A brief AK political update...

After reading yesterday that our dear Governor's approval ratings have dropped once again, now down to 54%, an interesting article posted today that helps explain why still over half of the residents of this state are still eating up Sarah's b.s. sandwiches:

Tundra Drums: Reformer Palin takes on political machine again

Now that's some quality stuff, huh? The title alone was enough to make me lose my (yummy) Bethel Subway lunch. Mind you, this is the same "newspaper" that published an "article" by the CEO of a mining company last year, extolling the virtues of the new proposed mining project. But it's not just the little publications, the largest paper in the state and the most popular local network's evening news are often using the same kinds of ass-kissy, hometown hero, "she's our girl!" kinds of spins on their stories. Not editorials...pieces of supposed news.

In reality, I guess I should be impressed that 46% of Alaskans have managed to see through the smokescreen. Given what a "big deal" her V.P. nomination was, and how she put Alaska "on the map", she must be scared shitless at this point that her approval rating has dipped to where it is. Maybe people are noticing that while Alaska is facing a ton of vitally important issues at the moment, she's been too busy forming legal defense funds, forming her own P.A.C, and using state funds to travel the country on the paleo-religious-conservative meeting circuit. Not to mention farming out the trainwreck her extended family has become.

Ok, rant over. Watch for a Bethel trip report :-)

Thanksgiving in Wasilla...

Ah, our classy Governor. Is there anything she can't ruin?

Best quote: "(sarcastically)...certainly we'll get criticism for even doing this!"

She truly is the gift that keeps on giving.

Another link (with bonus rant)

Gentle reader, I hope you don't mind that many of my posts this year have been links to articles about our lovely state. It's just that we've been in the news, not to mention the lower 48's public consciousness, lately for some reason, and let's face it...the articles by the real, actual "writers" of the liberul media elite do a much better job than I ever could.

So! In that vein, here's an article from the ADN today about our use of wind power here in Kasigluk/Nunap:

Our view: Wind at work

Quite interesting to me, in that I think it provides a little bit of a roadmap to the viability and the way renewable energy is finally going to get traction in this country, at least in my humble and unenlightened opinion. Having less to do with concern about climate change, environmentalism, and worry about our "carbon footprint" (garbage disposal here consists of hauling trash out to a designated "dump" area on the tundra and setting it ablaze on occasion), and more about simple economic self interest. If wind turbines can generate energy in a local economy dealing with $7+ per gallon heating fuel, then hell yeah, we're on it.

Not that things like this would necessarily happen without the "pork" that Alaska gets from the Federal Government...you know, like the "Bridge to Nowhere". Sorry, venting again. I'm getting a little sick of reading all the Alaska-bashing on some of the lefty political blogs I frequent. Haha, we're still counting votes because they're arriving on dogsled...haha, we're all idiots who voted for a convicted felon...haha, we all want to "drill baby drill", shoot wolves from helicopters, and think we have foreign policy experience because we're by Russia. Well guess what, we need some of that "pork" because many places in this undeveloped state still are missing basic infrastructure like roads and plumbing. And those backwards, hillbilly rural voters whose votes they're now counting, more than a week after the election because the dogsled just arrived? Yeah, they just put Begich ahead of ConvicTed Stevens, even though we know not having Uncle Ted in the Senate will probably lead to less money and slower development out here. Yeah, you're welcome.

Unfortunately, she is my Governor, so I must keep mocking her.

Copy-pasted, because I'm the laziest blogger ever:

From the Urban Dictionary:

Palin

1. An applicant lacking even basic job skills

2. Someone supremely un-self-aware or lacking any relative sense of what he/she does or doesn't know.

HR sent me another Palin for the marketing manager job.

Palin v.

1. to abandon one's principles for short term gain

Tom, a devout vegan, palined when he consumed a happy meal solely to obtain the collectible toy it contained.

Palin n.

1. Pejorative term that refers to an incompetent, impractical, irrelevant or incapable person who has been appointed to a position of great importance.

2. A person who holds authority disproportionate to his or her requisite ethics and qualifications. Derived from John McCain's controversial 2008 Vice Presidential pick, Alaska Governor Sarah Palin.

John was recently made principal, but everybody thinks he's a Palin who can't do the job.

My new boss is such a Palin - he took my deserved place because the CEO is
his personal friend.

