Oops.
No, seriously … take a close look at that scarf Miss Wasilla’s wearing. Never mind its ugliness …
October 22, 2008
Sphagnum Moss 4, Palin 0: Are You Smarter Than A 3rd-Grader?
My favorite comment on this one (and I wish I’d thought of it first) was from the ever-rampaging Keith Olbermann: “Are You Smarter Than A Third-Grader?”
Me, well, to dust off an old Faux slogan … we’ll report. You decide.
The question, from a real-life third-grader: “What DOES the Vice-President do?”
Aw, that’s something that Piper would ask me, as a second grader, also. That’s a great question, Brandon, and a Vice President has a really great job, because not only are they there to support the President’s agenda, they’re like a team member, the teammate to that President. But also, they’re in charge of the United States Senate, so if they want to they can really get in there with the Senators and make a lot of good policy changes that will make life better for Brandon and his family and his classroom. And it’s a great job and I look forward to having that job.
Now, being a teacher, who has known a lot of third-graders (many of them very bright, impudent, and loving nothing more than to play Stump-The Teacher) I’d like to think I’d have been bright enough to step around that big old beartrap. (On nationwide TV, no less.) And having once been a bright, smartassed third-grader myself (and an annoyingly overliterate one at that – just ask Mom) I can easily imagine the sparks crackling through that kid’s brain, as he sets the trap for yet another ignorant, patronizing adult floating around eight miles above her Peter Principle point … who can’t IMAGINE any third-grade kid actually KNOWING anything.
Even if it’s a basic fact of American civics that said smartass could dig up via an instant’s Googling of “U.S. Constitution.”
(I do so envy smart kids today … they don’t even have to walk all the way to the library anymore, let alone scrape off dust and barnacles from ancient two-ton encyclopedias. And then, if they’re particularly bright and/or vindictive, they can even YouTube the whole thing and rub salt in the wound. Has there ever been a better time in history to be a juvenile gadfly?) 
October 17, 2008
October 16, 2008
John Cleese weighs in on the Funniest Palin.
Now this one was probably inevitable from the beginning, ever since some intrepid Monty Python fan put up the Michael Palin for President page. having sat back on the sidelines for a while, John Cleese has now chipped in his tuppence about our inimitable Miss Wasilla. I particularly like the fact that he has the grace to apologize to his colleague for no longer considering him the “funniest Palin”. Not to mention his point about parrots:
Naturally, we can all be forgiven for calling to mind a few of Cleese’s previously expressed thoughts on the subject.
October 15, 2008
Sphagnum Moss 3, Palin 0 (Bonus Black-is-white point)
Okay, I know I’m a day or two behind on this, but it’s worth posting anyway … just because it’s so telling.
The “Troopergate” report finally came out, despite all attempts to stop it. The Alaska Legislative Council charged with the task (comprising mainly Republicans, by the way) voted unanimously to release it.
Finding Number One?
“For the reasons explained in section IV of the report, I find that Governor Sarah Palin abused her power by violating Alaska Statute 39.52.11(a) of the Alaska Executive Branch Ethics Act.
“The legislature reaffirms that each public officer holds office as a public trust, and any effort to benefit a personal or financial interest through official action is a violation of that trust.”
Miss Wasilla’s response, during a brief, phoned-in Q&A with the local press:
“Well, I’m very very pleased to be cleared of any legal wrongdoing … any hint of any kind of unethical activity there. Very pleased to be cleared of any of that.”
And there you have it. Black is white. We told you so, after all.
The much-admired and praiseworthy Mudflats has the story here, for those who want a lengthier and wittier angle on it with local color thrown in. Alaska politics can be pretty darn amusing on its own, but it’s even better when told from underneath the pile.
October 7, 2008
Vote No to Ignorant Fascist Thugs.
Open memo to John McCain, Sarah Palin and the whole of the Republican party:
It will be a COLD DAY IN HELL before I EVER vote for ANYONE on your ticket again.
Unless you knock off the character attacks and demagoguery, stop with the race-baiting and the pandering to theocrats, fascists and assorted thugs, purge the ranks, and start acting like honest-to-God fiscal conservatives again.
Otherwise, No Deal.
If you’ve actually stooped to the point where you openly encourage the sort of ugliness on display at the recent Florida rallies … where you’ll allow members of your audience to yell “Terrorist!” and “Kill Him!” at the mere mention of your opponent … where you go out of your way to foment potential mob violence toward the media present, who are doing their jobs keeping an eye on you and the citizenry informed …
Then NO and HELL NO.
You are the most Un-American thing I’ve seen in my born days, and you deserve to be hounded off to a gulag of Gigerian design, for what you’re attempting to inflict upon my country.
May the God whose name you flog in vain have mercy on your souls.
October 2, 2008
Scoreboard: Sarah Palin 0, Sphagnum Moss 1
Ye gods … Katie Couric must have some magical power which strips away the thin veneer.
You know, the one that until recently painted over Gov. Sarah Palin’s incalculable stupidity.
It’s not that I didn’t have enough reasons to despise this woman already. Anyone who talks of being able to see Russia from Alaska, claims it as foreign-policy experience, and expects to be taken seriously, has lawfully earned all the mockery the universe can send her way.
(And never mind that she’s never even visited that part of Alaska. And never mind that, by her standards, I could qualify circles around her – starting with the fact that I’ve actually been to Russia.)
But just today I got sent to this bit of video from the Couric interview, in which she offers her excuse for never having traveled or gotten a passport until last year. (The quote below pops out of her mouth about 1′10″ in.) Behold:
“I”m not one of those who came from… a background of … you know, kids who perhaps graduate college and … their parents give ‘em a passport and give ‘em a backpack and say “Go off and see the world… Nooooooooo, I’ve worked all my life, in fact I’ve usually had two jobs all my life, until I had kids – I was not, uh part of, I guess, uh, uh … that culture.”
Funny, Sarah, neither was I. I seem to remember buying my own damned backpack and passport. Not to mention working two jobs myself (neither of which involved any beauty contests, nor politics) to pay for my first trip to Europe. Nor to mention that I’ve spent this last six years abroad working … but let’s allow her to carry on the irony-fest:
“The way that I have understood the world [!?!? - D.] is, uh, through education, through books, through, uh, mediums that have provided me, uh, a lot of perspective on the world.”
Uh-huh … this from a woman a mere four years older than me, a young-earth creationist who thinks dinosaurs and humans coexisted.
Now, I could point up the extreme irony of claiming to “understand the world” while declining to go out and see any of it. I could mention the undesirability of parading one’s provincial ignorance as a virtue, let alone a desirable quality for leadership of a global superpower. I could add (in fact I will) that all of my fellow English teachers here are taking this remark as an insult.
But maybe I should just let Miss Wasilla speak for herself.
I never in my wildest dreams imagined that anyone could make me nostalgic for Dan Quayle. What a waste it is to lose one’s mind, indeed.
