Monroe Anderson

My bittersweet Memorial Day memory of Leanita McClain

Twenty five years ago today, I discovered that Leanita McClain, my friend and colleague, was dead. It was a suicide that came as no surprise to me. For more hours than I care to remember, I sat in her office at the Chicago Tribune joking, cajoling and questioning her repeated proclamation that she was going to kill herself.

During these discussions, I'd asked why. "There are black women who'd give their right arm to be where you are," I'd argue.

"But, I'm not happy," she'd counter.

Although a young 32, Leanita was the first black and second woman on the editorial board at the Trib. She had her own signed op-ed page Perspective column and a loyal following of readers. She'd written a My Turn piece for Newsweek magazine, about the complications of being a middle class black, that launched her star as a journalist. Her 1983 freelance commentary for the Washington Post, "How Chicago Taught Me to Hate Whites," about the racially polarized mayor's race in Chicago, is a classic. Professionally, she was on top of the world. In the year of her death, she'd been named by Glamour, magazine as one of America's Top 10 career women. 

None of that seemed to matter. Personally, she was in a lot of pain. She suffered from clinical depression. And, sometime during the Memorial Day weekend, it got the best of her.

I'd hoped it wouldn't have come to such a tragic end. I'd convinced her to get professional help and nearly convinced myself that the psychiatrist was making a difference. 

But on that fateful Memorial Day weekend, I knew something was wrong. I hadn't heard from Lea at all over the holiday weekend. This was out of character. For more than a year leading up to her suicide, we talked every day. I'd occasionally get a 3 o'clock in the morning call when she was stressed out.

That weekend, I didn't hear from her and when I called her home, she didn't answer. The Tuesday after Memorial Day, I dropped by her office only to see it empty, with lights out and newspaper stacked in front of the doors.

I called Clarence Page, her ex-husband, to see if he'd heard from her. He hadn't. Then I called one of our colleagues who lived in Hyde Park not far from her. Within a couple of hours, he called me with the bad news. She was gone. An overdose of pills.

Our editor, Jack Fuller, asked me to write my next Perspective column eulogizing her. It was the most difficult piece I've ever written on deadline. At the time, I thought it was far too inadequate. After it ran, many of my readers called or wrote to tell me how much it had moved them.

This is the first time I've read it in nearly 25 years. It's not as bad as I thought, although it could have been better. I'd like to share my bittersweet Memorial Day memory with you. Here's the column I wrote which ran on Friday, June 1, 1984.

A life cut short, a loss deeply felt

Whenever I had trouble saying what I wanted in a column, Leanita McClain came to my rescue.

"Let me see," Leanita, whose passion was collecting owls, the bird of wisdom, would say. Then she'd give a critical eye to what I'd written. "You're always too hard on yourself. The column's fine."

In short order, with a slight change of a sentence here and a quick word of encouragement there, she'd help me breathe verve into what had been a still life.

I wish she were here to help me with this one. I don't know what I want to say or how I should say whatever I should be saying. I'm not even sure of how I feel except for one thing: a deep loss.

On the day after Memorial Day was observed, the day Leanita, 32, was found in her Hyde Park home, an apparent suicide, I lost a friend, a colleague and a confidante. In addition to being a personal loss for me, Leanita's death was an irreplaceable loss for the profession of journalism and a tragic loss for the voice of reason in Chicago.

Over the last 11 years, both our social and professional lives repeatedly crossed paths as we went through one change after another. Although I first met Leanita at a meeting for black journalists held in the South Side apartment where I lived at the time, our friendship got its start when I left Ebony magazine to come to The Tribune in 1974.

Leanita and my first wife were close friends. Looking back, those days seem so carefree. She and her husband and my wife and I went to restaurants, discos, movies together. We even took a dream vacation to Acapulco together.

As fate would have it, though, it took the deaths of our marriages to change my friendship with Leanita into what if was to become. Leanita, who had been like a sister to my estranged wife, began acting like a mother hen to me.

"Are you eating properly?" she'd ask, by way of looking after my welfare. And that question was just one manifestation of her gentle concern for how I was coping.

Leanita's caring and giving, of course, extended far beyond me. She became involved in such charitable pursuits as tutoring children from the Cabrini-Green public housing project. She helped friends through this or that personal crisis.

At all times, she was concerned about the plight of black journalists in general and those at The Tribune in particular. She'd complain, in her own quiet way, about how few blacks there were in the business, and virtually none in management.

"Are things ever going to really change?" she'd ask during discussions about the lack of black editors at one newspaper, or the problems of a black reporter at another.

Finally, things did change for her. Leanita had worked as a reporter, a copy editor, a picture editor and Perspective editor before going on to become the first black and second woman appointed to The Tribune's editorial board.

