Category: Leon monologue

Thursday: Hili dialogue (and Leon monologue)

October 3, 2019 • 6:30 am

It’s Thursday, October 3, 2019, and as you read this I will be in Williamstown, Massachusetts, scheduled to give a talk at the extremely woke Williams College. But I’m avoiding all politics there, limiting my discussions to biology and free will. Posting will be very light today and tomorrow.

It’s also National Soft Taco Day (cultural appropriation), National Boyfriend Day, National Kale Day (Jebus, I hate that stuff, and that’s not good because it’s good for you), and National Butterfly and Hummingbird Day. Finally, Wikipedia tells us that “On social media: [it’s] ‘Mean Girls Day’, a widespread phenomenon in celebration of the film Mean Girls.  Why they’d celebrate that is a mystery.

Stuff that happened on October 3 includes:

  • 42 BC – Triumvirs Mark Antony and Octavian fight a decisive battle with Caesar’s assassins Brutus and Cassius.
  • 1283 – Dafydd ap Gruffydd, prince of Gwynedd in Wales, is the first nobleman to be executed by hanging, drawing and quartering.

Perhaps you’re familiar with this gruesome method of execution from the film Braveheart, for it’s the way William Wallace was executed. Apparently the prince of Gwynedd was the first prominent person in recorded history to be executed this way. Wikipedia tells us how it went:

On 30 September [1283], Dafydd ap Gruffudd, Prince of Wales, was condemned to death, the first person known to have been tried and executed for what from that time onwards would be described as high treason against the King. Edward ensured that Dafydd’s death was to be slow and agonising, and also historic; he became the first prominent person in recorded history to have been hanged, drawn and quartered, preceded by a number of minor knights earlier in the thirteenth century. Dafydd was dragged through the streets of Shrewsbury attached to a horse’s tail then hanged alive, revived, then disembowelled and his entrails burned before him for “his sacrilege in committing his crimes in the week of Christ’s passion”, and then his body cut into four-quarters “for plotting the king’s death”. Geoffrey of Shrewsbury was paid 20 shillings for carrying out the gruesome act on 3 October 1283.

  • 1789 – George Washington proclaims a Thanksgiving Day for that year.
  • 1932 – Iraq gains independence from the United Kingdom.
  • 1952 – The United Kingdom successfully tests a nuclear weapon to become the world’s third nuclear power.
  • 1957 – The California State Superior Court rules that the book Howl and Other Poems is not obscene.
  • 1981 – The hunger strike at the Maze Prison in Northern Ireland ends after seven months and ten deaths. [JAC: The dead included Bobby Sands.]
  • 1990 – The German Democratic Republic is abolished and becomes part of the Federal Republic of Germany.

Notables born on this day include:

  • 1858 – Eleonora Duse, Italian-American actress (d. 1924)
  • 1900 – Thomas Wolfe, American novelist (d. 1938)

Wolfe is one of my favorite writers. Here’s a photo (he died at only 38):

  • 1916 – James Herriot, English veterinarian and author (d. 1995)
  • 1925 – Gore Vidal, American novelist, screenwriter, and critic (d. 2012)
  • 1941 – Chubby Checker, American singer-songwriter
  • 1949 – Lindsey Buckingham, American singer-songwriter, guitarist, and producer
  • 1954 – Stevie Ray Vaughan, American singer-songwriter, guitarist, and producer (d. 1990)

I discovered Fleetwood Mac only relatively late, well after they’d passed their peak. And now I marvel about how great they were, and what a good guitarist Buckingham was. Here he shows off his skills in a 2008 acoustic rendition of “Big Love” (beginning of clip to 3:45). It’s a good specimen of three-finger picking, and I’m especially impressed at how he plays a complicated melody at the same time singing with extreme soulfulness:

Those who snuffed it on October 3 include:

  • 1656 – Myles Standish, English captain (b. 1584)
  • 1867 – Elias Howe, American engineer, invented the sewing machine (b. 1819)
  • 1967 – Woody Guthrie, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (b. 1912)

Woody Guthrie died of Huntington’s Disease at age 55—a disease that also killed his mother and two of his daughters—after a long period of decline. Only two videos survive of him performing live. This is one of them, in which Guthrie performs “John Henry” with Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee:

His famous guitar had a label: “This machine kills fascists”:

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili laments the cold weather, which has already curtailed her nocturnal roaming:

Hili: Nuts are starting to fall off the trees.
A: So what?
Hili: It bodes ill; winter will come.
In Polish:
Hili: Orzechy zaczynają spadać.
Ja: No to co?
Hili: To źle wróży, będzie zima.

And in nearby Wloclawek, Leon has been sick, but he’s recovering now.

Leon: Perhaps it’s time to end being ill.

In Polish: Chyba muszę skończyć z tym chorowaniem.

