Well, Palin has certainly shaken up the race.

I think the papers I read yesterday erred on the side of kindness – I read that she is inexperienced, anti-abortion, and pro-rifle, but saw nothing about creationism or her views on global warming. I look forward to today’s.

Barbara’s suggestion (comment yesterday) that the baby with Down’s Syndrome is actually Palin’s grandson, would cheer me up a lot. (And make sense of Cazzab’s comment, that she flew home from Texas to Alaska while in labour.) (And of the fact that she was back at work two days after the birth.) A DS baby needs the kind of loving attention and mental stimulation that a state governor, let alone a vice-presidential candidate, simply cannot give him. But as a grandmother, she can help and support her daughter. I hope it’s true.

We know of such an arrangement in Kirkmichael, and I suspect it used to be not at all uncommon – two women whom we were initially told were sisters, turned out to be mother and daughter after we had been there 20 years or so and could be trusted with the news.

It was Mao Zedong, I believe, who said that women hold up half the sky, but that doesn’t mean they are interchangeable. It is appalling to think that any of Hillary’s loyal supporters would vote Republican just because Palin is a woman.

Knitting

I finished the first cuff – and it is too big, I think. I am also very puzzled by the fact that the ends of the cuff, the place where you’d fasten it with cufflinks if that’s what you were doing, comes in the centre back of the sleeve instead of under the wrist. Why would that be?

(I am EZ’s prime specimen of a Blind Follower. When the pattern said to start the cuff at the centre back, there I started.)

I am going to leave it for now and knit the second sleeve and cuff. Now that I understand the construction, I can make it smaller and also re-orientate it, and then see what I’ve got. A cuff is an easy evening’s work, and very pleasant knitting after the rigours of linen stitch.