This was a pretty amazing year for nominations into my Hall of Infamy. Considering it was not an election year, I thought the pickings would be slim. But political pandering lives on in all its glory as seen by the machinations that led to a health care bill that was, quite frankly, hardly worth either the wait, the cost or the pandering.

But I digress. The Hall is about those who have caused such ickiness and disgust as to have risen above the usual sleazy suspects.
Let’s start with Dick Cheney who retired from active politics on January 20, 2009 and immediately re-emerged as America’s boogeyman. His performance as deposed Lord of Fear, opining on every Sunday morning show that would give him air time about how the current administration is setting America up for another 9/11 immediately elevated him into the permanent wing of the Hall. He and Tom Cruise now proudly share that honor.
Keeping the concept of fairness in mind, we must admit that Nancy Pelosi is also close to earning a permanent spot in the Hall if only because she is possibly the most annoying woman in the US Congress today.  And for those of you wondering why Mark Sanford isn’t on this list, I can only say that even the Hall of Infamy has its standards.
I’m also nominating all politicians who did not blink an eye at going trillions of dollars into debt in order to fund a war of choice and then rebuild a country half a world away but bitched about the cost of covering Americans with affordable health care.
A nominating nod must also go to any country, religion or societal structure that believes that women should not be full participants in all aspects of life. And yes, I mean those that make their women wear burkas. Or places where a woman cannot be seen in public without a male relative escorting her. Or societies where a woman can be stopped by morality police and publicly beaten for some imagined showing of a forbidden part of her body… like her eyebrows. Or cultures where a husband, father or brother may kill a female relative if she has the audacity to allow herself to be raped without killing herself immediately afterwards to save her family from shame.
If some of these societies wonder why the Western world seems to be so much more advanced than they are, they might consider that they are keeping half of their intelligence, ingenuity and creativity locked behind heavy doors.
Moving on to the world of entertainment, the choices, as always, are innumerable. They range from such weird anomalies as the Octomom to the brilliant and brilliantly flawed Tiger Woods.  Michael Jackson’s father Joe would be on this list were it not for those standards I mentioned in regards to Mark Stanford. Joe Jackson is one of those people who are too icky even for the Hall of Infamy. And the new reality show Jersey Shore makes the cut for nominations based solely on the fact that I grew up there and am embarrassed by how real the portrayals actually are.
I think the commercials for Broadview Home Security deserve some special nomination in the area of tasteless attempts to scare. I refer to the commercial where a mother is playing with her daughter in a suburban neighborhood in full sunlight at noon while a hooded thug peeks between some boards at the pretty tableau. Mom goes in for lunch and sets her security alarm at which point the thug, possibly the stupidest criminal on earth, breaks through the glass door.  The people who created these commercials should hang their heads in shame.
But we must hesitate no longer in announcing the winner for the 2009 entry into my Hall of Infamy – and it is not Levi Johnston. No, the winner is the people who guided Levi to a centerfold gig in Playgirl magazine, thereby ensuring him iconic status in the world of gay men while also closing the door on anyone taking him seriously for anything for the rest of his life. Shame on those who had a hand in that decision. It’s not nice to take advantage of those with limited abilities, no matter how big your cut is.
Now on to 2010!

There are apparently some who wonder, in reference to yesterday’s entry, what I’m doing watching sleazy entertainment news shows. I can only say that when you are feeding and cleaning six birds and feeding and medicating two dogs every day, you need something mindless in the background. For mindless I had two choices… big mouth idiots like Limbaugh and Beck or inanely insipid entertainment news. I chose the lesser of two evils.

Just when I think civilization has reached its nadir, cable TV comes along with a program that proves we have even farther to fall. In this case, it’s a show called The Jersey Shore. I’ve never actually watched the show and wouldn’t have known of its existence were it not for the fact that one of the people in it punched a woman out on camera. I know this because the cable channel… showing the good taste for which cable is known… pulled the spot before it showed. But not before making sure every sleazy entertainment news show had the clip. Those shows then proceeded to show and re-show the punch at least five times while their “reporter” intoned in a voice Walter Cronkite used to announce Kennedy’s death that it was unconscionable to have this clip as part of a TV show and everyone should be glad it was pulled in the name of good taste. (Cue the clip to show again as you fade to commercial)
There is no taste or morality left on TV.  It is, as was so famously said once long ago, a vast wasteland.  And it is apparently inhabited by creatures rejected from what is left of civilized society.
God help us.

