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"Comparing him to Obama, though, I LOVE the big old lug"

Chelsea Chamber of Commerce automobiles go tire to tire with earth-moving equipment across the street at Eastern Salt as respectable local business people take off on a cruise of Boston Inner Harbor to embrace for a few hours the "ephemerality, cacophony, multiplicity and simultaneity of Everyday Urbanism.

"I think that the years of captivity truly rattled his brain, as it would," writes our imail correspondent, taking the ball of Daniel Henninger's rhetorical "Is John McCain Stupid?" and running with it:

I think he's an idiot, in many ways. Comparing him to Obama, though, I LOVE the big old lug.

That's pretty much where we've been as of late in this disingenuously who-me? race-bating race from Hell, from the moment in December of 2006 that we got a glimpse of the cynical heart of darkness that is Barack Obama's game plan. That so many of our fellow Americans are buyin' his snake oil reminds us of how nothing changes but the date. McCain's new "Celeb" ad linking Britney Spears, Paris Hilton and Barack Obama was a breath of fresh air to those of us on the right side of the aisle. The shock, shock and outrage of our friends on the other side of the aisle told us the McCain folks had hit a nerve.

"I have a blogpost in mind but haven't found the mental space to pursue it," we further imailed our sis, following a blow-by-blow accounting of a day of wall-to-wall cooking in preparation for the après ski  part of Saturday's Eastern Minerals Maritime Festival:

She: What is rattling the cell?

We: Having to do with that walkable neighborhoods thing and a ridiculous Chelsea Record article about Eastern Minerals' Maritime Festival. The first paragraph is right out of the liberal playbook.

She: Oh, no. Is the Record panning it already?

We: And I quote: "Chelsea's working waterfront can often seem like an unfriendly, uniniviting place." They introduce the concept with boilerplate anti-salt and then go on to praise the events: "Heavy machinery, mountainous piles of road salt and large seagoing ships are among the drawbacks that make the waterfront a less than ideal place to go for a stroll or take a leisurely walk. However, that will change this weekend as the Eastern Salt Company plays host to the Sixth Annual Eastern Salt Maritime Festival."

The search for beauty in unexpected places that is the essence of our worldview and the paradigm of Everyday Urbanism eludes the close-minded, inside-the-box thinkers of what we have called the "permanently angry folk of the Chelsea Green Space and Recreation Committee, who 'demand' that Eastern Minerals 'find an alternative site for the salt' and 'any remaining salt be covered with a solid structure, as required by state law.'" Chelsea Record reporter Joseph Domelowicz, Jr. appears to have bought their story, no questions asked. One man's drawbacks are another's romance of the sea.

More about "walkable neighborhoods" — ours is "Very Walkable" and Goomp's Camelot-by-the-Sea" is "Car-Dependant" according to Walk Score's algorithm —and how they may make you fat or thin as soon as we come up for air.

By the beautiful sea

Goomp out on the terrace pronounces our Tomato Soup de Soie the love apple of his eye.

What to do when the homegrown tomatoes start feeling their oats? We clicked over to Epicurious.com and found the perfect cold tomato soup to serve as appetizer for Saturday's Clambake Lite down Goomp's. See below for preparation notes. The clambake itself was clamless. Unlike last summer's no-holds-barred Bill Foster's Down East Clambake to go, we simplified, simplied: Lobsters — Hannaford's steamed 'em to order — corn on the cob, potato salad, grilled red dogs and garden salad. Lobster roll for Goomp and nutcrackers, picks and drawn butter for the rest of us. Another new recipe, Shortbread Lemon Bars, for dessert.

"Force purée through a fine sieve … discarding seeds," says Epicurious. Waste-not-want-not Yankee that we are, we kept the seeds and other solids left in the sieve and used a dollop as garnish for broccoli soup.

Tomato Soup de Soie, our latest Cold Turkey Cookbook triumph, comes straight out of the Epicurious files. We didn't change a thing. Just peel and purée your tomatoes, add a little lemon juice, lemon zest, chopped scallion greens, sugar, dried thyme, marjoram, salt and pepper to taste. Serve in your finest soup bowls to showcase the dazzling color, and top with a dollop of sour cream. As diners spoon into the dollop, the swirling factor becomes part of the eye appeal. Click here for detailed instructions. The Food Network makes peeling tomatoes look easy. The trick is to plunge 'em into boiling water for a few seconds and then immediately into iced water. We used a plastic spatula to force the juice through our fine sieve.

