The Palin Effect

This is a blog mostly for my friends to keep up with me and my new life in the midwest. And since my friends are all of different political bends, i don't spend nearly as much time blogging about politics as i do thinking and talking about politics.

Occasionally, for the sake of humor, i make exceptions. i am teaching an elective on politics this year. It's been very eye-opening to me what a blank slate politics can become in just a few years. The kids i am teaching today will be voting in the next election, yet none of them knew about the electoral college SNAFU of the 2000 election. Know why? They were 8 when it happened. Yeah. We're getting old, my good buddies.

i do my absolute best not to indoctrinate all my students into the bleeding-heart liberals that i want them all to be. (Actually, if i do say so myself, i do a fine job of being unbiased when in front of the classroom.) We watched two class periods worth of coverage from both National Convetions, have analyzed dozens of campaign ads from both camps. And so, it was with great pleasure (and a little bit of censorship on the MILF bit) that i showed my classes this video:




i was also surprised to hear about an anti-Palin rally in Anchorage, Alaska. my understanding was that she was hugely popular in that state. But i guess this particular demonstration brought out 1,400 people! While i did not discuss this rally with my class, and nor did i show any of the hand-made signs, i did also find some of these amusing...