Science

One way of studying and understanding distant, hard-to-reach locations elsewhere in the Solar System is to find analogues of them here on Earth. For example, deserts and lava fields are often used to understand aspects of the Martian surface. In new research, scientists collected samples from natural geysers in the Utah desert to try to understand the Solar System's icy ocean moons.

Expert birdwatchers have changes in their brain structure compared with novices, which probably help them better identify birds and may even protect against age-related cognitive decline

I’m not sure who Frederick Alexander is, but he’s written an intriguing article at The Gadfly (click below to read for free)

Alexander lists five types of “progressives”, and although their characteristics are distinct, he avers that their natures interlock to reinforce “progressivism”, which he sees, as most of us do, as performative wokeness that serves as a form of virtue signaling.  And yes, two of the subspecies really believe the ideology. I’ll give the five types (indented), but it’s fun to try to think of examples of each one.  I have omitted some of the descriptions in the interest of space.

The True Believers are the rarest and most dangerous type. Usually found in university admin or HR, they genuinely think that questioning any aspect of progressive orthodoxy constitutes harm. The moment they make eye contact with reality, their pupils dilate, and they assume a glazed, faraway look like someone’s talking to them through an earpiece only they can hear.

It’s the Tavistock clinician who dismissed parents’ concerns about rushing children into transition as “transphobia”. It’s the university administrator who considers “women” a radioactive word and the niqab an expression of female empowerment. It’s the civil servant who enforces unisex toilets because questions of “dignity” matter more than safeguarding.

The Careerists know it’s all nonsense but have mortgages. They privately roll their eyes at the latest pronoun updates but champion them in the board meeting with the enthusiasm of a North Korean newsreader.

Examples include the BBC editor who knows “pregnant people” is absurd but issues the apology on behalf of the female presenter who corrected the autocue to “women”. It’s the museum curator who rewrites exhibition labels to acknowledge “problematic legacies” to satisfy the demands of the True Believer, who controls the money.

The Cowards are everywhere. They know exactly what’s happening, hate it, but will never say so out loud. They’re the sort who’ll text you “100% agree!” after you’ve been fired but somehow missed every opportunity to back you up before the True Believer called you in about your unconscious bias.

When Kathleen Stock was hounded out of Sussex University, the Coward thought it was outrageous right up to the moment they realised they could be next. Then they recalibrated the events in their mind and took a different view.

. . .The Opportunists don’t care either way but have spotted the angles. Young, ambitious, and morally vacant, they add a dozen causes to their personal website and say things like “centring marginalised voices” without meaning a word of it.

The Opportunist will launch a DEI consultancy today and charge an HR True Believer ten grand tomorrow to tell a roomful of Careerists they’re racists. Or they’ll be the author who went from wellness influencer to decolonisation expert in 18 months and set up a podcast in between. It’s the academic who discovered that adding “queer theory” to their research proposal tripled their funding chances.

. . .The Fanatics think they’re True Believers except they dial it up to eleven. Pronouns and watermelon emojis in the bio, sure. But they also believe in decolonising logic and think the world is going to end tomorrow if we don’t do what they tell us. Every cause connects to every other cause, and all causes connect back to the same enemy.

It’s the student activist who screams at a Jewish classmate for three hours about Zionism, then files a complaint claiming she felt unsafe. It’s the protester who glues himself to a motorway, causes an ambulance delay, then calls the criticism “ableist”. The Fanatic cannot maintain eye contact except when talking about Palestine, at which point his eyes fix unblinkingly on yours, daring you to push back on his claims of genocide.

I could name a specimen of each of these, but will refrain on the grounds that you wouldn’t know most of them. Fanatics, though, include Robin DiAngelo, and True Believers the many biologists who assert that sex is a spectrum. (Some of the latter could be “careerists” as well, knowing that they can sell books and write articles, advancing themselves, by supporting nonsense.

Then, in an analysis that I like a lot, Alexander explains why these types are self-reinforcing, advancing “progressivism” as a whole (I hate calling it that; how about “wokeness”?):

Identifying these types isn’t an exact science, and they overlap to various degrees. The crucial thing to understand is that they need each other.

True Believers provide the moral authority, write the policies, and enforce the rules with genuine conviction. They absorb the ideology and give it form. Without them, it would all feel like a game of pretend (which it is).

Careerists provide the manpower. They actually implement the nonsense without stopping to think much about what any of it means.

Cowards provide the silence and the illusion of consensus, allowing the system to expand unopposed.

The Opportunists provide the raw energy, finding new ways to monetise moral exhibitionism because they see progressive orthodoxy as a business opportunity. Celebrity activists – indeed the whole entertainment industry – fall into this category.

Fanatics provide the threat. They’re the enforcers who make the Careerists think twice about cracking a joke since every joke has a victim. The Coward looks at them and thinks at least I’m not that person in an effort to assuage the sense of disgust at their own lack of integrity.

The system rewards all of them. True Believers get authority. Careerists get promotions. Cowards keep their heads down and Opportunists get book deals. Fanatics get the attention they crave, which is why we’re forever seeing clips of them in our social feeds waving Palestinian flags or throwing soup at Van Gogh.

What they all get – every single one – is protection from consequences.

