Tomorrow, President Obama will address the joint houses of Congress for approximately 30 minutes, in an attempt to suppress some of the apprehension and opposition to the proposed health care reform legislation. Much of the fervor has been whipped up by our own former Governor, Sarah Palin, who as recently as today was on Facebook defending her errant “death panel” claims and worries about Government health care “rationing.”

Rep. Cissna

So, I would like to write for a bit about some Alaskan women who are not Sarah Palin. As I’ve learned quickly in all areas of Alaskan politics, if something is working, you can usually follow the trail back to a strong woman. And, attending the Alaska Women’s Political Caucus meeting last week which was themed around the health care discussion, the trend continued.

Representative Sharon Cissna has an impressive job resume. A thirty year Anchorage resident, she has represented Alaska’s 22nd district since 1998. She represents Anchorage’s Airport Heights district, which plays a central role in our state’s unique roll in health care. Operating on only a couple of hours of sleep, frantically preparing for UMedFest, she took the time to take part in this important discussion.

“My district is the university medical area, and we are the ones where it’s the institutions of last resort, its the place in our state where people from throughout the state come to get help. It is also the economic zone. An economic zone becomes extraordinarily important when we talk about health. It is driven in the United States by money. And money is the bottom line… When we’re talking about health in Alaska and in the United States, if you don’t put [Insurance Industry profits] right in there, you’re not really looking at it right.”

This past July, while federal legislators were gearing up for town hall meetings and vacations, Representative Cissna and her husband took their own personal state energy rebate checks, hopped in a canoe, and traveled down the Tanana and Yukon Rivers, stopping in native villages and communities to get a first hand look at what was really going on in those corners of the state that so often are not spoken for, listened to, or even acknowledged.

“We have to start working at the grass roots, and we have to start helping and listening to people, and that’s more important than any one other thing… In the government picture, we have to start paying attention to the people that we serve and knowing in fact what they need,” Rep. Cissna stated matter of factly.

And that has been her mission. This summer’s trip, which included visits to Manley Hot Springs, Tenana Village, Ruby, Galena, Koyukuk, Nulato, Kaltag, and Huslia, are one more leg of her Alaskan Health Odyssey. The project has been in the works for the past six years, spanning 57 communities, many which only boast populations of one or two hundred people and are so commonly glossed over despite the fact that gas prices there regularly maintain prices of $5 and $6 per gallon of gasoline in sub-zero temperature climates that rely on that gasoline for heating; places which saw much higher prices this past winter and are bracing for what many expect to only get worse in the coming months.

“We women have our challenges,” Cissna admits, “but, in rural Alaska, the highest suicides, the people that you see in really extreme trouble are in fact the men in rural Alaska… I think it was close to two thirds of the communities we went to, the mayors were women. The people who had wage jobs mostly were women… The state had closed off fishing, and the men were drinking. Because what else were they going to do? Its really interesting, a lot of the people in those communities were saying that they have found that subsistence is kind of something that was almost a thing of the past. Now, the problem is, in rural Alaska you cannot make it without subsisting, and yet this is what we’re doing to rural Alaska.”

And it is quite the mess. And just as many demonized the Bush administration for working as an instrument of advancing corporate greed at the cost of worker’s stagnant wages and outsourced jobs, increased poverty, damage to the environment, among a host of other counter intuitive policies, so Alaska under the Palin administration serves at the micro level. According to the Indigenous Environmental Network:

“Perhaps no issue is of greater importance to Alaska Native peoples as the right to hunt and fish according to ancient customary and traditional practices, and to carry on the subsistence way of life for future generations. Governor Sarah Palin has consistently opposed those rights.”

In a four point summary, they point out that Sarah Palin was abhorrently destructive to Alaska Native Culture through attacking Alaska Native subsistence fishing, subsistence hunting, tribal sovereignty, and native languages. It’s a deep hole that we now must work in a concerted effort to repair.

Another woman who knows the ramifications of the neglect to rural Alaska was a victim of the Palin administration; forced out because of her views on abortion. Bev Wooley, who has

Bev Wooley

been involved in the provision of public health services for over 20 years, serving as Director of the Alaska Division of Public Health for last two years. She also spent time working  in Barrow. She, alongside Representative Cissna, spoke to the Alaska Women’s Political Caucus, and addressed both the problems faced by our rural family as well as here in Anchorage, and the inherent common problems we all face:

“What we know is that when we have a well educated populace, their overall health status and health well being is greatly enhanced… We have to work to make sure that our early childhood education and our education system is there, its in place, and that women and children are getting the best education, because that will help to further their health access and their health throughout their life… We need to continue to work to help families meet their basic needs and increase their incomes. Without that stability, without the income, overall things like childhood education decreases; Your access to be able to go to the physician; Your access once you’re there to be able to go and get the meds that you need to take care of that; all begin to diminish. Children in poor families are 3.5 times as likely to have less optimal health, just by the mere fact that they don’t have the income.”

It’s simple. Investment. Between rural and urban Alaska, the education needs to be put in place. The income has to be kept level with the rising rates of managing life. Neglect can happen whether you have access to roads or not. And so can all the ailments that surface as its symptoms. What happens, as Representative Cissna pointed out, when the state takes away employment in these villages, stripping men of their livelihoods and leaving them to their drug and alcohol addictions? Wooley continues:

“When you look at sexual abuse and child abuse, what that leads to is a life filled with physical and mental health problems of the future. We know that we have a higher instance of alcoholism, depression, drug abuse, eating disorders, obesity, sexual promiscuity, smoking, the list goes on and on. And then… We begin that cycle all over again. So, when we’re talking we have to have a safe place for both the women and the children; all people should have that safe place. They need to be able to get the education so that they can understand and move forward. We need to get the income stability going out there.”

Alaska has massive problems with homelessness, violent crime including rape, and chronic inebriation; we consistently lead the nation. If the prescription is to uphold the previous administration’s stance which essentially was a call to categorically ignore the problem, we will continue to head down the absolute wrong path. And part of that problem is our breathtaking child homelessness rates in Anchorage. While we fight for health care for all Americans at a federal level, our homeless children continue to grow in their numbers. And it is not lost on our rural villagers. Representative Cissna related her accounts of this recognition, during her canoeing trip over the summer:

“Where we’re at is trying very, very hard to do what the people who we talked to [in the villages] when we were talking about how did they make it? And they said that ‘you urban people;’ all of them looked down at us. And, we [heard], on the subject of there being 3,000 homeless children in Anchorage, ‘you make a lot of comments about how bad our lives are, but how in the world could you have that many homeless children?’ They don’t have homeless children in those villages. They find homes for them.”

“And you look at a lot of the other things that are happening in Anchorage, we’re in trouble here. And they were saying, ‘maybe you should clean up your own backyards.’”

And that is, in fact, what Rep. Cissna, Bev Wooley, and so many other women in Alaska are dedicating their lives to doing. As State Senator Bettye Davis summed up:

“When you are working with people you do at some point have to compromise. But you do not compromise your values; those things that you know that you believe in, you hold to that and you work around that. And what I want you to do as constituents to our federal legislators… Tell them what we want. Encourage them to support what we want.

All these rumors are going around about what’s going to happen if we pass a health care bill and all of a sudden everbody’s concerned about socialism. We should forget all that, but I’m telling you… It is your job to try to get to people to make sure they have a good understanding of what we need to do to make our situation better for everybody in the United States, particularly our children.”