Tuck, Goomp and Suzi wait for the hostess to lift her spoon so they can all dip into the soup du jour.

With his eye ever on the prize, Babe goes for the jugular of the bag of lobsters.

Moving back and forth between kitchen and supply room, we noticed Baby Cakes hovering near the bag of lobsters. In self-defense of our own meal, we fine-tuned the Babe's minute-by-minute location accordingly, carrying him to the supply room and depositing him there while we gathered things from the #2 fridge. By the time we got back to the kitchen, Cakes was just arriving back there himself for another lobster vigil. From imail with Suzi next morning:

She: I was remembering your carrying Baby around like a fashion accessory yesterday.  Wicked tow koot.

We: I wish you HAD taken peectures, peectures.

She: I know.  It was classic, and priceless. What I loved was that he didn't seem to mind . . . didn't fight you, or claw to get away.  Kind of went limp, like a Fendi purse.  :-)

We: Kind of like the kitten being transported by the nape of the neck in the mother's mouth.

Tuck, the man of many hats, becomes a man of leisure for the day.

Suzi loves Chris loves Mom loves Barney II. Check out the mother's glamorous Michael Stars designer jeans with the perfect fit.

Chris takes the wheel as we head out after lunch to perform the annual ritual of total immersion in the waters of the Atlantic.

After lunch we drove over to York Harbor Beach across the river from Goomp's Camelot-by-the-Sea. Just as we arrived, a parking place opened up magically a stone's throw from the shore, where a larger-than-usual throng was starting to believe life's a beach.

All agreed the scene had the look and sound and feel of the early scenes of "Jaws."

Life IS a beach. Everybody into the surf!

 

There weren't too many babes, Tuck and Chris decided, but that's the trade-off when you're talking a family beach. No radios or other canned music broke the spell of the soundmix of waves breaking and retreating and happy people frolicking in the water and playing in the sand.

Talk about playing in the sand.

 

Toes sanded up as we dripped dry in the afterglow of a rousing session of body surfing. The waves were bigger and more powerful than usual — due to "a strong storm system" at sea, we learned next day — for this pristine little strand tucked between the granite bedrock of Eastern Point and Stage Neck near the mouth of the York River. When you catch the wave just before it breaks, it carries you straight and true into the shallows. Laughing and feeling as light as air, you pick yourself up and head out for more, enjoying the sensation of letting some of the interim waves crash in your face before the next perfect wave takes you soaring again.

The timeless hysteria of the history-challenged multitudes

This image of you-know-who giving the sieg heil salute to a mob of rock concert fans near the "take-down-this-wall" site of President Reagan's June 12, 1987 remarks at the Brandenburg Gate made our blood run cold. All those mostly pink forearms raised in a cascading lambda of mindless "yes-we-can" bandwagonism called to mind the wizened limbs of the victims of the holocaust. Obama's flip-flopping political antics are par for the course, of course -- we've had his number since December of 2006, when he gratuitously called us a racist -- but there are two things now that haunt us: 1. The timeless hysteria of the history-challenged multitudes and 2. The fellow travelership of the still so-called mainstream media.

“My opponent, of course, is traveling in Europe, and tomorrow his tour takes him to France … a throng of adoring fans awaits Senator Obama in Paris — and that’s just the American press,” quipped John McCain the other day. We'd missed those bon mots at the time but stumbled upon them in our Site Meter stats this morning at Democracy Project. McCain has always been what's termed "problematic" for us, from McCain-Feingold on down to pandering to the anthropogenic-global-warming crowd. At the same time, in years gone by when we were still able to stomach Imus in the Morning on MSNBC, McCain's quick-on-the-uptake sense of humor was always a hoot, something you'd never get from the Obamessiah. As we blogged awhile back, given the alternatives, in "How I learned to stop worrying and love John McCain":

"Nothing in America is inevitable. We are the captains of our fate. We can overcome any challenge as long as we keep our courage and stand by our principles," Super-Duper Tuesday's Republican man of the hour John McCain told supporters and the immediate universe in his Victory Party speech last night [via A Second Hand Conjecture]. The words were what we disaffected freedom-loving, small-government-embracing, invisible-hand-holding types thought we'd never hear from the free-speech-restricting, anthropogenic-global-warming-proseletyzing, economics-challenged frontrunner who is enjoying what Shepard Smith is calling a "monster lead" over rivals Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee. Who knew the proprietor of the Fast-Talking Straight Talk Express had principles?

"And when I came to the room with shoes, nothing but empty shoes, I broke down," wrote Jeff Jarvis of his epipany at the Holocaust Museum in DC a few years back. We blogged about it in our post "The city upon a hill shines through."

