Fellows of New Zealand’s Royal Society demand apology and full review of the Society after poor treatment of two members

April 2, 2022 • 11:00 am

I don’t want to repeat the whole saga of the Royal Society of New Zealand and its defense of “other ways of knowing”, but here are a few steps leading up to this post that you can glean from my collection of posts on the issue.

1.) The New Zealand government has begun a policy that will facilitate teaching Mātauranga Māori (“MM”), or Māori “ways of knowing”, as coequal to science in secondary school science classes. Many universities have taken this up as well. The problem is that MM, while containing some practical wisdom about things like when to hunt or pick berries, is also heavily larded with superstition, religious claims, morality, and legend passed down by word of mouth over centuries. MM claims, for instance, that the Polynesians discovered Antarctica in the early seventh century; a completely unsupported and unrealistic claim. MM is also explicitly creationist. Thus teaching the contents of MM as coequal to science, and not interior to it—modern science is, after all, said to be racist and “colonialist”—is a bad strategy, one that will confuse students and drag New Zealand further down in its already-low ranking of science education among comparable countries

2.) In response to the government’s policy, seven professors at The University of Auckland wrote a letter (“In defence of science”) to the NZ magazine The Listener While arguing that MM is essential to be taught as a form of cultural inheritance and a force for devising policy, “it falls far short of what we can define as science itself.” That happens to be a fact. The purpose of the letter was not to denigrate Maori culture, but to argue that its “way of knowing” was not science, as well as to defend science itself.

3.) Enraged by this fact, academics, many Kiwi academics, and writers, as well as Māori people and sympathizers, attacked the letter and its seven writers, calling them bigoted and “racists.” This is because New Zealand is an overly woke nation, so that saying that MM falls short of science itself is, to many, equivalent to saying that “Māori are an inferior people.” (In fact, one of the signers, Garth Cooper, has Māori heritage.) In response to this misperceived racism, counter-letters were written and petitions were circulated. Given the climate of the country, few people wanted to come forward to defend the “Satanic Seven” who signed the letter.

4.) Worst of all, the Royal Society of New Zealand (RSNZ), devoted to honoring those who do good science, also attacked the Listener letter and its signers by issuing the following statement (it’s now disappeared from the RSNZ site):

The last two paragraphs are particularly odious, asserting that yes, MM is science and that arguing otherwise causes unspecified “harm.”

5.) The foreign press got wind of this after several non Kiwi-scientists, including Richard Dawkins and I, issued public statements and wrote to the RSNZ about their ridiculous accusations. In the meantime, several people complained to the RSNZ that two of its members who signed the letter, philosopher Robert Nola and biochemist Garth Cooper, were guilty of unprofessionalism and of causing harm.

6.) The RSNZ launched a preliminary investigation of Nola and Cooper and, after having attacked them and their fellow signers in the now-vanished RSNZ statement, decided that the two members had done nothing wrong. The investigation was dropped. No apology was tendered to Nola or Cooper, who then resigned from the RSNZ in disgust.

But things aren’t over yet. This whole kerfuffle left a bad taste in people’s mouths, especially because many who agreed that MM is not equivalent to science were too afraid to say anything, lest they get punished or even fired (see below). I got a lot of emails from New Zealanders who sided with the Satanic Seven but were scared as hell to say anything in their defense. Talk about chilling of speech! On this issue, at least, New Zealanders were acting like advocates of China’s Cultural Revoution.

I’ve just obtained a petition/letter signed by 73 Fellows of the RSNZ objecting to the treatment of Cooper and Nola by the Society and calling for both an apology to the pair (a third Fellow sho signed had died in the interim) and a thorough investigation of the RSNZ’s practices and underhanded way of investigating its members. The petition is below the line, and a lot of what they call “big noises” have signed. The signers call for three motions to be brought before the RSNZ; the motions were proposed by Gaven Martin and seconded by Marston Conder.

I include the list of signers.

To Paul Atkins (CEO RSNZ)

The Fellows, listed below as cosignatories, wish to express their deep concern about what has been happening within the Royal Society of New Zealand over the last year, by moving and seconding the motions below for discussion at the at the 56th hui ā-tau o Ngā Ahurei Annual Fellowship on 28th April.

Many of us have lost confidence in the current Academy Executive and Council, whose actions seemingly have brought the society into disrepute, shutting down useful debate and bringing international opprobrium from leading scientists. We are further concerned about the lack of agency that Fellows have following the many restructures of the Society over the last several years, and the spending of fellowship fees to cover lawyers’ costs and, presumably, public relations consultants to defend the Society’s very poor processes and actions.

In particular:

1. We believe that the content of the initial statement posted by the RSTA on its website in August 2021 about the controversy generated following the Listener letter on the relationship between mātauranga Māori and Science was ill-conceived, hasty and inaccurate in large part.

2. We are appalled at the mishandling of the formation of the initial committee set up by RSTA to investigate the complaint, the length of the process, and the handling of the publication of the outcome, which suggests both that the RSTA cannot decide whether mātauranga Māori is or is not Science, and impugned the integrity of two eminent Fellows.

3. It is extremely unfortunate that this process has led to the resignation from this Academy of two of its distinguished Fellows. One is a renowned philosopher of science, and the other is perhaps the strongest scientist of Māori descent in the society and is someone who has been active in supporting Māori students in education for decades, and who, along with other experts in Science, offered an expert opinion that was rejected by the Society as being without merit, and characterised as racist by members of the Academy Executive (and current and former Councillors).

We therefore move that:

1. Both the Society and Academy write to Professors Cooper and Nola, and to the Estate of Professor Corballis, and apologise for its handling of the entire process.

2. The Society reviews its current code of conduct to ensure that this cannot happen again, and in future the actions of the Academy/Council are far more circumspect and considered in regards to complaints concerning contentious matters.

3. The entirety of the RSNZ/RSTA entity be reviewed, examining structure and function and alignment with other international academies, and the agency given its Fellows upon whom its reputation rests.