As editor of Perspective, a section of opinion and analysis, one of her first acts was to recruit black writers to integrate thought. Her dream, like Dr. Martin Luther King's, was to see the Perspective section, the newsroom, the corporate offices, the city, the state, the nation all integrated. Ironically, many of her critics in recent months unwittingly attacked her as a racist, based on her Washington Post article about white resistance to Harold Washington's election as mayor.

Her writing, whether in the "My Turn" column she did for Newsweek magazine on "The Middle-Class Black's Burden," or her columns in The Tribune, consistently addressed the problems of race relations in this nation with fairness and compassion, offering an idealistic vision of how they might be worked out.

Whenever she came to me with a problem column of her own that she needed my advice on, I'd tell her, "Lea, you're equivocating too much on this one. Choose one side or the other."

Most of the time, though, she'd stick with both views, suggesting a moderating, mediating approach even though neither side seemed to listen.

Ending this was as hard as it was starting it or getting through the middle. If Leanita were around, we might be smoothing out some of the rough edges.

A mother of a father's day

    There is no comparison between Mother's Day and Father's Day--it's all in the cards and flowers and candy and jewelry and, ahhhh, neckties.

    The moms get it. The dads get less.

    More than $11 billion was spent this Mother's Day cards and gifts. Come June 21, a less beefy $8 billion will be spent on us fathers across America.

    Although I must admit that I'm a bit jealous, as a man I understand. As a general rule, we aren't on the job like mothers are. We're either out of the house, earning a living or--in too many cases in modern America--just out of the house period.

      But, there's something else that may be in play as well. Men aren't supposed to be as sentimental as women. If a spouse or a child misses a birthday or Father's Day, a man is expected to shake it off and stay in the game. Miss those special occasions with a mother and there will be guilt to pay. Who carried you for nine months? Who went through the excruciating pain of childbirth? Who wiped away your tears and kissed away your fears?

    And if you were to show up on the nightly news after ax murdering the girl next door, who would be on the TV announcing with complete conviction that she knew her child could never have done such a heinous crime?

     Besides all that, tradition also favors mom. Way back in 1914, Congress designated the second Sunday in May as Mother's Day. It wasn't until 1966 that President Lyndon Johnson designated the third Sunday in June as Father's Day and it was six years later before when President Richard Nixon signed it into law.

    All that to say is that I get it when Joyce Owens my wife and the mother of my two sons, gets the holiday card and call that passed me by. It may even be partially my fault. When I noticed that both of us were being taken for granted by both our sons, I started quietly pulling them aside to remind them to be sure to call their mother, who they know and I know, did a great job and deserves to be appreciated for it. I secretly remind them to buy her cards. I'd quietly quiz them about their intentions on giving her gifts.

    After my prompting them through a few special occasions, they've come to realize that father knows best and the cards and calls now come to their mother almost without fail.

    So I was pleased when Scott Anderson, our older son, called his mother this morning for Mother's Day. After they'd talked for about half an hour, I got on the telephone to find out how his new job as a game developer at Kaos Studios in NYC was going and how he liked his new overpriced Manhattan mini-apartment.

    We chatted for about 15 minutes with Joyce frequently interrupting my conversation with him to offer a few more motherly pearls of wisdom and love. Just when I was about to hang up, Scott said he had one more thing he'd like to tell us. 

    Six weeks ago, Scott and his friend, Steve Swink, presented at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco the early stages of the computer game, Shadow Physics, they've been working on in their spare time for the past year or so. After the presentation, Scott was interviewed about the dynamics of the game.

    That interview, which was posted three weeks ago on YouTube, already has more than 101,000 views. That's not to play a game but to see Scott talk about his unfinished game. There are also more than 300 comments about the game or--to be more specific--the video of the game.

    Here's one comment I particularly like: "this is really an all around amazing idea for a game...i would definitely pick this up if it became available. the whole concept is so abstract yet understandable and explores a whole new dimension of thinking and ability to adapt because nothing like this has ever been done before. amazing idea. 5 stars. this is going in my favs."

    No, the comment is not from Scott's mother but from someone whose nickname is touRR30.

    But Mother's Day or not, it was me with the swollen chest. Afterall it was me who brought the first PC into the house 23 years ago, when Scott was only three. It was me who bought him computer games and gave the preschooler unrestrained access to my $2000 machine. It was me who sent him off to computer camp at Stanford University when he was 13. It was me who enrolled him in a math camp at the Illinois Institute of Technology the summer his 14th birthday. It was me who arranged, when he was in the 9th grade, for a year-long apprenticeship with Ali at CompuServ Plus where he learned to build his own computer from scratch. And it was me who took him to the Chicago Internet Street Fair just as he was beginning his senior year in high school, which led an internship at cyberPIXIE where he first learned how to program for wireless devices.

    I may have been MIA  for the lion's share of the diaper changing, but I made my personal parental contributions and I'm seeing them pay off. So, while I may or may not get a call from Scott on Father's Day, all things being equal, this was a very good Mother's Day for me.