To some, that means keeping your hands at your side, and away from the bottle or the needle. To others, it is a call to a day where there is no more domestic violence and child abuse. To those in areas of poverty, it can mean doing whatever needs to be done to find every human being a home. To elected leaders, it means to never let neglect remain the status quo.

To us, it means that we need to keep a wary eye on our own backyard; to recognize the issues we confront realistically as societal challenges that we all need to address, and never label the problems afflicting our neighbors as their own, and leave them to sort it out alone. We are all family. We need to force the necessary change; be engaged and involved. And hopefully, each one of us will, in effect, be one more brick in the foundation of our children’s future and prosperity. Call it socialism if you want, I call it community. And it shouldn’t trickle down to us solely from policy instituted at a federal level. It should start with Alaska. It should start with us.

[For information regarding the Alaska Women's Political Caucus, visit their website, Facebook page, or email their communications director at Haronno@gmail.com; (I've kinda got a thing for her)]

[Originally published as an Opinion piece entitled "Protests are great, but learning and adaption will be even more essential" in the University of Alaska Anchorage's The Northern Light; newspaper is in the process of updating their website; no link available]

When I first moved up to Alaska, in the summer of 2006, I had absolutely no idea what to expect. I felt falsely prepared, having already visited every other state in the union, but that sense of security fell apart quicker than Sarah Palin’s poll numbers. Never far from my mind will be one of my first “Alaskan” memories, seeing a pick-up truck I in the parking lot of Carr’s on Minnesota with a bumper sticker that read: “Vote Confederate.”

I began to worry just what exactly the “Great White North” really meant.

Soon after those first weeks and months, however, after I had begun to get my sea legs, I found myself entrenched in a close-knit community of transplants. After the first day of my first job up here, a coworker emailed me with a quote that will never leave my thoughts: “Welcome to the refugee camp for the lower 48.”

Now, as I find myself starting a new chapter in my life in my first year as a degree seeking student at UAA (albeit ten years later than most), I find myself in a very strange tale of two cities. I feel immersed in a network of people who sought out Alaska, for education, opportunity, and future; brought together with a common bond to connect and prosper together, much like one can imagine it might have been in the late nineteenth century. Sure, that endeavor most likely resembled an episode of Deadwood more than out current “frontier with a Target” environment, and no doubt disagreements were as common as the moose blocking the pathway to your car in the winter. But I have to believe that community trumped your typical bar fight.

But there is an alternative worldview stepping loudly onto the main stage; a second Alaska. We’re starting to see an Alaskan population that follows rigid ideology with reckless abandon, and talks of “special rights” and “death panels” while planning a sunny retirement in Arizona, free of care for the future of Alaska.

On August 10th, we saw a “Tea Party” in downtown Anchorage to protest the state legislature’s special session to override former Governor Palin’s veto of stimulus energy funds. They money would help ease the burden on rural Alaskans, who last year saw oil prices eclipse the $8 per gallon mark, leaving countless without heating in subzero temperatures.

But the protesters carried signs criticizing the appointment of Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court. One group carried loaded guns in holsters and wore t-shirts proclaiming that “the 2nd Amendment was the first Homeland Security.”

It is absolutely patriotic to protest; even to raise hell when warranted. But what did any of this have to do with energy?

That same Monday, the Tea Party migrated to the Dena’ina Center, where Sen. Begich was delivering a speech regarding health care reform to the Chamber of Commerce. Outside, the Obama-backed Organizing for America was holding a press conference on the same topic. The demonstrators drowned out the speaker, and screamed over testimonies from Anchorage residents who had been denied health care, including one gentleman, suffering from lung cancer and using an assisted breathing apparatus, who was silenced by the cries that he was “Unamerican.”

When you combine these heated efforts with a summer spent fighting for a city ordinance that would extend equal protection under the law to our LGBT, peaking in a 7-4 vote by our Assembly in favor, and buried by a veto from our Mayor, the result is a serious problem facing our great state; a mentality stating that change is unacceptable, no matter what the cost to our neighbors, and facts be damned.

Our first Republican Governor, Walter Hickel, in a speech in 1955 regarding the future of Alaska, said: “I see using our resources for the benefit of the people both in our state and those who live other places and need the basics of life we can provide.”

Arguably more than the rest of the United States, Alaska relies on her strongest resource: the people. And the best innovations that initiate positive societal and economic change come from the cracks in the existing foundation. You learn from your mistake along the way, rather than blindly leaning on the status quo until it shatters and falls on your head. And from issues of chronic inebriates and homelessness to equality for all citizens, health care reform, renewable energy, and ushering in new development and business, we have more than our fair share of cracks.

The question that lingers, whether its a question of being a generational condition or symptom of poor leadership, is will we bother to notice before the sky really does fall; not from the “gay agenda” or “Obamacare,” but from our own refusal to learn and adapt?

Wednesday, August 20th. Two items on the agenda.

First off, a Town Tall Meeting with Sen. Lisa Murkowski.

5pm at A.J. Dimond High School

2909 West 88th Avenue in Anchorage

This is a mixed bag. For one, if the tea party outside the special session and its later assault on the Organizing for America press release outside the Dena’ina center offers any indication, we’re in for a whole bunch of crazy.

But, in fairness to Sen. Murkowski, she has maintained a grip on reality. On August 11th, she fired back at Sarah Palin’s outrageous “death panel” claims when she told the ADN:

“It does us no good to incite fear in people by saying that there’s these end-of-life provisions, these death panels. Quite honestly, I’m so offended at that terminology because it absolutely isn’t (in the bill). There is no reason to gin up fear in the American public by saying things that are not included in the bill.”

Good on Murkowski. Hearing this sort of cognition from the Republican party in the wake of the nazi ties and “death to gramma” fetishes is refreshing, although it is already causing major backlash if you read the conservative blogs and their comments. However, I am not willing to let Sen. Murkowski off the hook completely for accomplishing, what should be, the logical task of fending off the insane Facebook posts from our former Governor. If I am permitted to ask a question tomorrow, it will be a question from my wife (by proxy; she’ll be at work and then attending a brief private function).

A month or so ago, my wife spoke at the Organizing for America health care rally on the park strip in downtown Anchorage, regarding some tough times she has had getting medical coverage, even though she has insurance through Aetna. Accordingly, she sent off letters to both Sen. Begich and Sen. Murkowski asking them to support health care reform. Begich has yet to respond to either of our emails. Kudos?

On August 6th, she received a letter back from Murkowski’s office:

Dear Heather,

Thank you for contacting me regarding health care reform. I appreciate hearing from you and having this opportunity to share my thoughts and concerns about this important issue.

I share the belief that Americans should receive the best health care possible. Currently, too many Americans are only able to obtain limited, ineffective coverage, which limits their access to good heath care. Millions of Americans, and as many as 115,000 Alaskans, have no health insurance at all. Fixing this problem is too important not to get it right.

Congress needs to enact legislation that will provide an opportunity for all Americans to obtain meaningful health care coverage and obtain quality health care. I will support a health care reform bill that will increase the number of Americans with health care coverage, create incentives for preventative health care that reduces costs, and adequately reimburse our health care providers so that more are encouraged to care for individuals. The current proposal before Congress does not meet those goals. Reform must not come with a trillion-dollar-plus price tag, lead to the rationing of health care, or intrude in the doctor-patient relationship.

