Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin has apparently decided that the best place to focus on her state’s business is right here in Indiana. This should come as no surprise to John Mellencamp, who finds that Indiana is the best place to focus on his blues-rock music; nor to Reggie Miller, who always seemed to think that it was a good place to focus on basketball.

But governing Alaska? To be honest, that’s a little bit of a stretch for me. It’s just too far away. But Palin doesn’t seem to think so, and that’s why she may (or may not) be attending the Vanderburgh County Right to Life Dinner in Evansville on April 16.

I say may or may not because her spokeswoman, Meg Stapleton, told MSNBC’s Norah O’Donnell that Gov. Palin would “not be agreeing to any political events before April 20,” which is when Alaska’s legislative session ends. And that makes sense, or at least it would, if she weren’t in the midst of a major PR campaign meant to convey how “focused on Alaska” and unconcerned with her political future she is.

That, at least, is the explanation for why she canceled her appearance at a joint Senate-House GOP fundraising dinner as far away as June. The groups had to walk back their press releases and replace her with the far less enticing Newt Gingrich.

Don’t get me wrong — I think Indiana should be honored to be at the top of the list of a former vice presidential candidate’s places to go and “vacation” (read: campaign). And I’m the last person who thinks any amount of importance should be placed on yet another Washington dinner or fundraiser.

However, the question remains, why the mixed messages? Why can she not even consider political functions until after the state session ends because she’s too busy to focus, yet attend a political function during that very legislative session?

I smell no conspiracy, and I’m not making a mountain out of a mole hill. I find this to be a legitimate and persistent problem for Palin and her handlers. During the 2008 presidential campaign, she had more than her fair share of public relations faux pas, and it did her significant damage, no matter how much her supporters insisted that we should ignore them.

Whether it was something frivolous such as responding to the question of what newspapers or magazines she liked to read with “all of them,” or something much more serious like presenting three to four different stories for why she spent over $200,000 of the cash-strapped GOP ticket’s money on her clothes, or completely denying some very reality-based concerns about her back taxes and state money spent on leisure travel, she was never quite able to get a handle on her message.

This was all brushed aside as trumped up stories by a media that was “out to get her,” and plenty of people, including Palin herself, were happy to believe just that. But she still had to pay those non-existent taxes, and she did after the campaign was over.

Politicians lie. They lie all the time, about all sorts of things. The difference between Gov. Palin and her contemporaries is, most modern politicians have learned to finesse their message and keep a story straight. Gov. Palin has not, and instead spends a lot of her time flatly denying stories and claims that really, truly did happen.

She often very clearly wants to have things both ways, such as this current effort to stay committed to her state while obviously campaigning for the 2012 race at the same time. That’s why she and her spokespeople can claim that she is doing one thing while she has something completely different written down on her schedule.

Gov. Palin and her allies are very fond of saying that the media treated her negatively during the campaign, and they are right. But that doesn’t mean the damage wasn’t largely self-inflicted. And so long as she continues to use that as an excuse for why she did poorly, she’ll likely keep making these strange, conflicted choices in message and purpose. And that doesn’t bode well for her chances in 2012. Or for Alaska.

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Now that Oscar season has come and gone, it’s hard to believe that we’re still talking about some of the same issues in the 2008 presidential election as we were before the winning films were even released.

Of course, it’s probably a good thing that we spend far more time deciding who will lead our country for the next four years than we do deciding what the year’s best movie is. Even so, in a process during which everything from Rudy Giulianni’s love life to Barack Obama’s middle name has been endlessly discussed, it becomes apparent that a little brevity can sometimes add a lot of clarity.

The main thing that separates the Academy Awards from presidential politics, however, is the Academy’s dedication to judging a film or director based on the work at hand, not pretentious and often irrelevant judgments about a person’s “values,” nor any other aspect of a filmmaker or actor’s personal life.

Sure, there are some politics involved – popular Hollywood players like George Clooney and Martin Scorsese will always be smiled upon by the Academy. But when a giggling Ann Coulter appears on the Fox News Channel refusing to call Barack Obama by anything other than his middle name, it’s clear that we have our entertainment gossip and our politics a little mixed up in this country.

So it is without further ado that I present you with Election ‘08: Oscar Style! A list of this year’s Academy Award winners in all the major categories, along with what politician they would represent, if based on the same credentials:

Best Screenplay: Juno by Diablo Cody

A truly inspiring example of the American Dream. Not long ago, Diablo Cody was just a simple exotic dancer from the Midwest. Now, she’s a household name whose career probably wouldn’t end even if she died tomorrow, mid-keystroke. Obviously she’s the Oscars’ version of Mike Huckabee – a down home Southern fella’ who didn’t put nearly as much effort into his campaign as seasoned veterans Mitt Romney and Rudy Giulianni did. But he’s still around, and they’re long gone – all because Americans like the way he, like Cody, does things in his own way.

