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| About |
THE BLOG--HISTORY
"Blue Oasis" began in 2005 in its Blogger format (now an archive) and became possibly the first Alaska Blog on Progressive Politics. At the 2008 Democratic National Convention, Celtic Diva's Blue Oasis was honored to represent Alaska as the state blog.
Transition--Community Blog
In September 2008, Celtic Diva's Blue Oasis moved to a Soapblox Community Blog format. Readers can become full participants by registering on the blog to comment and write "diaries." Diary titles appear on the right sidebar for folks to read and provide comments. Blog editors may choose to move some of these diaries to the front page.
While this Community was formed specifically with Alaska in mind, all "friends of Alaska" are welcome as members!
**Note about registering** Scroll down the right side until you find the link to register. Then, just follow the instructions!
**Note about comments** To comment on a story, click on the heading and then look for the "comment bar" at the bottom (it's light grey, I can't seem to change it). I believe the font color NOW permits you to see the "post comment" text.
YOUR BLOGMISTRESS
My name is Linda Kellen Biegel and I am a former 15-year Federal employee. Thirteen of those years were spent working for the US Army Corps of Engineers. I am also semi-retired from the Alaska music scene (singer, sound tech, stage manager, logistics).
When the blog was chosen to represent Alaska in the DNCC State Blogger Pool at the Denver Convention, I attended with the help of Alaska Real blogmistress, Writing Raven and my daughter Morrigan. On August 29th, one day after Barack Obama's inspiring speech at Invesco Field , my life took another turn as it did for all Alaska bloggers when Gov. Sarah Palin was chosen to be John McCain's VP running mate. Since then, I've either assisted or have been interviewed by media from the UK, Italy, Australia and Germany as well as national media outlets such as Wall Street Journal, NY Times, ABC Good Morning America's Kate Snow, National Journal, Dallas Morning News, LA Times, and NPR.
Presently, I work as a freelance writer, PR, event coordinator, community organizer, wife to computer programmer Josh and mother to 11-year-old Morrigan. Our family especially enjoys our summers in Alaska where we get to subsistence set-net fish Sockeye salmon as well as halibut fish/whalewatch in the family's homemade aluminum boat, "The Neverdone" (when it's working). We reside in Anchorage, Alaska.
Origin of "Celtic Diva"
I've used "Celtic Diva" as a screen name since the early 1990's on Web TV.
"Celtic"
"Folks have asked about my Celtic heritage, especially in light of my name. What they don't realize is that I'm adopted. I was born Valerie Morehead of the Clan Muirhead. I was adopted at three-months-old by the Kellens. I always "knew" I was Celt even before really knew. I was drawn to all things Scottish, especially music. That's why my parents eventually told me at age 16."
"Diva"
"Linda is well-known in Alaska & beyond as the prominent progressive political blogger Celtic Diva of Celtic Diva?s Blue Oasis. But back in the day, the early 1990s, I knew her as Linda Kellen, a member of the local folk/rock band Sky is Blu, which amongst other things performed in at least a couple or so of the annual women?s show Celebration of Change, in which I also performed. And if you don?t already know, let me tell you: Linda is one fine damn singer."
I went on after the break-up of "Sky is Blu" to perform with various Alaska musicians and work with national folks like Bo Diddly, Coco Montoya, Debbie Davies, Taj Mahal, The Fabulous Thunderbirds, Bad Company, Creedence Clearwater, Carny Wilson, etc...
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For the Alaska Community and beyond...
My daughter touched a Silver Medal!
USA Women's Olympic Hockey Team Star Kerry Weiland with our friend Isabella and my daughter Morrigan at St. Baldrick's Day
(Scroll down to find posts.)
(Please register to participate in diaries and comments! We'd love for you to join our Community!)
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Mon Apr 27, 2009 at 08:48:08 AM AKDT
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As we know, people just LOVE to buy Governor Palin things...lots of things.
--Over the weekend, "Palingates" recounted a fanatical "Team Sarah" member gushing over recently receiving a thank-you note from the Palins:
Generous Elizabeth, a member of a certain Team connected to our Sarah, was over the moon upon receiving a thank you card from Bristol after sending a couple of gifts for Trig and Piper.
I just received a card from Bristol :)
I think it was sweet of her to send this!
