The Random Yak

Whatever did we do before the Internet?

Always a font of useful (if largely unprintable) information, the Internet also sometimes provides unintended insight into the nature of cultural reality (as distinct from “Reality” - which does not live on the Internet, no matter what Blizzard Entertainment might tell you).

Today’s epiphany relates to grappling hooks.

I occasionally have reason to look up certain esoteric topics on the Internet.  The ‘why,’ though interesting, is irrelevant.  Earlier this afternoon, I needed to know about the origin and history of the grappling hook.  But when I let my fingers do the proverbial walking Googling, I uncovered the following interesting and unexpected facts:

1.  The Internet does seem to know what a grappling hook is, and what it’s used for.  (As a curious aside, all four of the most common definition pages seem to have plagiarized the definition from the same root source, which could be any of them, or none of them.)

2.  You can purchase a variety of grappling hooks online, suitable to meet all your ninja-assassination-and-castle-storming needs.

3.  Grappling hooks feature prominently in a variety of video games, though it’s apparently wickedly hard to discover them.  (At least, if the number of Zelda cheat pages is any indication.)

4.  Google knows of at least eight featured websites that will sell grappling hooks to anyone capable of fogging a mirror and clicking a few keys.  (Of course, the same goes for chainsaws, so that shouldn’t really surprise.)

But wouldn’t you know, with 494,000 site references retrieved, Google apparently has no real idea where the grappling hook actually came from.  What it is, yes.  Where to purchase one, yes.  And don’t even get me started on its frequency in pixellated space.

Which leads me to the following inescapable conclusion: the grappling hook has existed, more or less in its current form, since the dawn of time.  In the Beginning, God created the heaven, the earth and the grappling hook.  If it were otherwise, Google would have known.

All of which, hopefully, distracts the reader from the underlying (read: fundamental) question why a recalcitrant yak would need to Google grappling hooks ten days before Christmas.  I have nothing at all to say on that topic - but if someone doesn’t get these pipers out of here post-haste, I’m taking matters into my own hands.

I’m always busy at this time of year.  Between the tax deductible nature of attorney fees (we’re showing a profit for ‘08 - quick, make the lawyer do something), the mutable nature of tax laws (we’re going to have profits in ‘09 - quick, make the lawyer do something) and the general “get it done” attitude that prevails near the close of the calendar/fiscal year (we’re another year older! - make the lawyer do something…) late November and all of December always see me running to keep half a step ahead of the giant snowball(s).

But once in a while, duty doesn’t just call.  It sneaks up, silently, with a scythe and a long, black robe that can mean only one thing: I’m receiving a visit from the Ghost of Law School Past.  And as a transactional attorney and former law professor, I frequently find myself visited by spectres that make most attorneys quiver in their snakeskin boots.

This morning it was that old favorite Bogeyman of Property Past: the Rule Against Perpetuities. (more…)

December 5, 1791: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart dies, leaving the world a more quiet place.

He left a wife, many great compositions, and an unfinished Requiem which (as he confessed the day before his death) he composed in memory of himself.  Completed by Franz Sussmayr, the piece remains known simply (and appropriately) as “Mozart’s Requiem.”

Mozart has always been one of my favorite composers.  In 1985, I had the privilege to visit a memorial to Mozart located at his former home in Vienna, Austria.  During my visit, I noticed someone playing the antique piano in one room of the house.  Only afterward did we learn the pianist was in fact a visiting Russian master, who happened to visit the house that day and asked permission to play Mozart’s works at the memorial site.

Joseph Haydn, a close friend of Mozart, once said of his friend, “The world will not see such talent again for 100 years.”

Sorry, Joseph…your estimate was far too low.

