy, could I use one! It’s also American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Day (it was founded on April 10, 1866), National Farm Animals Day, Global Work from Home Day (make that a month or two), Siblings Day, Golfer’s Day (who’s the one golfer being celebrated?) and, of course, Good Friday, when Jesus was supposedly crucified some time between A.D. 30 and 36.  April 10 is normally the 100th day of the year, but it’s the 101st in 2020 because it’s a leap year.

Today’s Google Doodle continues the two-week series praising coronovirus helpers. Today’s Doodle appears to celebrate those who grow our food (click on screenshot):

News of the Day: Do I need to say it’s still dreadful? As of this writing, the worldwide death toll from the pandemic is 96,791, and in the U.S. it’s 16,676.  Last night the news named Illinois as one of the growing pandemic “hot spots”.  The media and the Outrage Brigade continues to leverage the pandemic to bolster identity politics: every group is claiming the exacerbation or uncovering of oppression by the pandemic. See today’s New York Times for some choice examples.  (And yes, I do think Trump’s repeatedly calling coronavirus “the Chinese virus” is a deliberate example of bias and xenophobia.) But can’t people put their agenda aside just for a couple of months?

Today I will walk four miles through dicey parts of Chicago today to pick up my car at the garage (brakes got fixed), as, on medical advice, I dare not risk taking an Uber. Well, it’s exercise.

Matthew says he wrote “a cranky letter” to the Guardian; here it is. I love that old curmudgeon!

Stuff that happened on April 10 includes:

  • 1837 – Halley’s Comet makes its closest approach to Earth at a distance equal to 0.0342 AU (5.1 million kilometres/3.2 million miles).
  • 1710 – The Statute of Anne, the first law regulating copyright, comes into force in Great Britain.
  • 1815 – The Mount Tambora volcano begins a three-month-long eruption, lasting until July 15. The eruption ultimately kills 71,000 people and affects Earth’s climate for the next two years.
  • 1858 – After the original Big Ben, a 14.5 tonnes (32,000 lb) bell for the Palace of Westminster, had cracked during testing, it is recast into the current 13.76 tonnes (30,300 lb) bell by Whitechapel Bell Foundry.
  • 1865 – American Civil War: A day after his surrender to Union forces, Confederate General Robert E. Lee addresses his troops for the last time.
  • 1912 – RMS Titanic sets sail from Southampton, England on her maiden and only voyage.

Here’s a photo of its departure on April 10, 1912. Little did those aboard, or those watching the ship, know that its voyage would end at the bottom of the North Atlantic:

Zapata, a hero of the Mexican Revolution, is shown in the photo below. Yes, many did wear sombreros; Zapata is the one seated in the middle with the big hat. But look at the diversity of headgear! Wikipedia caption: “Zapata in his characteristic large sombrero and his staff in all manner of hats”

And here’s his corpse after he was killed 101 years ago today (also from Wikipedia):

  • 1925 – The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald is first published in New York City, by Charles Scribner’s Sons.
  • 1963 – One hundred twenty-nine American sailors die when the submarine USS Thresher sinks at sea.
  • 1970 – Paul McCartney announces that he is leaving The Beatles for personal and professional reasons.

It’s a sad day for that, but I suppose the Beatles had reached their end.

  • 1998 – The Good Friday Agreement is signed in Northern Ireland.
  • 2019 – Scientists from the Event Horizon Telescope project announce the first ever image of a black hole, located in the centre of the M87 galaxy.

Here’s the famous picture: remember it? Caption: “Visible are the crescent-shaped emission ring and central shadow, which are gravitationally magnified views of the black hole’s photon ring and the photon capture zone of its event horizon. The crescent shape arises from the black hole’s rotation and relativistic beaming; the shadow is about 2.6 times the diameter of the event horizon.”

This media was produced by European Southern Observatory (ESO).

Notables born on this day include:

  • 1829 – William Booth, English minister, founded The Salvation Army (d. 1912)
  • 1847 – Joseph Pulitzer, Hungarian-American journalist, publisher, and politician, founded Pulitzer, Inc. (d. 1911)
  • 1917 – Robert Burns Woodward, American chemist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1979)
  • 1932 – Omar Sharif, Egyptian actor and screenwriter (d. 2015)

Two facts about Sharif: he was a world class contract bridge player who sometimes contributed to a bridge column in the Chicago Tribune. Also, he smoked 100 cigarettes a day! He did quit, but died of a heart attack 5 years ago. Oh, and do you remember that, besides playing Ali in Lawrence of Arabia, he was also the protagonist of Doctor Zhivago?  Here he reunites with his great love Lara, played by Julie Christie. I really should watch this movie again:

 

  • 1941 – Paul Theroux, American novelist, short story writer, and travel writer
  • 1952 – Steven Seagal, American actor, producer, and martial artist

Those who joined the Choir Invisible on April 10 include:

  • 1909 – Algernon Charles Swinburne, English poet, playwright, novelist, and critic (b. 1837)
  • 1919 – Emiliano Zapata, Mexican general (b. 1879)
  • 1931 – Kahlil Gibran, Lebanese-American poet, painter, and philosopher (b. 1883)
  • 1955 – Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, French priest, theologian, and philosopher (b. 1881)
  • 1966 – Evelyn Waugh, English soldier, novelist, journalist and critic (b. 1903)
  • 1975 – Walker Evans, American photographer (b. 1903)

