Columns 2018

What price fame?

Can you see their faces? I can. They are beautiful young ladies with impossibly toned bodies who perform amazing feats with those bodies. They always seemed so fresh and young and innocent. They represented our idealized dream of the all American girl.

But we must once again ask ourselves what price we are willing to pay for fame. We must ask why, given what has happened in other institutions like Penn State and the Catholic Church, organizations still think the best way to handle a bad situation is to protect the organization instead of the people being hurt. It is Continue reading →

Columns 2018

The Little Elf is spitting into the wind

Let’s talk pot. And by pot I mean marijuana. I prefer to call it pot because then there is a good chance I won’t spell marijuana wrong every other time I use the word.

I am an openly confessed old hippie. Back in the day when I first used pot, my idea of the munchies involved lots of salt, sugar and fat – fried chicken, French fries and cake, candy or ice cream. There was a time I could eat that at 11 PM and still sleep through the night. Now, I am more apt to munch out on a Continue reading →

Columns 2018

And so 2018 begins

And so 2018 begins. As Alaskans, we are forced to attempt optimism at the fact that our legislators will soon be heading back to Juneau to celebrate that with the opening of ANWR all our hopes and dreams are coming true. Another boom!

Well, not quite. Given that at a minimum we are looking at ten years, if not more, of permits, litigation, shifting political winds and wills, ANWR really isn’t the answer to our current pressing budget crisis. Call me pessimistic, but given that the Legislature did nothing to put Alaska on firm financial footing last year when ANWR Continue reading →