As we approach the solstice, days darken, skies go gray and so do spirits

Minimal decoration #1.

A friend of mine today was moaning about the dark days, overcast skies and general mild depression. Immediately I understood; I have been here before — when the short days approaching the solstice are complicated by continuously dark overcast skies. At this point, we have about 6 hours and 10 minutes of daylight along with about an hour at each end of what’s called civil twilight. It will get down to about five and a half hours at the solstice.

The year I discovered SAD I was working in a small office with three others and about this time in early December I noticed we had become irritated with each other and there was some sniping and shortness as we went about our tasks. At the time I didn’t know there was a term for it. On one such day I looked out the window and though it was daytime, the sky was dark, thunderstorm dark, and I said out loud: "Hey you know what? It's the weather. We go to work in the dark and we go home in the dark, we are indoors all day, and it's been overcast and gray for weeks. It's the weather, people." It was like a dawn broke. From that moment on just realizing it, we started to get along better.

Minimal decoration #2.

I didn’t know it at the time but it was my first realization about seasonal affective disorder. Later I learned the name and discovered the year I spent most of the available day outdoors on the deck of a crab boat and that coupled with clear, cold weather that there was something to it. Since then I know what happens and how to do something about it.

The first step is realization, knowing what it is and what causes it and how it affects a person. I think everyone suffers it, though to varying degrees. As for me I understand it and while it gets me down, I realize it is perfectly natural and do what I can to deal with it. Mostly it involves getting outdoors in the daylight hours, using full-color spectrum bulbs in light fixtures and possibly taking some vitamin D. Though I take it I’m not convinced about the vitamin.

In recent years I have spent this period of the year anxiously waiting for enough snow so I can go back to the East Pole for the winter. That’s a place I get outdoors every day. The delay seems longer this year but it hasn’t seemed to bother me as much. Today again I checked the snow cover at the cabin and was surprised to discover it is exactly the same as it was on this day last year — 2 inches. There is snow in the forecast through the weekend, so at this point patience is a virtue.

Chart shows daily snow cover near the East Pole. The red line marks this year; blue marks last year and green is the long-term average. For anyone looking for evidence of climate change, notice both recent years show 14 inches less snow than the average.

I am not saying I am unaffected, I am saying I am dealing with it in a rational manner, at least to my own satisfaction.

What has complicated things in the past couple of years is the holiday season has been less than celebratory for me, better in the woods, but not particularly joyous. But last night after a rather moving Christmas episode of 9-1-1 I actually dug through the boxes and put up two holiday decorations. No sense going overboard if I don’t plan to be here, but walking by them makes me smile so there’s that anyway. Then today I started organizing the packing for the trip to the Pole. A couple of more ways to lift the spirits above the gray mountain horizon. As for the future, by the end of January we have almost a full day of daylight to look forward to.

FYI: The episode of 9-1-1 was Season 2, Episode 10 on Fox 11/26/18 if you have on-demand access. Bring Kleenex.

WebMD on seasonal affective disorder

It just keeps on fishing, and fishing, and fishing. and …

Crew members lift recovered gear from a skiff to the main deck.

     Over the past few years several articles have been published online and in other media about people rescuing whales tangled in fishing gear. You have to cheer for those people, for sure, but also try to find where that fishing gear, much of it discarded overboard by the world's fishing fleets. comes from. The problem isn't sporadic, it's massive and ubiquitous.
     In August of 2010, I spent the better part of a month in the Pacific gyre ostensibly attempting to quantify the amount of plastic in the ocean. By pure bulk and weight, most of what we recovered was discarded fishing gear, ghost nets pitched overboard that continue fishing into eternity.
     Given the recent publicity I thought it might be interesting to show the gear we found and collected. Mind you this is netting and rope and buoys that had outlived their usefulness or become so hopelessly damaged in one way or another that fishermen just pitched it overboard where it can float and keep fishing for centuries and entangling uncounted whales and other ocean critters in their tentacles.
These photos were taken during our 2010 trip.


















Further reading

Tangled whale freed by Alaskans Thanksgiving Day 2018 Anchorage Daily News
Report finds 700,000 tons of fishing gear discarded and floating in the ocean
A single discarded net can keep fishing for centuries — Natural Resources Defense Council
Pacific garbage patch made mostly of fishing gear — National Geographic

Watch a whale show appreciation after being freed from fishing gear.



