Columns 2017

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 →

I’m not sure when the idea of equal rights became so scary to a very conservative portion of the Christian right, but it has. And so a petition has been filed with the Anchorage City Clerk’s Office to get the question of equal rights for all Anchorage citizens on the ballot. This ballot measure would be an attempt to take away equal rights from a certain portion of our population that the Alaska Family Action group, headed by Jim Minnery whose wife spearheaded the petition, doesn’t like.

That’s right, I said doesn’t like. Because under all those flowery words of Continue reading →

Am I the only one who wonders just how far the Republican Party is willing to go in selling out America so it can remain in power? Am I the only one disgusted by the total silence emanating from that party’s leaders over the actions of the current occupant of the White House and his family?

Remember how many hearings they held over Hillary’s emails and what they considered her mishandling of Benghazi? Despite the fact that exhaustive examinations of both issues by a variety of panels found no indictable offense, they kept holding hearings trying to smear her. They Continue reading →

My first summer visitors arrived last weekend. They arrived amidst the rain and clouds that have defined the summer in Southcentral so far. Of course, we’ve had our occasional sunny days. But they have been far outweighed by cool temps and rain since the beginning of June.

I realize that this weather is a bummer for many Alaskans who view the summer as their chance to squeeze six months of outdoor fun into two months of possible sunshine and above freezing weather. My heart goes out to them as they attempt to grill in a downpour, fish in weather making Continue reading →

Have you noticed the pattern yet? Every two to three years another report is released about the Office of Children’s Services (OCS) that loudly proclaims that the system designed to protect Alaska’s most vulnerable population is failing it. Children fall through the cracks. Children languish in foster care. Children are placed in foster homes where the horrors are worse than the homes from which they were removed. The list goes on and on.

Every time this report comes out… and let’s be real here, it’s the same report each time with just a different date and slightly worse statistics… the Continue reading →

I grew up in a very insular place. For the first ten years of my life, I thought the pope ruled the world and the president ruled America for him. I went to Catholic school from pre-kindergarten through college. I took four years of Latin figuring that would make me bilingual – which it would have if I lived in the Vatican.

When I was in the 8^th grade, I won a Voice of Democracy award from the state’s VFW for an essay I wrote. The award ceremony was held at a Protestant church. I got hysterical. I refused Continue reading →

I may be mis-remembering this, but it seems to me that last year this time our esteemed legislators were singing the same song they sang this year after not accomplishing their most important task – passing a balanced budget. Yep, it was just last year this time after yet another special session that our questionable leaders explained to us that they simply did not have the time they needed to create a fiscal plan for Alaska’s future. They said that the one-year stopgap measure they passed would be just that, a one-year measure. This year, they promised, they would come Continue reading →

In my rapidly approaching old age, I find myself becoming one of the ladies who lunch. Partly this is because I can no longer drive in the dark so my social life in winter is limited to lunches. Also, by 5 PM I’m ready for my nightie and a good book. Unlike in my youth, starting anything after 7 PM seems more like a punishment than a treat.

So I have a stalwart friend who lunches with me on a regular basis. We follow Mara Severin’s restaurant reviews religiously. There are restaurants in town that occupy a space we have Continue reading →

Growing up in the fifties, I spent a lot of time in a school hallway with my hands over my head or hiding under my desk. These were drills for the day when the godless communists would rain atom bombs down on America. According to the nuns, our hands or our desks would protect us from such an attack.

Sounds simplistic beyond belief now. How could even a little child believe that? Well, we did because back then, teachers were gods and if they said so, it must be true. And when those teachers were also nuns who had married Continue reading →