MAY 13, 2008 - 10:58 PM
Senior Fun Day
Senior fun day. Wow. There is nothing as fun as spending a time with your friends doing all kind of school activities outside the school.We played, danced and won lots of gifts.
MAY 13, 2008 - 6:02 PM
From Kyle Hopkins in Anchorage --
With Julie Hasquet off to work on the Senate campaign, the mayor's hired a new spokeswoman: Jenny Evans.
Here's the announcement:
Mayor Mark Begich has named Jenny Evans as the Communications Director in the mayor's office, replacing Julie Hasquet, who joined Mayor Begich's senatorial campaign in late April.
Before joining the Mayor's executive staff, Evans was the director of Marketing and Public Relations for The Alaska Club. Her background also includes working as the Communications Director for Anchorage Economic Development Corporation and as an account supervisor for Bradley/Reid Communications.
MAY 13, 2008 - 5:32 PM
Mike writes: Randy Cohen, the New York Times ethics columist, revisited some of his recently given advice Sunday -- including his opine that J.T.'s neighbor had a legal but not moral right to "cut down a tree on his own property if doing so deprived J.T. of privacy, shade, oxygen and beauty." That's a lot of deprivation, of course, but many readers disagreed, arguing in favor of property rights.
"Some declared that if J.T. wanted these leafy benefits," Cohen wrote this week, "he should plant his own trees on his property. I considered that but dismissed it as impractical -- saplings take years to reach privacy-producing height -- and thus was undone not by my moral reasoning but my arboreal ignorance. Botanically savvy readers suggested varities of trees, shrubs and ornamental grasses that grow quickly. (A gleefully vindictive fellow proposed planting bamboo that would swiftly overrun the grounds of the tree-slaughtering neighbor.) One person suggested that a landscape architect could design small mounds or terraces to give young trees an instant boost in height. Others pointed out this happy consequence of J.T.'s planting his own trees: They would stand as a verdant rebuke to his neighbor. (As Joyce Kilmer did not write: I think that I shall never see / A poem vengeful as a tree.)"
MAY 13, 2008 - 4:13 PM
Bikes were lined up Saturday at the Anchorage Market and Festival in downtown Anchorage.
MAY 13, 2008 - 4:13 PM
I am convinced that Big Brother has my number. Or maybe I wrote it down on a post-it note for someone, put it back in my jeans pocket, and the ball-pointed protruding digits with no where to run, no where to hide, left an indentation on my thigh. Temporary tattoos can be cool, but not when it’s the silhouette of your cell phone jammed inside your used-to-be-sexy jeans. Logging on to my MSN account the other day, I was ambushed by the following article:
http://health.msn.com/weight-loss/wedding-weight-loss/articlepage.aspx?cp-documentid=100201627>1=31039
Put it this way: if the wedding date was a wrestling competition that started tomorrow, I wouldn’t make my weight division. DQ’d on account of DQ. But Oreo Blizzards are the best. How do the people in my computer know my jeans are tight!?! Who sent them? And from whence they came?! I don’t open any wedding spam, even by accident! And I receive wedding services spam up the registry. I don’t sign up online for a lot of stuff that would leave any sort of bride-to-be trail. Plus, I clear cookies on a regular basis… maybe all too well, but who can resist Mrs. Field’s Shaved Chocolate Chip Cookies!? Here’s the recipe link for when you’re done with the above workout: http://www.cooks.com/rec/view/0,1910,154165-234194,00.html
MAY 13, 2008 - 3:20 PM
RARE-T club members from South High School in Anchorage decided they wanted to be real experts when it comes to educating fellow students.
The Reducing AIDS Risk Effectively in Teens club is a peer to peer education program, designed to inform students on HIV and AIDS. The club members from South High recently visited Planned Parenthood and 4As to get tested. The Alaska Teen Media Institute's Barbara Nave interviews them about their experience.
RARE-T Roundtable
MAY 13, 2008 - 2:22 PM
Here's a wonderful opportunity for women over 40 without insurance or with limited coverage, to receive free breast cancer screening the week of May 19-22nd in Anchorage. Evening appointments will be offered and transportation vouchers can be request. Please call today for an appointment and share this with other women you know who can benefit from the screening.
Upcoming FREE Breast Cancer Screening Event
May 19-22, 2008
5:30-8:30 PM
Providence Alaska Medical Center
By appointment only
Please call today for an appointment.
261-6165 or 1-888-674-5465
Women who are age 40 and older and have financial need are eligible for free screening.
