sisu

In our mind's eye she is forever young: Repost

In honor of Grammy's birthday, September 8, 1899, a repost from September 08, 2007:

Grammy, a magical word and a magical teller of tales of our childhood. She lived 93 years. Today is her birthday. She would have been 108 years old. Photos (above and below) scanned from one of the snail blogs -- magnetic albums of Kodak prints with Letraset headlines and text -- of our salad days.

Grammy -- our magnificently contrarian Finnish-American grandmother, Julia Kock Loddy, JuJu to her great grandchildren -- was a shining star in the family constellation of our childhood. Today, September 8, is her birthday. 1899 was the year. In our mind's eye she is forever young, a force of nature inspiring us to be all that we can be. A voracious reader and moviegoer who seemed to conflate T.E. Lawrence with Peter O'Toole -- she devoured The Seven Pillars of Wisdom even as she took us young girls to see "Lawrence of Arabia" early and often when it was still playing in Cinemascope at the Gary Theater in Boston.

Grammy's baby girl, our own precious Mummy. She outlived her mother by little more than a year, taken down by something we never would have dreamed of, Lou Gehrig's disease.

We were the apple of Grammy's eye -- Sissikins -- until we hit puberty, and then all bets were off. In our early teen years in Exeter, New Hampshire, her wit and wisdom outshone our own whenever gentleman callers from Phillips Exeter came a courting:

How can I speak of her virtues?
I don't know where to begin.
She's clever, she's smart, she reads music,
She doesn't smoke or drink gin.
(Like I do)

Bride of the hour Susan, Mummy and Sissy in the day. Girls just wanna. We don't care what anyone says. Being young and pretty is wicked fun.

Herewith a republication of our homage two years back to the woman whose Finnish gloom and gypsy joi de vivre are surely the soul of our wit:

September 8. Grammy's birthday.  Julia Kock Loddy, the child of John and Aurora Kock, Finnish emigrants who settled on a farm in Lunenburg, Massachusetts -- near the Finnish "ghetto" of Fitchburg -- around the turn of the (20th) century. Shades of Bronson Alcott, with lots of leftist utopianism in the air. Julia was the golden girl, the adored but cloistered sister -- Alice James, sister to Henry and William comes to mind: "In our family group girls scarcely seem to have had a chance" -- amidst a family constellation of two high-achieving brothers. Also one other brother that died as a child and broke the mother's heart. Grammy, the greatest teller of tales we ever knew, told of her family's watching the dead brother's soul ascend to Heaven. She also recounted a horrifying tale of her father's shooting the family dog for getting pregnant one more time (the woman made me do it, Lord?).  Here must lie the deepest roots of our life-long feminism.

Julia would have been 105 today had she lived, but she was more than ready to go at 92, stuck in an old-folks' home, when she left this vale of tears.  Eyesight gone, she could no longer read the great works that had sustained her lively mind when she lived for many years in her own little room upstairs at our parents' home.  She was the one who took us grandchildren to the widescreen theater in Boston umpteen times to see "Lawrence of Arabia."  She had read The Seven Pillars of Wisdom and everything ever written by or about T.E. Lawrence. Oh, wouldn't we love to tap that recalcitrant all-about-oil mind today.

In our high school hussy days -- our sis and ourselves -- as townie gals in Exeter, New Hampshire, entertaining the Phillips Academy boys who lit up our lives, it was always Grammy -- later known via her first grandchild, Matthew's, epithet as JuJu -- who engaged the minds of those brilliant young future Masters of the Universe.

Julia had been a "child bride," arrange-married to a dashing Estonian officer of the Tsar's army -- the mysterious Hubby of our childhood -- as an eighteen-year-old.  Mary, the precious child who later became our own dear mother, was born the next year.  At some point in there, Grammy fled with infant Mary back home to her mother, who had long since returned to Finland. A year or two later Grammy returned stateside, and there's some faint memory of her having chosen, years later, to fund her daughter's college education vs. taking another trip back to Finland to see her mother one last time. Don't we wish we had paid more attention to her oft-repeated stories?  So intense, so heartbreaking, so American.

Grammy.

