Elise Sereni Patkotak

Remember that time when almost all of us actually learned to spell Murkowski?  Ah, good times. Well, they are returning. Only this time with a rival candidate who hasn’t lived in Alaska all that long and who had to have the government pay to move her here or she might not have come. So I think we can all admit that we have some issues to raise with Lisa’s new opponent for the Republican nomination to the US Senate.

Oh yeah, remember when we all learned to spell Lisa? Good times.

If I am understanding this situation correctly, the Republican Continue reading →

While this pandemic is hardly over, for many of us it is at least finally starting to end. This means that those of us (me) who are totally vaccinated can now go back out and enjoy some level of what once counted as normal life.

I actually went to a restaurant where a waiter filled my water glass and asked if there was anything else he could get me. After an extremely long year, I was finally being waited on again. And the food that came to the table was fresh and hot – not warm and in a bag, Continue reading →

The first time my sister and I went to China was 1983 or so. China was still in the depths of the Mao philosophy. Everyone rode bikes and wore dull, grey or dark green Mao pajama outfits.

Of all the things that I remember from that trip, one of the things that has always stayed with me was our official Chinese guide’s description of employment in China. He said there was no such thing as unemployment there. There was only “job waiting”.

Some years later when we went to Tibet, we were made to take an official Chinese guide with Continue reading →

I met Forrest Dunbar when he was a very young man just getting into Alaskan politics. I can’t tell you what he said to me or what his stance was on any variety of issues but I can tell you this: He seemed like a nice, decent young man.

We don’t have a lot of nice and decent people in politics. I give you Ted Cruz as the poster boy for this.  Nice guys seem to get destroyed by the bullies in adult life as well as in school. And Americans seem to eat it up. If you doubt this, Continue reading →

Here’s the world I grew up in – Italian men ruled, the president was in charge of America and the pope was in charge of the world. That was it. That was the hierarchy.

Of course, within it there were subcategories. What Monsignor Vincent said was the word of god, even if he was just praising the grade school Christmas play. What the Salesian nuns said was even more the word of god because – well, you know, Jesus listened to Mary so we had to listen to our mothers which somehow put women above men except it didn’t.

I Continue reading →

Or is it just Ted Cruz and his ilk? Nope, I checked. It’s Republicans. They are tearing down our democracy without a care in the world because they know that under dictator Trump they will rule without limits.

Is there some way to bring out own court case against the Republican Party for being treasonous? Is it wrong that I want to send all Trump supporters to Florida and then build the wall there?

And for all you Republicans out there who happily support Trump because your portfolios are bursting at the seams, you are scum willing to destroy everyone Continue reading →