Grievance I: Alaska is Not Even A Real State

Alaska is not a real state. Being governor of Alaska is like being President of the Clean Plate Club (which, ironically enough was started by a real president). It just doesn't matter. You can eat and eat until your swollen belly distends in the manner of a starving orphan. You can run your tongue over the plate for hours until the scintillating ceramic is the envy of all the neighbors. Still, my friends, no one gives a shit if your fucking plate is clean. Alaska is similar. Nobody gives a shit about it or what goes on in it.

Before August 30, 2008, when was the last time you even thought about Alaska? Take a moment now. Let your thoughts drift back to the distant past, and let warm reflections of simpler days wrap around you like a comfortable old blanket. When did you last say to yourself, "Hey, I wonder what's going on in Alaska right now?" or "I wonder if that igloo consortium was able to evince any real change." or even "Alaska? Didn't we give that back to Russia?"

I imagine it has been a very long time since these or similar thoughts have crossed your mind. If you do happen to be one of the few people who has thought about Alaska in the past decade I am sure it was one of the following thoughts.

"Man, Ted Stevens is crazy/does not understand the basic functionality of the Internet/is being prosecuted for massive graft/reminds me of Yosemite Sam."

or

"Polar Bears are fucking delightful."

That li'l motherfucker is absolutely precious. When Joe Alaska first felt the icy firmament of the state that would come to bare his name crunch under his sore and aching feet, it was the sight of this little guy's ancestors which gave him the strength to go on and found his terrible, awful, no good, very bad state. We may forgive the polar bears for this. They knew naught what horrible tedium would result from there adorableness.

Alaska has only two other things worth mentioning. Oil and igloos.

The importance of igloos, and the all-powerful igloo consortium, goes without saying. Without them, how would spend the Winters? How would we survive the blasts of cold wind and falling snow? In shelters made of wood or stone equipped with electricity and/or plumbing? Madness. Pure madness.

Oil, of course, is the very lifeblood of modern America. It goes by many names. Black Gold. Texas Tea. Your Milkshake. No matter what one calls it, however, one must acknowledge its importance. It says so on the news like every night. Alaska apparently has a lot of oil underneath it. If I understand the Palin/McCain position correctly, there is enough oil to supply America with cheap and plentiful gas for a million trillion years. The moment that sweet bounty is tapped, America will enter a new Golden Age, the sort of wonderful future predicted in The Jetsons and insane commercials for cars or something. Energy will be too cheap to meter, and men will never again leave the house without a hat and tie, and women will stay in the home, slowly consumed by ennui as they endlessly bake cookies and do the laundry for hubby. The American Dream will finally be at hand. Also, there will be no global warming. Or black people.

I had heard Alaska had a Bridge to Nowhere. That is some scary shit. Nothing about something called a Bridge to Nowhere sounds good to me. Falling off of a bridge is one my great fears, along with escalators and dying alone. A little research, though, proved this claim untrue. Alaska does not have a Bridge to Nowhere. It has three. That's fucked up. That's the kind of thing that inspires Rod Serling to narrate the opening of a TV show.


Sarah Palin is an ordinary woman. She drives an ordinary car and works hard as an ordinary governor. But Sarah is about to learn that the bridge she drives to work everyday on is not ordinary at all. In actuality it is a bridge...to nowhere. Improbable? Yes. Impossible? Perhaps. But Sarah Palin is about to learn that nothing is ordinary...in Alaska!!

In conclusion, the Inuit language has over two million words for snow, but only one word for shitty states that are barely even states at all: Alaska.

(Also Delaware)