Three months ago, no one cared about Wasilla, Alaska or its residents. Today, thanks to John McCain’s running mate, that shanty little town in the middle of nowhere is all people talk about – especially when criticizing Sarah Palin’s qualifications.

In the lead up to November 4th, everyone who has been to or lived in Wasilla has become a value commodity for the media, because they possess an intimate knowledge of the vice presidential hopeful before her rise to political superstardom.

Jennifer W. Howk, a Harvard teaching fellow, is the most recent example of this phenomenon.

According to The Crimson, Howk met Palin shortly after she graduated from college and started working for her mother at a local newspaper.

“I remember [Palin] called my little brother ‘Buster.’ He had a big crush on her, he was eight,” Howk said. “She looked pretty much the same, she had the big hair.”

[…] Howk described Palin as someone you would let “take your kids to a baseball game.”

“She’s Miss Congeniality, which she literally won,” Howk said. “It tells you a lot.”

Yes – it tells us that she shouldn’t be running for vice president, a fact that’s already abundantly clear from Palin’s televised blunders.

Still, if there’s one important thing to take away from this article, it’s this: Palin, even in her early twenties, used words like “Buster.”

Some things never change, huh?