sisu

"The media treat it like a case of non-denominational shoplifting"

As temperatures hovered in the low thirties early morning, Tiny kept warm atop the kitchen counter register while Cat Whisperer Tuck murmured sweet nothings.

"Twitter makes it almost impossible to surprise people with breaking news because they all already know about it," twitters Patrick Ruffini. That's how events unfolded in the Fort Hood shooting yesterday as early error-laced reports and theories gave way, in waves, to the facts ma'am, just the facts. It was duly noted by Mark Steyn that the usual suspects on the left quickly lockstepped into politically-correct, see-no-evil mode:

Andy, you're right that there's something deeply weird about the media's instinctive avoidance of the M-word or the T-word and the careless abandon with which they speculate about "post-traumatic stress disorder."

Better to blame "man-caused disasters" on a US-foreign-policy-induced psychological affliction beyond the victim's perpetrator's control than call a spade a spade. In the light of day today, Michelle Malkin and Ralph Peters win top honors for best/most concise analyses of what's really going on behind the curtain. Malkin:

Political correctness is the handmaiden of terror.

Peters:

On Thursday afternoon, a radicalized Muslim US Army officer shouting "Allahu Akbar!" committed the worst act of terror on American soil since 9/11. And no one wants to call it an act of terror or associate it with Islam.

What cowards we are. Political correctness killed those patriotic Americans at Ft. Hood as surely as the Islamist gunman did. And the media treat it like a case of non-denominational shoplifting.

The Gramscian march through the institutions has well prepared susceptible self-loathing citizens of the once Shining City Upon a Hill to bow down in dhimmitude to creeping militant Islamicism.

Update: Danny Boy links.

Update II: Stoutcat links with "An Unsustainable Narrative."

The GOP establishment is the problem

Even as DIABLO (Democrat In All But Label Only) Dede Scozzafava (above) showed her true colors — after dropping out of the NY District 23 congressional race Saturday — when she "began to quietly and thoughtfully encourage her supporters to vote for Democrat William L. Owens," NYT opinionator Frank Rich showed his true cluelessness when he referred to tea partiers like ourselves as zombie-like members of a "wacky, paranoid cult that is as eager to eat its own as it is to destroy Obama." Dede is not one of our own, Mr. Rich. (AP photo)

With hats off to the Gipper, a new slogan for the ages:

In the present crisis, the GOP establishment is not the solution to our problem; the GOP establishment is the problem.

Just ask any tea partier.

Update: "Kill, or cure? What say you?" teases Dan Riehl with a link. "What doesn't kill us will make us stronger," we reply in the comments. 'Loved this comment from M. Simon of Power and Control:

[Sarah Palin] is one very smart lady. She can read a map.

The foxy lady has outfoxed the old dogs who were supposed to be guarding the GOP henhouse.

Assimilating with panache

"I am a lion," oldest sister of the family next door explained as she and her siblings approached our front porch late afternoon on this Halloween Night, transmogrifying a Muslim headscarf into the golden mane of the King of the Jungle. Middle sister was also a cat, more of the domestic variety. They have a couple of pet cats at home across the yard and often wave and chat with us when we're out wrangling Tiny.

The sisters had learned how to apply the striking cat make-up at a neighborhood festival across the Creek in East Boston last summer. Baby sister (right) may or may not have been a tiger (note striped sleeves). Lots of cat-themed fabrics. Very imaginative costuming. They brought a little package of cat toys as a hostess gift for Tiny.

"We wanted to scare you," they teased. We may not have been frightened, but as far as Tiny was concerned, it was a terrorist attack. Especially on the part of baby sister, who pursued her across the yard, into the house and up the stairs for elusive petting opportunities. We hadn't had trick-or-treaters for years since the neighborhood kids had grown up, moved away and had kids of their own. Delightful to see the latest wave of immigrants assimilating with such panache — playing with elements of their native culture — to this all-American autumn ritual.

Update: More faunal delights at Modulator's Friday Ark, now boarding.

When you notice a cat in profound meditation*

"Call me Chinese. I mean they practically own us anyway," quips Glenn Beck. Tiny is not amused.

Update: All animals all the time at Modulator's Friday Ark #267, now boarding.

*Blog title is excerpt from T.S. Eliot's "The Naming of Cats."

Give to strategic small-government candidates, not parties

There's something happening here. The anti-establishment protest song has been turned on its head as Tea Partiers find their voice: "People speaking their minds/Getting so much resistance from behind/What a field-day for the heat/A thousand people in the street/Singing songs and carrying signs …" (Cover image of October 2008 "quickie paperback satire" Terminatrix,  co-authored by top Harper-Collins Editor Adam Bellow (Saul's boy), who most recently worked on Sarah Palin's forthcoming blockbuster autobiography Going Rogue)

"It's quite a revelation. I'd been slowing down party contributions of late. Now I see THE WAY!" we twittered blogfriend Barry Campbell of enrevanche ecstatically this morning in response to his response to an earlier tweet of ours:

We: Give to strategic small-government candidates, not parties!

Barry: Yes. And I agree so fervently that I don't mind the "shouting."

It was a eureka moment as we saw the social-networking sausage taking shape before our eyes. Delicious! It started with Sarah Palin's endorsement last week of Doug Hoffman, the independent conservative candidate challenging ACORN-supporting Republican-Party-sanctioned RINO Dede Scozzafava in the upstate NY District 23 congressional special election. Dismissed by Newt Gingrich and the Republican Party establishment, Hoffman has become a beacon of hope for the Army of Davids Tea Partiers, who are getting glimpses of a way out of the desert as he surges ahead in the latest poll. And, of course, Palin's every strategic move is of intense interest — to both diehard fans like us and those who can't stand her — in the blogosphere, the twittersphere, Facebook and on cable TV. The networks and airwaves were abuzz. Based upon Palin's support we sent a little money Hoffman's way, just as we had send a check to Joe "You lie!" Wilson earlier based upon his speaking truth to power during President Obama's recent address to a joint session of Congress. Today it was dollars for someone else we'd never heard of, conservative VA AG candidate Ken Cuccinelli, based upon a Twitter tip from Erick Erickson of Red State, who looks to a higher authority for his response to "the new counter spin" that would have us once again hold our noses as so many small-government citizens did with John McCain:

To quote Christ, “What good will it be for a man if he gains the whole world, yet forfeits his soul? Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul?” (Matt. 16:26 NIV)

Well. Gotta be off to add a little something to the coffers of "Upstart candidate Marco Rubio," who's "cut in half [Obama-hugger] Governor Charlie Crist's lead in the race to win the Republican nomination for a Florida U.S. Senate seat in 2010" thanks to "popular outrage at his support for the $787 billion federal stimulus package." We encourage our readers to lend support to strategically-targeted, small-government candidates wherever they may find them. And while we're in the mood, we especially urge you to support our dear blogfriend, satirical genius and candidate for Leigh County [PA] Executive, Scott "Live the Freedom" Ott of Scrappleface and the Washington Examiner. Click here to give early and often.

