Discuss:

Not intended as a personal slight, but...

I think I'm going to be sick.

Both Ginny and Leslyn were highly intelligent, accomplished women who achieved much in a pre-feminist world. Heinlein did indeed base many of his female characters on these women. By most accounts, Leslyn was extremely liberal and Ginny was a mainstream conservative.

But neither of these women were frauds.

I usually encourage civility here - and Bill M., no personal offense, but...



It's possible Palin could grow into a Heinleinian woman and leader... she just needs a little experience.

Jack has the gist of it there; if Bill P. stops by he can expound at greater length.

The flaw here, Bill (M.), is that the political parties and terms have evolved over time. Leslyn being a Republican (probably because her parents were) does not mean the same thing in 1938 that it does now. Neither does her becoming a Democrat (almost certainly because RAH was). The stances and platforms of both parties have changed greatly in seventy years, and the very terms liberal and conservative barely share a nodding acquaintance between their versions of the prewar and present eras.

Perhaps you intended something different - and feel free to hop up on the box and expound - but the only shred of validity your original claim has is based on some very narrow interpretations of the terms involved.

Which, sad to say, is pretty much what passes political discourse these days - one set of fossilized slogans and shibboleths thrown at another.

The primary piece is Robert James' biographical sketch of Leslyn that was published in the Heinlein Journal a couple of years ago. If you're not one of the few whose library might be able to get a copy through ILL, then you can get a reprint from Bill P.

Issue #9, July 2001. There were some followup short articles and letters in subsequent issues.

Yes, he ran down an impressive personal history on her. The collective knowledge went from about a paragraph to about as much as can be learned about an ordinary person. (That is, someone who isn't extensively documented by third parties during their life.)

Dr. J. is, unfortunately, saddled with more than his share of responsibilities and has all too little time to correspond, individually or en masse.

Not many realize that he had a panel or presentation in every single slot of the Centennial. And was grumping because there wasn't time for more.

Unlike some others, I find it plausible that Sarah Palin is very like a Heinlein character.

The question is, is she Agnes Douglas or Nehemiah Scudder?

-Ian

Actually, I have to admit that when I first heard the news that McCain had picked Palin, I was intrigued. Off-the-wall, yes. Odd, yes. Interesting and possibly amusing choice, yes.

Then I found out it wasn't MICHAEL Palin.

The best line I heard in days was on CNN from Fareed Zakaria, a guy whose thoughtfulness has always impressed me on his Daily Show appearances, when he said, quite seriously, that the problem "isn't that she doesn't know the answer; it's that she clearly doesn't understand the question."

Watching McCain when he chaperoned her on her latest interview with Katie Couric was hilarious, too. His body language was like a neon sign hanging over his head at a Nevada diner, screaming All-You-Can-Eat Embarrassment.

I keep hoping that any day now the American public will awaken from its torpor like Godzilla emerging from hibernation and say, "Okay, we're done with being idiots; now it's time to get serious." I'm just afraid that it will turn out that there is nothing hibernating and What You See is All There Is.

Sarah Palin never struck me as being "Heineinian" in any dimension -- she's just your typical perky consie chick. However, I've been very amused by the fact that the Black and the Woman got on opposite tickets in this election, so that there is a very real possibility of a Hundred (and Fifty) Year Revenge from Frederick Douglass' betrayal of his feminist constituency. (I don't see any real possibility that President Hussein will get elected).

That or he's reading last year's macroeconomics books from the remainder pile.

Seriously, Bill, any chance McCain had went out the window when he picked Caribou Barbie for his running mate. Have you SEEN what even the very die-hard, rock-ribbed 'Pubbies are saying?

Frankly, it's a year for None of the Above. But Obama is less NOTA than McPalin.

"No matter how cynical you try to be, you just can't keep up."
--Lily Tomlin

It became apparent after last night's debate - Palin managing to exceed the expectations that were so low that all she had to do was stay vertical - that she is following the tried and true strategy of Bush in appealing to the unwashed masses. She even pronounces nuclear as 'noo-koo-lar' like he does. With the gosh darns and the foreign-policy-is-hard noise that comes out when you pull her string, she's really just a GWB that's easier on the eyes.

While we're discussing *ahem* interesting candidates this season:

http://iowahouse.org/2008/10/03/candida ... /#more-748

I had to post this:

I was just explaining to my 8yo, who is busy mastering Rubik's Cube, how algorithms work. Part of the discussion was about how insects like ants and termites very likely "think" with nothing but algorithms.

