I was exhausted and out of breath whenever I did those kinds of calisthenics – barely able to even whisper – and that was only after  five minutes of exercise.

By the time I was in elementary school Jack LaLanne was already a big celebrity. My mother watched his show practically every day even though she never exercised. Every afternoon my mom would sit down and watch Jack LaLanne, Liberace, and Queen for a Day, all local shows from Hollywood that followed her daily block of network soap operas. I guess that must have impressed me at the time. Jack LaLanne and Hopalong Cassidy were my favorite heroes in those days. They still are. The difference was that Hopalong Cassidy was a fictional character that carried two ivory handled guns; Jack LaLanne was a real person who didn’t need any guns.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NEboAJf9UVc

In 1969 I was privileged to meet Mr. LaLanne while working as an installer/repairman for Pacific Telephone in the Hollywood (CA) exchange area. One morning I was given a service request at in a home located in the Hollywood Hills overlooking Hollywood and Los Angeles. The order indicated that the customer’s name was “J. F. LaLanne.” Until I arrived at the home and was invited in, it never occurred to me that this particular “LaLanne” was “that LaLanne.”

The house was very neat and tidy, but somewhat small when compared to most of the other homes around it. A very attractive lady wearing a fitted jumpsuit answered the door and invited me in. She took me into a room near the back of the house with large sliding doors or huge windows that looked out over a shining blue pool toward an unrestricted view of the smoggy Los Angeles basin below and to the south.

“Jack! The telephone man is here!”

A little man came into the room and briskly shook my hand. “Hi! I’m Jack,” he said. “Welcome to our home. I guess you’ve come to fix my phone?”

I was only 5 feet 10 inches tall, but I seemed to tower over this little man. But that’s where my advantage ended. Even though I was only half his age, it was immediately clear to me that I would be foolish to ever try to pick a fight with this fellow. He was all muscle and bone covered in a tightly fitted blue jump suit. Impressed? You bet! It was obvious to me that this pleasant fellow was for real and clearly practiced what he preached on TV.

Even though I was just a “Joe Average” working man that came to their home to do a dirty job, I was treated with the utmost courtesy by both of the LaLanne’s and I still have fond memories of my very brief visit to their home.

When my brother graduated from the University of Nebraska in the early 1970s, he returned to Southern California and stayed at my home for a few months until he found a full-time job. As luck would have it, instead of getting a job at the telephone company where I worked, he was hired as a manager-trainee for Jack LaLanne’s Health Spas. Although I never had the privilege to see Mr. LaLanne in person again, I know that my brother would see him from time to time as he made visits to the various gyms and spas in the Los Angeles area. Thanks to his employment at several upscale LaLanne health spas, my brother was able to make many new friends and excellent business contacts that served him well in later years.

My last contact with Mr. LaLanne was in 1984 near Long Beach, California. I was in the area to install a telephone system in a small business near the beach.

After I parked the service van, I noticed crowds gathered down by the beach looking way out into the bay. I wandered over and asked one of the bystanders what was going on.  He pointed out toward a distant column of small boats and said, “Jack LaLanne is swimming across the bay. He’s towing a hundred people in fifty boats. That little son of a bitch is like eighty or something. Can you imagine? How’s he do that?”

Needless to say, just being in proximity to such an event was a privilege. I was impressed that this little old fellow that I’d met fifteen years before could even think of doing anything like that.

Actually, when he swam that day in the ocean near Long Beach, LaLanne was “only” 70. Oh yeah, and he was “only” pulling 70 people in 70 boats. No big deal, you say?  On top of that, he accomplished this particular feat of strength and endurance while handcuffed and in shackles.

He managed to swim to the Queen Mary without losing a single boat or passenger in spite of rather rough waves – and lived to see at least another twenty-five years.

What more can I say? What an amazing person Mr. LaLanne was then – and still is!

His latest accomplishment? Jack LaLanne turned 95 on September 26th. Happy birthday, Mr. LaLanne!

We can only guess what amazing feat he will do for his fans on his 100th birthday. I certainly hope that I live long enough to find out…

Check out Jack LaLanne’s website for more information about this truly unique human being.

At this point it is unclear what the Governor’s real motives might be, but already many commentators on both sides of the political spectrum have expressed their opinion that Palin may have “committed political suicide.”

Palin, 45, continues to be a major GOP celebrity and has been considered one of the leading candidates for the Republican presidential nomination in 2012. Her decision not to run for reelection as Alaska’s governor in 2010, combined with her announcement that she would not serve out the rest of her term, was seen by some conservative Republicans as the hammer that would drive nails into her political coffin.

Sarah Palin’s resignation announcement

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qqsUNQAbtnA

At this point it is too early to know the true motivation behind Palin’s latest quirky decision. She may have felt battered by her recent feud with TV late night comedian David Letterman. Her complaints centered around his admittedly distasteful jokes about her daughter and NY Yankee star Alex Rodriguez. Letterman later apologized on air and said that he regretted using the jokes.