Update: Dan Riehl links:

Just as one should always follow the money, the politicians will follow the money, too. Use it to force the GOP to adopt the policies we want, not simply for spite against the GOP.

As we wrote in the comments, "Absolutely. Not an ounce of spite. Just a way out of the desert."

So easy to love

Earl Grey, majestic lord of all he surveys.

Putty in Tiny's paws.

Seductive.

Voluptuous.

Wary of entering the inner sanctum.

"Now that President Obama has made it safe to hate Fox"

Tiny's main squeeze Earl Grey stopped by early morning for a nip. After we suggested the feral fellow not enter the house, he scurried into Tiny's hosta blind to reconnoiter before heading off for parts unknown.

"Obama has authorized 40,000 more troops to fight Fox News" deadpans Jay Leno in his latest monologue — available for your viewing pleasure at Weasel Zippers (via Infidels Are Cool) — playing off the Leader of the Free World's recent full frontal assault on Fox News as Faux News," side by side with the President's deeply demoralizing dithering over when/whether to send in the Afghanistan reinforcements requested by his generals. Then comes Claudia Rosett with the deliciously headlined "First they came for Fox News …" [Wish we'd thought of that. Actually, we did, but like President Obama, we dithered so she beat us to the punch]:

Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel was hammering home the same message, that Fox is "not a news organization so much as it has a perspective,” and urging “More importantly is not have [sic] the CNNs and the others in the world basically be led in following Fox, as if what they’re trying to do is a legitimate news organization …

 

Caption from our March 3, 2009 "Obama's sledging strategy of intimidation": “I do think he's an intellectual force, which is why the Republicans pay such attention to him," Rahm Emanuel told CBS News's Bob Schieffer on Sunday in a rare moment of truthfulness before spinning off to repeat the big lie that Rush wants Obama the President of the United States — as opposed to Obama's socialist agenda, the real object of Limbaugh's critique — to fail.

We've had Rahm "Toes" Emanuel's number from early on when he showed his cards:

"You never want a serious crisis to go to waste," Obama Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel famously said, explaining "What I mean by that, it's an opportunity to do things that you think you could not do."

As we wrote back in April in our post "Roll over, George Washington, and tell Ben Franklin the news":

You remember Emanuel's quotable quote about fooling all of the people some of the time. As we wrote in our recent appreciation of Roger L. Simon, "Part of my leftism was a sales pitch," re Rahm Emanuel's conscience-free self-revelation:

Translation: Take the money and run when people are preoccupied, and you can get away with spending it in ways they would never agree to were they paying attention.

A brief encounter over catnip sets Tiny's heart aflame.

Enter center stage ABC's White House Correspondent Jake Tapper, who had the cojones to challenge Press Secretary Robert Gibbs to explain the Fox attacks:

Tapper: It’s escaped none of our notice that the White House has decided in the last few weeks to declare one of our sister organizations “not a news organization” and to tell the rest of us not to treat them like a news organization. Can you explain why it’s appropriate for the White House to decide that a news organization is not one.

Gibbs: You and I should watch sometime around 9 o’clock [Hannity] tonight. Or 5 o’clock [Glenn Beck] this afternoon.

Tapper: I’m not talking about their opinion programming or issues you have with certain reports. I’m talking about saying thousands of individuals who work for a media organization, do not work for a “news organization” — why is that appropriate for the White House to say.

Gibbs: That’s our opinion.

We loved Fox & Friends anchors' comments this morning:

Steve Doocy: Jake Tapper is a great reporter, who asked Robert Gibbs a lot of fair and balanced questions.

Gretchen Carlson: If I were Jake Tapper's boss, I'd give him a raise.

But even as Jake Tapper speaks truth to power:

One of MSNBC's Keith Olberman's guests last night snickered "Now that President Obama has made it safe to hate Fox ..."

Perpetual adolescence, the legacy of the the Gramscian infiltration.

Update: Way cool: Karl Rove tells Hannity "I have to compliment Jake Tapper of ABC News."

Update: We have to compliment Modulator for Friday Ark #266, now boarding.

Limbaugh's critics: Fools Rush in

"Freedom from Fear" (left) and "Freedom from Want" are two of Norman Rockwell's "The Four Freedoms" series inspired by FDR's rousing wartime State of the Union address in 1941. Reproduced in four consecutive issues of The Saturday Evening Post in 1943, the original paintings by America's favorite illustrator toured the United States, raising over $130 million for the war effort. (Norman Rockwell Museum photos)

"Honor is as valuable to the millionaire as to the pauper," writes HotAir's Dr. Zero this morning in "Defending the Invincible," a rare and honorable discourse upon honor itself — in this case Rush Limbaugh's honor, dishonorably challenged last week by ankle-biting sufferers of Rush Derangement Syndrome trying to slander "the most dangerous man in America" as racist:

It requires only a drop of the moral imagination utterly lacking in the people who slandered Limbaugh to guess what it feels like, when a man whose life revolves around words and ideas sees his dreams boiled away by words he didn’t speak, and ideas he has never held.

The events of the past week were about more than simply thwarting Limbaugh’s desire to buy into a football team. There was the naked greed of parasites like Al Sharpton, desperate to maintain his relevance in a world that has wisely stripped him of the power to destroy a man’s life with a phony rape allegation, or launch murderous riots. There was the blind personal hatred of Limbaugh, by people who long ago tired of watching him rewrite their plans for the part of America that refuses to submit to them. And, of course, this was the latest offensive in a bitter war against the ideas that Limbaugh has long served, as their most cheerful and effective defender. Limbaugh’s enemies in that war are angry because they’re frightened. They’re frightened because all of their estimates and projections said they should have been able to claim victory by now.

Be sure to read the whole thing, a tour de force laying bare "what's wrong with the liberal project." We approached the subject from a slightly different angle back in the heyday of Bush Derangement Syndrome in our post "It does not take into account the psychology of people," republished below:

November 5, 2004. "The riot in French suburbs reveals the flaw in Fabian socialism. It does not take into account the psychology of people," writes Minh-Duc of State Of Flux in the most eloquent analysis of "why they hate us" we've seen anywhere:

It assumes that by providing the basic subsistence to people, that would be enough to keep them content. People are never content with bare subsistence -- especially if it comes in the form of hand out and charity. It degrades them and robs them of their self-esteem. It is a shameful existence. Men need pride from their own labor. Self-reliance brings personal honor and pride -- a sense of ownership over one's own life. This is why the free-market economy is not only an efficient and effective system -- it is also a humane and honorable one.