Moved: Gaven Martin (Massey University)

Seconded: Marston Conder (The University of Auckland)

Cosignatories: (in alphabetical order)

Marti Anderson (Massey University)

Geoff Austin (University of Auckland)

Edward Baker (University of Auckland)

Debes Bhattacharyya (University of Auckland)

Dick Bellamy (University of Auckland)

Douglas Bridges (University of Canterbury)

Gillian Brock (University of Auckland)

Linda Bryder (University of Auckland)

Alan Bollard (Victoria University of Wellington)

Brian Boyd (University of Auckland)

John Caradus (Grasslanz)

Howard Carmichael (University of Auckland)

Garth Carnaby (University of Auckland)

John Chen (University of Auckland)

Mick Clout (University of Auckland)

Jill Cornish (University of Auckland)

Grant Covic (University of Auckland)

Dave Craw (University of Otago)

Max Cresswell (Victoria University of Wellington)

Fred Davey (retired)

Stephen Davies (University of Auckland)

Alison Downard (Canterbury Univeristy)

Rod Downey (Victoria University of Wellington)

Geoffrey Duffy (University of Auckland)

Joerg Frauendiener (Otago University)

Rob Goldblatt (Victoria University of Wellington)

Stephen Goldson (Agresearch)

Rod Gover (University of Auckland)

Russell Gray (Max Planck/UoA)

Frank Griffin (University of Otago)

John Harvey (University of Auckland)

Bruce Hayward (Geomarine Research)

Janet Holmes (Victoria University of Wellington)

Peter Hunter (University of Auckland)

John Harper (Victoria University of Wellington)

Bruce Hayward (Geomarine Research)

Manying Ip (University of Auckland)

Mac Jackson (University of Auckland)

Geoff Jameson (Massey University)

Steve Kent  (Hon.; University of Chicago)

Estate Khmaladze (Victoria University of Wellington)

Bakh Khoussainov (University of Auckland)

Matt McGlone (Victoria University of Wellington)

Neil McNaughton (University of Otago)

Miriam Meyerhoff (Oxford University)

Michael Neill (University of Auckland)

Eamonn O’Brien (University of Auckland)

John Ogden (Emeritus Fellow)

Jenni Ogden (Emeritus Fellow)

David Paterson (Oxford University)

Paul Rainey (Max Planck/Massey)

Raylene Ramsay (University of Auckland)

Ian Reid, (University of Auckland)

Mick Roberts (Massey University)

Viviane Robinson (University of Auckland)

Clive Ronson (University of Otago)

Peter Schwerdtfeger (Massey University)

Barry Scott (Massey University)

Charles Semple (Canterbury University)

Vernon Squire (Otago University)

Mike Steel (Canterbury University)

ATS (name withheld until 28 April)

Kim Sterelny (Australian National University)

Rupert Sutherland (Victoria University of Wellington)

Jeff Tallon (Victoria University of Wellington)

Marcus Ulyatt (ret)

Matt Visser (Victoria University of Wellington)

Jack Vowles (Victoria University of Wellington)

Joyce Waters (Massey University)

Geoff Whittle (Victoria University of Wellington)

Chris Wild (University of Auckland)

Colin Wilson (Victoria University of Wellington)

Christine Winterbourn (Otago University)

Gaven Martin then transmitted the motions to officials of the RSNZ with his own cover letter, below, which I have permission to publish. Here it is. The recipient list includes the Chair of the Academy as well as the President of the RSNZ. I have put the third point in bold because it shows the climate of intimidation that besets not just the RSNZ, but the whole country when it comes to issues about its indigenous people.

[From]: Gaven Martin

To: Paul, Brent Charlotte, Marston

Dear Paul (and  Charlotte and Brent and blind cc)

Please find attached three motions with a supporting letter, which we expect to be tabled at the 56th hui ā-tau o Ngā Ahurei Annual Fellowship meeting (hereafter AGM) on the 28th of  and circulated to Fellows before then.

The motions are moved by myself, seconded by Marston Conder, and have nearly 70 Fellows as co-signatories obtained over three days.

I would make the following additional comments.

    1. The inclusion of each co-signatory has been validated by an email confirmation held by two of us.
    2. A number of other Fellows have said (in writing) that they will support these motions in a vote, but do not like the idea of sending letters with lots of signatories.
    3. Sadly several other Fellows have also indicated they will vote in favour,  but because of the potential harassment and bullying they believe they would receive (from some current and former members of the Academy and the RSNZ Council, and from colleagues in senior and other positions within their University), they do not wish to disclose their names in this document, especially if it becomes public.  Many younger Fellows and others have said (again in writing) that their jobs would be at risk signing this letter.  Two Fellows (major RSNZ Medalists) said this: “Better not (sign) at this stage – … I agree with all the statements – but you can’t imagine the pressure being put on us. I will vote for the motion though.”, and “In confidence I am disillusioned with RSNZ and I am too scared to sign anything for fear of what may happen to me at UoA if I do so”.  This is a startling indictment of the situation in the research community in NZ at the moment, and of the way in which the RSNZ handled and exacerbated the controversy over the letter to the Listener.
    4. A few of the co-signatories are Emeritus Fellows,  and believe they might have no voting rights, but they sincerely wish to express their opinion on these matters.
    5. If you are not able or willing to circulate this to all Fellows ahead of the AGM,  then please let us know at your earliest convenience (and at least before 14th April), so that we can ensure it happens, and we can also let Fellows know of your inability or unwillingness to do so.
    6. We  have no wish to see the Society harmed further than it has recently harmed itself, but manifest changes are necessary to remedy the very low levels of accountability of the Council and Academy. In particular, Fellows should be accorded more agency, so that the current disconnection between RSNZ and its Fellows is reduced.
    7. As no doubt you are aware, currently there is considerable media interest in the attached document.  We have endeavoured to keep this confidential, but we cannot ensure these issues will remain in confidence leading up to 28th April

Regards

Gaven Martin

This cover letter will be distributed to all signatories on Monday 28th March.

Note that this is both a free-speech issue, bearing on the right of fellows to say what they think in public without suffering official consequences, but also an issue of the credibility of the RSNZ itself, which has publicly aligned itself with MM and thus debased real science. This is a problem with the whole educational establishment in NZ, and it starts at the top with Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern. Maybe this has escaped her notice, but she may want to pay attention since her nation is becoming fractured by ethnic divides. Teach MM in schools: of course; teach MM as equivalent to science: no. Not unless, that is, Ardern wants her nation to become simultaneously woker and more ignorant.

The RSNZ has now distributed the signed letter/petition to its members and scheduled a meeting to discuss the motions on, as its notice says, “Wednesday, 13 Paenga-whāwhā April 2022”.  The agenda, which I’ll discuss in another post soon, is, as one person wrote me:

“. . . . larded with Māori activities that have become “traditional” in all sorts of settings (educational, governmental, even business) over the last few years of wokeness: a mihi (Māori welcome), waiata (songs: the words are given in Māori, without translation), and karakia (prayer): to conform to recent conformist practice, to establish where the RS sits in terms of respecting Māori culture, and, if you like, to exert systemic control, to establish the climate of thought which you’d be wiser not to resist.
There is no singing of either of New Zealand’s two national anthems (yes, it has two): God Defend New Zealand and God Save The Queen. That would be “colonialism.”

 

How can there be a fair discussion of MM in such a meeting? Well, perhaps there can be, and we can always hope that the three motions above are passed. Stay tuned.

Caturday felids trifecta: The rabbi’s cat; Freddie deBoer muses on his cat at 10; and manly men who love cats

April 2, 2022 • 9:30 am

Today’s Caturday will be short and sweet as I’m busy packing and taking care of last-minute business.

First, from BoingBoing we have a blurb for an animated movie you might want to see. Click on screenshot:

I’ve read two volumes of the graphic novel by Joan Star (there are 11), and thought it was great; but I haven’t seen the animated film.  Since the animation was made in 2011, I’m not sure why it’s being highlighted only now, but who cares? The film is highly rated, getting a 94% critic’s review score on Rotten Tomatoes.

