Kate Schaefer

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11:51 am: A frivolous political post
Minutes ago, I heard a teaser about coming revelations about South Carolina governor Mark Sanford. I hoped that it would be something more interesting than what it turned out to be, inevitably, seconds later. When he was missing a few days ago and the cover story turned out to be that he was hiking on the Appalachian Trail, that was entertaining. Then when he turned out to be in Argentina, that was exotic, and I could imagine that he was on a secret mission (governor of South Carolina and secret agent!), although I thought it was more likely that he would turn out to suffer from the standard politician's problem. Political power is clearly a major aphrodisiac.

What would have been a more interesting explanation for the five missing days?

Mark Sanford, hiking on the Appalachian Trail, ran into a pack of wolves. While fighting them off bare-handed, he was abducted by aliens and taken to their spaceship orbiting the earth, where he underwent extensive abdominal surgery and sperm harvesting before losing consciousness. When he came to, he found himself in Argentina, on the alta plana. He wandered aimlessly for hours, a day, a night, and a day, getting colder and colder, until he encountered a flock of mysteriously friendly alpacas. The alpacas would not permit him to ride on them; they hummed ominously whenever he tried to get on their backs. They did allow him to accompany them as they walked and to sleep snuggled up to their warm, wooly backs, so that he did not freeze to death. Finally, he reached Cordoba, where he found an ATM that accepted his bankcard, allowing him to buy a bus ticket to Buenos Aires, where no one believed his story.

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[User Picture]
From:[info]fringefaan
Date:June 24th, 2009 07:55 pm (UTC)
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And only then did he look up his Argentinian girlfriend, seeking a shoulder to cry on.
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From:[info]kate_schaefer
Date:June 24th, 2009 11:33 pm (UTC)
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It all comes together in the end.

I haven't heard a politician talk so much about crying for years. He even made the stupid Evita joke, which should have been left to the late-night comedian circuit.
[User Picture]
From:[info]janetl
Date:June 24th, 2009 07:56 pm (UTC)
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I need this translation service on more news stories.
[User Picture]
From:[info]kate_schaefer
Date:June 24th, 2009 11:35 pm (UTC)
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Thanks. Next time a story calls out to me so strongly, I'll translate it, too.

(Do we know each other? You're certainly a friend of many of my friends.)
From:[info]calimac
Date:June 24th, 2009 08:34 pm (UTC)
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... But the old man didn't believe the story, any more than you do. [Last line of old Appalachian back-country joke.]
[User Picture]
From:[info]kate_schaefer
Date:June 24th, 2009 11:47 pm (UTC)
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I don't know the joke to which that's the last line, but I know that old man. The Appalachians have a shoulder in Ohio, not far from where I grew up.
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From:[info]fredcritter
Date:June 24th, 2009 11:18 pm (UTC)
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Yes. I like your version much better. Goes to show, I guess. Them politician-types don't got no watcha call imagination about the Important things...
[User Picture]
From:[info]kate_schaefer
Date:June 24th, 2009 11:48 pm (UTC)
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Thanks! I'm charmed by your see-no-evil icon.
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From:[info]fredcritter
Date:June 25th, 2009 12:11 am (UTC)
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You're entirely welcome.

Thank you. Interesting though. I think of that icon as "anonymous" rather than "see-no-evil". So I stepped back and realized that you're right and I'm either "charmingly retro" or, more likely, just a totally out-of-date codger. After all, here in the technical vastness of the 21st Century, "anonymous" is signified by a computer-generated mosaic of course; black bars are simply so yesterday's news. *sigh*
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From:[info]redbird
Date:June 25th, 2009 01:04 am (UTC)
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Maybe he was busy organizing an airship service, non-stop from the northern end of the Appalachian Trail to Tierra del Fuego?
[User Picture]
From:[info]kate_schaefer
Date:June 25th, 2009 01:18 am (UTC)
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Zeppelins to Tierra del Fuego! What a great idea. I can see the Stu Shiffman illustrations of it now.
[User Picture]
From:[info]e_bourne
Date:June 25th, 2009 02:10 am (UTC)
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Oh please, give us more news stories! I like yours better!
[User Picture]
From:[info]kate_schaefer
Date:June 25th, 2009 02:57 am (UTC)
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I'll keep an eye out. They have to be stories in which nobody dies, because I can't make fun of dead people. Well, yes, I can, but I don't like to think of myself that way because it violates my sense of prissiness or something.
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From:[info]ladyjestocost
Date:June 25th, 2009 03:53 am (UTC)

Southern Governors

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I was thinking maybe he was a werepossum...

Or an alien who had to report to the mother ship...

Or he'd woken up one morning as a giant cockroach...

Or he'd run away to Tahiti...

Or run afoul of the Atlantic Fern Penguins...

Or found a tape recorder that said, "Your mission, should you chose...

This? I'm beginning to think that public officials should be issued a chastity belt with their oath of office. It would cut down on stupid news stories, at least.
[User Picture]
From:[info]kate_schaefer
Date:June 25th, 2009 04:26 am (UTC)

Re: Southern Governors

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All of those, yes, more interesting than the actual story.

I don't think they should be issued chastity belts. I think they should be taught to say, "My private life is none of your business," or perhaps, "Yes, I do have intimate relations with goats, but they aren't in a position to blackmail me, so it's irrelevant to how I govern."
[User Picture]
From:[info]ladyjestocost
Date:June 25th, 2009 04:49 am (UTC)

Re: Southern Governors

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Oh, I could go with either of those - for anyone who isn't dependent on a party that spends an awful lot of time preaching public 'morality'.

Those that are - they don't deserve fun.
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From:[info]farmgirl1146
Date:June 25th, 2009 04:43 am (UTC)
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While sort of exotic, in a smarmy way, at the base he is banal while adding to the GOP hypocritical quotient.
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From:[info]kate_schaefer
Date:June 25th, 2009 01:57 pm (UTC)
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Yes, it's the banality of the whole thing that is so dull. He's ever so slightly more interesting than many of the others because he apparently spent his time in Argentina being really, really sad about breaking up with the other woman, only to come home and have to be really, really sad about his spouse breaking up with him and his state not being too thrilled with him, either.

Yes, while he was in Congress, he supported impeaching Clinton.
[User Picture]
From:[info]farmgirl1146
Date:June 25th, 2009 07:32 pm (UTC)
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I had not realized that he supported impeaching Clinton. What a fine example of the best the GOP has to offer today. I am so disgusted, but Jon Stewart's comment about conservatives with liberal penises almost makes this funny.
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From:[info]vondanmcintyre
Date:June 27th, 2009 04:13 am (UTC)

Re: A frivolous political post

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Kate, have you thought of a career as a rich & famous fiction writer?

I would actually settle for them saying "[That *other person's*] private life is none of my business, or yours either."

Was it you who said "Clinton should have said, 'That's a question no gentleman should ask, and no gentleman should answer'"?

But my gosh, these folks take hypocrisy to a high art.

Vonda
[User Picture]
From:[info]vondanmcintyre
Date:June 27th, 2009 04:14 am (UTC)

Re: A frivolous political post

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I neglected to say your post gave me my laugh of the day, for which I thank you. The alpacas are particularly inspired.

(Did you notice the llamas in the movie TROY?)

Vonda
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