Into the wild: Palin and the wireless Internet

In this latest election news cycle, one dominated by piggish lipstick politics and meant to feed the gluttonous appetites of the herded masses, it seems the wireless plight of some Alaskan schools has been largely overlooked.
Well then, here’s the story. Seems Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin (R), the popular vice presidential running mate of John McCain (R-Ariz.), vetoed funding for wireless Internet access for Badger Road Elementary School ($20,000), Taku Elementary School ($27,000), Ticasuk Brown Elementary School ($20,000), North Pole Middle School ($10,000) and North Pole High School ($32,000). The reason in every case given for wireless cuts in the state’s supplemental ’08 budget: other funding options available.
In this season of hyperbole, convenient omission and sincere untruths, such vetoes by a governor-turned-instant-celebrity-VP-hopeful might easily incite venomous political attacks and indignant outrage.
On the other hand, there are federal universal service E-rate and high-cost funds (though sweeping reforms are in play) and the private-sector dollars that could possibly bridge the wireless divide for schools left behind because of Palin’s line-item vetoes.
Some folks were unhappy about Palin’s vetoes. “So how much did she keep for Wasilla? She has got to go,” remarked bluesky11 in an online reaction to a budget story by the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner in late May. Maybe she will go. To the nation’s capital.
But not everyone was peeved at Palin. Bugger, in peppery-Palin-like fashion, let out: “Good start, Ms. Palin. It’s about time someone tries to stop the drunken spending. Sad that it’s too little. Computer access, you can install wireless access into a building for less than $1,000; so what’s the big deal? Get some enterprising young business to sponsor it and ‘getter-done.’ Or put it out to bid and it will cost $100,000 after all the red tape . keep it up, Sarah.”
Of course, the truth is out there somewhere insofar as which presidential ticket can best promote wireless and high-tech generally in our increasingly knowledge-based service economy of belt-busting federal budget deficits. But with candidates trying to hog the limelight with accuracy-challenged barbs and counter attacks about cosmetics for even-toed ungulates of the family Suidae, pork-barrel spending and those swines known as lobbyists, the debate is anything but kosher.