Evans photographed people impoverished by the Depression and their circumstances, working for the government’s Farm Security Administration and Fortune Magazine. The photo below, one of his most famous, is from the book Let Us Now Praise Famous Men, with the writing by James Agee.  It’s a poor but proud family of sharecroppers in the South (caption underneath):

Bud Fields and His Family, Hale County, Alabama, photograph by Walker Evans, c. 1936–37; from the book Let Us Now Praise Famous Men (1941) by Evans and James Agee. Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili has a first world problem:

Hili: To choose priorities is the most important thing.
A: And what is your priority?
Hili: First, I will take a nap.
In Polish:
Hili: Najważniejszy jest wybór priorytetów.
Ja: A jaki jest twój priorytet?
Hili: Najpierw się prześpię.

And Leon and Mitek are both in the car heading for a walk. Mietek is still awed by the world:

Mietek: The world is kind of strange.

In Polish: Jakiś dziwny jest ten świat.

Two bogroll-related memes from Merilee:

Better than roses!

From reader John:

The latest from Titania. And yes, her characterization of the article is pretty accurate:

Two tweets from Heather Hastie. The first is what cat staff do during quarantine. But look at that amazing standing jump!

https://twitter.com/planetpng/status/1246599725756952577

This one is pure Trump:

Tweets from Matthew. He says this dystopian photo of London is genuine:

Anxiety-provoking rescue of mallard and offspring, but it apparently all turns out o.k. Sound up on this one.

Now this overabundance of offspring, the vast bulk of which will die right after birth, is a bit of a mystery. Do you have a solution?

A lovely “V” of migrating geese. Sound up, please:

And SPOT THE CAT!  I looked for a while and couldn’t find the damn cat, but many people claim that it’s easy.

https://twitter.com/LumpyandFriends/status/1248170081542168576

 

Wednesday: Hili dialogue

April 8, 2020 • 7:00 am

It’s Hump Day: Wednesday, April 8, 2020, and National Empanada Day, a day of cultural appropriation. It’s also Holy Wednesday, leading up to Easter, International Romani Day, honoring Romani culture,  Zoo Lovers Day (nobody will be going to the zoo today), Dog Farting Awareness Day (true!), and Draw A Picture of a Bird Day.

Here’s mine; join me if you wish, email it to me, and if I get more than five drawings, I’ll post them.

News of the Day: Bad, as usual. There are few signs of the pandemic slowing in the U.S.: the death toll in the U.S. as of this writing is more than 12,000, doubling in five days, and over 400,000 people are infected. There are nearly 83,000 deaths over the world.  For no good reason, Trump fired the Pentagon’s inspector general, in charge of overseeing the trillions that the government has allotted to fighting the pandemic.

And, sadly, John Prine died yesterday of Covid-19 infection.

Today’s Google Doodle honors first responders. Clicking on it goes to links thanking coronavirus “helpers”:

Stuff that happened on April 8 includes:

This, perhaps the most famous of all Greek sculptures, resides in the Louvre, and was probably created between 130-100 BC. It’s now thought to have been sculpted by Alexandros of Antioch rather than Praxiteles:

Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license.

This is one guess about how it originally looked:

By Unknown author – Paul Carus: The Venus of Milo: An Archaeological Study of the Goddess of Womanhood. The Open Court Publishing Company, Chicago/London, 1916., Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=375078

A photo exists of the poor woman (below), who died at only 55.  Wikipedia discusses the basis of her condition (she was apparently diagnosed from her behavior, not from brain sections):

She died on 8 April 1906. More than a century later, her case was re-examined with modern medical technologies, where a genetic cause was found for her disease by scientists from Gießen and Sydney. The results were published in the journal The Lancet Neurology. According to this paper, a mutation in the PSEN1 gene was found, which alters the function of gamma secretase, and is a known cause of early-onset Alzheimer’s disease. However, the results could not be replicated in a more recent paper published in 2014 where “Auguste D’s DNA revealed no indication of a nonsynonymous hetero- or homozygous mutation in the exons of APP, PSEN1, and PSEN2 genes comprising the already known familial AD mutations.”

  • 1911 – Dutch physicist Heike Kamerlingh Onnes discovers superconductivity.
  • 1913 – The 17th Amendment to the United States Constitution, requiring direct election of Senators, becomes law.
  • 1942 – World War II: Siege of Leningrad: Soviet forces open a much-needed railway link to Leningrad.
  • 1943 – Otto and Elise Hampel are executed in Berlin for their anti-Nazi activities.
  • 1974 – At Atlanta–Fulton County Stadium, Hank Aaron hits his 715th career home run to surpass Babe Ruth’s 39-year-old record.
  • 1975 – Frank Robinson manages the Cleveland Indians in his first game as major league baseball’s first African American manager.
  • 1987 – Los Angeles Dodgers executive Al Campanis resigns amid controversy over racially charged remarks he had made while on Nightline.

These are the words that got Campanis in trouble, and led to his resignation. How could he have been so dumb to give voice to his racism? Here he suggests that black people didn’t have the leadership abilities to be baseball managers or football quarterback—and couldn’t be good swimmers because they didn’t have the “buoyancy”! Since then, of course, there have been many black managers and coaches, as well as quarterbacks. To his credit, Koppel went after Campanis strongly.

