The Weekend Off – News You Missed
Alaska ADN – Study envisions possible fallout from a Canadian Beaufort oil spill A well blowout, pipeline breach or vessel accident in the Canadian Beaufort Sea could spew spilled oil westward for months, polluting waters off Alaska and soiling habitat used by whales, seals and migrating seabirds, according to a study released Friday by the World Wildlife Fund. Fairbanks Daily Miner – Pro-marijuana legalization group urges opponents not to get all drunk at fundraiser The Campaign to Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol today urged attendees of the anti-legalization group’s Anchorage fundraiser to “exercise caution” because the event is co-hosted by a former…
Netroots Nation Photo Album, Day 1
When I moved to Alaska at 24 years old, I’d never been here, knew not a soul, had no job, and $300 in my pocket. But I was off on a grand adventure to a foreign land. When I touched down in Anchorage in the middle of February after a mind-blowing flight 3 and a half hours north from Seattle, this guy was the first to greet me. I never knew what became of him after the big airport renovation all those years ago, but I found him by the Frontier Airlines check-in. He hasn’t changed. At 14 hours…
Forgotten Founding Father: William Woodford
Not every one who played a part in the Revolution made it to sign the Declaration. This is a picture of Brigadier General William Woodford. I am a direct descendent of his. We talk about the “founding fathers” often enough – but there were so many who gave their lives and had their names forgotten to break away from England. According to history, “He served in the French and Indian War as an ensign in Colonel George Washington’s Virginia Regiment, and was promoted to lieutenant in 1761. During that year he served in the Cherokee expedition under William Byrd and…
Sen. Kelly Gets His Way – Pregnancy Tests in Bars
Yes, Alaska Senator Pete Kelly is getting his way. As the Anchorage Daily News reported back in March, Pete Kelly of Fairbanks wanted to distribute pregnancy tests in bar bathrooms. In case you forgot watch the video below for a reminder – The pregnancy test questions start at about 1 min into the video. Q. The idea is to make pregnancy tests available for free? A. You grab one. Literally, you can go into the bathroom at the bar and test. So if you’re drinking, you’re out at the big birthday celebration and you’re like, ‘Gee, I wonder if I …?’…
Palin and #WTF Foreign Policy
by Jeanne Devon and Zach Roberts Half-term Governor Sarah Palin has once again decided to demonstrate the flexibility of her intellectual consistency, and take a firm stand on two sides of a controversial issue. Last week she claimed that President Obama “blew it again,” with a deal that traded five members of the Taliban for the return of captive U.S. Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl. Bergdahl stated that he had been tortured and kept in a cage during his nearly five years as a prisoner of the Taliban. That didn’t seem to be reason enough for the President to work for the…
NOT Made in Alaska – DC Dan Buys from New Zealand
Earlier this week Jeanne Devon documented the hilariously unfortunate copy and paste job of Dan Sullivan’s website. “Carpetbagging Republican Senate candidate Dan Sullivan (OH->DC->AK) is running against incumbent Senator Mark Begich (D-AK) this fall. When serious and professional candidates run for office, they usually hire someone to develop a website for their candidacy.” The Mudflats has now uncovered some new issues on his site. This time they’re not just from out of state, they’re from the other side of the planet. New Zealand, in fact. Most Alaskan politicos have their own stock of photography from their years in Alaska –…
Walking With the Ghosts of Exxon
It’s 5 a.m. on the 4th of July, and the alarm goes off. I open one eye and think surely I must have set it for the wrong time, but then I remember. Today I’m heading to Prince William Sound with Shannyn Moore and Zach Roberts. Our goal is to document the lingering effects of oil, still present in the Sound after the Exxon Valdez ran aground on Bligh Reef in the spring of 1989. It’s 2010, and a child born then would be 21 years old now. It’s hard to believe. I was not in Alaska back then. I,…
Exxon Spill – 25 Years of Tears
Time has a strange affect on events in our lives. I feel I’m looking through a glass of water when I look back 25 years to this day, March 24, 1989. I’d left Seattle University and the Ballard Lochs on the M/V Westward heading north through the Inside Passage of British Columbia for the sac roe herring fishery in Sitka. No time in my life is etched as clearly as that spring. There is a certain magic about following Spring to Alaska. Per my not so scientific study, I’ve determined Spring moves at about 9 nautical miles an hour, about…
Subaru Love, or How I Lived
Tuesday morning on my way to school, I was driving on one of the back road highways that criss-cross Upstate New York. Coming around a slight bend, I saw a car half out into the road I was driving on. I had a decision – slam on my brakes and hope for the best, or swerve around the car blocking the road. I went with the latter. Deciding not to go into the opposite lane behind the car I attempted to go in front of it. there was more space on the side of the road there, and I thought…
Farewell to a Historian and Mentor
“WHY do YOU have to argue with the professor EVERY class?! Can’t you just let him talk so I can write this stuff down, take a test, graduate and get a job?!” Oh, that was a weekly conversation with some of my UAF classmates. (You’re shocked, I know.) I sat enraptured by Terrence Cole’s take on history. He was right, the historical truth was often most boldly told in political cartoons rather than in textbooks. I listened in Dr. Pierce’s class. He was quite old, with even older maps. I told him once the continents had moved since his maps…