That sea of mostly pink forearms raised in support of Barack Obama's dreamy "yes we can" chimera echoed ironically the ocean of empty shoes pictured poignantly at the Holocaust Museum in DC.

A vertical delivery on the salt dock

Everyday Urbanism will out. "Between 12 and 2 pm next Saturday the USCG will perform a vertical delivery on the salt dock" across the street from us here at Chelsea-by-the-Sea, emails Dan Adams re the highlight of Eastern Salt's Chelsea Maritime Festival 10 to 4 p.m. on Saturday, August 2:

A helicopter hovers high over the ground, and USCG personnel repel down cables onto the dock … It should be a really spectacular demonstration and vision.

"The newest and most powerful tractor tug in Boston is Leo," according to Professional Mariner. Leo will be dockside across the street for tours August  2 for Eastern Salt's Chelsea Maritime Festival.

We're hoping for the totally awesome repro of Darwin's Beagle with state-of-the-art innards for sometime next year, but while we're waiting, the "newest and most powerful tractor tug in Boston," Leo will be lying alongside Eastern Salt next weekend for interested boarding parties:

Boston’s traditional tugboat company, Boston Towing & Transportation, has had to make room this year for an expanded, refinanced and revitalized competitor — Constellation Martitime, acquired by Foss Maritime of Seattle in 2006 …

Out at the end of Pier 1 in Charlestown, near the autoport at the end of Terminal Street, just north of the Charlestown Navy Yard, it’s beginning to look like a Foss Maritime satellite yard with half a dozen green and white tugs tied up around a couple of work barges, one of which houses a maintenance facility and offices. What’s left of the old Constellation fleet — tied up around the corner — is totally eclipsed by the newer and more powerful green and white Foss tugs. While a couple of new Foss tractor-style tugs get the headlines these days, a handful of very capable twin-screw tugs are also there to do the heavy hauling.

Most of them are being renamed after stellar constellations, except the newest and most powerful — the 5,080-hp z-drive tractor, Leo, which arrived in Boston in mid-March already bearing a constellation name. Leo and another Foss tractor, the 3,000-hp cycloidal-drive tug America (just renamed Orion), were both towed around from the West Coast as dead ships, arriving with a disfiguring coating of ice at the tail end of winter.

Boston Towing, with 13 tugs including two LNG-capable, z-drive tractor tugs, still has the majority of ship-assist work in this mid-sized port — estimated to be at least 75 percent market share — but Constellation, backed by an aggressive parent company eager to build itself as a national brand, is sure to be coming on strong in the near future.

We're totally into the USCG these days, our nephew's beloved's being a member of the crew of the U.S. Coast Guard cutter Tahoma of cocaine-busting fame. Our exhibition at Pearl Street Gallery just up the street from Eastern Salt will be open for tours during the festival, and for friends of sisu there'll be food and drink at Chelsea-by-the-Sea following the formal event. If you're in the area —or if not, feel free to go out of your way — please stop by.

"As a grain of mustard seed"

Tiny relaxes mid morning surrounded by the English ivy that covers the neighbor's house.

"Hoo, boy - thems is some kittehs," comments ailurophile par excellence Elisson re the Chelsea Grays. Here's lookin' at you, kid.

A bristling specimen of common burdock (Arctium minus) — Old World invasive biennial forb of waste places and member of the daisy family (Compositae or Asteraceae) — has set up shop just under the forsythia by the side steps at Chelsea-by-the-Sea, a perfect place for our camera's eye to study its progress from flower to seed. The first-year rosette of basal leaves went unnoticed by us, but this year's bushy crop of stunning magenta and pink flowerheads surrounded by hooked green burrs (x 4) towering over the stairs is making quite a splash. 

You're probably aware that the "hook and loop fastener" Velcro was inspired by the structure of burdock's fruit, but did you know it all started in the Alps?

Detail of botanical illustration of Arctium minor shows cross section of flowerhead (magenta and pink) enclosed in a prickly burr or involucre, a series of bracts or phyllaries (green turning to brown when ripe) with hooks curving inward. (Flora von Deutschland Österreich und der Schweiz, 1885)

From SwissInfo.org's How a Swiss invention hooked the world:

It was in 1941 that [Velcro inventor Georges] de Mestral had his eureka moment. Walking his dog in the woods, he spotted that his woollen socks and jacket and his dog's fur were covered with burrs — small seeds or dry fruits found in many types of plant including thistles and, in this case, burdock.

