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.

At The Jefferson-Jackson Alaska Democratic Party Dinner

Watching and listening to U.S. Senator Mark Begich (D-Alaska) speak to a large room full of smiling Democrats in the Dena'ina Center Saturday night, I wasn't the only one struck by how weird it felt to be watching Mark do this at the new convention center he helped put together.

I thought I was going to hate that building. The place is growing on me, though. A "build it and they will come" idea that might work.

Begich's talk was laid back, mostly light, as he picked a theme based on how he's trying to build relationships, isn't waiting for invitations to attend to business for Alaskans, and having to creatively deal with his son Jacob's growing notoriety in the Capitol.

Ethan Berkowitz bought me a beer - Alaska Summer Ale. I got to hug Katie Hurley. I met someone I've been wanting to meet for years, Bob Poe's wife, Terzah. Diane Benson scolded me for not going to her garage sale today (I hate garage sales).

The Alaska Democratic Party is having some organizational leadership changes. Longtime communications director Kay Brown is leaving to work for the Bob Poe Campaign. Executive director Mike Coumbe is leaving for Europe. He worked so hard from mid 2007 through the end of the Begich vs. Stevens vote count, he deserves a long vacation.

Proven fundraiser and environmental activist Deborah Williams will replace Mike. She's almost too well organized to be a Democrat.

The Mudflats has some great commentary and photos.

images:

Sen. Begich

Terzah and Shannyn

Deborah and Mike

PA Arts Sunday - 2009 Rasmuson Artist Awards

Late Thursday afternoon I was sitting with Anne Aube at Fireside Books in Palmer. We've been friends for a long time. We talked about music, her family, some of our mutual friends and what she and her husband are contemplating for their future. She knew, but I didn't, that she would be honored the next morning with a Rasmuson Foundation artist award.

Friday the important Alaska foundation announced their 2009 individual artist awards, grants and fellowships. Anne's award:

Anne Aube, a visual artist from Palmer will receive $4,925 to promote her work and visit textile museums in Tokyo.

Anne Aube was one of 26 Alaska artists to obtain this help in their visions. This year's Distinguished Artist Award recipient was Nathan Jackson. His Tlingit wood creations are among Alaska's strongest examples of the resilience and resurgence of his culture's fine art.

The foundation's press release on the 2009 awards said this about Nathan Jackson's work:

Since 1967, he has been creating masks, panels, house posts, totem poles and jewelry using traditional Tlingit Northwest Coast formline design in his own unique style. In 1988 he received an Honorary Doctorate of Humanities from the University of Alaska; and in 1995 was the recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts Heritage Fellowship Award. His work is in museums and private collections around the world. He currently resides in Ketchikan.

This description of wood Jackson gave for a Southeast Alaska brochure shows his love for where the materials for his art come from:

As a carving artist, the first thing I notice in my surroundings is the wood. Depending on where you are, the wood is very different. For totem poles and larger projects, red cedar is the choice wood and is called the tree of life. Yellow cedar has straight grain, and is ideal for smaller projects. There is plenty of alder, a leaf tree that I use for masks and bowls, even hats.

Here's a sketch of Jackson's work, with pictures of parts of some of his totem poles.

Here's the Rasmuson Foundation's 2009 award press release.

Here's the flickr page with images of work by several of the recipients.

images - Rasmuson Foundation

Watching the Evolution of Breaking Coverage of the Randy Evans Hire

A number of people were alerted late this morning or early this afternoon (Alaska time) to the announcement via an Atlanta Georgia political blog, that Sarah Palin has hired ethics complaint specialist James Randolph "Randy" Evans as an attorney.

The information was initially posted as a comment at The Mudflats at 1:08 p.m.

Some Alaska bloggers quickly then got an email alert. I got one at 1:20 p.m. A comment about the hire was posted at a Progressive Alaska article at 1:53 p.m. David Hulen posted a short item on this at 2:33 p.m. at the Anchorage Daily News politics blog. Linda Kellen had an article up at Celtic Diva's Blue Oasis by 2:55 p.m.

A commenter at the ADN poliblog entry, who calls him or herself ChicagoMachineGun, and has an avatar showing a red icon person about to shoot a blue icon person's brains out, over the word "Socialism," writes:

With Axelrod and Organizing for America handing out all those paychecks again this week to "paid volunteer" supporters of Obama, the Governor might need a couple of more lawyers (and maybe some violin-case carrying bodyguards of her own).

I just called David Hulen about the weird avatar and post by ChicagoMachineGun. Hulen says he heard about the Randy Evans hire pretty much the same way the rest of us did.

