Iraq veteran John Mayo is working to get his life back on track. (Erik Hill/Anchorage Daily News) - See more photos -

John Mayo had mayhem etched in his skin. I noticed it when I first saw him in the lobby of the Daily News. Sleeve tattoos. Black skulls, explosions and flames. Demon drill sergeants. A rifle made to look like a deadly cartoon.

I have a confession to make: I don't have a library card. In fact, I have not been to a city library, unless you count going to Assembly meetings, since I moved back to Anchorage in 2005.

Are you a library user? Why do you visit the library? Are you checking out books? Music? DVDs? Are you using the computers? Are you taking your children to a story hour?

Or are you like me? If so, why do you think that is?

East High: social studies teacher Michael Thompson talks to a group of sophomores about the president's speech Tuesday. Photo by BILL ROTH / Anchorage Daily NewsPresident Barack Obama's face came in grainy, projected on the white board in Room 45 at East High School Tuesday morning. Students crowded in behind the rows of tables. A few teachers slipped in the door.

I'd come to East, where I graduated 13 years ago, with several other reporters to watch the president's speech with teacher Michael Thompson's history class. My goal was to see the speech, which had become a lightning rod for controversy over the last week, and to get some insight into the ideological rift that has kept cropping up in our city and country in the months since the president took office.

Bob Hallinen / Anchorage Daily News: Anchorage firefighters Eric Tuott and Wes Acree collect money for the Muscular Dystrophy Association at the corner of Lake Otis Parkway and Tudor Road on Friday afternoon as part of the department's annual "Fill the Boot" campaign

Dinner at Anchorage Fire Department Station 4 last Monday night was spaghetti and garlic bread. I filled my plate and took a seat at a long wooden table in the kitchen crowded with guys in blue T-shirts.

They'd just given me a tour of the newish station on Tudor Road. I'd seen the engine and the truck and the rescue Zodiacs and dive suits and the small rooms where the firefighters sleep during their 24-hour shifts. The joshing around the table quieted down as the news came on a big television.

Monthly take-home: Those who come for help to the Salvation Army food pantry once a month can go home with the items above, including rice, chips, bagels, ramen noodles and macaroni and cheese.

A baggie of rice. A can of peas. Two granola bars. A box of macaroni. A can of tuna. Four-day-old bagels. Three small bags of Doritos. Two servings of coffee. A can of salmon. One package of ramen noodles.

That's what you get on Thursdays at the Salvation Army food pantry between A and C streets near West 20th Avenue. You can show up there once a month.

Several dozen people wrote me saying I was being mean to the older set in today's column. Here are a few messages:

"Disagree with you Julia--I'm 47 years old and I was equally appalled by Sullivan's veto. In my opinion, one Sullivan was enough for public office in Alaska-- for all eternity. Further, I bet Jerry Prevo's church is not made up of only the Geritol crowd. Rather, it is a conservative outlook, passed on from generation to generation that explains why this silly veto could ever take place. Some people or protecting a way of life that only benefits THEM."

"Please don't forget how many "old people" were fighting for civil rights long before you were born."

UPDATE: Read some reaction and see some stats mentioned in this column in today's blog post.

My phone rang Monday just before Mayor Dan Sullivan announced his veto of the city’s equal rights ordinance protecting gay people from discrimination. A friend of mine, a lesbian 15 years or so older than I am, was nearly in tears over what she knew was coming.

She and her partner are professionals with kids and have been involved in the community for a long time. They were talking about moving. To them, the veto was a giant rejection, a message from the city that they aren’t welcome here.

The tangle of sounds from the next room was unmistakable. Guttural growling. Skittering dog nails on the floor. Barking. Shrieking.

I felt sick. For eight years, I’d known it was coming. I’d dreaded it. I’d denied it. I’d done everything I could to slow its inevitability. But there it was: My dog was attacking my friend.

There was no getting around this one. It was not a nip. It was not provoked. It was scary. I didn’t have to look at the purple welt under my friend’s knee to know there was only one way things could go.

But that’s the end of the story.

Anne Seneca

The first person I noticed in front of the Egan Center on Monday was Anne Seneca, a 28-year-old stay-at-home mom. She was standing along Fifth Avenue in the middle of about 100 protesters who wanted the Legislature not to override Sarah Palin’s veto of $28 million in federal stimulus money for energy assistance.

Seneca, in a patriotic blue striped tank top and rhinestone star earrings, had two kids with her. In her stroller, along with a blonde little girl, a juice box and damp animal crackers, she had a bunch of anti-stimulus signs. I turned my head to read one that stuck out sideways: “Government’s first duty is to protect the people. Not run our lives.”

Here are a few responses to my Sunday column about the Seward highway, from people who have been close to losses there.

