Rudy Wittshirk is a writer who lives in Willow.
Climate change (part five) - A Corporate State Of Affairs - 11/22/2009 5:18 pm
My Response To Comments re: Broken People - - 11/17/2009 5:23 pm
Climate still changing (part four) - Polar bears or humans? A false choice. Economy will change - - 11/9/2009 2:20 pm
Global climate breakdown (part three) - the science and politics of climate change - 10/22/2009 6:32 pm
part two: Changing climate or changing the climate---it ain’t happening and we don’t have nothin’ to do with it - 10/10/2009 6:34 pm
Changing climate or changing the climate? part one: Human-controlled fire and cooking. The rise of agriculture and city-states - 10/4/2009 4:43 pm
Why it’s called a “Daily News.” And---Alas, poor Beverly Masek - 9/29/2009 6:19 pm
At least trophy hunters are honest - 9/24/2009 7:48 pm
Nice Save, George? - 9/22/2009 5:19 pm
Of course racism is behind the “You lie” outburst - 9/19/2009 4:44 pm
The guns of August are silent---the guns of September are gone - - 9/14/2009 1:49 pm
(Responses to Responses below) Ghost Response: To be nuked or not to be nuked---that is the question - 9/1/2009 2:57 pm
War And Lesser Worries - A European Perspective - 8/24/2009 11:49 pm
(See below for my response to DesaJacobbson) “Subsistence” - The great political and scientific lie of Alaska - 8/19/2009 4:43 pm
“Dogs run free…why can’t we?” - Bob Dylan. Bear spray doesn’t work on a pit bull. Roma. - 8/15/2009 5:03 pm
Giant marmots, missing mosquitoes…and where are the bears? - 8/6/2009 4:00 pm
Implementing the Epiphany - - 8/3/2009 1:39 pm
Welcome to “voices,” Dr. Brian Sweeney Jr. - aka "TheSdog" - 8/2/2009 10:23 am
Comments on Afghanistan change my attitude---make things worse - - 7/24/2009 2:18 pm
The difference between science and religion - (my response to comments below) - 7/19/2009 2:51 pm
Blogimento: Crescendo and Diminuendo - 7/17/2009 2:00 pm
Afghanistan and other leftover wars (see end for blog comments) - 7/13/2009 2:21 pm
NOVEMBER 22, 2009 - 5:18 PM
The climate change crisis is intimately connected to all our other troubles. All those things we could be doing to mitigate Global Climate Breakdown are things we should already be doing to mitigate social, military, political, economic and energy woes.
A corporatist oligarchy has deployed it’s extensive economic resources, political influence and media control to spread confusion and disinformation regarding the predatory role of industry and finance in our lives.
WHO IS DOING WHAT TO WHOM? -
Polluting SUVs, high-energy light bulbs, extra-long showers and all the other facets of our individual lifestyles consume only about 25 percent of energy---corporations eat up the other 75 percent.
NOVEMBER 17, 2009 - 5:23 PM
To commentors:
Thanks for the thoughtful comments.
A letter to editor questioned the need for State Troopers to shoot to kill the unfortunate Nora Jean York rather than to disable.
Unfortunately, enforcement officers are understandably constrained not to become victims themselves. At some point, when a firearm-wielding person points a weapon, it must be assumed the weapon is loaded and will be discharged. Thus, officers are trained to shoot for the center of body-mass to have the best chance of making a hit and to have the best chance of disabling the person before they get shot themselves. And, yes, it usually results in killing because, in reality, that is the most certain means of disabling.
NOVEMBER 9, 2009 - 2:20 PM
“There is no freedom without knowledge.” - James Watson, molecular biologist
PING PONG BALLS, APPLES AND EARTH---OUR THIN SKIN OF LIFE -
From Mt. Everest to the deepest ocean canyons---the Earth would feel smooth as a ping pong ball if it were reduced to that size.
The skin of an apple is relatively thicker than Earth’s atmosphere. The diameter of an apple is about 75 times thicker than it’s skin.
Earth’s diameter is roughly 125 times the thickness of it’s atmosphere.
Therefore, when we talk about Humans destroying the Planet what we are really referring to is disturbing the delicate equilibrium of that thin surface layer of ocean, land and atmosphere in which most of life thrives. [There are living organisms thousands of feet below the surface---perhaps they will reseed life if we blow it.]
