;)
Oh, hell! How can I live in Wasilla, publish a blog on Wasilla, and, as much as I want to, utterly ignore the latest absurdities to originate in my town and rock the nation? Rock the world, I guess. For what is more important than Sarah Palin and Levi Johnston? So, reluctantly, I will discuss the matter - but first I will discuss these two dogs.
I was so pressed today that I decided not to take a coffee break, but to just sit here at my computer and work right through it, but, when 4:00 o'clock struck, I could not take it any longer and so I jumped up and headed to the car.
It is a good thing, too, because if I had not, I would not have spotted these two dogs. I suspect that, even with all the work that I did today, my most important accomplishment was to spot these dogs - or rather, to photograph them, which I most certainly would not have done had I not spotted them.
I was going very slow at the time, for I had reached the corner where I planned to do a "U" and then head back to the house, when just ahead of me, I saw these two looking at me, like they were mean or something. My pocket camera was lying on the passenger seat, turned off, and I had not taken a single picture all day.
"I don't think that I will take this one, either," I said to myself. "I've got no time to fool with dog pictures today."
But then, as I started to make the turn, the dogs ran off to the side and behind me a bit, then turned and charged in my direction. Suddenly, I could see that they were about to dash into a point of reflection in my mirror and it looked like it could be interesting.
But the damned pocket camera was lying on the seat, turned off, and as much as I like it, there is nothing fast about that camera. In a panic, I picked it up, turned it on, and tracked the dogs as I waited for the lens to come out. Finally, the lens was out, the dogs were charging toward the field of view of the mirror, I aimed and...
Bam!
Quick draw artist!
;)
Oh, hell. Sarah and Levi. What can I say that hasn't already been said on cable TV and online news outlets and blogs by the thousands... tens of thousands?
I am really getting tired of this show. It is disgusting and pitiful. It is America at its worst. American politics, American media... at its worst. And today, I once again heard my town referred to as a place of hillbillies!
Hillbillies!? I have tried to correct this notion before. I will now try again. Look around this place. What do you see? Hills??? Little tiny hills? The kind of hills that billies come from?
No! Mountains! Grand and beautiful mountains.
We are not hillbillies. We are mountainbillies.
How many times must I correct this misperception?
And me, my name is Bill. It is not William, but Bill. I am a mountainbill.
Oddly enough, as I read the material from Vanity Fair today, I found myself feeling some pity for our former governor. Do not misunderstand me - I have been appalled at her statements and actions since she first stepped onto the national stage and fibbed about her role in the so called "Bridge to Nowhere" fiasco. Her "death panel" lie was just... and worse yet, it struck paranoia, got traction and derailed the debate, making an honest discussion impossible - at least for a time. Nothing has disturbed me more than the way she lathered her children in fat, threw them into the lions den and then screamed, "mean, mean, mean lions - why do you devour my children and not Barack Obama's?"
And the way she has pandered to the extreme, to that element of society that spawns those who carry guns to Presidential gatherings - not to protect themselves, not to hunt, but to frighten and intimidate those who disagree with them. It has, quite simply, been a horrible performance.
But when I read the Vanity Fair article, I felt sorrow for her, pity. She struck me now as a tragic figure, a person thrown into a situation that could only lead her through brief euphoria and then into sorrow and suffering, into pain. Genuine, true, pain. In Levi's words, I could see that she is feeling pain. She may be willfully blind to the cause, but pain is pain and I hate for anybody to feel the kind of pain that I believe she must now suffer. And she is going to feel more pain, because this fantasy that John McCain threw her into is crumbling and is going to continue to crumble, until there is nothing left of it and then what does she have?
A few birthers shouting, "Sarah Palin, we love you!"?
Her good father, perhaps - and by the observations of my children who have declared him to be the best substitute teacher they ever had I can only conclude that he is a good man - to put his arm around her and say, "I love you, daughter." That, at least. I hope she will have that.
So yes, I felt sorrow for her.
John McCain is the one I blame.
He should have known better. He did know better. I once greatly admired the man, as I once loved Sarah Palin. That has all been destroyed and it is John McCain's fault, even more than it is Sarah Palin's. He thought that he had discovered a very clever way to take the female vote away from Barack Obama and that was all that mattered to him.
The competency, the preparedness, of the person who could so easily become his successor meant nothing to him. He just wanted to win, whatever the potential cost to the nation for which he had sacrificed five-and-a-half years as a prisoner of war.
For those of you whose feelings I may have now hurt, or have caused you to seeth in anger, sorry about that, but this whole show grows ever more ridiculous by the day and I just want it to end.
For awhile, it had some entertainment value, but now it is just old and disgusting.
;)
Anyway, I was working on photos at my computer when my good buddy Jimmy, this wonderful black cat who is as honest as the Arctic summer day is long, peeked over my monitor and looked at me.
That made me feel pretty good.
Update: I think I need to make a little clarification. This statement, "as I once loved Sarah Palin," has caused some confusion. No, I have never cast a single vote for Sarah Palin in my life. I voted for Tony Knowles for Governor. I was too leery as to what her position would be on certain issues of great importance to me, such as Alaska Native sovereignty, self-governance and hunting and fishing rights. So how could I have once loved her?
That's easy. She came into office on the heels of Governor Frank Murkowski and immediately began to undo many of his bad actions. In those early days, it was Democrats, moreso even than Republicans, who were singing her praises, who were calling her "a breath of fresh air." So if readers who were not in Alaska then have seen only the Sarah Palin that emerged following John McCain's ill-fated decision, try to understand that you are seeing a completely different person than the one who we saw back then.
She was not promoting hate speech, she got along better with Democrats then she did Republicans, but just about everybody liked her - hence those 90 percent favorable ratings that you used to hear about. It was easy, in those first days, to imagine that as she moved around the state and learned more about the people out there that her misguided views on the issues that I have mentioned could evolve and become more enlightened.
This did not happen, as we saw when she nominated Wayne Anthony Ross to be attorney general. That was kind of like if she had been governor of Montana in 1875 and had nominated General George Armstrong Custer to be attorney general.
Nor does the fact that I find it in me to feel pity and sorrow for her mean that in my mind she is absolved for the hatred and distortions that she has promoted. She has encouraged and incited some very dangerous people and, when they have stood before her and shouted out death threats to the man who is now President, she spoke not one word of admonishment. And should any of those who listened to her and were encouraged by what she said ever attempt to take such an action, she will not be innocent. So pity and sorrow is not the same as absolution.