Friends of former Kaaawa neighbor and MidWeek editor (1989-94) Vera Benedek, who has been living in Alaska for over a decade, received an email from her yesterday.

For those of you who have asked me about Sarah Palin, as well as those of you who just haven’t gotten around to it yet. 🙂 This is one of the best things I’ve seen written about her so far. It’s not a rant, but a look at the facts. (The writter has been vetted. She’s for real. VB)

By the end of the day, the same analysis was showing up all over the web, including this Alaska politics site which adds a bit of additional background and includes comments.

The Daily Show caught the hypocrisy of the spin on Palin by Republican pundits much better than the timid corporate media.

The Honolulu Community-Media Council has condemned the arrests and harassment of journalists covering protests outside the Republican National Convention.

HCMC president, Chris Conybeare, said in an email alert that the actions of the police at the Republican National convention are the same tactics used by government forces during the election campaign in Zimbabwe.

“We must stand up to police actions that threaten a free press whether at home or abroad. A democracy depends on freedom of expression and the free flow of information. Please read the statement below and follow the links to see what happens when basic rights are ignored. Please join the campaign by signing on to the letter of protest that will be sent to officials in St.Paul and to the Republican National Committee.”

Conybeare referred to a letter being circulated by Free Press, a national media reform group, which calls for all charges against journalists to be dropped.

A link to more info on the police actions at the GOP convention was sent by Brad Parsons on Maui, who emailda link to a story and video from WCCO in St. Paul. Brad says it “was forwarded to me by a government documents professional reference librarian friend of mine at a major university on the mainland.”

There is also a lot of impressive and quick fact checking going on and available online, like this response to Palin’s convention speech and this point-by-point analysis of the McCain-Palin promises.

Two items to share on this Feline Friday. First, Ms. Annie and this calendar cat appear to have been separated at birth!

We avoided changing the date for several weeks, just to keep the likeness in view. Finally I got a photo of them side-by-side and we were then able to turn the page and move forward in the calendar.

Yesterday I was rummaging in a box of old photos in search of images from a particular period. I didn’t find what I was looking for, but I did turn up a treasure trove of photos of our last generation of Kaaawa cats.

This is Mr. Tommy. He adopted us one stormy night. He literally appeared at the front door during a storm and wanted food. Of course, we welcomed him. Then a neighbor’s cat decided Tommy was the best cat, and so Buster moved in as well. Tommy was a wanderer and a fighter. We spent an awful lot on vet bills while he was with us. He would only show up at meals, and would get wild if we tried to keep him inside the house. But he was a great cat. In any case, please click on his photo for more of the cats who lived with us in 1995.