There are a lot of mysteries going on right now.

Why has the untimely (though hardly unexpected) death of Michael Jackson been front page news day after day after day after . . . you get the idea. It is as unexplainable as the cheers for O.J.'s acquittal on murder charges. As a performer he had successes, though no one will ever know how much of his success was from his own ideas or whether he had handlers, but as a person, he was a disaster. Accused as a pedophile repeatedly, he was acquitted in a criminal trial but forced in civil cases to pay millions in retribution. Then his more or less constant plastic surgery turned him from a cute brown boy with a round nose into a female impersonator looking white person with a perky nose and cleft chin. MJ was a psycho.

Another mystery is the recent resignation of Sarah Palin as governor of Alaska. You have to wonder if she had been elected Vice-President of the United States, would she have resigned by now as well. I've not seen a single commentator who has a clue as to why she has resigned, nor could she explain it cogently herself. She doesn't want to be a lame duck? Someone should explain to her what a lame duck is. She doesn't qualify. If she remains there will be all these continuing ethics investigations that will cost Alaska millions. But if she has broken laws shouldn't the investigations go on any way? No person more stupid than her has ever been in the public spotlight running for political office. The fact that she had any backers at all is a great sadness to me. Thoroughly unqualified for any public office, she is simply a cute chick with extreme right wing ideals. A wing nut. A poster child for extremism. Remember the tough hockey mom she was supposed to be? All that remains is a quitter. But why is that a surprise, she quit 4 colleges before she eked out a bachelor's degree in the fifth one. Even more sadly, her PAC is raising money this week as she now has free time to start running for President of the United States of America. You quit the governor's office of our smallest state government and we should consider you for president. Quite a mystery.

The mystery of the Republican Party is greater than either of the last two. Blasted by the electorate in the last election, the 28% of the country that back all things Republican seem to think that they lost because they were too middle of the road in their platform. Had they been more radical (they were already radical) in their conservatism, people would have swung around to their ideas. The elderly are now hearing frightening things from the spokespersons of the party (talk show hosts) about how OBAMA is taking over the country--everything from he's raising your taxes, stealing your heath care, bowing down to other countries, taking away your firearms, abolishing the constitution. Republicans call everything by the opposite of what it is. His Hispanic woman jurist, Sotomayor, given the highest rating by the American Bar Association and the first Hispanic nominee to the court in history, is dubbed by the Republicans as a racist. Her crime? Saying aloud that an Hispanic woman is in a better position to view Constitutional rights than White men. If you insult White people, you must be racist. (If we extend her comments to mean that the poor, downtrodden, and those who face daily discrimination have a better understanding of freedom than those who take freedom for granted because of the color of their skin, then I think it is clear that Sotomayor is correct with her comment, politically correct or not.

In a completely different vein—we got a lovely thank-you note from a former student. The sentiments she expressed were appreciated. She recently graduated from high school and as the salutatorian of her class. Yet her thank-you knote had fore speling erors, in one paragraf. How can she be Salutatorian of the class and not be able to spell? She had “learning disabilities” and was given extra time on tests, and apparently teachers were not able to count off for little things like spelling. The problem is she must now go into the real world, unprepared for being judged by the standards her peers have been held to all along. Education is now totally litigation driven. Results are irrelevant. That is a mystery to me.