Dick Cavett-New York Times

The Wild Wordsmith of Wasilla
Electronic devices dislike me. There is never a day when something isn’t ailing. Three out of these five implements — answering machine, fax machine, printer, phone and electric can-opener — all dropped dead on me in the past few days.

Now something has gone wrong with all three television sets. They will get only Sarah Palin.

I can play a kind of Alaskan roulette. Any random channel clicked on by the remote brings up that eager face, with its continuing assaults on the English Lang.

There she is with Larry and Matt and just about everyone else but Dr. Phil (so far). If she is not yet on “Judge Judy,” I suspect it can’t be for lack of trying.

What have we done to deserve this, this media blitz that the astute Andrea Mitchell has labeled “The Victory Tour”?

I suppose it will be recorded as among political history’s ironies that Palin was brought in to help John McCain. I can’t blame feminists who might draw amusement from the fact that a woman managed to both cripple the male she was supposed to help while gleaning an almost Elvis-sized following for herself. Mac loses, Sarah wins big-time was the gist of headlines.

I feel a little sorry for John. He aimed low and missed.

What will ambitious politicos learn from this? That frayed syntax, bungled grammar and run-on sentences that ramble on long after thought has given out completely are a candidate’s valuable traits?

And how much more of all that lies in our future if God points her to those open-a-crack doors she refers to? The ones she resolves to splinter and bulldoze her way through upon glimpsing the opportunities, revealed from on high.

What on earth are our underpaid teachers, laboring in the vineyards of education, supposed to tell students about the following sentence, committed by the serial syntax-killer from Wasilla High and gleaned by my colleague Maureen Dowd for preservation for those who ask, “How was it she talked?”

My concern has been the atrocities there in Darfur and the relevance to me with that issue as we spoke about Africa and some of the countries there that were kind of the people succumbing to the dictators and the corruption of some collapsed governments on the continent, the relevance was Alaska’s investment in Darfur with some of our permanent fund dollars.

And, she concluded, “never, ever did I talk about, well, gee, is it a country or a continent, I just don’t know about this issue.”

It’s admittedly a rare gift to produce a paragraph in which whole clumps of words could be removed without noticeably affecting the sense, if any.

(A cynic might wonder if Wasilla High School’s English and geography departments are draped in black.)

(How many contradictory and lying answers about The Empress’s New Clothes have you collected? I’ve got, so far, only four. Your additional ones welcome.)

Matt Lauer asked her about her daughter’s pregnancy and what went into the decision about how to handle it. Her “answer” did not contain the words “daughter,” “pregnancy,” “what to do about it” or, in fact, any two consecutive words related to Lauer’s query.

I saw this as a brief clip, so I don’t know whether Lauer recovered sufficiently to follow up, or could only sit there, covered in disbelief. If it happens again, Matt, I bequeath you what I heard myself say once to an elusive guest who stiffed me that way: “Were you able to hear any part of my question?”

At the risk of offending, well, you, for example, I worry about just what it is her hollering fans see in her that makes her the ideal choice to deal with the world’s problems: collapsed economies, global warming, hostile enemies and our current and far-flung twin battlefronts, either of which may prove to be the world’s second “30 Years’ War.”

Has there been a poll to see if the Sarah-ites are numbered among that baffling 26 percent of our population who, despite everything, still maintain that President George has done a heckuva job?

A woman in one of Palin’s crowds praised her for being “a mom like me … who thinks the way I do” and added, for ill measure, “That’s what I want in the White House.” Fine, but in what capacity?

Do this lady’s like-minded folk wonder how, say, Jefferson, Lincoln, the Roosevelts, et al (add your own favorites) managed so well without being soccer moms? Without being whizzes in the kitchen, whipping up moose soufflés? Without executing and wounding wolves from the air and without promoting that sad, threadbare hoax — sexual abstinence — as the answer to the sizzling loins of the young?

(In passing, has anyone observed that hunting animals with high-powered guns could only be defined as sport if both sides were equally armed?)

I’d love to hear what you think has caused such an alarming number of our fellow Americans to fall into the Sarah Swoon.

Could the willingness to crown one who seems to have no first language have anything to do with the oft-lamented fact that we seem to be alone among nations in having made the word “intellectual” an insult? (And yet…and yet…we did elect Obama. Surely not despite his brains.)