She may have also felt betrayed by Republican running mate John McCain’s campaign staffers (along with a few of her own) that shared the dirt with Vanity Fair magazine’s writer Todd Purdom about the infighting and backbiting that went on during her failed 2008 presidential campaign. The Vanity Fair article appears in the August 2009 issue (now on the newsstands) and can also be viewed at VF.com.

It was clear that many Republican strategists were not happy with the choice of Palin as McCain’s running mate. Many felt that she was too inexperienced, carried too much political baggage (considering the short time that she was Alaska’s governor), and simply did not have the political savvy to be an effective and credible candidate.

The counter-balance was Palin’s support among the most conservative and religious members of the Republican base, surprising even to the party’s own pollsters. Her Midwestern style and evangelical Protestant religious leanings immediately attracted the southern wing of the GOP. Her connection with the campaign also balanced out Senator McCain’s weak support among the most conservative members of the party, and pulled in the former supporters of the openly religious Governor Mike Huckabee.

On the surface, Palin seemed to be a perfect choice. She was a woman, a conservative, and a church-going, gun-toting, America First! anti-Socialist hottie! When she joined the campaign, the approval numbers for the Republican ticket soared and immediately took the lead in the national campaign – for about two weeks.

Unfortunately, every time Sarah Palin opened her mouth during a TV interview, she managed to show how uneducated and unsophisticated she really was. GOP campaign numbers began to slide and never recovered. At one point there were rumors that Palin would be allowed to resign from the campaign. ["Will Sarah Palin drop out?"]

After the November election, Palin’s supporters and Republican Party leaders felt that she should go back to Alaska, be a good governor, stay out of trouble, and take the time available to school herself on effective national campaigning, and try to find a way to spread her appeal across a broader voter spectrum.

Palin has done none of this, continuing to constantly issue negative comments on Obama’s initiatives, rejecting needed federal stimulus dollars (and then accepting them) for her state, and generally acting the “spoiled little brat up north.”

Palin supposedly has a book deal worth several million dollars working in the wings. Apparently she has chosen a writer at the conservative Christian World magazine to be her co-author of her memoir. She might feel that publishing a book and then appearing on TV and going on book tours might give her more exposure than hanging out at the Governor’s mansion in Juneau.

So maybe we haven’t heard the last of Sarah Palin. Maybe this really is the beginning of a new road for her. We wish her success in whatever she decides to do and hope her book provides her with the retirement money she’ll need for the next seven years. We’d suggest however, that she spend a lot of time practicing TV interviews before actually going on the road. If she is serious about ever being a political candidate in the near future she’s going to need to fine-tune her technique.

Michael Jackson died because his heart unexpectedly stopped working, and when it did his death took everyone around him by complete surprise. A few of his friends suspected he was ruining his health by overwork and over-medication with pain pills – but none expected that he would actually die from a damaged heart.

But maybe Michael Jackson’s heart was damaged in many ways, many years ago, back when he was still a very young child.

In 1965, Michael’s mother, Katherine Jackson, became a Jehovah’s Witness. Katherine had always been very religious and a Baptist, but on the suggestion of a friend began to study with the Witnesses and fully accepted the teachings of the Watchtower Society as her new faith. Her husband, Joseph, never became a Witness, but apparently allowed her to raise all of nine of their children in her new faith. Daughters Rebbie and LaToya, as well as her son Michael, became the most active Witnesses in the family. The rest of the siblings either became inactive or simply quit the religion when they became of age.

In an article written for BeliefNet.com in 2000, Michael described his childhood this way:

“More than anything, I wished to be a normal little boy. I wanted to build tree houses and go to roller-skating parties. But very early on, this became impossible. I had to accept that my childhood would be different than most others. But that’s what always made me wonder what an ordinary childhood would be like.”

Many of us who were also raised as Jehovah’s Witnesses can relate to what Michael was trying to say. It is almost impossible to have a “normal” childhood being raised within a very controlling religion. As a Witness child you’re discouraged from playing with the neighborhood kids, you can’t join the Little League, or engage in high school sports.

Going to school for a Jehovah’s Witness child presents constant choices, issues, and teasing because they won’t salute the flag, sing the National Anthem, celebrate the other kids’ birthdays, or engage in any activity that relates to a holiday. Singing in the school chorus or glee club, or playing in the orchestra, presents obvious problems around Christmas and other national holidays. After all, how can you be in the marching band and not play the National Anthem?

Plus, there is the fact that as a Jehovah’s Witness child, you are going to be discouraged from going to college or university. So why waste your time taking all those college-prep courses in science, languages, or mathematics? There’s no reason at all to try to earn a scholarship if you’re not going to try for a college level education.

Michael Jackson was faced with all of those issues, plus being forced into becoming a full-time entertainer at the very early age of ten. In his home, father Joseph was clearly the boss and tough disciplinarian. Joseph could be a very harsh taskmaster; Michael and his brothers were expected to practice their music at every opportunity – they had little or no time to play or just kick back and be normal children.

On Friday and Saturday nights, when all the other kids were home watching TV, going to movies, having dates, or spending time with their families, the Jackson boys were performing in local bars or making concert appearances in other towns.