 

From gravelinspector: the Quacktress is still peddling woo at her site:

A tweet from God about evolution:

From Barry: A dragonfly that thinks it’s a sexpot:

Two tweets from Heather Hastie. In the first one, a cat pwns a Robo-Vac:

And a tweet (via Ann German) responding to one of Trump’s tweets that said simply, “PRESIDENTIAL HARASSMENT”:

Three tweets from Matthew. This first one shows that ducks don’t always like the rain:

Matthew said this tweet is going to make me feel old. It doesn’t—it makes me feel proud. “Spill the tea” will be one entry on a future “Words and phrases I despise” post. And “retweet” is old hat.

A cryptic moggie:

 

 

Monday: Hili dialogue (and Leon monologue)

September 23, 2019 • 6:30 am

It’s FALL now in the Northern Hemisphere, as it’s September 23, 2019 and the equinox began this morning at 3:50 Eastern time. Google celebrates with a Doodle that links to the season:

But south of the Equator it’s now Spring, and here’s the Doodle they see:

It’s National Pancake Day. and also Celebrate Bisexuality Day, National Great American Pot Pie Day (when I was a kid we used to have these as “t.v. dinners”, on a tray in front of the television), and Restless Legs Awareness Day.

Stuff that happened on this day includes:

  • 1642 – First commencement exercises occur at Harvard College.
  • 1806 – Lewis and Clark return to St. Louis after exploring the Pacific Northwest of the United States.
  • 1845 – The Knickerbockers Baseball Club, the first baseball team to play under the modern rules, is founded in New York.
  • 1846 – Astronomers Urbain Jean Joseph Le Verrier, John Couch Adams and Johann Gottfried Galle collaborate on the discovery of Neptune.
  • 1909 – The novel Le Fantôme de l’Opéra (The Phantom of the Opera), by Gaston Leroux, is published as a serialization in Le Gaulois.
  • 1932 – The unification of Saudi Arabia is completed.
  • 1980 – Bob Marley plays what would be the last concert of his life in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Marley died the next year of melanoma that had spread throughout his body. There is no video of his last concert, but you can hear snippets of the songs from that concert streamed here. Wikipedia reports this about his death:

While Marley was flying home from Germany to Jamaica, his vital functions worsened. After landing in Miami, Florida, he was taken to the hospital for immediate medical attention. Marley died on 11 May 1981 at Cedars of Lebanon Hospital in Miami (now University of Miami Hospital), aged 36. The spread of melanoma to his lungs and brain caused his death. His final words to his son Ziggy were “Money can’t buy life.”

  • 1986 – Houston Astros’ Jim Deshaies sets a record, striking out the first eight batters he faces against the Los Angeles Dodgers.

However, it’s not an unshared record, for Wikipedia notes that “This feat was equaled by Jacob deGrom on September 14, 2014 and Germán Márquez on September 26, 2018.”  Finally, we have this:

  • 2002 – The first public version of the web browser Mozilla Firefox (“Phoenix 0.1”) is released.

Here’s what it looked like:

Notables born on September 23 include:

  • 1889 – Walter Lippmann, American journalist and publisher, co-founded The New Republic (d. 1974)
  • 1899 – Louise Nevelson, American sculptor (d. 1988)
  • 1920 – Mickey Rooney, American actor, singer, director, and producer (d. 2014)
  • 1930 – Ray Charles, American singer-songwriter, pianist, and actor (d. 2004)
  • 1949 – Bruce Springsteen, American singer-songwriter and guitarist
  • 1970 – Ani DiFranco, American singer-songwriter and guitarist
  • 1971 – Sean Spicer, 30th White House Press Secretary

Those who croaked on this day include:

  • 1889 – Wilkie Collins, English novelist, short story writer, and playwright (b. 1824)
  • 1939 – Sigmund Freud, Austrian neurologist and psychiatrist (b. 1856)
  • 1987 – Bob Fosse, American actor, dancer, choreographer, and director (b. 1927)
  • 2014 – Irven DeVore, American anthropologist and biologist (b. 1934)

Here’s Freud’s famous couch, far more luxurious than I imagined, as it’s seen in London’s Freud Museum:

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili contemplates the origin of her species:

Hili: How did cats domesticate humans?
A: Probably by reducing their inborn aggression with quiet purring.
In Polish:
Hili: Jak kot udomowił człowieka?
Ja: Prawdopodobnie łagodząc jego wrodzoną agresję cichym mruczeniem.

And nearby in Wloclawek, Leon is basking.

Leon: On the sunny side of the force.

In Polish: Po słonecznej stronie mocy.

I forgot the name of the reader who sent this, but thank you. 1971 was an okay vintage for claret (Bordeaux), but not spectacular.

Doc Bill posted this with a “NOOOOO!” I agree:

But wait: it gets worse!