Best Actress: Marion Cotillard in La Vie en Rose

Cotillard is a French actress, who won this award for her portrayal of French singer Edith Piaf, a woman who herself never became popular in America, and who in turn never really understood the country. Like Hillary Clinton, Cotillard was comfortable in her role and we know she does her job well – but in the end, we’re left wondering whether it was her or her material that impressed us.

Best Actor: Daniel Day Lewis in There Will Be Blood

Oscar’s answer to Barack Obama, Daniel Day Lewis was the beginning, the end, and everything in between for his film. The movie is nearly unwatchable without his dynamic performance, and the script is so sparse that we’d fall asleep if we weren’t so compelled to hang onto the main character’s every word. Just like Obama’s campaign, it’s a smart story, with keen social relevance, but the leading man is what makes us care about it.

Best Picture: No Country for Old Men

I bet you’re thinking that I’m going to make a joke about John McCain here, because of the term “Old Men” in the film’s title. Well, I just did. But the candidate that this film actually resembles is Ralph Nader. Yes, the aging social activist and anti-corporatist who just announced his plans for a fifth consecutive presidential run – on Oscar Sunday, no less – clearly has the most in common with this film, which is about a confused but noble man caught between two unstoppable forces.

Best Loser: Atonement

Atonement is a gorgeous and sweeping drama, about love and honor in a time of war. Only the music won an award for this film, even though it was nominated for several others. Alas, just like John McCain, this film was too stale and too familiar for the Academy – and the American public. It’s a powerful achievement, and worth respecting, but people wonder what the point or purpose is.

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On Aug. 14, 1956, Brian Sullivan was born to two loving parents in New Jersey. When he was 18 months old, at the advice of Brian’s doctor, his parents packed up and moved to a new town, where they renamed him Bonnie Sullivan and raised him as a girl.

Years later, Bonnie found out that just before the move, her gender had been surgically assigned by her parents. At her birth, it was unclear whether Bonnie was a boy or a girl.

Around the same time, in 1966, 18-year-old Erika Schinegger was the reigning world champion in female downhill skiing. Then, the International Olympic Committee discovered through medical testing that Erika had male chromosomes (XY). The committee’s surprise was shared by Erika, who was disqualified.

Bonnie and Erika were born with a condition known as sexual ambiguity or “intersexuality” — an umbrella term for a wide variety of conditions where physical or chromosomal traits, which typically define a person as a male or female, are unclear at birth.

Bonnie has since changed her name to Cheryl Chase and is a vocal advocate for intersexed people. And with good reason. According to the American Association for the Advancement of Science, as many as one in every 4,000 births displays some degree of sexual ambiguity.

Combine this fact with the larger prevalence of transgenderism – a movement which includes transsexualism, transvestitism and androgyny, among other things – and you have thousands of people across America for whom “one man and one woman” is meaningless.

Yet despite this, limiting marriage is still a major talking point for politicians everywhere – even to the point of amending our constitution to enforce it.

And as Jennifer Maher, a senior lecturer at the Indiana University department of gender studies, points out, “If someone is found to have androgen insensitivity disorder … then the phrase becomes moot, or at least much more complicated.” That syndrome is just one of many well-documented genetic conditions that can result in the lack of a clear identity as male or female.

Of course, enforcing rigid definitions of gender is nothing new. It is nonetheless disturbing how often the male/female choice is forced upon people by their government.

Social Security, driver’s licenses, birth certificates – all demand a designation of either male or female. According to the Intersex Society of North America, although most intersexed people happily choose one of the two genders, not all do. Many prefer to define themselves as “third,” “trans-,” or “inter-” gendered.

It’s not hard to include a third option for “unspecified” or “transgender.” And that’s exactly what many organizations do. Harvard Business School, for example, includes a “transgender” option on its introductory applicant form.

Unfortunately, politicians, particularly those on the right wing, like to capitalize on people’s inherent fears and prejudices. So limiting marriage is more about gaining the support of certain voters than it is about reality.

That’s why it’s ironic that a policy that discriminates against people who are born into a certain body – created by God, if you will – would be so popular with religious leaders and voters.

It may be a long time before the government gets around to recognizing intersexed citizens, or even before the idea of a third option next to “gender” on a form makes sense to most people. But one thing is clear: writing “one man and one woman” into the Constitution stokes the flames of ignorance and further complicates an already misunderstood issue.