    And should Shadow Physics get picked up by some big game distributor and should he become another one of those twenty-something Internet multi-millionaires, I won't be too disappointed if he fails to call me on Father's Day because he's too busy designing his next big hit--a new shiny red Porche in dear old dad's garage will do just fine.

    (Here's the YouTube video of Shadow Physics.)

Chris and Rihanna show all's not fair in love that wars

Superstars Chris Brown and Rihanna are the poster children for domestic violence. You know the story. A lover's quarrel in 19-year-old Brown's car led to a beating so brutal that neither were able to make scheduled appearances at the Grammy Awards later that night.

Rihanna ended up with a badly bruised and swollen face, Brown with an arrest record and the two of them back together again. Apparently, Rihanna, 21,  and Brown's teenage fans are willing to forgive him for his behaving badly. 

Their spat gone violent might be worth all the attention it's received if it was not so common. As black nationalist H. Rap Brown observed four decades ago: Violence is as American as apple pie.

That's particularly true when it comes to home and to those who are intimately involved partners. There are nearly two million injuries in this nation each year resulting from domestic violence. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, victims of severe domestic violence--like Rihanna--annually miss 8 million days of paid work; that's the equivalent of 32,000 full-time jobs, and approximately 5.6 million days of household productivity.

And while I abhor the practice of a man beating his woman senseless--or slapping her around for that matter--I believe it's worst when a parent whips a child.

Although, like Rihanna, many abused women fail to dump their abusing lover, abused children rarely have that choice to make. In the name of love and discipline, a parent can beat a child day in and day out without rebuke as long as that child doesn't end up with welts and bruises--or in the ER. But that old school discipline that so many old school parents are so fast and proud to dish out is nothing but an act of violence.

If I pulled off my belt and decided to whip a complete stranger walking down the street, I'd go jail if not to the morgue. That reality and those rules don't apply to the most defenseless Americans--small children.

Citing "spare the rod, spoil the child," far too many Americans believe that when it comes to punishing children, that which doesn't kill them will make them stronger.

But, in reality, it's poor parenting, not spared rod, spoil the child. Our prisons are overcrowded with men who got their butts whipped as children at home AND on the streets. Rather than beating up your child because you're bigger and stronger, wouldn't it be better to teach them how to behave by reasoning with them and punishing through non-violent means? Time-outs work. So do revoked privileges. Teaching by example is tops. For example, when I was a child, my father told me any curse word I heard him use I could use. Since I never heard him use one, he never heard me use one. 

If you teach a child that violence is a means to get what you want, then violence becomes an early and easy option. The jails are filled with men--and boys--who got their asses whipped on regularly. Rather than learning reasoning and self-control, they learned that physical abuse is the way to control or address problems.

And, isn't it strange that parents feel free to beat up--whip--their children while they're little but stop as soon as they get big enough to make it a fair fight?

The same principle holds true for two lovers. Had Rihanna been bigger, stronger or a black belt, Chris Brown would have thought long and hard before he struck out.

btw, here's a YouTube video reenactment from the police reports of the what allegedly took place between the two pop stars. DoSomething.org, a teen organization, made the video as a public service announcement about teen dating. 

(This column is also posted on Huffingtonpost.com,  Newsvine.com and UK/EU Progressive.)

Last best chance ends with McLoss

           John McCain is not George W. Bush. We know that because he told us so.
          “I am not George Bush.” McCain said last night in the last of the presidential debates. “If you wanted to run against President Bush, you should have run four years ago.”
         And Barack Obama is not John Kerry.
         We know that because this year’s Democratic presidential nominee fired back with just the right retort at just the right moment: “If I occasionally mistaken your policies for George Bush’s policies, it’s because on the core economic policies that matter to the American people, on tax policy, on energy policy, on spending priorities, you have been a vigorous supporter of President Bush.”

          "Although the Arizona senator had promised to “whip Obama’s ass” in last night’s debate, he failed to deliver. By the time the 90-minutes were over, it was obvious that McCain was suffering from a bad case of whupped ass."

