SEVENTY-EIGHT
Palin attends rally at the Wasilla sports arena
On p. 78 of GR, Sarah continues her account of her time as Mayor of Wasilla. She writes, "In the mid-1990s, many of the city's main roads were still made of dirt. Even the runway at the municipal airport was gravel. I knew businesses--and thus jobs--wouldn't locate in Wasilla if the tools weren't there for the private sector to grow and thrive.
"So, in an effort to attract businesses, we built and paved roads, and extended water and sewer lines. Within a few years, established mom-and-pops were growing, and new ones sprang up, and stores like Fred Meyer, a Wal-Mart Superstore, and other national chains opened their doors in our city.
"In 2002, we put a city bond measure before the voters that would fund construction of a multiuse sports center. Voters approved it and the half-cent sales tax to pay for it, and we broke ground on this project, which for decades had only been a dream for Valley residents. The arena was named after our good friend Curtis Menard, Jr.
Palin at the opening of the Curtis C. Menard II Memorial Ice Arena
"The year before, Curtis Jr. was piloting family members back and forth between a Cook Inlet sport-fishing site when his small plane went down, and our dear friend was killed at age thirty-six. The community felt honored to name the arena after such an enthusiastic and generous soul."
Behold, my brothers and sisters, how beautifully and aptly we see expressed in these few limpid lines both Sarah's deep civic wisdom and also her profound spiritual wisdom and compassion!!
First, let us consider Sarah the Good Citizen and Civic Leader.
At EVERY LEVEL where she has either already held the sacred trust of power and authority, or where she may in the future hold them, she has perceived the needs of her community and its citizens, and has acted boldly and forthrightly on her perceptions!
We see here at the city level how she improved the life and the economy for her dear home town. Wasilla needed to upgrade its infrastructure to attract businesses and jobs, and the great Mayor Palin acted on this need, with marvelous results for her fellow citizens.
Then, when she became Governor of Alaska, she perceived and took on a different set of problems. With her "Alaska-Girl Guts," she tackled decades-old problems that no other governor and no legislators had been willing to confront. She refused to back down before the threats and assaults of Big Oil. She achieved wonders in her brief and glorious days as Governor: AGIA, ACES, Pt. Thomson, ethics reform and so much more!!
Now that she has become a national figure, she is confronting head-on a third set of problems, chiefly Crony Capitalism, and the corruption that it has spread like a cancer through much of the federal government, both Congress and the White House. If (dare I say "WHEN"!?!) she becomes POTUS, IMHO, America will enjoy a rebirth, a Renaissance, under the wise and fearless leadership of the farseeing Eagle of the North Country!!
Like a great physician who must treat many different kinds of patients, many different kinds of maladies, she always makes a profound diagnosis of the ROOTS of a disease and problem, and then acts with wise and fearless vigor to heal that disease, to solve that problem.
Now she has always been a fierce fighter and competitor (Sarah Barracuda!), but she also has a compassionate and, yes, gentle soul. Just ask all of the ordinary men, women, and children who have been blessed to meet her these last three-plus years on the '08 campaign trail, at book signings, at political events of various kinds.
Indeed, I think our Sarah is the very opposite and antithesis of a bully: Cowardly bullies kowtow to the powerful and oppress the weak; Sarah is most kind and gentle to ordinary folks, but unleashes her Mama-Grizzly force and steel against powerful malefactors in high places, like barack obama.
Let us then consider the tragedy of the untimely demise of Curtis Menard, Jr. that Sarah mentions here. Even in her few simple words, we can perceive how her heart bled for poor Curtis and for his family.
I think that we see here how Sarah combines and balances the wisdom of foresight and planning with the realization that we, with this fragile and swift-fated mortal frame of ours, can be called from this Earth at any moment, and be brought before the Lord's Seat of Judgment. This is just what happened to the Heaths' and Palins' wonderful friend, Curtis Jr.
This then is one of the lessons, IMHO, of p. 78 of Going Rogue.
We need Sarah as our President, Sarah who has the vision and eagle's eyes to gaze far, far into the distance of years and decades, but also the heart to appreciate the precious uniqueness of each moment as it comes.
Sarah has the MIND and the HEART that every great leader in history has possessed. God willing, she will be our POTUS very soon.
DEO VOLENTE, SARAH 2012!!!
CURTIS MENARD JR. REQUIESCAT IN PACE!!!
