Sunday, July 26, 2009

Guest Post on Palin's Last Day

Nagging Questions....

I’ve decided I need to write, to see if it can help resolve some of the bad taste in my mouth that won’t seem to go away. Actually it feels more like an achy headache, if we’re going to use body parts analogies. So to write, to see if this can help provide catharsis for this person in my head. 

Sarah Palin is quitting today.  Resigning is too nice a word. It’s quitting. As for “reasons”?  If she’d been doing her job, there wouldn’t be any reasons. And if you believe she “has no plans”... Pa...Leeze.... 

This actually brings me to the crux of my problem. How many times can a person lie without it coming back to haunt them? In particular, how many times can a person of faith do that?

It galls me that she calls herself a Christian, a follower of Christ, and tells so many untruths so blatantly. I don’t want to put words in anyone else’s mouth, but isn’t this something integral to being a decent human being, much less a person of faith, that one doesn’t lie?

Didn’t she take an oath when she became Governor? Didn’t she put her hand on a Bible and swear? Is this her best? What was underpinning the faith that the people of Alaska had in her when they elected her? 

A friend of ours suggested having compassion for her. 

I thought, “ok, that sounds reasonable, I’ll give it a try...”  And I did squeak some up, for a small part of a day, sometime after she quit. I thought, “Gee, she must feel a little disappointed with herself” ... but then the compassion fizzled when I read, not much more than a day after she threw in the towel, an article she wrote which was published in the Washington Post, criticizing the President. Yeow, this woman has gall. 

How is it that the country is still talking about this woman, this person of lies and gall? And how is it even legal that she is collecting money from all over the country to pay her bills? Bills that wouldn’t be an issue, again, if she were doing her job. So people are paying her because she wasn’t doing her job? Ha, YEP, ye ssiree, that’s sure what it looks like. 

Last night on Shannyn Moore’s talk radio Shannyn expressed a feeling welling up, a feeling that soon we (the collective we) would be able to talk about the things that really mattered, like the environment, like moose hunting or berry-picking, like health care. And this morning I think, “This is it” - this is how to be healed from SP, from the media surrounding her - to start letting her go. I need to turn a blind eye and a deaf ear, to her, to the media, to the lies, to her spokespeople. How can anyone take what she says seriously? We can’t. She’s in it for herself, not for anyone else. Certainly not for this great State, where leaders typically knuckle down when the times get rough. Certainly not at this crucial time. She’s quitting, pure and simple. There is just no other way to slice this cake. 

Instead I will focus on what I usually focus on this time of year... putting up food for the winter, gathering my berry buckets and heading out to pick, thinking of catching a few more fish, watching the birds migrating to their winter homes, and hoping the first killing frost is still many weeks away. 

Catherine Senungetuk

8 comments:

  1. Well, our present and last PM's payment is 1 Forint (half cent) per months so we can't say they have been in office to gain money. It is not usual to be a Prime Minister for such a low payment but they are very rich and they are now in need of the money they have got as prime ministers.

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  2. By the way this guest post is a very ingenious idea.

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  3. I feel a great deal of compassion for Sarah and her family because I am convinced that she is mentally ill. As such, I don't believe that she will seek or benefit from professional help. This means that it is unlikely that she will ever live a truly happy life nor will her family as they are at her mercy.

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  4. looked at your alaska blogroll...um...there is a relatively obscure blog called Mudflats...have you heard of it? Maybe you should link it...

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  5. Catherine and all. Please don't think for a moment that Alaskan displeasure with former Governor Palin will mean she has no chance at national office. Look at Ronald Reagan. All the best with Governor Pat...

    From London, Jay signing off, Cheers!

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  6. SP reminds me of Teresa Obermeyer. Does anyone remember her? She also had a mental illness and I don't think she was ever diagnosed.

    Palin also calls her self a X-ian but doesn't have a hard time with being trumped as sexy. I'm not suggesting that she wear sackcloth and burlap skirts, but come on! She wore mini skirts on Memorial Day and was always flaunting her assets. How many of her constituents could afford her clothing taste?

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  7. Martha, I hear you. On June 18, 2008 I did a post about the Alaska Blog links I have. You can see that below the Alaska Blogs in Links Worth a Look - "Descriptions of the Above Alaska Blogs and Others."

    In that post I wrote, among other things,


    "My criteria are:
    1. Do I read it regularly?
    2. How often is it updated?
    3. Is the information unique and with some larger public purpose?
    4. Is it well written?
    5. Does it make me think?
    6. Is it from the heart?
    7. How many people know about this blog?

    Actually, the criteria are an afterthought. No one can keep up with even a tiny fraction of blogs. What I have here on my list are the Alaska blogs that I find myself checking on - some daily, some every now and then. There are others that are in my radar - mudflat, for instance - but I haven't been to it enough to be able to write about it."

    By the time I got to putting up more links, Mudflats was the most popular Alaska blog and linked from everywhere. I figured while Mudflats met the first six categories, she didn't need my link for anything. Not a sign of disrespect, in a way the opposite. My links were insignificant compared to her blog.

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  8. What's that saying ?

    If you can't say something good about a person........


    I'm still dying to know how you reconcile the spreading of rumors about someone with your faith.

    Perhaps that's a question for your teacher.

    I'd ask it something like this......

    Teacher, when is okay to spread rumors about a person ?

    Keep it simple, direct, to the point.

    Kudos to you for not spreading the iceberg story, but heaps of scorn on those who aren't as wise as you.

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