(cross-posted at Daily Kos - made the rec diary list) I was reading some news feeds this evening and stumbled upon a Sarah Palin at odds with the Alaska legislature story. Apparently she took off to headline a pro-life event in Indiana over the weekend at the end of the Alaska legislative session. Well what caught my attention was this line at the end of that article
And her controversial pick for attorney general — the outspoken Wayne Anthony Ross — has not yet been confirmed.
So of course being an inquisitive and investigative blogger, I immediately did my research on this Wayne Anthony Ross and found plenty to get upset about. The line listed in the subject is just one of the remarks from Ross that I found. Thank god, Ross has not yet been confirmed and we can stir up some sentiment.
In order to complete today’s story we return to travelling the seas around the High Arctic...and in telling the first half of the story we were introduced to a sea captain and his parrot, we examined the destruction of a tribal village by United States Marines—and we learned that “tricing up” someone is not some kind of weird dating ritual.
The story has already raised questions of race and culture; and as we move forward it’s going to encompass whaling, an incredible rescue, and more personal trials and tribulations—not to mention the Brewery Worker’s Union—and if all that wasn’t enough, we’ll even bring in a few thousand reindeer to round the whole thing out.
So put on your caribou fur, clean up your sled runners--and let’s head north to Alaska, before the rush is on.
We have an epic tale of history to tell today, and it has everything you’d want in your standard-issue epic tale: the vast expanse of ocean, exploration on the shores of an unknown land, questions of race and slavery and opportunity and torture…and in the center of it all, a real larger-than-life sea captain (and his parrot) who some say was more powerful in Alaska than the Territorial Governor and Circuit Judges who were his frequent shipboard guests.
Such was his influence on the Revenue Cutter Service (later to become the United States Coast Guard) that two Coast Guard Cutters operating today are named with him in mind: the USCGC Bear, named after the most famous ship our sea captain commanded, and the USCGC Healy, the newest icebreaker in the Coast Guard’s fleet.
And with that, Gentle Reader, allow me to introduce you to Captain Mike “Hell-Roaring” Healy—and the Arctic which was his domain.
Sarah Palin had a rally in Anchorage, Alaska yesterday. Alaska blog Mudflats covered it. So did Brett Blackledge, former Birmingham News star reporter and digger of dirt on Don Siegelman, now with the AP.
Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin, who came to the friendly turf of her home state for her first campaign venture without John McCain, told supporters at a farewell rally Saturday that she'd return at the end of the campaign.
"We've got a little travel coming the next 52 days," Palin, Alaska's governor, told a cheering crowd of more than 2,000 gathered at the city convention center.
I walked in to the large “Eklutna Room” where the rally was to be held. More TV cameras than I have ever seen in my life were set up on risers all around the room. The room itself, when filled to capacity, holds 5000 people. I tried to eyeball it, and I’d guess there were 1000 or so there. Everyone was pushed into the center of the room where the podium was set up.
Next, Blackledge and Mudflats describe the Alaska Women Reject Palin Rally, also yesterday in Anchorage.
I don't even have to post the name. We all know which state it is and who the governor is. Sarah Palin, governor of America's number one welfare state (Alaska), should be dubbed the "welfare queen". It's a phrase popular among Republicans who favor the term for poor women who seek government assistance. So why would the phrase not fit Palin?
Alaska takes in more money in earmarks from the federal government than any other state. The average state takes in $50 per capita in earmarks. Alaska takes in over ten times that much, $506 per capita. Alaska, 47th in population, received $379,669,715 in 2008, more than any other state! And the GOP wants us to believe Governor Palin's a reformer, who says "thanks but no thanks" to earmarks.
Ryan Quinn is a writer whose work has appeared in Outsports.com, XC Skier Magazine, and The Anchorage Daily News. He is a former college athlete and NCAA Division I National Champion, and came out to his teammates at the University of Utah during his sophomore year of college. He is often called upon to speak on panels discussing identity and social barriers in sports and culture. He was born and raised in Alaska, and now lives in New York City.
To my fellow Americans:
I’m an Alaskan. I grew up in Wasilla. Sarah Palin was my mayor. She wanted to ban books at the library where my parents taught me how to read. There have been many interesting pieces of journalism introducing my gun toting, mooseburger-eating former neighbors (I now live in Manhattan) to the rest of the country, and most have focused on how proud Alaskans are of their governor making the surprise leap to the big leagues.
For the last nine months, I have fretted about a line of argument being deployed against Barack Obama in the general election campaign.The framework is familiar: Obama has been a United States Senator for roughly 3.5 years, for half of which he has been a full time presidential candidate.JFK, to whom Obama’s supporters have frequently compared him, had been, at the time of his election, a Senator for eight years, and a member of the House for six before that.As the familiar refrain goes, this gives Obama both a lack of experience and a blank slate of “testing” on the national stage.As much as we can cleverly pitch retorts about McCain having the “wrong kind of experience,” those comebacks really don’t deflect the blow landed by this attack.And now, John McCain has proposed to put a woman one heartbeat from the presidency who was, when Barack Obama announced his candidacy, nine weeks removed from being the mayor of a village with a population of 6,715.That’s smaller than Boaz.That’s smaller than Brewton.That’s smaller than Tarrant.And while Sarah Palin has been governor of a state for less than two years, consider this: the population of her entire state is 683,478.Barack Obama has represented a state with a population of 12,852,548 for twice as long.Even Obama’s state senate district (to compare their previous posts) had a population of nearly a third of Alaska’s (roughly 217,840), or roughly 32 times that of Palin’s mayorate.
Senator McCain: thank you, thank you, and thank you.
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Ryan Quinn is a writer whose work has appeared in Outsports.com, XC Skier Magazine, and The Anchorage Daily News. He is a former college athlete and NCAA Division I National Champion, and came out to his teammates at the University of Utah during his sophomore year of college. He is often called upon to speak on panels discussing identity and social barriers in sports and culture. He was born and raised in Alaska, and now lives in New York City.
To my fellow Americans:
