Doing The Right Thing

One of my favorite aphorisms is "Cooler heads prevailed." It conjures up an image of a bunch of crazy people running around like headless chickens in the middle of a crisis, until some éminence, grise or otherwise, has the wit and the wisdom to say, "Wait a minute, let's settle down and think about this..."

Clearly that didn't happen at the Department of Agriculture when the decision was made to fire Shirley Sherrod, based on some comments she made about an incident back in the 80s, that initially appeared to be racist. The video clip that set things in motion has now been proven to have been edited and as frequently happens, it turns out there's more to the story. To put it another way, when Glenn Beck and the NAACP agree about something, which is that Ms. Sherrod should be reinstated, you know something's seriously out of whack.

Coverage of this story is all over the place, and so far the perspective I like the best comes from political scientist Jonathan Bernstein at his blog A plain blog about politics. I'm hopeful that when everything is said and done we will all be able to reflect on this strange episode and say that cooler heads prevailed.

Loving The Words, Hating The Pickles

Washington Post columnist Gene Weingarten has an interesting column about the dying art of creative newspaper headline writing. I was about two thirds of the way through the article when I came to his quote about pickles, and all I can say is that I wish I hadn't just taken a big drink of TAB when I read it.

Nothing profound, just very funny. Check it out here.

Refudiate?

I promise that this blog isn't going to be "all Sarah, all the time," but she's been so entertaining recently that I just can't stop posting about her. She was actually having a pretty good run there for a while, prior to last Wednesday. Her PAC had raised a respectable sum of money, her innocuous, if mostly substance-free, Mama Grizzly video was getting some positive reviews and serious political commentators were once again talking about her as a serious presidential candidate.

Then came Wednesday morning and the "As Wasilla Turns" (h/t Newsweek) announcement that Bristol and Levi are engaged. Based on that story and all the various follow-ons (Sarah's "holding her nose" press release, Levi's sister's blog post, the ex-boyfriend speaks, etc.,) I had begun writing a post about the Law of Unintended Consequences, in which I wondered if Sarah ever has any regrets about shining such a bright spotlight on her children. Here's the short version of that post:

It is possible to be a national-level politician and still maintain a zone of privacy around your children. Consider: John McCain has seven children, Nancy Pelosi has five and Joe Biden has three. Can you name them? Would you recognize any of them if they appeared on the cover of a tabloid? Hillary Clinton has one daughter and we all know what she looks like, but I think it's safe to say that Chelsea Clinton will never sell her story to Us Weekly. Sarah Palin and her family have taken a different path.

Before I could get that post all polished and published, "Refudiate-gate" happened and Sarah Palin's week went from bad to worse. The background is that earlier in the week, Palin had used the (non-existent) word "refudiate" in an interview with Sean Hannity. Some bloggers picked up on it and posted the YouTube clip but it didn't really go viral. Then yesterday she used the word again, this time in a tweet about what "peaceful Muslims" should do in response to the so-called Ground Zero Mosque. You can read what happened next, including some of the hilariously snarky response tweets, here and here. (Or go to twitter and type "#shakespalin" into the search box.) I like linguist Mark Liberman's take on it in the Language Log blog, i.e., isn't there anyone advising Palin on how to avoid this kind of thing?

So now it's a new week and there are bound to be more Adventures in Palinland to keep us all amused. Entertaining? Definitely. Presidential? Not so much.

Hello, Young Lovers

Those crazy, love-struck kids! I'm talking about Bristol and Levi, of course, and ever since their engagement was announced by Us Weekly, their story is everywhere. Levi got down on one knee to propose! He put rose petals on her bed in the shape of a heart! She wants to wear a Carolina Herrera wedding gown, with the groom and the love child in camo gear! Sarah didn't know...

This wouldn't be news, of course, if the bride's mom wasn't Sarah Palin, and even the various political pundits got into the act, wondering if the story helps or hurts Sarah's potential presidential campaign. Some, including Ben Smith of politico.com, clearly got caught up in the romance of it all and tried to give everyone the benefit of the doubt, saying that the engagement is a way of "cleaning up a messy family situation" in support of Sarah's efforts to be seen as a serious and credible politician. Based on the way things have played out this week, however, I think Ben and his friends may have jumped the gun with the Happily Ever After narrative. So far the story reads more like Peyton Place on the Klondike than Family Ties.

Levi's mother was in tears on Inside Edition. Levi's sister, who took to her blog to share the family's sadness at learning about this via the media instead of from Levi himself, couldn't resist alluding to the possibility that Tripp's baby brother or sister is already on the way. ("I certainly do not understand why you are rushing things. Unless there is some reason for the hurry.")

Bristol's ex-boyfriend weighed in too, speaking with Shushannah Walshe on The Daily Beast. In addition to the predictable "trash the ex-girlfriend" stuff, Ben Barber says that Levi is "probably the worst person to give fame to," which provides some enlightenment for those of us who were wondering why B & L used US Weekly to announce their engagement. Apparently in Palinland, fame is the best gift anyone can possibly get.

Young Ben also shares that he texted Bristol to ask her if she is pregnant. Bristol is a national spokesperson for teen abstinence and she stated very clearly to Oprah a few months ago that she won't be sexually active again until she is married. If Bristol truly is a young woman who doesn't have sex, her boyfriends, both current and former, would certainly know it, along with the fact that girls who don't have sex don't get pregnant. What could possibly make Ben think he had to ask about pregnancy? For the record, Bristol said no, but you do have to wonder. (Yes, this is snark, but for those of us who don't admire Sarah Palin, hypocrisy is one of the reasons and Bristol's "do as I say, not as I did" gig as an abstinence spokesperson has always annoyed me.)

So what does all this mean for Sarah's professional prospects? Too soon to tell but I'm definitely going to keep watching. Until the next political sex scandal pops up this is about as entertaining as it gets.

Bristol Gives Levi A Rose

There's a lot of big news in the world of celebrity love and marriage lately - Carrie Underwood, Penélope Cruz and Emily Blunt are all recent brides, but for me, the most interesting once-and-future-romance-among-famous-people is the heartwarming soul connection between Bristol Palin and Levi Johnston. If you missed today's bombshell announcement, Us Magazine is reporting that Bristol and Levi have reconciled and are now engaged. They're pictured on the cover of the new edition, along with their son Tripp, and when the story was published, Mama Grizzly Sarah Palin hadn't been informed. Yowza.

Levi's recent public apology for his "youthful indiscretions" was a clue that something had changed in Palinland, so for those who care about this stuff it wasn't a complete surprise, but it's still a head-scratcher. It wasn't all that long ago that everybody hated everybody up in Wasilla, and Sarah isn't known for the kindness and compassion she extends to people who have crossed her. On the contrary, she can be petty, vindictive and just plain mean. She also doesn't like to share the spotlight. We'll probably never know how Sarah reacted to her first sight of the Us Magazine cover story this week, ("I hope my Mom will accept us," says Bristol) but I'd be willing to bet that at least some of the words she used can't be quoted on the Disney Channel.

Things are heating up again in Wasilla and there's no way to predict what will happen next. For sure it won't be boring.

How Small Is Small?

Do you know how big a coffee bean is, compared to an amoeba proteus, compared to a water molecule compared to methionine (an amino acid)?

I'm not very scientifically-minded, but I still thought this was cool.