Alaska
updated
11:46 a.m.
The current mayor of Anchorage, Alaska Dan Sullivan is the son of former mayor George Sullivan [1922-2009] who was mayor from 1967 to 1981. When the elder Sullivan left office in Jan. 1982, an unusual agreement was suggested by the Anchorage Assembly [city council] to continue the former mayor's life insurance coverage, apparently as a tribute to his accomplishments. Last month, three mo...
DailyKos (Alaska) - Thu 2:09 a.m. - 3 clicks 
Shaved right before me was the top fundraiser for the Anchorage event, Gene Pool (yeah, I know...I didn't ask). His impressive total: $2,546.76 I don't know what I expected when I walked into the McGinley's Pub for the St. Baldrick's Day event. I didn't expect such a warm reception from the Foundation volunteers who were working tirelessly on the silent auction, signin...
Celtic Diva's Blue Oasis - Mon 3:29 p.m. - 4 clicks
by Mel Green The original of this post can be found at Henkimaa.com . Damn, I hate when I want to do my own writing, but along comes some political situation poking its thumb in my eye so hard I have no choice but to remove it. Well, nothing for it but to roll up my sleeves & go at it. It's a long story. But it is kind of interesting. ...
Celtic Diva's Blue Oasis - Mar 5
The puppy is asleep between trips outside (we are having housebreaking success!!!) so here's a quick update: I posted about this at Facebook: St. Baldrick's Day--Linda Kellen Biegel is shaving her head for a cure! Date: Saturday, March 6, 2010 Time: 10:00am - 3:00pm Location: 645 G Street, Suite 101 , Anchorage, AK Saturday morning, I will be losing ALL of my hair (yes,...
Celtic Diva's Blue Oasis - Mar 5 - 4 clicks
One simple way Sarah Palin could unite a country, and actually begin to win over some true progressives. ...
DailyKos (Alaska) - Mar 3
Radio Kenai's five stations dominate the local commercial airwaves. John Davis, the radio media magnate, has infused right-wing propaganda through most of the syndicated shows that he broadcasts. John, and his partner in opine, Joe Nicks, offer their own profundities in the Think About It series. At best, their ideas are insipid, but more often they are, in the satirical way Rush uses the word...
SOL in Soldotna, Alaska - Mar 2 - 2 clicks
This is Katy, our 10-month-old 100% Shetland Sheepdog puppy! For those of you who think she looks like a "mini-collie": The ancestors of the Shetland sheepdog were the herding dogs of Scotland that also provided the rootstock for the collie and border collie. Some of these dogs were quite small, measuring only about 18 inches in height. The Shetland sheepdog almost certainly is derived ...
Celtic Diva's Blue Oasis - Mar 1
For those who may not have already seen President Obama's proposal, I am providing the following link: http://www.whitehouse.gov/heal... If one scrolls down the page a bit, one can download a PDF summary of the President's proposal. Of particular interests to me, the President proposes: Improving insurance protections for consumers and creating a new Health Insuranc...
Celtic Diva's Blue Oasis - Feb 22
Ok, so I’ve been neglecting my blog again. But I promise it was for a good cause. I’ve posted a few times about my photography business. Before it was all focused on stock photography, and the various outlets I sell those images on. Well, now I’ve branched out a bit and have created an [...]...
I Love Cynics - Feb 22
My district chair has sent out the rally cry to Muldoon to begin to prepare for the Caucus in March. She says: The Democratic Party has scheduled a Caucus on Saturday March 20th, 2010 at the Lucy Cuddy Center, UAA campus at 9:00 a.m. (Building # 6 on map: http://www.uaa.alaska.edu/map/... Bravo. Give me some more vitamins. Raucus Caucus. Raucus Caucus. I read ...
Celtic Diva's Blue Oasis - Feb 21 - 5 clicks
In the middle-to-late 1990's, I was working in the bars and other venues running sound and singing at the occasional gig. I became a member of a sub-culture that not very many people join as a "regular." It's that group of "vampires" who work in the clubs, the all-night grocery or convenience stores, the 24-hour restaurants, etc... There aren't nearly as many folks as work during ...
Celtic Diva's Blue Oasis - Feb 17 - 3 clicks
So I come out of my frazzled and frustrated writing haze to... well, write. But had to give a little tip of the hat to Elizabeth Peratrovich on Elizabeth Peratrovich Day - or the 65th anniversary of the passing of the Alaskan Anti-Discrimination Bill. For the most part, I'm just going to repost last year's bit, "What is Elizabeth Peratrovich Day?" I do want to add one GREAT way to celebrate the d...