Further down in the thread, replying to envious comments, such as :
Another card from the Palins? LOL, Good on you girl. Are you collecting Palin Cards or something? :)
Generous Elizabeth waxed lyric:
Hehe, I only have 2 right now. I just love sending them stuff and showing my support, and they are just so sweet enough to send out replies! :)
To which another fan commented:
They are so lucky to have such a special friend like you Elizabeth! Perhaps they'll put you on their Christmas card list? Now wouldn't that be something?
Do you have an address where we can all send gifts?
--So they must be continuing to open all of those boxes of gifts and letters Chuck Heath talked about in an interview with Grandparents.com
"In Sarah's mailroom, there's 87 boxes - big boxes of mail that haven't even been opened. I've been answering letters all day, all week. We figure there's over a hundred thousand pieces here. And we'll never get it done. We're just inundated."
--Gifts are regulated through The Alaska Executive Branch Ethics Act:
Sec. 39.52.130. Improper gifts.
(a) A public officer may not solicit, accept, or receive, directly or indirectly, a gift,
whether in the form of money, service, loan, travel, entertainment, hospitality, employment,
promise, or in any other form, that is a benefit to the officer's personal or financial interests,
under circumstances in which it could reasonably be inferred that the gift is intended to influence
the performance of official duties, actions, or judgment. A gift from a person required to register as a lobbyist under AS 24.45.041 to a public officer or a public officer's immediate family member is presumed to be intended to influence the performance of official duties, actions, or judgment unless the giver is an immediate family member of the person receiving the gift.
(b) Notice of the receipt by a public officer of a gift with a value in excess of $150, including the name of the giver and a description of the gift and its approximate value, must be provided to the designated supervisor within 30 days after the date of its receipt
--The forms filed by the Governor's Office every 30 days disclosing those gifts are subject to records requests by the public. The public is finding those disclosures to be less-than-complete, as we will see later in this post.
(Make a mental note of the "in excess of $150.00" requirement bolded and underlined above. We will be "revisiting" that in future posts on this topic.)
--The Governor is also required by the Alaska Public Offices Commission to fill out yearly Financial Disclosure forms. This year, the Governor's were less-than-complete as she a) fails to list actual monetary figures at all regarding how much her husband received from his Iron Dog sponsors b) fails to list precise monetary figures as to the exact nature of her legal debts and c) fails to list how much legal debt applies to each complaint (i.e. how much of the legal debt applied to the very expensive complaint which she filed against herself?)
--Remember that Governor Palin did NOT "turn over the reigns" to Lt. Gov. Sean Parnell while she was campaigning for Vice President. This had the probably unintended consequence of making all of the gifts accepted on the campaign trail subject to Ethics Act restrictions as well.
--This brings us to the Seven Requests Andree McLeod made of APOC during Thursday's public testimony in front of the Alaska Public Offices Commission at their quarterly meeting:
1) Would you please request Palin to submit the appropriate amendments to her [financial disclosure] report instead of waiting for a complaint?
2) Why did Palin not completely disclose gifts she received last year? There have been reports of hundreds upon hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of clothes, hair and make-up services that she and the family received yet they are missing from the report, although the travel costs are included. Though on the campaign trail, Sarah Palin was still in the role of governor and must abide by Alaska financial disclosure laws. For consistency's sake, could you please request a full accounting of those clothes, hair and make-up services? Even if they were given away, they were still gifts that she and her family did receive and must be accounted for in the report, as well as other gifts she received on the campaign trail.
3) Why are there gifts missing from Palin's APOC report that she's received according to gift disclosure forms on file?
4) There have been reports that Bristol Palin's fiancé Levi Johnston's lived at the Palin household in 2008. Why is that not reflected in the report? Wouldn't Palin have to disclose his income in the report too?
5) Why is the dollar amount of gifts and/or discounts missing from Todd Palin's list of gifts received from sponsors for his Iron Dog business?
6) Why is the dollar amount missing from the listed legal debt? Shouldn't that debt be more detailed and be listed case by case?
7) There's talk of a legal trust fund forming for Sarah Palin, her family and state colleagues. There might be laws addressing the legality of such a coordinated fund for public officials. But never before in Alaska 's history has someone had at least 500,000 people on their facebook page. Never before has there been the potential of those people contributing an average of $100 towards such a fund. That would total $50 million. Half of that is $25 million. A quarter of that is $12.5 million. And an eighth of that - I'll need a calculator.
In Part 2, we'll look at a) responses to some of these questions by APOC as well as b) how the Legal Defense Fund Trust plays into all of this. |
| Celtic Diva :: The Governor and her Gifts--Part 1--A little background |
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