After only a few weeks in Alaska, I'm convinced of one fact: If Sarah Palin is a racist, it wasn't from her childhood in Wasilla. (What am I doing in Alaska? This.) By most measures, the Anchorage area is more ethnically diverse and integrated than most places I've been in the lower 48. That's not to say Alaskans have not exhibited prejudice; rather, aside from a seething anti-native sentiment, people seem focused on aspects other than race when stereotyping others.

How you're dressed counts for a lot. (Bringing a pea-coat up here, in retrospect, was a poor decision; never have I had an article of clothing inspire such ire.) Anything beyond the practical draws attention, all negative. A thick coating of aggressive humility is requisite. Looking the part of a down-to-earth, humble working man or woman counts for quite a bit, it seems—perhaps even more than acting that part. A piece of the Palin puzzle fell into place when I finally recognized this pattern. To her hometown supporters, I suspect, there was no more damning criticism of Sarah than her costly clothing shopping sprees. It's telling her book and public appearances all strongly deny even the most obvious and demonstrated facts of her campaign-financed wardrobe revamping.

The Alaskans have also proven quite prickly about minor offers of help, basic interactions like holding open a door or offering directions. Being self-reliant, projecting the image of not needing anyone or anything to get about your life, seems to matter deeply. Nowhere else has the phrase “Can I help you find something?” been loaded with such malice. This seems like a place filled with outsiders, individuals who didn't fit in well elsewhere. The general attitude is blurred between a desire for acceptance and interpersonal connection and a sour-grapes fuck-off-I-don't-need-you-anyways. Todd's membership in the AIP clicks for me a bit more now.

For about six weeks, I'm stationed up in Anchorage Alaska. How could I not visit Wasilla? For a brief moment there, it seemed like the town's fate could've been all of ours.

A Salon piece—from the 2008 election—sums it up nicely:

"Sarah's legacy as mayor was big-box stores and runaway growth," said Patty Stoll, a retired Wasilla schoolteacher who once worked in the same school with Palin's parents, Chuck and Sally Heath. "The truth is, Wasilla is just plain ugly, it's not a pleasant place to live. It's not thought out. And that's a shame.....

Wasilla, where Palin grew up and still resides, sprawls between two lakes — Lucille and Wasilla Lake. Cottonwood Creek, which flows in and out of Wasilla Lake, has also been labeled "impaired" by state environmental officials, after foam was detected on the water surface and subsequent testing found excessive concentrations of fecal coliform bacteria.

The two lakes are the town jewels, the only eye relief along a harrowing corridor of strip malls, big-box stores and fast-food drive-throughs that is Wasilla. "Lord, help me get through Wasilla," reads one Alaska bumper sticker.

People loved (and to an extent still love) Sarah Palin up here. I've been struggling to figure out why. The overwhelming impression one gets, when visiting the developed parts of Alaska, is one of massive sea of subsidy covered by a veneer of bitter (and somewhat hostile) independence and self-reliance. Every scrap of food I've eaten has been shipped in. The dollars for the roads I've driven upon has been shipped in. Even the gasoline has been shipped in. Simply put, most everyone living here is on the governmental dole—directly or indirectly.

In such a situation, it makes sense for people here to be deeply distrustful of the Federal government—because of, not despite of, the Federal largess. Having your life this reliant upon Federal funding is a bit like being a long-standing vaguely unwanted houseguest. After a few weeks of sleeping on the couch, you'd start to feel uncomfortable. All of the absurdities of government—the dense layers of bureaucracy required for any operation of such magnitude, the paranoid paperwork intended to prevent fraud, the impersonal and often arbitrary decisionmaking and so on—are laid bare to many Alaskans on a regular basis. The Federal government seems to be the dominant power here in the Anchorage area—vastly outweighing the power of even the oil companies or other outposts of global capitalism.

When I've heard bitching about "Obamacare", it's almost exclusively been from this perspective. Who wants these Federal assholes involved in any more aspects of our lives? What the fuck do they know? Exxon-Mobile builds us nice buildings with fewer strings attached. Why can't private insurance companies be left alone—to do the same for us on healthcare?

• Fairview Loop road

And in a very clear and accurate way, this point of view is (partially) correct. Unchecked governmental power and influence is pretty awful to live under. The aspect that's being missed is unchecked corporate power is even worse. I absolutely abhor every private insurance company I've suffered under. The dense layers of bureaucracy, the paranoid paperwork, the impersonal and imperious decisionmaking are all there—with a thick ladling of sociopathic profiteering added in. (Whatever else you can say about democratic governments, they're generally at least trying to do right by the people.) Living in places not completely dependent upon Federal aid, the winds of corporate power are vastly stronger. In the places in the US that have adjusted relatively well to globalization (i.e. American cities, the deepest blue parts of the country) the government feels more like an allied army arriving to liberate us from corporate tyranny.

As individuals, we're screwed under either governmental or corporate dominance. Owning a shitload of guns won't resolve this. The goal of a lot of liberal policymaking is the balance corporate power with governmental power—allowing both to be trimmed and molded into something more functional and humane in the process. The point isn't a Federal takeover of our lives. The point is to balance these forces to the point where most of us will be left the fuck alone.

Charles D'Ambrosio knocking on Ernest Hemingway's door.