Simply expanding coverage through a federally-run program will not provide the quality and accessibility of care and coverage that is needed to combat the problem. America has experience with government-run health programs, and the results have been dismal. Medicare is a perfect example of a flawed government-run health care program. Across the country, and particularly in Alaska, Medicare beneficiaries are being turned away by health care providers because of inadequate reimbursement rates. These individuals, who technically have coverage, have seen their coverage rendered useless because they cannot actually receive care.

Unfortunately, the health care reform bill recently passed by the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee did not even come close to addressing my concerns. Accordingly, I voted against reporting the bill to the full Senate. I do not know what form the legislation will take when it is considered by the full Senate, as the Senate Finance Committee has not yet acted on its legislation. I assure you, however, when the Senate does engage in that debate, I will fight to ensure that any health care reform legislation truly provides for greater access to quality health care for Americans without crippling our economy in the process.

As this debate continues, I hope to keep an active dialog with Alaskans. In late July, I held a “Telephone Town Hall” to discuss health care with over 5,000 Alaskans. This months, I will hold several in-person town hall meetings in Alaska…

I hope you will join me in continuing this important discussion. Again thank you for contacting me.

Sincerely,

Lisa Murkowski

United States Senator

I am a bit torn about this response. She seems to dance the dance that many on both sides of the aisle are practicing (auditioning for Dancing with the Stars?); demanding and vying for health care, but not willing to stand up to anyone or even entertain the idea of a public option or solid alternative substitutes. Like so many others, she is quick to denounce medicare as a failed government run program without denying its success. Likewise, she won’t touch the success of our veteran’s health care (also government run, in need of expansion, but very successful). Dually, she is willing to sing with the choir regarding the trillion dollar price tag, but not willing to so much as dip her toe into the savings over the next ten years and beyond that a public option would facilitate.

But more important to me is the letter that my wife also received on the same day. This one from Aetna:

Dear Heather…

Thank you for choosing Aetna for your Individual and Family health insurance needs. Every year, we spend considerable time evaluating both medical cost history and current premium rates to ensure we can consistently provide superior products and services to our customers.

As indicated on the rate information provided in the initial enrollment materials you received, members who age into a new age band will receive a scheduled increase, therefore, effective OCTOBER [emphasis theirs] your new monthly rate we be $169.02

We appreciate your business and want to ensure our products and services meet your needs…

As always, thank you for choosing Aetna and we look forward to serving you in the future.

So, on the same day Sen. Murkowski informs my wife that a public option be too expensive and doomed for disaster, we are also informed that, because my wife has reached that dangerous age, bordering on expiration, of 25 years old, her insurance is jumping up fifty bucks a month. This coming only a few months after she had to take out a loan to get her wisdom teeth taken out, because Aetna has no coverage for that type of surgery in Alaska. Meanwhile, I sat in the waiting room, watching Glenn Beck, wishing I was the one getting my teeth yanked out.

We both have just gone back to school, enrolled in degree programs at the University of Alaska Anchorage. Aetna is letting my wife know that her insurance premiums are going to equal out to around $2,028 per year (a fraction of many Americans, which is frightening). However, given her class load, she is only afforded a twenty hour work week. Before taxes and without averaging in cutbacks during the summer, she is expected to make a whopping grand total of $7,410 in wages this year.

This means that over 27% of her income, before taxes and assuming that summer affords her overtime, goes to insurance. We’re left wondering how well our dog would perform on with one kidney.

Thus, after attempting to ask Sen. Murkowski her thoughts on this, I’m going to need a drink. At least, at this point, I’ll be joined by my wife, great friends, and hopefully you.

Drinking Liberally

Hope to share a good discussion with you all, over a nice Guinness, or whatever you fancy. I’m sure all of us who attend the town hall will be a bit in need of an adult beverage.

Get out tomorrow. Be active. Get involved.

Here’s my hero of the day, to leave you with:

[This is a repost with some updates, originally published in The Northern Light]

I’ve been holding my tongue throughout the past few weeks’ events. The truth is that, ever since my wife and I landed in Kona, Hawaii, on our honeymoon, and received a text from our roommate, at the airport, which simply said: “Palin resigned,” both our worlds took to a slightly new revolution.

Following that text message, we arrived at our hotel in Waikiki and caught up on the news coverage. My first initial thought was, “Oh my God, what if she had been President?!”

I emailed my editor at the Northern Light with the idea of a “What If” column.

She promptly responded, telling me to shut up, enjoy the honeymoon, and work on it when I got home. She is a very wise person.

I have collected many more thoughts in the time between. I’m not sure if I want to post them, or keep them to myself. It’s a Catch-22. Alaska has some profound problems, which I would rather spend my energy researching. But, in fairness, there was a complete lapse in leadership which supported these problems, under the Palin Administration.

After posting the text of her “farewell” speech, I’ve been fed a steady online diet of emails and comments from Palin supporters who simply agree with her rhetoric and don’t give a second thought about what she actually did during her tenure as Governor.

First and foremost in mind is the comment of one mother of a war veteran. She said that her heart is with Sarah Palin, because she never forgets to mention the troops.

I would remind her, as someone who has friends fighting over there as we speak, and two friends that I will never see again, because of these damnable wars, there is a clear line between “never forgetting to mention” our troops, and doing something to bring them home. Anything.

President Obama is still failing in this regard.

Sarah Palin is still picking fights.

We shouldn’t put all our stock in one political figure, in any party, and excuse them from the actions they take, just because he or she may know us by name, or represent us, or be the first figure from a small state that doesn’t often get noticed, or included.

What the hell has Sarah Palin done for our troops, aside from acknowledging their existence? I, for one, demand more.

Here is the article as it appears in The Northern Light:

Alaska is still spinning after a single resignation struck our state like a mack truck.

But starting July 26, are Americans lucky that we are only losing an Alaska governor? Less than a year ago, then-governor Palin accepted the vice presidential slot in the McCain campaign. Only a handful of months separate now from when Palin was touring the country with nothing but a $150,000 wardrobe and a dream, collecting ethics complaints along the way.

If the “mavericky” one-liners and Bill Ayers references had worked and brought the Straight Talk Express to the White House, and a tragedy forced the would be 72-year-old McCain to leave office, how would the Sarah Palin drama unfold, now with a potential nuclear football in hand?

Under the Bush administration America was bruised badly; enduring two wars, a weakened economy, and a catalogue of other ailments. Given her often erratic behavior, it would be impossible to flawlessly predict how President Palin would govern, but also irresponsible to dismiss a scenario that many still wish to see play out.

“There’s a time for politics and a time for leadership; a time to campaign and a time to put our country first,” Palin told the Republican National Convention, back in September, to roaring chants of “USA! USA!”

So (and godwilling, hypothetically) if that door opened, what would Sarah do?
Economically, she has lambasted the current administration, asking “Since when can you get out of huge national debt by creating trillions of dollars of new debt?”

A great question from one who has swollen the state of Alaska’s operating budget by 27 percent over the last two years (An $11 billion budget in 2009 alone) and as mayor of Wasilla increased the city’s budget by 63 percent, all while refusing to call a state of emergency in rural Alaska, where this winter saw heating oil prices climax the $8 mark, forcing many villagers to abandon their way of life and move to Anchorage – a plan of recourse suggested by Palin – where they were ill prepared to thrive, and thus, in many cases, unable to adjust. We now are struggling with a growing, and often fatal, homeless problem in town. Nearly 3,000 Anchorage residents have no home.

U.S. Domestic policy might be a Herbert Hoover history lesson, if left up to Sarah Palin.
And what of foreign policy? Our Governor minces no words when it comes to foreign leaders at odds with the U.S. Of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, she wrote in a speech intended to be delivered to the UN: “He must be stopped.”

