Editor’s note: Alaska governor Sarah Palin has been under investigation by the Alaskan legislature for abusing her position to try and get Trooper Michael Wooten, Palin’s sister’s ex-husband, fired. “A 263-page report released Friday by lawmakers in Alaska found that Ms. Palin, the Republican vice-presidential nominee, had herself exerted pressure to get Trooper Michael Wooten dismissed, as well as allowed her husband and subordinates to press for his firing, largely as a result of his temperament and past disciplinary problems,” The New York Times reports.
Dear Friend and Reader:
IN A STRIKINGLY INAPPROPRIATE “cheerleader” moment during the Vice-Presidential debate on October 2, 2008, Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, refusing to answer questions about policy and changing the subject by “talking to the American people directly”, gave kudos to a 3rd grade class in one of Alaska’s public schools
Being a fellow Aquarian, (not anywhere near HER natal aspects, by the way) I want to inject this blog with my own non-sequitor “cheerleadiness”, but not completely change the subject. I want to give a special shout out to a perfect example of being true to Planet Waves’ ongoing theme of the “Personal is Political”, and introduce you to my latest daily crave: Mudflats Blog.
Mudflats is focused on Alaska and started out like most progressive state-oriented political blogs: The Albany Project for New York, Calitics for California, Raising Kaine (Virginia), and Square State (Colorado). At the nomination of Governor Palin the end of August, Mudflats exploded overnight, going from at most seven comments to over 300-400 per thread, and probably twenty times the lurkers on a daily basis. He’s had least one server meltdown. Because of Presidential politics, Mudflats, a nexus of local state news and gossip, seems to be going national.
And by the way, its fucking hilarious. There’s a post about Alaskans waiting with baited breath for the investigative report by Special Prosecutor Steven Branchflower about Governor Palin’s involvement in the “Troopergate” scandal, where she was alleged to have intervened using her position of Governor of Alaska to carry out a personal vendetta against her former brother-in-law. The McCain campaign through the Alaska Republican Party has attempted through court appeal — all the way up to the state’s Supreme Court to stall release of the report’s findings until after the Novemeber presidential elections.
This brings us to our final installment of the Countdown to Truth, and the Top 10 Reasons the report should be released:
10: Maybe once the report comes out people will stop naming their pitbulls “Sarah” and making them wear lipstick. Because that is just all kinds of wrong.
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9: It will give (McCain spokesperson) Meg Stapleton the opportunity to stop lying about Walt Monegan (the trooper Palin had fired) and Troopergate, and to start lying about why Sarah Palin got her ass handed to her in the debate.
8: If it doesn’t come out then what will Alaska Progressive bloggers write about all weekend?
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7: This investigation has cost Alaskans $100,000. The last time Alaskans spent that kind of money with nothing to show for it was on exotic dancers and cocaine back in the oil drenched 1980s.
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6: Because the McCain campaign does not want the report to be made public, and when was the last time ANYBODY told Alaskans not to do something and we listened?
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5: Once this report is finally out we can all stop pretending to like Dan Fagan (local media Palin critic who’s also critical of Palin’s ex-brother in law).
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4: The report will undoubtedly convince the Palins that they need to return home where surely they will be inspired to add yet another offspring to their brood, perhaps this one to be named “Phlegm Wingnut Palin”?
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3: It will allow Alaskans to stop focusing on this distraction and get back to watching for Russians trying to come over the border so that we can shoo them back to where they belong.
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2: Once it is released perhaps it can be given as reading material to poor little Bristol Palin who apparently is secreted, along with Cathy Baldwin-Johnson and hockey stud Levi Johnston, in a secret vault deep under the White House, or in a bear cache in the wilds of Wasilla, until her mother’s doomed run for Vice President comes to an end.
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You’ll have to read the rest here.
You can sense in the blogger’s voice they’re enjoying the circus, and you get a great feel for the state and the people — at least from their progressive lens. It makes you glad that we have “this here internet device” that Alaska Senator Ted Stevens, up for federal corruption charges in the state calls “the tubes”.
