Viewing entries tagged
Alaska
Not playing to its state stereotype at all, popular bar Chilkoot Charlie's in Anchorage, Alaska held the 2009 Fur Rondy Fur Bikini contest featuring Alaskan ladies wearing homemade fur bikinis. In these sort of matters, I think we're all winners and this makes me especially proud of my home state. Better this than Sarah Palin.
[Thanks Kate!]
On top of McCain and his running mate (who incidentally may have gone rogue) kicking him while he's down with calls for him to resign, a defiant Ted Stevens won't be able to vote for himself. Why?
Alaska state law prohibits felons from voting until their time is served. (No word on whether Stevens will get to vote in the event he is sentenced to no jail time.) Stevens is currently neck and neck in his Senate race against Anchorage mayor Mark Begich.
Read more here.
The McCain campaign's control over access to Sarah Palin (I'm STILL waiting for an unscripted Q&A session with reporters from her) extends to her fellow Alaskans and it's starting to really piss off her constituents mightily in that 49th state.
In stubbornly independent Alaska, the sudden intrusion of a political campaign into so many corners of state government -- not to mention Wasilla, where a dozen or more campaign researchers and lawyers have also begun overseeing the release of any information about Palin's years as mayor -- has touched a raw nerve. McCain staffers have even been assigned to answer calls for Palin's family members, who have been instructed not to talk.
"Why did the McCain campaign take over the governor's office?" the Anchorage Daily News demanded in an editorial Saturday. "Is it too much to ask that Alaska's governor speak for herself, directly to Alaskans, about her actions as Alaska's governor?"
This shouldn't be a surprise to anyone who knows anything about the state of Alaska. We're a fiercely independent bunch of libertarians who want our annual oil check to be around at least $1500 per person and access to our elected officials.
Read more here.
[Via]
Previously. Clay has more pictures and recap from his recent outing to our homeland of Alaska where with a few buddies they went on a lengthy multi-day man hike that took them across nearly every variety (aka all kinds) of wilderness Alaska has to offer, including a close encounter with a bear while they were fishing. As Clay writes of the encounter:
I notice two fishermen crossing the river at a fast point, and behind them, a large brown bear rustling in the woods behind them.
“BEAR” I say loudly and point
The fishermen look up confused
“BEAR” we all say, and point.
“Shit” says the one fisherman, turning an about face at the swiftest part of the river and crossing back to us and the safe side, standing a good distance behind the four of us. The other fisherman wades across the river and proceeds upstream a safe distance from the bear. We look at him in disbelief and inquire to the man standing with us.
He responds “I don’t know, that’s just my friend’ as if embarrassed by his friend’s lack of reaction to the large Grizzly.
Clay took photos of the incident and I'll save them for you to look at on his site: it's well worth it. Believe you me.
Read and see more here.
I couldn't go but my good friend Clay who I met freshman year of high school went to our reunion back in Anchorage, Alaska. He made a trip out of it and did lots of Alaskan-y things. He posted the first recap with lots of pictures that...will confirm every stereotype you've had of this state that I used to once call home. From the first batch of photos, it looks like one heck of a trip and makes me miss Alaska for a little bit. Here are a couple samples with more on his blog.
See and read more here.
J: Quick!! Word association! Warm semi-summer nights... Me: Mosquitoes.
J: Booooooooo Alaska boy.
Call me Mrod. An extremely rare white killer whale was spotted and photographed in Alaska. Boats stayed back after it told them, "Back up sucka. You remember what I did to that Ishmael cat. I messed him up real good."
"I had heard about this whale but we had never been able to find it," said Holly Fearnbach, a research biologist with the National Marine Mammal Laboratory in Seattle who photographed the rarity. "It was quite neat to find it."
The whale had been spotted once years ago in the Aleutians but had eluded researchers since, even though they had seen many of the more classic black and white whales over the years.
[Thanks Clay]
Living in a city of wildly diverse individuals, where all the women are strong, the men are good looking, and the children are above average, I'm continually amazed at how thunderstruck my fellow New York denizens react upon learning of my Alaskan roots. I would be able to nod knowingly to a Martian. While I'm intensely proud of my home state heritage, the passing of each year pushes me further and further from Alaska, whether its losing my eligibility for my cut of the Alaska Permanent Fund Dividend (It was $1654 this year!) or not having enjoyed reindeer sausage in three years. Or is it four now? I don't know. I don't remember.
The only constant that proved and verified that I was still Alaskan all these years since I left was my driver's license (No, you jackasses--it's not to certify driving sled dogs or bears). I discovered earlier this week to my utter sadness that it is scheduled to expire in January 2008. I won't be going home this year for the holidays, which means I will be turning in my expiring Alaskan license for a boring, common New York State one. I'm pretty disconsolate about it, but maybe as a consolation I can get Mrod or McLovin as my name on it. But, I'm going to miss my lopsidedly laminated license that looked like a very bad fake ID.
[youtube=http://youtube.com/watch?v=XZcG0NBMcDA]
This week the mother of all street fairs is occurring in Little Italy. Everyone seems to be talking about here: the front door guard at my office building asked me if I had gone yet (we've said maybe 5 words to one another total in the past year). Whoever is handling this fair's PR is a freakin' genius because it's honestly no different than any other street fair that takes place on every other block all through out the summer. Mike Gavel, the former senator from Alaska and the enduring red lantern (1) among candidates hoping to represent Democrats in the upcoming presidential elections, recently remarked during an online forum:
"I am prepared to tell you that Americans are getting fatter and dumber. I have no problem saying that ... I've also said that the Americans are going to get the government they deserve."
Relatedly, I took the following snapshot at this street fair:
I wrote a while back about an email I received from my father about a bear that was tearing up a moose near my house. These sort of stories help reinforce outsiders, aka YOU, stereotypical perception of my home state of Alaska. My fellow Alaskan Clay has an even better...letter from home (with a MUST-SEE photo attached).
As soon as I left Alaska to attend college and interact with non-Alaskans, the vast majority of whom who have never visited my home state, I've found myself often acting as an ambassador educating people that Alaska is not a gigantic sheet of ice or completely dark for half the year. My homeboys can relate to this I think. However, I received an email today from my father that only reinforced those stereotypes people have of Alaska. He writes:
"We're having good summer weather this year. The down side is something we seldom come across. Two baby moose calves were devoured by a black bear in front of the mom moose on the front lawn of some people on O'Malley road in plain sight of the neighbors and in broad daylight. It was on the front page of the Daily News. We all felt bad since we are visited by these critters every summer."
The NY Post gossip columnist Cindy Adams signs off her entries wih "Only in New York, kids, only in New York."
I'm going to conclude this entry with "Only in Alaska, kids, only in Alaska."
