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lolaraincoatOkay, so, I am powerless to control my need to read every bit and byte anywhere in the whole internet about Sarah Palin. It's not even about politics - she's like the most implausible fictional character ever, and the more I read, the less plausible she seems, and I'm fascinated.
So anyway, here are some of the my favorite random Vice-Presidential-candidate facts:
When her youngest child was born, she sent an email to her friends and family explaining that even though he has Down Syndrome, he is still "perfect." Nothing odd there, and yay for her for continuing the pregnancy and cherishing her child (pro-choice means pro-choice, not pro-eugenicist-decision-making, all right? Just my opinion of course.) It's just that Palin wrote the letter "in the voice of and signed it as 'Trig's Creator, Your Heavenly Father.'" according to this story in the Anchorage Daily News.
All her kids have appalling names! The youngest kid's middle name is Van because his parents are Van Halen fans! One of the others is named after an airplane! Another is named after a fishing port! And another is named after a city that never got built!
She modeled for Vogue - while pregnant!
She is more willing to throw her vulnerable family members under the national-media train than John Edwards ever was! (I don't even care about his screwing the videographer. He lost me when he decided to stay in the race while his wife went through chemo.) I think anyone likely to be morally offended by her daughter having premarital sex will be mollified by her daughter's marriage, while anyone worried by the possibility that the daughter is not making all her own reproductive and marital decisions with complete autonomy wasn't going to vote for McCain anyway. So it's a wash, politically. But what a story!
She had her ex-brother-in-law fired, and then she fired the guy who didn't fire the ex-brother-in-law fast enough! The ex-brother-in-law either did or did not use a taser on her nephew! She fired the only librarian in Wasilla, Alaska! She fired the Chief of Police too! She loves her family and she loves firing people!
She's just as confused as I am about what the Vice-President is supposed to do all day besides waiting around in case the President dies! And I'm not running for Vice President! But then, Dick Cheney was really sure what the Vice President should be doing, and look how that turned out.
She's very loyal to Wasilla, in the context of Alaskan politics, and to Alaska, now that she's on a national stage! This is great! We might end up with mid-twentieth-century-Mexican-style patria chica politics to go with our mid-twentieth-century-Mexican-style elections!
She only got a passport for the first time in 2007! eta: She used it to visit Kuwait! Thanks Heidi for that important info! /eta
She shoots polar bears! To save them from drowning because of global warming! It's mercy killing! (Okay, that last part, I made that up. She does hunt polar bears, but she does not believe that human interventions are changing the climate, and I'm guessing she would be anti-euthanasia as well, though she's pro-death-penalty so maybe not?)
eta:She may or may not have belonged to a very silly Alaska-secessionist-movement party at some point in her past! As someone who has signed on to more than one obscure and annoying-to-others political organization in my time, I say: She really is just like us! /eta
In sum, even if McCain loses, I think we can expect to see more of Sarah Palin and her family - either in national politics, or on the Jerry Springer Show. Or both.
So anyway, here are some of the my favorite random Vice-Presidential-candidate facts:
When her youngest child was born, she sent an email to her friends and family explaining that even though he has Down Syndrome, he is still "perfect." Nothing odd there, and yay for her for continuing the pregnancy and cherishing her child (pro-choice means pro-choice, not pro-eugenicist-decision-making, all right? Just my opinion of course.) It's just that Palin wrote the letter "in the voice of and signed it as 'Trig's Creator, Your Heavenly Father.'" according to this story in the Anchorage Daily News.
All her kids have appalling names! The youngest kid's middle name is Van because his parents are Van Halen fans! One of the others is named after an airplane! Another is named after a fishing port! And another is named after a city that never got built!
She modeled for Vogue - while pregnant!
She is more willing to throw her vulnerable family members under the national-media train than John Edwards ever was! (I don't even care about his screwing the videographer. He lost me when he decided to stay in the race while his wife went through chemo.) I think anyone likely to be morally offended by her daughter having premarital sex will be mollified by her daughter's marriage, while anyone worried by the possibility that the daughter is not making all her own reproductive and marital decisions with complete autonomy wasn't going to vote for McCain anyway. So it's a wash, politically. But what a story!
She had her ex-brother-in-law fired, and then she fired the guy who didn't fire the ex-brother-in-law fast enough! The ex-brother-in-law either did or did not use a taser on her nephew! She fired the only librarian in Wasilla, Alaska! She fired the Chief of Police too! She loves her family and she loves firing people!
She's just as confused as I am about what the Vice-President is supposed to do all day besides waiting around in case the President dies! And I'm not running for Vice President! But then, Dick Cheney was really sure what the Vice President should be doing, and look how that turned out.
She's very loyal to Wasilla, in the context of Alaskan politics, and to Alaska, now that she's on a national stage! This is great! We might end up with mid-twentieth-century-Mexican-style patria chica politics to go with our mid-twentieth-century-Mexican-style elections!
She only got a passport for the first time in 2007! eta: She used it to visit Kuwait! Thanks Heidi for that important info! /eta
She shoots polar bears! To save them from drowning because of global warming! It's mercy killing! (Okay, that last part, I made that up. She does hunt polar bears, but she does not believe that human interventions are changing the climate, and I'm guessing she would be anti-euthanasia as well, though she's pro-death-penalty so maybe not?)
eta:She may or may not have belonged to a very silly Alaska-secessionist-movement party at some point in her past! As someone who has signed on to more than one obscure and annoying-to-others political organization in my time, I say: She really is just like us! /eta
In sum, even if McCain loses, I think we can expect to see more of Sarah Palin and her family - either in national politics, or on the Jerry Springer Show. Or both.
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Date: 2008-09-04 01:23 am (UTC)Also, she keeps getting referred to on the blogosphere as a fundamentalist, but is that right, do you know? She worships at an Assembly of God church - aren't they Pentacostals? Isn't that different from fundamentalist and/or evangelical Protestant? The only Pentacostals I ever knew well were Guatemalans, and they got quite annoyed at being called fundamentalists, but maybe Guatemalans are different? Or maybe it was a language difference?
no subject
Date: 2008-09-05 12:33 am (UTC)It's actually driving me crazy that people call her a fundamentalist. She's really not a fundie. Assembly of God, like you say, is Pentacostal and even we fundies thought they were nutty, to be honest. But people use the term fundamentalist wrongly, I've found. They lump evangelicals and fundamentalists together too, and, um, no. Evangelical =/= fundamentalist at ALL. Entirely different theological viewpoints in some major ways. When I was at BJ, I wasn't allowed to attend evangelical churches because they were too religiously liberal. And they wouldn't have touched the Pentacostals with a ten-foot pole because of the whole speaking-in-tongues, touched-by-the-Spirit charismatic element of those churches. Very looked askance upon by fundies.
And don't get me started on the term Dominionist...sigh.
no subject
Date: 2008-09-05 01:01 am (UTC)My fondest hope is that somewhere on the internet, there's video of her handling snakes and speaking in tongues. Because there goes the entire non-Pentacostal right-wing Christian vote, right there, don't you think? Except for the right-wing Unitarians, maybe. Are there any right-wing Unitarians?
no subject
Date: 2008-09-05 02:19 am (UTC)http://www.boingboing.net/2008/09/04/video-footage-of-sar.html
(This is so very not fundamentalism at all, BTW...)
Not to mention the video that her church's taken down already:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QG1vPYbRB7k&feature=related