Erunáme wrote:It would be interesting if narya could give some perspective seeing as she lived in Alaska for many years...but I'm not sure if she's reading this forum anymore?
Well yes, I do pop into The Hall, but rarely. And I seldom venture into political threads. Actually, I just did a search for my name to see if anyone mentioned me. Thanks for remembering me.
I did spend little time reading the VP thread because this Palin character interests me, and all I can say is "my eyes, my eyes, it burnssss....." I don't believe I've ever seen such a caustic thread in this self-proclaimed bastion of civility.
Can I shed some light on her from personal experience? No. I escaped from Alaska 3 years ago (as of next Tuesday) and at that time, she was the mayor of a sleepy little bump-in-the-road suburb 30 miles from Anchorage. I don't recall reading anything about her in the paper other than that she was elected.
Primula Baggins wrote:Maybe not such a bad idea. A friend of mine who taught in Alaska for several years tells horror stories about what alcoholism is doing to some of the isolated villages—many of the kids had FAS, .
One quarter of the kids, so I've heard, have fetal alcohol syndrome or fetal alcohol effect, which includes developmental delays and inappropriate understanding of personal boundaries. The ravages of alcohol on the Alaska Native population are horrific. It is a form of genocide. Governors come and go, and all sorts of important people wring their hands, but nothing has been done to stop the blight. The Anchorage Daily News won the Pulitzer Prize in 1989 for documenting "A People in Peril". They are still in peril.
As for whom Catholics should vote for, they should vote for someone who is truly pro-life. Someone who does not advocate killing unborn babies, prisoners on death row, or large numbers of Iraqis. Someone who stands up for the dignity of all humans, regardless of their wherewithall to make a political contribution. Someone who says "right-to-life" includes "right-to-the-basic-healthcare-needed-to-stay-alive", regardless of whether or not you are working or can afford health insurance.
Unfortunately, we Catholics have no one to vote for.
From my point of view, the Democratic party is the closest to Pro-Life of any of the parties I'm familiar with, so I'll be voting for Obama.
I'm reading Obama's "Dreams from my Father", that he wrote back in 1995. Having grown up in a multi-cultural family (White, Alaska Native, Latino), I can relate to what he went through. Though as an "apparent" all-white person, I didn't have to deal with it every day, as he did, as an "apparent" all-black person raised in a white culture. I'd like to think that the multi-cultural background he has will serve him well in dealing with the world, not in the way that the "black and white" (sorry for the pun) thinking of others has gotten us into so many messy conflicts. If you are entirely in one camp, it is easy to have an "us" vs "them" mentality, and easy to justify doing inhuman things to "them" if you have dehumanized "them". Hitler did this sort of polarizing superbly. And we did it with the Japanese during WWII. But if you have one foot in the "us" camp and one foot in the "them" camp, then life gets much more complicated.
Sorry if this has been discussed before. I have not read all 143 pages of this thread. Please carry on.
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In the midst of winter, I found there was, within me, an invincible summer. ~ Albert Camus