{"id":9141,"date":"2010-12-14T01:02:02","date_gmt":"2010-12-14T09:02:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.sparselysageandtimely.com\/blog\/?p=9141"},"modified":"2010-12-14T01:34:20","modified_gmt":"2010-12-14T09:34:20","slug":"improbable-politics-in-wasilla-st-petersburg-and-point-reyes-station","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sparselysageandtimely.com\/?p=9141","title":{"rendered":"Improbable politics in Wasilla, St. Petersburg and Point Reyes Station"},"content":{"rendered":"

When Sarah Palin<\/strong> said in a Nov. 24 radio interview, “Obviously, we gotta stand by our North Korean allies,” it was impossible to say who was more surprised: the US government, Korean War vets, South Korea, or…. North Korea?”<\/p>\n

If General MacArthur were still alive, he’d be rolling over in his grave, so to speak.<\/p>\n

This week, however, another politician<\/strong> surprised the world even more. At a fundraiser in St. Petersburg for children with eye diseases and cancer, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin sang in English Fats Domino’s signature ditty Blueberry Hill<\/em>.<\/p>\n

If you haven’t watched Putin’s performance<\/strong><\/a>, I urge you to do so. It’s pure opera buffa. Although he pronounced it “Blueberry Heeel,” Putin managed to stay on key and delighted his audience, which included a host of Hollywood celebrities.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Meanwhile, my efforts to negotiate peace<\/strong> among this hill’s foxes and raccoons have run into a bit of a snag. Although there have been no outbreaks of hostility, each has taken to stealing the other’s food.<\/p>\n

This initially caused me to leave bread for the foxes just inside my kitchen door, where the raccoons couldn’t see it, but the stratagem worked only briefly.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

It didn’t take the raccoons long to figure out what was going on, and they began grabbing the bread before the foxes could get to it.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

This left the foxes sadly contemplating the disappearance of their dinner.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Then I remembered what the late Jerry Friedman<\/strong> once demonstrated. Friedman, a Marin County planning commissioner, was also co-founder of the Environmental Action Committee of West Marin.<\/p>\n

Back when I edited The Point Reyes Light<\/em>, Friedman showed up one day with a photo, which we published, of his hand-feeding a fox that lived near him. If the EAC co-founder could hand food to a fox, I figured, I could too, thereby making sure the food was distributed evenly.<\/p>\n

So far, Friedman’s system is working, and I’m feeding three foxes a night, along with three or four raccoons. The foxes and raccoons remain a bit wary of each other, and they all consider me as much a danger as a benefactor.<\/p>\n

As for Putin<\/strong>, the US remains wary of him, but whether he constitutes a danger to this country is unclear. Also unclear is whether Palin is dumb like a fox or just plain dumb.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When Sarah Palin said in a Nov. 24 radio interview, “Obviously, we gotta stand by our North Korean allies,” it was impossible to say who was more surprised: the US government, Korean War vets, South Korea, or…. North Korea?” If General MacArthur were still alive, he’d be rolling over in his grave, so to speak. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":623,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,10,11],"tags":[36,29,34,35],"class_list":["post-9141","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-point-reyes-station","category-west-marin-nature","category-wildlife","tag-foxes","tag-raccoons","tag-sarah-palin","tag-vladimir-putin"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sparselysageandtimely.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9141","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sparselysageandtimely.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sparselysageandtimely.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sparselysageandtimely.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/623"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sparselysageandtimely.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9141"}],"version-history":[{"count":19,"href":"https:\/\/sparselysageandtimely.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9141\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9166,"href":"https:\/\/sparselysageandtimely.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9141\/revisions\/9166"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sparselysageandtimely.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9141"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sparselysageandtimely.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9141"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sparselysageandtimely.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9141"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}