Gators
You can see in the photo what they use to attract the gators at the old Chevron boardwalk.
Proverbs 10: 4 - 5
He who has a slack hand becomes poor,
But the hand of the diligent makes rich.
He who gathers in summer is a wise son;
He who sleeps in harvest is a son who causes shame.
Too much about indolence for my taste. I’m not lazy. I just have a very slow metabolism, and therefore not much energy. Does this work?
The reclusive leftist comes to the defense of Sarah Palin.
This link is the whole blog. Surprisingly, it’s a feminist, leftist blog. Feminists don’t have a great name with me because they harbor so much hatred. But at the foundation they are thinking women with strong opinions they can express well. No movement is uniformly anything. The individuals may not adhere precisely to the party line. This is an honest reverie on the crazy, irrational hatred of Sarah Palin. I’m first of all surprised to find that there is sanity within. Violet asks honestly, “why is it that most leftist feminists truly hate Sarah Palin?” She starts from a comment she posted at another blog.
It seems that some blamers know that the bullshit published about Palin (and unfortunately repeated here) was just that — bullshit. Palin considers herself a feminist, and except for the abortion thing, she’s more explicitly feminist than the average American. When a regular Jane with that kind of background proclaims her feminist sympathies, it doesn’t seem terribly productive to ridicule her or indulge in the misogynist slander put out by the political hacks running against her.
From there she really tries to find the emotional source of all the slander, the hatred.
But even weirder is what happens when you try to replace the myths with the truth. If you explain, “no, she didn’t charge rape victims,” your feminist interlocutor will come back with something else: “she’s abstinence-only!” No, you say, she’s not; and then the person comes back with, “she’s a creationist!” and so on. “She’s an uneducated moron!” Actually, Sarah Palin is not dumb at all, and based on her interviews and comments, I’d say she has a greater knowledge of evolution, global warming, and the Wisconsin glaciation in Alaska than the average citizen.
But after you’ve had a few of these myth-dispelling conversations, you start to realize that it doesn’t matter. These people don’t hate Palin because of the lies; the lies exist to justify the hate.
If the topic interests you, as Sarah Palin is in the news again, read through some of the hundreds of comments and the comment threads. Of course many of her commenters openly hate Christians, and many of the things that I identify with, but there are some interesting reflections there.
My reaction to SP withdrawing from the Alaska governorship is that if she’s ambitious politically, and that appears to be the case, then it’s risky but may pay off. If her first instincts are to protect some young children, her youngest and her daughter’s child from the hatred of people who realized it was totally unfair to go after Obama’s children, but couldn’t be hateful enough about a Down syndrome baby and a child born out of wedlock; then power to her. She’s certainly got every right to retire and act like a mama bear to protect those she loves. She shouldn’t have to. (The bitter old comedian who thinks rape jokes are funny should be retired too.) But she’s playing with the big boys and they play a particularly destructive game. Go for her, fine. But leave the kids out of it.
Sarah Palin became a lightening rod for some very ugly parts of our body politic. Do we hate ourselves and one another so much that we need a public execution to propitiate our guilt?
Personally I’m glad of my Christianity. Jesus was just such a lightening rod, but he stayed the course and allowed himself to be sacrificed. It’s been done before. SP doesn’t need to offer herself or her children up to our craziest instincts.
July 7th, 2009 at 7:58 am
Sarah Palin’s tenure as governor has many questionable decisions in the record having to do with misuse of power (employee issues, government contracts for building) and misuse or misappropriation of funds. One wonders if her resignation might also be a last effort to avoid further investigation and/or charges on these matters. Announcing her resignation at 4 p.m. before a government holiday weekend might even have some significance, hoping the headlines will cool off before the working folk are back to work? She lost me in the respect for knowledge bowl when she could not, on a national TV interview, name ONE decision the supreme court had made.
July 7th, 2009 at 3:52 pm
I second Linda’s thoughts on this.
July 7th, 2009 at 8:41 pm
Ok, so I just shouldn’t have piggybacked on to Linda. Here’s something else to make my point:
Since announcing that she would resign as governor of Alaska, Sarah Palin (R) has been blaming her decision on the ‘main stream media’ and political operatives who accused her of ‘all sorts of frivolous ethics violations.’ Last year, Palin pointedly criticized Hillary Clinton during the presidential election for complaining about ‘excess criticism’ and being put under ‘a sharper microscope’:
PALIN: When I hear a statement like that coming from a woman candidate with any kind of perceived whine about that excess criticism or you know maybe a sharper microscope put on her, I think, “Man that doesn’t do us any good — women in politics, women in general wanting to progress this country.” I don’t think it bodes well for her, a statement like that. Because, again, fair or unfair, it is there, I think that’s reality, and I think it’s a given. I think people can just accept that she is going to be under the sharper microscope. So be it. I mean, work harder, prove yourself to an even greater degree that you’re capable, that you’re going to be the best candidate, and that of course is what she wants us to believe at this point.
CUZ SARA: Hmmmmm, says I.
July 9th, 2009 at 6:26 am
Ditto Sara! Christians don’t have to be ignorant unless they choose that path.