Insects and other low forms of life, it would seem.

OK -- I think a lot of guys are going to be torn between their racism and their misogyny, which rather amuses me.

The folks calling for McCain's medical records are being stonewalled. Malignant melanoma is likely to kill him dead, and he wants to be President when it happens.

Obama could be the risen Christ, and with brown skin there are a lot of people who will say "Thanks but no thanks" to heaven. I certainly know enough of them.

Between that internal argument and the electronic vote finagling -- not to mention the methods for purging voter rolls -- the outcome is way up in the air.

"There was no election in 2016."

Tina: Too true to be good or, unfortunately, denied out of hand.
James: I sincerely hope Heinlein was wrong on this aspect of The Crazy Years, but I'm not counting on it.

And in the politics of much of the rest of the world, the squeaky wheels get greased. Count yer blessings.

Or not...

Palin is not Heinleinian in any meaningful way. Heinlein was not prejudiced in most ways, but he didn't suffer fools gladly. Based on limited observation (at MidAmericon) I don't think he would have liked a vice-presidential candidate who didn't know that Africa is a continent.

This was when I first heard of Sarah Palin

http://www.newsminer.com/news/2008/mar/ ... n-butcher/

When she was signing a bill honoring a great hero, Susan Butcher.

Was Susan "Heinleinian?" I don't know. But she will be remembered when Sarah Palin is a former governor, living a humdrum and, I hope, happy life in the private sphere.

It's such a bitch when the head of your church disagrees with your own interpretation of said church's teachings: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/sarah ... 37069.html

Peter, I have *no* idea where you got the impression that Sarah Palin is Catholic, but she isn't. She's a member of a Pentecostal-type church that last I checked believed the Catholic Church was apostate and going to hell. Criticize her all you want, but let's get the facts straight, OK?

Ah, mea culpa. That does cast her comments in a different light. Although there's this sense that she was perfectly happy to ride on the Pope's coat tails while he was condemning homosexuals and other groups she opposes.

For various reasons, I have some beliefs in common with this Pope and previous ones. I'm not Catholic, and I don't consider myself to be riding on the Pope's coattails.

By the same logic, I don't think Palin is (or was) doing so.

Point taken. Just saying that when she said, in effect, that she thought this pope had lost touch with his religion... well, that's a special kind of offensive.

From the linked article, and the original Jake Tapper interview, it would appear the sum of her comments about the Pope are "He's had some statements that to me sound kind of liberal, has taken me aback, has kind of surprised me. "

The Pope's statements about gays do sound kind of liberal, especially compared to some of his predecessors, and they surprised me (and some of my Catholic friends). (They didn't particularly take me aback.)

"Lost touch with his religion" are your words, not hers. If you want to take special offense, at least get offended by what she says instead of something made up.

I get it that you don't care for her. But there's no need to misrepresent her, her faith, or her statements on the public comments of a public figure to make your point.

And the linked article is aggressively dumb. It says that Palin fears the Pope is influenced by the media, but her comments are pretty clear that she fears the media is mischaracterizing the Pope's statements, and she'd rather go to his original statements than trust what the media says about them.

Which, given how this particular article screws up what she said, seems like a pretty reasonable step to take.

As a point of reference, Joe Muto in "An Atheist in the FOXhole" (his account of how a liberal ended up working for Fox and getting fired for leaking videos to Gawker) seems to be making an effort to be fair - he has plenty of praise for Bill O'Reilly and - it hurts even to type this - says that Ann Coulter is nice in person. But he derides Palin as vacuous and unwilling to expend any effort to go beyond the sound bite level of understanding issues,

I see that Palin apologized for her remarks. Good, because it's worth noting that to her, the term 'liberal' is not a neutral description of political leaning, but a vile insult.

I expect Heinlein would have liked Palin as she appeared to most people in August 2008. In her case, time has showed that she's less than she first appeared, and I don't think he'd like what it did with her. I mostly don't. She lives up to her pro-life principles, though. There's a baby with Downs Syndrome that she and her husband are raising that by all accounts and to all appearances is valued, loved, and being given the best life that they can give him. I'm pro-life, but I think that if I were pro-choice I'd still admire and respect them for doing this.[/quote]

I am pro-choice and I do admire the Palin family for that aspect. In every other aspect I wish she would go away.