I followed a link from Andrew Sullivan’s site to Laura’s blog and have found myself fascinated by the analyses here of the Palin pregnancy mysteries.  I read quite a bit about it during the ’08 campaign, but just off and on since then, so some of my memories might be a little clouded.  Andrew’s fascination is with the aspects of lying and exercising bad judgment; mine, too, but I have always been interested in the pregnancy part, which, of course, doesn’t interest him in the least. :-)  It appeals to my clinical and management experience as a registered nurse in Labor and Delivery early in my career and I contemplate the logistics of how it happened.  I agree with the neonatologist’s assessments of the “hallway” photo.  BTW, when the baby is not in the nursery, it is in the mother’s room, and the idea that a grandparent would carry a baby outside of that room wandering around in a hallway unattended is outside of my experience.  A couple of other observations about the baby’s face: several hours after a vaginal birth and the nose is straight, not smashed sideways, plus there are almost always what might be called skin blemishes, usually reddened, from the bony birth canal.  And the presence of milia is almost universal. Those were not obvious here.

Trying to come up with an explanation for why or how Sarah Palin would have been in a hospital with a 6-8 week old baby passing it off as a newborn is pretty hard to grasp.  She announced a pregnancy March 5, 2008, so she had to have an outcome, either a living child or a credible story about its loss.  The photos of her pregnancy are pathetic, especially compared to the one of her first pregnancy when she was as big as a house.  I didn’t think she looked pregnant in any of them except the Gusty photo on 4/13 and the photo of her at that governors’ conference 4/17.  But, here is something to think about…the amniocentesis/near abortion story she told in Indiana, among other places.

As a pregnant woman in her forties, an amnio would be recommended.  Here is what has always bothered me.  Remember that in Sarah’s telling of her story to pro-life audiences, she indicated she knew ahead of time she was going to have a “special needs child,” and by default, this meant she had had an amnio, which meant she was around 20 weeks when it was done.  Amnios are typically done around 20 weeks.  In none of her photos does she even look big enough to safely have an amnio except for the Gusty photo. Due to some conflation of the sequence of events and my memory, I think she then talked about how she was out of town by herself and intimated she got the Down syndrome amnio results and could have terminated the pregnancy and “no one would ever know.”  Nevermind the fact that she is obviously clueless about how unavailable (second trimester) abortion is in this country to think that she could arrange one practically on the spur of the moment.  I think that something like over 85% of the counties in this country have no abortion services whatsoever.  That was playing into stereotypes and fears right there, but I digress.  Sarah has never specified to my knowledge what the out of town circumstances were.  She was governor at the time and does not seem to ever travel alone.  It is conceivable she might have concocted the out of town story after she hit the national scene, but assuming for a minute she was OOT by herself, I can think of an alternative explanation and it comes from something Levi said in his own moment in the spotlight.

Levi said that Palin would come home and go immediately to her bedroom and stay there and that Todd would crash in the recliner all night.  That was his way of suggesting they didn’t have sex, like hint, hint, how did Trig even get conceived?  Or maybe he was suggesting that they didn’t have sex with each other. In another interview he told the story about a family vacation to Hawaii and Levi went with them.  But, Todd and Sarah had a big fight and Sarah left and went home alone to AK.  This was the “summer” of ’07.  (This trip may have been in November 2007 for a wedding; I’ve seen conflicting reports.  I haven’t found any reference in the emails, yet.)  Well, I used to calculate due dates for a living, and you can just never really get away from it after you’ve done it for 10 years.  So I started doing a little math.  As you know, a pregnancy is 40 weeks.  The general rule is you use the date of the woman’s last menstrual period (LMP) and subtract 3 months and add 7 days for an estimated due date.  Well, when someone is due on May 25th and delivers on April 18th, her LMP was around the previous August 19th, you know, summer.  (The Internet has date calculators, which I used.)  Of course, we will never know the actual due date, but I sure wish I knew when that vacation was.  BTW, fetuses grow at a pretty predictable rate until the last month of pregnancy, when they begin to gain one-half pound per week.  For example, a 32-weeker usually weighs 3-2, 3 pounds, 2 ounces.  At 37 weeks, the baby is usually around 5 pounds.  For a 35-week baby to weigh 6 pounds, that would mean it would have to gain one pound a week from 32 weeks to 35 weeks.  Not likely, except for diabetes.  Since Palin didn’t announce the pregnancy until March, the due date could have been manipulated to fit whatever timeframe she wanted it to.

That “no one would ever know” moment is unintentionally revealing, because maybe it meant Todd would never know.  Just ask yourself why one might want to keep the knowledge of a pregnancy from one’s husband, especially if one has had a tubal ligation after your last child seven years earlier.

Texas.  Here are the perinatal problems with her Wild Ride story, which is basically that she started leaking 5 weeks early and left a few hours later and didn’t get home for 10 hours after that, had to then be induced and delivered in the early morning hours.  Sarah was described as not being in active labor by many witnesses during the flights home.  Why?  She had ruptured membranes, didn’t she?  We know that leaking amniotic fluid doesn’t equal labor.  Usually the rupture of the membranes stimulates prostaglandins which stimulate oxytocin which produces contractions.  Not always, however, particularly if it’s just a small leak or has sealed over.  The danger with the leaking is that it breaks the sterile barrier of the uterus and offers the opportunity for vaginal organisms to enter the uterus and become pathogenic and over time produce an infection, which is life-threatening to the fetus.  So you can’t ignore any rupture of the membranes, which protects the fetus from the outside world.  Her story is that she ignored the leak.  What is the standard of care?  IF she called her doctor and told her she thought she was leaking, the standard is to find out.  Go to Labor and Delivery and be checked.  In my day, we used Nitrazine paper to check for amniotic fluid in the vagina.  It is pretty reliable and turns a distinctive purple in the presence of amniotic fluid (it is yellow paper so the change is not subtle.)  But, you’ve got a problem if you’re out of town.  I am not a physicist, but I think one of the reasons why late pregnant women aren’t allowed on airplanes is not just because of not having a doctor to deliver a baby on board.  It is also because I imagine that there are changes in atmospheric pressure that can induce labor.  More deliveries during a full moon is real, regardless of the claimed statistics.  So, Sarah’s doctor would have no way of knowing if she got on a plane whether the changes in atmospheric pressure would induce her labor to begin.  Plus, the fetus may not be as well oxygenated at 35,000 feet.  There was absolutely no way to know and no way to test.  That is a dicey, risky call, I think.

