My superficial objections to Sarah Palin
My superficial objections to Sarah Palin:
1. Her children have the following names: Track, Bristol, Willow, Piper, and Trig Paxson. My objections to non-names are well documented. I have always taken a firm stance on this issue.
2. She speaks with the lazy-vowel accent, common in rural parts of the West, that drives me crazy. Here’s a sound bite from her introductory speech on Friday, in which she refers to “oil fillds” and “the United Stillworkers Union.” Again, my feelings (sorry, “fillings”) about this are on the record.
August 31st, 2008 at 12:51 pm
Yeah, but who would you rather look at for 4-8 years? Palin or Biden?
August 31st, 2008 at 3:09 pm
Biden even admitted that Palin was much more attractive.
August 31st, 2008 at 3:09 pm
McCain has made it clear where he’ll be looking.
August 31st, 2008 at 3:33 pm
I’ve got my bumper sticker ordered. This election just became a whole lot more fun.
August 31st, 2008 at 3:35 pm
I think the unusual names might have to do with her husband being part-Eskimo; they tend to have stranger names (in the Mojave Desert, where I grew up, I went to school with Indian kids named Sunshine, America, Screaming Eagle, and Red Bear).
August 31st, 2008 at 4:47 pm
I must agree, the names are weird. I commented the same to my husband… but I’m pretty sure RC is right about where they come from.
As far as the way she pronounces things, I noticed that she does speak a little oddly, however, it doesn’t bother me that much, since otherwise she is very well spoken.
Also, yesterday, my husband announced “Jail Beds!” while we were at the mall, and I was like “What? Jail beds? What are you talking about?” and then I noticed the neon sign that said “Gel Beds”. This has made me a little more tolerant of people who don’t quite pronounce things correctly (quite a transformation from a day ago). Especially since both I and my husband are fans of speaking correctly, despite living in the Yew-taw moun’ns.
Otherwise though, I am now actually off of the fence and actually for McCain/Palin. I wasn’t sure before what I would do (possibly write in Romney, lol), but Palin gets things freaking done! It makes me so happy that she doesn’t just ignore corruption, or talk about fixing it and then not really do anything about it… she went out there and fixed it! Against her own party, nonetheless! Now that’s an empowered woman. Not to mention, she fixed the deficit in the Alaskan budget and did a billion other things, while having babies! I am so impressed.
Yay!!!!!!!!!!!!
August 31st, 2008 at 6:26 pm
Palin looks like my mom, which is very creepy to me. They even have the same glasses. My only other superficial objection to her is all of the “VPILF” macros on the internet now, in less than 72 hours since the announcement of her nomination!
August 31st, 2008 at 7:39 pm
Christina D, I too am finally decided what I am going to do. I’m writing in Palin. She’s like a comic book hero among politicians. Get your new Sarah Palin action figures! Now with the absurdly fantastic superpower of simultaneously lowering taxes AND cutting spending. That’s some change I can hope for.
August 31st, 2008 at 9:23 pm
My Superficial Argument For Sarah Palin:
do I need to spell it out?
August 31st, 2008 at 9:27 pm
Well, I’d rather look at Biden. I’ve had a platonic crush on him for years and now I get to see him all the time.
Yeow!
August 31st, 2008 at 9:40 pm
i have a daughter named Piper. Some of us rejoice in originality!
August 31st, 2008 at 9:53 pm
I don’t mean to hate, but naming your daughter piper is not original. I think it’s a cute name. But it’s been in the top 250 names for girls since 2006. http://www.thinkbabynames.com/meaning/0/Piper
August 31st, 2008 at 11:28 pm
I so wish I didn’t know her children’s names. I don’t know that I can vote for her now. Seriously.
September 1st, 2008 at 2:11 am
Huh… yeah. Guess I’ll just have to vote for What’s-His-Name.
September 1st, 2008 at 7:56 am
Her husband’s an eighth Eskimo. An eighth! I don’t think that really affected their children’s names. Besides, even if that were the case, are you honestly going to tell me that “Bristol” and “Paxson” are an Eskimo names?
She’s from Idaho. I think that’s where her kids got their names.
September 1st, 2008 at 9:21 am
Ditto.
September 1st, 2008 at 9:57 am
The only reason she had 5 kids is because she’s extremely pro-life (as far as I know, she doesn’t even support abortion in the case of rape).