For Michael, only Sundays offered some respite from the career being forced upon him by his father. His Sundays were dedicated to the other master in his household – his religion – Jehovah’s Witnesses.

Michael continues his description of his early life (again quoted from the BeliefNet.com article):
“But what I wanted more than anything was to be ordinary… [Sunday] was the day I was able to step away from my unique life and glimpse the everyday… Sundays were my day for ‘Pioneering,’ the term used for the missionary work that Jehovah’s Witnesses do. We would spend the day in the suburbs of Southern California, going door to door or making the rounds of a shopping mall, distributing our Watchtower magazine. I continued my pioneering work for years and years after my career had been launched… Up to 1991, the time of my Dangerous tour, I would don my disguise of fat suit, wig, beard, and glasses and head off to live in the land of everyday America, visiting shopping plazas and tract homes in the suburbs. I loved to set foot in all those houses and catch sight of the shag rugs and La-Z-Boy armchairs with kids playing Monopoly and grandmas baby-sitting and all those wonderfully ordinary and, to me, magical scenes of life. Many, I know, would argue that these things seem like no big deal. But to me they were positively fascinating.”

Later on in his life, Michael seemed to develop an almost eerie passion to be with young children. He had relatively close relationships with Emmanuel Lewis, the diminutive star of TV’s “Diff’rent Strokes,” and Macaulay Culkin, the child star of the “Home Alone” movie trilogy, both much younger than he. He described his connection and special attraction to young children this way:

“[When I witnessing]…the funny thing is, no adults ever suspected who this strange bearded man was. But the children, with their extra intuition, knew right away. Like the Pied Piper of Hamlin, I would find myself trailed by eight or nine children by my second round of the shopping mall. They would follow and whisper and giggle, but they wouldn’t reveal my secret to their parents. They were my little aides. Hey, maybe you bought a magazine from me. Now you’re wondering, right? Church was a treat in its own right. It was again a chance for me to be ‘normal.’ ”

We all have to grow up eventually and face the realities of life as adults. Unfortunately, Michael Jackson never really grew up, and it seems clear that he did not want to. His body continued to grow, but by restricting his body’s natural development (he was reportedly 6-feet tall with a body weight around 120 pounds – about 60-70 pounds under norm), removing all or most of his body hair, and always speaking in a low volume, high pitched voice, he tried to remain a pubescent teenager. One observer commented that Jackson, either by design or because of psychological damage, essentially stopped growing socially at age 14.

You may look younger than you really are, but society’s norms do not look kindly upon middle-aged men who are obsessed with associating with young, unrelated children. Forty-year old male babysitters are not in high demand, but this is exactly what Michael Jackson wanted and tried to be.

His creation of his Neverland Park on his estate in Santa Barbara County, California was designed specifically to draw young visitors to his home. It’s true that many of these children were suffering from diseases and some were from poor or disadvantaged neighborhoods – and it’s also true that many were accompanied by a parent or guardian. His young visitors and those who accompanied them described their time at Jackson’s Neverland as “happy, fun, unique, much like going to Disneyland.”

It was Jackson’s obsession to be close to young unrelated children that eventually got him into serious trouble in the early 1990s, and formally charged with felonies in 2003-2005. He eventually paid out millions of dollars in one case and barely managed to survive his criminal court case in 2005. It is true that Jackson was found “not guilty” of all charges by the jury in that case, but in the court of public opinion he would be found guilty and punished severely for his behavior and poor judgment over the last few years of his life. His reputation and wealth would never fully recover from the damage inflicted during that court case.

Jackson’s closest friends and family continued to support him in spite of the accusations plus several incidents of allegedly inappropriate behavior with other people’s children. Most of them still expressed their feelings that Jackson was treated unfairly and punished for his totally innocent and kindly acts toward children. Almost everyone that has been close to him personally remains adamant that Michael Jackson would never hurt a child – simply because he loved children and loved being with them.

My own opinion (which is of course is “Just One Opinion”) is that they are right. My opinion has changed somewhat since his court trial and I now doubt that Michael Jackson ever intended to molest or hurt a child in any way.

I do still hold the opinion that his social development was retarded by the excessive discipline he received from his father, Joseph, plus the lack of normal social development due to his Jehovah’s Witness upbringing by his mother. It should be obvious to anyone that is paying attention that the man did not have a “normal childhood.”

We all see our life through our own eyes. Inside, I am still 20-years old and 145 pounds – but what I see every day is a 200 pound, 65-year old man in the mirror. That’s not me! It can’t be!

Michael Jackson’s own song hit, “Man in the Mirror,” touched on this phenomenon to some degree. I think that when Jackson looked in the mirror he saw a boy in his mid-teens – thin, hairless, beardless, and youthful – and he tried very hard to keep himself that way in reality.

When he was with young teenage boys and girls, he acted out his own childish fantasies with them, playing their games, singing their songs, acting silly and being stupid. He was trying to remain ageless, unchanging, just as he would have been when he was still a teenager.