 I didn’t know her doctor had changed her privilege status around June 2008 until I read it here.  At the next committee meeting after 4/18, I can imagine her peers asking her if her patient called her from TX and what her medical advice was.  They would have had the chart to review.  If she advised Palin to come home to the hospital without verifying the status of her membranes, I don’t think her peers would have agreed with that advice.  If she advised Palin to go to a hospital and she refused, her peers would agree that the doctor couldn’t have done anything about any advice that Palin refused to follow.  If she was truly ruptured (and I include just leaking), then the medically safe way to get her home would have been some sort of medical ambulance type arrangement.  If her doctor did not advise that, then I think her peers would criticize her for that.  Traveling to TX in late pregnancy was risky (did she have her doctor’s consent?), but traveling home with leaking membranes is the central point.  Everything revolves around whether she was leaking, which either would have been really obvious to her, or she should have had verified by a nurse and/or MD.  The more obvious her leaking was, the higher her chances of going into labor.  Once she got into active labor, she would deliver quickly after 4 previous deliveries and no one can predict when she would get active in this scenario.  When she did get active in the hospital, chances are she did deliver rather quickly.  That was the risk she took, because all she has to ask herself is would she have been able to get to any hospital fast enough enroute in the plane after she got into active labor.  My guess would be no.

Going back to Dr. Baldwin Johnson’s privileges, please be aware that a physician’s medical practice is viewed legally as his or her chattel – property - and restriction of the practice by any governing or regulatory body, including changes in hospital privileges, is grounds for a lawsuit if the reasons are not airtight.  I’ve read that she voluntarily restricted her own privileges.  That signals to me one of two things: either her peers had substantial evidence to yank her privileges and this was a negotiated settlement or that the focus of her practice had changed, such as if she had so few deliveries that it just wasn’t worth maintaining hospital privileges for them.  

Another problem with Sarah Palin’s Wild Ride story is a basic physiological one: one must be fertile to become pregnant.  There are hearsay reports that she had a tubal ligation sometime after Piper’s birth in 2001.  Hmmmm, pregnancy following a tubal ligation.  Veddy interesting.  The ligation failure rate is 2-10/1000 procedures and is affected by how it was done, when it was done, the surgeon’s skill and the healing process.  Tubals are done during a cesarean section, after a vaginal delivery or at a time not surrounding a pregnancy, and since we know that the tubes are not in the same place or condition at all those times, which could lead to the known complications I noted, a pregnancy after a tubal ligation is certainly possible. 

We have also seen a report that indicates Sarah Palin had a procedure around 2002 that made it medically impossible to conceive and carry a pregnancy.  For this procedure, in addition to the usual surgical team, a perfusionist was asked to be on standby.  A perfusionist is a specialized individual who operates the heart-lung machine for heart surgery.  They are also used for cases with a lot of blood loss or if a patient wanted to reduce the possibility of having a blood replacement transfusion (e.g. to avoid contracting HIV) because they use a technique to save the blood lost during surgery, wash it and administer it back to the patient.  This sounds like a hysterectomy to me, which can be a bloody procedure, and which would absolutely eliminate the possibility that she faced a diagnosis of Down syndrome found in an amniocentesis report, or ‘chose life’, or delivered Trig.     

So is there another candidate for Trig’s birth mother?

Allie, RN, is a former L & D nurse, and 25-year OR nurse.  She is working on Part II on how back-to-back pregnancies could have occurred.  Many thanks, Allie, for taking the time to share your skill, and thoughts, with us.  Allie will check the comments and be available to readers as much as she can.

Thanks to a faithful reader, we now have Levi side-by-side: tats, facial hair and wedding ring, which I CAN make out on the right photo, all right here. Skin color, curlie-cues...take it away readers. What do you see?

H/T you know who you are!

Silver, a kind reader and great commenter, sent me these two photos she'd discovered on a site called "Parenting Freedom." 

If I understand correctly, the photos are no longer there, but Silver made screen-grabs, which I give you now:

Silver then wrote this:  The data on them shows that the winter one (in the Mat-su hospital setting?) was taken 2/17/2009 at 6:49 AM and the one with Piper was taken on the same date at 6:51 AM. Both pictures were taken with a Canon Powershot G9. It would be very early in the day if they were there for a doctor's appointment.

I am a real luddite where these things are concerned, and could not make the right click work for me. So, Silver provided this site on exif data which might help others as well. (H/T and round of applause to Silver!)

And, just so we have the photos handy, here is Levi again, on that red couch:

UPDATE:  And here's an article that Silver also found, showing Bristol in September '08. Click on the photo to enlarge.

The previous thread with Brad Scharlott on Private vs. Public is still open. But in the meantime, what jumps out at you here?

BS:  Laura, I take it you’ve had a chance to read the though-provoking article I sent you:

“Redefining the ‘Private Lives’ of Public Officials - Women journalists have played a major role in this changing coverage.” (Nieman Reports, Spring 2002.)

The author, Florence George Graves, points to the media coverage of the sexual abuses of Senator Bob Packwood in the early 1990s as a breakthrough for the press in how it defines what is private vs. what is public in a politician’s sexual behavior. 

Up to that time, most editors shied away from stories of sexual predation by powerful men, viewing such behavior as “personal,” perhaps even a perk of high office. But thanks especially to women journalists, that old barrier fell. Does her thesis ring true for you?

LN: This is a wonderful article and I encourage everyone to read it. About half way down, Graves cites a fellow, male reporter who described editors as “skittish” about covering stories involving sex. That is the same word people have used over and over for nearly 3 years when writing about the Palin pregnancy controversy. It took Graves, as a woman, to break open that Packwood story, and it’s taken women to say Palin’s story does not pass the sniff test now. Now, that is not to discount any of the myriad men who have called Palin and her husband out on the improbability of their Trig story. But had women not been willing to talk about fluids and body parts, perhaps men might have stepped back, out of concern for propriety.

BS: I was struck by how the journalists reporting the Packwood matter focused on the human cost of ignoring what Packwood had done: dozens of women over the many years he was in power had been abused. Many were terrified of the man and quit their jobs rather than face continued sexual harassment. Ultimately, many of those women testified against him in congressional hearings, leading to his expulsion from the Senate.

Which brings us to Sarah Palin. Obviously, the actions of Sarah Palin are very different from those of Bob Packwood. But, even so, do you see any parallels?

