sisu

Who's afraid of Virginia Postrel?

We can see the salt of the earth from our front porch in Chelsea-by-the-Sea.

Here we thought it was a brilliant, pithy (140-or-fewer characters) philosophical insight into the way of the world, but intellectual icon Virginia Postrel was not amused with our twitter response to her intriguing demise-of-The-New-Republic question:

Now that articles float free of their publications, can magazines still play the role in catalyzing sensibilities that @CoreyRobin suggests?

— Virginia Postrel (@vpostrel) December 8, 2014

Our first response was harmless, bloodless:

@vpostrel @CoreyRobin Online it’s individual great minds, rather than publications as a whole, that develop followings, I think.

— Sissy Willis (@SissyWillis) December 8, 2014

 Then we stepped in it:

@LeroyWhitby @vpostrel @CoreyRobin Increasingly dishonorable means used to justify increasingly discredited ends #leftproject

— Sissy Willis (@SissyWillis) December 8, 2014

"Increasingly dishonorabble means used to justify increasingy discredited ends." That little tweet expresses the world view of a lifetime of observation and analysis in 140 or fewer, but Postrel was not amused:

@sissywillis @leroywhitby @coreyrobin Please spare me these general rants about politics in a discussion about what magazines do.

— Virginia Postrel (@vpostrel) December 8, 2014

A touch of elitism there? Our reply:

@vpostrel @leroywhitby @coreyrobin Consider yourself spared from here on in ~ General Rant pic.twitter.com/s5sRdJvz29

— Sissy Willis (@SissyWillis) December 8, 2014

Update: Our sincere apologies to the divine Miss Postrel, who clarifies:

@sissywillis You & your pal still hijacked the thread. That someone would was entirely predictable. Sorry it was you.

— Virginia Postrel (@vpostrel) December 9, 2014

Glenn Beck: Ask Scott Brown about SEIU and MA politics

Hot Air's Allahpundit cites our favorite new aphorism in his "Quotes of the day": “Could anything be cooler than disintermediating a bunch of old fuddy-duddies via the Internet?” Thanks, as always, to Glenn Reynolds for first using that delicious word, "disintermediated," in a sentence. Above, view from the front steps in the early morning light as a conveyor-belt boom swung out over the wharf of Eastern Salt across the street disengorges a mountain of salt four stories high from the belly of the dry-bulk cargo carrier Balder.

"Mass. has long been suspected as having a problem with voter fraud," writes archer52 of Truth And Common Sense in the comments of Dan Riehl's "Why is Coakley Hiding Out?" cited here yesterday, offering an insider's account of how elections are won or lost in Massachusetts and why Scott Brown may not fill the Kennedy seat even if more citizens vote for him than for his Democrat opponent in the January 19 special election:

The dems learned a valuable lesson in 2000 when a Republican certified Bush as a winner. They went out and ran democrats for key positions at the state level. It paid off in Washington and this year in Minnesota [see George Soros's secretaries-of-state project].

How bad is it? Let me tell you a story. I had a chance to work with Boston PD on a case back in the nineties. The LT. I spoke to sounded like a real nice regular fella, so I asked him why in the world they kept voting in Ted Kennedy. He said, “Well, it is like this. When we are mad at him, we only vote for him once …” There was a silence on the phone as it slowly sunk in, then I got it. Ted Kennedy could have been caught with a headless prostitute and with the knife in one hand and the head in the other and he would still be re-elected, mostly by dead people.

It’s that bad.

Martha Coakley's "a nice woman, but she's wrong on all the issues," MA Republican Senatorial candidate Scott Brown told the host of Boston talk radio WRKO's "voice of the new media," Pundit Review, last night. She may be a nice woman, but if you're known by the company you keep, how does she explain her "SEIU thug pals," as Michelle Malkin calls them? More on that below. Above, superstructure of Balder visible lower left as salt pile grows.

What does business-as-usual machine politics portend for Scott Brown? Michelle Malkin explains in a rousing endorsement of our favorite son:

Last month, I noted how Massachusetts Senate GOP candidate Scott Brown called out rival Democrat candidate Martha Coakley's SEIU thug pals.

The Purple Shirts continue to “pull out all the stops” to install Coakley in Teddy Kennedy’s seat …

SEIU endorsed her in October, poured $214,000 into a radio ad buy for her in December, and are pouring all available “resources and clout” into her bid …

Where’s the GOP establishment? As Ed Morrissey reported last week: AWOL.*

Yes, once again, it’s up to grass-roots conservatives and independents to help a GOP candidate fight the Big Labor-backed corruptocrat. Demcare hangs in the balance. Yet, Brown received a measly $50,000 from the national GOP and NRSC compared to the nearly $1 million that radical leftist Dede Scozzafava raked in.