Two tweets from Nilou. I investigated this first one, but apparently Captain Morgan’s (a spiced rum) had taken down the ID logon. But see the second tweet:

And, as she says “All roads lead to Gibraltar”:

From reader Barry. I wonder whether she simply went beyond the Bible passages, or whether Bible passages themselves can get you a Twitter ban:

https://twitter.com/MichaelPaulkov2/status/1175754975206621184

Two tweets from Heather Hastie. First, the Big Cat Who Couldn’t:

https://twitter.com/AwwwwCats/status/1170411848115638278

Heather says that this is pretty much true for her, too:

Three tweets from Matthew.  This first one, as they say, “Wins the Internet”:

This is close to an optical illusion, a genre that Matthew loves:

Opals are my favorite stones, but they’re too soft to wear:

https://twitter.com/michaelgalanin/status/1174189885734998016?s=11

 

 

Sunday: Hili dialogue (and Leon monologue)

September 22, 2019 • 6:30 am

We have but one more day until summer goes away: it’s now Sunday, September 22, 2019, and National Ice Cream Cone Day. It’s also Daughter’s Day (note misplaced apostrophe: we’re not celebrating a single daughter), National Hobbit Day (although The Hobbit was first published on September 21), National Girls’ Night In Day, and National Elephant Appreciation Day (though there are no wild elephants in the U.S.)

Today’s Google Doodle is a gif that, if you click on it, goes to a number of sites about Junko Tabei, a Japanese woman and the first of her sex to climb Mount Everest, accomplishing the feat in 1975. But she also climbed the “Seven Summits”: the highest mountain on each continent, shown in this animation.

Here she is in action:

 

Stuff that happened on September 22 includes:

As Wikipedia notes, Jonson got off easy:

Tried on a charge of manslaughter, Jonson pleaded guilty but was released by benefit of clergy, a legal ploy through which he gained leniency by reciting a brief bible verse (the neck-verse), forfeiting his ‘goods and chattels’ and being branded on his left thumb.

  • 1692 – The last hanging of those convicted of witchcraft in the Salem witch trials; others are all eventually released.
  • 1823 – Joseph Smith claims to have found the golden plates after being directed by God through the Angel Moroni to the place where they were buried.
  • 1888 – The first issue of National Geographic Magazine is published.
  • 1896 – Queen Victoria surpasses her grandfather King George III as the longest reigning monarch in British history.
  • 1927 – Jack Dempsey loses the “Long Count” boxing match to Gene Tunney.

Tunney eventually won, though he might have lost had Dempsey been aware of the rule to go to a neutral corner after a knockdown. Here’s a video of the infamous “long count” (supposed to be ten seconds):

  • 1975 – Sara Jane Moore tries to assassinate U.S. President Gerald Ford, but is foiled by the Secret Service.
  • 1979 – A bright flash, resembling the detonation of a nuclear weapon, is observed near the Prince Edward Islands. Its cause is never determined.
  • 1980 – Iraq invades Iran.

Notables born on this day include:

  • 1515 – Anne of Cleves (d. 1557)
  • 1791 – Michael Faraday, English physicist and chemist (d. 1867)
  • 1901 – Nadezhda Alliluyeva, second wife of Joseph Stalin (d. 1932)
  • 1902 – John Houseman, Romanian-American actor and producer (d. 1988)

Housemen, born in Romania and originally named Jacques Haussmann, acquired his English accent through education. He’s perhaps most famous for the role of the stern law professor Charles W. Kingsfield in the movie The Paper Chase (1973), also starring Timothy Bottoms and Lindsay Wagner. My favorite scene is in the trailer below, where, at Harvard Law School,  Kingsfield gives Hart a dime and tells him to call his mother. (Go here for a real law professor’s take on the accuracy of the movie.)

  • 1932 – Ingemar Johansson, Swedish boxer (d. 2009)
  • 1956 – Debby Boone, American singer, actress, and author
  • 1958 – Andrea Bocelli, Italian singer-songwriter and producer
  • 1959 – Saul Perlmutter, American astrophysicist, astronomer, and academic, Nobel Prize Laureate

“Time to Say Goodbye” (“Con ti partirò“) is Bocelli’s most famous song, and, as one of the best-selling songs of all time, has become somewhat of a cliché. But I still love it, and here’s his rendition (another famous rendition is a duet with Sarah Brightman, a great version of which you can hear here):

Those who bought the farm on September 22 include:

  • 1554 – Francisco Vázquez de Coronado, Spanish explorer (b. 1510)
  • 1776 – Nathan Hale, American soldier (b. 1755)
  • 1777 – John Bartram, American botanist and explorer (b. 1699)
  • 1828 – Shaka Zulu, Zulu chieftain and monarch of the Zulu Kingdom (b. 1787)
  • 1961 – Marion Davies, American actress and comedian (b. 1897)
  • 2001 – Isaac Stern, Polish-Ukrainian violinist and conductor (b. 1920)
  • 2010 – Eddie Fisher, American singer (b. 1928)
  • 2015 – Yogi Berra, American baseball player, coach, and manager (b. 1925)

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili is investigating a vole hole:

Hili: This black hole is swallowing everything.
A: You are exaggerating.
Hili: Well, everything that’s interesting.
In Polish:
Hili: Ta czarna dziura pochłania wszystko.
Ja: Przesadzasz.
Hili: Wszystko to, co jest interesujące.