LN: If you define Packwood’s problem as one of an abuse of power, then yes. We now know that Palin was found to have abused her power as a governor in terms of Troopergate. But can we define her secrecy at the time of her pregnancy, and the redaction of 2,000 emails since, as abusive? We can if in fact it was all in the service of a hoax. Abuse can cover unethical behavior and a lack of awareness for the dignity of those around us. Did she lie to the reporters covering her? Did she lie in her daily diary? I mean, where exactly are all those prenatal appointments that should have been on the books throughout that winter and spring?

Now Brad, let me ask you something. Graves goes on to write briefly about Gary Hart and his frolicking on the Monkey Business yacht in 1987. He did nothing illegal. But the ethics of his cavorting were enough to make him a funny footnote in American political history. Why hasn’t Palin been laughed off the page yet?

BS: Graves pointed to the “evolution” of reporting in the context of the Packwood case, and I think that’s apt. The evolution to that point, in the early 1990s, meant that men’s sexual offenses, if they were substantial enough, were no longer off-limits. The Hart affair in the 1980s may have been a special case, coming as early as it did, because he dared the press to prove he was a womanizer – and the press took him up on it. But certainly the press treated JFK’s sexual peccadilloes in the 1960s as beyond the pale of what they could report.

This evolution of reporting apparently has not reached the point where women politicians are subjected to the same scrutiny as men in all matters relating to sex. For example, two different men claimed last year, when Nikki Haley, a married woman, was running for governor of South Carolina, that they had had affairs with her. Yet the allegations received little attention in the press and she was elected governor.

But Palin, of course, is in a different universe from Nikki Haley. I am not aware of any other politician in U.S. history who most likely faked the birth of a child. There’s no precedent for how the press should respond. Reporters learned to use words like “penis” and “semen-stained dress” during Clinton’s impeachment trial but balked at asking whether amniotic fluid leaked out of Palin’s vagina. Nicole Wallace of the McCain election team used that very word – “Are you really asking what came out of the governor’s vagina?” – to shut down a male reporter who tried to ask about Palin’s purported leaks.

LN: I am so struck by Graves’ memory of trying, as a freelance reporter, to convince many periodicals to allow her to report on Packwood. Only The Washington Post took a chance on her story. One of the excuses other news organizations gave her was:  If it were truly a story, someone would have done it by now. Sound familiar?

BS: Well, with Packwood there was general acknowledgement he had been a serial womanizer, at the very least. In the case of Palin, I cannot think of a single prominent U.S. journalist who publicly says he or she thinks Palin likely committed a hoax – I’m counting Andrew Sullivan as mainly a blogger here – but Joe McGinniss recently came right to the edge of calling Palin out on the fake birth. I have been told off-the-record that various high-level journalists concede the likelihood that Palin perpetrated a hoax, so McGinniss is unique only in his willingness to go public with his suspicions.

LN: But let’s get back to the question of harm. What is the harm, Palin supporters ask, even if she did fake the birth of Trig?

BS:  I would say that a pathology of fear has enveloped much of Alaska, especially the Wasilla area, over this issue. You have to remember that Sarah Palin is demonstrably ruthless, unethical, and vengeful – it’s good to keep in mind her campaign to destroy the career of Mike Wooten, her former brother-in-law. Plus, in the space of four weeks in late 2008 and early 2009, fires in Wasilla damaged Palin’s church and caused the death of a former neonatal nurse, Dar Miller.  The church fire was due to arson; the cause of the fire at Miller’s home was not determined. Some people speculated that adoption records perished in the church fire, but I can find no confirmation of that.

There’s no evidence linking the Palins to those fires. But several Alaskans have told me that Wasilla residents fear they may suffer similar fates if they cross the Palins. Certainly Alaskans have good reason to fear they may lose their jobs if they anger Sarah Palin, as safety commissioner Walter Monahan did when he refused to fire Mike Wooten. She may not be in power now, but many of her loyal appointees are.

LN: And I might add here that I know first hand about people who talk, and then clam up, because they know that people are whispering about them. I know about people in government putting pressure on reporters not to report. About newspaper reporters who were talking to me one day, and then shutting down the conversation the next.

BS: And then there are stories of people who know too much or said the wrong thing about the Palins, who then suffered vandalism or worse, such as the documented case of a car window being shot out while children were inside – the apparent reason: an anti-Palin personalized license place.

I would further argue, Laura, that this pathology of fear has spawned a pathology of deceit. You recently noted how all the reporters, editors and columnists at the Alaska Daily News have seemingly been told to sing from the same hymnal concerning the fake birth question – contradicting earlier actions by ADN staff – even though the newspaper provides no documentary evidence to support the claim that Palin birthed Trig. And as I’ve noted before, former ADN reporter Wes Loy, who famously wrote that Palin “simply does not look pregnant,” for some reason decided to recant, despite evidence I provided that directly contradicts his alleged change of heart.

I am reminded of the fall of Saddam Hussein. After the liberation of Iraq, Iraqis came forward to say how terrible it had been to live in a society where saying anything negative about Saddam could have fatal consequences, and that therefore they were careful, even before their own children, to never to speak too freely. Alaska is not Iraq, of course, but I am sure there are people in Alaska who likewise are afraid to say what they know about the Palins and who dissemble in front of their children, lest loose lips lead to horrible consequences.

LN: It’s fascinating to me that this situation in Alaska with the Palins calls up for you a brutal regime where there were dire consequences for trafficking in the truth.

BS: Yes, and I am very serious when I say Alaska is in the grip of pathologies of fear and deceit. Packwood’s awful behavior affected dozens of women. Palin’s awful behavior has affected an unknown number of Alaskans (but surely many more than the number of victims in the Packwood case), who live in fear to this very day. Plus there are many more Americans who effectively have been defrauded by this woman because they sent money to SarahPAC, or paid to hear her speak, based on massive lies she has told.

And speaking of deceit, Sarah Palin’s books, and the just released book by Bristol, might be called works of “magical realism,” where some elements of reality mix with seeming magic, such as superhuman control over leaking bodily fluids and birth contractions, in the case of Sarah; or the recovery of virginal innocence – until a fateful night of wine coolers – by a teen who used to call herself a slut, in the case of Bristol.

But maybe Bristol’s book went too far in suggesting Levi was guilty of date rape. Just after her book came out, the two photos below were “discovered” at Mercede and Sherry Johnston’s home (and a giant hat tip to Gryphen for first publishing them):

These photos raise a host of new questions, especially why a very young looking, frosted-hair Levi appears to be wearing a wedding band while holding Trig at Mat-Su Regional Medical Facility. Perhaps these pictures can be the springboard for another conversation, Laura, but for now, let me ask: Do you think the press will ever do the right thing concerning Palin as they did concerning Packwood? Where’s our Florence George Graves? Could that be you, Laura?

