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Reader Roz sent a bunch of nice caterpillar photos, though not many of them are identified. It’s up to you, the readers, to identify them, or at least have a marvel at the larval. (And please send in your photos!)

Roz’s introduction is indented, and you can enlarge the photos by clicking on them:

The Caterpillar Lab is a New Hampshire based non-profit that breeds and collects New England caterpillars from the field. They come yearly to the Arnold Arboretum or at least they have for the years I’ve been in Boston. I saw them fall 2021. These photos are from that visit.

As for identifying them, here is what I know:

Order: Lepidoptera

Families: Saturniidae and Erebidae

While I will let readers taxonomize further, I believe the genus and species for some of the caterpillars I saw include:

• Promethea Silk Moth (Callosamia promethea)
• Brown-hooded Owlet (Cucullia convexipennis)
• Hickory Horned Devil, the larva of the Regal Moth (Citheronia regalis), which I got to let crawl on my hand and arm.

The Caterpillar Lab has a lovely Facebook page for those who may be interested.

JAC: The first two are clearly mimics of  bird droppings.

JAC: This one’s a doozy!

JAC: Two photos of pupae:

JAC: Two twig mimics:

Meanwhile, the fun continues in New Zealand, as this article from Te Ao, which conveys Māori news, attests.  In fact, there’s a video, so you can see the whole episode, as well as a transcript of the video.

Here’s what happened: A local district council met and one of the participants wanted to recite a Māori prayer—a karakia— to open the meeting. Here’s how Wikipedia characterizes the term:

Karakia are Māori incantations and prayer used to invoke spiritual guidance and protection.  They are generally used to increase the spiritual goodwill of a gathering, so as to increase the likelihood of a favourable outcome, such as at a court hearing. They are also considered a formal greeting when beginning a ceremony.

The new mayor said “no”, saying was running a “secular council” that “respects everyone”. The Māori prayer woman kept insisting on reciting the prayer and the mayor kept saying “no”. As you’ll see in the video below, some minutes later she finally flouted the mayor and burst out reciting her prayer in Māori, while other council members chimed in or gave an “amen”. Here’s the text:

Conflict has erupted at a council meeting over a mayor’s decision to shutdown a wahine Māori councillor wishing to recite karakia, before the opening of business.

Kaipara District Council met for the first time Wednesday, under new Mayor Craig Jepson, elected at October’s local elections.

As is customary in councils and at the opening of parliament, Māori Ward councillor Pera Paniora, of Te Moanaui o Kaipara, wanted to begin the meeting with a karakia.

“Excuse me, just before we start, through the chair may I say the karakia?” Paniora said.

Jepson charged on saying ‘you cannot interrupt, sorry’.

Paniora stated her case explaining the tikanga of karakia, which appeared to trigger Jepson.

“This is a council that’s full of people who are non-religious, religious, of different ethnicities and I intend to run a secular council here which respects everybody and I will not be veering from that. Thank you.” he rebuked.

“I don’t agree with that.” Paniora said.

“You cannot interject,” Jepson struck back.

Paniora tried a final time by saying ‘Excuse me for those who do practice…’ but was ultimately shut down.

“Councillor Paniora, you are not allowed to speak in this manner and we will continue with our meeting.” Jepson said.

“It doesn’t really feel like a meeting,” a third councillor interjected.

Paniora appeared to give up, however in a throw back 20 minutes later she said the karakia and members of her supporters sang Tūtira Mai Ngā Iwi as part of her maiden speech.

“Seen as I wasn’t able to do the karakia this morning, it’s better late than never.” she said.

Fellow councillors and attendees in the public gallery could be heard closing the prayer in unison, with a collective ‘āmene’.

It’s clear that the article is written to show the hornéd secular mayor as the demon, even though New Zealand is a secular country. But of course the Māori must have special exemptions because they are indigenous. Note the repeated references that a karakia, which is in effect a verbal superstition (analogous to knocking on wood when you say something wishful) is customary.  The mayor, whom I consider enlightened, wanted to change that. But he didn’t get away with it, and I’m betting he won’t be reelected!  If this were in the U.S., also formally a secular country, the Freedom from Religion Foundation would be all over these councils, forcing them to stop saying their prayers.

The lesson: in New Zealand, when it comes to foisting superstition and religion on the public, the Māori always get their way. I hope to Ceiling Cat that they don’t suceeed in imbuing science education in schools with their superstitions, which they keep trying to do.

You can see the video and article by clicking below:

h/t: Luana

There have been two episodes of campus action by pro-Palestinian groups in the last week, both of which which include UChicago United for Palestine (UCUP) and Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP).  One of the episodes doesn’t worry me because it’s a form of free expression, but the other one does, as it seems to be yet another instance of violation of campus policies that go unpunished by the University.

Below is what I see as free expression: it’s an “art installation”—really a political statement—set up on the quad. It consists of 23,000 small colored flags, many bearing the names of dead Palestinian civilians as provided by Hamas, that together form a large Palestinian flag. Here it is:

It’s accompanied by two signs, the first one explaining the installation’s purpose. Click to enlarge.

Of course I object to the political spin on the sign, though of course I agree with the view that life is precious and not to be taken easily. But the civilian deaths in Gaza I blame entirely on Hamas.  Beyond that, I dislike the “genocide” accusation and the claim that our campus is complicit in genocide, especially in investments (I have no idea if this is true; investments are kept confidential from the academic side of the university). And of course, UCUP and SJP know perfectly well what they mean by calling for a free Palestine “from the river to the sea”. It means a one-state solution that is a Palestinian state, with the Jews somehow “disappearing” along with their state of Israel.

The installation was vetted and approved by the University, as seen above and in the sign below. The authorities would have determined whether this violated any University rules and apparently it didn’t, so I’m fine with it. It’ll be up for another few days. Another sign:

 

However, according to an article in the Chicago Maroon, our student newspaper, after there was a demonstration at the flag installation on Friday, the demonstrators  immediately marched over to our food hall and proceeded to have a “die-in” in Pret A Manger, a snack and coffee shop where many students go to chat over coffee.  The “die-in” is described in the Maroon article below. Note the in photographs of the demonstrations, the Maroon has blurred the faces of protestors. I don’t think this is normal policy for a newspaper since it is, I believe, legal to show photographs people protesting in public. The only reason I can see to blur student faces, I think, is to hide their identities so they won’t be identified, doxxed, or punished. But that’s not a valid journalistic reason to alter photographs.  I have long suspected that the Maroon is either friendly to or afraid of the pro-Palestinian organizations, and this only buttresses my suspecition.

Anyway, click below to read:

A quote from the Maroon (my bolding)

The march ended at Hutchinson Courtyard, where activists announced their next action: a “die-in” at Pret a Manger, which announced last month that it would be opening at least 40 locations in Israel. The organizers invited anyone interested in demonstrating to follow them inside the café. Those who stepped forward were warned of possible administrative punishment and the likelihood of doxing.

More than two dozen students and faculty entered Pret a Manger and lay on the floor with white roses on their chests. Many students working or socializing in Pret left the building after the die-in began and were directed out the back entrance by the protest’s patron liaison.

Throughout the protest, several patrons entered the coffee shop, stepping over the bodies to get to the counter and reach seats in the back.

Shortly after the die-in began, Associate Director for Public Affairs Gerald McSwiggan arrived with three UCPD officers outside of Pret a Manger. At 1:05 p.m., McSwiggan and officers entered the shop from the rear entrance. Outside, student security marshals held up keffiyehs towards the windows of Pret to prevent photographs from being taken of the inside. McSwiggan and the UCPD officers remained at the scene until after the protesters dispersed.

The die-in concluded at 1:15 p.m., when students stood up and exited the café to go outside. Demonstrators sang and yelled, “We believe that we will win!”

The times given suggest that the lie-in lasted roughly half an hour.

Looking at the university policy on demonstrations in buildings, this die-in, which obstructed entrance to the facility (neither employees or students could enter the front door as the demonstrators’ legs were reportedly against that door), it’s clear that this die-in violated our policies, which include this:

Additionally, to maintain a physically safe environment for all members of the University community, the number of people participating in a protest or demonstration must be considered and adhere to the occupancy limits of the protest or demonstration area. Walkways and entrances to and in buildings must always remain open to allow others safe access and egress as well as a clearly designated pathway through the area.

The disruption and violation of this “die-in” is also attested by the presence of McSwiggan and the three cops, as well as the warning given by the protestors themselves that those participating could be subject to “possible administrative punishment.”

In other words, what we have is a prohibited disruption of campus activity by campus protestors, something I’ve described before in a letter to the Maroon. This makes at least three times, and probably more, that this grou (SJP + UCUP) have violated campus rules in their demonstrations. One on occasion, after a sit-in in the admissions office that led to the arrest of 26 students and two professors, the charges were later dropped in court and we don’t have any idea whether there would be any “administrative punishment.”

The Maroon adds this [“Alivisatos’s meeting” refers to our President’s having met with the the Consul General of Israel to the Midwest, which  “aimed to enhance the partnership between [the University of Chicago] and Israeli research institutions and to make sure that every Jewish or Israeli student feels safe on campus,” according to a tweet from Cohen’s X account.”]

When asked for comment on the protest and Alivisatos’s meeting, McSwiggan replied with a statement to The Maroon.

“As part of our commitment to free expression, the University is deeply committed to upholding the rights of protesters and speakers to express a wide range of views. Over more than a century, through a great deal of vigorous debate, the University has developed a consensus against taking social or political stances on issues outside its core mission,” the statement read.

“The University’s longstanding position is that doing this through investments or other means would only diminish the University’s distinctive contribution—providing a home for faculty and students to espouse and challenge the widest range of social practices and beliefs. That idea received definitive treatment in the Kalven Report of 1967. As the report states, ‘The university is the home and sponsor of critics; it is not itself the critic.’ This principle continues to guide the University’s approach against taking collective positions on political or social issues outside its core mission, including calls for divestment.”

I’m not sure whether McSwiggan was implying that the “die-in” was a “form of free expression”—which would be deeply confusing because a “die-in” is not “free expression” on this campus—or simply making a general statement about university policy.  I have asked for clarification, and when I receive it I’ll add it here.

I remain adamant in my view that the University needs to enforce its regulations against illegal and disruptive conduct by protestors, and I’d object to the non-enforcement above whether it involved pro-Palestinian or pro-Israeli students blocking access to a snack shop.  My own view is that the cops should give illegal protestors a warning that if they didn’t leave within 10 or 15 minutes, they would be arrested. That’s plenty of warning. In this case, however, the cops and administrator stood by, doing nothing, until the demonstrators left.

One reason that our President met with the Israeli C0nsul General was “to make sure that every Jewish or Israeli student feels safe on campus.”  That was a nice gesture, but if they really mean it, they need to stop these aggressive and illegal protests designed to intimidate, especially to those people sympathetic to Israel.  The administration is not succeeding in creating an atmosphere of safety: I know several people who don’t feel safe around these demonstrators.  And I don’t, either. If an emeritus faculty member doesn’t feel safe on campus, what about the Jewish and Israeli students? I am not easily intimidated, but SJP and UCUP specialize in intimidation, and, after criticizing the groups publicly, I’m always looking over my shoulder when on campus.

A year ago I could not imagine this happening on campus, and if I were told it would happen, I would have assumed that the University would do something to stop it. So far I’ve seen very little action. The rules need to be enforced.

Please send in your wildlife photos! I have enough for a week or so, but the need is constant!

Today we have photos of Australian reptiles taken by reader Chris Taylor. His captions and IDs are indented, and you can enlarge the photos by clicking on them.

I thought that I would share photos of some of the reptiles that I have encountered.

There are three orders of reptile in Australia: Crocodilia (crocodiles), Testudines (Turtles), and Squamata (Lizards and Snakes).  I don’t encounter Crocodiles here, but the other two orders are well represented.