Why? Because progressive orthodoxy is sustained by particular incentives. It’s got nothing to do with the strength of the ideas, most of which are obviously terrible when examined under daylight. It’s about the incentives that come with compliance and the costs that come with dissent.

In the end, Alexander still thinks the ideology is doomed to disappear:

The good news is that every protection racket collapses eventually – and progressivism will be no exception. The lawsuits will become too expensive, the backlash too loud to ignore. Those politicians who told us that men can be women will explain with a frown that these were “challenging times” rather than a gruesome display of moral cowardice. Pronouns in bios will become so mortifyingly embarrassing that those who had them will pretend, even to themselves, that they never dreamt of anything so silly.

Well, I’m not so sure he’s right here, but one can hope. The Democratic Party has been influenced too long by “progressivism,” and that shows no signs of disappearing. Indeed, it’s growing, to the point where Nate Silver lists Gavin Newsom and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez as the two top Democratic candidates for President. (Remember, though, that it’s early days.) AOC is clearly a progressive, a combination of Fanatic and Careerist, while Gavin Newsom used to be progressive but, starting to realize he can’t win the Presidency that way, has been moving towards the center. He’s clearly a combination of Careerist and Opportunist.

In the meantime, have fun by listing below individuals falling into the five classes given above.

An examination of bones has revealed one of the largest prehistoric mass killings known in Europe, with women, adolescents and children making up most of the 77 victims

How we feel about a night’s sleep can have a bigger impact on mood and grogginess than actual hours of rest. Here’s how to change your mindset to feel more energised

Temnothorax kinomurai, a parasitic ant species found in Japan, reproduces asexually and all of its young develop into queens that try to take over other ants’ colonies

Horses use their larynx to make two sounds simultaneously, so they are effectively singing and whistling at the same time

We often stop noticing things we’ve become too accustomed to, as a side effect of our brains protecting us from sensory overload. Columnist Helen Thomson shares the evidence-backed ways to learn how to notice again

Returning from my hiatus, I couldn't decide on a specific new topic, mainly because so much bad stuff happened in my absence. So, in this post I back up a bit to reflect on how RFK Jr.'s "make America healthy again" is nothing new. What is new is that the antiscience-cranks are in charge.

The post MAHA: Everything old is new again, except this time antiscience cranks (like Stanislaw Burzynski) are in charge first appeared on Science-Based Medicine.

Far beyond Neptune, in the frozen depths of the Kuiper Belt, many ancient objects oddly resemble giant snowmen made of ice and rock. For years, scientists wondered how these delicate two-lobed shapes could form without violent collisions tearing them apart. Now researchers at Michigan State University have recreated the process in a powerful new simulation, showing that simple gravitational collapse can naturally produce these cosmic “snowmen.”

A Martian volcano once thought to be the result of a single eruption turns out to have a much more complex past. Orbital imaging and mineral data show it developed through multiple eruptive phases, all powered by the same evolving magma system underground. Shifts in mineral composition reveal the magma changed over time, hinting at different depths and storage histories. Mars’ interior was far more active than previously believed.

Searching for life beyond Earth has rapidly advanced in recent years. However, directly imaging an exoplanet and all their incredible features remain elusive given the literal astronomical distances from Earth. Therefore, astronomers have settled by exploring exoplanet atmospheres for signatures of life, also called biosignatures. This is currently conducted by analyzing the starlight that passes through an exoplanet’s atmosphere, known as spectroscopy, as it passes in front of its star, also called a transit. But improvements continue to be made to better explore exoplanet atmospheres, specifically cleaning up messy data.

For decades, scientists have searched the skies for signs of extraterrestrial technology. A study from EPFL asks a sharp question: if alien signals have already reached Earth without us noticing, what should we realistically expect to detect today?

Bill Maher’s latest “Real Time” clip argues that we should get rid of the State of the Union Address (coming up Tuesday), at least under Trump. That’s because to Maher it’s ludicrous that Trump keeps appropriating the powers of Congress for himself, violating our Constitutional separation of powers. The speech has become, says Maher, not a summary of how we’re doing, but a series of future Diktats. Congress seems to have become superfluous: a “supporting actor.” In fact, Jefferson didn’t even favor the President speaking to Congress in this way.

Look at these guests: U.S. Representative Lauren Boebert (R-CO) and Texas State Representative James Talarico (D-TX). Boebert looks like she’s been spending some time in a tanning bed.

As Maher says, the real state of the Union is “hopelessly divided.”

Michael Shermer has a new book out called Truth: What it is, How to Find it, and Why it Still Matters, and I’ve mentioned it before. I’m reading it now, and there’s a lot of good stuff in it. But one of the twelve chapters—the one on free will—is, I think, misguided and confusing. In the preceding link you’ll find a video he made about free will, as well as my critique of it. You may not want to read this post if you’ve read the previous one, but the video differs slightly from the article I discuss below.

So here’s my take 2 on Shermer’s views, recently expressed in a longish article in Quillette. (Michael was kind enough to send me a pdf, so I presume he wants my take.) Read it by clicking on the screenshot below, or find it archived for free here.

