Hole in the Clouds

I can see Russia

Nov 6, 2009

During last year's Republican convention, when Sarah Palin was first introduced to the world outside Alaska, many Americans in the lower forty-eight or forty-nine began to google her name obsessively, desperate to find out who on earth she was. Political bloggers in Alaska rose to the challenge, and some of them developed loyal followings from far outside Alaska, even after Sarah Palin stepped offstage and went off tiptoeing through the tulips.

Among the best and most successful of the Alaska bloggers is a woman who calls herself Mudflats. Grateful readers of her work--Mudpuppies--recently presented her with a handmade quilt celebrating the world she has written about online. Each quilt square is centered on a pair of boots, the better for traipsing through the muck of politics. This "I can see Russia from my airspace!" square memorializes one of Palin's more notorious stupidities from the 2008 campaign.

Mudflats continue to blog, bringing humor and enthusiasm to discussions of life in Alaska and politics in Washington or wherever. She speaks up especially for the downtrodden, for people we tend to overlook or shove aside, perhaps because they live in villages at the furthest extremes of the Alaskan bush, where nobody but Mudflats bothers to see the tough times in their airspace.

The new fence

May 31, 2010

When Sarah Palin discovered that the house next door to her lakeside mansion in Wasilla had been rented to writer Joe McGinniss--an investigative journalist working on a book about Alaska that was unlikely to be sympathetic to her world view--she quickly put up a tall fence to block off his side windows.

"Wonder what kind of material he'll gather," mused Palin, "while overlooking Piper's bedroom, my little garden, and the family's swimming hole?"

The family's swimming hole? Um. That swimming hole is a 360-acre lake with a Best Western motel, at least four paved ramps to accommodate boat trailers, and umpteen float-plane docks. 

I can understand how she feels. I wouldn't want my next-door neighbor to be writing a book about how stupid I am. But if he were, I think I'd probably try to be nice. It wouldn't work, I'm sure, and he'd go right ahead and write his book pointing out all my stupidities. If I'd been nice to him, however, I could lick my wounds afterwards by telling myself: What a jerk. I went out of my way to be nice, and look what he did.

By accusing McGinniss essentially of stalking her, of spending his days waiting for a glimpse of Sarah in her bathing suit and standing at his window staring at her little girl in her bedroom, Palin is . . . well, it works for her.