Meanwhile, Back in Wasilla…

File under mildly amusing but not actually relevant to anything of importance. Perfect fodder for HLN.
.
It’s a shame that your other thread got sidetracked by the semantic games being played between ‘wages’ and ‘labor costs’. The Guantanomo story is really important and deserves its own discussion.

Gosh, Palin is gonna have to be impeached in order to keep up with Bristol’s mother-in-law to be. You betcha!
.
Seriously, what else is there to do in Alaska in the winter time except to pray and get high!

I thought this quote was priceless:
.
‘When asked about the arrest, Palin’s spokesman, Bill McAllister, issued the following statement by e-mail: “This is not a state government matter. Therefore the governor’s communications staff will not be providing comment or scheduling interview opportunities.”‘
.
Imagine that! Palin turning down an opportunity to address reporters. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Yes, yes, a distraction. But one we all read.
.
If I were Ms. Johnston’s defense attorney in Wasila, I’d consider suggesting a counter-theory of the crime: that Gov. Palin, with her penchant for having the state police do her dirty work, sicced the police on the mom whose son knocked up Bristol.
.
Hey, it might work.

Where’s Jay? The Carpocalypse has been avoided…for now!
.
Did anyone get a photo of the Brinks Truck that delivered Bush’s spine in the wee hours of the morning? How are the Southern GOP Senators reacting to getting flipped teh Bird?

kbanginmotown: No brink’s truck was needed (not valuable enough)…it was slipped under the door of the oval office in an interoffice envelope. It’s kept in the Office of the VP for safe keeping and national security.

I wonder when Levi’s mom had her first kid? The circle of life never disappoints.

Kids get married yet?
.
Will they?

This is the Real America, people – teenage pregnancies, coked-out moms, and snowmobile racing.

Cliff, and shooting animals from helicopters, you betcha. Never forget that one.

‘When asked about the arrest, Palin’s spokesman, Bill McAllister, issued the following statement by e-mail: “This is not a state government matter. Therefore the governor’s communications staff will not be providing comment or scheduling interview opportunities.”‘
.
.
Hey, a reporter’s job, wrt govt officials, is to “hold them accountable”. I’m sure the cable news teams will not accept Governor Palin’s obstruction and pursue this matter with the same determination as in the Blago/Obama case.

How many out there actually believe that Bristol and Levi will make it down the aisle? She is due on Saturday but they still aren’t married? What exactly do we suppose they are waiting for? Cut and run Levi, cut and run!

Cliff you’ve aptly described how teenage pregancies occur in Alaska.
Snowmobile races + coke = teen age pregnancy.
.
As the old slogan use to proclaim: Things go better with Coke!

queencersei: the sound of a shotgun shell being chambered will replace wedding bells on that glorious day. Levi should’ve paid attention in abstenance class.

Cliff –

So true, and Swampland comments to the contrary, actually not funny. These are real people, after all. Time for a tiny dose of “there, but for the grace of God…”?

This is good for Sarah. It will show she’s not pulling any strings to help family friends.
.
Okay, I’m kidding, but do any Republicans still believe that she’s a front-runner for 2012?

Oh my.

Andy Alaska is a big state, I’m hoping Levi can find a place to hole up. Then again, the first dude has a history of stalking and harrasing behavior. And is a snowmobile champ. Poor Levi. Maybe he should migrate south?

joyomama: I have real empathy for Bristol and Levi. My daughter became a single mom at 19. She is determined to go it alone on her own and I am proud of her for taking personal responsibility for her actions. Bristol and Levi will not have an easy life whether they are together or apart.
.
I didn’t like the exploitation of these two young people by Sarah or the republican party during the campaign. But they have become public figures now and their lives are subject to more scrutiny as a result of that.
.
There a sadness and an irony here. Sarah Palin can’t avoid this. She used the situation to advance her politcal career. Now the pigeons have come home to roost.

How do you know it’s coke?
.
Ms. Johnston was just doing her part to make Wasilla the meth capital of the nation!

queencersei: Sarah has a helicopter and a high powered rifle. There’s no place for Levi to hide…except maybe at Ted Stevens’s house. I hear it’s pretty big, and just had addition put on recently.