Eligibility:
MAY 13, 2008 - 1:31 PM
From Mat-Su business reporter Zaz Hollander:
Yet another Mat-Su natural gas prospector is eying the Mat-Su, this time in the Upper Susitna Valley. And the state wants to know what you think.
Anchorage energy independent Lapp Resources is moving toward drilling beneath 21,000 acres from Houston to Nancy Lake and east toward the Talkeetnas. The state wants public comment on a license to give Lapp and his partners exclusive rights to the gas.
Lapp owner David Lappi hooked up with a couple of familiar out-of-state investors: Samuel Cade, from Dallas and Daniel Donkel from Daytona Beach, Fla. The two have partnered up on various oil and gas leases around the state before.
MAY 13, 2008 - 1:23 PM
Orange bags dotted Anchorage's landscape May 3-10, 2008Have you noticed a difference along city streets, neighborhoods and highways? Please share your thoughts and ideas about how we can keep the city clean year round.
The 40th Annual Anchorage Chamber Citywide Cleanup is complete and the transformation is phenomenal. City streets, neighborhoods look incredible!
The photo was taken after the Anchorage Chamber staff cleaned along the Boniface exit last week. I know many of you felt the same sense of pride my staff did when they got out last week. Across the Municipality, there was an elevated level of participation, nearly all of the 60,000 bags we ordered were distributed this year, and almost every single school from Eagle River to Whittier was involved.
MAY 13, 2008 - 1:08 PM
From Mat-Su education reporter, Melodie Wright:
What do you think?
The state Education and Early Development Department's proposal to regulate correspondence study programs run by local school districts has generated heated discussion among home schooling parents and school district officials. They say these in district programs are already regulated by their local school boards. They say that, as long as their children are proficient at standardized tests, why bother them with more bureaucracy?
The state says its mandate is to regulate programs that use public money.
Is this proposal an erosion of local control on education or a fair attempt at leveling the playing field with statewide programs, which are already regulated?
MAY 13, 2008 - 12:38 PM
An Alaska State Trooper serving a restraining order in Ketchikan Monday afternoon arrived at the subject's home and found two marijuana plants growing on the front porch.
The trooper seized the plants after contacting the owner of the home off Waterfall Road, troopers said. The case remains under investigation and no arrests have yet been made.
MAY 13, 2008 - 12:33 PM
From Sean Cockerham in Anchorage --
Seattle defense attorney John Henry Browne has withdrawn as Vic Kohring's lawyer.
"Vic's broke...I think the appeal is going to be very interesting and I actually wish I could be a part of it, but I can't afford to do it for free," Browne told me today.
Kohring, of course, was sentenced to 3 ½ years in federal prison last week on corruption charges. The former Wasilla legislator maintains his innocence and vows to fight from his prison cell. He'll do so with the help of a public defender or court appointed attorney.
Kohring's borrowed truck broke down on his way to sentencing and he had to hitchike to court. He said in recent divorce filings that he's been getting food from the food bank.
Kohring has to report to prison in Oregon by June 30.
MAY 13, 2008 - 12:31 PM
This was forwarded to me (by my wife) just giving oyu something to do at a great Anchorage location.
Father Whine Says-
I need to convince 5 of you to attend our very first
Wednesday Wine and Cheese Tasting at Bernies Paradise Room
Of course after reading this, you may each end up accompanying 5 more of your friends for a true to life upside down pyramid.
This event is organized by Pamela of La Bodega, a little wine shop at the University Center , Larissa of Specialty Import, local wine importer, Carolyn Kinneen , master organizer, and myself, Father Whine.
This is a fun $30 weekly event starting this Wednesday at 5pm featuring wines from Espana.
MAY 13, 2008 - 12:02 PM
A day on the Farm: This was in early April-Two snows ago...
Where potatoes come from: One of two green houses, temperature controlled
Finished potatoes ready for market
Potato grader: The machine pulls produce out of the warehouse, cleans, grades and bags the product and gets them ready for market
Potato warehouse: this is where the potatoes are reserved for market in the fall, before the ground freezes
Ben Vanderweele talking with the city slickers: Ben giving a bit of history to his guests
MAY 13, 2008 - 11:41 AM
Well, here we go again. Kitten season. There are many pregnant cats coming into Animal control, and having their kittens in the maternity ward there. Animal Control has foster parents that some of these litters home with. Some of the rescue groups take others. Most of the kittens go back to Animal Control when they are 8 weeks old to get adopted out.
I pulled one litter of kittens last saturday that had been born from a stray at the shelter not long after she was brought in. There is a 4 day hold on strays, so the little family had to live in the maternity ward until I was able topick them up.
