Unraveling......

[Update midnight: I'm taking down my original post. I heard a story from a person I trust and it was generally confirmed by a second person I trust. The first person said the rumors were on the internet. I found bits and pieces here, here , here , here , here, and here. When I posted this I thought the story was already out there and I was making comments about Palin based on the story. But as I read Philip at Progressive Alaska commenting on the post, I realize that the story isn't out there, just rumors. While I trust my sources, I don't have enough independent information to nail this. So I'll drop my editorial based on this and just offer the basic allegation.

Four high school students were arrested for vandalizing school buses in Wasilla in 2005.

Deryck Harris, 18, and the other three boys - ages 16, 17 and 17 - were each charged with third-degree criminal mischief, first-degree criminal trespass and conspiracy to commit criminal mischief, troopers said. The 16-year-old was also charged with fourth-degree theft and furnishing alcohol to a minor, for allegedly stealing a bottle of vodka from the liquor store at Tesoro 2-Go in Wasilla.

“They stopped at a liquor store where he went in and stole a bottle of vodka and provided it to the others in the group,” Wilkinson said. “Three of the four boys consumed alcohol.”

Troopers did not release names of the juvenile suspects, but David Coon's mother confirmed her son was one of two Burchell High School students involved in the incident. The other two boys are Wasilla High School students.

We also have this story from Detroit's Free Press:

Her oldest son, Track, lived in Portage [Michigan] during most of his senior year in high school. He played junior major hockey. During an interview at the National Governors Association conference in 2007, she told a Free Press reporter that her son went back to Alaska in March to graduate with his class.

Thanks to Lavender Liberal for the previous two links.

The story I was told is that Track Palin was one of them and that he chose to enter the army rather than go to jail (or have a record?).

My original post assumed that this had been confirmed through other sources. I'm assuming the court records of a minor are sealed and that the family doesn't want to discuss this. But a lot of people know about this, including, one would assume, a certain ex-brother-in-law who is a state trooper. But releasing sealed information would surely be grounds for dismissal. Oh this gets curiouser and curiouser.

Discussing politician's children, as Obama has emphasized, should generally be off limits. But if Palin chooses to brag about her son's patriotism joining the military and going to Iraq to make herself a more attractive candidate, then she cannot legitimately say that her children's less flattering behaviors are off limits.

My main source is someone I trust and who is in a position to know something like this. That source discussed this as though it were well known. So I'll leave it at this. Others can pursue it further, but I'm taking down what I originally posted, which assumed this was a certainty.

I apologize to Anonymous (not sure if it was the same Anon twice) for taking down your comments that were based on the original post. Here is part of one of the comments that is Anon's own reflections:

...I have to laugh-- in Anchorage the kids I knew had a high contempt for their parents running for public office, but they all grew up an went to college-- none that I knew actually vandalized anything. We drank in their offices and would sneak wine from their cellars, but this is really classic.

Another later post by (another?) Anon adds documented, factual information and so I'll leave it.]

[UPDATE Sept 21, 2015:  This post today at Immoral Minority claims that yes, Track was part of the group that broke in, but he didn't cut the bus brakes lines.  I knew I'd written a post on this, so I came back here to say that it was reported he wasn't involved in cutting the brakes.  But as I look at this post, there is nothing here that mentions bus brakes.  Instead, this story, if correct, confirms what I wrote seven years ago about Track being part of the group of vandals.  It does not offer evidence of an agreement with the military to avoid jail.]

Nowhere

Dennis Zaki forwarded this picture.



Last night and last Friday she touted how she'd sent the money back to DC and "if we wanted a bridge, we'd build it ourselves." Great politics, and she did make that sort of speech, but late in the process. But I liked her for doing it. It was good for the world to hear our governor rejecting extravagant earmarks.

But then we get this picture. But Dennis, it's all about context. I'm guessing someone in Ketchikan gave her this sweatshirt and as a gracious gift receiver she 'tried it on' right there. I don't know that's the case, but I also don't know it isn't.

I started this post yesterday and wasn't sure that there was really enough here to make a decent post. Until I read the Anchorage Daily News Letters today. They published 11 letters on Palin. One was positive. But more to the point was this one about Palin in Ketchikan:

Having just finished watching the Wednesday evening edition of the Republican National Convention as well as Gov. Palin's speech, I must express my dismay at the nasty, mean-spirited tone and words used by the speakers. There was hypocrisy contained in Palin's claim to have told Washington "Thanks but no thanks for that Bridge to Nowhere," when she went to Ketchikan during her run for governor and told the people there she felt their pain at being told they were nowhere and that she and they would "make a good team as we progress that bridge project." When Congress removed the earmark language for the bridge but left the money, Palin used it elsewhere and has yet to go back to Ketchikan to explain her decision to the people as promised.