Outside of the Japanese, the French have to be my favorite nationality when it comes to animators. I don’t think anyone can touch the beauty of fluidity of French animation. The film that acted as my sherpa through the lush expanse of French cartoons was The Rabbi’s Cat.

Based on Joann Sfar’s comic of the same name, The Rabbi’s Cat is a stunning work of magical realism with an incomparable visual style. As the title would indicate, the film’s protagonist is the house cat of a rabbi that gains the power of speech after devouring a parrot. Armed with his new silver tongue, the cat begins courting his owner’s daughter—who he mistakingly believes is his mistress—and plunges the family and the entire town into chaos.

The film is a rollicking romp that delves into religion’s place in modernity, war, racism, and how to compartmentalize grief – all through the eyes of an atheist cat that wants to become Jewish to marry a human. You gotta love the French, man.

Indeed! You can’t say that this is simply an adventure/chase film!

There’s a trailer for the English-language release, below, but I haven’t even seen this as there’s no streaming video aboard the ship. But I’ve inserted the link so you can see it:

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

Readers have recently put me on to Freddie deBoar and his eponymous Substack site, and I like a lot of the stuff he writes.  Yesterday he published a paean to his still-living cat, Suavecito, who just turned ten. “Suavecito” is a brand of hair pomade, but also a popular Cuban song written in 1929; the name means “soft” or “smooth”. (deBoer doesn’t explain the cat’s name, but it’s a good one.)

The paean is a single sentence with no capital letters, and refers to a future apocalyptic time when all humans are gone but animals remain and rule. It’s also somewhat of a lament for death in general as Suavecito ages.

Here’s one excerpt. deBoer certainly loves his cat—as all staff should!:

in this next world the great stone canyons of Manhattan will sit indifferent to the demise of the species that built them, providing shade for lazy dogs that pack together in vast hordes, chewing their fleas, and deer will come to crowd the tombs that once housed subways, and rare eagles that used to live only above the Nordic fjords will come to nest among the gargoyles of the Chrysler building, and a mother bear will teach her cubs to fish in Prospect Park Lake, and the five boroughs will become a realm of myth and prophecy, and rising above all the other beings that hunt and claim land in this vast land will be, my Lord, you! you will be legend! you will move confidently and unthreatened across a teeming landscape of wise and untroubled creatures, most regal of all, and though no humans will remain to make statues of you, the whole vast sweep of the plains across which you unhurriedly journey will be the only memorial you need

and so today, April 1st, I cradle you while I can, knowing that my people’s time grows short, while ahead of you lies prehistoric plains that will grow like pinnacled corn from the human ossuary, and you will be lord and master of a vast kingdom that flourishes beneath your radiant example, and I say happy birthday, you are my friend, I know that you will never die

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

Here’s another cat film, this time touted by the Good News Network, not a place to read about Jesus but to absorb feel-good stories). Click on the link to read about how manly men love cats:

The film is called Cat Daddies, has just been released, and is about eight “unique” men who are hopelessly devoted to their moggies:

The idea arose after director Mye Hoang noticed a softening of her husband after the pair adopted their first cat: a change deep down that was hard to understand. Taking to Instagram, she found a number of men hopelessly devoted to doting on their furry friends, and wanted to find out more; to document the changing conditions of masculinity in society.

. . . .An actor/influencer, a truck driver, a school teacher, a firefighter, a software engineer, a police officer—these men lead very different lives and can be found all over the country.

Yet they’re united in the love for their cats. An experienced directing/producing team captured how each and every cat proved the catalyst for something special and unique in their companions’ lives, from adventure, to comfort, to a feeling of purpose.

“It’s about being ok for men to show their compassionate and vulnerable side and how that should all be part of the definition of strength and leadership,” said Hoang in an interview. “Cats promote caring for others, both animal and man. Now during a pandemic, we know very plainly how pets contribute to our mental health and wellbeing. In the end, this is a film about taking care of each other.”

The film’s page (link above) shows that it’s received a lot of awards and selections for screenings.  So far there are only three critics’ reviews on the Rotten Tomatoes site, but all are very positive. One compares it to the 2016 film Kedi (“cat” in Turkish), a documentary about the feral cats of Istanbul that is perhaps the best cat film I’ve seen (Kedi has a 98% critics score on Rotten Tomatoes; watch it even if you’re not a huge cat fan.)

Here’s the trailer for Cat Daddies, but, still on the ship, I can’t watch it.

h/t: Barry, Merilee, Robyn

Saturday: Hili dialogue

April 2, 2022 • 7:30 am

Where we are now: The ship’s real-time map shows us heading inexorably towards Valparaiso, the port city for Santiago, where we’ll disembark tomorrow morning (as crew, I leave the ship at about 11). From there it’s an hour by bus to the Santiago airport, where I spend one night, leaving on the evening of April 4 (after yet another PCR test to get into the U.S.).

A closer view showing us recently passing Coronel and Concepción (see below):

Since we’re passing Concepción and Coronel (red arrow above), I did what reader Pyers asked me, and saluted the shore from the ship:

Tip a hat to the 1,600 men killed at the Battle of Coronel which was fought on the 1st of November 1914.  It was the first defeat suffered by the Royal Navy in 100 years and was inflicted by Graf von Spee’s East Asiatic Squadron, which itself would be destroyed a few weeks later on 8 Dec 1914 at the Battle of the Falkland Islands, with the loss of 1,800.

Coronel is on Chile’s central coast, only 32 km from Concepción. Wikipedia says this about the battle:

The engagement probably took place as a result of misunderstandings. Neither admiral expected to meet the other in full force. Once the two met, Cradock understood his orders were to fight to the end, despite the odds being heavily against him. Although Spee had an easy victory, destroying two enemy armoured cruisers for just three men injured, the engagement also cost him almost half his supply of ammunition, which was irreplaceable. Shock at the British losses led the Admiralty to send more ships, including two modern battlecruisers, which in turn destroyed Spee and the majority of his squadron on 8 December at the Battle of the Falkland Islands.

Greetings on the Cat Sabbath: it’s Saturday, April 2, 2022: National Peanut Butter and Jelly Day. I’m willing to bet that of all sandwiches consumed in America on any given day, more of them are PB&J sandwiches than any other type. In fact, perhaps more than half of all sandwiches are PB&J, but I wouldn’t bet on that.

If you want to help out with “this day in history”, go to the Wikipedia page for April 2 and give us your favorite notable events, births, and deaths.

Below are today’s headlines from the New York Times, now compressed to the upper-right corner (click on screenshot to read):

The news summary:

Russian troops are in retreat from areas surrounding Kyiv, the Ukrainian capital, military analysts and Ukrainian officials say, a stunning reversal in what could signal a broader shift in Russia’s assault in the sixth week of war.

