Michael Jackson inspires Blogdonia

In lieu of a proper obituary for Michael Jackson (surely you've read/viewed enough of them by now), I have collected some of the Best of Blogdonia, holding forth on the King of Pop.

Just when you think everything has already been said, someone adds something especially thoughtful; Michael Jackson's colorful life inspires still another writer or activist to go off in a different direction.

RIP, Michael.

~*~

Open Thread: Remembering Michael Jackson at Racialicious, has some excellent comments and trackbacks.

By way of Isabel the Spy, I found Would Michael Jackson have been such a sensation if he couldn't dance?:

Michael Jackson did dance, he could hold an audience's attention by just dancing and not singing. He didn't have to stoop to pseudo sexual acts for shock appeal. And he made a lot of men, black, white, brown and yellow, want to dance just like him. Perhaps his dancing more than his music was what truly made him an international star.

TigerBeatdown comments on Michael Jackson, Celebrity, Empathy, and the Culture of Silence. Read the comments, too, which include one by your humble narrator.

Ballardian weighs in on Michael Jackson's Facelift from the purely surgical standpoint:

Scarring was hypertrophic at the points where tension was greatest: that is, in the temple and the region behind the ear, but fortunately these were covered by the King of Pop’s hair. The small fine sutures which were not responsible for tension were removed at 4 days, and the strong sutures removed at the tenth day. The patient was then allowed to have a shampoo to remove the blood from his hair. All scarlines are expected to fade, and by the end of three weeks the patient was back in social circulation.

And for even more cold, hard reality, you can always count on Socialist Unity:

The sheer extent of [Jackson's] fame meant that for him anything even approaching normality was as much a fantasy as standing on stage performing and being worshipped by tens of thousands of people was for his millions of fans. Unable to deal with the distorting and cloying reality of the pressure that was placed on him to be more than human, Michael Jackson did his utmost to escape into an imaginary world of childlike innocence and fairytale. His Neverland Ranch was symptomatic of a man who’d rejected a world in which he was surrounded by the demands of fans, managers, promoters, recording executives, and a legion of sycophants, for one in which he was surrounded by children and the innocence they represent.

Stories began to emerge of his relationship with a monkey, of him sleeping in an oxygen tent, and then later of his inappropriate relations with some of the children he took to taking with him around the world, which progressed into charges being brought against him of sexual molestation.

The physical manifestations of Michael Jackson’s personal collapse were all too obvious in the plastic surgery which turned him into a living, breathing monument to self loathing and mutilation. Increasingly, whenever he appeared in public, it was like looking at a man slowly turning himself into one of the characters from his Thriller video, perhaps in a conscious attempt to hide from a world grown ever more intrusive and unsympathetic.

Ultimately, the ridicule which dogged Michael Jackson while he was alive, ridicule driven by an unforgiving media and international press, was in inverse proportion to the deluge of tributes and fawning idolatry that has dominated the coverage of his death.

From Confessions of a Cryokid, here is A letter to Prince Michael, Paris, and "Blanket" Jackson:

By now you have probably heard all the major media outlets advertising that your dad is not your biological father, and that your mom is not your biological mother. I can only imagine how hard this must be, just days after your dad tragically died.

I am so sorry that you had to find out the truth this way, it's a cruel thing to do to a child - hide the truth about your identity and let strangers reveal it maliciously to you. Parents sometimes make these decisions (to keep a secret) thinking they are protecting their children. However, usually it backfires. Unfortunately, because of who your daddy was, this backfire has been made public and the entire world is watching you. It's not fair, but make the best out of a bad situation.

But don't feel alone. There are thousands (maybe millions) of kids out there just like you - conceived artificially and denied the right to EVER know who their biological parents are. You three can change this!! Stories are flying around that your dad's dermatologist is your biological father. If this is true, you deserve to know, to know him - as your father. Ask questions, demand answers! Not only can you find answers for yourself, you can help thousands of other kids and adults out there who were conceived the same way!

