Warmer weather kicks off free junk season, when people put their discards out on the curb with a “free” sign, enticing passers-by to believe they’re getting a bargain instead of hauling off someone else’s trash and saving them a trip to the dump. Free junk is a recent twist, something that didn’t happen so much 30 years ago, when people…
About 15 years ago, my wife and I joined a protest in the Valley of the Giants, a grove of giant, red tingle trees in Western Australia. We happened into the demonstration while bicycling along the narrow, winding road through the grove, an awe-inspiring ride. The highway department was cutting down several of these 15-story eucalypts in order to widen…
There are several concerns with the gun resolution passed Tuesday by the Haines Borough Assembly, including but not limited to, the following questions: In what ways does Tuesday’s resolution obligate or encumber the borough assembly or any future assembly to take actions regarding federal gun legislation? What actions might those be? Regarding the resolution language “the borough expresses its intent……
It’s good our Haines Borough Assembly is bullish on bullets. Otherwise it might run out of ammo shooting itself in the foot. On Tuesday, the assembly plunged our local government into the national gun debate, passing a resolution “upholding individual rights protected by the Second Amendment.” The resolution states, “the borough expresses its intent… to oppose… any efforts to unconstitutionally…
Traveling to the Lower 48 is a small consolation when we can’t get into Canada. That’s been a lesson of COVID-19. Since restrictions between our nations were imposed 14 months ago, we’ve missed Canada, certainly more than it has missed us. At least here on the border, the bond between Alaskans and Yukoners is deep and enduring. It’s laid plain…
The Haines Borough Assembly can a put a lid on its gun-sanctuary debate simply by advancing the question to the fall, municipal ballot as an advisory question. Matter settled. Then the assembly can get back to important, local issues, where its members have expertise and an obligation to act. Resolutions about any other non-local issues – Black Lives Matter, LGBQT…
It’s baseball season and the Haines Borough Assembly is out in left field. COVID and December’s wreckage brought sharp focus to borough meetings, but the assembly is out grazing in the grass now, entertaining a gun-nut resolution. This is where assemblies land when they fail to deliberately and thoughtfully establish their goals. They stumble around like a drunk, opening doors…
All the constitutional scholars on the Haines Borough Assembly, please raise your hands. Great. Thank you. Now please explain, using simple language the rest of us ignorant plebes might understand as well as your knowledge of the discussions held during the passage of the Bill of Rights in 1789: Was it the intent of the founding fathers that “arms” meant…
Oahu, Hawaii – Public officials on this island paradise fret coqui frogs and the pretty girls who primp along the road at the public botanical garden at Kaneohe. Photography is prohibited on the garden road and right in front of us a blonde plops down in the middle of it, spreading her colorful skirt out across the asphalt while a girlfriend…
It’s a sad day for anyone west of the Mississippi. Larry McMurtry, the great voice of western Americana, is dead of Parkinson’s disease at age 84. A career novelist, screenwriter, critic, bookseller and book scout, McMurtry created Gus McRae, Duane Moore and Hud Hannon, outsized characters who leapt from his books to movie screens in the late 20th century. His…