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The true meaning of Christmas is right under your nose

"It isn't one of your holiday games" wrote T.S. Eliot regarding "The Naming of Cats." The little cat that came to dinner (above occupying a box Tuck had brought up from the basement for stowing moveable feast foodstuffs for stocking our Finnish Christmas Eve Supper Down East this evening) showed up on our doorstep a few weeks back. We still don't know her name. Tiny was not amused, but the two of them have managed to achieve an entente cordiale that puts some of the nation's diplomatic peacocks to shame.

"Go around the Xmas dinner table and tell something you're grateful for," Fox News cutie-pie-priest-in-residence Father Jonathan advised viewers this morning in a segment on how do we find our way back to the "true meaning of Christmas" in the shopping/cooking/making-everybody-happy hysteria of the countdown to "The tidings that dare not speak their name." Our precious Anchoress had spoken of the very thing a coupla days back in "The Christmas Light in the Shopping Madness." It reminded us of the poignant tale of "Why the chimes rang."

We were thrilled to learn the other day that "polls show" the majority of us gun-and-religion-clinging yahoos still prefer "Merry Christmas" to "Happy Holidays," It's been such a joy the last coupla years to exchange "the look" with Salvation Army bell ringers, checkout folk at the super and just about everyone we've come across in the last period of time in the countown to, well, you know, Christmas. Don't know whether Father Jonathan's tales around the Xmas dinner table will work for us, but here's the story we would tell:

On  the way up from Chelsea-by-the-Sea to York Harbor, we stopped at the liquor store in Seabrook, NH, just over the Massachusetts border, to purchase The Glen Livet Nadurra for Goomp ($90 in MA vs $60 in NH), and there, outside the store, was a Homeless Veterans table. Ever since 9/11 we've understood in our gut something we'd never really gotten before. Freedom isn't free, and it's those "rude men" willing to put their lives on the line who make it possible for the rest of us to pursue our American dream. Having no cash in our pocket, we ran back to the car for a five-dollar roll of dimes we had on hand for the tolls. As we made our offering to the fellow manning the Homeless Vets table, his smile melted our heart.

How mighty bless the best that is within the human heart.

Update: The Pope who loves cats and Mozart:

God often surprises us, says Pope in BBC broadcast.

Update II: Michelle Malkin Buzzworthy link!

Crossposted at Riehl World View and Liberty Pundits.

Robert Reich to the twittersphere: "Put Fox out of biz"

"People are moving away from Obamanomics, they're moving away from Reichonomics and they're moving towards Kudlow/Moore-onomics, and that's really shown by those population shifts" from north to south, free marketer Steve Moore (right) told tax-the-rich class warrior Robert Reich (left) on The Kudlow Report last night. "If you look at the new Rust Belt, it's not the Midwest. [It's] those New England and northeastern states … the kind of epicenter of liberalism."

"FCC: Stop tinkering with Internet and return to the 'fairness doctrine' requiring broadcasters to provide equal time. Put Fox out of biz," twittered President Clinton's Labor Secretary Robert Reich this morning. Horrified, we twittered back:

Is that you, Big Bro? How is it the business of a govt that works for me to put my fave TV station out of business?

"Astonishing how shameless our homegrown totalitarians are in tweeting their desire to repress free speech," we twittered Reuters Money and Politics columnist James Pethokoukis, who replied:

Agree ... I am actually surprised though I probably shouldnt be.

Indeed. The tormented Berkeley savant and class warrior sounds like he's coordinating his talking points with the latest iteration of Journolist/Cabalist. Random recent post from Professor Reich's blog:

And the vitriol emanating at all hours from rage radio, yell television, and Fox News – against immigrants, intellectuals, “coastal elites,” gays, and the President.

We’re better than this. This is not respectful disagreement. It’s thuggery. It has no legitimate role in a democracy. And most Americans are fed up with it.

