"He tried to make a mountain out of a mole hill and wound up being badly mauled by angry moles."

Said Bob Boyd, commenting in the thread about the Harvard professor's bizarre email exchange with the Chinese restaurateur.

And I said:

Why would moles get angry if you expressed the view that their hill was actually a mountain? I would think that they'd either feel chuffed or they'd feel neutral and simply agree that it's a mountain as far as they are concerned. What is a mountain to a mole? I say their molehill feels like a mountain and that which we call a mountain lies outside of the perception of a mole.

AND: Caved and made a tag for "moles." I'm delighted with the results of adding it retrospectively to old posts... because there are 2 kinds of moles. I'm allowing them to play together in what we might called a game of tag.

"Born with raised moles on her cheek that loosely resembled the constellation of The Big Dipper, Schiaparelli didn't have them removed..."

"... rather, she commissioned Cartier to make her a Big Dipper brooch, with diamonds for stars, mirroring the pattern of the moles on her face. Instead of the classic fur coat that Audrey Volk swore by, [Elsa] Schiaparelli designed high-heeled ocelot fur bowling shoes, as well as a hat made out of the taxidermied face of a cheetah whose open mouth looked like it was swallowing Schiaparelli's head."



From an NPR story about Patricia Volk's new book "Shocked: My Mother, Schiaparelli, and Me."

And here's Elsa Schiaparelli's own book "Shocking Life."

The "shocking" business relates to the "shocking pink," the shade of pink used on the box for Schiaparelli's perfume named Shocking, which came out in 1937, when it was possible for a magazine advertisement to look like this:

These would be lovable if they were moles...

... but they are mice. "Inadvertently raked up" — Meade IM's from the garden.

ME: Ouch

MEADE: I didn't hurt them

I even ushered the mother to where I moved them

And then I boiled and ate

All three of them

At first, Meade thought he'd raked up baby moles, but when he found the panic'd mother searching for her lost children, he knew they were mice. But let the topic now be moles. Because, yesterday, we were talking about squirrels, and NotYourTypicalNewYorker said:

Squirrels aren't bothering me.

It's the moles, I can't abide the cursed moles.

I put the trap here, they go over there...

It's the moles I tell ya.

And Meade offered some gardenly wisdom:

The moles are your friends. They aerate the soil and eat pest larvae. It's a misconception that they eat bulbs and other desirable garden plants - they're completely carnivorous.

Set your mower blades higher and/or walk down their feeding runs before firing up the mower. Also, where the female mole pushes up a mound of soil, spread it with a rake or with your boot heel so the mower doesn't hit it. It's the mower that does the damage, not the mole.

Adding tags to this post, I knew I already had the tags "mice" and "rodents." I thought it would be excessive to make a tag "moles." Too narrow! But are moles rodents? No, they are Insectivora. And that underlines Meade's point. Moles don't eat plants. Don't worry about moles. Worry about Meade... eating boiled mice. And me, out there in Meade's grass with the squirrels...



... levitating.

(Thanks to Palladian for the TrANNscendentalism.)

The travails of a dermatologist.

Querying the advice columnist:

On an elevator, I once noticed a mole on a woman's back that looked very suspicious. Obviously she was not my patient, nor can I perform a lab test at that moment. However, I quietly mentioned that as a dermatologist, I felt she should have it checked by a doctor. Her response was very negative. I felt I was being treated like a pervert or an off-the-street weirdo. So, my question is: When I go out in public, should I shut my mole-dar off? After all, they are not my patients. Or is it the right thing to point out to someone that they may have a dangerous mole and should see a doctor as soon as possible?

It must be difficult to see skin this way. When everyone else is just enjoying ogling the fleshly parade, you're zeroing in on the flaws and speculating about cancer and death.

We were just talking about our dermatologist. It seems that every time we go in for a check-up, she finds one little dot to excise and test. I was thinking that if I were she, I'd visualize all those cut-out moles and wonder what a career's worth of moles would look like if they were all piled up into a big mountain... I mean, a mole hill.

E! Online rumormongers about Laura Bush.

Ted Casablanca, "Gossip Guru and Writer of the Awful Truth," writes:

And as long as we’re on gals we all live for, let’s check in on that adorable Laura Bush, shall we? Now, I just gotta say I have a soft spot for the First Gal because she:

1. Has had to put up with Chief Schmuck for, like, eons now, and

2. Had the good sense—so my White House sources tell me (and, yes, I do have moles at 1600 Pennsylvania)—to remove herself from Bush’s company, as of late. Background: As I’ve said for months now, L.B. has been spending more and more time away from the White House, due to Bush’s resurrected drinking habits. The Hay-Adams is just one place Ms. B likes to hang away from official home.

But now, I'm hearing from down Tejas way that Laura-love is also avoiding their beloved Crawford ranch, as long as Dubya’s there.

“[The president] has been in residence three times over the past several months, and surprise, surprise, Mrs. Prez has not been with him on any of the visits,” sniffs Desk Horsey. This is most unusual, too, as, according to Desk H, Ms. Bush “adores the quiet life at the compound and usually the kiddos make an appearance as well.” But apparently not with the guy who’s anything but soft-spoken these days. L.B., you just biding your time till that party of yours gets another Republican in the Oval Office?

Girlfriend, I say cut your damn losses now. It’s your life. You don’t get another one, unless you’re Shirley MacLaine, or, apparently, Lindsay Lohan.

Eh. I have nothing to say about that. Just wanted you to know that's being said.

ADDED: Just yesterday, a NYT guest columnist referred to "Laura Bush’s increasingly beleaguered late-term demeanor." What does that even refer to?

"She likes kissing Sam's hairless frame, littered with blackheads, brown warts and moles."

The ugliest dog in the world. Enlarge the photo for the full Tales-From-the-Crypt scary effect. (Via Drudge.)