        And that’s pretty much how it went for much of the presidential smackdown at Hofstra University with an angry, aggressive McCain attacking and a cool, calm and collected Obama deflecting his rabbit punches.
      Although the Arizona senator had promised to “whip Obama’s ass” in last night’s debate, he failed to deliver. By the time the 90-minutes were over, it was obvious that McCain was suffering from a bad case of whupped ass.
      A CNN snap poll reported that among undecided likely voters, Obama won by 58 to 31 percent.
     That was despite McCain’s desperate attempt to turn his last best chance to his advantage by questioning the content of Obama’s character.
     The 72-year-old presidential candidate weaved back and forth between scowling and smiling as he faithfully repeated the tired old right-wing bromides that have played well for Republicans in election after election past.
      We know them when we hear them if not by heart: Obama is planning on raising taxes and that would cripple the economy. Obama is a tax and spend liberal who is waging class warfare with his health insurance plan because he wants “to spread the wealth around.” 
      And Obama was hit with that predictable Republican ruse of guilt by association with McCain trotting out the right-wing’s trumped up claims that Obama and 1960s anti-war radical Bill Ayers were in the habit of hanging out together.
      Looking presidential, while carefully protecting his double-digit lead in the national opinion polls by not saying the anything that would make today’s headlines, Obama counterpunched McCain’s charges: As president, he would only raise taxes on those Americans who make $250,000 a year or more. If McCain becomes president, for the first time ever Americans would have to pay taxes on their insurance benefits. "Mr. Ayers is not involved in my campaign, he has never been involved in this campaign, and he will not advise me in the White House,” Obama explained before listing the brand name, highly respected Americans would advise him.
     Obama’s presidential performance was not an easy thing for McCain to take. You could hear the Arizona senator grunting off camera as the Democrat laid out his program cuts. You could see the former war hero fighting to control his temper as Obama confidently explained his health insurance plan in detail. And, you could see—as McCain finally looked at Obama in the final debate—steely eyes shooting nothing but contempt.
     So while he told us he wasn’t George Bush early in the debate, McCain never got around to explaining how his financial policies would be different.
     And that, for all of us who don’t make a quarter mil a year or more, was the greatest guilt by association of all.

(You can watch the final presidential debate on the C-Span video below.)

Right pundit is wrong: Palin's Good for America

 

     In a perverse sort of way, I’ve come to realize that contrary to my earlier thinking, Gov. Sarah Palin’s number two spot on the Republican presidential ticket is good for America.
    The last thing we need is four more years of wrong-headed, out-dated, Keystone Cops governance. We can’t afford it any longer. And we may not be able to survive it. That’s why we must thank the powers of creative intelligence for Sarah Palin. In her stumbling, bumbling way, the Alaskan governor has brought clarity to this presidential election, underscoring McCain’s lack of good judgment while highlighting why anyone who really cares for this nation will not be voting Republican this November. Only the most mentally challenged of the right-wing still sincerely think Palin is capable of filling John McCain’s shoes in the event of his untimely death.
    And, fortunately, some brave, true Country First conservatives are beginning to speak up. One, Kathleen Parker, was both clear and concise in her National Review Online commentary discussing why Palin is a not-ready-for-prime-time player in the highest level of national and international politics.
    For the sake of the GOP, Parker asks Palin to step down. For the sake of the United States of America, I beg to differ. I think we shouldn't tamper with the Palin/McCain pairing because the know-nothing governor is living proof that the Republicans have a ticket to nowhere.
    Here’s the beginning of Parker’s commentary:

Palin Problem
She’s out of her league.

By Kathleen Parker

If at one time women were considered heretical for swimming upstream against feminist orthodoxy, they now face condemnation for swimming downstream — away from Sarah Palin.

To express reservations about her qualifications to be vice president — and possibly president — is to risk being labeled anti-woman.   

Or, as I am guilty of charging her early critics, supporting only a certain kind of woman.

Some of the passionately feminist critics of Palin who attacked her personally deserved some of the backlash they received. But circumstances have changed since Palin was introduced as just a hockey mom with lipstick — what a difference a financial crisis makes — and a more complicated picture has emerged.

As we’ve seen and heard more from John McCain’s running mate, it is increasingly clear that Palin is a problem. Quick study or not, she doesn’t know enough about economics and foreign policy to make Americans comfortable with a President Palin should conditions warrant her promotion.

To read the rest of Parker's Palin indictment, click here.
   

Palin-Gibson interview reveals beauty's only skin deep

         Watching The Interview with Charlie Gibson, I couldn’t help but feel embarrassed for women, Republicans and John McCain. This was the Trophy Veep exposed. It was the Beauty Queen Interview II, but this time instead of Miss Teen South Carolina, it was way up north with the runner-up in the Alaskan beauty pageant, Miss Congeniality.

      It was not a pretty sight.
     Sarah Palin didn’t know WTF she was talking about—and when she did, or did not, she lied about it.  She didn’t know how NATO works. She didn’t know what the Bush Doctrine was. She continued to spiel an alternate reality about the Bridge to Nowhere by doing some explaining that was reminiscent of Miss Teen USA contestant Lauren Caitlin.
    The big diff, obviously, is that Caitlin, the adolescent, was competing for an insignificant position that would do no harm. Palin, a woman who should know better,  is attempting to be vice president of the United States of America; the number two person to a 72-year-old man with a history of skin cancer. This time next year, under a worse case scenario, she could be the leader of the free world.
    How uninformed is she? Let me begin to count the ways.
    Her foreign policy experience can be summed up very quickly: On a clear day, she can see Russia from Alaska.
  Her reformer credentials can also be summarized just as easily: She may have kept The Bridge to Nowhere pork and abused earmarks in Alaska but when she goes to Washington, she’ll make sure such deals have transparency.
    Her maverick instincts boil down to this: when she and McCain get to Washington, the beltway boys had better watch out.
    Imagine what the right-wing fear and smear machine would be spewing out had Barack Obama spit out such inane answers to Gibson’s questions. Like I said, I feel embarrassed for women because this is only the second time in 20 years that they have one of their own on a major presidential ticket—and this one comes up blushingly short. 