LN: It could be me, Brad. I am willing and able. And, just as importantly, it could be any member of the posse of incredibly dedicated and fearless bloggers and writers who have not been afraid to say, for close to three years now, that this story, and many others involving that administration, stinks. When people say this story is too old now, and offer a who cares shrug of the shoulders, Graves’ article reminds us that it took years for the truth to come out about Packwood. Cognitive dissonance was alive and well in California for – how old is Arnold’s love child? – two full terms. Edwards and Wiener look like pretenders, who got the short end of the stick (if you’ll pardon the pun) in terms of a reprieve from the media who were on to them, compared to Schwarzennegger. But in the end, the press exposed all three of these men. So is the press now ready to go after Palin?

Considering what we know of corporate-owned MSM, I doubt it. They are hemorrhaging money and they employ armies of attorneys who will advise them that they can’t afford to hemorrhage any more. Which, at the risk of sounding smug, is too bad, because this is a hell of a story to work on. And the final barrier of protecting a woman politician, and her private parts, needs to come down.

Thank you, Brad, for sharing this enlightening article with me. I enjoyed reading it and talking with you once again.  

A reader recently sent me the link to one of the 24,000 emails released by the State of Alaska.  This particular email struck us both as a little odd and worthy of a bit of investigation. Fortunately, or not, the writer’s electronic and street addresses were visible, as was the family’s phone number.

As is clear from the body of the email, the writer was a 14-year-old boy who expressed his enthusiasm for the governor, her policies, presidential potential, and pregnancy. The body of the email is, as follows:

MESSAGE:

I put down "Mr." as the prefix of my name, even though I'm fourteen years old. Nevermind that. This night, I heard from my parents that when you gave birth in Wasilla to your third son, you delivered on Monday, and on Tuesday you were back in the office. I recognize that as a major sign of ultimate integrity. Which makes me want to say, "YOU ROCK!" And so I think you ought to run for president. I think that you would do a great job at stopping inflation, and even reversing it, and get our American Dollar back its
value. I think that you will help get our slowing economy back on its feet and running again. SO. That's what I think.  Sincerely,

I’ve pasted the body of the email here, rather than upload the PDF for reasons that will become apparent.  But first, a bit of dissection and sleuthing.

What struck me, and my reader, as odd was the mention of three sons. Palin supposedly was pregnant with her second boy, although I was quick to note that she did have three daughters. Perhaps that was an innocent slip-up.

Second, the date. March 6th was obviously early enough to make me question who might know something about the governor’s pregnancy. Did this family know something others might not? We know from my interviews with Doc, the neonatologist, that the baby presented as Trig on April 18th was, in fact, most likely much older than a 12-hour-old newborn. So, was there a suggestion here that the baby was born before March 6th?

(Lord knows, as Gryphen recently pointed out, in this fabulously brilliant post, a lot of inexplicable things happened early in Palin’s pregnancy world.) 

But a quick Google search shows that the Anchorage Daily News printed their online report of the governor’s newly announced pregnancy at 12:01am on March 6th.  It might figure, then, that the boy’s parents discussed this news, perhaps at the dinner table. Mention might have been made that Mrs. Palin gave birth to her third daughter on a Monday and brought her to work on Tuesday, as is reported in that Daily News article. The boy then, in his laudable enthusiasm, posted his email to the governor later that night.

But before I could sort out these details, I had emailed the boy’s address, and phoned the family at home.

His mother, rightly so, replied to me, seemingly horrified that I had somehow accessed their email. She wanted to know how I “got it” and was prepared to report me to their Internet Service Provider for offensive action.

That is, until I explained what she didn’t seem to already know:  That the State of Alaska, her State of Alaska, had released her teenage son’s email to the entire world. That a series of lawyers for both Mrs. Palin, and the State, had deemed it fit, kosher, okay, and downright grizzly, to have a minor’s email address, home address and telephone number available to any well-meaning reporter, nutty nut job, or astute reader, who took the time to sift through the morass.

In my response, I assured the mother that I didn’t “get” anything on her. That this email was now in the public domain, easily searchable and available to anyone - and that her government saw fit to do that to her, her son, and her family.

Meantime, some of the boy’s comments bore further inquiry:  Was her son confused about some of the details, or was there anything she might shed light on? Was there a birth in March? Or was he referencing Piper’s birth years before? I would be happy to read another email from her if she could tell me more.

The mom had no intention of discussing the Palins with me, she said. I was told not to contact the son – which, let me be very clear, was never my intention. His email address was merely a conduit and it was a relief when the mother replied. In fact, I would have asked to speak to a parent had he written himself, even though he is now presumably 17 years old.

But the mom’s final words to me were these:  If I were truly a journalist, I would work on stories, not rumor mongering.

So, allow me, in the spirit of Sarah Palin, to have the final word.  Journalists don’t have to “monger” in order to chase rumors. They don’t wallow in mud when pursuing leads. They can be commended for trying to find clarity in a story that simply does not add up, no matter whose side you’re on, no matter which version of events you chose to believe.

If I really, really, wanted to muck about in the mud, I’d print the PDF of the email and remind the mom that Palin, Parnell, and their collective attorneys didn’t give a shit about her son’s privacy.

But in place of redacting sentences here and there, I chose instead to print the body of the boy’s message, as low tech as that might seem.

And for what it’s worth, here’s what I would have said to me, had I been this mother:  “Please don’t print my son’s personal information. He’s just a kid and doesn’t deserve it. In fact, I am horrified and saddened that my own State government has chosen to do that. I vaguely recall discussing the newspaper story with my son and, in his enthusiasm, he wrote to the governor that night, simply confusing the idea that she had three sons instead of daughters. There’s really nothing more to it than that.”

But instead, the mom told me she had no intention of discussing anything regarding an email from 2008 with me. Sarah Palin held no interest for her. The mom’s further suggestion, in fact, was that I find topics of interest “that may be of more importance than a private family matter.” To follow any leads meant I was a rumor mongerer, lower than life, badder than bad. At least that’s my take-away. In other words, shoot the messenger, but preserve the peace where Palin is concerned. At all times, at all costs.

So here’s my question:  Is there anything at all connected to Sarah Palin that is above board, mature, clear-cut, and without question. Anything? At all? Just name it, because there seems to be no action, no event, no story or announcement that is not questionably strange or oddly framed. A private family matter? I don’t think so. I’d say this is a very public debacle. What do you think?

