Maybe it's time to tend to the home front

Maybe you were too busy this week trying to stay warm to follow the news much. There have been some new developments. I know.

They almost got past me, you know with keeping the snow shoveled out of the outhouse and enough water melted to do a few dishes. I'm trying hard to keep up.

A major oil discovery was announced this week! Wahoo! "Initial technical estimates indicate the discovery could have recoverable resource potential in excess of 300 million barrels of oil," ConocoPhillips said.

That's awesome for all of Alaska, right? I mean, jobs, jobs, jobs and we can afford to move the Legislature back into its fancy digs! Pre-K funding for everyone!

[ConocoPhillips announces new oil discovery with daily production of 100,000 barrels]

I know. It all seemed too good to be true after listening to the governor's State of the State address. Apparently, Alaska had five special sessions last year and all we got was a lousy unfunded budget.

We're still broke! Shocking. Oh, and it's still unconstitutional to require Alaska hire, so any new jobs have just as much chance being filled with some Outside worker with a higher MVP Alaska Airlines status than you. Sorry about your upgrade, Chuck from Oklahoma will be sitting in B2 and you'll be in a middle seat between giant Alaska reality show fans who want to know if you've ever seen a real life Kilcher.

As for the money rolling in for all this new oil? Anchorage Democratic Sen. Bill Wielechowski posted it best, "Revenue Commissioner presenting to Legislature about oil production projections. Production will continue to plummet despite massive credits‬. SB 21, the "More Alaska Production Act" will get us $89 million in production taxes while paying out $1.3 billion in tax credits this year. A catastrophic failure."

I'm pretty sure the senator wasn't meaning "catastrophic failure" in a good way. Gone are the days where your mailbox and television were crammed with promises from oil companies pledging a salmon in every pot as long as we just paid them to take our oil.

How many people that voted their way have moved? That's sort of a rhetorical question, but records show folks are fleeing our state. Can't they hang in there and wait for climate change like the rest of us? Never mind, greener pastures and all.

I appreciate Gov. Bill Walker mentioning climate change and it's threat to our state in his address. It's refreshing in this post-fact world.

We have a newly minted president. It didn't look like much of a party ushering him into office, but I live on an island off the road system. I'm used to big parties. (That was sarcasm, relax.)

A friend of mine often says, "Hard tellin', not knowin'." That's my answer for how the next four years are going to go. I have no idea. First shots across the bow were to make it harder for low income people to get mortgages, eliminating grants to fund domestic violence prevention, and privatizing the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

So, I guess America just got made great again for people against homeownership, who like to beat their wives, and hate "Downton Abbey. There's a start.

[Walker renews call for budget reforms: 'Denial won't make the problem go away.']

It might be time to get back to our local fights. The national ones just seem sad and pitiful and there are a lot of miles — including another major country — between us and Washington. D.C. Maybe we should consider it a moat and circle our wagons.

You don't have to look far. Spenardlandia — the neighborhood formerly known as The People's Republic of Spenard — is going through a gentrification that's chasing away what made it weird and wonderful.

The Kenai Peninsula Borough has set money aside to take on the ACLU in court because they want to pick who gets to say the prayer before their meetings. I'm not kidding. Tens of thousands of dollars to handpick which God can beat up whose devil. So stupid. How about reading a Dr. Seuss passage every meeting — less arguing and there are some good morals in there.

Don't make me put this on a ballot initiative, people. Just imagine walking into your post office, "Sir, are you a registered voter? Would you sign here for a reading of 'Horton Hears a Who' at the Assembly meeting?" Oh, like that's the craziest thing you've been asked to sign? I doubt it.

Well, it's stopped snowing for all of five minutes and I should go shovel it out of the outhouse trail so the wind can blow it back where it fell. Maybe that's a metaphor for following politics, or maybe it's just a chore.

Shannyn Moore is a radio broadcaster.

The views expressed here are the writer's and are not necessarily endorsed by Alaska Dispatch News, which welcomes a broad range of viewpoints. To submit a piece for consideration, email commentary@alaskadispatch.com. Send submissions shorter than 200 words to letters@alaskadispatch.com.