These boys accosted me last night shortly after I arrived in Bloomington, Indiana. It was nearly midnight when I got to town and I was restless and hungry, so I left my hotel to find something to eat. I wound up on Kirkwood, just off campus, where there wasn't much to eat besides pizzas and pitas and subs. Walking back to my hotel—which is in the middle of Indiana University's insanely beautiful campus—I passed a food truck selling fresh-baked cookies. The boy on the left in the picture above, Dan, asked me to buy him a cookie. His friend Zac, on the right, told me that they run the Philadelphia cheese steak truck that's usually out on this corner and if I came back tomorrow night he would "set me up" with a cheese steak if I bought his friend Dan a cookie. The woman in the truck—exasperated with Dan and Zac—asked the boys to leave me alone. But Dan was persistent, telling me he'd do anything—anything—if I would just buy him a cookie. The picture doesn't do Dan justice; he's one of those people who looks better when he isn't smiling. He looks best, in fact, when he's leaning in close, alcohol on his breath, and promising to do anything—absolutely anything—for a cookie.

I love college towns.

(For Brendan Kiley.)

Note the feet.

Soldiers à côté de soldiers.

Some of the art in a gay bar in the Marais. An inflatable Mickey Mouse and an inflatable Spiderman, each being crucified. I'm at a loss here. Help me out, Jen?

Note the store on the lower left.

(There's a close-up after the jump.)

...someone gets her head blown off.

There was a zombie walk in downtown Portland today. It was a beautiful day for staggering around in stage makeup and torn clothes. Looked like fun. But joining a zombie walks is too risky. Maybe I'm paranoid—maaaaaybe—but I think it's only a matter of time before some lunatic sees a crowd of zombies coming down the street and reacts the way he's seen the hero react in a million zombie movies: shoot the zombies in the head. I went to the gym instead.

Elevated transit, dedicated bus lanes, district elections for city council—the list of things that work in other cities but could never, ever work in Seattle is long and mostly bogus. But I ran across something yesterday that works fine in Pullman but would never work in Seattle: Snap Fitness. It's a gym that's open 24 hours a day but only "staffed" seven hours a day. Between 10-1 and 3-7 there's someone there selling memberships, including day passes, cleaning up, keeping an eye on things. The rest of the time members let themselves in with key cards. The gym works well in Pullman. In Seattle it would turn into a bathhouse in a week.

The beer selection at Rico's Pub is surprisingly awesome.

It doesn't take much to make the front page of the Moscow-Pullman Daily News.

The former president—long deceased—of WSU looks a lot like that guy on Seinfeld (who wound up hosting Family Feud) crossed with Ted Danson (who is totally hilarious on Bored to Death). In a related development Shelley Long, who starred on Cheers with Danson, was totally hilarious on Modern Family, which is totally hilarious.

UPDATE: Dom says that this dead president looks like someone threw Bill Clinton and Dave Reichert's sperm together in a supercollider and impregnated Barbara Bush. In a related development, it is four o'clock and we are drinking.

UPDATE 2: Dom insists that I have to write "Bill Clinton's sperm and Dave Reichert's sperm" or else it will be read as their mutual sperm being thrown together—the sperm from their shared testes—which would, of course, be redundant. Because, you see, if Clinton and Reichert shared testes you wouldn't have to throw their sperm together because it would arrive pre-mixed. I disagree with Dom. I think it's clear that Clinton and Reichert are autonomous individuals, males both, who would, perforce, possess two sets of testes, two scrotums, and two urethras between them, and that a reasonable person would understand "Bill Clinton and Dave Reichert's sperm" as a reference to two loads blown that had been combined, not one load that Clinton and Reichert were somehow mutually responsible for blowing. I further assert that Dom underestimates your intelligence, dear reader. And what of the supercollider? Hm? Dom?

WSU has a row team. You can rent a rower. You can rent as many rowers as you like for $12 an hour. The rent-a-rower request form here. You cannot order your eggs sunny-side-up at the Old European. The waitress—who hit a deer on her way to work today—can tell you why.

This is in the trophy case—the trophy case?—at the Holiday Inn Express in Pullman, Washington:

So Dom and I are staying at 1996 Hotel of the Year... but... is it the hotel of the year out of all the hotels in the world? All the hotels in Pullman? All the Holiday Inn Express hotels? All the hotels built in 1996? I asked the receptionist. No one knows. It's a mystery.

That's a basketball team streaming by the Starbucks where I'm Slogging. (Sorry about the picture quality, particularly because some of those boys are hot.) Those granola bars aren't weighing so heavily on my mind now. I'm sitting here praying that the team, as hot as some of members of it are, aren't headed to the gate that my flight departs from. (N-2, if the information screens can be trusted—WHICH THEY CAN'T. Hey, if you're reading this near N-2, drop by and say hello.) I think it's risky to fly with sports teams—high school, college, professional. It's tragedy bait. The plane goes down, a whole team perishes, a school mourns, a town rallies, a new live team goes out and wins the championship in memory of the old dead team. Book deals are made, film rights are purchased, movies are released. And the Tragedy of Alaska Flight 326—feels kinda jinxy to type that—is forever reduced to the 20 or so athletes who died in the disaster, never mind the 150 or so other people on board. They don't even get walk-ons in the movies about the airline crash that took their lives.

If my plane crashes I want my death mentioned in the first or second paragraph, not relegated to a list in the sidebar ("Other Passengers On Alaska 326"). Is that selfish of me?

Good to know.