Similarly, during the presidential campaign, she broke from McCain, stating her belief that North Korea should be taken off the list of terrorist states. But when they pointed their missiles at us, that opinion changed faster than the point guard could pass the ball.

To top this list off, when Russia invaded Georgia, she famously told Charlie Gibbs: “If another country is attacked, you’re going to be expected to be called upon to help.”
International policy, under “President” Palin, conceivably could look less like relations and more like an exercise in picking fights.

This is the strong suit of our outgoing governor. Whether it is aimed at world leaders, late night talk show hosts, journalists, colleagues or bloggers, Palin is in the game of taking offense and reacting poorly.

She was shocked that Alaskans demanded help in rural Alaska, shocked that we expected her to fulfill her duties as the highest elected official in state, and shocked that we held her accountable when she did not.

It’s one thing to lash out at David Letterman, it’s another thing entirely to engage in a nuclear shouting match with other sovereign states at the detriment of your constituency.
A Palin presidency would most likely look identical to her governorship; heavy on headlines, lacking in substance, and completely reliant on the approval ratings of her steadfast supporters. Even in stepping down, it is not the Alaskan pin on her lapel that holds her up. It is those who follow her blindly.

But would that ardent support hold up if she resigned as president? If the mounting pressure was too much in her roll atop Alaskan politics, how long could the “hottest governor” stay cool as leader of the free world? As soon as Alaskans started asking questions of their governor who campaigned on transparency, she seemed to lose interest in the conversation. Americans ask a lot of questions and expect a lot of answers. How long would a nation stay satisfied on a diet of tweets alone?
Would her devoted supporters remain understanding through all of this? Will they still be condemning the liberal elitist media and chanting “Go Sarah Go!” as their “Return-to-Reaganism” candidate departs the White House lawn aboard Marine 1 in a final farewell, spotlighted on the 24 hour news networks, finally ending with the swearing in of our new president, Nancy Pelosi?

I have noticed quite a bit of traffic on AKC today due to my transcription of Sarah Palin’s farewell speech. Also noted have been some of the places that have linked folks here.

I’m not going to poke fun at her, personally. Most know my opinions, and this site isn’t about that. I have agreed with her rarely, and been critical of her frequently, but I feel that, on this site at least, I have been fair. Arguably, more times than not, fairer than she has been to my colleagues.

Either way, if you find this offensive, you need to lighten up. Whatever you think of Sarah Palin.

[Unofficial Transcript of Sarah Palin's farewell address at the Governor's Picnic in Pioneer Park, Fairbanks, AK ]