During the trial, Jackson was accused of having pornographic magazines hidden away in his house, and this evidence was suggested as being proof that he was a child molester. But for all of us who were teenage boys, especially in the 1950s and 60s – didn’t we all sneak Playboy and Penthouse magazines into our rooms to share with our friends? Weren’t we curious about naked women? Didn’t many of us growing up in the 1970s and 80s have posters of Farrah Fawcett (rest in peace, Farrah) in a wet bathing suit hanging on our walls or on the back of our bedroom doors? Didn’t we hide our “dirty magazines” between our mattresses or under our junk in the closet so our mother’s wouldn’t see them? Remember sitting around with our friends and sharing nasty, gross, or sexually charged jokes that we had heard?

I think that is what Michael was really doing. He was reliving the teenage years he never got to enjoy like the rest of us – he was too busy working, traveling, and making money for his family. No wonder he busted away from the Jackson singing group and went out on his own at 18.

I must say that I was a fan of Michael Jackson during the peak of his career. Not a devoted fan, but still a fan of his music, an admirer of his many talents, and a fan that was cognizant of his many good works and philanthropies.

I was also very disappointed in Michael Jackson. I disliked his self-indulgent spending, the way he managed to snatch the Beatles’ music catalog away from his friend Paul McCartney, and the self-destructive damage he did to his face and body with constant plastic surgery.

To look at that handsome young man on the cover of “Off the Wall,” or the attractive, and athletic performer in the videos of “Thriller” and “Billy Jean” – and then compare the disastrous cumulative results of all of his facial mutilations twenty-five years later – was truly sad and heartbreaking for me.

So who’s to blame? I can not judge all of the players in Michael Jackson’s life. His father, Joseph, certainly had much to do with what Michael became, both professionally and psychologically. Katherine, Michael’s mother, made choices for herself and her children that clearly resulted in their socially dysfunctional behavior and unhappy relationships. No one can grow up as a Jehovah’s Witness child and not be scarred socially and psychologically; many of us manage to get over it and go on with normal lives – but Michael Jackson? Probably not.

Of course, Michael must share the blame and take responsibility for his own actions. His friends often tried to steer him away from his obsession with being around young children – but he wouldn’t listen.

His friends and business associates tried to rein in his excessive overspending and poor investment choices – but he wouldn’t listen.

Many doctors and surgeons counseled him against undergoing further plastic surgeries because of the damage he was doing to his face and health – but he wouldn’t listen.

And now he’s dead. Michael Jackson, the talented singer, dancer, performer, song writer – “The King of Pop” – is dead.

And now he’s dead. Michael Jackson, the generous philanthropist and friend to so many people, no matter their race, religion, creed, background, color of their skin or their disease – friend and stranger alike – is dead.

And now he’s dead. Michael Jackson, the young child that was never allowed to be normal, severely disciplined by a sometimes cruel father, raised as a Jehovah’s Witness by a mother caught up in a cult, denied the normal teenaged relationships that we all cherished – the little boy that never really grew up to be a man – is dead.

So Michael, we’re all so sorry that your damaged heart stopped beating and that you have left this world forever. But whatever your eternal destiny might be, no matter where you may end up, may you rest in peace…

Click here to go to the original BeliefNet.com article by Michael Jackson

As such, with a medium like Just One Opinion available to me, I’ve felt a nagging need to put some truth out there about Governor Sarah Palin, anxious to help hang some reality onto the half-truths and outright lies about her that have flourished over the last few months.

Even now, Palin spends a considerable amount of time defending herself for things that were said months ago. Although she is getting some support by conservative media people, such as talk show host John Ziegler, she has been maligned with few opportunities to defend herself. [Ziegler's interview below.]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-95wkCMeUkk

In my frustration, I wrote several pieces about her (which shall forever reside in my deleted file) because I had an epiphany while sitting in a waiting room this past week. I’ve decided that Sarah shouldn’t have to defend herself any longer!

My revelation came about when I picked up an old issue of Time Magazine. It was from a time last fall when Barack Obama was just a candidate, and Sarah Palin was the vice-presidential candidate on John McCain’s ill-fated run for the presidency. With nothing else to do, I skipped through the article. It was old enough that it referred to Obama as a “cosmopolitan,” as opposed to his being half-white, half-black – “a mutt” – as he self-deprecatingly referred to himself after he was elected.

Because the article hit many of the talking points surrounding his candidacy, it made me think about all of the things that had been said about the now president-elect during the campaign. Where did his money come from? He has no experience. He’s a Muslim. He’s not a U.S. citizen. Why is he making a political speech in Germany? His wife is a racist. And on and on.

It also reminded me of the many promises that reality will now force him to break. That’s when it struck me…things that were said last year are no longer important! Obama’s the President, and will be for at least the next four years!

So my message to Sarah Palin is to just let it go. She’s a young woman and if she gets another opportunity, and I hope she does, a lot of water will have run under the bridge by then. I think she knows that she needs some additional national and international exposure before she can make a serious run for higher office, and she has at least four years to do that.