And in Wloclawek, Leon, riding on Elzibeta’s shoulders, doesn’t say a word. I had to make up the Leon monologue.

Leon: If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants.

Malgorzata’s translation: Jeśli widziałem dalej, to dlatego, że stałem na ramionach olbrzymów.

From Amazing Things, a cryptic Great Gray Owl (Strix nebulosa). Photo: @AlanMurphyphotography. Since I can’t imagine much preys on these creatures, perhaps the crypsis hides it from prey.

Another owl from Amazing Things; it’s the Pic of the day by: @Elena Mikhaylova. I love this photo:

From Stash Krod. There’s one design flaw with this apparatus. . .

I will put up, over the next few weeks, tweets that Grania herself tweeted. First, Grania’s header:

Then, the last thing she posted:

https://twitter.com/AziraphaleDance/status/1138760324499300352

From gravelinspector:

Two tweets from Heather Hastie:

Her caption: “Just for the pleasure of hearing a cat purr”:

Tweets from Matthew. Guess what this first one is? A SPIDER!

Matthew says, “Big snake!” Indeed. Go to the story to read about the snake, a green anaconda, and I’ve put the video below:

From Wikipedia:
The green anaconda[Eunectes murinus] is the world’s heaviest and one of the world’s longest snakes, coming to 5.21 m (17.1 ft) long. More typical mature specimens reportedly can range up to 5 m (16.4 ft), with the females, around a mean length of 4.6 m (15.1 ft), being generally much larger in adulthood than the males, which average around 3 m (9.8 ft).  Weights are less well studied, though reportedly range from 30 to 70 kg (66 to 154 lb) in a typical adult.

 

Friday: Hili dialogue (and Leon monologue)

September 20, 2019 • 6:30 am

It’s Friday, September 20, with one day to go until Fall. In a month I’m off to Antarctica for five+ weeks, and this website will experience its first serious hiatus (internet is dicey on a ship in Antarctic waters, and I’ll be busy lecturing). I ask for your indulgence during that lacuna! Would that Grania were here to fill in, which she would, but that won’t happen any longer.

It’s National Rum Punch Day, as well as National Fried Rice Day, National Pepperoni Pizza Day, and National String Cheese Day. It’s also National Gibberish Day, “dedicated to a type of speech that is nonsensical, or appears to be so” (viz., our “President”).

I saw a bunny on my way to work, and got pretty close, but the iPhone photo is lousy. Still, you can see the creature’s tapetum lucidum. (Also, using my Drosophila net, I rescued a wren caught in the breezeway who couldn’t find the open exit to the outside. I am proud of myself.)

There’s a new Google Doodle today celebrating the Rugby World Cup. The event will be held in Japan from Sept. 20 through November 2. When you click on it (below), you go to a page of upcoming games (today Russia plays the host nation Japan. Australia plays Fiji, New Zealand plays South Africa, France plays Argentina, and Italy plays Namibia):

Stuff that happened on September 20 includes:

  • 1519 – Ferdinand Magellan sets sail from Sanlúcar de Barrameda with about 270 men on his expedition to circumnavigate the globe.
  • 1863 – American Civil War: The Battle of Chickamauga, in northwestern Georgia, ends in a Confederate victory.
  • 1881 – U.S. President Chester A. Arthur is sworn in, the morning after becoming President upon James A. Garfield’s death.
  • 1893 – Charles Duryea and his brother road-test the first American-made gasoline-powered automobile.
  • 1962 – James Meredith, an African American, is temporarily barred from entering the University of Mississippi.

Meredith was finally allowed to enroll on October 1, but not until Attorney General Robert Kennedy (and the National Guard) intervened and the racist Governor Ross Barnett decided it wasn’t in his interest to keep out the University’s first African-American student. Here’s a photo from the time, labeled as “US Army trucks loaded with steel-helmeted US Marshals roll across the University of Mississippi campus on October 3, 1962.”

  • 1973 – Billie Jean King beats Bobby Riggs in the Battle of the Sexes tennis match at the Houston Astrodome.

Here’s some scenes from the match (the sound starts about 9 seconds in). I remember that the nation was transfixed, but these days, thank Ceiling Cat, there wouldn’t be much interest in a “battle of the sexes”:

  • 1973 – Singer Jim Croce, songwiter and musician Maury Muehleisen and four others die when their light aircraft crashes on takeoff at Natchitoches Regional Airport in Louisiana.

Note: Croce died on his birthday (see below); he was only 30.