Thank you so much. Oh, thank you so much for that very warm welcome. What an absolutely beautiful day it is and it is my honor to speak to all Alaskans, to our Alaskan family, this last time as your Governor. And it is always great to be in Fairbanks. The rugged… hardy people who live up here and some of the most patriotic people whom you will ever know live here, and one thing that you are known for is your steadfast support of our military community up here and I thank you for that and thank you United States Military for protecting the greatest nation on Earth, together we stand.
And getting up here, I say it is the best road trip in America, soaring through nature’s finest show; Denali, the great one, soaring under the midnight sun. And then the extremes. In the winter time it’s the frozen road that is competing with the view of ice fogged, frigid beauty, the cold though, doesn’t it split the cheechakos from the sourdoughs? And then in the summer time, such extreme, summer time, ’bout a hundred and fifty degrees hotter than just some months ago, then just some months from now. With fireweed blooming along the frost heaves and merciless rivers that are rushing and carving and reminding us that here, mother nature wins. It is, as throughout all Alaska, that big, wild, good life, teeming along the road that is north to the future. That’s what we get to see every day. Now, what the rest of America gets to see, along with us, is in this last frontier, there is hope and opportunity and there is country pride. And it is our men and women in uniform securing it and we are facing tough challenges in America with some seeming to just be hellbent maybe on tearing down our nation, perpetuating some pessimism and suggesting American apologetics [sic]; suggesting perhaps that our best days were yesterdays. But as other people have asked, how can that pessimism be when proof of our greatness and our pride, today, is that we produce the great, proud volunteers who sacrifice everything for country?
Now, this week alone, Sean Parnell and I, we were on the, on Fort Rich, the base there, the army chapel, and we heard the last roll call and the sounding of taps for three very brave, very young Alaskan soldiers who just gave their all for all of us. Together we do stand with gratitude for our troops who protect all of our cherished freedoms, including our freedom of speech, which, par for the course, I’m going to exercise.
And, first, some straight talk for some, just some, in the media, because another right protected for all of us is freedom of the press, and you have such important jobs reporting facts and informing the electorate, and exerting power to influence. You represent what could and should be a respected, honest profession that could and should be a cornerstone of our democracy. Democracy depends on you, and that is why, that’s why our troops are willing to die for you. So, how about, in honor of the American soldier, you quit makin’ things up?
And, don’t underestimate the wisdom of the people, and one other thing for the media, our new governor has a very nice family too, so leave his kids alone.
Okay, today is a beautiful day, and today, as we swear in Sean Parnell, no one will be happier than I to witness, by God’s grace, Alaskans with strength of character advancing our beloved state. Sean is that, Craig Campbell has that. I remember on that December day, we took the oath to uphold our state constitution, and it was written right here in Fairbanks by very wise pioneers. We shared the vision for government that they ground in that document. Our founders wrote: All political power is inherent in the people. All government originates with the people. It’s founded upon their will only and its instituted for the good of the people as a whole. Their remarkably susinct words guided us in all of our efforts in serving you and putting you first. And we have done our best to fulfill promises that I made on Alaska Day, 2005, when I first asked for the honor of serving you. Remember then, our state so desired and so deserved ethics reform. We promised it, and now it is the law. Ironically, it needs additional reform to stop playing to views from partisan operatives and I hope the law makers will continue that reform.
We promised you that you would finally see a fair return on your Alaskan owned natural resources, so we built a new oil and gas appraisal system, and this is an equitable formula to usher in a new era of competition and transparency and protection for Alaskans and the producers. ACES incentivises new exploration and it’s the exploration that is our future. It opens up oil basins and it ensures that people will never be taken advantage of again. Don’t forget, Alaskans, you are the resource owners per our constitution. And that’s why, for instance, last year, when oil prices soared and state coffers swelled, but you were smacked with high energy prices, we sent you the energy rebate. See, it’s your money, and I’ve always believed, you know how to better spend it than government can spend it.
I promised that we would protect this beautiful environment while safely and ethically developing resources and we did. We built the petroleum oversight office and a sub-cabinet to study climate conditions. And I promised we’d govern with fiscal restraint, so as not to immorally burden future generations. And we did. We slowed the rate of government growth, and I vetoed hundreds of millions of dollars of excess and with lawmakers, we saved billions for the future. I promised that we’d lead a charge to forward funding education and hold schools accountable and improve opportunities for special needs students, and elevate Votech training. And we paid down pension debt.
I promised that we would manage our fish and wildlife for abundance, and that we would defend the constitution. And we have, though outside special interest groups, they still just don’t get it on this one. Let me tell you, Alaskans, Alaskans need to really stick together on this, with new leadership in this area especially, encouraging new leadership. Gotta stiffen your spine to do what’s right for Alaska when the pressure mounts, because you’re gonna see anti-hunting, anti-2nd Amendment circuses from Hollywood. And here’s how they do it: They use these delicate, tiny, very talented celebrity starlets, they use Alaska as a fundraising tool for their anti-2nd Amendment causes. Stand strong and remind them, patriots will protect our individual, guaranteed right to bare arms, and, by the way, by the way, Hollywood needs to know, we eat, therefor we hunt.
I promised energy solutions, and we have, we have a plan calling for 50% of our energy generated by renewable resources, and we can now insist that those who hold the leases to develop our conventional resources, that they do so now on Alaska’s terms. So now, finally, after decades of just talk, finally, we’re seeing oil and gas drilling up there at Point Thompson. And I promised that we would get a natural gas pipeline underway and we did. Since I was a little kid growing up here, I remember the discussions, especially the political discussions, just talking about and hoping for and dreaming of commercializing our clean, abundant, needed natural gas. Our Gas line Inducement Act, AGEA, that was the game changer. And this is thanks to our outstanding gas line team. And the legislature adopting this law 58 to 1. They knew, they know, AGEA is the vehicle to drive this monumental energy project and bring everyone to the table, this bipartisan victory, it came from Alaskans working together with free market, private sector principles, and now we are on the road to the largest private sector energy project in the history of America. It is for Alaska’s future, it is for America’s energy independence, and it will make us a more peaceful, prosperous, and secure nation. What I promised, we accomplished. We, meaning, state staff, amazing commissioners, great staff members assisting them, and the conscientious Alaskans outside the bureaucracy; Tom Van Flein and Meg Stapleton and Kristin Cole, so many others, many volunteers who just stepped up to the challenge as good Alaskans, but nothing, nothing could have succeeded without my right hand man, Chris Perry. She is the sharpest, boldest, hardest working partner; Chris is my right hand man and much success is due to Chris.
So much success, and Alaska, there is much good in store further down the road. But to reach it, we must value and live the optimistic, pioneering spirit that made this state proud and free. And we can resist enslavement to big, central government that crushes hope and opportunity. Be wary of accepting government largess. It doesn’t come free and often accepting it takes away everything that is free. Melting into Washington’s powerful, care taking arms will just suck incentive to work hard and chart our own course right out of us. And that not only contributes to an unstable economy and dizzying national debt, but it does make us less free.
I resisted the stimulus package… I resisted the stimulus package and we have championed earmark reform, slashing earmark request by eighty five percent to break the cycle of dependency on a stifling,  unsustainable federal agenda. And other states should follow this for their and for America’s stability. We don’t have to feel that we must beg an allowance from Washington, except to beg the allowance to be self determined. See, to be self sufficient, Alaska must be allowed to develop, to drill and build and climb to fulfill statehood’s promise. At statehood we knew this. At statehood we knew this, that we are responsible for ourselves and our families and our future, and fifty years later, please let’s not start believing that government is the answer. It can’t make you happy or healthy or wealthy or wise. What can? It is the wisdom of the people. And our families and our small businesses and industrious individuals, and it is God’s grace, helping those who help themselves. And then this allows that very generous voluntary hand up that we’re known for enthusiastically providing those who need it.
Alaskans will remember that, years ago, remember, we sported the old bumper sticker that said: Alaska, we don’t give a darn how they do it outside. Remember that? I remember that, and remember it was because we would be different. We’d roll up our sleeves and we would diligently sew and reap and we can still do this, to carve wealth out of the wilderness and make our living on the water with strong hands and innovative minds, now with smarter technology, is what our first people and our parents did. It worked, because they worked. We must be prudent and persistent and press for the people’s right to responsibly develop God given resources for the maximum benefit of the people.
And we have come so far in just fifty years. We’re no longer a frontier outpost on the periphery of the world’s greatest nation. Now, as a contributor and a securer of America, we can attain our destiny in the promise of our motto, north to the future. See, the pressing issue of our time, it’s energy independence because there is an inherent link between energy and security and energy and prosperity. Alaska will lead with energy. We will prove you can be both pro-development and pro-environment because no one loves their clean air and their land and their wildlife and their water more than an Alaskan. We will protect it.
Yes, America must look north to the future, for security, for energy independence, and, for our strategic location on the globe. Alaska is the gatekeeper of the continent. So, we are here today at a changing of the guard. Now, people who know me, and they know how much I love this state, some still are choosing not to hear why I made the decision to chart a new course to advance the state. And it should be so obvious to you. It is because I love Alaska this much, sir, that I feel it is my duty to avoid the unproductive, typical, politics as usual, lame duck session in one’s last year in office. How does that benefit you?
No, with this decision now, I will be able to fight even harder for you, for what is right, and for truth. And I have never felt that you need a title to do that. So, as we all move forward together, let’s vow to keep championing Alaska, to advocate responsible development, and smaller government, and freedom, and when I took the oath to serve you, I promised, remember I promised, to steadfastly and doggedly guard the interests of this great state, like that grizzly guards her cubs; as a mother naturally guards her own. And I will keep that vow wherever the road may lead. Todd and I, and Track, Bristol, Tripp, Willow, Piper, Trigg, I think I got ‘em all, we will forever be so grateful for the honor of our lifetime to have served you; our whole big diverse, full and fun family, we all thank you. And, I am very very blessed to have had their support all along, for Todd’s support. I am thankful too. I have been blessed to have been raised in this last frontier. Thank you for our home, Mom and Dad, because, in Alaska it is not an easy living but it is a good living, and here it is impossible to lose your way, wherever the road may lead you, we have that steady great North Star to guide us home. So, let’s all enjoy the ride, and I thank you Alaska. God bless Alaska and God bless America.

]]> http://politicalmorsels.com/2009/07/21/the-ice-bitch-has-been-implicated/ Tue, 21 Jul 2009 22:44:09 +0000 D http://politicalmorsels.com/2009/07/21/the-ice-bitch-has-been-implicated/

Our favorite Alaskan Governor, with a Minnesotan accent that I have never been able to figure out, is back in the news… again.  For this round she’s been implicated in an ethics probe for accepting private donations in order to pay off her legal debts from prior ethics complaints against her.  It is believed that (future ex) Gov. Palin authorized a private trust to be used as an official legal defense fund to woo in supporters.  It’s sort of a big no-no to use a public government position for private gain.

Perhaps she should find some way of earning money in order to pay off her debts by legal means.  I have a few thoughts, doing a gig in Nevada comes to mind… and I don’t mean Vegas. Don’t tell me that she’s above it when you know she’s not.

[Originally posted on SOSAnchorage.net (...by my wife, and I am a proud and gloating husband)]

I hope you all are enjoying your weekend.  The weather was overcast in Anchorage today, but the temperature was pleasant, and there were many festivities going on about town.  Hopefully some of you made it out to have fun.  We were working on a big project that I hope you guys will be excited about once we have our big reveal, but enough of that for now.

This Tuesday, July 21, will mark the 6th public Assembly hearing for the Equal Rights Ordinance, Ordinance A02009-64.

I’m not good at inspiring speeches.   I feel like I’ve been putting the same “buck up, kiddo” message up on this blog every time we’ve gone in to one of these Assembly meetings.  I don’t want to do that today.  I want to tell you why I’m fighting this fight.

I’m straight.  Whew, I said it.  There it is.  It was a hard realization to come to, and it took many years to be able to admit it.  Let me clarify that, to say that I am NOT a person who is homosexual that has gone through a “retraining” program.  Instead, I’m someone who used to really want to be gay.  Or at least bisexual.  When I entered my senior year of high school in Virginia Beach, VA, I discovered that both of my best friends were gay.  One of them revealed to me that he had been so torn up about revealing this to anyone, that he had attempted suicide.  I was stunned, and ashamed that I had never made it clear to my friends that I would accept them for who they were, unconditionally.  I resolved to be a better friend.