  • 1992 – Retired tennis great Arthur Ashe announces that he has AIDS, acquired from blood transfusions during one of his two heart surgeries.
  • 2013 – The Islamic State of Iraq enters the Syrian Civil War and begins by declaring a merger with the Al-Nusra Front under the name Islamic State of Iraq and ash-Sham.

Notables born on this day include:

  • 1869 – Harvey Cushing, American surgeon and academic (d. 1939)
  • 1892 – Mary Pickford, Canadian-American actress, producer, and screenwriter, co-founded United Artists (d. 1979)
  • 1896 – Yip Harburg, American composer (d. 1981)

Born Isidore Hochberg on New York’s lower East Side, and changing his name because of anti-Semitism, Harberg wrote many famous songs. They include “Brother, Can You Spare a Dime,” “It’s Only a Paper Moon,” and perhaps the most renowned movie song of all (he wrote all the songs for this movie). Do watch this: even if the song has become a cliché, it’s beautiful. (Note that Toto was a GOOD DOG during the song.)

It’s curious to me that so many composers of great Broadway music were Jewish (Rodgers, Hammerstein, Hart, Harburg, Sondheim, Lerner, Loewe—the list goes on). I have no theory to explain this.

  • 1902 – Andrew Irvine, English mountaineer and explorer (d. 1924)
  • 1912 – Sonja Henie, Norwegian-American figure skater and actress (d. 1969)
  • 1929 – Jacques Brel, Belgian singer-songwriter and actor (d. 1978)
  • 1946 – Catfish Hunter, American baseball player (d. 1999)
  • 1955 – Barbara Kingsolver, American novelist, essayist and poet
  • 1960 – Hugh Dominic “Dom” Stiles, librarian and polymath (see post later today)
  • 1963 – Julian Lennon, English singer-songwriter

Those who croaked on April 8 include:

  • 1973 – Pablo Picasso, Spanish painter and sculptor (b. 1881)
  • 1996 – Ben Johnson, American actor and stuntman (b. 1918)
  • 1997 – Laura Nyro, American singer-songwriter and pianist (b. 1947)
  • 2013 – Annette Funicello, American actress and singer (b. 1942)

Ben Johnson was an integral character in what I consider the best American movie of our time (and perhaps all time): “The Last Picture Show” (1971). Here, playing Sam the Lion, he gives one of the best soliloquies of all movies, recounting his life and a lost love to Sonny, played by Timothy Bottoms. (Johnson won the Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his performance in this film.) Roger Ebert’s 4-star review of the movie begins by describing this scene:

The best scene in “The Last Picture Show” takes place outside town at the “tank,” an unlovely pond that briefly breaks the monotony of the flat Texas prairie. Sam the Lion has taken Sonny and the retarded boy Billy fishing there, even though, as Sonny observes, there ain’t nothing in the tank but turtles. That’s all right with Sam: He doesn’t like fish, doesn’t like to clean them, doesn’t like to smell them. He goes fishing for the scenery.”Try one?” he says, offering Sonny the makings of a hand-rolled cigarette. And then he begins an wistful monologue, about a time 20 years ago when he brought a girl out to the tank and they swam in it and rode their horses across it and were in love on its banks. The girl had life and fire, but she was already married, and Sam even then was no longer young. As he tells the story, we realize we are listening to the sustaining myth of Sam’s life, the vision of beauty that keeps him going in the dying town of Anarene, Texas.

The scene has a direct inspiration, I believe, for the writer-director, Peter Bogdanovich. I’m sure he was thinking of the monologue in “Citizen Kane” (1941) where old Mr. Bernstein remembers a girl with a parasol who he saw once, 50 years ago, and still cherishes in his memory as a beacon of what could have been.

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili is digging, apparently to no purpose.

Hili: Who knows what is hidden in the ground?
A: Try to find it.
Hili: That’s exactly what I’m doing.
In Polish:
Hili: Kto wie, co się kryje w ziemi?
Ja: Spróbuj to zbadać.
Hili: Właśnie to robię.

Out in the garden in his future home near Dobrzyn, kitten Mietek speaks with a query:

Mietek: What is buzzing here?

In Polish: Co tu tak brzęczy?

The other day I showed a “socially distanced baptism”, involving a priest squirting a baby with a squirtgun from a substantial distance. I asked then, “But what do you do about circumcisions?” Reader Avi then sent me the solution in this photo, which he said was being passed around Orthodox Jewish (online) circles last week:

Two virus memes from Bruce:

This is certainly true in Chicago!

From Titania:

From Gethyn. I retweeted it with the comment, “Maybe we should just let animals run the world for a while.” (But of course we’re animals.)

Two tweets from Heather Hastie. She says that this is an answer to the facemasks-made-of-bras videos on the Internet:

And of this one she says: “I watched it over and over again – they’re sooooo cute!”

Tweets from Matthew. This first one is ineffably cool: a fox steals a cellphone. Be sure to watch the video:

A dramatic death in freshwater. This happens millions of times a minute, but we never see it:

Matthew and I are both suffering from disturbed sleep. Being phlegmatic, he can’t find a definite cause, while I know mine is anxiety! But we both applaud the sunrise, which helps dissolve worries and fears.