OCTOBER 22, 2009 - 6:32 PM
CLIMATE SCIENCE AND POLITICS -
“Science means it’s absolutely proven, right?“
For many years my friend had been a devout and aggressive religionist who believed that science was evil and inimical to spiritual awareness. Now he is trying to educate himself about science.
“No---you’re still thinking like a true believer,” I teased him, “it’s only science when you have used the scientific process to arrive at your conclusion.”
He seemed disappointed. His confusion was understandable---all his life he had been taught that science was a malevolent rival to his religion.
OCTOBER 10, 2009 - 6:34 PM
THE AGE OF POLLUTING AT WILL
When I was growing up in New York City in the forties and fifties I watched great billows of smoke belching from the stacks of factories. The emanations were putrid and foul. Even the smell of baking bread from the huge Wonder Bread Bakery was kind of sickly sweet and overpowering. [My mother wouldn’t allow any of that “cheesy” white bread in the house. We ate nothing but good German rye.]
My parents allowed me to freely wander all over the city---but they wouldn’t let me swim in the Hudson River. I never did have any desire to swim in Brooklyn’s notorious Newton Creek---it looked like used crankcase oil. After a storm the air became clear and sweet for while---except when the stench of Newton Creek was wafted to our neighborhood by shifting winds. Eventually Newton Creek caught fire.
OCTOBER 4, 2009 - 4:43 PM
For hundreds of thousands of years proto-humans had been making and controlling fires---presumably for warmth, protection from wild animals and for cooking. Archeological evidence reveals the presence of fire pits for at least the past 800,000 years but cannot tell us exactly when our pre-human ancestors first controlled fires.
Harvard University biological anthropologist Richard Wrangham presents a compelling hypothesis that Homo erectus began cooking food 1.8 million years ago (“Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human,” Basic Books).
1.8 million years ago Homo-erectus had evolved larger skulls (bigger brains), smaller pelvises and rib cages (smaller abdomens) and especially smaller teeth (softer foods). These evolutionary changes were directly due to and/or involved with the cooking of foods, says Wrangham. He points out that at no other time in our history did our teeth, skull and pelvis change size so drastically. Wrangham calls this an “indisputable” “signal” in the fossil record because cooking concentrates and softens wild foods, thus requiring smaller dentition and stomachs---also freeing proto-humans from the endless chore of chewing and digesting large masses of coarse wild foods. This allowed those bigger, higher-energy-consuming brains to focus on the development of tools, culture and more complex social structures. [NOVA will present programs about Homo erectus---PBS Ch. 7 - Tuesdays Nov 3, 10 and 17 - “Becoming human - Unearthing our earliest ancestors”]
SEPTEMBER 29, 2009 - 6:19 PM
Our newspaper carrier up here on Hatcher Pass Road has given us customers notice that he will be leaving on September 30, 2009. He expressed “pleasure to serve you for the past year, but after working 370 days straight, I need a break!” Indeed.
We’ve had some good carriers on this route and a few who never could manage to deliver a paper on a daily basis. But I can only recall a few mornings when, due to circumstances beyond this carrier’s control, our newspaper was not delivered. He was one of the best.
There must be tougher routes than this one but given the winter snow conditions and side roads this is a difficult carrier route to service. It may be sort of “part-time” but it means working every single day and it isn‘t easy.
SEPTEMBER 24, 2009 - 7:48 PM
Rod Arno's defense of trophy hunting in The Anchorage Daily News letters (“Predator/prey management benefits hunters from here, Outside,“ 9-23-09) almost convinced me for a moment that predator control to support trophy hunting of bull moose which supposedly subsidizes Alaska's game management programs is a good thing. So why didn’t they say so in the first place?
Why weren’t the people of Alaska told about this camouflaged purpose before they were tricked into voting for killing wolves using aircraft in order to benefit the poor, starving residents of the Bush?
Why was the Alaska public misled by being told that predator control was intended mainly to increase the meat supply of those who were “dependent“ upon it? So-called “subsistence.”
SEPTEMBER 22, 2009 - 5:19 PM
This is how history is rewritten, folks: “Bush may have saved his own legacy,” Ross Douthat, comment, Anchorage Daily News 9-22-09.
