Comment

COMMUNITY VOICES

Anchorage passed this character test

Character building is often a difficult process � look at our once �highly esteemed� politicos headed off to prison. Perhaps we thought our community could enjoy a reprieve from bad behavior. Then came the careless and crude remarks of popular radio personalities who at some point in their careers drank that Kool-Aid that turns sparkling wit into dull-witted, schoolboy vulgarity.

ELISE PATKOTAK

After oil catastrophe, lives rose on eagle�s wings

My sister is not exactly a bird lover. She lives across from a migratory bird sanctuary, but over the years some birds decided to build nests in her front yard instead.

COMMUNITY VOICES

Serving in Iraq took its toll on Cup'ik soldier from Chevak

Merlin wore sandy military fatigues as he addressed my class. He stood in the center of the room grinning and showing off his uniform. "No buttons or zippers, just Velcro," he said pulling at a flap on his arm.

ALAN BORAAS

Don't let money hijack political power

An innovative bill in the last Alaska Legislature would have helped reconstitute one of the most fundamental concepts in American democracy.

ANDREW HALCRO

High gas costs, no energy plan leave us with only prayer

In April, Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama created a buzz when he commented that the residents of small Midwestern towns were a bitter lot due to broken promises and empty rhetoric from politicians. He was half right. I'd argue it's impatience, not bitterness, and it's not limited to the Midwest.

DAN FAGAN

Lighten up, conservatives, and laugh

This past Wednesday I learned something new about my people, conservatives.

JOHN HAVELOCK

Alaska is the richest state, yet still plagued by fiscal woes

Alaska is not poor; it is the richest state in the country, in cash reserves and in prospects. For years, Alaskans have been regularly advised by their pundits that they are poor and that a day of reckoning looms. Our nonrenewable natural resources will some day (soon) be exhausted, they say, and we shall then rely on income from giant, reserve funds built from current income, from which we will draw to sustain government.

CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER

Clinton solved puzzle too late in game

By the time Hillary Clinton figured out how to beat Barack Obama, it was too late. When she began the race in 2007 thinking she was in for a coronation, she claimed the center in ord er to position herself for the real fight, the general election. She simply assumed the party activists and loony left would fall in behind her.

JUDITH KLEINFELD

Phone revolution keeps us close to mom

I used to think I was closer to my three adult children than most other parents.

COMMENT

After 30 years of marriage, say 'I love you' with a clam gun

I recently confronted a fairly common dilemma -- "What should I do for my next wedding anniversary?"

ELISE PATKOTAK

At Holy Spirit High, pure fear prevented student pranks

I'm guessing that when I was in high school, there were educational institutions where senior pranks occurred. After all, the tradition had to start somewhere. But I can tell you for sure where it stopped. It stopped at the front door of Holy Spirit High School.

ELSTUN LAUESEN

Outside jocks pollute local talk radio

The other day a couple of radio DJs attacked me. Well, they didn't attack me personally; they attacked people who share my political philosophy. My views are, broadly-speaking, "liberal," though I am not easily categorized.

DAN FAGAN

Obama's run for president will be cursed by pastor's rants

Barack Obama will never be president of the United States. No, it's not because he is a black man. Obama's relationship with his longtime pastor Jeremiah Wright has doomed his candidacy.

ROBYN BLUMNER

Military winks at religious intolerance

Maybe the reason the misperception persists that there are no atheists in foxholes is that nonbelievers must either shut up about their views or be hounded out of the military.

STEVE HAYCOX

Real change will take time, patience

American politics today are as dynamic and energizing as at any time since the conservative revolution of 1980, when Ronald Reagan stopped postwar liberalism's political agenda in its tracks. As then, Americans today seem to want policy changes in economic, race and foreign policy.

COMMUNITY VOICES

On race, Fagan woefully off the mark

My job had sent me to St. Louis for two weeks around the July 4th holiday in 1997. St. Louis seemed like another world after I�d lived in Anchorage for 13 years.

ELISE PATKOTAK

April snow covers moose poop nicely

Two of my favorite times of the year in Anchorage are spring before the mosquitoes come and fall after they're gone. I can daydream to my heart's content while walking, knowing nothing is sucking my blood while I'm not paying attention.

POINT/COUNTERPOINT

No town in Alaska could meet cruise ship standards

The drinking water that comes from your faucet in Anchorage contains too much copper for cruise ships to discharge it back into Alaska waters. Ditto for tap water in Fairbanks. And in Wasilla.

POINT/COUNTERPOINT

Cruise industry should be held to higher standard

The state Department of Environmental Conservation's new cruise ship discharge permit has cruise lines crying foul and once again, making dire predictions for their industry's future.

DAN FAGAN

Media tizzy over slur ignores real issue

Don't you just love it when the media get all whipped up into a frenzy?

MARY SANCHEZ

Bush's feelings don't help immigrants

Both men proclaim a reverence to God. Both avow that faith is their guiding principle and stress the duty to follow the tenets of religion.