Columns 2012

Sometimes it seems as though we’ve been hearing about the high suicide rates in Bush Alaska for an immensely long time. Every few years another study is done which comes up with the same depressing results concerning suicide statistics as the previous study. Young men are most vulnerable. Substance abuse is usually involved. Despair about the future is frequently cited as a cause, often along with the pain and problems resulting from growing up in an abusive home.

Every time one of these studies is released showing that Alaska has the highest suicide rate in the nation and Bush Alaska

Every once in a while we need to find our courage and stand up for an Alaska icon who has been sorely used by the forces of the liberal media. No, I’m not speaking about Sarah Palin or her many relatives, offspring and dance specialists. I’m speaking about Alaska’s own national – ok, maybe statewide – treasure, Mr. Whitekeys.

Yes, poor Whitekeys was apparently fired from Alaska Magazine via e-mail (ouch!) for writing a column that did not celebrate the state in a manner that Alaska Magazine deemed appropriate. Given that the magazine is part of Morris Communications and Morris

If you’re the kind of Alaskan who believes the only good resource is one we can get out of the ground today and we can worry about tomorrow later, you should stop reading now because this column is going to irritate you.

A story aired on NPR concerning a fishing village in a cold, frozen northern place that is not Alaska. The fishing industry had been hard hit by declining stock and the village was facing imminent economic disaster.  Again, let me repeat, this story was not about an Alaska village, though the outlines might be eerily similar.

What this

The recent massacre in Colorado will inevitably re-ignite the debate over guns in America. While few dispute the right to own guns, the argument over what kind of guns, how many and whether anyone really needs 10,000 rounds of ammunition for a semi-automatic will continue for years.

Guns, as the NRA so often intones, do not kill people. People kill people. And they will do it with anything handy. If you take their guns, they will use knives. If you take their knives, they will use bricks or sticks or fists or bombs. If someone wants to kill, they will

Here’s what I don’t understand about the health care debate. I don’t understand the expressed claims of conservatives that this law was passed quickly, with practically no debate or study of its effects on either our economy, our national debt or health care costs. If this really surprised them, then I have to wonder where they’ve been for the past forty years as this issue was being debated from every possible angle. I further have to wonder if conservatives aren’t getting just a little bit forgetful since the part of the bill they seem to find most objectionable, the individual

OK, so reality TV is in the midst of a love affair with Alaska. Whatever bizarre idea they have for a show apparently sounds better to them if the address is sexy, and this year Alaska is sexy.

But I say if you’re coming to Alaska to shoot a reality show, then how about shooting honest Alaska reality? You can go to Anyplace USA and find people who want to fight each other. That’s not terribly Alaskan… though we do it very, very well. No, what we need are reality shows that highlight what everyday Alaskans face in their everyday

Did you notice that when the ADN started to cut back on its printed edition, the metro, business and lifestyle sections all disappeared as stand alone parts of the paper but sports continues to hold its own? There’s a reason for that. In this country, sports is king. Nothing else matters as much. Nothing. We don’t need extensive coverage of anything else so long as we have sports scores available 24/7.

This year, despite drowning in revenues, neither the Alaska state legislature nor the governor could find any money for additional breakfasts at school for low-income kids or to provide

At Bird TLC, Anchorage’s wild bird rehab center, summer is baby bird season. Each year we open our doors to little ones of every type, variety, color and maturation level. The babies come to us either because their mother was killed or they were separated from their nest mates for some reason. Sometimes people bring them in to us as they are fledging because they don’t realize the mom is still around and holding the birdie equivalent of driving lessons with her young ones. Sometimes a tree is taken down and then a nest full of little ones is discovered

Providing services in Bush Alaska is always a challenge, whether because of distance, weather or remoteness. Most people living there know that they voluntarily exchange some of the modern world’s conveniences for the privilege of living a life most of their contemporaries find hard to comprehend.

But as times change and communications improve, the world that once only occasionally broke into these remote communities suddenly becomes omnipresent. Thanks to a blanketing layer of connectivity, even the most distant locations are part of today’s world. With this change comes the desire for some of the niceties that outside world offers, like

I grew up in an Italian family. Home cooking was Italian from start to finish. My mother’s idea of ethnic diversity as it related to food was making a Chung King canned Chinese dinner once a month or so.

To this day I cannot go out for Italian food without comparing it to my childhood meals. The restaurants always come up wanting. No matter how good they are, if they don’t make their Italian food the way my family did, it’s just wrong.

Childhood and family traditions are very difficult to view dispassionately. If one tradition calls for some butter