A tired litany, but here's a suggestion for the man whose Wikepedia entry names him "one of America's foremost political economists." If you can't take the more flamboyant promulgators of constitutional conservatism who amuse us unthinking Dittoheads "juiced up with emotion, fear, guilt and racism," sir, then how about tuning in to the reasoned arguments of the above-mentioned James Pethokoukis? Yes, he's appeared from time to time on Fox, but like you he's been a welcome guest on CNBC and PBS as well. How's that for fair and balanced? His latest, "Net neutrality rules a blow to free markets," would be a good place to start. Or how about this from a month back, "Paul Ryan and the conservative economic mind":,

What’s fascinating about Ryan is that he keeps saying things that should get him into political trouble, but they don’t. He wants to rework Social Security. He wants to restructure Medicare. He  thinks a cheaper dollar is a bad idea.  And he won reelection with 68 percent of the vote in a district that Obama carried by four points. Good ideas expressed well and with conviction are powerful things.

Update: Doug Ross's Larwyn's Linx links.

Crossposted at Riehl World View and Liberty Pundits.

Tea Party to Mitt Romney: It's the authenticity, stupid

"Guess which grandchild heard that Papa might run again?" goes the ersatz we're-just-folks caption (above) on the front of a Christmas card from "The Romney Family" that just came in over the transom. Inside is another photo of the whole clan with a traditional "Merry Christmas" message. But flip it over and you get this:

Paid for by Free and Strong America PAC, inc. Not authorized by any candidate or candidate's committee.

No candidate or candidate's committee to see here. Just those cute grandkids talkin' 'bout Papa Romney. We can't help but think that Governor Romney's handlers have been monitoring Sarah Palin's ongoing, energetic embrace of the full panoply of media, old and new — most recently the riveting "Sarah Palin's Alaska" — and mistaking the trees for the forest, or something like that. A family photo against an expansive All-American landscape doesn't do it. There has to be something behind the pretty picture. Bottom line, Papa Romney, you ain't no Papa Grizzly.

Check out the Boston Herald's token conservative columnist, our own Jeff Jacoby, for a reminder of the former Massachusetts governor's credibility problem, "The great RomneyCare denial." It's the authenticity, stupid.

Crossposted at Riehl World View and Liberty Pundits.

Tea Partiers vs Tea Partyers. What's in a name?

"Al Qaeda is said to be planning Christmas attacks in the U.S. and Europe. The U.S. sprang into action, telling Al Qaeda, 'You can't call them Christmas attacks" quipped Jay Leno the other night: "You have to call them holiday attacks … Al Qaeda threatening to disrupt Christmas. Who do they think they are, relatives?" Words matter, and nobody says more in fewer words than the well-tempered comedy writer. Spellings matter too (see below).

"Well, that's a good way to tell who are actual members ;-)" twittered SaveOurCountry this afternoon, responding to our own tweet about a telling spelling discrepancy that's just reared its lovely head between veteran Tea Partiers like ourselves who've always used an "i" and johnny-come-lately members of the commentariat who have chosen to use "y" — Why? — as in "partyers," in their newly fact-based analyses of our movement following the November 2 "shellacking" of the powers that were. We first noticed it the other day in former Commentary columnist Jennifer Rubin's Washington Post article about "Republicans who want no distance between themselves and the most stalwart Tea Partyers," but googling for more this afternoon, we stumbled upon a Christian Science Monitor instance from way back in May: "Sarah Palin — feminist first, tea partyer second." Then today came the NYT's Kate Zernike's "I think everyone thought of the Tea Partyers as sort of angry, white men." [Yup, and no one Pauline Kael knew voted for Nixon.] So Tea Partyers with a y has been out there, but consider this. Prior to her move to the WaPo, Rubin was talkin' Partiers with an i only last October:

With a big assist from Obama, the Tea Partiers have proved themselves much savvier than the punditocracy.

There's nothing nefarious here. Just a given publication's editorial stylepoint decisions. Still, wouldn't we love to know where the i/y distinction came from? A faint whiff of elitism, or are we being oversensitive?* We miss you, William Safire. At any rate, we're giving the WaPo, CSM and NYT editors the benefit of the doubt, unlike our friends on the left side of the aisle who tried to spin a scandal out of Fox Washington Bureau Chief Bill Sammon's recent staff memo regarding coverage of "climate change" stories:

Politico’s headline captures the controversy perfectly: “Fox editor urged climate skepticism.”

*Etymology/usage notes: Neither partier nor partyer can be found in our venerable dead-tree Merriam Webster's Unabridged. We may be dealing with a neologism here. Online we found this bit of anecdotal evidence that suggests what may be afoot:

Are you British? "Partier" is the common American word; "partyer" looks British to me.

