MY YOUNG FRIEND, NIKKO, is on the move.  I’m predicting he will be a significant presence in Alaska twenty five years from now… plenty of time for his state to have recovered completely from the political misadventures of the state’s former half-term Governor, Sarah Palin.  I’ve been trying since the beginning of this new year to find a reason to launch into a mini-rant, and Nikko gave it to me simply by his presence and his being an Alaskan.  He isn’t shy about his admiration for President Obama.  In fact, I’m told that he sometimes becomes the President.  That makes sense… and also as a matter of fact, his sister Kai has the same inherited intelligence and force of presence that energizes Nikko, so she will also be a notable presence in Alaska a couple of decades from now. 

About that mini-rant…  I just finished reading Cheryl K. Chumley’s report in the Washington Times about Former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin’s big plans for American government.  In an interview yesterday on Fox News Palin said one of her three New Year’s resolutions is to bring power back to the hands of the people… by making “government as irrelevant as possible.”  

This is a mini-rant because Ms. Palin’s vacuous declarations can’t be dignified by reasonable debate or anything like a full-size rant.  She obviously doesn’t understand the meaning of either government or irrelevant.  

About those other two resolutions…  Ms. Chumley reports that Ms. Palin resolves to eat more meat.  She also resolves to live the tenets of deceased UCLA coach John Wooden’s “Pyramid of Success” program. According to the Washington Times, Palin said  “the Pyramid of Success program is what basically gives individuals their own feelings of power and industriousness,”  which she says will instill in them the important sense of “American exceptionalism.”