In short, Shermer is somewhat of a compatibilist—or so I think, for though doesn’t seem to fully on board with libertarian “you-could-have-done-otherwise” free will, but neither does he accept physical determinism.  Further, he doesn’t seem to think that “you could have done otherwise” is even testable, as we’re never in the same situation twice.

He’s right about the untestability criterion. But that doesn’t matter, for even if we were in the identical situation, with every molecule in the universe exactly as it was the first time, there are fundamentally unpredictable events of the quantum kind that might lead to slightly different outcomes. And the more distant in the future we look, the more divergent the outcomes will be. I’ve already noted that the future is probably not completely determined because quantum events could be cumulative.  In evolution, for instance, natural selection depends on the existence of different forms of genes that arise by mutation. If quantum effects on DNA molecules can lead to different mutations, then the raw material of evolution could differ if the tape of life is rewound, and different things could evolve.

Further, if quantum phenomena affect neurons and behavior, it’s possible—barely, possible, I’d say—that in two identical situations you could behave differently. I don’t believe that, and neither does neuroscientist Robert Sapolsky, but quantum phenomena that affect molecular movement or positions do not give us free will, as our “will”, whatever that is, doesn’t affect the physical behavior of matter. And so, if we use Anthony Cashmore’s definition of “free will” as given in his 2010 paper in PNAS (the paper that made me a determinist), fundamentally unpredictable quantum effects do not efface free will. Cashmore:

I believe that free will is better defined as a belief that there is a component to biological behavior that is something more than the unavoidable consequences of the genetic and environmental history of the individual and the possible stochastic laws of nature. 

Cashmore takes care of quantum effects by lumping them as the “possible stochastic laws of nature.” (Some physicists think that quantum mechanics is really deterministic though it seems otherwise.)

But Shermer doesn’t talk much about quantum physics—in fact, he doesn’t mention it at all.  He simply argues by assertion, saying that yes, we could have done otherwise, and we could have done so on the rather nebulous bases of “self-organization” and “emergence”.  Let’s take the assertions first. I’ll have to quote at greater length than usual:

Since philosophers love to employ thought experiments to test ideas, here’s one for you to consider (feel free to plug yourself and your spouse or significant other into the situation): John Doe is an exceptionally moral person who is happily married to Jane. The chances of John ever cheating on Jane is close to zero. But the odds are not zero because John is human, so let’s say—for the sake of argument—that John has a one-night stand while on the road and Jane finds out. How does John account for his actions? Does he, pace the standard deterministic explanation for human behaviour (as in Harris’s and Sapolsky’s definitions above), say something like this to Jane?

Honey, my will is simply not of my own making. My thoughts and intentions emerge from background causes of which I am unaware and over which I exert no conscious control. I do not have the freedom you think I have. I could not have done otherwise because I am nothing more or less than the cumulative biological and environmental luck, over which I had no control, that brought me to the moment of infidelity…

Could John even finish the thought before the stinging slap of Jane’s hand across his face terminated the rationalisation? If free will is the power to do otherwise, as it is typically defined by philosophers, both John and Jane know that, of course, he could have done otherwise, and she reminds him that should such similar circumstances arise again he damn well better make the right choice… or else.

This is argument against free will by assertion alone.  What his wife is evincing here is her illusion of free will. Nobody denies the fact that we feel that we could make real choices. But that doesn’t mean that we do.

But where’s the evidence that John Doe could have refrained from his one-night stand?  He is correct in thinking that he could have not done otherwise (how could he unless some undefinable, nonphysical “will” affected his libido?), but his wife, subject to the universal illusion that our behavior is more than “the unavoidable consequences of the genetic and environmental history of the individual and the possible stochastic laws of nature”, believes in some undefinable property called “will” that could change the outcomes of a given situation. She thinks that John could have chosen not to fall prey to the allure of that other woman.

So Jane gives John a slap (that slap, too, was determined). And the slap could change John’s future behavior so that he refrains from other affairs, for, like all vertebrates, we learn from experience. That’s the result of evolution. (Keep kicking a friendly dog and see how long it remains friendly!).  He concludes what’s below (bolding is mine): But nobody with any neurons to rub together argues that changing behavior via learning somehow violates determinism.

More from Shermer:

But this is not the universe we live in. In our universe (unlike the one in which thought experiments are run), the Second Law of Thermodynamics and entropy means that time flows forward and no future scenario can ever perfectly match one from the past. As Heraclitus’ idiom informs us, “you can’t step into the same river twice,” because you are different and the river is different. What you did in the past influences what you choose to do next in future circumstances (the technical name for this is “learning”), which are always different from the past. So, while the world is determined, we are active agents in determining our decisions going forward in a self-determined way, in the context of what already happened and what might happen. Our universe is not pre-determined but rather post-determined, and we are part of the causal net of the myriad determining factors to create that post-determined world. Far from self-determinism being a downer, it’s the ultimate upper because it means we can do something about the future, namely, we can change it!

I don’t really understand this paragraph, nor the part in bold. In what sense are we active agents in determining our decisions in the future? Shermer doesn’t tell us, but he seems to be thinking of some nonphysical power of “will” to change the physics that governs our brains and behaviors. In fact, there is redundancy here: we determine our decision because our behavior is self-determined!