According to Douthat’s logic, Iraq has not been completely and totally flushed down the toilet because the military “surge” “saved” George W. Bush’s wrong-country invasion legacy.
Never mind that it wasn’t only the “surge” that quieted down the war in Iraq but sheer exhaustion. It was Iraq’s Sunni insurgents who finally got tired of fighting both the Shiite majority and the heavily-armed American troops and decided to take our pay-off money and stop fighting.
SEPTEMBER 19, 2009 - 4:44 PM
The beauty of being a racist in America today is that you don’t have to shout “N...” out loud in the once-hallowed halls of the US Congress to get the message across. While the dumbest crackers get the meaning right way, slightly more sophisticated crackers can play the self-righteous outrage card---they don’t even have to know they are racists (much less admit it). They can deny the obvious meaning behind Wilson’s crude outburst by accusing the Democrats of being reverse racists (“playing the race card“). “You lie” apologists can deflect from the true meaning of that racist-facilitated remark by rattling off examples of celebrity misbehavior---which are now, apparently, interchangeable with and just as important as high political naughtiness within the confines of the US Congress itself.
SEPTEMBER 14, 2009 - 1:49 PM
Advanced ATV-hauling trailer technology; quiet, smooth-running, late-model pickups; a short stretch of newly-paved roadway; and the near-total absence of wildlife make this the quietest hunting season in 25 years of observing (and formerly taking part in) this annual spectacle along upper Hatcher Pass Road.
In years past one could hear it all night and all day long---the rumble of traffic and the distinctive rattle of ATVs bouncing around on those flimsy trailers with the little wheels. But now everything rolls smoothly because no one wants to haul today’s expensive off-road vehicles on trailers likely to dump them on the roadway. Except a hunter can’t even buy a moose in Hatcher Pass anymore.
SEPTEMBER 1, 2009 - 2:57 PM
All comments on the “European perspective…“ piece were deleted. One appeared briefly but that commentator has since bitten the digital dust---presumably for an indiscretion committed on someone else’s blog.
One must say some pretty horrible and stupid stuff to get kicked off this blog site (lose one’s posting privileges). The standards are low. I can sympathize with those who edit these comments---they actually have to read the worst of them.
I take what I can get. So I am responding to the “ghost” commentator (”Anglin4” if I recall correctly).
The commentator disagreed with my informant and speculated that Europeans are pessimistic and cynical because they have a 50% tax rate which makes it too hard to have kids and raise families. This, after I had made it quite clear (it’s right there in the title) that Europeans are cynical because they don’t want to get blown up in a nuclear exchange between the Bumbling Giant In Decline and the Rising Russian Bear.
AUGUST 24, 2009 - 11:49 PM
Recently I received a telephone call from a friend in Germany, a professor of medical engineering. He mentioned that the German government had recently staged another economic bailout of it’s banking system---just in time, he reckoned, because Germany’s financial sector was close to fiscal insolvency.
Europeans enjoy “excellent” unemployment insurance and great health care, he said. “If you need an ambulance it will be there.” The average European enjoys “an excellent life”---even with (or maybe because of) a reduced birth rate.
Despite this “excellent life“ he stated that Europeans are pessimistic. One clue to the cause of this gloomy attitude had come to him from a documentary he had seen about India. A resident of India stated that the people there are generally optimistic because they are accustomed to living in chaos and uncertainty; have always found it necessary to struggle; and believe that things can only get better.
AUGUST 19, 2009 - 4:43 PM
The “S-word” -
In response to “outside“ attempts in the US Congress to stop private aircraft from wiping out Alaska‘s wolf populations, Alaska State Fish and Game officials were flushed out of their business-administrative-political lairs to again claim once more that wolves are being killed for ”subsistence.” Still no explanation what they mean by “subsistence.” Maybe like Point Hope---just keep killing caribou until you find one you like and leave the rest to rot and the orphaned calves to die. Even Natives have forgotten what subsistence means after the newcomers destroyed that lifestyle decades ago.
AUGUST 15, 2009 - 5:03 PM
[BLOGNOTES: While citing four science articles in the Sunday Anchorage Daily News of July 26, 2009 (“Comments on Afghanistan…science-notes“) I didn’t mention Ned Rozell’s excellent science column because I didn’t get to read the entire paper until days later. Ned Rozell soldiers along with his regular science column to keep the masses informed.