As the year progressed, that same friend entered into a relationship with his first boyfriend.  They were happy, and I was happy for them.  I started to question my own orientation, playing out scenarios in which I might be a lesbian, and how I would tell my parents if that should happen.  I self-indulged in crushes on my female friends, and waited for it to hit me that I was “gay.”  I waited to embrace my alternative-lifestyle.  I intentionally left out gender-specific descriptors when I was talking about people I liked to my parents, testing to see their reaction.  I couldn’t wait to be gay, like all of the cool people I knew.

Near the end of school year, we decided to start a Gay-Straight Alliance at Princess Anne High School, which I believe was the first chapter of that organization to have a presence in the Virginia Beach school system.  We went through the proper channels, got a teacher to sponsor us, and filed our paperwork.  I got called into a meeting with one of the vice-principals, who expressed his concern that we would having meetings just so people could “find a date.”  I assured him that this was not the case, but if we were not allowed to have this club we would be happy to contact the school district through an attorney that had offered to defend our group based upon “possible discriminatory actions.”  We got the approval for the club within the next week.

We didn’t have much time to organize, but we did get a good amount of interest from the student population, both from people interested in joining and those interested in harassment.  This was probably the most rebellious thing that I had done up until this point, and I was regularly filled with giddy excitement and worry at possible recriminations from the school administration.  Our meetings focused on building a sense of community and friendship amongst the members, as well as preparation for confrontations with other students or adults that they might have to deal with.

My friends and I scattered to different places very soon after graduation.  We said our heartfelt goodbyes to each other and promised to keep in touch.  I moved to California while my friends stayed on the East coast.  I rather disappointedly realized that while I could appreciate the female form, I wasn’t attracted to it in the same way.  I was stuck being straight, but I did get to enjoy the news that  on June 26, 2003 in Lawrence vs. Texas, the U.S. Supreme court ruled that sodomy laws were unconstitutional.  I danced around the living room, waving the newspaper at my mother.  It was a good day.

After that, life got in the way, and I lost ties with the GLBT community for awhile, other than the occasional chats with my friends.  I moved up to Alaska, and took heart in how supportive the residents were.  I loved how people didn’t feel like they needed to push their opinions into other people’s lives.  I reveled in the great community I had moved to.

I still live in that community, and I will continue to stay here and fight for the rights of my friends, so that they can live in this community with me and know that they have a legal course of action if they are unfairly discriminated against by an employer, or by their landlord, or by anyone else for that matter.  I and they know that this ordinance won’t make hatred and discrimination go away, but it will give them somewhere to turn when they are harassed because of who they are.  I will stand and fight with them, and with you, to make this community the place that it should be.

My husband and I will be there on Tuesday, we will be there for the next meeting, and we will be there for the fights that come afterward to defend our neighbors from those who act against them out of misdirection from their religious leader, Jerry Prevo.  He is not a part of this community, because the community that I have known and loved for the years I have been here is better than anything Jerry could hope to understand.  He is too filled with fear of anything that is different and unknown.  He is too filled with hate to see the love that this community is capable of, and demonstrates on a day to day basis. Prevo’s followers may argue that this ordinance has caused division within the community, but the truth is that this ordinance was not a controversial issue until Jerry decided to take issue with it, as he has both times a version of this ordinance has been presented to the Anchorage Assembly, and the charge that lead to a ban on gay marriage in the nineties.  He has built his career out of hatred, and I am not willing to let him win this time.  He is a pitiable man and a bully, but he does not dictate the behavior of the Anchorage community.

I will be there on Tuesday.  I hope you will be, too.

I want to know why you’re fighting for this cause.  It may affect you personally, it may affect one of your friends or family, but I want to know why you care about this fight.

Might Alaska be on the fast track to a major political shift? Not necessarily from red to blue, but instead we may be fast approaching an even more monumental and important reshaping in our society.

What if we said “enough” to the our rich addiction to political dynasties? What if we measured a candidate on merit above celebrity; on ideas rather than tired rhetoric? What if we sought solutions rather than sermons; pragmatism as an alternative to rigid ideology? What if we put our trust back in the hands of our diverse community; our family, and away from the societal bullies who have nothing to offer other than stagnant hate?

Is it really possible to stand up as one? Not just as We the People, but more importantly, as We the Future of Alaska, and take the power back?

It’s a long shot, but it could happen. And there are two names at the center of it all: Andrew Halcro and Bob Poe.

This past Wednesday, Bob Poe ventured into the largely conservative audience of Mark Colavecchio’s radio show on KFQD. Largely unknown to the community, Poe has recently embarked on a camper tour of Alaska, affectionately coined as the “Sausage and Politics” tour. While the name may suggest something more in the artistic styling of one Mark Sanford, in reality, the tour has aimed to both serve as an introductory circuit for Poe to establish himself as a legitimate candidate, and also to firm up his convictions that he will be the Governor of all of Alaska, including those pesky surrounding areas outside the municipality of Anchorage that Governor Palin was so consistent in ignoring, in accordance with her administration’s rural Alaskan policy of “I don’t wanna talk about it.”

“I think one of the really important things that all gubernatorial candidates need to remember is that Alaska is a lot bigger than Anchorage. We can get kind of Anchorage-Mat-Su-Valley-centric here,” Poe honestly admitted.

Further expressing an extended focus on the entirety of Alaska, Poe discussed the state executive failures all too well known to locals in urban and rural Alaska:

“I think that Alaska really hasn’t moved forward very much in the last at least couple of Governors… One of the great things about Anchorage and Alaska in general is we’ve just seen a long stint of steady growth, and slow and steady growth… You hear a lot of people talk about sustainable economy. What that really means is growing at about one and a half, two percent a year. That, Alaska can easily absorb that. We can accommodate it. We can work it into where our future is going.”

The point is well taken. Alaska in recent years has been reduced to an uninspiring state of inertia in relation to forward leading legislation. The strategies have been more about not stirring the pot. It’s one thing to be careful. It’s another thing entirely to be motionless.

In one harsh example of this, as a state, we have opted to turn a blind eye on rural Alaska and demanded our native culture to follow a course of assimilation, resulting in a laundry list of shortfalls. Native Alaskans are either starving and freezing in their home villages, or being forced into Anchorage, without adequate assistance from our government, where they fall on even harder times and end up living on our streets.

“Homelessness in Anchorage is growing. And the number of homeless families and individuals continues to outnumber emergency and low-cost housing available in the city. Those were just two of the bleak observations contained in an annual update on homelessness in Anchorage.” [APRN, October 2008]

Furthermore, the local drug (especially heroin) and alcohol problems are on the rise, with a shrinking number of treatment facilities and expanding wait list times. The ADN reported a little over a year ago that “39 percent of those on the wait list in 2007 reported heroin as their drug of choice. That jumped to 62 percent in the first quarter of this year. At the same time, 77 percent also reported being injection drug users.” The same article also noted that “the Interior AIDS Association in Fairbanks is at capacity, as is the Anchorage clinic, which has a 27-person waiting list. As recently as May, there were 45 on it. But after months of waiting, many stopped calling.”

A rapid decrease in the number of clinics has forced many treatment facilities to limit their patient

intake to only pregnant women. This in no way benefits our community, and is shameful in its upward momentum and lack of reaction by elected officials.