Update: This in a tweet from Melissa Moore to Dan Riehl:

Don't forget "Partayers" ;-)

Crossposted at Riehl World View and Liberty Pundits.

Who knew that Murdoch and Soros had it in them?

 

"I LOVE THE CHEMISTRY between Greta Van Susteren and Herman Cain. She is SMITTEN w THE HERMANATOR!" we twittered this afternoon after viewing a scintillating interview between the Fox News anchoress and the "Stay inspired: We the people are still in charge" Republican rising star that got our Papa Grizzly juices flowing. We haven't felt this energized since that McCain announcement of his running mate!

"If the polarisation between liberal progressives and the conservative Tea Party is getting worse in the US, thank these men," editorializes the UK's The Independent, trotting out the left's usual moral-equivalency suspects in a lame if stylishly written attempt to dismiss belief in American exceptionalism as just another astroturf phenomenon:

Who knew that Rupert Murdoch and George Soros, two billionaires of not so tender years, had it in them? …

While the one means to impose a right-wing "dictatorial democracy" on America, the other is a "master puppeteer" bent on collapsing the dollar and forming a socialist world government. Cartoonish this may be, but a joke it is not …

Yet, political discourse in America is increasingly being held hostage to their fight and the collateral damage is accumulating.

"I'm a Conservative First and a Republican second, Herman Cain told Greta. "Less government, lower taxes, more individual responsibility." Fun and funniest question and answer ever: "Will you come back and tell us first, maybe? I know you're friends with Cavuto," said Greta. "Neil Cavuto has offered to disown me, even send Guido to break my knees." As we twittered THEHermanCain this afta, "So, Greta or Cavuto: Who gets your 2012 scoop? How 'bout you twitter to show 'we the people are still in charge'? :D"

As Dick Cheney once famously told a pack journalist, "I disagree with the premise of your question." What our friends on the left side of the aisle take to be "polarization" is simply the constitutional conservative grassroots' great awakening.

Update: Stacy links:

Sissy Willis loves her some Herman, too!

Crossposted at Riehl World View and Liberty Pundits.

 

The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light

The Christmas cards are ready! We finished printing and cropping, then tipping vellum enclosures inside with Elmer's All-Purpose Glue Stick. Our message this year:

The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light.

     — Isaiah 9:2

Here's the image, Tiny in The Little House, all eyes and ears in the aftermath of a snowstorm last winter. A touch of Photoshop's "Paint Daubs" filter lends the image a bit of a painterly blur.

For the curious, here's a glimpse of our Christmas Card Workshop from years past.

D.C. elites pronounce Palin a "negative influence in national politics"

"We hear it through the media," Sarah Palin replied — perhaps presciently and with the soupçon of an eye roll? — in October of 2007 when Charlie Rose asked earnestly "Do you know what President Bush's energy policy is?" during a roundtable with two distaff governors (Palin and Rose above). "You're presuming there is one," chimed in then Arizona Governor Janet Napolitano good naturedly. In those pre-gotcha-interview days Palin more than proved her gravitas, holding her own on energy and other issues, and all was taken in good humor.

"Seventy-nine percent of Washington elites believe Palin is a 'negative influence in national politics' while just 15 percent find her to be 'a breath of fresh air,'" according to a new Politico poll that defines said elites as "those who live within the D.C. metro area, earn more than $75,000 per year, have at least a college degree and are involved in the political process or policymaking." We're talking here the "GOP Blue Bloods and the politics of envy" that we've been flogging since August 29, 2008, but it's nice to see a brand new poll supports our gut reaction way back then:

Outside the nation’s capital, however, more than twice as many believe she has had a positive impact on politics, while 50 percent see her as a negative influence.

"Palin is a populist-oriented phenomenon drawn heavily from lower middle-class voters, but she also deliberately comes off as anti-intellectual and anti-Washington, so it is no surprise she does not play in the Beltway,” said Mark Penn, CEO of the polling firm Penn Schoen Berland, which conducted the survey for POLITICO. “Elites almost everywhere are turned off by her and some of the very things she does that attracts her core support."

She's definitely anti-Washington (a huge part of her charm to us Tea Party types), but "deliberately comes off as anti-intellectual"? Puleeze. From Day One (again, August 29, 2008), the dogs that be have been nipping at the Mama Grizzly's heels, swooning in horror at her lack of "intellectual curiosity," when in fact it is their own lack of intellectual curiosity that tells a tale. Which brings us to Charles Krauthammer, a long-time favorite of ours like Bar Bush now revealed to be in contempt of folks like us.

