We’re getting close to the end of our virtual flight from Houston to Anchorage.  I knew the clear skies couldn’t last.  As soon as I was sure we must be over Alaska, the clouds rolled in.  At first I was sad to miss the scenery, but cloudscapes have their own beauty.  I remember my first [...]

Planned Parenthood in the Mat-Su Valley by John Aronno I’ll start off by answering your question: 15 minutes. 15 minutes is the time that it takes from the moment you sit down at the Planned Parenthood booth, to the moment where an older woman calls you a Nazi and alleges that you kill babies. At [...]

Well, this is one for the books. Sarah Palin, in her first commercial speaking engagement after abdicating the governorship of Alaska, will visit Hong Kong to speak (for an undisclosed sum) to the CLSA Investors Forum at an annual conference of global investment managers. Really. Previous speakers have been Bill Clinton, Al Gore and Alan [...]

~~~Mark Begich at his June Anchorage Town Hall Meeting on health care, calling on a constituent who actually raised her hand to speak.  Ah, those were the days. I’m going to confess right now, that after 2/3 of a term of Gov. Sarah Palin, and a vice presidential run, and all the Twittering Facebooking adventures of [...]

Our virtual flight from Houston to Anchorage now has us somewhere over either British Columbia or the Alaska panhandle.  These mountains were absolutely unbelievable.  There were little vignettes like this all over the place.  No snow but still breathtaking.  They look like a row of perfect teeth.  Actually that whole group of mountains looks remarkably [...]

Just in case anyone had any lingering doubts about what the anti-Obama rhetoric means. Wonder how many of these we can expect to see driving around?

Continuing on our virtual flight from Houston to Anchorage, we are still over Canada.  My best guess is somewhere near the border of Alberta and British Columbia. When I woke up from a nap and looked out the window to see this, I felt like a kid at Christmas!  Or maybe more like one at [...]

[This article is cross-posted at The Huffington Post] What a difference a year makes. A year ago today, after being stunned by McCain’s VP pick, I had finished writing a piece called “What Is McCain Thinking? One Alaskan’s Perspective.”  It’s hard to imagine a time when the country was asking “Sarah Who?” but it was [...]

Our friend, Ann Strongheart, her husband Segundo, and their two-year old daughter, Cecelia, spent the summer in the small village of Ugashik in southwestern Alaska, working for their new best friends, Victoria and Roland Briggs, who own and run the Ugashik Wild Salmon Company. On the morning of Tuesday, August 18, and in spite of [...]

It’s been three weeks since she’s been live on the air at KBYR. Are you itching from withdrawal? Well grab your calamine lotion, and your Bonne Bell Lip Smacker (or something with natural ingredients) and tune in to 700am in Anchorage. Those of you “Outside” can get there from HERE. The number is 907.274.5297. The [...]

As we continue our virtual flight from Houston to Anchorage, here’s some more fun with agricultural geometry.  This was somewhere in Canada.  The fields are back to angular shapes instead of circles, and I loved the beautiful snake-like river system.  I wish I could have gotten more of the river on the bottom, but shooting [...]

  You gotta love John Ziegler (above getting punked by Mudflats mascot Brian the Moose).  One year ago today, Sarah Palin was foisted on the unsuspecting public in a mavericky move to top all previous mavericky moves by Senator John McCain, and John Ziegler begame her super dooper #1 fan, happily devoting his life to ride shot-gun [...]

Senators Begich and Murkowski have both urged Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius to life a federal moratorium on Medicaid applications in Alaska. Good news came today from the agency when they informed the State that it will grant the request. The moratorium left thousands of Alaskans waiting for critical services, and was imposed [...]

I had all sorts of grand notions in my head about coming back to the hotel after dinner each night and uploading and sizing pictures, and giving you all a daily wrap up of the Netroots Nation conference in Pittsburgh as it happened. (Glancing over at the calendar…)  Looks like that didn’t happen.  But, I [...]

Just as I was looking out the window at this amazing place, and was wishing I could yell, “Stop this plane, I wanna get off!” the pilot came on the loudspeaker and announced we were somewhere near Billings, Montana.  It must be quite an amazing place from the ground.