Palin Planet!

At breakfast today, I told my son, “You know, it’s time for me to write again about Sarah Palin!”

As a fledgling blogger, I am very interested in checking out the stats of my blogs. And the discovery I made was not surprising.

So when my son asked me why I wanted to write about Sarah Palin yet again, I unabashedly told him that my posting about Sarah Palin gets a more consistent viewing than many of my other blogs, barring the one about “Even a cat has Karma“. Good enough reason to write about what the “Palin ingredient” does for the media.

Whatever Sarah Palin may represent to the rest of us, we all seem to have a love-hate relationship with her. Every feeling about Sarah is extreme. There are those who worship the ground she treads on, aka William Kristol, Sean Hannity, and some folks in Alaska.

And then there are those like me, who read about her and watch her on TV with incredulity. What on earth?…. is what we think when we hear her speak. Her brand of gibberish is certainly very entertaining and very very unique. She strives really hard to make sense, and I bet in her mind, she does make sense, but the words out of her mouth never seem to pause – they flow like the Ganges, ravishing all sane thought and idea in its wake.

What does Sarah Palin do for the media? Well, I have not yet heard anyone openly acknowledge her star power, so I will. As far as the Internet goes, any mention of Palin, has a Web site auto-ping and grab content to display on their site (0f course, with a link back to my blog!) – so that’s exposure right away. The minute I press the Publish Post button on this blog, I am going to get a ping back. Not bad.

As far as TV shows go – the ratings go through the roof, if the channel advertises that Sarah is going to be on the show. Why does this happen?

Again, two very different reasons – First off, lets not disregard the devotees, for they make up the true ratings.

They come out in droves to watch her, comprehend her utterances, interpret it to suit themselves, salivate over her good looks, discuss her hair, make-up, clothes and figure. These true ratings, in my opinion, are made up to two distinct categories of people – the men, some of whom comprise of the pimpled adolescent boys or the bored husbands who like to imagine her as the hot, bespectacled librarian. These are the kind who love to see eye-candy and get a kick out of seeing the Palin photo daily on the news. Honorable mention in this category are the Brits and the Pakistanis (led by the stalwart Zardari).

The second category is the women. These are the working women, housewives, forty-somethings, and women who dream of fame and recognition. To them, Sarah represents a dream come true – “someone like me” becoming famous. Some of these women are actually smart, good looking and educated. But their filter for viewing Sarah is themselves. They see her as themselves and so cut her slack for her incoherent talk, her rambling rhetoric and “interpret” her sentences for the rest of us, in the multiple blog comments.

Secondly, there are the infidels, like myself, who dare to be skeptics. This category comes out in droves too when a Sarah Palin show is aired, and this is the number that embellishes the ratings. These people come to see the Sarah Palin shows for entertainment. True entertainment. We watch in awe that someone like Sarah gets to be on prime time. We watch in horror and pain as she ties herself up in a flurry of her words, like a python slowly tightening its hold on its
prey. We watch in fascination, as the TV host lets her get away with answers that have no bearing on the question asked. And we watched with fear, when we thought she might, she just might, get to become VP and cast the pall of her intellect on America.

So there you go, my in-depth analysis of Sarah Palin’s media advantage . Love her or hate her, you can never just ignore her.

And that’s true STAR POWER!!

Even a cat has Karma!

Barack Obama and I have something in common – Our “change is coming” theme! Resist it as we may, life is all about change. Good change, bad change – we categorize it, but change is just change. If there was no change, life wouldnt be as exciting, as fun, and the wild careening ride until death releases us to God knows where!

As I connected this in my head I pondered about Subbu, my cat. He is a gift from my son. As I delight over him every morning and literally every time I catch sight of him – lolling around, begging for treats, sitting by the french window but with his head twisted back to see if I would come by and let him out, digging up my carpets, lying all day with paws up in the air under my son, Karthik’s desk, I start thinking about how his life has changed in this past year.

Subbu was born as Sebastian, on a Wisconsin farm in the depths of winter. He was transported by Karthik’s friend to their college residence when he was just a few weeks old. As a kitten, he adjusted very well to the drive – sleeping draped around the boy’s neck for 3 hours.

Back in Madison, he was confronted with the dregs of an in-campus home – a deep, dank home filled with cigarette stubs, video games, dirty carpets, unmade beds, and dishes all over the place. His house mates consisted of another cat called Alistair and 5 young college males, who proceeded to pet him whenever they noticed him; feed him at a fairly regular schedule; but cleaned out the litter box only when even their friends who came drunk to their parties noticed the stench.

Subbu’s sole contact with outside air for those 6 months, was when he was let out into the tiny deck, once in a long while. The rest of the time, he learned to play with Alistair and meow outside the boys’ doors when he wanted to be petted.

When my son Karthik moved out of the house to live by himself, in the final semester of his college, Subbu was donated by Karthik’s roommates to a girl who also lived in campus. We know not how Subbu’s life was that semester; what we do know is that in a short span of a year, Subbu had moved 3 homes and had had 3 different set of living conditions – every change was out of his control.

When he finally came to me, he was again transported 8 hours – but this time, since he was older, we tried to put in a cat carrier. His fear of being locked up made him meow so pitifully and so loudly that we took our chances of being scratched and clawed and let him loose in the car. Cool cat that he is, he slept peacefully at Karthik’s feet for 8 hours, his gorgeous gray fur merging seamlessly with the gray car mat.

Now he lives with us and he has been rechristened Subbu – simply because I cannot pronounce Sebastian very easily. In addition, the name Sebastian doesn’t lend itself well to baby talk.
Subbu’s life has changed yet again – I think its his Karma! Here he has access to the great outdoors – we live in a single family home in a sparsely populated neighborhood. There are no homes on one side of ours. Besides, ours is a lovely neighborhood – we have the deer, the racoons, bald soaring eagles, and even the peacocks, visit us regularly. There is a lake in the neighborhood, so Subbu gets to revert to his roots and pretend he’s a tiger on a hunt! He crouches in the tall grass around the lake, seeking prey. He chases bugs around, and climbs on trees to pander to his true cat’s nature. He gets to stay out as long as he wants to and when he comes back home with his fur laden with wild flowers, leaves and thorns, he gets groomed and petted.

Now Subbu is also due for another change when we move. He’ll probably lose his great outdoors especially if we move into a more urban home.

So, what does this simple life story say about Karma?
Even a cat has his Karma. And that Karma drives his life in this birth. I guess the difference between a man’s Karma and a cat’s Karma is probably an element of free will that man has, that an animal does not. Beyond that, there’s something to be said for Karma!