Family Values B*tches!!
UPDATE 2: I’ve opened comments because I love wielding my godlike powers indiscriminately.
Track Palin, the eldest son of former Alaska governor Sarah Palin, is reportedly ending his marriage to Britta Hanson after a year and a half. The couple, who were former high-school sweethearts, are jointly petitioning for divorce, reports TMZ.
Britta Hanson figured out that she was married to a guy named ‘Track’
FYI – Highest divorce rate in the Industrialized world? The US of A …4.95 per 1,000 people. Lowest? Brazil .26 per 1,000 people.
FYI 2 – Divorce rates among conservative Christians were significantly higher than for other faith groups, and much higher than Atheists and Agnostics experience.
what i find most interesting about this, is the continued use of the name “Britta”. That is 6 now that I have encountered either in person, on TV shows, or in the news in the past year, after never hearing the name before.
What’s the divorce rate in Alaska?
Doesn’t the defense of marriage act decry that someone do something to save this marriage?
What’s the point of defending marriage then? What’s the whole point of having a “Defense of Marriage” act in the first place?
when can we finally be rid of this horrible family of awful people? I wouldnt be surprised if even Trig (I think that’s the welp’s name) turns out to be a jerk.
I’ll be honest, i think it’s sort of shitty to celebrate anyone’s divorce no matter who their mom is. Divorce is sad.
That being said, Track married this girl when she was 6 months pregnant with their baby so the Palins are 0-2 on that whole shotgun wedding thing. Maybe that’s the reason for FYI2
Best of luck to all three of them.
V-
Divorce is not always sad. It’s not sad when an abused wife divorces her husband.
SB said “when can we finally be rid of this horrible family of awful people? I wouldnt be surprised if even Trig (I think that’s the welp’s name) turns out to be a jerk.
Trig has Down Syndrome. Nice of you to call him a dog as if he has no other problems.
Thankfully, Trig is actually predisposed to being very happy (But 99% of adults with Down Syndrome report they are happy with their lives. I doubt you would find anything close to that percentage in the “healthy” adult population: http://www.lifenews.com/2011/10/06/99-of-adults-with-down-syndrome-report-being-happy-in-life/), and not a jerk.
No need wondering who the jerk is on this one.
@ John Young–
Whelp
1. The young of the dog, or of the wolf, bear, lion, tiger, seal, etc.
In other words, a child.
Get off your high horse & go buy a sense of humor.
I’m not on a high horse but I don’t think offending children is funny either, especially children with “handicaps”.
Agree with John Young–might as well just call him a retard and have done with it.
AQC–Please re-read what SB wrote. His disdain was directed at Trig’s parents & siblings, not at Trig.
BTW, since when is Down Syndrome NOT a handicap?
Steve Newton,
Please look up the definition of “retarded”. Trig has Down Syndrome. He is, by definition, mentally retarded.
IMO you humorless wannabe victims are reading a lot of unfounded nastiness into SB’s comment.
Roland you flunk reading comprehension. I wrote “retard” not “retarded.”
Sorry, but poking humor at kids with disabilities–such as both John Young and I have for children–is like telling me that making “darkie” jokes is acceptable.
Crawl back in your hole.
@John Young-
Thankfully, Trig is actually predisposed to being very happy (But 99% of adults with Down Syndrome report they are happy with their lives. I doubt you would find anything close to that percentage in the “healthy” adult population…
Which was precisely SB’s point as I read it.
99% of people w/ Down Syndrome report as being happy w/ their lives.
1) The Palin family is so awful that Trig might well fall into the 1% of unhappy persons w/ Down Syndrome.
or…
2) Being happy w/ your life, Down Syndrome or not, has nothing to do w/ being a jerk. Sarah Palin is a jerk. Her husband is a jerk, and more than one of her “healthy” (to use your description) children have proven themselves to be jerks. I’d be willing to bet that they’d all self-identify as being happy w/ their lives.
Chances are good that Trig will grow up to be a jerk for the sole reason that he’s been surrounded by jerks for his entire life.
3) Please read, understand and consider the intent of a comment before you seek out victimhood and cry foul.
Go fuck yourself, Steve. NO ONE WAS POKING FUN AT TRIG. READ SB’s post.
OK Roland,
Here’s what SB said, “I wouldnt be surprised if even Trig (I think that’s the welp’s name) turns out to be a jerk.”
So he wouldn’t be surprised if the kid who has Downs Syndrome turned out to be a jerk.
Yep, sensitivity.
Keep trying to defend this one, buddy. You’re pretty much making my point for me.
Do you pick cherries for a living, Steve? READ THE WHOLE FUCKING COMMENT!
OK Roland, here’s SB’s ENTIRE comment
“when can we finally be rid of this horrible family of awful people? I wouldnt be surprised if even Trig (I think that’s the welp’s name) turns out to be a jerk.”
Show me the sensitive part where he is sympathetic to Trig. Yep the addition of the 13 other words certainly makes a BIG difference.
Back under your rock.
Let me break it down for you, since you apparently have no concept of the English language:
TRIG’s family is horrible and consists of awful people.
Trig might grow up to be a jerk having been raised and surrounded by JERKS.
Are you so dense that you can’t see this was an attack on Trig’s family and not on Trig himself?
This has nothing to do w/ sensitivity or sympathy. SB made a snarky/funny comment. 3 people were offended. Get over it.
Click on my name to see how I feel about people who are offended by what someone says on the internet.
Roland, I frankly don’t care about your opinion or your willingness to defend SB’s hardly funny comment.
Maybe you would learn something if you stopped to think that the people were offended were people with kids with disabilities. But, wait, no . . . . That would be too much intellectual heavy lifting for you.
You’d rather spend your time diagramming sentences. Go for it.
You could have backed down at any point and realized it was a tasteless comment, but instead you have double-downed again and again. Your prerogative. I’m quite willing to let anybody else read this thread and decide for themselves about the comment.
When you do finally decide to crawl back in the hole, pull the rock over top. It will make it easier to keep out the light.
Nor do I care about your opinion, Steve.
I noticed you had no factual rebuttal for my explanation of sb’s innocuous comment, just a bunch of feelings & bullshit, along w/ your own snarky comments. Fair enough. I can get as well as I give. FWIW, I haven’t diagrammed a sentence since the 7th or 8th grade, and I was never very good at it…but I’m good at reading sentences & extracting the MEANING of a given sentence.
I wouldn’t know sb if he walked up to me and shook my hand, but I’ve been reading DL for nearly 3 years & commenting for 2 of those years. SB has never made a nasty comment towards “mentally challenged” or “special needs” or Down Syndrome (or whatever is the PC term this week) persons in that time.
IMO, it’s idiotic (look it up…you won’t like the history of the word) for you to attack him for a comment that offended YOU simply because you’re actively looking to be a “victim”.
You and AQC have made it clear both here and elsewhere that you have children w/ “special needs”, for lack of a better term. I feel for you, but I hope you treat your “special needs” child the same as your other children, assuming you have other children. You ARE a Libertarian, right?
Nothing brings out the agro like a Palin post.
sb misspelled welp, it’s whelp and its an animal other than a human. That is right at Trig, Roland, and it isn’t a compliment. This isn’t about humor or lack therof, hate on the Palin’s all you want but Trig didn’t choose his parents: he is innocent.
If it wasn’t about him as you claim, why make the point at all?
Also, thanks Steve.
As we all can see by clicking on your name Roland, you appear to be as sensitive about other people getting offended and I am about classless, senseless attacks on defenseless children: Roland’s name links here: http://i.imgur.com/LQGwx.png
Roland, since you can’t do English, let’s try math. Three people have said they found the comment to be offensive. All three have children with disabilities.
You don’t get to tell us what should or should not be offensive to us.
Nor do you get to make gratuitous shots at parents raising children with disabilities about how they should treat them.
You probably defended “legitimate rape” because women don’t have a sense of humor, too, huh?
You’re being an asshole. Plain and simple. It’s OK–it appears to be a disability you were born with.
RDLB pleas just jump in that puddle of aids you have you obnoxious POS!
I have a Downs sibling and I wasn’t offended. Downs kids are known for their absolute innocence, good nature, and incapability of evil. The joke was that the Palin family evil was so strong it could even overcome that. I got the joke. It wasn’t a world-beating joke, and maybe we could have done without it, but neither was it at the expense of of the disabled. I certainly feel no need to climb up on my cross over it.
wow. didnt realize what I started. Steve, you’re not getting it. I was saying that even people with Downs are capable of being a jerk. Like if both that child’s parents a horrible people, which they are, it is highly likely he is going to be a nasty person. A nasty person with DS. This obviously comes a shock to you, but people with that condition aren’t that different than you. They can feel the same emotions and are capable of all the good (and bad) that every other human is.
You know what people with special needs hate? Being treated like some kind of delicate flower you have to constantly build up and give feel-goods to. no where did i mention his condition or say anything about it. You just jumped on you righteous PC horse and started shooting (figuratively)
btw, thanks for the proxy defense, Roland.
Hey, one more thing. Whelp… as pointed out by JY. Im gonna go ahead and retract that one. I’ve been reading the Game of Thrones (song of ice and fire for fans) series and it is a common word used ot refer to the children of people they dont like. Books have soiled my mind. I will stop reading forever.
You know what people with special needs hate? Being treated like some kind of delicate flower you have to constantly build up and give feel-goods to. no where did i mention his condition or say anything about it. You just jumped on you righteous PC horse and started shooting (figuratively)
Actually, it was me that started shooting first. So, you are now an expert on what other people hate? So, I say they hate ignorant, humorless jokes like yours. Am I wrong? Are you the only authority on the feelings of people with special needs?
Whether or not I got your joke, or if it is only now a joke because several people have objected to it when it was just a plain declarative we’ll never know, but I stand behind it appearing callous, and being rude.
Doubling down with sarcasm about never reading again after suggesting books have soiled your mind, suggests that it wasn’t a statement designed to be a joke at all.
I’m not a big name caller – don’t like it, and have written, quite often, about it. That said, I do think Ben’s comment was wrong, but I don’t think he meant it in a way to hurt people.
If there was a chance for some consciousness raising that time has surely passed, but I’ll give it a try.
Ben, my young puppy, people living with children with disabilities (just like people who live with gay family members, or people who have experienced rape) are very sensitive to comments like yours. They live with this every day, so it is understandable. You should heed their call.
Everyone else, while I understand and completely agree with your points about kids (I have flat out said that Kids Are Off The Table) I think you missed an opportunity to enlighten Ben on why his words hurt. I don’t know many people who would be receptive to someone’s POV when it’s issued as an attack. You left Ben (who wasn’t even part of the conversation last night) with two choices: Complete and total self flagellation or doubling down.
He’s choosing to double down. (That’s a mistake, Ben, but it is instinctive – especially since you’ve been denied a gracious way out. Still, a mistake.)
Okay… class dismissed. Know what we need? A party. And not just a party – an Extravaganza.
hah. that after….check that.. in the same post where, you just got mad at me for assuming to know what other people think or feel.
I was an insult to Palin as a parent…k? I know your primal hate for me will never allow you to believe that, but it wasn’t a slam at people with Downs, or people who know people, or people who know people who know people.
second… “Doubling down with sarcasm about never reading again after suggesting books have soiled your mind, suggests that it wasn’t a statement designed to be a joke at all.” What? are you my psychologist now?
I have no primal hate for you at all.
But i didnt make a comment about Downs Syndrome, other than people who have it are just like people who dont in many many ways…both good and bad…. I used a wrong word that got everyone upset because I didnt know the actual definition, Jesus Tapdancing Christ!
No….I’ll take the cowardly, teabagger way out and agree with Pandora that this is over…. however you DID call me “puppy”…. and given the nature of this thread, I should be very offended…. of behalf of puppies who are WAY cuter and friendlier than I am.
so Jason, should we read your closing the comments on the Palin family values post as your tacit agreement that using a child with Down Syndrome as a hyperbolic literary device, even if it wasn’t designed to offend, is cool or just on its face as a confirmation of your double agent status? 🙂
Apologize for posting on this thread, but the other one is closed…and I can think of dozens of posts that were more rancorous and vitriolic allowed to grow to hundreds of comments.
I hope this is not the beginning a DL trend.
I have to clarify my comment on that thread as well. I put quotations around handicapped because I think the word takes away from the value of people with different needs. I am not typically politically correct, but I don’t like the word. To say any child will probably grow up to be a jerk, or anything else negative, is offensive. I’m fine with insulting the adults in the Palin family though :).
Jason, that argument, while perfectly fine, suggests you shouldn’t blog at all, no?
AQC, indeed. There are countless ways to insult the parenting skills of the Palin’s without targeting any one child, especially the one with special needs. It’s just needless.
When I think of dogs and Down Syndrome, I prefer this: http://youtu.be/JA8VJh0UJtg much more uplifting to the human spirit than supposing the adult outcome of said child based on his or her unchosen parents.
Here is my take. This thread is stupid, because there isn’t a lot of disagreement – there is just poking at each other. And the poking doesn’t have anything to do with the post.
But go ahead. Poke away. It is a nice day for it.
Gee Jason poking with unsupported accusations seems to be a past time for you …… Do you guys have a high horse that just seats all of you???
I may at times be a hypocrite, but at least I’m a unreliable and dishonest hypocrite.
or if used in music. but then it is “ritardando”
A mother could be a roll model figure ( + or – ,) (along with thousands of other variables) in the marriage/divorce decisions of her children/their spouses. One can only say, Sarah is her children’s mother, no more, no less. Who cares.
My thoughts of Palin as an American, a parent, a family person, a public servant, a public figure, stem from her idiotic cheerleader roll of chanting greedy and dumb republicans into a frenzy. Sensible Americans watched their TVs in stunned horror, as republicans rose to their feet to repeat, stump and shout, “Drill baby drill.” Corrupt republican leadership across the country reinforced that republican moral corruption can be sold in a winking, smiling, folksy package. You betcha. When you think of climate change, think of that chanting, stomping, clapping convention of corrupted republicans.
There likely is a man made hell awaiting mankind for its’ offenses against the Earth and all life and it may well be wrapped up in nature’s science, as more and more people around the world experience and realize – it’s not good to fool Mother Nature.
Republicans however, have refused to acknowledge climate science, until they no longer can. Now republicans and various fossil fuel interests say, yes, the climate is changing, but we still don’t know why, (just look away) and give us some federal funds to hold back reoccurring “extreme storm damage,” as well as “reoccurring” drought damages, crop damages. flood damages, fire damages, erosion damages, infrastructure damages, replace, relocate our destroyed homes, towns and cities, etc.
The present day tax debate over the top 2% is absolutely nothing, nothing, compared to the upcoming CO2 tax debate that will take place in order to save the planet from the known WMD, that is the over abundance of anthropogenic chemical pollution, that is CO2. You know, that stuff that republicans say is natural and harmless as the breath they exhale. (Republicans harmless? Hardly.) A fifth grader knows, it’s a matter of quantity- the air is now 391.04 ppm CO2 and rapidly rising; oceans 30% more acidic.) It will be the debate that shows the country and the world, the depths of republican fossil fueled depravity, the same depravity that cheered the empty heads and soulless bodies, as Palin lead the republican chant.
You’re not expecting the fossil fuel industries to say, yeah, our product is responsible for the damages, tax us. No, it will be “leave the wealthy corporations alone, tax the victims,” as mankind stands on the edge of the cliff.