Calling family over the holidays is one of the ways to be very strongly reminded that no matter how far you go, you can never escape your genes. Sigh....

Even as most people lie spent and exhausted due to their frenzied shopping over-indulgence on Christmas, the paper arrives already full of after Christmas sales. We have truly sold our souls to commerce.

My contribution to the Christmas feasts to which I was invited consisted of making an antipasto and making my nonna’s sweet bread.
Since it’s hard to find all the stuff to make an antipasto from scratch here in Alaska, I went to a store and bought everything from their antipasto bar. I can only pray my father was not looking down from heaven and watching me because I know I’ve shamed him by my actions.
While making my nonna’s sweetbread, I had a brilliant impulse to put pecans in it. It wasn’t until the bread was rising that I realized I’d messed with one of my family’s sacred recipes. Now I know for sure I can never die because if I go to heaven, nonna will kill me.

I wished someone a happy holiday a few days ago. She looked at me and said, “No, not happy holidays. Merry Christmas”.
Well, no. Not Merry Christmas unless you are Christian. So let me reiterate my wish to ALL my friends whether they celebrate Christmas, Hannukah, Kwaanza or Saturnalia....
Happy Holidays.

When you’re young, you think your holidays will go on forever in the old familiar way. But they won’t. Eventually, what you’ll have is memories. Hopefully they will be wonderful.

For me, Christmas will always mean my Aunt Ida’s house on Sylvania Street in the Germantown section of Philadelphia. My family would start the day in Atlantic City, opening presents and getting dressed in our new winter clothes. My brother and I were allowed to pick one gift we could bring in the car for bragging rights with all the cousins we’d soon be seeing.  We would have gone to midnight mass so that obligation was behind us.
The trip to Philly took about 90 minutes because my father refused to take the new highway that had the nerve to charge him a toll for his business.  We took the Tacony-Palmyra Bridge over the Delaware to Philly because that bridge was free on Christmas. They also gave out candy canes to any kids in the car and then wished you a happy holiday. Each time my dad would explain that the bridge had been built privately, paid off completely and now was able to offer free trips on the holidays. It was all the proof he needed that America was truly a great country.
I’d venture to guess that if I went back to that house on Sylvania Street today it would seem a little small and cramped. But in my memory, it is big and beautiful with a dinning room that sat our whole family plus a sideboard, a huge mirror over the sideboard and an espresso maker from Italy so big it had it’s own table.
Before eating we visited various relatives – Uncle Albert and Aunt Jeannie, Uncle Bart and Aunt Connie, Uncle Freddie and Aunt Sally. Uncle Joe and Aunt Toni and their kids would stop by at Aunt Ida’s to say hi before going to her mom’s house for dinner. Aunt Adeline would be called and the annual argument ensued about whether she would come or not. Because of childhood polio, she needed a ride over and she famously was reluctant to depend on others in that way. My mother would argue that this was the holiday and she had to come over. Aunt Ida would be yelling from the kitchen for my father to just go get her and stop arguing. Eventually he did, as well as picking up Uncle Henry from Norristown Hospital. Uncle Henry had suffered oxygen deprivation at birth and was mentally impaired. But that didn’t mean he was excluded from family holidays.
When everyone was finally assembled, the meal would begin with an antipasto my father had lovingly made and carried up in the back of the car. Then came the pasta. Then the roast. Then the salad. Then the fruit, dried figs and nuts. Finally, the espresso with a shot of anisette and a lemon twist in each cup and homemade Italian cookies.
After this light repast, the men went into the living room and started snoring. The kids passed out on various parts of the carpet. The women gathered in the kitchen to wash dishes.  As soon as they were done, the table was reset, the men and children awakened and a “light” snack of all the leftovers was served prior to the long, arduous trip back home. My Aunt Ida would not have been able to live with herself had she found out we starved on the ninety minutes journey back to Atlantic City.
So sandwiches were packed up, Aunt Adeline and Uncle Henry returned to their respective dwellings, and we started for home, taking the back roads out of Philly so my mother could see all the Christmas lights on all the houses.  I always missed that because I was asleep again about twenty seconds into the car ride.
These wonderful people are all gone now, but I can still see them in old family movies. Better yet, I can close my eyes and watch them all come alive again in my heart and mind. I can hear their voices, smell their perfumes and aftershaves and feel the love in their embraces.
May you all have wonderful holiday memories that warm you on your journey through life.