Malkin has lots more juicy stuff for news junkies so be sure to read it all. A few more tasty tidbits:

Today, the Democrats are reaping what [SEIU "thug-in-chief"Andy] Stern, the Phoenix Group, Kos and others sowed, as they were always out of step with the majority of the country. These are precisely the fights, the changes, they wanted when taking over the DNC. They've been plotting it for years. They're there. And if they fail, the Democrats, the Netroots and all the associated characters will find themselves in disarray.

The left in disarray. What a lovely thought. Let's do our best to help them over the edge. Are you listening, Glenn Beck?

Update: "Supporting Scott Brown for Senate should be a no brainer for Right-side bloggers," writes Dan Riehl in full endorsement mode. Thanks for the link, dear friend!

Update II: "There are lots of reports of a surge in Republican enthusiasm," writes John McCormick in "Poll: Republican Scott Brown Trails by 11 in Mass. Senate Race" at The Weekly Standard with a link [!]. Rasmussen will be polling the election tonight, the "first scientific poll in the state since before the December primary."

*Supporters of Libertarian candidate Joe Kennedy (no relation) disagree with Ed Morrissey, arguing that we tea partiers are supporting the wrong guy, while some in the comments there point out that the logic of numbers means a vote for Kennedy amounts to a vote for Coakley.

Blue skies smiling at me

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

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

The mountain comes to Mohammed

It takes three tugboats to guide the chemical/oil tanker "Mount Rainier," sailing under the flag of Cyprus early morning, into the Chelsea Creek.

We love the layered, foreshortened image above — taken from our front steps — where the turning tanker seems to be squeezed into the tight space — actually a watery expanse of about 1/4 mile — between the McArdle Bridge that runs from Chelsea to East Boston in the foreground and a secondary span of the Mystic River Bridge between Chelsea and Charlestown in the background.

The working waterfront never sleeps.

Now the curtain opens on a portrait of today*

Serendipity. In our ongoing project to capture the decisive moment when Tiny sits up on her haunches and catches a "ball" — in this case a twig — in her two paws, pattycake style, we've stumbled upon some magical moments you don't know you're getting till you check out your "contacts" back in the "darkroom," i.e., click on the "Play back images" button. Above and below, classic Tiny "Ecstasy of St, Teresa" moments atop the dining room table.

The bulk container "Golden Glory" out of Panama picks up the sun's first rays early morning at Eastern Salt across the street.

Where'd that twig go?

*Blogpost title from "Chelsea Morning" by Joni Mitchell.

When the going gets tough, they get out the candles

The Full Cold Moon sets this morning far right just as the salt piles of Eastern Salt across the street pick up the rosy fingers of dawn.

"This is the worst disaster we've faced for decades," says a local mayor in a WBZ-TV Boston interview broadcast this evening. "More than a million homes were left without power," says another. The ice storm snuck in upon our area on cat feet under the radar Thursday night. Our own venerable Down Easter Goomp in York Harbor was among the hundreds of thousands of our fellow New Englanders who've been without power for 48 hours and still counting. He was able to fire up the generator to keep things reasonably warm but was unable to cook or telephone or get online. His cell phone wasn't working, but fortunately, our dear bro and sis, who live about 45 minutes away from the Goompster, both checked in with him this afternoon. It was a great moment to be together for one and all. Family values rule.

Down Chelsea we just got a lot of rain, a fortunate result for us of the heat-island effect of the big city just to our south combined with the heat sink of the ocean to our east. But for so many of our neighbors inland to the west and north along the coast, it has been a Katrina-like period of unrelenting hardship in the face of Mother Nature's wrath. No word from Al Bore Gore. Not really given much news coverage nationally, thanks to the fact that it can't be pinned on George W. Bush, we imagine.

TigerHawk was on the road with his daughter for prep-school interviews in our home town of Exeter, NH and Andover, MA during the worst of it:

Last night, the TH Daughter and I drove from Princeton up to Exeter, New Hampshire, where she will, in theory, interview at a school of great repute later this morning. As everybody who lives in the Northeast can surely imagine, the drive was miserable. It rained, a lot, for the entire six and a half hours. By the time we arrived at the "Inn by the Bandstand" — a cute little bed and breakfast in the center of town — everything other than the salt-covered roads had a brilliant coating of ice.

