Why Evolution is True Feed

It was a long flight (4 hours) from Burbank to Chicago, though the trip was made easier by the tiny size of the Burbank Airport, aka Bob Hope airport. It’s infinitely better than LAX and security scanning with PreCheck took about two minutes.  Still, My back was on fire the whole time from my flooding-induced back pull, and on top of that I was sporadically nauseous and thought, for the first time in my life, I would have to use the convenient vomit bag in the seat back. But I am tough and controlled it all. The nausea is now gone but my back—well, if you’ve pulled your back you’ll know how it feels. And there is no cure but time.

I see I am kvetching, but I had a great time in LA despite the nearby fires (I saw no sign of them save a slight haze in the air and a whiff of wood smoke). The weather was sunny and warm, the conference talks were good, and I enjoyed catching up with three pairs of friends after the meeting. Now it is back to the same ol’/same ol’, but in the next week or so I should have three novel things to announce.

In the meantime, Hili dialogues and their usual contents will begin tomorrow, and don’t forget to send any wildlife photos you’d like to contribute.

Meanwhile, in Dobrzyn, Hili is pondering a complex question:

A: What are you thinking about?
Hili: I wonder whether in a sleepless night it’s better to count virtual sheep or virtual mice.

Ja: Nad czym myślisz?
Hili: Zastanawiam się, czy w bezsenną noc lepiej liczyć wirtualne owce, czy wirtualne myszy?
Best

Late this morning I fly from Burbank to Chicago (there’s a nonstop flight!) and will be home this evening. Yesterday was no-diet day, including a visit to Blinkie’s donuts, a homemade cake for me, lunch at In-N-Out Burger, and dinner at a nice Asian restaurant.

There was a disaster in my hotel room, with water suddenly spouting up from the bathroom sink drain and flooding the room (the cause is unknown). I had to flee to a new room before everything got soaked, and in the rush threw my back out! Oy! I had to sleep on the wrong (left side) to ameliorate the pain.

But I kvetch.  Today I’ll ask readers to discuss the Issues of the Day, foremost among them being the on-again off-again ceasefire deal to end the Gaza War. It looked all wrapped up, but now the Israeli cabinet has held up finalization, saying that Hamas added extra demands.  My main concern about this deal is that it appears to leave Hamas in power, which would be a disaster for Israel.

But I have to pack, so please discuss any issues you want today, and I should be back in action by Friday, or Caturday at the latest.

Bonus photo taken by Carole Hooven: Luana Maroja (right), Julia Schaletzky, and I during our discussion at the USC conference.

Meanwhile, in Dobrzyn, Hili’s thinking has taken a functionalist turn, at least as far as poinsettia are concerned:

Hili: What is it for?
A: It looks nice.
Hili: And that’s all?

Hili: Do czego to służy?
Ja: Ładnie wygląda.
Hili: I tylko tyle?

Meanwhile, in Dobrzyn, Hili knows if you’ve been naughty or nice:

Hili: I can see everything.
A: What do you see?
Hili: You are sneaking chocolate again.
A: I have an important reason.

Hili: Ja wszystko widzę.
Ja: Co widzisz?
Hili: Znowu podjadasz czekoladę.
Ja: Mam ważny powód.

Regulars at this site will surely know of Robert Lang, physicist and origami master (art website here) whom I met a while back at the Kent Presents meetings. We became friendly and thereafter he contributed both wildlife photos and origami photos to this website (see all his posts here).

I was scheduled to meet Robert and his wife Diane today after the meetings and get a tour of their home and studio (she’s an author), thereafter then sallying forth to dinner. I hadn’t seen Robert in years, and had never met Diane, so I was looking forward to visiting their digs and to seeing some of the famous origami.

The problem was that their home and studio were in Altadena, California, near Los Angeles, so you can guess what I’m going to say next.

The home and studio are no more, taken down by wildfire. But I’ll let Robert tell the tale. His words, printed with permission, are indented below, and are supplemented with narrated videos (there are even subtitles).  This is the story of a family who lived through the fire but lost everything—except for the most important things: their lives and their animals.

Note that they actually lost two houses, as they had just bought another down the street.

Late Tuesday afternoon, we heard about the Eaton Fire, which started over in Eaton Canyon, about 2 miles to our east and several ridges over. The initial reports were that the wind was driving the fire to the east (away from us), so we were hopeful. At about 6:30 pm, though, my neighbor texted the neighborhood group that he saw a glow over the ridge to our east, and I headed up to my studio to see. By 7:30 pm I saw the fire crest that ridge and we received the “evacuate NOW” notice, so I threw as much as I could grab into my car and headed down, while my wife did the same from our home (with the dogs, tortoises, snake, and tarantula that live with us).

We spent the next few hours driving and parking to try to watch things from a distance. Surprisingly, the evacuation zone ended just to the west of our neighborhood, so after a while, I started making my way to the edge of the zone, staying out of the way of the many emergency vehicles, and presently found a spot from which I could walk to the edge of the canyon that separated me from my studio. From there, I could see the studio; I could also see that the entire multi-thousand-foot mountainside above it was in sheets of flame. The wind was blasting through the canyons, driving 50-foot plumes of flame and embers horizontally. About 1:30 am, I saw a flare-up right at the studio, and within about 10 minutes, it was engulfed. I also realized about that time that the fire would likely take down the telephone poles (and thus, potentially live wires) along my route, so I beat a hasty retreat to my car, and before long, the authorities announced that our area was now evacuation zone. We drove down the hill to Pasadena, found a quiet neighborhood out of the smoke (and, we hoped, the path of the fire), and spent a fitful rest of the night in our cars, awaiting what the morning would bring.