I can understand Sarah Palin blacking out McCain’s name on her visor in order to achieve some privacy on vacation. What I can’t understand is why someone who just made millions on a book she almost wrote didn’t just buy a new visor. Seriously, how much would that have set her back?

As I pondered this dilemma, it occurred to me that the problem here was not any stinginess on the part of our gal Temporary Sal. No, the problem here is that Sal lived in Alaska too long to throw anything out. And I’m not sure there is anyway in the world to explain to people from outside just how strong the Alaska thrifty gene really is.
Anyone who claims to be an Alaskan and hopes for credibility to that claim knows exactly what I’m referring to. Alaskans never throw anything out for fear they will wake up tomorrow and find out that, gosh darn, they did need that carburetor from their ’69 Chevy now that they finally tossed it out. If they’d just left it one more day under that pile of snow, they wouldn’t be trudging out to beg one from a neighbor who was Alaskan enough to never clean out his yard.
So Sarah was merely recycling that visor in much the same way that Alaska has consistently led the nation in recycling. OK, not necessarily recycling in the way that the lower ’48 might understand it – but recycling nonetheless. That’s why the yard of every true Alaskan contains at least one car and/or snowmobile and/or four-wheeler up on cement blocks waiting to be harvested for parts. It’s why Alaskan yards contain piles of lumber that seem to have no rhyme or reason to them but that someday may be needed to shore up the roof. It’s why we don’t even blink when we see the old sink lying on its side near the shed or piles of pallets that may or may not be needed to create a walkway during breakup.
If you think about it, it’s kind of refreshing to think that Sal still retains some of Alaska in her blood. For a while there, looking at those fancy outfits and perfect make up and… is it just me or does she look like she’s become Hollywood thin suddenly? ... I was worried that we’d lost her completely to the outside.
But for so long as she wears visors with blacked out lettering, we’ll know she’s still ours.  Alaska’s recycling gene trumps millions of dollars every time.

Outside I see cold. I see snow. I see ice. I see red polls and chickadees, magpies and the occasional robin and stellar jay. I look down at my feet and I see two dogs snoring peacefully, their lives clearly filled with all things that make them content. From upstairs and down I hear the sounds of my little flock of parrots, senegals, cockatoo and conure. I get ready to go to Bird TLC to cut up smelly salmon for deserving eagles and ospreys and to defrost little mice for the owls.
All is right with my world as another year draws to a close.

... how I could possibly be related to the woman in this picture.  Her idea of heaven - heat and a beach, even if she has to travel all the way to Laguna Nigel to find her bliss.  My idea of hell - heat and a beach and so I hunker down in Anchorage with the temperature a balmy 3 degrees above zero.  And yet our mother insisted we were actual siblings. And we won’t even go into what my brother is muttering under his breath about the snow storm that hit the East Coast this weekend. To say he took it as a personal insult from god would be to put it mildly.He stands looking pathetically out the front door of his condo, golf clubs at the ready for the first hint of warmth and/or the appearance of a visible hole on a golf course. And yet our mother insisted we too were actual siblings. Go figure.

So Randy Beaver’s dad Vincent is suing the state over his son’s death. He apparently feels they were negligent when they placed him in foster care with a young female relative.