Now it is a little before six in the morning. I awoke thinking that the room was awfully cold, but then I thought that perhaps that was a New England bed-and-breakfast thing and that there was a very nice comforter on the bed so we had planned for this. Then I realized that the lights on the tiny little Christmas tree by my fireplace were dark, and I thought "huh, I wonder if they are on a timer." Then it occurred to me that the power is out. Moreover, I judge from the temperature of the room and the condition of my computer's battery that the power has been out for several hours.

We were wicked delighted at the way things turned out:

Exeter the school did not have any more power than anywhere else in the region, but a silly inconvenience like no electricity does not shut down a New England boarding school. The admissions office was dark and cold in temperature, but the people inside were bright in attitude and warm in spirit and carrying on with business as usual, but for the winter coats and candles everywhere. I let myself imagine that there was a day when Exeter must have conducted all its admissions interviews by candlelight.

As we wrote in the comments:

My hometown, Exeter, NH. In my day, it was boys only, and said boys were the center of us dreamy-eyed girls' lives.

Wondering whether the weather difference between Exeter and Andover will influence the TH daughter's decision when the two acceptance letters arrive?

Will she choose Andover for its easier clime or Exeter for the challenge of it all?

Bottom line, when the going gets tough, the Exonians don't start mewling and keening and whining for someone to bail them out. When the going gets tough, they get out the candles.

"Just ready for a post-election break"

Tiny poses with the White House Christmas card in the countdown to supper yesterday afternoon. Nice colors all around.

"YEAH, IT’S BEEN A LITTLE SLOWER THAN USUAL, writes the Professor:

I’m taking a semi-vacation from blogging this week. Still online some, but less than usual. Email in particular, isn’t getting the usual attention. Just ready for a post-election break.

The view from the front porch early morning as the faux Alps across the street at Eastern Salt catch the sun's early rays.

Yah. That's kind of how we feel of late. 'Been reading a lot of stuff — with an eye out especially for rumblings of burgeoning Palin power — thinking and discussing with Tuck and Goomp and our sis but not writing so much. We hear tell our old love Fred Thompson may be getting the Alaska Governor up to speed on foreign relations and such:

There's some low-level buzz among the Palinisti that Fred may already be quietly tutoring Sarah on FR and federal gov't waste (he wrote the book). Jeri Thompson has taken a leading role in Team Sarah, a group of mostly women that's supporting Palin, and there's speculation that Jeri has persuaded Fred to help mentor the governor.

One thing our friends on the other side of the aisle — and their fellow travelers in academia and the media — are missing big time: Sarah isn't just for evangelicals and social conservatives.

Update: More election-break opportunities, with and without backbones, at Modulator's Friday Ark #220.

It was a Chelsea morning

"Woke up, it was a Chelsea morning, and the first thing that I saw" were the sun's early rays dazzling the pure white cranes of Ice Type Handymax bulk carrier "Lowlands Opal" out of Panama across the street at Eastern Salt here in Chelsea-by-the-Sea.

" . . . and a rainbow on the wall, Blue, red, green and gold to welcome you, crimson crystal beads to beckon." Grape-family member Boston Ivy (Parthenocissus cuspidata) trips the light fantastic on the great retaining wall behind the house.

"There was milk and toast and honey and a bowl of oranges, too, And the sun poured in like butterscotch and stuck to all my senses," but who needs Joni Mitchell's "milk and toast and honey" when you've got Eggs Bennie with Hollandaise Light Fantastic, the latest entry in our Cold Turkey Cookbook. What to do with the egg whites when you separate out the yolks for the Perfect Hollandaise? We whipped 'em up to stiff peaks and folded the meringue into the basic Hollandaise for a sensuously pale yellow, fluffy concoction that's fun to eat. Excerpts from an imail conversation:

We: I checked out online to see if anyone else had tried it. Someone had and said it was wonderfully light. And it is.

She: What made you decide to try that?

We: It came to me in a dream? Actually, it was the ease of beating egg whites, which I've become used to in making my broccoli and spinach MOOSES (MEESE?), with my adorable new KitchenAid Immersion Blender.

Enhancing the creative process with new technologies in our own Experimental Kitchen.

She: LOL. I must say, as much as I love Hollandaise, it always sits in my stomach like a pound of butter, for two days. Lightening it up sounds like a stroke of pure genius. God works in mysterious ways, yes?

We: And don't forget your cream of tartar.

She: Sis, trust me on this one. You can forget cream of tartar. Not necessary.

We: Really? But I don't WANT to forget it. It reminds me of "eye of newt, and toe of frog, Wool of bat and tongue of dog."

