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Though many of us suffer from Palin Factor Fatigue, it is irrefutable that there is a nagging curiosity to have the question answered, ?How in the world did Sarah Palin become so popular and why do we still need to hear about her?? My book answers these questions in detail and urges us all to be vigilant. She is one of a small pool of ?rising stars in the republican party? as John McCain stated as recently as January 25, 2009 on Fox News Sunday.
As unbelievable as her meteoric rise was we cannot delude ourselves, turning our backs once again, into thinking that she and those like her are going away. This woman is joined by millions of loyalists whose perception is that she was persecuted in the media, stifled by McCain, and mocked by liberals - and now the theocratic conservatives are regrouping with a vengeance!
"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.
"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."
"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...
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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(I saw an incredible article in the NY Times Magazine over the weekend called "How Christian Were the Founders?" It tells an extremely comprehensive story about the Texas Board of Education, their influence over our nation's textbooks and the infiltration and now dominance by the religious right over the last few years. I was happy to see that my friend Leah Burton, someone who knows this material better than anyone, had already done a comprehensive summary of the 10-page article. Luckily for me, she gave me permission to repost it.
Leah's expertise has been recognized and she recently accepted a position on the board of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, allowing her an even better platform from which to do her work.)
They have been at this for a very long time. What is 'this'? Revising our public school text books to reflect a skewed view of America's history beginning with the claim that we were founded as a "Christian Nation". This is serious and threatening. Hearings were held in Austin, Texas last month, January 2010, to the 15 members of the Texas State Board of Education.
You may be thinking, "I'm not Texan, why does this matter to me?" Let me share an excellent article with you about how and why this is seriously significant to ALL of us. Russell Shorto of the NY Times published an article on February 11, 2010 that you really must take time to read in its entirety and you can click here to do just that.
In the meantime I will paste a few excerpts here so that we can spark a discussion around this insinuation of the Khristian Dominionists into our public education through the revision of history - and ultimately through the minds of our children.
First, we must talk about why Texas has so much influence in determining (and undermining) what ends up in our public education textbooks.
"Public education has always been a battleground between cultural forces; one reason that Texas' school-board members find themselves at the very center of the battlefield is, not surprisingly, money. The state's $22 billion education fund is among the largest educational endowments in the country. Texas uses some of that money to buy or distribute a staggering 48 million textbooks annually - which rather strongly inclines educational publishers to tailor their products to fit the standards dictated by the Lone Star State."
"Not surprisingly, money"...and organization...
"Texas was one of the first states to adopt statewide curriculum guidelines, back in 1998, and the guidelines it came up with (which are referred to as TEKS - pronounced "teaks" - for Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills) were clear, broad and inclusive enough that many other states used them as a model in devising their own. And while technology is changing things, textbooks - printed or online -are still the backbone of education."
AH! And the always well-funded Christian Dominionist sect...the infestation begins...
"The cultural roots of the Texas showdown may be said to date to the late 1980s, when, in the wake of his failed presidential effort, the Rev. Pat Robertsonfounded the Christian Coalition partly on the logic that conservative Christians should focus their energies at the grass-roots level. One strategy was to put candidates forward for state and local school-board elections[...]"
And now enter the ReBiblicanized republicans...
"Since the election of two Christian conservatives in 2006, there are now seven on the Texas state board who are quite open about the fact that they vote in concert to advance a Christian agenda. "They do vote as a bloc," Pat Hardy, a board member who considers herself a conservative Republican but who stands apart from the Christian faction, told me. "They work consciously to pull one more vote in with them on an issue so they'll have a majority."
Steeplejacked! It is truly that obvious...the Texas State Board was intentionally targeted and successfully turned into an arm of the Christian Dominionist agenda to re-write our history. And what is the story they want our children to be sold?
"The one thing that underlies the entire program of the nation's Christian conservative activists is, naturally, religion. But it isn't merely the case that their Christian orientation shapes their opinions on gay marriage, abortion and government spending. More elementally, they hold that the United States was founded by devout Christians and according to biblical precepts. This belief provides what they consider not only a theological but also, ultimately, a judicial grounding to their positions on social questions. When they proclaim that the United States is a "Christian nation," they are not referring to the percentage of the population that ticks a certain box in a survey or census but to the country's roots and the intent of the founders."
