Sarah Palin Strikes Again

Sarah Palin just doesn't seem to like Alaska much these days. She's coming back to the lower 48 this week-end to attend the annual Alfalfa Club dinner in Washington where she'll break bread tonight with President Obama and a host of other political and social luminaries. Seems like she was just in Washington the other day trashing the liberal media and setting up her new Political Action Committee. Oh well, Palin's newly formed PAC will pick up the travel tab no doubt. Maybe they'll even pay for a new dress.

Though the press is traditionally barred from the event, I bet a clandestine video will surface somewhere on the internet tomorrow or the next day and there are bound to be enterprising reporters getting interviews with attendees. Sarah Palin's name will be on everyone's lips.

Meanwhile, back in Alaska people are asking questions. The locals aren't so happy about the fact that Palin is spending more time positioning herself for 2012 than taking care of state business. Her office has stonewalled a request for emails relating to Troopergate for six months and gone are the days when Palin walked around the office with her daughter Piper handing out bagels to staffers. Who's minding the store?

I'm betting on Sarah Palin to spend even more time getting her ducks in a row on the banks of the Potomac as the year progresses. Pass the popcorn. This should be fun.

Is Iceland The Canary in the Mine?

The people of Iceland have had it with their government. Since the country's dizzying plunge into bankruptcy this fall, they have been quietly and stolidly protesting every Saturday outside the Parliament building in downtown Reykjavik. Icelanders believe, quite rightly, that they have been betrayed by those whom they trusted to guide their ship of state.

Week after week people from all walks of life have gathered in protest. Week after week the government has ignored the people. Wednesday's protest culminated in a riot complete with police, pepper spray and the pelting of Prime Minister, Geir Haarde's, car by demonstrators. Today Geir Haarde effectively resigned for health reasons. Elections will be held in May. The people have spoken loud and clear. Their voice has been heard.

I hope the lesson of the tiny nation that got turned into a hedge fund while the people weren't looking will not be lost on the rest of the world. We are all teetering on the brink. Even Uncle Sam could go down after eight years of Bush incompetence and cronyism. Iceland is just the canary in the coal mine. Make a note, world. Governments govern only by the consent of the governed. Once that consent is withdrawn, change will come either through the ballot or the barrel of a gun. Better the former than the latter.

Iceland is taking the high road. I hope the rest of the world can profit from its example.

English Language Blogs from Iceland

The Iceland Weather Report -- informed opinion from Reykjavik
Iceland Banking Crisis and More -- on the scene videos and reports
Economic Disaster Area -- the politics and economics explained

Riding On Amtrak with Obama

I rode with Obama on Amtrak yesterday-- all the way from Philly to Washington. My body was planted in front of my TV, but my mind and my spirit were riding the Amtrak train. People of all sorts lined the route, waving, smiling, laughing as the train went by. The camera recorded them all, but the ones that moved me most were the faces of color.

The entire African-American experience was synthesized in the wave of a hand, the flash of a smile. The joy, hope and pride were palpable, along with the legacy of pain and suffering. All along the way, at scheduled stops and lining the tracks, the crowd was a polyglot patchwork of the American dream--a racial rainbow of my countrymen cheering on our hope for tomorrow. I felt my oneness with them come right through the TV screen.

The cameras took me inside the train and recorded the nation's first African-American President, a man who is himself a powerful symbol of America. Barack Obama is all of us. He is a man of color who spent nine months in the womb of a white woman. On his father's side he is a symbol of the immigrant experience. On his mother's, the values of the heartland. He is the personification of the founding fathers dream of an "aristocracy of merit". He was not born to wealth and privilege. He has no powerful family connections. He is living proof that in America, any child, of any race or creed, can dream of growing up to become President.

Something profound happened on that train yesterday as it retraced the route Lincoln took to his inauguration in 1861. An ancient American wound inflicted by the enslaving of one race by another began to heal. Barack Obama turned black and white into red,white, and blue. Riding on Amtrak with Obama made me proud to be an American for the first time in quite a while.

A Beautiful Winter Poem

(A beautiful winter poem that may bring some comfort.)

" WINTER "

by Abigail Elizabeth McIntyre


Crap! It's Cold

What's Up With Joe The Plumber?

Joe Wurzelbacher, aka Joe the Plumber got his show biz start just a few months ago when he asked a question about taxes for small businessmen like himself at an Obama rally in Ohio. Joe 's star rose quickly and soon he was on the campaign trail with McCain and Palin, talking book deals and TV contracts and a political career. So much for plumbing-- actually, on closer inspection it turned out that Joe wasn't even really a plumber, did not own a plumbing business and actually owed back taxes to the state of Ohio.


Joe the Plumber's latest gig is as a reporter in Israel, covering the Gaza conflict for Pajamas Media He's been in Israel for three days now and so far has managed to report very little on the conflict, but has made a great start on getting publicity for himself and bashing the mainstream media. Let's see, Joe is a war correspondent who is criticizing war correspondents. Sounds to me like Joe has a little self-destructive streak going there. Check out pajamastv for the latest frontline dispatches. This guy is a genius at shooting himself in the foot.

Joe has already won an award for his journalistic prowess. Last night Keith Obermann gave him the Worst Person in the World Award.

I think Joe should give up TV Journalism and go straight for a political career. It's clear that's where his natural talent lies.

God Guns and Gaza

Israel has been pounding Gaza for eleven days now-- first by air and now by land as well. The images become more horrifying every day. Tuesday, the New York Times reported that 30 civilians, including women and children, were killed in an Israeli bombing raid near a United Nations School in Gaza. The UN had opened its schools in Gaza to refugees and then, according to the article, gave the coordinates to the Israelis. Next thing you know it was bombs away. Aha, but wait. Here's the Israeli side of the story. According to them, Hamas was targeting the Israeli army and shelling it from inside the school, using the civilian population as protection. It's probably true. Israel swears it is not targeting civilians, just going after Hamas to stop them from lobbing lethal missiles into Israel and killing Israeli civilians. Hamas, for its part, is out to wipe Israel off the map and makes no bones about it. Each side says it is only protecting itself and that the other is the aggressor.

The history of the present conflict is written in the blood of both Israelis and Palestinians in a painful trail that leads from the Brits who threw up their hands in 1948 and left the region, to the army of the newborn nation of Israel which defeated five Arab armies to claim its ancestral homeland the old fashioned way, by conquest. Israel has lived by the sword ever since, knowing that only its military invincibility keeps it safe. For the last year and a half, since it left Gaza and dismantled its settlements, Israel has imposed a punishing embargo in the name of national safety. The result has been a political pressure cooker and a lot of human suffering in Gaza. The situation is a lose /lose for everybody. Gaza is only one morsel of meat in a bitter stew of anger and revenge that is endlessly spiced and stirred by both sides.

At base, each group is saying to the other " you're on my land, get out" and at base each side just wants what we all want--a chance to live in dignity, raise a family, and die in peace. It shouldn't be so hard--but it is. Each side blames the other and claims innocence for itself.

Truth is always the first casualty of war, but whose truth is the real truth? In this case both sides believe they are right but when I look at all the pictures of dead babies and grieving parents, all I can think is: God help Gaza. God help Israel and God help us all.