Palintology

Why does the name Sarah Palin still infect my ears? Who is this woman and how has she stretched her 15 minutes of fame into years?

As far as I can tell, she was a mediocre governor of our most desolate state, who could not handle the job so she quit. She is a quitter. Who does that? It's a governor  position for crying out loud, who can't do that?  In Alaska? Yeah, OK, she claims she was instrumental in some oil pipeline thingy. Right. The governor of a pissant state has influence in the nation's oil supply. Keep dreaming Sarah old girl.

So the 2008 race for the White House was in full force, and the Republicans had chosen a war veteran, a tortured POW, and good man, a solid candidate, but older, more "last generation". McCain was Coke to Obama's Pepsi, and the GOP knew that.  So they went hunting for a young, attractive, charismatic female to win over the liberal leaning conservatives and add some youth to the ticket. But they needed one who would sit down and shut up and do as she was told while counteracting McCain's Old White Guy stigma. Sarah Palin was found, vetted in a shorter time period than it will take me to write this, and we were off to the races.

We all lived the drama that was Sarah Palin. The Katie Couric humiliation, the Bristol scandal, the wolf -hunting -from -a -chopper revelation.  Oh the merriment went on and on and yes, I have to admit, she was fun to pick on. Tina Fey should be sending her thank you notes.

But the GOP got more than it bargained for. Palin became so popular with the conservatives that she became the unofficial head of the Tea Party. She was the first name thought of and poor McCain was her second.  She stole the spotlight and rallied the conservative electorate with lots of empty rhetorical patriotism and zero substance.  Even McCain was not happy with her lack of knowledge, strategy and character. But she stole the show.

And she knew it.

There is where it all went to hell for the Republicans. She ran the show. She was the show. In 2008 you could not turn on the TV without either seeing her face or hearing a story about her, usually more than one of those at a time. No one cared that she was ignorant (I can see Russia from my back yard) or that she pretended to know anything about, well, anything (she still has yet to name one publication she has read. Come on Sarah, you couldn't even think of the name of any periodical to lie to Katie about?).

I can look back on all this now and laugh and enjoy the nostalgia (and the old SNL reruns) yet the fact that she is still popping up on my TV is annoying me to no end and I want to know why. Not why she annoys me, that's obvious to me, but why is she still here?

Looking at her personal record through all this it becomes clear she is more of a self-centered media hound than a patriot. And really there is nothing wrong with that if that is what you want to do and the people love you. 

But don't, Sarah.  We don't love you anymore. You have a small following of groupies who probably own 10 rifles each and a survival shelter in Wyoming but that's about it. We are tired of your face, tired of your BS, but there is one thing we will never tire of; laughing at you. You have become a caricature of yourself. No one takes you seriously anymore. Even your conservative cohorts, even the king of rational conservatism, Bill O'Reilly, scorns you.

And here is why. Here is why he is annoyed that you will not appear on his show. Here is why we are all sick of you. Because there is nothing genuine about you Sarah Palin. You are all coifed and rehearsed and could not speak off the cuff if your plastic Jesus was held over the fire.  Bill O'Reilly said it best when he said the reason you keep cancelling your appearances on his show is that you do not have conversations or debates, you give speeches. You cannot and will not even try to answer an unexpected question. You never wipe that grin off your face, you play at being a Christian while throwing stones at everyone who doesn't agree with you, and you are just plain dumb. Now I do have to admit that the rest is old but the dumb is still entertaining. A good example is how she recently answered a question about the commercialism of Christmas. She said she loves it! Why, how better can you spread that Christmas cheer, that happy feeling of the season than to see others at the store and wish them Merry Christmas and spend your money on others in the act of giving...oh and it helps the economy which is always good. So no, Christianity and Macy's do not conflict. Seriously. She said this. Look it up. A  fundamentalist Christian. This gets an "LOL".  A couple good ones:

"He who warned, uh, the British that they weren't gonna be takin' away our arms, uh, by ringing those bells, and um, makin' sure as he's riding his horse through town to send those warning shots and bells that we were going to be sure and we were going to be free, and we were going to be armed." --Sarah Palin, botching the history of Paul Revere's midnight ride, June 3, 2011

"Well, let's see. There's ― of course in the great history of America there have been rulings that there's never going to be absolute consensus by every American, and there are those issues, again, like Roe v. Wade, where I believe are best held on a state level and addressed there. So, you know, going through the history of America, there would be others but ―" --Sarah Palin, unable to name a Supreme Court decision she disagreed with other than Roe vs. Wade, interview with Katie Couric, CBS News, Oct. 1, 2008

Was she a Vice-Presidential candidate then or a beauty pageant contestant for South Carolina? 

Now I grant you these are older quotes but to be honest whenever I see her face now I turn the channel quickly so I have not heard the good ones lately, but occasionally you get a snippet on the web.

So here we have a has-been governor turned media whore who refuses to do a serious interview and who is loved only by a select few, the rest of us getting a good chuckle from her pronouncements. Where is the harm in that? I will tell you.

This woman came damn close to being next in line for the most powerful position in the world.  This woman, who mispronounces words,  then says she did it on purpose to keep the language alive instead of admitting a mistake, has followers who believe our president was not born in America and by default that makes the entirety of our government either blind, stupid or crooked. This woman is looked up to by many Christian conservatives, yet her family will tell a different story behind closed doors (google Bristol and her husband) . She kills wolves for sport from a helicopter which is unfair and a bit sadistic. Even hardcore hunters I know think this is repulsive. She continues to feed the crazy machine...Obama is a Muslim, he wants death panels, the "war" on Christmas, America is the best, love it or leave it. She brings out the paranoia in people, the blind patriotism which, when left unchecked, leads to poor and possibly dangerous ideas and decisions on the part of the voters and ultimately their elected representatives.

