Return of Bird of the Week: Cinnamon Flycatcher
Without exaggeration, there are hundreds of New World flycatcher species. For this week’s Bird of the Week, we’ll head to the tropics, for one of the prettiest, the Cinnamon Flycatcher. The cinnamon and brown-green coloration is lovely. It’s fairly common bird on both the east and west slopes of the Andes, from Venezuela down to Bolivia. It’s often seen in mixed flocks and seems to hang around after the rest of the birds have moved along. The species also lets WC show off the difference in image quality in low light between his Canon 1D-X and the old Olympus E-5…
UPDATE: HE’S GONE! Meet the New Republican Senator from the Mat-Su!
As Mike Dunleavy (R-Wasilla) steps down from the state senate to run for Governor, Gov. Bill Walker was tasked with choosing one of three possible replacements to fill out Dunleavy’s term. Walker opted to choose from outside the shallow pool of nominees from the Mat-Su Republican Party’s options, and appointed Mat-Su Borough Assemblyman Randall Kowalke. The fabulously-coiffed Kowalke was at least an already-elected official in some capacity. Walker took a risk by choosing from outside the list, and quickly felt the wrath. The arguments on the surface were difficult to discount. It’s the normal custom of the Party to…
Anti-Net Neutrality? Follow the Money.
It’s time for a field trip! Before we take a special excursion to the Political Olympics today, let’s try a little experiment. Listen carefully. “Net neutrality.” Did your eyes glaze over? Are you checking your phone? Hey, you in the back of the bus – eyes forward! It’s a problem. And I’m going to resist the temptation to slip into wonkiness and lose you. Because it’s too important of an issue to lose you and there are plenty of places you can go if you want to get into the weeds of net neutrality. The bottom line is that your…
Rev. Undra Parker Needs a Lesson in Christianity. STAT.
Well, I was hoping it would be at least a decade before Anchorage revisited the hate-mongering politics against our LGBTQ brothers and sisters. Sadly, it’s come sooner. Anchorage voters are asked once again to declare if they are homophobic or not on the upcoming ballot. Should we have cops at public bathrooms to ask for people’s birth certificates, so they can determine if the declared sex lines up with a matching genital inspection? Side note, who wants that job? (And if they do want it they probably shouldn’t get it.) A few years ago I witnessed something remarkable during Assembly…
Return of Bird of the Week: Barred Owl
Maybe WC should call this a Bard Owl: it was photographed on the grounds of the Idaho Shakespeare Festival in Boise, yesterday. Bad puns aside, this species is rare in southeastern Idaho. And controversial. Range expansion into the Pacific Northwest has brought the Barred Owl into contact with the closely related cousin, the Spotted Owl. The more aggressive Barred Owl has been known to displace and even hybridize with the Spotted Owl, a further threat to that already endangered species. This is North America’s third largest owl by size, smaller than the Great Grey Owl and Great-horned Owl. It’s a generalist…
Why Alaskans Hate the Government
You know that old song from the 70s, “If you can’t report on the governmental body you know, report on the governmental body you’re with.” Or something like that. Anyway, I’m here, so… DATELINE: DELTA JUNCTION, ALASKA – Somewhere south of the Granite Mountains, somewhere east of Fairbanks, west of the Canadian border, and squarely in the middle of what most Americans would call “nowhere.” The current temperature is about -20F with the wind chill factor. I don’t even know what it is without the wind chill factor because frankly, here, it doesn’t matter. Wind chill factor is everything. The…
Happy Birthday to the father of Alaska statehood & why Trump would hate him
Happy birthday to the father of Alaska statehood… and here’s why Trump would hate him. The list is long. When you think of Alaska, you probably think the reddest of the red – half-term governor Sarah Palin, almost-US-Senator Joe Miller, and the longest serving member of the House of Representatives (which I still cannot explain to anyone who asks) Don Young. But I like to remember when we had someone else with different ideas at the helm. He was the 7th Territorial Governor, and one of the two first U.S. Senators from the brand new state of Alaska – Ernest…
Two cents a bullet. Are you in?
There are still active GoFundMe pages for victims of the Las Vegas mass shooting. Yes, still. More than 500 people were hit with bullets that day. Fifty-eight died. Many of those who survived the shooting are just trying to figure out how to pay their bills. Some are trying to learn to walk. Feed themselves. They will never be OK. This past week there were three school shootings in America. Maybe you missed them since they don’t make headline news very often. It’s just part of the risk we endure with all this freedom. People are donating money to pay…
Guess What Happened to Palin’s Attorney?
It’s time for our latest once-in-a-while episode of “What Ever Happened to…?” wherein we discover the fate of some of our favorite Palinbots from the bygone era of the shortest gubernatorial term in Alaska state history. In our last episode we discovered that Truth Squad team captain Ed O’Callaghan made his way all the way to the White House where he delivered a misleading report on immigration last month! We’re all so proud. This week, I’m excited to report that we’re keeping up with one of our most favoritest ever villains in the Palin melodrama. Long-time Mudflatters may remember him…
The Return of Bird of the Week: Greater Sage Grouse
The Greater Sage Grouse is an iconic species of the Western United States. It’s also near-threatened. Preserving its habitat is one of the hot button issues of conservation in the United States. This is North America’s biggest grouse, with the males sometimes weighing more than six pounds. Thy are famous for their lekking behavior: the males assemble in a relatively small area to engage in a complex display and compete for the attention and breeding privileges. Mostly the females show a studied indifference to the males’ conduct. Greater Sage Grouse are sagebrush obligates, meaning they depend on relatively undisturbed sagebrush…