Your daddy will always be your daddy, nobody can take that away - and it will take time to mourn his passing. But you also have a biological father out there, and you carry half his genes. His is part of you - he even looks like you! While nothing can mask the loss of your daddy, I hope that your biological father will step up and give you guidance and love, and support through this rough time and as you grow up. You deserve that as children and as human beings.

You also deserve to know your biological mother, and I hope for your sake that she stands up and acknowledges herself to you and provides love and support. A child needs both a mom and a dad, and to have only one and lose him is tragic but to be denied the ability to know both biological parents is horrific.

If you ever come across this, in a few weeks, a few months, even a few years - please know that you're not alone and that there are many others out there pleading for these same rights...and that one day we will prevail.

Bull 1 - Humans 0

Comic by Karl Bakla (NSFW)




The bull got somebody today.

(Feminist Question of the Day: Do women ever engage in this foolishness, or is it primarily a dude thing?)

From the London Telegraph:

Man gored to death in Pamplona bull run
By Fiona Govan in Madrid
Published: 2:56PM BST 10 Jul 2009

Daniel Jimeno Romero, a 27-year-old from Madrid, was gored to death during the annual running of the bulls in Pamplona and nine others were injured in what became the bloodiest run in decades.

Mr Romero died after a bull's horn pierced his neck and lungs during the half mile sprint through the cobbled streets of the northern Spanish town. He is the first man to be gored to death during the run for 14 years.

He was brought down by a 1,130 lb (515 KG) brown beast named Capuchino which became disorientated and aggressive after separating from the pack of bulls.

Each morning at 8 o'clock during the eight-day fiesta six fighting bulls are released to stampede through the winding streets to the bullring.

Fuelled by alcohol during what has become one of Europe's biggest street parties, participants test their bravado and sprint alongside the bulls while attempting to dodge their horns.

Friday's run, the fourth of this year's San Fermin festival was described as the bloodiest in decades and raised the death toll to 15 since record-keeping began in 1911.

Mr Romero was treated at the local hospital but surgeons were unable to save him and he was pronounced dead at 8.45 am.

"He suffered mortal injuries, so there was nothing we could do to save his life," said Esther Vila, the surgeon who operated on him."He had lost a great deal of blood."

Pamplona´s mayor Yolanda Barcina expressed her devastation at the death. "In 11 years as mayoress, nothing like this has ever happened before," she said.

Video footage showed one man being flipped into the air by the bull who then repeatedly charged him as he lay curled on the ground.

Others attempted to leap over wooden barriers that line the route to escape the lethal horns of the bull who charged anyone in his path. But at least three other people were gored by the animal raised on the Jandilla ranch, which has a reputation for breeding aggressive bulls that perform well in the ring.

Another six people were being treated for injuries, said a spokesman at the Virgen del Camino hospital in Pamplona.

Among them was a 61-year-old American man who was said to be in a serious condition in intensive care having suffered head injuries.

Another American man in his sixties suffered a fractured elbow and a 20 year-old British man was reportedly being treated for minor injuries.

An Australian, an American, a Scottish man and a Swiss national were injured in other runs this week.

The last fatality occurred in 2003, when local man Fermin Etxberri, 63, was trampled to death. Friday's death was the first fatal goring since that of American Matthew Tassio in 1995.

Tens of thousands travel to Pamplona each July, where dressed in white clothes and red neckerchiefs they participate in the fiesta made famous by Ernest Hemingway in his novel, The Sun Also Rises.

I guess it's supposed to be fun, but for sheer daredevil-kicks, I prefer NASCAR, which doesn't require using animals.

Old school Friday: I don't need no cure

Daisy reaches waaaaay back into her already-rusty memory banks this week, for some Old School music.

Enjoy!

~*~

Express - BT Express



~*~

The Love I Lost - Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes



~*~

Great "time capsule" video for this one (from 1976), giving you some pretty good visuals from the US-Bicentennial celebration of that year. Lots of forgotten celebrities and commercials also represented!

This is in honor of Michael Jackson's will, leaving his children to Diana Ross in the event his mother can't take them... Also, I belatedly realized that I did not include her in my Diva Round-up last month, and Van would be so upset with me for that...