Matthew says of McMillan: “He is a poet my age from Barnsley.”

A lovely little puffin riding the wind, a rare treat for this hard-flapping little bird:

Saturday: Hili dialogue

April 4, 2020 • 7:00 am

It’s Saturday, April 4, 2020, and it’s both National Cordon Bleu Day (celebrating the dish of thinly pounded chicken filled with ham and cheese, then breaded and fried [I’ve never had one]) and International Carrot Day. Re the carrots, it’s also Vitamin C Day.  Further, it’s Hug a Newsperson Day (right sentiment, wrong year), National Rat Day, and National DIY (do it yourself) Day. Now’s a good day to make that reusable face mask out of an old tee shirt that I highlighted yesterday.

News of the Day: Very bad, as usual. As the pandemic spreads around the world, the death toll in the U.S. has passed 7,000. The CDC recommends that we all wear cloth masks in public, which I’ll do whenever I’m not taking a solitary walk but going “in public”, like to a gas station or a store.  Trump, however, says he won’t take the CDC’s advice. (I notice that during his press conference he also avoids “social distancing”.)  Nine U.S. states still haven’t ordered stay-at-home regulations, including Arkansas, Iowa, Nebraska, North Dakota and South Dakota; Wyoming, Utah, South Carolina, and Oklahoma have such orders in only parts of their state. As I recall, all of these states have Republican governors. Anthony Fauci says he can’t comprehend the holdouts, and he’s right.

I also predict that there will be no major league baseball played in the U.S. this year (the season’s now postponed), though some optimists think otherwise. They are almost certainly wrong, as is everyone who thinks this pandemic will be over soon and it will be business as usual by fall. I hope I’m wrong in this prediction, but I don’t think I will be.

Lots of stuff happened on April 4, including:

  • 1147 – Moscow is mentioned for the first time in the historical record, when it is named as a meeting place for two princes.
  • 1581 – Francis Drake is knighted for completing a circumnavigation of the world.
  • 1796 – Georges Cuvier delivers the first paleontological lecture.

Cuvier is known as the Father of Paleontology, and Wikipedia says this about the lecture:

On 4 April 1796 he began to lecture at the École Centrale du Pantheon and, at the opening of the National Institute in April, he read his first paleontological paper, which subsequently was published in 1800 under the title Mémoires sur les espèces d’éléphants vivants et fossiles. In this paper, he analyzed skeletal remains of Indian and African elephants, as well as mammoth fossils, and a fossil skeleton known at that time as the ‘Ohio animal’.

Harrison was in office for exactly one month, taking up the Presidency on March 4.

  • 1949 – Cold War: Twelve nations sign the North Atlantic Treaty creating the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.
  • 1958 – The CND peace symbol is displayed in public for the first time in London.

You must learn where the sign came from:

The symbol is a super-imposition of the semaphore signals for the letters “N” and “D”, taken to stand for “nuclear disarmament”. This observation was made as early as 5 April 1958 in the Manchester Guardian. In addition to this primary genesis, Holtom additionally cited as inspiration Goya’s Peasant Before the Firing Squad.

Here’s that painting, also called “The Third of May 1808”:

If you can name the top five you’re an expert! Here they are:

Source
  • 1968 – Martin Luther King Jr. is assassinated by James Earl Ray at a motel in Memphis, Tennessee.
  • 1969 – Dr. Denton Cooley implants the first temporary artificial heart.
  • 1973 – The Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York City are officially dedicated.
  • 1975 – Microsoft is founded as a partnership between Bill Gates and Paul Allen in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
  • 1979 – Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto of Pakistan is executed.
  • 1983 – Space Shuttle program: Space Shuttle Challenger makes its maiden voyage into space.

Notables born on this day include:

  • 1802 – Dorothea Dix, American nurse and activist (d. 1887)
  • 1895 – Arthur Murray, American dancer and educator (d. 1991)
  • 1928 – Maya Angelou, American memoirist and poet (d. 2014)
  • 1948 – Berry Oakley, American bass player (d. 1972)
  • 1965 – Robert Downey Jr., American actor, producer, and screenwriter
  • 1979 – Heath Ledger, Australian actor (d. 2008)
  • 2012 – Grumpy Cat, American internet celebrity cat (d. 2019)

I never liked Grumpy Cat (real name “Tardar Sauce”) because his “grumpiness” was a developmental defect, probably based on a mutation (she lived only 7 years). But here she is, one last time:

This is the first cat I’ve seen commemorated on Wikipedia’s birthday lists.

Those who experienced mortality on April 4 include:

  • 1617 – John Napier, Scottish mathematician, physicist, and astronomer (b. 1550)
  • 1929 – Karl Benz, German engineer and businessman, founded Mercedes-Benz (b. 1844)
  • 1958 – Johnny Stompanato, American soldier and bodyguard (b. 1925)
  • 1968 – Martin Luther King Jr., American minister and activist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1929)
  • 1983 – Gloria Swanson, American actress (b. 1899)
  • 2013 – Roger Ebert, American journalist, critic, and screenwriter (b. 1942)

Meanwihile in Dobrzyn, today’s Hili dialogue needs an explanation, which Malgorzata has supplied:

There are problems in Polish agriculture that may lead to food shortages. And we have this huge garden with plenty of good soil on which only grass grows. So we found a gardener to dig a vegetable garden in one part of our yard. He will plant for us diverse vegetables, and beans are among them. Hili is full of enthusiasm and thinks that we should discard all flowers and just plant beans.

