Columns 2014

For those of us lucky enough to have spent time in Bush Alaska, it’s no secret that life there can swing fairly widely in short spans of time from extreme joy to extreme sorrow and back again. Maybe these swings also happen in the more urban areas of the state but are simply not as intense because sheer size and numbers dilute the effect.

The news that four Alaskans are recipients of Gates scholarships that will pay for their entire education through a Ph. D. is amazing in and of itself. All four students are obviously outstanding. But that two

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

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

Soon after the senseless tragedy in Tanana last week, I was the guest speaker at a Victim’s Rights dinner. The people in that room were all dedicated in one way or another to ensuring that victims of crime were not again victimized by the criminal justice system. This concept is one that most people take for granted nowadays. But it was only 30 years ago that people started to acknowledge the needs of victims. Until then, the justice system dealt only with the criminal. The victims were there to testify at trial perhaps, but beyond that they were simply expected

I grew up in an Italian family in an Italian neighborhood being taught by mostly Italian nuns. The mere sound of the language still sends me back to those years in an instant. The cadence of English spoken with an Italian accent is all I need to have my nonna’s face pop up in my brain, her grey hair in a bun, clad in perpetual mourning black with always, always an apron to protect her only weekday dress.

The sound of a language’s rhythm and flow is one of our earliest memories. Long before we focus on a face or

For those of us brave or insane enough to follow the shenanigans of the Alaska Legislature, the end of session comes as quite a relief. This is especially true in those years where no one tries to circumvent the will of the voters for a limited session by calling a special session. Of course, our legislators still manage to go over the time allotted by extending the current session. Why pay attention to the will of the voters now? Why start a new tradition when the old one is so effective – just ignore what the voters want and do

April 6 though 12 was National Volunteer Week. You might have missed the headlines announcing this since there were apparently no headlines announcing this. I missed it completely and, given that on any week of the year volunteers surround me in one capacity or another, I should be ashamed that I did.

According to the Points of Light website that sponsors this week of recognition, its purpose is as follows. “National Volunteer Week, April 6-12, 2014, is about inspiring, recognizing and encouraging people to seek out imaginative ways to engage in their communities. It’s about demonstrating to the nation that

How tone deaf does a politician have to be to think he can insert controversial language into a bill providing services for abused women and children and not have it backfire in a very loud and public way? Or have our politicians reached such a state of total sleaze that they no longer care if they endanger women and children in order to get their way?

In case you missed the recent slime coming out of Juneau, let me fill you in. A bill to extend the Domestic Violence Council, which otherwise sunsets on June 30, 2014, passed the Alaska

I don’t know about you but I am absolutely hooked on the new Cosmos series with Neil deGrasse Tyson. Sometimes we get so bogged down in the minutiae of daily life that we forget to look up in amazement at the glory of which we are but one tiny bit of cosmic dust. This show takes our minds out of the mundane and into the amazing.

Part of what happens when watching this show is the dawning realization that this earth and the humanity on it are neither the center of the universe nor of any particular impact on it.

After years of being viewed by the rest of America as a barely civilized wilderness, Alaskans have a bit of a complex about people from outside coming here to do jobs we’re capable of accomplishing. I can’t believe Governor Parnell doesn’t get this. If he did, he never would have tried to appoint someone from California, the land of fruit and nuts, to a position in Alaska, the land of guns and nuts.

While this distrust of outsiders has a long and storied history, and while some of that history could be used in a court of law to prove