Love Hangover - Diana Ross



I don't need no cure/I don't need no cure...

Low-Calorie Diet May Extend Life in Primates

I am still a fan of calorie restriction, even though I am personally rather slack at it.

The New York Times has some exciting news for us CRONies:


Low-Calorie Diet May Extend Life in Primates

By NICHOLAS WADE
Published: July 9, 2009

A long-awaited study of aging in rhesus monkeys suggests, with some reservations, that people could in principle fend off the usual diseases of old age and considerably extend their life span by following a special diet.

Known as caloric restriction, the diet has all the normal healthy ingredients but contains 30 percent fewer calories than usual. Mice kept on such a diet from birth have long been known to live up to 40 percent longer than comparison mice fed normally.

Would the same be true in people? More than 20 years ago, two studies of rhesus monkeys were started to see if primates respond to caloric restriction the same way that rodents do. Since rhesus monkeys live an average of 27 years and a maximum of 40, these are experiments that require patience.

The results from one of the two studies, conducted by a team led by Ricki J. Colman and Richard Weindruch at the University of Wisconsin, were reported on Thursday in Science. The researchers say that now, 20 years after the experiment began, the monkeys are showing many beneficial signs of caloric resistance, including significantly less diabetes, cancer, and heart and brain disease. “These data demonstrate that caloric restriction slows aging in a primate species,” they conclude.

Some critics say this conclusion is premature. But in an interview, Dr. Weindruch called it “very good news.”

“It says much of the biology of caloric restriction is translatable into primates,” he said, “which makes it more likely it would apply to humans.”

In terms of deaths, 37 percent of the comparison monkeys have so far died in ways judged due to old age, compared with 13 percent of the dieting group, a difference that is statistically significant.

Dr. Weindruch and his statistician, David Allison of the University of Alabama, said the dieting monkeys are expected to enjoy a life span extension of 10 to 20 percent, based on equivalent studies started in mice at the same age.

Most normal people cannot in fact keep to a diet with 30 percent fewer calories than usual. So biologists have been looking for drugs that might mimic the effects of caloric restriction, conferring the gain without the pain. One of these drugs is resveratrol, a substance found in red wine, though in quantities too small to have any effect.

Dr. Weindruch said the study data offered “very encouraging” signs that resveratrol could duplicate in people some of the effects of caloric restriction.

Critics, however, are not yet ready to accept that the rhesus study proves caloric restriction works in primates.

If caloric restriction can delay aging, then there should have been significantly fewer deaths in the dieting group of monkeys than in the normally fed comparison group. But this is not the case. Though a fewer number of dieting monkeys have died, the difference is not statistically significant, the Wisconsin team reports.

The Wisconsin researchers say that some of the monkey deaths were not related to age and can properly be excluded. Some monkeys died under the anesthesia given while taking blood samples. Some died from gastric bloat, a disease that can strike at any age, others from endometriosis. When the deaths judged not due to aging are excluded, the dieting monkeys lived significantly longer.

Some biologists think it is reasonable to exclude these deaths, but others do not. Steven Austad, an expert on aging at the University of Texas Health Science Center, said that some deaths could be due to caloric restriction, even if they did not seem to be related to aging. “Ultimately the results seem pretty inconclusive at this point,” he said. “I don’t know why they didn’t wait longer to publish.”

Leonard Guarente, a biologist who studies aging at M.I.T., also had reservations about the findings. “The survival data needs to be fleshed out a little bit more before we can say that caloric restriction extends life in primates,” he said. In mouse studies, people just count the number of dead animals without asking which deaths might be unrelated to aging, he said.

The second rhesus monkey study, being conducted by the National Institute on Aging, is not as far advanced as the Wisconsin study. The researchers have not yet reported on the number of deaths in the dieting and normal monkey groups. But there are signs that the immune system is holding up better in the dieting group, said Julie Mattison, the leader of the N.I.H. study.