We should be reducing the instances of gender discrimination as our knowledge grows, not adding to them.

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By now, there aren’t many people who haven’t heard of Mike Huckabee’s swift (and possibly temporary) rise to the top of this year’s Republican candidates. And similarly, there aren’t many who haven’t heard of Oprah’s recent stint campaigning with Democratic hopeful Barack Obama.

What you may not know, however, is that Obama’s endorsement from the iconic Oprah Winfrey pretty much fizzled, without any increase in public support, even as Huckabee’s success was immediately preceded by a high-profile celebrity endorsement of his own.

So why such a difference between the campaign strategies? Two words: Chuck Norris.

Just before Huckabee’s meteoric rise to prominence, he ran a short, simple television ad in the single state of Iowa. The ad’s message was a simple one. It showed Huckabee sitting quietly in a chair, ready to tell us about his latest policy decisions.

The Governor from Arkansas looks plainly into the camera, and says, “My plan to secure the border? Two words: Chuck Norris.” Then the camera pans over to reveal that he’s sitting next to Norris, whose much-lampooned career as a white, mustachioed martial artist has recently experienced a pop culture renaissance thanks to the website ChuckNorrisFacts.com.

The website pokes gentle fun at the “Delta Force” star by listing a series of fictional-and hilarious-”facts” about the supposed heights of Norris’ legend and ability.

Facts such as “When the Boogeyman goes to sleep every night, he checks his closet for Chuck Norris,” and “Chuck Norris can slam a revolving door.”

The two men then trade “facts” about each other, with Huckabee quoting from the website, and Norris listing the reasons why he’s chosen to endorse the candidate. “There is no chin behind Chuck Norris’ beard,” Huckabee says, “only another fist.” The action star then returns the favor, saying, “Mike Huckabee wants to put the IRS out of business.”

The ad was immediately posted on YouTube, and quickly garnered over a million views. Huckabbee’s campaign website, which also hosted the video, received so much traffic that it actually crashed. Two days later, Mike Huckabee had risen to a double-digit lead over Mitt Romney, his closest competitor.

Meanwhile, Barack Obama was announcing to the world that he had received the endorsement of his own popular celebrity, Oprah. Only instead of a modest commercial poking fun at themselves, Barack and Oprah unleashed their alliance upon the world in rock star-like fashion, with speeches at 20,000 seat stadiums, thousands of screaming fans, all that.

But despite this more impressive debut, Oprah and Obama fell flat. Where Huckabee seemed to be able to reach a new audience with his commercial, and show the public a different side of himself, Obama’s efforts were seen as little more than preaching to the choir.

And the choir was not that appreciative.

Oprah’s fans expressed dissatisfaction with her choice to publicly favor a candidate, fearful of what might come next now that she’s politicized herself. Other observers noted that Oprah’s speech seemed to be unnecessarily racial, almost suggesting that whites and blacks are pitted against one another in the election.

When it comes down to it, the difference is that Huckabee’s ad has the distinctly goofy air of two men who aren’t afraid to make fun of themselves, even when they’re discussing very serious issues. The public likes that he’s now proven himself capable of “getting” the humor of a pop culture-obsessed marketplace.

Obama, on the other hand, put on a show displaying two people who clearly take themselves far too seriously. The Obama/Oprah mega speeches had a tangible sense of self-satisfaction about them, almost as if they felt that just by showing up, they’d change the world forever.

Barack Obama may be this year’s spokesman for hope, but there’s no doubt that he just learned there’s a very thin line between optimism and arrogance.

Perhaps most fortuitous of all, one of the “facts” at ChuckNorrisFacts.com-which appeared long before Norris endorsed any candidate-is that “America is not a democracy. It’s a Chucktatorship.”

Enough said.

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Within 24 hours of officially announcing his candidacy for president of the United States, support groups for comedian Stephen Colbert had sprung up on popular social networking groups like MySpace and Facebook, the latter of which grew to over one million members in less than a week — it is now one of the largest groups on the website.

News of the funnyman’s budding campaign had rocketed across the internet and blogosphere (Colbert’s established domain), and he abruptly took the next week off from doing his nightly talk show, The Colbert Report on Comedy Central, to appear on various hard news programs, including Tim Russert’s “Meet The Press.”

At last, with the help of the popular and quick-witted Stephen Colbert, we have our chance to hear bold ideas and honest debate! Just like when it happens on the big screen (think Robin Williams in “Man of the Year” or Chris Rock in “Head of State”).

Well, not exactly.

Colbert isn’t exactly running for president, and this isn’t exactly the first time something like this has happened. He’s repeatedly stated that he will only be running in his home state of South Carolina (on both the Republican and Democratic tickets — more on that later), and his campaign is largely considered to be for comedic purposes.