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

The end of an era

Goomp left this mortal coil yesterday afternoon. We three siblings knew the time was near. He'd withdrawn of late, unable to hear much of anything, not even asking about the cats last time our sis visited him at the "home" the other day. A different kind of news than when Mummy died of ALS twenty-one! years ago. We knew she was doomed to only a few weeks back then, but when it's just old age, who knows? We need to talk.

Goomp always said he didn't want a funeral. No formal speeches or viewing of the corpse. We WERE Unitarians, after all. Turns out Tuck and I feel the same way. Just have a hell of a drinking party. We two had a talkfest of a wake last evening and will join bro and sis and sis-in-law this afta for more reminiscing.

Our fave remembrance of the Goomp, known before grandchildren as just plain Daddy, was his teaching us what it meant to sail on wilder seas. You don't just flop around. You keep your eye on the luff and constantly adjust your heading to find the stars. He always trusted us to be all that we could be. Thank you, Daddy. Love you so much:

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.}

Arthur Chesterton Jameson

AKA The Old Salt, Goomp, Ahtie

November 14, 1919 - September 12, 2014

Chuck Todd "didn't like having Mozart associated with the Nazis"

"Let me, let me free-ee-eeze again to death." 17th-century British composer Henry Purcell's rending-of-garments "The Cold Scene" from "King Arthur" energizes dancers' evocative kinetics (above) expressing the storming of the beaches of Normandy during controversial D-Day70 commemoration presentation yesterday at Sword Beach, Normandy.

"I knew it was Mozart. Didn't like having Mozart associated with the Nazis," MSNBC anchor Chuck Todd protested to us this morning on Twitter in response to our critique of his reportage of the much-panned "interpretive dance" presented at Friday's D-Day70 observation at Sword Beach, Normandy. Counter to the narrative spin of every commenter we've seen out here, we were alone in finding something profound and revelatory in the live multi-media creation that interwove horrific historical film images of Nazi Germany and WWII with minimalist dancing and profoundly moving passages of Mozart, Beethoven ("Eroica" & "Ode to Joy"), Purcell and others to express the war between good and evil that is the human condition. More on our take in a moment, but first our twitter tussle with Todd: 

.@ChuckTodd bloodless blurb #DDay70 dance: “Some German music 2 sort of talk about rise of Germany.” What I heard: Transcendant MOZART et al

— Sissy Willis (@SissyWillis) June 7, 2014

Thx 4 reply @chucktodd! I think artistic pt was contrast betw Nazi inhumanity vs Mozart humanity. Also, German vs Austrian controversial :)

— Sissy Willis (@SissyWillis) June 7, 2014

We happened to watch the "interpretive dance" live yesterday on C-Span 2, unfiltered, unlike almost everybody else, whose opinions seemed to echo Chuck Todd's. The estimable Rick Moran's assessment was typical:

It is the weirdest, most incongruous, most disrespectful performance one can imagine.

Old blogfriend Fausta, who learned about it later in the day, compared the interpretive dance devastatingly to Mel Brooks's masterful "Springtime for Hitler," and the widely linked Mediaite put it this way in "D-Day Interpretive Dance Caps Off Month of Disrespect for Vets":

We commemorated the sacrifice of tens of thousands with a belittling dance.

Had anyone actually WATCHED the thing? Or had most taken the assessment of thought leaders like Chuck Todd and run with it? May we suggest that what we have here might be an instance of Schopenhauer's informational cascades?

Todd, who appeared to be reading his comments about the "German music to sort of talk about the rise of Germany," admitted he hadn't even seen the performance, which ran along in split screen as he and others offered commentary. Why bother to watch a performance when you can rely upon the narrative of someone else who hasn't seen it?

His major coup "was getting women to smoke"

"With no phone to call for help, I used my bobsled push training to break out," quipped Olympian Johnny Quinn this morning, adding his voice to the latest Twitter trending topic, #SochiProblems. We love Quinn's All-American, can-do (pun intended) solution to post-Soviet lavatory logistical problems being encoutered by athletes and visitors alike at the winter Olympics sponsored by former KGB officer Vladimir Putin's Russia.

We're no fan of moral-equivalency guru Noam Chomsky's. But what he had to say a few years back about public relations as propaganda in fancy dress rings true and sheds light on the recent controversy over that Coca-Cola Super Bowl ad with its dreamy cinematography of doe-eyed children singing "America the Beautiful" in seven languages. All sugary innocence. Why did it make us feel as though the good folks at Coke were rubbing our noses in it? Michael Patrick Leahy at Breitbart explains:

The ad instantly provoked a deeply polarized response on social media, with conservatives ripping the ad for promoting multiculturalism with a deeply patriotic anthem. 

