Pop Culture Cuisinart

Sarah Palin, coiner of famous wordplay, like "hopey, changey" and "refudiate" has made use of the "grizzly mom defending her cubs" symbol as a political tool. Like her RNC convention reference to lipsticked pitbulls, this is supposed to represent a type of hardscrabble tough conservative parenting. A sort of Rambo meets Dr. Spock sensibility. Now, I've never been to Alaska but I do watch some Animal Planet, which gives me a small third-hand knowledge about grizzly bears. (Which is likely more than Sarah Palin has in reality.) The true life of a Mama Grizzly is a lonely one. There is no Papa bear in the picture. No cub knows his father. The cub doesn't even see the outside world until it is old enough to leave the den with it's mother. That would be like humans hibernating during the first eighteen months of a baby's life. Once out the mother grizzly is solely responsible for all aspects of her cubs' feeding and safety. There are no mother grizzly social clubs or bunko groups. (Grizzly moms generally don't have time to whine about tax policy or picket abortion clinics either, but I digress) The preservation of her own offspring is her sole life concern. If they come across a hungry male, he takes one look and thinks, not "cute little versions of me" but "LUNCH!" A lot of cubs are killed this way by rogue males, try as a mother might to protect them. A third to a half of cubs do not survive to maturity. (Has Sarah ever had to stop Todd from eating the kids? Is that where this idea came from?) Grizzly's do nurturing about as well as Marines do sharing their feelings.

So in other words Sarah Palin's ideal for a natural world representation of the family values ethos is a society of lone mothers battling every man and each other for food for their competing offspring; and a return to the rate of child mortality that hasn't been seen since the late nineteenth century. Perhaps a different species might be more appropriate for the "family values" ideal I keep hearing about. Might I suggest penguins? Not only does daddy penguin take his turn on the egg and bring food to the chick, but they mate for life. Or is that just too much commitment for a tea bagger?

Not the greatest symbol for family values

Look a two parent animal family!