Columns 2014

The push polls are here

Not meaning to panic you too much, but the push polls are apparently here and there are still six months until the next election. Yet here they are, push polls that make me want to push my fist through the phone.

I try to cooperate with polls because I figure the people calling need to make a living and if someone’s opinion is going to be registered, why not mine? That sense of civic responsibility lasts until the first question that makes it clear it’s not really a poll as much as a way to snake a specific thought into

Continue reading →
Scribblings

Ah Krispy Kremes

You are both my love and my nemesis. I buy a box of you to support a good cause and then wonder where I will find the strength to bring you to Bird TLC so I won’t devour all of you myself and end up with a blood sugar in the 6000s.

Maybe I could just attach an IV bag of insulin to me and eat the entire thing… ah fantasies…

Continue reading →
Scribblings

Come on, come all

International Migratory Bird Day at the Alaska Zoo. Bird TLC will be there with some of our education birds all afternoon. And Kodi, our Cache Crow, will be there hoping you’ll give him money for fresh meal worms.

Continue reading →
Columns 2014

Do it locally

We’ve all seen the commercials, right? They purport to show real Alaskans praising the new oil tax regimen of the Parnell administration. The ads urge us not to change it by voting yes on the referendum on this fall’s ballot to revert to the Palin structure. Some apparently feel it taxed oil companies way too much.

Whether those are real Alaskans or not, and whether you believe an ad suggesting we leave a tax break in place being run by the groups benefiting by those tax breaks, one thing remains true. We need local jobs that support local families and

Continue reading →
Scribblings

And so it arrives

Summer is here after barely a winter and nary a spring. Guess I have to stop waiting for the final snow fall of the season and go buy flowers to plant. Sigh. I hate dirt. But I will gird my loins… as soon as I figure out where they are… and do my bit to make Anchorage a little prettier by planting flowers in my front yard. First mosquito I see and all bets are off!!

Continue reading →