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As for our corner of the world, this blog provides us a chance to explore the meta social, political, psychological and spiritual aspects of today, and we’re growing a community because of it. Thanks for all the great comments. You’re making me and hopefully each other a little clearer and sharper about the world.
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Let’s hear it for Mudflats!
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Yours and truly,
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Fe Bongolan in San Francisco
Tachi… Thank you sweetie, but I’m good (a little perplexed, but good). If I get another 50 years on this planet, though, I’m gonna get a combined degree in neurochemistry and sexual law. You live in Europe? you have no idea how very pervasive and nasty the atmosphere is here vis. the “loving more” movement. It’s astonishing.
Hi Mystes – personally, I don’t equate ‘certainty’ with stupidity – it’s just that it is the other side of uncertainty, which IMO is more fertile ground for learning. Challenging and asking questions, being open etc etc. But of course one can always challenge certainty too… 🙂
Your post about the woman waiting (and wasting) all those years for that man resonates. Obviously I don’t know the details of the couple you speak of, and even if I did, none of us can know what is going on in their heads and hearts – regardless of what they tell anyone – regardless of what they tell themselves.
However, I know of a similar tale playing out, still, with an ex colleague of mine. (Actually when I think of it – I know of a few like this). There is a whole lot of history (with other men, inc relationship with her father and mother) behind where she is now. What she is choosing. At the heart of it though, is possibly not her attachment to monogamy but maybe more likely painfully, heartbreakingly low self-esteem. There must be so much more to it than that of course, and it may well include some belief about monogamy – but it seems to me unlikely that it can be just one cause.
‘…people are attracted to the already-content and well-loved.’ I agree, and I agree that much comes (other than people) to those whose cup overflows with love and abundance from within. My ex colleague struggles, almost fights against, letting such wonderful things arise – as she continues to rely on the external to tell her who she is, how good she is, that she is loveable at all. She isn’t there yet.
Good evening and warmest wishes from a very tranquil, golden autumnal glen in Scotland.
Hey Tachi… I’m having a contrarian moment or three, please bear with me. #1 the woman wasn’t a friend (I’m not a therapist, sometimes I think I should have a t-shirt made up that says as much). People tell me stuff. Always have.
#2 The story is much longer and more complicated than a mere obsession. The guy had what is often a terminal disease, they had been together for years. When she told me about the calls I was surprised but then again… not. People do stuff for reasons that seem nuts from the outside. They are currently together. So yes, he was ‘interested.’
#3 I was struck by how she had cornered herself into the ‘monogamy’ designation, because it was the only honorable way to express her loyalty given the intensity of the friendship/relationship. I just thought it was sad that she couldn’t imagine how to honor that connection and still be *inside* the sweetness of her 40s.
I am fidgeting here. . .not working on other writings, so please feel free to shoo me out of the room.
Nightynight…
Tachikata… Arguing? I’m not sure that it’s up for argument that people are attracted to the already-content and well-loved. Being deeply in-love creates a centripetal energy and people are drawn. Again, that *fact* –or if you prefer “reliable-occurrence”– is usually turned into a joke with an outlaw edge. But I prefer to simply see it as a gift.
(Creatif, RE: Certainty. Fulfilling the self-effacement requirements set by the CSSWWH ( Civility Standards for Women in the Western Hemisphere), I always try to say at least one stupid thing per post. That should erase any disquieting sense of overreach. Here it comes. Enjoy. )
People do all kinds of things with their attractiveness; for the most part conventional morality has always seemed to me a way of avoiding the challenge of that abundance.
I recently found myself talking to a woman who waited 8 years for a man who would not answer the phone when she called. Her adamant monogamy not only wasted almost a decade of her life, it left her with a critical framework in which there were only two switches: nobody and Him. She generalized that to every other sexual / affective possibility, and she made it clear anything outside of monogamy would have subjected her already-painful choice to an insupportable level of humiliation. In my experience and observation, this has a correlary among many serial monogamists: long-married people develop this weird link between the suffering of repression and a sense of pride in that suffering. Meanwhile, there is a world of grace outside of that terrible loop. But given the penalties for being in love with more than one person, leaving that loop means (at this point history) ‘abandoning’ one thing for another. I just think that is incredibly silly.