By far the largest order is the Squamata, and the photos here represent four of the families in the order. First of all, there is the Scincidae – Skinks, which are found throughout Australia, and one common species across much of Australia is the Blue Tongued Lizard, Tiliqua scincoides scincoides. This subspecies is found in the east and south of the continent. They are a fairly hefty animal, weighing up to 1kg (2.2lb). We encouraged them to come into the vegetable gardens by putting out pipes and rocks for them to rest in. In return they look after the garden by eating snails, slugs and insects. This particular individual has managed somehow to climb up into our old laundry room window, and doesn’t look happy the we are suggesting it might prefer to be outside again!

As its name suggests, they do have a bright blue tongue, that they use as a warning display, together with a loud hiss. But by and large they are very docile. There is another related species, the Blotched Blue-tongued Skink, Tiliqua nigrolutea, and this individual is demonstrating its warning display!

Cunningham’s skink, Egernia cunninghami.  A closely related species is the Cunningham’s Skink.  Smaller than the blue tongues, it is variable in colour, ranging from black to a brown that could be mistaken for the blue tongue.  They are relatively common here.  These were photographed in the Namadgi National park.

Eastern Water Skink, Eulamprus quoyii. Another skink that was common in out garden in our old house in the Hawkesbury Valley to the north west of Sydney, is the Eastern Water Skink.  This is much smaller and lighter than the Blue Tongue, but we welcomed it into the garden as well because it helped to control insects.

The second family here is the Agamidae or Dragons.  Whereas the skinks generally have smooth skin, the dragons are rather more spiky, culminating in the Thorny Devil (Moloch horridus). There are two species that I see often. First is the Jacky Dragon, Amphibolurus muricatus.

This photo is of an adult climbing up on a tree trunk used as a fence post.

The second photo is of a juvenile Jacky, that I saw outside my bedroom window while I was confined to bed for a while – though I was still able to take in what was going on around!  This individual is very small – the pieces of gravel are only 20mm long, so that gives some scale. I suspect it was quite a recent hatching.

Australian Water Dragon, Intellagama lesueurii howitti. These are quite large animals, growing 60 – 100 cm in length, although the tail accounts for more than half of that. The photos were taken at the Australian National Botanical Gardens in Canberra.  The first one has been fitted with a collar for tracking.

The second photo shows how long the tail is.

The third family is the Varanidae – Monitors. This includes the Lace Monitor, Varanus varius, which is often called Goanna, though this name is used for a number of different members of the Varanus genus.  They do exist in my locality, though not on my property, preferring the rocky and tree covered areas to the open paddocks.  But on a property that I used to own near Mudgee in Central West NSW, we would see them often. They are the second largest reptile in Australia, only the Perentie being bigger. They can be up to 2m long, and weigh as much as 14kg (30lb).

They have powerful claws that make them very adept climbers, like this one up the trunk of a eucalypt.

Finally, there are the Ophidia – Snakes. Canberra is often called “The Bush Capital” and as such snakes are found fairly regularly, even in the CBD.  This includes the Eastern Brown Snake, Pseudonaja textilis. A very common snake around here.  I have had a small number of them on my paddocks, and in the vicinity.  It is a beautiful slender snake, and can grow to be 2m long. It is considered to be extremely dangerous, as the toxicity of its venom is surpassed only by that of the Taipans. They are also supposed to be very aggressive, although my few encounters with them have not proved this to be the case. Many years ago, I found that Tansy and Cinnamon, two of our goats, were lying dead side by side near their shelter. I didn’t investigate enough to truly determine the cause of death, but suspect that a brown snake was responsible for this. I encountered this one on a bike ride on a path only a few kilometres from the centre of Canberra. It is probably at least 1.5m long – the path is about 3m wide. I decided to wait until it crossed over before continuing on with my trip!

Red-bellied Black Snake, Pseudechis porphyriacus. The snake that I see most commonly on my place is the red-bellied black snake.  It’s venomous, but no deaths have been reported from this snake. One of its food sources is other snakes, including the Eastern Brown, and anything that keeps them away is OK by me. Indeed, it is said although probably apocryphally, that if you have Red-bellied Blacks on your property then you will not see any Browns.  They are docile, and I’ve even got up closer than I ever intended to one that was keeping hidden in a patch or pumpkin plants in the vegetable bed.  I think I was the more surprised of the two of us. This first one had a home in an old hollow fence post that lay in the front paddock. We knew that it was there, and so were careful when we needed to work in the area, and gave it plenty of space. Here it is on a cold morning just outside its den, trying to get some sun to warm itself up.  This is quite a dark morph of the snake.

The second photo is of a lighter morph, with almost orange belly scales.

Common Death Adder, Acanthophis antarcticus. Very rarely seen, in fact I’ve only ever come across one, is the Death Adder.  The name probably derives from a corruption of “Deaf Adder”, which is how the first settlers in Australia referred to it. It is rarely seen because of its cryptic behaviour.  It will bury itself in leaf litter and coil around so that the had and tail are close together. It will wait there for hours or days, and wait for its prey to come close and so ambush it. To help with this the last part of the tail is very much thinner than the rest of the snake, and it can use this as a lure.  When a bird or mammal comes to investigate, the snake has to move very little to strike its prey.  While it is in this position it will no move away even if one were to get very close, and so because of this was thought to be deaf.  It is very venomous, but because it is so cryptic, few bites are recorded. This photo comes courtesy of my nephew Rich, who has made it a quest to find and photograph snakes!

Finally, there are the Testudinae – Turtles, including the sea turtles as well as land dwellers. This individual is of the Eastern Long Necked Turtle, Chelodina longicollis. This one is determinedly plodding down the drive to the front of my property. We had to wait for it to move before we could proceed down to the front gate, for fear of running it over, a fate that happens to too many of its kin, as they try to cross the roads around here.

Sometimes they just need a little hand to get them out of the road… Unlike some other turtles and tortoises, they don’t draw their neck back into the shell, but instead fold it sideways into the space.

According to my go-to source, the Oxford English Dictionary, “civil disobedience is defined this way:

Rebellion of the populace against a governing power; (in later use) spec. refusal to obey the laws, commands, etc., of a government or authority as part of an organized, non-violent political protest or campaign.

The three key aspects here involve deliberately breaking the law, doing it as part of a “political protest or campaign”, and doing it in a peaceful, nonviolent way. But I would add potential effectiveness: the actions must aim at achieving political results, and do so in a way that could reach those results.

The archetypal examples of civil disobedience that met these four criteria are the nonviolent protests of Gandhi and the Indian people that led the British to “quit India” in 1947, and the American civil rights actions of the 1960s that led to the nation-changing civil rights acts of 1964 and 1965.

Gandhi, of course, was one inspiration for Martin Luther King, Jr., who adopted Gandhi’s methods of nonviolent resistance. These were epitomized in his “Salt March” of 1930, which began when Gandhi led protestors on a three-week, 200-mile march to the sea, where Gandhi picked up a lump of salty mud, which was converted into salt. This violated the onerous “salt tax” that the British imposed on Indians buying the produce. Below is the moment that changed India; the caption is “Mahatma Gandhi at Dandi Beach 6 April 1930. Standing behind him is his second son Manilal Gandhi and Mithuben Petit.”

This civil disobedience launched an India-wide resistance movement, and a peaceful one, which played a major role in India gaining its independence in 1947.  Civil disobedience is best used as a way of changing people’s minds. And the Salt Resistance kindled similar protests across India, promoted other resistance, and eventually changed the mind of the British rulers. Here’s a video:

 

To quote Wikipedia:

The Salt Satyagraha campaign was based upon Gandhi’s principles of non-violent protest called satyagraha, which he loosely translated as “truth-force” Literally, it is formed from the Sanskrit words satya, “truth”, and agraha, “insistence”. In early 1920 the Indian National Congress chose satyagraha as their main tactic for winning Indian sovereignty and self-rule from British rule and appointed Gandhi to organise the campaign. Gandhi chose the 1882 British Salt Act as the first target of satyagraha. The Salt March to Dandi, and the beating by the colonial police of hundreds of nonviolent protesters in Dharasana, which received worldwide news coverage, demonstrated the effective use of civil disobedience as a technique for fighting against social and political injustice. The satyagraha teachings of Gandhi and the March to Dandi had a significant influence on American activists Martin Luther King Jr., James Bevel, and others during the Civil Rights Movement for civil rights for African Americans and other minority groups in the 1960s. The march was the most significant organised challenge to British authority since the Non-cooperation movement of 1920–22, and directly followed the Purna Swaraj declaration of sovereignty and self-rule by the Indian National Congress on 26 January 1930 by celebrating Independence Day.  It gained worldwide attention which gave impetus to the Indian independence movement and started the nationwide Civil Disobedience Movement which continued until 1934 in Gujarat.

A key principle of satyagraha is that the protest must be peaceful, and the protestors must take what punishment is dished out. One must, according to Gandhi, “Suffer the anger of the opponent” without retaliating.  (As you see above, that happened: Gandhis and thousands of other protestors were beaten and arrested.

When adopted by the American Civil Rights Movement, these principles were adopted wholesale. Rosa Parks protested an unjust segregation law and was arrested for peacefully sitting in the front of a bus and refusing to move.  The blacks and whites who demonstrated together at the Woolworth lunch counter sit-ins in Mississippi and North Carolina were peacefullyt protesting an immoral segregation law, and, as the video shows below, the protestors were jeered, pushed, and had food dumped over them, but did not resist.

If this video disappears, see it here.

The most iconic instances of civil disobedience that provoked violence by authorities, leading to sympathy for the protestors and eventually ending in the changing the laws, were the marches and civil protests in Birmingham and Selma, Alabama in 1963 and 1965, respectively, which led to the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Acts of 1965. Two videos:

“Bloody Sunday” in Selma: March 7, 1965:

The sight of peaceful protestors, both black and white, being attacked by dogs, drenched by fire hoses, run down by horses, and battered with billy clubs—all this was too much for America, and bent the moral arc upwards. It was the visuals, and the knowledge that the protestors were peaceful, yet protesting unjust laws and getting injured for their actions—all this horrified viewers. It’s one thing to read about it, but another to see it.  And in the end, this led to the greatest advance in civil rights in a century.

Protests like this one below are not peaceful. While the painting wasn’t damaged, the walls were, and we had simple vandalism.

NEW – Climate radicals attack the Mona Lisa painting in the Louvre Museum, Paris.pic.twitter.com/OP3AGiNe0W

— Disclose.tv (@disclosetv) January 28, 2024

From the NYT report:

Two protesters from an environmental group hurled pumpkin-colored soup on the Mona Lisa at the Louvre museum in Paris on Sunday, splashing the bulletproof glass that protects the most famous painting in the world, but not apparently damaging the work itself.

As the customary crowd around the 16th-century painting by Leonardo da Vinci gasped in shock, the protesters, two young women, followed up their attack by passing under a barrier and standing on either side of the artwork, hands raised in an apparent salute.

“What is more important? Art or the right to have a healthy and sustainable food system?” the activists said, speaking in French. “Our agricultural system is sick.” They were led away by Louvre security guards.

It was not immediately clear how the women got the soup through the elaborate security system at the museum, which borders the Seine and contains a vast art and archaeological collection spanning civilizations and centuries.

One of the women removed her jacket to reveal the words Riposte Alimentaire, or Food Response, on a white T-shirt. Riposte Alimentaire is part of a coalition of protest groups known as the A22 movement. They include Extinction Rebellion and Just Stop Oil, the group that poured tomato soup over Vincent Van Gogh’s Sunflowers at the National Gallery in London in 2022.

Does this help the cause of climate change? I doubt it. You might say it does because it calls attention to the problem, but I’m guessing that most of the people who saw this were angry at the protestors and not inclined to take a more salubrious view towards the idea that humans are changing the climate.  This is not only not civil disobedience, but, in my view, ineffective and immature.  Why, then, are they doing it? Your guess is as good as mine.

What about blocking traffic, bridge, and tunnels? This is the speciality of pro-Palestinian demonstrators; an example from Los Angeles is below.

