"How can you keep on loving someone when he turns your world upside down?"

"Be afraid. Be very afraid."

I ended the previous post with that old sci-fi movie tag line.

I think what is going on right now is an effort to create a mindset, and emotional orientation toward Romney. Business is an alien entity. It's scary and mystifying, and Romney is part of that. You can't understand it, so don't even try. [NYT columnist Gail] Collins is planting the seed of fear. You laugh now. You won't even feel it. But it will grow. Be afraid. Be very afraid.

Please pay attention to that. It's what's happening right now, and it is an effort to emotionally manipulate people in a way Obamans are counting on. It's The Framing.

But what is the source of "Be afraid, be very afraid"? I was thinking "Alien." But the original "Alien" tagline was "In space no one can hear you scream."

"Be afraid, be very afraid" came from... Googling... the 1986 version of "The Fly." I love that movie, the one with Jeff Goldblum and Geena Davis.



Speaking of tags, this blog has long had a tag for "insect politics" — based on the line from "The Fly" "Have you heard of insect politics? Neither have I."

Full text: "Have you heard of insect politics? Neither have I. Insects don't have politics.... they're very brutal. No compassion.... no compromise. We can't trust the insect. I'd like to become the first insect politician. I'd like to, but.... I'm an insect.... who dreamed he was a man, and loved it. But now the dream is over, and the insect is awake."

And speaking of Obama and "The Fly," remember Obama and the fly?



And speaking of dreams being over? Remember the dream?

"If your Big Mac is going to cost about $100 and your Bug Mac is going to cost only $4, people will change to a Bug Mac."

Says Arnold van Huis, the world's biggest expert on entomophagy (the eating of insects).

He believes the rising price of meat will help change diets.

Help? Why is NPR using the word "help" there?

Van Huis says the challenge is to make it delicious. That's where Marian Peters comes in. For years, as secretary of the Dutch insect breeders association Venik, she's been active in bringing edible insects to consumers' tables. And Peters says the first commercially available bug sandwich will be out soon — a wrap filled with insects and peas.

It's easy to make food with bugs in that tastes just fine. We've been eating food all along that has insect parts in it:

The Food Defect Action Levels: Levels of natural or unavoidable defects in foods that present no health hazards for humans is a publication of the United States Food and Drug Administration's Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition detailing acceptable levels of food contamination from sources such as maggots, thrips, insect fragments, "foreign matter", mold, rodent hairs, and insect and mammalian feces.

It's not a question of whether insects are in your food. It's a question of whether you want to hear about it and consciously embrace the activity — entomophagy — that you've been engaging in all along.

There are people who want you to like it, and people who are perversely excited about the way financial pressure is going to help you like it.

Well, so long as it's merely a cash incentive, we can't complain too much. And maybe some day Congress could impose a penalty, collected through your tax return, for people who choose to eat too much meat over insects. Don't worry. Congress isn't going to require you to eat insects. They just wouldn't do that. So don't worry about whether it has the power to do something it's never ever going to do. And, by the way, eating insects is not kosher, but if Congress said everyone had to eat insects, and failed to make an exemption for people who adhere to a kosher diet for religious reasons, it would not violate the Free Exercise Clause. But don't worry. Congress would never require you to eat insects, and if it did, it would offer an exemption for religious folk. I'm sure.

What am I talking about? Have you heard of insect politics? Neither have I!

"Insects don't have politics.... they're very brutal. No compassion.... no compromise. We can't trust the insect. I'd like to become the first insect politician. I'd like to, but.... I'm an insect.... who dreamed he was a man, and loved it. But now the dream is over, and the insect is awake."

See, this is where I end up when I get to thinking about insects and politics. But please. Calm down. Don't worry about the government and it's plans for the insect. Be very cool, like our biggest politician who is famous cool. Watch how calmly he proceeds with his insect politics:



Whaddya think? That was pretty impressive. He got the sucker.

"Five years ago today, a few thousand of us gathered in Springfield, Illinois, to launch an improbable campaign for president."

Email from Barack Obama.

The task was to build a grassroots movement capable of making the kind of change we believe in.