In the morning, my wife stayed with the animals and I drove up the hill to see what became of our house. Major roads were blocked off, but I wove through the neighborhoods, dodging still-burning homes (though the worst was past), downed wires, downed trees, and random debris, until I could get up to my neighborhood. It was a zone of total devastation: nearly all homes burned–and definitely mine. (Actually, both of ours; we had just moved down the street, so both our old house–just moved out of–and the new house–just moved into–were leveled.) I made my way up to my studio at the top of the hill, passing street after street of nothing but smoldering ruins. When I made it up, I found something incredible: the row of houses below my studio had entirely survived! I texted their owners the good news. I could see, though, that my studio had not; I parked (debris blocked my driveway), walked up, and surveyed the destruction, took a few videos and pictures for records, then high-tailed it down the hill.

Right now, the estimates are that 7000 structures were damaged or destroyed. It looks like about 2/3 of Altadena is gone. There’s a lot of snark on the internets about the rich people/celebrities/influencers in Pacific Palisades losing their houses. I haven’t seen similar snark about Altadena, which is a mixed-class, mixed-race community. There are turn-of-the-century buildings, craftsman houses, bungalows, tiny starter homes, and yes, a few mansions left over from the days when it was the summer playground of the rich. My wife grew up here; her father built their house himself in the 40s after clearing the orange groves from the parcel he bought. On the main drag downtown, the local hardware store was where you ran into your neighbors; Fox’s Restaurant had been a local landmark since 1955. All that is gone.

Ironically, I had recently returned from a business trip to Dresden, Germany, which was (famously) fire-bombed and leveled in WWII. They rebuilt. So will we. But it will be a long road to recovery.

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

Here a Cal Fire map of fire damage. The damaged area covers about 2/3 of Altadena. My home and studio is in the top middle of the burned civilized area, just to the left of the vertical black bar on the map.

This map is an understatement; I know some of the areas shown in gray actually burned.

Here are a few of the videos Robert posted on his YouTube site:

Panorama of the fire from the studio:

View of the mountains from the house:

Views of the destroyed house:

Views of the destroyed studio:

From Robert:

Here’s one more image for you: house-by-house fire damage. I’ve annotated where my places were. Not much left of the neighborhood.

[The key to above]: red=burned, black = OK, amber=damaged, green=“affected” (whatever that means).

Distance-wise, the studio and the houses are about a half mile apart by road, less by walking (there’s a trail up the canyon). An easy walk, except for the elevation gain (studio is about 200’ higher in elevation), so I usually drove.

Click to enlarge:  Arrows: studio is at the top, the old house at lower center, and the new house at lower right.  I’m struck by the patchy locations of the houses that survived.

As you can tell from the narration, Robert appears remarkably calm about this, as he was in his email to me about the destruction, which was headed “change of plans.”  I would be wailing with grief! But Robert and I do have one thing in common: a compulsion to document. His is with words and videos, mine involves in putting them on this site.

Best of luck, Robert and Diane, and of course we’re all sorry for your loss.

Meanwhile, in Dobrzyn, Hili is the boss cat, of course:

A: Hili, you are not helping me when you lie here.
Hili: I’m supervising. Find somebody else to help you.

Ja: Hili, nie pomagasz mi jak tu leżysz.
Hili: Ja nadzoruję, do pomagania znajdź sobie innych.

Meanwhile, in Dobrzyn, Hili is being zen:

Hili: Sometimes you just have to stop thinking.
A: It’s not always possible.
Hili: You have to train more.

Hili: Czasem trzeba po prostu przestać myśleć.
Ja Nie zawsze się daje.
Hili: Musisz więcej ćwiczyć.

Here is Philomena Cunk (Diane Morgan) with a clip from her new show “Cunk on Life” in an interview with Stephen Colbert. Cunk admits that 99% of her Cunk character is actually really her own personality (“we’re the same person, she says), with the other 1% involving her having to develop social skills to get along with others. She seems to be somewhat of a hermit and doesn’t mind being rude!

By now most people interviewed by Cunk know that it’s comedy, but that wasn’t the case when she began her interview career talking to academics and intellectuals. Those were the days! But it’s still great to hear her talk here about her relationship with Philomena. And that Bolton accent. . . .

Oh, and listen to her reveal the name of the person she most wants to interview!

h/t: Barry, Ursula

by Greg Mayer

A traveling exhibit from the Muséum national d’Histoire naturelle (Paris) is now on display at the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago. Entitled “Cats: Predators to Pets“, it is sure to be of interest to WEIT’s many ailurophiles, not least of all PCC(E). The entrance shows a large scale phylogenetic tree of the living cats

“Cats: Predators to Pets”, Field Museum of Natural History.

including Jerry’s favorite species of wild cat, Pallas’s cat,

“Cats: Predators to Pets”, Field Museum of Natural History.

and then opens into a broad hall with representatives of all the living species. (The whole exhibit is very dark, making photography difficult.)

“Cats: Predators to Pets”, Field Museum of Natural History.

Interestingly, they’re arranged geographically, which as someone very interested in zoogeography, I rather liked. Here are some of the Asian cats (some American cats are in the background to the left). How many can you identify? (Put answers in the comments.)

“Cats: Predators to Pets”, Field Museum of Natural History.

Here are some African cats. In this and the preceding photo, you’ll notice that some species are represented by life size photos, rather than specimens.

“Cats: Predators to Pets”, Field Museum of Natural History.

A closeup of the male lion.

“Cats: Predators to Pets”, Field Museum of Natural History.

If you think those canines are large, have a look at the saber-tooth!

Smilodon, “Cats: Predators to Pets”, Field Museum of Natural History.

Throughout the exhibit, an ordinary moggy is often inconspicuously lurking,

“Cats: Predators to Pets”, Field Museum of Natural History.

in this case demonstrating the stealthy approach used by his wild cousins.

“Cats: Predators to Pets”, Field Museum of Natural History.

“Predators” is not just part of the name of the exhibit: predation is shown in both several videos and mounted specimen groupings.

“Cats: Predators to Pets”, Field Museum of Natural History.

A caracal gets its dinner,

“Cats: Predators to Pets”, Field Museum of Natural History.

as does our cartoon moggy,

“Cats: Predators to Pets”, Field Museum of Natural History.

apparently because he’s been authorized by His Majesty’s Government.

