Kindergarten Gop

In an article in the Daily Beast, Republican strategist Evan Siegfried wrote, “Republicans face a real and looming threat to our survival as a major party: Just 20 percent of millennials identify with the GOP.” To gain millennial support, Siegfried argued that the Republican Party should demonstrate a commitment to such issues as racial equality, affordable college tuition, and LGBT rights.

Well, that’s one way to go about it. Sarah Palin seems to have a different approach. She appears to be grooming the kindergarten demographic to become future members of the Republican Party. Or at least that’s what I gather from this Facebook post:

“Phony baloney uproar over Trump's so-called "immigration ban" while the silence is deafening over Obama's real immigration ban.”

It’s good, but I do think it would have been more effective if it included something about Obama having cooties.

Photo by Grant Barrett from San Mateo, California, United States - Guthrie at daycare, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=23549945

Make That a Double

My two-year-old daughter loves listening to nursery rhymes in the car. One of the tracks on her CD is “The Owl and the Pussy Cat.” Allow me to share an excerpt with you: “Oh, beautiful pussy. Oh, pussy, my love. What a beautiful pussy you are, you are. What a beautiful pussy you are.”

Yes, I know “pussy” means “cat,” but it doesn’t stop me from snickering like Beavis and Butthead in my head every time I hear it, and it didn’t stop me from wanting to open my car door and jump out when it came on while my father-in-law was in the car.

My point is that even though “pussy” means “cat” clearly I would never, like, tell someone that I have to get home to feed my pussy.

It’s the same with the word “impotent.” Sure, one of its definitions is “lacking power or ability,” but when I hear the word “impotent,” there’s really only one thing I associate it with. Therefore, if I wanted to convey that something (besides that) was lacking power or ability, I would opt for a synonym.

But that’s because I’m not Sarah Palin and haven’t mastered the double entendre.

In 2015, she wrote an article called “Obama’s Impotence: Why He Can’t ‘Drill, Baby, Drill,'” and it might be one of my favorite things I have ever read. I desperately wanted to include this article in my book, but I it didn’t quite satisfy my book’s needs. However, if my book had a chapter on the double entendre, I would have definitely slid it right in there.

Check out these excerpts:

·      Let the United States Military do its job and kick ISIS ass… or pull out, like you promised.

·      surely they can pinpoint billowing oil facilities in the Islamic flatlands that are much larger than your tiny golf balls

·      Anyone in bed with the enemy gets cut off. Got it?

·      you’re barely limping along as the coalition "leader"

·      the Washington establishment’s complicity with your dysfunction

·      Vladimir Putin is small-headed

·      your waning days in office

·      Wimpy hacks in your lap

     Now, that, my friends, is what I call committing to a theme.

Photo byy Miika Silfverberg - originally posted to Flickr as Birch, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=4123493

Mac in Time

Most of us know at least a little bit about John McCain. We know that he ran for president in 2008. We know that he chose Sarah Palin to be his running mate. We know that he was a prisoner of war in Vietnam. But did you know that he was a wrestler in high school and was nicknamed McNasty? Did you know that he had a cameo in Wedding Crashers? Did you know that he owned a DeLorean and a flux capacitor?

Well, I am assuming he owned a DeLorean and a flux capacitor based on what I read in Sarah Palin’s autobiography. In her first chapter, she recalls the moment that John McCain called to ask if she would like to be his VP. It was August 2008. She was at the Alaska State Fair. I’ll let her to tell you the rest:

            I punched the green phone icon and answered hopefully, “This is Sarah.”

           

            It was Senator John McCain, asking if I wanted to help him change history.

I’m not crazy, right? It would be impossible to change history unless you actually went back in time and, say, caught the apple before it fell on Newton’s head or woke Martin Luther King Jr. up before he had his dream.

I wonder what historical event McCain wanted Palin to help him change. I also wonder what happened to his time machine. I’m assuming he lost it shortly after he made that phone call because I’m pretty sure that on November 4, 2008 he would have programmed that sucker to go back to August 2008.

Photo by Marc Nozell from Merrimack, New Hampshire, USA - http://www.flickr.com/photos/37996583933@N01/2146440291, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=3299760

Follow Your Carpet Bliss

I had no idea until I was 30 that I wanted to be a writer. (I’m not going to tell you how long ago that was.) But my point is that I never really took any writing classes in college—and that is why I was so impressed with myself when I had this epiphany about writing on my very own.

I was watching a zombie movie. In one of the scenes, the main character and his mom were in the kitchen. They were just chatting, and the guy picked up a knife to chop an onion or something. And that’s when I had my epiphany: he’s going to need that knife for something else very soon. Something zombie related. And I was right! So, in other words, everything that a writer includes in his or her work is there for a reason. I know it seems pretty obvious, but I had never really thought about it before.

Since then, I have read several books and blogs on writing that have confirmed my epiphany—that a writer should edit out anything that doesn’t have to do with plot, character development, or theme. 

Which is why I was so puzzled by the inclusion of this anecdote in Sarah Palin’s autobiography:

“I remember lush emerald moss hugging the hillsides. Mom always said she was going to buy a carpet that color some day—and one day she did.”

So, basically, her mom said that one say she was going to buy green carpet, and then one day … wait for it, wait for it … she bought green carpet.

I mean, I guess Sarah could have included the carpet story to reveal her mother’s character. I gleaned two characteristics:

1.     Her mom is a woman of her word.

2.     Her mom has interesting taste in carpet colors.