    I am embarrassed for Republicans and McCain as well.
    Do they really believe the American public is so stupid that they’ll buy this pig in a poke—lipstick not withstanding?

Vetting Sarah Palin 2.0

 

                                                                                                                                             In naming Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin his running mate, John McCain caught both pols and pundits off guard. The Arizona senator, however, may have made his move too soon. Within 24 hours after his announcement, questions about whether she had been properly vetted reared their ugly heads. The Repubs tried to deflect them by playing the race card.    
      It almost worked, but not quite.
      So, what should have happened before the once-upon-a-time maverick announced that she'd be his Veep is going on right now. And, like watching sausage being massed produced or K-Street lobbyist in action behind closed doors, it's not a pretty sight.
      The Lipstick Pitbull, it's now being revealed, is stonewalling Troopergate, has censored books in her tiny town's library, and will not be up to the job should McCain's roll of the dice come up lucky 7s or 11s. Oh, did I mention she may have called Obama a sambo and Hillary Clinton a bitch?
     Troopergate first.

Palin 'troopergate' probe out on Oct 10: Alaska govt

JUNEAU, Alaska (AFP) — An investigation into possible ethics breaches by Republican vice-presidential pick Sarah Palin will be completed by October 10, three weeks earlier than scheduled, Alaska lawmakers said.

The probe would be ready earlier than expected in order to avoid the appearance of a politically-motivated "October surprise" ahead of the November 4 election, Alaska House judiciary chairman Jay Ramras said in a statement.

The statement added that Alaska Governor Palin would not face a subpoena ordering her to report for questioning, with lawmakers expressing confidence she would co-operate with investigators.

"We agreed that an earlier completion date was achievable, and that it was fair to all sides. We are satisfied that the report can be finished by no later than October 10, 2008," Ramras said.

Palin is being investigated by Alaska's legislature over allegations arising from the sacking of the state's public safety commissioner, Walt Monegan, who was fired earlier this year.

The probe was triggered after reports that Monegan was removed because he refused to fire a state trooper who was the governor's ex-brother-in-law, that the Palin family regarded as a "loose cannon."

The investigation -- dubbed "Troopergate" -- followed Monegan's dismissal in July. Palin has consistently denied that she put pressure on Monegan to fire the trooper involved, describing the allegations as "outrageous" and "false."

However it emerged on August 13 that there had been more than 20 calls, emails and other communications from Palin's office to employees at Monegan's Department of Public Safety.

To read more about Troopergate, click here.

Now, how about censorgate?

Palin asked Wasilla librarian about censoring books

By Rindi White / Anchorage Daily News  |   Thursday, September  4, 2008  |  http://www.bostonherald.com  |  2008 Pres. Campaign

WASILLA -- Back in 1996, when she first became mayor, Sarah Palin asked the city librarian if she would be all right with censoring library books should she be asked to do so.

According to news coverage at the time, the librarian said she would definitely not be all right with it. A few months later, the librarian, Mary Ellen Emmons, got a letter from Palin telling her she was going to be fired. The censorship issue was not mentioned as a reason for the firing. The letter just said the new mayor felt Emmons didn’t fully support her and had to go.

Emmons had been city librarian for seven years and was well liked. After a wave of public support for her, Palin relented and let Emmons keep her job.

It all happened 12 years ago and the controversy long ago disappeared into musty files. Until this week. Under intense national scrutiny, the issue has returned to dog her. It has been mentioned in news stories in Time Magazine and The New York Times [NYT] and is spreading like a virus through the blogosphere.

The stories are all suggestive, but facts are hard to come by. Did Palin actually ban books at the Wasilla Public Library?

In December 1996, Emmons told her hometown newspaper, the Frontiersman, that Palin three times asked her -- starting before she was sworn in -- about possibly removing objectionable books from the library if the need arose.

Emmons told the Frontiersman she flatly refused to consider any kind of censorship. Emmons, now Mary Ellen Baker, is on vacation from her current job in Fairbanks and did not return e-mail or telephone messages left for her Wednesday.

When the matter came up for the second time in October 1996, during a City Council meeting, Anne Kilkenny, a Wasilla housewife who often attends council meetings, was there.