“Cats: Predators to Pets”, Field Museum of Natural History.

I liked this demonstration, sort of from the inside, of how cats land on their feet.

“Cats: Predators to Pets”, Field Museum of Natural History.

These margay kittens won my vote for the cuteness award.

“Cats: Predators to Pets”, Field Museum of Natural History.

There was an explanation of how domestic cats evolved.

“Cats: Predators to Pets”, Field Museum of Natural History.

The following bit, however, was curiously equivocal as to how domestic cats got to the Americas– there’s no doubt they were brought here by man; it’s not just what “some historians believe”! Perhaps something was lost in the translation from French.

“Cats: Predators to Pets”, Field Museum of Natural History.

The latter part of the exhibit emphasizes cats in culture, including Bastet from Egypt,

Bastet, “Cats: Predators to Pets”, Field Museum of Natural History.

guardian lions from China,

“Cats: Predators to Pets”, Field Museum of Natural History.

and maneki neko from everywhere!

“Cats: Predators to Pets”, Field Museum of Natural History.

The biggest question posed by the exhibit is perhaps . . .

“Cats: Predators to Pets”, Field Museum of Natural History.

The popularity of Pusheen,

“Cats: Predators to Pets”, Field Museum of Natural History.

cat videos,

“Cats: Predators to Pets”, Field Museum of Natural History.

and cat stars of all sorts are explored.

“Cats: Predators to Pets”, Field Museum of Natural History.

Some of my favorites were Professor Cat

“Cats: Predators to Pets”, Field Museum of Natural History.

the original meme cat,

“Cats: Predators to Pets”, Field Museum of Natural History.

and, of course, Larry, from No. 10.

“Cats: Predators to Pets”, Field Museum of Natural History.

At the end of the exhibit, there’s a set of people-sized cat accessories– a scratching post, a mouse on a stick, a carpeted cat house. Here, a Field Museum colleague demonstrates how to remain alert for flying cat toys!

“Cats: Predators to Pets”, Field Museum of Natural History.

There’s a special “cat shop” just outside the exhibit. If you don’t already have your copy, you’ll want to get my friend and colleague Jon Losos’ book, The Cat’s Meow. Jerry reviewed it for the Washington Post, and also noticed it here at WEIT.

“Cats: Predators to Pets”, Field Museum of Natural History.

The exhibit is open till April 27. The exhibit has already been to the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto; I don’t know if it will continue its North American tour. So, to be safe, plan your visit to Chicago now!

I’ve been ssaving these, which were tendered by one “Cerry Joyne” on two different and random threads, the first on the ideological capture of scientists in New Zealand and the second on, of all things, a readers’ wildlife photo post.

Comment #1:

have you considered just fellating a shotgun instead of being a disgusting, transphobic cunt?

Comment #2:

hey jerry merry christmas, just wondering, along with all the other “new atheist” guys when it was that you became a delusional right-wing racist fuckwit?

Judging from the IP number, 60.234.105.217, it appears that this delightful person is a Kiwi:

Country:New Zealand
State/Region:Taranaki
City:Hawera

Needless to say, this Kiwi will post no more.  This is only a sample of the (unposted and nasty) comments I have gotten since the KerFFRFle began. For some reason I cannot understand–and I invite readers to speculate—gender issues engender (pardon the pun) more hateful comments than any controversial topic I have ever discussed here.  Suggestions?

Here’s some quick morning news before I hightail it to the ideology-in-science meeting:

*The meeting yesterday was good, highlighted by a superb opening talk given by Jonathan Rauch, echoing the themes of his equally great book, The Constitution of Knowledge: A Defense of Truth.  The quality of the talks was in general high, with just a few clunkers. Props to Anna Krylov, who was the uber-organizer of it all.

Lee Jussim gave a passel of examples of censorship in science, as did Lawrence Krauss (via Zoom), the latter concentrating on physics.  Krauss also excoriated the National Academy of Sciences for political correctness, especially its explicit attempts to equalize membership equity, bypassing merit and apportioning extra new membership slots to sections of the Academy that have more ethnic and gender diversity, as well as geographic diversity.  (He explicitly quoted the NAS’s policy which you can see here; it’s also quoted by Krauss in his WSJ piece here.)

But Marcia McNutt, President of the National Academies, was also at the meeting. When it was the turn of her panel (she talked about the geology of western North America), she briefly struck back at Krauss in an addendum, saying that she was talking about her own area of geological expertise and that Krauss, who “wasn’t a member of the NAS,” shouldn’t speak outside of his area of expertise. That was an unfair remark on her part, especially since Krauss quoted her own organization.  Since when are you disqualified from criticizing how an organization based on merit places merit in second (or third) place when selecting members–just because you don’t belong to that organization? It may not be pleasant for the NAS to hear this, but people have every right to call out such a policy.

*Back in the real world, the LA wildfires are slowly coming “under control” as they say, but not all of them (article archived here):

The mammoth Palisades fire was roaring closer to residential areas of Los Angeles early Saturday, forcing a new round of evacuation orders and dimming hopes that a brief drop in wind speeds would help firefighters tame Southern California’s devastating blazes.

The desert winds that have stoked the fires are expected to pick up again Saturday afternoon. But even without high winds, the most destructive wildfires in Los Angeles’s history expanded overnight across the region’s bone-dry terrain.

The Palisades fire, the largest of them, tore east, chewing up parched vegetation as it raced up the ridges of Mandeville Canyon. The authorities issued mandatory evacuation orders for an area including parts of the Brentwood and Encino neighborhoods, as well as the Getty Center, one of Southern California’s cultural jewels.

The blaze, which has burned through 21,600 acres and razed stretches between Santa Monica and Malibu since it broke out on Tuesday, was only 8 percent contained, according to Cal Fire. To the east, firefighters had contained 3 percent of the 14,000-acre Eaton fire, near Altadena and Pasadena. The blazes, which have killed at least 11 people and destroyed thousands of structures, now rank among the five most damaging in California’s history.