The outcome of the rhesus monkey studies bears strongly on the prospects of finding drugs that might postpone the aging process in people. Although people are unexpectedly similar to mice in many ways, they differ in other ways, notably cancer, a disease in which many treatments that are effective in mice do not work in people.

Even if caloric restriction extends longevity in people as well as mice, the extent of the effect remains unclear, though Dr. Weindruch believes the effects will be in the same general range. His monkeys were not started on the diet until 6 to 14 years of age, and seem to be doing as well as mice that are started at equivalent ages. The most striking extensions of life span occur only when the mice are put on the diet from birth.

Dietary restriction seems to trigger an ancient strategy written into all animal genomes, that when food is scarce resources should be switched from breeding to tissue maintenance. In recent years biologists have had considerable success in identifying the mechanisms by which cells detect the level of nutrients available to the body. The goal is to find drugs that trick these mechanisms into thinking that famine is at hand. People could then literally have their cake and eat it, enjoying the health benefits of caloric restriction without the pain of forgoing rich foods.

Read the whole thing.

"Why do my son's books tell him all men are useless?"

Daran at Feminist Critics has just posted a link to a London Daily Mail article by William Leath, titled Why do my son's books tell him all men are useless?

Some excerpts:

Why is the dad in [Zoo, by Anthony Browne], about a family trip to the zoo, such an idiot? Not just an idiot, but a grumpy, overweight idiot who tries to make jokes, but is never funny and, what's more, is always on the verge of ruining things for everybody else. He's a greedy slob, just like Homer Simpson. He's more childish than his children, even though he has hair sprouting from his ears.

Then there's the dad in Into The Forest, another book by this author. This one's about a dad who goes missing. He is clearly a weakling. He walks out of the family home and goes to stay with his mum.

A recent academic study confirmed that men - particularly fathers - are under-represented in almost all children's books. And when they do appear, like the fathers in Gorilla [also by Browne] and Zoo, they are often withdrawn, or obsessed with themselves, or just utterly ineffectual.

...

in another of our favourites, Benedict Blathwayt's The Runaway Train, the driver is called Duffy. And what does he do? He gets out of the train, forgetting to put the brake on, and the train rolls off without him. A driverless train - what a powerful symbol of male inadequacy! Yet this seems quite normal. We sit on the sofa and laugh.

'Why does Duffy forget the brake?' my son asked me. Why? Stories require fall-guys. They need some people to be malign or foolish or weak. And it just so happens that these people, in these stories, are male. It just so happens that it wouldn't seem right, to me, if these malign, foolish or weak people were female. Somehow, they have to be male. And symbols of male inadequacy are so deeply embedded in other parts of our culture. So much so, in fact, that nobody notices it any more.

For years, I've laughed at hopeless Homer Simpson and his dangerous son Bart, and the attempts of the female characters in the family to clean up after them.

...

For years, men in our stories - not just for children, but adults, too - have been losing their authority. Not just years - decades. It's crept up on us and now it's everywhere. Remember when movie stars were strong and decisive? That was a long time ago now: John Wayne, Gary Cooper, Errol Flynn.

Then came a new, softer type - Cary Grant and James Stewart were strong, yes, but against a background of self-doubt. And then came Jack Lemmon, Dustin Hoffman, Woody Allen, Bill Murray, Kevin Spacey - neurotic, bumbling, deeply flawed anti-heroes.

Think of Kevin Spacey in American Beauty. The deadbeat dad, smoking dope in the garage because he can't take the pressure of family life. For a long time now, something has been happening to the way we portray men.

And wherever you look, things seem to be getting worse for guys. In a survey of 1,000 TV adverts, made by writer Frederic Hayward, he points out that: '100 per cent of the jerks singled out in male-female relationships were male.'

So does this mean that there is something wrong with the way we portray men? Or - much more seriously - is there some deep trouble with men themselves? I can't bear to have that thought. Can you?

Yet that's certainly what our culture seems to be telling us. And it's what certain feminist writers seem to be telling us, too.

And predictably, at this point, he goes on to attack Susan Faludi and feminism in general.

But until he commences blaming women (which you knew was coming, right?)--I thought he made some good points.