TBH, she probably named the kids that because she thought she could feel her career slipping out of her every time one got born. Well, she was wrong there at least, but I guess she’s gotta live with those names.
Maybe she could get some of her life-long NRA buddies to help her out, Cheney style.
September 1st, 2008 at 9:58 am
Ok, not the only reason, I’m sure she loves them. That last comment would have been much less inflammatory if I’d gone back and changed that to “a” reason. Sorry.
September 1st, 2008 at 10:40 am
Also: her seventeen-year-old daughter is knocked up. Good to see that the family-values Republicans haven’t changed, eh?
September 1st, 2008 at 4:11 pm
Because clearly, only Republican teenagers get knocked up. No, the difference is (since we’re apparently dealing in generalizations) that Republicans take responsability and deal with the consequences, while the Democrats just have the baby cut out like a tumor and go on with their lives like nothing ever happened.
I personally feel that the way Palin is dealing with her daughter’s pregnancy says a lot more about her than the fact of the pregnancy happening does. From what I’ve read, she’s being very loving and understanding. She’s trying to help her daughter get through it, rather than condemning her. I think she has a great deal of inner strength and moral character. I really admire her. Besides, who among us has (or ever was) a perfect child, who listens to everything we teach and emulates all of our best qualities?
September 1st, 2008 at 8:11 pm
No, Democrat teenagers get knocked up too, it’s just that they don’t go around preaching how family values oriented they are.
I don’t really think that the opposite of dealing with the conseqences is to “have the baby cut out like a tumor and go on with their lives like nothing ever happened.” In fact, that’s pretty offensive.
September 1st, 2008 at 8:47 pm
Any parent could tell you that no matter how much you teach your kids about values and what’s right and wrong, mistakes happen and your kids do screw up. The mistake having happened, it sounds like the Palins are choosing to continue to live their values, and the important thing is that they love their daughter and are standing by her through a difficult time. Please don’t turn this into a political issue or an ugly pro-life/pro-choice debate, we’ve heard it all before. Even Barack Obama said to leave Bristol Palin alone. We already saw how ugly and ineffective it was last election to attack Mary Cheney for being gay; you know the old adage about the definition of insane…
Now, back to the regularly scheduled programming of quips about Sarah Palin’s taste in baby names.
September 1st, 2008 at 9:37 pm
My first post might have been a little harsh, but my point is that Republican politicians preach family values and extol the virtues of the nuclear family and abstaining from premarital/extramarital sex, but they get caught in sex scandals at least as often as Democratic politicians do. And I’m willing to bet money that if Joe Biden had a pregnant, unwed teenage daughter, James Dobson and other evangelical leaders would not be giving him the kind of support they’re giving the Palin family.
It’s good to know that, no matter what our political persuasions are, we can all agree that the Palin kids have funny names.
September 1st, 2008 at 10:12 pm
“And I’m willing to bet money that if Joe Biden had a pregnant, unwed teenage daughter, James Dobson and other evangelical leaders would not be giving him the kind of support they’re giving the Palin family.”
Funny, I thought Democrats were against preemptive strikes. ; )
One thing about baby names is that often people who get saddled with overly common names (and wind up being one of 3 Johns or Sarahs in every classroom they have growing up) will look to unusual baby names for their kids. “Sarah” has been in the top 20 since 1974; it was only ranked about 94th when Palin was born, but skyrocketed to popularity as Palin was growing up. Todd was ranked 28th when Todd Palin was born and didn’t drop out of the top 100 until 1986. My husband and I come from families of five children each with horribly common names–my siblings were Christopher, Matthew, Steven and Jennifer, and the kids in his family were John, Paul, Adam, Alex and Sarah. My real name, Bridget, is the only one in the batch that isn’t top 100 material. So my husband and I look to unusual names, having named our first daughter Harley so far, because we hate how boring and common all the names in our families were. I want my kids to have names where they’ll be the only one in their classroom who has that name.
Track, Bristol, Trig, Willow and Piper? Yeah, they’re weird, but not insanely weird. At least they didn’t name any of their kids “Talula Does The Hula.”
And the whole point of my wall o’ text here? Names that have been run into the ground like John and Sarah should be illegal for 50 years at least. Sorry all you Johns and Sarahs.