According to the report in Alaska Dispatch, Randy and his four siblings lived with a variety of relatives in multiple communities but at no point do they seem to have been living with either their mother or father. So one must ask, where were mom and dad and what were they doing that was more important than raising their children in a safe and sober home? 
A quick check on the state’s criminal records page shows that Randy’s mom Nancy was too busy drinking and abandoning her children to ensure their safety. She was arrested in 2004 for child neglect and again in 2005, at which time she pled no contest to the charges. She also has been charged with a variety of alcohol related offenses.
A check of that same page shows that dad Vincent has a list of 32 cases that have been brought against him at various times, most of them for criminal behavior.  These include disorderly conduct, assault, driving without a valid license, criminal mischief, criminal trespass… oh yeah, and that pesky sexual assault to which he pled no contest. Well, you can see where dad was much too busy to actually raise his child.
So how about the young relative who apparently was the only one to offer to keep Randy?  Arlene Galila also has a record that includes minor consuming, a dismissed assault charge and an alcohol charge to which she pleaded guilty. Not a long record but not a sterling one either.
But here’s the thing. As someone who has worked with OCS for over thirty years, I have often seen them trying to walk the fine line between assuring the child’s safety and complying with requirements of the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA) and village and family pressure to keep the child in a culturally appropriate placement. It’s not easy. Your choices of placement in small villages can be very limited. Removing the child from the village can often lead to a long court fight over deviating from the placement preferences of ICWA.
Should the state be held accountable for this child’s safety? Absolutely. Should the state be held responsible for the fact that at 14 this child was already a dropout with what seems to have been a blossoming alcohol problem? Absolutely not. Galila is quoted as saying that Randy “was angry and confused about why his parents didn’t contact or take care of him.” That’s probably the statement that rings truest in this whole sad story. You can draw a direct line from that statement to the alcohol that played such a significant factor in his death.
If Randy’s father wants to know who was most responsible for his son’s death, he need look no further than the mirror. Because in that mirror he will find the face of one of the two people who should have been the most responsible adults in Randy’s life; the people keeping him from harm, the people teaching him right from wrong, the people caring for the life they created. Neither of the people who should have been responsible for Randy bothered to take the time from their alcohol fueled, violent lives to straighten our and raise him in a sober, kind and loving home.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. The state makes a lousy parent. It hardly ever remembers your birthday and never takes its turn in having the family over for the holiday dinner. But when your parents are too busy being drunk, violent and negligent to raise you, then sometimes the state is forced to step in.
The state may not be perfect, but the state didn’t give birth to Randy. The people who did and then abandoned him are at least equally responsible for his tragic death.

All those commercials running on TV now claiming that this country can’t afford health care for its residents and begging people to call their senators and stop racking up gabillions in debt never mention that the three wars we are fighting are also putting us into debt. Not only that, but most of the money we have spent on “reconstructing” Iraq after choosing to destroy it for no valid reason in a war of choice is simply missing… unaccounted for or in projects that fall down as the last nail is hammered in. But no one seems to think it necessary to run commercials demanding that we tell our representatives and senators to stop spending us into debt in order to wage wars or build countries that aren’t ours.
Finally, after listening to NPR recently (yes, I’m one of those people) I must wonder why we haven’t hacked all the terrorist networks and simply taken them down by corrupting their computers and networks. Think of what bugs and worms have done to our computer networks. Imagine what we could do towards disrupting the terrorists’ activities if we disrupted their networking.

This is a note I received after my Wednesday column in the Anchorage Daily News. This is what I’m talking about when I speak about the holiday spirit year round.

Ms. Patkotak, I thoroughly enjoyed your article on “Spreading Goodwill..” and shared it with my staff. In the true spirit of Christmas this year as well, we are excited to help those who are in need by offering a Free Dental Clinic to those who are in pain and discomfort and can’t afford their dental emergency because they are out of work and have no Dental Benefits. Being a service provider in this city for over 30 years now, I’ve come to learn that giving a little all year round, here and there, may make a profound difference in someone’s life but just require a small amount on my part. Yet what one is given back in return in the way of gratitude surpasses the small sacrifice made- the real pay-off for us here in the office will be the gift of smiling faces and heartfelt “Thanks” from those that need a little extra care this season and all year long. We all should count our blessings each and every day. Stop by for a visit this Saturday and delight with us in the joy and spreading goodwill and cheer. Sincerely, Dr. Ken Wynne, and staff @ Dimond Family Dental Center- Cindy, Tia, Cynthia, Joy, Jessica and Teresa