Realizing that (a) only 20 days remain until Christmas and (b) I have yet to begin the annual trek through the Christmas alphabet, it occurs to me that I’d better get on the ball. Our usual Christmas Alliance activities have taken a bit longer to kick off this year, probably due to my partially-involuntary blogging hiatus, but I think perhaps it’s not too late to get the ball rolling again. (IT Yak is out of the country at the moment, but I’ll get him to post the 2008 Alliance page when he returns)

That said, this year’s Christmas alphabet begins with the letter “A” (talk about stuck in a rut…I seem to start here every year.). And although the world contains a great many appropriate topics, from Angels to Advent, this year I’d like to talk about the slightly less common “Aspirations.”

Now, before you inhale your coffee in surprise, permit me to clarify.

“Aspiration”: “the strong desire to achieve something great, or the object of such desire.”
No matter what your focus, Christmas is all about aspirations, and about the achievement thereof. In the birth of Jesus Christ, God achieved the greatest single act and victory the world has ever known - the salvation of many souls through the birth, life and sacrifice of a single divine life. There is no greater aspiration, and no greater achievement.

Christmas also offers a time for personal aspirations: we aspire to bring joy to those we love, comfort to those in need, and more and greater individual dedication to the values we learned from the God whose birth we celebrate. To those who would make Christmas a purely secular day, let me offer this question: without Christ’s birth, and his birthday, what does this celebration mean? To remove Him removes the great aspirations and motivations which remind us of who we are and motivate us to become (if more temporarily than we would like) more the people we wish to be.

Every human being aspires to be, or to become, something greater than (s)he is. We recognize, if only subconsciously, our own failings and our need to connect with something higher than ourselves. Christmas represents God’s offer to fulfill those aspirations, and the Divine person in whom they can be fulfilled.

A reason to rejoyce, indeed.

‘Twas the night before turkey, and all through the place

I saw smiles of longing on every face;

The cranberries were canned in gelatinous goo,

waiting just to be eaten by me and by you;

The stuffing was cubed, for the bread to go stale,

While outside a big rainstorm was blowing a gale.

Now the Spouse on a hunter and I on a priest,

Had just re-specced for raiding (one holy, one beast),

When out in the kitchen arose such a clatter,

I sprang from the computer to see what’s the matter.

Away to the pantry I flew like a flash,

Tore open the doors and examined my cache.

The moon on the eyes of the creature below

Gave a Halloween lustre, an ominous glow.

And what to my wondering eyes should appear,

a Small Cat, black of hair, with small feet and big ear,

and an attitude problem so easy to see,

That I knew in a moment which one it must be.

More rapid than eagles she raced from the room,

As my eyes looked around, and I saw, to my doom;

She’d invaded the cupboard, licked apples and pears,

and subjected potatoes to more than just glares,

From the top of the stove to the top pantry shelf

She had ’sampled’ Thanksgiving, claimed it all for herself.

As all cats that before threats of punishment fly,

when seeing the master, too fast for the eye;

So out of the kitchen our Smallest Cat flew,

(with a last stolen crumb, in some hideout to chew).

And then, in a twinkling, I heard the Spouse call

in a voice growing loud as it came down the hall.

So I drew in a breath, and was turning around,

trying hard to decide how to make the truth sound,

When I noticed the kitten, gripped ever so firm,

in a headlock that thwarted her determined squirm.

A handful of scruff the Spouse held firm and tight,

to my eyes, it seemed justice might be served this night.

Kitty’s eyes, how they twinkled! Her whiskers, how merry!

Wait a minute…she’s chewing a stolen blackberry!

Her droll little mouth was drawn up like a bow,

from the taste or the grip, I had no way to know.

The stub of a pie she held tight in her teeth,

as the Spouse looked around for a sword to unsheath;

For not only had kitty invaded the food,

she had ruined our raiding, destroyed the good mood.

Yet, although she’d committed a cardinal sin,

I laughed when I saw her, so fuzzy and thin;

and despite being captured she showed no remorse,

(this doesnt surprise a cat owner, of course).

The Spouse spoke not a word, but went straight to the work

of assessing the damage; then turned with a jerk,

and laying a finger aside that cat’s rear,

with a firm “Bad, BAD KITTY”, but no shedding of tears;

We sprang into action, the pantry to clean,

and from all of the wreckage the leavings to glean.