Just right. We wrote something similar in response to Jeff Jarvis's well-meaning but clueless reaction to the London bombings last summer. "Well what the hell do they have to be angry about?" Jeff had written. "They're fed. They're free. They're educated. They have health care. They can say and go where they want." As we wrote then:

It's true these folk are psychopaths who must be rooted out and brought to justice, but it's naive to believe they should be content to have physical comforts handed to them on a welfare platter. No man -- no creature worth its salt -- can bear the shame. Come to think of it, that's exactly what's wrong with the liberal project.

"Freedom of Speech" left and "Freedom to Worship" complete the series.  We remember having reproductions of the illustrations hanging on the walls of our grade-school classrooms in the fifties and thinking even then they seemed quaintly old-fashioned. In today's world, again at war with those who would stomp on our freedoms, we see them with fresh eyes.  Because Rockwell's subject matter was usually on the corny side, serious art critics tended to look down upon the artist's accomplishment, but beyond the anecdotal component -- much loved by the average American -- his compositional and painterly skills were quite remarkable.

Without an appreciation of human nature -- Minh-Duc's "psychology of people" -- FDR's "The Four Freedoms" are stillborn.  The words of George Weigel come to mind in his powerful essay "Is Europe Dying? Notes on a Crisis of Civilizational Morale" [via Jack Yoest via Laura Lee Donoho of The Wide Awake Cafe]:

Europe began the twentieth century with bright expectations of new and unprecedented scientific, cultural, and political achievements. Yet within fifty years, Europe, the undisputed center of world civilization in 1900, produced two world wars, three totalitarian systems, a Cold War that threatened global holocaust, oceans of blood, mountains of corpses, the Gulag, and Auschwitz. What happened?

Take, for example, the proposal made by a French Jesuit, Henri de Lubac, during World War II. De Lubac argued that Europe's torments in the 1940s were the "real world" results of defective ideas, which he summarized under the rubric "atheistic humanism" -- the deliberate rejection of the God of the Bible in the name of authentic human liberation.

The proponents of nineteenth-century European atheistic humanism turned this inside out and upside down. Human freedom, they argued, could not coexist with the God of Jews and Christians. Human greatness required rejecting the biblical God, according to such avatars of atheistic humanism as Auguste Comte, Ludwig Feuerbach, Karl Marx, and Friedrich Nietzsche. And here, Father de Lubac argued, were ideas with consequences -- lethal consequences, as it turned out. For when you marry modern technology to the ideas of atheistic humanism, what you get are the great mid-twentieth century tyrannies -- communism, fascism, Nazism.

To deny that Christianity had anything to do with the evolution of free, law-governed, and prosperous European societies [as the European constitutional treaty does] is, to repeat, more than a question of falsifying the past; it is also a matter of creating a future in which moral truth has no role in governance, in the determination of public policy, in understandings of justice, and in the definition of that freedom which democracy is intended to embody.

In our own, non-theological formulation, blogged here in an appreciation of [are you sitting down?] Andrew Sullivan's Easter post last year before he went down the rabbit hole:

We believe deeply that the denial of life's dark side in ourselves is the key to what's wrong with the utopianist left world view.

Sadly, despite centuries of historical evidence to the contrary, the collectivist dream persists, as we were again most unpleasantly reminded when sufferers of Bush Derangement Syndrome (BDS) from south of the border marched in hysterical protest at the Third Summit of the Peoples of America earlier this week.

Update: Maggie's links: "SISU on human nature."

That you do so well

Being the object of a voodoo-doll puncturing. It's remarkably effective. Could we sue for physical deterioration caused by mental anguish?

Within striking distance of the jaws

Squirrels on the lawn, skunks in the border garden, raccoon kits clinging to the Silver Maple in the predawn, sparrows flocking in the lilac bush out front on a breezy afternoon.

These crisp autumn days in Chelsea-by-the-Sea were made to please a puddy as local fauna show their cute little faces within striking distance of the jaws.

We missed Cartier-Bresson's "Decisive Moment" as a pair of adorable raccoon youngsters, clinging to the lower trunk of the Silver Maple right outside the back door, peered at us, all eyes early morning. By the time we grabbed our camera, they were scurrying upwards to parts unknown.

Update: More tooth and claw at Modulator's Friday Ark #265, now boarding.

Roll over, Alfred Nobel, and tell Jimmy Carter the news

"Barack Obama is the third sitting US President to be given the prize after Teddy Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson," The Times captions above image. It figures (see Jonah Goldberg's Liberal Fascism). Kevin Lamarque/Reuters photo.

Vanderleun trumps Drudge on Twitter:

Drudgereport still has Nancy Pelosi up. Guess he's got to sleep sometime... that or he's crafting the headline "WTF!!?"

But what could be more appropriate? As we twittered, while Drudge slept:

PEACE IN OUR TIME. NOBEL COMMITTEE CHANNELS CHAMBERLAIN Obama awarded Nobel Peace Prize.

ROLL OVER, ALFRED NOBEL, and tell Jimmy Carter the news.

Update: Greg Pollowitz twitters:

Breaking News:  President Obama has been awarded the Nobel in Physics for his 10th grade science fair project.

Appeasement in our time.

According to sources, the President is "humbled." First time?

Update II: Drudge scores: "OBAMA WINS NOBEL PEACE PRIZE" headline and triumphal image paired with "Iran to 'blow up the heart of Israel' if attacked..." So much cognitive dissonance, so little time.

Update III: "No freakin way" rants blog buddy Dan Riehl, whose disarming outspokenness has attracted a BBC World Service radio producer (tune in at 11:30 ET to hear what he has to say). The blogosphere, twittersphere and immediate world are abuzz. We're off to immerse ourselves in the irresistible awfulness of it all!

What's up, doc?

"I feel better already, and Tiny is blissfully unaware of my concerns," we wrote in a message of thanks accompanying a donation to Angell Memorial, Boston's historic animal hospital and research center this afternoon. The contrast between the patient-centered service from the Cardiac unit there and the rationing and waiting lines Obamacare promises is making us sick. First our message to Angell:

My cat Sweet Tiny Pea has been under the care of several wonderful Angell doctors through the years for her feline upper-respiratory issues, even having stayed overnight in intensive care at one point several years ago. In the last year or so she has been under the care of Dr. Justin Williams. I want to express my appreciation for the way the Cardiology Department [That's another story] is set up, with the warm and reassuring Robin always a phone call away when there are questions. I had questions today, left a message with Robin this morning and was promptly called back by Dr. Williams this afternoon.

No need to make an appointment and cart the puddy into Boston, a stressful affair for both Tiny and ourselves. And no charge. Hence our irresistible urge to send a generous gift to help Angell continue its good work.

Which brings us to Obamacare. According to people on the front line, you don't want to go there. "I have THRILLING news. My doctor made a snide remark about Obama and his health care plan," writes our imail correspondent following her annual checkup this afternoon:

She: YES!!!!! Her remark was definitely related to the bureaucracy, inefficiency, expense and lack of doctor/patient options in health care decisions.

