Scribblings

Get Smart was smarted than we imagined

Remember the Cone of Silence from the TV show Get Smart. Whenever Max needed to be sure no one was listening in, the Cone of Silence would drop over him. Well guess what folks – the silly TV show was more prescient than we’d imagined. It has now been revealed that when the president travels, he travels with a tent that can be erected anywhere and into which he goes when he needs to have private communications that can’t be bugged. The tent blocks or scrambles anything trying to listen in. The imagined Cone of Silence has become the real

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Columns 2013

The forgotten sounds of silence

Do you sometimes wonder when we lost the ability to savor silence? Or is that a question asked only by those of us born before the constant cacophony that is our present day world? I’m not speaking strictly of the noise we hear with our ears. I’m speaking about the constant noise that assaults our brains through the electronics to which we are constantly attached.

This thought occurs as I get ready to take a quick trip to see my old college roommate. The trip involves a flight, as do most that start in Alaska. There was a time in

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Scribblings

What is wrong with this picture?

One of the suggestions in Parade Magazine last Sunday for helping out our troops on Veterans Day was to buy them cushioning helmet pads for a $35 donation to operation-helmet.org.  I may be wrong about this, but doesn’t that sound like something we should be issuing to our soldiers as SOP? I mean, seriously, IEDs are the new weapons of choice in our wars of choice and yet we don’t automatically provide something as simple and cheap as $35 cushioning pads for their helmets? Does our government, does our military, get much stupider than that?

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pictures, Scribblings

Pretty in pink…

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The princess in all her pinkness. Admit it. This is a helluva lot more fun than contemplating what those idiots in Congress are doing at any given moment… or those idiots in the White House… or those unbelievable minds that brought us corporations as people. God save us when viewing a picture of a dog in pink is the relief we all need.

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Scribblings

In case you didn’t see my posting on Facebook

In case you didn’t see this posting when I put it on Facebook, I’m repeating it here because my heart is still smiling from it.

Here’s what’s so wonderful about living in Alaska and even more wonderful about having lived in Bush Alaska. I got a letter in the mail today from my Vet Clinic, College Village Animal Clinic. I go there because Dr. Basler used to be a vet in Barrow and when I got here, I knew I trusted him. Apparently an old Barrow friend, Jeslie, brought his pets to the clinic while here in town. And, because

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pictures, Scribblings

The Fearsome(albeit loving) Threesome

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My Aunt Adeline who taught me that no “handicap” should ever hold you back.

My Aunt Ida, my godmother, who taught me how to be the best godmother possible.

My mother, who was one of the strongest women I have ever known which is probably why we fought so hard.

With them showing us (my siblings, my cousins) how to live, we had no choice but to turn out well. We were scared not to.

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Scribblings

A warning to older women

Feeling hormonal surges when you see Gibbs on TV? Or when you see an old boyfriend, you know, the one that got away? Well, just be careful. Those hormones caused all of us to make some of the most disastrous decisions of our lives. Just because we’ve gotten older doesn’t mean our hormones have gotten wiser.

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Columns 2013

The silence has been broken

I grew up in an era when you did not say anything if someone lit up a cigarette in your house.  In fact, ashtrays were a ubiquitous part of the furnishings of just about every home I ever entered, whether the homeowners indulged or not. Smoking was a socially acceptable norm.

This all changed, not because laws were instituted that forbade smoking in public places, but because those laws followed an attitudinal change that empowered people to protest being forced to inhale the noxious fumes of someone else’s exhales. The laws we now accept as the norm that ban smoking

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pictures, Scribblings

First day at the pool continued

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Against all odds, they learned how to swim from one end of the pool to the other. Allowing themselves to be blown dry was a totally different issue. They were so outta there.

Want your dog to enjoy the same fun on those cold days when walking is so hard for them. Go to Alaska K9 Aquatics on W. International Airport Road. Call 677-7946 for details, prices and an appointment.

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