It’s virtually never that the town of Haines gets ahead of major, European nations on enlightened social policy, so this bears reporting: France made news this week in announcing free condoms for citizens aged 18 to 25. Haines has offered free condoms for more than 25 years – to anyone. There’s a grab-box of complimentary rubbers mounted on the outside…
Where is Joe Price when you need him? Joe was a Haines kid with a sharp mind and enough backbone to challenge the Haines Borough’s school administration – and win. The issue was a proposal from then principal Gary Matthews to use a breathalyzer at high school dances to see if students might be nipping at a flask of firewater.…
I knew about four people in Alaska when I was invited to an “orphan’s Thanksgiving” in Anchorage in 1984. I had overstayed my plans to head south at summer’s end and was living in an apartment behind a strip mall on dreary East Tudor Road. November had been the coldest and darkest of my experiences with cold and dark. I…
Sen. Murkowski: Congratulations on your recent re-election. I’m sorry that the nature of politics compelled you to go on television during the campaign saying that you loved Alaska to the bottom of your heart. Your long career in office leaves no doubt that you are most dedicated to our state, exponentially more so than your recent challenger. I am writing…
A few weeks when I became so obsessed in my efforts to catch a coho I started trolling Main Street looking for anyone who could help me get my canoe in the water, I got to thinking about Jack Hemingway. The son of Ernest, the famous writer, Jack was an angler so possessed that he packed his fly rod when…
Mary Peltola stands a chance of being re-elected to the U.S. House of Representatives. If she does, Democrats might be onto a formula for winning and holding statewide office, but only if the Alaska Republican Party clown car stays full of shills, carpet-baggers and stooges. Peltola would be no match for a Jay Hammond or even a Wally Hickel or…
At a meeting on Aug. 17, Haines-area state forester Greg Palmieri tried to bring Mosquito Lake Road residents around to accepting some small timber sales in their neighborhood. It shouldn’t have been a hard sell. Clearcuts would be small – no larger than 10 acres – and restoration of old logging roads there might open some areas to recreation, including…
Chances are, your local librarian is a subversive, and if you’re religious, you should thank God for that. Or perhaps not. God is not a free-thinker, at least he wasn’t in the Old Testament. Old God took an eye for an eye. He smote the Philistines. And he wasn’t tolerant of you thinking there might be other gods every bit…
The recent Haines Borough election was a disappointment to some of my liberal friends, but they ought not fret much. It’s unlikely this assembly will do much because they’re like most assemblies – spoon fed by an administration and a staff that’s not interested in changing much. That’s unfortunate because the world around us changes every day and success goes…
U.S. Senator Lisa Murkowski was in town early last month and again she went on about how much she likes Haines and how she’d like to have a cabin here some day. We should take her up on it. Murkowski coos over Haines every time she visits and she visits a whole lot compared to Alaska’s other U.S. senator, Dan…