Alaska Real - Feb 16 - 7 clicks
(I saw an incredible article in the NY Times Magazine over the weekend called "How Christian Were the Founders?" It tells an extremely comprehensive story about the Texas Board of Education, their influence over our nation's textbooks and the infiltration and now dominance by the religious right over the last few years. I was happy to see that my friend Leah Burton, someone who knows ...
Celtic Diva's Blue Oasis - Feb 16
Steve Williams posted this article on Care2: Make a Difference web site. http://www.care2.com/causes/ci... Mr. Williams addresses the recently released results of a poll co-conducted by the New York Times and CBS regarding the right of gays and lesbians to serve in the military. http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2... More accurately, this poll addresses the importance or lack thereo...
Celtic Diva's Blue Oasis - Feb 15 - 3 clicks
Tonight's episode featured a "unique" story line where character Chris Griffin was dating a girl with Down's Syndrome. A dangerous territory for comedy to be sure, that turned ugly, when Ellen (the character with Down's Syndrome) revealed that her mother was the former governor of Alaska. The website insinuates that outrage would be justified...I disagree. It's clear to me that they ...
Celtic Diva's Blue Oasis - Feb 14 - 3 clicks
(Warning, irreverence abounds!) Since most folks just end up with their parents passed-on faith, I suspect this requires more thought process than most people have ever used to select a religion. I've identified several dilemmas --What if you fcking love bacon AND hummus? --Do you think Jesus secretly liked bacon? --Where the hell do we put the Unitarians? Thanks to Twitter (and my m...
Celtic Diva's Blue Oasis - Feb 14 - 2 clicks
One of the first things that struck me when I started going through MSNBC's 3000 pages of emails from the State of Alaska is that whomever was making the decisions on what to "redact" and what to release was much more lax with these emails than with my records request. A number of these emails were VERY embarassing for Palin in that they irrefutably back-up what former friends and ex...
Celtic Diva's Blue Oasis - Feb 13
There they were just a couple of days ago, Charlie Pierce and Duane Bannock, parked in one of the handicapped spaces at the OEM Building and deep in conversation. And the Press Release today maybe reveals what that conversation might have been about: Duane is the new acting Chief of Staff, replacing Scooter Chumley who resigned a couple of weeks ago. Mr. Bannock is a former car salesman, who se...
SOL in Soldotna, Alaska - Feb 12 - 3 clicks
I turned off my phone earlier today and when I turned it back on, my good friend (I'll call him "E") had called three times, which is unlike him. He called again and told me this story (that he posted on his Facebook page), which explained why he wanted to talk to me so badly! Nothing quite like being nearly sideswiped at 65mph with your child in the car! The idiot woman wit...
Celtic Diva's Blue Oasis - Feb 12 - 2 clicks
What’s not to like about the Soldotna Community Playground ? A group of moms saw a need in the area, so they got together and are making something good happen. Inspired by the custom playground in Seward, some local parents contacted the private enterprise that sold that playground equipment in Seward and several other locations around the state (and nation) and began to raise the needed fundin...
SOL in Soldotna, Alaska - Feb 11
There has been a debate the last several days around the blogosphere regarding blog posts and civility. There are many who believe we should be careful in our language, avoid namecalling, etc...(good rules-of-thumb for debating). They make a good argument for trying to leave things open for engagement between us and the right-wingers. At the very least, being careful in ou...
Celtic Diva's Blue Oasis - Feb 11
The last two days I've been working very hard on things that aren't the blog! --Naturally, I'm reading the MSNBC emails. --I was not able to testify about the Executive Branch Ethics Act yesterday at the Anchorage LIO because public testimony happened while I had to pick up my daughter, so I wrote and submitted my testimony to the members of the Administrative Regulation Review Joint Com...
Celtic Diva's Blue Oasis - Feb 10
SOL has been getting a lot of comment posting lately, and that's great. But there are so many anonymous postings, it's tough to keep everyone straight. So, I've just changed the settings requiring you to create an online name to make a comment. You can still be anonymous, but now you have to at least have a fictitious name. ...
