Scribblings

Really, Alabama Christians?

You still support Roy Moore based on…? What? That Mary was young when she had Jesus? Yeah, and Joseph was older but he also NEVER touched her if you truly believe in the virgin birth and that they did not have more children. That in one case, the teen’s mom knew and didn’t object? Creepy.  That it doesn’t matter what he does so long as he says the right things? Do as I say not as I do? Really?

The Christian Right has about the same credibility in the country now as Milli Vanilli does.

What’s the worse is that Continue reading →

Columns 2017

Tribal governments to take over children’s social services cases – good or bad?

Governor Walker recently decided to recognize the right of tribal governments to handle tribal children’s abuse and neglect cases. When I read this, part of me wanted to cheer. And part of me didn’t.

I spent a good part of my life involved in social services. I know the system as a social worker, a Guardian Ad Litem (GAL) with the court system and as a court visitor investigating cases involving vulnerable adults. I lived in an Inupiat community for 28 years while doing this work.

I understand the feeling that outside social service agencies are way too fast to Continue reading →

Scribblings

Would someone please explain separation of powers to him?

Since the current person sullying the White House apparently never learned anything about our Constitution or the concept of separation of powers, would someone please try to explain to him… in very small words with lots of pictures… that the judicial system is not beholden to the executive branch here in America. He’s thinking of his dream country… Russia. Continue reading →

Scribblings

Never use rover.com for your pet sitting needs

DON’T TRUST OR USE ROVER.COM. AND FOR THE LOVE OF YOUR PETS, STAY AWAY FROM A HOUSE SITTER NAMED BROOK WHO WORKS FOR THEM.
Just fair warning to anyone planning on ever using a service called rover.com for pet sitting while they are out of town… DON’T! Unless you luck out and get a good sitter, this service will not help you out at all. The sitter I got from them (named Brook here in Anchorage and you should avoid her like the plague if you love your animals) left my animals with no food or water or didn’t give Continue reading →

Columns 2017

Would we have the strength

Sometimes we spend an inordinate amount of time in America gazing at our navels without really paying attention to the rest of the world. It’s not that we don’t have our own tragedies = Las Vegas will remain with us for a long, long time. But we sometimes don’t do much more than take a passing glance at the horrors happening in other parts of the world.

In many ways that makes sense. What touches us directly is always going to have more of an impact than something that touches people far away with strange names, strange customs and strange Continue reading →

Columns 2017

Seven years of bitching and they still didn’t think about coming up with a good replacement

So we are once again caught up in a health care debate that will probably end as badly as every attempt by Republicans to repeal Obamacare. And I once again have to wonder how Republicans could have spent the past seven years attempting to repeal it without ever thinking of what comes next. How could they spend seven years screaming like stuck pigs over this health care law and forget to come up with a decent replacement plan?

The Affordable Care Act (ACA) is not perfect; far from it. Premiums can be so high that families opt to pay the Continue reading →

Columns 2017

Learn the lesson from the Vietnam War generation

As a member of the sixties hippie generation, I am also a child of the Vietnam War. I don’t know if there are enough words to express what an overwhelming presence and force that war was to my generation. It encompassed us like a tsunami. When it ended, it felt as though the whole world shuddered in an attempt to find the new normal. I think we all regret that the new normal turned out to be the seventies.

I started the sixties as a good little Catholic schoolgirl. It wasn’t until I got to college in the mid sixties Continue reading →

Scribblings

Please make it stop

I love looking at the beautiful dresses worn to events like the Oscars. But there is one trend that simply needs to stop and stop now – and that’s the see thru dress. I don’t want to see your nipples or your pubic region peeking out from under. That’s why you wear clothes… to cover up certain parts of the body. And if those boobs get squeezed together and shoved up any harder, they’ll explode their fake silicon all over the dress. Finally, while we at it, let’s dump the trend to have the dress stop at the knee but Continue reading →

Scribblings

Take that, you damn wasp!

I am woman, hear me roar. I can say that now that I’m done being hysterical over the wasp in my office. I was going to call a man to help… yes, Richard Wilson Jr., that would be you… but decided that I needed to man up and deal with it myself. So I ran around hysterically with a rolled up magazine smashing windows, blinds, walls… and finally got the wasp before it got me. I was feeling so pumped I even killed the fly at the window while I was at it.
I am woman, hear me roar! Continue reading →

Columns 2017

Perception is sometimes everything

A story in Sunday’s paper described a lawsuit filed by the Southcentral Foundation against the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium (ANTHC) over compensation paid some board members and its chairman. The amounts seem extremely high given they are within a system that is chronically stretched to its financial limits in trying to provide health care to Natives throughout the state. The compensation for the chairman in particular looks questionable given that the gentleman apparently is working two full time jobs at once. Both jobs are very demanding and that leads to some legitimate questions about how anyone can claim to Continue reading →