Our first hint was Krauthammer's dismissal of Sarah Palin's potential VP candidacy that same August 29. As rumors swirled of John McCain's possible choice of running mate, Krauthammer pontificated that the Senator from Arizona should pick someone "safe" like Fred Thompson, whom we adore, but as we blogged back then:

Our sis will remind us that we have a heart too soon made glad, but the Governor of Alaska gets our girls-just-wanna-have-fun juices flowing. Sarah, get your gun! 

Then came Krauthammer's fuddy-duddy dismissals of her gravitas in the last period of time and now, the denouement, discovered by twitterfriend Heather Hunt of the blog Connecticut for Palin:

Reagan’s reasons for changing his mind about Gorbachev were “ignorant and pathetic” columnist Charles Krauthammer wrote. He added that no one should be surprised that Reagan had lost his head because “it was never weighted down with too many ideas to begin with.”

Charles Krauthammer is not one of us.

Update: Cubachi has a meaty must-read on the subject:

What policy has Palin not engaged in? She exposed Obamacare’s destructive policies that includes “death panels.” Krauthammer objected to her tone and even claimed she was wrong. When in fact, Palin was right and it was indeed proven that the bill did remove the right between patient and doctor, and leave panels of bureaucrats deciding whether or not a patient receives treatment.

Update II: Da Tech Guy's Blog links:

Of course the beltway consider her a negative influence, she has helped lead a peasant’s revolt that threatens their ability to feed at the public trough.

Update III: Maggie's links.

Crossposted at Riehl World View, Cloven Not Crested and Liberty Pundits.

The best microhistory video of the Gramscian march and all that evah!!!

"While Washington has been busy doing what's best for Washington, things have gotten worse, not better for families and small businesses," said South Dakota Representative-Elect Kristi Noem in her GOP radio address this morning, a clear, concise articulation of the Constitutional Conservative convictions of us Tea Partiers.

"That was terrific! Thank you, South Dakota, for sending such an appealing and articulate spokeswoman for the Shining City" to The Hill, we twittered Representative-elect Kristi Noem in appreciation of her delivery of a rousing "Weekly Republican [Radio] Address" (h/t Gateway Pundit) this morning. We were about to excerpt it here, but the underlying issues that animate her words are flooding in over the Twitter transom at record speed. Read Noem's transcript and listen to the video here. Related issues in Sarah Palin's "Why I Support Paul Ryan's Roadmap." Now on to "the best microhistory video of the Gramscian march and all that evah!!!":

For the first time today, Americans are not free to say what they think.They may be in serious trouble. They may be punished for violating the unholy commandments of the 90's, commonly known as political correctness.

These are the historical underpinnings of the Gramscian march through the institutions we've been flogging here from Day One.

Update: Michelle Malkin Buzzworthy link!

Update II: Dan links in an appalling exposé at Big Journalism.

Crossposted at Riehl World View and Liberty Pundits.

Good tidings we bring to you and your kin

In celebration of our blog's seventh anniversary day after tomorrow, December 12, we proudly republish our very first post ever, "The tidings that dare not speak their name." It features our Christmas Card of that year, an image of the homestead festooned with the lights fantastic, and a fearless, politically incorrect challenge to those who would wilfully misrepresent the Establishment Clause of our Constitution's First Amendment. An early stirring of the Tea Party spirit that would rise up to disintermediate the powers that be via the internet?

"Chelsea-by-the-Sea at Christmastime"

We wish you a Merry Christmas!

That was it, a blogpost of exactly 68 characters that could hold its own today in the fast-moving, 140-or-fewer-characters world of the Twittersphere. We were delighted to note that Glenn Reynolds has more or less declared victory in the war this Army of Davids was waging back then:

I GUESS THE "WAR AGAINST CHRISTMAS" HAS BEEN LOST, THEN: Obama lights the National Christmas Tree, says ‘Merry Christmas’ three times.

Not that there aren't still some air-headed holdouts.

Update: Michelle Malkin Buzzworthy link!

Crossposted at Riehl World View and Liberty Pundits.

Sarah Palin and Elizabeth Edwards, sisters under the skin?