Does this help the protestors accomplish their aims, which is either to bring peace in the Middle East, often to erase Israel and extend Palestine “from the river to the sea”? I doubt it: those whose cars are blocked may be more aware of the protests, but I don’t think they’ll become more sympathetic to the Palestinian cause.  But maybe I’m wrong. Maybe impressionable young people, who are ignorant of history but impressed by the loud, aggressive demonstrations of those favoring Palestine, will come to favor their cause. After all, it is the young who most take the side of Hamas (or Palestine) in the Hamas/Israel war.

At any rate, this is the new form of civil disobedience, although the protestors don’t willingly take punishment. Often there is  no punishment: when pro-Palestinian protestors illegally blocked the University of Chicago’s administration building, or, last Friday, did a lie-in in the Pret a Manger campus food-and-coffee shot, blocking entry, the University police stood by and did nothing.  Protestors here were arrested last year for conducting a sit-in in the admissions office, but the charges were dropped. (I am prevented from learning if the University will exercise its own sanctions for violating university regulations.)

This is the new form of civil disobedience in which protestors publicize a cause, violate regulations and laws, but face little or no punishment. And often they resist punishment or feel that they don’t deserve it. Publicity may be all they want, but it seems to me that political protest must go beyond publicizing a cause, but, to paraphrase Karl Marx, must have a chance of changing the world.

Do these protestors actually accomplish the kind of change they want?  I’ll leave it to the readers to discuss the issue, and I would appreciate hearing as many readers’ takes as possible.

This morning I was surprised to read this headline in the NYT (click to read, or find it archived here). A halt in fighting for weeks?

Here’s the gist of the “deal” as the NYT reports it:

American-led negotiators are edging closer to an agreement in which Israel would suspend its war in Gaza for about two months in exchange for the release of more than 100 hostages still held by Hamas, a deal that could be sealed in the next two weeks and would transform the conflict consuming the region.

Negotiators have developed a written draft agreement merging proposals offered by Israel and Hamas in the last 10 days into a basic framework that will be the subject of talks in Paris on Sunday. While there are still important disagreements to be worked out, negotiators are cautiously optimistic that a final accord is within reach, according to U.S. officials who insisted on anonymity to discuss sensitive talks.

President Biden spoke by phone separately Friday with the leaders of Egypt and Qatar, who have served as intermediaries with Hamas, to narrow the remaining differences. He is also sending his C.I.A. director, William J. Burns, to Paris for Sunday’s talks with Israeli, Egyptian and Qatari officials. If Mr. Burns makes enough progress, Mr. Biden may then send his Middle East coordinator, Brett McGurk, who just returned to Washington, back to the region to help finalize the agreement.

“Both leaders affirmed that a hostage deal is central to establishing a prolonged humanitarian pause in the fighting and ensure additional lifesaving humanitarian assistance reaches civilians in need throughout Gaza,” the White House said in a statement Friday night summarizing the president’s conversation with Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman al-Thani, Qatar’s prime minister. “They underscored the urgency of the situation and welcomed the close cooperation among their teams to advance recent discussions.”

In a statement in Israel on Saturday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reaffirmed his commitment to securing the release of those hostages who were not freed as part of a more limited agreement in November. “As of today, we have returned 110 of our hostages and we are committed to returning all of them home,” he said. “We are dealing with this and we are doing so around the clock, including now.”

. . . The deal now coming together would be more expansive in scope than the previous one, officials say. In the first phase, fighting would stop for about 30 days while women, elderly and wounded hostages were released by Hamas. During that period, the two sides would work out details of a second phase that would suspend military operations for roughly another 30 days in exchange for Israeli soldiers and male civilians being held. The ratio of Palestinians to be released from Israeli prisons is still to be negotiated but that is viewed as a solvable issue. The deal would also allow for more humanitarian aid into Gaza.

I found this report dubious for several reasons. First, I don’t believe that Israel would suspend action in Gaza for two months, as that would give Hamas a huge opportunity to revive itself. Second, Netanyahu’s statement is hardly expressive of someone looking for a compromise, but a simple assertion that Israel is working to get the hostages released.  Third, the hostages would not all be released at once, but in dribs and drabs. That is not something that’s propitious, especially because of condition #4: Palestinian terrorists in Israeli prisons are also to be released. And I’m very distressed that no deal has ever been proposed to let all the hostages go at once. There are about 120, but I suspect that about 20 of them are dead.  The International Court of Justice stipulated release of all the hostages now, but of course Hamas won’t do it and the world is hardly even mentioning that.  The UN in particular, which created the International Court of Justice and elects its 15 judges, should be pressuring Hamas and Palestine hard on the hostage issue. If Israel does obey the ICJ’s stipulations, then Palestine and Hamas should as well.

And then, when I read the website below, which gives opinions expressed in Israeli news, I became even more dubious.

The two paragraphs below, in informal language, are from Balkonic, a website that translate Israeli news from Hebrew into Polish. According to Malgorzata, it has been an almost totally reliable source of information, and the translator makes corrections when he/she is wrong.  This time the translator said what’s below in Polish, and I’ve used Google translate to put it into English. It’s jargon, but that’s the way this informal website is written.

and again some fake news from the new york times, which reports, that ‘there is progress towards the release of all the kidnapped in exchange for a 2-month break in the war’… of course, in Israel they deny this information…

2 months yeah… I’m not saying that it would be total surrender to Hamas, practically the end wars and Hamas rearming at a rapid pace, but it is clear that Hamas would leave a few kidnapped people as a human shield and a bargaining chip… what normal-thinking Israeli can believe in such nonsense…

Now that doesn’t give sources, which is why I’m also taking Balkonic with a grain of salt. However, my suggestion is to take the NYT report with many grains of salt, and not start thinking that a cease-fire and hostage release are at hand.

Caturday felids are back, and I have a bunch of material for future posts (I assume that some readers are ailurophiles).

First, from Funny And Cute Cat’s Life, cats doing stuff better than humans do. 10½ minutes of fun, with plenty o’ kittens! I like the two cats who like being repeatedly thrown on a bed.  Also climbing kitten at 9:46.

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In this post, Emily Stewart, the business and finance correspondenct for Vox, who apparently doesn’t really like cats, tries to answer the title question.

First, her view of cats:

I am not a cat person. Whenever friends ask why I don’t have one — after all, I am a single woman in her 30s — my response is always the same: There’s too big a risk your cat hates you. Cat owners’ stories are basically, “Oh my God, you won’t believe what Fluffy just did! So cute!” And then they tell you about something objectively destructive and, occasionally, gross. Even if your cat likes you, it’s sometimes distant and perhaps kind of an asshole — most cats are. It’s not a bad thing, really. (See: Grumpy Cat, a cultural icon.) They’re semi-wild animals we have as pets, which is a whole separate complicated issue on its own. The main expectation you can have of a cat is that you can’t have a lot of expectations.

Seriously? “Most cats are perhaps kind of an asshole?”  No, animals can’t really be “assholes” in the human sense. Here Stewart shows she doesn’t really understand cats. Yes, they are wilder than dogs, and she grudgingly admits that this could be a good thing, but the other good thing is that they’re like people: you can’t count on them to behave the same way all the time (that’s what d*gs are for).  Anyway, Ms. Stewart answer the question in an oddball way: she decides to go to a cat show.  The them of the piece is whether the author’s friend Donna’s cat, a black Persian named Vincenzo, is a “good cat”. Donna shows Vincenzo at cat shows.

“The whole question of cats is less about the cat and more about the human. A cat is going to be a cat, and they’re very funny and affectionate,” says Ella Cerón, an author, friend, and owner of two black cats — Holly and Olive — when I tell her via text that I’m working on this story. “You as a person also have to understand that there are things in this life you cannot control, and one of those things is a cat.”

What even makes a “good” cat? Do we want them to be loving? Aloof? Friendly? Beautiful? Strong? Or is the idea mainly for them to catch critters? Are they supposed to bend to our will, or are we supposed to bend to theirs?. . .

I decided to go to a cat show to find out. A show cat is different from a pet cat, but as Mark Hannon, former president of the Cat Fanciers’ Association, tells me, “A good pet cat doesn’t necessarily make a show cat, but a show cat should also be a good pet cat.” So, I figure it’s a start.

. . . .What makes a good cat, show-wise, is quite cut and dried, at least in theory. Cats are intended to adhere to what everyone refers to as “the standard,” meaning an ideal version of the breed, as rated by a judge. Cat shows are a way to proofread cats. Breed councils set the standards and can change them by vote, including whether to allow for different colors or change requirements from “medium to large” to “large to medium.” This seems astonishingly mundane; I’m told the debate can be very heated.

The current CFA standards are outlined in a booklet that spans 132 pages. To insiders, it’s the cat bible. To outsiders, it’s a goofy, arbitrary document. Both the Birman and the Cornish Rex get points for having a “Roman nose.” For RagaMuffins and Ragdolls, that’s penalized. The only cat where temperament is listed as a criterion is the Siberian: It’s supposed to be “unchallenging.” The Chartreux is supposed to have a smile.

This is a “good cat” in that it adheres to specified standards, but that’s not what we mean when we say a cat is “good,” for crying out loud!

To judge a cat is to love a cat. When judges evaluate a cat, they hold them, caress them, whisper to them, coo at them, even kiss them. Becoming a cat judge takes years, with all the studying, training, and testing, and it’s not for the cash. Show organizers generally cover judges’ flights, hotels, and meals. Otherwise, judges make a dollar and a quarter per cat.

“We do it because we enjoy handling these cats,” says Nancy Dodds, a cat judge who flew in from Arizona for the weekend. “They’re like artwork.”

Yes, but “judging a cat” in this way is, again, not what we mean by “a good cat”. After some other pilpul, the author finally narrows in on what a “good cat” is:

Jessica Austin, a PhD candidate in the Department of Sociology at the University of Colorado Boulder who studies the dynamic between people and cats, explains that cat owners like having a relationship with a being that is fairly independent and content to be on its own. “They see the cats as having their own interests, having their own needs, having their own desires, and that’s fine,” she says. “If you are a person who needs validation from your pet, maybe a cat is not the best pet for you.”

Cats provide a quiet kind of companionship. Austin quoted one of her research subjects — a cat dad — on their unique appeal: “It’s somebody who is content being alone together.”

. . .We’ve got a sense of what makes a good dog. It’s a loyal companion. It loves you unconditionally. Maybe it has a job, like hunting, herding, or being a cop. Even if it doesn’t, it probably knows a trick or two. With cats, it’s fuzzier.

Cats aren’t here to serve us; the relationship is more of a push and pull. They require boundaries. They are an exercise in consent.

To me, this may not be what makes a “good cat” but it is “why cats are good.” To me, d*gs are like servants: they are obsequious and obedient.  Yes, they love you unconditionally, but that’s not what humans do. Humans may love you in general, but not unconditionally, and sometimes they don’t want to fawn on you.  Yes, d*gs are like servants, but cats are like masters:

When a cat is dissatisfied, owners will know it, and its surroundings are often at fault. If you’ve got a “bad” cat, the bad is on you — your cat is scratching the couch because it doesn’t have anywhere else to scratch. Cats are not as eager to make people happy in the way dogs are, nor are they as motivated by food. People can only give them so many treats before they’re over it. “We are responsible for their emotional well-being, but they’re not responsible for ours,” Delgado says.

And that’s why cats are not pets. Rather, we are their staff.

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Finally, “Simon’s Cat” cartoons have been going for fifteen years, and here’s a 12-minute look back at its highlights. The caption for this is below.

We are celebrating 15 years of Simon’s Cat, featuring some of our all-time favourites in full colour!

Simon’s cat is NOT a “good cat”!

 

h/t: Barry, Christopher

Today we have plant as well as seed+fruit (i.e., acorn) photos from Rik Gern of Austin, Texas. Rik’s captions are indented, and you can enlarge his photos by clicking on them.

The following photos were taken in Eagle River, Wisconsin last September.  What the seven species represented here have in common is proximity; they were all located in a six- or eight-foot radius of one another.