I'm going out to cash my latest secret check from David Axelrod's slime machine before the bank closes.

Saturday Alaska Progressive Blog Roundup - May 16, 2009

Col. Ann Wright's Alaska tour is concluding this weekend, in Southeast Alaska. Here's the remainder of her schedule:

Saturday, May 16 -- Juneau

VFP Meeting (tentative)

Potluck Dinner: TBA

Sunday, May 17 -- Sitka

Public Talk: Point of Contact: Don Muller 907.747.6734

Monday, May 18, 2009 -- Ketchikan

Public Talk: Point of Contact: Perry Reeve 907. 225.0247

This evening, Mike Method will be interviewing Wright on his KBYR call-in show, from 7:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. Before that, on KBYR, Shannyn Moore will be discussing emerging union issues in Anchorage, like concessions the Anchorage Police Department is making, and the uproar at the Anchorage Hilton, concerning union hotel workers and their contracts.

Update: Shannyn will be interviewing author and Media Matter for America editor, Eric Boehlert during the 5:00 p.m. hour of her show. Boehlert's new book, Bloggers on the Bus: How the Internet Changed Politic and the Press, will be coming out on May 19th. Chapter 13, called Saradise Lost, is mostly about Alaska progressive bloggers, the role we're playing in reshaping Alaska political coverage, and some of the other things we do.

Regarding Wright's Thursday evening talk this past week, here's a summary from Tom Macchia, of Alaskans for Peace and Justice:

Here is a short report on Ann Wright's visit. I am sure that those most involved in the visit (many thanks for a great job) can add to this but I thought I'd get something out sooner rather than later, for those of you unable to make it.

There was a standing room only crowd at the Bartlett Democratic Club, over 70 people. Her speech was very well received and there were many good questions which she answered adroitly and thoroughly. Included in the audience were Diane Benson, Phil Munger and Alaska State Rep. Berta Gardner as well as union representatives.

The evening talk at UAA had an audience of about 40 people including many from the Palestinian community. Katy Parrish video taped the talk at UAA, Thanks Katy!

A basket was passed at UAA and over $200 was raised for a project to rebuild a playground for Palestinian children destroyed in the recent Gaza war crimes.

We learned that there is a new website for Alaskans for Palestine

All of the books that we ordered were sold.

I thought that she exemplified and spoke well to getting involved in response the increasing disillusion that progressives are feeling with the administration and congress.

Col. Wright will soon return to Palestine with Code Pink.
She plans to invite Sen. Begich to go (at Phil Munger's suggestion). We might call and encourage him to join the Code Pink Trip.

When I mentioned the Green Party to her she said that she has heard that Cynthia McKinney will again be joining a relief flotilla to Gaza.

Alaska's progressive bloggers covered Alaska governor Sarah Palin's book deal, which has been speculated about since mid-November, but only rolled out formally this past week. The Mudflats covered aspects of the probable ethics law conflicts in the deal. Shannyn Moore's post on the deal was cross-posted at Huffington Post.

Progressive Alaska posted the first part in a series I will be doing on Adam Bellow, the editor who has been assigned to "help" Palin. I hope to interview Bellow, who I know, and David Brock, who worked with Bellow on books cast in a similar mold and designed for a similar audience as the one Bellow will create, and upon which Palin's name will be placed.

Progressive Alaska posted a poll on the book deal - the poll is still open.

By far, the best work on the book deal, and this includes bloggers, the Alaska press, the Outside press and other media, is the work of Lind Kellen, at Celtic Diva's Blue Oasis. Her most recent post and its comments clearly indicate that Palin's attorney general stand-in, Mr. Svobodny, is treading on very thin ice by giving Palin a clearance to write the book and be paid for it, while sitting as governor.

The Mudflats had two huge threads on possible titles for Palin's "memoir." The first book naming post for a Palin book was mine at DailyKos, back in November. But AK Muckraker held a contest this week that got almost 1,600 people to participate in the voting.

You can also vote at The Mudflats to help AK Muckraker get a scholarship to this year's Netroots Nation Conference, to b held in Pittsburgh, in August.

The current debate at the Anchorage Assembly on a gay rights ordinance has been covered by Celtic Diva's Blue Oasis, Bent Alaska, Henkimaa, and other progressive Alaskan blogs.

The flooding on the Yukon, Kuskokwim, their tributaries, and other Alaska rivers, due to ice jamming, continues. The best non-blog story that is recent, is Rena Delridge's from yesterday's Fairbanks Daily News-Miner. In the article, she details the work that Alaska's rural affairs coordinator, John Moller, is doing in devastated communities.

