Palin

Soon after Sarah Palin was elected mayor of the foothill town of Wasilla, Alaska, she startled a local music teacher by insisting in casual conversation that men and dinosaurs coexisted on an Earth created 6,000 years ago -- about 65 million years after scientists say most dinosaurs became extinct -- the teacher said.

Re "Gov. Palin put donors and friends in key posts," Oct. 24 I've lived in Alaska for eight years. I didn't vote for Sarah Palin for governor, nor will I vote for the McCain/Palin ticket next week. However, there were a few things you failed to consider. I think one of the main reasons she appointed a number of friends and supporters was that she did come in as an outsider to the capital's GOP establishment. She replaced a horrible governor and dealt with a state capital rife with corruption.

John McCain's selection of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his Republican running mate is likely to push social issues back into prominence in a presidential campaign dominated so far by the economy and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. At first blush, picking the 44-year-old Palin appeared to be a fairly straightforward bid for disaffected Democratic women -- those who remain unreconciled to Barack Obama's nomination and who were offended by his subsequent refusal to put Hillary Clinton on the ticket.

John McMaverick spurned conventional wisdom, spurring cartoonists' conventional wit. His faith-based, drill-now hockey mom with the pro-life profile pumped up the faithful by drilling the fist-bumpers with stinging slap shots. The rifle-toting, polar-bear huntress polarized the convention center, overshadowing the standard-bearer and other big guns. Signe Wilkinson sympathized, Tom Toles just said no, and Jim Borgman considered the outreach a stretch. Borgman, incidentally, announced his retirement after 32 years at the Cincinnati Enquirer.