Back home, de Mestral slipped a few burrs under a microscope and saw that their barbed, hook-like seeds meshed with the looped fibres in his clothes … in 1955, the hook-and-loop fastener was patented under the name Velcro, which comes from the French words "velours" (velvet) and "crochet" (hook).

Most "flower flies have "yellow-and-black stripes and are excellent mimics of wasps or bees," according to the US Forest Service site. "Flies are considered 'incidental' pollinators," adds the USDA Agricultural Research Service, "moving pollen on their body hairs from one flower to another as they search for nectar." This striking specimen was busy incidentally pollinating flowers of gold of pleasure, AKA false flax (Camelina sativa), another weedy plant of waste places that caught our camera's eye this morning along a seedy stretch of sidewalk during walkies. Camelina has "long been grown in Europe, its oil used as a lamp oil until the 18th century.

Gold of pleasure (Camelina sativa), a weedy member of the  Brassicaceae or Cruciferae (AKA the crucifers, mustard family or cabbage family) of economic plants is another one of those "volunteers" in our own backyard that promises to be a boon to mankind. According to a Journal of Applied Poultry Research study, it is "one of various oilseed crops being studied for its potential value in biofuel production. The resultant by-product of oil extraction, camelina meal (CM), could be marketable as a livestock feed.

Update: Compare profile of burdock blossom, far right, with cross-section of flowerhead in botanical illustration above.

We stumbled onto camelina's virtues the other day when the Professor commented "I certainly agree that non-food-based biofuels are the future. Corn-based ethanol is justifiable, if at all, only as a bootstrapping measure," linking to an AgWeb article by Dr. Don Panter, President of Sustainable Oils, LLC:

Most important to the debate of fuel vs. food is the fact that biodiesel can be produced from non-food crops. Camelina, for example, is a non-invasive, oilseed crop of the mustard family. It can be grown in arid conditions or rotated with cereal crops and requires low amounts of fertilizer and pesticides. Aptly nicknamed “gold of pleasure,” the high-yielding energy-crop boosts farm revenues by creating a food-plus-fuel scenario. The meal produced from crushed camelina can be used to create omega-3 enriched feed for livestock, a significant benefit that has gotten swept away in the controversy. The beauty of non-food crops like camelina is that they are here today and don’t require new technology breakthroughs, just a commitment to see them succeed.

Update II: Burdock receives a gentleman caller, one of those fuzzy flower flies that looks like a bee to the untrained eye, "but there are several features that make it easy to separate [Syrphus sp.] from a bee: the eyes are huge, the antennae are short and stubby with a bristle half-way along, there’s nowhere to carry pollen and there is only one pair of wings." 

And camelina's bounty isn't just for diesel-powered vehicles, livestock and flower flies:

Camelina's other attraction is its possible application in human nutrition. It has a unique fatty acid profile that could make it a good source of omega three and omega six fatty acids. McVicar suggests that the health food industry is currently seeking products that have improved health attributes, which might present new opportunities for camelina.

The biblical parable of the mustard seed comes to mind:

And Jesus said unto them, Because of your unbelief: for verily I say unto you, If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible unto you.

                — Matthew 17:20 (King James Version)

Back to biodiesel, Rudolph Diesel himself planted the seed — a peanut seed — over a hundred years ago, as BioShuttles explains:

Biodiesel has been around for over a century. Dr. Rudolf Diesel actually invented the diesel engine to run on vegetable oil and in fact when he presented his engine at the World Exhibition in Paris in 1900, his engine was running on a fuel derived from peanut oil. Prior to his death in 1913 he stated that; "The diesel engine can be fed with vegetable oils and would help considerably in the development of agriculture of the countries which use it."

"The use of vegetable oils for engine fuels may seem insignificant today. But such oils may become in course of time as important as petroleum and the coal tar products of the present time." However due to the low cost of mineral oils at the time his engine was modified to run such oils. However, in European countries since the mid 1990's and in UK since 2002 reductions in biofuels duty has made the use of biodiesel economically viable as is now seen to be the "sustainable fuel of the future".

The Lord and the Invisible Hand move in mysterious ways.

Update: Maggie's links, commenting on the old saying that "The good Lord didn't create anything without a purpose, but mosquitoes come close":

'Toon from Theo. It's wrong, though. Without mosquitoes, we would have no Gin and Tonics.

Be sure to check out all the links. It's a treasure trove, as usual.