We: That was such a side show on the White House lawn yesterday. How horrid it would be if one of those men in white coats were your doctor.

She: Yes, re dog-and-pony show of doctors [We loved Michelle Malkin's doc-and-pony show]. I understand they were told to bring their white coats, and if they forgot, the White House supplied them. PAINFUL!

We: Plus, many were members of Doctors for Obama during the campaign. Shameless shills in it for the money? The prestige of going to the White House?

She: Selling one's soul to the devil for a few brief moments of "glory" is a tale as old as time.

We: Physician, heal thyself … First do no harm.

What's up, doc?

Update: The cure for what ails you: Modulator's Friday Ark #264, now boarding.

Kit Chat

Gentleman caller Earl Grey stops by for an early-morning clowder and catnip klatch with his coy mistress Sweet Tiny Pea.

Update: "I LOVE the new post," imails our sis:

She: Clowdering seems to be the way to keep romance alive.

We: Will you and your man be clowdering?

She: It's my new strategery, based on Tiny's tutorial.

We: Is it your first time?

She: Yes. I'll let you know how it goes. Now, tell me this. In the third frame, does Earl have a small curl to his lip: "What did you say???" and Tiny says it all with her silence. By the fourth frame, Earl seems to be saying "Okay, but I might not like it."

We: You may be reading in, but it works for me.

She: Ya THINK (re projection)? But seriously, look at his eyes in the fourth frame.

It works for us.

Blue skies smiling at me

He loves, and she loves … Tiny and Earl clowder the light fantastic this afternoon as foggy overcast gives way to "blue skies smiling at me."

Even as Tuck sands and paints and climbs ladders to the sky to spit and polish our humble home by the sea.

"Men who will deal likewise with their fellow men"

"St. Francis preaching to the birds" attributed to Giotto (1295-1300. Fresco. St. Francis, Upper Church, Assisi, Italy)

"If you have men who will exclude any of God's creatures from the shelter of compassion and pity, you will have men who will deal likewise with their fellow men," St. Francis of Assisi said of the dark side of human nature. In celebration of today's Feast of St. Francis we offer a replay of our April 22, 2005 post "The cats are invading the Holy See":

"Every time he met a cat, he would talk to it, sometimes for a long time," said Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone of Benedict XVI, reports the Daily Telegraph (special thanks to frequent commenter and catpoet Dr. Hull for the heads up):

Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone said the Pope's image as a German "panzerkardinal" was unfair. "He is human and he will convince you," he said. "He is both a man of science and of faith. He possesses a great sense of humanity, he loves nature and music."

The same churchman said that Cardinal Ratzinger was a cat lover. "Every time he met a cat, he would talk to it, sometimes for a long time. The cat would follow him. Once about 10 cats followed him into the Vatican, and one of the Swiss Guards intervened, saying 'Look, your eminence, the cats are invading the Holy See.'"

"He loves to debate with you, not only about theology," the bishop [of Munich] said. "He plays Mozart on the piano before he goes to bed at night."

A Google search of "joseph ratzinger loves cats" brings up our blog in the number two spot. That was before we even knew that Pope Benedict XVI is an ailurophile. Google combined two unrelated bits: "Joseph Ratzinger" in the body copy of one of our posts plus "I particularly love the cat blogs," a testimonial in our Kudos list. Is it one of those "miracles and wonders" Peggy Noonan spoke of yesterday?

Loving it, we Googled for more (see surprise results of a search for "joseph ratzinger loves cats" in caption above). From the caretaker of the pope's house in Regensburg, Germany in the NYT:

The house — built in the 1970's style on a quiet street with a walled garden -— has the feel of an oasis. A bronze sculpture of the Virgin Mary gazes over beds of roses and daffodils, while a statue of a cat stands next to a sliding-glass door. The pope, Mr. Hofbauer said, adores cats.

And from The Kansas City Star:

His most heartfelt talks may have been the ones he gave after celebrating Mass. "I went with him once," said Konrad Baumgartner, the head of the theology department at Regensburg University. "Afterwards, he went into the old cemetery behind the church.

"It was full of cats, and when he went out, they all ran to him. They knew him and loved him. He stood there, petting some and talking to them, for quite a long time. He visited the cats whenever he visited the church. His love for cats is quite famous.

[His housekeeper] pointed up a staircase to a wall full of painted plates, each depicting a different cat. The brothers collected the plates together, she said.

"When we were on vacation, a cat, a little kitten, would come by, and he'd be giddy, almost giggling with joy," she said. "Cats love him; they always go to him straight away. And he loves them back."

He doesn't have a cat, however. Heindl doesn't think he can have one living in the Vatican.

He loves cats, he plays Mozart on the piano before he goes to bed at night and the dictatorial relativist Left is apoplectic. Hallelujah!

Beautiful dreamer

"Twitter, Gawd love it, is blogging for people with ADHD"

Tiny and late bloomer Sedum 'Autumn Joy' trace a tapestry of delicious pinks and grays in the autumn light.

"Put down the Twitter machine. Your fans and admirers miss you," writes a gently scolding Gayle Miller in the comments of our previous post of over a week ago [!], the one that asked the question "Where have all the blogposts gone?" Still working on that. Meanwhile, a sweet and savory stew of wise and witty tidbits from the comments larder to satisfy our readers' appetite for tasty wordplay that sticks to the ribs. Here's wordsmith extraordinaire Elisson of Blog d'Elisson:

Twitter, Gawd love it, is blogging for people with ADHD. But the Twitter 140 word limit, while forcing posters to carve away unessential verbiage, also forces the elimination of so much evocative language. It is like an Instamatic compar ed to a 4 x 5 Crown Graphic …

Brevity may be the soul of wit … but sometimes I like my with with a little meat on its bones. To use a feminine metaphor, give me Sophia Loren over Calista Flockhart any old day.

Autumn's light and shade are harder edged than summer's, what with the sun's beams reaching the northern hemisphere at a lowering angle of declination.

Hubba, hubba, Elisson. Commenter and real-life buddy C Ward concurs and adds some delicious and nutritious morsels to the pot:

I haven't quite glommed onto twittering yet, and I am not sure that I will. I agree with Elisson — there is something intellectually delicious about starting out in one place, and coming out of a post with an entirely new perspective, something less likely to happen in 140 characters.

Certainly there is a discipline of thought required to express oneself in only 140 characters. But to journey though the wonders of the English language, with real grammar? Ah, that is a true art. Combining the thought discipline (but not necessarily the 140 character limitation!) with the art? Priceless. And what I like about your blog.

"Perhaps Tiny isn't talking because she's contemplating a Palin/Bolton ticket in '12," comments Connecticut Yankee. Above the sweet tiny girl contemplates things we don't see.

Can't argue with that, C Ward! Finally, "I miss the blog posts and the pictures," comments retriever:

Glad you are all right, was about to miaow "Where are you,Sissy?"