With many people still unaccounted for, officials have said the death toll could rise.

Los Angeles announced a curfew from 6 p.m. to 6 a.m. for areas under mandatory evacuation orders. National Guard units have been deployed to secure evacuation zones.

Here’s what we’re covering:

• Water shortage: After reports emerged that a critical reservoir was offline when the fires started, California’s governor, Gavin Newsom, said he was ordering an independent review to determine why firefighters ran out of water early on, calling the situation “deeply troubling.”

• The victims: Those who have died include a man in his 60s who lived in his childhood home and drove a bloodmobile; a retired aerospace engineer and an active church deacon; and a retired pharmacy technician whom neighbors called “an angel.” Read more about the fires’ victims.

• Scale of destruction: The combined area burned by this week’s fires is larger than the city limits of San Francisco, Pittsburgh, Boston or Miami. As of Saturday morning, more than 100,000 people were under evacuation orders, and some 160,000 electricity customers were without power.

That is a huge area. I can’t see the destruction from USC, but after the meeting is over I’ll venture out for a couple of days, coming near the burned area.  I’m not a gawker and have no desire to see people’s destroyed homes, but two friends live close to the burned area and I’m visiting them. Another friend lost his beloved home and studio in the woods.

If you’re a celebrity-follower, or one of those who are delighted when the rich get a comeuppance (I’m not one of those, either), here’s a WSJ map of celebrity homes destroyed in the Palisades fire:

*Reader Norm sent this headline (click to read). Wouldn’t you know that those pnefarious Jews were responsible for the California wildfires? Oy! The article is by Vered Weiss from the World Israel News (h/t Norm):

A quote:

Code Pink: ‘When US taxes go to burning people alive in Gaza, we can’t be surprised when those fires come home.’

Anti-Israel groups took to social media to blame Israel for Los Angeles wildfires.

The fires have destroyed hundreds of buildings and prompted the evacuation of tens of thousands of California residents.

On Instagram, Code Pink created a tenuous connection between the fires and Israel’s war in Gaza.

Code Pink wrote, “When US taxes go to burning people alive in Gaza, we can’t be surprised when those fires come home.”

The Anti-Zionist group Jewish Voice for Peace wrote, “Instead of putting resources toward making our country livable, our government is putting billions toward Israel’s genocide of Palestinians in Gaza.”

Fatima Mohammed, head of anti-Israel group Within Our Lifetime posted, “The flames of Gaza will not stop there.”

“Dropping hundreds of thousands of bombs on Gaza, turning it into a blazing inferno, has consequences,” she said. “There are climate consequences that will find us all.”

Commentator Mehdi Hasan asserted that aid to Israel was interfering with funding LA’s fire department.

However, Hasan failed to recognize that Israeli military aid is federal and funding for the fire department is from the City of Los Angeles.

I mean, is that so hard to believe? After all, wasn’t it Marjorie Taylor Greene who, four years ago, blamed California wildfires on Jewish space lasers? Meanwhile, the Palestinians are celebrating the devastation (h/t Malgorzata):

Palestinians celebrate and gloat as the Los Angeles fires rage in the Hollywood hills, while their fans in the UK try to identify which of the victims in California deserve it because they are “Zionists.” pic.twitter.com/fMFTQHbgO8

— Saul Sadka (@Saul_Sadka) January 9, 2025

*Two pair of lynx have been captured in Scotland—in Cairngorms National Park in Scotland.  Lynx do not exist in the wild in Scotland, and it’s not clear if these are Eurasian lynx (Lynx lynx; h/t Jez)

A second pair of lynx have been captured after being found near Kingussie in the Cairngorms National Park.

Two other lynx, released illegally, were caught in the same area on Thursday.

Staff from the Royal Zoological Society of Scotland caught all the animals by baiting a series of humane traps in the area to entice them.

The RZSS confirmed that the latest pair had been captured at about 18:30 near the Dell of Killiehuntly, where the two other lynx were also successfully caught.

The latest lynx, believed to be larger than the other two cats, were first spotted at about 07:10 on Friday.

Dr Helen Senn, head of conservation at RZSS, said: “I’m sure that everyone in the community will be happy and relieved to know that the second pair of lynx have been safely captured.

“Early reports are that they appear to be in good health, which is the most important thing.

“It’s been a rollercoaster 48 hours, with people working throughout the day and night, in some extremely challenging conditions, but I’ve been so impressed by the efforts of our own staff as well as partners, and members of the local community to ensure that the outcome is a positive one.”

She added that the lynx would be taken to the Highland Wildlife Park before being moved to Edinburgh Zoo to quarantine for 30 days – as has happened with the first pair found on Thursday.

It’s not clear if they will be released if they are given a clean bill of health, for Scottish naturalists would dearly love to have the species back where it once roamed.

*Today I’ll post four instead of the usual three items stolen from Nellie Bowles’s weekly news summary in the Free Press, called this week, “TGIF: Hellfire.”

→ The Gulf of America: Trump announced that he’ll be renaming the Gulf of Mexico. Now it’ll be the Gulf of America. Here was Trump on Tuesday:

We’re going to be changing the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America, which has a beautiful ring, that covers a lot of territory. The Gulf of America, what a beautiful name, and it’s appropriate.

I love that Trump is framing this as the normal way countries negotiate with each other. Tariffs? Yes. Sanctions? Sure. Change the name of a universally agreed-upon ocean? Absolutely. That is how real statesmen operate: Force your adversaries to relabel their maps. It’s also an incredible PR tactic. Shipwreck in the “Gulf of Mexico”? Don’t know what you’re talking about. New oil field discovered in the Gulf of America? Cha-ching!

Trump is going to release a whole new world map by the end of the year. Canada will be labeled “Area 51.” China renamed CHY-na. Ukraine? You’re thinking of “Little Russia.” New Mexico will, of course, become New America, Florida is D.C., and we’re throwing Connecticut to Elon Musk, who has decided to rename it X!12-ZZ Infiniti.