I was driving and enjoying the fall colors as they played out among the trees when I noticed spots of tiny red dots by the roadside. Getting out to examine them I found several clusters of British Soldier Lichen (Cladonia cristatella), giving the landscape an otherworldly science fiction-like look.

Of course, the Soldier Lichen were commingled with many other types of ground plants including these Crown Tipped Coral Fungus (Artomyces pyxidatusy):

A very common ground plant in the area is a moss known as Urn Haircap (Pogonatum urnigerum). Here it is with a fresh load of fertilizer courtesy of either John Deer or Jane Doe. All part of the landscape, folks!

Mushrooms are easy to find, but harder to identify. Seek by iNaturalist had a little trouble with the species on this log, but I believe they are Shelf mushrooms:

At the other end of the log was a small batch of Oyster mushrooms (Pleurotus ostreatus):

A surprise resident of this small patch of land was a lone Canadian Goldenrod (Solidago canademsis) plant. This was surprising, as I usually see them growing in clusters.

Hanging a few feet above this cornucopia were acorns from  the Northern Red Oak (Quercus rubra). I love the look of these seeds; they look like antique ornaments that were once beautifully carved, polished and buffed, but have withstood some damage over the years, but in fact they all popped out of the tree less than a year prior to the time the pictures were taken.

As I mentioned earlier, all these species were found practically within arm’s reach of one another, and there were plenty more attractive species that I just didn’t get good pictures of. It never fails to amaze me what you can see if you keep your eyes open. Endless forms indeed!

UPDATE: The NSS says that the hamhanded tweet-changing was done without the society’s usual vetting, with a tweeter panicking and taking out the Jewish part.  They have corrected the tweet now to what’s below, which is what they should have posted in the first place:

We’re joining in solidarity with others across the nation this evening to remember the six million Jewish men, women, and children who were murdered during the Holocaust, alongside the many others killed under Nazi persecution. Be the light in the darkness.#LightTheDarkness pic.twitter.com/Ss28NcNgmi

— National Secular Society (@NatSecSoc) January 27, 2024

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It’s not often that I devote a post to a single tweet, but this one deserves it. It was put up by the British National Secular Society to “commemorate” Holocaust Memorial Day—the day in 1945 when Auschwitz was liberated by the Red Army.

Here’s what you see now:

It's #HolocaustMemorialDay, when we remember all the atrocities of the Holocaust. #LightTheDarkness #FragilityOfFreedom pic.twitter.com/454aGavuYh

— National Secular Society (@NatSecSoc) January 27, 2024

But here’s the original, which I can’t find on the site. . . .

Clearly, the Holocaust, originally described as “the murder of 6 million Jewish children, women, and men” has been replaced simply by “the atrocities”, as noted by the reader below.

Now why on earth would they do that? I can think of only one explanation. Actually two, but the alternative explanation—it’s a “secular” society so it can’t name a religion—doesn’t make sense.

Working hypothesis: the word “Jewish” has become pejorative. Even to the National Secular Society!

 

Interesting edit there… pic.twitter.com/SfTRW0Vqwg

— Ben Cooper (@bencooper) January 27, 2024

 

h/t: Jez, Orli

If you go back to my posts from before October 7, you’ll see that I have always favored a two-state solution to resolve the enmity between Palestine and Israel, although I knew that such a solution had been proposed several times by Israel—and rejected by the Palestinians.  Now, however, it’s not a viable solution to the problem, despite many touting it as an exigent and workable solution.

That suggestion is, I think, misguided right now, though perhaps some day it might work.  On the Palestinian side, it’s clear that they want a one-state solution (“from the river to the sea”), and that one state will be Palestinian. What would happen to the Jews in such a solution? Well, they can all be deported (I think Bill Maher joking suggested using a “Jew Haul” system), but most people think that a one-state solution that contains both Jews and Palestinians would inevitably lead to a massacre of Jews as well as the extinction of Israel.  I doubt that anybody in Israel except for a few far-left nutjobs now favor a one-state solution.

On the Israeli side, while many once favored a two state solution, they no longer do. It’s simply unthinkable, after October 7, to imagine a Palestinian state rubbing up against a Jewish one.  The fear, of course, is terrorism. If Hamas ran that state, forgetaboutit. They’ve already vowed to repeat the October 7 massacre over and over again.  And the Palestinian Authority, otherwise known as the corrupt and terrorist-promoting government of Mahmoud Abbas, is not a viable negotiating partner (neither is Netanyahu, as he isn’t trusted by many Israelis but also shares Israel’s correct assessment that a two-state solution is not worth considering now).  First, the war has to end and then—and this is the tough part—there have to be honest brokers and negotiators on both sides. Given the Palestinians’ complete aversion to a two-state solution, though, I simply can’t imagine it happening. What Palestinian government will guarantee to live peacefully beside Israel with no more terrorism, especially since Palestinian children are taught to hate Jews and love martyrdom almost from birth?

I wrote the above because the article below, from Tablet, will make people see why a two-state solution is presently inviable.  For a long time I and others have thought there were two groups of Palestinians: the terrorists sworn to extirpate Israel, and the “regular” people who just wanted to live their lives in peace. And I assumed the latter group was far more numerous than the former. But this is likely an illusion given the polls showing an increase in support for Hamas and a decrease in support for the Palestinian authority and Abass (see here and here). Those same polls show that many Palestinians admire the October 7 attacks as a sign of resistance, not an episode of brutal butchery.

And it’s not just Palestinians: it’s Arab-world wide. Here’s the results of a poll I posted about recently, one taken by the The Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies, and it shows widespread support for Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack in every country in the Arab world (Egypt and Iraq show lower but still substantial support:

Given all this, who could possibly confect a two-state solution that would work? Certainly not one with Hamas involved. My view now is that Hamas still should be defeated and dismantled, but what happens next is shrouded in mystery. But any solution has to allow Israel to be free from terrorism.

Right now I agree with Douglas Murray on the two-state solution below (I don’t agree on anything pro-Trump said, especially by the moderator!) I’d forgotten that the Palestinian Authority had agreed to pay the families and perpetrators of Hamas’s October 7 attack.

The article below is infinitely depressing because it shows that not just a small group of Palestinian terrorists participated in the October 7 massacre. Instead, many, many civilians, including Palestinian children and even old men on crutches.  The conclusion adumbrated by Jews who were interviewed—many of them Jews who used to work for peace with Palestine—is that Palestine is riddled with people who approve of the massacre and would participate in another one if given a chance.  When the title says that October 7 is a “pogrom”, they are using this definition from Wikipedia: it’s not really a genocide, but a mass attack on one group, not necessarily, I think, with intent to wipe out a whole ethnic group—which is of course what Hamas intends in the long run:

A pogrom is a violent riot incited with the aim of massacring or expelling an ethnic or religious group, particularly Jews.[1] The term entered the English language from Russian to describe 19th- and 20th-century attacks on Jews in the Russian Empire (mostly within the Pale of Settlement).

This article is one in a series from Tablet, “Hamas’s war on Israel“.  Click below to read. It’s not super-long, and it’s very enlightening.

I’ll just give quotes. First, the overall take. (Quotes are indented; my own remarks are flush left.)

Survivors’ accounts, video evidence, and the interrogation recordings of apprehended Palestinians paint a damning picture of the complicity of Gazan civilians both in the Oct. 7 attack, in which more than 1,200 people were murdered and 240 people were abducted to Gaza, and its aftermath. It is one that has sparked a debate in Israel that challenges the inclination to draw distinctions between ordinary Palestinian civilians of Gaza—often referred to in Israel as bilti me’uravim (uninvolved)—and their terror leaders. For many, Oct. 7 reeked of something that Jews have been familiar with for centuries; a phenomenon where not just a vanguard, but a society at large participates in the ritual slaughter of Jews.

Around 700 Palestinians stormed Barad’s kibbutz of Nir Oz—less than a five-minute drive from Gaza—that day, CCTV footage shows. The overwhelming majority of those, estimated by Eran Smilansky, a member of the kibbutz’s security squad, to be around 550, were civilians. They were largely unarmed and not in uniform. Some of those civilians carried out wholesale acts of terror themselves, including rape and abduction—and in some cases, the eventual sale of hostages to Hamas—while others abetted the terrorists. Others still simply took advantage of the porous border to loot Israeli homes and farms, including stealing hundreds of thousands of shekels in agricultural equipment.

Similar scenes played out in several of the more than 20 brutalized Israeli communities. In one video that has become emblematic of the debate around the “uninvolved,” an elderly Palestinian man with walking sticks is seen hobbling at an impressive clip along with the rest of the mob through the breached gate of Be’eri.

Differentiating between terrorists and civilians is tricky, particularly since Hamas terrorists often wear civilian clothing, a tactic evident in the ongoing war in Gaza. However, other indicators help make this distinction, such as the absence of weapons and the fact that many were filmed crossing the border barefoot or even on horseback. Even senior Hamas official Mousa Abu Marzouk readily admitted that Gaza civilians had taken part in the Oct. 7 atrocities.

One video shows a group of men in civilian clothing beating a soldier while a separate image shows another group of what appears to be civilian men celebrating atop the smoking husk of a burned-out tank. In the infamous 47-minute terror reel of the Oct. 7 atrocities, Palestinians in civilian clothing are seen beating elderly hostages with sticks. Another repeatedly screams “Allahu akbar!” as he decapitates a Thai farm worker with a garden tool.

Barad’s speed camera in Nir Oz includes images of a Palestinian girl riding a stolen bike. In another, a Palestinian woman is seen pointing out Barad’s neighbor’s home to a uniformed terrorist. An image captured later shows a resident of that home being hoisted onto a motorcycle to be taken into Gaza.

But it’s the testimonies of the survivors that provide the clearest evidence that Oct. 7 was not just a terrorist attack, but a pogrom.

Two aspects of the narrative are surprising and saddening:  Palestinian workers at the kibbutz—as well as the 18,000 Palestinians per day who cross the border to work in the “apartheid state” of Israel—apparently participated in the massacre, giving Hamas valuable information about the layout, sites of electrical panels, and so on. Further, the southern border of Israel harbored many Israelis who were there to work for peace: to create some kind of harmony, or even two harmonious states, between Israel and Palestine. And yet these peace activists were murdered just as brutally as anyone else.  Some quotes:

 

Then there are the Gazans who worked at the kibbutzim. Yohanan’s husband, a farmer, is one of many people in the Gaza periphery communities who hired Palestinian workers from Gaza. Like many others I spoke to, Yohanan believed that the terrorists were acting on inside knowledge obtained by those Gazan workers. Israel had gradually raised the number of work permits in the months leading up to Oct. 7 with an estimated 18,500 Gazans working in Israel before the onslaught. The thinking behind the policy was that economic incentives to the residents of the Strip would sustain the fragile peace. Hanan Dann, from Kfar Aza, told me that he was “glad that workers from Gaza were coming to Israel to have jobs and meet Israelis, to see that we’re not all devils.”

In several of the devastated communities, detailed maps were found on the bodies of dead terrorists, maps that residents say could have only been drawn up by people with intimate knowledge of the area. Gazan workers relayed an extensive range of information to Hamas that enabled the terror group to plan its attack with extraordinary meticulousness, including the identities and residences of security heads, the locations of electric boards and communications systems and how to disable them.

The workers’ betrayal left an indelible mark on the surviving kibbutzniks, leading many to reexamine previously held beliefs about their Palestinian neighbors. Nir Oz, like many of the other ravaged kibbutzim in the area, was home to scores of peace activists, many of whom volunteered for a program known as Road to Recovery, driving sick Gazans to Israeli hospitals for treatment. Many now believe that while there are Gazans who want to live in peace, they do not represent the majority; or, as one survivor summed it up to AFP, “there are more who don’t want us alive.”

Irit Lahav, whose parents were from Nir Oz’s founding members, described the community as a “peace lovers’” kibbutz. “It broke my heart. How can we ever get over this sense of betrayal?” Lahav, who shuttled Palestinian cancer patients several hours from the border with Gaza to their treatments in central Israel, told me. “The Palestinian public simply hates us.”