When a multitude of administrations fail to address dire situations, dire consequences result. By sweeping our homeless under the rug, we have, morally and economically, damned ourselves. There is no quick fix, but instead a choice between allowing further decay or drawing a line in the sand and begin a societal reconstruction, starting with measures for improving health care, energy costs, and education for all Alaskans. Sound familiar?

Poe seems to fully grasp the scope of our young state’s problems, attributable to his extensive resume covering 28 years split between the public and private sector in Alaska, and also the relationship he shares with his wife, Terzah Tippin Poe, who is of Inupiat heritage and is both a fierce and accredited advocate of promoting Native Alaskan values and supporting improvements to all aspects of their quality of life; a stance we all need to take as Alaskans.

Wasting no time, Poe delved deeper into his vision of how we start down that new path of correcting a great and growing wrong in our community:

“A really interesting company called STG, Jim St. George, came to us and he said, ‘What we’re going to do is take the welding instructors from the King Career Center and the University, we’re going to take them out to, I forget which town it was, but it was way out there in Western Alaska, and we’re going to train them to be welders.’ So they got about twelve guys to sign up for this welding instruction; they did about six weeks of this, and nine or ten of them got certified.

“Now, I actually have seen Russia from Alaska. I’ve been to little Diomede, and the last time I was in little Diomede… this crew was now in little Diomede welding together tanks there. Now what that allowed these guys to do is become welders on bush projects all over the state. It’s not 9 to 5, 365 days a year, but… it allows those guys out in the villages to live that combined subsistence and economic lifestyle that works really well for them. And we’ve got to think about projects like that, that adapt to the lifestyle, which is very different in rural Alaska than it is in urban Alaska.”

Bob Poe gets it. We need to think of business, economic, and educational initiatives that adapt to their lifestyle, rather than a blanket approach to force them to adapt to our lifestyle. The practice of handing them a debit card and a cell phone and saying “Have at it” simply doesn’t cut it. Palin offered us a claustrophobic brand of forced conformity, most notably when she was confronted by Nick Tucker of Emmonak, while she was visiting Russian Mission. Alaska Dispatch reported that:

“Palin told Tucker that part of the solution to struggling villages (many have no economies to speak of) is for people to seek work outside their communities, be it on the North Slope or at mines or other natural-resource industries. (For example, oil companies pay for workers as far away as Florida to travel to the North Slope oil fields and work two-week shifts, then send them home for two weeks off. It appears Palin is saying that more Alaskan villagers should do the same.) As a personal example, Palin pointed to her husband as somebody who left his “village” of Dillingham to seek work. This is at best a half-truth, as Todd Palin graduated from high school in Wasilla and later went to work on the North Slope.”

This was a short-sighted admittance of indifference, highlighted as a lack of effort by Poe’s quick suggestion of implementing various efforts of bring employment to the bush, and rewarding the private interests willing to invest in rural Alaska. Poe believes in creating opportunity, not just drawing attention to where it already exists.

“[W]e need to have a number of economic opportunities gelling at the same time.” Poe continues. “Businesses often have, say, ten things they’re working on of which five or six or seven actually happen. Alaska ought to be doing that same thing [because] that’s what creates a diversified economy. Right now our economy is a three legged stool… [O]il and gas is one third of our economy. Federal spending is another. And that’s not just earmarks that Ted Stevens or somebody got. It’s five military bases, more national park land than the rest of the country… Lots of other federal land, they own 59% of Alaska. But the other third is everything else you can think of. And I think we need to grow that third of the economy through diversification, and that’s what I would do.”

Mr. Poe obviously has his opinions about the Governor whom he thought he would be running against. “Sarah Palin was a interesting experience in Alaska’s history,” he surmised. When asked about her decision to step down citing scrutiny from the blog-o-sphere, he said only that, as a politician, “You develop thick skin.” He observed that, once she returned home from the Vice Presidential campaign trail, it was obvious, to him, that her heart was no longer in the Governor’s office; that he “looked in her eyes, and I really could tell.”

In the spirit of fairness and community, he did remind the Colavecchio show listeners that, just like the rest of us, she is only human. And, possibly by mistake, possibly intentionally, he directly repeated one of her more common quotes: “It’s really about moving Alaska forward,” and then ended any other comparisons in his prescription that “We need to get on with the Post-Palin Alaska.”

Bob Poe made a definitive impression (to many, a definitive first impression) with this radio appearance. His 30 minute interview quickly expanded to 60 minutes, including phone calls and a comment from Mark Colavecchio himself, who said, “I personally think that we like what we’re hearing so far from you and… it’s a common sense approach to the way, you know, the state should move forward.”

And it will be undoubtedly a positive step in a rocky uphill climb to surpassing the dynasty-plagued culture that is Alaskan politics. Already, Poe has been given grief over his candidacy, as documented by Celtic Diva’s article, detailing some rumblings within the Alaskan Democratic party, where a few members believe that Poe (who was a self-described non-partisan before this campaign) is trying to cut in line, rather than run on a platform of believing he is the best person for the job.

“The way this thing works is you chose a party. And, I describe myself as a pro-business, pro-development, pro-environment democrat.” Poe offers, continuing on to describe his party affiliation as a comfortable fit, while dually recognizing where some of the hesitation comes from.

But possibly the most refreshing statement presented to us is an escape from the “career politician,” which is so ingrained in Alaskan culture, regardless of which side of the aisle you call home. Poe flatly promises us that he is not a part of any race to the top: “All I want to do is do two terms as Governor, and then you won’t hear from me again. I have no national aspiration. I want to go teach. That’s what I’ll do after this. My whole focus, and I think this is what Alaska needs, is a Governor who is focused on Alaska. Totally.”

So… Do you know Bob Poe?

[UPDATE: Bob Poe will also be appearing tomorrow (Friday) on the Eddie Burke show, which airs from 2-5pm Alaska time, on KBYR700am, which you can stream by clicking HERE.]

Happy 4th of July from Alaska!

This letter is from July 5 post on tweeter Gov. Palin’s Letter

Governor Palin doesn’t have a meth lab in her backyard.

Sean Parnell has been given the reigns. He will govern the Great State of Alaska… With less of a creepy Minnesota-meets-Wisconsin-meets-Wasilla-meets-where-the-hell-did-you-learn-to-sound-like-that?-accent, but with the same views. Watching him earlier was painful, as he stated that he will serve out the remainder of Palin’s term and campaign for the job again upon completion.

Things are looking up for Andrew Halcro.

Parnell caused lingual pain as he stated that he was “very surprised at first… But then as she began to explain why she was doing it, I began to see it was Sarah Palin, once again, moving to put Alaska’s interest first.”

Mr. Lt. Governor, would you care to reiterate to the rest of us this doubt-settling explanation? Because we haven’t gotten anything of the sort. We’ve received a discordant and seemingly rushed statement by Sarah Palin, a “hell yeah” from the first dude, and a letter from her lawyer, Tommy Van Flein, crying foul and blaming Shannyn Moore for asking questions and being concerned that a Governor who ran on the platform of “Hold me accountable!” had turned her ringer off. The messages have been piling up.

In regards to Shannyn Moore, as a radio host, social commentator, “liberal blogger” (as the Fairbanks News-Miner paints her), and Alaskan, is that not her responsibility? Good on her for not hiding in her parent’s basement, as Mrs. Palin repeatedly cited as a trait shared by all bloggers who offered her scrutiny rather than blind praise.