It reminds one of satirist Pat Paulsen, a frequent guest on the old Smothers Brothers TV programs, who nonchalantly ran for president six times from 1968 to ‘96. He was never considered a serious candidate, though he garnered quite a few “protest votes” during certain elections.

Unlike Paulsen, however, Colbert has already proven adept at self-promotion and worthy of gobs of attention. But to what end? He’s limited his own campaign, making it impossible for the public to take him seriously, even as he demands to be taken seriously.

But maybe winning isn’t the most important thing for candidates like Colbert. These “joke” campaigns are enormously useful, for both raising the quality of debate among the “legitimate” candidates, as well as pointing out flaws and absurdities in the system itself.

Case in point: Colbert’s humble goal is simply to be placed on the ballot in the state of South Carolina, as both a Republican and a Democrat. It seems simple enough, but when you look at the requirements for each party (which he did on national television), you immediately see absurdities and discrepancies in the process.

To be listed on the Democratic ballot, Colbert must either pay $2,500, or collect at least three thousand signatures in support of his candidacy. Seems reasonable, and the same is probably true of the GOP ballot, right? Wrong. To have an (R) next to your name, you must pay no less than $20,000 just to be listed — no signatures accepted.

This high cost just to play would probably be a shock to the “values voters” of that state, many of whom will probably vote for the leading Republican because he “seems like a normal person.”

Indeed, the opposite is true, as Colbert demonstrates nightly that he must get corporate sponsorship — from Doritos — just to afford the GOP entry fee. The chip-munching candidate now clearly flaunts his Doritos backing, but it raises an interesting point: with such an expensive process, can we ever expect a truly representative and unbiased representative?

Already this “joke” has become a matter of legitimate debate. After a South Carolina poll indicated that state citizens preferred Colbert as their “Favorite Son,” over Democrat John Edwards (who is also from South Carolina), the Edwards campaign issued the following statement:

“The truthiness is, as the candidate of Doritos, Colbert’s hands are stained by corporate corruption and nacho cheese. John Edwards has never taken a dime from salty food lobbyists …”

This healthy joking is rare and fresh from a politician, but it also helps to flesh out the very issues discussed in this column: illuminating debate and problems in the process.

Perhaps most importantly, Colbert is popular among the notoriously lethargic and uninterested youth culture of America. This is clear from his popularity on Facebook and MySpace, sites dominated by young people.

On the message boards for his Facebook group “1,000,000 Strong for Stephen Colbert,” thousands of messages are posted under discussion topics ranging from abortion to campaign finance law. And new messages are posted at an average of 10 per second.

When it comes to motivating the youth of America to be interested in politics, any interest is good interest. Hopefully, the debate they engage in on their favorite website will leave a truly lasting impression about some of the most important issues of our time.

Or, as one Facebook user joked in the midst of a particularly heated debate, “I have a feeling that what we say on this message board is going to come up during some job interview in the distant future.”

Let’s hope so.

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Picture a seemingly endless line of children, all dressed in the same clothes, the same muted tones — shuffling silently toward a single cashier as dollops of food are plopped in segments on their identical gray plastic trays.

Now, as they reach the cash register, they scan their fingerprint across a keypad, one child filing after the next, and then exit without a word as the “cashier” watches.

Some pessimistic vision of a children’s prison in a dreary futuristic novel? Hardly. It’s a scene that plays out daily at elementary schools across the country, as children barely old enough to comprehend the process they’re going through are filed and categorized through a system increasingly designed for standardization.

The hottest new craze sweeping the country is paying for lunch with one’s fingerprints. And the worst part is, it’s most common among our youngest students — grade schoolers, particularly first-graders. It’s because that’s where such a process serves the most practical use.

Many younger children have trouble remembering the seven-digit pass code they need to pay for their lunch, which is currently the industry’s standard method. Eliminating the code eliminates slow lines, for what that’s worth.

But like school uniforms, fingerprinting is a system designed for speed, and meant to discourage as much potential disruption as possible. And also like uniforms, it’s due to the actions of a few that the many are caused to miss out.

Uniforms strip students of valuable chances to express their individuality in the one place they have it left — the way they dress. Granted, in some school systems — particularly in urban areas — attire associated with gang activity is a legitimate concern.

But the point remains that these are often just a few unfortunate instances, and it always leads to a loathsome brand of knee-jerk authoritarianism, which is so unique to people happily in control of a group as powerless as school children.

So instead of educating the few who choose not to follow the rules, and helping them to come to a happy landing in their still-developing personalities, school boards often choose to institute a blanket rule and forget that there was ever a problem.

