Open Thread: Blueberries

The Todd Purdum piece (0.00 / 0)

For whatever reason, as I started to read Todd Purdum's piece on Palin in Vanity Fair, I felt a twinge of reserve. I expected a hatchet job that I would feel obligated to write about later.

Well, I am about halfway through it and happy to report I was wrong. It is a riveting piece of reporting. The only thing that's a bit slippery is his tendency to say things like "that struck some people in Alaska as odd," one page after making the point that Alaska is not like America.

The first thing McCain could have learned about Palin is what it means that she is from Alaska. More than 30 years ago, John McPhee wrote, "Alaska is a foreign country significantly populated with Americans. Its languages extend to English. Its nature is its own. Nothing seems so unexpected as the boxes marked 'U.S. Mail.'" That description still fits. The state capital, Juneau, is 600 miles from the principal city, Anchorage, and is reachable only by air or sea. Alaskan politicians list the length of their residency in the state (if they were not born there) at the top of their biographies, and are careful to specify whether they like hunting, fishing, or both. There is little sense of government as an enduring institution: when the annual 90-day legislative session is over, the legislators pack up their offices, files, and computers, and take everything home. Alaska's largest newspaper, the Anchorage Daily News, maintains no full-time bureau in Juneau to cover the statehouse. As in any resource-rich developing country with weak institutions and woeful oversight, corruption and official misconduct go easily unchecked. Scrutiny is not welcome, and Alaskans of every age and station, of every race and political stripe, unself-consciously refer to every other place on earth with a single word: Outside.

So, of all the puzzling things that Sarah Palin told the American public last fall, perhaps the most puzzling was this: "Believe me, Alaska is like a microcosm of America."

Believe me, it is not.

http://www.vanityfair.com/poli...

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by: JimC @ Fri Jul 10, 2009 at 09:50:34 AM CDT

PS on that (0.00 / 0)

She's dangerous. Willing to lie and to punish "enemies" at the slightest provocation.

Example: She told McCain's people she and Todd went without health insurance at one point. She meant to use that to relate to regular people.

McCain's people checked with Todd -- telling, that detail -- and he said they had catastrophic insurance at that time. When they went back to Sarah, she said catastrophic insurance didn't count, they should use the story anyway.

Troopergate: Remember the detail about the fired guy using a Taser? Well, that's indefensible, but it was not related to his dismissal. He had already been punished for that. They rehashed that to build the case.

I am right at the point where the McCain staff is soul searching over their "survivor guilt" that they spent so much time and energy and money trying to elect an unqualified candidate.

Great stuff! (Especially since we won.)

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by: JimC @ Fri Jul 10, 2009 at 10:00:19 AM CDT

"Blockbuster Season" for blueberries (0.00 / 0)

http://www.seacoastonline.com/...

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by: cmnh @ Fri Jul 10, 2009 at 11:38:12 AM CDT

Mine are getting close too (0.00 / 0)

and more loaded with berries than I can ever recall. Combination of plenty of bees this year, weather, and the loss of competition (and partial shade) from a nearby apple that was lost in the ice storm.

Time to cover 'em before the birds get them all!

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by: GreyMike @ Fri Jul 10, 2009 at 11:54:15 AM CDT

Why? (0.00 / 0)

Do folks post on diaries, often multiple times, and not rec the diary? If you think it is worth engaging, is it not worth promoting?


www.KusterforCongress.com  

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by: Jack Mitchell @ Fri Jul 10, 2009 at 14:58:03 PM CDT

I often forget to do that (0.00 / 0)

in the heat of passion, disgust, whatever. Usually it's just plain being forgetful. Not sure why others don't.

Thanks for the reminder, Jack. It's a very useful feature.

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by: GreyMike @ Fri Jul 10, 2009 at 19:51:54 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

Looking for the aftertaste (4.00 / 2)

It must be on charcoal they fatten their fruit.
I taste in them sometimes the flavor of soot.

There is no hidden key with Frost that suddenly reveals what The Poet (thank you, Justice Souter, I believe we'll keep calling him that) meant.

There are instead hints and echoes and grins - sly? sad? - that don't object if you walk alongside as The Poet considers things.

Yes, I've heard that blueberries grow best after a killing fire.

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by: elwood @ Fri Jul 10, 2009 at 18:34:10 PM CDT

I find it frustrating, (4.00 / 1)

You leave the land alone, the berry bushes start to grow like crazy.  It's great!

But then grass and weeds and white pine saplings come up too, and start to obscure.

You really do need the fire, which means starting all over.

As for what he meant, I don't know. But the intentional marriage of destruction with fecundity, as in soot and fat fruit, is a feature of my other Poet, Vergil.

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by: Dean Barker @ Fri Jul 10, 2009 at 20:00:27 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

Good news, bad news (4.00 / 1)

Bad news first: The Bush administration was perfectly willing to oppress us.

The good news: It was too stupid to do so.

http://washingtonindependent.c...

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by: JimC @ Sat Jul 11, 2009 at 04:59:25 AM CDT

Umm (0.00 / 0)

Gaffe? (in the classic Washington sense, blurting the truth)

Cry for help?

http://thinkprogress.org/2009/...

Give Brooks credit for one thing; he is unique.

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by: JimC @ Sat Jul 11, 2009 at 05:03:05 AM CDT

Going to see Bruno? (0.00 / 0)

I'm kind of enjoying the reaction to Bruno. When Madonna's Sex book came out, someone observed (in the Phoenix, I think) that a lot of critics were afraid to say they were offended by the book, because that would make them look old and stodgy. So they said it was "boring." But, the writer noted, here was one of the most famous women in America striking over the top provocative poses and doing things that would get her arrested if she did them on the street. It was offensive.

With Bruno, it's like, Well, yes, he should make fun of homophobia, but he shouldn't be so queeny about it, because someone -- you know, one of those homophobic people -- might laugh at the queeniness and miss the point. David Edelstein's review on NPR yesterday parsed a scene line by line. To paraphrase, poorly: "That was funny, and worth doing. And that was funny too, but just gratuitous." And he's one of the good critics.

And so it goes. Well, at least we integrated our swimming pools. Oh wait ...  

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by: JimC @ Sat Jul 11, 2009 at 05:34:06 AM CDT

DeCheneyization (4.00 / 1)

Yeah, OK, Leon. Now what?

The Central Intelligence Agency withheld information about a secret counterterrorism program from Congress for eight years on direct orders from former Vice President Dick Cheney, the agency's director, Leon E. Panetta, has told the Senate and House intelligence committees, two people with direct knowledge of the matter said Saturday.

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by: JimC @ Sun Jul 12, 2009 at 08:52:26 AM CDT

Say what? (4.00 / 1)

John McCain, on Meet the Press via NPR.

"I'd rather not investigate until we know all the facts."

I guess the facts will arrive by mail.

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by: JimC @ Sun Jul 12, 2009 at 16:16:14 PM CDT

Between him and Judd out in full force, (4.00 / 1)

methinks they're not happy about this one bit.

But then again, my grandchildren will probably have grandchildren when this country finally decides Dick Cheney should probably belong in a jail cell.

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by: Dean Barker @ Sun Jul 12, 2009 at 17:38:08 PM CDT

[ Parent ]