However, those last few paragraphs got me thinking. I very much prefer Jack Lemmon, Dustin Hoffman, Woody Allen, Bill Murray, and Kevin Spacey to the Big Dumb Hollywood He-Men he named. I found them to be far more human, authentic, complex and 'thinking' protagonists. (I'd add Gene Hackman to that list, my all-time favorite actor.)

I loved Kevin Spacey smoking dope in the garage; he was trying to figure out what to do with his life rather than mindlessly charging ahead and continuing his unhappiness. Deadbeat Dad? He was present and accounted for in his child's life, she just didn't want anything to do with him. (And why do you suppose that was?) The pressures of family life? How about, the fact that his family was falling apart? His daughter was lying to him, he developed an obsession with a young friend of his daughter's and his wife was having an affair.

I guess John Wayne would have just pretended everything was okay and carried on anyway?

Some of us think that brand of male behavior was THE PROBLEM, not any kind of solution.

On the other hand, I don't want children to grow up expecting males not to do their share, which is how I read a lot of this fiction: Men usually screw up anyway, so don't be upset that your father has abandoned you.

If fathers are not represented in fiction, perhaps it's because fathers have been abandoning their role in real life? And this fictional presentation of male bumbling is possibly an effort to explain away the lack of men in children's lives?

How else could one explain it?

Any opinions?

Lively up yourself and don't be no drag

Always excellent advice!

~*~

Bob Marley and the Wailers - Lively up yourself (1974)

Mark Sanford censured

When I got home from work late last night, the long-awaited GOP-party conference-call (what we in the left used to call a "fry meeting"--since one person was getting fried by everyone else) was still in session. Eventually it ran to four hours, if you can believe it.

Mark Sanford has weathered the storm and emerged with only a "censure" from the state party.

Jonathan Martin and Andy Barr at Politico report:

The South Carolina Republican Party voted to censure Gov. Mark Sanford Monday rather than call for his resignation — an outcome that makes it likely the GOP governor will be able to weather the storm surrounding his extramarital affair and remain in office.

The vote of the state GOP executive committee took place late Monday night following a nearly four-hour-long conference call and three rounds of ballots aimed at getting a majority of the committee to either censure, support or ask the governor to resign.

The censure finally agreed to by the committee called the governor's behavior a breach of "the public’s trust and confidence in his ability to effectively perform the duties of his office."

Sanford was also criticized by the committee for failing to adhere to the "core principles and beliefs" of the Republican Party, though the censure noted that "barring further revelation" Monday's action would be "the party’s last word on the matter."

The final vote was 22 to censure, 10 calling for resignation and 9 supporting the governor.

"The events of the past two weeks have been as divisive as they have been disappointing for Republicans. But today has brought a large measure of resolution to a sad chapter in our State Party’s history," South Carolina GOP Chairman Karen Floyd said in a statement following the vote. "Republicans came together to speak with a unified voice, and now is the time for healing."

Though Monday’s vote does not have any binding effect on the governor, it serves as a sign that even many of Sanford’s enemies among the state party establishment may no longer have the will to continue calling for his resignation, barring any unforeseen or additional disclosures about the governor’s personal life.

Well, the good thing is... we will not have Andre Bauer to contend with. If you've noticed South Carolina liberals (we do exist) and Democrats being rather reticent and/or reluctant concerning the possibility of Sanford's resignation, Bauer is the reason. Fact: If Bauer is suddenly made incumbent governor, it might well be impossible to get rid of his religious-fanatic ass. The whole situation is worrisome, but I prefer a lame-duck laughingstock to Bauer, who will invariably stick his big nose in everything.

And the scandal-mongering part of me wants Sanford to entertain us even more before he leaves office. Honestly, I think the Sanford Saga is far from over, and he will hang around on the national scene for a long time... he is like a terrier. He ain't hollering uncle; so, so southern.

Stay tuned, sports fans.

Good riddance

As most political junkies know by now, Sarah Palin has resigned as governor of Alaska.

Now, if only we could get rid of Sanford...