Update II:  A treasure trove of links to all things bright and beautiful at Modulator's Friday Ark #201

Update III: Lots more things bright and beautiful at Carnival of the Cats #228, now playing at Cat.Synth.com.

Site inspection

Out on the east drive this morning, Babe inspects the detritus of Tuck's project to reset the posts, restore the fence and reset that part of the brick walk and steps along the side of the house disrupted by the Big Dig two weeks back.

Notice the difference in green between typical New England midsummer brown lawn (foreground and background) vs. spring-green rogue patches of grass growing in amongst the bricks of the drive. Do the bricks set into the soil act as a dry well drawing water towards the roots?

Taking his work seriously, Inspector Cakes leaves no stone unturned.

Update: Artsy Catsy presents Carnival of the Cats #227, "the greatest traveling cat show on the face of the Earth."

"Without any understanding"

Looking for love in all the right places. TV screen shot of a young pilgrim basking in the warm glow of BXVIs blessing during Papa Ratzi's triumphant visitation to Australia for World Youth Day 2008.

"Euphoria in politics is an invitation for disappointment," Eckart von Klaeden — a German parliamentarian and foreign policy expert in Angela Merkel's Christian Democratic Union — said with reference to Herr Obama's imminent visit to the Fatherland:

"One reason Obama is so popular here is that people expect him to break radically with the politics of Bush, without any understanding of what this would involve," said Eckart von Klaeden …

He likened the huge crowds Obama is expected to draw in Europe to those that cheered on former Chancellor Helmut Kohl during the build-up to German unification. Kohl's fans turned against him when his promises of "flourishing landscapes" in eastern Germany failed to materialize.

Benedetto schmoozes down under with youthful pilgrims from the four corners of the earth.

Back on this side of the pond, "Moving abruptly to the center, as Mr. Obama has been doing, may be a smart overall political strategy," notes the WSJ, "But it clearly comes at some cost to his standing among his most idealistic supporters."

ABC's George Stephanopoulos says enthusiasm for the Democratic candidate among young voters "has been dampened" and "all of the questions in recent weeks on whether or not Barack Obama is shifting positions, becoming 'a typical politician,' is turning some of them off."

Thank God. He may not be the anti-Christ, but Obama's line is as old and tired as the hills, his recently astronomical poll numbers the wages of history-free public education and wishful thinking. 'Wonder how much overlap there is between the youngsters who look to the Lord, through Benedetto, for their help and those who look to Barack Obama for their personal salvation? Enough about the unspeakably narcissistic Democratic presidential candidate and the sheeple who bleat to his call. Let's move on to the Vicar of Christ.

"Before the Pope and the crowds arrived, Sydney tried hard to be cynical about the whole affair," says Time, succumbing to the glory of it all in spite of itself:

People asked why the government was spending $80 million on World Youth Day, a Catholics-only event. They grumbled that streets would be closed and traffic disrupted.

Then the pilgrims came. The winter weather turned heavenly — one blue day after another. And the crowds of youths weren't quite the kind party-mad "Sinny" is used to. They were happy, patient, peaceable. They sang hymns and waved flags. When protesters threw condoms at them, they shouted, "Jesus loves you, too."

Throughout the week, attendees filled Sydney’s streets, in groups clearly identifiable by their bright backpacks and occasionally breaking into song. For many, part of the joy had been being with like-minded people, what the organizer of World Youth Day, Bishop Anthony Fisher, called “the ability to say ‘God’ in public, not having to hide it away in church for an hour each week.”

Then there was the NYT, whose "despite" tells everything about the editors' anti-Catholic mindset:

"Despite the presence of hundreds of thousands of young visitors, 125,000 of them from overseas, there was almost no trouble," the New York Times reported.

The police reported only one arrest, of a young Australian Catholic who punched a demonstrator who was throwing condoms into a crowd of pilgrims to protest the church’s stand on birth control and its opposition to the use of condoms to prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS.

"The world needs this renewal," Benedict said. "In so many of our societies, side by side with material prosperity, a spiritual desert is spreading; an interior emptiness, an unnamed fear, a quiet sense of despair."

'Guess the Times didn't have the time to notice the body language of "happy, patient, peaceable" youngsters feeling the joy. It wasn't "despite" their presence but BECAUSE OF their presence that there was "almost no trouble." As Benedetto said, “Our world has grown weary of greed, exploitation and division … of the tedium of false idols and piecemeal responses, and the pain of false promises.” Obama who?

"From the forlorn child in a Darfur camp, or a troubled teenager, or an anxious parent in any suburb, or perhaps even now from the depth of your own heart, there emerges the same human cry for recognition, for belonging, for unity," he told a gathering of 180,000 pilgrims during an evening vigil on the eve of his final Sunday mass.

“A new age in which hope liberates us from the shallowness, apathy and self-absorption which deaden our souls and poison our relationships. Dear young friends, the Lord is asking you to be prophets of this new age, messengers of his love, drawing people to the Father and building a future of hope for all humanity.”

That "human cry for recognition, for belonging, for unity" struck a cord here, where the importance of being noticed is our ur-theme, from the suicidal monsters who terrorized London to the astronauts who flew to "the stars." As we've said before, it's all about whom you choose as your peers.

Update: A chorus of human cries for recognition at Dr. Sanity's Carnival of the Insanities.

"Everything I designed was unnecessary"

Designer Philippe Starck talks about his TeddyBearBand [1998 for Moulon Roty]: "In my opinion, an overabundance of toys fosters infidelity. As an advocate of the one-true-love approach, I dreamt of a single toy that would serve as an apprenticeship for the lasting human relationships that await our children."

"Everything I designed was unnecessary," superstar French designer Philippe Starck told an interviewer last March, bemoaning the state of his art and soul:

"I was a producer of materiality and I am ashamed of this fact," Starck told Die Zeit weekly newspaper … Starck, who is known for his interior design of hotels and Eurostar trains and mass consumption objects ranging from chairs to tooth brushes and lemon juice squeezers, went on to say that he believed that design on the whole was dead.

"In future there will be no more designers. The designers of the future will be the personal coach, the gym trainer, the diet consultant," he said.

Starck said the only objects that he still felt attached to were "a pillow perhaps and a good mattress." But the thing one needs most, he added, was the "ability to love." 

"It seems to have nothing to do with the whole idea of yachting, which is about cruising around at a leisurely pace, and enjoying your friends and the sea," the WSJ quotes leading British yacht designer Donald Starkey re Russian billionaire industrialist Andrey Melnichenko's new yacht, A. "Created by Philippe Starck, the superstar French designer of lemon squeezers and luxury hotels, A is a deliberate slap in the face to an industry known for its classic conformity," comments the Journal.

What's got M. Starck so upset? Maybe it was that yachtspotter.com comment about his design (above photo) for Russian billionaire Andrey Melnichenko's new yacht:

Starck shouldn't design yachts. It's a monster.

Cherchez la femme. "After the marriage, Mrs. [Aleksandra] Melnichenko turned [the Starck-designed ship] A into one of her pet projects … She downsized the disco and commissioned new more practical furniture with the aim of turning Mr. Starck's 'hotel into more of a home,' according to someone close to the project."

Or was the designer's discomfit induced by the decadence of clients whose idée of celebrating Starck's restoration of a historical Paris hotel was to invite a coterie of celebs to trash the place?

"Yeah, you know, the usual throwing the telly out of the window type of thing," Kanye West (unattributed photo, left) is reported to have characterized a recent VIP "demolition party" in Paris. The rap artist and hip hop producer, "who roamed the corridors with a bemused-looking Yves Carcelle, said that trashing hotel rooms was old hat." West's mascot and trademark is a teddy bear, above on the cover of his singles album "Stronger."

Can you say displacement — in the Dr. Sanity sense of "the separation of emotion from its real object and a redirection of the [usually intense] emotion toward someone or something that is less offensive or threatening in order to avoid dealing directly with what is frightening or threatening"? We're thinking of the French housing-project riots. Normally the displacement would involve BDS, but here it was good, clean fun, fiddling while Paris burns:

Hundreds of select guests are invited Thursday night to wreck and smash one of Paris' grandest hotels, the Royal Monceau, in a performance-style "Demolition Party" before it closes for renovation.

From teaspoons to tables, a million euros worth of hotel contents were put up for auction ahead of its year-long makeover by design guru Philippe Starck.

VIP guests, fitted with helmets, are invited to take a hammer and chisel to the rest, walls and left-over furniture included, as concerts and art performances are staged in the hotel's wings.

"The cream of Paris' intellectuals and artists are invited to this festive, ferocious happening," the hotel said in a statement.

The demolition party that went down at the The Hotel Royal Monceau in Paris wasn't just any old party. This is Paris after all, and the hotel managed to make their demolition artistic by inviting 25 contemporary artists and celebs to "artistically ruin" the hotel rooms on the third floor.

"Meanwhile Philippe Starck was on hand at the party dishing about his renovation plans for the hotel," reports Hotel Chatter:

He also said he's more focused on "democratic eco-friendly projects." He even mentioned a green building in LA that he's working on and while he couldn't elaborate he said it was going to be "big."

 A mini-turbine of one's own. It's where market forces lead. Starck knows and goes where the invisible hand leads: "Environment becomes a good business opportunity. In the end, why not? As long as the final result is to help us to survive and to continue the evolution of our civilization that is based on intelligence."

"Philippe Starck’s personal invisible windmill ‘Democratic Ecology’ (above) was introduced at Milan’s Greenergy Design show earlier this year in a vibrant display relaying the intent to enable every man, woman and child on Earth to generate their own power in designer style," reports Inhabitat:

The transparent mini-turbine will be available to all in September 2008 and, in typical Starck style, if everyone’s going to have one he’s going to make sure they all look great.

"If you can't use things for what they're not intended for, you have no business on the Internet," writes poet-in-residence Greg of Sippican Cottage. "The kids like the tinkertoy vibe of the plumbing pipe. I like the kids," he says re building a better mousetrap horsefly trap in his basement.

Closer to home, local superstar designer Greg of Sippican Cottage, a man with a plan, makes "democratic eco-friendly projects" (above) look like child's play.

"The facts are irrelevant"

"They are like bookends. They will bring you many years of pleasure," a veterinarian's assistant predicted years ago of then kittens Tiny (above) and Baby (below), out in the side yard this afternoon assuming full bookend posture.

Googling a half-remembered quotation [see caption, above] from our post "An exultation of adolescence" of a couple of years back, we had a eureka moment this evening — unrelated to the quotation itself — reading the words of Dr. Joy Bliss of Maggie's Farm:

What if the part of human nature which wants paternalism, or maternalism, in the State is sometimes, or often, stronger than the part that wants freedom and self-determination?

It called to mind our imail conversation with Goomp yesterday morning as we shared thoughts on Thomas Sowell's latest essay, "Are Facts Obsolete?" First, here's Tom:

As the hypnotic mantra of "change" is repeated endlessly, few people even raise the question of whether what few specifics we hear represent any real change, much less a change for the better.

Raising taxes, increasing government spending and demonizing business? That is straight out of the New Deal of the 1930s.

The New Deal was new then but it is not new now. Moreover, increasing numbers of economists and historians have concluded that New Deal policies are what prolonged the Great Depression.

Babe mirrors Tiny's leonine pose in the countdown to supper.

"It is depressing how ignorant people are of how the world works," Goomp wrote, responding to Dr. Sowell's point that "A politician's problem is how to look like he is for 'the poor' and against those who are 'exploiting' them. The facts are irrelevant to maintaining that political image":

Goomp [channeling Dr. Bliss's question]: It is all because they want to escape from personal responsibility.

We: They want to continue to suckle at the maternalistic udder.

He: And be told how wonderful they are.

And politicians are only too happy to oblige. Flirting dangerously with Godwin's Law, we summed things up awhile back in "What's wrong with the utopianist left world view," our post linked by Dr. Bliss in her own post referenced above:

As we've blogged early and often, the totalitarian instinct runs deep and dark in our species. It is forever raising its ugly head on both ends of the political spectrum, and cheating your way to victory is precisely where it's at. Ends justify the means. That's why commies and Nazis -- not to mention Islamofascists -- parrot the same party line: We educated elites know what's best for you plebes. Bill and Hill's "What if you spend your money wrong?" and "We are going to take things away from you on behalf of the common good" come to mind.

Then there's "libertarian paternalism," a subliminal approach to political persuasion that has "caught the imagination of top politicians" including Barack Obama, according to a breathless London Times interview of behavioral scientist Richard Thaler, co-author with Cass Sunstein of Nudge:

So why the political interest? Because you can influence people's choices without being accused of "nannying" and it is cheap. Or, as the authors put it: "If incentives and nudges replace requirements and bans, government will be both smaller and more modest … In short, libertarian paternalism is neither left nor right, neither Democratic nor Republican. In many areas, the most thoughtful Democrats are going beyond their enthusiasm for choice-eliminating programs. In many areas, the most thoughtful Republicans are abandoning their knee-jerk opposition to constructive governmental initiatives."

Considering ourselves among "the most thoughtful Republicans," we are skeptical. So is David Gordon of the Ludwig von Mises Intitute, who notes that "Tocqueville long ago warned against the policies of which libertarian paternalism is an example." Blogger Cassy Fiano gets it just right in her post — with video link — on GWs press conference this morning where he tells mewling reporters that "Americans are smart enough to figure out whether they're going to drive less or not."