SOL in Soldotna, Alaska - Feb 6
I know, I know…SOL rarely takes on state or national figures, but Lisa Murkowski has written a few opinion pieces in the local rags lately that offer poorly thought through ideas. Since Lisa has invaded my turf, I think a SOL response is order. I wish I could say that I was using a bit of hyperbole with my headline, but unfortunately that’s what will happen if the US goes along with Lisa Murkowsk...
SOL in Soldotna, Alaska - Feb 4 - 2 clicks
A translation of Scott Walden's resignation letter: Yo - Mayor Dave, I am submitting this letter of resignation because of my health. Since I have nothing to lose, there's a few things I have to say about the lousy way you run the borough. 1) Stop worrying about making ACT happy and do what is right for the borough. Having integrity means not breaking the rules then blaming it on others. ...
SOL in Soldotna, Alaska - Jan 20
A few days ago, an anonymous SOL reader posted a comment wondering why an armed robbery in the FM parking lot happened to miss the Police Reports. The post implied that the incident was a bit too close to the Soldotna Police Dep't. A few rumors began circulating, and then Saturday, on page 4 of the ADN, the story about the arrest of SoHi's former football star, Anthony Griglione, for faking a r...
SOL in Soldotna, Alaska - Jan 10 - 5 clicks
Mayor Carey’s previous full-time job was as a high school social studies/government teacher at Skyview. I wonder what his reaction would have been if he had a student who forgot to turn in an assignment and the kid used the excuse that he didn’t know about it. Then, imagine if the student alleged (without any real evidence) that another student during a previous term also didn’t turn in an assignm...
SOL in Soldotna, Alaska - Jan 7 - 2 clicks
I'd take a bet that not one of the 13,113 Alaskans who voted for Nikiski's Bob Bird would have voted for Mark Begich. But if Bob didn't run, most of his votes would have gone to Ted Stevens who trailed his opponent by a little over 3000 votes. Without Mark Begich in the US Senate, the Democrats would not have had the 60th vote needed to quell Republican efforts to filibuster. The defeat would h...
SOL in Soldotna, Alaska - Dec 31 - 3 clicks
I have it on good authority that SQUEEEEE is the sound of pure internet joy. I take it that you must also bring your hands up near your chest and wiggle them around while saying it. Today I received my distinctive red box from SparkFun that signified that my order was here. This makes me a [...]...
I Love Cynics - Dec 30
Does anyone lament the loss of the snow geese that used to use the flats as a feeding ground on their yearly migration? KSRM used to have a contest to spot their first arrival in the spring. And what about the caribou? I didn’t see a single one there this past summer. It wasn’t too long ago that you could often spot beluga whales in the lower Kenai. You still might get lucky and see a few come up...
SOL in Soldotna, Alaska - Dec 29 - 4 clicks
This coming weekend is the end of the triple-noughts - not that 2010 is anything but an arbitrary designation of our transience. But as tradition warrants, the coming new year makes us think about what sort of person we want to be and what sort of world we want to live in. Living in a small town does give us all a very real opportunity to enact change in our community. We know our politicians ...
SOL in Soldotna, Alaska - Dec 29
In a recent assessment of American student achievement in science education, it was found that by 2005 only 18% of graduating seniors were considered proficient. Forty-six percent were considered below a basic achievement level. That was up 3% from 1996. How did we arrive at this situation? How did the United States go from being one [...]...
I Love Cynics - Dec 23
Just realized that this blog turned five years old a bit over a week ago. Oddly, that doesn’t add up to a ton of posts. As many promises of “posting more” as I’ve made, you’d think there’d be more! Might as well make that promise again. I will do my best to post at least [...]...
I Love Cynics - Dec 23
Last winter I started on a project that would integrate a camera and gps into my motorcycle. The plan was to drive the Dalton Highway and have the system snap a picture every few minutes or miles. A few things put that plan on hold. First, I changed my summer plans and drove down to [...]...
I Love Cynics - Dec 23
Pictured here is a circuit I was working with last winter, trying to convert the RS232 signal from the Garmin eTrex GPS to the TTL signal understood by the Arduino. I made two of those damn boards and neither worked. After intensely looking them over today, I found one that was salvageable. All that needed [...]...
I Love Cynics - Dec 23
As Greg pointed out in a comment to my last post someone has worked on a project similar to mine. I have to say, their solutions are much more elegant than my own. So, in the spirit of design, I’m gonna totally steal a bunch of their ideas. The use of a dedicated [...]...