The dialogue:

Hili: Everything is growing amazingly.
A: Now the spring is real.
Hili: Maybe, instead of flowers we should plant beans?
In Polish:
Hili: Niesłychanie to wszystko rośnie.
Ja: Wiosna w pełni.
Hili: A może zamiast kwiatków zasadzić fasolę?

Also in Dobrzyn, Szaron is baffled by the blinds (note that he’s got the cord in his mouth:

Szaron: How do they do it?

In Polish: Szaron: Jak oni to robią?

And let’s not forget about Kitten Mietek, was photographed (with a caption) by staff Elzbieta. Like his stepbrother Leon, Mietek has taken to the leash!

Caption: Mietek gets to know the world.
In Polish: Mietek poznaje świat.

From Jim:

From Graham (I may have posted this a while back, but can’t recall):

And a gif from Twisted Sifter. Is this Proof of Ceiling Cat?

From The Queen’s continuing series on the pandemic:

https://twitter.com/TitaniaMcGrath/status/1246054097385598981

I retweeted this tweet I got from Matthew and added some explanation and a link. The second tweet, with a video (sound on!), is the heartwarming one. Fricking Navy!

Tweets from Matthew. Have a look at this uber-weird tree!:

A fun-loving croc:

No comment:

In the word of nature (sans H. sapiens), life goes on. . .

Matthew explains this cartoon from the Times Literary Supplement, “The picture contains images that are synonyms/images/phrases for sex. So – screw, roll in the hay, netflix and chill, sowing wild oats etc etc”. How many can you spot?

Nature is getting ever closer to humans as the humans retreat into their houses.  Here’s an example:

 

 

Sunday: Hili dialogue (and Leon monologue)

February 16, 2020 • 6:45 am

It’s Sunday, February 16, 2020, and in one week I shall go to Paris for a short R&R&E (eating) spree. Speaking of food, it’s National Almond Day, as well as Tim Tam Day, celebrating an Australian bikkie that I’ve never tried, though I see you can buy them in American stores like Wal-Mart. It’s also Do A Grouch A Favor Day, which means somebody should send me some Tim Tams. . .

The goods

They sound really good:

The Tim Tam is a popular chocolate biscuit native to Australia. It consists of two wafers of malted biscuit which sandwich a creamy chocolate filling, with the whole thing being held together by a thin outer layer of chocolate. By nibbling away part of the biscuit, you can drink through it in the same way you would a straw! This technique is called by many different names, including the Tim Tam slam, the Tim Tam suck, Tim Tam bomb, and more.If you’ve got a pack of Tim Tams and a beverage, you’ll surely want to give it a try.

Sounds good with hot chocolate or a latte, or like these Tim Tam Slams, with tea (I wouldn’t want to mix chocolate with tea, though):

In North Korea it’s the “Day of the Shining Star,” celebrating Kim Jong-il’s birthday, which was in either 1941 or 1942, and either in Korea or Russia (what we do know is that he died in 2011). The day’s name comes from the bogus claim that a bright star appeared in the sky on the night he was born. At least the birds didn’t sing praises in Korean when he was born, though the DPRK reports many natural wonders on the day he died.

News: It was bloody cold and windy in Chicago yesterday, much colder than predicted (the low was 25°F or -4°C, but the wind made it much worse). Here’s a sunset shot from my crib; doesn’t it look cold?

Stuff that happened on February 16 include:

King Tut’s tomb has been restored, and now looks like this:

  • 1959 – Fidel Castro becomes Premier of Cuba after dictator Fulgencio Batista was overthrown on January 1.
  • 1960 – The U.S. Navy submarine USS Triton begins Operation Sandblast, setting sail from New London, Connecticut, to begin the first submerged circumnavigation of the globe.

From Wikipedia about this circumnavigation, which followed the route of Magellan’s first trip (below):

The actual submerged circumnavigation occurred between 24 February and 25 April 1960, covering 26,723 nautical miles (49,491 km; 30,752 mi) in 60 days and 21 hours at the average speed of 18 knots (33 km/h; 21 mph) while crossing the Equator on four different occasions. Also, the total duration of Triton‘s shakedown cruise was 84 days 19 hours 8 minutes, covering 36,335.1 nautical miles (67,292.6 km; 41,813.7 mi), and Triton remained submerged for a total of 83 days 9 hours, covering 35,979.1 nautical miles (66,633.3 km; 41,404.0 mi) during her maiden voyage.

The route:

A few other things that happened on February 16:

  • 1968 – In Haleyville, Alabama, the first 9-1-1 emergency telephone system goes into service.
  • 1978 – The first computer bulletin board system is created (CBBS in Chicago).
  • 2005 – The Kyoto Protocol comes into force, following its ratification by Russia.
  • 2005 – The National Hockey League cancels the entire 2004–05 regular season and playoffs.
  • 2006 – The last Mobile army surgical hospital (MASH) is decommissioned by the United States Army.