(H/T Big Fan. Thank you!)

In the past month, I have attempted eight times to talk to the reporters, writers and editors at the Anchorage Daily News about the paper’s coverage of Trig Palin’s maternity.

I was shut down or refused 7 times. The other effort resulted in an off-the-record phone call.  In all cases, the party-line was toed:  The editors and reporters are “intelligent” and they thoroughly investigated claims that the then-governor did not give birth to Trig Palin. And they came away satisfied that she, in fact, did so.

What was it specifically that allowed them to arrive at that conclusion?

No one said, other than the fact that reporter Lisa Demer talked to Mrs. Palin’s doctor, Cathy Baldwin-Johnson and it was “clear” that it was Mrs. Palin’s baby. And that to suggest otherwise is “ridiculous.”

Collectively, the answer was that to pursue this matter was akin to the Obama birth certificate conspiracy theories and that people are simply going to believe what they are going to believe.

All right, then tell me what Dr. Baldwin-Johnson said and I’ll believe you.

But by then, the answers to my inquiry were getting shorter and decidedly snippier.

So I searched – again - for a story that the Daily News might have written that I might have missed that might have made it all “clear.” And I couldn’t find one.

So why then, if the pursuit of the hoax story, and the inability of some people to believe Mrs. Palin’s version of events, was "ridiculous", did the paper, in fact, try to investigate it in late December, 2008?

And why did managing editor, Pat Dougherty write this to Governor Palin if, in fact, Lisa Demer talked to the doctor and it was “clear?”

Lisa Demer started reporting. She received very little cooperation in her efforts from the parties who, in my judgment, stood to benefit most from the story, namely you and your family. Even so, we reported the matter as thoroughly as we could. Several weeks ago, when we considered the information Lisa had gathered, we decided we didn't have enough of a story to accomplish what we had hoped. Lisa moved on to other topics and we haven't decided whether the idea is worth any further effort.

This is the nut-graf of the entire nutty exchange between Dougherty and Palin in late December 2008:

And is your paper really still pursuing the sensational lie that I am not Trig's mother? Is it true you have a reporter still bothering my state office, my very busy doctor (who's already set the record straight for you), and the school district, in pursuit of your ridiculous conspiracy?”

This was my reply:

Yes, it's true.

You may have been too busy with the campaign to notice, but the Daily News has, from the beginning, dismissed the conspiracy theories about Trig's birth as nonsense. I don't believe we have ever published in the newspaper a story, a letter, a column or anything alleging a coverup surrounding your maternity.

In fact, my integrity and the integrity of the newspaper have been repeatedly attacked in national forums for our complicity in the "coverup." I have personally received more than 100 emails accusing me and the paper of conspiring to hide the truth (about Trig’s birth.)

(I should acknowledge, however, that many people who commented on adn.com have alleged a coverup. Many of those were deleted as soon as we saw them, but many were not.)

I want to be very clear on this: I have from the beginning and do now consider the conspiracy theories about Trig's birth to be nutty nonsense.

If that's true, why has Lisa Demer been asking questions about Trig's birth?

Because we have been amazed by the widespread and enduring quality of these rumors. I finally decided, after watching this go on unabated for months, to let a reporter try to do a story about the "conspiracy theory that would not die" and, possibly, report the facts of Trig's birth thoroughly enough to kill the nonsense once and for all.

Lisa Demer started reporting. She received very little cooperation in her efforts from the parties who, in my judgment, stood to benefit most from the story, namely you and your family. Even so, we reported the matter as thoroughly as we could. Several weeks ago, when we considered the information Lisa had gathered, we decided we didn't have enough of a story to accomplish what we had hoped. Lisa moved on to other topics and we haven't decided whether the idea is worth any further effort.

Even the birth of your grandson may not dissuade the Trig conspiracy theorists from their beliefs. It strikes me that if there is never a clear, contemporaneous public record of what transpired with Trig's birth, that may actually ensure that the conspiracy theory never dies. Time will tell.

Let me repeat what Mr. Dougherty wrote in case your eyes glazed over:  

I think I was clear that we were not asking about Trig’s birth in an effort to validate the conspiracy. Instead we were focused on the persistence of the conspiracy allegations. In the end, we didn't think the story was worth the effort required to develop it.

In other words, the editors and reporters at the Daily News who said the doctor made it “clear” that Mrs. Palin gave birth to Trig couldn’t then debunk the hoax by printing how very clear the doctor allegedly made it?

Come again?

And the managing editor of the newspaper feels he needs to say this to an elected official whose story he is trying to nail down without her cooperation:

I want to be very clear on this: I have from the beginning and do now consider the conspiracy theories about Trig's birth to be nutty nonsense.

Come again, again?

Meanwhile, back at the ranch...Michael Carey is a columnist for the Anchorage Daily News and host of "Anchorage Edition" on Alaska Public Broadcasting. We spoke at length by phone regarding my search for clarity on the ADN’s position on Dr. Cathy Baldwin-Johnson’s “clarity” about Mrs. Palin giving birth to Trig. Alas, our words are off-the-record. Suffice to say that the paper stands by their intelligent reporters who supposedly solved this mystery with CBJ (despite Mr. Doughtery’s pissing match with the then-governor on his blog.)

About Palin’s abrupt, breathless and incoherent speech announcing her resignation, Carey writes in the LA Times:   

“not once did she provide a convincing explanation of why she is leaving office. We are left to guess. The only thing we can be absolutely sure of is this: Palin did not tell the truth when she said she is leaving for the good of Alaskans. She is leaving for her own good. With Sarah Palin, "me" always comes first. And with Sarah Palin, the personal and the political are never separate but totally intertwined. In fact, they are the same thing.”

I don’t know who or what really resides at the corner of dumb and stupid. I only know that if the doctor truly did make clear that Mrs. Palin gave birth to Trig, then that would have nipped the story in the bud. And those “intelligent” journalists up there wouldn’t have to shoo me away with the classic yet passive-aggressive tactic of:  Believe us, and also, too, it’s all Obama birth certificate territory, otherwise and anyway so you’re the annoying one for asking and we’re too busy to deal with this other than to assure the governor that we’re on her side. Because that’s what the top newsman in a state does, he assures the governor that he’s really on her side. And stuff.

Call me stupid. Because none of this adds up, unless of course, you do the math, as this team of bloggers had already discovered.