I Love Cynics - Dec 23
Back up and running. Never had that much trouble updating WordPress before. I suspect I missed some basic instruction. What was most odd was that all of the administrative functions worked just fine, but there was absolutely no display from the user side. Strangeness, indeed. Anyway, it appears to be working again. If anyone notices [...]...
I Love Cynics - Dec 23
Today is Make-fun-of-contradictions Day. Some choice quotes from today’s News-Miner article on Lisa Murkowski’s Health Care Town Hall Meeting. Rick Sikma of North Pole asked why the federal government thought it ought to be involved in health care in the first place. “I don’t see that in the Constitution,†he said, applause drowning out the rest of [...]...
I Love Cynics - Dec 23 - 2 clicks
Okay, I got another "We're worried about you!" e-mail. I haven't posted in two months, and I haven't actually wanted to stop completely, but I did mention before about a big project. So, the big project is a BOOK. I received funding from an awesome organization to finish my book, and I must say that between the book, the crazy hours at work, andlife, basically, I had no energy for anything else....
Alaska Real - Dec 22
It's been nearly a week since the Borough Assembly tried to figure out what to do with Mayor Carey's Chief of Staff, Scooter Chumley's conflict-of-interest mis-step and I am still a bit puzzled by how the (not-so) grown-ups are handling the incident. The Assembly is made up a few from the good ol' boys club and they know that making money off of the government is good business. And, of course, t...
SOL in Soldotna, Alaska - Dec 6
Mayor Carey (is his alias magoobird on the comments section of the PC?) has defended the pay raises, especially the pay raises he has given to his political appointees, by stating that you need those salaries to have competent people working for you. But if you buy that argument, shouldn't you at least get some basic competency from those folks? I agree with Assemblyman Gary Knopp , that there pr...
SOL in Soldotna, Alaska - Nov 21 - 2 clicks
The PC has been busy with the latest news coming from Mayor Carey's office. It seems to me that one of the stories is a bit of a yawner - Scooter Chumley didn't file the proper paperwork regarding the sale of equipment to CES . Chumley's company has done business with the borough for quite some time, and in his new (and highly paid) position, he has been divesting his connections to the borou...
SOL in Soldotna, Alaska - Nov 12
Here’s a nice way to measure your neighborhood: Do you have ten interesting places? I’ve just begun The Great Neighborhood Book: A Do-it-Yourself Guide to Placemaking by Jay Walljasper — a concise and uplifting guide to making a neighborhood not only worth living in, but worth envying. (I have added it to my “Further reading” page.) [...] ...
Fairbanks Pedestrian - Nov 12
It's not the first time the Peninsula Clarion has made this particular typo, but if you read today's paper and the article about the large pay raises some borough managers and political employees received, Mayor Carey admits to having nothing to hide because it was all 'pubic' money. C'mon you Clarion writers and editors, are you onto some scandal, have some Freudian issues or are we really get...
SOL in Soldotna, Alaska - Oct 30
To paraphrase Mayor Micciche's opinion piece in the Clarion this past Wednesday, let's be nice if and when Soldotnans disagree in the future. I thought he might lead the city council in singing the campy anthem of harmony at that evening's meeting. And just like that the council voted unanimously to approve the Redoubt cemetery site. An unsuccessful council candidate did stand and speak agains...
SOL in Soldotna, Alaska - Oct 30 - 2 clicks
From Indian Country Today : “[W]e cannot ask Indian people to be penalized for choosing to use the Indian health care system,” Pelosi wrote. “The House bill will ensure that the exemption from the financial penalties is extended to members of federally recognized Indian tribes, and that the tribally provided health care benefits are appropriately protected.” Many lawmakers, both Repub...
Alaska Real - Oct 21
I hope that some of you tuned in to (or showed up at) the borough assembly meeting last week. Amid the mundane, the hot items of the month were the assembly's attempt to define management job descriptions and their questioning the unpublicized and extravagant pay raises the mayor's staff received. Each and every new borough mayor thinks that he needs to replace at least some of the managers of b...
SOL in Soldotna, Alaska - Oct 21
If you haven't heard, last week the senate voted to keep the language in the defense authorization act to keep retirement pay to the veterans who served in the Alaska Territoral Guard. Sen. Begich press release Sen. Murkowski press release From Begich: Sens. Begich and Murkowski introduced a bill providing for the pensions to be restored to the ATG members, but were also successful in ge...