You've got to see this video about that journey -- it will make you smile...

Oh, really? Let me try...



Trying to rekindle the old spirit. Did I smile? Of course! It's a nice presentation of all the smiley Obama-related things there are... including catching the fly, dancing with Ellen, hugging his daughters, singing "Let's Stay Together," and saying he just killed Bin Laden. And Joe Biden. I always laugh when I see Joe Biden, but maybe that's just me.

Obama and the fly.

I already have a tag for it, so how can I resist?

Click on the link and then the tag and scroll to reminisce about the time when Obama seemed to have superhuman power.

"In his battle with the titans of Wall Street, President Barack Obama almost got upstaged by a rat."

"But he didn't even seem to notice. Assuming that's what it was, scurrying in front of his podium Thursday in a sun-drenched Rose Garden."

1. It wasn't a rat. It was a vole.

2. Our own animal nature is revealed by the way we are distracted by animals. We are critters too, and we have a sharp eye for prey, even when it's something we don't eat anymore.

3. I bet Obama was thinking about the time a fly tried to upstage him at the White House:



Can't do that with a vole, can you? Poor Obama! Things don't go his way as easily as they did a year ago when he "got the sucker" (the fly).

4. The "sucker" symbolizes his opponents. Last year, it was a slow-moving fly, handily squelched. This year, the vole skitters unscathed. By next summer, the White House is going to look like this:



UPDATE: Hours later, scientists determine that it was in fact a vole. Told ya. Thanks to Meade, a man who can tell one rodent from another.

"There's a huge bug in my house. I want Obama to kill it for me."

So tweeted I, right after making the video you can view in the previous post, but that isn't the post that inspired Chip Ahoy to animate this:



The inspiration comes from "Found guilty of downloading 24 songs, a woman is fined $1,900,000. Chip says:

This RIAA case and the outrageous irrational verdict reminds me of Obama killing that fly. How so? — you ask. This is how.

AKA overkill.

Unlike President Obama, I cannot kill an insect.

Now, admittedly, it's not a fly. I won't say I wouldn't harm a fly. In fact, what the hell is that thing? What feelers! I've never seen such feelers!



IN THE COMMENTS: Peter Hoh said:

With those feelers, it must be some sort of empathy beetle.

On swatting a fly.

1. BBC gives you 10 ways to swat a fly — including a technique called The Barack.

2. PETA doesn't appreciate The Barack: "We support compassion even for the most curious, smallest and least sympathetic animals. We believe that people, where they can be compassionate, should be, for all animals."

3. There's a song called "Never Swat a Fly." I'm familiar with the old Jim Kweskin version ("Don't do that, Delores/You should never swat a fly"), but here's the 1930 Abe Lyman version. Lyrics:

Never swat a fly, he may love another fly
He may sit with her and sigh the way I do with you
Never harm a flea, he may have a favorite she
That he bounces on his knee the way I do with you
Never stop a moth when he is gliding through the air
He may have a date in someone's flannel underwear
Ah! Ah! Be careful!
Never spray a nit with a great big can of Blitz
He may think some nit has it the way I do with you

During the campaign, Obama promised to "fight hard" for gay rights.

Now:

President Obama will sign a presidential memorandum on Wednesday to extend benefits to same-sex partners of federal employees, administration officials said Tuesday evening, but he will stop short of pledging full health insurance coverage....

Mr. Obama, in an Oval Office announcement, is expected to offer details about which benefits will be provided. It is the most significant statement he has made on gay issues, and it comes as he faces intense criticism from several gay rights leaders over what they suggest has been a failure to live up to campaign promises in the first months of his presidency....

... President Obama and his advisers have been reluctant to wade deeply into divisive issues like overturning a ban on openly gay military members or extending benefits to partners of government employees, fearful that such moves could overtake the administration’s broader agenda.

He has sent private assurances, several activists have said, that he intends to do more in coming years....

But let's be fair. Obama said he would "fight hard" for gay rights. What does it mean for Obama to "fight hard"? The man is famously cool. He is not belligerent. Here, perhaps, is our President, fighting hard: