Clarissa's Blog

14 responses to “Stupidometer”

1. 

   nominatissima

   September 24, 2011

   $22,380?
   I could have bought a new laptop, a pair of noise-cancelling headphones, and started an online workshop on blogging as a creative and social release for autistic teenagers with that kind of money. Or a million other things more useful than maintaining a sexist wild goose chase. *scowl* What a waste.

   LikeLike

   Reply
   1. 

      bloggerclarissa

      September 24, 2011

      The saddest thing is that the guy who started this thing is a college professor. If he has all that free money, he could have done a lot for his students and his department.

      LikeLike

      Reply
      1. 

         Anonymous

         September 25, 2011

         Yes, this is sad and more than a little disgusting. He’s an idiot and a very poor role model. His time, energy and money could have been better spent. I’ll bet he is one of those types of professors that you wrote about who complain about their jobs too.

         I’ve encountered plenty of professors like that at my univeristy. This is another reason why I think tenure needs to be re-evaluated. In my opinion he should be severly reprimanded or fired.

         LikeLike

         Reply
         1. 

            bloggerclarissa

            September 25, 2011

            I don’t think his freedom of speech rights should be curtailed in any way. Such cases should be punished by a rejection that the scholarly community should demonstrate towards him. If the university started taking any kind of institutional action against him, though, that would be completely unacceptable and horrible news for all of us.

            LikeLike

            Reply
2. 

   Jenni

   September 24, 2011

   I’m interested: what exactly would count as ‘verifiable and irrefutable proof’ in this case? A video of the birth clearly showing Palin’s face at all times? The placenta? A time machine to go back and actually watch the pregnancy progress at close quarters from conception to birth? I have a feeling that the conspiratorialists (is that a word?) are so convinced that they wouldn’t even believe any of these things.

   LikeLike

   Reply
   1. 

      bloggerclarissa

      September 24, 2011

      Oh, I don’t think anything would convince those folks.

      LikeLike

      Reply
3. 

   Brad Scharlott

   September 25, 2011

   I would accept a birth certificate, an unequivocal statement from the physician who delivered the baby, a simple statement from the hospital where Trig was born confirming that fact. Stop and think about that last one, Clarissa – why would Palin forbid a hospital from verifying a baby was born there? Palin claimed on a radio show that she had released the birth certificate to the press, but she hasn’t. Here, read this introduction to a book coming out shortly called The Wild Ride:

   The vast majority of Americans are utterly unaware that there was, and continues to be, a significant controversy regarding the alleged birth of Sarah Palin’s fifth child, Trig, in April 2008.

   Even that sentence, I suspect, will cause half of the people who have picked this book up in a book store or started to read the sample online to put the book back down or click away, shaking their heads. Not again, you think. This is crazier than the Obama birth certificate saga. No thanks.

   I hope you’ll give me just a few more paragraphs.

   Still reading? Please consider each one of the following documentable facts before you also put this book down.

   *From the time Sarah Palin announced her pregnancy until Trig Palin was allegedly born was 44 days.

   *Sarah Palin never appeared pregnant prior to her statement that she was nearly seven months along.

   *Sarah Palin appeared in public after announcing her pregnancy showing no signs whatsoever that she was pregnant.

   *Even though Palin has asserted that this entire allegation was fabricated to hurt her after she was selected as John McCain’s running mate, she was actually accused publicly of not being pregnant and covering for her daughter in early April 2008, before Trig’s alleged birth.

   *Sarah Palin has given details about the diagnosis of Trig Palin’s Down Syndrome that do not meet standard diagnostic guidelines.

   *Sarah Palin has stated that after her amniotic sac showed signs of leaking, instead of seeking medical care, she went to a conference and gave a speech, then took two separate commercial airline flights, each approximately four hours long.

   *The community hospital at which Palin has stated she gave birth allows no high-risk obstetric patients to be admitted.

   *Sarah Palin was accused, on the Anchorage Daily News website, of being the child’s grandmother within two hours of his birth announcement.

   *Reporters who interviewed her three days after Trig’s arrival were openly skeptical of her story.

   *The physician Palin claims to have been at her birth was a personal friend who was not actively practicing obstetrics in April 2008.

   *The physician Palin claims to have been at her birth has refused to state publicly that she was even present at the birth.

   *No physician who has even been asked about the obstetric details of Palin’s birth has been willing to say anything other than her story is completely implausible.

   In spite of all of these, (and many additional details, each one of which makes her story more and more unlikely), Sarah Palin has never provided one piece of objective evidence that she actually gave birth to Trig on the day she said did.

   Not one.

   Not a birth certificate. Not a single medical record. Not an unequivocal statement from her doctor. No explanation as to how a 44 year old woman, with multiple high risk factors, was allowed to give birth at a community hospital which does not allow high-risk obstetrics to be practiced there. No explanation as to how multiple photographs exist, from unimpeachable sources like the Anchorage Daily News and the Juneau Empire, that clearly show no discernible signs of pregnancy during the period of time when she should have been six, seven, even eight months pregnant.

   Sarah Palin has been called an outright liar on the Trig Palin story since the day after she was selected as McCain’s running mate, yet her primary proof that she did give birth to Trig has been

   *she says that she did
   *she would not lie
   *her daughter was five months pregnant in September of 2008
   * some reporters saw her and she looked pregnant
   *you cannot ask about it because you are not a doctor
   * if you do ask about it, you either are picking on her kids, think Trig should have been aborted, or hate her because she is a Christian (or possibly all three.)

   On August 29, 2008, four and half months after Trig Palin’s announced birth in Wasilla Alaska, Sarah Heath Palin walked onto a stage in Dayton, Ohio.