My name is Brooke Poirot, and I was in a fatal accident on the Seward Highway may2008. I was driving and two of my closest friends were in the car, Jeff and Kayla. Im still unsure as to why control was lost, although the court says it was something to do with the car's maintenence. The fact is going 65mph around a sharp bend on that road, any control slips out of your hands and youre screwed. The loss of Jeff has haunted Kayla and I since it happened, and it's still nerve racking to drive that highway, even though being a snowboarder the drive is imminent. I am very thankful that the cross Kayla and I made for jeff was noticed, and I wish more people would do memorials so that it is burned into drivers that the highway is practically a graveyard.

(Photo: Marc Lester) A makeshift memorial for Jeff Morgan is place next to the Seward Highway a few miles north of Girdwood. Morgan died in car accident on the highway in 2008

Sgt. Bryan Barlow pulled onto the Seward Highway. Outside his Alaska State Troopers SUV, Turnagain Arm stretched flat and gray. It was the last Friday of July, the end of the busiest month on the highway, but afternoon traffic was unusually calm.

It gets like that after fatal wrecks, Barlow told me. Motorists behave better. They slow down. They take fewer risks. The weekend before had been a brutal one. Annette Knofel, 59, and Seth Mandel, 11, had been killed in separate crashes. In both, drivers in the oncoming lanes crossed the center line and hit them.

I have a theory that people my age (30) and younger are less likely to have a primary care doctor than people who are older. What do you do when you need healthcare? Urgent Care? Naturopath? Nurse practitioner? Nothing? Or do you have a family doc?

If you don't have a family doctor, why not?

We put our dog down over the weekend. It was hard and sad, as she was a devoted old girl, but her life and our lives had become too hard to manage.

A rescue dog, and she came to us damaged, with lots of fears and obsessions and a tendency to nip at feet. After eight years, a knee injury and a bout of arthritis, the nipping escalated to biting. After she bit a friend, our vet encouraged us to put her to sleep.

In her honor, and in the honor of loveable but damaged dogs everywhere, I am posting a memorial photo.

Stella, a foot-biter who liked to sit in the hammock, 2001-2009

Do you own, or have you owned, a difficult dog? A nipper? A piddler? A barker? A yard escape artist? A shoe-chewer? Post a photo in the Bad Dog Gallery. In the caption, please include the dog's name, a short reason why they are a bad dog, and, if deceased, their dates (Like this: Fido, couch-eater, 1999-2008) Good dogs need not apply. Click here.

AUDIO SLIDE SHOW

Click to watch and listen to Levi, Tank, and Rex together

"Tell me when strangers start recognizing you," I whispered to Levi Johnston in the noisy foyer of Glacier BrewHouse last week. He lifted his chin and let it fall in agreement but didn't make eye contact.

Just this morning, I noticed a letter in my inbox. The return address was Valdez, and inside there was a handwritten letter, on personal stationary, from a man named Pat Lynn:

Hello Julia:

Pat

I'm working on a column about the Seward Highway, and I looking for highway stories, especially from people who commute regularly. Here are some of things I'm wondering about:

Have you ever been in an accident or had a close call?

What are your safety tips for driving the road?

Do you know someone who has been killed in a traffic accident along the highway?

Have you heard about people who live part of the year, camping in pull-outs along the road?

If you want to share your story, email me: jomalley@adn.com

Jill BalgieThe way Jill Balgie tells it, Anchorage’s most recent public breast-feeding controversy began last week when she was sitting on the side of the kiddie pool at H2Oasis. Her daughter was playing in the pool. Balgie was chatting with a friend. Her 10-month-old son was hungry, so she breast-fed him. Around then, a water park employee approached with a towel, implied she should cover up and asked her not to feed her son on the pool deck.

"Even though she was very nice about it, I was just shocked. I’ve never been approached before about that," Balgie told me Monday over the phone. "Then I felt uncomfortable. I left."

I got a call from former Catholic Archbishop Francis Hurley today. He said the church will be holding a service for perennial fringe candidate Daniel DeNardo, who died last month without any next of kin. The church will take care of the burial. The date of the service and the place or burial are still pending. Some friends of DeNardo were able to reach some of his family, which should make the process easier.

I've had numerous calls from people who want to make a donation towards DeNardo's funeral costs. Donations will be accepted at Holy Family Cathedral, 811 West 6th Ave, Anchorage, AK, 99501.

I'm working on a column about a woman who left H2Oasis after she was asked to cover up while breastfeeding poolside with her 10-month-old. She insists that she was being discreet, but the management felt otherwise. I'm wondering if this kind of thing has happened to other women in Anchorage? Is it offensive to ask a woman to cover up?