On the multiculti side, there were smug, self-congratulatory sermons scolding melting-pot types like ourselves for xenophobic/racist views we do not hold:

At this point, we shouldn’t be shocked by the intolerance of some towards immigrants and other cultures.  But who could’ve predicted the outrage we saw over the Coca-Cola commercial that aired during last night’s Super Bowl?!

Mosaicist vs assimilationist:

And to be honest, the notion of “E pluribus unum” is more relevant today than it was in 1782 because of our nation’s evolving demographics…

In the years to come, it will be a learning experience for all [of] us as our nation evolves into an even more beautiful mosaic.

Eye of the beholder, but even among allies there is dispute. When we learned this morning that Coke had belatedly added E pluribus unum to the opening frames of the commercial, we twittered our delight. But some on our side of the aisle were calling the whole thing a distraction, protesting that "making a fuss" over the Coke ad was distracting social-media voices from their primary task of holding Republican leaders' feet to the fire over Obama & Company's "comprehensive immigration" campaign:

I'm all for adding #EPluribusUnum to anything but I can't see making a fuss about a coke ad in the first place @SissyWillis @Drudge_Report

— Peter Ingemi (@DaTechGuyblog) February 8, 2014

Far more important to keep the pressure on @SpeakerBoehner than on coke in terms of the issue @mtranquilnight @SissyWillis @DRUDGE_REPORT

— Peter Ingemi (@DaTechGuyblog) February 8, 2014

Which brings us back to Chomsky and Bernays and the title of this post. Chomsky writes of Bernays:

His major coup, the one that really propelled him into fame in the late 1920s, was getting women to smoke. Women didn't smoke in those days and he ran huge campaigns for Chesterfield. You know all the techniques—models and movie stars with cigarettes coming out of their mouths and that kind of thing. He got enormous praise for that. So he became a leading figure of the industry, and his book was the real manual.

Similarly, those charming hyphenated-American children are trying to get LoFo (low information) Super Bowl viewers to absorb Coke's amnesty agenda:

The controversy surrounding Coca-Cola's Super Bowl ad has focused public attention on the company's pro-amnesty agenda. With the majority of its revenue coming from its international business, the company has long been known for its globalist rather than American world view.

As Andrew Breitbart famously tried to teach conservatives, culture is upstream of politics.

Update:

@mtranquilnight Me too. Tried to broach the subject among friends the other day, and no one was interested :)@DaTechGuyblog

— Sissy Willis (@SissyWillis) February 8, 2014

Yale law professor prefers not to be confused with the facts

"There are very few who can think, but every man wants to have an opinion; and what remains but to take it ready-made from others, instead of forming opinions for himself?" we quoted Schopenhaer a few years back on "the informational 'cascades' of sheeplike belief formation that cause flat-earthers to crowd the cultural ether in every era," noting that "Al Gore's lie-laced Inconvenient Truth comes to mind." Above, the early morning light works its magic on the salt piles across the street.

I don’t know a single person who identifies with the Tea Party,” Yale law professor Dan Kahan admits, bemused by the results of his own study on "the relationship between science literacy and political ideology":

Tea party members know more science than non-Tea Partiers.

How could that be? Aren't Tea Partiers flat-earthers?:

"I fully expected…a modest negative correlation between identifying with the Tea Party and science comprehension,” Kahan wrote.

That's what comes of relying on the Tea-Party-demonizing Democrat Media Complex for information outside one's area of expertise:

“All my impressions come from watching cable tv — & I don’t watch Fox News very often — and reading the ‘paper’ (New York Times daily, plus a variety of politics-focused Internet sites like Huffington Post and POLITICO). I’m a little embarrassed, but mainly, I’m just glad that I no longer hold this particular mistaken view.”

We're glad, too, although the professor's lack of intellectual curiosity about the Tea Party in light of his new data is troubling, as are his reflexive acceptance and promulgation of the now seriously outdated AGW narrative:

While Kahan cautioned against thinking the results can be used to explain deep ideological fights over climate change and other politically relevant science…he said the results wouldn’t change his negative views of the Tea Party.

