Christopher Rowe

I just saved the RNC $143,948!

By now, it's well known that, like one in every five American women, Sarah Palin is a Wal-mart shopper. I'm not sure whether she counts herself among the 63 percent of Wal-mart moms who say they "worry about having enough money to pay for daily necessities like groceries and rent," but just in case she is, I thought maybe I could find a way to ease her mind a little bit.

Now, obviously, the Republican National Committee didn't drop $150,000 on just one outfit for Governor Palin. Presumably, that's the budget for all 68 days from the time Senator McCain selected her as his running mate through November 4th, when she can switch back to her trusty state of Alaska charge card. So that's about $2,206 per day.

Well, I hope the RNC kept their Neiman Marcus and Saks Fifth Avenue receipts, because I'm about to save 'em a bundle!

I went to wal-mart.com and poked around the women's apparel pages and came up with this outfit in just a few minutes!

That's the ruffled jersey wrap dress in black by To the Max. Twenty-four bucks!

This red nylon shoulder bag from No Boundaries is a steal at fifteen dollars.

I think these twenty dollar red slingback pumps by Norma Kamali look like just the kind of thing the Governor would wear!

Tie it with the right knot and the Seed Supply Company's organic cotton scarf lends a nice touch--classy but very affordable at just five dollars!

And why not let the Governor say it with diamonds? They're a mom's best friend, right?

The text on the webpage for this Austrian crystal Mom bracelet sounds kind of elite-y, but don't hold that it against it. "This elegant 18kt white gold-plated bracelet shimmers with Austrian crystals. The word "Mom" repeats, encircling her wrist." I think it's kinda sweet, myself.

Now, reader, you could do what I just did and go come up with outfits for Governor Palin yourself. Heck, if we all stick to an $89 budget, then the RNC would only need to spend $6052 to dress the Governor in a new outfit for every day of the campaign!

Which is only a little over three times what the average American family spends on clothing in a year.

But instead, why don't you go here, and make sure you know where your polling place is.

I'm of two minds

I, who have never written a novel before, am trying to write two concurrently. I have pages in my notes for each labeled "About" and "Research needs." I didn't write anything on those pages until both projects were under way, but I thought I'd share what I could of them now. When I mention I'm working on a book, or books, people say "what's it about." Now I can send them here. I'm sharing the "Research needs" file in the hopes that some of you will recommend books. Giving and receiving book recommendations is the saving grace of the internet (along with cute animal pictures, of course).

For the "About" notes, for both books, I just opened up a file and allowed myself to free write for a few minutes in response to the "What's it about?" question. I'm sure these will change and grow overtime, but this is what I have down now, unedited except for spelling. They're very broad, and deal with context and theme, not plot.

So, here we go. First, the book I can tell you almost nothing about. Both entries for this book are heavily redacted because of a non-disclosure agreement. A few of you know a little about this project, please refrain from dropping any hints in the comments.

What's it about?

This is a book about slavery that turns into a book about freedom.

What are my research needs?

• World history of slavery outside North America
• Genie folklore and scholarship on same, preferably from an anthropological stance
• The Ottoman Empire
• Flora, fauna, and agriculture of a pre-modern desert seaport

The second book is called Sarah Across America, and some of you have heard me read from it.

What's it about?

     This is a book about exploration and distance—geographical, social, and psychological. Exploration is the bridging of distance. Geography is the study of how distance collapses or expands.
     The people who have access—however limited it might be—to the “magic” in this world are the people whose work has to do with different kinds of distances. Cultural workers like artists and shamans, certain kinds of engineers and physicists—like aeronauts and submariners, telephonic engineers and astronomers—and the social scientists who work the interfaces between those fields of work—geographers.
     The main differences between this world and ours are these (at a “guiding principles” level anyway, of course the differences would “really” occur as an untellable metastasization, a fractal expansion headed down an inescapable and unexplorable rabbit hole):

1. A sort of magic is present and has been throughout human history.
2. For the purposes of this story, the main impact (1) has had on political and social history is that the Enlightenment was never interrupted and subverted by the Industrial Revolution.
3. Magic tinged social changes in the aboriginal cultures of the Americas led to careful husbanding and protection of the megafauna present in the Ice Age as totemic expressions of individual "nations" instead of being hunted to extinction.

Hit the closer (and so narrower, remember that) view button once, twice, and European expansion into the Americas is limited to the Caribbean, which is largely Spanish, and to the Eastern Seaboard of what is now Canada and the United States, which remains a set of British colonies.

The novel is set in a 1930s.

What are my research needs?

• The Lewis and Clark Expedition
• Native American social and political history (pre-contact)
• The Enlightenment
• North American Pleistocene fauna
• Slavery in the British Empire

Oh Brunhilda, you're so lovely....

Brunhilda, please report to the stage.

What's in a name?

Shamelessly lifted and offered to you in lieu of original content. (By the way, anybody know if there's anything good on the teevee machine tonight?)

[MUSIC: Ominous drone]

ANNOUNCER:

John Dillinger---violent gangster.
John Ehrlichman, John Haldeman, John Mitchell---corrupt convicted cronies in the Nixon Watergate scandal.
John Boy Walton---stole moonshine from the Baldwin Sisters' still.
John Hinckley---would-be assassin.
John Walker Lindh---American Taliban.
John---one who frequents prostitutes.
John---a toilet.
John McCain---Republican nominee for...president?

As John McCain runs for the highest office in the land, he still refuses to come clean and explain his association with this Who's Who of criminals, curs and commodes.

Who is the real John McCain? What kind of John is he really? And why won’t he tell us the truth?

Can we really trust..."John" McCain?

Farming: A Handbook

The finest growth that farmland can produce is a careful farmer.

Make the human race a better head. Make the world a better piece of ground.

--from "Prayers and Sayings of the Mad Farmer," Wendell Berry

My nephew, William Rowe, third of that name to better this piece of ground.

Won't you spare me over 'til another year?

I'm not sure all y'all will have the particular cultural background that lets you know just how powerful this is. But whether you do or you don't, won't you please click the link and listen to what Dr. Ralph Stanley has to say about Barack Obama.

If you don't who Ralph Stanley is... Ah, y'know what? Just don't tell me

I mean, SPECIFICALLY

I'm sure this has been done out there in blogville somewhere by now, but not on any of 'em that I read, so I'm going ahead. (Unless you did it on your blog, I mean, which of course I read! The RSS dealio just ate that one entry or something, though, so I'm still going ahead).

Please encourage all your friends to play.

As you know, the Governor of Alaska and Republic Party Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin recently stated on national television that she reads "any" and "all" magazines. Invited, nay, exhorted to clarify her answer by providing specific examples, she insisted that she reads "all of them."

So here's the game. Fill in the blanks in this sentence, and post the result in the comments.

Sarah Palin reads ______________ because _____________

Examples

• Sarah Palin reads National Geographic, because where else is she going to see a polar bear?
• Sarah Palin reads Locus: The Magazine of the Science Fiction & Fantasy Field, because the capsule summaries of Baen Books yield the same insights as foreign policy briefs from the Heritage Foundation, but with more talking battlewagons.
• Sarah Palin reads Black Inches, because Latin Inches is in Spanish.

All dang day, every dang day...

From about eight o'clock in the morning, when I clock in here at the ol' baloney factory, until about three in the afternoon, when I clock out to to start the house-husbandry and the dog-servitude, this is what I'm staring at.