In the words of a long-time journalist in Alaska, "It was completely confounding that he (Dougherty) would offer to help Palin out by debunking the hoax, and then drop the story when she stonewalled him. I don't get it either."  Or, as this journalist also pointed out, "Is it possible that the ADN was told something off-the-record by Cathy Baldwin-Johnson that called them off the story? Maybe they boxed themselves in with a rash agreement."  If so, then I say these folks aren't so "intelligent", and this story not as "clear" as they'd like us to believe. 

In response to PhD’s first post, frequent reader and insightful commenter, Lidia, wrote the following thoughts. Some of this appeared as a comment, and some came later in an email. Her views on narcissism are worth a close read. She begins here by replying to PhD on the issue of intelligence and malignant narcissism:

-  Rather than her narcissism masking Sarah's intelligence, I'd say an opposite case can be made: that her narcissism has helped her hide her learning disabilities. Her enormous paranoia, bluster, defensive cunning, and manipulation of those around her through fear has certainly provided a shield beyond which few people have dared to investigate. If she actually is in possession of a college degree, or even a high-school diploma, I wonder to what extent they may have been issued just to kick Sarah down the road and let her be someone else's problem.

-  While "acquired narcissism" is an interesting hypothesis, I see Sarah as too firmly rooted in her malady: she will never admit error or weakness (see Tuscon), and so she will never seek or submit to therapy. I could see Bristol, though, as having an acquired form of narcissism. It's not apparent that she expresses the same maniacal insistence on omnipotent AGENCY that Sarah exhibits. Bristol seems more conflicted in her behaviors, and she shows genuine tenderness towards the babies and toddlers that her mother is constitutionally incapable of, as we can tell from Sarah's body language. I can see that Bristol may have adopted her narcissism as a means of survival in Sarah's world: the world to which Sarah has bound her. 

-  We can never let our guard down around Palin, because she is capable of anything. To have her faults recognized, or to be challenged either publicly or privately, is a matter of (psychic) life and death for her. It really is.

-  I believe I have, in my extended family, two narcissists or psychopath/sociopaths, father and son. The father is marginally functional (can often "pass" for normal), the son less so. I believe this is a genetic condition, as there is a history of mental disorders in the father's side of the family, including a bi-polar dx and a murder/suicide. An experienced psychologist brought in to deal with the son told the family that therapy would be a waste of time: that the son would merely turn it into a game of manipulating the therapist. This is "unofficial", of course, because it is apparently unethical, or at least politically incorrect, to diagnose certain types of mental illness in minors. I have experienced the son's manipulation first hand over a number of years, so I feel the therapist is correct. The boy must always be the one to initiate or conclude any activity or conversation that takes place, even ones in which he is not directly involved. It's quite uncanny and you may not even notice it being with him for a day or even two. But then you see it in every. single. comportment: He MUST have total control.  He routinely attacks and bites teachers, the psychologists and aides, and even the principal (he's 10) when he doesn't get his way. He'll leave class, march to the principal's office and demand that his teacher be fired (because she's not doing what HE wants her to do, she is "broken" and must be done away with). I'm amazed they still allow him in the (regular public) school. This is NOT generic "spoiled brat" behavior: he'll demand ice cream, and if given it, he'll throw it in your face and spit at you if he decides it isn't the right flavor, or it's not in the right color cup. He loves to fuck with people's heads and 'trick' them. He is… Insane. He has been like this from birth! As an infant, he was very hard to feed, because he was always angry and agitated. He never slept. At the age of two, he announced that he was God. I am convinced that he is just "wired differently".

The father in "my" NPD duo is a coward; he'll bluster a while and then turn tail. He's told me he "would kill me" (this is just in normal conversation, because I disagreed with him about some political or social policy, I can't even remember what it was… it wasn't a personal conversation, anyway, because he doesn't really "do" personal conversations; he makes pronouncements). He then precised (since he's a lawyer now) "I WOULDN'T kill you, but I would LIKE TO kill you". Then he ran upstairs like a little kid! I didn't know whether to laugh or to call the police. The son is more fearless (will run away from home) and is physically dangerous (will punch, bite, head-butt, kick, throw hammers, etc.) and I don't see where his limits are, so I try to steer clear of him. In both cases, though, being thwarted in any way is interpreted as an attack on their very existence. As I said earlier, it's a matter of "life and death" as far as their perception is concerned, from what I can tell.

-  There's a surprising number of commenters on these blogs who have run across narcissists in their own lives, and I think that's exactly why we have the strong opinions about her that most of us do: because we know she will never stop. Never. -  We accept that children can be born with a club foot, or with an inherited blood disease. Why are we so skittish about diagnosing a clearly diseased brain? Each physical mutation is a potential evolution. Arguably, the more organic narcissists and psychopaths succeed in reproducing, the more of them there'll be. 

-  If you haven't had to interact with someone who has Narcissistic Personality Disorder, you aren't quite prepared for how strangely they can act (as Sarah does, oftentimes against their own good). And collectively we don't really realize how many of these sociopaths or personality-disordered types there are out there.

-  I'm sure "PhD" would concur that you have to consider the whole person, and that while narcissists have a number of frustrating and (in my opinion, irredeemable) common traits, they still are individuals with something of a (well-hidden) "personality" and can be funny/boring, cowardly/fearless, stupid/intelligent, etc. The vast majority aren't going to be violent serial killers, most will end up just being the petty tyrants we sometime run into in our day-to-day lives (though the damage they do to those close to them is still vast). What they can't be is loving, as far as I can tell. They can be needy, which is probably often mistaken for love, and which allows them to bring and trap sane people into their parasitic life-support system.

- A commenter wrote objecting to Sarah's being singled out. It's true, there are a lot of other sociopaths out there, many of them functioning at the highest levels of government and of business. It sounds like an exaggeration to say so, but I would go on record stating that—as a lay person—I'd regard Dick Cheney and GWB as sociopaths. Banksters like Hank Paulson and Dick Fuld, those sorts… I think Roger Ailes and Rush Limbaugh are sociopathic narcissists. Have you read the latest Rolling Stone piece on Ailes? He's not a mentally sound individual; he's similar to Sarah, just with far greater intelligence, and a greater capacity to mold the world around him to suit himself. Cheney and Ailes don't need to personally head-butt people to get their way; they can ensure far more violence and mayhem with what they are doing now, which is perfectly evil, yet "legal" (in at least some cases).

