Anchorage Daily News

Professor's pike point won't hold water

In response to Dr. Gee, professor something, Cleveland State, about his opposition to eradicating pike from Alexander Lake, I realized he can't be a professor of science. I presumed culinary arts, based on his ability to fillet the boniest fish in the world. I realized it wasn't that either, because he's trying to prepare one of the tastiest fish in the world with "brown sugar and oregano."

Rainbow trout are as native to Alaska as the bears of Katmai. Alaska's rainbows are the purest strain of that species in the world, but the point here is that pike are not native to Alexander Lake. Yes, pike are native to portions of Alaska, but only where they can coexist with other salmonids. In Western Alaska the lakes are deep enough, and rivers fast enough, to give the trout and baby salmon a possible escape from this trashy (oh, I mean toothy) predator. In the non-natural environment of Alexander Lake, once they finish off the salmon fry, they will eat themselves out and turn this "marvelous" fishery into a pathetic, near-fishless lake.

Once this happens, will your son try to convert us to stand shoulder to shoulder fishing for some other illegally planted fish, like many of the disease-ridden brown trout caught in the Lower 48? I support Fish and Game's concern in this matter.

-- Thad Seethaler

Anchorage

Knee replacement is successful

I am writing this letter in response to the recent article by Teeka Ballas ("Hip, knee replacements grow common even among the relatively young," June 27). I feel that it contains some serious errors. Total knee replacement surgery is one of the most successful operations in all of medicine and certainly would never be considered a "deal with the devil."

Excellent 20-year follow-up results have been published numerous times in the orthopedic literature, proving that in the right hands and in the right patients, it is an operation that restores quality of life and relieves serious joint pain.

The sentence in the article that reads "... but often the solution (knee replacement) results in more pain or multiple surgeries" could not be further from the truth.

The literature also documents good pain relief and return to an active lifestyle in patients 55 and younger with 20-year follow-up after knee replacement, showing that even in this demographic group, good long-term results can be achieved.

Patients who undergo joint replacement are at the end of the road with regard to conservative management, leaving them with the only other option being to live with their pain and disability. This article doesn't do justice to an operation that has helped millions of Americans get off the couch and back to enjoying their lives.

-- Tim Kavanaugh, M.D.

Anchorage

Stop fireworks sales in Houston

The state of Alaska and the town of Houston need to look hard at the sale and use of fireworks. I live north of Willow in a heavily wooded area. This weekend there are all kinds of people shooting off fireworks. Even though there is a fire ban. These people have no common sense. The idiot across the street, from Anchorage, feels that it's OK as long as he shoots them off out in the middle of the lake. Besides all the trash going in the lake, what goes up has to come down, or what goes astray can still start fires. The rest of the state has laws against fireworks, and Houston needs the same before we have another Big Lake problem. Where I live has no fire service, so if we get a fire it's goodbye to all the homes here. Please stop the fireworks sales!

-- James Christenson

Willow

Keillor great on radio, not in print

I realize that by virtue of his brilliant, long-running radio show, Garrison Keillor has a devoted following. But quite honestly, he's just about the most inept newspaper Op-Ed columnist I've ever seen.

When executed properly, a newspaper opinion column is as tightly constructed as a haiku. It's equal parts information, emotion, argumentation and verbal rhythm. It's a potent form of communication.

Yet Keillor approaches his columns as though he's on the mike in front of an adoring audience, vaporing on about Norwegian bachelors in Lake Wobegon. All of the columns he's written that I've read so far can be paraphrased like this:

"Ramble, ramble, ramble ... my 10-year-old daughter ... ramble, ramble, ramble ... random social observation ... ramble, ramble, ramble ... Bush is an idiot."

That's it! That's all he ever has to say!

Of course, most newspaper columnists have an essential theme or idea that they rework constantly. Craig Medred's is "Don't get yourself killed in the Alaska wilderness!" Sheila Toomey's Ear column's theme might be stated as "Lo, what fools these Republicans be!" But these pros express those essential ideas of theirs much better than Keillor does.

It's ironic that an authentic genius like Garrison Keillor should be outshone by the local talent, but the truth is that the man needs an editor to savagely trim his copy until he learns how to actually write in this format. Right now he's just coasting on his persona, and he does that much better on the radio.

-- Wade Hampton Miller

Chugiak

Wildlife belong in Anchorage

What is it going to take for people to realize that the wildlife in Anchorage were here first?

Why are you here, and if someone is messing with your backyard, what right does it give you to take it away from those critters that were here first? Maybe because your great-great-grandfather felt free to slaughter the buffalo and steal from the Native Americans, thus changing the environment for the sad state it is in today.

In my travels through the Lower 48 it always amazed me that people build subdivisions, chase off and kill the wildlife then plant their yards and put in plastic animal forms to make it look natural.

-- Gerald Grappi

Homer

Mean-spirited muni bans parking

I, like many residents of Anchorage, drove to Mulcahy Park to watch the fireworks display. Knowing that parking would be tight, I drove through the neighborhoods north of 15th Avenue and west of Ingra looking for a place to park. The municipality, in typical dog-in-the-manger mode, spent a lot of money to put out portable "No Parking" signs on the streets in this area. I ended up parking on 12th Avenue.

I would love to know if Mayor Mark Begich ordered or condoned this anti-resident action and why.

If the MOA did not want people parking in this area, they should have provided shuttle buses from the Mall at Sears and Wal-Mart to ferry people to and from the fireworks show.

By midnight, when the fireworks show started, Mulcahy Park was packed with people. I do not know if they parked on the forbidden streets and if the MOA had their cars towed.

Regardless, posting the streets was a mean-spirited move by the MOA that did not warrant the expenditure to put up and take down the signs.

-- Mike Stoianoff

Anchorage

Alaska needs some outdoor cafes

Although I was born and bred in Belgium, I am an American at heart. I love Americans for their work ethic, their pioneering spirit and their love of life. I just returned from a vacation in Belgium and France, and if there is one thing I would like to see happen in the cities of Alaska, it is outdoor cafes.

I can see how to some people outdoor cafes may contradict the way they view their lifestyle. People may think of outdoor cafes as a place where artists and writers idle all day long, taking long drags on their cigarettes and discussing philosophy, or where people who should be hard at work are not.

I think outdoor cafes would be a nice addition to any Alaska city, especially since the sun hardly ever sets in the summer. A place where hardworking and students alike could sit down and enjoy the great outdoors under an umbrella and over a salami sandwich.

-- Nadia Anders

Kenai

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