Straight from the horse's mouth....
"Succeeding at this would help them toward their ultimate goal of reshaping American society. As Cynthia Dunbar, another Christian activist on the Texas board, put it, "The philosophy of the classroom in one generation will be the philosophy of the government in the next."
No subtlety there! This is how brazen they are...they know they can come right out with it and not face any push back. It flies right past our radar! And they carry on...and on...and on.
One of the current board members up for re-election and former Chairman of the state board, Don McLeroy, describes himself this way,
"I consider myself a Christian fundamentalist," He also identifies himself as a young-earth creationist who believes that the earth was created in six days, as the book of Genesis has it, less than 10,000 years ago. He went on to explain how his Christian perspective [guides] him in the current effort to adjust American-history textbooks to highlight the role of Christianity. "Textbooks are mostly the product of the liberal establishment, and they're written with the idea that our religion and our liberty are in conflict," he said.
Here is where we begin to pull in the language of the Dominionists and stir it up into a muddy Tea (as it were) - a concoction of two kool aids - like mixing red & green together - you end up with a glass that looks something akin to swamp water. And let us not overlook that our favorite Poster Gal for Christian Dominionism, Sarah Palin, holds these very same views...I mean really holds them! As unbelievable as this may be to some of us, they truly believe that humans co-existed with the dinosaurs.
"Merely weaving important religious trends and events into the narrative of American history is not what the Christian bloc on the Texas board has pushed for in revising its guidelines. Many of the points that have been incorporated into the guidelines or that have been advanced by board members and their expert advisers slant toward portraying America as having a divinely preordained mission."
The article takes you on an in depth journey into the rationalization behind the Dominionist claim that we ARE a Christian nation and how they are in a relentless pursuit to incorporate this into our schools. The absence, to date, of their version of America in our public school textbooks is what leads the zealots to claim that our schools are "Institutions of Satan". Literally.
It introduces you to players like David Barton, Jay Sekulow and Cynthia Dunbar who is quoted as saying...
[...]"We as a nation were intended by God to be a light set on a hill to serve as a beacon of hope and Christian charity to a lost and dying world." But the true picture of America's Christian founding has been whitewashed by "the liberal agenda" - in order for liberals to succeed "they must first rewrite our nation's history" and obscure the Christian intentions of the founders. Therefore, she wrote, "this battle for our nation's children and who will control their education and training is crucial to our success for reclaiming our nation."
And there we go...it's the Dominionists' perceived mandate from God's lips to their ears to "Reclaim the 7 Mountains", and education is a huge target for them. (refer to the 7 Mountains video in my side bar)
Where in recent history have we heard the recitation of "a light/beacon on a hill? Well, Reagan in the 80s and it has rolled right on down that hill to Palin as recently as her speech at the Tea Nation Party gathering this month in Nashville, Tennessee.
I know my post is lengthy and Shorto's NY Times article is even longer, but it is worth reading even if you need to come back to it. This IS representative of what I (and others) have been writing about in our efforts to warn about Christian Dominionism in America and their very real goal to change our democratic republic into a theocracy.
**A fellow colleague and friend, Chris Rodda, is one of the foremost experts in this discussion and specifically David Barton. Her book is "Liars for Jesus" and I highly recommend it to be added to your MUST READ list. **
I've explained that the Administration's claim the Department of Law is completely tied up beyond all hope with ethics complaints against the Governor is false. The reason we know this is true is because complaints barely stay in the Department of Law before they are passed over to the Personnel Board.
Now we have proof that the Department of Law has EXCESSIVE time on their hands.
You better darn-tootin' not hijack an official Web site from Sarah Palin's State of Alaska. Houston DJ and nightlife ne'er-do-well Shoe Latif recently found that out the hard way when she got a cease-and-desist letter from the flinty-eyed legal eagles in Palin's Attorney General's office. And no, Palin didn't enclose a picture of herself winkin' either. This is the Internet we're talking about here, people. Serious business.
When I pulled up the site, the title was "Bristol, your mom is a crackho!" Here's what we find on the site now:
SHIT SHIT SHIT SHIT!!