MAY 13, 2008 - 11:39 AM
From Sean Cockerham in Anchorage --
OK, these are words I never thought I'd type: Larry Bird is suing Georgianna Lincoln.
Apparently Lincoln -- the former Alaska state senator from Rampart -- and her husband, Christopher Cooke, bought the Celtic legend's old home in Indiana.
Bird, "the hick from French Lick" says the Alaskans are using his name without permission to promote a bed and breakfast on the property. They are calling it the "Legend of French Lick resort." You can check out the web site here. It plays up the ties to Bird big time, saying the property features basketball memorabilia and the court where Bird perfected his shot.
MAY 13, 2008 - 8:42 AM
Every so often we get a letter or op-ed submission that includes the challenge, "I dare ADN to publish this."
Implying of course, that the writer has something powerful and unpopular to say, and we lack the journalistic courage to put it in the paper.
So I look at what the writer says, and inevitably, what I find is this. The piece is so badly written - badly argued, if not outright incoherent, or irredeemably tasteless -- that it would never get published on its own merits. The writer's only hope is to call our editing manhood into question.
Well, these days, there's a place for airing views like that: the Web. If we're going to kill trees to put somebody's views in the paper, we want it to be worth the sacrifice of cellulose. It's got to be worth our readers' time.
MAY 13, 2008 - 8:32 AM
Before I saw the documentary called “the Business of Being Born” I had already witnessed the stir it was causing in the childbirth world. I read articles, watched reports, and heard opinions from those who were either outraged or impacted by it.
Last night the film was shown at our local Bear Tooth Theater. Reactions were mixed. Some angry individuals walk out during the movie, obviously disagreeing with the content. However, the mass majority of the sold-out crowd, not only viewed the movie, but stayed for the discussion afterwards.
This thought-provoking film mostly centered on the topic of home-birth being considered safe and normal. The interviews were varied and included midwives and obstetricians, both in the U.S. and in other countries. The startling statistics displayed in bold print on the screen, created an ugly awareness of truths often overlooked.
MAY 13, 2008 - 7:48 AM
From Erika Bolstad in Washington D.C. --
So far, Gov. Sarah Palin has been the only Alaskan to generate serious vice presidential buzz.
But how about Alaska's two Republican U.S. senators? A reporter for The Hill, a Capitol Hill newspaper, asked all 97 senators not running for president whether they would consider a VP bid, if asked. Here's how Sen. Lisa Murkowski and Sen. Ted Stevens responded:
Stevens: “No. I’ve got too many things that I still want to do as a senator. And I don’t like the idea of a job where you sit around and wait for someone to die.”
Murkowski: “My name has been discussed partly because I’m a female and it’s always nice to balance things in gender … I’ve discussed it with my kids. My 16-year-old thinks it’s a fabulous idea because he thinks we probably couldn’t find any better residence in Washington, D.C., than the Naval Observatory. That’s the fun part of the question, but I think anybody, if you were seriously asked, I think you have to give it very real and genuine consideration. I don’t expect to be asked, but if I were I would give it real and genuine consideration.”
(Meanwhile, Palin has advanced to the final eight in CQ Politics' VP Madness, an NCAA-bracket-style reader survey. She's made it past Texas Gov. Rick Perry and Kansas Sen. Sam Brownback, and next faces Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal.)
MAY 13, 2008 - 6:57 AM
From Erika Bolstad in Washington D.C. --
The U.S. Senate will be voting today on energy legislation that calls for a moratorium on putting oil in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve.
The amendment has bipartisan support in the Senate, where it was featured as part of energy-relief packages unveiled in recent weeks by both parties. If passed, Congress hopes that diverting fuel from the reserves to the open market will increase supply, and therefore, ease prices at the pump. President Bush has said he will veto the proposal, but it is likely to pass by a veto-proof margin in both the House and the Senate.
But a GOP provision that includes opening up ANWR for drilling is less likely to pass today in the Senate; senators will vote on it this afternoon following their vote on the Strategic Petroleum Reserve.
Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, spoke Monday afternoon on the floor of the Senate in support of the GOP plan and ANWR.
"Opening a bit of Arctic National Wildlife Refuge won’t produce new oil tomorrow, but it will affect the psychology of oil markets, because it will show that America is finally getting serious about producing the 40 billion barrels of oil and the hundreds of trillions of cubic feet of natural gas that we believe exist in current moratoria areas," Murkowski said.
Here's a link to her full remarks.
Important warning about e-mails purporting to be from the adn.com staff.
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