sisu

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?

John McCain reminds us that elections have consequences

"BEST TOWN HALL EVER," we just tweeted as John McCain warms hearts and minds of a Sun City, Arizona roomful of constituents with free-market, tort-reform sweet nothings regarding health-care reform:

Senator John McCain answering thoughtful questions thoughtfully and with characteristic humor. Peaceful revolt in progress!

A breath of fresh air after the out-of-touch arrogance and disrespect of I-know-better-than-you-what's-good-for-you Arlen Specter et al towards the people who put them in office. You don't have to see eye-to-eye with McCain on everything to know authenticity when you see it. As we said of Palin in a similar vein recently, like Ronald Reagan, he trusts us! Plus, how can you not love a politician who boldly goes where no Senator has gone before, telling a hoary lawyer joke before a national audience (Fox, CNN & MSNBC are all carrying it live):

What is the difference between a catfish and a lawyer? One's a bottom-crawling scum sucker and the other's a fish.

"There goes the lawyer vote," he quips good naturedly. Great TV!

Update: "John is able to stand back and see himself as a human. The liberals can only see themselves as Gods," observes Goomp in the comments. "It's the human factor that is missing in Obama and his cadre," adds our imail correspondent:

Socialist automatons, and that's what Socialism is all about … creating mindless automatons.

The mindset comes through loud and clear in the dismissive attitude of pro-Obamacare Senators and Representatives towards their town hall constituents.

Old is the new beautiful

Loving it that the oldsters, now known in polite society as the politically correct "seniors," are finding their voice. Never ever dreamed of being old, but now that we are, it's a revelation. We've been tea partying from day one.

 

The young and ignorant, schooled in the stealth Gramscian, anti-Founding-Fathers curriculum, know nothing about nature or nature's God. They're prolly buying POTUS's unspeakable assertion that "We are God's partners in matters of life and death." Everyone in the whole wide world should read Jonah Goldberg's Liberal Fascism before saying another thing. Fortunately, us old folks still remember a thing or two about the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights. PLUS. As old and decrepit as we may become, the pater familias, 89-year-old Goomp, keeps on keeping on. Proud to be a scion of a grand old Yankee/Finnish family of honest and true Mercans.

Update: Instalanche. Being old is all it's cracked up to be!

Update II: "Goomp 89?" gasps Elisson incredulously in the comments:

Why, that means 89 is the new 59.

That would make us still wet behind the ears.

Update III: Modulator's Friday Ark now boarding.

"The surprise of newfound harmony"

Clowdering together on the front porch this evening, Tiny and Earl Grey, like Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire, express "many of love’s moods: courtship and seduction, repartee and responsiveness, teasing and challenge, the surprise of newfound harmony, the happy recapture of bygone romance, the giddy exhilaration of high spirits and intense mutual accord, the sense of a perfect balance of power, the tragedy of parting and, not least, the sense of love as role playing," as Alastair Macauley writes in "They Seem to Find the Happiness They Seek."

Thanks to Virginia Postrel for the hot, hot, hot tip from her endlessly enchanting deepglamour Twitter site.

Update: More newfound harmonies at Modulator's Friday Ark #257.

Sarah "a genius controlling the world from her Facebook page"?

Show 'em a little ankle and leave 'em laughing, begging for more. Sarah Palin's girly strategery is leaving political adversaries inside the Beltway and their media fellow travelers reeling. They never did get her. Above, a frame from today's Day by Day cartoon, "Waiting for GOP."

ABC White House reporter and twitterer extraordinaire Jake Tapper's Sunday Roundtable of talking heads was inclined to disagree with Tapper's father-in-law, but we think the old man's onto something:

Sarah Palin is “a genius controlling the world from her FaceBook page.”

She throws the "death panel" bomb, the commentariat explodes and lawmakers retreat:

Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, one of six lawmakers negotiating on a Senate bill, said Thursday they had dropped end-of-life provisions from consideration "entirely because of the way they could be misinterpreted and implemented incorrectly."

Friday she threw a "pubic option" bomb, and today the Con Man in Chief claims to be backing off, but the Professor is not impressed:

RETREAT? White House Appears Ready To Drop “Public Option.” I suspect it’s a Parthian retreat ["a feigned retreat, luring the enemy into a prepared counterattack. See, e.g., Crassus." Thanks for the new word, Professor Reynolds!].

On the other hand, you've got a real marketing problem when your own people are having to publicly pledge not to kill old people.

"This is no 'retreat,'" emails Robert Bidinotto:

The co-op arrangement is simply the public option by another name, and by a more circuitous, stealthy route — with the same ultimate objective: nationalized healthcare.