Like many Alaskans, Kilkenny calls the governor by her first name.

"Sarah said to Mary Ellen, ’What would your response be if I asked you to remove some books from the collection?" Kilkenny said.

"I was shocked. Mary Ellen sat up straight and said something along the line of, ’The books in the Wasilla Library collection were selected on the basis of national selection criteria for libraries of this size, and I would absolutely resist all efforts to ban books.’"

To read more about Palin's effort to ban books, click here.

And now for a hint of racism and sexism:

 

Alaskans Speak (In A Frightened Whisper): Palin Is “Racist, Sexist, Vindictive, And Mean”

September 5, 2008

by Charley James –

“So Sambo beat the bitch!”

This is how Republican Vice Presidential nominee Sarah Palin described Barack Obama’s win over Hillary Clinton to political colleagues in a restaurant a few days after Obama locked up the Democratic Party presidential nomination.

According to Lucille, the waitress serving her table at the time and who asked that her last name not be used, Gov. Palin was eating lunch with five or six people when the subject of the Democrat’s primary battle came up. The governor, seemingly not caring that people at nearby tables would likely hear her, uttered the slur and then laughed loudly as her meal mates joined in appreciatively.

“It was kind of disgusting,” Lucille, who is part Aboriginal, said in a phone interview after admitting that she is frightened of being discovered telling folks in the “lower 48” about life near the North Pole.

Then, almost with a sigh, she added, “But that’s just Alaska.”

Racial and ethnic slurs may be “just Alaska” and, clearly, they are common, everyday chatter for Palin.

Besides insulting Obama with a Step-N’-Fetch-It, “darkie musical” swipe, people who know her say she refers regularly to Alaska’s Aboriginal people as “Arctic Arabs” – how efficient, lumping two apparently undesirable groups into one ugly description – as well as the more colourful “mukluks” along with the totally unimaginative “f**king Eskimo’s,” according to a number of Alaskans and Wasillians interviewed for this article.

But being openly racist is only the tip of the Palin iceberg. According to Alaskans interviewed for this article, she is also vindictive and mean. We’re talking Rove mean and Nixon vindictive.

And now more from Kilkenny, who explains why Palin is ailin when it comes to being a heartbeat away from the president of these United States.

By Anne Kilkenny –

I am a resident of Wasilla, Alaska. I have known Sarah since 1992. Everyone here knows Sarah, so it is nothing special to say we are on a first-name basis. Our children have attended the same schools. Her father was my child’s favorite substitute teacher. I also am on a first name basis with her parents and mother-in-law. I attended more City Council meetings during her administration than about 99% of the residents of the city.

She is enormously popular; in every way she’s like the most popular girl in middle school. Even men who think she is a poor choice and won’t vote for her can’t quit smiling when talking about her because she is a “babe.”

It is astonishing and almost scary how well she can keep a secret. She kept her most recent pregnancy a secret from her children and parents for seven months.

She is “pro-life”. She recently gave birth to a baby with Down syndrome . There is no cover-up involved, here; Trig is her baby.

She is energetic and hardworking. She regularly worked out at the gym.

She is savvy. She doesn’t take positions; she just “puts things out there” and if they prove to be popular, then she takes credit.

Her husband works a union job on the North Slope for BP and is a champion snowmobile racer. Todd Palin’s kind of job is highly sought-after because of the schedule and high pay. He arranges his work schedule so he can fish for salmon in Bristol Bay for a month or so in summer, but by no stretch of the imagination is fishing their major source of income. Nor has her life-style ever been anything like that of native Alaskans.

Sarah and her whole family are avid hunters.

She’s smart.

Her experience is as mayor of a city with a population of about 5,000 (at the time), and less than 2 years as governor of a state with about 670,000 residents.

During her mayoral administration most of the actual work of running this small city was turned over to an administrator. She had been pushed to hire this administrator by party power-brokers after she had gotten herself into some trouble over precipitous firings which had given rise to a recall campaign.

Sarah campaigned in Wasilla as a “fiscal conservative”. During her six years as Mayor, she increased general government expenditures by over 33%. During those same 6 years the amount of taxes collected by the City increased by 38%. This was during a period of low inflation (1996-2002). She reduced progressive property taxes and increased a regressive sales tax which taxed even food. The tax cuts that she promoted benefited large corporate property owners way more than they benefited residents.

The huge increases in tax revenues during her mayoral administration weren’t enough to fund everything on her wish list though, borrowed money was needed, too. She inherited a city with zero debt, but left it with indebtedness of over $22 million. What did Mayor Palin encourage the voters to borrow money for? Was it the infrastructure that she said she supported? The sewage treatment plant that the city lacked? or a new library? No. $1m for a park. $15m-plus for construction of a multi-use sports complex which she rushed through to build on a piece of property that the City didn’t even have clear title to, that was still in litigation 7 yrs later–to the delight of the lawyers involved! The sports complex itself is a nice addition to the community but a huge money pit, not the profit-generator she claimed it would be. She also supported bonds for $5.5m for road projects that could have been done in 5-7 yrs without any borrowing.

