Into the Wild: Alaska Envy comes as Sarah Palin sets forth

September 4, 11:10 AMSeattle People ExaminerLaura Vecsey

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It used to be that Seattle was the mud & rain-caked frontier town on America's upper left-most edge. Seattle was the reckless little oasis where pioneers and individualists found refuge in a vaguely lawless place; where shipping pirates used to "Shanghai" sailors and other drunken bar patrons and pirate them off to sea.

All it took to make Seattle not be like Alaska was a little Bill Gates computer whiz bang. That's what helped turn Seattle into an Elite Eastern City Out West, home of Elite Media Types (slate was started here) who can't appreciate Middle American values.

Well, for that we say: Thanks, Bill Gates. Thanks a lot for helping us become unable to appreciate the core values and down-home appeal of Sarah Palin, a sister Governor from the Pacific Northwest territory.

Maybe that's what's brewing here in Seattle, in regards to Sarah Palin. It's a little Alaska Envy cropping up here in the Emerald City and across western Washington.

Sure this is Barack Obama country, but this is also the little wedge of earthquake-faulted land where residents can't fathom how a little ol' hockey mom with a newscaster's ability to read a teleprompter can shimmy her way to the near top of the GOP Presidential ticket. Why, before she was governor of Alaska, Palin was the mayor of Wasilla. Above, we have a picture of that little town's city hall. And to think Barack Obama is going to continue his campaign against a GOP ticket that includes a VP candidate whose credentials include governance from this Alaskan outpost.

Talk about the Audacity of Hope!

In an attempt to understand Middle America, we have vowed the following:

1. To not listen to Gloria Steinam say Sarah Palin  "is Phyllis Schlafly, only younger."

2. Not read a new blog called Librarians Against Palin, lest we better understand how Mayor Palin asked the Wasilla librarian how she could go about getting books banned. Might have been books about teenaged sex, or abstinance. We're not exactly sure. Maybe Harry Potter.

3. To not read any more insightful essays, like this one in Rolling Stone by Matt Taibbi, on how this 2008 Presidential election is turning out to be a Class War.

4. To NOT read the National Enquirer, despite the fact that it has more information on Sarah Palin than John McCain's team of vetters.

5. To NOT try and connect  to anything having to do with vetters, or Alaska, or Sarah Palin, to Eddie Vedder despite the Pearl Jam and Seattleite's brilliant score for the movie Into the Wild.

6. Not wonder when Jon Krakauer might begin his next intrepid journalistic expedition to Alaska to uncover the real Sarah Palin story.

7. To not dwell too long on this post on Crosscut, a fine online site with Northwest news, in which an Alaskan homemaker and education advocate named Anne Kilkenny posts one of the most amazing letters detailing Sarah Palin's history as mayor, governor and decision-maker in Alaska.