When You Think You Can't Make A Difference...

STARFISH FABLE

The beach was filled with starfish. Big, small, young, old, somehow they had gotten beached by the millions and were slowly dying on the sand, under the hot sun. Onlookers stood their distance, shaking heads, some crying, all feeling terrible sorry for all these poor starfish.

Suddenly, one of the bystanders pushed through the crowd and jogged down to the beach, sloshing knee-deep in starfish. As quickly as he could, one by one he started picking up starfish and tossing them back into the ocean, where they happily swan back to the deep waters. Hours went by and though the man had saved many, his efforts did not make a dent in the masses dying on that beach.

As the sun went down a woman came up to the man. Sorrow on her face, she touched his shoulder and said. "Excuse me, but you are sunburned and exhausted. You have been working all day and you have made no difference lowering these piles of starfish. Come inside as hard as you try, you cannot make a difference here".

The man, meeting the woman's  gaze, tossed one more starfish into the ocean, who eagerly swam away into the cool evening waters. Then he  said, "I made a difference to that Starfish".

The next time you feel helpless when you see all the suffering and despair in the world, do not let it paralyze you into doing nothing. Every starfish has a story and saving even one makes a hell of a difference.

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.