Month: August 2017

As the question of taxes is being raised across the state on many October ballots, it might be interesting to take a look at the term commonwealth. It’s a word used by Kentucky, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania and Virginia in their official titles. So what does it mean?

Here’s the formal definition: “Commonwealth is a traditional English term for a political community founded for the common good. Historically it has sometimes been synonymous with ‘republic’. The noun ‘commonwealth’, meaning “public welfare general good or advantage” dates from the 15th century.”

So the founders of some of our most original states believed that Continue reading →

Here’s the quote from Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price that I never thought I’d hear from a Fed. “They (Alaska Natives) know best how to care for their people, and we need to facilitate that.” For someone who came to Alaska as an employee of the Indian Health Service (IHS) in 1972, that statement is mind blowing.

When I arrived in Alaska to serve as a nurse in the IHS Barrow hospital, the entire attitude of the organization was paternalistic in the extreme. It’s not that the people working for IHS were bad people or had some prejudice Continue reading →

Given that the current occupant of the White House has declared loudly and frequently that he only likes winners, one has to wonder what he sees in some of the groups who supported him so strongly during his run for the presidency and who now claim their votes put him into office.

Let’s take a moment to recap what these white racist groups admire the most. For starts, they claim to want to take America back while defending and adulating a country – the Confederate States of America – that fought a war to separate from America. The Confederate flag Continue reading →

Fox News is really having a rough year. Not as rough as the years women working there had to endure a culture of sexual harassment, but a tough year nonetheless. Yet another employee of the organization, host Eric Bolling, has been suspended for texting lewd photos of male genitalia to women who had definitely not asked to see them. Given how badly this type of activity has gone in the past (can you say Anthony Weiner?), one has to wonder what these men are thinking when they indulge in this creepy pastime.

I’m not a prude. I’m well aware that Continue reading →