Notables born on this day include:

  • 1838 – Henry Adams, American journalist, historian, and author (d. 1918)
  • 1926 – Margot Frank, German-Dutch holocaust victim (d. 1945) [JAC: She was, of course, Anne Frank’s sister, who died with her in the Bergen-Belsen camp.
  • 1935 – Sonny Bono, American actor, singer, and politician (d. 1998)
  • 1941 – Kim Jong-il, North Korean commander and politician, 2nd Supreme Leader of North Korea (d. 2011)
  • 1958 – Natalie Angier, American author.

Read her new story on the color black in nature at the NYT (I may post on this today). Natalie didn’t give her birthday on her Facebook page, but I saw it on Wikipedia and went over and congratulated her anyway. I hope she doesn’t get mad (some people hate birthdays).

Only two notables made their exit on February 16, including:

  • 2001 – William Masters, American gynecologist and sexologist (b. 1915)
  • 2015 – Lesley Gore, American singer-songwriter (b. 1946)

Lesley Gore, whose real name was Lesley Sue Goldstein, was Jewish, and here’s one of her big hits, sung live on the famous T.A.M.I. show from 1964:

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, the dialogue is a bit confusing, so Malgorzata explains:

Hili is looking (through the window) at Andrzej who is preparing something for posting. She doesn’t like the photo he has on the screen, and ordera him to crop it. He does that and she approves. It’s a different photo than the one you see in this dialogue.

Hili: You have to crop this picture a bit.
A: Will it be OK like this?
Hili: It’s OK.
In Polish:
Hili: Musisz to zdjęcie trochę przyciąć.
Ja: Tak będzie dobrze?
Hili: Może być.
Malgorzata and Andrzej are in the process of taming a feral gray cat as a companion for Hili (if Hili hates the cat, a male, then he will live upstairs with the lodgers).  Fingers crossed that he’ll be tamed!  So far Andrzej is feeding him in the barn and the cat lets Andrzej pet him, though he’s still afraid of Malgorzata, whom he hasn’t seen so often.

And in nearby Wloclawek, Mietek and Leon are thinking of napping. Look how big Mietek has gotten!

Leon: Are we going to sleep?

In Polish: Idziemy spać?

It seems to be Cat Day today. I know it’s two days late, but I couldn’t resist posting this photo from Wild and Wonderful:

From The Cat House on the Kings:

And a great cat meme from Jesus of the Day:

Zuby, a black rapper and Oggsford man, weighs in on the transwomen in sports issue:

A tweet from reader Barry of upwards lightning, though I think every bolt from above is preceded from one going upwards (though not this strong!):

https://twitter.com/buitengebieden_/status/1228434120323338241

Two tweets from Heather Hastie. More backwards stuff!

Mad March hares!

Tweets from Matthew. Who knew that squirrels could barter? This is ineffably adorable:

https://twitter.com/planetpng/status/1228374663530713089?s=11

Butt wiggling would help this cat power up:

Good morning tweets:

 

Tuesday: Hili dialogue (with Leon and Mietek)

February 4, 2020 • 6:45 am

Good morning on the cruelest day of the week, Tuesday, and it’s February 4, 2020: both National Homemade Soup Day and National Stuffed Mushroom Day.  I was excited to read that it was also National Quacker Day, but that is a cruel ruse:

National Quacker Day celebrates “Quackers,” those who are enthusiasts of Quacker Factory, a women’s clothing company founded by Jeanne Bice.

It’s also Liberace Day (if you remember him, you’re old), born Władziu Valentino Liberace, and who died on this day in 1987.

And it’s Rosa Parks Day, celebrating the Civil Rights icon born on this day in 1913 (she died in 2005). In California and Missouri, however, it’s celebrated on December 1, the day she was arrested for not relinquishing her seat to a white man in 1955. That led to the famous Montgomery Bus Boycott, which successfully challenged the law requiring segregation. The very bus that made her famous is now preserved at the Henry Ford Museum of American Innovation in Detroit, Michigan.

Here’s a short video recounting the story of Parks and what happened to the bus:

News of the Day: If you’ve followed the voting in Iowa yesterday, you’ll know that there are NO RESULTS YET. There’s apparently been a delay in reporting the delegate counts, and although we know nothing, several candidates, including Bern, say they have a “good feeling” about how they did. We shall see.

In lieu of those results, here’s what yesterday’s WEIT caucus showed: a victory for Bernie. (As usual, not that many people voted, though.). Uncle Joe was second, with everybody else far behind, with Warren barely registering. You’re all a pack of socialists!

Stuff that happened on February 4 includes:

  • 1555 – John Rogers is burned at the stake, becoming the first English Protestant martyr under Mary I of England.
  • 1703 – In Edo (now Tokyo), all but one of the Forty-seven Ronin commit seppuku (ritual suicide) as recompense for avenging their master’s death.
  • 1789 – George Washington is unanimously elected as the first President of the United States by the U.S. Electoral College.
  • 1846 – The first Mormon pioneers make their exodus from Nauvoo, Illinois, westward towards Salt Lake Valley.
  • 1948 – Ceylon (later renamed Sri Lanka) becomes independent within the British Commonwealth.
  • 1969 – Yasser Arafat takes over as chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization.
  • 2004 – Facebook, a mainstream online social networking site, is founded by Mark Zuckerberg.

