GOP Senator – Birth Control Irresponsible
I had a plan to write a column that was going to make the Anchorage municipal elections coming up to be the sexiest most riveting thing you’ve ever read. Then someone did something stupid in Juneau, so you’ll have to wait a week while I sort this doofus out. First, the reporting on Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders from Kyle Hopkins and Marc Lester for the Anchorage Daily News has been incredible. Disturbing, and incredibly needed. Two percent of children born in Alaska have FASD. We need solutions and education. Sadly, we have a “think tank” formed by Sen. Pete Kelly…
Palin’s ‘Mazin’ ‘Murrika!
“Git red, wiiiiiiild, and blue, Merrika!” Thus spake the cartoon of a parody of a cartoon that used to be Alaska’s half-term governor, and the Vice Presidential nominee on the Republican Party ticket. Once, as much as Alaskans were horrified by it, the rest of the nation stood in awe watching the sparkly, mavericky mother of five take her place in the klieg lights, delivering a powerhouse speech that turned her into a household name overnight. She was, for a few hours, America’s new kickass sweetheart and future first female Vice President. She roared onto the stage and breathed life…
Too Many Dans
In the first of what we hope will be many chuckle-worthy screw ups, the conservative Club for Growth came out with an endorsement recently which was picked up by the Associated Press, and then reported by KTVA Channel 11 News in Anchorage. Somewhere along the line, Dan Sullivan got lost in translation. Dan Sullivan (R-OH->DC->AK) moved to Alaska to become a U.S. Senator. The carpetbagging political climber went from Palin’s second choice Attorney General, to the Commissioner of the Department of Natural Resources (the move that tipped us all off) and has been groomed and guided for quite some time….
Giessel “Reallocates” Wealth to Donors
I’m still getting used to seeing the Walter J. Hickel Expressway signs. I still think Wally’s Way would have been better, but it gives me a chance to remember to read “Who Owns America” again. My copy has a brown signature inside. A treasure. So, as I pull onto Wally’s Way, heading south, the voice of Lori Townsend making me feel better about the news on my radio. Seriously. If there’s a meteor bearing down on Earth and we’re all gonna die, she should be the one announcing it-she makes even Alaska news sound better. My phone rings. “Did you…
Palin’s Going “Rogue” TV
I know what you’re thinking when you make your daily pilgrimage to Sarah Palin’s Facebook page. You stare at your screen with a Crunch Wrap Supreme and Diet Redbull clicking “refresh” compulsively, waiting to be the first to capture the lustrous pearls of wisdom that fall like glistening acid raindrops from the unhinged jaw of the former half governor. You think to yourself, “If only I could capture this experience on video!” Seeing a picture of word salad just isn’t the same as being able to watch and listen. Printed words don’t deliver the jutting jaw, the pursed lips, that…
(UPDATE) Parnell’s California Dream
UPDATE: Gov. Parnell’s illegal appointment has “withdrawn his own name,” the Anchorage Daily News reports. “A state law says board and commission nominees must be registered Alaska voters. Mandell told the Daily News he had not lived in Alaska since 1995. Parnell continued to back him, saying the Alaska Constitution required only that nominees be U.S. citizens.” Apparently the quaint notion that we have to follow state law is beyond the governor’s scope. If only he had some basic legal training. Oh, wait. ************************************** $2 billion a year is not enough. Sure they’re the wealthiest entities ever to have existed…
Ms. Underestimated in Fairbanks
FAIRBANKS – Despite recent attempts by Republican Borough Assemblyman Lance Roberts to bully the Fairbanks Co-op Market into no longer carrying Ms. Magazine, this week a new shipment arrived and was stocked on the shelves. Roberts stated that he felt the magazine’s support of reproductive choice for women was tantamount to the Co-op Market condoning “genocide,” and announcing on his Facebook page that feminism was “heresy.” When Roberts learned of the Co-op’s decision to discontinue selling the publication, he beat his chest in his own newsletter, reveling in the outcome of his threats to boycott the market, and the fact…
Alaskans! Run!
The recent boondoggle with the Anchorage legislative office remodel is appalling enough by itself. However it also represents a much greater issue with this legislature. Members of that body are elected and sworn to act in the best interests of Alaska. Currently, they don’t. In negotiating a disastrous lease, they have Alaskans paying for an extensive remodel to a building we don’t own, and then a fivefold increase in rent, and finally locking us into a decade-long lease. This is a bad deal all the way around for the state, and a dreadful misappropriation of funds. Meanwhile, the lessor, a heavy campaign…
Contraception’s Bang for the Buck
JUNEAU, AK—Opposition to abortion rights has been the political hallmark of Alaska State Senator Fred Dyson (R-Eagle River). He is also, as these ironies invariably go, opposed to expanding contraceptive access. “By and large, sexual activity is recreation,” the senator intoned today during floor debate on SB49. “The state shouldn’t finance other people’s recreation.” Does the senator favor elimination of all state parks? What of the Department of Fish & Game—some of which relates to subsistence, but which also serves recreational endeavors? Is he aware that it is public, state-financed roads taking us to our state’s ski resorts, or does he imagine…
GOP Official Ms. Fires
FAIRBANKS, AK — A far-right elected official on the borough assembly has demanded Ms. Magazine be pulled from the shelves of a local grocery store. Lance Roberts does not like the publication’s support for the reproductive rights of women, and demanded the Fairbanks Co-op Market pull the magazine from its shelves so that other shoppers couldn’t make up their own minds on the matter. The store has complied with the politician’s demand, and in his newsletter a gloating Roberts is doing a little end zone dance: The Co-op Market had some left-wing political magazines they were selling, and at that time they…