And this is the conclusion of one disaffected Israeli:

Not everyone, however, was surprised by the involvement of Gazan civilians. “I don’t differentiate between them and Hamas,” Nir Shani told me. “Let me know of one Palestinian in Gaza who tried to save a Jew and maybe I’ll change my mind.”

That’s a good question.

Here’s a peace worker betrayed:

Batya Holin is a photographer and peace activist from Kfar Aza, which alongside Nir Oz and Be’eri, was one of the heaviest-hit communities. Holin had developed a friendship with a Gazan photographer, Mahmoud, with whom she arranged a joint exhibit last year of photos of her kibbutz and his village in the Gaza Strip. On the morning of Oct. 7, Mahmoud called and interrogated Holin, asking her how many soldiers were in her vicinity. That was when Holin realized that Mahmoud had given the photos of her village to Hamas. “Whoever says there are people there who are uninvolved, here is the proof,” she told Israel’s Channel 13 News. “They are all involved. They are all Hamas.”

There’s more documentation of civilian involvement, including not just the participation of civilians in the attack itself but also their approbation of the hostages and bodies of Israelis brought back, and, finally, their involvement in other ways. Here’s an example of the last two:

In one viral video, the near-naked and bloodied body of Shani Louk, an Israeli German who was abducted from the Nova music festival but who was later declared dead, is seen being paraded through the streets of Gaza in the back of a pickup truck. Hordes of Palestinian civilians are cheering, spitting and slapping Louk’s deformed figure while chanting “Allahu akbar.” The last tranche of hostages to be released in November’s truce saw crowds of Palestinians line the streets, jeering as the Red Cross ambulances passed by. The aunt of released hostage Eitan Yahalomi said that after the arrival of her 12-year-old nephew into Gaza, “all the civilians, everyone, beat him.”

IDF Sgt. Adir Tahar was murdered and decapitated during the invasion while manning a post near the Erez border crossing. His father, David, was forced to bury his son’s body without his head. An interrogation of two Palestinians by Israel’s Shin Bet security agency revealed that the remains of the head—which had been mutilated until it barely resembled a human skull—were kept in the freezer of an ice cream store in Gaza. One of the men had tried to sell the head for $10,000. The man in question was a Palestinian civilian and not a Hamas operative, Tahar told me. The Shin Bet did not respond to a request for confirmation in time for publication.

The conclusions: the Israelis, after hearing things like this, have become wary of not just Hamas, but of most Palestinians, who, they think are eager to kill them—civilians that could become terrorists or could aid terrorists. And this has pushed the chance for postwar peace to near zero:

 

“If we previously believed that there was a chance for peace, we’ve lost all faith in these people, especially after we were there and among the population,” Goldstein-Almog added.

 

According to the New York Times, Barnard College is in a big kerfuffle involving free speech, institutional neutrality, and academic freedom. The problem is that they’re conflating them all, so the campus is full of stress and argument that, with some good will, could be avoided. Here I proffer a simple solution to the College’s woes.

First, some terms. These are my takes, so others might disagree. Free speech is the ability to express yourself without censorship. The First Amendment protects your speech from being censored by the government, but not necessarily by anybody else, including your boss on the job. Public colleges and universities, however, must adhere to the courts’ construal of the First Amendment (they’re considered arms of the government), while private colleges need not. In my view, however, they should, for free speech is seen by many academics as the best way to get to the truth, with everybody able to discuss issues without being quashed. The University of Chicago, a private school, adheres to the First Amendment in our Principles of Free Expression, also known as the “Chicago Principles,” and these have been adopted by more than 100 colleges.

In contrast, institutional neutrality in academia means that colleges and universities remain neutral on political, moral, or ideological issues, and make no “official” statements about them. (Faculty and students, of course, are welcomed to express their personal views.) Thus, at Chicago, which adheres to institutional neutrality, you will (or rather “should”) find no department or unit of the university making any kind of statement about politics or ideology on its websites. This is an adherence to our Kalven Principles (also see here), which allow exceptions to neutrality only when the issues at hand are intimately connected with the mission of the University. Sadly, only a few schools in the country, including Vanderbilt and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill have officially adopted institutional neutrality, though I think all of them should. That’s because the purpose of Kalven is to not “chill” speech by avoiding intimidating people who want to speak up against positions that might be construed as “official”. Kalven and the Principles of Free Expression are designed to buttress each other.

There is, of course, a difference between free speech and institutional neutrality.  You can have free speech without institutional neutrality, so that individuals can speak their minds but departments and universities can also take “official” positions.  (I can’t imagine, however, having institutional neutrality without free speech, as the former makes sense only if you have the latter.) The problem with Barnard College, as outlined in the NYT article below (click to read), is that it has adopted free speech but isn’t trying that hard to be institutionally neutral. And this is causing problems.

As for academic freedom, that’s usually construed as the freedom of academics to teach and do research on what they want without interference. In other words, it is a freedom of inquiry. This is somewhat connected with freedom of speech (can a professor say whatever she wants to in a classroom? Nope.), but it’s not the issue at hand today, though both Barnard and the ACLU are conflating freedom of speech with academic freedom and with institutional neutrality. If they adopted the Chicago Principles and Kalven, they wouldn’t be in trouble. But there are lots of faculty who think that departmental websites, official emails, and other official venues should be able to express political opinions, and that’s where they get in trouble.

Click to read, though you may be paywalled:

First, Barnard College (in New York City, affiliated with Columbia University) has adopted the Chicago Principles, and so has free speech (NYT text is indented).

The Barnard faculty also held a vote in December affirming the “Chicago Principles,” a commitment to free expression, several professors said.

It’s in the institutional neutrality issue where they get balled up, because the professors cannot refrain from making political statements on official websites:

Three weeks after the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks on Israel, the Department of Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies at Barnard College in New York posted a statement on its departmental website in support of the Palestinian people.

Below the statement, the professors posted links to academic work supporting their view that the struggle of Palestinians against “settler colonial war, occupation and apartheid” was also a feminist issue. Two days later, they found that section of the webpage had been removed, without warning, by Barnard administrators.

What happened next has sparked a crisis over academic freedom and free expression at Barnard at a time when the Israel-Hamas conflict has led to tense protests on American college campuses and heated discussions about what constitutes acceptable speech.

“Acceptable”, however, means “speech that can appear on departmental websites”.  The departmental statement was removed because, at least for this issue, Barnard was enforcing institutional neutrality, which is good. (The claim that the Hamas/Israel war is a feminist issue is the way department always try to get around these restrictions.  In fact, I’d argue that if you’re a feminist, you’d want to support Israel, which doesn’t oppress women or gays. But I digress.)

Asked to explain why the page was removed, college administrators told the department that the statement and links were “impermissible political speech,” a statement from the department said.

And if that applied to all “official” political, ideological, and moral issues, that would be great. Barnard would then be like the University of Chicago. The problem is that Barnard College seems to have taken it upon itself to judge whether some “official” political/ideological speech is okay, and other speech isn’t.  And that puts them in the position of being, as W. said, “The Decider.”  What speech is acceptable, and what is not.

The Barnard administration then, in late October and November, rewrote its policies on political activity, website governance and campus events, giving itself wide latitude to decide what was and was not permissible political speech on campus, as well as final say over everything posted on Barnard’s website.

And so we get stuff like this:

At both Columbia and Barnard, an all-women’s college that is formally part of Columbia University but has its own leadership and policies, administrators have asked the community to refrain from slogans and words that others may find hurtful. Both institutions have also issued reworded administrative rules that officially apply to everyone. But critics say that in reality, they are being used to curtail views the college does not want aired.

Under new rules Barnard emailed to faculty on Nov. 6, for example, all academic departments must submit changes to the content of their websites to the Office of the Provost for review and approval. All content on the college’s website may be amended or removed without notice, a related policy states.

Arthur Eisenberg, executive counsel with the N.Y.C.L.U., said that the policy gives the administration discretion to determine what is permissible academic discourse on the website. “And that’s the problem,” he said.

While the pro-Palestinian statement was taken down, for example, a statement by the Africana Studies Department decrying anti-Black racism and state-sanctioned violence in the wake of the killing of George Floyd in 2020 was permitted to stay up.

No “hurtful” speech? Trying to maintain a position like that is asking for trouble.

At Chicago, statements about George Floyd, structural racism, state-sanctioned violence, and Black Lives matter on departmental websites was taken down, simply because these were political statements that had nothing to do with the mission of the departments who issued them or our University.

And now the New York Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU) is warning Barnard that institutional neutrality amounts to “censorship”, not realizing that it is intended to prevent chilling of ideas. The problem is when you are trying to draw lines between “hate speech” and “other speech”. It’s best to just adopt Kalven and not permit any official speech on politics or ideology.

Apparently, the NYCLU doesn’t understand that, nor does it understand academic freedom:

The moves caught the attention of the New York Civil Liberties Union, which wrote a letter to Barnard’s new president, Laura Rosenbury, in December, warning that the website and political speech policies violated fundamental free speech principles and were “incompatible with a sound understanding of academic freedom.”

“Such a regime will inevitably serve as a license for censorship,” the letter said.

In a statement, the Barnard administration said that it had barred college resources from being used for political activity for at least a decade. Another policy barring political signs from being posted on campus was not directed at any ideology, it contended.

But the statement about George Floyd and “state-sanctioned violence” above is certainly a political statement. It would be barred here and, if Barnard adheres to its principles, it should be barred there. As for the ACLU defending “academic freedom”, that’s simply not what’s at issue.

The upshot seems to be that Barnard will approve of some political speech on department websites, but not all such speech. Sure, it’s fine to have the administration decide in advance what additions to department websites should be made, but they should simply ban all additions that make political, ideological or moral statements.

This kerfuffle is easily resolved:

Dear Barnard College,

The solution to your problems is this: adopt both the Chicago Principles of Free Expression, which you’ve already approved, but also the Kalven Principles of institutional neutrality.

Cordially,
Jerry Coyne
(University of Chicago

The big impediment is that some professors are so bursting with political bombast and feeling of virtue that they INSIST that their political views must be broadcast on their departmental websites. One example:

The Department of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies has now created its own website that is not administered by the college, and posted its pro-Palestinian statement and resources there. It has for the past two months been in discussions with Barnard’s provost office about permitting a link from its official website to this website, Dr. Jakobsen said.

Fine, have your unofficial website. But the answer to whether this should link to the departmental website is “NOPE!” If Barnard says it’s okay, then they’re opening Pandora’s box.

Yesterday I mentioned a letter I wrote to the Chicago Maroon, the University’s student newspaper, emphasizing that while the Students for Justice in Palestine has a right to express their hateful rhetoric on campus (it’s free speech), they must also abide by campus regulations about the nature of demonstration. The prohibitions, which SJP has violated, include these mentioned in my letter:

At the end of last year, the organization and its umbrella group, UChicago United for Palestine (the latter not a recognized student organization), have repeatedly violated the University’s Protest and Demonstrations Policy, including by engaging in demonstrations during prohibited hours without permits, deplatforming a group of peacefully assembled Jewish students, sitting-in in campus buildings, disrupting classes using loud megaphones, and blocking access to buildings. While these actions have led to some arrests, the legal charges have been dropped. This still leaves the possibility of institutional punishment, but whether the University will pursue the charges, or what the punishments will be—if any—are never disclosed to the University community. Unless punishments for such violations become public (names need not be given), there is no deterrent to illegally disrupting University activities. Punishments for other prohibited behaviors, like sexual harassment and assault, are publicized in a yearly report, so why not trespassing?

The connection between UChicago United for Palestine (UCUP) and SJP isn’t completely clear to me, but UCUP was described by the South Side Weekly as “a coalition of campus groups that includes CareNotCops, UChicago Students for Justice in Palestine, and the National Lawyers Guild at the university.” SJP describes itself on the university website, as a branch of a national organization:

Subject: Students for Justice in Palestine

Description: Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) is a diverse group of students, faculty, staff, and community members at colleges & universities throughout the US. SJP UChicago is a chapter dedicated to raising awareness of the plight of the Palestinian people on the UChicago campus, as well as throughout the United States, and advocating democratic principles to promote justice, human rights, liberation, and self-determination for the Palestinian people.