But I found myself thinking, as she hove out of sight,

I’ll be thankful on Thursday - Cat’s thankful tonight.  

…’tis a gift to be free…

‘Tis a gift to live in a nation where a day dedicated to giving thanks to God for His many blessings exists as an institution, accepted even by those who have forgotten its origin.  Indeed, despite the famous history of the speech President Lincoln assumed the world would little note nor long remember, most people barely remember the other proclamation Lincoln made that same year.  The one that begins:

“The year that is drawing toward its close has been filled with the blessings of fruitful years and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the Source from which they come, others have been added which are of so extraordinary a nature that they can not fail to penetrate and soften even the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever-watchful providence of Almighty God.”

Lincoln’s 1863 Proclamation of Thanksgiving led to the establishment of the holiday that now marks the beginning of what many refer to as the “holiday season” (despite retailers’ increasing tendency to creep backward to October) and which even those who refuse to acknowledge the true meaning of Christmas might better term “the Season of thanks.”

Earlier today, our friend and ally David at Third World County challenged each of us to answer the question: “To whom are you thankful for the blessings in your life?”  I respond to his call as follows:

I am grateful to God for making me more grateful, more humble and more dependent upon Him than I have ever been before.

I am grateful to The Random Spouse for enduring my consistent failure to improve upon the deficits in my character, and for loving me even when I seem determined to prove myself unlovable.

I am grateful to Yak the Younger for demonstrating, on a daily basis, how to “become as one of these” and for making me want to become a better person, that I may also be a better example for him.

I am grateful to The Random Maniyak for the support, friendship and consistent reality checks that only a true friend can provide.

I am grateful to The Random Parents and The Random In-Laws, for not just one lifetime worth of lessons, but two.

I am grateful to The Random Father, though he is not here this year to hear me say so, because he told me to watch everyone, to glean from each what is good and admirable, and to also learn to avoid their mistakes.  I may not have perfected this lesson, but I’m working on it.

I am grateful to those who call me friend, whose friendship I treasure far more than they probably know.  (For that, the fault is mine.)  They are at once too few to forget and too numerous to do justice to in so limited a space.

The economy may be sitting in the tank, the sky is cloudy, and the forecast calls for rain, but I approach Thanksgiving with gratitude and appreciation.  I know to whom I am grateful, starting with the Creator who made the day and for whom the day was made.  Simple expressions of a simpler idea, perhaps, but then Thanksgiving has never been about complexity or commercialism.  It celebrates our freedom and our gratitude to the Creator God, who while we were yet enemies, “hath nevertheless remembered mercy.”

For which, I am grateful.

Just some of the thoughts bouncing around in the echo chamber this morning:

1. If your friend Aladdin tells you he found an ancient lamp on the beach, but swears there was nothing inside, how do you know if he’s being … disingenieous?

2. Unpacking boxes in the garage over the weekend (four years after moving in), I discovered one marked “kitchen” that contained various food items, including some cloves, cinnamon, bay leaves and garlic powder.  After checking them all out, with no satisfactory results, I’m left with the question:  just exactly which “Old Spice” are they using, anyway?

3.  Do criminals’ families have ”out-laws” visit for the holidays?

4.  Considering all of the circumstances … why do they call them “chilis”?

Having offloaded those, back to work.

It’s that time of year again.   Almost Thanksgiving, which means the inevitable return of the Christmas List, in all its questionable glory.  I’ve made no secret of my feelings on the topic , or of the fact that I try to pay attention so a list isn’t necessary.  As it happens, however, this year Yak the Younger does have a couple of special gift requests, but I don’t think Saint Nichola(s) is likely to bring them.