It is unclear if the Russian troops are gone from the areas near the capital and further north for good or are trying to regroup after weeks of intense Ukrainian resistance and crippling logistical failures. But they appear, at least for now, to be following through on Russia’s stated intentions to focus more on the east where they already have a strong foothold and where military analysts said they are already scaling up their attacks.

. . . In the eastern part of the country, Russia’s main efforts are now focused on capturing the port city of Mariupol and solidifying control of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, according to an analysis from the Institute for the Study of War, a Washington think tank. Local officials on Saturday said that fighting had intensified in some parts of the region.

The Red Cross convoy scheduled for yesterday, which was supposed to escort citizens out of Mariupol and to deliver supplies, was canceled as the Russians didn’t provide the needed security guarantees. They’re going to try evacuating again today but the convey keeps getting canceled over and over. Who can doubt that it’s the Russians’ fault—that they want those citizens trapped and starved?!

*In other news, the U.S. is going to deliver Soviet-made tanks to the Ukrainians (where are those tanks coming from?) and Russia has announced that it’s ending its cooperation with both the U.S. and Europe on the International Space Station.

*The Washington Post reports that Ukrainians are rushing to evacuate children with cancer. The stories are heartbreaking, as much of the treatment of these children was done in Russia, which is no longer possible, and treatment shouldn’t be interrupted. As we see so often, people are pitching in to help:

Even brief disruptions in the finely calibrated chemotherapy and radiation protocols of the young victims can be disastrous, oncologists say, meaning their transport has to be fast, reliable and supervised even in the calmest of times.

During this war, what has emerged is an elaborate network focused on evacuating some of Ukraine’s sickest kids. Doctors, nurses and specialized volunteers from dozens of countries have cobbled together a pipeline of way-station clinics, buses, ambulances and a hospital train to funnel cancer patients and their families out of the country, to a “Unicorn Clinic” in central Poland, and from there to pediatric centers around the world.

Those who make it out — more than 700 children so far — are becoming some of the most celebrated refugees. One flight to Paris was met by the French first lady. Jill Biden last week visited patients who had been flown to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis.

*The Hill, following up a report from Axios, reports that Biden’s press secretary Jen Psaki will be leaving her position some time this spring for a job at MSNBC. It’s not a sure thing, but here’s what The Hill says:

Psaki’s upcoming departure was first reported by Axios on Friday, with the sources confirming it to The Hill. Psaki will leave the White House for the network around May, according to Axios.

The news follows speculation over whether the press secretary was looking for a job at MSNBC or CNN and while Psaki has been out of the briefing room this week with COVID-19.

Deputy press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre has also been out with COVID-19. White House communications director Kate Bedingfield has held most of the briefings, which was seen as an opportunity to effectively audition for the post.

. . . Psaki has worked with the White House counsel’s office about her departure and no contracts have been signed yet, Axios reported. Additionally, she has talked to senior officials about the move but has not formally announced it to the press team.

Presidential Press Secretaries seem to last about a year these days. Is it a matter of a higher salary at MSNBC? I don’t blame her, actually, because the job of Press Secretary must be a trying one; you have to lie, dissimulate, or coddle the Chief Executive. As of 2021, Psaki was making about $180,000 per year, and you can expect that to be considerably higher if she becomes a correspondent for MSNBC.

*John McWhorter’s NYT column this week draws a parallel between two spontaneous but unfortunate incidents: Biden’s off-the-cuff remark that we can’t let Putin stay in power, and Will Smith’s infamous slap of Chris Rock at the Oscars after Rock joked about Smith’s wife’s baldness. McWhorter attributes the slap to a black “beef” culture which resembles the new “get personal” kind of discourse that Biden used:

In this vein I suspect that Smith was, on a certain level, performing for Black America, supposing that many of his Black fans would see him as going to a perhaps unideal extreme, but one that might be warranted when a man decides to “stand up” for his woman. Smith seems to have been trying for something vernacular, as it were, not unlike Biden letting go with his unfiltered personal take on Putin. But the Oscars incident was a smack seen around the world, where so many saw not “how we do it,” but violence, period.

. . [Smith] was correct to apologize, however awkwardly and self-servingly. Hitting somebody at the Oscars — or at all — cannot qualify as a valiant refusal to put aside what are widely thought of by people of all races as accepted norms. Anyone who harbors the idea that Smith’s actions are understandable should reconsider. There is no lens, including one that reckons racially, through which we ought process assault as a kind of permissible vigilantism.

We live in times when we are taught that authenticity, however defined, is the enlightened default. There’s something to that — at times. But both Biden and Smith would have been better off allowing that sometimes uptight is just right.

*Andrew Sullivan has just had a run-in with a once-popular comedian; an interaction Sullivan he summarizes in his latest Weekly Dish piece, “The problem with Jon Stewart.” I used to like Stewart, but, as Sullivan points out, he’s getting woker and woker. This was on full display when Stewart basically conned Sullivan to fly up to New York to do an interview on race. Sullivan agreed to the request so long as it would be a one-on-one and not a debate. Stewart’s people lied and said, yes, that’s it. But it wasn’t:

But just before the taping, as I emerged blearily from Dishing, I found out, in fact, that there would be two other guests, and that it would, indeed, be a debate. Surprise! As the show started, I also realized for the first time there was a live studio audience and that the episode was called “The Problem With White People” — a title I’d never have been a party to, if I’d known in advance. (I wouldn’t go on a show called “The Problem With Jews” or “The Problem With Black People” either.) At that point I should have climbed carefully off the stake, tamped down the flames, made a path through the kindling, and walked away.

It was the whole 1619+ mishigass, and I’ll give one more excerpt:

Jon Stewart’s insistence that Americans had never robustly debated race before 2020 is also, well, deranged. Americans have been loudly debating it for centuries. There was something called a Civil War over it. His claim that white America has never done anything in defense of black Americans (until BLM showed up, of course) requires him to ignore more than 300,000 white men who gave their lives to defeat the slaveholding Confederacy. It requires Stewart to ignore the countless whites (often Jewish) who risked and gave their lives in the Civil Rights Movement. It requires him to erase the greatest president in American history. This glib dismissal of all white Americans throughout history, even those who risked everything to expand equality, is, when you come to think about it, obscene.

[The problem of black inequity] is much more complex than that. And it’s that complexity that some of us are insisting on — and that Stewart wants to dismiss out of hand in favor of his own Manichean moral preening. His final peroration ended thus: “America has always prioritized white comfort over black survival.” Note: always. There has been no real progress; white people have never actually listened to a black person; America is irredeemably racist. Those fucking white men, Lincoln and LBJ, never gave a shit.

It gets even more acrimonious and interesting when Sullivan is forced to debate the head of an organization called “Race2Dinner.” But I’ll let you read that for yourself. It’s a good column.

*Finally, Will Smith, who slapped Chris Rock during the Oscar awards, has resigned from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences after the whole world came down on him. (The Academy is in fact who gave Smith his Best Actor Award for his performance in “King Richard”):

[Smith] described his actions in a written statement as “shocking, painful, and inexcusable.”