Palin is quick to adopt the "slash and burn" tactics employed by her political party in elections. The "outsider" is rapidly working her way "inside."

-- Gwen Burson

Girdwood

Oh, yes, 99901 is Ketchikan.

"The boy whose descendants came on the Mayflower..."

[This is when I turned on the tv]

So last night, Palin blasted Obama. Tonight it sounds like McCain is blasting the Bush administration. For example, he's not going to pass problems on to future generations. He just isn't mentioning any names.

OK, now McCain is going after Obama, in the most simplistic terms possible. "My plan will cut taxes, his plan will raise them."

Part of me would love McCain to win just to see how he's going to handle all the bills coming due from the Bush administration. And those bills are going to make it much harder for an Obama administration as well.

"Immigration is the civil rights issue of this century." And they applauded. Do they know what he said? He's slid into school reform. So what was he trying to say about immigration? School choice, mmmmm. Vouchers. That means the best students can get out of the public school system, leaving the public schools with the kids the private schools won't deal with.

Now he's attacking unions. Didn't Palin proudly say her husband was a union member?

We're going to stop sending money to countries that don't like us very much. Lots of cheering.

We'll produce more energy at home. We'll drill those off shore oil wells now. Lots of cheering.

Nuclear power, clean coal, wind, solar, electric automobiles. (These are things a candidate should have been pushing ten years ago.) Obama says we can do this without nuclear and coal. But Americans know better than that. (Obama's apparently not an American.)

I will do all I can to build the foundations for a stable and enduring peace. (I can support that.)

We need to change the way government does almost everything. (Hmmmm, Bush takes it on the chin here I guess.) We have to catch up to history and change the way we do business in Washington. The constant partisan rancor that stops us from solving the problems isn't the cause, it's a symptom. It's people coming to Washington to serve themselves that's the problem. (This is pretty good.)

I have the scars to prove it. Obama does not. (Is he going to pull open his shirt and show the scars?)

A bi-partisan pitch. (Good. I remember Bush saying he'd do that too. But I believe McCain more than I believed Bush.)

There was a lot of good stuff in the speech - mostly the stuff that called for change in Washington, for working together, going beyond partisanship. Hmmm, sounds familiar. Isn't that what Obama's been talking about all this long campaign?

Meanwhile Democracy Now is reporting that the police state outside the convention is arresting protesters. Last night they said there were broken windows. Given what we've learned about the Bush administration, I wouldn't be surprised if we learned that they also infiltrated the protests and instigated the violence so there would be a good reason to crack down on the protesters. (It's amazing how the Republicans can say how bad government is and come up with all sorts of conspiracy theories, but when Democrats complain they are delusional.)

What we need is a shepherd, not a pitbull

Former Anchorage, current Buffalo, NY rabbi, Harry Rosenfeld, told me he thought what we needed was NOT an attack dog, but a shepherd that watches over the flock and protects it when there's danger.

Shepherd photo source
Pit Bull Photo source 1and source 2

Words of the Day - Duplicitous

From Word-Net Dictionary

Adj. 1. duplicitous - marked by deliberate deceptiveness especially by pretending one set of feelings and acting under the influence of another; "she was a deceitful scheming little thing"- Israel Zangwill; "a double-dealing double agent"; "a double-faced infernal traitor and schemer"- W.M.Thackeray
Synonyms: double-dealing, double-tongued, two-faced, Janus-faced, double-faced, ambidextrous, deceitful

The Republican thought control machine is working hard to turn sins, that they themselves have denounced opponents for, into strengths.

• After non-stop attacks on Obama as lacking the experience to be a President, they have chosen a VP candidate with experience as a mayor of a small town and governor for less than two years.
• Palin's announcement that her 17 year old daughter was unmarried and pregnant, has been turned into 'real demonstration of her pro-life ideals' and 'something we can all identify with.'
  

Consistency is irrelevant. I believe that probably many people generally do not think in abstract principles so that when their ideal is contradicted, they often don't see the contradiction. They don't see that their strong principle in one area has been violated in another area. Others are clearly spinning the truth to favor their position. For example:

Vision America, founded by Pastor Rick Scarborough, posts on its website:

Abstinence education works; condom distribution in the schools is playing Russian roulette with the lives of our children

From Focus on the Family idol James Dobson:

The real reason that teen birthrates are declining is that young people have rediscovered abstinence.