  • 2001 – In an address to a joint session of Congress and the American people, U.S. President George W. Bush declares a “War on Terror”.

He should have said a “War on Terrorism”; it wasn’t the terror he was going after.

  • 2011 – The United States military ends its “Don’t ask, don’t tell” policy, allowing gay men and women to serve openly for the first time.

Notables born on this day include:

  • 1878 – Upton Sinclair, American novelist, critic, and essayist (d. 1968)
  • 1884 – Maxwell Perkins, American editor (d. 1947)
  • 1899 – Leo Strauss, German-American political scientist, philosopher, and academic (d. 1973)
  • 1913 – Sidney Dillon Ripley, American ornithologist and academic (d. 2001)
  • 1934 – Sophia Loren, Italian actress

La Loren is 85 today. Here’s a photo of her with my dad on the Acropolis in Athens, Greece, ca. 1956. She was about 22 at the time. (My dad is on her immediate right.)

  • 1977 – Chris Mooney, American journalist and academic. [Remember “I must have struck a nerve” Mooney? He’s gone very quiet.]

Those who went six feet under on September 20 include:

  • 1586 – Chidiock Tichborne, English conspirator and poet (b. 1558)
  • 1793 – Fletcher Christian, English lieutenant and mutineer (b. 1764)
  • 1863 – Jacob Grimm, German philologist and mythologist (b. 1785)
  • 1947 – Fiorello H. La Guardia, American lawyer and politician, 99th Mayor of New York City (b. 1882)
  • 1973 – Jim Croce, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (b. 1943)
  • 2006 – Sven Nykvist, Swedish director, producer, and cinematographer (b. 1922)

This is my favorite Jim Croce song, which I see as a miniature masterpiece. It was the first song of his I ever heard, and I was transfixed when I listened. Wikipedia reports that “The story was inspired during Jim Croce’s military service, during which time he saw lines of soldiers waiting to use the outdoor phone on base, many of them calling their wives or girlfriends to see if their Dear John letter was true.”

Here he is performing the song live, accompanied by Maury Muehleisen, who died in the same plane crash that killed Croce.

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili is being vain:

Hili: Do I have such huge ears?
A: It’s lengthened shadow.
Hili: A fraud.
In Polish:
Hili: Czy ja mam takie wielkie uszy?
Ja: Nie, to wydłużony cień.
Hili: Oszust.

And everywhere in Poland, Fall has arrived.

Leon: Why are you surprised? It’s autumn.

In Polish: Co się Dziwisz? Jesień!

A stupendous ultrasound of a (human) woman, and Proof of Ceiling Cat, from reader Graham. Look at the cat in there!

From Stash Krod: “Expose yourself to art.”

Pork socks on sale at Wish; not suitable for Jews or Muslims:

There are no more tweets from Grania. I saved some of her emails, but I can’t bear to look at them.

This is one I found about Bret Weinstein’s views on evolution, which I wrote about yesterday. I absolutely deplor Lingford’s statement that Bret’s a “moron” (that’s bloody rude!), for he’s the opposite of that, but you should read the whole thread to see a less but critical take on Bret’s views. There’s a video, too, but I’ll discuss that later.

From reader Barry: faith versus fact. I’m wondering why this guy even goes to church!

From Dom, a lynx photobomb. It’s BEHIND HIM!

A tweet from Heather Hastie. She says, “It’s a puppy, but it’s cute.”

Tweets from Matthew. This is a very bizarre ritual, and though I don’t like the dead cat, I wonder what this is all about:

A caracal (Caracal caracal) catching a bird. Look at the leap in the second tweet! (There are more videos in the thread.)

Yes, a very good idea, but if the pilot hits the power lines he’s cooked!

 

Saturday: Hili dialogue (and Leon monologue)

September 14, 2019 • 6:30 am

It’s Caturday, September 14, 2019, and I trust all of us got past Friday the 13th without trouble. It’s National Cream-Filled Donut Day (make the “Creme”, because hardly any donuts use real cream), Eat a Hoagie Day, German Language Day, and, in the UK, National Quiet Day (but every day is quiet day there!)

In honor of German Language Day, here’s a German proverb I made up when I was learning German; it’s very profound. (I hope I can still write German):

“Ein Kind mit einer Brezel findet schnell Freunde.”

(A child with a pretzel quickly makes friends.)

Stuff that happened on September 14 include:

  • 1741 – George Frideric Handel completes his oratorio Messiah.
  • 1752 – The British Empire adopts the Gregorian calendar, skipping eleven days (the previous day was September 2).
  • 1812 – Napoleonic Wars: The French Grande Armée enters Moscow. The Fire of Moscow begins as soon as Russian troops leave the city.
  • 1901 – U.S. President William McKinley dies after an assassination attempt on September 6, and is succeeded by Vice President Theodore Roosevelt.

