Adventurer didn’t need a cruise ship
Eighty-nine-year-old Arctic adventurer Dick Griffith handed me a small yellow legal pad recently with his thoughts about the Crystal Serenity luxury cruise that is plying the waters of the Northwest Passage. In the 1990s, Griffith skied that passage solo, making a 2,600-mile trek across the continent, from Alaska to Hudson Bay. All totaled, Griffith has skied and walked more than 6,000 miles across Alaska and the Canadian Arctic, most of which was after his retirement at the age of 60. His encounters with polar bears, falling through the ice into the Arctic Ocean and tent-leveling storms are all met with his customary shrug of nonchalance.
With Dick's permission, I'm relaying his thoughts about the cruise that is currently underway along the route he skied.
"The Northwest Passage has been done many times since Roald Amundsen made the three year trip between 1903 and 1906. The traditional route between Barrow and Repulse Bay is 2,600 miles. Since Amundsen's trip, dog teams, row boats, sail boats, kayaks, motor boats, snow machines, and one trip by ski have made the trip. It's no big deal."— Dick Griffith, Aug. 19
— Kaylene Johnson-Sullivan
author, "Canyons and Ice: The Wilderness Travels
of Dick Griffith"
Eagle River
Fix Legislature’s conflict-of-interest issues
It is time for the Alaska Legislature to shed the "good ole boy" debacle that passes for declaring a conflict of interest and then voting on the issue in question. Alaska Statute 24.60.30 (g) provides, in part, "Unless required by the Uniform Rules of the Alaska Legislature, a legislator may not vote on a question if the legislator has an equity or ownership interest …"
So far, so good — but how does the Uniform Rules of the Alaska Legislature enable our legislators to ignore conflict-of-interest issues? The last sentence of Rule 34 (b) currently states, "A member may not be permitted to abstain except on the unanimous consent of the membership." It works like this. When Sen. Kevin Meyer and Sen. Pete Micciche, both employees of ConocoPhillips, declared a perceived conflict of interest in considering SB 21 (the oil tax giveaway), it only took one objection and they were required to vote. SB 21 passed the Senate 11 to 9. A fix would require the Legislature to amend Rule 34 (b) of the Uniform Rules of the Alaska Legislature by replacing the last sentence in the rule with the following:
"A member, upon stating a perceived conflict of interest, may not be permitted to vote except upon the majority consent of the membership." Such a fix would go a long way in providing credibility to the way our Legislature deals with conflict-of-interest issues.
— William Maxey
Anchorage
Ted Stevens showed respect for musicians
Garrison Keillor's article about being scowled at by Ted Stevens (Column, Aug. 24) reminded me of several encounters I had with the man.
I'm a musician and have played lots of what are called "casual" gigs, receptions and dinners where the musician sets up out of the way in the corner and plays what amounts to genteel background music. Over the years, I played at least four or five receptions where Ted Stevens showed up.
Whenever you see powerful elected officials at a reception like that, there are always at least one or two supplicants tagging along, trying to wheedle whatever it is that they want. They never let up — they stay there at the official's elbow. So whenever you see a senator or a mayor at a reception, there's always someone sucking up to them, and any musician in the room might as well be Muzak.
Most politicians have zero interest in live music but Ted Stevens was different.
On each of those occasions when he was in the crowd, I'd see him hold up a hand to whoever was at his elbow, and tell that person that he wanted to listen to a song all the way through. Then that's what they'd do. When I'd finish, Stevens would applaud, and of course the suck-up would applaud even harder. Then they'd go back to their conversations.
On two or three occasions, when Stevens still happened to be there when I finished up and was putting away my gear, he came over to me and would comment about some line in a song I'd sung. Surprisingly, it wasn't always about the song he'd stopped to hear, but another one that he'd registered even while the person at his elbow yammered on. It was as though he got a bit of respite from the give and take of politics while he listened to the music.
I've seen an old photo of Ted Stevens in his World War II pilot's uniform playing a Martin guitar, and it's clear to me that he had greater depths than are usually acknowledged. I know I've never seen any other politician show the same sort of respect to a gigging musician that Ted Stevens displayed every time I saw him.
— Wade Hampton Miller
Chugiak
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