Sarah Palin was an unknown governor who was shot out of a cannon in Alaska last August and deposited squarely in the middle of America’s consciousness. Many of America’s citizens outside of Alaska who were desperate for any kind of alternative to Barack Obama immediately grasped onto Sarah’s fashionable coattails in the hope that she could help carry a completely outgunned John McCain to the presidency.

Palin made a huge and positive impact with millions of Americans – people who were bright enough to see through the media driven bias that put a negative spin on every little thing they could find out about her. Being vilified, unnecessarily as it turned out, by zealous Obama followers who panicked at the immediate impact she had with millions of voters was not a surprise. It smacked of fear. Barack Obama overcame mountains of negativity, but lets face it, he became part of a political snowball that wasn’t going to be stopped, and he’s a…man.

It’s not important that people outside of Alaska don’t know that “The Bridge to Nowhere” that caused so much heartburn wasn’t a bridge to nowhere at all. It was a bridge to the airport on Gravina Island in southeastern Alaska that would have allowed the people of Ketchikan to drive to the airport, rather than take a half mile ferry boat ride across the Tongass Narrows to get there.

Try to imagine crossing the open sea in a ferry boat in January in Alaska to get on a plane to go visit grandma! As much as Sarah wanted to help the citizens of Ketchikan, she did change her mind about the bridge when she became governor. Changing your mind at the appropriate time isn’t a sign of weakness in a leader – it’s a sign of strength.

It’s also not important that people outside of Alaska don’t know that Sarah actually did put the state-owned jet (that ex-governor Murkowski insisted the state needed) on eBay. The aircraft eventually was sold, though not on eBay. Sarah never said it “sold on eBay” – she said she “put it on eBay.” In all honesty, the sale of the plane was a losing proposition for the state (reportedly a $500,000 loss). However, Sarah spent $400,000 less on travel during her first year in office than Murkowski spent in his last year in office, and the overall savings will continue.

Eventually people will forget the unimportant issues that desperate detractors dug up.  There was the Walt Monegan “Troopergate” thing. Palin’s teenage daughter was pregnant and unmarried and her boyfriend’s mother had legal problems. There was also an allegation that Sarah’s newborn son, Trig, was not her baby.

The facts are that Walt Monegan had an at-will job in an at-will state. He was offered another job, which he turned down. The whole thing hurt Walt so bad that he’s now running for mayor of Anchorage.

That whole affair would have gone unnoticed in a non-election year. Sarah could have saved herself a lot of grief by simply explaining why she removed Monegan at the time she did it – but by law she wasn’t required to!

Like many other good families in America, Sarah has a daughter who had a baby out-of-wedlock. Unfortunately for Sarah, her daughter’s boyfriend has a mother with a drug problem. Forget it. That unfortunate situation has nothing to do with Sarah Palin’s abilities as a mother or a politician. Sarah has an exceptional husband, and an exceptional family, and she can’t be blamed for the family problems of Bristol’s boyfriend.

Oh, and the cry for medical records to prove that Trig is really Sarah’s son? That’s just too ridiculous for further discussion.

The $150,000 campaign wardrobe? Palin’s “you betcha,” “you can see Russia from my house,” and her winks?  None of those things are part of the Sarah Palin Alaskans know.

My guess is that McCain’s advisors are partly to blame because they believed that is what America wanted to see and hear. Clearly the rest of the responsibility falls on the opposition for jumping on every little thing they could dig up about Palin, not to mention the considerable peripheral damage caused by actress Tina Fey and her unfortunate look-a-like imitations of Sarah. Oh, and by the way – Sarah’s house is six hundred miles from Russia and she knows it.

It’s a lot to hope for, but there may be a more equitable America in the future, and perhaps voters outside of Alaska will hear about the things Sarah actually has done that support the contention that she is a strong leader.

Consider the following facts:

Alaska is not a island off the west coast of the U.S. It is the largest and wealthiest state in the United States, and Sarah Palin is its Governor.  Read that again. Alaska’s Permanent Fund is one of the largest sovereign wealth funds in the world.

Alaska is so large that hundreds of small communities can only be reached by air or water, creating huge management and logistic issues for state government.

Alaskan’s aren’t illiterate and unsophisticated. Sarah’s Anchorage office is very close to the recently opened $111 million Dena’ina Civic and Convention Center, the $70 million Performing Arts Center, and the $100 million addition to the Anchorage Museum. (I’ve seen “Cats” at the Winter Garden Theatre in New York, and in the Performing Arts Center in Anchorage.)

These three Alaska venues are places where educated and cultured Alaskans gather for assorted civic, arts, and entertainment events.

The largest percentage of Alaskans are descended from the same intelligent and fiercely independent people who were adventurous enough to come to Alaska from the same places outside of the state where most of you are living today.

Sarah is very bright, completely committed to making her state and her country better. She is not afraid to tackle big companies or the powerful men who make up an establishment network that survives because of who they are or what they have been.