She: Well, we ARE the Weird Sisters. Our cooking should reflect that.

"For a charm of powerful trouble, Like a hell-broth boil and bubble."

"Duty, honor and country," McCain's core values

Cranes and salt pile frame a glorious sunset across the street from Chelsea-by-the-Sea at Eastern Minerals early evening. The sometimes too sober Fred Barnes says McCain will win; the ever clueless Mort Kondrake says Obama. Fred cites "duty, honor and country," McCain's core values as explicated in a superb WSJ editorial this morning. Johnny's core values were the very thing that finally allowed us to 'learn to stop worrying and love John McCain" back last February. Our sister, our dear blogfriend Miss Kelly and our own gut are chanting "Landslide."

"I would never leave you for another man, or woman"

The Coast Guard helicopter that came out of the blue to hang suspended over Chelsea Creek across the street for a "vertical delivery" yesterday won every heart and mind of neighborhood families enjoying Eastern Salt's totally awesome Maritime Festival. Its rotors' turbulence roiled the waters, stirring up half-remembered miasmas of the mind. Teresa Hummel photo.

"This is really sick," we wrote our sis re a UK Independent article headlined "Attenborough alarmed as children are left flummoxed by test on the natural world":

Less than two-thirds (62 per cent) identified frogs.

It seems impossible. Even if they are out of touch with nature, haven't these kids ever seen "Sesame Street"? Can you say Kermit the Frog? 'Guess that being green is even harder than we thought. And here's the irony of it all:

Experts blamed the widening gulf between children and nature on over-protective parents and the hostility to children among some conservationists, who fear that they will damage the environment. They said that this lack of exposure to outdoor play in natural environments was vital for children's social and emotional development.

"They don't understand beauty, let alone recognize it in unexpected places," noted our sis.

Christian and Susan, two for the seesaw, beautiful people —madonna and child —who light up our life blessed us with their presence for 24 hours starting midday on Saturday. Talk about energizer bunnies. Woo hoo. So much fun, so little time. Sissy Willis photo.

"All I want to say is … you are THE MOST gracious hostess ever was. We have our rough spots, but at the end of the day … Sisters, sisters … I would never leave you for another man, or woman":

Caring, sharing ev'ry little thing that we are wearing.
When a certain gentleman arrived from Rome
She wore the dress and I stayed home.

When the helicopter hovered and the froggy-footed man descended, tears of ecstasy flooded these old eyes and set this hoary heart to skipping a beat or two. Teresa Hummel photo.

"Where did you get that dress, it's awful, and those shoes and that coat, jeeeeez!"  TH photo.

Eastern Salt imaginator Dan Adams and his stunning bride Marie were there, of course. They asked us in fun how long she could be referred to as a bride, what with their having tied the knot just last June or so, if we're remembering correctly. "One year," we replied. "Then you can call her anything you want." Oh, gosh. Battle-of-the-sexes jokes aren't so funny when you're young. May their life together be blessed with love and understanding. TH photo.

We love these guys. They lend the light fantastic to any gathering. Such magic. TH photo.

Paul Lamb, dock manager of Eastern Salt and Leo Mahoney, the Father of All Chelsea Salt Piles, brought gravitas, a great hawaiian shirt and a superb bowler hat to the day's festivities. TH photo.

Say cheese. City Manager Jay Ash — wicked tall with sandals, right of center — presented the Coast Guard with a totally awesome Chelsea Clock in recognition of all they do to make our shores safe for democracy. TH photo.

Company president Shelagh Mahoney with her papa and the next generation smile for the cameras. Sissy Willis photo.

Wow are we lucky to have the dog folks, Kayem, as a local sponsor. Yummy!!! TH photo. 

Well look at that! A sign featuring a photograph of one of the salt mines (left) and one of our own photographic images of the working waterfront (right) inviting Maritime Festival goers to walk around the corner and visit the "Landing Salt" exhibition. SW photo

There's that ubiquitous woman with a camera, Teresa herself, chatting with the guard lady at the "Landing Salt" show, with Ken and Tuck in the foreground studying a satellite image of Eastern Salt and environs on the gallery floor. SW photo.

Teresa found, as we had a couple of weeks back, that that lovely guard lady at the Pearl Street Gallery had become enchanted with the show, learning for the first time in her life where road salt comes from and how it gets to market.

We broke bread — and sipped the bubbly — together last night with our party of six and this morning with the usual suspects left over after an extended wee-hour marathon. Deep, dark and delicious. These gatherings are not for the faint of heart.

Update: Teresa's take here and lots more pictures with captions here.