At least, not unless his last name is Tesla.  (more…)

If you’ve read this blog faithfully for more than a year (hi, Mom) you’ll recognize the post that follows.  It appeared, in substantially similar form, in November 2006, under essentially the same title.  When I went to link it to a new post this morning, however, I discovered that the entire entry had fallen prey to the spammer attack we suffered a few months back.  In other words…R.I.P. Christmas Lists.  Fortunately, I’d saved a copy in text format, so I was able to bring it back (with edits).  Enjoy.

I have an issue this morning.  One important enough for me to (momentarily) leave off the criticism of holiday advertising and the obnoxious ”buy me buy me buy me” mentality it encourages, primarily because I don’t want to distract from the larger issue at hand.

The issue is the Christmas List.

I’ll be up front about this: I hate Christmas lists.  I hate making them, I hate receiving them, I hate buying things off them and I hate the fact that “hate” is, in fact, the right word for the way I feel about them.  (We’ll deal with the proposition that my feelings are largely irrelevant at a later time.  For now, I’m letting this fly.)

Now, don’t get me wrong. I like knowing what my kid - or anyone else I’m buying presents for - likes to do and would like to receive.  I have no problem with Yak the Younger - or any other child I’m buying for - telling me what they would like to see under the Christmas tree (provided, of course, that they understand their wishes get filed under ‘advisory proposition’ and not ‘global mandate’).  It’s the whole “make a list” idea that torques me.  As if parents and gift-buyers have some obligation to tick off a list of items, making sure that the child’s every wish is met come Christmas morning in what then becomes a frenzy of “figure out where the X is wrapped” rather than a bunch of surprises under the tree.

Because, for me, Christmas morning and Christmas presents are all about surprises.

Growing up, Christmas was my favorite day of the year.  Not because I got a lot of presents (though I admit I often did) or because the presents were big or expensive (though I admit they occasionally were) - but because I had no idea what they had inside.

Yes, there was something I wanted almost every Christmas.  One year I wanted a ten-speed bike (blue, please).  I wanted it worse than anything.  I just knew I would die if that bike wasn’t under the tree - and since I didn’t know of anyone using a bike to put an eye out, I thought it just might happen.  Then, three days before Christmas, The Random Father took me aside and explained that my parents couldn’t afford a bike that year, but that I might get one for my birthday (more than half a year away) if everything worked out.  I acted brave, and said I understood, but that night I cried myself to sleep.  After the disappointment wore off, however, I still looked forward to Christmas, because I knew my parents would make the day special, no matter what happened to be under the tree.

On Christmas morning I raced downstairs, beat the Random Sibling to the living room (for once) and completely failed to notice the ten-speed bike (yes, blue) standing directly beside the tree.  

The Random Father pulled one on me - and did so in a way that wouldn’t work with kids who participate in the “list-making” phenomenon.  If you’ve got ninety things on the list, you either don’t care if one doesn’t show up or you think you’re entitled to all ninety, which would make you impossible to live with for days before Christmas if someone mentioned some might not be under the tree.  Too bad, because the year I got the bike I wasn’t getting stands out in my memory as one of the best.  The childhood joy of wanting one thing - just one - but not really knowing whether or not you will actually get it, and then finding it there Christmas morning, just isn’t comparable to wanting ninety things - or even five, or ten - and knowing you’re bound to find at least most of them, if not all of them, under the tree.

The “list mentality” changes a surprise into an expectation - a form of entitlement: “These are the ones I want.  This many.  This color. This size.  This shape.  Buy them for me or I won’t have a good Christmas.”

The list mentality leaves no room for inspiration, no room for creativity - no room for surprise.  I’ve tried to discourage Yak the Younger from making “lists” - and shunned them wherever possible.  Not because I don’t want him to have a happy Christmas, but because I prefer finding gifts that I know he would want if he knew they existed, but which he’s never even seen (or saw some time ago and forgot in the interim).  It makes Christmas happier - and much more special - than a Christmas morning when every gift represents an expectation rather than a surprise.