Apparently Shermer rejects physical determinism because, given the present, more than one future is possible. The laws of physics are likely to be, at bottom, unpredictable, though their effects on “macro” phenomena are probably minimal, and their effects on the behavior of human and other creatures is unknown. Shermer is even somewhat rude to determinists like Sam Harris and Robert Sapolsky (and, implicitly, me, as I’m with them): we are hidebound reductionists plagued by “physics envy” (bolding is mine):

Do determinists really fall into the trap of pure reductionism? They do. Here is the determinist Robert Sapolsky defending his belief that free will does not exist because single neurons don’t have it: “Individual neurons don’t become causeless causes that defy gravity and help generate free will just because they’re interacting with lots of other neurons.” In fact, billions of interacting neurons is exactly where self-determinism arises. But Sapolsky is having none of that: “A lot of people have linked emergence and free will; I will not consider most of them because, to be frank, I can’t understand what they’re suggesting, and to be franker, I don’t think the lack of comprehension is entirely my fault.”

Determinists like Harris and Sapolsky have physics envy. The history of science is littered with the failed pipe dreams of ever-alluring reductionist schemes to explain the inner workings of the mind—schemes increasingly set forth in the ambitious wake of Descartes’ own famous attempt, some four centuries ago, to reduce all mental functioning to the actions of swirling vortices of atoms, supposedly dancing their way to consciousness. Such Cartesian dreams provide a sense of certainty, but they quickly fade in the face of the complexities of biology. We should be exploring consciousness and choice at the neural level and higher, where the arrow of causal analysis points up toward such principles as emergence and self-organisation.

So what is there to behavior beyond atoms moving around according to physical principles? Shermer doesn’t tell us, but he seems determined (excuse the pun) to convince us that we do have free will, and it seems to be of the libertarian sort! He even evokes the mysteries of consciousness, which many people, including Francis Crick, think is best studied not from a “top down” approach, but from a reductionist “bottom up” approach.  And we know from various experiments and observations that we can affect our notion of “will”, making us seem like we have it when we don’t (people who suddenly confabulate a purpose when they behave according to stimulation of the brain), or making us seem like we lack it when we are actually acting deterministically (e.g., ouija boards). We can take away consciousness with anesthesia, restore it again, or alter it with psychedelic drugs.  All this implies that yes, consciousness and “will” are both phenomena stemming from physics.

Shermer rejects bottom-up approaches, raising the spectres of “self-organization and emergence” as arguments against Cashmore’s form of free will:

This we have through the sciences of complexity, in which we recognise the properties of self-organisation and emergence that arise out of complex adaptive systems, which grow and learn as they change, and they are autocatalytic—containing self-driving feedback loops. For example:

Water is a self-organised emergent property of a particular arrangement of hydrogen and oxygen molecules.

Complex life is a self-organised emergent property of simple life, where simple prokaryote cells self-organised to become more complex eukaryote cells (the little organelles inside cells were once self-contained independent cells).

Consciousness is a self-organised emergent property of billions of neurons firing in patterns in the brain.

Language is a self-organised emergent property of thousands of words spoken in communication between language users.

That list goes on, but it’s muddled. First, what do we mean by “self-organized” properties?  Is water “self organized” beyond behaving in a glass in ways that are consistent with, but not necessarily predictable from, the behavior of a single water molecule?  Ditto for complex life.  In what sense are life and water “self-organized” rather than “organized by physics”? Yes, there are emergent properties, like the Eroica emerging from the pen of Beethoven, himself an admirable collection of organic molecules with the emergent property of writing great music.

Let’s dismiss “self-organization,” which seems like a buzzword that doesn’t advance Shermer’s argument, and concentrate instead on “emergence.”  Yes, water is wet. “Wetness” is a quale evinced in our consciousness, yet the properties of water that make it feel wet are surely consistent with, and result form, the laws of physics, just as the “pressure” of gas in a container is an emergent property of a bunch of gas molecules acting as a group. But nobody says that gas molecules have free will, even though some of their properties are “emergent.”

The issue here is not whether emergence is something predictable from a reductionist analysis, but whether it is something physically consistent with its reductionist constituents. If the laws of physics be true, then that consistency does nothing to efface determinism. Shermer’s failure is that he neglects to tell us the nature of something called a “will” that interposes itself between molecule and behavior.  And often, with greater knowledge of physics we can predict emergent properties from a reductionist analysis. (The gas laws are one such thing.)

I’ll draw this to a close now, adding one more note. Shermer’s failure is twofold. He fails to suggest how an undefined “will” can affect the behavior of matter, and he mistakes determinism for predictability, a rookie error. If quantum mechanics is a good explanation of physics, then the future is not 100% predictable, even if we had perfect knowledge of everything, which of course we don’t. And physicists tell me that quantum effects were important at the Big Bang, so at that moment the future of the entire universe was unpredictable. That says nothing about free will.

Shermer closes with another paragraph that I don’t understand; it sounds in some ways (this may anger him, but I apologize) like Deepak Chopra:

It may seem odd to think of yourself as a past-self, present-self, and future self, but as suggested in this language, your “self” is not fixed from birth, destined to a future over which you have no control. We live not only in space, but in time, and as such no matter the pre-conditioning factors nudging you along a given pathway—your genes, upbringing, culture, luck and contingent history—there is always wiggle room to alter future conditions. The river of time flows ever onward and you are part of its future.