Nevermind the specific children with behavior problems, who learn nothing more from the experience than the painful lesson that rebelling against conformity only results in leaders caring even less about what they do or who they are.

Far be it from me to suggest that schools should be a place for learning, growth and development, but it certainly occurred to me more than once during my childhood that the best thing one gets out of public education is life lessons — those instances where you learn how to interact with other people, how to handle adversity, and the indelible value of diversity, of both culture and opinion.

So when I read a report about the growing popularity of fingerprint scanning in grade schools — under the guise of helping children who can’t write down or remember a seven-digit number — my radar goes up.

Ostensibly, the issue is that these ID codes have to be looked up using — gasp — the student’s own name whenever they’re forgotten, and that slows down the line for everyone.

I’m all for speedy lunches, but what’s wrong with a young student having to ask the lunch lady for a little help? This is how life works. We make mistakes, we need help, and yes, we must wait in long lines. Often.

When I was in grade school, I walked through the line every day with a dollar and five cents in my pocket, and I handed it to the nice lunch lady, who smiled and even chatted some as she worked the bulky machinery of the cash register.

And yes, I was one of the privileged few. I often had an extra quarter in my pocket to get a second chocolate milk.

But what was most important to me was the interaction with a human being as I paid, in a real-life economic situation. Until I was 15 years old, that was pretty much the only experience I had paying for something, on my own, as I would in real life.

And in a time when we’re seriously discussing the pros and cons of wiretapping America’s phones to keep us safe, it’s not unreasonable to ask the tough privacy-related questions associated with automatically cataloging our children in a government system which is prone to rabid paranoia.

But I believe there’s something more likely to be lost than our privacy when we start sacrificing it for comfort. We lose our humanity.

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Picture a muggy summer day in New York City. A man known only as “Bill” sends emails and cellular phone text-messages to around a hundred people. State-of-the-art technology is utilized as his message races through fiber optics wires and invisibly through the air, allowing all of the contacts to receive his message mere seconds after he has sent it.

The message? Synchronized instructions to meet at a highly populated public place in order to commit a major act.

Starting to sound like the next big terrorist attack? Maybe. But it’s definitely not what it seems. That day two months ago was the first recorded occurrence of a social phenomenon known as flash mobbing. Their public act? To gather in Macy’s, admire a $10,000 Oriental rug, and explain to the baffled salesman that they belonged to a commune and were seeking a “Love Rug.”

Thus began this summer’s biggest, and least reported, fad.

Since then, flashmobs have become famous worldwide; they’re the flagpole sitting of the new millennium. The objective is always same: Show up at some public place. Do something absolutely pointless. Leave. Make sure you have fun.

Over one hundred strangers participated in the New York practical joke, all under the command of an anonymous leader. They came out of nowhere and left just as quickly. And now people from all over the world are doing it.

The explosion was rapid. Within two months, countless flashmobs were organized in the United States, Asia, and Europe. Websites sprouted up. Some, like mobproject.com, just report on them; while others like flocksmart.com are international databases through which organizers can establish flashmobs in their city and regularly post mob updates.

It’s impossible to know how many flashmobs exist or in how many cities; but mobs are estimated in the hundreds, members in the high thousands. These could be considered cells, each completely functional with no central leadership. Sound familiar?

With little to no media coverage, word of mouth alone is responsible for the popularity explosion. And it’s largely internet word of mouth.

Since Bill’s first mob, thousands of copycats have joined in the fun, but chances are you’ll see it before you hear about it.

Crowds have played Marco Polo in Dallas, shouted “yes” into phones in Berlin, and formed human chains in Zurich.

In Cambridge, Massachusetts, over 200 people flocked into a greeting card section of a store; each person asking the salespeople to help them look for a card for their ‘friend.’ His name? Bill.

It’s all been very undisruptive. So Far.

It doesn’t take the most devious person in the world to imagine the power behind this seemingly harmless fad. The tremendous advantages of anonymous organization through broadband and wireless internet have been forced into the public eye, and damaging deeds from small-time vandalism to massive terrorist attacks could be the next step.

Plans could be sent instantly to dedicated followers who carry out some task, having little or no knowledge or pre-meditation of their job, making it extremely difficult to discover the plots before-hand.

Conversely, there are no limitations to the good this could bring. Political protests could be organized in hours. Volunteer groups could form instantly to help in the event of a disaster. Thanks to Bill and his friends, everyone knows how easy it is, and the possibilities are boundless.

Once again, technology is changing the world around us before our very eyes, and it’s impossible to tell, as always, what these new changes mean for us as we move onward, into the future.

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