The commenter mentioned Anna Wintour, who, yes, seems to be a narcissist. But the difference between Anna Wintour and Sarah Palin is that Anna Wintour isn't expecting that we give her control of a nuclear arsenal. A large segment of the population can ignore Ms. Wintour, but Mr. Ailes, among others, is not allowing us to ignore Mrs. Palin.

-  I know some people think it is irresponsible to speculate about these individuals, but with the years of photos and videos and transcripts… all the unguarded moments… I think we have more material on Sarah than any therapist would get out of a normal patient showing up once a week and revealing what they choose to reveal. Of course, I'm not knocking therapists; I'm sure they know which sorts of questions to ask to dig deeper… it's just that I don't think we need to wait for an in-person-expert's opinion to figure out that Sarah is seriously mentally ill, and a pathological node of constant chaos and toxicity in the life of her family, and unfortunately in the life of our nation.

Thank you again, Lidia, for providing us with this thought-provoking discussion. 

I first met Dr. Hugo Schwyzer over his penis.

Permit me to explain.

Last year I wrote a 4,000-word tome on the Foreskin Revolution  for the ultra-edgy, super hot Good Men Project Magazine.  And Mr. Schwyzer’s unapologetic, in-your-face views on the foreskin restoration movement made me admire the balls it takes to tell his personal story.

Reporting that article was the first time I became acquainted with the word “mangina”. GMP Founder Tom Matlack penned this eloquent piece on his own “man purse”   and a simple search ties Professor Hugo Schwyzer to the word for his forward thinking, fearless, and unapologetic views on the modern man and feminism. 

But put another way, the Urban Dictionary calls a mangina this: “The broadest definition is a man who calls any over the hill right wing bimbo a MILF.”

Which of course made me wonder if I could think of any over-the-hill (don’t forget those dashes next time, Urban Dictionary!) right-wing bimbos who men want to fornicate with (or to).

So I contacted Dr. Hugo Schwyzer, who has taught history and gender studies at Pasadena City College since 1993, where he developed the college's first courses on Men and Masculinity andBeauty and Body Image. He was for many years the leader of the high school youth program for the largest Episcopal parish in the Western United States. A writer, public speaker, and professor, Hugo is also a husband and father.    “Hugo,” I said, “I’ve got two words for you:  Sarah Palin”:

HUGO: I have such mixed feelings about Sarah Palin.  On the one hand, I loathe most of her political positions.  I also am exasperated by the way she has repeatedly claimed to be a feminist, even as she’s advocated for depriving women of their most basic rights.  On the other hand, I appreciate that she’s done a great service by forcing even social conservatives to acknowledge that a woman can be a spouse, a mom to young kids, and a public figure.  If the right-wing is willing to accept a female candidate for president who has small kids at home, that sends a powerful message about how far we’ve come.  It really marginalizes the troglodytes who think that mothers should stay quietly at home with their kids.

LN:  Then I must be a troglogyta, which is, in fact, Latin for a cave dwelling Conservative. Because I had a medically fragile baby. And while I can understand women needing to commute an hour a day and work from 9-5 in order to maintain their job and home, I cannot understand a woman leaving a four-month-old, fragile baby and flying all over the country, in a manic tour-de-force for personal and political gain, and as a result, rarely seeing or nurturing it.

HUGO: I hear you.  But here’s the thing: this whole line of conversation is an invitation to play the “mommy wars.”  Once we stipulate that Palin was a bad mama for flying around the country and leaving her baby at home, then we open the door to talking about  how working mothers who leave their kids in day care are bad mamas.  It is never a win for women to pit mothers against each other.  Short of outright and obvious abuse, I think it’s really unhealthy for feminists to criticize another woman’s parenting choices.  It’s what a misogynistic culture wants us to do.  Let’s not give them the satisfaction.

LN:  Let’s touch on my headline.  I find it difficult to believe that you are a mangina because I can’t imagine you lusting after the loins of one, Mrs. Todd Palin.

HUGO:  Yeah, it’s a strange definition.  I mean, how do I respond to that?   I’m as annoyed at everyone else by the way that Sarah Palin was sexualized, even fetishized by some in the media.  But it was mostly the right-wing who crowed about having all the “hot babes” on their side, wasn’t it?  Even if some of us on the left think Michelle Obama is pretty damn hot. 

LN:  Michelle Obama is hot, not just because she is beautiful, but because she is so smart. So then, what IS it about Palin? Can we tap into your PhD brain because I want to understand the allure.

HUGO:   As modern as she is, she’s a classic and familiar figure: the smart (she is no fool), sassy, competent, suffer-no-fools, God-fearing mama of the sort that has always been found in the American west.   She’s the perfect counterpoint to Obama, who offends a lot of conservatives by his cosmopolitan novelty.  We’ve never had a leader like him before.  But we’ve always had Sarah Palins, in small towns and even in urban neighborhoods.  Palin’s forebears are the women in the past who seemed to easily embrace both their traditional femininity and the trappings of masculine power.  Think Deborah in the bible, or Annie Oakley.  What makes Palin different is that she has something truly modern – an alpha male husband who seems content to remain in her shadow and take the lead on caring for their children.

LN:  Do you think that basically pisses off the women who have found out how hard it is to live a double shift? Because I have a great husband. But I have no delusions of power beyond my capability. And my husband would call me out on it if I did. In part because he respects me, in part because he protects me. Maybe that is what pisses off many women about Mrs. Palin:  That Mr. Palin didn’t do his duty as a loving partner and say, “You’re not qualified to be the leader of the Western World.”

HUGO:  I think that puts an awful lot on Todd.  He clearly believes in her, as many people do.  And I think it would piss off far more women if Sarah had said, “Yeah, Todd burst my bubble and made it clear I wasn’t qualified.”  More women have suffered because their wings were clipped by jealous and controlling jerks than have suffered because they were unduly flattered by adoring spouses.

LN:  This piece in Salon included the following quote from famous feminist Camille Paglia about Palin:

“When I watch Sarah Palin, I don't think sex — I think Amazon warrior! I admire her competitive spirit and her exuberant vitality, which borders on the supernormal. The question that keeps popping up for me is whether Palin, who was born in Idaho, could possibly be part Native American (as we know her husband is), which sometimes seems suggested by her strong facial contours. I have felt that same extraordinary energy and hyper-alertness billowing out from other women with Native American ancestry….”

Yet when I hear the word “billowing” about Sarah Palin, I can only think of one thing. And that is the trail of billowing scarves she left behind her after her alleged pregnancy with Trig Palin.  Talk me down, Hugo. Tell me this wasn’t the greatest political hoax ever perpetuated on the American public.

