Five Past Anchorage Mayors Show Support For One Anchorage — Help Mudflats Do The Same!
Friday, there was a press conference at which five former mayors of Anchorage pledged their support to the One Anchorage Voter Initiative–one that will provide the same legal protections to gay and transgender folks in employment, housing, finances and business that other folks already receive. Per the press release: The bipartisan group consists of: US Senator Mark Begich; former Alaska Governor Tony Knowles; former Mayor Rick Mystrom; former Mayor Jack Roderick, and former Mayor Matt Claman. “Across the nation, you see more and more communities passing similar laws because it’s the right thing to do,” said Senator Begich. “I am…
The Casualty in Alaska’s Culture War
By Elstun Lauesen There is a culture war going on. And the epicenter of that culture war is right here in Alaska. It is outrageous in its brazenness and tragic in its effect. It is political in its tactic and economic in its objective. It is a classic tale of western frontier conquest. I am speaking, of course, of the war on the Native subsistence culture of Alaska. The passage of the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act (ANILCA) in 1980 linked federal land policy in Alaska to a subsistence use priority. Congress, in Title VIII of ANILCA, made…
Equal Rights on the Ballot – Community Leaders Stand Up for One Anchorage
Remember when Ordinance 64 came before the Assembly? It stated that the LGBT community should have basic equal rights when it comes to housing, education, employment and use of public facilities. Pretty basic stuff, right? Well, after almost 24 hours of public testimony (including testimony from people who didn’t even live in Anchorage, yet were bussed in from evangelical Wasilla churches), the Anchorage Assembly voted yes on the ordinance. And after weeks of debate, during what has been dubbed “The Summer of Hate”, Mayor Dan Sullivan had the hubris to circumvent the public process, and the vote of the Assembly….
Is Chris Christie “Pulling a Palin?” New Jersey Rape Survivors Billed for Forensic Kits
A rape kit is a forensic evidence kit, and is used to collect any physical evidence that may have been left behind by the rapist. It involves having the victim report to a medical facility as soon after the crime as possible, where samples are taken of hair, blood, fingernail scrapings, vaginal swabs and other invasive tests. It can be highly traumatic for the victim to have this type of evidence collected just after they have been sexually assaulted, but it is key to the identification, and prosecution of the perpetrator. Back in the late ’90s, in one community in…
The Real Tragedy of Sarah Palin
This piece is cross-posted at The Huffington Post – HERE. From the moment Sarah Palin’s acceptance speech electrified the Republican convention, she was seen as an unbending, hard-charging, red-meat ideologue—to which soon was added “thin-skinned” and “vindictive.” But a look at what Palin did while in office in Alaska—the only record she has—shows a very different politician: one who worked with Democrats to tame Big Oil and solve the great problem at the heart of the state’s politics. That Sarah Palin might have set the nation on a different course. What went wrong? This is the intriguing premise set forth…