McKinley was shot on September 6 by the anarchist Leon Czolgosz, but it took the President a week to die. Here’s the hospital room in Buffalo where he was operated on. There were no antibiotics in those days, which would have saved him, and so he died of gangrene.

  • 1944 – World War II: Maastricht becomes the first Dutch city to be liberated by allied forces.
  • 1969 – The US Selective Service selects September 14 as the First Draft Lottery date.

I was number 3, which began the long tale of my service as a conscientious objector and then my freedom after I took the government to court for drafting me and several thousand other guys in violation of the law.

Here’s one of the miracles for which she was canonized. (They’re always remissions of diseases that can have spontaneous remission.)

  • 1994 – The Major League Baseball season is canceled because of a strike.
  • 2007 – Financial crisis of 2007–2008: The Northern Rock bank experiences the first bank run in the United Kingdom in 150 years.

Matt Ridley was in charge!

  • 2015 – The first observation of gravitational waves was made, announced by the LIGO and Virgo collaborations on 11 February 2016.

Three Nobel Prizes were awarded for this achievement, and only two years afterwards. Nobody has gotten a Nobel Prize for the Human Genome Project or for the use of CRISPR in genetic engineering.

Notables born on this day include:

  • 1804 – John Gould, English ornithologist and illustrator (d. 1881)

Gould played an important role in Darwin’s evolutionary thinking, for he identified the birds that Darwin had collected in the Galapagos, and about whose identity Darwin was confused, as a group of finches. (Darwin thought they were wrens and mockingbirds.) Here’s Gould:

John Gould. Studio photograph, 1860s.

Sanger founded the first birth control clinic in America, and founded the groups that became Planned Parenthood. She was, however, opposed to abortion (she favored contraception), and also was big on eugenics, saying that the unfit should be either sterilized or prevented from procreating. Her legacy was mixed, but overall on the positive side. Here she is:

  • 1930 – Allan Bloom, American philosopher and academic (d. 1992)
  • 1934 – Kate Millett, American author and activist (d. 2017)
  • 1983 – Amy Winehouse, English singer-songwriter (d. 2011)

Reader Simon and I share an admiration for Amy (well, at least her music). Here are two of her most famous songs, “Rehab” and “Back to Black”, performed live at the Isle of Wight in 2007. I don’t know who her backup singers/dancers are, but they’re terrific:

Those who expired on September 14 include:

  • 1638 – John Harvard, English-American minister and philanthropist (b. 1607)
  • 1715 – Dom Pérignon, French monk and priest (b. 1638)
  • 1836 – Aaron Burr, American colonel and politician, 3rd Vice President of the United States (b. 1756)
  • 1851 – James Fenimore Cooper, American novelist, short story writer, and historian (b. 1789)
  • 1901 – William McKinley, American soldier, lawyer, and politician, 25th President of the United States (b. 1843)
  • 1927 – Isadora Duncan, American-Russian dancer and choreographer (b. 1877)
  • 1982 – Grace Kelly, American-Monacan actress; Princess of Monaco (b. 1929)
  • 2003 – Garrett Hardin, American ecologist and author (b. 1915)
  • 2009 – Patrick Swayze, American actor, singer, and dancer (b. 1952)

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili makes a joke:

Hili: A mouse was running around here yesterday.
A: And?
Hili: It escaped into the burrow.
A: That’s good.
Hili: That depends on who it’s good for.
In Polish:
Hili: Wczoraj biegła tu mysz.
Ja: I co?
Hili: Uciekła do nory.
Ja: To dobrze.
Hili: Jak dla kogo.

And nearby, Leon, the Dark Tabby Leon has found himself a fine perch:

Leon: One should always aim high!

In Polish: Zawsze należy mierzyć wysoko!

Here’s are two panoramic photos of downtown Chicago taken yesterday on a Chicago Architecture Foundation cruise. Here’s a view from just out in the harbor. I highly recommend the Architecture Foundation cruise if you love nice buildings, for Chicago is the world’s epicenter for skyscrapers and massive buildings.

This was taken on the State Street bridge across the Chicago River:

My friend Moto (a retired vet) posted this on his Facebook page:

From Amazing Things, enjoy some Giant Sequoias (Sequoiadendron giganteum), one of the most stupendous biological sights on the planet. If you live in the U.S. (or elsewhere), you must see these. The biggest one known has a diameter at breast height (DBH) of 8.8 meters (nearly 29 feet)!

From Jesus of the Day. According to Sean Carroll’s new book, the cat is already both inside and outside.

Grania sent me this tweet on April 7. I may have posted it before, but so what?

From Gethyn, a great combination of the single- and double-slit experiments and Schrödinger’s cat:

Two tweets from Heather Hastie. First, the world’s laziest d*g:

. . . via lawyer Ann German, with Ann’s response:

Four tweets from Matthew. Look at this beautiful octopus!