We're still here, retriever, and will do our best to get back into that blogging kitchen and start cooking up a groaning board of words and pictures to nourish the hearts and minds of our treasured readers and commenters.

Update: "Thnks 4 thrwing us a bne," quips our imail correspondent:

We: U NO U luv twitter.

She: LOL. I dn't bt wld B gud at it. I was always good with foreign languages. I'm really happy for you … for the kick you are getting out of it, but … am also thrilled that your greatest fans are as annoyed as I am. Abandoned lovers, all.

If blogging be the food of love, blog on, Give me excess of it; that surfeiting, The appetite may sicken, and so twitter?

Update II: Modulator's Friday Ark #263 now boarding.

The soul of wit

Where have all the blogposts gone? First time we've gone over a week without blogging since launching our little flagship into the blogosphere 5 3/4 years ago on December 12, 2003, with "The tidings that dare not speak their name." We've never veered far off the pro-freedom-of-speech course set for that first outing, but why now the silence? Has the cat got our tongue? Tiny, above and blow atop the dining room table the other day in the countdown to supper, isn't talking.

We've been twittering up a storm of late (check out the column at right just below "Pope Teddy Mug" for a running stream of our latest tweets). As suggested in one of the questions in Technorati's "State of the Blogosphere Survey," which we took this morning, twittering itself — often referred to as microblogging — may be a culprit. Both our own and others' tweets can be a catalyst for expansion of whatever's festering in the febrile blogging brain, but just as easily, Twitter's requirement that the writer condense expression of her ideas into 140 or fewer characters can be a refiner's fire that leaves ideas clarified with no need of further exposition. One example from a series of tweets plucking out highlights of Sarah Palin's historic keynote yesterday before a room full of world-class investors at a conference sponsored by investment firm CLSA Asia-Pacific Markets, her first public-speaking engagement outside North America:

"There is no justice in taking from one person and giving to another," she said. "History shows it simply does not work."

I loved Sarah Palin from the first day: "We're not interested in government fixes, we're interested in freedom."

"We got into this mess because of government interference in the first place," says Sarah Palin in Hong Kong speech.

A gratifying contrast to President Obama's usual "now-is-the-time" —  first time? — speech before the UN this morning, also billed as historic. We agreed with twitterer Zener39's assessment:

Bolton: Obama's speech "unpresidential."

As we said in a retweet, "The man with the mustache that repels bullets has Obama's number."

Update: More delicious and nutritious Bolton fare: “a post-American speech by our first post-American president. It was a speech high on the personality of Barack Obama and high on multilateralism, but very short in advocating American interests … It was a very naïve, Wilsonian speech, and very revealing of Obama’s foreign policy,” said Bolton.

Update II: "Good one, doll, but you leave us non-twitterers lonely," writes our imail correspondent:

We: I will try to get back into things. So many worries the last period of time. A breather today. Just got word from vet that Tiny's bloodwork is normal. With her being on steroids, one has to keep watch. I've gotten the dose down as low as possible. [Goomp's pussycat] Purrky is fine. Cold almost gone. Freezer now working again with new timer.The little things add up.

She: Yes, constant low-level anxiety is a real energy-drainer.

Sigh.

Update III: "I am out of touch since the advent of the tweet," imails Goomp poignantly. "I'm hoping to get things back on an even keel," we imail back.

Update IV: Unholy alliances: The Anchoress is in the same boat. "She cannot come out to play until she has finished her work":

Apparently, she spent an unholy amount of time last night, playing on something called Twitter, which sounds insipid, flightly, unhealthy, sinful and vulgar. She did this, furthermore, after being expressly forbidden to enjoy herself until her assignments were completed. Because she is a slothful, inattentive, disobedient and lazy flittertigibbet of a girl, she will not be permitted to play here with you on this devil’s machine until she has done her work, or I will beat her until you hear her high c’s from Shanghai to the Aran Islands!

And you get to work, too, young masters and mistresses, or I will find you! Don’t make me use this ruler!

Lord help us.

Update: All things bright and beautiful now boarding Modulator's Friday Ark #262.

To sleep, perchance to scream

Tiny spoke to us in a dream last night. Not her usual meows, maos, prrts and purrs, but in The King's English. Tuck asked what she sounded like. Don't remember a sound. Were her lips moving? More like reading her thoughts.

The cat as incubus called to mind Henry Fuseli's "The Nightmare," ("The Incubus") 1790, Goethe Museum, Frankfurt, Germany.

What did she say? Tuck wanted to know. It all made sense at the time, our inner cat giving expression to what we barely dare think of during waking hours.

All we remember is "I don't know whether we'll have another New Year's together." Anxiety because we lost her brother — our irreplaceable Baby Cakes — unexpectedly late last year and because she has "airway disease" (AKA feline asthma), a constant source of low-level concern. She's had it since kittenhood, although we didn't recognize it as such — thought it was furball-related coughing —till years later when it became severe, and she ended up in the hospital. Since then she's been on medications, adjusted through the years. Currently it's methylprednisolone — our cat's on steroids! — 1/4 pill every other day, Flovent administered by Aerokat inhaler twice a day and Albuterol by inhaler as needed to stop attacks. Needless to say, she hates the inhaler, gives us a dirty look and tries to leave the premises whenever we approach with Aerokat in hand. And yet she forgives us, boundlessly generous in her silky attentiveness and affection. Does some part of her sense we are doing it for her own good? Probably not. We think she just likes us despite our inexplicable behavior.

"Mad as Hell, Not Taking It Anymore," Lucianne captions this thrilling image of "my people," the Tea Partiers, taking their grievances to the seat of national government yesterday. We participated via Twitter and are enjoying the afterglow in the blogosphere, on Fox News and through the LDotters' comments today: "Do you hear us now?" Photo source unknown although it's all over the blogosphere and Twitter.

Back to the dream, is it too much of a stretch to link the talking Tiny's words with anxieties related to implications of Obamacare, should that fair imitation of socialized medicine be "rammed down our throats" as the President threatens to do, even as he disses Tea Partiers like us and tells us to shut up? Not very presidential, Mr. President. This nighmarish presidency haunts us night and day.

Update: Wake up refreshed at Modulator's Friday Ark #261.

The warring tribes of post-9/11

Republication of our September 11, 2006 post "A virtual lamp beside the golden door, revisited": "It’s been nearly three years since 9/11," wrote Michele of A Small Victory two years back, inviting her readers to add their own two cents' worth to her Voices 2004. "Where do you stand right now as far as emotional recovery goes? Have you moved on? Healed? How does your emotional view of 9/11 differ now from three years ago? Do you find yourself more hopeful than you were then?" We're republishing our response, which seems to have stood the test of time, in that we still agree with ourselves.

How would Osama answer the question "Do you find yourself more hopeful than you were then?" We think he would be of two minds: 1) Yes and 2) No.