Act accordingly.

This is more argument by assertion alone. I’m not sure what he means by “act accordingly”, much less “wiggle room.”  Of course we can be influenced by what we read, but we don’t have a “will” that could alter what we do at any given moment. As Cashmore said in his article:

Here I argue that the way we use the concept of free will is nonsensical. The beauty of the mind of man has nothing to do with free will or any unique hold that biology has on select laws of physics or chemistry. This beauty lies in the complexity of the chemistry and cell biology of the brain, which enables a select few of us to compose like Mozart and Verdi, and the rest of us to appreciate listening to these compositions. The reality is, not only do we have no more free will than a fly or a bacterium, in actuality we have no more free will than a bowl of sugar.

I don’t mind being like a bowl of sugar, or, rather, a complex piece of animated meat.  I admire Shermer for all he’s done to further skepticism and attack quackery, but I think that on the issue of free will he’s gone awry.

From AI:

Our solar system hosts almost 900 known moons, with more than 400 orbiting the eight planets while the remaining orbit dwarf planets, asteroids, and Trans-Neptunian Objects (TNOs). Of these, only a handful are targets for astrobiology and could potentially support life as we know it, including Jupiter’s moons Europa and Ganymede, and Saturn’s moon Titan and Enceladus. While these moons orbit two of the largest planets in our solar system, what about moons orbiting giant exoplanets, also called exomoons? But, to find life on exomoons, scientists need to find exomoons to begin with.

It’s Saturday, a day of posting persiflage, and so I proffer another section of my life of “Coyne’s Best songs.”  Remember, I’m limited to judging what I’ve heard, and here are what I consider to be. . .

The Best Country Crossover Songs

El Paso                                                Marty Robbins
I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry            Hank Williams
End of the World                                Skeeter Davis
Crazy                                                  Patsy Cline (written by Willie Nelson)
We’ll Sing in the Sunshine                 Gail Garnett
Stand By Your Man                            Tammy Wynette
Wichita Lineman                                Glenn Campbell
Gentle on My Mind                            Glenn Campbell
Galveston                                            Glenn Campbell
Behind Closed Doors                          Charlie Rich
Ruby (Don’t Take Your Love to Town)         Kenny Rogers & the First Edition
Right Time of the Night                     Jennifer Warnes
I Will Always Love You                      Dolly Parton
Here You Come Again                       Dolly Parton
Send Me Down to Tucson                  Mel Tillis
I Need You                                         LeAnn Rimes
Amy                                                    Pure Prairie League
Snowbird                                            Anne Murray
Sixteen Tons                                       Tennessee Ernie Ford

Now not all these songs were recorded to be “country songs,” but all of them are at least countrified—that is, in the stuyle of country music. And I love all of them. Some are now very obscure (e.g., “Send me Down to Tucson,” “Snowbird”, and of course who remembers “Sixteen Tons,” once hugely popular), but all are great music.  I’ll put a few up for your listening pleasure. You are invited to note your own country crossover songs in the comments:

You’ll notice that there are three songs featuring Glenn Campbell on the list, and “Galveston” is the least popular of the three, but it’s the one that most moves me (all are wonderful).  Campbell, originally a session musician in the famous “Wrecking Crew“, was a world-class guitarist, you’ll see below from his fantastic solo that starts slowly with the melody at 4:27 and then goes off into space.  (For another example of his virtuosity, see the section of “Gentle on My Mind” performed live here). “Galveston” was written by Jimmy Webb and released by Campbell in 2003 after it flopped with Don Ho.

The YouTube notes:

From 2002, Glen Campbell & Steve Wariner perform “Galveston”, introduced by Brad Paisley, with video intro that includes comments by Merle Haggard, Keith Urban, Melissa Etheridge, Toby Keith, Radney
Foster, Tracy Byrd, Robert K. Oermann, and Tom Roland.

The performance starts at 2:32, but don’t miss the introductory interviews.

Oh, hell, I’ll put his “Gentle on My Mind” performance below. How many country stars can you recognize?

The inimitable Dolly Parton (“It takes a lot of money to make me look this cheap”), singing one of her more recent hits, “Here You Come Again“, written by the famous duo  Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil, and released in 1977.

Another early one from Dolly, written by her and released in 1973. It was her fond farewell to Porter Wagoner, who was her mentor but was also overbearing (they were not romantically involved).  A bit from Wikipedia:

Country music singer-songwriter Dolly Parton wrote the song in 1973 for her one-time partner and mentor Porter Wagoner, from whom she was separating professionally after a seven-year partnership. She recorded it in RCA Studio B in Nashville on June 12, 1973.

Author Curtis W. Ellison stated that the song “speaks about the breakup of a relationship between a man and a woman that does not descend into unremitting domestic turmoil, but instead envisions parting with respect – because of the initiative of the woman”. The country love track is set in a time signature of common time with a tempo of 66 beats per minute. (Larghetto/Adagio)  Although Parton found much success with the song, many people are unaware of its origin; during an interview, Parton’s manager Danny Nozel said that “one thing we found out from American Idol is that most people don’t know that Dolly Parton wrote [the track]”. During an interview on The Bobby Bones Show, Dolly Parton revealed that she wrote her signature song “Jolene” on the same day that she wrote “I Will Always Love You.” Parton clarified later, “I don’t really know if they were written in the same night.”

