Anchorage Daily News

Dike failure a warning for Pebble

I sincerely hope the supporters of the Pebble Mine Project are taking a long, hard look at the Dec. 22, 2008, failure of a containment dike at the retention pond of the Kingston Steam Plant in Kingston, Tenn. The people there thought their dike would hold too.

-- Dixie Lambert

Cordova

There could be worse things for Alaska than our current impotence

After 50 years as a state, we seem to have lost whatever clout we had. Our Senator-for-Life rode out of office on the federal Conviction Express. Our representative has been politically emasculated thanks to FBI and Justice Department investigations. The Supreme Court treated our punitive damage claim like it came from the Third World. National oil giants are intent on derailing plans for our own gas pipeline. The federal government still controls more than 60 percent of our land. To get our taxes, the IRS makes special note of the Permanent Fund distribution on Form 1040. And the national electorate sent our vice-presidential candidate home with her pit bull tail between her legs.

If Joe Vogler were around we'd probably be celebrating with a secession vote. Before embracing that idea, consider the consequences if it would succeed.

In the political vacuum that would follow, an Alaskan grannie might declare herself queen, build her palace in Wasilla, "Alaskanize" the oil companies, invite the Canadians to develop our natural resources, and sell ourselves fuel for a loonie per gallon, while the rest of the world would pay OPEC prices.

-- Jon Sharpe

Anchorage

Medicare doctor gets less than vet

Next time you take your dog or cat, (hamster, gerbil, rabbit, turtle, bird) and pay the vet bill for a minor condition, checkup or shots, realize that health care providers taking Medicare patients and spending 45-60 minutes with them will be reimbursed less than your vet for a 15-minute visit. No wonder there are few primary care providers.

-- Karen Decker-Brown

Anchorage

Loss of Perfect World pages silences aspiring journalists

"In a perfect world ... we would be a part of your world."

That's the slogan at the top of the Perfect World page, presenting weekly "News for teens by teens" in the Anchorage Daily News for more than a decade.

Alas, the world is not perfect. And Perfect World is about to disappear from the pages of Alaska's leading newspaper. It is an unkind cut and another loss for Daily News readers, not to mention the aspiring young journalists who labor to shape the page's lively and informative content.

Ending Perfect World hardly comes as a total surprise. Following other recent cuts at the ADN, and given the newspaper industry's real difficulties in responding to challenges from the Internet and from the continuing economic recession, almost anything seems possible. The two Detroit daily newspapers just cut home delivery to three days a week while the Christian Science Monitor has announced plans to drop its print edition altogether. It isn't at all clear how daily newspapers can survive and thrive in a digital age.

Still, it's ironic that our local paper should ax its seedbed for young journalists and teen readers and steer them to an online blog to save money. In any case, there is no Perfect World any longer in the pages of the Anchorage Daily News. Too bad.

-- Richard Emanuel

Anchorage

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