Thus UCUP includes SJP, and both organizations comprise University students. Thus both groups must conform to the University’s Protest and Demonstrations Policy. They have violated this Policy repeatedly, and just vowed that they will continue to do so.

On December 9, 26 UCUP students and 2 faculty members were arrested, after being warned, for conducting an illegal sit-in in Rosenwald Hall.  For some reason, the charges were dropped against all the demonstrators.  There still remains the possibility of University discipline, but whether these students actually will be subject to the disciplinary procedure is a mystery I can’t get clarified, despite having made inquiries. And this is despite our own President’s statement about disruptive demonstrations and protests that include this:

We have policies and processes for guiding community norms, reporting instances that require investigation, and disciplinary action when needed. Our Dean of Students in the University will share more about those policies and processes with students later today.

Apparently, the University community is not allowed to be informed of whether discipline is imposed upon students who violate the Protest and Demonstrations Policy.  If it isn’t, then there is absolutely no bar for students to continue violating university regulations, disrupting University activities, blocking university buildings, shouting down other protestors, and so on.

It’s the University’s responsibility, I believe, to let us know if disciplinary action is indeed taken against protestors who violate University regulations, and then let us know the outcome (names need not be given), just as they do with other violations, including sexual harassment and assault. After all, the students on December 9 were charged with “criminal trespass”.

Now UCUP and the “National SJP” have exulted on their instagram page that not only were the charges dropped, but they will continue to engage in illegal activities.  Here’s what’s from the Instagram post below.

Note in particular the statements, “WE REJECT THIS. we know that it is imperative to disrupt business as usual.” This is an arrant threat these groups will continue their illegal activities that disrupt campus, and it’s just one more reason to consider barring SJP (and UCUP, if it’s barr-able) from campus. Instead of saying they’ll abide by the protest regulations, groups brag brag that they will continue violating them

Our administration appears to ignore that these illegal activities are publicized, that they disrupt the education we’re supposed to be proffering to students, and they constitute a reason why parents, particularly Jewish ones, might not want to send their kids here. SJP and UCUP are tearing the campus apart with illegal protests, and I call on our administration, while adhering to our Principles of Free Expression, to enforce the University’s Protest and Demonstration Policy.

Here’s the Instagram post issued by UCUP and SJP, which includes a request for donations to cover the “court fees” levied on the demonstrators.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by UChicago United for Palestine (@uchicagounited)

PCC(E) is decompressing from travel.

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili has her mind on one thing:

Hili: We have to summon our courage. A: And dowhat? Hili: Check what we have in the fridge. . In Polish: . Hili: Musimy się zdobyć na odwagę.
Ja: I co zrobić?
Hili: Sprawdzić co mamy w lodówce. .

 

by Greg Mayer

While Jerry’s traveling, I thought it would be a good time to post the second installment of southern trees. In the first, I showed mostly the epiphytes that grow on trees, and now it will be the trees themselves.

The northeastern US– roughly around the Great Lakes, New England, and the mid-Atlantic– is dominated by broad-leaved, deciduous, hardwood forests (think oaks, maples, hickories), grading to evergreen coniferous forest to the north, tall grass prairie to the west, and southern forest to the south. Interestingly, a big swath of the American south, like the far north, is dominated by coniferous forest: very tall pines, with a short, shrubby understory. As you get far enough south, the understory becomes palms.

Jacksonville, Florida, January 9, 2024.

The above photo is of a suburban front yard, but as either a remnant of the pre-development forest, or as a planted recreation, it gives a fair impression of a tiny bit of this southern conifer forest. We see about five pines, a thick palmetto (?Sabal sp.) understory, and to the left front and right background, two broad-leaved trees, deciduous on the left, evergreen on the right.

The pines have very long needles, many over a foot long, and longleaf pine (Pinus palustris) is one of the characteristic species. But there are several other pines with long needles, and I’ve never been able to convince myself that I can tell them apart. I think there are two species in this little stand, one with short cones and the other with long cones.

Jacksonville, Florida, January 9, 2024.

But cones vary both within a tree, related to age and cone-specific effects, and among trees of the same species, so I’m not sure. Here’s some of the range of variation in the long cones:

Jacksonville, Florida, January 9, 2024.

and among the short cones:

Jacksonville, Florida, January 9, 2024.

Many of the long cones were damaged, the scales being torn or chewed off. I’m not sure what does this, or why. Gray squirrels (Sciurus carolinensis) are common at this site, but I don’t think pine cone scales are edible or nutritious.

“Chewed” cone at top. Jacksonville, Florida, January 9, 2024.

There also seemed to be differences in the bark. The short cone pine has a more blocky texture to the bark:

Bark of “short cone pine”. Jacksonville, Florida, January 9, 2024.

While the long cone pine had longer, more flattened ridges; but, again, I’m not sure how much individual variation there is within species.

Bark of “long cone pine”. Jacksonville, Florida, January 9, 2024.

The broad-leaved trees included evergreen magnolias (Magnolia sp.):

Magnolia. Jacksonville, Florida, January 9, 2024.

with loads of their seed pods nearby. These pods were not under the magnolia, but over a fence and under one of the pines, so must have been moved– by squirrels?

Magnolia pods. Jacksonville, Florida, January 9, 2024.

This is the live oak of some sort (Quercus sp.) from my epiphyte post. Astute readers were able to identify the clumps of leaves higher in the tree as mistletoe.

Jacksonville, Florida, January 9, 2024.

The tree had lost most of its leaves, but still had some, including non-lobed, “live oaky” leaves”:

Jacksonville, Florida, January 9, 2024.

and slightly-lobed, much more, at least to a northerner, “oaky” leaves:

Jacksonville, Florida, January 9, 2024.

We’ll finish with the red maple (Acer rubrum) a tree I am very familiar with from the north, that in Florida seems to be semi-deciduous– losing most, but not all of its leaves in the winter. This row of trees is clearly planted:

Jacksonville, Florida, January 9, 2024.

And, though mostly leafless, there were some leaves still on the trees:

Jacksonville, Florida, January 9, 2024.

As with the previous post on this, please weigh in with plant identifications!

Today’s Jesus ‘n’ Mo strip, called “caste,” is based on a story at the National Secular Society’s website. in which a Hindu group threatens to report one of the NSS’s branches to the cops for blaspheming Hinduism. From the story:

A Hindu charity has threatened to report a secularist group to the police over a talk critical of Hinduism.

In December, Leicester Secular Society (LSS) held a talk, entitled “Hinduism: Wretched Immoral Compass”, by a former Hindu.

The talk aimed to “highlight the failure of Hinduism as a moral compass and show that it was flawed from the very outset”. It also examined “the contribution of several neglected Indian figures who stood for liberty, equality, fraternity, social justice, women’s rights, secularism/humanism and more”.

The promotional image for the flier included a diagram of the Hindu ‘caste system’.

Before the talk took place, LSS received an email from Rajnish Kashyap, general secretary of the London-based Hindu Council UK (HCUK), to express the charity’s “deep concern and offense [sic]” at the event’s title.

The email said the title “seems designed to appeal and incite hatred towards Hindus, who are one of the largest and most peaceful groups globally”.

It went on: “We intend to bring this matter to the attention of the local Hindu community, and local authorities, including the police.

The Divine Duo laughs it up—until Ganesha appears. Mo sets the elephant-headed God straight, telling him that the caste system builds religious discrimination right into the Hindu faith:

Over the last several months, I’ve seen and read about demonstrations on our campus by the pro-Palestinian group Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), which apparently has roughly 200 campus branches in the U.S., Canada, and New Zealand.

SJP has been particularly active since last year’s October 7 massacre of Israelis and others, which they defended in a long letter (2,471 words!) in the Chicago Maroon, our student newspaper. Click below to read this hate-filled diatribe, or find it archived here. It was written a few days after the massacre but was updated and published in the Maroon on December 1.  The instant I saw this justification for butchery (just read the bit below), I felt that I somehow had to respond.

The beginning of the SJP’s “explanation”:

The events of the past week have been historic and unprecedented by all measures. Last Saturday, for the first time in history, Palestinian resistance groups broke out of Gaza, reclaimed land from the Israeli occupation, and seized control of numerous Israeli military posts. Scrambling to recover from this humiliation and collectively punish Palestine’s population for the accompanying violence inflicted on Israeli soldiers, settlers, and civilians, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has—predictably—resorted to openly genocidal tactics.

How euphemistic can you get?  But even before this letter appeared, the SJP engaged in several loud demonstrations (conducted with another non-student organization)—demonstrations that were almost frightening in their anger, hatred and calls for genocide (“from the river to the sea”, etc.) . It was simply scary to listen to these people, and for the first time in decades I felt a bit frightened to be a Jew, although a secular one.  Of course, their behavior is intended to frighten us, and many Jewish students have become intimidated.

And it doesn’t matter that I’m a secular Jew. SJP’s hatred of Jews doesn’t depend on whether or not they subscribe to the tenets of Judaism. As with the Nazis, secular Jews also count as targets.

On October 19, a peaceful demonstration by Jewish students in the Quad was disrupted by SJP, who had promised not to do so. This deplatforming, which canceled the demonstration (it involved a lecture by a rabbi, which is what Jews call a “demonstration”) violated several campus rules, which you can see in my post at WEIT on the incident, and it caused two Jewish students to write a heartfelt letter to the administration, which was never acknowledged, much less answered. The “dean on call” was summoned to quash the deplatforming, but she did nothing.

A group of faculty, including myself, also wrote to the administration, and eventually President Paul Alivisatos wrote a good letter to the University community explaining that University policy doesn’t allow the disruption of speakers. It didn’t give specifics, but at least to many of us it seemed prompted by the behavior of SJP. An excerpt:

In any venue, no member of our community may shout down or seek to prevent the protected expression of those with whom they disagree. You may not tear down a poster. You may not seek to intimidate or threaten another person, or prevent them from hearing an invited speaker. These are egregious offenses against our community. We have policies and processes for guiding community norms, reporting instances that require investigation, and disciplinary action when needed. Our Dean of Students in the University will share more about those policies and processes with students later today.

Good for the President! This is a clear expression of University policy, though I don’t think that any SJP students were warned or discipline for violating it.

Three days before the SJP letter appeared, on November 28, a Maroon “reporter,” actually a pro-Palestinian student activist who participates in SJP demonstrations, wrote a very long article (4,077 words) in a section of the Maroon called The Grey City. It’s really a puff piece for the SJP, describing a week of the group’s activities.  Click below to read that account or find it archived here.

There’s an “editor’s note” appearing at the beginning:

Editor’s note: Kelly X. Hui attended the quad protests and documented them as a protester with Students for Justice in Palestine UChicago and as an organizer with #CareNotCops and UChicago United for Palestine. The identities of protesters and organizers were kept anonymous.

This is hardly the objective reporting one expects from a news report! In effect, the Maroon did (and still does) harbor about 6,500 words of pro-Hamas “reportage” on its front page.

Was there any reporting on the other side—by those who are more pro-Israel? Not that I’ve seen. At the end of Hui’s piece there’s yet another editor’s note:

Editor’s note: As The Maroon’s long-form and narrative features section, Grey City seeks to produce coverage that gives students a direct voice in reporting. As a separate report, Grey City will soon be publishing a story written by pro-Israel student organizer [sic] who has been active in recent campus demonstrations.

This promised story hasn’t yet appeared, even though two months have lapsed. I might have missed it, but I don’t think so. I suspect that they couldn’t find anybody to write it. But if that’s the case the Maroon should have commissioned a piece. The newspaper owes its audience a more balanced view of the controversy.