I’m not sure whether the cat likes this relationship, but it’s still sweet:

I’m not sure what the bottom of this poster means, but perhaps a reader can enlighten us:

Last but not least, I LOVE this firefighter:

https://twitter.com/awwwwcats/status/1172223744074571776?s=11

Friday: Hili dialogue (and Leon monologue)

August 30, 2019 • 6:30 am

Is it already Friday? Yes, it’s August 30, 2019: the penultimate day of the month, and exactly one week since I was sliced open and manipulated with huge robotical surgical arms. (I’m healing nicely, thank you.)

Here’s Matthew’s report on the status of Britain’s constitutional crisis. He proffers just a tweet:

It’s National Toasted Marshmallow Day (I like mine burnt to a crisp), as well as International Day of the Disappeared, National Holistic Pet Day (what is that?), and National Slinky Day. Speaking of which, here’s a video of the famous “Slinky fall”, with an explanation of how this counterintuitive phenomenon works:

Not a lot happened on this day in history; the few events worth noting include these:

Presumably many of you have read Steve Gould’s book on the fauna, Wonderful Life. Though its thesis needs revision (many of the Burgess Shall fauna now are thought to reside in groups still represented by living species), it still was a remarkable find and an engaging book. Go see the Burgess Shall Fossil Gallery at The Burgess Shale site. Here’s Opabinia regalis (and a reconstruction), described as “a primitive arthropod with five eyes and a long ‘nozzle’ with claws”:

  • 1918 – Fanni Kaplan shoots and seriously injures Bolshevik leader Vladimir Lenin, which along with the assassination of Bolshevik senior official Moisei Uritsky days earlier, prompts the decree for Red Terror.

Lenin’s injuries probably contributed to the stroke that killed him six years later. Kaplan was executed with a bullet to the head on September 3.

This is the status of the hotline today:

In 2007, the Moscow–Washington hotline was upgraded; a dedicated computer network links Moscow and Washington. The new system started operations on January 1, 2008.[4] It continues to use the two satellite links but a fiber optic cable replaced the old back-up cable. Commercial software is used for both chat and email: chat to coordinate operations, and email for actual messages. Transmission is nearly instantaneous.

  • 1967 – Thurgood Marshall is confirmed as the first African American Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States.
  • 1984 – STS-41-D: The Space Shuttle Discovery takes off on its maiden voyage.
  • 1992 – The 11-day Ruby Ridge standoff ends with Randy Weaver surrendering to federal authorities.

Notables born on this day include:

  • 1716 – Capability Brown, British landscape architect (d. 1783)
  • 1720 – Samuel Whitbread, English brewer and politician, founded Whitbread (d. 1796)
  • 1797 – Mary Shelley, English novelist and playwright (d. 1851)
  • 1871 – Ernest Rutherford, New Zealand-English physicist and chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1937)
  • 1884 – Theodor Svedberg, Swedish chemist and physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1971)
  • 1893 – Huey Long, American lawyer and politician, 40th Governor of Louisiana (d. 1935)

Long, a demagogue who could be considered the Donald Trump of Louisiana. His life is fascinating, and here is pushing a populist message (note the Louisiana accent). He was assassinated in 1935 at age 42.

  • 1918 – Ted Williams, American baseball player and manager (d. 2002)
  • 1930 – Warren Buffett, American businessman and philanthropist

Those who passed away on August 30 include:

  • 1940 – J. J. Thomson, English physicist and mathematician, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1856)
  • 2013 – Seamus Heaney, Irish poet and playwright, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1939)
  • 2015 – Wes Craven, American director, producer, screenwriter, and actor (b. 1939)
  • 2015 – Oliver Sacks, English-American neurologist, author, and academic (b. 1933)

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Gosia, the former upstairs tenant, has returned for a visit, but Hili is wary to take her proffered “cat sausage”:

Gosia: Why are you so hesitant?
Hili: We are living in times when anything can turn out to be bogus.
In Polish:.

From Amazing Things (photo by @sasikumar_ksk [IG])

Reader Ken Kukec sent a diagram labeled “Current circumstances as a literary Venn Diagram”. But the diagram leaves out one novel.

Grania sent me this tweet on March 22 of this year, adding “very sweet.”

From Gethyn. This rescue of this beat-up old alley cat, and his transformation into a sleek and loving house moggie, should warm your heart:

From Paul, a kestrel keeping its head rock steady while its body is buffeted about. Many birds can do this, and it’s amazing:

From Heather Hastie via Ann German. I swear, Mr. Lumpy is the world’s most spoiled badger. A peanut butter barm cake!! (No wonder his bum is so big.)

Tweets from Matthew. A beekeeper with a tender heart:

Is this a joke, or a toy intended for sadistic children?

This woman has an eagle eye for fraudulently photoshopped pictures like this. And these are from a paper in the prestigious journal Nature (you can find it here). Let us see what happens!