Mystes – I like what you write. But sometimes, I it seems you speak in ‘certainties’ (an instant turn off for me). In that, you appear to speak as if it was ‘the’ truth, rather than ‘your’ truth, or ‘a’ truth for you and others.
Example – ‘I was just saying that the general rule is that when you appear full, someone will offer more. That fact forms the basis of a lot of ironical eyebrow waggling; I just take it as a delicious truth.’ How exactly is that a fact?
‘As for being a natural monogamist, that’s fine. But them whats rich, gets richer.’ Again, that may be true for you and others, but it isn’t true for me. For example, I am a natural monogamist – so far. And I find I am rich beyond belief. But it may not suit everyone. I have had the chance of everything else, tried it, and found myself called elsewhere (by love) and chosen it, followed it.
When I am full of love – connected to heart in work, family, friends, dreams, books, imagination, pets, worries, shadow, the planet – the connection with everything. I am so full up that I am as warm as the sun and then I think I attract even more – so if that is what you mean, I can identify with that. When my heart shrinks, so does my enjoyment of life etc.
I accept that my reaction to ‘certainty’ of a subject when it is both personal and general is my issue.
With warm wishes from a fellow July woman.
Sure it’s fine with me if you say ‘no’ to more than one lover, Tachikata. Really fine. I was just saying that the general rule is that when you appear full, someone will offer more. That fact forms the basis of a lot of ironical eyebrow waggling; I just take it as a delicious truth.
“And i’m a little too old to confuse passion with lasting love.” Hmmm… as for the ‘passing pleasure’ vs. ‘lasting joy’ duality (laeticia o gaudium), that was made up by a bunch of sad, so very sad Scholastics in the 12th century. And it was for the purpose of forcing a vertical choice between God’s Love (gaudium) and Human Love (laeticia). But turned horizontal, it has created a chokehold in the sex and love arena for 800 years. For the love of Sophia… There is nothing that keeps us from having BOTH at once. Or twice. And one does not have to vitiate the other. They are fortunate twins, we just have to stop trying to turn them into one another, or declaring one to be perpetually puerile, the other its warden/guardian.
As for projecting… hmmm… what would you like projected specifically? It’s half of the fun of communicating, so might as well do this consciously. Would I have to be 30 again? (nnoooooooo) Would you have to be a Texan? (I hear you groaning…) Come on, Tachi! Spill it!
Having been in both mono and multi-love arrangements, yes certainly there can be jealousy. I’m not saying that polyandrous arrangements are *inherently* beyond the emotional poisons (anger/jealousy/craving/pride/fear) but as I see it, they are so difficult and risky in the present punitive climates (“oh-you-cheater-you”), they call for extra care in working with how the Other(s) feel.
That is the one thing I learned from the M/D/C household. There was so much at stake, so much flying around that people actually listened to each other at least half of the time. Each other, not the Weird echo that blocks out hearing anything but your fear.
I don’t recommend this without more commitment to transparency than most people can muster with ONE partner. It’s not for kids of any age. I do think, like same-gender orientation and interracial marriages, it simply should not be on the stigma list.
As for being a natural monogamist, that’s fine. But them whats rich, gets richer. The day you light up like the Aurora Borealis when your One finds the sweet spot in you, you will find people lining up and down the street to give you their numbers. And at least one will have a gift (or gifts) you can’t refuse. Or shouldn’t refuse.
See, that’s the thing. Real love calls love. And more love. Why anyone would say “No” to that is beyond me…
Tachi… I too was raised in one of those operatic homes till the age of 11 (then off to boarding school, and subsequently swept up into the C/D/M open-marriage household).
But back to the parents-obsessing-over-one another scenario. Yeah, that’s fun. I have another friend from Spain whose childhood was likewise survived: artist mother / writer dad who absolutely loathed/loved each other — loudly and insanely till death finally DID them part (sorta). From what I can see, monogamy and jealousy destroyed four perfectly wonderful people – in my own childhood, as well as in V’s. Both of our mothers –w/ dead husbands– are now complete fruitcakes. And they all had SO much potential to accomplish so much more than they were able to, as they poured years and years of energy into the bottomless pit of suspicion and recrimination. Made _Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf_ look like a day at the spa.