Stealth is the very essence of Obama & Company's modus operandi, and we've known it in our gut since that day way back in December of 2006 when bouncing baby candidate Barack Obama sprung onto the national stage full blown from Oprah's brow:

"Obviously it is flattering to get a lot of attention, but I must say it is baffling, particularly to my wife,” Obama quipped.

We cringed at the disingenuousness, but it was when he called us a racist that our heart turned to stone:

Are some voters not going to vote for me because I’m African-American? Those are the same voters who probably wouldn’t vote for me because of my politics.

The silver lining of this dark cloud is our fellow citizens' resounding rejection of the president's ill-concealed contempt for the Shining City Upon a Hill. As we wrote awhile back, "I am tea party woman, hear me roar!"

Update: Cross posted at Amba's Cloven not Crested.

She will leave you and then come back again

A pretty girl is like a melody. Moments before we caught this image (photoshopped to cut out space between Tiny in foreground and Earl Grey behind), the lovebirds were clowdering cheek and jowel, but by the time we returned with our camera, Tiny had shifted focus to the countdown to supper and was ready to come inside. An hour or so earlier, we had heard a caterwauling with hissing and spitting and run out to find Tiny locked in tooth and claw with another gray and white kitty. Her tether had become wrapped around the cat, herself and some potted plants, and fur was flying. Afterwards plants lay wounded, knocked out of their pots, and the intruder defied gravity making a frantic escape up the 10-foot-high retaining wall behind the house, grasping at the branches of a sprawling Virginia Creeper for purchase. A little while later, Earl Grey stopped by, and Tiny melted. If you needed proof that our sweet tiny girl is discriminating in her taste in men, vive la difference!

“The women now went willingly into the field,” repost

"The daily news is like the wind-whipped whitecaps on the ocean, a lot of violent froth on the surface, dangerous to surfers and small craft, but having nothing to do with the larger movement of the sea," we quoted Baron Bodissey at Gates of Vienna in our post "A lot of violent froth on the surface" last year, where we used the above image of a reproduction of the Mayflower at sea from The History Channel's "Desperate Crossing: The Untold Story of the Mayflower.

Editorial Note: This post — first published two years ago to the day on August 15, 2007 — on the role of Adam Smith's "invisible hand" in shaping the American character — is timelier than ever today. Cross-posted at Annie Gottlieb's Cloven Not Crested.

"I thought that this passage reflected an early-American lesson that most people in the world did not learn until late in the 20th century," writes TigerHawk of the "tragedy of the commons" experience that taught the Pilgrims -- literally on the ground -- how Adam Smith's "invisible hand" works. We're not sure that "most people" -- yes you, Hillary -- have learned that lesson to this day, but before we get to that, here's the bottom line, from the book TH is currently reading, Nathaniel Philbrick's Mayflower: A Story of Courage, Community, and War:

The fall of 1623 marked the end of Plymouth's debilitating food shortages. For the last two planting seasons, the Pilgrims had grown crops communally -- the approach first used at Jamestown and other English settlements. But as the disastrous harvest of the previous fall had shown, something drastic needed to be done to increase the annual yield.

"In April, Bradford had decided that each household should be assigned its own plot to cultivate, with the understanding that each family kept whatever it grew. The change in attitude was stunning. Families were now willing to work much harder than they had ever worked before. In previous years, the men had tended the fields while the women tended the children at home. "The women now went willingly into the field," Bradford wrote, "and took their little ones with them to set corn." The Pilgrims had stumbled on the power of capitalism. Although the fortunes of the colony still teetered precariously in the years ahead, the inhabitants never again starved.

"Is it possible that collectivism never caught on here because early American utopians such as the Pilgrims tried it and learned that it did not work?" asks the Hawkman. One can only hope, but certain members of every generation seem immune to the Pilgrims' lesson. Besides, "there is something very American about the utopian movement," as Michael Kavanagh wrote re a Beinecke Library exhibition, "No Place on Earth," which "takes as its subject the American utopian dream, as expressed by the Shakers as well as some twenty other groups across four centuries:

The New World was the land of the frontier, that clean, clear space beyond which one could remake oneself into a better human being. America itself can be seen as the biggest utopian experiment of all -- embodied in the credo of the Land of Opportunity is the promise that it is always possible to reinvent one's relationship to society, work and nature.

