"A rat walked across my foot the other day. They’re bold. You can stomp your foot all you want, but they’re New York City rats. They are not afraid."

Said one New Yorker, quoted in "Rats in a Stroller: The Central Park Playground Panic/City data actually suggest that rat sightings are declining. But horror stories are everywhere, and a single rat in a stroller is enough to set off a panic" (NYT).

The last 3 paragraphs of this article are about Curtis Sliwa:

"The single worst thing I think this White House could do politically is what they are doing, right?"

"Creating a causal relationship between their signature economic policy and prices going up. And so if... we do see that inflation or we do have a recession... this White House will be blamed... And that creates the perfect conditions for Democrats to have a good midterms and feel good about 2028. And that's nothing to do with their own vision.... Right now, it seems like the chaos, they're kind of used to. Donald Trump up against his usual enemies. And I think there is some leeway — for art of the deal... negotiation, things like that. But the guy who says he'll eat a rat for Donald Trump is the exception. If those prices increase, the only person who will be blamed for that is the president. And if you're a Democrat, that's the best thing that could happen for the prospect of the party returning the power, right?"

Said Astead W. Herndon, in "Do Trump Voters Like His Tariffs? We Went to Michigan to Find Out," today's episode of the NYT "Daily" podcast.

Was there a guy who said he'd eat a rat for Donald Trump? There was a guy who said he wouldn't care if prices go up, that he would "survive," "adapt," and: "I'm the kind of guy that'll, if I'm starving, I'll eat a rat. I'll eat cockroach. I'm a survivalist." I wouldn't say that's eating a rat for Donald Trump. It's eating a rat for himself — to survive. The implication is that he's self-reliant. He doesn't look to the government to solve his problems. The podcast made it sound like a "Fear Factor" challenge or a sick devotion to Donald Trump, the man. 

Anyway, I'm trying to highlight the idea that — on the tariff issue — those who are rooting for the Democrats seem to think their best strategy is to do nothing but hope for inflation and recession: "That's the best thing that could happen for the prospect of the party returning the power, right?"

"The history of the world according to rats."

From the video: "Today, rats are often regarded as the most successful invasive species in the world." 

Meade: "I'd say humans...."

Robot bird, robot rat.

"Hot rodent boyfriends are the internet’s latest obsession... These are actual men, lumped into a bizarrely titled group..."

"... after people started realizing a good chunk of actors they find attractive have certain features in common.... His features may include an angular, narrow face, beady eyes, ears that stick out from somewhat unkempt hair, and something going on with his mouth and nose that just makes you feel like he could sprout whiskers and it would seem like the most appropriate turn of events.... But it seems safe to say these fellas are a little odd, a little sweet, a little clever, and have a good sense of humor...."

Writes Rachel Kiley, in "PSA: It’s hot rodent boyfriend summer y’all/'If you liked short king spring you’ll love hot rodent summer'" (Daily Dot).

I tried to find song lyrics with "rat-faced," and I only found this. Sorry. That was terrible of me to show you that. Consider this:

he looks like a very kindhearted mouse who got turned into a prince https://t.co/nqWwgRplXE

— mariana (@pastapilled) April 30, 2024

ADDED: Wait. There's a Bob Dylan song, "Untitled 1 (Baby's Black)": 

"Immediately I knew that’s not a wild rat... It had a shorter, rounder nose, its ears were on the side of its head and it was white. … If you know rats, you know rats."

Said Elm Dylan, quoted in "A waterfront park is overrun with rats. Rescuers are trying to find homes for them. A group of volunteers believes the rodents at Harbor View Memorial Park in Portland are domestic, not wild, and is working to rescue them and find foster homes" (Portland Press Herald).

The rats must be saved... because they are white? White rats, unlike brown rats, are perceived as pets.

"What makes the clock stunt even more impressive, Ms. Lloyd said, is that her grandfather was hanging on with only eight fingers."

"In 1919 he had lost part of his right index finger, his entire right thumb and part of his palm when he attempted to light a cigarette from the fuse of what he thought was a prop bomb for a publicity photo. But the bomb exploded, temporarily blinding him and putting him in the hospital for about two weeks. For years he wore a prosthetic glove to mask the injury in movies, but not in his personal life."

From "A Man Hanging From a Clock. Yes, It’s That Silent Film. 'Safety Last!' the 1923 Harold Lloyd movie best known for the dangerous scene, marks its centennial" (NYT).