The best continuing flooding coverage by a progressive blog is at Anonymous Bloggers.

That's all I have time for. Back to deck rebuilding.

image - Ann Wright, signing Diane Benson's copy of Dissent: Voices of Conscience

Part of the Endless List of Summer Tasks

Whenever a person has to paint an entire house exterior on a house as old and rickety as ours is, there's always rebuilding. I've torn about half of the deck rails on our bedroom deck out. Even though The remaining lumber that I'm not replacing isn't in top shape, I'm using treated timber. Why?

Help Mudfllats Get to Netroots Nation This Summer!

AK Muckraker at The Mudflats, has been offered a scholarship opportunity to have expenses paid to the Netroots Nation Conference 2009. This year it will be held in Pittsburgh, between August 13th and 16th.

The conference has evolved, from its beginning in Las Vegas, in 2006. It was initially called YearlyKos. Last year it was changed to Netroots Nation. On the far right, it is lambasted as "Nutroots Nation." On the far left, it is nicknamed "TraitorFest," for its accommodation of right-of-centrists, lobbyists and fierce advocates of continuing Israeli expansion.

It is a wonderful, fascinating and empowering set of events, though, and AKMuckraker will be a hit there, I am sure. I'd be tempted to go, but I'm painting the whole house, repairing decks, and possibly re-roofing the shop this summer.

AKMuckraker has a post up right now that explains why AKM hopes to attend. The post gives some background on this year's event, and has a link to a place where you can vote to support AKM's scholarship chances. The bloggers with the most votes in a big pool get the stipends.

Or you can click here, and go straight to the voting site. I just voted for The Mudflats.

Some New Thoughts on the Citizen Activist Palin Ethics Complaints

At the beginning of hour three of Thursday's Dan Fagan radio program on Anchorage's KFQD-AM, Fagan was talking to a caller named April, who claims to work for the State of Alaska, in the executive branch. She explained how employees in the executive branch handle Alaska's executive branch ethics act, when dealing with outside employment.

April stated that many employees in the executive branch work on other jobs. For instance, one may be a bartender, another have a part-time business doing taxes or bookkeeping. If they have such outside employment, in addition to their full time state job, they can appeal to the ethics board, in order to get a review of whether or not their outside employment constitutes a conflict of interest with the work they perform for the executive branch.

From April's description, such requests are routine. She described her job as doing "administrative compliance-type stuff to ensure that employees who work for the state, who do have secondary jobs, do complete the appropriate paperwork to ensure that the employment is either approved or denied."

When Fagan questioned April about whether or not these waiver requests were different from ones like Pain's attorney has submitted regarding the Palin book deal, April responded by pointing out that, "No - this is the EXECUTIVE branch."

Essentially, Palin has the same right - it appears to me - to file for such a waiver as does any other executive branch employee.

And any employee of the executive branch may privately, through the ethics board procedure, object to not only one's own waiver rejection, but, I would assume, re-reading the ordinance, object to somebody else having obtained a waiver. Or a "clarification" on what a rule means can be requested by an executive branch employee, before an employee decides to engage in one activity or another that may or may not be covered by the ordinance.

And citizens, activist or curious ones, have a right to do the same. Only, the way the executive ethics act is written, we can announce our action to the public.

The latter aspect of this was thoroughly covered by AK Muckraker at The Mudflats, on May 4th, by Progressive Alaska that same day, and by other Alaska bloggers.

AK Muckraker noted then that:

The citizen who files the ethics complaint puts together their paperwork, and cites the specific part(s) of the Alaska Executive Branch Ethics Act that they believe have been violated. Then that person brings their complaint to the Department of Law.

The Department of Law makes sure that all the basics are covered, then they stamp it, and take it in. Then the complaint goes to the Personnel Board. The Personnel Board then hires an investigator to investigate. They ask all kinds of questions, make phone calls, do research, and gather whatever new information that they need to make a determination about whether things should proceed to the next level. That investigator will decide if the case does or does not have merit. That investigator will decide whether the investigation goes forward or not. If the complaint is completely “bogus,” as the governor’s office is fond of saying, then the investigator can dismiss it outright. If the complaint is the result of someone abusing their rights, or is without merit, it gets tossed out.

And Progressive Alaska noted that citizens were disturbed enough about Palin to file requests, in part, because:

1) She got her "Maverick" chops by not only filing an ethics complaint, but by then making her act public knowledge.