The Heritage Foundation on abstinence education:

Abstinence education programs for youth have been proven to be effective in reducing early sexual activity. Abstinence programs also can provide the foundation for personal responsibility and enduring marital commitment. Therefore, they are vitally important to efforts aimed at reducing out-of-wedlock childbearing among young adult women, improving child well-being, and increasing adult happiness over the long term.[emphasis added]

But after Palin's revelation of her upcoming grandmotherhood, we hear this sort of thing


From the New York Times:

“Families get in trouble all the time,” said Rick Scarborough, a pastor and the founder of the conservative advocacy group Vision America. “From what I see this family is dealing with it honorably. They are going to carry this baby to a full term as a further testimony of their commitment to life.”

“The media is already trying to spin this as evidence that Governor Palin is a hypocrite,” said James C. Dobson, the founder of Focus on the Family. “But all it really means is that she and her family are human.”

“I am a high school coach, I interact with 17-year-olds every day,” said Fergus Cullen, the New Hampshire Republican chairman. “And there are a lot of parents out there of 17-year-old high school students. If anything, this is a reminder that Sarah Palin is a real person who has the same experiences that regular Americans do.

From NPR:

"We all have ghosts in our closet," says mortgage banker Reif. . . Hearing the reports that Palin's unmarried daughter Bristol is pregnant, Reif says, "showed me that she is more like us."

I didn't hear anything about ghosts when they pulled out Lewinsky's blue dress.

"More like us"??????????

Unmarried pregnant teenagers are so common that Palin's daughter connects her with the common people???? These are Republicans talking and they aren't talking about their normal poster child for unmarried mothers - African-Americans - they are talking about themselves. This is amazing!!! Does that mean that all the stuff they've been saying about abstinence education is bunk? And that they've known all along it doesn't work?

These are people in serious denial.

I'm sorry that Bristol is pregnant at 17 and unmarried. It's not a moral thing about sex on my part, but rather, at 17, she should be growing up and having fun and studying and preparing to take a responsible role in her community. This is all going to make it much harder for her and Levi not to mention the baby. (I recognize that in past eras, people got married at younger ages, but they also didn't go to college or even finish high school.)

Will anyone of them admit it might have been better if Levi had used a condom? That maybe sex education that reflected the reality of life, that teenage pregnancy is so common that Republican delegates can relate to a candidate with a pregnant daughter? Or does this simply prove that we are all sinners?


This is an example of duplicity. This is not about finding the truth, finding areas we can agree on, 'being Americans not Republicans" as they also said last night. This is about winning at all costs. This is about twisting the truth, stretching our principles, to win. That isn't to say that the Democrats don't do this as well, but I'd like to see more Republicans do what Obama did. He didn't grab this tidbit of Republican duplicity and run with it to his advantage. Instead he said, "Family issues are off limits." That isn't something Republicans are good at.

Guliani and Palin Pandering

I'm afraid our governor has now begun to shill for the worst instincts of the Republican party. Today's speech was full of clever, but meaningless, phrases, nasty distortions, and belittling. The Republicans in the last two elections have found the effectiveness of appealing to fear, and making up their own facts. Giuliani was plain mean and brutish. Palin wasn't much better. When she talked about herself it was one speech, but then she went after Obama and she was just the reader. The belittling of community organizing was just the start. There was no real content, just diatribe against Obama.

One example - I'll let the rest of the blog world take apart most of the speech. She blasted Obama for telling people in one town one thing and in another town something else. But I recall that what she told the people in Juneau about moving the capital was different from what she told the people in Wasilla.

And all this nonsense about having more administrative experience than the whole Democratic ticket is pure make believe. It means nothing. If Palin thinks that being Mayor of the town she grew up in that had issues she's known since childhood prepares her to be Vice President, she's delusional. I've already posted that I think what she did with AGIA was impressive. But her rescue of the failing Dairy was itself a failure. The Monehan firing demonstrates how being small town mayor didn't teach her the rules of the merit system and rule of law.

Some of the rhetorical devices they used included: ad hominem attack, straw man, ciruclar arguments. While you're at it, just look at the whole index of fallacies.

Listen Online to Palin Accept the Nomination

For those who want to watch Sarah Palin talk live at the Republican Convention:
[Update 9/4/08: You can listen to the speech here.]

