Columns 2014

This column’s deadline is before the results of yesterday’s primary are announced. So congrats to the winners, better luck next time to the runners-up and to the rest of Alaska, enjoy the brief twenty minutes of silence we will have before the onslaught of political noise leading up to the general election.

Given how diverse a country we are, that we can come together to vote on issues and then, for the most part, live with the results no matter how mad they make us, is amazing.  If you travel through America at all, you quickly come to realize that

If you are one of the ten or so people out there who really understand the issues involved in the Prop 1 oil tax debate feel free to move on to sports or comics. If, however, you are like me and probably most Alaskans who feel they are being bombarded with conflicting numbers, statements, claims and ads… oh lord the ads… then please read on.

I’m not an economist, as anyone who has ever asked me a question about financial issues and seen the deer in a headlight look that comes over my face knows all too well. On the

Matthew 19:14 King James Version:  “ But Jesus said, Suffer little children, and forbid them not, to come unto me: for of such is the kingdom of heaven.”

For a country that seems to make a lot of noise about following Christian values no matter what the Constitution may say about separation of church and state, we are apparently very particular about which passages of the New Testament we follow. Corporations can claim the religious right of personhood to allow them to not cover medical care for women that offends their sensibilities. Christians can make much ado about a (fairly

Even a cursory review of history reveals that prohibition is a failed policy. Whether it’s forbidding your teen from seeing the boy of her dreams or forbidding a nation to have a beer after work, the result is the same. The forbidden will somehow be accessed. All prohibition does is drive the behavior underground, thus making it that much harder to deal with the consequences.

America’s War on Drugs has been a colossal failure. Not only has it not even come close to achieving its stated goal, it has driven the issue so far underground that the only people who

Sometimes it’s easier than we care to admit to turn our faces away from a headline about a death in jail. Subconsciously most of us believe, if only a little, that a prisoner is someone who has done something bad so the death is not really a big deal. This is probably why, given the number of deaths in the state corrections system over the past few months, there has not been a huge outcry and demand for transparency concerning them.

These deaths have run the gamut of how people die – suicide, homicide and just found dead. If any

My heart goes out to all Alaska Native speakers asked to translate anything into their Native language. It’s not easy. The English language has many words that simply do not convert to a language that never had that concept in its past. Let me give you an example.

Many, many, many years ago, I worked at the North Slope Borough’s Health Department. With a predominantly Inupiat population, we recognized the need for translators in the hospital and clinic for people with English as a second language. Anyone who has tried to convey their symptoms to a doctor in their shared

Last week I asked where Alaska Native men were when their sisters, mothers, daughters and classmates were being abused within their own community. I asked because I firmly believe this problem will never be resolved so long as we continue to view it as only a woman’s issue. I asked because if Native men are not part of the solution, they automatically become part of the problem. Those women and children who suffer violence and sexual assaults in their homes are often damaged twice – first by the abuser and then by a community that looks the other way.

This

Another group has come through Anchorage to talk about the problems of abuse and violence in our villages. Panelists take testimony, listen to horror stories of lives lived in fear, collect data on Alaska Native children showing them on par with returning war vets for PTSD and declare the situation intolerable. Each time this happens, I wonder where the men are. The only time men get mentioned is as the problem. But there is no solution without them.

A few years ago I wrote that for Native women to be respected, that respect must begin at home. Since the majority

It’s baby bird season in Alaska. So when I read all the debate about feral cats and whether they should be sterilized and released or killed, I have to admit to being very torn. On the one hand, the thought of ending any animal or human life before its time is in many ways abhorrent to me. On the other hand, roaming cats provide an added layer of danger to baby birds and their chances of survival.

Full disclosure – I am a volunteer at Bird TLC. This is our busiest season as we take care of hundreds of baby

In the interest of full disclosure, let me begin by saying that I’ve known Barrow Superior Court Judge Michael Jeffery for well over thirty years. I first met him when he arrived in Barrow as a legal services attorney. Since that time, I have worked with him in a variety of capacities. There was a time I was the social worker and he was the attorney representing the parents of children in state custody. There was a very long time when I was a Guardian Ad Litem with the Barrow Court overseeing cases involving children in state custody. I still