LeAnn Rimes may still be around, but she doesn’t have a high profile. Released in 2000, “I Need You” (there’s another country song with the same title) may have been the apogee of Rimes’s career, and it’s a great song. Here it is performed live on the Jay Leno Show in 2000. It may be classified as a “pop ballad,” but I’m putting it in the country crossover category become Rimes was a country singer before this came out.

“We’ll Sing in the Sunshine,” recorded by Gale Garnett in 1964, was a hit on both country-music and pop charts. Who remembers this one? It’s very bittersweet, about a woman who tells her man that they’ll have their day in the sun, but it will last only a year.  This is clearly a lip-synch of the original version.

And Skeeter Davis (real name Mary Frances Penick, with a nickname that means “mosquito” in slang) singing “The End of the World” (1962). It’s another lip-synched song, but no less great for it. (Her hair is definitely country here.) She died of breast cancer at 72, performing right up to the end.

Finally, Charlie Rich singing “Behind Closed Doors” (1973), with a theme similar to “Send me Down to Tucson,” but with the latter involving two different women.

I’ve neglected songs by greats like Hank Williams and Patsy Cline, but you can check them out for yourself. Remember that Cline’s big hit “Crazy” (1961) was written by Willie Nelson, who’s still with us.

Today’s Caturday report is a bit sad in that two of the items involve moggies who died. But we all do, and sometimes we need to read about people’s reactions to moggies who have crossed the Rainbow Bridge.

The first piece comes from the NYT, and you can read it by clicking the headline or reading the free version archived here.  This involved a beloved local cat called Kit Kat, who suffered a needless death from a driverless car.

A recent poster from the supervisor’s Instagram post:

An excerpt:

At Delirium, a dive bar in San Francisco’s Mission District, the décor is dark, the drinks are strong, and the emotions are raw. The punk rockers and old-school city natives here look tough, but they are in mourning.

Kit Kat used to bar-hop along the block, slinking into Delirium for company and chin rubs. Everybody knew the bodega cat, affectionately calling him the Mayor of 16th Street. Kit Kat was their “dawg,” the guys hanging out on the corner said.

But shortly before midnight on Oct. 27, the tabby was run over just outside the bar and left for dead. The culprit?

A robot taxi.

Hundreds of animals are killed by human drivers in San Francisco each year. But the death of a single cat, crushed by the back tire of a Waymo self-driving taxi, has infuriated some residents in the Mission who loved Kit Kat — and led to consternation among those who resent how automation has encroached on so many parts of society.

. . .Kit Kat’s death has sparked outrage and debate for the past three weeks in San Francisco. A feline shrine quickly emerged. Tempers flared on social media, with some bemoaning the way robot taxis had taken over the city and others wondering why there hadn’t been the same level of concern over the San Francisco pedestrians and pets killed by human drivers over the years.

You can see a picture of the shrine below, taken from Facebook;

More:

A city supervisor called for state leaders to give residents local control over self-driving taxis. And, this being San Francisco, there are now rival Kit Kat meme coins inspired by the cat’s demise.

. . . . But all of that is noise at Delirium. Kit Kat was loved there. And now he is gone.

“Kit Kat had star quality,” said Lee Ellsworth, wearing a San Francisco 49ers hat and drinking a can of Pabst Blue Ribbon beer.

. . .Kit Kat’s death has given new fuel to detractors. They argue that robot taxis steal riders from public transit, eliminate jobs for people, enrich Silicon Valley executives — and are just plain creepy.

Jackie Fielder, a progressive San Francisco supervisor who represents the Mission District, has been among the most vocal critics. She introduced a city resolution after Kit Kat’s death that calls for the state Legislature to let voters decide if driverless cars can operate where they live. (Currently, the state regulates autonomous vehicles in California.)

“A human driver can be held accountable, can hop out, say sorry, can be tracked down by police if it’s a hit-and-run,” Ms. Fielder said in an interview. “Here, there is no one to hold accountable.”

. . .Waymo does not dispute that one of its cars killed Kit Kat. The company released a statement saying that when one of its vehicles was picking up passengers, a cat “darted under our vehicle as it was pulling away.”

“We send our deepest sympathies to the cat’s owner and the community who knew and loved him,” Waymo said in a statement.

I think Waymo also made a donation to a cat charity, but that’s not enough. One cat is too much!

What do you think about driverless cars?

The shrine, from Cats Doing Cat Stuff:

A short CNN video showing Kit Kat as well as Jackie Fielder demanding the right of community regulation of self-driving vehicles. I agree!

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

Willamette Week reports on yet another semi-feral cat who is a mayor (alive this time): Nutmeg, the mayor of a part of Portland called Sellwood, Click to read:

I love how Nutmeg gets carried home every evening!  An excerpt:

It’s not clear what drew Nutmeg to the Sellwood CVS. He’s a 14-year-old cat who, for most of his life, has preferred to spend as much time outside as possible. But in October or November of last year, the long-haired ginger started hanging out in the store’s parking lot. Then he figured out how the store’s automatic doors worked and wandered in.