So here's the deal. A while back during the election I created a new front page for crackho.com I used frames and in one frame I redirected to the Governor of Alaska Sarah Palin's website. I never had the official seal or anything from her site on my server. It was a simple redirect using the meta refresh tag. I didn't think anyone would notice. Ooops.
So, what kind of horrible human could this "Shu Latif" be that would warrant such action from a Law Department too busy for anything else?
Well, it seems that she's a photographer and a DJ! How AWFUL!!!!
Shu Latif was born on August 13th, 1976 in Miami. Growing up in Houston, she was raised by her mother who had emigrated from a small town in Egypt. Obsessively taking pictures of her cat at an early age, she quickly fell in love with the craft. Despite dreams of going to art school, she found herself in a career in technology. Almost ten years later she returned to school at the University of Houston pursuing her BFA in photography.
You can see the photos from her DJ career at her Flickr site.
So, let me see if I can get this straight...
Someone creates a "goof" site insulting Sarah Palin with a meta-tag link to the State of Alaska website (which, while questionable and unadvisable, I don't believe for a second is misuse of the State Seal). Sarah Palin, because she feels that the government of the State of Alaska is her own personal Nazi SS squad, decided to use the full force of the Department of Law to slap down a detractor.
Does any of this sound...oh, I don't know...even vaguely familiar?
I think this is in the list of the best punchline's ever written, and it's the first sentence on a letter with official State of Alaska letterhead:
"It has come to our attention that the website www.crackho.com has hijacked a State of Alaska webpage."
Yeah, the State of Alaska has been hijacked, alright, and not just the website.
Afterwards, Representative Barton crowed about his "gotcha question" on Twitter:
Oh the (rare, but occasionally exceptional) joys of Twitter. Rep. Joe Barton (R-TX)--the ranking member on the House Energy & Commerce Committee--says (tweets?) "I seemed [sic] to have baffled the Energy Sec with basic question - Where does oil come from?"
**head hits keyboard**
Some scathing commentary from David Waldman at DKos:
I can only assume that what Barton thought he was "proving" was that since the organic matter that creates oil and gas flourish in warmer climes, that must mean that the Arctic was once tropical, and therefore global warming is a myth, and everybody should burn everything they can get their hands on as a patriotic act.
The critical bit of science Joe has left out of the equation? Parts of the Earth actually move.
Hi! Welcome to fourth grade, Joe!
Rep. Barton MUST be running for President in 2012!!!!
Lee Tompkins, BSN, is a labor and delivery nurse I met in September. She has been disturbed by the focus on the conspiracy and lack-of-focus on the medical implications of Governor Palin's fateful ride from Texas to Wasilla and subsequent birth of Trig in April 2007.
In light of the recent exploitation of that conspiracy by Palin herself, I am honored that Ms. Tomkins chose to write this article for our little blog. You've never seen an article like this one before because this is the first time someone in the medical profession has chosen to speak of it publicly.
The Birth of a Conspiracy; Delivering the Real Issue
by Lee Tompkins, BSN
"Captive Alien Held in Area 51 by U.S. Military!"
"Elvis Is Alive!"
"U.S. Government Fakes Moon Landings!"
"Sarah Palin Fakes Pregnancy, Claims Daughter's Child as Her Own!"
All very sexy headlines and all conspiracy theories that some continue to believe to this day. Are any of them true? Who knows? What is more interesting is how and why such claims are picked up and seized by a segment of the American public. The first three are ones that I can't really comment on but the Sarah Palin one I can, having watched the story closely from the time the Anchorage Daily News reported the curious story of Trig Palin's birth last April, and having the requisite background in the medical field as a labor and delivery nurse as well as the necessary swiftness of foot and mind to avoid stepping in any BS in the field.
To some extent these stories are all crazes that took hold because people wanted to believe them. The world has been enchanted with the idea of space aliens all the way from a love affair with H.G. Wells to the Great Gazoo. The idea of E.T. being held captive in Roswell was one that our Star Trek-Star Wars-Lost in Space generation of baby boomers would latch onto with all the fierceness of a lassoed Bantha.