What the federal government should do, is in order to receive (duh) ‘extreme storm’ federal funds, states must label climate change damages, what they are – ‘climate change damages’ in order to receive ‘climate change funds.’ And states must immediately end ‘needless’ over releasing of every ton of CO2 in their state or never expect another ‘climate change’ dollar.There will be fossil fuel usage – I said needless. Hello, expecting any more “extreme storms,” or 100 year floods, coastal states? Expecting more droughts southwestern states; more fires, western states? That political acknowledgement and acceptance of science, coupled with a CO2 tax will equal quick reductions, but remember -we’re now approaching the tipping point cliff. It’s the children’s future that will be helped, as present day CO2 greenhouse damages (and changes) can last up to 200 years. Going over the tipping point cliff – is the place of no return. (How’s Sarah’s home state doing? It’s melting, sinking, burning. Search: Alaska, climate change.)
On the other hand, Doctor James Hansen is a father, a grandfather, a world renown climate scientist and now a leader in attempting to have ordinary men, politicians and the public, understand complex climate science. Doctor James Hansen, is a world class climatologist and knows a few things about drilling and burning, baby.
Here’s a few words from Hansen, from “Storms of My Grandchildren’s Opa, 12/13/12
“X and Y keep changing, but X°C is already so large that we would pass tipping points sufficient to guarantee an unfolding disastrous path to a different planet, one with a bleak future for young people and other life on the planet. And never mind that an international approach based on caps, goals and promises is worth about as much as the paper the Kyoto Protocol was printed on.
Presented with such a prognostication you might say: Hey, wait a minute, we don’t need a complex unworkable cap approach or a carbon tax. We need a simple honest flat across-the-board fee on the carbon content of fossil fuels, collected from fossil fuel companies at the domestic mine or port of entry, the fee gradually rising over time, the funds distributed 100 percent to the public, equal amounts to all legal residents, not one dime to the government, no enlargement of government. Such a “fee-and-dividend” system would cause fossil fuel CO2 emissions to rapidly decline, most coal and unconventional fossil fuels would be left in the ground. For example, economic modeling for the U.S. shows that a $10/ton CO2 fee, rising $10 each year, would reduce emissions 30 percent after a decade — more that a factor of 10 greater than the oil carried by the proposed Keystone XL pipeline, rendering that pipeline superfluous.”
Sarah calls “the science of climate change, ” “snake oil science” And defends herself as a conservationist. “I named my daughter Willow. Isn’t that granola enough for them? Palin asked. No it isn’t, Sarah.
Search James Hansen, climate change.
He’s someone one can respect as a parent, a grandparent. a climate scientist, a great American hero.
Thanks for that comment. I’ve often wondered why we spend so much energy on imaginary “terrorist” when we are undertaking to terrorize ourselves on a daily basis by ignoring a real ecological catastrophe unfolding right before our eyes.
I have a special needs children and the only thing that stands out to me about this thread is how people who otherwise don’t like SB’s politics are using discourse about special needs children to attack SB. Using special needs children and the discourse about them to make some political payback is, in my view, revolting.
i have no issue with SB’s politics and have no reason to engage in payback.
We can disagree about intent v. inference all day long. No one wins because no one can rightfully tell another HOW to feel.
I was offended at the arbitrary use of Trig. Why not the other Paling kids? I get it that SB says that the effect of showing just how fucked up the Palin’s are as parents is amplified by using Trig.
But for me, and because all that Trig will have to overcome in his life, using him to make that point is superfluous, unnecessary, needless. That’s my whole point.
I’ve never met SB. As SB can attest, I’ve never gone after SB on any other thread for any other reason and have no history whatsoever of having some political payback vendetta.
Jason, thank you for re-opening comments.
It stands out to me that Dana Garrett doesn’t know what the fuck he’s talking about :). I have never attacked SB’s political beliefs. As a matter of fact, I usually agree with him.