Anyone with a following who is ignorant, misinformed , unethical and a quitter is unnerving. But when this same person is unwilling to admit to a mistake, a misspeak, or any faults, weaknesses or frailties, and makes excuses for her failings instead of correcting them goes from unnerving to  dangerous.

Merry Christmas, Sarah. May the new year find you cozy up in Alaska somewhere watching reruns of yourself  on your TV, and staying off of mine.

Note: Her latest blunder was just this past week I believe, when she compared the national debt to slavery. Way to go privileged white person.

Living In The Real World at McDonalds

I consider myself a social liberal, to the dismay of my family and ancestors. However, even my bleeding heart is disgusted at the thought of fast food workers making $15 an hour for pulling a basket out of hot oil when the bell rings.

I understand everyone wants to make a living wage and I am socialist enough to feel that our well to do should be taxed so that we can temporarily subsidize those that cannot make enough money to feed their families. However, the operative word here is "temporarily".

Look, from day one fast food work has been for teenagers. They needed date money or car money, or for a housewife to make an extra few buck for the kid's college fund. But like social security, no one ever expected a person to make a career out of Chicken McNuggets.

So now these workers have united and are demanding the outrageous sum of $15 an hour. FIFTEEN dollars an hour! I dare you to find an college grad in a first time administrative position to be making that much. It's insane!

NPR was covering this issue today and the interviewer was grousing at the president of some fast food corporation association who made a very good point. The NPR interviewer, in an obvious attempt to vilify this man sneered "don't you think a person has the right to make a living wage?" The corporate guy (and the gods of the Liberal forgive me) made a great point. he said "We do not pay wages based on a person's needs, we base them on the work being done." Wow. I was impressed. He was dead on as far as I am concerned.  And for those of you ready to shoot me already, I think it works the other way too. I think, if you get paid based on the work being done, than teachers, firemen, child welfare agents, all these people need huge raises to equal the work they do.

But how did we get to this point? Did the economy become so permanently bad that people have to sling hash to pay the rent? At the risk of making a lot of enemies here, I am going to say that these people are not lacking opportunity (at least a good many of them, I cannot say 100%) they are lacking initiative. It is much easier to work fast food and collect government sublimities than it is to go back to school . Don't tell me some people cannot do that. Where there is a will there is a way, or a government program. You can always share rides, share babysitting, have room mates, but no one wants to do the hard stuff anymore.

When I was in my 20s I shared a house with 4 other people, a tiny house, shared a ride to a crappy job, but eventually I got a better place, a reliable (but not great) car and managed the shop I was in, and I am no workaholic, I am not even remotely exceptional in any way when it comes to the work force. This is not a walked-a-mile-in-the-snow-to-school sob story, this is to illustrate that if my dumb ass can do it anyone can.  Since when did the land of opportunity become the land of pay me what I wish for? The spokesperson on this NPR show for these workers who are suing was inarticulate, had an urban accent so thick I could hardly understand her, and gave no solutions, took no responsibility, just kept talking about how she was entitled to $15 an hour because she worked for a major corporation. I am sad to say that her manner of speaking is not uncommon among fast food employees and having worked in the human resources department  I can tell you without a doubt that woman's biggest obstacle to $15 is not her boss it is her lack of a basic education in speaking properly. Unfair? Probably. True? Absolutely. Life is not a cake walk friends. This is something she can fix, and relatively easily. When I say this people tell me these uneducated people cannot find the resources to get free GED help or classes that teach you to dress and to interview and speak properly. I am sorry but if they can work the system to get food and money subsidies they can figure out where to get these classes.(In many states you are offered these options regularly when you get your subsidies so you do not even have to look for them).

Go ahead and hate me. Call me all the horrible names you can think of, but just keep this in mind. Should a person be paid based on what they need or for the difficulty of the job they are doing? How do you think McDonald's makes all this profit? They were smart. They automated and dumbed- down the cooking and serving process so efficiently that anyone can do the job and therefore they do not have to pay a lot since only minimal skill and brains are required.

Okay so let us say you are stuck in fast food. Why not become the best employee there? Be the best at customer service, put together a hamburger the fastest and most beautifully. Make every order correct. Make the boss look at you and say "hmmm, this one is different". Perhaps you can make manager (a job with a difficulty level worthy of $15 an hour) or give you better hours so you can go to school. My basic point here is that once again I see people wanting something for nothing, or more for minimum. If you are trying and need a leg up, here, have a leg, it's on me. If you have a plan, a goal, or a handicap, I see this and I want my tax money to help you in any way to help yourself. But if you expect to live making hot ham and swiss burgers the rest of your days, forget it.

Give a man a fish, feed him for a day; teach a man to fish, feed him for a lifetime, or something like that.

So please, before you condemn me, put your PC hat on the shelf and think logically, both from the perspective of our economy (are you ready to pay five dollars for a 6 piece McNugget box?) and the individual. I do not think just giving them a raise like that is helping the person in the long run, which does not help their kids, their neighborhoods and, lets trickle UP for a change, our economy.

Now I need a Big Mac, all this talk is making me hungry.