I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop. Why did she quit? The real reason, I mean. (Personally, I don't believe a word of her flaky-ass excuses.) From THE STATE:

But with all the thorny issues enveloping her in Alaska, Palin's quitting may be more about something simpler: cutting her losses.

Things weren't likely to improve, if she stayed in office. She faces a potential veto override of nearly $29 million in federal stimulus funds for energy efficiency programs, money she had rejected in fear that it could bind the state to federal building mandates.

"The drumbeat of adverse news coverage from Alaska would likely have continued and intensified had she remained governor," said Juneau economist and longtime Alaska political watcher Gregg Erickson. "It would have become an increasing liability to her national campaign."

A day after abruptly announcing she would soon give up her job as governor, Palin indicated on a social networking site that she would take on a larger, national role, citing a "higher calling" to unite the country along conservative lines. In the last few months, Palin had laid the groundwork for a possible presidential run, establishing a political action committee.

Erickson said that while Palin has received an adulatory reception from social conservatives in the Lower 48 states, in Alaska she's become a lightning rod for criticism and controversy.

It's easier to govern in Alaska when oil prices are high, but they are down from last year's historic highs and the budget is much tighter. And this year, Palin's signature project, getting a natural gas pipeline, moves into a critical phase: whether North Slope leaseholders will commit to shipping gas in the pipeline, which is still at least a decade away.

Palin has said stepping down as governor was about doing the right thing for Alaska - not wanting to be a lame duck governor if she knew she wasn't running for re-election in 2010. She also has hinted that her decision was a strategic move aimed at gearing up for a run for president.

But many political observers in Alaska say it was obvious her heart wasn't in the job.

Palin no longer delivered bagels to lawmakers. She limited her access to the media, and when she did hold news conferences, and she relied on notes and her commissioners for backup. One legislator quipped after her state of the state address in January that the only eye contact she made in the legislative chamber was with the television camera.

State Sen. Gene Therriault, R-North Pole, says it's an unfair rap on Palin, one that was used by critics against her two predecessors.

"The detractors will always use that as a criticism because it's hard to evaluate. It's not surprising it's being used against the governor," he said. "It's an easy criticism to level, because you're never asked, 'Where's the proof?'"

Lt. Gov. Sean Parnell, who will be sworn into office July 26, told Fox News Sunday that Palin had spoken to him about "the concern she had for the cost of all the ethics investigations and the like, the way that that weighed on her with respect to her inability to just move forward Alaska's agenda on behalf of Alaskans in the current context of the environment."

Erickson, the Juneau political watcher, said the governor's resignation makes sense.

"Politically, I see it as a smart move. With the complete breakdown of her alliance with Democrats that marked her first two years as governor, she has no ability to move her policies forward in legislation. Indeed, her Alaska agenda, the gas pipeline in particular, is likely to fare much better with her out of the picture," Erickson said.

Palin has also faced growing criticism within the Republican party.

Last week, Vanity Fair magazine published a highly critical piece on Palin, with unnamed John McCain campaign aides questioning if Palin was ever really prepared for the presidency.

And it's a great piece.

Some highlights from the Vanity Fair article, written by Todd Purdum:

At least one savvy politician—Barack Obama—believed Palin would never have time to get up to speed. He told his aides that it had taken him four months to learn how to be a national candidate, and added, “I don’t care how talented she is, this is really a leap.” The paramount strategic goal in picking Palin was that the choice of a running mate had to ensure a successful convention and a competitive race right after; in that limited sense, the choice worked. But no serious vetting had been done before the selection (by either the McCain or the Obama team), and there was trouble in nailing down basic facts about Palin’s life. After she was picked, the campaign belatedly sent a dozen lawyers and researchers, led by a veteran Bush aide, Taylor Griffin, to Alaska, in a desperate race against the national reporters descending on the state. At one point, trying out a debating point that she believed showed she could empathize with uninsured Americans, Palin told McCain aides that she and Todd in the early years of their marriage had been unable to afford health insurance of any kind, and had gone without it until he got his union card and went to work for British Petroleum on the North Slope of Alaska. Checking with Todd Palin himself revealed that, no, they had had catastrophic coverage all along. She insisted that catastrophic insurance didn’t really count and need not be revealed. This sort of slipperiness—about both what the truth was and whether the truth even mattered—persisted on questions great and small. By late September, when the time came to coach Palin for her second major interview, this time with Katie Couric, there were severe tensions between Palin and the campaign.

