Wasilla
Sarah Scrubs Summer Plans because of JURY DUTY???
June 23, 2011
I was called for jury duty in May, 2010. Because I knew I’d be in Alaska, I requested a postponement, which was granted automatically.
I was called again for May, 2011. I arrived at the courthouse at 8 a.m. and sat in a room with other prospective jurors for two and a half hours. Then a judge came in and said she’d just dismissed the case our panel had been scheduled to hear. I was home by 11 a.m. and not subject to being called again for at least three years.
Sarah can’t go to Sudan because she’s been summoned for jury duty?
The lies just get bigger and bigger. She’s living inside a hot air balloon for which she supplies the hot air.
But you know what?
Balloons burst.
I’ll be back in Wasilla in September, Sarah. Maybe I can drop by to say hello and grab a piece of that blueberry pie you promised me via Facebook last summer. If you lock the kids in the basement, they’ll be safe. We can chat about how your jury duty went.
Among other things…
Posted in Joe McGinniss, Sarah Palin, The Rogue, Wasilla | 
Tags: alaska, blueberry pie, jury duty, pathological liar | 
101 Comments »
Rosanne Cash tells what a caring, truly pregnant mother would have done in Texas
June 19, 2011
Johnny Cash was and is one of my few heroes. My admiration for him is based not only on my appreciation of his unique talent as singer, songwriter and performer, but on the courage he showed as a Nashville heavy hitter who stood up for Bob Dylan way back when Bob was considered a commie jew anti-war hippie by the country music establishment, and for Johnny’s overcoming substance abuse problems to create a whole new oeuvre in his later years, and for his being a man who never tried to shove his Christianity down anyone’s throat, and who, throughout his life, opposed needless war, imperialism, racism and insensitivity to the less fortunate among us.
It was my admiration for him that first led me to the marvelous music and equally fine writings of his multi-talented daughter, Rosanne.
In October, 2008, she wrote a brilliant commentary in The Nation, called “Why I’d Be a Better VP than Sarah Palin.
Contained therein is her straight from the shoulder shot about Sarah being pregnant with Trig in Dallas and taking the wild ride to Wasilla:
Finally, there is one subject in which I find I am even more conservative than the Governor, and that is in the area of neo-natal responsibility. The Governor was eight months pregnant and in Texas to give a speech, when her water broke. She reportedly made her speech and then traveled eleven hours, dripping amniotic fluid, bypassing Seattle and Anchorage (major cities with world-class hospitals) to travel to a small hospital in Wasilla that had no neo-natal intensive care unit, and gave birth there. Call me a wimp, call me insecure, but you had better also call me a maverick, because I would have said “Damn the schedule! Damn the speech and the airline ticket!” If this had been me, as soon as my water broke, I’d be at the closest hospital and that baby would have been born in Texas!
This is from a mother of five whose career has taken her to far more places around the world than Sarah’s has.
It’s a question of priorities.
What matters more: the life and well-being of your Down Syndrome baby, about to be born prematurely, or your image?
The estimable Ms. Cash makes clear the choice she would have made.
Which is the choice any sane and caring woman in that circumstance would have made. And the choice her husband–if he were caring–would have insisted on!
This leaves us with only two options:
a) Sarah is/was either not sane, or was so uncaring that she was more concerned about her image than about the life she was carrying inside her.
or
b) She wasn’t pregnant.
I just don’t see a third alternative.
Posted in Andrew Sullivan, Business Insider, Joe McGinniss, Palin children, Sarah Palin, The Rogue, Todd Palin, Trig Palin, Uncategorized, Wasilla | Tags: bob dylan, christiantiy, dallas, down syndrome, johnny cash, nashville, rosanne cash, seattle, the nation | 125 Comments »
Coming Soon? Sarah’s first novel?
June 8, 2011
As Julie Bosman reported in The New York Times last week, it’s not enough for celebrities such as the Kardashian sisters and Snooki and someone named Lauren Conrad–sorry, I’m behind the curve–who is described on Wikipedia as a “celebutante”, to crowd real authors off the nonfiction bestseller list. Now they’re doing it to novelists.
William Morrow, (now a division of Rupert Murdoch’s Harper Collins, aka Sarah’s outfit), the once-respected publisher that will inflict upon us Bristol Palin’s “memoir” this summer, has announced that they’ll soon publish a “novel” by Kourtney, Kim and Khloe Kardashian.