This list, however, I compiled over the course of the last 2 months...some of the funnier nicknames I've spotted for our illustrious Governor (in no particular order):

Caribou Barbie

Snowbilly

Bible Spice

Nanookie of the North

The Disasta from Alaska

Mooselini

Brain to Nowhere

Iditabroad

The Wicked Witch of Wasilla

Jane Six-Pack

Jane Winebox

Sideshow Moosetits

Sarah Flailin'

The Election Day post

Okay, I'll readily admit I'm a big geek for politics (among other things, of course), so election days are pretty much like Christmas, Thanksgiving, St. Patrick's Day and Trivia all rolled up into one. We did it up right yesterday, with a family voting adventure and a party to watch results come in until late in the evening. Plenty of comments I could make about what voting here was like, not to mention the amazing results nationally and some not-so-cool state level results, but for now lets just take a look at some scenes from the day that was:

This is a video I cut together quickly from what I shot yesterday when we went to vote...sorry if it's a little Blair-Witch-y at the beginning, I'm just no good at the walking and the shooting.



Outside our polling place...



Isaac got to celebrate the event by getting his first solid food - avocados! There's video of this somewhere, too...I may spare you that.



Sara showing off the Obama Victory Cake I made...did I mention I'm a huge nerd? But we figured if we couldn't celebrate with beer...



Yeah, we party like rock stars here in Nunap.

Stay tuned...

Busy busy election day...but stay tuned for a video and pics of Isaac's first election and the party to follow. Once I get a chance to edit and upload everything...

Long, boring catch-up post.

Oof, I really have let this get away from me, haven't I? If you're still checking here, thanks...hopefully your persistence will begin being rewarded again soon. It's been a combination of lack of post-worthy things going on, the ease of just posting tiny updates on Facebook instead of trying to expand them into blog posts, and the fact that most of what I'd want to post in this election season would have been more suited for my old blog, and not this "Alaska Journal" specific blog. My days are pretty locked into a routine of bottles, diaper changes, and naps (while trying to fit in some school projects and other things where possible), but here goes a bit of a last-3-weeks roundup :-P

A day or two after my last post was the pushed-up date for my first Alaska PFD check. Woohoo! A nice little chunk of change. So, like many Alaskans, first thing I did was purchase some plane tickets. In my case, back to WI for xmas break. In order to save a few hundred dollars, we decided I would fly back a week early like I did my first year up here, so I'll be back in the midwest starting 12/14. Just in case you were wondering.

This year's check was even larger than originally expected, thanks to an additional $1200 tacked on by the legislature (supposedly at the behest of our Governor...you may have heard of her recently), for the expressed purpose of ofsetting the insane cost of living increases out here in rural Alaska, specifically the cost of energy. Well, in many cases, it's having another effect...people are just moving from the Bush into the hub cities, or even into Anchorage. In Bethel, I've even heard a term coined for it..."energy refugees". Now, I'm not up at school enough to be really "in the loop" as far as knowing exactly what's going on all that much in the community, but from what I hear, most of the moving that's going on here is for other reasons, but it seems (to my admittedly narrow perspective) that there's more people moving away from the village. It's by no means scientific, but we're appearing to fit the pattern. Shrug.

Speaking of Alaska news (how's that for a segue?), there was a story on the Anchorage news last night about people here paying more attention to the political news, blah blah blah, and how it can raise stress levels. They even interviewed a therapist who said people who are feeling overstressed by everything should know when to "take a break"...which I found a bit amusing, seeing that I did just about the exact same thing a few weeks back. I dunno, the whole selection of Palin and the lying BS of the Republican convention Alaska attention politically...my head was threatening to explode, so I just decided to stop paying attention for a couple weeks. And guess what...it worked. I managed to save my sanity and not go completely bonkers before election day. I hope.

One thing that's been interesting is all the attention Palin is bringing to Alaska politics. Some has been good, but most of it has been of the negative variety. While national scrutiny has blown open the Troopergate deal and the Stevens trial, it's also basically put the McCain campaign basically in control of state government, acing as council for the Governor and basically maneuvering the day-to-day operation of state affairs to the best benefit of the GOP presidential campaign. In the short term, it's helping Palin and McCain (even though Caribou Barbie's approval rating has gone from 82% to 68% here as news of some of her more...interesting...positions have come to light, McCain/Palin has basically locked Alaska's 3 electoral votes up at about a 15 point lead...you may think AK was going red anyway, but Obama had cut it to a 5 point deficit in August!), I think it's going to hurt Alaska's "solid red state" status long term. I mean, the state is still super "independent"-minded, plus lots of oil interests, etc...but when the newscasts every night are the latest gaffes by our ever-more-obviously imbecilic Governess, followed by daily coverage of our senior Senator's trial and our longtime Representative's scandals and poll deficit...well, let's just hope we can crack this ice yet.