Notables born on this day includes:

  • 1818 – Emperor Norton, San Francisco eccentric and visionary (d. 1880)
  • 1902 – Charles Lindbergh, American pilot and explorer (d. 1974)
  • 1906 – Dietrich Bonhoeffer, German pastor and theologian (d. 1945)
  • 1913 – Rosa Parks, American civil rights activist (d. 2005)
  • 1921 – Betty Friedan, American author and feminist (d. 2006)
  • 1948 – Alice Cooper, American singer-songwriter

Bonhoeffer is one of only a handful of pastors and theologians I admire (well, perhaps the only one!), mainly because he stood up for science in the “God of the gaps” problem, and mainly because he was immensely brave, and was hanged by the Nazis for conspiring to assassinate Hitler. The circumstances of his hanging (whether it was quick or deliberately prolonged) are cloudy, but it’s clear that he was stripped of all his clothing before he was executed. Here he is:

Those who became ex-persons on February 4 include:

  • 1968 – Neal Cassady, American novelist and poet (b. 1926)
  • 1982 – Georg Konrad Morgen, German lawyer and judge (b. 1909)
  • 1983 – Karen Carpenter, American singer (b. 1950)
  • 1987 – Liberace, American singer-songwriter and pianist, (b. 1919)
  • 2006 – Betty Friedan, American author and activist (b. 1921)

Two of my heroes—Karen Carpenter and Neal Cassady (Dean Moriarty in Kerouac’s On the Road)—died on the same day. Here’s Neal, who also drove The Buss (with Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters aboard) in Tom Wolfe’s The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test. He looks a bit like Elvis:

Cassady died at 41 from drugs, his comatose body found alongside a railroad track in Mexico. I’m pretty sure that’s the way he would have wanted to go.

 I didn’t know there was a documentary about that famous bus trip “Magic Trip“, but here’s a trailer, with several shots of Cassady. I must see this movie, but it’s not on YouTube and who would have it?

 

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, we have a pun in today’s Hili:

A WOKE CAT
Hili: I had a nap and now I understand everything.
A: What do you understand?
Hili: The complexity of the world.
In Polish:
PRZEBUDZONA
Hili: Przespałam się i teraz wszystko rozumiem.
Ja; Co rozumiesz?
Hili: Złożoność wszechświata.

And Elzbieta reports that Leon and Mietek the Kitten had their first walk together! As I had hoped, Mietek is being leash trained. He took to the leash wonderfully, and so can go for walks with his brother Leon. Here’s three photos and Elzbieta’s caption:

First walk together.

In Polish: Pierwszy wspólny spacer.

From Facebook, a very great cartoon (except that ducks don’t have teeth):

A Kliban cartoon posted by Stash Krod:

A cartoon clipped and saved by my friends Tim and Betsy:

And a superb series of photos from Wild and Wonderful titled “The best steal in history.”

This is bad: HARVARD is on the list. Click the link for the reasons:

 

A tweet sent by reader Ken. SPY MONKEY! It’s a monkey-shaped cam, and when the langurs think it’s dead, something very much like grief appears.

A nice demonstration, though I’m not sure it’s safe to breathe the stuff:

Well, this is from the bad Womens March—the original, not the the good splinter groups—and yes, this is on their home page. If you want to see the demonstration video, go here.

A good quote from the one Dawkins book that almost nobody reads:

From reader Barry. Yes, this is a beautiful creature indeed, but it’s lazy compared to the women lions!

A tweet from Heather Hastie: Badger love. Is that as good as muskrat love?

Look at the legs on this beetle!

When I asked Matthew what those legs were for, he sent a picture with a note: “They do this apparently”. It seems to be, as the caption suggests, a kind of defensive behavior. Readers with some free time might want to see if those legs can squirt a noxious fluid as well.

Friday: Hili dialogue (and Leon and Mietek monologue)

January 24, 2020 • 6:30 am

We’ve reached the week’s end, as it’s Friday, January 24, 2020, with light snow and just-about-freezing temperatures predicted for Chicago this weekend.  Although wretched January is waning, it’s still gray, slushy, and soul-eroding.

It’s National Peanut Butter Day, a peculiarly American comestible, and National Lobster Thermidor Day, a dish I’ve never had.  And don’t forget it’s National Eskimo Pie Patent Day, celebrating the day in 1922 when Christian Nelson patented this chocolate-covered ice cream bar. I suspect most Americans here have had at least one. The story of the patent on Eskimo pies is a tortuous one, and you can read about it here.  But here’s one of the frozen confections (they also come on a stick, which is unacceptable.)

It’s National Compliment Day, so let me begin: you’re a swell bunch of readers! Finally, it’s National Beer Can Appreciation Day, celebrating that day in 1935 when Krueger’s Finest Beer and Krueger’s Cream Ale became the first beers to be sold in cans. I prefer bottles but will take beer from a can so long as the contents are poured into a glass. Here’s what those first cans looked like:

Stuff that happened on January 24 includes:

  • 1848 – California Gold Rush: James W. Marshall finds gold at Sutter’s Mill near Sacramento.
  • 1908 – The first Boy Scout troop is organized in England by Robert Baden-Powell.
  • 1918 – The Gregorian calendar is introduced in Russia by decree of the Council of People’s Commissars effective February 14.
  • 1961 – Goldsboro B-52 crash: A bomber carrying two H-bombs breaks up in mid-air over North Carolina. The uranium core of one weapon remains lost.