Why? Because we have linguistic roots in the treacherous Greeks? because we are hard-wired for anxiety and fury? I don’t think so. I think it comes down to developing a sense of trust in our access to Truth, and the fact that it *cannot* be mediated or dissipated by anyone else, no matter how deep the intimacy. You just have to establish the parameters –in some secret, entirely unimpeachable aspect of your being– that love and truth are absolutely co-valent, that one simply does not appear without the other. Not as a moral or ethical guideline, but as an inviolable reality.
Same as it ever was…
(and… oh, honey, don’t worry about Hitler’s b/d; George W. Bush has mine, as does Princess Di and the Dalai Lama and Frida Kahlo… you’re just there to improve the neighborhood.)
” And most of the time (perhaps even always: I believe human beings aren’t bad, they are made bad) that is because they have been abused themselves.”
himmetje:
That theme keeps coming up–in all group cases of group sociopathy. The formation of the human begins at the earliest age. And this is where the home and the early classroom can make or break one’s spirit.
We’re going to be touching on this as days go on, but your sentiment and belief is profoundly true.
Marymack:
At my progressed degree of Merc, I’m afraid I can’t shut up now. Oh well…
Fe, you and I have quite a few planet placements in common … interesting. With my Merc on the horizon (in Aquarius) sextile Mars in Aries, you could say I am no stranger to “sharing”.
As for misogyny, my second mother was a true misogynist — raised by an admiral back in the day. She, like my own granny, is all catholic all the time — teaching bible study and daily mass, etc. It’s all about shame, in my mind.
I do so understand that feeling of ‘oh shit I am an aquarian too and what does that mean, is there something in my chart that makes me ‘the same as’ ….in your case Sarah Palin. For many years I struggled with the fact Hitler was a Taurus (I am too), I think even with the same ascendant as I have (Libra). I think it helped me to stay aware of my choices.
That’s the most important thing to keep contact with: the choise you can always take, every minute of the day, and being aware of the why. That’s why I love and I really mean LOVE good astrologers: they always keep reminding us of the choice, free will.
Living in free will and spirit means the world to me, my world in which I believe in, although a lot of our world is struggling with unawareness and the abuse as a result of it.
And yes it also means that a lot of people choose to stay unaware, because of the dangerous implications it has. And because they feel they aren’t doing the right thing they get more and more rigid in believing the very same thing/human being/event because it MUST be the truth. They don’t believe in their own spirit and power. And most of the time (perhaps even always: I believe human beings aren’t bad, they are made bad) that is because they have been abused themselves.
Our biggest enemy lies in ourselves: if you don’t believe in your spirit and power you follow everyone that makes you feel having more power.
When I was a child I’ve been reading lots and lots of books about WW II. And even more books about ‘woman in WW II’. I think it was because of this reading I’ve had this strong sense of two things I always want to keep in touch with:
I really hate (and hate is such a strong word for me, I dislike it with all my heart but it is the only word for me to describe the intense NO I have inside me) power that makes powerless.
And I really find nothing so crazymaking damned hard to swallow as the ‘keeping up appearances’ I call it, if it is out of avoiding the truth.
Nice to have learn this word: misogyny. There are lots of women practising misogyny. Jealous women, no more no less. Afraid of a beautiful smile from another woman because they can’t get in touch with smiling. Afraid of anything they can’t feel in touch with themselves, their own beauty, their own pureness, nudity figuratively or literally, which is the most outrageous beauty I know.
I really love Eric’s articles about the nazis. It’s the perfect mirror for all of us.
Hello fellow Aquarii!
I’m a 12th House Aq sun with Mars in Aries in the 1st, Venus Sag in the 10th, Jupiter in Cancer in the 5th. Moon in Gem, Asc Pisces. North Node in Capricorn.
Love to write, cook, dance, act, and can run a business. I’m also a smart alec since I learned to form words. My parents rued the day they taught me verbs. Started talking like a college student in 4th grade. Must have been all the fairy tale books illustrated by Beardsley and the Encyclopedia Brittanica my folks bought to augment our English-only education.