One clue: CVS does carry some pet supplies, and John Burgon, an Executive Security guard, tells WW that Nutmeg once tore into a bag of cat treats and helped himself. He also once broke into the store’s pharmacy, though it’s unclear whether he was attempting a Drugstore Cowboy-style heist or simply exploring a potential career as a pharmacy technician, as his owner, Joe Moore, suggests.

Moore and his wife, Gabi, adopted Nutmeg a year ago after a friend had to rehome him. The cat was born under a trailer in Boone County, West Virginia, and has spent the bulk of his life in Centralia, Wash., as a mostly outdoor cat. The Moores set him up with a heated dog house in the backyard, put a collar and tag on him (along with an AirTag), and let him continue his wandering ways, though they do bring him in at night.

Store manager Mike Rogers says Nutmeg usually comes in early in the evening and hangs out until the store closes at 10. At that point, Joe Moore comes in—the store is about half a block from the Moores’ house—and carries him home.

. . .customers love him, the Moores love knowing he’s somewhere safe, and staff is delighted to have Nutmeg around, providing him with a fleece blanket and on-the-job snacks. Sometimes, Rogers says, he perches on the counter and quietly demands petting from customers.

“He’s basically become our Norm from Cheers.”

Click below go to the Facebook post:

And a video in an Instagram post; if you can’t see it, click “View this post” link to see Nutmeg in the fur:

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by Willamette Week (@willametteweek)

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

From The Dispatch, a man says farewell to a beloved cat (article archived here):

You can see Gracie above. Here’s an excerpt, but you can read the whole elegy at the free link above:

We got Gracie almost 18 years ago from the shelter. Our daughter, then 5, wanted a kitten. We wanted a kitten. But there was a lady volunteer at the shelter who had a tip for us. People throw around the term “cat lady” a lot, but she was the real thing. I remember her sweater seemed to be on backward, and she gave the distinct impression that the shelter cats were just the surplus from the much larger supply at her house. But she was very kind. More importantly, she knew her cats. In movies, and a few TV shows, one of my favorite bit characters is the racing tout. You know, the shoeshine guy or omnipresent loiterer with a toothpick or cigarillo in his mouth and racing form in his hand who seems to know everything about every horse (“His muddah was a mudder”). That was this lady, but for cats.

She took a shine to us and said something like, “Take a look at that one. I see something special.”

She pointed to a thin gray cat, a few months out of little-kittenhood. She was regal but friendly.  Lucy, my daughter, decided she was the one when another family seemed to want her, and Lucy’s jealousy told her we needed to act. We put our names down for her.

But the high-stakes world of cat adoption in the nation’s capital being what it is, we couldn’t just take the yet-to-be-named Gracie home. Because we had a dog, the people at the shelter had to be sure that, Bill Murray’s insinuations about “cats and dogs living together” aside, they would get along. They required an introduction, on the premises. So, we made an appointment and came back a few days later with Cosmo the Wonderdog. We waited in a canine-feline interaction room. They brought in Gracie. Gracie saw Cosmo, and her tail inflated tenfold. Imagine one of those shawarma cones at the gyro joint, but made of fluffy gray fur.

. . .Gracie was the friendliest cat I’ve ever known. After a brief interrogation, she would let anybody rub her belly. She insisted upon sitting on every visitor’s lap—or at least trying. Every cat sitter we’ve ever had fell in love with her, because she was so lovable.

But I know a lot of people don’t want to hear a lot of stories about a cat. Talking about your pets can be a bit like describing your dreams: It’s got to be pretty unusual to be interesting at all. And I know from experience that there are a lot of people who will say, “It’s just a cat.”

No, it’s not.

I feel a strange obligation to explain this to people who don’t get it. And there are a lot of them.

When people say, “It’s just a cat,” or “It’s only a dog,” I hear a confession that they have never loved a cat or dog, not really. Such admissions of emotional ignorance clank off my ear and pinch my heart the same way as hearing that someone’s grandmother was “just an old lady.” No, I am not saying that there’s moral equivalence between people and animals. I’m saying that the love people feel for their animals is a real form of love. The people who leap at the opportunity to take offense, or simply argue, at such comparisons miss the point entirely. They want to drag reason into a realm where reason isn’t all that useful and even less welcome. I’m fine if people think loving animals is irrational in the exact same way I’m fine with people saying loving anything or anyone is irrational. I think they’re wrong. I can give you a rational explanation, a just-so story about evolution and whatnot. The materialists will tell you that love is an evolutionary mechanism necessary for ensuring your genes pass on. Okay, fine, maybe, probably, whatever; but who cares? The only relevant fact is that we love. And so do animals.

. . . and the sad farewell. Pay attention to the Jewish expression, one that I love, and is really the only thing you can say as condolence if you don’t believe in God (and many who do believe say it anyway):

This has been a horrible week in a pretty horrible year. My daughter loved her girl more than anything. I love Lucy more than anything. The pain she went through as we ran out of medical options for Gracie and had not only to say goodbye to Gracie but to be the facilitator of her passing and the end of her suffering was indescribable. Lucy’s pain multiplied my sorrow at losing this wonderful creature who served as a center of gravity in my family. They say you’re only as happy as your least happy child. Well, Lucy’s the only child I have, and so her misery is my own. As a dad, I take some solace in the fact that Lucy will learn important things from all of this, but those lessons are learned over time. This has been some terrible quality time, but it will improve as it melts into quantity time.