It will follow in the rich literary tradition established by Snooki of Jersey Shore, whose first “novel,” A Shore Thing became a New York Times bestseller, although Snooki confessed to having read only three books in her life, none of them the one she ostensibly authored.
I don’t know Snooki–though I put in some hard time at the Jersey shore in the 1980’s, while researching Blind Faith–but I knew the father of the KKK girls, Bob Kardashian, from my even harder nine months at the OJ Simpson trial in 1995. Bob was one of OJ’s lesser lawyers, also his gofer and his bagman, as in literally carrying OJ’s bags. But he’s a story for another time.
The point here is how can Sarah sit back and let others cash in on an avenue of celebrity she herself hasn’t yet explored?
She can’t.
The obvious solution is for her to “write” a “novel.”
With apologies to Dreiser, Fitzgerald, Hemingway, Jack Kerouac, and the late William Styron and Norman Mailer, from whose friendship and guidance I benefited greatly, and such friends and acquaintances as Stephen Amidon, Craig Nova, E.L. Doctorow and Jim Shepard, among others–I’d advise Sarah to get off my nonfiction turf (where she’s worn out her welcome, as the failure of her second book showed) and take her fantasies and fabrications where they belong—-to the fiction list.
Her potential range is enormous.
She could “write” a geographically-centered novel such as James Michener’s Alaska:
Or historical fiction such as Paul Revere’s Ride, by David Hackett Fischer, although, like Sarah in Boston last week, he claimed his account was true. And at least he wrote it himself.
Given her familiarity with both states and her seemingly endless supply of ghostwriters, she could even start a series, like F.D. Caldwell, whose Alaska, Love Found Under the Stars will soon be followed by Arizona, An Adventure of Love.
Aiming higher, Sarah could try to emulate Margaret Truman, only daughter of President Harry Truman, who had authored for herself a series of 24 murder mystery books set in Washington, bearing such titles as Murder in the White House, Murder in the Supreme Court, Murder at the FBI.
Some suggested titles for Sarah’s series:
Murder at WalMart,
Murder at the Wasilla Library,
Murder (of a Neighbor) on Lake Lucille.
But I’m sure you have your own suggestions for subjects and titles for Sarah’s first (admitted) work of fiction.
Please feel free to share.
A suggestion to get you started:
A Tale of Two Babies
Posted in Joe McGinniss, Palin children, Sarah Palin, The Rogue, Todd Palin, Trig Palin, Uncategorized, Wasilla | Tags: craig nova, ernest hemingway, f.scott fitzgerald, fiction, harry truman, jack kerouac, james michener, jim shepard, kardashian, lake lucille, margaret truman, murder mystery, norman mailer, snooki, stephen amidon, theordore dreiser, william styron | 75 Comments »
Piper back in Wasilla, smiling again, thanks to Britta//UPDATE-CORRECTION
June 4, 2011
A Wasilla correspondent lets me know that Piper was back home this afternoon, unwinding by enjoying a visit to a local coffee shop/ice cream parlor with Track’s new bride, Britta.
I’m told that Piper was smiling and that Britta and Piper “were just hanging out.”
From all I know of Britta, described to me as “a sweet girl from a solid family,” it would be just like her to take poor, road-weary Piper out for a treat.
Someone who’s known Piper all her life said she came in and “waved a little wave” and, when asked how she was doing, smiled and said, “Okay.”
And now, despite all her mother has done to strip it from her, let’s give Piper her privacy back and hope that the rest of her summer will be better than the start.
And let’s be happy that in the person of Britta Hanson the Palin children finally have a female family member who cares about them.
UPDATE/CORRECTION:
I’ve heard from so many people–and have now seen video to back it up–that poor Piper, in fact, did not make it back to Wasilla today for a happy, end-of-tour ice cream with Aunt Britta. I have no doubt that my correspondent’s first-hand report is correct as to what happened, but perhaps I misunderstood when it occurred.
A difference between a blog and a book is that misunderstandings about who, what, when, where and why don’t get published in a book.
Wherever Piper is tonight, let’s hope—for her sake–that we neither see her nor read about her again until she’s at least eighteen years old and able to make choices about privacy for herself.