Lists probably serve a function for long-distance giving or relatives you don’t see often enough to really know, though even there I prefer to learn about the person and try to anticipate some desire or need.  It’s not all that hard to ask enough questions to figure out what someone might enjoy - and frankly, I don’t actually think a gift card is a rude or obnoxious choice for a gift exchange or for someone I don’t know well.  (I know, this goes against Traditional Rules of Giving, but ask yourself: if Great-aunt Emmy wants to give you a present, even though she hasn’t seen you in ten years, wouldn’t you really rather have a gift card than a book she tried to pick out without knowing what you read?  Be honest.  You would.) 

Curious that people are always saying “it’s the thought that counts” when lists require no thought at all.  Anyone can check a box and send the thing you asked for.  But the gift you will remember is the one you didn’t realize you wanted.  The one someone took the time to look for.  The one that proves someone cared enough about you, and knew you well enough, to know what you’d enjoy receiving even better than you did - because you didn’t have it on your “list.”

Which brings us to the 800-pound gorilla in the corner.

Christmas isn’t about receiving, and it isn’t about lists.  It’s about loving one another as Jesus loves us and celebrating the unspeakably generous gift - and surprise - of His birth.

A gift, I’ll point out, which none of us requested in advance.  “While we were yet enemies,” it wasn’t on any of our lists.  Yet God knew us well enough to anticipate our needs, and sent us a gift which met them perfectly, filling us with joy even though it wasn’t what Wii asked for.

Think.  Consider.  Imitate.

Instead of telling your kids to go “make a Christmas list” or tell you “all the things” they want a month before the big day, try listening to them all year.  Really hear what they say.   Consider what they’re into.  Figure out what they would want. 

Don’t miss my message here: there’s nothing wrong with asking if there’s a special thing they’re hoping for - or with making sure that special item makes its way under the tree.  But if you get to know them (and yes, everyone else on your list) well enough to figure out something they would enjoy or use, and if you buy that thing without having to ask for a list, I think you’ll find the recipients much happier - and much more grateful - than they would be if you bought them exactly what they asked for.  Because you’re not just giving them a book, a bauble or a toy.  You’re telling them you cared enough to pay attention. 

Just like Jesus told you to.

I accompanied The Random Maniyak to an educational institution on Wednesday in order to observe (and benefit from) a lecture he gave on the writings of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. - specifically the famous “I have a dream,” speech and the Letter From Birmingham Jail.  Both represent highly effective arguments for Dr. King’s positions, but also eloquent examples of the manner in which speakers can use various external sources (in Dr. King’s case, the Bible and various patriotic songs or hymns) to support and amplify their arguments. 

Now, one would think college-aged students (theoretically) paying for an education, and specifically a course on political theory and philosophy, would consider this an opportunity.  One might even think such students, being in possession of a copy of (a) Letter from Birmingham Jail, (b) computers with access to the Internet, and (c) functional cerebral cortexes, would come to class prepared.  Having read the speech.  Or the letter.  Or at least having tried. (more…)

…and I have apparently discovered mine.

When I ceased blogging shortly before major surgery last summer (yes, it was a great success, and yes, those who know me say the last-minute lobotomy The Random Spouse approved after they put me under has made me infinitely easier to live with) I wondered whether my time had run.  Whether The Random Father’s death, combined with the pressures of work and other (read: un-named) factors had finally put an end to The Random Blogging Adventure.

I thought about it.

I prayed about it.

I considered whether I wanted to reinvest so much of myself in it.

I read and listened to the comments of The Random Readers, and pondered whether, in the end, anyone would care if this website went quietly into that good night.

And in the end, I decided not to decide.  Sooner or later, I would just know the truth, and I could accept it, wherever it lay.

Well, the end has come - but I confess, it is not the end I had grown to expect.  The blog will not die.  It will continue, as will I.  Today is the first day of the rest of my blogging life…

And we owe it all to toilets.

Thanks to The Random Cousin, I now know that today is World Toilet Day, and that the powers that flush would rather we didn’t.  After years of bemoaning the “thousands of litres of wasted drinking water each year” that we waste in flushing … the same, toilet “experts” now inform us that flushing toilets represent an “unsustainable” concept.