Attempts to "reinvent one's relationship to society, work and nature" are fine as long as the reinventors don't deny the economic logic of nature and human nature and try to impose their "vision" of "the greater good" on the rest of us. That's why "progressive" governmental interventions — like the "'universal' health-care dreams in Illinois, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and other states [see 'Arnold's Health Flop' in today's WSJ] that were unveiled to hosannas but flopped once the fine print and costs were exposed" — are best left to the states, where well-meaning if clueless Utopianators can test their fantasies on a smaller scale. As for Hillary, the Mother of all Utopianators, The Barrister at Maggie's Farm explains:

Socialism advances via invented crises to alarm the people, or to seduce the people, into foregoing the markets for goods and services.

It is a deceptive strategy designed to prey on the worst, most infantile instincts of Americans . . . Hillary goes Shrillary over socialized medicine: Gateway [be sure to click over to watch and listen in horror as the junior Senator from New York doth protest too much that her plans for a national one-payer system have nothing to do with socialism].

I have no doubt that Hillary is a socialist, whether she admits it to herself or not. Anyone who wants the State to take over the medical businesses, which are 16% of our economy, and the oil industry, which is ? % of our economy, has a good start on taking over all of it.

As we said in TigerHawk's comments:

The lesson about human nature learned in the school of hard knocks by the Pilgrims -- "It takes incentives" -- has been lost on Hillary & Company, whose "It takes a village" collectivism would destroy this shining city upon a hill from within.

Is the electorate teachable? Get Prof. Thomas Sowell on the phone.

Update: "Women like to do for their families. So do men," comments Bird Dog at Maggie's in a Monday-morning linkathon.

Sarah Palin: The first Mrs. Smith among equals going to Washington?

"And where was the dog?" teaparty buddy Stoutcat of Grand Rants wants to know in the comments to our previous post. "If I can't see kitteh photos at Sisu, I at least expect to see dog pix." Bird Dog of Maggie's Farm agrees, minus the cats: "Would you please get a darn dog or two, Sissy? Sheesh." Herewith, Jack in the loving arms of his papa Chris at Tuesday's Town Hall mob activities in Portsmouth, NH.

"That's one of my favorite movies," Karl Rove is telling Glenn Beck in response to the question "Do you like 'Mr Smith Goes to Washington'?" Beck worries that we don't have one inspiring leader, but Rove sets him straight:

Tens of thousands of Mr and Mrs Smiths are going to Washington. We don't need a single leader.

After the Town "Holler" event Tuesday we moseyed south down the pike to the Harborside Restaurant in Newburyport, where seagulls looking for handouts were locked in laridacious combat to determine who ruled the roof adjacent to the plein air porch where we sipped and noshed. Hadn't been there for five years or more and were pleasantly surprised at the size — dozens upon dozens — of the fleet of pleasure craft along both sides of the Merrimack. And this in a recession?

But if there WERE a single leader, could it be Sarah Palin as the first Mrs Smith among equals going to Washington? Unlike many brainy Beltway Republicans, Rove was open-minded from day one, August 29, 2008, when rumors began to fly that John McCain was going to shake things up by choosing an unknown frontierswoman from Alaska as his running mate:

She is very smart. She is very personable. She's one of these people who's very approachable. People are going to like her.

And her masterful playing of the national spin machine — check out her FaceBook answer to the president's dissing of her "Death Panels" meme — continues to leave the spinmeisters reeling. As Judge Napolitano just told Bret Baier, all Sarah has to remember is that freedom rang "200 years ago because people like her were not afraid to challenge authority."

Update: For your edification and listening pleasure, Ronald Reagan on the attempted stealth imposition of socialized medicine in a 1961 chat as paid spokesperson for the AMA before it sold out.

Update II: For your viewing pleasure, all things bright and beautiful at Modulator's Friday Ark #256.

Update III: "Sissy has a way of relaying events that makes one believe they were shoulder to shoulder with her the entire day!" writes Pam of Pamibe:

Great writing and great photographs! Oh, and be sure to follow the link at the end of the post. Some things never change.

For the good and for the bad.

Update IV: "I like the concept," writes Dan Riehl of Riehl World View:

And Sarah Palin does seem to have the star power to make the vehicle work. It'll take more than that to produce it. But it isn't a bad start.

Something else Palin has: Authenticity. Like Reagan, The Great Communicator — and unlike Obama, The Great Obfuscator, as Newt calls him in a must-read — SHE TRUSTS US!

"Health Plan: Government acting stupidly"

It was species recognition for lovers and haters of President Obama's plan to take over 1/6 of the nation's economy as August Obamacare Sale Daze hit coastal New England Tuesday in anticipation of the POTUS's historic visit to Portsmouth NH. We honked for the "Honk: No Obamacare" boys (above) and found ourselves reflexively giving the tribal salute or its opposite (not quite the finger but a certain understated rolling-eyeballs glare) to everyone whose path we crossed depending upon their slogans.

