Kawasaki Lets The Good Times Roll

In case you’ve been in a total sensory deprivation chamber for the past two weeks, Republican Presidential candidate John McCain has chosen Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as his running mate. Believe it or not, this has caused a lot of controversy, and there are many who feel strongly one way or another about whether or not this is a good thing for our country.

For the most part, I plan to leave those kinds of questions to the big boy and girl bloggers and the hardcore mainstream press such as People magazine. But I do want to address a particular rumor that’s been making the rounds, one that has a vital link to our national security:

Sarah Palin’s glasses are fake and she wears them just so people will think she’s smarter.

My fellow citizens, the Eyeguy is here to debunk this nasty rumor. I’ve become pretty good over the years at estimating a person’s refractive error by judging the amount of magnification or minification of the side of a person’s face when viewed through the lenses and by assessing the thickness of the edges and center of the lens.

In the interest of national security, I have viewed many pictures of Governor Palin taken over several years this past weekend while all the rest of you were watching football, and I can reassure you all that her glasses are not fake. On the contrary, she is slightly nearsighted with some mild astigmatism.

In addition, even if the top of her glasses were plano (i.e., “zero” power), at her age, she would mostly likely still require additional power at the bottom of her lenses due to her “presbyopia,” the condition in which the natural lens of the eye becomes “stiff” and is no longer able to change shape to focus for near vision.

That is, unless she actually has regular single vision lenses and removes her glasses for extended reading, which she could easily do with her mild nearsightedness.

Another possibility is that Alaskan women are so tough and their focusing muscles so strong from years of rising at 3:00 AM (with no wake-up call!) to hunt moose, that they actually exhibit no symptoms of presbyopia until the age of 75.

At this time, I have been unable to determine which one of these possibilities is the case, but I will continue to pore over the photos research this and give you an update as soon as possible.

I cannot overemphasize how important this is, as someone who is a mere heartbeat away from the presidency and having her finger on “the button” would need to be able to see clearly up close so that she would know which button to push should the need arise.

As to the frame itself, it is a Kazuo Kawasaki 704 series in 34 gray, and needless to say, every hockey mom in the entire country is now wanting a pair.

Take my word for it, people: Nothing screams “pit bull with lipstick” like a rimless, titanium frame with high index, Crizal lenses mounted via a screwless tension system.

Like the 1970s commercial used to say: “Kawasaki Lets The Good Times Roll.”

Va-roooom.