At any rate, I felt that the paper needed a voice that argued against the discomfiting pro-Palestinian stand of these two long pieces, particularly the SJP’s screed justifying Hamas’s attacks of October 7.  And if there wasn’t such a piece, I had to write one. So I produced an op-ed for the paper that came out yesterday. You can see it by clicking below, and I’ve put the text of my letter below the fold at the bottom.

I am under no illusions about the pushback I’ll get for what I wrote. SJP is aggressive if it’s anything, and standing up against the organization, and for Israel, is not the most popular thing to do on campus these days.  But the laws of physics—instantiated in SJP’s writings, violations of campus policies (see photo below), and chants that, to many, are calls for the elimination of Israel (and probably not peacefully!), compelled me to write the letter.  In the absence of the promised pro-Israel article, my letter shows that at least shows that one member of the University community abhors the violence and hatred embodied in SJP. And I hope what I wrote gives a bit of succor to our intimidated Jewish students.

********

Click “read more” to see the text of my letter, which isn’t long. The photo that accompanies it is of an SJP demonstration, and below is an Instagram post from SJP that testifies to their blocking of the administration building (Levi Hall), a violation of University policy. Note that they’ve covered their faces with hearts, showing their cowardice at the same time. their failure to recognize a wildly inappropriate symbol.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by UChicago United for Palestine (@uchicagounited)

Should Students for Justice in Palestine Be a Recognized Student Organization? SJP’s disruptive behavior and violation of University rules raises questions regarding the organization’s place on our campus. By Jerry A. Coyne January 23, 2024 Nikhil Jaiswal. Protestors rallied and chanted outside of Rosenwald Hall on November 9, 2023. Has the time come to ask whether the activism of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) belongs on our campus? It’s not the morally reprehensible things they say that brings this question to the fore, as their speech is protected, but how they behave: in a way that violates campus rules and disrupts the University’s mission.

One thing I’ve absorbed in my 37 years at this University is that no matter how detestable speech can be, it should never be banned or suppressed.  Even if discourse tests one’s limits of tolerance, a university functions best when all ideas can be expressed. Take, for example, SJP’s long op-ed in The Maroon—updated from a piece written on October 11—justifying the butchery of Israelis by Hamas on October 7. In a breathtakingly obtuse and euphemistic statement, SJP claims that “the events of the past week have been historic and unprecedented by all measures. Last Saturday, for the first time in history, Palestinian resistance groups broke out of Gaza, reclaimed land from the Israeli occupation, and seized control of numerous Israeli military posts.” The “breaking out of Gaza,” as they call it, included the slaughter and torture of around 1,200 civilians, mass rapes of women, and abduction of about 240 hostages, most of them still in captivity. And, of course, no land was reclaimed. This statement alone, in line with the national organization’s similar pronouncement (complete with the logo of an armed Hamas paraglider), renders SJP morally reprehensible, odious, and hateful, seemingly promoting terrorism. But although I believe any moral person should be sickened by these words, they constitute protected free speech, don’t violate University regulations, and should be discussed openly—as I just did. What should make us question whether SJP belongs on campus is not because it says loathsome things like this, but because of the actions it takes.

At the end of last year, the organization and its umbrella group, UChicago United for Palestine (the latter not a recognized student organization), have repeatedly violated the University’s Protest and Demonstrations Policy, including by engaging in demonstrations during prohibited hours without permits, deplatforming a group of peacefully assembled Jewish students, sitting-in in campus buildings, disrupting classes using loud megaphones, and blocking access to buildings. While these actions have led to some arrests, the legal charges have been dropped. This still leaves the possibility of institutional punishment, but whether the University will pursue the charges, or what the punishments will be—if any—are never disclosed to the University community. Unless punishments for such violations become public (names need not be given), there is no deterrent to illegally disrupting University activities. Punishments for other prohibited behaviors, like sexual harassment and assault, are publicized in a yearly report, so why not trespassing?

SJP does not aim to further campus discourse about the Israel–Hamas war, but rather to bully the rest of us into accepting their ideological views through verbal intimidation and interference with our mission to teach, learn, and do research. Violation of university policies has led to SJP being banned on other campuses, including Columbia University and The George Washington University.

The continual disruption of our campus and violation of University regulations raises the question of whether SJP as a campus group is involved in these actions. If so, we should ponder whether that group should be a recognized student organization. At the very least, student organizations should enrich the mission of the University: promoting discourse and enriching our intellectual life. SJP does none of this, for their mission seems to be purely ideological: to promote Hamas and whitewash its terrorism—as well as to erase the state of Israel—all through disrupting campus activity. If it is to remain, it should at least desist from violating University regulations.

Finally, to deter organizations from such violations, it’s imperative that our administration not only warn and then punish violators, but also let us know that punishments have been levied. If University regulations of conduct aren’t enforced, they become toothless. And that simply encourages further disruption.

Jerry A. Coyne is professor emeritus in the Department of Ecology and Evolution.

by Matthew Cobb

PCC(E) is returning from the West Coast, so light posting today. Feel free to behave in the usual, well-mannered way, in the comments, on whatever tickles your fancy.

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili is a materialist, as you would expect from an animal:

Hili: We do not have any other choice. A: In what matter? Hili: Unfortunately, we have to accept reality. . In Polish: Hili: Nie mamy innego wyboru.
Ja: W jakiej sprawie?
Hili: Niestety musimy zaakceptować rzeczywistość. . For your morning delight, I give you this tweet. Note the dot is the size of Earth’s *orbit*. .

From JAC, a bit of Nooz: Nikki Haley was trounced in the New Hampshire Republican primaries last night. It’s all over now: barring an aneurysm, Trump will be running against Biden in November. Ceiling Cat help us all!

The much-fabled power of New Hampshire’s fiercely independent voters wasn’t enough to break the spell Donald J. Trump has cast over the Republican Party.

Brushing aside Nikki Haley a little over a week after he steamrolled her and Ron DeSantis in Iowa, Mr. Trump became the first Republican presidential candidate who was not a White House incumbent to carry the nation’s first two contests. His winning margin of 11 percentage points in moderate New Hampshire demonstrated his ironclad control of the party’s hard-right base and set him on what could very well be a short march to the nomination.

For Ms. Haley, the former South Carolina governor, it was a disappointing finish in a state she had poured considerable resources into carrying. Her efforts to cobble together a coalition of independents and anti-Trump Republicans, with support from the state’s popular governor, were no match for Mr. Trump’s legions of loyalists.

. . .The contest now moves to South Carolina, the next competitive primary and one where Ms. Haley faces a steep uphill battle. Mr. Trump has led polls in her conservative home state by more than 30 points for months.

There’s little question that a defeat there for Ms. Haley would be devastating, making it difficult for her to justify carrying on in the race.

Figure from the NYT:

At FiveThirtyEight, most of the polls pitting Biden against Trump show Trump leading by a few percentage points, like this one with Trump 5% ahead (click to enlarge):

The Oscar nominations are out, and the NYT lists all the big ones (and more) in the article below, which you can access by clicking. But I’ll list the nominees for eight categories as well:

Part of their summary:

Oscar voters lined up behind a classic studio blockbuster on Tuesday, giving 13 nominations to Christopher Nolan’s “Oppenheimer,” the most of any movie, and setting up the long-awaited coronation of Nolan as Hollywood’s leading filmmaker.

No film by Nolan has ever been named best picture. He received his second nomination for directing on Tuesday. Here is the full list of nominees.

The recognition for “Oppenheimer” had been expected. But the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences threw surprises into all of the other major categories.

Most prominently, Greta Gerwig did not receive a nomination as best director for “Barbie.” Instead, the increasingly international academy gave a first nomination to the French filmmaker Justine Triet, who directed “Anatomy of a Fall,” a did-she-or-didn’t-she thriller. “Barbie” also failed to figure into the best actress category, with Margot Robbie overlooked for bringing the doll to zany life. Instead, Annette Bening was honored as a best actress candidate for her obsessive, aging swimmer in the Netflix film “Nyad.”

In the best picture category, “Oppenheimer” will contend against “American Fiction,” “Anatomy of a Fall,” “Barbie,” “The Holdovers,” “Killers of the Flower Moon,” “Maestro,” “Oppenheimer,” “Past Lives,” “Poor Things” and “Zone of Interest.” The entries in this field had been widely expected; no surprises.

Sadly, I’ve seen few of the Oscar-nominated pictures this year: only two— “Oppenheimer” and “Killers of the Flower Moon,” and I’d give the nod to the latter. Readers are welcome to weigh in with their favorites in each category

Here. are the NYT lists:

BEST PICTURE

“American Fiction”
Read our review

“Anatomy of a Fall”
Read our review

“Barbie”
Read our review

“The Holdovers”
Read our review

“Killers of the Flower Moon”
Read our review

“Maestro”
Read our review

“Oppenheimer”
Read our review

“Past Lives”
Read our review

“Poor Things”
Read our review

“The Zone of Interest”
Read our review

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

BEST DIRECTOR:

Jonathan Glazer, “The Zone of Interest”
Read our review

Yorgos Lanthimos, “Poor Things”
Read our profile

Christopher Nolan, “Oppenheimer”
Read our profile

Martin Scorsese, “Killers of the Flower Moon”
Read our Critic’s Notebook

Justine Triet, “Anatomy of a Fall”
Read our profile

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

BEST ACTOR:

Bradley Cooper, “Maestro”
Read our profile

Colman Domingo, “Rustin”
Read our profile

Paul Giamatti, “The Holdovers”
Read our profile

Cillian Murphy, “Oppenheimer”
Read our profile

Jeffrey Wright, “American Fiction”
Read our review

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

BEST ACTRESS:

Annette Bening, “Nyad”
Read T Magazine’s profile

Lily Gladstone, “Killers of the Flower Moon”
Read our profile

Sandra Hüller, “Anatomy of a Fall”
Read our review

Carey Mulligan, “Maestro”
Read our review

Emma Stone, “Poor Things”
Watch “Anatomy of a Scene”

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

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR

Sterling K. Brown, “American Fiction”
Read our review

Robert De Niro, “Killers of the Flower Moon”
Read our review

Robert Downey Jr., “Oppenheimer”
Read our profile

Ryan Gosling, “Barbie”
Read our profile

Mark Ruffalo, “Poor Things”
Read our review

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

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS:

Emily Blunt, “Oppenheimer”
Read our profile

Danielle Brooks, “The Color Purple”
Read our profile

America Ferrera, “Barbie”
Read our profile

Jodie Foster, “Nyad”
Read our review

Da’Vine Joy Randolph, “The Holdovers”
Read our review

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

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY

“Anatomy of a Fall”

“The Holdovers”

“May December”

“Maestro”

“Past Lives”

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

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY:

“American Fiction”

“Barbie”

“Oppenheimer”

“Poor Things”

“The Zone of Interest”

I just realized that the categories of “actor” versus “actress” (terms that are no longer politically correct), the Academy is assuming a sex binary.  This will, I suspect, lead to big trouble in the future when we have transgender actors in movies.

In the face of a seemingly intractable war between Hamas and Israel, two fantasies have arisen as “solutions” that will being peace. Neither will work, and we know they won’t work.

The first is that if Israel only approved a two-state solution—one Palestinian and the other Israeli—this would help end the war. But that’s pure nonsense for a variety of reasons. Do I need to list them? First, the Palestinians don’t want a two-state solution, and never have; they’ve rejected it repeatedly.  They want a one-state solution, and that one state would be Palestine, from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean sea. What about the Jews? Well, they wouldn’t survive long in such a state, for, to the Palestinians, the object of a one-state solution is the end of Israel.

Nor do the Israelis want a Palestinian state abutting their country, for they now have a well-deserved fear that this would simply continue the terrorism from Palestinians that’s plagued Israel for decades.  Hamas, as you know, have threatened to repeat an October 7th like even over and over again.

Which brings up the second question of who would govern a Palestinian state, and the proposed but equally futile solution: the Palestinian Authority.

