Want to keep an eye on your kid in Iraq? Join his unit!
48-year-old retired Marine Jane Strand quit the corps, had six kids, waited for her Marine husband to retire, and then joined the North Carolina National Guard. So did her youngest son, Timothy. Now they're both about to deploy. OOH-RAH.
Drudge brings us the story.
TRYING TO FOLLOW THE CREDIT MESS/ELECTION FROM
Québèc City
Hard to collect too many thoughts when left with mere CNN on the hotel TV, and an hotel internet that moves a little slowly.Having to remind myself that when Sarah Palin's interview performances are pronounced a failure, this is being done by the same people who think she's sub-human because she didn't go to Princeton. (Loved her answer to Katie Perky about not having had the leisure to back-pack around Europe.)
Is there important stuff she doesn't know? Sure. Can she learn it quickly? Absolutely. She's smart and master of all she surveys -- up until now she's been surveying Alaska. Now she'll move on and survey the wider world, with a big staff of people to do the digesting, and her Bullshit-Meter in full working order.
She'll be fine. Cool it, McCain campaign. Chill. Don't overwhelm her with coaching -- she's starting to come off a bit too self-conscious and trying too hard, just as Bush did (fatally) when made to feel inadequate by his handlers.
Been thinking of Ms. Palin and her position a lot while touring around the city here. One of the most powerful forces to settle here in the 17th century was the order of Ursuline Sisters of Tours, who came to this remote and primitive outpost to establish education for women -- both the local native girls (their primary mission) and the daughters of the European settlers. They proved more successful than did the Jesuits with the native boys.
Nearly four centuries later, in a profoundly secularized
(downright irreligious) Québèc, the Ursulines persevere in their vocation to young women, operating an elementary school with 500 students,
located on their original grounds -- to say nothing of the vast apostolate which spread across North America from the arrival of a few intrepid French women on the muddy shores of 17th-century Québèc.[Dare we propose that, um, they don't make Frenchies like they used to?....]
Monument to education of women, in front of Ursuline Chapel, Québèc City.