→ News for the Jews: In more news relevant to Jews (other than world domination), the head of Within Our Lifetime explained that there’s obviously no two-state solution: “As long as Israel exists, it is a genocide against the Palestinian people.” Remember when the whole thing was ceasefire and #peace? Funny how that shifts.

→ Funeral side-eyeing: At President Jimmy Carter’s state funeral yesterday, Kamala, who was seated in front of the formers (Trump, Obama, Clinton, my sweet little George), turned around as Trump and Obama chatted. She quickly looked away, took a deep breath, and pursed her lips. She pretended to read the bulletin like there were secrets in there. And for a moment, I felt her pain. George W. even gave Obama a little tap on the stomach. My favorite part of presidential funerals—yes, I have a favorite part—is getting to watch all these characters interact with each other. It’s like watching the most awkward reunion of The Real Househusbands of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

→ Sex is back: I don’t mean sex-sex. I mean males and females existing. That’s what a federal Kentucky judge decided when this week he struck down one of Biden’s signature policies: remaking Title IX to say that students can self-ID as whatever sex or gender they feel, play on any sport team they identify with, and enter any locker room. If schools didn’t go along with it, they would face the full force of the federal government. Now it’s over. What a strange journey we’ve gone on. Did that really happen?

Yes, indeed, Nellie, yes indeed it did.

After a break, Andrew Sullivan is back with The Weekly Dish. His column this week is called “The Price of Orthodoxies“. The theme is how orthodox opinion can blind us to not only the truth, but to horrible truths. His example are the Pakistani/Bangladeshi “rape gangs” (also called “grooming gangs”) in the UK. (And yes, I know there were some white rape gangs, too.) Excerpts:

The more intense the horror, the more powerful the instinct to doubt when you first hear of it. The sex-abuse scandal in my own church first numbed and incapacitated me. It took some time for me to see the totality of what had happened, and how deeply it had destroyed Catholic moral authority. Again, when I first read about, say, the Catholic school for deaf children where a priest had picked his victims among those whose parents did not know sign language, the feeling of horror was almost too much to process at all. And as with the Bush administration’s torture policy, it took even more time to grasp how this moral rot had been enabled by the very top.

This is why, I think, the scandal of Britain’s Pakistani rape-gangs, and the institutional negligence toward tens of thousands of underage victims over several years, has had a second burst of life. A serious national inquiry on the scandal was conducted years ago (its recommendations not yet implemented). But several towns with the worst records were omitted from that inquiry; and the sheer scale and depravity of what happened has finally begun to sink in. The precipitant was Elon Musk pontificating about the scandal on X, as part of his campaign to bring down Keir Starmer.

The details are hard to absorb. Think of the hideous abuse suffered by that extraordinary French woman, Gisèle Pelicot, sedated and raped by dozens of French men, organized by her husband. Now think of that kind of organized gang-bang — but make it close to ubiquitous in some towns and the victims under-age girls: raped, brutalized, mutilated, beaten, their lives destroyed. Yes, it was that bad. Tens of thousands of rape victims across the country. . .

Why was this allowed to go on for so long? For the same reason the Catholic Church covered up child rape for decades, and Dick Cheney covered up torture. Because the orthodoxies of Catholicism, of the American military, and, in this case, the multicultural experiment were respectively involved. These orthodoxies were sacred, their cultural power extreme. Catholic Boston, conservative America, and elite liberal Britain therefore defended their own orthodoxies for a very long time. And with every successful deflection of responsibility, the number of victims increased.

The truth damns the multicultural project in Britain. Rather than integrating these men of Pakistani heritage, insisting that they adopt the laws and mores of the native population, and treating them like everyone else, the UK elites celebrated cultural difference, enabled the siloing of these populations, bemoaned their own white working-class populations, and forbade any criticism of Islam. So if you called out this stuff, you were instantly called racist. After all, to accuse a non-white minority of raping white girls was a trope right out of white-supremacist fever dreams. And yes, it is a hideous racist trope — from the depths of the American South. But sometimes the trope is the truth.

In all the major cases, I’ve found no reported evidence of Pakistani or Muslim girls being groomed and raped — only poor, white natives.The justification among the rapists, moreover, was that these non-Muslims were sluts who were asking for it and beneath contempt. Racist insults were common as these girls were brutally abused. These were not just rapes, but hate crimes of a grisly sort.

It’s not true that the Brit media ignored the scandal. But it is also true that the space they gave it was trivial compared with, say, coverage of the George Floyd murder, thousands of miles away. And ask yourself: if it had been discovered that there were gangs of white nationalists singling out Pakistani-heritage girls for rape and abuse, with racist and Islamophobic slurs added for good measure, what would the media response have been? The question answers itself.

And if a white Brit had been found guilty of organizing the brutal gang-rape of a Pakistani 12-year-old girl, it’s hard to imagine him receiving a sentence of just three years. To get a sense of why the British public is pissed, it’s worth noting that last year, a white Brit was sentenced to a longer 38-month sentence for writing a social media post. More punishment for a white man’s inflammatory speech than for a non-white man’s gang-rape of a child: a near definition of wokeness. And you wonder why they call him Two-Tier Keir.

Yes, some readers think this is a confected scandal by conservatives aiming to depose the Labour Party and its Prime Minister.  I do not agree with them in the sense that it is not made up, and it is a scandal involving disproportionate numbers of Pakistanis and Bangladeshis.

Finally, a few of us went to Anna Krylov’s (conference organizer) and her partner Jay’s lovely house for dinner the other night. They had been given an evacuation warning, and packed their car, but fortunately the warning was rescinded. I forgot to take photos of the food which was delicious (grilled chicken and a variety of Russian-style sides), but I did get one of the dessert. Also, I was promised that I would get to pet one of their two cats: Mishka (“bear” in Russian), a beautiful gray English shorthair. Here they are:

Mishka (he is somewhat standoffish):

Dessert:

I’ll try to get more photos today, but I doubt the picture of the venue (a large auditorium) or of the box lunches (delicious but unphotogenic) will thrill you.