Re previous blog: “Giant marmots…“ about Hatcher Pass and missing wildlife -
A Garfield cartoon in ADN reminded me that the State of Alaska actually has a “Hatcher Pass Management Plan.” I even took time to send in my comments.
AUGUST 6, 2009 - 4:00 PM
The snow never lies -
The terrible tragedy of the Hatcher Pass wildlife death-zone is at no time more evident than in winter---when vast expanses of fresh white snow for miles on either side of the road show absolutely nothing in the way of wildlife tracks large or small.
Caribou gone -
There used to be caribou around Hatcher Pass. I have the pictures to prove there were actual herds of caribou. Even after they declined I would see their tracks in the mountain snows each spring, crossing ridges from their winter range to their summer range. Now---though I climb earlier and more often than ever---no caribou and no other animal tracks for miles in any direction.
AUGUST 3, 2009 - 1:39 PM
That’s what religion always says it is supposed to be for: to provide epiphanies---moments of moral clarity leading to positive changes in behavior to the benefit of others and the exaltation of mood and emotional comfort for the self as well.
When it comes to analyzing religion and religion-based behavior and speech, I differentiate between truly compassionate acts and those evolutionary, corporate impulses designed to reproduce one view numerically and at all costs.
Dan Fagan describes what appears to be a deeply-felt, spiritual reawakening (“Policy, not personality, will be new focus,” Anchorage Daily News, Opinion, 8-2-09). This is one of the most important op-ed pieces in a while because it goes directly against the current infestation of exponential, excremental, trash-talking, policy-obscuring media noise. The critical quote from Dan’s column is this: “…If my profession calls for tearing down others to be successful, then I’ll just have to find another career.”
AUGUST 2, 2009 - 10:23 AM
The truth unmasked:
TheSdog was right about one thing when he said that “Pravda” chose me to be an Alaska Voice because I am a “left wing hack.” [see archived "How I wound up on this blog"] You gotta admit---the Anchorage Daily News has a sense of humor.
I am reminded of a scene in the funniest vampire movie of all time: “Love At First Bite.” Richard Benjamin plays a Doctor (grandson of legendary Dr. Von Helsing) who wants to protect his girl friend (Susan Saint James) from a vampire played by George Hamilton. In frustration, he bursts into a restaurant where the couple is seated and begins blasting away at George Hamilton with a pistol while reassuring startled patrons: “It’s all right---I’m a doctor!”
JULY 24, 2009 - 2:18 PM
[first some science-notes: four articles in Sunday’s Anchorage Daily News (July 26, 2009).
1 - “The Race For The Secret of the Universe” by Stephen Fried (Parade) provides a good but brief introduction to cutting edge physics on the mysteries of the Big Bang.
2 - “Because of Jupiter, Earth dodges a bullet” [this time] tells how Jupiter’s massive gravitational pull sometimes draws comets away from Earth---and sometimes slings them towards Earth.
3 - “Fish ear bones carry history” - fish ear bones reveal if salmon are wild or hatchery-raised.
4 - “Alaska university students see inner workings of NASA” tells how students experience temporary weightlessness (as in space).]
JULY 19, 2009 - 2:51 PM
“Obama nomination is excellent choice,” Cal Thomas, Anchorage Daily News, 7-18-09.
As far as I know I agree: Dr. Francis S. Collins is an “excellent choice” to head the National Institutes of Health because he “…led the government’s successful effort to sequence the human genome.”
But not because “Collins sees no conflict between science and faith.” Not because Collins says science and faith are “…not only compatible…but wondrously complimentary.”
Of course President Obama considered Collins’ sort-of politically-acceptable religious views in order to massage the faith and scientific miscomprehension of folks like Mr. Cal Thomas.
Read the adn.com updated privacy policy | 
Important warning about e-mails purporting to be from the adn.com staff.
© Copyright 2009, The Anchorage Daily News, a subsidiary of The McClatchy Company 
Contact Us | Newsroom Contacts | Communication Forms | Subscriptions | Advertising | Featured Advertisers
Daily News Jobs |
RSS Feeds |
|
ADN Store |
Newspapers in Education
Terms of Service | Privacy Policy | About our ads | Copyright