While Mayor, City Hall was extensively remodeled and her office redecorated more than once.

These are small numbers, but Wasilla is a very small city.

To read the rest of her explanation, click here.

That's all the Palin vetting for now. I'm sure there's much more to come about change we can trust.

At RNC, when their mouths were moving they weren't telling the truth

     
     I fell asleep about halfway through Sarah Palin’s speech. Fortunately, I was watching cable where repeats are frequently the rule rather than the exception.  So I woke up just in time to see the rest of what had put me to sleep in the first place. I could see why many women were fascinated with John McCain's clutch play. She is a good performer. Her acceptance speech was a good performance. Good enough to run on Saturday Night Live uncut.  It was also a lot more of the same old right-wing sing-song served up by an attractive, feisty candidate with a squeaky high voice.
     And, like a bunch of what’s been said this week at the RNC in St. Paul, it was also fast and free with the facts. Shucks, let’s make it plain. It was a litter of lies, dipped in sarcasm and cynicism. A fact check story was written by Associated Press writer Jim Kuhnhenn, who is no doubt a member of the Eastern elite out to destroy the Republican party by telling the truth.

     Here’s Kuhnhenn’s report:

Attacks, praise stretch truth at GOP convention

WEST ST PAUL — Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin and her Republican supporters held back little Wednesday as they issued dismissive attacks on Barack Obama and flattering praise on her credentials to be vice president. In some cases, the reproach and the praise stretched the truth.

Some examples:

 PALIN: "I have protected the taxpayers by vetoing wasteful spending ... and championed reform to end the abuses of earmark spending by Congress. I told the Congress 'thanks but no thanks' for that Bridge to Nowhere."

 THE FACTS: As mayor of Wasilla, Palin hired a lobbyist and traveled to Washington annually to support earmarks for the town totaling $27 million. In her two years as governor, Alaska has requested nearly $750 million in special federal spending, by far the largest per-capita request in the nation. While Palin notes she rejected plans to build a $398 million bridge from Ketchikan to an island with 50 residents and an airport, that opposition came only after the plan was ridiculed nationally as a "bridge to nowhere."

 PALIN: "There is much to like and admire about our opponent. But listening to him speak, it's easy to forget that this is a man who has authored two memoirs but not a single major law or reform — not even in the state senate."

 THE FACTS: Compared to McCain and his two decades in the Senate, Obama does have a more meager record. But he has worked with Republicans to pass legislation that expanded efforts to intercept illegal shipments of weapons of mass destruction and to help destroy conventional weapons stockpiles. The legislation became law last year. To demean that accomplishment would be to also demean the work of Republican Sen. Richard Lugar of Indiana, a respected foreign policy voice in the Senate. In Illinois, he was the leader on two big, contentious measures in Illinois: studying racial profiling by police and requiring recordings of interrogations in potential death penalty cases. He also successfully co-sponsored major ethics reform legislation.

To read the rest of the AP report, click here.

And if you want a more comedic view on how the hypocrites are double-talking, check out the Jon Stewart video below.

Palin's pressing baby daddy mama drama

    Sarah Palin set the perimeters. A devotee of family values and no sex before Holy Matrimony, the Alaska governor and her supporters are now bleating because the national press is holding her to her own standards.
    John McCain's barely vetted VP made herself fair game.
    Palin’s been the hypocrite. By conservative, conventional standards, what kind of family values is it for a mother of five--one a four-month-old with Down Syndrome, another a distressed pregnant teenager—to forsake her personal parenting responsibilities to chase a job that would take her much further away from house and home? And yes, by conservative, conventional standards, isn’t the wedding supposed to come before the baby?
    I’m in total agreement with what Francis L. Holland  posted on his blog last night:

The Strange Pregnancy of the Palin Family

Not everyone will run this photo, but I will because I want someone to explain to me what's going on! For example, the girl in green is seven months pregnant, but where's the football player who's supposed to be marrying her and legitimating her child (or their premarital sex), however you want to see it? I think the purpose of their getting married is to legitimate, ex post facto, the (one or two) instances of premarital sex.

Now, the Governor preaches against sex education and instead favors abstinence until marriage. Apparently she hasn't been able to convince her own daughter, much less the rest of the country.

I think the failure to teach contraception alternatives basically turns pregnancy into the punishment that young girls suffer if they have sex. How can a baby be a "punishment"? A baby can be a punishment if the mother and father had no intention of having a baby, but they end up with one anyway because their parents refused to teach them about birth control and, in fact, did everything in their power to make birth control unavailable. To me, it's the moral equivalent of refusing women mamographies while instructing them to either not get cancer or to pray their cancer away. When you live in the real world, you take advantage of modern medical science instead of denying that it exists in the first place.