1) Yes. Surely the evil genius whose own demons made him wake the sleeping giant* must be gratified to see the Orwellian inversion that has taken place in some large portion of the popular imagination, where the lunatic ravings of homegrown academics blinded by their hatred of America — the Susan Sontags and Noam Chomskys of this world — have metastacized into a toxic worldwide anti-American hysteria that threatens to derail the War on Islamic Extremism (Condi Rice's term for the War on Terror). We could write volumes about that. We have, in fact, written blog volumes about that. Listen to Sontag's solipsistic, a-historical, hyperventilating pontifications from her New Yorker essay published in the aftermath of 9/11:

The disconnect between last Tuesday's monstrous dose of reality and the self-righteous drivel and outright deceptions being peddled by public figures and TV commentators is startling, depressing. The voices licensed to follow the event seem to have joined together in a campaign to infantilize the public. [Note to Ms. Sontag: Our response was our own. It was visceral. We didn't wait for some public figure to tell us what to think or how to feel.] Where is the acknowledgment that this was not a "cowardly" attack on "civilization" or "liberty" or "humanity" or "the free world" but an attack on the world's self-proclaimed superpower, undertaken as a consequence of specific American alliances and actions? [Note to Ms. Sontag: You haven't a clue re the terrorists' motives. See Bernard Lewis, Daniel Pipes, Robert Spencer et al.]

Our leaders are bent on convincing us that everything is O.K. America is not afraid. Our spirit is unbroken, although this was a day that will live in infamy and America is now at war. But everything is not O.K. And this was not Pearl Harbor. We have a robotic President who assures us that America still stands tall.

2) No. Despite the appeal of Sontag & Company's "arguments" to all who would blame America first, Osama must be worried about our country's pesky refusal to cut and run.  9/11 was, in fact, like Pearl Harbor in that the enemy realized he had awakened a sleeping giant.* In fact, the enemy has awakened two sleeping giants. America stands taller than ever on the world stage, staring down the nattering appeasement crowd on the one hand, and tearing down the terrorist networks and support systems on the other, thanks to the great leadership of President George W. Bush, his remarkable team of seasoned advisors, our superb military and the Coalition of the Willing.

But 9/11 awoke another sleeping giant, one that may have been slouching towards some kind of cyberBethlehem waiting to be born even as world attention was focused elsewhere. We're speaking, of course, of the blogosphere. A virtual lamp beside the golden door, this new medium was a beacon to the virtual "huddled masses yearning to breathe free" in the wake of 9/11, giving voice to those who had been voiceless — Iraqi bloggers, milbloggers, homefront bloggers and bloggers of every stripe, seekers of wisdom and truth who weren't buying what effete academic elites and mainstream media pack journalists were selling anymore

Update: Antivenin links.

*Note. "In the movies Tora! Tora! Tora! and Pearl Harbor, [Japanese naval commander] Yamamoto's character says, after the attack on Pearl Harbor, 'I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve.' Considerable doubt exists, though, whether he actually ever said (or wrote) anything like that; it was probably invented for the movies, although it may well have encapsulated some of his real feelings about it," according to Nationmaster Encyclopedia. Update post 2004 election: False but accurate?

Berry Berenson Perkins: "Making her statement in a grand manner"

“She was just this angel that landed on this planet for a short amount of time,” a heartbroken Marisa Berenson told CBS News shortly after she lost her little sister, Berry, on American Flight 11, the first plane to fly into one of the Twin Towers September 11, 2001. (Photoshopped image of Berry Berenson Perkins at her Jamaica getaway based upon an original color photo by Amy Gottlieb).

In Memorium: Republication of our 9/11/06 tribute to Berinthia Berenson Perkins, presented on this eighth anniversary of that awful day as part of "Project 2,996: Remembering the Victims of 9/11." Click here for part one, "The bride wore barefoot":

"People who met her once feel like she was their best friend," photographer Paul Jasmin was quoted in Simon Doonan's New York Observer society-column tribute to 53-year-old Berinthia Berenson Perkins, who was en route from her Wellfleet summer place on Cape Cod to visit her two sons in L.A. as she boarded American Flight 11 out of Logan on the morning of September 11, 2001. As we blogged in our earlier post, "The bride wore barefoot," the "glamorous and tragic Berry was randomly assigned to us as part of D. Challener Roe's '2,996 Project: A Tribute to the Victims of 9/11.'" Doonan's Observer piece suggests the free spirit that shines through the many other tributes:

The tomboy photographer and sister of model and actress Marisa Berenson, granddaughter of couturière Elsa Schiaparelli and widow of the late Anthony Perkins . . . Berry had the beauty and provenance to propel her, unwittingly, into Beautiful People-dom. She was, without ever intending to be, something of a founding member.

"She was an extraordinary woman who lived life fully," said Pam Mandel of Provincetown — who was "working with Berenson on her memoirs" that last summer, according to the Cape Cod Times — "She was quite a force, with a smoky voice and an alive, funny, sultry persona," ever the tomboy on into a vibrant middle age:

Friends said she preferred her Wellfleet home over others, choosing to live there year-round, out of the spotlight of Los Angeles.

Her sons attended Wellfleet Elementary School. It was a reflection, said friends, of her very down-to-earth personality, despite being exposed all her life to celebrity.

Time had this to say in the 1973 obituary of her famous maternal grandmother, the "formidable couturière who dominated the high-fashion world of the 1930s with her art deco- and surrealism-inspired collections":

From her salon beside the Ritz, she scored many fashion firsts, among them tailored evening jackets, the use of synthetic fabrics and the color, shocking pink. Schiaparelli closed her couture house — where her designs had been sold for as much as $5,000 — in 1954, and later reappeared in the spotlight as the grandmother of Celebrities Marisa and Berry Berenson.

"It wasn't surprising that in 1972 Berry and her sister, Marisa, were drawn into Andy Warhol and Interview's orbit," noted Interview's breezy tribute, "Interview Salutes Interview":

The Berenson sisters had a creative pedigree that Andy loved: their granduncle was art connoisseur Bernard Berenson, and one grandmother was iconoclastic fashion designer Elsa Schiaparelli. At the time she came to Interview, Berry showed a talent for photography; mentioning she had a longtime crush on actor Tony Perkins, the magazine sent her to interview and photograph him. The encounter went even better than everyone hoped: Interview got a great story, and Berry not only met her idol, she married him.

According to Wikipedia, the 1962 international film Phaedra, starring the seasoned Melina Mercouri opposite a very young Tony Perkins, "was a smash hit in Europe, but a box-office failure in the USA . . . because of Perkins's vulnerability."

Legend had it that 12-year-old Berry had fallen in love with Tony Perkins, 12 years her senior, when she saw him play opposite Melina Mercouri in the steamy Jules Dassin classic, Phaedra:

Thus I was suddenly initiated into a world of foreign emotions and wild fantasies, and began to feel he was my closest companion within this sphere.