“The list of those I have hurt is long and includes Chris, his family, many of my dear friends and loved ones, all those in attendance, and global audiences at home,” he continued. “I betrayed the trust of the Academy. I deprived other nominees and winners of their opportunity to celebrate and be celebrated for their extraordinary work. I am heartbroken.”

Smith said he “will fully accept any and all consequences for my conduct.”

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Karolina is being a little overenthustic in her love for the cats. She tends to grab them and move quickly around them as she’s so energetic, and so the kitties tend to run away when she’s around! Andrzej is trying to teach Karolina to be gentle with Hili, Szaron, and Kulka. Here Hili objects a bit to being rousted:

Karolina: I love cats.
Hili: Can you do it more quietly?
In Polish:
Karolina: Kocham koty.
Hili: A czy możesz to robić ciszej?

First axolotls on Mexican currency, and now the new Scottish ten-pound notes have OTTERS on them! I like this trend. (From In Otter News).  I’m glad they’re not muskrats chewing on cheese.

An artist cat by Harry Bliss, sent in by reader Elsie:

There are tons of pictures of Ukrainians with cats, fleeing with cats, and Ukrainian soldiers with cats. Conclusion: Ukrainians love cats!

From Titania. She’s had a realization, and it has some truth in it. I can’t help but wonder if this signals that her satirical account might soon end. . .

i

Sarah’s tweet below got considerable attention, both pro and con. I tend to agree with her, but then what do you call your dentist—with whom you’re friendly but not on a first-name basis— when you meet him in the street? “Hi, Joe”?  Maybe just “hi”,or “hi doc”?   Using titles is fine in a professional context, though. Read the thread to see all the vehement agreement and dissent.

A tweet from reader Ken with some commentary (reader Andrew also sent this tweet):

Turns out, Ginni Thomas (wife of SCOTUS justice Clarence) was in another cult before Trumpism — Lifespring (although the embedded deprogramming video was recorded in 1986, not 1989):

From Dom. I’m not sure this is a real eBay item, but if it is, didn’t the seller wonder why the scoops would look so strange?

Tweets from Matthew. About this first one he says “This was in Oxford. Crick had his PhD viva in August 1953.” (Note that Crick’s highest degree at the time was a master’s.)

Look at the shiny butt on this bug!

A chemistry lesson with cats:

And some excitement in Dodo Land:

Natural selection is cleverer than you are

April 1, 2022 • 1:07 pm

The title of this very short post is widely known in our trade as “Orgel’s Second Rule” after evolutionist Leslie Orgel. Of course the Rule doesn’t mean that natural selection is conscious or has a pre-planned goal or outcome: simply that sometimes natural selection can achieve a result so wild and unexpected that it looks as if there was a clever mind behind it. (I say this so that the ID types won’t attribute to me a “mind” behind evolution.)

I lectured about this during this trip when explaining how, in Antarctic “icefish”, the gene making the enzyme trypsinogen—produced by the pancreas to help digest food in the intestine—became duplicated over evolutionary time, and thereafter one duplicate became rearranged by natural selection so it produced a bizarre glycoprotein having a small amino-acid sequence repeated many times over. That sequence allows the new protein (the old one’s still there) to glom onto the small particles that would enable ice to form and grow in the body. It is an anti-freeze protein that, produced in large quantities, reduces the freezing point of the fish’s blood below the -1.9° C of Antarctic waters. Therefore the fish’s cells don’t freeze and it can survive in water that would kill most other fish.

We know the evolutionary source of this antifreeze protein because it bears, at the beginning and end, the “start” and “stop” bits of the DNA that makes trypsinogen. Those “vestigial sequences” are evidence of evolution—of the ancestry of the antifreeze protein.

But I’ve digressed. I wanted to talk about something I just realized. I took my daily half-hour constitutional on the top deck (daily when the weather’s good, that is), and came back thirsty. It was gloriously warm and sunny outside, and I grabbed my aluminum water bottle from the cabin fridge. (We all get these bottles to save plastic, as Hurtigruten is green.)

I don’t like “hydrating”, but this time I needed to. And this time, because I had a thought, I timed how long it took me to take the several deep swallows needed to slake my thirst. It was about five seconds.

Now over those five seconds, my body didn’t have time to absorb and use the water that it needed. The thirst, of course, is a signal that your body needs water. But what struck me is this: I drank sufficient water for my body’s needs before those needs had even begun to be satisfied!

In other words, not only is thirst a way of telling you need water (and hunger for food and so on), but the slaking of thirst is a way of telling you when you’ve had enough water. It’s as if by simply ingesting a medicine you need, you’re cured before the medicine even does its thing. Or it’s as if you have an infection, and the infection starts to go away five seconds after you swallow your antibiotic. Or it’s as if your headache went away the minute you swallowed your aspirin.

Of course, we didn’t evolve to take antibiotics, but we did evolve to drink water when needed. And natural selection has been clever enough to find a way to tell us that we’ve drunk enough before that water has entered our system.

Presumably the “that’s enough” reflex evolved because you don’t want to drink too much water. You could get bloated, or perhaps a predator is lurking nearby to snatch you as you guzzle from the water hole. I don’t know how it happened, but it did happen.

Maybe this seems tedious and obvious to you, but it still amazes me. What mechanism operates in your throat and stomach to let you know that you can stop drinking?

UPDATE: Well of course biologists have thought about this problem before; I certainly didn’t think I was the first. And, sure enough, in the first comment below Cyrus Martin, senior editor of Current Biology, steered me to a paper in his journal that dealth with the issue, “Thirst,” by David Leib et al.

Here’s the most relevant part, but the article has lots of information about the generators of thirst and the physiological distress it signals:

 Drinking quenches thirst in anticipation of water absorption

There is a delay of tens of minutes between the ingestion of water and its full absorption into the bloodstream. However, drinking can quench thirst within seconds, long before the ingested water has had time to alter the blood volume or osmolality. Thus, thirst is not quenched by the reverse of the process that generates it; instead, the brain terminates thirst by using sensory cues from the oropharynx to track ongoing water consumption and then estimate how this water intake will alter fluid balance in the future, after the water has been absorbed. These anticipatory signals are transmitted from the oral cavity to the SFO [JAC: the “subfornical organ” i the brain that detects changes in blood osmolarity and partly generates the “thirst signal”] where they inhibit the same thirst neurons that respond to change in the blood volume and osmolality. This circuit organization allows SFO thirst neurons to make a comparison between the physiological need for water, which they measure directly by monitoring the blood, and the amount of water that has recently been consumed, which they measure by tracking oropharyngeal signals of fluid intake. SFO thirst neurons compare these two values to decide when drinking should be terminated. It is likely that a similar integration occurs within other structures of the lamina terminalis that control drinking behavior and hormone release.