This hognose snake fakes death as good as a mallard does:

 

Thursday: Hili dialogue (and Leon monologue)

August 22, 2019 • 6:30 am

It’s Thursday, April 22, 2019, and tomorrow at 10 a.m. I get gutted like a pig (well, bored into like a clam). It’s National Pecan Torte Day, brought to you by the desperate folks at Big Pecan, and also National Eat a Peach Day (not named after the Allman Brothers album), as well as National Bao Day, and National Burger Day in the UK, where eating a burger constitutes cultural appropriation from Americans. Finally, it’s Take Your Cat to the Vet Day.

I just received a swell book on cowboy boots from Amazon; it was sent by a reader who gave his first name, but if it’s you, please identify yourself so I can thank you properly (I need a name for that!).

Stuff that happened on August 22 includes:

Richard III’s skeleton, in case you forgot, was discovered under a parking lot in Leicester. Here it is, showing his spinal scoliosis:


And his skull, which was bashed in; these are the wounds that killed him:

For a nice 9-minute video of how they identified him, go here.

  • 1780 – James Cook’s ship HMS Resolution returns to England (Cook having been killed on Hawaii during the voyage).
  • 1849 – The first air raid in history. Austria launches pilotless balloons against the city of Venice.
  • 1902 – Theodore Roosevelt becomes the first President of the United States to make a public appearance in an automobile.
  • 1922 – Michael Collins, Commander-in-chief of the Irish Free State Army, is shot dead in an ambush during the Irish Civil War.

Here’s Collins’s body in Cork Hospital right after he was killed by a shot to the head. (Good touch, making him hold a cross.)

Here’s a short documentary about Collins’s death told by those who were there (you can see a longer documentary here).

And the death of Collins (played by Liam Neeson) in the 1996 movie “Michael Collins”:

  • 1989 – Nolan Ryan strikes out Rickey Henderson to become the first Major League Baseball pitcher to record 5,000 strikeouts.

Here’s that strikeout:

  • 2003 – Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore is suspended after refusing to comply with a federal court order to remove a rock inscribed with the Ten Commandments from the lobby of the Alabama Supreme Courtbuilding.
  • 2004 – Versions of The Scream and Madonna, two paintings by Edvard Munch, are stolen at gunpoint from a museum in Oslo, Norway.
  • 2007 – The Texas Rangers defeat the Baltimore Orioles 30–3, the most runs scored by a team in modern Major League Baseball history.

Notables born on this day include:

  • 1862 – Claude Debussy, French pianist and composer (d. 1918)
  • 1880 – George Herriman, American cartoonist (d. 1944)

Herriman, creator of Krazy Kat (the best comic ever) is a big favorite of Matthew and me. Here’s a tweet in honor of his birthday, sent by Dr. Cobb:

  • 1893 – Dorothy Parker, American poet, short story writer, critic, and satirist (d. 1967)
  • 1902 – Leni Riefenstahl, German actress, film director and propagandist (d. 2003)
  • 1915 – David Dellinger, American activist (d. 2004)
  • 1920 – Ray Bradbury, American science fiction writer and screenwriter (d. 2012)
  • 1935 – Annie Proulx, American novelist, short story writer, and journalist
  • 1939 – Carl Yastrzemski, American baseball player

Those who took the Dirt Nap on this day include:

  • 1485 – Richard III of England (b. 1452)
  • 1922 – Michael Collins, Irish rebel, counter-intelligence and military tactician, and politician; 2nd Irish Minister of Finance (b. 1890)
  • 1967 – Gregory Goodwin Pincus, American biologist and academic, co-created the birth-control pill (b. 1903)
  • 1989 – Huey P. Newton, American activist, co-founded the Black Panther Party (b. 1942)
  • 1991 – Colleen Dewhurst, Canadian-American actress (b. 1924)
  • 2007 – Grace Paley, American short story writer and poet (b. 1922)

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili is scouting outside the kitchen window:

And nearby, at the site of his future home, Leon tries to stay dry:

Leon: Hush! I’m hiding here from the rain.
In Polish: Ciiii, tu się skryłem przed deszczem.

Here’s a famished frog. That cricket is down the gullet in about a quarter of a second.

From Moto:

Grania sent me this tweet on December 5 of last year. She always loved friendships between different species of animals:

A tweet from reader Barry. Be sure to turn the sound up.

https://twitter.com/surethingbrosef/status/1162901784219856897

Hillary’s “throwing shade” on The Donald. It’s pretty funny, too:

Also from Barry, the instantiation of Isaiah’s prophesy:

Tweets from Matthew Cobb. In this first one, he links us to a nice 9-minute piece he did for the BBC (don’t forget Matthew’s book, Eleven Days in August: The Liberation of Paris in 1944.

A robber fly (these things are wicked!):

https://twitter.com/kevinlmyers/status/1163789201122443264

Just when you think Trump can’t get any crazier. . .

Smiling Victorians! But I don’t recall a picture of Queen Victoria herself ever smiling: