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Dear Thad McCotter: Did you say that?

"Did you say that?" we twittered Illinois Michigan Congressman and transcendent presidential candidate Thad McCotter (above) a moment ago, wounded that our constitutional-conservative hero — he of the Red Eye, Seize Freedom silver tongue — had reportedly said something so profoundly shtupid:

"We cannot unite America if we divide the movement," McCotter warned. "Consequently, the time has come for the Tea party to grow up and the Republican Party to wake up and come together to serve and save this great nation."

Time to grow up? From our venerable roost here on the Medicare side of the henhouse we lashed out with wounded pride:

Many teapartiers, long in the tooth of life are spring chickens in the world of politics. Please don't ask us to "grow up." Thank you.

Thank you, Congressman McCotter, for getting it:

When Col. West is called a RINO, politically they must mature or all is lost; and GOP must wake up & realize validity of Tea Party concerns.

YAH. As we twittered back:

I totally adore Col. West. He is a shining star in the firmament on high.

We're pretty sure it's going to be okay. Our sis says we have a heart too soon made glad. But isn't that the essence of the American Dream?

Update: Michelle Malkin Buzzworthy link!

Update II: We loved this from Frank in the comments at The Hill:

It's the tea party that is causing the republican party to grow up and revitalize.

Crossposted at Riehl World View and Liberty Pundits.

Land that I love

RIPD ( Rest in Peace Department) is the name of the Men-in-Black type movie that's coming out about a year and a half from now. A cutie-pie crew of scouts were out in our yard yesterday (above) taking shots of our own house to use as the out-the-window views of the main house, the decreptit home of our old pal Eddie across the lawn now shuttered and robbed of its copper piping. That's the kind of place we call home. They're going to reconstruct an interior for most of the action in Readville near Dedham, a few miles west of Boston.

What a revelation. Driving to the super this morning for the weekly restocking of the larder, we tuned in to NPR to find the usual suspects beside themselves with shock and awe at how the land of the free and the home of the brave was shocking, shocking our civilized counterparts across the sea.

How dare we dither and deliberate our differences according to the dictates of the Constitution of the United States when Europe and the rest of the world were waiting, with bated breath, for us to save their souls — and their pocketbooks — NOW? It was at that moment that we fell in love once more with our own messy and sometimes soul-depleting democratic process. As we twittered:

I felt protective of our idiotic #debtlimit side show when I heard pompous NPR radio types tearing hair out that "the world" is horrified.

A republic, madam, if you can keep it. God bless America.

Crossposted at Riehl World View and Liberty Pundits.

The course of true love never did run smooth

"Heh. Is that Earl Grey and Little Kitteh?" twittered Stout Cat this afternoon re Simon's Cat's latest comic strip, excerpts below:

"The course of true love never did run smooth." Click here for full strip.

"Funny you asked. They just had their first nose-to-nose this very morning. She chirped and he responded with friendly body language," we twittered back. In fact, she ran right up to Tiny's one true love, intoxicated with his alpha-male pheromones [?] and planted a series of exploratory kisses on his beautiful mug.

Earl seemed intrigued. Does he remember his own true love, our angel baby? He still stops by most days and hangs around a bit, sometimes but not always taking a nip of the weed.

This was the first day he's come by when Little Kitteh was running free outside. Will she comfort his aching heart as she has ours?

When words fail

Little Kitteh's camouflage fits naturally into her surroundings, Persian rug to the left, Tuck's Dunham work boot to the right.

"LOVE the post, LOVE the Van Goghian Paintings Graphics, BUT..." writes our imail correspondent re our previous post:

She: I worry so much about losing our skills. Going to the Internet for all the answers is pretty dicey.

We: Oh. Not to worry. I find that I hone my skills. When I can't remember something, finding it out there reinforces my memory for lost details. But definitely a legitimate concern. Especially for people who never knew anything to start with, such as today's brainwashed students.

Our new Annin American flag from the totally awesome Accent Banner in Medford — found out about it online, drove over there and got a heart-warming personal tour of the factory plus lots of good advice about the proper fittings for remounting our flag — hung between the central columns of our Greek Revival manse. Complete with new swiveling pulleys from Westerbeke Marine across the Creek in East Boston.

"If the internet died tomorrow, due to Global Warming [Yuk, yuk] ....you and I might remember where to go for information, but the kids taday won't have a CLUE":

She: I APPLAUD the Internet … have had so much fun with typing in, "whatever," and there it is, BUT… if the Internet goes down, you are left with a couple of generations who go "DOH."

We: They would anyway thanks to the Gramscian march through the institutions.

In the ongoing project of sprucing up the terrace the other day, we were about to trash a dead leaf still clinging to our Super Mammoth Elephant Ears when we happened to turn it upside down to discover a precious moth revving up in there, about to take flight for the adventure of its lepidopteran life. Talk about camouflage! Update: We've put in an ID request to the folks at the totally awesome Butterflies and Moths of North America. Update II: It's Halysidota tessellaris: Banded Tussock Moth or Pale Tiger Moth, accepted and now listed in the BMNA database! They're so cute — and fuzzy! — when they're little.

"The Internet is a very valuable tool," she continues:

She: ...it should NOT supplant knowing how to look up a word in a dictionary, find a geometric proof on one's own. If we had had the Internet in MY day, I would have ACED both geometry and chemistry.

We: LOL. Maybe, maybe not. Today, as I understand it, there's so much teacher-enabled cheating out there that everyone's a winner. Not. 

Like Andrew Breitbart only more so

"She just paints whoever inspires her," twitters Mandy Nagy — aka Liberty Chick — whose mother's deep, dark and delicious portrait of Andrew Breitbart (detail above) caught our eye in the thrust and parry of the social media matrix yesterday. Breitbart's using the image as his new Twitter avatar. "Your face was a good one to paint (while listening to "Burning Down the House)," quipped artist Nagy. "Like Andrew Breitbart only more so," we chimed in. (View Nagy Gallery here)

"Why bother to remember when you can just use Google?" runs the ars technica headline teasing the latest scientific findings of where our social-networking heads are at:

The potential to find almost any piece of information in seconds is beneficial, but is this ability actually negatively impacting our memory? The authors of a paper that is being released by Science Express describe four experiments testing this. Based on their results, people are recalling information less, and instead can remember where to find the information they have forgotten.

Like any set of entrails, these have got some of our fellow opinionators tearing their hair out over the end of civilization as we know it, but we're kinda thrilled. It's totally Darwinian, our homo sapient survival instincts kicking in to adapt us to a changing environment. As a brand manager might put it, It's the "transactive memory," stupid.

"Transactive memory suggests an analysis not only of how couples and families in close relationships coordinate memory and tasks in the home, but how larger groups and organizations come to develop 'group minds,' memory systems that are more complex and potentially more effective than those of any of the individuals that comprise them," explains Daniel M. Wegner, John Lindsley Professor in Memory of William James (a co-author of the paper described above) of the Department of Psychology at Harvard University. Can you say Adam Smith's Invisible Hand? Above, flocks of birds "wheel and swoop in unison," not unlike twitterers and other social network denizens," as we blogged a couple of years back. Totally awesome must-watch video here.

"Researchers found that people are more likely to remember information if they believe they won't be able to access it in the future, and that they are more likely to remember how they found the information than the information itself." Works for us. Choose your battles. Keep your ammo close to the chest. Go for the jugular. "Shoot to where it's going, not to where it's been." "Don't retreat, reload." "Fight like a girl!"  As Ben Franklin said, "A republic, madam, if you can keep it." 

Clicking over to the Nagy online studio, we were smitten with the artist's wild and whacky portrait of take-no-prisoners Red Eye force of nature Greg Gutfeld (detail above). We agree with Chris Barnhart that Red Eye has "the potential to be the 'gateway drug' of a whole new generation of conservatives and independents."

"The Internet has become a primary form of external or transactive memory, where information is stored collectively outside ourselves," write the authors in their abstract of the study. Enter, stage right, Google+. Again the social network is aflutter over what it all might mean for the future of our species, and again, it's Darwinian, in the Thomas Sowell/Geerat Vermeij sense:

It's starting to appear that Google actually does have the chops, and obviously the financial backing, to put out a social product sweet enough to lure people, who tend to be creatures of habit, to spend less time with their traditional network and cultivate a new one.

Andrew Breitbart. Greg Gutfeld. Looks like NagyArt is on a roll. Could Jonah Goldberg's Twitter avi (above) be next on her palette of immortals who will keep the (incandescent) lights burning in the Shining City?

It's the market forces, stupid.

Update from the Liberty Chick herself:

I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE this post! Creative :)

Update II: The conversation continues.

Crossposted at Riehl World View and Liberty Pundits.

Jack Dorsey's Twitter Town Hall: By Obama, for Obama

"The first-ever presidential forum on Twitter was undercut by the commander-in-chief himself, as President Obama answered questions from average Americans with a tide of talking points that went uninterrupted and unchallenged, short-circuiting the event’s populist potential," summarizes the Boston Herald's Jessica Van Sack, who watched Twitter Founder Jack Dorsey's "Twitter Town Hall" so we didn't have to. Above, a comely attendee lifts her iPad beside the East Room door at what one critic who blogs at Harvard Business Review is calling "a Meaningless Marketing Stunt." (MANDEL NGAN/AFP/Getty Images) 

"How can we make Twitter Town Halls better in the future? And not just for the US government, but any government," twittered Twitter co-founder and enthusiastic Obama supporter Jack Dorsey following yesterday's predictably stilted, "first-ever presidential forum on Twitter," unwittingly revealing a fundamental misunderstanding of American Exceptionalism and the Shining City.

"The big winner of today’s White House Twitter Townhall (besides Twitter)?" asked Bag News Notes: "Well, where do I get my own White House-edition MacBook? Then, regarding the double logo, talk about leveraging your brand." Final stats via Mass Relevance: 169,395 #AskObama Tweets. Hot topics: Jobs (32%) Budget (18%) Taxes (18%) & Education (11%).

How to make future Twitter Town Halls better? As we twittered in response,

Try to remember that here in the USA town halls are not for the GOVT but for the PEOPLE.

Beyond that, we salute Mr. Dorsey for a technological knockout, but is his creation, as he asserts, "a great first step for future Town Halls"? What about all those disintermediating, grassroots, Twitter-enabled Town Halls of two years back that gave voice to the Tea Party movement? We do applaud Dorsey's "curatorship" model, where a panel of journalists and bloggers from across the country were invited to join the President and Dorsey in the East Room to help select the 18 (too few) out of nearly 170,000 (good show!) questions submitted with the #AskObama hashtag by our fellow Americans. A couple of quotable quotes from that Boston Herald article referenced above:

“Amazing how Obama can give such a long answer to such short questions,” tweeted Drew Cline, editorial page editor of the Union Leader of New Hampshire, who was chosen by the social media site as one of eight so-called “curators” to help select questions for the forum.

“BO’s verbosity was a huge problem. An actual moderator could have made space for 100% more questions,” replied another curator, political blogger Will Wilkinson.

That was the consensus in the blogosphere and Twitterverse yesterday after Obama answered just 18 questions out of the 160,000 submissions during his live Webcast of the Twitter Town Hall. Hosted by Twitter creator Jack Dorsey, the hourlong forum devolved into a typical, meandering town hall stump-athon that was a mockery of the Web site’s famous 140-character limit.

"Roughly half the questions were softballs, which [curator Drew] Cline attributed to low participation among conservatives who felt they wouldn’t get a fair shake," but a subset of questions we all knew would never make the final cut kept the twittersphere afflutter with RT's and lol's. Note: Fans of Jonah Goldberg's 140-or-fewer-character zingers may use Snap Bird to read all of his AskObama tweets using the following terms: Search: Someone's timeline, WHO? JonahNRO, FOR: #AskObama.

The last word goes to Benjamin Howe on Twitter:

Idea @RepPaulRyan: Hold a town hall, use the same tweets obama did, and answer them with the facts that @BarackObama is ignoring. #AskObama

Update: Michelle Malkin Buzzworthy link!

Update II: Jonah Goldberg tosses us a link from The Corner!

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

Crossposted at Riehl World View and Liberty Pundits.

"Where losing sight of land we shall find the stars"

"For the beauty of the earth, For the Glory of the skies…" Grapefruit and lilacs for breakfast Down East early morning.

On this Fourth of July a republication of our timeless May 25, 2008 post "Because we sailed too close to the shore": 

"I'm savoring the revealing contrast between Drake's seafaring 'reach for the stars' vision and Michelle Obama's landlocked 'audacity of whining' (Powerline's expression)," we wrote in the comments of Bird Dog's totally awesome "Annual re-post: Sir Francis Drake's Prayer (1577) at Maggie's Farm.

Sir Francis:

Disturb us Lord, when
We are too pleased with ourselves,
When our dreams have come true
Because we dreamed too little,
When we arrived safely
Because we sailed too close to the shore…

Disturb us, Lord, to dare more boldly,
To venture on wilder seas
Where storms will show Your mastery;
Where losing sight of land,
We shall find the stars.

What we said two Mem Days back still applies, big time: "Sunrise this morning over Eastern Point across the river from Goomp's, headquarters for the family's Memorial Day salute to the awesomely brave and good and true fellow Americans who give their all so we might enjoy such natural wonders. We think you know who you are, our beloved fellow bloggers and readers who serve and love those who serve. We cannot thank you enough. God bless."

Michelle Obama:

You start working hard and sacrificing, and you think you’re getting closer to the bar, you’re working and you’re struggling, you get right to that bar, you’re reaching out for the bar, and then what happens?

They raise the bar. Raise the bar. Shift it to the side. Keep it just out of reach.

"Let us not wallow in the valley of despair," Martin Luther King famously said:

And so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American Dream.

Is Michelle Obama "too pleased with herself," venturing on Francis Drake's "wilder seas" even as she urges her listeners to instead "dream too little" and sail "too close to the shore"? The soft bigotry of low expectations?

Crossposted at Riehl World View and Liberty Pundits.