So, congratulations, Governor Palin. Your family stands as a testament to all that you believe in, so the rest of us can believe in something different.

     Before I hear from the wing-nuts, charging that this is sexist or spinning that the idea that it’s family values because no choices were made here, I want to make it plain that as a parent who had to shepherd two sons through their teen years, I personally don’t believe a parent can control all that a teenager does or does not do.      
     One more thing, thanks to her crusading mother, poor 17-year-old Bristol got caught in the crosshairs of the MSM. Gov. Palin is also a gun-toting, NRA disciple. Had Bristol Palin shot herself or someone else that, too, would have been big news.
    When you step into the national spotlight, you can’t whine when your most pertinent family secrets are suddenly exposed.                

Impalin Palin on a need to know basis

      

 This much we know for sure: Gov. Sarah Palin, John McCain's choice for his running mate for vice president, is a woman.

       There are a few other things we should know. "Sarah was raised amongst the tribe," reports Mudflats, a blog that prides itself in tiptoeing through the Muck of Alaskan Politics, "that believes creationism should be taught in our public schools, 
homosexuality is a sin, and life begins at conception.  She’s a gun-
toting, hang ‘em high conservative."

      So now we know why McCain picked her. We also know that McCain's maverick cred is about as valid as George W. Bush's curiosity cred. But here are some other things we need to know. For example, her own stepmother, Faye Palin, is not sure she's going to vote for her. Her foreign experience boils down to her being in charge of the Alaska's National Guard--with a grand total of 1,875 men and women.  And that we should, "Be afraid...Be very afraid," if McCain wins this election, according to the Angry African on the Loose blog because  "We are in serious danger if McCain wins this election. Serious danger."

    Angry African's blog posts a series of YouTube virals to make his point, while Mudflats runs it all down. Here's the beginning to the Alaskan-based blog.

“Is this a joke?”  That seemed to be the question du jour when my phone started ringing off the hook at 6:45am here in Alaska.  I mean, we’re sort of excited that our humble state has gotten some kind of national ‘nod’….but seriously?  Sarah Palin for Vice President?  Yes, she’s a popular governor.  Her all time high approval rating hovered around 90% at one point.  But bear in mind that the 90% approval rating came from one of the most conservative, and reddest-of-the-red states out there.  And that approval rating came before a series of events that have lead many Alaskans to question the governor’s once pristine image.

There is no doubt in my mind that many Alaskans are feeling pretty excited about this.  But we live in our own little bubble up here, and most of the attention we get is because of The Bridge to Nowhere, polar bears, the indictment of Ted Stevens, and the ongoing investigation and conviction of the string of legislators and oil executives who literally called themselves “The Corrupt Bastards Club”.

So seeing our governor out there in the national spotlight accepting the nomination for Vice Presidential candidate is just downright surreal.  Just months ago, when rumors surfaced that she was on the long version of the short list, she was questioned if she’d be interested in the position.  She said she couldn’t answer  “until somebody answers for me what is it exactly that the VP does every day. I’m used to being very productive and working real hard in an administration. We want to make sure that that VP slot would be a fruitful type of position, especially for Alaskans and for the things that we’re trying to accomplish up here….”

There is no doubt that Palin has fierce territorial loyalties.  When elected governor there was much concern because she came right out and said she would favor her own home town of Wasilla (where she was mayor) and its surrounding environs collectively known as “the Valley” while leading the state.  And it’s obvious from her statement that Alaska was on her mind when accepting the VP nod (see my emphasis above).

So what is it that we’re “trying to accomplish up here”?

• Palin is currently in the middle of a controversial gas pipeline project in Alaska.  She’s favored the ‘Trans Canada’ proposal that will run the pipeline through Canada, in effect shipping US jobs over the border.  Many Alaskans, including former governors, have favored the “All Alaska Route”.
• She is also sueing the federal government over listing the polar bears as a threatened species.  The science was even compelling enough to convince the Secretery of the Interior that the bears needed to be listed.  But acknowlegement of this issue, and the potential disruption to development on Alaska’s oil-rich north slope spurred Palin to attempt to stop the listing.
• Does she want to open ANWR?  Yes.  Every politician in Alaska wants to open ANWR.  It’s basically a requirement if you ever hope to get elected for anything.  Even Mark Begich, the progressive Democrat running against the indicted Senator and Alaskan institution Ted Stevens, is pro-drilling.  That’s the sea we swim in up here.  There are a few anti-drilling folks, but you have to look hard to find them, and work hard to have them admit it.

Will all this wash with voters in the ‘Lower 48′?  Time will tell.

 

 To read more of what Mudflats reports, click here.

    To see all of what Angry African on the Loose posts, click here.