So my chart looks like a spiral art piece. Nothing like the stellium that Madame Sarah has in Aquarius, which can make you pretty bullheaded and always think you’re right about everything. Couple that with a total lack of shame and remorse and you have Ms. wanna-be President.
I love that Mudflats went right after her the minute she was crowned Miss Nominee. They started letter writing campaigns to state legislators to push the Branchflower Troopergate investigation through, basically taking on the Republican National Party, the McCain campaign and local Repubvlican politicians. They just wanted their gov to act right.
Gotta love this “tube” thing, as named by Ted Stevens. The Aquarian device taking down the power-mad Aquarian tyrantrix. Right in her own back yard, where they can see Russia.
Whoa, I always find something profound to chew on here @ PW … bless you all. I like that thought very much and will look at my own softer / allowing aspects that I’ve disowned. There I was just thinking this was about Pluto dismantling (!!) the patriarchy.
misogyny … right. I need spell check everywhere.
Interesting that as we all discuss the evolution of the sacred feminine the republicans find a misogynist female … such a cynical and desperate last ditch grab of the patriarchy that crumbles all around us.
Mysogony (sp?) — that’s her freak flag and she’s found a national platform for her raging mysogony.
Now come on all you water barer’s. Do not get down on your selves if you share the same “sun” sign , or even the same day and birth proximity with the likes of Sarah Palin.
Remember free will? Remember the “karmic nodes”.
And we also know a few minutes in either direction can make a drastic change in the outcome in the lives of even twins.
She is where she is because of ego and manipulation. Her (poor) choices.
Lets hope in a few weeks we all forget she had ever been in the spotlight.
And she can go back to the hole the elephant party dug her out of.
Thank you Brendan, I am relived a bit as she’s a few days before me … her saturn is on my Sun but for the most part I’m not worthy to decipher much of what goes on in her chart/life. I wonder if her Saturn placement contained that all-on Aquarian freak that I would have thought with so many planets in that sign. ?? I would say that there is a serious male vibe with a curious north node in cancer in 10th house, if I recall. The recent tv coverage of the republican rallies I’ve seen are inciting a mob, imho, and far from a cancer north node … I mean, where’s the freaking love??
I cannot remember where I came across her birthdate, perhaps here on PW?
Failing my memory of that actual source, what I’ve got recorded here is 11 Feb 1964 @4:40PM, Sandpoint Idaho.
I took down her data because: my birth time is only an hour and ten minutes off from hers, and I was born only about 300 miles away from there. Softening the trauma however, my birth year is well away from hers.
Which makes me wonder just what her Aquarian freak is? Her public persona seems just too conservative and uptight for a waterperson; what’s hiding under the shell?
I’m more than happy to share my birthday with Burt Reynolds and Thomas Edison, but Sarah Palin? AAAAAUUUUGGGGGHHHH! That was too much!
Thank goodness for Aquarians – the world is a finer place (for the most part!) as a result. My partner is Aquarius and I have no knowledge of aspects as he has no idea when he was born, and there is no-one around to tell him, nor any records with time shown. It wouldn’t matter either way for me – he’s a wonderful person to have around in my life.
Love to you all.
Hello fellow aqua-babes!!
OK, now I must know when the !@#$ she was born … details, plz. I know she’s younger but not much more. I don’t believe she’s a V-Day birth or we might have heard this already (fingers crossed)
Brendan:
Good that you’re aware. And I love that little blog.
It really puts a nice personal shine on the state–you can tell Mudflats truly loves ALaska and Alaskans.
Fe –
I’ve got you beat for the ‘fellow Aquarian’ heebie jeebies: I share the same birthday! The only mitigating circumstances: different birth time and year, so not even close on the aspects, thank Goddess.
She just scares the bejeezus out of me, and the newly released investigation results are fine by me. But will enough people across the US care about ethics, and not vote for her? I fervently hope so, but fear too many can’t even fathom what this means about her character.
Thanks for the Mudflats link: good fun there!