Meanwhile, in Dobrzyn, Hili is getting some self-care:

A: What are you doing?
Hili: I’m getting depressed.
A: And now, what?
Hili: As a part of the therapy I will turn to the wall.

In Polish:

Ja: Co ty robisz?
Hili: Wpadam w depresję.
Ja: I co teraz?
Hili: W ramach terapii odwrócę się od ściany.

As the article by Matt Taibbi below notes, Mark Zuckerberg is moving his Meta platform–notably Facebook and Instagram–away from censorship and more towards free speech (click the link to read):

The video in this post has vanished from YouTube, but I found it on Facebook and put it below.  Do watch it.

Taibbi quotes a bit of it:

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, in a video promising a shift toward free speech:

The US has the strongest constitutional protections for free expression in the world. Europe has an ever increasing number of laws institutionalizing censorship, and making it difficult to build anything innovative there. Latin American countries have secret courts that can order companies to quietly take things down. China has censored our apps from even working in the country. The only way that we can push back on this global trend is with the support of the US government, and that’s why it’s been so difficult over the past four years, when even the US government has pushed for censorship by going after us and other American companies.

The NYT adds a bit more:

Eight years later, Mr. Zuckerberg is no longer apologizing. On Tuesday, he announced that Meta, the parent company of Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and Threads, was ending its fact-checking program and getting back to its roots around free expression. The fact-checking system had led to “too much censorship,” he said.

. . . Eight years later, Mr. Zuckerberg is no longer apologizing. On Tuesday, he announced that Meta, the parent company of Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and Threads, was ending its fact-checking program and getting back to its roots around free expression. The fact-checking system had led to “too much censorship,” he said.

Now there is still an opportunity for counterspeech; fact-checkers will be replaced with “Community Notes,” similar to those used on X. There will be a policy to reduce “mistakes”, tackling “illegal and high severity violations” that are reported by others. People, rather than filters, will look for these violations and remove the ones deemed “not free speech.”

As I’ve said before, I would prefer large social-media platforms like Facebook and Twitter (now X) to adhere as strongly as possible to the First Amendment of the Constitution. That Amendment, of course, has carve-outs: truly prohibited speech. This includes defamation, harassment, false advertising, child pornography, obscenity, and speech liable to incite predictable and lawless violence.

So long as Facebook and X adhere to this policy, I think it’s a step in the right direction. The “Community Notes” will allow the counter-speech that advocates of free speech see as essential to promote the clash of ideas that, according to John Stuart Mill, will promote the emergence of truth. So I think this is a good step, regardless of what you think of Zuckerberg (or Elon Musk, who is running X this way).

I will be at meetings all day today, so I ask readers to discuss this new policy of Zuckerberg (and Musk).  Yes, I know people say that Musk and Zuckerberg are pandering to Trump,  and perhaps that is one motivation, but I do not want readers to concentrate on the people involved, but on the speech policy itself.

Please discuss below.  Do you think places like Facebook and X should prohibit speech that is actually allowed by the First Amendment? If so, which speech?

Or you can discuss Trump’s sentencing as a felon:

After months of delay, President-elect Donald J. Trump on Friday became the first American president to be criminally sentenced.

He avoided jail or any other substantive punishment, but the proceeding carried symbolic importance: It formalized Mr. Trump’s status as a felon, making him the first to carry that dubious designation into the presidency.

“Never before has this court been presented with such a unique and remarkable set of circumstances,” said the judge overseeing the case, Juan M. Merchan. “This has been truly an extraordinary case.”

The judge then imposed a so-called unconditional discharge of Mr. Trump’s sentence, a rare and lenient alternative to jail or probation. Explaining the leniency, Justice Merchan acknowledged Mr. Trump’s inauguration 10 days hence.

“Donald Trump the ordinary citizen, Donald Trump the criminal defendant” would not be entitled to the protections of the presidency, Justice Merchan asserted, explaining that only the office shields him from the verdict’s gravity.

The judge then wished Mr. Trump “godspeed” and departed the bench.

Meanwhile, in Dobrzyn, Hili is optimistic, I suppose:

Szaron: We live in times when books are more important for cats than for humans.
Hili: Not for all of them, dear Szaron, not for all.

Szaron: Dożyliśmy czasów, w których książki są ważniejsze dla kotów niż dla ludzi.
Hili: Nie dla wszystkich, drogi Szaronie, nie dla wszystkich.

Those were the words with which Christopher Hitchens began his best speech on video, but it also applies to the three fires raging around Los Angeles. They aren’t bad enough to endanger USC or our conference, but people are cancelling anyway. The sky is hazy and there’s a slight whiff of burning wood at USC, but no sign of smoke.

However, Luana flew into Burbank yesterday, which is closer to the conflagrations, and she took this photo, which she let me put up.

It’s very sad: 100,000 people have evacuated, and many people have lost their homes and everything in them.  My heart goes out to them.

This piece, by a pseudonymous researcher with a Substack, is another example of scientists decrying the journals and editors who make political statements in public. By so doing, the author points out, they simply decrease public confidence in science and scientists (down 10% in just five years, though still high). In other words, violating institutional neutrality in science is counterproductive. When Nature endorsed Biden four years ago, all it did was to erode confidence in the journal, and in U.S. scientists, while not moving any voters toward the Democrats.

Click the headline below to read the article for free:

The author speaks specifically about Holden Thorp, the editor of Science, certainly the most prestigious science journal in America. Thorp said this after the Democrats lost the election:

Holden Thorp, the Editor-in-Chief of Science, another preeminent science journal—the kind publishing in which makes or breaks careers of aspiring academics and the kind that defines funding and research strategies the world over, wrote a response, of sorts, to the voters “…who feel alienated America’s governmental, social, and economic institutions [that] include science and higher education”. His claim is simple: Trump’s message of “…xenophobia, sexism, racism, transphobia, nationalism, and disregard for truth…” resonates with them. It’s the people’s fault: the people voted wrong. Well… to borrow his own words, “Make no mistake.” Holden Thorp does not speak for me.

