Score 1 for Obama. The President's Bankrupt-America-in-Return-for-Sub-Par-Health-Care Bill passed the House by 5 votes. 3:53 PM
A Nation Has Got To Know Its Limitations
The first time I realized how real the uniform I wore in the Air Force was was back in 1997. I was at a training course designed to help health care professionals understand how to operate in war zones. A fellow physician, a colleague of mine from an officer indoctrination course, gave a presentation on what happened after the bombing of the Khobar Towers. He had gone the route of being a flight surgeon and two years out of medical school was one of the first physicians on that horrific scene. Most people remember where they were on 9/11/2001. The news hit me while I was on my way to Elmendorf AFB for work. It was a day that changed life in the Air Force. 11/5 8:41 PM
A friend asked me to mention the upcoming documentary, "Rethink Afghanistan," by Robert Greenwald to be shown this Friday at 7PM in room 118 of the Social Sciences Building at the University of Alaska Anchorage. After considering the request, I thought it might be a good idea for me to do exactly what the movie proposes. I have never publicly opposed the war in Afghanistan, not because I supported it, but because the occupation of Iraq drew my attention and my outrage away from the other war. 11/4 3:59 PM
Some Things Are Beyond Parental Consent, Or Don't Mix Apples And Oranges
Every time the issue of passing a law requiring parental involvement in a minor girl's abortion decison making comes up, and it has been 12 years now that it has been coming up as folks have been trying to bring Alaska into line with the vast majority of other states that have such a law (40 states), someone raises the argument: "If you don't require parental consent for giving birth and pre-natal care, why would you require parental consent for abortion?" Sigh. Some silly notions just never go away. Okay, lets think about this one step-by-step. First, which minor teenage girls is it who would either want to get prenatal-care and give birth to their baby, or get an abortion? Answer: those who are pregnant. Alright, so pregnancy is a prerequisite to any teenage girl being in a position to require parental consent for either of these options. 11/4 8:05 AM
News apps for the iPhone that just don't quit
I'm taking a class at the university about societal change. It's taught in the business school and a chief aim is for marketers to stay on top of change so they can keep selling products to an ever-morphing audience. The universe is divided into spheres -- the infosphere, the sociosphere, the psychosphere, the technosphere, the bio/power-sphere. 11/3 7:19 PM
Check it out: Alaska Dispatch's In-depth Coverage of the Point Hope Caribou "Massacre" Controversy
Once upon a time, the Anchorage Daily News was widely known and celebrated for its investigative journalism and the longer, in-depth magazine-style pieces that ran in "We Alaskans." That began to change not long after the newspaper won Anchorage's long-running newspaper war. (Looking back, it was something of a Pyrrhic victory; not necessarily for its owner, but certainly for the paper's readers and staff.) The first sign of a diminished newspaper was the decision to dump "We Alaskans." Editor Pat Dougherty assured readers this was a good thing and that many of the features that once made the Sunday magazine such a gem would now be spread throughout the rest of the newspaper. Of course that didn't happen. Once the newspaper war had been won, and years before the Internet changed the face of journalism, the Daily News's California owner began to cut back its flow of money to Anchorage. The newsroom began a slow (and later accelerated) shrinkage. And of course the paper's coverage of both local and statewide events and issues suffered. 11/2 8:57 PM
Since when does "lucrative" mean losing money?
Webster's defines the word "lucrative" as an adjective that means "profitable" or "money-making." My thesaurus lists synonyms for "lucrative" that include "profitable" and "productive." Terms that signify the opposite of lucrative include "running at a loss" and "not making money." If anyone should pay attention to words, judges and journalists should surely top the list. So help me understand how on earth a judge could misinterpret a commonly understood word and a state full of cracker-jack journalists could ignore it? 10/31 1:51 PM
If We Owned AIDEA For One Day By Jim Crawford If we owned the Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority (AIDEA) for just one day, what could we do? 10/28 5:17 PM
Global climate breakdown (part three) - the science and politics of climate change
CLIMATE SCIENCE AND POLITICS - "Science means it's absolutely proven, right?" For many years my friend had been a devout and aggressive religionist who believed that science was evil and inimical to spiritual awareness. Now he is trying to educate himself about science. "No---you're still thinking like a true believer," I teased him, "it's only science when you have used the scientific process to arrive at your conclusion." 10/22 6:32 PM
Cuts to Fire Department Lack Logic: forget about being rescued from avalanches this winter
At our last community council meeting, we learned that the city is eliminating the rolling closures that have closed our fire stations on rotating days throughout 2009. That is the good news. The bad news is that several of the Fire Department's special teams are slated to be mothballed for the winter. The city has several special teams trained for rescues in water, backcountry, trenches, as well as urban search and HAZMAT. The teams that are federally funded, like HAZMAT, will continue, but not the water and backcountry teams. 10/20 7:08 PM
Dan Fagan is breaking promises with disingenuous information...again. I predicted his mea culpa from a few weeks ago would be short-lived. But it seems unless he isn't bashing our new senator or the unions there isn't much schtick left when you look behind the curtain. Speaking of behind the curtain, more than ever, Fagan looks like that exposed character from the 1939 movie, but more appropriately should be called "the Wizard of Ooze." Okay, for the sake of space I'll just refer to him as "the Whiz," which not coincidentally is defined in thefreedictionary.com as "to throw or spin rapidly." At first glance I thought it said "spin rabidly," which really would have been apropos. 8/31 5:05 AM
Tin Soldiers and Nixon's Coming
"Chute happens. Live with it." I NOTICED the bumpersticker: top end of a black window, blood-red Chevy Suburban Classic-in a trailhead parking lot. It had giant off-road tires, like those on a ATV, and black windows all the way around. 8/19 8:25 PM
Vince Beltrami is president of the Alaska AFL-CIO, a labor organization. He is a graduate of UAA.
Jim Crawford is a real estate developer and former Chairman of the Alaska Reagan for President campaigns and former Chairman of the Republican Party.
Kathleen McCoy is an electronic media specialist at the University of Alaska Anchorage. She is a former features editor and interactive media editor at the Anchorage Daily News.
Jenny Neyman is editor and publisher of Redoubt Reporter, a weekly publication that’s based in Soldotna and serves the Kenai Peninsula.
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Readers post their photos of the good, bad and ugly of Anchorage.
OPINION
Follow the ongoing debate in this collection of columns and editorial written on health care.
AUDIO INTERVIEW
Sen. Lisa Murkowski talks to the Daily News editorial board about health care.
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POLITICS BLOG
The governor defends her handling of the federal stimulus money.
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