Holy Mackerel

( – promoted by buhdydharma )

Ok, I’m going to admit it again, I’m a Rachel Maddow groupie…I just LOVE her. And if you’ve ever watched her show, you know that she does a segment titled either “Ms. Information” or “Holy Mackerel” where she covers stories from below the fold.

So I thought today I would do my best Maddow imitation and bring you some stories you might have missed while you were working so hard on getting the petition signed and making sure our Zen Dictator fearless leader ends his strike.

These are not the kind of stories ek, magnifico, or mishima would write about. I could never dream of reaching their level. But its Christmas Eve Eve, so I hope you’ll join me in a little “holy mackerel.”  

First of all, via Human Events, we learn that Sarah is still at it. This time she’s providing her sage campaigning advice about what she learned from the whole experience.

GIZZI: And what was the most important lesson you learned from the campaign?

PALIN: The campaign was 99.9% amazing and invigorating and inspiring. But looking back, there were so many things that were outside of my control. I was in a campaign in which I did not know the people individually running the campaign. So I had to put my life, my career, my family, and my reputation in their hands. That’s kind of a scary thing to do when you don’t know the people you are working with…

As an administrator, as a chief executive of a state, I am not used to that. I am used to proving my abilities by calling the shots. Then I know the buck stops with me. I made the decisions, and I’m responsible. When others are making decisions for me, as they were in the campaign, and I am the one to live with the fallout from the decisions that were made on my behalf, that is something I am not very comfortable with.

GIZZI: Do you want to give me any names of people?

PALIN: No. But they’re folks who have done this before. Of course, I haven’t done this on a national level before.

But my reliance on seeking God’s direction in all that I do — that is good enough for me. And others who have a different worldview and different strategy on messaging and such, I would like to have the opportunity to prove to them that my gut instincts were going to be quite adequate.

What???? Did George Bush die while we weren’t looking and get re-incarnated in Sarah’s body?

And speaking of George, he’s finally getting the knack about how to create jobs…in Turkey.

Ramazan Baydan, owner of the Istanbul-based Baydan Shoe Company, has been swamped with orders from across the world, after insisting that his company produced the black leather shoes which the Iraqi journalist Muntazar al-Zaidi threw at Bush during a press conference in Baghdad last Sunday.

Baydan has recruited an extra 100 staff to meet orders for 300,000 pairs of Model 271 – more than four times the shoe’s normal annual sale – following an outpouring of support for Zaidi’s act, which was intended as a protest, but led to his arrest by Iraqi security forces.

While we’ve been all engrossed in talking about Rick Warren, Ms. Hassellback has been trying to explain intelligent designer handbags.

Puleeze…I HAVE to laugh or I’ll scream my bloody head off!!!!!!

On a more serious note, sounds like those European kidz have had about enough. Protest is spreading like wildfire over there. They even have a name for it…”Greek Syndrome.”

Links between protests in Greece and France – and, to a lesser degree, unrest in Sweden – may seem tenuous, even non-existent. But social and political ailments and their symptoms transmit as rapidly as influenza in the television, internet and text-message age.

With Europe, and the world, pitching headlong into a deep recession, the “Greek Syndrome”, as one French official calls it, was already being monitored with great care across the European Union. The attempt to politicise and link the disputes across EU frontiers may prove to be a random act of self-dramatisation by an isolated group on the Greek far left. But it does draw attention to the similarities – and many differences – between the simultaneous outbreaks of unrest in three EU countries…

The Greek, French and Swedish protests do have common characteristics: a contempt for governments and business institutions, deepened by the greed-fired meltdown of the banks; a loose, uneasy alliance between mostly, white left-wing students and young second-generation immigrants; the sense of being part of a “sacrificed generation”.

And finally, if you missed Bill Moyer’s Journal last week, go take a look at his interview with Sarah Chayes. A bit about Sarah’s background:

Sarah Chayes went to Afghanistan to report for National Public Radio just a few weeks after 9/11. She reported from some of the most dangerous areas and then decided to stay on as a private citizen. She’s been running a co-op, employing Afghan men and women to produce skincare products. She also wrote this book, THE PUNISHMENT OF VIRTUE: INSIDE AFGHANISTAN AFTER THE TALIBAN.”

I haven’t been able to find a video of the interview that I can embed, but here’s just a bit from the transcript.

BILL MOYERS: You quote a woman in your co-op, I think it’s in your co-op, who talks about: It’s like standing on a watermelon?

SARAH CHAYES: Two watermelons. One foot on one, and the other on the other. She says, the Taliban shake us down at night, but the government shakes us down in the daytime. And I was recently sitting with a group of tribal elders and they put it this way – these are, you know, dignified elderly gentlemen with their beards and turbans – and they started hitting themselves. “The Taliban hit us on this cheek. And the government hits us on this cheek.” That’s how they felt.

That statement hit home to me because it sounds so much like what I’ve read about the experience of the Vietnamese people during our involvement there.

Sarah goes on to detail what her advice would be to President-elect Obama about how to improve things in Afghanistan. She makes alot of sense and says some things that I think will surprise you. Go take a look for more.

Th-th-th-that’s all folks. I only hope Rachel would be proud.