That IS clever, isn’t it? But wait—there’s more:

The specific oropharyngeal mechanisms that are used to track water consumption are not well defined. One signal appears to be temperature, because cold liquids inhibit SFO thirst neurons more efficiently than warm liquids, and oral cooling alone can reduce both thirst and the activity of these SFO cells. One explanation for this temperature-dependence is that water ingestion tends to cool the oropharynx, and as a result animals may learn to associate changes in oral temperature with the post-ingestive effects of water consumption. In addition to temperature, other somatosensory signals that report on the sensation of water in the oral cavity are likely to be important. There is also evidence that signals from further down the gastrointestinal tract, such as stretch receptors and osmosensors in the stomach, may play a role in thirst satiation. In none of these cases, however, is the identity of the relevant sensory neurons and the neural pathway by which they transmit information to the lamina terminalis clear.

I was just wondering last night why cold water is so much more desirable when you’re thirsty, and why people don’t just guzzle lukewarm water when they’re thirsty. This temperature-dependence, as it says above, may be a phenomenon involved with learning the relationship between temperature of water and how well your body is satisfied with the water. But, as usual, we don’t know the full answer.

I was just wondering last night why cold water is so much more desirable when you’re thirsty, and why people don’t just guzzle lukewarm water. This temperature-dependence, as it says above, may be a phenomenon involved with learning the relationship between temperature of water and how well your body is satisfied with the water. But, as usual, we don’t know the full answer.

This year’s Golden Steve nominees for motion picture achievement

April 1, 2022 • 9:00 am

My nephew Steven’s website now has only about one post per year: his list of the “Golden Steve Awards”—both nominees and winners for Steven’s best movies of the year. In the post below (click on screenshot), you can see his nominees from this year, but in the post below I list only the Big Six categories plus “Best Foreign Film” (the latter for the reason given below).

The winners from each of the categories below will be announced on April 10.

My nephew cannot be described as modest, but he knows his onions, so I’d pay attention to his choices and view them if you can.

I quote Steven’s introduction to the nominations

Far and away the most coveted of motion picture accolades, Golden Steves are frequently described as the Oscars without the politics. Impervious to bribery, immune to ballyhoo, unswayed by sentiment, and riddled with integrity, this committee of one might be termed in all accuracy “fair-mindedness incarnate.” Over 165 of the year’s most acclaimed features were screened prior to the compilation of this ballot. First, some caveats:

1) Owing to a lifelong suspicion of prime numbers, each category comprises six nominees, not five.

2) A film can be nominated in only one of the following categories: Best Animated Feature, Best Non-Fiction Film, Best Foreign Language Film. Placement is determined by the Board of Governors. Said film remains eligible in all other fields.

3) This list is in no way connected with the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences—a fact that should be apparent from its acumen. Please look elsewhere for Oscar analysis.

Best Picture

Drive My Car
The Lost Daughter
Pig
The Power of the Dog
Red Rocket
The Worst Person in the World

Best Director

Sean Baker, Red Rocket
Jane Campion, The Power of the Dog
Maggie Gyllenhaal, The Lost Daughter
Ryusuke Hamaguchi, Drive My Car
Michael Sarnoski, Pig
Joachim Trier, The Worst Person in the World

Best Actor

Nicolas Cage, Pig
Clifton Collins Jr., Jockey
Benedict Cumberbatch, The Power of the Dog
Winston Duke, Nine Days
Hidetoshi Nishijima, Drive My Car
Simon Rex, Red Rocket

Best Actress

Olivia Colman, The Lost Daughter
Penelope Cruz, Parallel Mothers
Isabelle Fuhrman, The Novice
Alana Haim, Licorice Pizza
Brittany S. Hall, Test Pattern
Renate Reinsve, The Worst Person in the World

Best Supporting Actor

Richard Ayoade, The Souvenir Part II
Anders Danielsen Lie, The Worst Person in the World
Mike Faist, West Side Story
Vincent Lindon, Titane
Will Patton, Sweet Thing
Kodi Smit-McPhee, The Power of the Dog

Best Supporting Actress

Jessie Buckley, The Lost Daughter
Ann Dowd, Mass
Kirsten Dunst, The Power of the Dog
Toko Miura, Drive My Car
Ruth Negga, Passing
Suzanna Son, Red Rocket

And I’ll add this category, since Steven mentions if below.

Best Foreign Language Film

Drive My Car (Ryusuke Hamaguchi)
A Hero (Asghar Farhadi)
Memoria (Apichatpong Weerasethakul)
Parallel Mothers (Pedro Almodovar)
Petite Maman (Celine Sciamma)
The Worst Person in the World (Joachim Trier)

When I asked Steven what he thought of the “offcial” Oscar awards, he said this:

I don’t agree with any of the main winners, and would nominate only Campion. CODA is predictable, feel-good pabulum. Its win derives from a ranked balloting system in place since 2009, in which voters order their choices from 1-10 instead of checking the box of their favorite film. As such, it’s better to be everyone’s second or third choice than divisive (and possible to win without a single #1 vote). But of course nearly all great films are divisive, and middle-of-the-road picks like The King’s Speech, Argo, Green Book, and now CODA are black marks on the Academy’s record.

A rare bright spot was the victory of the truly exceptional Drive My Car. It’s the first Japanese film ever nominated for Best Picture, and a most deserving choice for Best International Film.

And here are the Rotten Tomatoes ratings (click on latter to read critics’ reviews):

Friday: Hili dialogue

April 1, 2022 • 6:45 am

Where we are now: We left Castro later than expected last night as there was a problem affixing the lifeboat or tender to the ship. The ship’s real-time map shows that we’re now cruising north toward Valparaiso, where we expect to land on April 3.

We are bypassing the large city of Puerto Montt, and will pass through a strait that takes us to the open sea for the rest of the trip.  Puerto Montt is at the end of the Reloncaví Sound, the north terminus of the inland passage along the coast.

From the dining room at breakfast: the Sun makes a crack between the sea and sky:

Greetings on the first day of the month; it’s Friday, April 1, 2022, and April Fool’s Day, but I promise not to fool you. It’s also National Sourdough Bread Day and National Soylent Green Day (but Soylent green is people!).

And as for the month (and one included week), all of April celebrates these comestibles:

National Florida Tomato Month
National BLT Sandwich Month
National Soft Pretzel Month
National Soyfoods Month
National Grilled Cheese Month
National Garlic Month
April 12-18: National Egg Salad Week

If you want to help out with “this day in history”, go to the Wikipedia page for April 1 and give us your favorite notable events, births, and deaths.

*Here’s this morning’s NYT headline. For the second day in a row they’ve replaced a banner headline with a smaller headline at upper left (the place where the most important news goes). Click on screenshot to read:

And the top three latest developments:

Weeks into a relentless Russian siege of the southern Ukrainian city of Mariupol, there were hopeful signs on Friday amid the deepening humanitarian crisis there, with an aid convoy on its way to the port city.

Peace talks between Russian and Ukrainian officials were also expected to resume by video link on Friday. Ukraine’s government has said it is willing to discuss forsaking any aspirations of joining NATO, as well as making territorial concessions if other nations provide security guarantees.