In the primary election Palin beat Frank Murkowski, the incumbent governor and one time United States Senator. Then she beat the former governor, Democrat Tony Knowles, in the general election to become governor.

Sarah successfully pushed the Alaska Gasline Inducement Act through the legislature. In 2008 the state awarded a license to TransCanada Alaska to permit, develop, and build a 1715 mile natural gas pipeline from the North Slope to the Alberta Hub in Canada. The award included $500 million from the state to aid in the process.

The reality is that TransCanada does not own the gas, the producers do. ConocoPhillips and BP are now moving ahead with The Denali Project, which is their own plan to build a pipeline.

I’m not sure the economics are there to build one natural gas pipeline right now, let alone two, so something will obviously have to give. At the very least, after many years with nothing being done, Sarah may have forced the producers to action by her creation of AGIA.

Sarah is a quick study. Anybody who watched the hatchet job Katy Couric did on her, followed by her debate with Joe Biden shortly thereafter should realize that fact. Katy Couric was doing what she has always done - trying to sensationalize her way out of being the last place anchor of an evening news show that is two million viewers behind the other two major networks.

Come on – off the cuff – can you tell me what you think about major Supreme Court decisions and the George Bush doctrine?  Then tell me how important it is for a vice-presidential candidate to be able to answer those questions.

Sarah knew the first phase of the interview went poorly, and didn’t want to complete subsequent parts of the interview, but McCain’s advisors wanted her to go ahead.

In my opinion, the real Sarah Palin is somewhere between what her supporters wanted to believe she was and what her detractors manufactured. I had a twenty minute discussion with her several years ago when she had just started her service on the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission. At the time, I was the manager of a major oilfield service company in Alaska, and she was gathering information about the oil industry as she was learning her new job.

I don’t pretend to be an acquaintance of Sarah’s, or that she would even remember meeting me. What I am doing here is falling back on my positive firsthand impression of her, my intimate knowledge of Alaska, and my proximity to the place where Sarah lives and works in an attempt to put a realistic evaluation on who she really is and what she may become.

After the glow from her campaign energizing introductory speech at the Republican convention faded, the defining question about Sarah’s entry into the presidential race became whether or not she was qualified to be the Vice-President, or, heaven forbid, President, in the event John McCain died after he was elected.

It is not my belief that she was ready last fall, or even that she is ready now. John McCain and his advisors should have recognized that, but they were desperate to do something that would shake the race up – desperate enough to pass over such big name possibilities as former governors Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee. I doubt that any other Republican governor who could have run (that excludes Governor Schwarzenegger) would have been ready either. I have no doubt that Sarah Palin could be ready in just a few years.

There were clearly some basic problems with the McCain/Palin ticket, and many mistakes were made during their campaign. For me, there were two major problems, and one annoyance.

First and foremost may have been McCain’s choice of Sarah to run with him. Even though their Achilles heel was McCain himself, her level of experience was a pivotal factor in their eventual loss. There is no question that Palin won over millions of Americans - while ironic thanks should go to her detractors who made her someone who is now well known in every household. Sarah Palin will, in the coming years, prove to them all who she really is.

I like John McCain. I think he is a true American hero. But for me, during the campaign he just didn’t come off as being presidential.

About the annoyance: Even though I am a former oil guy, I didn’t like the “drill, drill, drill” mantra during the campaign. I thought it sounded reckless, sending a “drill at any cost” message to voters.

That’s not the best way to counter the false charges of the well-financed environmental and anti-development groups at a time when everyone is looking for fiscal responsibility – or to earn support from the voters who were on the fence.

Let’s face it: Alaska is arguably a man’s state, and it is so remote to the rest of the United States that it still remains a mystery to most Americans in this, its 50th Anniversary month.

Whether or not you like Sarah Palin, she’s a woman with enough of the “right stuff” to unify an unprecedented percentage of Alaska’s population. I suggest to Sarah that she should let go of all of the forgettable negativity of the last few months -  and just move forward.

Read about the sexy, seamy, and mystical side of Alaska in Craig Bieber’s novel, Saylor’s Triangle, which chronicles the adventures of the wealthy Saylor family. Craig’s novel is available on Amazon.com Books through the Editor’s Picks link on the Just One Opinion side panel or through his website at www.CraigBieber.com.

Barack Obama has made it clear that he and his campaigners will not make the pregnancy of Palin’s 17-year old daughter an issue.  He stated that candidates families are “off limits” – especially their children.  He has already stated that he will not abide any attacks on his wife or daughters and that anyone on his stafff that attacks Palin’s family will be fired.  He also pointed out that he was the son of an 18-year old girl.

OK, so Obama has made his position very clear.  However, Palin and McCain face even more formidable foes: The Mass Media and the Christian Right – the very groups they had hoped her selection would appeal to the most.

Sarah Palin was originally baptized as a Roman Catholic, but now identifies herself as a “Protestant” and is known to belong to a Pentecostal church. She is Pro-Life, Pro Gun, and supports the teaching of Creationism in public schools. She feels that “Global Warming” is not caused by human activity or the burning of fossil fuels.