By all accounts, Palin was either unwilling, or simply unable, to prepare. In the run-up to the Couric interview, Palin had become preoccupied with a far more parochial concern: answering a humdrum written questionnaire from her hometown newspaper, the Frontiersman. McCain aides saw it as easy stuff, the usual boilerplate, the work of 20 minutes or so, but Palin worried intently. At the same time, she grew concerned that her approval ratings back home in Alaska were sagging as she embraced the role of McCain’s bad cop. To keep her happy, the chief McCain strategist, Steve Schmidt, agreed to conduct a onetime poll of 300 Alaska voters. It would prove to Palin, Schmidt thought, that everything was all right.

Then came the near-total meltdown of the financial system and McCain’s much-derided decision to briefly “suspend” his campaign. Under the circumstances, and with severely limited resources, Schmidt and the McCain-campaign chairman, Rick Davis, scrapped the Alaska poll and urgently set out to survey voters’ views of the economy (and of McCain’s response to it) in competitive states. Palin was furious. She was convinced that Schmidt had lied to her, a belief she conveyed to anyone who would listen.

And she wanted to make her own concession speech:

Election Night brought what McCain aides saw as the final indignity. Palin decided she would make her own speech at the ticket’s farewell to the faithful, at the Arizona Biltmore, in Phoenix. When aides went to load McCain’s concession speech into the teleprompter, they found a concession speech for Palin—written by Bush speechwriter Matthew Scully, who had also been the principal drafter of her convention speech—already on the system. Schmidt and Salter told Palin that there was no tradition of Election Night speeches by running mates, and that she wouldn’t be giving one. Palin was insistent. “Are those John’s wishes?” she asked. They were, she was told. But Palin took the issue to McCain himself, raising it on the walk from his suite to the outdoor rally. Again the answer was no.

Purdum wisely notes that Alaska is its own thang, something the McCain campaign didn't fully understand:

The first thing McCain could have learned about Palin is what it means that she is from Alaska. More than 30 years ago, John McPhee wrote, “Alaska is a foreign country significantly populated with Americans. Its languages extend to English. Its nature is its own. Nothing seems so unexpected as the boxes marked ‘U.S. Mail.’” That description still fits. The state capital, Juneau, is 600 miles from the principal city, Anchorage, and is reachable only by air or sea. Alaskan politicians list the length of their residency in the state (if they were not born there) at the top of their biographies, and are careful to specify whether they like hunting, fishing, or both. There is little sense of government as an enduring institution: when the annual 90-day legislative session is over, the legislators pack up their offices, files, and computers, and take everything home. Alaska’s largest newspaper, the Anchorage Daily News, maintains no full-time bureau in Juneau to cover the statehouse. As in any resource-rich developing country with weak institutions and woeful oversight, corruption and official misconduct go easily unchecked. Scrutiny is not welcome, and Alaskans of every age and station, of every race and political stripe, unself-consciously refer to every other place on earth with a single word: Outside.

So, of all the puzzling things that Sarah Palin told the American public last fall, perhaps the most puzzling was this: “Believe me, Alaska is like a microcosm of America.”

Believe me, it is not.

