6 February 2020

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 6 February 12020 is the International Day of Zero Tolerance for Female Genital Mutilation. In New Zealand it is Waitangi Day. It is the birthday of Henry George Liddell, whose dictionary (he co-wrote it with Robert Scott) helped get me through years of Greek. He was also Alice Hargreaves’ father; it was for her and her sisters that the mathematician who wrote under the pen-name Lewis Carroll created the two immortal Alice books. It is also the birthday of Henry Irving, the actor and theater manager who did so much to revolutionize the English stage (and who got under Bernard Shaw’s skin by—in his opinion—doing it all wrong); and of Frederic W. H. Myers, who coined the word “telepathy” and did much to popularize the concept, although his extensive experiments failed to confirm its existence.

In the news I see that professional snowflake Dave Daubenmire is demanding that the NFL create a special safe place for him and his 12-year-old son to keep them out of danger of hellfire. His objection apparently is to a halftime show that included performances by Shakira and J-Lo, which he claimed were sexually exciting to him and his son. “I wanna sue them for about $867 trillion,” he explained, calling it anti-Christian discrimination. He feels that he ought to be free to watch television without seeing anything that might upset or excite him. I’m not sure how that’s supposed to work, but Snowflake Dave is out lawyer-hunting at this moment—or so he says.

And apparently the Fake President is handing out Fake Presidential Medals of Freedom to just anybody these days—at least he gave one out to a pompous windbag who polluted the airwaves with his presence for decades, apparently for the achievement of smoking himself to cancer. Good job, guy! If Rush Limbaugh can get a Medal of Freedom, then where’s mine? I’m waiting.