Pedestrians with whom we would normally have had just brief eye contact and continued on our way became fellow travelers to high five and chat with on the "Live Free or Die" road. We LOVED this gal's news-savvy "Health Plan: Govt acting stupidly" sign with its sadder-but-wiser reference to the President's recent unpleasantness with the Cambridge Police Department. Shall we have a beer on it?

Adorable families were out in numbers. Nobody cuter than the spunky little girl with her "Obama lies, Grandma dies" sign. Update: We caught a brief interview with the youngster's mother on CNN next morning. The clueless interviewer was unamusingly not amused.

 

This one stopped our heart. No comment necessary, but if there's anyone more poignant than the earnest young sons and daughters of a soldier, likely to become tomorrow's defenders of this Shining City Upon a Hill, we can't think who.

We fell to chatting with this spirited jumpsuit-clad Vietnam vet. As with Sarah Palin, all our best friends and the animals, it's the authenticity, stupid, a quality you don't get with the Con-Man-in-Chief and his henchmen. Later as we were wending our way out of the loop back toward the car, we came upon our friend in hot dispute with a disagreeable fellow with attitude, the man in blue below whom she named a member of ACORN.

Don't know for sure whether he was from ACORN, but we do know from a Boston Globe report — not to mention our eyes: We witnessed two busses with Obama slogan in window pulling up to the front of the line at Portsmouth High School as hundreds of ticket holders waited to enter the auditorium (below) — that a contingency of AFL-CIO supporters would be on hand to stir the pot.

Were we a fan of President Obama's, something we could never be since that day in December of 2006 when he called us a racist because we don't agree with his political philosophy, we would have been thrilled to stand in line among the patron-blessed ticket holders waiting patiently to be admitted to the inner sanctum. Fortunately, "Hot air has never been our thing."

While the beautiful people (Suzi pretty in pink baseball cap, Tuck in straw Panama hat and Chris in Brooks Brothers suit! above) struck Bergmanesque Cries and Whispers poses, we allowed ourselves to get swept up into the high-energy intensity of an NPR radio interview with the estimable Fred Thys:

Good guy, and we told him so when he asked why we were there. One reason, we said, was to let media folk like him whose job it is to inform his listeners know that there are anti-big-government people like us out here not sent by some nefarious "right-wing" cabal but just sick and tired of the president's attempts to ram more statist programs down our throats. Above a sweet school teacher answered the same questions we did. Her answers were softer than ours but from the heart. We brought up Charles Krauthammer's two-point program but could remember only one point, tort reform. The other point, portability, eluded us at the moment, [O, brain, where is thy victory?] but we did well in explaining how the threat of malpractice lawsuits produces the unanticipated consequences of doctors' ordering unnecessary tests and erosion of the doctor/patient trust relationship. Update: Here's the NPR report next day.

Then we were off to Pease Tradeport for Air Force One watch. LOTSA people there, more than at the high school we think. A great place to be of a New England summer's day. Good air.

I see it, I see it!

While waiting and watching for Airport One to appear, we had a fun and funny conversation with an Obamaphile. We knew her politics 'cause she was wearing buttons on her "sleeve," so to speak, while by that point we had left our own "Just say no" signs in the car. As we engaged in pleasantries about the excitement of seeing the President's plane up close, we treaded softly, not betraying our anti-Obama mindset. We talked about how getting tickets to the town hall was a patronage thing. She asserted that Obama had let as many dissenters as supporters get tickets. NOT. By contrast, George Bush had never allowed dissenters at any of his events. WHAT? Realizing it was time, we confessed that we were coming from the opposite side of the aisle and suggested we call it a day. A strange and illicit sensation talking with someone who thinks you're a member of her tribe when you know you aren't. Nice lady, though.

Update: Icky Poo. A reminder from Michelle Malkin, if needed, why we're so glad we didn't get tickets:

Little girl at Obama town hall has not-so-random political connections. A girl from Malden asked President Obama a question at Tuesday’s town hall meeting in New Hampshire about the signs outside “saying mean things” about his health care proposal.

Yah. Really mean things like "Just say no!"

Update: We "crash" PJMTVs Pajama Teaparty.

Update II: Instalanche! See also blog buddy neo-neocon's amusing and insightful exegesis of the "Angry White Man" double standard, wherein she asks the imponderable "What could be Angrier and Whiter and Manner than than an outlieing liar?"

Update III: Thanks to the Anchoress for including our post in one of her must-read, comprehensive linkapaloozas, "Klavan, “Health” Panels & Goldsteins."