by Linda Kellen Biegel 2010 Hanshew Middle School Band Not many people in political circles know that I credit music with saving my life. I started playing the piano when I was six-years-old. I often kicked and screamed about practicing, but my mother was determined and I continued through my entire school career. In sixth [...]

Brian the moose was lucky enough to attend a fabulous performance of The Capitol Steps at the Alaska Center for the Performing Arts on Saturday. He enjoyed it immensely. But the best part was getting to meet long-time Mudflatter and Palin impersonator extraordinaire, Bari Biern (right) and new Mudflatter in the cast Janet Gordon (left). [...]

~Thick and fast they came at last, and more, and more, and more… Adorable on Steroids Be warned. Do not play this video unless you are able to handle a serious overdose of cuteness. This is a polar bear cub from the Scandanavian Wildlife Park. His mother was unable to nurse him, so little Siku [...]

When I moved to Alaska more than twenty years ago, I was expecting something like the TV show Northern Exposure. I figured Alaskans would be really happy and proud that the show “put them on the map,” as it were.  Invariably, when I mentioned it to anyone who had been in Alaska for a while, [...]

  Alaskans are busting their buttons this week. I couldn’t let these wonderful accomplishments pass without a little hat tip to the folks that made their fellow Alaskans proud as peacocks. Brian Schmidt An Australian-based astrophysicist, Brian Schmidt, who won the Nobel Prize for Physics is a product of the Anchorage School District, having graduated [...]

This summer Anchorage was abuzz with a flurry of activity we don’t often see in these parts. In town were the cast and crew for a full-length feature film starring Drew Barrymore and Ted Danson called at the time “Everybody Loves Whales,” which has been retitled “Big Miracle.” Thanks to Senator Johnny Ellis (D), and [...]

~Thick and fast they came at last, and more, and more, and more! [The Walrus and the Carptenter, Lewis Carroll] A half dozen on the half shell. Slurp ‘em up! (Links in the titles) Rick Perry, Evangelical Economist Rick Perry thinks that God crashed the economy on purpose to teach us a lesson and return [...]

A beautiful gem from the State Museum in Juneau. Anna Brown Ehlers (Tlingit) Wool, cedar bark Gift of the Rasmuson Foundation Art Acquisition Initiative, 2008 The art of Chilkat weaving has been practiced in southeast Alaska for at least two centuries. This very laborious and challenging technique is used to make ceremonial robes and other [...]

~Thick and fast they came at last, and more, and more, and more! Here’s a plate of slurpable stories to start your week. Source links are in the title. Start shucking!   Pay Up, Joe An Alaska judge on Friday ordered that failed U.S. Senate candidate Joe Miller pay more than $17,300 in legal costs [...]

“Really? You think she’s running?” I’ve been asked this question dozens of times by incredulous-looking people with furrowed brows. Yes. Yes, I do. And today comes the announcement that Sarah Palin, who has been politically written off by anyone who seriously understands how real presidential campaigns are supposed to work; and anyone who is saying [...]

Zounds! That’s not who you think it is. The movie based on the political best-seller Game Change is coming to HBO, and actress Julianne Moore will have the .. um.. honor of playing our favorite ex-half-governor.  Yes, we only have one ex-half-governor which is why she is, by default, our favorite. The Hollywood Reporter noted [...]

Thomas Birch (1779-1851) -  The Narrows, New York Bay 1812 In this crazy mixed-up world, it’s hard to go wrong with something that’s just plain bucolic. Another beautiful moment d’art from the DeYoung Museum in San Francisco. They have a beautiful collection of paintings from the Hudson River School, and this one in particular grabbed [...]

I was recently in the beautiful city of San Francisco, and as is my wont… I hightailed it to the nearest art museum. So, sprinkled over the next undetermined amount of time, you Mudflats museumphiles can join me on a little jaunt through the DeYoung Museum, situated right next to the amazingly lovely Golden Gate [...]

As I sat this morning sipping my morning cup of Raven’s Brew Dead Man’s Reach Dark Roast and marveling at the still wintery sunrise over Anchorage, and simultaneously realizing I had fallen asleep early and not put up an open thread, and wondering what I might post, this painting flashed into my head. The title, [...]

Argillite is fascinating stuff. Geologically, it is lithified (turned to stone) mud. You’d never know it. When carved, it is smooth, dense, shiny, and inky black. It has the appearance of something man made, and it feels heavier than it ought to. The piece above is from a collection of argillite carvings in the State [...]