You can watch the entire movie on YouTube. I'll start you in the middle of things (and keep going, because it's not just the clock, it's the rat, the gun, the anemometer, etc.):

"The ‘check engine’ light came on, and I brought it to my mechanic, who popped the hood and found chicken bones, some bread and part of a bacon, egg and cheese sandwich sitting there."

From "Why So Many Cars Have Rats in Them Now/Driving in the city is on the rise, but if New Yorkers think they can avoid rats this way, they are in for quite the surprise" (NYT).

[During the pandemic, r]ats that would typically stick close to their food sources began taking more risks, like making brazen midday dashes to piles of trash bags and other potential meals and hangouts. But recently, as human behavior has returned to something approaching normalcy, the rats haven’t reverted to their old habits; they’ve simply expanded their tactic...

And then there's the "proliferation of... soy-based insulation for car wiring — basically catnip for rodents."

Nothing like a famous last name and a Harvard J.D. and a Harvard M.B.A. to scare the bejesus out of rats.

I'm reading "The Rats Are Absolutely Going to Hate the New Sanitation Commissioner/Jessica Tisch is determined to clean up New York" (NYT)"

Ms. Tisch, 41... is a lifelong New Yorker with a famous last name and three Harvard diplomas, including an M.B.A. and a law degree. Her grandfather and his brother founded the Loews Corporation and, thanks to philanthropic donations, their names grace many buildings in New York, including at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York University and the Children’s Zoo in Central Park....

"Nobody really understands Hieronymus Bosch."

So begins the essay "What's So Contemporary About Hieronymous Bosch" by Dean Kissick (at Spike), which I'm reading after blogging about an illustration about Elon Musk by Cold War Steve.

I found Cold War Steve's Twitter feed and messaged this other illustration of his to Meade:

"The ‘check engine’ light came on, and I brought it to my mechanic, who popped the hood and found chicken bones, some bread and part of a bacon, egg and cheese sandwich sitting there."

Says a woman quoted in "Why So Many Cars Have Rats in Them Now/Driving in the city is on the rise, but if New Yorkers think they can avoid rats this way, they are in for quite the surprise" (NYT). 

So what's the answer to that "why" question, the reader wants to know. The article doesn't nail it down, but it mentions warmth, then all the "outdoor dining sheds," and then — your whiskers will twitch! —  "new soy-based insulation for car wiring — basically catnip for rodents."

The commenters over there swarm. The top-rated comments:

I've collected 9 TikToks for you today. Let me know what you like best.

1. How to live really well in what ought to be a too-small space.

2. At the "dollar holler" in Purvis, Mississippi.

3. "Don't look at me like that.... Don't look at me like that either."

4. Let's take a close look at those "thirst pockets."

5. How to sound like a TV news talking head.

6. About that candy bar with teeth marks, found on the floor.

7. Finding out your little girl can sing.

8. The "pride" collection at Target.

9. Get ready for the trends of summer 2022.

"During the Second World War, a pigeon was cited for bravery by the U.S. Army. During a storm, the bird, known as U.S. 1169, carried a distress message..."

"... from a foundering Coast Guard vessel and alerted rescuers. Between 1943 and 1949, the Dickin Medal—a British award for animal bravery—was bestowed on thirty-two pigeons, nearly twice the number given to hero dogs."

From the book "On Animals" by Susan Orlean.

Here's the Wikipedia page for the Dickin Medal, where you can see the details of what these pigeons — and other creatures — did. And by "other creatures," I mean dogs, mostly. 18 of them. The only other creatures were 3 horses and — incredibly! — 1 cat. He was a ship's cat named Simon:

"'Peanut butter Oreos are the best,' said Jim Webster, Rat Trap Distribution’s director of operations, while installing the contraption outside of Casa La Femme."

"The scent of the cookies, crumbled and placed in the top compartment of the two-part trap, along with sunflower seeds, acts as a lure. For a week or so, rodents will be free to crawl through the device’s holes and snack as much as they want. Once the rats become regulars and 'get comfortable,' Mr. Webster said, the device will be turned on, and a platform will drop them into the lower part of the contraption, which serves as a catch basin not unlike a dunking tank at a carnival booth. Mr. Webster emptied four jugs of a mysterious blue 'proprietary' formula into the bottom part of the machine. He said the formula was mostly alcohol and had vapors that 'knock the rat unconscious.' He topped the solution off with sunflower oil to 'eliminate odor' from decomposition."

From "Could Oreo Cookies Solve New York’s Rat Problem?/They are being used in new high-tech rat traps, which have been spotted around the city" (NYT).