After nearly twenty years of marriage, blessed with two sons -- Osgood and Elvis -- tragedy struck in 1990, explains Berenson's Guardian obituary, when "Perkins was tested positive for HIV":

He decided that he wanted the knowledge kept secret even from their intimates, which heaped a tremendous burden on Berenson. When Perkins got AIDS, she finally decided to tell a few of their closest friends — "to share this grief with us." On September 2 1992, Perkins died with Berenson clutching her husband's hand. "We had a very satisfying life together. It was a wonderful love affair."

''She had a joie de vivre like no one else I've known,'' said Susan Hartzler, a friend of 20 years, quoted in the Boston Globe obituary:

She loved animals, especially her dogs. She was my life mentor. Anywhere you went with Berry, even getting a haircut, was an experience you'd never forget.'

A touching anecdote from Hartzler in a personal tribute at Prayers For Peace:

Berry Berenson Perkins was one of my best friends for more than 20 years. I miss her every single day. She was the most generous, gracious and loving person on earth. The last time I saw her was in LA right before July 4th, 2001. I was going to visit children at County USC Hospital where I take my dog for pet therapy. She asked if she could come with me and what the children needed. I told her they needed art supplies and when I picked her up at her hotel that morning, she had bags and bags of everything a child could want in the way of art supplies. She was like that. Always caring and thinking of others and making her statement in a grand manner! I wish she was here so I could tell her how much I love her and miss her.

Writer Eleanor Munro, also quoted by the Globe, taught a memoir-writing seminar Berry took during those last few weeks on the Cape in Truro:

[Berry was] a dynamic presence in the class. [She] was so beautiful, so decorative, so unusual for a scruffy-looking community like this. She also had an incredibly rich story to tell.

Living her "incredibly rich story" was the best revenge.

Update: Continue reading part one, "The bride wore barefoot."

Obama's National Day of Forgetfulness

"As if anticipating the left's insidious attempts to steal their fire — by turning their sacred precinct into an anti-American bully pulpit — the angry gods of Ground Zero blew up a sandstorm of warning on the one-year anniversary of the 9/11 attack," we captioned this image in "The grave robbers of Ground Zero." (Merlin-Net Photo)

It calls to mind the "sympathetic magic" of cannibals who believe they take on the strength of slain enemies by eating them," we wrote in our June 2005 post "The grave robbers of Ground Zero." Back then leftists were plotting to "appropriate the spiritual power of this hallowed ground" with an America-bashing museum themed on man's inhumanity to man. That particular project stalled, but not to worry. The Obama White House is on the case with its cheery "National Day of Service and Remembrance," an attempt to "erase the meaning of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks from the American psyche and convert Sept. 11 into a day of leftist celebration and statist idolatry," as The American Spectator's Matthew Vadum explains:

The president signed into law a measure in April that designated Sept. 11 as a National Day of Service … The plan is to turn a "day of fear" that helps Republicans into a day of activism … that helps the left …

On Aug. 4, the White House offered a glimpse into its plans to desecrate 9/11 for political advantage. [The now disgraced Van] Jones appeared in a largely ignored 33-minute video posted on the official blog of the White House to discuss the administration's plan to flush 9/11 down the memory hole just as it has tried to do by rechristening the Global War on Terror the "Overseas Contingency Operations."

"The first milestone for Green the Block will be on our National Day of Service, September 11, 2009, where we will organize Green the Block service events around the country in coordination with the President's initiative, United We Serve," said Rev. Lennox Yearwood, Jr. of the Hip Hop Caucus. Click on image for "Open for Questions: Green the Block with [Under-the-Bus former Green Czar] Van Jones August 4, 2009."

Just as Obama "robbed the 'War on Terror' of its poetic fire by dubbing it the bloodless 'Overseas Contingency Operation,'" he's trying to rob the grave of Ground Zero of its spiritual power by officially promulgating 9/11 as the pallid patchwork "Patriot Day [the original designation under GW] and National Day of Service and Remembrance." Rolls right off the tongue, doesn't it? As the Spectator's Vadum notes, "At no time does anyone explain why this National Day of Service has to be held — of all the 365 days in a year — on Sept. 11." Here's how they try to spin it:

The tragic events of September 11, 2001 inspired Americans to come together in a remarkable spirit of unity and compassion …

Eight years later, September 11 continues to evoke strong emotion and is an homage to sacrifice and a call to action.

In fact, "It wasn't tragic at all. It was outrageous," writes Cleveland Plain Dealer columnist Kevin O'Brien, who notes "the 'unity' we witnessed among Americans then was actually righteous anger [and] the 'compassion' … mourning." As for 9/11's being a "call to action," it's quite a stretch to equate the gravitas of GWs life-or-death call back then for a boots-on-the-ground War on Terror with the relative weightlessness of Obama's poll-tested, feel-good call today for a renewed commitment to community service. Not to mention the irony of sly-as-a-fox "Truther" Van Jones being put in charge of the henhouse.

"It compresses, enervates, extinguishes, and stupefies"

Sunrise at Camelot-by-the-Sea from Goomp's terrace this morning.

L'heure bleu. Tuesday morning after Labor Day meant the first day of school for us children of the Fifties, a day of trepidation for ourselves, a smartie pants with social-skill issues. We were great at reading, writing and 'rithmetic but borderline pathologically shy. 'Wonder how we'd have taken a presidential "live cable-cast speech on values and education" piped into the classroom back then? We were still wet behind the ears when our radar screen began to pick up blips of the insidious Big Lie behind the Gramscian march through the institutions. As we blogged back on Flag Day of 2005: 

We remember the first inklings of the emasculating Marx-lite mindset beginning to infiltrate our elementary and high school classrooms in the fifties and sixties, when reflexively p.c. teachers -- before anyone really knew what p.c. was -- told us there was no such thing as human nature and keened that we shouldn't have a battle hymn for a national anthem.  We should change it to "America the Beautiful," they told us. While we love the poetry and religious fervor of "Oh, beautiful for spacious skies," with its unspoken recognition of what used to be called "Manifest Destiny," as a national anthem it falls short, missing the point that came crashing into our consciousness on that awful 9/11: Freedom isn't free.

Last gasps of summer. Tiny attends Ellen's plate for a Sunday bookend to our season-opening lobster bake with all the fixin's last May.

The light fantastic caught in the folds of a little linen shirt hung out to dry.

L'heure bleu, last gasps, hung out to dry. And now Tiny, above, sucking out the juices of a lobster carapace. The psychological landscape closes in. Intimations of creeping statism. We jumped into the Medicare maelstrom last week as our 65th approaches, waiting an hour (but we brought Jonah's Liberal Fascism, so no time wasted) to register at the local Social Security office, only to find they had us listed by our maiden name. That meant going back home to fetch the marriage license and then back for more waiting. Their error but our time. Unnerving inklings of things to come with the President's and Congress's medical-insurance meddling? In related frustrations, Goomp had asked us to help him switch from pro-Obamacare AARP to Humana for his Medicare supplemental. We duly researched, called and made an appointment for today, turned our schedule upside down to accommodate, but the rep never showed. Arggghhhhh! Public insurance, private insurance. Where's the competition to keep 'em honest? Rudy Giuliani had the libertarian's answer to an attempted Tom Brokaw gotcha the other day:

BROKAW: "What's been interesting to me is that the Republicans have raised the public option as some kind of Orwellian monster. Half the health care in America is already delivered by the government ... Medicare, Medicaid, the Veterans Administration, Federal Employees insurance ..."

GIULIANI: "That's part of the problem. Part of the problem is that half of it is already in the hands of one massive monopoly. You make that monopoly greater and you destroy private insurance."

The rest of the problem with the dark cloud of "universal coverage" looming on the horizon is Tocqueville's "network of small, complicated rules, minute and uniform, through which the most original minds and the most energetic characters cannot penetrate, to rise above the crowd":

The will of man is not shattered, but softened, bent, and guided; men are seldom forced by it to act, but they are constantly restrained from acting. Such a power does not destroy, but it prevents existence; it does not tyrannize, but it compresses, enervates, extinguishes, and stupefies a people, till each nation is reduced to nothing better than a flock of timid and industrious animals, of which the government is the shepherd.

Baa!

Update: "The most alive is the wildest. Not yet subued to man, its presence refreshes him," wrote Thoreau. Head on over to Modulator's Friday Ark #260 and be refreshed.

Update II: The News Junkie at Maggie's links.

A coat of many colours*

Tiny dazzles atop the woodpile this afternoon with her classical profile and the voluptuous silkiness of her exquisite Chelsea Gray coat.

What it took a tiny deer mouse celebrated among scientists as an "evolution icon" several thousand years to accomplish — to change the color of its coat to blend with a new habitat — Tiny accomplishes effortlessly from moment to moment as she moves invisibly from tawny woodpile to gray granite retaining wall to pale pink brick terrace. More about Tiny's leger de fourrure in a moment, but first, the mouse's fascinating story:

"Usually the mice have a dark coat, which enables them to blend in with dark soils and avoid being seen by predators such as owls and hawks. But at Sand Hills in Nebraska, pale-coated mice abound."

"A tiny pale deer mouse living on a sand dune in Nebraska looks set to become an icon of biology," begins a BBC article proudly linked by Harvard's Twitter site promulgating the work of HU's Dr. Catherine Linnen & colleagues:

Within just a few thousand years, generations of the mice have evolved a sandy-coloured coat camouflaging themselves from predators. Most striking is that these mice acquired the mutation for pale fur naturally, then rapidly passed it on. That makes the fast-evolving deer mouse one of the best examples yet studied of "true" natural selection in action … "The light gene wasn't in existence, so the mice had to 'wait' until a particular mutation occurred and then selection had to act on that new mutation" …

The researchers say it is the first time that it has been possible to document the appearance of a gene, its selection and subsequent spread through a population of wild animals.

Mice? Why hasn't someone gone for the jugular? You want adaptive coloration? Tiny's multicolored coat of Chelsea Gray peaches and cream gives the US Military's fractal camouflage a run for its money.

Update: Then comes Earl Grey on the scene, and all bets are off. Love is blind.

Update II: "Given the saying 'At night all cats are grey,' the dashing Earl has the perfect adaptive coloration for stealth nocturnal visits to Tiny," says Connecticut Yankee in the comments.

Update III: More coats of many colors at Modulator's Friday Ark #259, now boarding.

*Note: Blog title refers to the Biblical Joseph's "coat of many colours."

"Our founders had a deep understanding of human nature"

Were Tiny's PR team to adopt a totalitarianesque approach similar to that used by President Obama's people in their NEA-directed propaganda war to recruit hearts and minds to his progressive agenda (see below), would her fellow Feline-Americans buy the false promise of "Mice & Birds" — a small warm-blooded animal in every pot? — the way so many of our fellow Americans bought candidate Obama's vapid "Hope & Change"? Have you ever tried herding cats? (Images generated via Obamicon.Me)

"I’m not a 'right-wing nut job.' It just goes against my core beliefs to sit quietly while the art community is used by the NEA and the administration to push an agenda other than the one for which it was created," writes filmmaker, market and community consultant Patrick Courrielche at Big Hollywood. As a member in good standing of the right-wing nut-job community, we appreciate his willingless to step outside his Pauline Kael tribal bubble of Obamaphilic creative types for a reality check:

It is not within the National Endowment for the Arts’ original charter to initiate, organize, and tap into the art community to help bring awareness to health care, or energy and environmental issues for that matter, and especially not at a time when it is being vehemently debated. Artists shouldn’t be used as tools of the state to help create a climate amenable to their positions, which is what appears to be happening in this instance. If the art community wants to tackle those issues on its own then fine. But tackling them shouldn’t come as an encouragement from the NEA to those they potentially fund at this coincidental time.

"The very first time I saw the HOPE poster, my aesthetic gut reaction was 'fascist,'" writes dcbsky in Courrielches' comments. Exactly. As we commented, "Creepy crawly classic totalitarianist tactics. Those who cannot remember the past, and all that."

"I was talking with a friend of mine before the election and he said, 'Have you seen those anti-Obama posters? They look like old Communist propaganda posters,'" writes Redtex in Courrielche's comments:

I had to explain to him that those were PRO Obama posters. He took a second look and realized I was right. He was shocked that the campaign was using that "look" to sell their candidate. He was also amazed that nobody seemed to notice the resemblance to the Communist propaganda. I told him "Oh, they probably notice. They just don't care."

The real Tiny behind the fascistic Obamacized images at top of page is far more persuasive to both friend and foe.

Could be, but more likely they haven't a clue, just like WaPo Beltway gossipmonger Howard Kurtz and colleagues, who still don't get Sarah. Scott Ott puts 'em in their place with panache:

Sarah Palin’s brilliant, succinct term “death panels” hits home because it neatly summarizes all that’s wrong with government-run health care. Superficial efforts by reporters to “debunk the death panel myth” will continue to fail, because Americans are smarter than most journalists when it comes to practical matters of life

Journalism professionals would also benefit from reading some American history, including our founding documents. Our founders had a deep understanding of human nature, shaped by their lifelong, exhaustive study of history and philosophy and of the book that best encapsulates both — the Bible.

Too often journalists and politicians attribute imperfections in American society to a failure of our founding principles, rather than recognizing problems as simply a natural byproduct of finite, flawed humanity that would crop up under any system. So we hear the cry that our health care system is “broken” and the conclusion that government must fix it immediately. It’s a naive notion promulgated by people who think history commenced with their own appearance on the planet.

Condemned to repeat it?