You can find Thorp’s op-ed here.

It’s not that the author is a Trump fan, for, like me, he despises the man:

. . . Harris’ legacy is tainted by her support for the diversity and social justice activism responsible for the damage that has been done to Western academic and social institutions in its name. She lost to Donald Trump, a conman and a charlatan of historic proportions who went as far as inciting a coup to remain in power the last time he was president, and a persona as anti-science as one could imagine after Lysenko’s death, second possibly only to Robert F. Kennedy Jr. In many ways, 2024 was the year the Democrats handed the election to Trump

About the Pew surveys, with links in the article:

What these surveys and studies show is that people continue to trust scientists more, than they do politicians. It follows from this that the more scientists act like politicians, the less the public will trust us. Yet, in recent decades, scientific institutions and individual scientists have been acting more and more like the politicians by engaging in activism and social engineering.

I do not know who the author is, but he/she rejects being spoken for by Thorp simply because of Thorp’s dismissal of Americans as a “basket of deplorables” and declaring that his journal adheres to “progressive” politics:

Surveys and studies on public trust in science suggest that what people question is not the science, but “… the extent to which scientists’ values align with their own”, and how this alignment—or misalignment—affects the integrity of their findings. What are the values that people expect scientists to align with? According to Holden Thorps of academia, those values are xenophobia, sexism, racism, transphobia, nationalism, and disregard for truth. This disparaging message is nothing new. In fact, this has been the message communicated by individual academics and academic institutions to people on the outside for at least two decades, the message that can be found everywhere, from land acknowledgements to course syllabi. Academics are telling people that they stole “indigenous land”, that they are oppressors, colonizers, racists, misogynists, -phobes of all sorts, fascists, racists, nationalists. It is furthermore alleged that it is up to the enlightened academic elite to show the unwashed masses the path to salvation that lies through admitting one’s sins, accepting one’s guilt, and correcting the way one thinks, speaks, and behaves. Notably, the sins in question, as well as the alleged enlightenment of the accusers, are both imaginary.

It is not only that Holden Thorp and those like him have for decades been dripping disdain for the very people who pay their salaries, travel allowances, and research costs from their taxes; It is not only that his brand of academics have for decades been demonizing those regular voters he is talking about—bus drivers and fast food employees, teachers and policemen, servicemen and businessmen—as some sort of Nazi-adjacent monsters, accusing them of all sorts of imaginary sins. It is that those same people, while being demonized for their desire to live and enjoy normal, safe, and productive lives under the conditions afforded by the freedom and safety of Western civilization, the civilization built on the blood of the brave defenders of its values—those same people have at the same time witnessed the full-throttled support academia threw behind the black lives matter riots and Islamic terrorists—those real, living and breathing Nazis who behead children, rape women, burn entire families alive, and shoot their pet dogs; Hamas supporters were allowed to roam free on academic campuses, attacking people, vandalizing buildings, leaving a mess for the janitors to clean up, and, in general, destroying things built over generations by the very people the academics demonize.

In other words, those voters Holden Thorp is so disdainful of were witnessing the hypocrisy of the academic community, the members of which compromised the truth for political gain—exactly the sin Thorp is accusing his political rivals (Trump supporters) of. Against this backdrop, the surprising part is that trust in science and scientists remains as high as it does.

The article gives several more examples of the institutional capture and lack of institutional neutrality of science editors and journals, including the sad tale of Laura Helmuth and Scientific American (I note that the new, Helmuth-less journal seems to have retracted its wokeness). But the article ends on a note of hope. I have added the links from the original article.

As I was finishing this piece, there were several positive developments. As I have already mentioned, Laura Helmuth resigned from Scientific American, offering the journal a chance to reclaim its former scientific rigor. Marcia McNutt, the president of the United States National Academy of Sciences, wrote a powerful editorial Science is neither red nor blue, published in Science. The University of Michigan, formerly one of the hubs of diversity, equity, and inclusion ideology squandering some US$15M/year, resolved to no longer solicit diversity statements in faculty hiring, promotion, and tenure. A UofM physics professor offered a relatively mild testimony of the damage done by the DEI initiatives and the black lives matter grift, a testimony that was unthinkable only a few years ago. More generally, in the wake of October 7th, multiple institutions adopted political neutrality. These are important first steps in reversing and repairing the damage that was done to scholarship, research, innovation, and teaching over the decades of woke/DEI insanity.

As they say, “One can hope. . . .”

The next link gives FIRE’s list of schools that have adopted institutional neutrality à la the University of Chicago’s Kalven Principles. There are now 29 of them: a good start, but still a drop in the bucket given that there are about 6,000 colleges in the U.S.

A while back Luana debated Holden Thorp about the ideological takeover of science. Here’s a video of that debate, and I don’t think Thorp came out on top

I am leaving for a week. The bad news is that I am going to Los Angeles, where wildfires are running rampant.

The wildfire that raced across the Hollywood Hills early Thursday, threatening a wealthy area indelibly tied to the American film industry, put additional strain on millions of Los Angeles residents already stressed by catastrophic blazes that have erased entire neighborhoods and streaked the sky with smoke and embers.

The fires have killed at least five people and burned more than 27,000 acres, equivalent to nearly 20,000 football fields. The largest ones, the Palisades and Eaton fires, have destroyed at least 2,000 structures and are already the two most destructive to ever hit Los Angeles.

Tens of thousands of Los Angeles residents were under mandatory evacuation orders or warnings on Thursday. Overnight, there was a palpable sense of anxiety as firefighting helicopters swept across a dark sky where orange embers were floating like lightning bugs.