   Behind her, carried by her oldest daughter Bristol, was a child whose Down Syndrome diagnosis gave her instant and unassailable credentials with the Christian Right. She had walked the walk. She had courageously “chosen life” for a baby whom most would have chosen to abort.

   That’s not even the real story. The real story is the media’s cowardice and collusion, first with the Republican machine during the campaign, in covering the story, and then, in the three years since, in doing their collective best to see that the story never sees the light of day.

   Welcome to the Wild Ride.

   LikeLike

   Reply
   1. 

      bloggerclarissa

      September 25, 2011

      ” Stop and think about that last one, Clarissa – why would Palin forbid a hospital from verifying a baby was born there? ”

      -Desire to protect one’s privacy.

      “Sarah Palin never appeared pregnant prior to her statement that she was nearly seven months along.”

      -The statement “appeared pregnant” is meaningless. People who use it are either very young or completely unfamiliar with anything concerning pregnancy.

      “Sarah Palin appeared in public after announcing her pregnancy showing no signs whatsoever that she was pregnant”

      -What “signs of pregnancy”? This just sounds extremely childish. Some women, indeed, don’t gain any weight and don’t have a visible belly when they are pregnant. So what? How is this news?

      “Sarah Palin has stated that after her amniotic sac showed signs of leaking, instead of seeking medical care, she went to a conference and gave a speech, then took two separate commercial airline flights, each approximately four hours long”

      -Her body, her right. If she had decided to do acrobatic tricks and jump with a parachute at any time of her pregnancy, it would still be her body, her right.

      “Sarah Palin was accused, on the Anchorage Daily News website, of being the child’s grandmother”

      -Does everybody write this badly at your university? What does the expression “accused of being a grandmother” even mean? Is being a grandmother some sort of a crime?

      “The physician Palin claims to have been at her birth has refused to state publicly that she was even present at the birth”

      -Doctor=patient privilege.

      “Behind her, carried by her oldest daughter Bristol, was a child whose Down Syndrome diagnosis gave her instant and unassailable credentials with the Christian Right. She had walked the walk”

      -She still has all those credentials because she is raising a baby with DS. Do you think it’s harder to give birth to a Down’s baby or raise him?

      As I said before, this entire babygate drama is an invention of psychologically unhealthy individuals who hate women and want to punish them for not being pregnant and giving birth the way these sad, sex-deprived ignoramuses think they should.

      LikeLike

      Reply
4. 

   Anonymous

   September 25, 2011

   Read my article, published last week, and then tell me what you think:

   Sarah Palin, The Press, And The Incredible Birth Story

   http://www.businessinsider.com/scharlott-sarah-palin-trig-hoax-2011-9#ixzz1YzJ5Wnwo

   LikeLike

   Reply
   1. 

      bloggerclarissa

      September 25, 2011

      Self-promotion is taking place in a different post on this blog.

      From the article: “Although Palin supporters will forever frame these questions as politically motivated conspiracy theories, they’re actually not about politics”

      -I’m not a supporter of Palin and I agree. This is definitely not about politics. It’s about severe sexual issues of people who pursue the babygate story. I see a deep oedipal fixation here. Probably, some severe trauma at the age between 2-3. But yes, this is not political.

      “Taking no maternity leave, Palin returned to work the following Monday, bringing the supposedly four-week premature baby with her – an action that if true might dismay medical professionals – and held a press conference.”

      -Oh yes, I was right. The person who wrote this sentence has severe resentment against his mother.

      “If Palin’s water indeed broke in Texas, as she seemingly confirmed, and she waited some 20 hours and took a very long flight before going to a medical facility”

      – I wonder if the person who wrote this sentence realizes how unhinged it makes him sound. A psychologically healthy person wouldn’t dream of writing it.

      “But it’s undeniable that the political benefits to Palin of being able to claim she chose life for a Down syndrome child have been tremendous.”

      -This isn’t serious, is it? What political benefits? The woman had a fantastic career in politics and now she has none.

      For everybody else: this is what the traumas of the Oeidpal stage of development look like when they remain unaddressed until a man enters into the stage our ancestors called “the Change.”

      LikeLike

      Reply
5. 

   Anonymous

   September 25, 2011

   “Sarah Palin was accused, on the Anchorage Daily News website, of being the child’s grandmother”

   -Does everybody write this badly at your university?

   ——

   That snippet is from the introduction to the forthcoming book, The Wild Ride. I wish my students wrote that “badly.” But you are slipping into using an ad hominem attack (whether there is a basis for it or not) instead of focusing on the argument the writer is making.

   LikeLike

   Reply
   1. 

      bloggerclarissa

      September 25, 2011

      Many words but no answer to my question. What sense does the expression “accused of being a grandmother” have? Is being a grandmother a crime? Then why aren’t all the happy grandparents in this country not in jail?

      Now, a little test: how could you change this sentence to make it sound less silly?

      ” I wish my students wrote that “badly.”

      -Mine actually do. 😦 I have to fail them for bad writing way too often.

      LikeLike

      Reply
6. 

   Why Are Some People So Fixated on Sarah Palin’s Pregnancy? « Clarissa's Blog

   September 25, 2011

   […] is a really fun discussion going on in my Stupidometer post between Brad Scharlott, the person who is planning to publish yet another boring book that will […]

   LikeLike

   Reply
7. 

   Sister

   September 25, 2011

   There was a woman in my birthing class who was 8 months pregnant, yet you could never tell. She was quite athletic and did not have a belly. Perhaps she too had a hidden agenda and was sitting through hours of the most boring class on earth to cover something up. When you are done investigating Palin, you should look into this woman’s case. I can point you in the right direction.
   🙂

   LikeLike

   Reply