An Open Letter from Rural Alaska to the Parnell Administration
~~CC Strongheart happily plays in a late summer puddle in the Village of Ugashik, while her mother Ann seeks answers about her future from the State of Alaska.~~ Dear Governor Parnell, Mr. Moller, Ms. Jollie, Mr. Black and others; After reading the article in the Dispatch I am gravely concerned and worried even more so than before about what this winter will bring to rural Alaska . Not only is the lack of both subsistence and commercial fishing, greatly diminishing our ability to put away fish for the winter but also the lack of funds brought in from commercial…
Politicizing the Anchorage School District
Now that the Town Hall meetings in Anchorage are over, and Senator Mark Begich has left the state for Washington D.C., what’s a poor bored wingnut to do? Well, after drumming their fingers for 24 hours, waiting for new marching orders, they’re off and running again. Trying to get everyone health care is bad enough, but behold the latest ‘moral outrage’ that President Obama is inflicting on the poor innocent children according to the conservatives. On Tuesday, September 8th, that man is going to be on the TeeVee, in schools across the nation telling the children that education is important…
Book Wars. Palin v. Johnston – Who’s Got the Slam Dunk?
Oh boy. Vanity Fair does it again. Get ready for the latest teaser extraordinaire about life in the Palin house after the 2008 election. The world’s most infamous ex-almost-son-in-law has let loose a couple interesting little nuggets of which there promise to be more in the upcoming full article entitled “Me and Mrs. Palin.” “The Palin house was much different from what many people expect of a normal family, even before she was nominated for vice president. There wasn’t much parenting in that house. Sarah doesn’t cook, Todd doesn’t cook—the kids would do it all themselves: cook, clean, do the…
Palin’s Been Punked?
Popcorn alert! I said yesterday that those of you who were placing wagers on whether Palin would show up at the speaking engagement that’s been announced in Hong Kong needed to make an adjustment. Normally the going odds if you’re betting whether she’ll show are 50/50. Maybe she will, and maybe she won’t. Like plucking petals off a daisy… She’s coming….she’s coming NOT. The appearance in Hong Kong will be the first time she’s actually been paid to speak, so my take was that this dramatically increased the odds that she would be speaking. This isn’t some lowly Anchorage church…
Pop, Ooze, Dung, and the Alaska Personnel Board.
Lots of good stuff floating around the internets. Here’s a little smorgasbord of tasty treats you may have missed. POP! Gubernatorial candidate Bob Poe wrote an excellent compass piece for the Anchorage Daily News that begins like this: I support equal rights for all people. And I support banning discrimination in Anchorage due solely to someone’s sexual orientation. I support a comprehensive equal rights ordinance because it’s the right thing to do, period. Sh. sh. shhh. Listen. Do you hear those faint little noises, like Pop Rocks? Remember all those people in red shirts who testified at the Anchorage Assembly…
Voices from the Flats – John Aronno from the Planned Parenthood Booth at the Alaska State Fair
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 least that was my experience. I suppose it takes a lot more time to let sink in the fact that we passed out, easily, forty or fifty condoms to teens in a state that left the rest of the nation in the dust in terms…
Palin Goes to Hong Kong to Share Her Wealth of Knowledge About Geo-Politics.
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 Greenspan, and the group claims: “Our keynote speakers are notable luminaries who often address topics that go beyond traditional finance such as geopolitics,” company spokeswoman Simone Wheeler said in a statement. “We just felt it would be a fabulous opportunity for CLSA clients to hear…
Mark Begich on the Public Option, the Kennedy Legacy, and Being Bold.
~~~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 the last year, I thought if I ever heard the word “bold” again come out of the mouth of an Alaska politician, I was going to run screaming into the hills, or smash myself in the head with a brick. So nobody was more surprised…