One of the best expressions the Jews have given the world is “May their memory be a blessing.” Having lost so many people, and so many animals, I’ve come to have a deep appreciation for this simple condolence. It’s partly why I unapologetically talk about my parents and brother so often. It honors them and my debts to them. But more than that, it brings joy. It keeps them alive in the only way possible in this life. It demonstrates that even when family members depart, the family endures and carries their indelible imprint. Amid all the crying these last few days, we’ve already started telling stories about Gracie and sharing pictures of her. Because her memory is a blessing, not just because we loved this silly creature, but because our family formed in so many ways around her. And family is a blessing, one of the only real ones in life.

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

Lagniappe: A moggyt photobomb

The man wanted to record the romantic moments he was dancing with his wife, but an uninvited guest joined in. pic.twitter.com/bSjHXygRxs

— The Figen (@TheFigen_) February 13, 2026

And Nimbus, the Mount Washington Observatory Cat:

h/t: Marion

We have yet another batch of photos, this time from reader Jan Malik. Jan’s captions and IDs are indented, and you can enlarge the photos by clicking on them.

During the recent bout of cold weather, I made a short trip to the New Jersey shore—Barnegat Light, a location known for wintering sea ducks. Most of the time it is a great place to see birds (and often harbor seals), but this time, with temperatures around 5°F and an exposed jetty blasted by incessant wind, animals were few and far between. Standing with the sun behind you—the usual orientation for decent photographs—meant exposing your face to the arctic wind, something tolerable only for a few seconds at a time. In these conditions I didn’t stay long, so what I have is a small set of photographs that could be titled: How birds survive bitterly cold weather.

American Herring Gulls (Larus smithsonianus). The sitting bird found a fish (in the lower right corner), but it was completely frozen, and even a perpetually hungry gull couldn’t swallow it. Instead, it was using it as “bait” to lure what I imagine is a female (judging by her slightly smaller size). Gulls normally defend their food aggressively, but they may share it with potential mates as the breeding season approaches. Note that the vocalizing gull is squatting to hide its bare feet and is facing into the wind—both strategies to minimize heat loss:

Barnegat Light lighthouse, built in 1859 and still functional. Note the frozen brackish water at the rock jetty, the result of prolonged low temperatures—a rare sight in New Jersey:

Distant Red‑breasted Merganser (Mergus serrator).  The second part of its scientific name refers to its serrated bill. This is a diving duck, so as long as some water remains open it should have access to food. The problem was that the channel was almost frozen solid near the jetty, where the shallow water normally suits these ducks best. In the center of the channel the water was full of drifting ice, and it was there—in deeper water, where catching fish is harder—that this bird had to feed:

A flock of ducks, probably Greater Scaup (Aythya marila).  Many birds in the flock were airborne, likely migrating locally in search of warmer weather and ice‑free water. None landed on the ice floes:

A Long‑tailed Duck (Clangula hyemalis) resting on a drifting ice floe and trying to limit heat loss by turning its body into the numbing wind.  This one is probably an immature male: it has extensive white plumage but has not yet developed the long tail feathers. Like mergansers and scaup, it is a diving duck that prefers relatively shallow water to the open ocean:

Wintering birds near the lighthouse, likely Yellow‑rumped Warblers (Setophaga coronata).  Despite the meaning of the first part of their scientific name (“insect eater”), they are unique among warblers in being able to survive harsh winters by feeding on berries. These birds were staying close to a pine–juniper thicket rich in waxy fruit. It is a small bird, as you can judge by the one perched on an average pinecone. They were puffing up their feathers to maximize insulation and staying low to the ground in sunny spots. This reduced wind exposure somewhat, but even so, with temperatures well below freezing, heat loss for such a small animal must have been substantial:

Another warbler, probably a female or a transitional male:

A large flock of American Robins (Turdus migratorius) near the parking lot. In New Jersey they are “migratorius” only in the sense that they vacate inland areas and winter closer to the barrier islands. This bird also puffs up its feathers considerably, appearing plumper than it really is:

All freshwater sources were frozen. Gulls could drink brackish water, but for songbirds it was a difficult time. A male robin began eating chunks of ice from a nearby snow pile. This is a last resort for birds—usually even in winter some freshwater is available, but not in this weather. Eating snow and ice carries an energy penalty because melting ice requires heat, which birds must then replace by finding more food:

Another wintering songbird, a common year‑round resident, the White‑throated Sparrow (Zonotrichia albicollis).  It was searching for anything edible in a snow‑and‑dirt pile left by a snowplow. After spending a little over an hour on the seashore, my face was numb and I retreated to my car. The birds stayed—they were far better prepared to brave the cold than a hairless ape:

Scientists may have spotted a long-sought triplet superconductor — a material that can transmit both electricity and electron spin with zero resistance. That ability could dramatically stabilize quantum computers while slashing their energy use. Early experiments suggest the alloy NbRe behaves unlike any conventional superconductor. If verified, it could become a cornerstone of next-generation quantum and spintronic technology.