Free video streaming by Ustream

Watching Boats at the Washington Park Arboretum

Monday, in Seattle, M wanted to get pictures of a freeway ramp that was covered with grass that ends abruptly in the Lake Washington Arboretum. She couldn't find exactly what she was looking for, but this one was close.





Then we wandered around the trails. The park is just across the drawbridge south of the UW campus. There's a lock nearby where boats come in from Puget Sound. There are meandering bodies of water, full of water lilies an kayakers and canoes.



















The 270 freeway goes right through the park. This is under the freeway just before the tunnel under it. I went kayaking here New Years day, 2007 I think, with M's boyfriend. It was strange kayaking under a freeway.










Here's a leaf hanging by a thread - a spider web thread I think. Then we got out by the lake and sat on the grass and spent a few hours talking and watching the boats go by. Marty, I hope you're looking at this. Then you can point out which of these is like the one you want to buy.













We had sun more than we didn't.











I fumbled with my camera as the bald eagle flew toward us from the water and landed up in this tree. Here's another good example of the wild life amongst us that most people don't ever see. The eagle is that lump up on the left - if you follow the branch up toward the end. If I hadn't seen it land, I'm sure I wouldn't have known it was there







Then we wandered back to the car, via the Arboretum visitor center. Which was closed. But fortunately, the restrooms were still open.


















Here are mother and daughter strolling through the big trees.

Zum, Chaco, and Plums

Seattle has all sorts of artsy places. I like the look of this, but for a fitness center it seems a little pretentious.



Then we went to lunch at Chaco Canyon. Nice to be able to get tasty vegetarian, even vegan food. Then we went off to the Arboretum and enjoyed the often sunny afternoon. But I'll post that later. Below are some of the plums on the tree in front of the house where my daughter lives.

As usual, you can double click any picture to enlarge it.
We're in Juneau now where we had a chance to visit J and M for a couple of hours. J has a new Prius, but I'll put that picture up here later.

Oh Dear

As a blogger, I tend to understate things, and to crawl to conclusions. As I wrote in my earlier post on the Palin nomination, when I first heard her campaign for governor, I thought she was in over her head. But her standing up to the oil companies and the passage of AGIA gave her lots of points in my book. That ties to a larger issue of importance for me - the power of large corporation - and whatever her other possible failings, this was, for me, a powerful achievement by an Alaskan politician. It was only the first step, but it was a giant step compared to what other governors did with the oil companies.

My initial posts were an attempt to offer a balance of what she'd done well, with some suggestions that there were also some weaknesses that had come out. My positive marks on her speech were not so much an endorsement of her, but my belief that she had delivered exactly the right message to the target audience. Having underestimated her once before, I was suppressing my original gut reaction, that she was in over her head. I figured what would happen would happen. I thought I had bent over backwards to be fair to her, yet one commenter chided me,

Why not give Palin the time to be vetted fairly and fully as she surely will be, in the court of public opinion?

But others thought I'd gone over to the dark side. Chicago Dyke offered a list of Alaska bloggers for people doing oppo research that was sent to her from an Alaskan contact. It described the blog this way:

What Do I Know — http://whatdoino-steve.blogspot.com/ — Normally Democratic blogger who has been very supportive of Palin and Palin’s pick by McCain. I’d be careful…

[9/2/08 5pm - It was late last night. I would say that I look at the world from a perspective that would be closer to Democratic than Republican, but that this is NOT a Democratic blog in the sense that I only say good things about Dems and bad things about Repubs. I have pointed out that Palin had more to her than I originally thought, but I don't remember posting anything that said I supported her being picked as VP.] I don't know how much being out of state when all this hit affected my coverage. I've been out and about visiting with friends and doing things away from the computer. My drafts are still drafts as I have tried to figure out ways to talk about my misgivings objectively. The jobs duty post was one quick attempt to do that. But I just haven't taken the time to do it right.

In any case, I missed all of today's news visiting with friends and my daughter most of the day. Progressive Alaska suggests that things are starting to unravel quickly. It looks like McCain's Hail Mary pass, as one tv commentator reported it, isn't going to result in a touchdown, and it may well be intercepted.

If that's the case, then McCain's rash decision making will be revealed as a failure. Palin's acceptance of the nomination when she wasn't nearly ready will have cost her dearly. How will this affect the oil companies' ability to scuttle AGIA? How's McCain get out of this mess?