SPOKANE, Wash. (AP) — Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin attended five colleges in six years before graduating from the University of Idaho (Moscow) in 1987. She began college at University of Hawaii (Hilo) before transferring in a couple of weeks to Hawaii Pacific University, a private, nonsectarian school in Honolulu. She attended only as a freshman during the fall of 1982. From Hawaii Pacific, Palin transferred to North Idaho College, a two-year school in Coeur d'Alene, about 30 miles east of Spokane. She attended the college as a general studies major for two semesters, in spring 1983 and fall 1983. From North Idaho College, Palin transferred 70 miles south to the University of Idaho, the state's flagship institution. She majored in journalism with an emphasis in broadcast news. She attended Idaho, whose mascot is the Vandals, from fall 1984 to spring 1985. She then returned to Alaska to attend Matanuska-Susitna College in Palmer in fall 1985. Then she returned to Idaho, for spring 1986, fall 1986 and spring 1987, where she graduated. Whew!
Controlled tangent. TSR wonders what Governor Palin's parents thought about this itinerant matriculation. If she had been looking for a school that taught "intelligent design," she could've transferred among the 200-plus Christian colleges in the U.S. for decades, thus sparing the nation a collective cringe.
Jarring juxtaposition. Mrs. James Peregrine Leger-Demain, IV—TSR's protocol enforcer—was shocked at the uncanny similarity between the names of her children and Governor Palin's.
Sarah Palin's children: Track (named after high school track meets), Bristol (after Bristol Bay where they did commercial fishing), Willow (after a community in Alaska), Piper (just a cool name) and Trig (Norse for “strength").
Mrs. IV's children: Driveway (where she learned to ride a two-wheeler, pictured), Pee Dee (after a river running through the Carolinas), Waxhaw (after a community in N.C.), Chigger (just a cool name, not the parasite), 雞尾酒 (Chinese for "cocktail").
UPDATE: 10.2.08 NAMES TO NOWHERE. Parents, you no longer have to be as clever as Governor Palin or Mrs. IV to guarantee that your children grow up to be meth-lab entrepreneurs at an outpost near the Russian border. Let Poli Tsk Tsk Tsk's Sarah Palin Baby Name Generator do it for you. No need to limit this to the newly born. The governor herself could and should become Claw Washout Palin. John McCain would and should become Steam Fangs Palin, and, of course, Barack Obama would just add Palin.