TO SERVE ALASKANS IN DENTAL PAIN AND DICOMFORT FOR CHRISTMAS DENTAL EMERGENCIES WILL BE SEEN ON

SATURDAY DECEMBER 19, 2009
FROM 7:00 AM – 4:00 PM

IF YOU MEET THE FOLLOWING CRITERIA:
YOU DO NOT HAVE DENTAL BENEFITS OF ANY KIND (SUCH AS DENTAL INSURANCE OR MEDICAID)
YOU ARE HAVING DENTAL PAIN OR DISCOMFORT (EMERGENCIES)
CANNOT AFFORD YOUR DENTAL EMERGENCY

OUR OFFICE WILL SEE AND TREAT THOSE THAT MEET THE ABOVE CRITERIA AT NO CHARGE ON A FIRST COME FIRST SERVE BASIS
(NO APPOINTMENTS WILL BE MADE)

DIMOND FAMILY DENTAL CENTER
KEN WYNNE DMD
1000 E. DIMOND BLVD SUITE 205
ANCHORAGE, AK. 99502
907-344-5544

BRICK BUILDING ON THE CORNER OF DIMOND AND OLD SEWARD
2ND FLOOR ABOVE SUITE 100
USE SOUTH SIDE ENTRANCE

Given the general discord in the country right now, it would seem as though any spirit of holiday good will would have to be a positive thing, one we should foster.

If you think about it, the person a large majority of this country celebrates at this holiday time, Jesus Christ, seems to have been a fellow who not only had good will but liked celebrating good times as much as the next guy. If not, why would he have turned all that water into wine when he was a wedding guest? Talk about the perfect wedding gift!
So having good spirits and a sense of joy during the month between Thanksgiving and Christmas/Kwanzaa/Hannukah seems appropriate, especially here in Alaska where it’s the darkest time of the year and so the time when we most need our spirits lifted.
Here’s what I don’t understand, though. During this season, everyone seems to go out of their way to be nice to others, to donate money and goods to those in need, to take the extra steps necessary to see that no one is alone or lonely. Because of this, the month between these two holidays becomes somewhat of a magical time. The spirit of goodwill fills the air and everyone is a little more patient, smiles a little more while waiting in line and generally feels their spirits somewhat lighter and gayer than at other times of the year.
So the question is how come we haven’t figured out, after centuries of celebration, that those good spirits come from the fact that everyone makes a little extra effort during this season to be a good neighbor, a good citizen and a good family member. If this works during the holiday season, wouldn’t it stand to reason that if we kept up those things that come so naturally during this holiday period, we might stand a chance of experiencing those feelings of good will throughout the year?
I will admit up front that I am a volunteer addict. I get my adrenaline rush from the work I do as a volunteer.  Maybe this is because I don’t get paid to do it but do it out of a sense of love and devotion to the cause for which I’m volunteering. Whatever the reason, the holiday spirit that so many only feel during this brief thirty day period of the year, I get to feel every week when I go into Bird TLC, put on a blue smock and start cutting up smelly fish for the injured birds.
Maybe it’s something more of us should try. Instead of just giving money to a cause or helping out at Bean’s once a year, try making it a regular part of your life.  You can’t begin to imagine how doing that will keep you going through the dark months that follow the holiday season. January and February will not seem so cold and bleak when there is this light in your life that comes every time you walk out your door to do something for someone less fortunate.
When the Bah Humbug spirit first hit me about this season many, many years ago, my mother was still alive. Being a typical mother, she immediately assumed that she must have done something wrong in my childhood for me to feel this way. She asked plaintively if she and my father hadn’t given me wonderful childhood Christmases and, if so, how could I feel this way now?
I tried to explain to her how hard it was for me to watch people discover the joy of giving for about one month each year and then go back to their “regular” lives the rest of the time as thought the hungry did not have to eat every day and the abused did not need comfort throughout the year. She looked at me and said, “But isn’t it better to do it at least once a year than never at all?”
She had a point. But I still think that doing it year round is best. Unless, of course, we figure out a way to make suffering, pain, sadness, loneliness and hunger only occur between Thanksgiving and January 1 of any given year.