I was asked recently what I would do if someone broke into my house and tried to kill my wife. The situation was purely theoretical because: a) I don’t have a wife, and b) no one has ever broken into my home in order to kill any resident there, and c) I doubt anyone I know has ever confronted such a circumstance.

Forty-one years ago this month, a state trooper handed me a ticket for an improper right turn. I’d only become licensed the previous March and was driving in Fairbanks ice fog for the first time in my life. I couldn’t see my street through the -40 ice fog until the very last moment and executed a sharp right turn without having the time to signal first.

Alaska law provides no slack for people’s lack of experience in extreme weather conditions. Drivers are responsible for adapting to whatever obstacles Alaska puts in their way.

While looking for something else, I ran across Cal Thomas’ January 11 column. He responds to the Tucson shootings as you would expect. Rather than assigning blame to Sarah Palin or to the guy who sold the murder weapon, Cal cites “moral clarity. It places the blame where it should be, on the shooter.”

Cal’s essay goes a step further. “We tolerate, even promote, many things we once regarded as evil.” And Cal offers a couple of quotes:

ESPN is asking what changes you want to see in football this year. College and pro football are already tightening rules to protect players with concussions and players hit in the helmets by helmets of opposing players. And now, the NFL playoffs have different overtime rules from those in the regular season.

As a fan, I offer my proposed changes:

A friend asked about my thoughts about the relationship between violence metaphors and the Arizona shootings.

I approach the question by distinguishing between blame and responsibility.

No, I do not blame Sarah Palin and her tea party followers for the shootings. I blame the shooter. I blame people for what they do. I do not blame people for what other people do.

In today’s climate of political correctness, I wonder if I’m still allowed to oppose the attack on Pearl Harbor 69 years ago today.

Let’s see:

Should I point out the attack was accidental because Japan didn’t know Hawaii was part of the US and may have thought the Russians were flying the US flag on the ships to fool the Japanese?

Should I justify the attack by saying it was in Japan’s “national interest?”

Should I invoke Japan's right to do whatever it takes to protect its "national security?"

I objected.

The pastor of my church had called the state attorney general “pro-death” for calling an anti-abortion bill unconstitutional. Now, I don’t know of anyone who died from a legal opinion, but I know of hundreds of thousands who died at the hands of US-funded government terrorists.

So I confronted the pastor. If the attorney general at the time, Bruce Botelho, was “pro-death,” not for approving abortion, but simply for judging the constitutionality of a bill, what does the pastor call the state’s congressional delegation for funding the terrorists?

When I visited Honduras in 1966 as part of a summer do-gooder project envisioned by a local bishop, a local student expressed concern that I might be a Peace Corps volunteer sent by the US government to spy on his country.

I remembering attributing his statement to some extreme paranoia only to find a couple of decades later that the CIA had been, in fact, using Peace Corps volunteers as spies.

December 2, 1980 is one of those dates that changed my life forever.

The 1970 Kent State shootings converted me into an opponent of starting wars, particularly frivolous ones.

And the rapes and murders of Jean Donovan and Sisters Maura Clarke, Dorothy Kazel and Ita Ford 30 years ago today helped me understand the true meaning of class warfare.

It’s not mentioning injustices against the poor. No one gets killed in that “war.” But our country’s leaders have actually used wars to kill poor people and those who stood by them.

This month’s election is not exactly the same as the 1998 governor’s race, but some similarities remain. Twelve years ago, the losing Republican candidate had so much of a reputation for lawsuits, Peter Dunlop-Shohl’s cartoon depicted John Lindauer as suing voters for discriminating against him.

“Every day, it seems right after the primary, I could count on belly-laughs while reading the newspaper about the latest developments in the candidate’s lies. He tanked so much that, think about it, in the second-most Republican state in the union, the winner of the August primary gets fewer votes than the write-in candidate he’d already defeated back in August. Enjoy it now, folks, because in the history of wacky Alaska politics, you’ll never see anything like this again.”

--Geoff Kennedy, Anchorage, Alaska, November, 1998.

"How many people have been killed by the KKK since 1960?"

To be fair, we should tally those killed in the name of "white supremacy" since 1960, since the KKK isn't the only such group (isn’t even the only group calling itself “KKK”)--there's Tim McVeigh's "Christian Identity Movement", for example. There's likewise more than one paramilitary outfit active in the name of "Islam".

"Perhaps you can show us where anybody defended the KKK".

Earlier in the week, I finally got to see the famous or infamous 1915 epic, “Birth of a Nation.” From what I heard, the movie’s glorification of the Ku Klux Klan was controversial even at the time. I watched the film partly because I’ve had a long fascination with racial attitudes in the times before I was born.

Earlier in the week, I finally got to see the famous or infamous 1915 epic, “Birth of a Nation.” From what I heard, the movie’s glorification of the Ku Klux Klan was controversial even at the time. I watched the film partly because I’ve had a long fascination with racial attitudes in the times before I was born.

Today’s war veterans have it better and worse than World War II veterans.

I’m unaware of any Stop-Loss policies during the Second World War. People didn’t sign up for one-year hitches, but fought until they were killed, maimed or until the war ended. Many if not most were draftees. Those who enlisted were probably going to be drafted anyway.

I have some advice for those five Somali men accused of firing assault rifles at a US Navy ship off the coast of Africa as they go to trial in Virginia for alleged piracy.

1) Conduct your own investigation to prove you acted in self-defense. The USS Nicholas crew members may have had some kitchen knives and some iron rods.

2) Accuse the US of deliberately provoking them by trying to run the Somali blockade of Africa.

3) Release the results of a Somali government investigation determining the attack was accidental.

4) Accuse the Nicholas crew members of links to al Qaida.

I was reminded recently of some Monty Python’s Flying Circus episodes of a third of a century ago in which some cast members pretended to represent the Silly Party.

I laughed out loud at the sign for two reasons:
1) it was funny;
2) it used laughter to tell the truth.

The sign at the Washington, D.C. rally showed a picture of Adolph Hitler on the left and another picture of Adolph Hitler on the right. The caption read, “Hitler is Hitler.”

The sign encapsulated the problem and provided a solution—with two photos and three words.

This is the first of a two-part essay. This one points out what went wrong Saturday afternoon in Anchorage. I recognize some people put in considerable effort and good intentions into doing something they thought constructive; therefore, I want my criticism to be not just destructive, but also constructive. So the second essay will focus on suggestions for improvement.

I don’t like generalizations. Generally.

It’s easy to extrapolate from one or two events and consider them proof that the end times are near and surely civilization as we know it is doomed. And it’s easy to forget that weird stuff makes the news precisely because it’s weird. A dog doesn’t make news by biting a man, but a man makes news by biting a dog.

Still, weird stuff can make us ask questions. I have several after two recent incidents reported in the news.