Katalin Kariko

The New York Times reports on Katalin “Kati” Kariko, whose work with colleagues on messenger RNA became the foundation for the Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines. I like this paragraph:

By all accounts intense and single-minded, Dr. Kariko lives for “the bench” — the spot in the lab where she works. She cares little for fame. “The bench is there, the science is good,” she shrugged in a recent interview. “Who cares?”

As the Times article makes clear, Dr. Kariko’s position in academia has long been precarious. I’m guessing that might change, and that she’ll soon be sharing a Nobel Prize. Signs point to yes, don’t you think?

Right?

As Eric Nelson, Derek Chauvin’s attorney, continues to muddy the waters and drag George Floyd through them, I have to point out Nelson’s annoying habit of ending questions with “right?"

But that’s not an adequate description: what Nelson typically does is make a statement which then takes on the appearance of a question with the addition of “right?” He adds a “right?” even to utterly unexceptionable points about mundane matters of fact. His purpose is to create the illusion that a witness is agreeing with the defense. But it’s a pretty transparent tactic, and the illusion is one an observer can see right through.

Worse: when a witness offers a contrary response, Nelson will again say “right” — no question mark — and move on, as if the witness and the defense are still in agreement.

“Two plus two make five, right?”

“No, four.”

“Right.”

“All the time”

As Elaine was quick to point out, this sentence fits COVID-19 times well:

Marcel Proust, The Fugitive, translated by Peter Collier (London: Penguin, 2003).

Related reading
All OCA Proust posts (Pinboard)

[Translator’s note for the 1870 war: “Franco-Prussian war. Napoleon III surrendered to the Prussians at Sedan in 1870. This was traumatic for civilians because of the resulting uprising of the Paris Commune in 1871.”]

Minutes past and future

I have noticed that my university’s website now posts not the minutes but the "past minutes" of committee meetings. This phrasing can mean but one thing: that the university plans to post “future minutes,” minutes of meetings that have not yet taken place.

Some will say it’s presumptuous to post such minutes. Or some may have already said that, in the past. Or they may be saying it right now. But posting future minutes would increase the service profiles of committee members while freeing up time for teaching and research. Future minutes: presumptuous? Perhaps. Helpful? Certainly.

Zippy thesaurus

In today’s Zippy: Peter Mark Roget.

Related reading
All OCA Zippy posts (Pinboard) : Beware of the saurus : Defending the thesaurus : Rogeting

[Is Zippy the only daily comic strip that titles every installment? Today’s title: “My Synonym Will Call Your Antonym.”]

Advice from Gabby Giffords

From a PBS NewsHour interview with former Arizona Congresswoman Gaby Giffords, shot in the head in 2011, still continuing her recovery with the help of music:

Jeffrey Brown: “What do you tell yourself when things are difficult?”

Gabby Giffords: “Move ahead.”

Recently updated

Drugs, doing, eating I worked up the patience to do some searches for “I ain’t do no drugs” and “I ate too many drugs.”

Another bedroom

I was in my grandparents’ apartment in Union City. I hadn’t been there in more than forty years. The strange bulge in the kitchen wall, underneath the window — a hinged metal door of some sort, long painted over — was still where it had always been, but the sink was in a different corner. The room layout was the same as always: kitchen, bathroom, “TV room,” living room, bedroom. But now there was another bedroom, dark. I looked in, and there was my grandmother, asleep on a bed. And I realized I had better leave before I woke her up.

So go my dreams in the COVID time, veering from the mundane — see previous dream — to the very strange.

What was that door anyway? A natural refrigerator in cold weather? A milk door? But it was in a fifth-floor apartment. Was there a fire escape outside the kitchen window? I think so. Did milkmen climb fire escapes?

Related reading
All OCA dream posts (Pinboard)

[Thanks to Elaine for the suggestion of a milk door. It looked something like the Majestic door on the milk-door page I’ve linked to.]

Lobbying

I was walking through the vast lobby of a nearby arts center. No one else was there, but tables and chairs had been set up for an event.

Yes, that was in a dream.

Related reading
All OCA dream posts (Pinboard)

Drugs, doing, eating

Re: the day’s developments in the Derek Chauvin murder trial: “I ain’t do no drugs” is something people say. “I ate too many drugs” is not. See your nearest search engine for confirmation.

“I ain’t do” is a construction in Black Vernacular English. (I’m no linguist, but I know enough about language to say that much.) A Google search for "I ain't do no" -chauvin -floyd -trial returns 197,000 results. A search for "I ain't do" -chauvin -floyd -trial returns 4,290,000 results.

A search for "I ate too many drugs" -chauvin -floyd -trial returns 2,320 results, and they appear to reference the trial. A search for "I ate too many drugs" -chauvin -floyd -trial that ends with April 6 returns just twenty-four results, all false hits or references to the trial.

"I ain't do no drugs" -chauvin -floyd -trial returns relatively few unique results — twenty (down from 2,210 with many repeats). But many of those twenty results are transcriptions of hip-hop lyrics. So again: “I ain't do no drugs” is something people say. “I ate too many drugs” is not.

But whatever George Floyd said, it doesn’t change what was done to him.

[I used Google and not DuckDuckGo for these searches because Google searches more of the Internet.]