What's the Feminine Form of 'Messiah'?

I've never been to New York City. There are good reasons for that. I live about as far as you can live from New York and still be in the continental United States, so expense and logistics are issues. My boosters for tetanus and dengue fever are out of date, so there are health issues. Plus, I live within easy driving distance of one of the great metropolises of the world--the second largest in this whole nation of ours, in fact--so I'm all set if I get the itch for some really good crack. Really, it's an itch. Like all over at once, man.

I'm thinking of going now, though. I was always hesitant before. Some horrific shit happened there, the trauma of which is not likely to be forgotten in my lifetime. A whole raft of unrelated devilry repellent to human happiness still persists, resistant to all cures, corrosive and ultimately fatal, like HIV of the human soul.

So why even consider going? Becuase Sarah Palin is on the job.

Yes, OK, she sort of directly said that New York (and places like it) were not the "real America," which is apparently determined by communal relative illiteracy, a buddy-buddy familiarity with the Poverty Line and extreme difficulty in procuring good Chinese food. But come on, she said she was sorry. And she's not like other people who SAY they're sorry, but just keep on and keep on... She's actually doing something about it.

I don't like New York. Never been there. I base my entire impression on 1970s Scorsese films, which means lots of swearing and violence and crime, most of which are perpetrated by Robert DeNiro. Make that guy move to New Jersey where he belongs and maybe we could talk.

I don't like New York, but what have I done about it? Nothing. I'm one of those people, the kind who bitch and bitch and bitch, but won't lift a finger to help out.

Sarah Palin is not like me. Sarah Palin is on the case. She's going to fix New York all by herself, even if it means all of her aids have to stay up all night crafting social-networking posts to get it done.

A mosque in New York? Near the World Trade Center?! It makes no sense. What kind of colonial insensitivity and brute arrogance must it take for an interloping group of foreigners to even consider such a thing?

You go, Sarah. Kill it. The local government voted for it overwhelmingly, but how do they know better than you? All the nice ladies in the women's department at Barneys seemed dutifully shocked when you brought it up that one time you were there, I'm sure, just as they were collecting your debited Rupert Murdoch lucre in exchange for shoes you will only wear once and then donate to a battered women's shelter in Real America. Because nothing gets a gal through a near-fatal beating from her husband like a pair of last season's slightly used Jimmy Choos.

I trust her because she doesn't have to do it. There's nothing for her to gain. She's a true altruist. I think it's amazing that Sarah Palin has taken such an interest in this country's politics even though she's not from here. In that sense she's like that Andrew Sullivan, except without the suspicious beard, accent or gayness.

Well, OK, a little bit of an accent. You betcha.