Don't confuse him with the facts!

"Are these jerks trying to hurt us on purpose?"

People, I am not making this up pic.twitter.com/sYFQsxqEEr

— John McCormack (@McCormackJohn) October 2, 2013

"Because of the federal government shutdown, this National Park Service area is closed, except for 1st Amendment activities," reads the sign on a single barricade unit placed impotently (see context image below) at the edge of the expansive green whose centerpiece is the Second Infantry Division World War I Memorial.

"A perfect metaphor" for the Obama presidency, we twittered Matt Lewis and John McCormack this morning as the impotency and bluster of the Administration's latest attempt to put one over on the #lofos — low-information fellow Americans who aren't paying attention to the President's partial government-shutdown sideshow that's closing down things people really care about, like WW I and WW II memorials on the National Mall — came into focus via Drudge, the blogosphere and twitter:

@mattklewis Poignant & dignified WWI memorial & surround'g green = #wethepeople. Lame barricade w sign = Obama presidency @McCormackJohn

— Sissy Willis (@SissyWillis) October 2, 2013

"With her usual good humor and good sense, Mary Katherine Ham — paired with the sublimely clueless Alan Colmes on Martha McCallum's Fox "America's Newsroom" — has the last word:

"Are these jerks trying to hurt us on purpose?"

Ya think?

Armed and dangerous ...

"Let Facts be submitted to a candid world," from the archives July 4, 2008.

Stand with Rand: Tea Party Turks and the filibuster heard 'round the world

"My Tea Party cup runneth over," we twittered Mark Tapscott this morning in appreciation of his bracing filibuster post "Is Rand Paul America's William Wallace or Robert the Bruce?" wherein the DC Examiner columnist compares the generational struggle between Young Turk Rand Paul and Old Bull John McCain to the conflict between Robert the Bruce and his don't-rock-the-boat father in the film "Braveheart."

"He has definitely energized the base in a way that it hasn't been energized in a long time," enthused Tea Party Express Chair Amy Kremer following Paul Rand's filibuster heard 'round the world (Wednesday night the hashtag #standwithrand was number one trending topic worldwide on Twitter). The DC Examiner's Susan Ferrechio explains:

Until Paul's appearance, the Tea Party's popularity appeared to be waning. Republican leaders pushed Tea Party lawmakers to the sidelines during budget negotiations with President Obama. After a very successful 2010 election, the Tea Party took a beating in the 2012 [national] contests. And pollsters found that fewer and fewer people were affiliating themselves with the movement.

But Paul's filibuster attracted huge support on social media sites, from conservatives and liberals, and some believe it could mark a comeback for the movement …

By night's end, 40,000 new followers had signed up for Paul's Twitter feed.

We were caught up in the euphoria Wednesday afternoon and into the evening as C-SPAN 2 live broadcast the junior Senator from Kentucky doing it "the old-fashioned way," holding forth on the senate floor— with a little help from his friends, including our own fave, Sen. Ted Cruz! — for just under 13 hours of spirited discourse. We loved Hugh Hewitt's take:

[Rand Paul] engaged the country in a serious discussion of first principles. You may not agree with him, but he did it. The Constitution was actually discussed on the Senate floor for more than a dozen hours. Incredible.

He put the president on the defensive, using the force of argument to penetrate the White House's standard operating procedure of never engaging its critics on a serious level. Eric Holder, the hapless AG, came away scorched.

Paul also took an old, old device and married it to the new communications technology, instantly generating hundreds of thousands of messages about him and his argument which spread across the Twitterverse and associated platforms at an astonishing speed …

Senators Cruz, Lee, and Rubio are the sort of skilled talkers that the other side does not have. 

In this metaphorical battle to retake the Shining City, Sir William Wallace's words on the eve of the Battle of Stirling Bridge in 1297 resonate:

We come here with no peaceful intent, but ready for battle, determined to avenge our wrongs and set our country free."

Update: Why we love Twitter:

Sens. McCain and Graham appeared in the Senate gallery to criticize Rand Paul. #StandWIthRand twitter.com/ExJon/status/3…

— Jon Gabriel (@ExJon) March 7, 2013

Little Kitteh in Toyland

The kitteh was nestled all snug and well fed …

While visions of ornaments danced in her head.