What the hell is vaping? It is now being offered for pot smoking and I don’t even know what it is for regular smoking. Is this like those alcohol drinks where you just swallow the vapors and not the actual liquid? Oh god, the world is just getting too complicated for me. I think I’ll just pop in a brownie and contemplate how easy life used to be. Continue reading →
Winter is coming
I’ve had to put my furnace on. My raspberry bushes have been cut back. My perennials have been put to bed. The leaves are falling madly off the trees. Let winter begin. I sure in hell didn’t move to Alaska for its summers. And given last winter’s non-winter, I refuse to put snow tires on until I see an actual accumulation of snow that warrants them! Continue reading →
Social Workers aren’t the problem
I remember the first night I spent as the only social worker on the North Slope. It was the mid-eighties. Money and drugs were slamming our villages pretty badly. Ahead of me would be nights when I never got to bed because of the number of child endangerment calls I had to respond to. But that night, all I could do was lay awake and wonder how I was going to keep track of all the kids already in foster homes or group homes. How was I ever going to find the time to work with the families to try Continue reading →
We call it a wind storm
When the gusts blow at 60 to 70 mph, they apparently call it a hurricane on the East Coast. Wimps! In Alaska, we just call it a good blow. Continue reading →
You do the math
The latest polls are showing that pot use among senior citizens is up 333%. Seniors are also known for being one of the largest and most faithful voting groups. And suddenly pot is being voted into legality in state after state.
You do the math. Continue reading →
Fingernails on a chalkboard
Trump’s voice makes my whole body cringe. I have reached the point where I can’t even listen to new excerpts where they play just a cut from his latest speech or rant. When his voice comes on the radio or TV, I mute it and look away.
Will this campaign season never end. Will we never learn from the Brits how to run a campaign in about six weeks instead of three years of pain, torture and disgust with our political class.
It’s times like these when a dictatorship starts to look pretty good to me except for my fear Continue reading →
Sad memories
I was in Barrow getting ready for a termination of parental rights trial when 9/11 happened. We “won” the termination. Seems like we’ve won precious little else since then. Continue reading →
My views on religion are apparently not unique
If you want to read the best piece written in a long, long time on religion, go to
http://www.adn.com/opinions/2016/09/06/what-religion-would-jesus-belong-to/
It’s an amazing piece. Continue reading →
Help me understand this
So Trump wants to ban all Muslims based on the fact that some are terrorists. And we should call them all Muslim extremists because that’s their religion. So if we hold true to this logic, shouldn’t we also ban all white male Christians? I mean, they are the ones who have carried out the majority of terrorist attacks in America whether it be in a church, movie theater, school, university or workplace.
So from now on, I expect to hear Trump call them all Christian male extremists and demand that they all be deported. Continue reading →
There is always the Fair
In 1992, Queen Elizabeth II gave a speech in which she referred to the previous year as her “Annus Horribillis”, her horrible year. As Halloween decorations take over store displays that had once promoted grills, and yellow leaves cover our carefully tended green lawns, Americans have a right to look back on this past summer and think of it as our very own “atrox aestas”, horrible summer.
For those of you not familiar with Latin, let me apologize for using it so indiscriminately; but I had 16 years of Catholic schooling and many of those years involved learning Latin. It’s Continue reading →