The Saradise Lost Series Explained

I first used the term Saradise Lost in early 2008, describing my feelings toward Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's obstacles thrown in the way of University of Alaska Sea Grant Program Professor Rick Steiner. It is quite possible that somebody else had already used the term, but I'm unaware of it having been used before I began.

There will be growing interest in how this term came about, beginning May 19th, with the release of Eric Boehlert's new book, Bloggers on the Bus. Chapter 13 of his book is titled "Saradise Lost." It is devoted to our Alaska progressive bloggers, so here is a primer:

I first used the term Saradise Lost for a blog post at Progressive Alaska as the title of an article on August 31st, 2008. The article was merely the posting of a Youtube version of audio content in which Sarah Palin laughed out loud to a reference to then-state senator Lyda Green as being a "cancer," while Palin was aware that Green is a cancer survivor. The whole audio take was and is quite sleazy. She was on Anchorage's Bob and Mark Show. The audio was from the previous winter.

From the last day of August through the November national election, a long series of posts that covered Palin's shortcomings was titled Saradise Lost. Many of them attempted to highlight aspects of what I felt sure would be a McCain-Palin defeat, caused largely by Palin's shortcomings.

After the election, posts having to do with the 2008 presidential campaign became Saradise Lost - Book One.

Since then, posts having to do with how faulty her state governance is, or posts about her continuing farcical national political aspirations, are generally posted as chapters of Saradise Lost - Book 2.

There is a small subset of posts called Saradise Found. The initial post, on September 4, 2008, was about two older men who had downloaded Ishmael Melville's fake Vogue magazine cover off of a newly created Palin fan site. They thought the magazine cover was real.

There are 181 chapters to Saradise Lost, Book One. Book One is complete.

There are now 49 chapters to Saradise Lost, Book 2. Book 2 is not complete.

There are now only eight chapters to Saradise Found. That series is not complete.

By far, the most influential chapter of the series was Saradise Lost, Book One, Chapter Sixteen - Palin's Views on the End Times.