Sorry about all of the foregoing, as if you didn’t get enough of the lady every day in every medium but smoke signals.

I do not wish her ill. But I also don’t wish us ill. I hope she continues to find happiness in Alaska.

May I confess that upon first seeing her, I liked her looks? With the sound off, she presents a not uncomely frontal appearance.

But now, as the Brits say, “I’ll be glad to see the back of her.”

**********

PS: Lagniappe for English mavens: A friend of mine has made you laugh greatly over the years. David Lloyd is a comic genius (I can hear you wince, David) who wrote for “The Mary Tyler Moore Show,” “Cheers,” “Taxi,” “Frasier,” Jack Paar, Johnny Carson and me, not necessarily in that order. As a language fan, he has preserved many gems for posterity in his prodigious memory bank. Here comes my favorite:

A Navy lecturer was talking about some directives on the blackboard that he said to do something about, “except for these here ones with the asteroids in back of.”

Even David couldn’t make that up.

Stuck inside of Plymouth With the Mpls. Blues Again

Sorry for the title, but it's a Dylan thing I gotta work out of my system.

We've been pretty quiet lately about our housing situations and for good reason.  We're right where we were months ago when we put our properties up for sale.  There've been a few nibble here and there, but there is always something to keep serious discussions at bay.  I've got a buyer who is very interested, but there's a little detail concerning some judgements against this person.  Cindy keeps getting comments about how great her place is, except for maybe the wood floors which need some refininshing and what a deal breaker that is.  Even if we say we'll do it when we have a purchase agreement.  But, honestly, could we have ever picked a better time in history to try to sell property in a totally depressed market?  We've made a lot of price adjustments and have kept working on improvements, but we're at the point where we'd be paying someone to take them off our hands.

So, we're going to take them off the market on Dec. 15 and wait a couple months.  Because we know that by the middle of February the market will be roaring.  And that's when we'll give it another go.  So keep an eye out in spring of 09 for those wedding invites!

A Night at the Opera

Where were you on 11/4/08?  That may be this generations' touchstone, much like 11/22/63 is for for geezers like me.  

Cindy and I left the house before the polls closed to run over to the U of M to see a concert which seemed karmically correct for the evening:  Bob Dylan.  Bob made a couple comments over the course of the concert about it's looking like things are gonna change now, but the only politics he engaged in were in the lyrics to a few of his old anthems.  Other than that, his voice was ragged, his band was one step away from collapse and the sound was sludge.  But we were there on this historic night!

After the show was over we headed to the car, turned on the radio and heard McPain give his concession speech.  PRICELESS.

A week late, but still funny

Today

Two houses on my block went into foreclosure today and one additional house has sat empty for two months and I'm thinking the family living there has left town, also. My IRA dropped $750.
I'm seriously scared about this. How is it that I'm working so hard and cutting everything out of my budget and still have no money for groceries or gas? Since the divorce, the only thing I've ever wanted is to be able to support my family by myself. I don't want handouts and I don't want help from C2 or my parents. I want to do this by myself and up until recently, was doing a fair job of it (not great, but better than before). Thankfully, my civil service job is secure and my health insurance only went up minimally. I'm luckier than most, but angry nonetheless. I apologize for ranting on this blog that is supposed to be all happy stuff about our wedding-and the wedding date is still undetermined.

I guess, with no wedding to plan, I'm throwing all my energy into this election...

Written by Eve Ensler:

