Anchorage Press

Press Picks 2010 WINNERS

You picked ‘em… the best of Anchorage

A double shot of rude - Two defendants in the Palmer courthouse provide lessons in bad behavior

Sidney Hill, the 52-year-old man known around Palmer as “Impeach Obama Guy,” was not the only person in Magistrate Craig Condie’s courtroom last Friday with a stubborn insistence that when it comes to free speech, society must yield to the speaker.

The Moore Report: Make sure you can write “Murkowski” legibly

As I write this, the Division of Elections is still finishing its absentee and questioned ballot count in the Joe Miller/Lisa Murkowski Republican primary race for the U.S. Senate. But Tuesday night, Lisa Murkowski conceded defeat.

Another death at King Park

Guest op-ed by Christopher Constant

Like father, like son - A famous Native artist and his gifted son battle their personal demons

During a recent purification ceremony inside the traditional sweat lodge he helped build in the maximum-security prison yard at Spring Creek Correctional Center in Seward, inmate 360-849, a.k.a. Jarvis Perez, experienced a revelation.

The Moore Report: Primary discoloration

There’s a difference between satisfaction and loyalty. In customer research, it’s been shown that what is important to a business isn’t so much how satisfied the customers are, but how loyal they are. What use is satisfaction when a customer will take off when someone else provides your service for five dollars less? Loyalty is key.

Campaign 2010 - Election Central, primary night

Click on the slide show to see images from Election Central the evening of Tuesday, August 24. Photo essay by Alex Fox.

Who's watching the city's Chihuahua? What the recent audit of Begich-era finances really reveals.

In boardrooms, and the Anchorage Assembly is the city’s boardroom in addition to being its lawmaking body, board members have something called “fiduciary responsibility.” “Fiduciary responsibility” is a somewhat technocratic term that’s easy to understand. It means being in charge of someone else’s interests. Suppose a family agrees to mind a friend’s Chihuahua while the friend is on a commercial fishing trip. That dog won’t feed itself. It won’t clean up after itself. And if the Chihuahua is left unattended, an eagle could swoop down and carry it off. There are lots of ways to fall short in the realm of fiduciary responsibility. They range from letting the Chihuahua crap on a carpet—an unexpected expense—to losing the asset entirely because no one was watching.

Letters from the issue of 8.26.2010

Disgusted by the political game

Willie Hensley on Ted Stevens - Uncle Ted: Pugnacious political papa

Forty-eight years ago, in the month of August in 1962, I met Ted Stevens in my home village of Kotzebue. I had decided not to return to the University of Alaska in Fairbanks that fall and was working for B and R Tug and Barge, owned by Edith Bullock, a former Republican territorial legislator. I had absolutely no concept of politics. Just nine years earlier, our family was living in a sod house twelve miles up the coast at Ikkatuq. I was trying to decide what to do with my life and Stevens was trying to set his course in life by running for the United States Senate. Lowell Thomas, Jr. was making a bid for the U.S. Congress and they were making a bush swing together. In those days, Alaska was very Democratic and the Republican duo was trying to make inroads in difficult territory.

Bauer power?

The dust-up involving right-wing radio mouth Dave Stieren on one side and the Joe-Miller-for-senate-backing Bauer family of East Anchorage on the other illustrates two important lessons about politics: 1) The vast gray area between “I quit” and “You’re fired” is as likely as any place for a political dust-up to end, and 2) Political bullies sometimes threaten to exercise power they don’t have.

The Moore Report: The best race

There's really only one race on the primary ballot Tuesday in which the outcome is in any doubt. That's the race on the Republican ballot for lieutenant governor. Fairbanks Representative Jay Ramras, Mead Treadwell and Eddie Burke are fighting this one out, and all indications seem to suggest it's going to be close. I know all three candidates so I thought I'd be in a fairly unique position to give some perspective on the race.

No money left to follow

Flashlight found one good sign among the numerous and criss-crossed tracks left by the herd of politic junkies running in the Alaska’s statewide primary. The Alaska Public Offices Commission seems to be moving faster, as evidenced by the APOC’s notice of a penalty levied on Alaskans for Open Government on August 5, a full 19 days before voters decide if the ballot measure the group supports will become law. The commission has long had a reputation for being under-funded, moving slowly and issuing decisions regarding campaign funding after the fact—after the votes have been cast and the alleged malfeasance has already affected an election.

Vote smart

The primary elections are upon us, on Tuesday, August 24. If you’ve missed our previous coverage of the big races, here are some handy links so you can refresh your familiarity with the two ballot measures and the statewide races.

A fine mess - The case of cat ladies, the seized laptop, the Fourth Amendment, the APD detective, the local TV news, the wolf hybrids, the court of appeals...

I knew attorney Ronald West was an animal lover before he showed up at the Press offices with a soda cup in hand that had dog hair stuck to it, apparently from the cup holder in his pickup truck, which has a paw-print logo sticker on the driver’s side. I knew he was an animal lover, and that he’d been defending fellow animal lover Deborah Allen in court.

Rite of passage

“You’re a brave soul,” said the grizzled commercial fisherman as he watched me pitch a tent on the aft deck of the M/V Matanuska. It wasn’t a compliment. The salty dog’s tone of voice and facial expression made his true meaning clear: “You’re a complete dumbass.”