"New York Magazine's excerpt from the book Game Change about John and Elizabeth Edwards, 'Saint Elizabeth and the Ego Monster,' makes this the perfect time to stroll down memory lane," wrote The Nose on Your Face a few months back. Elizabeth Edwards died today, a life full of promise thwarted by something lacking at the center?

"I'm sensing a profound sistah connection between Elizabeth Edwards and Sarah Palin," we twittered this afternoon:

The difference? Left vs right political philosophy?

That and the luck of the marriage draw, perhaps? For Sarah, it seems, the family is the font of all good things, husband and wife equally pulling their weight. For Elizabeth a toxic mixture of power-crazed politics and reckless infidelity seems to have waylaid the golden girl on her path to fulfillment, she and her husband pulling in opposite directions that eventually derailed their utopian project to save the world. We were reading Palin's America by Heart while waiting for the doc at Mass Eye and Ear for our annual checkup this afta. [Good report, glad to tell. We're still seeing pretty straight.] Her message is mostly what Goomp calls "a lot of good stuff it's nice to be reminded of." When one of the Eye and Ear aides caught sight of what we were reading, we exchanged "the look." "Did you watch…" she began tentatively. "You mean 'Sarah Palin's Alaska?'" we replied with enthusiasm. Realizing we shared a taste for the forbidden fruit, she happily admitted her delight with the show and acknowledged she was totally looking forward to next Sunday's episode where actress Kate Gosselin loses it in the face of Sarah's sang froid before the elements. 'Course no one but us die-hard fans is reading Sarah's #2 New York Times best seller, according to MSNBC's Norah O'Donnell, who signalled her membership in the PDS tribe with a sudden new respect for GW's Decision Points, #1 on the NYT Bestseller List. No need to read original sources if you've got access to Journolist/Cabalist Central. [Under the radar is #3, The Autobiography of Mark Twain]. As Pete Ingemi said on DaTechGuy on DaRadio Saturday night (Sissy Talks!):

We had the whole Morning Joe crowd enamored with George Bush. In fact, as I mentioned on my own blog … how much does the mainstream media and especially MSNBC hate Sarah Palin? They hate her so much that they praise George W. Bush.

Unlike Sarah, who married her high school sweetheart and stuck by her man through thick and thin, Elizabeth Edwards married a hottie she met in law school who turned out to be a narcissistic, power-hungry monster. We were thinking about her life and the paths not taken as we read this afternoon of Edwards's death at 61 from a metastacizing breast cancer first diagnosed in the final days of her husband's vice-presidential candidacy. Checking out the early obituaries, we found our heart breaking:

Elizabeth Edwards dazzled her future husband and her classmates with her intelligence, humor, and grit. One classmate later recalled how she could stop a law professor cold after a 20-minute grilling on a case.

"The smartest lawyer I know is my wife, Elizabeth," John Edwards once said.

The loss of their son probably drove a stake through the heart of their marriage:

In 1996, Wade Edwards, who was 16 at the time, was killed in a wreck while driving from Raleigh to the family's beach house on Figure Eight Island, near Wilmington. To deal with her grief, Elizabeth Edwards retired from practicing law and withdrew from interacting with friends. Later, she found solace by spending countless hours in online bereavement chat rooms …

With her husband, she could be intensely affectionate or brutally dismissive. At times subtly, at times blatantly, she was forever letting John know that she regarded him as her intellectual inferior. She called her spouse a “hick” in front of other people and derided his parents as rednecks. One time, when a friend asked if John had read a certain book, Elizabeth burst out laughing. “Oh, he doesn’t read books,” she said. “I’m the one who reads books.”

Interesting that the lamestream media, mindlessly mouthing the mantra of Sarah Palin's lack of intellectual curiosity never thought to ask John Edwards what he was reading.

Update: Instalanche!

Update II: Michelle Malkin Buzzworthy link!

Update III: Rick Steroni links at Brutally Honest and Wizbang. How cool is that?

Sissy Willis has your quote of the day.

If this doesn't nail the press's hypocrisy, nothing does.

Update IV: Conservatives 4 Palin links.

Update V: The Anchoress links in one of her protein-rich linkfests:

Elizabeth Edwards and Sarah Palin: I would never have put ‘em together but Sissy Willis Does!

Crossposted at Riehl World View, Cloven Not Crested and Liberty Pundits.