Alaska Real - Oct 14 - 2 clicks
Alrighty , enough about local government politics for a while...well at least for today. I've more-or-less left the school district alone on this blog. There is a new guy in charge, and first reports seem to indicate that he is sensible and competent. I hope that trend continues for a while. While Mr Atwater is still beginning to make his way, there are some hold-over central office adminis...
SOL in Soldotna, Alaska - Oct 13 - 2 clicks
Tomorrow (Tuesday, October 6) is a day of local elections in the Fairbanks North Star Borough. I’ve done a little work on one campaign, enough to make me sad for the state of electoral politics. I spent one evening and one morning recently (in separate weeks) working for a particular local candidate. (I’ll say that he’s [...] ...
Fairbanks Pedestrian - Oct 5 - 3 clicks
SOLdotnans just received a political mailing entitled with the rather official sounding Soldotna City Council Voter Information . It offers a side-by-side comparison of the four city council seats up for selection this coming Tuesday. But it is not an official brochure. It's from Scott McLane and it presents a bitter and warped perspective of the four candidates that are running to re-examine t...
SOL in Soldotna, Alaska - Oct 5 - 2 clicks
I hope you all do get out to vote this Tuesday - it's your chance to have some influence on the direction that SOLdotna takes. The big issue is the location of the cemetery. I've written about the absurdities of the search for the cemetery site often on this blog. For the record, I began with no particular notion of where it should be. As I've said before, I want my carcass placed on a pyre, Vi...
SOL in Soldotna, Alaska - Oct 5 - 3 clicks
The only argument that has been presented in favor of approving Proposition 1, which would change what financial information elected and appointed officials in SOLdotna need to disclose, is that the current requirements are too restrictive and prevent people from running for office. The fact that there are challengers to every city council seat this election cycle belies that claim. There are 1...
SOL in Soldotna, Alaska - Oct 1 - 3 clicks
There's an issue that has been going around the ringer for awhile now, but really came to a head last week. Honestly, I'm still trying to make sense of it. It seems pretty simple to me. Twenty six guys, still alive today, were asked to serve their country in World War II. Okay, so a lot MORE than 26 guys were asked, but I'm talking about these guys (and so is everyone else.) They did. They protec...
Alaska Real - Sep 28
I read Julie O'Malley's column (in the Anchorage Daily News) on the Masek sentencing last week, and it's been a point of discussion with several friends. Beverly Masek was an Alaskan representative convicted on corruption charges in the string of corruption investigations, indictments and convictions to hit the state in recent years, the most notable of them being Sen. Ted Stevens. Besides ol' U...
Alaska Real - Sep 28
I was going to write separate pieces about the SOLdotna City Council elections and the borough-wide term-limits ballot proposition, but when I started to think about it, the fact that every council seat has a challenger running against an incumbent (or has two new candidates squaring off) completes the argument against any sort of need for term limits. As you listen to ACT, they say we need term ...
SOL in Soldotna, Alaska - Sep 27
From Indian Country Today: Obama administration makes new promise on Indian health I've been cautious to say anything on health care. As an Alaska Native, I've lived with pre-paid health care my whole life. It wasn't until I was a nanny, and had to navigate quite a bit of Denali Kid Care and doctor's outside of the Native health care system did I start to gain an appreciation for the enormity ...
Alaska Real - Sep 24 - 2 clicks
The old Kaladi Brothers coffee house off of Kobuk is one of SOldotna's few gathering places where you can pretend that you live in an open-minded funky sort of town. The clientele does represent the community and is most certainly a mixture of right wingnuts and artsy free-thinkers and all points between. Every month a featured artist displays some local art. This month, Adam Green has som...
SOL in Soldotna, Alaska - Sep 21
Just stumbled on this very cool opportunity for Native artists of all kinds. The Alaska Native Heritage Center is starting an Alaska Native Playwrights Project , in which artists will go through a 5-day writing intensive and 7-month mentoring process to see the story they want to tell put into script form. From the site: Alaska Native Playwrights Project (ANPP) seeks to identify, teach and ...
Alaska Real - Sep 10
So I've been silent (only on here, I gaurantee) for a while, but I've literally been holed up in my apartment, ignoring work, family and friends for the last week finishing up a BIG project. Like, something I've been wanting to do, and planning on, literally since childhood. So, not so much an apology or excuse, as context. In this time I have also not been paying much attention to the world in g...
Alaska Real - Sep 10 - 2 clicks