> Drill, Drill, Drill
> I am having Sarah Palin nightmares. I dreamt last night that she
> was a member of a club where they rode snowmobiles and wore the
> claws of drowned and starved polar bears around their necks. I have
> a particular thing for Polar Bears. Maybe it's their snowy whiteness
> or their bigness or the fact that they live in the arctic or that I
> have never seen one in person or touched one. Maybe it is the fact
> that they live so comfortably on ice. Whatever it is, I need the
> polar bears.
>
> I don't like raging at women. I am a Feminist and have spent my life
> trying to build community, help empower women and stop violence
> against them. It is hard to write about Sarah Palin. This is why the
> Sarah Palin choice was all the more insidious and cynical. The people
> who made this choice count on the goodness and solidarity of
> Feminists.
>
> But everything Sarah Palin believes in and practices is antithetical
> to Feminism which for me is part of one story -- connected to saving
> the earth, ending racism, empowering women, giving young girls
> options, opening our minds, deepening tolerance, and ending violence
> and war.
>
>
> I believe that the McCain/Palin ticket is one of the most dangerous
> choices of my lifetime, and should this country chose those
> candidates the fall-out may be so great, the destruction so vast in
> so many areas that America may never recover. But what is equally
> disturbing is the impact that duo would have on the rest of the
> world. Unfortunately, this is not a joke. In my lifetime I have
> seen the clownish, the inept, the bizarre be elected to the
> presidency with regularity.
>
> Sarah Palin does not believe in evolution. I take this as a metaphor.
> In her world and the world of Fundamentalists nothing changes or gets
> better or evolves. She does not believe in global warming. The
> melting of the arctic, the storms that are destroying our cities, the
> pollution and rise of cancers, are all part of God's plan. She is
> fighting to take the polar bears off the endangered species list. The
> earth, in Palin's view, is here to be taken and plundered. The wolves
> and the bears are here to be shot and plundered. The oil is here to
> be taken and plundered. Iraq is here to be taken and plundered. As
> she said herself of the Iraqi war, 'It was a task from God.'
> \
> Sarah Palin does not believe in abortion. She does not believe women
> who are raped and incested and ripped open against their will should
> have a right to determine whether they have their rapist's baby or
> not.
>
> She obviously does not believe in sex education or birth control. I
> imagine her daughter was practicing abstinence and we know how many
> babies that makes.
>
> Sarah Palin does not much believe in thinking. From what I gather she
> has tried to ban books from the library, has a tendency to dispense
> with people who think independently. She cannot tolerate an
> environment of ambiguity and difference. This is a woman who could
> and might very well be the next president of the United States . She
> would govern one of the most diverse populations on the earth.
>
> Sarah believes in guns. She has her own custom Austrian hunting
> rifle. She has been known to kill 40 caribou at a clip. She has shot
> hundreds of wolves from the air.
>
> Sarah believes in God. That is of course her right, her private
> right. But when God and Guns come together in the public sector, when
> war is declared in God's name, when the rights of women are denied in
> his name, that is the end of separation of church and state and the
> undoing of everything America has ever tried to be.
>
> I write to my sisters. I write because I believe we hold this
> election in our hands. This vote is a vote that will determine the
> future not just of the U.S. , but of the planet. It will determine
> whether we create policies to save the earth or make it forever
> uninhabitable for humans. It will determine whether we move towards
> dialogue and diplomacy in the world or whether we escalate violence
> through invasion, undermining and attack. It will determine whether
> we go for oil, strip mining, coal burning or invest our money in
> alternatives that will free us from dependency and destruction. It
> will determine if money gets spent on education and healthcare or
> whether we build more and more methods of killing. It will determine
> whether America is a free open tolerant society or a closed place of
> fear, fundamentalism and aggression.
>
> If the Polar Bears don't move you to go and do everything in your
> power to get Obama elected then consider the chant that filled the
> hall after Palin spoke at the RNC, 'Drill Drill Drill.' I think of
> teeth when I think of drills. I think of rape. I think of
> destruction. I think of domination. I think of military exercises
> that force mindless repetition, emptying the brain of analysis,
> doubt, ambiguity or dissent. I think of pain.
>
> Do we want a future of drilling? More holes in the ozone, in the
> floor of the sea, more holes in our thinking, in the trust between
> nations and peoples, more holes in the fabric of this precious thing
> we call life?
>
> Eve Ensler
> September 5, 2008
> >

ADMIT IT-I TOLD YOU THEY WOULD HAVE A GIRL!

I told everyone from the start that the baby would be a girl. RIGHT, C2? I hate to say I told you so, but...

Against all odds

There she is, Layla Grace Avery!  Who woulda thunk that there'd be a girl born to be the first great-grandchild for mom and dad.  If there were Vegas odds, somebody would've broken the bank, and it wouldn't have been me.  Out of mom and dad's 19 kids and grand-kids, there were a total of 3 girls.  So congrats to Cheri and Jordan on getting a start on evening things up!  I love you's!

Here's the best blog I've seen in a while...