The Media

Let’s face it – Sarah Palin is ”eye candy” for celebrity hounds, papparazzi, and supermarket magazine racks.  She is very attractive, has a beautiful smile and speaks well.  In spite of the fact that she is the mother of five children and is 44 years old, she obviously takes good care of herself. Her education, training, and experience as a TV reporter has given her admirable communication skills.  Sarah Palin is news with a capital “N.”  Her only competition at the moment is an exhausted hurricane named Gustav that just missed destroying New Orleans for the second time in three years.

So if you turn on the news all you will see is two stories about two names: Hurricane Gustav and Sarah Palin.  Oh, and Sarah Palin’s 17-year old pregnant unwed daughter.  There is always room on the air for a little dirt. Thanks to the Palin family for admitting to a previously undisclosed family secret, the media has found a golden nugget of a news story.

Some of the rumors follow the line that Karl Rove will be involved in asking Palin to withdraw for the sake of the Republican Party and to improve John McCain’s chances of winning.  Because she was chosen to appeal to disaffected Hillary Clinton supporters (which clearly is not working) and to the Evangelical Religious Right, it is important that Palin can meet those objectives.

The Religious Right

Jerry Falwell must be rolling over in his grave right now.  Evangelicals will publicly support Palin for her stand against abortion and for the teaching of Creationism in public schools.  But they are also unlikely to actually vote for a presidential ticket made up of McCain (whom they already dislike) and a woman who’s teenage daughter is both pregnant and unwed. Many will either move to Obama or simply not vote as a matter of conscience.

I can only imagine what is going through the minds of Pentecostals, Evangelicals, Charismatics, Southern Baptists and conservative Methodists right now.

This is a great opportunity for Sarah Palin to go with the rumors and do the right thing by dropping out of the race early – before the media frenzy destroys McCain’s chances of winning.  She could easily make a case that with her family situation (and her daughter’s pregnancy) that it makes more sense for her to go back to Alaska and resume her duties as Governor.  No one would blame her for taking that position because it makes so much sense.  Dragging her family through the campaign process, putting them through all of the pressures and pain of trying for national office – especially if her daughter will be giving birth in December or January – will lose her the respect that she would normally expect.

Time will tell – but this time the rumors might actually prove to have been correct.

Am I ready for “President” Fred Thompson?  I’m not so sure.

Thompson is finally running in the Republican Presidential primaries after a several month delay.   Everyone assumed that he would be an exciting candidate. He was expected to be different and to use his actor’s skills to highlight those differences.  He was also expected to look very presidential.  So far Thompson has been a total disappointment in every category.

His public appearances so far have, quite frankly, been BORING!!!  After speaking, the applause tends to be light and almost apologetic.  It’s like his audiences are saying, “Is that all there is?”  He has filled his messages with the same Republican rhetoric used by most of the other Republican candidates.  He’s not for the war in Iraq, but he’s not against it.  He’s against abortion, but feels that each mother must bear the responsibility for her own choices.  He’s supposedly the best candidate, but all the others are good Republicans and would make good Presidents too.   He’s for lower taxes and a tax cut, but believes in fiscal responsibility.

The bottom line is that you really can’t tell what this guy believes.  He’s not only in the middle of the road, he has a big yellow line running right down his back.  You can’t really figure what side of the road this guy travels down.  Does he need the safety of cue cards make his speeches?  Does he really know what he believes? 

I am so disappointed in Thompson.  After the poor showing of the other Republican candidates, I figured that Thompson would stand head and shoulders above them and really restore my interest in the process.  Now I wonder if his heart is in it?  Maybe he really didn’t want to be President, but his advisors and Republican Party staff felt that he could fill the shoes of Ronald Reagan and become the new “Great Communicator.”

So far the only thing that Fred Dalton Thompson has become is the “non-descript actor” of the Republican Presidential campaign.

For most mothers that would be a devastating event.  You could almost expect screaming, shrieking, and pulling of hair.  Wearing of sackcloth and ashes might even be appropriate. 

Britney, on the other hand, gave her boys up a day early and then went out to drive (without the appropriate license) and party hardy with some acquaintances later that evening.  She was filmed dancing and being silly.  Not exactly the approach that most of us expected her to take. 

I say, “Poor Britney.”  Here’s why:

• She doesn’t seem to have a clue what is really going on around her.
• She fails to understand the emotional problems her kids may develop.
• Her continued failure to meet court orders could result in significant jail time.
• By the time her head clears her career may be too far gone to regain.
• Her current fan base is shrinking daily and younger fans are looking elsewhere.

Maybe this will be good for her in the long run if she can pull out of her spiral before she crashes.  Younger people still have time to correct things.  Unfortunately, too many end up in a pile of wreckage and flames before they realize it is too late.

However, I am not 100% happy with Keith.  For one thing he has been gone from HIS show way too many times in recent weeks.  His female replacement is just fine, very articulate and very, very attractive.  But she is not Keith.  She does not have his eyebrows, his hairline, or his sense of humor.  When she throws paper, glass does not break.