Now, I don’t know how things go down in your home, but none of The Random Family (with the possible probable exception of Smallest Cat) actually consider the toilet bowl a significant source of drinking water.  I can’t recall the last time I shook my head sorrowfully after a flush in mourning for anything but the lost opportunity to watch the water swirl the other way.  And as for sustainability, I’m willing to bet that most residents of first-and-second world countries would consider a return to the open latrine a far more *cough* unsustainable situation.  (Yes, I know what it’s like in China.  But even there, a flush is considered a beautiful thing.)

I understand concern over wasted water.  I appreciate the need to act as good stewards over the earth and its resources.  I share a definite desire to improve the efficiency of water reclamation efforts and the functionality of the loo.  I even installed “low flush” toilets in The Random House, despite their somewhat irritating tendency to choke at inopportune moments.

But to those who say it’s time to revisit the “flush and forget attitude” that accompanies the use of the modern commode, let me say this: you’re welcome to come over and share the revisitation after The Random Niece tries to flush a tinkertoy airplane, or when a Random Guest disobeys the old Native American saw and leaves more than just footprints in the Random Room of Repose.  But - as anyone who has ever ‘revisited’ the issue understands only too well - “flush and forget” represents one of the greatest achievements of modern times, and those who would have us return to the outhouse might be surprised how fast they end up in the doghouse instead.

That said, it seems clear that the Yak…is back.  It only took potty humor to make it so.  Great thanks to the Random Cousin for helping to make it so.  (But no, this doesn’t mean I’ll pay his toilet tax if they impose one.  Some things, a guy has to do for himself.) 

Open Trackbacks on this post to celebrate the return of the voices in my head.  
Trackposted to The Pink Flamingo, and Faultline USA, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.

“What you won’t hear from this campaign or this party is the kind of politics that uses religion as a wedge.”  Senator Barack Obama, June 3, 2008.  Now, Senator, please repeat that to the Democrat attack dogs and the media piranhas eviscerating Governor Palin’s statements of faith– which, not incidentally, make eminently good sense.

Snarling out of the Left sides of their mouths, again, the MSM and cable-lib commentators, having heaped derision on Sarah Palin for her gender and mothering choices, causing the McCain-Palin poll numbers to bounce hugely in her favor, have now begun to attack her for her religion.  Last June Governor Palin advised people in her church to pray for our country about the war in Iraq, that we would act in a manner consistent with the will of God.  The thought that God’s will could possibly condone a war that the Left opposes has sent them into a theological humanistic dither of apoplectic proportions. 

“There is no God, to have a will, to favor a war, to free the oppressed — and all of the biblical prophets to the contrary be damned,” they have pontificated.  (Author’s free translation.)

Others have suggested that the real problem is not that they do not believe in God, but that they believe that they are god, the media gods, that their Creation myth pronouncements of “Let there be President Barack Obama, and it was so” and “They saw President Obama, and it was very good,” are the words of god, that all people must bow down before them and worship the one-eyed glowing idol in their living rooms upon which they appear, and that all other beliefs — such as the heretical McCain-Palin interlopers, who believe in that other God – are abominations.

I’m sure that the female, working, Catholic and other religiously-oriented and socially conscious voters in the heartland states (ie, the swing states in this election) will find it in their hearts to forgive the media attacks on their faith and their belief in the will of God for a better world, but having forgiven their oppressors they are being driven to vote McCain-Palin.

Well, at least the Left still have their irreligion and anti-gun moral superiority to cling to.

News flash!  Yak sighting.  Birdwatchers near the Himalaya mountain range (uh, the Himalayas in urban Northern California, that is) report that a figure resembling the Random Yak has been seen in the open, apparently having ventured out of its protected enclosure for a brief saunter to its office natural environs.  It shaggy head appeared remarkably snarky, given its extended convalescence.  RYak reportedly disappeared again, however, after only a few hours and is unlikely to be visible for more than a brief, daily, morning session of pasturing and hoof-tapping on its walk-on keyboard before returning to its ungainly repose. 