I'm blogging this because I think it's absurd that the city and the NYT imagine this is some brilliant new "high-tech" machine. We're told that Mayor-elect Eric Adams has declared the traps "amazing."

There's nothing new about the idea of drowning small animals.... whatever the "proprietary' formula" might be.  And you've got rats running in and out of the thing for "a week or so" before you do anything but feed them. Maybe the NYT is laughing at Webster, but this is about tormenting living creatures, so think about how you'd feel suddenly — at your favorite restaurant — dumped into some "proprietary" liquid.

Credit to the NYT for getting me to click by using the word "Oreo." I became irascibly skeptical when I saw that the drowning machines didn't use Oreos at all but peanut butter Oreos.

The comments over there are all about feral cats! There's your better rattrap, they're all saying.

At the Muskrat Café...

... share the love. With comments.

And please think of supporting this blog by doing your shopping through the Althouse portal to Amazon, which is always right there in the sidebar. Thanks!

"I had been in the Oval Office a hundred times as vice president or more... But I had never been up in the residence."

"And one of the things — I don't know about you all, but I was raised in a way that you didn't look for anybody to wait on you. And it's — we're — I find myself extremely self-conscious. There are wonderful people that work at the White House. But someone is standing there and making sure I — hands me my suit coat, or..."

From the transcript of Biden's CNN Town Hall last night.

Anderson Cooper expressed surprise that Biden had never been in the residence part of the White House? Obama never had him over?

Biden continues. I'll add a page break because this is very rambly:

"Though they have terrible eyesight, the rats are ideal for such work, with their extraordinary sense of smell and their light weight – they are too light to trigger the mines."

"When they detect a mine, they lightly scratch atop it, signaling to their handler what they've found. Their reward: a banana."

From "Hero Rat Wins A Top Animal Award For Sniffing Out Land Mines" (NPR). Elsewhere, I've seen it written that this rat "won a medal," and, indeed, the president of the U.K. charity that honored the animal said "This is the very first time in our 77-year history of honoring animals that we will have presented a medal to a rat." They call it a medal, so that makes it a medal.

It's a very useful rat, obviously, but it's not choosing benefit us people (or even other rats). It's simply doing what reliably produces a banana. It has no idea of the danger of a land mine, and there doesn't seem to be any danger for the lightweight creature, certainly nothing that the rat knows about, so there is no courage involved other than what courage it takes to hang around human beings for the sake of banana.

Show me a rat that has displayed heroism. This isn't that rat. But the medal is for us humans, to feel pleased with the contribution of a rat. The rat doesn't care about a medal. It cares about a banana.

"Cleaners did not know graffiti on a London Underground train was by world-renowned artist Banksy when they removed it...."

BBC reports.

The piece, If You Don't Mask, You Don't Get, was painted inside a Circle Line service carriage. But by the time he unveiled the work on his Instagram account, it had been wiped away by Transport for London (TfL) cleaning crews. A TfL source said: "It was treated like any other graffiti on the network." "The job of the cleaners is to make sure the network is clean, especially given the current climate," they said.... Of course there will be those who say it should have been kept or protected as art but that is somewhat academic....

Here's the Instagram post:

View this post on Instagram

. . If you don’t mask - you don’t get.

A post shared by Banksy (@banksy) on Jul 14, 2020 at 6:30am PDT

This gets my "rats" tag. In case you have the question "Is it art?," remember that "art" is an anagram for "rat."

“Wearing sunglasses and a dark fedora, Stone... strode past a giant inflatable rat dressed as Trump with a red tie and yellow hair - a common prop in street protests - and a sign calling for his pardon.”

From a Reuter’s article about the Roger Stone sentencing, happening now.

UPDATE:  3 years!

AND: I've said it before and I can say it again: "I happened to be wearing a fedora when I ran across that." (Reason for wearing a fedora while blogging explained at that link.)

ALSO: From the NYT write-up:

Judge Amy Berman Jackson excoriated Mr. Stone, saying his behavior inspired “dismay and disgust”.... She said that for months, Mr. Stone carried out a deliberate and calculated effort to hinder an important congressional inquiry by blatantly lying, hiding hundreds of documents and pressuring a fragile witness. Mr. Stone enjoys “mind games” and political gamesmanship, she said, but “nothing about this case was a joke. It wasn’t a stunt and it wasn’t a prank.”

She added, “He was not prosecuted to give anyone a political advantage. He was not prosecuted, as some have complained, for standing up for the president. He was prosecuted for covering up for the president.”...

Things I noticed on Tik Tok today. Tell us the order you like these and think about what that says about you.