That’s risible for several reasons. If Hamas still exists at the end of this war, then that’s who would be in charge, for the people of Gaza, as well as Palestinians in the West Bank, prefer Hamas over the Palestinian Authority (PA).  The PA might be marginally better than Hamas at running a Palestinian state, but it’s not an honest broker: the PA supports terrorism as well, also aims at a single state, and has the infamous “pay for slay” program that rewards Palestinian terrorists who kill Jews.

In truth, neither side now wants a two-state solution, and neither side has an honest broker to negotiate one. Nevertheless, ignoramuses like Blinken, egged on by Biden, somehow think that the magic words “two states” will bring lasting peace. That’s insane. (I once promoted the two-state solution myself, but that was before October 7.)

Now, in an article at The Hill, Nitsana Darshan-Leinter, an Israeli attorney and human-rights lawyer who defends victims of terrorism,  explains why one solution that liberals are now suggesting—governance of a Gaza (and probably the new Palestinian state) by the PA—is hopeless.

(The Hill is a widely-read nonpartisan site, and, according to Wikipedia, is second only to CNN in online readership for a political venue.)

Here’s Darshan-Leitner’s argument, which begins with some history:

. . . Most Western leaders, including President Biden, are calling for the Palestinian Authority (PA) to assume control of the Gaza Strip and its 2.2 million inhabitants. Pinning Gaza’s future on the PA is a recipe for surefire disaster.

The PA was the byproduct of the 1993 Oslo Accords and the wishful thinking that terrorists could be rehabilitated into becoming responsible statesmen. Then-President Bill Clinton, and then-Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, hoped that an end to the Arab-Israeli conflict along with billions of dollars of American and European Union tax money could convince, and bribe, Palestinian Liberation Organization Chairman Yasser Arafat and the heads of the other Palestinian fronts to test drive self-governance and create a peaceful future of coexistence for their people.

The U.S. leader hoped that Arafat would abandon his AK-47 for the democratic principles of Washington, Jefferson and Madison. Yitzhak Rabin dreamed that Oslo would provide the Palestinian people with the rewards of living side-by-side with the Jewish state. Both men were wrong, and their optimism resulted in 30 years of incessant conflict and unspeakable suffering.

In 1994, as part of the Oslo Accords, Israel ceded governance of the Gaza Strip and major cities in the West Bank to the newly established Palestinian Authority. Arafat, the head of the PLO’s Fatah faction, was the self-appointed PA president for life and apparently had no intention of swapping land for peace, even after he was repeatedly offered the framework for a two-state solution, including East Jerusalem as the capital of a Palestinian state. Arafat’s PA never ended its war against Israel, even though under the treaty they had become Israel’s partners for peace.

Since 1994, the State Department’s USAID has sent more than $5.5 billion to prop up the PA. The CIA and other federal agencies have spent untold billions more to prop up the PA’s numerous security agencies, but that training and the funds were merely used to facilitate and finance the mechanisms of terror rather than to combat it. It took legal action by the human rights NGO that I founded to help force the Congress to stop the PA from using American taxpayer money from paying stipends to the terrorists and their families as a reward for murdering Jewish civilians.

Yes, the U.S. taxpayer supplied rewards to Palestinians for killing Jews. And now Arafat has been replaced by another proponent of terrorism, Mahmoud Abbas.

Mahmoud Abbas — Arafat’s successor, and the current PA president known by his nom de guerre of Abu Mazen — is 88 years old and serving the 19th year of a four-year term. He is corrupt, ineffective and a promoter of virulent antisemitic conspiracies. A pro-Palestinian pundit appearing on Bill Maher’s HBO show “Real Time” recently commented that “Abu Mazen does three things every day, he sleeps, he smokes, and when he wakes up, he says something dumb about the Holocaust.” Abu Mazen has been a feckless leader of an authoritarian fiefdom where nepotism is rife, public funds are used to enrich government officials and their family enterprises, and the welfare of the Palestinian people is a distant afterthought.

The corruption of the PA is well known. Both PA and Hamas leaders are millionaires or even billionaires, and that money came from corruption, including levying taxes on goods coming into the Palestinian Territories. Abbas’s net worth is estimated at $100 million, and many of the Hamas leaders, who live in luxury in Qatar, have even more. Rife with corruption and scheming for a one-state solution, these organizations cannot be honest brokers for a two-state solution.

As Darshan-Leitner notes, the corruption of the PA is one reason why Hamas is more popular than the PA, even in the West Bank. If there’s to be one elected force to Rule Them All, it would be Hamas.

If you encounter one of those misguided people who tout the two-state solution as a cure-all, particularly one governed by the PA, just point them to this article. Part of its peroration:

How then, one must ask of the U.S. State Department and the UK’s Foreign Office, can anyone expect the PA to govern a war-torn Gaza Strip and rehabilitate the lives of more than 2 million people who have been reared on intimidation, radicalization, terror, conflict and self-inflicted suffering?

Western diplomats have argued that the PA must assume a central role in governing the post-war reality because anything would be better than Hamas. But that is like saying one form of terminal cancer is better than another — neither guarantees anything more than continued misery and mortality. Israeli border communities, evacuated at the start of the war, will not agree to return home if the PA is placed in charge again. A post-Hamas Gaza will require capable hands to erase the legacy of the terror state from where the Oct. 7 attacks were financed, planned and executed.

. . . For 30 years, the PA has failed its benefactors and partners in peace and, most tragically, betrayed the Palestinian people. Fantasizing that the PA will be Israel’s sheriff and can solve the gargantuan problems of post-Oct. 7 Gaza is a mistake of epic proportions that will only guarantee continued bloodshed and misery for all sides. Hope is not a strategy.

In the absence of honest brokers on both sides, I have no confidence in a two-state solution—not until the political situation changes drastically. Those who promote such a solution are simply ignorant—or so desperate to end the war in the face of world opinion against Israel that they’ll grasp at any solutinon. Blinken and Biden are among these straw-graspers.

h/t: Malgorzata

 

The combination of Canadian wokeness and the migration across the Pacific of New Zealand’s “indigenous ways of knowing” trope has led to this ad by The University of Victoria.  The U of V wants to hire three candidates in any branch of science with expertise “in either (a) working with Indigenous ways of knowing, or (b) in infusing Indigenous science approaches and perspectives into science.”

Click below to see the ad:

But before giving specifics, this being Canada, the ad has to have a VIDEO territory acknowledgment, to wit:

We acknowledge and respect the Songhees, Esquimalt and WSÁNEĆ peoples on whose traditional territory the university stands and whose historical relationships with the land continue to this day. We invite applicants to watch the “Welcome to the Territory” video and to visit the Songhees, Esquimalt, and W̱SÁNEĆ Nations’ websites to learn more about these vibrant communities. To learn more about the Indigenous community on campus, please see the Indigenous Academic and Community Engagement (IACE) office’s website.

Well, whose territory is it? And shouldn’t they be giving the U of V back to either the Songhees, Esquimalt and WSÁNEĆ peoples? (I guess they first need to determine who morally owns the land.)

Oy! This is part of a job ad! Well, granted, it may help attract those three scientists who are tasked with furthering indigenous ways of knowing or melding them with modern science:

But now the real meat: the job ad itself. Bolding is theirs:

Indigenization and Decolonization at UVic
The University of Victoria is committed to the ongoing work of decolonizing and Indigenizing the campus community both inside and outside the classroom. UVic released our second Indigenous Plan in 2023 and the Faculty of Science has drafted its Indigenization Implementation Strategy (2022-2026) as we prepare ourselves for the work ahead. Decolonization and Indigenization are integral aspects of the 2023 UVic Strategic Plan and the 2022 Faculty of Science Strategic Plan.

To advance our work on Indigenization and decolonization, the Faculty of Science is excited to invite Indigenous applicants for three faculty positions in any field of Science. The three available positions are at the tenure-track assistant professor level and are cross-posted across our six departments: Biochemistry & Microbiology, Biology, Chemistry, Earth & Ocean Sciences, Mathematics & Statistics, and Physics & Astronomy.

Among the qualifications is this:

“The candidate has interest, potential or experience in either (a) working with Indigenous ways of knowing, or (b) in infusing Indigenous science approaches and perspectives into science.”

Do I need to emphasize once again that there are no “indigenous ways of knowing” beyond the ways that modern science “knows” things. To be frank, indigenous “ways of knowing” are inferior to modern science, which has a whole armamentarium for determining what counts as “knowledge” (experimentation, controls, replication, hypothesis-testing, pervasive doubt, and so on). In contrast, indigenous ways of knowing invariably come down to simple observation of natural phenomena or assertions (say, about the efficacy of plants as medicines) that aren’t tested using blind studies. And without verification and replication and testing, you don’t have knowledge; you have claims.

In addition, Indigenous “ways of knowing” are almost invariably gotten down with a large dose of spirituality, religion, or tradition. Some Native Americans, for example, deny that their ancestors came to the area around 20,000 years ago, saying that their tradition tells them that they were “always here.” Under indigenous ways of knowing, experiments must conform to what is sacred: you can’t build a telescope, for example, on Hawaiian land that’s seen as sacred, or send ashes to the Moon because “Grandmother Moon lit the way for our ancestors.” (There are better reasons not to clutter up the Moon.)

It’s also for these reasons that part b) above—”infusing Indigenous science approaches and perspectives into science”—is largely futile. What does this even mean? What is an “Indigenous science approach/perspective”? Does this mean that fish are best found in area X at time Y, and that berries are likely to be found in locality Z in the fall? Or plant Q can cure you if you have malady R? If so, then yes, that’s empirical “knowledge” of a sort, but it has to be tested using real science, not “Indigenous science approaches”. The approaches may suggest hypothesis, but these “approaches” cannot become part of modern science until they’re verified using the tools of modern science. In other words, there is not Indigenous science, only science done by Indigenous peoples using the methods of modern science.

It is, then, more or less of a travesty for the U of V to hire three Indigenous people to “decolonize” science, which means, of course, to throw away the tools of modern science, developed by oppressive colonizers, and use whatever empirical/spiritual knowledge the new professors have. Or, as Wikipedia puts it,

According to Mpoe Johannah Keikelame and Leslie Swartz, “decolonising research methodology is an approach that is used to challenge the Eurocentric research methods that undermine the local knowledge and experiences of the marginalised population groups”.

Yes, science, now used worldwide by many non-European people, is still seen as not only “Eurocentric”, but as “undermining local knowledge and experiences” of Indigenous groups. But that like science undermining, as some Māori insist, their tradition that their Polynesian ancestors discovered Antarctica in the 7th century A.D?  If so, then “colonizing science”, which really means using modern science, is going to win, for it tells us that there is not a shred of evidence for such claims. As best we know, Antarctica was seen by Russian sailors in 1820.

These job ads, then, are threefold travesties. They undermine real science by replacing scientists who could be finding out real stuff with scientists committed to buttressing Indigenous “ways of knowing”. They suck up money by funding largely futile endeavors. And, worst of all, they confuse students (and the populace) about what science really is: a set of methodologies, developed over a few centuries, that gives us ever closer approaches to truth. It has no legends, Gods,  or spirutuality.

One could add, I suppose, that these adds are really efforts to advance science, but a big DEI initiative to advance Indigenous people themselves. That’s fine, but you shouldn’t don’t do that by sacralizing their ways of knowing. Instead, you ensure that they get the opportunities to study and practice modern science—the so-called “Eurocentric” science that is the only real “way of knowing”. To do otherwise is to erode the understanding of science.

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Finally, we see below the racial requirements (their bolding). Note that you don’t really have to be an indigenous person; you only have to identify as indigenous, and do so in writing. But that is weird. If the University has an equity plan and the government a Human Rights Code limiting applicants to Indigenous peoples, on what basis do they allow a non-Indigenous person who self-identifies as one? (I doubt such people would be accepted for the job anyway.). Of course this would be considered a violation of the law in America, but Canada isn’t the U.S.

In accordance with the University’s Equity Plan and pursuant to section 42 of the BC Human Rights Code, the selection will be limited to Indigenous peoples. Our search committee will review the pool of applications from those who self-identify with this designated group. Candidates from this group must self-identify in their cover letter to be considered for this position.

h/t: Luana