Elise Sereni Patkotak

My cousin Therese recently adopted a pound puppy she named Stella after losing her first pound puppy Jerusalem at the ripe old age of 16. Well, we think Jerusalem was real.  No one could be sure.  Whatever had happened to him in his previous life had apparently left him very nervous about people – all people, all the time.

So most of us never saw much more of Jerusalem than two eyes staring at us from under whatever piece of furniture Therese was either standing by or sitting on at the time. 

This meant that Jerusalem needed little more than

It should come as no surprise to anyone who reads this column even semi-regularly that I am a bit of a bird nut.  OK, perhaps I zoomed by “bit of” and went right to “totally crazed” about twenty years ago. Either way, the reality is that birds are a passion of mine.

That’s why I’m so excited about some events coming to Anchorage the week of May 16th.  It’s a chance for people who aren’t bird crazy to mingle with those of us who are and learn why we have the passion we do.  These events may never convert you

I grew up a reader.  It’s not that my parents pushed me into it.  I was raised way before the concept of reading to your child to make your child a reader came into vogue.  No, what worked in my family was the idea that books were part of the very special privileges enjoyed by adults and that the only way I’d be able to enjoy those privileges was to grow up and learn how to read.

This was perhaps even more special in my home because my parents were the first literate generation on either side of my family.

In most small towns in America, two professions stand out as receiving the most respect and admiration – preachers and teachers.  While there are obvious exceptions to this rule, for the most part people rely on these professions to maintain certain ethical and moral standards.

After all, you trust one of these professions with your immortal soul and the other with the development of your children’s minds.  What could be more important?

Teachers and preachers in Bush Alaska definitely fall under this mantle of respect.  In fact, in many Native villages they have historically been exalted to a pedestal they

I find the proposed new law on children’s issues currently being debated in the state legislature to be very interesting.  The law calls for more openness in these cases and allows either the state or the parents to request a jury trial in a termination of parental rights case.

While I still find myself concerned about the reaction of children to the sordid stories of their family life becoming public, I also find myself thinking that it could have some very interesting, if unexpected, consequences.

Those of us who work in this field are used to a certain level of

Terry Schiavo is dead and all of us who participated in making her death a public spectacle worthy of the Roman Empire at its most disgusting should be ashamed. And I do mean everybody.

For starts, the politicians from both sides of the aisle who abandoned all pretenses of high moral ground and fed into the howling mob on the hope of banking political capital for the future. Will any of us soon forget Senator Dr. Bill Frist contradicting overwhelming medical evidence to the contrary and making his own diagnosis based on a few minutes of video footage?

How easily

Usually kids assigned to me through my work as a Guardian Ad Litem stay on my caseload for two or three years at best.  Most are able to leave within that time to either be re-united with their families or to start life again with a new family.

But there is always a hardcore group of kids who end up being raised in the state system despite everyone’s best efforts.  Some of these kids come to me through Juvenile Probation (JPO) at 12 or 13. Some are as young as 7 or 8 when they enter the system through the

It’s springtime in Alaska and, thanks to global warming, it’s not 40 below. In fact, defying all conventional wisdom, I plan to have my studded snow tires removed this week. I’m going to take a walk on the wild side and live a little dangerously.  I’m going to drive in Anchorage in March on regular treads.

I realize that the last time I did this, we were visited with more than two foot of snow overnight.  But I couldn’t have gotten out of my garage to drive anywhere anyhow so what good would studded snow tires have done me? 

No,

After spending the better part of a week in Las Vegas, I can only say that no one should ever suggest to me again that Alaskan moose nugget jewelry is in any way odd or strange.  For odd or strange, you need only walk down the Vegas strip, the place where neon goes to die.

Within no more than six blocks of the hotel at which I was staying, I saw:

…A woman in Levis and a wedding veil with a t-shirt that read, “Buy me a shot. I’m tying the knot.”

…A covered flat bed truck with a sign

Alaska seems to be having its third or fourth breakup of the winter right now. One can only hope this is the final one. I’m not sure I could stand another freeze/thaw/freeze cycle. If it’s not going to be an honest to god winter, then could it please just make up its mind to be spring?

I think breakup in Anchorage is, by anyone’s standard, pretty squalid and ugly.  There are lakes your car needs pontoons to navigate right where the street was just yesterday. There are potholes swallowing HumVees and gently belching out the hubcaps – one of the