When you parade youself and your kids around the nation as Real Americans with Real Family Values, you do set your self up for ridicule when something like this inevitably happens. No family is perfect, but most of us cop to it from the outset.
That said, I too feel sorry for Bristol and Levi. All of Sarah’s kids actually. I seriously doubt any of them had a vote on their mom running for V.P. and then running the sort of campaign she participated in.

Andy, I still say the kid could take off down south. Possibly California? He just has to make it out of the state. Maybe trooper Wooten could provide him an escort?

I think Levi would find a kindred spirit in Trooper Wooten.

KT.
.
I just want you to know that this is a sexist post!
.
Hrmph
.
snark

KT here–

sgwhite: sexist? i don’t think we will have true gender equality in this country until women get their fair cut of the illegal drug trade.

One obvious explanation for the delayed marriage might be that Bristol actually wants to look good on her wedding day. I’m not an especially vain person but I’d rather not be visibly pregnant when I get married.

But this assumes Bristol has a say in the proceedings.

KT
.
LOL my bad, I thought any thing story linked Sarah Palin to something negative was sexist. Damm those GOP talking points!

Looking like a meth lab? Goody.

queencersei, it just seems unfair and obtuse to constantly speculate about why Levi and Bristol haven’t got married when there is a likely and innocuous explanation. Also, I know we love the whole “Bristol was brainwashed by her mom to commit to abstinence or nothing” story, and the idea that her mom pushed her to get engaged. But first Palin is on record as being open to birth-control education for teenagers – something that both the left and the right find convenient to ignore – and Bristol certainly looked very happy at the convention. That girl looked like she won a reality show competition.
–
Of course she must have been drugged with happy pills… Seriously, the truth about Palin is bad enough that we don’t need to be paranoid.

Actually rose I’m not being unfair or obtuse. I was just joking with Andy. I don’t think either of us meant for our comments to be taken seriously. Bristol Palin’s marital status is of no consequence to me and I could honestly care less about it. Same goes with Levi’s mom getting busted. What happens in Wasila should stay in Wasila.

I’m sure it’s meth and not coke…Wasilla is the meth capital of Alaska after all. Ah thhe confusion of the American conservative. Example:

I had a roommate about 15 years ago, a diehard conservative…Christ, Reagan, family values, the whole bit. Thing was, he loved him some meth, and his girlfriend lived w/ us and the fornicated on a daily basis. He was also a rabid fan of Iron Maiden strangely enough. He would also go on and on about the f@ggots a lot, and he would frequently tell me about his great friend Buddy…Buddy was the coolest, the smartest, the bestest guy that ever lived. Buddy came to visit once. He showed up in an all pink ensemble, and to say that he was flaming wouldn’t be accurate…he was a f@cking Hiroshima of gayness. If only Freud were alive today.

Mrs. Johnston should have stocked some birth control pills in her drug stash and shared them with Levi and Bristol.

Socrates once asked, is it better to be corrupt and to be enriched by this corruption and yet be thought of, by the community at large, as just? Or is it better to be just and receive no benefit from being just, and yet be thought of by the community at large as corrupt?
.
I think we all know what the conservative would choose.

caylee anthony news conference
.
The determined that it was her.
.

Cincy: Conservatism = In hypocracy we trust.

Hey, I was going to say meth, but I decided it would be too stereotypical.
.
joyomama said:
These are real people, after all. Time for a tiny dose of “there, but for the grace of God…”?
.
I prefer a large dose of “There but for the grace of my parents not being meth-addicted retards.”

Andy, conservatives are the Detroit Lions of walking the walk.
.
If it’s not meth, it’s oxys.

Joy! Sarah Palin is a walking schadenfreude machine. I want to read about her and her Sudafed-stealing tribe forever. Well, maybe not forever.

Is it only me who wonders what kind of drugs were involved? Is it crystal meth?

I agree Cliff. God has nothing to do with it at all. He is a figment of the imagination. Either adled by drugs or in the natural, pure, fundamentalist state of mind.

It sure wasn’t birth control pills.

RE: Sherry Johnston

The story of Sherry Johnston’s self-medication with the pharmaceutical drug OxyContin “to deal with the pain” after her hysterectomy seems to be incidental to her arrest. It was immediately characterized by some as an attempt on her part to garner sympathy. The fact that she was disabled by hysterectomy would hardly be noteworthy, if it were not for the fact that she is the “other” grandmother to Sarah Palin’s grandson Levi.