HUGO:  I’m not going to comment on whether the hoax is true.  I come from the “trust women” school of feminism, after all.  But if she did pretend that her daughter’s baby was hers, she did something that would be entirely in keeping with her faith and her frontier ethos.   This isn’t new.  A hell of a lot of children have grown up being told that their mothers were their older sisters, and that their biological grandmothers were their moms. 

I remember during the Clinton impeachment scandal feeling very disappointed in the president, both for what he’d done with Monica Lewinsky (which struck me as an abuse of power) and for the way he’d then treated both Lewinsky and his own wife Hillary, to whom he repeatedly lied.  But as an historian and a feminist, I never for a moment believed he deserved impeachment.  I never bought the ridiculous notion that someone who will lie about one thing will lie about anything. 

When it comes to sex, we’re all somewhat dishonest.   We don’t have the vocabulary, most of us, to take the truth about our messy private lives into public spaces.  Even if we want to tell our stories, our fears and our shame and our concern for others lead us to be less than forthcoming.  And if Sarah Palin did pull off an elaborate hoax, I’m not sure that speaks to her essential truthfulness as a politician.  When it comes to sex (our own and our children’s), we lie when we’d tell the truth about anything else. 

Honestly, when I first heard the story of the hoax, I thought it was put out by her supporters to burnish her reputation.  It would indicate how fiercely she protected her family; it would burnish her grizzly mama reputation. 

LN:  Fascinating: her supporters rather than her detractors. I had never thought of that. And yet it’s her supporters who love the ongoing controversy over what is widely called “Babygate” because they believe it now burnishes her reputation as a “victim.”  Is this now the feminist dialetic redux:  Palin-the-politician as heroine versus Palin-the-mother as victim?

HUGO:  Absolutely.  And this is part of a larger trend in American politics – the quick claims of victimization are a perversion of feminist politics.   It’s used to silence criticism of the powerful instead of protecting the vulnerable.  I find that tiresome.

LN:  Earlier you spoke to Palin’s smarts.  You know, when I think of smart, I think of a person like you who graduated from U.C. Berkeley and then went on to earn an MA and PhD from UCLA. That’s smart, Hugo. And what Mrs. Palin is, in the words of another Barnard alumna, Martha Stewart, is “confused.”  Her disordered thinking. Her disorganized speech patterns. This would be alarming from any leader. Why does she have a “Get Out Of Stupid” card and other politicians don’t?

HUGO:  Well, Americans have a long fascination with politicians who don’t have much book-learnin’.  Andrew Jackson ran against John Quincy Adams and boasted he was a “ploughman” and the latter was a “professor.”  Palin is part of a long tradition of anti-intellectualism in our politics, in which home-spun wisdom (usually involving fecundity and firearms) is seen as superior to formal education.  It’s an old “get out of stupid” card – she’s just the first major female politician to play it so deftly.

LN:  I have covered Hillary Clinton on her husband’s campaign trail. I know she’s not svelt. She knows she’s not svelt. And that shouldn’t matter. Yet it does when you have the most ardent feminists lambasting the woman’s figure. Excuse me? Is that what women fought for? Because that’s not what I remember while coming of age during the women’s movement and reading Ms. Magazine in my dorm room. How far have we devolved here?

HUGO:  No question, we’re still too fascinated with the bodies of women politicians.  And that’s what bugs me about the whole Palin pregnancy thing.  Whether it’s the cleavage or the tummy or the hair, we’re too damn obsessed with the sexuality, the reproductivity, and the size and shape of women politicians’ bodies.  What we are still fighting for is not for a world where beauty doesn’t matter, but where the allure of the figure matters less than the content of the character (to borrow from MLK.)

LN: I believe that from the moment of conception, two primal forces overtake us:  The love for and protection of, our children. That expands beyond their physical well-being. It includes holding dear their dignity and supporting their integrity. I don’t believe that allowing rumors to fester about your child’s maternity or birth to be noble. In fact, it’s diametrically opposed to my idea of the core value of motherhood. And what I see from Mrs. Palin is that any and all controversy can be good, as long as it lines her pockets, inflates her ego, and enhances her victimhood.

HUGO: I’m not defending Palin. But there’s a long tradition of what we call the “good mother discourse” that I find troubling here.  You know, it’s when folks say “A good mother would” or “A good mother wouldn’t…”    I really don’t like that.  It’s part of policing women. And mothers in particular are trained to turn on other mothers.  We call it the “mommy wars”, and it’s as old as feminism.

LN:  You’re a father Hugo. Would you allow anyone to question the circumstances of your daughter’s birth. Would you have shown her birth certificate and quelled the controversy in 2008? Or would you fan the flames and keep your eye on 2012?

HUGO:  Well, yeah.  I would have.  But then again, I’d have released the long form birth certificate if I were Obama.  Look, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. 

LN:  Define your terms here. Because Obama did release an initial document of live birth. Mrs. Palin has lied about releasing any proof of her son’s parentage. I suspect you’ll argue that one was running for president, the other was wearing a diaper. But Trig’s assumed mother aspires to be POTUS and it irks me that the mother hood badge that she wears as a qualification for higher office is deeply debated in all walks of life. I want closure on this.

HUGO:  I’m not here to defend Sarah Palin’s choices.  But I do think that bringing such scrutiny to the reproductive decisions of any famous woman is a huge problem.  What we’re saying to any woman of childbearing years is “forget about the political process unless you want the world second-guessing and judging every one of your most intimate decisions.”   We have to demand greater accountability from politicians in their public lives – and give them more freedom from scrutiny in their private worlds.  I’m anti-Palin because I find her politics abhorrent.  But not because of how many children she had, or because of what those children did or didn’t do. She’s clearly a mom, even if you continue to challenge her motherhood of Trig.

If someone asked me for my daughter’s birth certificate, I’d tell ‘em where they could go.  Not because I have anything to hide.  But because they have no fundamental right to know.

LN:  Well, Hugo, it has been my fundamental privilege talking with you for my blog. And I am thrilled to know that you will be checking in on comments and will gladly discuss these issues with readers while I take a few days to get some other things done. School is ending soon, and with it some work I have there. And I’ve got a huge rewrite due for two fabulous Bay Area police detectives who I am working with on their first thriller.

Folks, dive in here and talk to Hugo. He is a fabulous teacher and sparring partner! Hugo also blogs at his eponymous website and at the Good Men Project and at Sir Richard's Condom Company.

In perfect harmony...