Daily Rome Shot 1226 – “Baaaaaah!”

10 Comments

1. Fr. John Zuhlsdorf says:

   21 January 2025 at 9:21 AM

   Black to move and mate in 4.

   [NB: I’ll hold comments with solutions ’till the next day so there won’t be “spoilers” for others.]

   

   Tata Steel Chess continues in Wijk aan Zee. HERE
2. waalaw says:

   21 January 2025 at 1:03 PM

   1. . . . . . . N×f3+
   If
   2. B×f3 . . B-d4+
   3. K-f1 . . R-h1#
   If
   2. g2×f3. . B-d4+
   To avoid R-h1# if K-f1, White must:
   3. K-g2 . . R-h5+
   4. K-f1 . . R-h1#
3. FRLBJ says:

   21 January 2025 at 1:17 PM

   I will not use the new name for the Gulf of Mexico. The name has historical roots and we need more tradition, not less. It is also so arrogant. The US government has a history of even more deadly arrogance. We need more humility, not such ridiculous and childish antics. I will teach my grandchildren the proper name, too. The Gulf of Mexico it will always be. Just like renaming bases, I will not abide by that either, in order to erase our history.
4. A.S. Haley says:

   21 January 2025 at 1:23 PM

   Black’s Knight prevents Black’s Bishop from applying check. So move it:
   1. . . . Ng4
   2. g2g3 (If White makes some other move without capturing the Knight, e.g., Bc3 or Kf1, Rh1 is mate. And if White captures the Knight with his Pawn, Bd4+ leads to Rh1 mate on the next move.)
   2. [g2g3] Rh1+
   3. Kg2 Rh8h2 mate

   All of these are mates in two or three moves, depending on White. I suppose White could drag it out an extra move by sacrificing his Queen (2. Qxf5+), but the inevitable mate still follows.
5. Geoffrey says:

   22 January 2025 at 1:21 PM

   @FRLBJ:

   I agree completely. According to Wikipedia, “French Jesuits called the gulf the Gulf of Mexico (Golphe du Mexique) as early as 1672”.

   I would perhaps understand if “Gulf of the Americas” was proposed, but I’m still not a fan of renaming things. It seems that only some Americans will call it the “Gulf of America” while the rest of the world will call it by its proper name.

   Reminds me of the never-ending “battle” of the imperial and metric systems!
6. Venerator Sti Lot says:

   22 January 2025 at 5:53 PM

   Attractive topic to pursue! When was it called what? I find the New York Public Library has a considerable collection of scans of “Historical Maps: North America” in its collection online…

   The earliest, Sebastian Münster’s map for Heinrich Petri’s Die Neüwen Inseln so hinder Hispanica gegen Orient bey dem Landt Indie ligen (“Date issued: 1550 (Questionable)”) has only island names, with “Panaco Ins. Tortcaru” (with a line over the “u” indicating an abbreviation) along what we would call the southern coast of North America. (Wikipedia tells us the “type locality” of “Crotalus totonacus” is “Panaco Island”.)

   The second, Hendrik Hondius’s America septentrionalis (“Anno 1631” – q.v.), has “Golfo de Mexico” – and, interestingly, along the east coast of something only labelled “Virginia” and “Florida” from “Chesapeach Bay” to “Sandhoack”, “Mare Virgivium” – though presumably with reference to “Virginia” rather than the Blessed Virgin…

   There are at least 14 more 17th-century ones to try – and I now see a link to a separate page “Historical Maps: Caribbean & Central America”…

   The comparative claims to highest level of “deadly arrogance” between nation states and empires – such as say, the US, Mexico, and Spain – and even the avidly map-publishing United Provinces of the Netherlands – is another interesting topic to pursue…
7. Suburbanbanshee says:

   22 January 2025 at 9:47 PM

   I’m not sure that it’s just trolling (although it might also be a negotiation point being created).

   Mexico, and some Latin and South American countries, tend to chide the US a lot for calling itself the US of America, calling ourselves American, and so on. So this strikes me as a kind of rhetorical pushback, and it’s tied into the negotiations with Mexico and other countries that have annoyed Trump.

   It also seems to be rhetorical pushback against the huge number of renamings by USGS, so that’s pretty funny.
8. EAW says:

   23 January 2025 at 8:03 AM

   @FRLBJ:

   From my side of the pond, this is just one of those antics the media over here (massively biased in favour of the Democrats) love to make President Trump look like a buffoon. I can understand the decision to call Denali (I wasn’t even aware of that name until quite recently) Mt McKinley again, but unilaterally changing a geographic name that predates the United States by more than a century into something that has no roots in history whatsoever is hard to comprehend for most people over here, to put it mildly. What I do like is the traditional wording of the Governor’s Executive Order, everything neatly put into one sentence.
9. ad.nutum.meum says:

   23 January 2025 at 8:19 AM

   I can’t seem to comment on your latest article (https://wdtprs.com/2025/01/daily-rome-shot-1227-my-view-for-awhile-north/), and so I thought I’d leave a comment here that it is so refreshing to hear Cardinal’s Sarah’s words regarding a proposed suppression of the Traditional Latin Mass. It can never be legitimate and will always be the work of the devil, who sees how many souls have climbed the latter of sanctity through the Mass of two millennia.

   I pray that the dam finally bursts and that the Lord will somehow intervene to save his Church from the clutches of Modernism. May he also instil heroic and saintly fortitude into his priests and pastors.

   May the Lord Jesus have mercy on us!
10. Venerator Sti Lot says:

    24 January 2025 at 12:37 AM

    Tangentially, Mr. Trump will this year be able to celebrate 40 years living in a Spanish-Revival-style home named Mar-a-Lago (with, so far as I have heard, no interest in changing its name).