The consequences of hysterectomy are rarely acknowledged. But the pain experienced by Sherry Johnston is the reality shared by tens of millions of women just like her in all corners of this country who have not been heard—1/3 of all women undergo a hysterectomy by the age of 60, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Their pain is usually dismissed as “all in your head.”

The Hysterectomy Educational Resources and Services (HERS) Foundation is a non-profit organization dedicated to educating the public about hysterectomy. Many women who call HERS have turned to drugs and alcohol to relieve the back and hip pain, loss of energy, loss of sexual feeling, and change in personality that are common, well-documented consequences of the surgery. Their symptoms are often dismissed or misdiagnosed, which leaves them with little alternative but to self-medicate.

In an ongoing HERS study begun in 1991, 65.8% of women reported debilitating “bone and joint pain.” Furthermore, 79.6% of respondents report “loss of sexual desire,” while 79.1% report “personality change,” 72.8% “loss of stamina,” 72.1% “loss of short term memory,” 70.0% “loss of ability to socialize,” 61.5% “insomnia,” 53.7% “suicidal thoughts,” and 49.5% “unable to maintain previous employment.” In Sherry Johnston’s case, the aftermath of hysterectomy left her no choice but to forego her career as a hairstylist when the pain became disabling.

It is with great sadness that I read these articles about a woman who, if she had been given information about the common sequelae of hysterectomy, would not be facing criminal charges related to a drug she needs to dull her pain.

Nora W. Coffey
HERS Foundation
422 Bryn Mawr Avenue
Bala Cynwyd, PA 19004
610-667-7757
http://hersfoundation.org

1. Alsever JD. Lumbosacral plexopathy after gynecologic surgery: case report and review of the literature. American Journal of Obstetrics & Gynecology 1996;174:1769-1777.
2. Adler LM, Loughlin JS, Morin CJ, Haning RVJ. Bilateral compartment syndrome after a long gynecologic operation in the lithotomy position. American Journal of Obstetrics & Gynecology 162:1271-1272.
3. Richards DH. A post-hysterectomy syndrome. Lancet 1974;2:983-985.
4. Borg EJ, Gerards-Rociu E, Haanen HC, Westers P. High frequency of hysterectomies and appendectomies in fibromyalgia compared with rheumatoid arthritis: a pilot study. Clinical Rheumatology 1999;18:1-3.
5. Spector TD, Hart DJ, Brown P et al. Frequency of osteoarthritis in hysterectomized women. J Rheumatol 1991;18:1877-1883.
6. Rocca WA. Increased risk of cognitive impairment or dementia in women who
underwent oophorectomy before menopause. Neurology 2007;69:1074-1083.
7. Thakar R, Manyonda I, Stanton SL, Clarkson P, Robinson G. Bladder, bowel and sexual function after hysterectomy for benign conditions. Br J Urol 1997;104:983-987.
8. Varma JS. Autonomic influences on colorectal motility and pelvic surgery. World Journal of Surgery 1992;16:811-819.
9. van Dam JH, MJ G, Drogendijk AC, Hop WC, Schouten WR. Changes in bowel function after hysterectomy. Scandinavian Journal of Gastroenterology Supplemental 1997;40:1342-1347.
10. Prior A, Stanley KM, Smith AR, Read NW. Effect of hysterectomy on anorectal and urethrovesical physiology. Gut 1992;33:264-267.
11. Rosenberg L, Hennekens CH, Rosner B, Belanger C, Rothman KJ, Speizer FE. Early menopause and the risk of myocardial infarction. Am J Obstet Gynecol 1981;139:47-51.
12. Centerwall BS. Premenopausal hysterectomy and cardiovascular disease. Am J Obstet Gynecol 1981;139:58-61.
13. Shelton JD. Postacyclin from the uterus and woman’s cardiovascular advantage. Prostaglandins, Leukotrienes, and Medicine 1982;8:459-466.
14. Parrish HM, Carr CA, Hall DG, King TM. Time interval from castration in premenopausal women to development of excessive coronary atherosclerosis. Am J Obstet Gynecol 1967;99:155-162.
15. Reyes M, Dobbins JG, Mawle AC et al. Risk factors for chronic fatigue syndrome: A case-control study. Journal of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome 1996;2:17-33.