Huh?  What’s that?  Oh, because no one goes out yak-watching, that’s why.

13 reasons to hate Alaska Governor and Republican Vice President nominee Sarah Palin (recognizing that one yak’s rational reasons are another yak’s emotive bleatings):

1.  She won’t quit her job to raise her children, as every good woman obviously should, women evidently being incapable of multi-tasking.  So says Washington icon Sally Quinn.  Who knew Quinn was a closet reactionary antifeminist and more antiwoman than the most rabid conservative?  To be fair, the problem here is that liberal women do not know how to deal with a working woman who actually has a live-in husband.  All of their government policies are tweaked for single mothers who need the government to stand in for their long-gone once-was-enough mates.

2.  She wears too much lipstick (as in, “What’s the difference between a hockey mom and a pit bull?  . . . Lipstick!”). 

3.  She praises men.  Yup.  Listen to her.  She admires her husband (still, after 20 years) and she even finds good things to say about Senator McCain.  Doesn’t she know that admiration is a zero-sum game, that to admire men must mean to underappreciate women?

4.  She’s younger, stronger, better looking, just as articulate and more experienced than Senator Obama.  Bet you anything she can outplay Barack man-to-man in basketball.  In hockey, for sure.

5.  She’s a small town, small state, outsider who disrepects the establishment.  Her favorite movie is probably “Mr. Deeds Goes to Town” or “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.”

6.  She’s prettier than all those “Look at me!” Hollywood-type celebrities, and doesn’t have to flaunt it.  She has what those flashy but less-lovely ladies do not and do not know that they do not, a brain.

7.  She is a truly compassionate conservative.  Remember them?

8.  Some of her rhetoric has a biblical tone.  A religious zealot, no doubt, and therefore totally irrational and dangerous.  You know, she seems to be someone who actually believes in God, practices a recognizable faith, and attends a church where love and foregiveness are taught to triumph over hate and old grievances.  She probably even prays.

9.  She has a son in the military, a 19-year-old who himself is better qualified than Barack Obama to be commander-in-chief, based on actual military experience.  Refresh my recollection.  Just how long did Barack Obama serve in the US armed forces?  I can’t seem to find it on the Democratic Party website.

10.  She loves both oil and the environment.  What a hypocrite!  Every environmentally sensitive American knows that we import oil from abroad because we want those other places to suffer all of the environmental destruction while we preserve the Alaskan wilderness and the ocean 200 miles offshore for future generations of fish and spotted owls yet unborn.

11.  She can pronounce “nuclear.”  Not only that, she has the temerity to mention nuclear energy in the same breath as geothermal, wind, solar and other alternative energy sources.  Did someone tell her that France gets 40% of its electrical energy from nuclear, with no envirnomental effects?

12.  Her vice presidency means that Senator Hillary Clinton will never become President.  Four or eight years from now Senator Clinton will have to run against another woman, Sarah Palin, who is younger, brighter, more experienced, more popular and has cuter grandchildren.

13.  She loves, truly loves, her Down syndrome son and refused to sacrifice him for her career or her convenience.  For that, every liberal woman in America must hate her, for personally undermining one of their most specious arguments for unrestricted abortion rights, the right to kill genetically defective and disabled babies because of the lack of “quality” of their future lives.  By the way, if liberal women had given birth to the 40 millions babies they have aborted in the past 30 years, their offspring would hold the upcoming election in their power.  How do liberals expect to take over the world if they continue to kill their children, or decline to have children, or promote same-sex marriage, which produces no children. 

All good reasons to hate Sarah Palin.  Take this as warning of what can happen when the Washington establishment fails to take proper pains to indoctrinate the children growing up in the distant reaches of the country.  The Left ignored Alaska, and now the wicked queen of the West has arisen to trouble their dreams of one-world domination.