Juno from Juneau

The internet has tackled every angle of the Sarah Palin story. I have little more to contribute. But this being a totally labor-free, Labor-Day Eve, I'm just sitting around picking sand from Stinson Beach out of my eye and arguing with 'Pockets about how to arrange the wires connecting our TV and cable box, so wtf. Why not? Bravely into the echo chamber...

1) She's okay-looking, I guess. Who am I to argue, but can we all just calm down with the Tina Fey comparisons? Yes, they both have brown hair and wear glasses, but the similarities end there -- both physical and substantive. While the 80's were a lot kinder to Sarah Palin than they were to Tina Fey, the millenium is all about the latter. It would be impossible and inappropriate to list her virtues and accomplishments here, but among them are Werewolf Bar Mitzvah and Who Dat Ninja?, and among them are not early and vocal support for the Bridge to Nowhere and an asshole commitment to ANWR drilling. Come on, America, I know you think every woman with spectacles and bangs plays for team sexy librarian, but let's try to tell them apart.

2) What's going on with identity politics in our country? The community organizer who married the independent lady with a collegiate interest in black consciousness runs on the Democratic ticket and transcends race, while the pro-life, shotgun-wielding beauty queen who thought Hillary was whining and didn't know what a Vice-President does now wants to shatter that highest, hardest ceiling. I can't wait to see future iterations of this phenomenon: the Arab-American who wants to double the size of Guantanamo, the gay man who himself thinks he's headed straight for hell. (I'm talking to you, Charlie Crist.)

3) Now the juicy stuff: Pardon the crassness, but there seems to be a raging debate about whether Sarah Palin hails from MILF Island or GMILF Island? Blog reader Anat asked us to cover the rumor that Caribou gov is not the mother of her youngest child, but is in fact covering for her eldest daughter. But we live in a time of abbreviated news cycles, and today even Daily Kos did a post on the story, so go there to read up on it.

Now, I have no real opinion -- I'm not particularly offended by the rampant spread of the rumor in the absence of decent evidence nor would I even be surprised in the slightest if the whole story ended up being true. But here's what gets me. All the photographic evidence in support of the theory (see the Daily Kos story) does nothing to convince me: a couple of pictures of Palin sitting, wearing jackets, not looking terribly with-child? One picture of a 16-year-old girl with the slightest bump? Who cares.

But the story itself is totally convincing: her daughter out with mono for months right around the time the baby was born; her water breaking and her finishing the speech she was giving before taking a 12-hour flight back to Alaska; the fact that her staff had no idea about the pregnancy.

It's all fishy, and fish pickers don't come from Texas.

UPDATE: HAHAHA:THE OLD "SHE COULDN'T HAVE BEEN GIVING BIRTH IN APRL BECAUSE SHE'S FIVE MONTHS PREGNANT NOW. Y'BURNT!" DEFENSE. THE LAST DAYS OF THIS ELECTION ARE GOING TO BE GREAT. I CAN'T WAIT TILL OLIVER STONE MAKES A MOVIE ABOUT IT.

A Love That Dare Not Speak Its Name (Tar Heels and Blue Devils)

E, Let me cut you off at the pass. Yes, I'm a young, vulnerable, impassioned John Edwards supporter and I graduated from Duke, but I did not have sexual relations with that man.

Grace and Disgrace

Last night The Wire brought its Sophoclesian narrative to a bittersweet end. It's not my intention to spoil the show for those who aren't yet caught up (so easy on the links, cowboy), but I will say this: with the final season-ending montage, the super-narrative came clearly into focus. While the show has always luxuriated in its panoply of finely wrought characters, its chief concern has never been the individual, but the insitutions that are at the heart of a broken system--and how those institutions betray the individuals they're meant to serve. The show's beloved characters--Omar, Bunk, Clay Davis, to name only three--either operate within or are crushed by the systemic institutions (the drug trade, the police department, the political machine) that define them, and as they try to game the system itself, reform it, act outside of it, ultimately, they find they can never escape its reach.

Fittingly, at the end of last night's show, we find out if honey-tongued, Obama-esque, young Mayor Carcetti wins the prize he's so long coveted--the Maryland state house--or if he gets the comeuppance he (may or may not) deserve. When we first meet Carcetti in season three, he is the embodiment of two qualities, cunning and idealism, in equal measure, but as his star rises, his cunning manages to vanquish his idealism. In a wonderful moment in this season, he comes home to watch himself on TV and announces word of his latest, foul-stenched political compromise to his pretty, passive wife. In that moment she finally comes to see him for what he has become: her face contorts into a picture of disgust, but Carcetti is oblivious. His own visage dances and speechifies before him on the television...

This post was intended merely to be a thank you to David Simon (pictured), Ed Burns, Richard Price, Dennis Lehane, and George Pelecanos, The Wire brain-trust, for that moment and all the others I will miss, but with today's news that yet another zealous, young reformer--equal parts cunning and idealism--a man who had renewed my hope in the future of American politics, has disgraced himself and his party (which, let's face it, ain't easy), has forfeited any chance for higher office, has fed us lies about virtue and the rule of law, was caught in--of all things--a federal wiretap investigation, not unlike the one that may or may not have brought down Marlo Stanfield (see, no spoilers), I know all those sad, dark Wirey moments abound. The show may be over, but the show goes on.

Thank you, David Simon, for giving me some hope, despite all the stench, all the ugliness; and fuck you, Eliot Spitzer, for making me believe you were cut from a different cloth.

hockeytown

so someone admonished me for not properly mourning anna nicole smith's death. seriously? c'mon. clearly i'm not alone in my lack of respect (also see here).

now to the title of this post. i know all kinds of random trivia about pre-mid-90s sports (did you know that pedro martinez started with the montreal expos?), but admittedly, my sports knowledge is pretty antiquated. i stopped caring about sports at around 1994, when the vancouver canucks lost the stanley cup finals to the (gag) new york rangers in seven games. it shattered me. i think due to this trauma, i rarely read the sports pages.

i randomly turned to the nyt sports section the other day and saw this article. despite the fact that the names leetch, graves, messier and richter make me throw up a little in my mouth, you gotta appreciate a goalie who decided to do this post-retirement:

Richter has navigated his transition by enrolling at Yale and working toward a degree in ethics, politics and economics; he will finish either this year or next. He works with Yale’s goalies as a volunteer assistant and also helps coach his 6-year-old son’s hockey team. He and his wife, Veronica, have two other sons, ages 4 and 2.

Being forced to retire left Richter feeling as if he had been robbed of the end of his career. But he said Yale had given him structure, a goal and time to spend with his family. He has not decided on his next career, he said, but he has invested time with the environmental group Riverkeeper and is interested in nonprofit organizations and public policy.

damn, girl.