(My friend Fern Chandonnet, a former Alaskan, decided to have a little literary fun at Sarah Palin’s expense. Hard to blame him. Her fall from grace began with that Katie Couric interview when Couric asked her what newspapers and magazines she read to inform her about world events, and the governor couldn’t name one. I was surprised she didn’t at least mention Field & Stream.)
Dearest Gang,
As you know, life in the Greatest Democracy the World Has Ever Known is beset today with improvised explosive fictions, launched anonymously from who-knows-where and calculated to bring down the most well-meaning expositions and their sponsors.
I suppose it’s a bit hubristic to think that this short note can dissipate the ever-expanding war fog, but I was inspired recently by a national liberal icon whose message, essentially, was: “Never give up!” (Unless of course you are dead, in which case the advisability of further struggle should be reviewed.)
At moments like these I like to turn to a selection from Scripture for guidance. Of particular relevance now, if I may presume to recommend it, is Paul’s Epistle to the Oklahomans.
And so to work. I am concerned as you are about the scurrility that pervades public discourse in general but today will limit myself to the persistent questions that surround ex-vice-presidential candidate (and now ex-governor of Alaska) Sarah Palin.
One of the most-often heard allegations is that Ms. Palin is not actually an American citizen – by virtue of her foreign birth and of her never having made public the relevant immigration or naturalization paperwork. Reports have the dark beauty arriving in 1983 at the port of Brooklyn, N.Y., aboard a Moldovan container ship. She is said then to have been employed among the dockworkers (in a service capacity not further specified) for two years, during which time she saved enough of her wages to buy a train ticket to Idaho, and thence to Alaska.
What stands immediately in boldface of course is that Moldova is landlocked and therefore is an unlikely point of departure for a container ship or, indeed, for any vessel larger than a canal barge. And though members of The Friends of the Enlightenment – a Mensa splinter group in Peoria, Illinois – claim the former Wasilla mayor did in fact arrive in Idaho aboard a canal barge (thus “proving” [?] that she was born in Moldova), it will be remembered that the municipality of Tiraspol, Moldova, on the River Dniester, is a well-known port of convenience (read: haven from regulators) for European-owned container ships and, correspondingly, is a notoriously fictional point of embarkation for that traffic. And though Tiraspol is considered a veritable Mecca for canal barges, and a canal barge from Tiraspol might conceivably find its way through the snarl of Moldovan, Romanian, and Ukrainian canals to the Black Sea and thence to Istanbul, no canal barge is thought ever to have crossed the Mediterranean, let alone the Atlantic Ocean (as of this writing).
You may draw your own conclusions.
The possibility arises that Ms. Palin embarked on her fateful voyage to Brooklyn from one of Romania’s Black Sea ports, likely as not Constanţa. Still, given her interest in oil industry development, it may be that she worked the oil fields of Baku and emigrated from that Caspian port – again, via canal barge or, perhaps, overland cart – and west to the Black Sea. The position has been lent some support by linguist Arthur Zwerdling, author of the controversial “Back to Baku.” He has written that Palin’s much-ballyhooed accent suggests a strong Azerbaijani influence.
Of interest: a Friends of the Enlightenment spokesman allows that the Baku scenario is not without merit. He avers that a check of public records there reveals that a certain “S. Palin” or “S. Palinka” was arrested in 1982 on suspicion of smuggling Russian pantyhose into the port. The resolution of the case is not part of the record, but it will be noted that the items were identified as “irregulars” – a not unusual designation for goods of Soviet provenance – and were thus tagged because the crotch areas of the hose, usually woven of light material for reasons of aeration, were in this case (through the usual Russian misfeasance) made of canvas. Baku housewives, known throughout the Caucasus for their wry humor, referred to the contraband as “the pantyhose with the death panels.”
Coincidence? I wonder.
Of secondary importance but nonetheless requiring, I think, a journalist’s eye, is Ms. Palin’s erratic CV, which lays claim to a “degree” in public relations from an Idaho university. Our friends in Peoria are quick to point out the results of a 1984 records check at the Sorbonne in Paris. To wit: one “S. Baleine” was granted a certificate of competence – with a concentration on “Post-Jansenist cretinism in the Dordogne” – after having passed several oral exams.
Two problems immediately present themselves: “Baleine” is the French word for “whale,” whereas “Palin” derives from the Russo-Caspian linguistic strain meaning “spelunker,” originally signifying “cave dweller.” (See the Greek “spelaion,” with its sense of “cave.”) Further there has been no corroborative evidence showing that the Sorbonne has ever granted a degree to an Azer Turk that involved anything to do with the Dordogne.
Second, Idaho University records indicate that an “S. Palin” was indeed granted a degree, though not in “poetry” as the ex-governor originally had claimed. (Her CV entry for the period cites a degree in “public relations,” though this is thought to have appeared only after she was embarrassed by an Idaho poetry-slam activist at a public gathering.) In fact, she had majored not in “poetry” but in “poultry,” thereby revealing the influence devolving from the plethora of poultry farms that line the shores of the Caspian Sea (not to mention the frequent Azer Turk confusion of “poetry” and “poultry.” [See J. Dagnabian’s “Efficaciousness of ESL among Azer Turks”, PMLA Journal, 1956]).
Finally, it is being bruited about that the Azer connection is patently false by reason of la Palin’s very name: that “Palin” is her married name and not her own. This is a cavil. The alert reader will remember that the “Palins” inhabit various and separate branches: Ms. Palin’s being the Caspian spelunker’s, and her husband’s that of the whale line [see Todd Palin’s “I Fry and Pray: My Life with a Salmon Addict”, National Republican Clearing House, 2008].
So long for now, Gang-sters. And remember: there is no such thing as a stupid answer.
Fern Chandonnet