Liberals just can’t seem to grasp the fact that people don’t need their all-knowing wisdom-filled genius to live happy and full lives. When President Bush said that it was presumptuous to tell Americans how to live their own lives, I wanted to cheer. It’s something that liberals aren’t able to understand. They think that the American people are idiots who can’t be trusted to be intelligent enough to figure things out on their own, and therefore need liberals to come in and do everything for them.

And now back to Dr. Joy Bliss for the final word:

State parentalism is one step from totalitarianism. And not just psychologically, but also in reality. First, you get the people used to the idea that they can depend on the government to take care of you and to solve your problems (rather than simply to defend you, and to keep life reasonably fair), and, having slowly softened them up, you build on that until you can't smoke a cigarette in your car without getting fined, or find a decent fried chicken take-out in NYC.

We're smart enough, Barack Obama. Oh, and we're not a racist.

Update: Congratulations to the blogosphere's own Noah, our good blogfriend Steve of Modulator, for launching the Friday Ark on its 200th outing!

Update II: Lots more smart talk at Dr. Sanity's Carnival of the Insanities.

"Photography's ambivalent posture"

Alan, Tuck and Carol degli spiriti last evening on the terrace.

"This duality, which is familiar in the work of such important twentieth-century American photographers as Ansel Adams and Walker Evans, is linked to photography's ambivalent posture — as tool and product, means and result, reportage and artistic work," writes Gary R. Hilderbrand in the introduction to Alan Ward's totally awesome American Designed Landscapes: A Photographic Interpretion, a signed copy of which we were gifted with last evening when longtime blog commenter extraordinaire Carol Ward and her significant other came to break bread with us at Chelsea-by-the-Sea. We never read books at home — That's Tuck's job. He reads everything — the tininess of the type usually sending our fading eyesight careening to the internet, where you can increase the size of type with a click or two of the mouse. But for Alan's book and Gary's introduction, we make an exception. Gary was one of the best teachers ever during our Harvard School of Design days last century. We remember thinking of it in these terms: Gary was rather modest of physical stature, but when he came to your studio desk to look at your project to date and challenge you to be the best that you could be, his empathetic heart and historically-charged critical mind expanded to fill the entire universe for a few magical moments, when everything seemed possible.

Gary Hilderbrand's deep, dark and delicious professorial exposition on "photography's ambivalent posture" called to mind by contrast the egregious excesses of fauxtography, from al-Durah on down to the latest photoshopped gunboat-diplomacy travesties of the missile-happy Iranian dictators.  Our dear friend Scott Ott of ScrappleFace catches the conscience of the thing with "Iran Threatens to Photoshop Israel from Map":

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said his nation’s missile tests this week are part of a previously-secret plan to “Photoshop Israel from the map.

”Images of the missile tests showed apparently-real, as well as computer-generated duplicates of Shahab missiles, which Iran claims have a range of up to 1,250 miles — long enough to strike Israel — a claim which has since been questioned by Western arms experts.

Mr. Ahmadinejad said that while it may take years to produce actual weapons that could strike “the Zionist state”, Iranian scientists and graphic artists have already demonstrated the ability, using Adobe® technology to “completely obliterate” Israel from the map.

Tiny of the tethers. She and the Babe were all over Carol and Alan, totally honest and true cat people. Usually when new folks drop by, the Chelsea Grays head for the hills. With the Wards, they just sat there, made eye contact and started to purr.

A couple of fascinating addenda. First this totally clueless, damned-by-faint-praise 1998 NYT "review" of Alan's book:

Nature happens but gardens don't, and the pleasure of large illustrated garden books is greatly increased if you can adopt a Bourbon indifference to the matter of labor and gaze over your demesne, like Louis XIV while Versailles was still a construction site, without noticing the little people at work upon it. And, of course, the invariable convention of large illustrated garden books is to show completely uninhabited gardens, as if the camera were king and everyone had suddenly ducked out of its regal path. Three very different but worthwhile examples of this genre.

Pathetically all about the reviewer with not an inkling of Alan's heart-grabbing vision of a "poetic balance between architecture and landscape; they are inseparable." And now, for something completely different relevant, Boss Tweed's insightful take on how to fool most of the people most of the time:

"Stop them damned pictures," Mr. Tweed complained. "I don't care so much what the papers say about me. My constituents can't read. But, damn it, they can see pictures!"

One of them is worth a thousand words.