More than that; one of the bombs that fell out of the broken-up plane was armed, and some experts say we came very close to a nuclear detonation over North Carolina!

When American forces captured the island in the 1944 Battle of Guam, Yokoi went into hiding with nine other Japanese soldiers. Seven of the original ten eventually moved away and only three remained in the region. These men separated,
but visited each other periodically until about 1964, when the other two died in a flood. For the last eight years, Yokoi lived alone. He survived by hunting, primarily at night. He also used native plants to make clothes, bedding, and storage implements, which he carefully hid in his cave.

Despite having hidden for twenty-eight years in a jungle cave, he had known since 1952 that World War II had ended. He feared coming out of hiding, explaining, “We Japanese soldiers were told to prefer death to the disgrace of getting captured alive.”

After a whirlwind media tour of Japan, he married and settled down in rural Aichi Prefecture.

Yokoi became a popular television personality and an advocate of austere living. [He died in 1997.]

Yokoi was the antepenultimate Japanese soldier to surrender after the war, preceding Second Lieutenant Hiroo Onoda (relieved from duty by his former commanding officer on 9 March 1974) and Private Teruo Nakamura (arrested 18 December 1974). [JAC: the last “holdout” was Teruo Nakamura, who surrendered on December 18, 1974, after 29 years and three months in hiding!]

Here’s Yokoi’s first haircut in 28 years; his cave (visible on the Wikipedia page) is now a tourist attraction.

  • 1984 – Apple Computer places the Macintosh personal computer on sale in the United States.
  • 1989 – Notorious serial killer Ted Bundy, with over 30 known victims, is executed by the electric chair at the Florida State Prison.

There were many notables born on this day, including Theodosius Dobzhansky, my academic grandfather:

  • 1670 – William Congreve, English playwright and poet (d. 1729)
  • 1712 – Frederick the Great, Prussian king (d. 1786)
  • 1862 – Edith Wharton, American novelist and short story writer (d. 1937)
  • 1900 – Theodosius Dobzhansky, Ukrainian-American geneticist and biologist (d. 1975)

Here’s Dobzhansky, known as “Doby” or “Dodek” to his friends and students; it looks as if he’s examining Drosophila salivary-gland chromosomes under the microscope, something he spent much of his life doing. You can read the stuff written about Doby on this site at this link.

Others born on January 24 include:

  • 1917 – Ernest Borgnine, American actor (d. 2012)
  • 1918 – Oral Roberts, American evangelist, founded Oral Roberts University and Oral Roberts Evangelistic Association (d. 2009)
  • 1928 – Desmond Morris, English zoologist, ethologist, and painter
  • 1941 – Neil Diamond, American singer-songwriter and guitarist
  • 1941 – Aaron Neville, American singer
  • 1943 – Sharon Tate, American model and actress (d. 1969)
  • 1947 – Warren Zevon, American singer-songwriter (d. 2003)
  • 1949 – John Belushi, American actor and screenwriter (d. 1982)
  • 1955 – Alan Sokal, American physicist and author

Those who ceased to exist on January 24 include:

  • AD 41 – Caligula, Roman emperor (b. 12)
  • 1895 – Lord Randolph Churchill, English lawyer and politician, Chancellor of the Exchequer (b. 1849)
  • 1965 – Winston Churchill, English colonel and politician, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1874)

JAC: Winston predicted he’d die on the same day of the year as his father, and he did!

  • 1975 – Larry Fine, American comedian (b. 1902) [JAC: one of the Three Stooges [JAC: Real name was Louis Feinberg; like Curly and Moe, he was Jewish and changed his name.[
  • 1989 – Ted Bundy, American serial killer (b. 1946)
  • 2017 – Butch Trucks, American drummer (b. 1947)

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili and Andrzej discuss the state of the world. I’m told that she’s responding to Andrzej’s angst about (I quote) “what’s going on in Poland (dismantling of independent judiciary) and what’s going on in the world (among many other things, mass murder of Christians in Africa while the world is busy with fighting Islamophobia and mourning 6 million Jews one second while trying to kill 6 million living Jews a second later). Hili cynically reminds Andrzej that the world was never sane.”

A: I have the impression that the world’s gone crazy.
Hili: So what’s new?
In Polish:
Ja: Mam wrażenie, że świat zwariował.
Hili: I co w tym nowego?

And in Wloclawek, Leon naps with his brother Mietek:

Leon: It’s time for an afternoon nap.

In Polish: Pora na poobiednią drzemkę.

A cartoon sent by reader Jon, Bound and Gagged by Dana Summers; strip for January 23, 2020″:

From Jesus of the Day with the caption, “SQUEE!. PHOTO CREDIT: Daisy Gilardini Photography”. A tuchas ride!

A tweet from Titania. Be sure to listen to the song!

And another. Although I don’t formally “follow” the Queen of Wokeness on Twitter, I look at her tweets nearly every day.

A tweet from reader Barry about otter love (remember “Muskrat Love“?):

https://twitter.com/Otter_News/status/1220047294063611910

From Dom. Look at this beetle grub cake! It’s too pretty to eat.

A tweet from Heather Hastie. (I may have posted it before, but it’s worth seeing again.)

Tweets from Matthew. The first one settles a longstanding etymological question:

Another murmuration (Matthew and I love these):

Ah, the power of sexual selection! Be sure to watch the video.