Let's see, anything I'm forgetting? Oh, I had the chance to chaperone a trip to Bethel a couple weekends ago. Got to shop, eat out (gyros!), and watch some of the best cross country runners in the state. I was even able to bring back some goodies for Sara (sushi, anyone?) thanks to some miracles of scheduling right before we left. All in all, it was a good time and a nice 24-hour break.

At the moment, I'm going to keep watching the Brewer game while Isaac naps...with the Twins out of the playoffs thanks to a coin-flip and some shady dealing from MLB, and the Packers facing an uphill road to an 8-8 season thanks to brutal injuries, the Brewers are the only think I've got going at this point. And they're down 3-0 at this point in game one. Yee-haw.

To touch base...

Wow, 10 days since I last posted? Dizzamn. My bad.

There's been stuff going on, too. Lots of things on the fritz around the house...everything I touch seems to be breaking. Our satellite connection is only half working, my Dell laptop has a few keys now that aren't working thanks to some questionable placement and a clumsy water spill, making anything that involves typing a no-go on that computer for now, until I get a keyboard to plug into it. Not to mention various things around the house, like the heat being stuck on and window installation being...ahem...ongoing. This year is certainly starting off with a bang.

As for school, well, I'm not there. I was on the schedule for the last two hours of the day, but somehow or other they couldn't see fit to let me bring Isaac in and hand him off to Sara for the last 45 min of her day (which was going to be prep anyway)...so I'm relegated to after school duties only for this semester. A "leave of absence", officially. Yee haw.

Crazy news today, though...I got a phone call from a teacher I had in high school, who's the head of the Historical Society back in Point, and somehow he got a hold of a paper I wrote in college on the Prohibition era in Portage County, and wants to publish it. I'm flattered, but more so, I'm curious how he got a hold of it. And I'm not going to lie, I'm a bit of a perfectionist when it comes to writing, I'm never happy with what I've written...I'm sure if I went back and read it now, 7 years later, I'd want to go revise the whole thing. So I doubt I'll even look at it again, for fear of being embarrassed at what's in print with my name on it.

But still...quite a shock. Who gets randomly published? Weird.

Let's see, what else can I touch on in my random drive-by of the last week and a half? I voted today. Had no idea that as someone who is officially registered as "Unaffiliated" that I could choose which ballot to vote on, Democrat or Republican. If you know me, you know that with the really interesting primaries on the GOP side in Alaska this cycle, I had to take that ballot, just to feel like I was working some mischief :-P

More to come...including, hopefully, some pictures of random late-summer village goodness...

*cue trumpets*

Sen. Ted Stevens indicted!

Oh, it's on now!

It's gonna be a fun fall...

Alaska Chants for Oh, Oh, Oh, Obama - HuffPo

Obama campaign establishes beachhead in Alaska - APRN (audio link)

Why dry?

Yeah, I grumble about the fact that I can't get beer here. I've even had an ongoing debate in my head, trying to reconcile my previous attitudes about "bootlegging" as I've known it to exist, mostly as a romantic outlaw period during national Prohibition, versus the obvious destructive effects "bootlegging" has in this part of the country on a daily basis.

Articles about the issue appear pretty regularly in the state news, and on occasion I think about posting links, but rarely do. But this recent article in Alaska Magazine entitled Turning off the Tap got to the heart of the issue, I think. It's a real battle...some people want alcohol totally banned, all across the region...others want it legal. Still others like the ban, if only because it's a profitable business venture to buy $10 bottles of rotgut and bootleg them into villages where they can sell them for $150.

So yeah, if you've ever heard me complaining about not being able to drink up here, and wondered exactly why that was...read the article.

Did you?

One cool thing about voting in Alaska...much better stickers! :-)

More later on freeze-up and the like, but as you can probably understand, my focus today is on my other blog, what with the election results and all...

Woohoo!