2) She campaigned for Governor in 2006 as a person who would reform ethics in Alaska.

3) When she became governor, she had Wev Shea and Ethan Berkowitz work up a white paper that looked into legislative branch ethics.

4) When she became a national ticket candidate, she bragged about how she had swept away the good old boys whose ethical conduct had gamed the system.

5) When she became a national ticket candidate, she attempted to derail or defang a legislative council investigation already underway, with her executive ethics complaint against herself.

Nothing like layers of hypocrisy to bring citizens out of the woodwork, eh?

Of all places, the blog Conservatives4Palin had a comment by DrChill, to an article Wednesday about the ethics of Palin's book deal. The commenter observed the following about Palin's attorney's waiver request, contrasting it to the requests for clarification by activists who aren't employees:

When governor Palin asked the dept of law if her book deal presented an ethical problem, they spent some careful time to consider the question.
The answer was 'no, its okay.'

The system works.

When citizens ask if Palins behavior presents an ethical problem and the answer is 'no, its okay', the system works.

I think the system is working no matter who is questioning the governor's ethics.

I should point out that these so called complaints are just the name of what citizens file to the ethics board.

When state employees do it its called a disclosure, or request for an an advisory opinion.
It sounds much better than complaint.

Essentially they do the same thing. They answer ethics questions.

In most cases if there is a problem found, the board will reply 'Stop doing that.'

Its not a criminal complaint, nor a law suit.

And since almost all have gone her way, you'd think the governor would be thanking people for taking her up on her challenge to hold her accountable.

Other than the hype and hysteria and the overblown layer's charges, the process is working fine.

As I noted in the comments to my post about PA's ongoing poll regarding Palin's ability under state law to write the book while working as governor, I think she should be free to write it.

Much Needed Rain Today in the Mat-Su Valley; Kachemak Selo, Razdoina and Voznesenka Need It More!

I was talking to Homer girl, Shannyn Moore yesterday, about the wildfire near Homer. Her dad lives near the fire area, which has threatened three Old Believer villages, Kachemak Selo, Razdoina and Voznesenka. Apparently, cooler weather and lighter winds today have lessened the seriousness of the danger. The Anchorage Daily News has some fairly comprehensive coverage, by Megan Holland.

Here's an image of the fire, taken yesterday by Carey James:
Here's the Weather Radar for Cook Inlet, taken late this morning:
And here are four images of wet, young wildflowers, from Judy's rock garden, taken this morning:

Ann Wright at the Bartlett Luncheon

Col. Ann Wright's speech to the Bartlett Democratic Luncheon today was interesting. And well attended. There were over 70 people in attendance, over-filling the meeting room at the Bragaw Denney's.

She spoke about some of the difficulties the Obama administration is facing as it seeks to change the directions of several United States foreign policy and military policies and campaigns.

Although Wright is optimistic about Obama's chances of being a force for good, she catalogued many systemic problems the current presidential administration inherited from George Bush, and the dilemmas facing Obama's policy chiefs as they seek to deal with both the expectations of Obama supporters, and the realities of the depth of penetration into our national affairs by people and organizations who seek to take the apparatus of government into their own directions, not his.

This talk is one that Wright gave in Fairbanks yesterday, Anchorage today, and will give in other Alaska cities through the week and weekend. She will also be addressing her recent and upcoming trips to Gaza in these communities, but didn't talk about that issue in her speech. The 2007-2008 Gaza War did come up, though, in the audience questions.

Wright, in her fielding of questions on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, demonstrated how clearly she saw the awful and devastating damage Israel's recent Gaza campaign did to civilian infrastructure there.

I asked her if she would be so kind as to invite Alaska Senator Mark Begich to take part, soon, in a trip to Gaza and the Occupied West Bank. She emphatically urged him to do so. She described the recent trip to Gaza by a few members of Congress, including Sen. John Kerry.

Col. Wright will be speaking again this evening, at the University of Alaska Anchorage.

At 7:00, at Rasmusson Hall, she will give a talk called, "Heart-to-Heart Conversation: Gaza-Iraq-Afghanistan-Iran."

Her appearances in Alaska are being coordinated by Alaskans For Peace and Justice.

Update - Friday 1:00 p.m. - on Col. Wright's Thursday evening UAA talk, from Tom Macchia:

There were about 40 people there several members of the Palestinian community but no media. We did get Ann's talk on video done by Katie Parrish.

We sold out her books.

There were good questions and a sense of more interest in getting involved due to disappointment in the direction of the administration. It may be that some more folks waking up

image - Diane Benson and Ann Wright