But Sarah Palin herself is a microcosm of Alaska, or at least of the fastest-growing and politically crucial part of it, which stretches up the broad Matanuska-Susitna Valley, north of Anchorage, where she came of age and cut her political teeth in her now famous hometown, Wasilla. In the same way that Lyndon Johnson could only have come from Texas, or Bill Clinton from Arkansas, Palin and all that she is could only have come from Wasilla. It is a place of breathtaking scenery and virtually no zoning. The view along Wasilla’s main drag is of Chili’s, iHop, Home Depot, Target, and Arby’s, and yet the view from the Palins’ front yard, on Lake Lucille, recalls the Alpine splendor visible from Captain Von Trapp’s terrace in The Sound of Music. It is culturally conservative: the local newspaper recently published an article that asked, “Will the Antichrist be a Homosexual?” It is in this Alaska—where it is possible to be both a conservative Republican and a pothead, or a foursquare Democrat and a gun nut—that Sarah Palin learned everything she knows about politics, and about life.

Like they say, read the whole thing.

And BTW, Palin is now attempting to silence a BLOGGER, Shannyn Moore. (((Daisy reaches for shotgun--runs off to join newly-formed Blogger Militia))) We are behind you, Shannyn! HANDS OFF THE BLOGGERS.

As Matt Drudge would undoubtedly say: Developing...

Dead Air Church: Somebody's Knockin

Yes, you sinners, Dead Air Church is back in session!

This week, one of us deep-voiced alto gals in the spotlight, the amazing Terri Gibbs, whose voice is even deeper some decades later. Gibbs is blind and her countryish hit song, "Somebody's Knockin," was largely a fluke. Record companies didn't know how to package her, this being the same year as the launch of MTV. The story-video was still unknown, which is too bad, because this song would make a great one. (Gibbs wouldn't need to be in the video at all, to make an entertaining fable of the narrative.) As it was, there had never been (to my knowledge) a blind woman with a hit song, although blind men such as Ray Charles and Stevie Wonder had hits. But they are men, with the accompanying gravitas of manhood. It is evident from this video that the director really didn't know how to film Terri, and the camera seems to back away out of some weird misplaced politeness.

This song marked a period of time in my life in which I was separated from my first husband, and I strongly identified with it. It seemed I attracted a lot of unwanted attention, which scared me (I was still in my 20s). There have been lots of songs about women as "the devil"--devil in the blue dress--women as personification of evil. I like the fact that this song handily reverses that trope, and the guy is now the devil.

Ohhhh, so true, so true.

I don't particularly like the musical arrangement, which reeks of 70s doodly-doodly riffs (not the good kind, the Stephen Bishop kind) and like the camera, seems uncomfortable with Gibbs and her sexuality and seeks to cutsify it. The song and Gibbs are strong enough to overcome the mediocrity of the production. In addition, her deep, resonant voice was a breath of fresh air in a soprano-laden Olivia Newton-John era.

I love the way she sings, My fever's burnin, so he oughtta feel right at hooo-ooome.

Terri pounds the piano like a southern gal raised in church, and we are all much poorer for the fact that they couldn't, or wouldn't, make her a star. Wouldn't that have been nice?

Terri, you were ahead of your time. And thanks for a great song!

**Also notable for an introduction by Dionne Warwick and Barry White... in which Barry exhibits his famous fashion sense!

~*~

Terri Gibbs - Somebody's Knockin (1981)

How I spent my summer vacation

My three-year-old granddaughter Victoria is here for the week. As I twittered to the masses, HOW ON EARTH do these famous old broads my age (Holly Hunter, et. al.) manage to handle hyper-energetic preschoolers?

Ah yes. Nannies.

I am too old for this.

Meanwhile, the kitten loves her, but doesn't seem to realize that he should not frolic directly underfoot--she isn't exactly watching her step as she gallops pell-mell through the premises. (I keep expecting to find squashed kitten. Not a happy thought.)

Of course, they are both babies and on some level, seem to realize this and seek the other's company. It's too cute for words.

Other adorable things she does: When cranky and crying, she wails brokenheartedly, "I need a NAP! I need a NAP!" (Certainly, I know the feeling.)

When credits appear on screen after a movie or TV show, she points melodramatically and announces, "We did it and ON TIME!" I don't know if this is in impersonation of a parent or what, but it's as darling as the dickens.

Hope to get back to normal after the 4th of July. Right now, I am swimming in snack-foods of various animal-shapes.

How do the mommy-bloggers manage?

Oh yeah, youth!