There were traffic jams after a wildfire broke out in the Hollywood Hills near streets — Mulholland Drive, Sunset Boulevard — whose names evoke the grandeur of Hollywood movies. An evacuation order for that area was mostly lifted just before midnight.

A fire also reared up in the nearby Studio City neighborhood, burning several homes and prompting warnings of a potential evacuation. But it was quickly extinguished and no injuries were reported.

Residents feel vulnerable partly because strong desert winds and dangerously dry conditions — it hasn’t rained much in Los Angeles for months — are making it easier for more fires to start and spread. A shortage of water in local reservoirs makes it harder for crews to put fires out.

More than 16 million people in Southern California, from Malibu down to San Diego County, were under a red flag warning early Thursday morning. Forecasters warned that extreme fire danger would continue for at least another day.

There are three big ones.

From the Free Press newsletter:

Southern California is burning. Thousands have been forced to evacuate as wildfires rip through the area. There are five so far and not enough firefighters to deal with them, L.A. County Fire Chief Anthony Marrone said yesterday, telling reporters his department was “prepared for one or two major fires… This is not a normal red flag alert.”

So far, five people have been killed. Over 130,000 residents have been told to evacuate. Hundreds of schools have been closed, as tens of thousands of acres go up in smoke. Not even the rich and famous have been spared. Actor James Woods lost his home. The Malibu mansion of hotel heiress Paris Hilton went up in flames. Palisades Charter High School, among the most iconic public secondary schools in America and which educated J.J. Abrams, will.i.am, and Katey Sagal, has turned to ash.

Late yesterday morning, on Truth Social, our president-elect railed against California’s “Governor Gavin Newscum,” blaming him for the wildfires currently ravaging the state. According to Donald Trump, Newsom blocked a water restoration project because “he wanted to protect an essentially worthless fish called a smelt,” and that’s why California is burning. It’s not entirely clear what Trump’s trying to claim here—and believe me, I spent some time trying to figure it out. But the basic elements seem to be fire=bad, water=good, fish=tangentially related and controversial.

I am told that my conference, at the University of Southern California, is out of the fire zone and will go on. But I am also told that one friend whom I was going to visit has lost his home and everything in the fire. That is ineffably sad; the person was an artist and lost his studio as well. I cannot imagine losing everything you own, all at once.

I will report on the meeting and post when I can (I do my best). I am off to Midway Airport, where I hope to procure a giant coffee and a couple of sinkers at Dunkin Donuts.

 

Meanwhile, in Dobrzyn, Hili has specific reading choices:

Hili: Are you looking for a detective novel on the shelf?
A: You guessed it.
Hili: Take the one I haven’t read yet.

In Polish:

Hili: Szukasz jakiegoś kryminału na półce?
Ja: Zgadłaś.
Hili: Weź taki, którego ja jeszcze nie czytałam.

Well, I’m not sure that most American comedians working now are Jews, but surely they are still way overrepresented compared to the proportion of Jews in America, which is only 2.4%.

In fact, the first two comedians I thought of still working were Jerry Seinfeld and Sarah Silverman, both of course of the Hebrew persuasion.  But think of the great comedians of the past 50 years, and then of their religion.  As one site reports, “In 1978, 80 percent of American standup comedians were Jewish.”  But it’s not just the standups!

Here are are just a few well-known Jewish comedians (I’m leaving out ones that few people know, like Fanny Brice).

Groucho Marx
Mel Brooks
Rodney Dangerfield
Mort Sahl
Don Rickles
Henny Youngman
Jerry Seinfeld
George Burns
Lenny Bruce
Joan Rivers
Jackie Mason
Gilda Radner
Milton Berle
Curly, Moe, and Shemp Howard of The Three Stooges
Carl Reiner
Bill Maher
Jerry Lewis

I won’t go on; there are too many!  In fact, Wikipedia has three full pages of Jewish comedians, listed alphabetically (start here and continue by clicking at the bottom of each page).

There must be reasons for this inequity in comedy, and I’m also sure that many people have discussed this. But I don’t know of the speculations, so I asked three Jewish friends (one of them is ME) to give their theories.

1.) Malgorzata, my surrogate Polish mother:

Malgorzata lightheartedly suggested that the tendency of Jews to offer humor is the result of natural selection: since Jews have experienced dark times and pogroms throughout much of their history, those Jews who could laugh at themselves and the world were less likely to be depressed and to kill themselves, or more likely to tolerate intolerable situations. If there is genetic variation for humor, those with more “humor” genes would survive and reproduce. Other groups haven’t had such a history, ergo Jews tend to be comedians. (I am paraphrasing what she told me.) natural selection for people who could laugh and have a sense of humor because they would commit suicide.

2.) Me (PCC[E]):

I have a variant based on the impression of many Jews that the whole world of non-Jews hates them, something that is not far from the truth.  Jews, then, suffer from a lack of love from others.  To compensate for this, they become comedians, for what better way is there to get love and approbation than to have an audience laugh at your jokes? And they are not laughing at you, but laughing with you. That is s a form of love. This is a cultural explanation for the surfeit of Jewish comedians.

3.) Steve Pinker.  I asked him for his explanation, and this is his response (quoted with permission). Part of his theory jibes with Malgorzata’s, but he is looking for an explanation that itself is funny:

This has been a puzzle that others have (humorlessly) considered, including Ruth Wisse (former Harvard colleague and fellow Montrealer, grew up with my mother), and Howard Jacobson (British novelist, unlike most Brits proud of being Jewish). Something about humor being a subversive tactic, or a coping mechanism of the powerless and oppressed. The analyses were neither convincing nor funny.

But they may be consistent with the fact that many African Americans have been great comedians – Moms Mabley, Pigmeat Markham, Nipsey Russell, Flip Wilson, Richard Pryor, Eddie Murphy, Chris Rock, Dave Chappelle, and the greatest of all, Bill Cosby. (“Noah!”)

Of course this is a lighthearted post, but there is a real phenomenon to be explained, and I invite readers to offer their own theory, which is theirs.