Note to future Haines Borough Assemblies: You’re probably involved in thievery if you’re using the 1 percent sales tax for tourism promotion and economic development for purposes other than funding your tourism department and the Haines Economic Development Corporation. The theft of this fund by assemblies and managers is a little-noticed but sad story: Little noticed because most people in…
“Behind every great fortune lies a great crime.” Honore de Balzac Rich jerks in space went viral on Facebook a few weeks back. Except that most of the memes used a less polite word for jerk. One said, “My mom watched Neil Armstrong walk on the moon. I saw the guy who killed bookstores float around in space.” No…
National Geographic magazines once came with great maps. One of them detailing the Midwest states I hung over my bed in a tiny room I shared with three guys on a floating cannery offshore Togiak, Alaska. In far-flung, gray and barren Togiak, I needed reassurance I was still somehow attached to civilization, or at least to Wisconsin. I picked up…
(This essay contains material included in my letter-to-the editor on Lutak Dock published in July 8 CVN.) At the Haines Borough’s July 24 open house meeting on rebuilding the Lutak Dock, the public heard a lot of grandiose statements by the Haines Chamber of Commerce, Southeast Conference and others about how important the dock was to the town, state, and…
She was a pale-skinned girl working at a coffee shop like all the other pale-skinned girls working at coffee shops, her light brown hair parted in the middle and tied back into a short ponytail. She wore small hoop earrings and a gray hoodie and jeans and she moved in an efficient way, making lattes and Americanos for customers at…
The Fourth of July is something to make you think. To think about the nation, how it got here and how it’s going and where it’s going and whether it’s going to last, or to last in any semblance of the great words written on the day of its birth. Great words were the legacy of that first Fourth: Life,…
Let the record show: Our republic was saved by stout-hearted black and brown women in Atlanta, Detroit, Philadelphia, Milwaukee and Phoenix who convinced their neighbors to stand in line for hours in November weather to cast a single ballot. By all rights, this was our most unlikely group of saviors. Of all the people in the country, this is a…
“There’s always time for a beer and a nap somewhere along the line. Otherwise, you’re making a serious mistake.” Haines sculptor Judd Mullady The rough-hewn rock carver knew this place better than it knows itself. Ours is a nap and a beer town. Except for a few pilings seen only at low tide, the great canneries are gone. Fort Seward…
I have some friends who have guns they keep in the event the government comes to take away their rights. My friends are misguided because that’s not the way tyranny works. Rights aren’t something you can lock up in a vault in your basement. The government can take away your rights without firing a shot, or you getting a shot…
If you’re housebound or colorblind, here’s a news flash: The dandelions won. About a dozen years ago, the science people warned us of invasive weeds making their way toward town. Bad players like dandelions, hawkweed, and Himalayan balsam would take over our lawns and roadsides, strangling out our shooting stars, fireweed and forget-me-nots. This was back during the Obama administration,…