Parnell continues, telling CNN: “She’s accomplished more in these two and a half years than most governors accomplish in one or two terms. Our governor has been a great governor. She is going to be Alaska’s and is Alaska’s greatest gift to our country.”

Many of us, especially those fighting for the passage of Ordinance 64, are exhausted by angry and often disrespectful comments from conservatives surrounding the appointment of Matt Claman as Mayor of Anchorage, in the wake of Senator Mark Begich’s victory of Ted Stevens. Glad to hear that our appointed Governor is surefooted and independent-minded; definitely set on making his own footprints in the sand, not simply following in Sarah Palin’s. I’m sure he’ll inject his own brand of politics in shaping policy for our state in the next year and a half. He set precedent of this when he referenced the whole brick-shot of a basketball analogy which Gov. Palin offered during the press conference; about knowing when to pass the ball (or pass the buck):

She is not Alaska’s gift to the country. This is not the case of a minor leaguer being called up. This is not an up-and-comer stepping up to the plate. This is someone who decided, very much by her own erratic volition, to not show up to the game. This is not a Tony Romo or Tom Brady. This is a Dennis Rodman. She is not putting on an unexpected jersey minutes before the game. She is calling it quits at the all-star break. She has looked at her average, viewed the possibilities when her contract is up, and decided to sell out her fans, let down her team, and rely on the book deal.

Good luck on the sidelines. My, and this site’s, humble prediction is that a Fox News show is going to be the eventual result. This is not based in any factual evidence, and should not be taken as such. One should simply read the way in which Fox News is handling this (Palin Out, But Not Down), and keep in mind how Mike Huckabee is fairing on the same network. It wouldn’t be the first time I was dead wrong, but it’s my humble opinion on how this might end up.

For now, today will usher in exactly what Sarah Palin wants: Headlines. Ratings. Attention. Even now, Morning Joe is starting out with a record breaking five screens filled with faces talking about our soon-to-be-ex-Governor. But what would Fox News care about that?

]]> http://waterrules.wordpress.com/2009/07/05/on-the-ocean-kjon/ Sun, 05 Jul 2009 22:32:50 +0000 waterrules http://waterrules.wordpress.com/2009/07/05/on-the-ocean-kjon/

On The Ocean – K’Jon

Lyrics:

Man,
The moment I been waiting on
And my soul is over flowing
With anxieties and expectations
I’m full of desires
I just want it so bad
You know
And it just seem so real
It’s right there
I just want reach out and touch it
Before it all disappears

[Verse:]
Sometimes
It feels like
Everything
Is passin’ me by
Every now and then
It feels like (feels like)
My ship has gone and sailed away
But I
I gonna be strong (gotta be strong)
Gotta hold on
It won’t be too long

[Chorus:]
Now the tide is coming near
I see the waves flowing
Out there on the ocean
I know my ship is coming in
Just pass the horizon
And right where the sky ends
Cause out there on the ocean
Know my ship is coming in
But don’t leave me hanging
I’ve been waiting to long
But this moment
My ship has finally come

[Verse:]
I would travel to the seven seas
(I would even go)
I would even go wherever the wind blows me
(I’ll do anything)
I’ll do anything to find my destiny
It’s like fightin’ with gravity
And it’s bringin’ me down
If this world was really round then tell me how
It’s just a moment for you to come around

[Chorus:]
Now the tide is coming near
I see the waves flowing
Out there on the ocean
I know my ship is coming in (coming in baby)
Just pass the horizon
And right where the sky ends
Cause out there on the ocean
Know my ship is coming in
But don’t leave me hanging
I’ve been waiting to long
But this moment
My ship has finally come

[Bridge:]
Finally you come (around)
Around, around
I said finally baby

Finally you come (around)
Around, around

Finally you come around, come around baby

Finally you
Finally you come

Said finally you come around (around)

Now the tide is coming near (now the tide is coming in)
I see the waves flowing
Out there on the ocean
I know my ship is coming in (and I know my ship is coming in baby)
Just pass the horizon
(And where) And right where the sky ends
Cause out there on the ocean
I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, is coming in
Been waiting to long
But this moment
My ship has finally come

Finally you come (around)
Around, around [till fade]

Quitting's Not Just for Addicts

It’s impossible at this point to ascertain why Sarah Palin has decided to abandon her post, and abandon the constituents who she was elected to represent; folks she abandoned last August. The reality is that we in Alaska haven’t had a Governor since Sarah ended up a VP candidate. We could argue before that, but in the context of this piece, let’s just keep it there.

While offering her usual abundance of disconnected words in a tone that exonerated her from criticism, she made an appeal to be raised up as more of a martyr; as someone persecuted. There is a word for people who abandon responsibility at the cost of the people they took an oath to be responsible for. Actually, there are many. Persecuted and martyr are not included. For the sake of keeping things family oriented, we can simply apply words such as coward, deserter, and newbie.

As embarrassing as Sarah Palin was to many Alaskans as a horrible Governor, who failed to act beyond rhetoric, this knee-jerk response to waist level criticism is just a deepening of the red on our faces. This vice presidential candidate has cried uncle under the pressure of her own inaction towards her sworn responsibilities as governor of the great state of Alaska, which, if nothing else, we can reclaim phonetically, without the weird Minnesotan twinge that Palin applied to those very words.

Lt. Governor Sean Parnell will now be taking over. This is, at least from the outset, not a step in either direction. What can you really say about a Palinbot whom Palin didn’t trust?

Sen. Lisa Murkowski said, very articulately, that she was disappointed in Palin, and sad that she had abandoned Alaska. Well said. Actions speak a lot louder than lapel pins. And, while the SarahPAC members follow Sarah’s decisions blindly, they do so in disservice to themselves, ignoring that the Republican Party in Alaska was the deciding factor in Palin becoming the very “lame duck” which she cited in her decision to step down.

Where does she go from here? Who cares. She’ll be around. And, as other bloggers have pointed out, this is going to escalate furiously, and will almost certainly result in the real reason why this decision was released. 

Fox News continued their inability to be fair, balanced, and truthful when they reported on Friday that further facts, so far untold, regarding Palin’s resignation, would surface. They went so far as to say that, if you talk to Alaskans, no one is questioning her motives.

Right.

The truth is, the blogosphere (which is a term I hate) is vibrating like an Argentinian motel when Gov. Sanford comes to town. Something big this way comes. We just don’t know the specifics. Yet.

Until then, here’s some fun interviews. By the way, if anyone has any video of the Sean Hannity/Eddie Burke transaction, please let me know! I’m still on my honeymoon in Hawaii, and thus am limited to my wi-fi and phonecalls to friends and colleagues back home. 

Enjoy this compilation:

First, Rick Sanchez; the worst part of CNN, proving my assessment.

Second, Anderson Cooper v. Meg Stapleton (who will be at the corner of Dimond and Old Seward with a cardboard sign in a few weeks, given this interview). Cooper’s ratings have been sluggish at best over the last few months. But he was at his best in this one. Kudos, sir!

And here’s the actual resignation. It’s hard not to play MST3K with this speech, which, much akin to her actual presence as governor, is largely based in fiction. 

This is so entirely wrong, but so entirely hilarious. While we wait for the facts to present themselves, and for this to turn into the circus that struggles to find room within the preexisting circus that is our Governor and her sociopathy, I found a bit of solace in this youtube gem. I hate when Nazis are brought into any situation, and largely follow Godwin’s law, but this was too entertaining to not mention.