After discussions in Turkey this week, Russia vowed to reduce its presence around Kyiv, Ukraine’s capital, and in the country’s north. But Western defense officials have said that Russia appears to be holding ground around Kyiv and repositioning troops rather than withdrawing them. And Britain’s Defense Ministry said in an assessment on Friday morning that air and missile strikes had continued in the Chernihiv and Kyiv regions.

The second item is the one that most concerns me, as it’s Zelensky saying that he’s willing not only to forsake joining NATO, but is also willing to make “territorial concessions”, i.e., give up part of Ukraine to the Russians. That is precisely what should not be happening. And another NYT article about these “security guarantees” spells them out:

Ukrainian officials envision an arrangement in which a diverse group of countries — potentially including NATO members like the United States, Britain, Turkey, France and Germany — would commit, if Ukraine were attacked, to defending it. To some security analysts, however, that sounds very much like NATO’s doctrine of collective defense by another name.

It’s not just another name for collective defense; it is NATO’s doctrine of collective defense. And it commits us and our allies to fighting Russia if it goes for other parts of Ukraine not covered in the “concessions.”

The advantage of this arrangement is that it stops the killing. The disadvantage is that it is a genuine victory for Putin: in the end he’s gotten what he wants, and I don’t think he cares that much about the death of Russian soldiers (and surely not about the death of Ukrainians), nor about the sanctions imposed on Russia. If this is the way that peace will be brokered, then I think the sanctions on Russia should remain in place so long as Putin remains in power. (And if his successor keeps his policies in place, the sanctions should also remain.)

*The Red Cross is traveling to Mariupol to ensure that the safe passage promised by the Russians actually takes place. It’s estimated that 100,000 people are still trapped in the city. And these “humanitarian” promises by Russia have failed before. But there are no guarantees:

It was not clear if the ICRC [The International Committee of the Red Cross] would be able to enter the besieged city — an adviser to the Mariupol mayor’s office warned residents that “the city remains closed to entry and very dangerous to leave in private vehicles.”

*A surge of terrorist attacks has again ignited clashes between Israelis and Palestinians, and, as usual, it’s Palestinians who initiated the attacks.

Clashes with the Israeli military in the West Bank left two Palestinians dead and an Israeli was stabbed on a bus by a Palestinian amid the deadliest surge of terrorist attacks in the country in years.

In the northern West Bank town of Jenin, Israeli forces conducting an arrest raid came under fire and a shootout ensued, leaving two Palestinians dead and 15 injured, including three seriously from bullet wounds, according to the Israeli military and the Palestinian Health Ministry.

Separately, a 30-year-old Palestinian stabbed and seriously injured an Israeli on a bus near the West Bank settlement of Elazar, near Jerusalem, according to the Israeli military. An armed civilian on the bus shot and killed the assailant, the military said.

Israel has been hit by a wave of terrorist attacks in which 11 Israelis have been killed in the past week. On Wednesday, Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett told civilians in a video message, “Whoever has a license to carry a weapon, this is the time to carry it.”

The attacks have come before the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. The month is usually a time of heightened tensions, especially around Jerusalem, where tens of thousands of Muslim worshipers travel to the Aqsa Mosque to pray. Israel earlier this week also hosted a summit of American, Arab and Israeli diplomats aimed at boosting economic and security ties and helping build an alliance against Iran.

Palestinians are angered up not just by Ramadan, but by the fact that Israel is actually fostering better relationships with Gulf States like the UAE, Qatar, and Bahrain. As these ties strengthen, Palestine’s influence in the Middle East wanes.

*There may be a new covid-19 wave coming—and this useful article will help you prepare. (h/t Jean):

The culprit this time is BA.2, a subvariant of the highly infectious Omicron variant. Nobody knows for sure how much havoc it will cause, but BA.2 has already led to a surge of cases in Europe and is now the dominant version of the coronavirus in the United States and around the world.

Researchers are tracking an uptick in cases in the United States, and they’ve detected a rise in the viral particles recovered from nearly 150 wastewater-surveillance sites. Because people can shed the coronavirus even if they never develop symptoms, pieces of the virus collected in wastewater can serve as advance warning several days before official case counts rise, said Bronwyn MacInnis, who directs pathogen genomic surveillance at the Broad Institute in Cambridge, Mass. Over the past two weeks, Dr. MacInnis’s group has seen a rapid increase in levels of the BA.2 subvariant in the Northeast.

“I don’t think we’re looking at a crazy lockdown scenario in this part of the world with BA.2,” Dr. MacInnis said. “But we can’t be sure that we won’t have another curveball from this virus in the future.”

The suggestions for preparation including keeping those masks on hand, getting some rapid test kits just in case, get that second booster shot when you’re eligible and if you’re 65 and older or immunocompromised (my doctor disagrees, but ask your own physician), make sure you’ve at least gotten your first booster, get a pulse oximeter to monitor your blood oxygen (!), and familiarize yourself with the new oral antiviral medicines for people at high risk.

*You’ll certainly want to read this NYT article, “Want to see the weirdest of Wikipedia? Look no further“, especially after you read the first two paragraphs. This is how to grab a reader:

Did you know that there’s a Swiss political party dedicated to opposing the use of PowerPoint? That some people believe Avril Lavigne died in 2003 and was replaced by a look-alike? Or that there’s a stone in a museum in Taiwan that uncannily resembles a slab of meat?

Probably not — unless, that is, you’re one of the hundreds of thousands of people who follow @depthsofwikipedia. The Instagram account shares bizarre and surprising snippets from the vast, crowdsourced online encyclopedia, including amusing images (a chicken literally crossing a road) and minor moments in history (Mitt Romney driving several hours with his dog atop his car). Some posts are wholesome — such as Hatsuyume, the Japanese word for one’s first dream of the year — while others are not safe for work (say, panda pornography).

I’ve left the links in because you’ll surely want to look at them—and others. the Instagram account was started by Annie Rauwerda, 22, as a pandemic project, and now she has nearly 780,000. The world is hungry for weirdness!

Her followers often pitch her Wikipedia pages to feature, but these days it’s hard to find an entry that will impress Ms. Rauwerda. “If it’s a fun fact that’s been on the Reddit home page, I’m definitely not going to repost it,” she said. “For example, there are only 25 blimps in the world. I’ve known about that for a long time, and it went around Twitter a couple days ago. I was shocked. I was like, ‘Everyone knows this.’”

Here’s one Wikipedia entry that I found on her page:

And here’s the “Meat-shaped stone” in Taiwan, which, according to Wikipedia, is a famous tourist attraction. I looked it up because I had to see it:

The Meat-Shaped Stone (Chinese: 肉形石; pinyin: ròuxíngshí) is a piece of jasper carved into the shape of a piece of Dongpo pork, a popular Chinese way of cooking pork belly. It is part of the collection of the National Palace Museum in Taipei, Taiwan. Although of only moderate importance from the point of view of art history, it is a great popular favourite with visitors and has become famous.