Let’s also hope that in Arizona somebody will post a sign designed to protect her that’s similar to the one I posted on my property line last summer after the first time Todd trespassed, which of course is described in THE ROGUE.
Posted in Joe McGinniss, Palin children, right wing, Sarah Palin, Tea Party, Todd Palin, Wasilla | Tags: britta hanson, piper palin, track palin | 102 Comments »
“THE OFT-DEFEATED”—the OTHER Sarah Palin movie coming in June
May 26, 2011
THE OFT-DEFEATED
A DOCUMENTARY IN FOUR SCENES…WITH FIFTH SCENE TO COME LATER THIS YEAR OR NEXT.
SCENE 1: 1984
The film opens at the finals of the Miss Alaska Pageant, 1984.
LONG SHOT of contestants on stage.
VOICEOVER: “And the winner is……..”
CLOSEUP of expectant SARAH Heath
VOICEOVER: “Maryline Blackburn!”
MARYLINE BLACKBURN IN 2010
CLOSEUP of SARAH whispering to GOD: “I froze my ass off for you in Big Beaver or Little Beaver or one of them Beaver lakes when I got immersed for you in 1976. Don’t you ever let some black bitch beat me again!”
SCENE 2: 1997
Mayor SARAH sits with supporters at Wasilla Assembly of God church, looking at newspaper headlines proclaiming that the Alaska Supreme Court has just permanently prohibited Wasilla’s Valley Medical Center from banning second-trimester abortions.
SARAH: “That’s why we need Christian judges: so no branch of any federal or state government will ever bitch-slap Jesus again.”
OTHERS: “Amen! Amen, Sister Sarah! Amen, Queen Esther!”
Others leave. SARAH returns to her MAYOR’S OFFICE. She places a call.
SARAH: “Hey, Savior-Man, what’s up? You just slammed another door in my face.”
GOD: “Whatever doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, Sarah. I’m trying to toughen you up for bigger fights ahead.”
SCENE 3: 2002
Election Night at “Palin for Lieutenant Governor” headquarters. Early vote totals make it clear that SARAH will lose.
CLOSEUP of SARAH, now speaking on cellphone:
SARAH: “WTF, Big Guy? How tough do you think I need to be? If you’re going to have some dude make a movie about me nine years from now and call it The Undefeated, it might be nice if you’d let me win something for once.”
GOD: “I only want the best for you, and I only give my best. Remember though: My ways are not your ways, my thoughts are not your thoughts…for as the heavens are higher than the earth, my ways are higher than yours! I wrote that all down for you in the Good Book! Look it up!”
SARAH: “Hey, chill a little. You’re God. You don’t have to use so many exclamation points.”
GOD: “Sorry, daughter, sometimes I get carried away. In any event, don’t sweat it. I’m going to send you a Down Syndrome baby who will make you the Republican nominee for vice president in 2008. And when you write Going Rogue you can quote me. You can even say, ‘I decided to write the letter as though it were from Trig’s Creator, the same Creator in whom I had put my trust more than thirty years before.’ You cool with that?”
SARAH: “Sure, but won’t there be copyright problems?”
GOD: “Not if you credit me properly. What do you think, I’m gonna sue?”
SCENE 4: 2008
LONG SHOT of McCain headquarters in Arizona. Cactuses wilt. Gila monsters curl into fetal positions. Rattlesnakes cry. Slaves escape from the compound. It’s obvious the McCain-Palin ticket has lost.
CLOSEUP of Sarah, talking to MCCAIN.
SARAH: “I wanna make my own speech.”
MCCAIN: “It’s just not customary. I can’t let you do it.”
SARAH: “Fuck you! It wasn’t customary to pick an ignorant, narcissistic backstabber to run with you in the first place. So don’t give me that ‘customary’ shit!
MCCAIN: “Listen, bitch: you dragged me down. You put that black Muslim in the White House. But I’m not going to let you steal my last act tonight.”
SARAH: “Let me tell you something, you wet old fart. If you’d have let me go rogue”—
INTERRUPTION as we hear “Onward Christian Soldiers” playing as a cell phone ring.