The Moore Report - Say it ain't so, Lisa and Joe

Ten years ago, Lisa Murkowski was in the state house representing District 18. A year before, oil prices had dipped to a low at just over $9 per barrel, and Alaska was staring at a pretty bleak future, unable to fully fund its oil-dependent state government at those prices. Of course, we had the Constitutional Budget Reserve tucked away, which would see us through a couple of years, but after that… well, who knew?

Discrimination puts all Alaskans at risk

Guest op-ed by Shelby Carpenter

Coming next week: A remembrance of Senator Ted Stevens

Coming next week: A remembrance of Senator Ted Stevens

Letters from the issue of 8.12.2010

The argument for parental notification

The Grannies do Alaska

“Wow,” I thought. “The Grannies weren’t supposed to be this good.” I was standing on a chair in the back of the New Golden Saloon at the McCarthy Lodge in the small end-of-the-road town some 300 miles from Anchorage, watching the five guys I’d picked up at the airport some 28 hours earlier thrash around the stage area in colored wigs and old lady dresses, inspiring the first mosh pit ever in McCarthy’s only real bar.

Headway on the right-of-way?

Bicycle activists have been lobbying city officials behind the scenes in preparation for new right-of-way rules that have been months in the making. Anchorage’s traffic code rewrite has been shuttling between various city departments—the city’s traffic, police and legal departments are involved—as well as organizations of stakeholders such as community councils, professional transportation associations and organized bicycle commuters.

Immersed in the wild

Although I had been swimming on and off since moving from southwest Montana back to San Francisco in mid-January, my new season officially started on April 17th, the day I turned 60. It was a bright afternoon, the sun partially obscured by high thin clouds, gusts churning the surface of Aquatic Park, a manmade cove bounded by curved piers on the waterfront. That's where I swim, along with others whose notion of a swell time is plying chilly San Francisco Bay while wearing nothing but a cap and a Speedo. And chilly it was that day—water about 55 degrees, or 30 degrees cooler than the average municipal pool. Whatever pleasures await the cold-water sea swimmer—and they are incomparable, even, at times, transcendent—reaching them entails a certain amount of discomfort. Every swim begins with a double leap—the physical act of plunging into the water, the mental act of deliberately submitting to pain.

A pediatrician's take on Ballot Measure 2

Guest op-ed by Dr. Monique Karaganis

Letters from the issue of 8.5.2010

Senator Davis should address speech therapy

Blotter: Stoned fisherman edition

Thursday, August 26—Palmer police were called to the fairgrounds to arrest a 39-year-old Anchorage man who brought a gun to the fair. Blotter figures this would just be trespassing—fairgoers are not allowed to carry firearms on the property—but this genius has a prior felony, and is being charged for being a felon in possession of a weapon.

Blotter: Off-label mixer edition

Here’s a profile from a Thursday, August 12, Alaska State Trooper report with “hockey mom” written all over it: 48 years old; ID says she from Wasilla; Oldsmobile minivan parked at a certain Meadow Lakes gas-and-go; and, she’s allegedly taking prescription medications. (Blotter is guessing here, but what would you bet she’s got chronic back and/or neck pain from riding snowmachines and hefting hockey bags into the mini-van?) Blotter has nothing against hockey, mini-vans or motherhood—or pill popping, as long as it’s either therapeutic or practiced safely—but this lady was spotted driving erratically on the Parks Highway. Likely it was a scared shitless driver who dropped a dime on her and started troopers on a minivan hunt. Once found, troopers allege, Hockey Mom “failed field sobriety tests” meaning a cop ran more than one test, and used different types of tests. Blotter’s doc says lots have people have various medical conditions—chronic fatigue is one—that prevent the patient from passing a cop’s eye-ball tracking test, or maybe the hold-your-leg-and-count-backwards test, or even the motion test where you start in a crucifix pose then slowly move one finger to the tip of the nose. But Blotter’s legal advisers say people who fail several of these tests are usually quite buzzed. Besides, none of those medical conditions should prevent a patient from reading a label or asking a pharmacist one simple question: Can I drink when I take these pills? The answer is often “No”—and ignoring that warning is a dangerous gamble. It’s doubly dangerous—dangerous for everyone else—to do that and then drive a car.

Blotter: Sixth-degree misconduct edition

Police in Unalaska were called on Sunday, August 1 to a hotel where the security officer smelled marijuana in the hallway. They arrested a 26-year-old from Washington State, who gave the cops “a small baggie” and a pipe. Like many travelers, not to mention locals, the Dutch Harbor Cheechako apparently couldn’t parse the subtle differences between “legalized” and “decriminalized.” Dude, welcome to Alaska, home of sixth-degree misconduct involving a controlled substance, a category our lawmakers reserve for just one drug. Blotter is surprised an arrest was deemed necessary, but we weren’t present in the smoke-filled hotel room. Dude, next time carry a reliable lighter and smoke that shit outdoors. Sixth-degree misconduct is a pretty light charge and much heavier transgressions have been known to disappear on the famous Dutch Harbor winds.

Blotter: Electroshock edition

Slang terms are often first spoken among small tribes of people before working their way through the popular language by repetition until they’re considered widely adopted. Word nerds have suggested the expression “my bad”—uttered as an apology for a mistake that produced bad consequences—either sprang spontaneously from casual conversations among American college students in the early-1980s, or was minted on basketball courts in the 1970s during impromptu pick-up games in which players were encouraged to “call their own” fouls because a purely social game of hoops has no referee.

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