September 1st, 2008 at 10:44 pm
As the mother of sons, Crichton and Canon,and daughter Sagan – I LIKE Palin’s kids names … we can’t all be erics, jennifers, and christinas.
September 2nd, 2008 at 8:08 am
Being from Alaska (hence the moniker), I can testify that Palin’s kid’s names are nothing all that unusual (I went to school with Star, Forest, Sunshine, and Salmon). For that matter, neither is the fact that one of her daughter’s is pregnant out of wedlock–Alaska has the highest rate of teen pregnancy in the country. The sexism from the hypocritical left evident in the comments here and elsewhere staggers me, and the accusations of lacking experience are laughable considering how much more Palin has done than Obama. It’s about time an Alaskan got some national screentime–and I’m glad it’s one with as much integrity and ability as gov. Palin!
September 2nd, 2008 at 8:26 am
Clobbergirl, I have a daughter named Bridget! I love that name. My first name is not that unusual, but not that common either, and way too easy to mispronounce or misspell (or both, frequently). So we went with names that were not especially common, but hard to mispronounce and/or misspell. Except boy names. We went traditional because with boy names, either they’re common, or they’re weird.
September 2nd, 2008 at 12:58 pm
That’s neat Amp. My mother wanted to name me Jennifer and my father wanted to name me Bridget, and they disagreed on it up until the moment I was born. While my mother was still recovering from the delivery, my father hunted down the birth certificate and slapped “Bridget” on it, so my mother was outta luck. Six years later, Mom got her Jennifer, but I am grateful to have dodged that bullet of naming mediocrity. Sorry all you Jennifers, the #1 girl’s name in the country from 1970 to 1984(!).
I didn’t like the name growing up, but I like it much more as an adult. It means “exalted” or “goddess;” what’s not to love about that?
September 2nd, 2008 at 8:26 pm
I just want to make sure I get this straight: Is its ok to make fun of children, or just republican children? Hardly seems fair to hold a parent responsible for a child having sex unless you can prove to me Chelsea never did, or Obama or Biden have perfect family. Or is merely because republicans claim to have standards?
September 2nd, 2008 at 8:45 pm
John: Yes, actually, that’s a big part of it. When a significant portion of your party’s platform is talking about “family values” and focusing on moral issues (abortion, homosexuality, etc.), you set yourself up to look like hypocrites when one of your own screws up. Everyone knows that nobody’s perfect, and that even people who espouse high morals sometimes make mistakes — but still, it’s hard not to notice the apparently irony.
Of course, if the alternative is to just never claim to have high moral standards in the first place, then I’m not sure that’s any better.
September 2nd, 2008 at 8:55 pm
P.S. I agree that it’s not very nice to make fun of pregnant teenagers (which isn’t to say I won’t do it), and it’s certainly not fair to hold their parents politically accountable for their actions. I don’t think Gov. Palin is a bad parent for having a pregnant daughter, and I’m not sure it would be relevant to her candidacy anyway. Being a good parent and being a good vice president are probably different skill sets.
September 3rd, 2008 at 7:13 pm
Thank you Eric. It is hypocritical for a party to claim high moral standards and then fall short of them. I just don’t see Palin’s daughter as relevant to that. If Palin had an affair, or was a pregnant teen, or something like that then it’s cool. Make fun of her all you want. I just don’t like dragging a child through the mud because of her parents.
Isn’t it funny though, that yours is the party of forgiveness and second chances and looking after the little guy/girl? The one that’s there for women when they are pregnant and help lift them up through the tough times? The party of compassion and good vibes for all, even terrorists who flew planes into buildings and killed thousands of people. Why did that suddenly stop when the victim was merely related to a Republican?
Also, I don’t necessarily think it’s bad taste to make fun of a pregnant teen. But the circumstances matter. Jamie Lynn Spears: make fun of her all you want. She wanted the spot-light and she’s mugging it for all it’s worth. Palin’s daughter: didn’t ask for the spotlight, probably doesn’t want it. If you want the world to know your dirty laundry, then you’re asking for it. If the world went searching through your private life and aired your dirty laundry without your consent, then made fun of you and your family for it, then it’s just wrong.
September 9th, 2008 at 4:09 pm
Screaming Eagle is about the most awesome name I have ever heard of. The only thing that could make it better is if the person in question insisted that “Big Chief” be added to the beginning.
That said, I would feel sorry for someone named “Salmon”.