SARAH: “Excuse me, I’ve got to take this……Hello? Yes, this is her. Oh, God, good to hear from you. Hey, buddy, you didn’t open that door quite wide enough…..What’s that?……Yeah, yeah, that’s easy for you to say, but I’ve been defeated one more time, pal, and now I have to go back to effing Alaska. What circle of hell is that?!……Yeah, right, but you know what? You sound like the Brooklyn Dodgers, always saying ‘wait till next year.’…….What’s that? You’ve got me a deal on a one-point-seven million dollar house in Scottsdale?……You’ve got me the presidential nomination in 2012?……Okay, okay, but not so fast. What about the 2012 election? I lost to that black bitch Blackburn for Miss Alaska back in the day, and everytime I see Michelle Obama all I can think of is that. So no deal, Bro’, unless this time you’re gonna take me all the way…..What? What’s that?……Sorry, you’re breaking up……
FADE TO BLACK
Posted in 2012, evangelical, Joe McGinniss, Michelle Obama, Obama, Palin racism, right wing, Sarah Palin, Tea Party, The Rogue, Wasilla | Tags: arizona, assembly of god, baptism, big beaver lake, god, john mccain, little beaver lake, maryline blackburn, miss alaska, onward christian soldiers, queen esther, Scottsdale | 27 Comments »
Turn Back the Clock: FENCE DAY was 1 Year Ago Tomorrow //UPDATE: FENCE DAY, 2011, in Scottsdale
May 24, 2011
How time flies. Already it’s been a year since Sarah Palin accused me of peering into Piper’s bedroom window, Glenn Beck first called me a stalker and Todd Palin had a work crew double the height of the ten-foot fence between the Palins’ property and the lot on which my rented house stood.
As I write in THE ROGUE about May 25, 2010:
“All day, I hear hammering and sawing. Todd has about twelve guys throwing up a new fence that’s roughly twice the height of the old one. I’m all in favor of the fence. Maybe once it’s up, Sarah will chill and we can both get on with our business. No one brings over a blueberry pie.”
Sarah had written on Facebook the night before, “Maybe we’ll welcome him with a homemade blueberry pie tomorrow so he’ll know how friendly Alaskans are.”
Not surprisingly, she didn’t.
In fact, as tweets leaked to The Daily Caller demonstrate, Sarah’s chief enforcer, Rebecca Mansour, had a quite different idea:
May 25, 2010 5:35:46: Time to find a way to go medieval on this McGinniss. Don’t be fooled by the light tone of the FB post. The BigBoss is so upset by this.
5:36:56: It quite broke my heart to get the emails from her about this. She feel like big brother is watching her & her family…
16:00:56: I was thinking…of mailing him a dead fish.
I never got the dead fish, either. But I’d say Mansour, no doubt smiling out of the other side of her face today, is a dead duck in Palinland.
Oh, by the way, the first strong wind last fall blew down the fence. Todd’s about as capable a builder as Sarah is a fisherwoman.
UPDATE:
It’s been rumored since last week that Sarah and Todd have bought a new home in Scottsdale, Arizona.
I believe it. Especially after seeing this photo, sent by commenter “Jewels” to whom I’m, of course, grateful.
Looks mighty like a new fence going up around the house, doesn’t it?
I hope Todd and the gang do a better job with this one. You think Wasilla gets windy? Check this Fox News story about wind damage in Scottsdale last year:
Winds Damage Cars at Auction: MyFoxPHOENIX.com
And remember, Sarah, it’s an ill wind that blows nobody good.
Posted in Joe McGinniss, Palin children, Sarah Palin, The Rogue, Todd Palin, Wasilla | Tags: big brother, blueberry pie, c4p, car auction, conservatives4palin, dead fish, facebook, fences, high winds, ill wind, neighbors, rebecca mansour, Scottsdale, twitter | 76 Comments »
Memo to Sarah Palin: if you want to keep your children’s lives private, don’t give People Magazine an exclusive about your son’s wedding//UPDATE: My one brief meeting with Track
May 20, 2011
It’s such a shame–but so predictable–that Sarah had to milk this moment for publicity value. I feel quite sure that neither Track nor Britta wanted their wedding to become a national news story.
The bride’s father is pastor of Good Shepherd Lutheran Church in Wasilla, a congregation of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.
He is no relation to Brad Hanson, the Palmer businessman, and Todd’s ex-partner in the Big Lake snowmobile shop, with whom Sarah allegedly had an affair.
