Our View: One day, ski just for fun

The women ski in their hundreds to compete, have a costume party and raise money for Abused Women's Aid in Crisis and other organizations.

Sunday's event raised more than $60,000. We still need money like that in this community.

Gov. Sean Parnell's "Choose Respect" campaign still hasn't settled into the hearts of too many people in Alaska, most, but not all, men. The goal of Choose Respect -- an Alaska free of domestic violence and sexual assault -- makes the state's other challenges, no matter how thorny, look like cake. Men and women get locked in miserable cycles of abuse and addictions. Some men live on dark sides of the human spirit, or just lose control and let fear and temper govern them, surrendering manhood to cruelty.

Anger can be a bear, even for a good man. Sometimes that "last straw" is an ambush, not giving a man time to count to one let alone 10.

That's life. Those are the moments when you have to make sure the flash of anger is only a flash, not a fire, especially not one that feeds on itself.

Whether you're a believer or not, there's truth in the line from the Bible that the man who conquers himself is greater than the man who takes a city.

Men who master themselves make a city safe for the women and children who live with them there, without whom their lives are gray. Property taxes? Snow berms in subdivisions? Small change compared to the good we would do in making Anchorage the city where a woman or child never had to worry about their safety -- at home, on the street, bike trail, bar, coffee stand or parking lot.

Imagine that city, where if a woman or child were threatened, they could count on the swift protection of their neighbors. Imagine that city, where if a woman or child were hurt, they could always could count on swift justice and tender care. Always.

Such a city would testify to the character and courage of the men who live there.

Conflict is part of life, and conflict between women and men goes back as long as there have been men and women. Give one another hell? Sure, but never that way. Never.

Long way to go, and the smart money says we'll never get there. But we can get closer.

Here's to the day when the women can ski in their hundreds and don't have to raise a dime.

BOTTOM LINE: Would that the women could ski without a cause.