It’s hard to find humor within daily news of our soldiers being blown up, innocent Iraqis, Israelis, Palestinians, and Afghanis being killed ruthlessly and almost at random.   But Keith fnds humor in just about everything else.  He manages to find clips of our beloved President stumbling over his tongue and loosing his train of thought almost daily. He locates contradictory statements from practically every candidate running for President – all of them telling us “trust me” and “support honesty in government” while lying and obfuscating the facts at every opportunity.

So I love the news and Keith’s humor.  His stand-ins must have different writers, because even though they are reading off the same teleprompters, the replacements are never as funny.  But his guests that are supposed to be funny?  Rarely do any of them come up with something truly humorous or provide incisive comments that will bring a smile to my face.

I find Michael Musto, Mo Rocca, and Paul F. Tompkins particularly unfunny and grating.  Keith’s writers give him a series of setup lines that should generate at least some funny responses, but most of the retorts by entertainment reporters Musto and Tompkins tend to have unpleasant sexual or gay overtones, and for the most part simply fall flat.  Keith gives an obligatory chuckle and then goes on to deliver the next setup line.  Keith – terminate these guys and any others like them now!  Please!

On the political side, Craig Crawford is a knowledgeable commentator, but seems to want to deliver every line like it was an aside.  Craig acts like he wants to be funny, but he’s not.  I’ll give him a break because he is right in the middle of the political mix and seems to understand the particulars of Washington personalities and processes. 

I have similar feelings about Dana Milbank, although he does not go out of his way to be humorous.  My favorites are John Dean and some of the ex-military officers that appear regularly on the show.  They pretty much tell it like it is and their humor tends to be natural, not forced.

So Keith – don’t be like Abbott to your guests’ Costello.   Don’t be Martin to their Lewis.  Costello and Lewis forced their humor too, but we were all a lot younger and more naive in those days.  We knew that we were supposed to laugh at everything the “funny guy” said or did – so we did.   But not any more.  We’ve grown up.

Just be yourself and let your own humor (or your writers’) flow naturally.  Yours is a news show, and some of your comments are based on your view of the absurd.  But it is not standup comedy.  Let it be what it is and you should do what you do.  We’ll all be better off that way and I’ll enjoy your show a lot more.

I’ve watched Keith since his days at ESPN.  He takes his job seriously.  From time to time he can go into a rant about President Bush’s running of the Iraq War or the mistreatment of injured veterans at Walter Reed Hospital. But most of his stories are right on, to the point, and delivered with his own impish sense of humor.

Most importantly, Keith outshines his other MSNBC news anchors, and those of Fox News as well, simply because of one simple fact:  He lets his guests (usually one at a time) speak their peace without constantly interrupting them.  Most of his guests are articulate and credible, so it is usually a pleasure to hear them give their opinions, filling in the facts of the news story without being shouted down or constantly interrupted.

Scarborough Country, Hannity and Colmes, Bill O’Reilly and the rest all seem to want to load up the screen with three or four “experts” who spend the entire time arguing with each other and vying for screen time.  I personally get exhausted just trying to understand what points they are trying to make and trying to determine if any of them has even the slightest idea of what they are talking about.

Keith, on the other hand, has both in-house experts and visitors that always seem to have a reasonably educated opinion on a particular story or subject.  My only real problem is that he seems to like to bring in guests that are standup comedians for some of the celebrity stories who try to be funny and aren’t.  Many of their comments sound like they are being delivered by someone competing at the local amateur night at a small comedy club in Dubuque.

Keith on the other hand has an inate sense of the macabre and the irony behind the news. When discussing George Bush, Karl Rove and other ranking politicians, he almost always leaves the impression that says, “You know these guys are lying.  How do we know these guys are lying? Because their lips are moving.”  In most cases it turns out that they were lying – or at least heavily disguising the truth.

Keith Olbermann is probably not everyone’s cup of tea.  On the other hand, if you are interested in the day’s news and are sick of the amateurish news readers on the local and main network stations, go check Keith out a few times.  You might find his show addictive and find yourself smiling a bit when he announces who the “Worst Person of the Day” winner is.

My only other choice for real news, although he is not funny, is Anderson Cooper on CNN.  This guy has lots of credibility - and like Keith – allows his guests to participate without being involved in unwanted and unwarranted debate.

Can it be true?  Britney Spears has shaved her head and planted some tattoos on the back of her neck.  What’s next?  Is she going to become a gangbanger?

This young lady is coming apart at the seams.  So attractive, so talented, so wealthy – but suddenly she’s a train wreck.  It’s almost as if she has heard the old Hollywood saying that implies that any kind of publicity, good or bad, is good publicity and has taken it to heart.

I could give a damn about her relationship with K-Fed (he could probably do better and so could she), but what about her kids?  It’s like she has set herself a path direct to self-destruction and can’t wait to get to the end of the road.

Why does this seem to be a trend for all the “new best friends” of Paris Hilton?  What seems to be the common denominator that leads these girls to damage their health, reputation, and careers?  It’s all the price of fame, I guess…