Everybody loves Elvis. Who wouldn't want to see him alive and performing at the Sands in Vegas?
The faked Apollo moon landing theory rocketed during a time in which Americans had a high degree of distrust in the government, who were either trying to draft you to go fight a war in a rice paddy or up to their usual dirty tricks breaking into the Watergate hotel. Would it really be a stretch that such a government would totally fabricate their proudest, most historic achievement?
Which bridges us to the case of Sarah Palin.
Let me say categorically that I think the widely disseminated rumor that Sarah Palin is not the mother of her child Trig is totally false, although I know many well-informed and well-educated people who believe otherwise, and I certainly understand their theory.
I'm going to spend some time discussing the reasons why I think the Palin faked pregnancy story is not true, but first I think it is of interest to comment on why this story has really caught hold of the imagination of many.
Sarah Palin, after being thrust into the national consciousness as a Hail-Mary VP pass by McCain and the Republican Party, gave disastrous interviews with Charlie and Katie, which allowed the public begin to see the real unscripted Palin. All the while Troopergate was coming to head in Alaska, as well as other ethical issues dug up by a curious national news media. And a general consensus was formed about Sarah Palin by the public, and that consensus, held by all but her most ardent supporters, was that they disliked her. They saw her as phony, hypocritical and frightfully unprepared to be anywhere near the White House. She ended up with the highest negativity rating ever for any VP candidate, and an all-you-can-eat late night comedy feast.
So, the public loved Elvis and wanted to see him alive and there was a hopeful expectation that maybe he was still. And the general public disliked Sarah Palin and when the bizarre circumstances of the birth of her child Trig became generally known, the public wanted to believe that she was capable of faking a pregnancy in order to bolster her standing as a "family values" candidate by avoiding the baggage of a daughter who was about to become an unwed teenage mother. Avoiding that didn't quite work out for Palin as it turned out, but that didn't stop a vocal minority of conspiracy theorists to believe Palin capable of such chicanery earlier. The public wanted to believe the worst of Sarah Palin.
Which is kind of funny in a sad way when you think about it, because what the evidence very strongly suggests is that Palin was guilty of recklessly endangering the life of her unborn child, which to me is far worse than faking a pregnancy, to protect her political ambition and perhaps the reputation of her daughter. It's just not as sexy of a story, not one the public could latch onto with such fervor. Discussing ruptured membranes ain't exactly something to talk about at the dinner table. And since "life imitates art more than art imitates life" it's highly doubtful the Desperate Housewives' writers will be opening next season with one of the wives flying transcontinentally with preterm premature rupture of membranes.
If the video didn't dispell any claim that they are "neutral" in this issue, Shackelford is a Sarah Palin "true believer" as is evident from his response on a taped Focus on the Family broadcast to Palin being tapped as Vice Pres:
Dobson: Have you ever, in your life, seen as large a crowd of people give a standing ovation to [the Palin announcement on] CNN? Have you ever seen that happen?
Kelly Shackelford: I don't think so and the other thing is, a number of people literally had tears in their eyes. I think that there was such pent-up worry, prayer that had been going on for so long and they really felt like the Lord was answering those prayers with somebody who is pro-life, somebody who is committed to the definition of marriage and the issues that we believe in so strongly.
Yes, he actually said "...they really felt like the Lord was answering those prayers..."
In the same broadcast, he discusses his involvement in the Republican Party Platform Committee:
Dobson: Would you agree that this is the strongest pro-life platform in the history of the Republican Party?
Shackelford: There's no doubt. I was on that sub-committee and every pro-life leader who was there watching from Phyllis Schlafly to you name the pro-life group, they were all watching and they all said this is the strongest pro-life platform ever in the history of the party. We not only kept the famous plank that was put in during the time of Ronald Reagan, but we added additional strong language that made it even stronger. It was really incredible to be a part of this and I will affirm what Gary said; this is my third platform committee in a row and it was different than the last ones. The McCain campaign not only did not fight us as severely as the last campaigns did but they actually were in favor of the platform becoming more conservative because they knew that's where the people were.
All partisanship, all the time from another group of outsiders infesting our state! But what about the Alaska attorney, Kevin Clarkson?
