TCCIF: Thank Ceiling Cat it's Friday! It's September 11, 2020,a day of remembrance. It's also National Hot Cross Buns Day. I could use one or two, as it's 5:30 am and I am HUNGRY! (I almost never eat breakfast.)
It's also National Emergency Responders Day, Make Your Bed Day (I always do; I think it's the key to a good start to the day), Women's Baseball Day, Emergency Number Day (9/11 written in American format), and, appropriately, No News is Good News Day. And we'll all remember this date because it was on September 11, 2001 that the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon took place, so it's also National Day of Service and Remembrance and Patriot Day, honoring the nearly 3,000 people killed in the attack. It doesn't seem like 19 years ago. . .
Another appeal: Perhaps thanks to the readers here, Clarence the fluffy rescue cat has finished first in the small group of five cats vying for the overall prize in America's Favorite Pet. The winner gets $5,000, and all of it will go to Clarence's vet bills, as he's old and has just had an expensive hospitalization, as well as ongoing treatment for inflammatory bowel disease (His staff made my Darwin facemask.) If you go here, you can vote for Clarence for free via Facebook, and you can do so once per day for 6 more days. I would be pleased if readers who saw fit would vote for Clarence early and often (it's legal!) so he can pay off his vet care. And who wouldn't vote for a cat who looked like this and was wearing a Hawaiian shirt?
I don't ever ask for dosh for this site, but I do ask that you help this lovely kitty:
Clarence!
You can see a description and more photos at the link. Put him over the top!
News of the Day:
Thinking of dining out in a real restaurant now that things are loosening up? Think again. According to NBC News, a new CDC report concludes that dining out poses a substantially greater risk than other activities like shopping or getting your hair done:
The CDC report included 314 people who had COVID-19 symptoms and were subsequently tested for the virus; about half tested positive.
Researchers then asked all participants about their social activities during the two weeks prior to their COVID-19 test. The participants lived in states with varying levels of reopening guidelines: California, Colorado, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, North Carolina, Ohio, Tennessee, Utah and Washington.
Both groups generally reported similar activities, such as going to church, gyms and stores, with one exception: going out to eat or having drinks at a bar or coffee shop.
Those who tested positive for SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, "were approximately twice as likely to have reported dining at a restaurant than were those with negative SARS-CoV-2 test results," the study authors wrote. And those who were diagnosed without any known exposure to the virus were more likely to report having visited a bar or coffee shop in the previous two weeks.
The sample size is not large, and I'm not sure that they controlled for all other factors (those who dine out may engage in other risky activities), but I'm not going to a restaurant any time soon.
Meanwhile, restaurants in Hong Kong are coping with the pandemic, but with mixed results; dining out is not the experience I enjoyed when i visited. Read about it at the New York Times.
For those who have joined the chorus of outrage after Bob Woodward's report that Trump deliberately downplayed the threat of Covid-19, have a look at this op-ed by Bob Thiessen in the Washington Post: "If Trump lied, so did Fauci." The final paragraph:
The suggestion that Trump knew how dangerous the virus was, but intentionally misled Americans and failed to take action, is demonstrably wrong. What is “beyond despicable” is for Biden to suggest that he did. Your mileage may vary.
Finally, today's reported Covid-19 death toll in the U.S. is 191,628, an increase of about 1,000 deaths over yesterday's report. The world death toll now stands at 909,023, an increase of about 5,700 deaths from yesterday.
Stuff that happened on September 11 includes:
1297 – Battle of Stirling Bridge: Scots jointly led by William Wallace and Andrew Moray defeat the English.
1609 – Henry Hudson discovers Manhattan Island and the indigenous people living there.
1789 – Alexander Hamilton is appointed the first United States Secretary of the Treasury.
1792 – The Hope Diamond is stolen along with other French crown jewels when six men break into the house where they are stored.
The diamond was recut, and then disappeared for a long time until it turned up in the UK. Now it resides in the Smithsonian Institution in Washington. It's now 45.5 karats and insured for $250 million:
1857 – The Mountain Meadows massacre: Mormon settlers and Paiutes massacre 120 pioneers at Mountain Meadows, Utah.
1941 – Charles Lindbergh's Des Moines Speech accusing the British, Jews and FDR's administration of pressing for war with Germany.
Here's his speech. Given Lindbergh's anti-Semitism and seeming for Hitler's regime, as well as his approbation of eugenics, it's curious to me that he hasn't been canceled.
1973 – A coup in Chile headed by General Augusto Pinochet topples the democratically elected president Salvador Allende. Pinochet exercises dictatorial power until ousted in a referendum in 1988, staying in power until 1990.
1997 – After a nationwide referendum, Scotland votes to establish a devolved parliament within the United Kingdom.
2001 – The September 11 attacks, a series of coordinated terrorist attacks killing 2,977 people using four aircraft hijacked by 19 members of al-Qaeda. Two aircraft crash into the World Trade Center in New York City, a third crashes into The Pentagon in Arlington County, Virginia, and a fourth into a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania.
I'm sure that, like when JFK was shot, we all remember where we were that day. We were in the lab, and turned on the black and white lab t.v. to watch. That's when we saw the second plane hit the World Trade Center
2007 – Russia tests the largest conventional weapon ever, the Father of All Bombs.
2012 – The U.S. embassy in Benghazi, Libya is attacked, resulting in four deaths.
Notables born on this day include:
1816 – Carl Zeiss, German lens maker, created the Optical instrument (d. 1888)
1862 – O. Henry, American short story writer (d. 1910)
1885 – D. H. Lawrence, English novelist, poet, playwright, and critic (d. 1930)
1917 – Jessica Mitford, English-American journalist and author (d. 1996)
1945 – Leo Kottke, American singer-songwriter and guitarist
1962 – Kristy McNichol, American actress
1965 – Moby, American singer-songwriter, musician and DJ
Whatever happened to Moby? Here's a young Leo Kottke doing the Byrds' song "Eight Miles High", a haunting rendition:
Those who went belly-up on September 11 include:
1950 – Jan Smuts, South African field marshal and politician, 2nd Prime Minister of South Africa (b. 1870)
1971 – Nikita Khrushchev, Russian general and politician (b. 1894)
1973 – Salvador Allende, Chilean physician and politician, 29th President of Chile (b. 1908)
Allende committed suicide as the forces of the coup closed around the Presidential palace.
1987 – Lorne Greene, Canadian actor (b. 1915)
1987 – Peter Tosh, Jamaican singer-songwriter and guitarist (b. 1944)
2001 - [Add 2,977 names here for those killed in the terrorists attacks on this day.]
2002 – Johnny Unitas, American football player and sportscaster (b. 1933)
Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili's worried about the end of summer, for soon she'll have to stay inside. The "decadence" she refers to is the decadence that accompanies the end of a civilization.
In Polish:
Hili: Czy to już jesień?
Ja: Nie, schyłkowy okres lata.
Here's kitten Kulka on Andrzej and Malgorzata's bedposts:
From Laurie Ann; romance with impediment:
From Bad Cat Clothing:
From Bruce