Well, you be the judge!

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili has been reading Sartre:

A: Where are you going?
Hili: In quest of freedom.
In Polish:
Ja: Gdzie idziesz?
Hili: W poszukiwaniu wolności.

A great meme from Diana MacPherson:

From Science Humor (I was born in St. Louis):

From Su. How Ceiling Cat makes rain:

From Titania. For once I think she’s been conned, as I can find no record of these people participating in that event. And even this item, especially the person on the right, is too bizarre to be real—even in these days when you can’t tell satire from truth. I’ve never seen Titania wrong, but this may be a first. Still . . . there is an announcement.

A tweet from Barry:

From Andrew, interspecific play:

From Dom. I wasn’t aware of these flies, and am having it checked out. But if it is real, I suspect it’s not to fend off ants but other predators who are afraid to attack ants (they can taste nasty, bit, and especially squirt formic acid on predators.

Tweets from Matthew. I still have my Christmas wreath up, but it’s a round pillow on the door of my flat, and I think it’s festive to leave it up. But these people have an even better reason:

This boy has a brilliant future ahead of him!

The difference here seems to be mainly sartorial:

The world would be a better place if it were like Dodo World:

 

Antarctica (Patagonia): Days 30 and 31

March 31, 2022 • 12:30 pm

We’re out of the land of ice and penguins, and into the land of fishing boats, small villages, and sleepy dogs.  In other words, we land in Valparaiso in three days and then, the next evening (if all goes well and I don’t have Covid), I fly home.

But the last two days have been pretty swell anyway. We made only one landing, this morning, but the channels we went through, mostly between the mainland and islands off the mainland, were lovely.

In one of them lay the isolated hamlet of Villa Puerto Edén, population listed as about 176. Two notable facts from our crew and Wikipedia: it’s said to be the most isolated village in Chile except for Easter Island, and it’s where the last Kawéshkar people, once nomads and now residents of this lovely and remote place. The only way to get there is by boat.

(Be sure to click on the photos to enlarge them.)

We stopped here two years ago, and they disgorged loads of people from the ship into the town, which you can circumambulate in about 10 minutes. I felt bad because, aside from the ladies selling their wares at the landing site, we didn’t see a single inhabitant; it was clear that they all went inside. I felt like a gawker visiting a display, and was glad that we didn’t disturb the locals this time.

Wikipedia has a note about the climate:

Villa Puerto Edén has an extremely wet subpolar oceanic climate (Köppen Cfc) and is widely reputed to be the place in the world with the highest frequency of rainfall,[2] though according to Guinness World Records the highest frequency of rain in a year occurred at Bahia Felix, a little further south, with only eighteen rainless days in the whole of 1916.

The weather is mercurial here, and it can be overcast one minute and fully sunny ten minutes later. We had some glorious sun sailing along the coast:

Traversing smooth water:

We saw some fishing boats, although they seem to be connected to a long string of cages. As far as I can gather, these cages are where they put the caught fish, so they’re a kind of “fish farm.” Perhaps readers can give more details about these operations:

Each boat is connected to a very long string of submerged cages.

And glory be: we sailed through the Darwin Channel, described by Wikipedia this way:

The Darwin Channel forms a westward continuation of the Aisén Fjord and links it to the Pacific Ocean at Isquiliac Island. It is located in the coast of Chile at approximately 45.4° south latitude. This is one of the main channels situated between the islands of the Chonos Archipelago. Darwin Channel opens in the northern part of Darwin Bay and is considered the best of those which lead to Moraleda Channel, its navigation is free of dangers.

Here’s a panorama, though it’s much like many of the channels we’ve seen.

And here are a large and a small map of the channel. I’m not sure if Darwin actually went through here, but I fortuitously had my Darwin tee shirt on while sailing through:

Fishing operations became more numerous over the day:

And then it was bedtime (dinner at bottom). When we woke up, houses along the bank and fishing boats were quite common, for we were approaching the large town of Castro.

We dropped anchor (yes, that’s what the captain said; we never used our anchor in Antarctica) in Castro’s harbor. On one side it looks like this, with fish farms and smoke (are they smoking the fish?)

And on the other side was the town of Castro. It’s actually a city on Chiloé Island, with a population of about 42,000, and is the capital of Chile’s Chiloé Province.  It’s also, according to Wikipedia, the third oldest city that has existed continuously in the country, as it was founded in 1576.

It has a lovely situation, and I took the big tender (lifeboat) in with a lot of other people who wanted to walk on their own and stay off the big buses. I had a lovely 1.5 hour walk, which was good exercise as a lot of the town is hilly.

The tender, which can harbor a lot of people as a lifeboat.

And the port. You can see one structure in the background that resembles the palafitos, (traditional wooden houses on stilts for which Castro is famous, but the best view of them is obtained from the water and they’re so close together I couldn’t see many stilts.

Here are some of the stilt houses from a picture on Castro’s Wikipedia page:

A church on the town square, which reminded me of the square of Punta Arenas, where I stayed one night in 2019. I love the use of wood instead of stone.

Like the stilt houses above, many of the homes and shops of Castro are painted in bright colors.

You wouldn’t think that purple and green would harmonize, but I like this combination:

There were plenty of d*gs in town, nearly all of them sleeping. They looked to be in pretty good condition.

Look at this big boy! I don’t know what breed it is but surely a reader will know. It looked like a lion dog!

A lovely face!

Continuing on, I saw a car with a trailer, and sitting in the trailer was a sleeping CAT. I believe this is the first felid I’ve seen on this trip, so I took three pictures of it.

A calico! I did a bad thing because it woke up when I took its picture, and as we all know, it’s a sin to disturb a sleeping cat. (Look up the story of Muhammad and his cat Muezza.)

The cat, too, was in good condition. I’m sorry I woke you up, kitty.

There was a lot of street food in Castro, and I didn’t have any Chilean pesos! I had figured I’d get some from an ATM, but every ATM in town had a huge line of people in front of it. Otherwise I could have sampled one of these empanadas. This place was doing a land-office business.

The prices were low. One chilean peso is worth only one-eight of a cent, so 1800 pesos is about $2.30 U.S. (There are about 785 pesos to the dollar.)

Food trucks aren’t only in America. One street was lined with them, and they were well patronized

Freshly fried churros–my favorite! Alas, I had not a peso to spend. Six for about $2.50

I saw this statue of what looked like a Chilean laborer by the harbor. The plaque at its base translates like this: “Work completed in 2019, being Mayor Don Juan Eduardo Vera Sanhueza, the ‘Sculpture Marino Chilote’ was built by mandate of the Honorable Municipal Council.”

I’d guess this is a generic Chilean seaman. Nice statue!

Empanadas and churros weren’t on tap for me today, but here’s last night’s dinner: pork and shrimp dumplings followed by a round of chicken tortillas, washed down with a blueberry milkshake.

x

I swear this will be the last picture of a milkshake I foist on you. But it may also be the last picture of this trip, for now we steam north without stops.