I had the pleasure of being introduced to Rev. Hanson when I was in Alaska last summer. He is well liked and highly regarded and distinctly not part of the Christian Dominionist movement in Wasilla centered around Sarah’s Assembly of God church.
No one I spoke to last summer expressed anything other than praise and affection for his daughter, Britta. Many times I was told she was “the best thing” or “the only good thing” that ever happened to Track.
Last September, just after I left Alaska, she starred in the role of Elizabeth Bennet in the Valley Performing Arts production of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice.
Track himself has done all he can to distance himself from Sarah Palin Enterprises, Inc. Whatever his problems as an unsupervised adolescent, let’s give him and his new wife a break as they begin their married life together. Unlike Bristol, Track has never tried to cash in. He and Britta have been devoted to one another for years. I’m sure it wasn’t their idea to make a wedding announcement in the pages of People.
Let’s wish them both the best.
UPDATE:
I never spoke to Track during the months I lived next door to him last summer. As I describe in THE ROGUE, a friend of mine had an encounter with him in late summer that started badly but ended well, and I believe it was Track who took the surreptitious photo of me on my deck that Sarah used in the Facebook post in which she implied that I’d moved in primarily so I could peer into Piper’s bedroom, but I don’t begrudge him doing what his mother and father told him to do.
Of course, as even a blind man could see, the picture shows me facing in the opposite direction from the Palin house while talking to my wife on my cell phone. Yet Glenn Beck and others on Fox News–Greta Van Susteren, in particular–used it as “evidence” that I was using binoculars to peer into the bedroom of a child. Absolute insanity.
But that wasn’t Track’s fault. As far as I know, he never said a bad word about me in public, and he never did anything to make me feel unwelcome as a neighbor.
In fact, my only meeting with Track could not have been more pleasant. As I write in THE ROGUE,
When I was in Wasilla in the fall of 2009, I stopped by the Palin house to drop off a copy of Going to Extremes, my book about Alaska in the 1970s. I’d signed it, “To Sarah Palin—from one author who loves Alaska to another.” Track came to the door and we had a brief, pleasant chat as I gave him the book. “You wrote this? Wow! That’s awesome.” I told him I was glad he’d made it back safely from Iraq. He thanked me and said he’d give the book to his mother.
I realize now, of course, that Sarah never “loved” Alaska–that she loves only herself–but that doesn’t alter the fact that Track was a perfect gentleman to a stranger who knocked unexpectedly on his door.
So, again, let’s wish him and his new wife well as they attempt to build a life together on their own.
Maybe they can escape from the circus.
Posted in Joe McGinniss, Palin children, Sarah Palin, The Rogue, Todd Palin, Wasilla | Tags: big lake, brad hanson, britta hanson, christian dominionism, duane hanson, evangelical, evangelical lutheran church, good shepherd lutheran church, jane austen, pride and prejudice, sarah palin affair, valley performing arts, wasilla | 47 Comments »
Christwire.Org Warns “Mercury Poisoning” Could Derail Wasilla HS Graduation
May 14, 2011
The Christian dominionist website Christwire.org, which is dedicated to promulgating “Conservative Values for an Unsaved World,” has weighed in on the controversy that erupted this week when a few Wasilla High School graduating seniors of dubious sexuality objected to their principal’s efforts to save them from the effects of Mercury poisoning.
Christwire, which recently urged menstruating women to stay off the internet for fear that hormonal imbalance puts them at risk for engaging in un-Christian discourse–“Remember women, forgoing negativity and bad language is one of the sacrifices that God asks of us. To be an adherent Christian, you must be committed to forgoing web usage when you are menstruating”—warned that fans of the television show Glee were “creating a Gay-Sharia law in Sarah Palin’s backyard.”
Christwire bemoaned the fact that Wasilla HS principal Dwight Probasco has been “completely thrown under the homosexual agenda Glee bus.”
In addition–perhaps picking up on rumors that new-look Bristol Palin may soon marry one of the many Wasilla men believed to be not the father of her child–Christwire offers a guide to “10 Classy Christian Bridesmaids’ Gifts, including this attractive Fish Trivet:
Posted in Palin children, Sarah Palin, Wasilla | Tags: christian weddings, dwight probasco, elton john, freddy mercury, graduation, internet, menstruation, mercury poisoning, wasilla high school | 15 Comments »