You can find other stories by searching "whales rescued from tangled fishing gear"

Climate report author responds to critics in massive tweet thread

One of the authors of the Fourth US National Climate Report took to twitter today to respond to the wave of ignorant criticism of the report coming from conservative pundits and politicians. It is wothe the read,

The Fourth US National Climate Assessment was released on Friday. Since then, a number of politicians + pundits have made statements about it that are not accurate. As an author, I'm here to set the record straight. Here we go! (thread) https://t.co/4qV9ss3Tr3

— Katharine Hayhoe (@KHayhoe) November 27, 2018

Here is a link to the entire thread

This is a link to the original article and the report

The new federal Climate report

Over the weekend (when news interest is at its lowest) The Fourth  National Climate Assessment was released. It tells an alarming story about the progress of climate change and general global warming. I have pulled some of the generalities from it here and posted the Alaska chapter at the bottom. Follow links to the full report or any other sections that might interest you. My apologies, apparently I have no control over formats for these copies and pastes.

Fourth National Climate Assessment

Volume II Impacts, Risks, and Adaptation in the United States Report-in-Brief

Full report available online 

In August 2018, temperatures soared across the northwestern United States. The heat, combined with dry conditions, contributed to wildfire activity in several states and Canada. The cover shows the Howe Ridge Fire from across Lake McDonald in Montana’s Glacier National Park on the night of August 12, roughly 24 hours after it was ignited by lightning. The fire spread rapidly, fueled by record-high temperatures and high winds, leading to evacuations and closures of parts of the park. The satellite image on the back cover, acquired on August 15, shows plumes of smoke from wildfires on the northwestern edge of Lake McDonald.
Wildfires impact communities throughout the United States each year. In addition to threatening individual safety and property, wildfire can worsen air quality locally and, in many cases, throughout the surrounding region, with substantial public health impacts including increased incidence of respiratory illness (Ch. 13: Air Quality, KM 2; Ch. 14: Health, KM 1; Ch. 26: Alaska, KM 3). As the climate warms, projected increases in wildfire frequency and area burned are expected to drive up costs associated with health effects, loss of homes and infrastructure, and fire suppression (Ch. 6: Forests, KM 1; Ch. 17: Complex Systems, Box 17.4). Increased wildfire activity is also expected to reduce the opportunity for and enjoyment of outdoor recreation activities, affecting quality of life as well as tourist economies (Ch. 7: Ecosystems, KM 3; Ch. 13: Air Quality, KM 2; Ch. 14: Tribal, KM 1; Ch. 19: Southeast, KM 3; Ch. 24: Northwest, KM 4).
Human-caused climate change, land use, and forest management influence wildfires in complex ways (Ch. 17: Complex Systems, KM 2). Over the last century, fire exclusion policies have resulted in higher fuel availability
in most U.S. forests (CSSR, Ch. 8.3, KF 6). Warmer and drier conditions have contributed to an increase in the incidence of large forest fires in the western United States and Interior Alaska since the early 1980s, a trend that is expected to continue as the climate warms and the fire season lengthens (Ch. 1: Overview, Figure 1.2k; CSSR, Ch. 8.3, KF 6). The expansion of human activity into forests and other wildland areas has also increased over the past few decades. As the footprint of human settlement expands, fire risk exposure to people and property is expected to increase further (Ch. 5: Land Changes, KM 2).

Fourth National Climate Assessment
Volume II
Impacts, Risks, and Adaptation in the United States
Report-in-Brief

Link to the report in brief

Here's a link to an index of available downloads

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY:
Chapter 26: Alaska

Alaska is the largest state in the Nation, almost one-fifth the size of the combined lower 48 United States, and is rich in natural capital resources. Alaska is often identified as being on the front lines of climate change since it is warming faster than any other state and faces a myriad of issues associated with a changing climate. The cost of infrastructure damage from a warming climate is projected to be very large, potentially ranging from $110 to $270 million per year, assuming timely repair and maintenance. Although climate change does and will continue to dramatically transform the climate and environment of the Arctic, proactive adaptation in Alaska has the potential to reduce costs associated with these impacts. This includes the dissemination of several tools, such as guidebooks to support adaptation planning, some of which focus on Indigenous communities. While many opportunities exist with a changing climate, economic prospects are not well captured in the literature at this time.

As the climate continues to warm, there is likely to be a nearly sea ice-free Arctic during the summer by mid-century. Ocean acidification is an emerging global problem that will intensify with continued carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions and negatively affects organisms. Climate change will likely affect management actions and economic drivers, including fisheries, in complex ways. The use of multiple alternative models to appropriately characterize uncertainty in future fisheries biomass trajectories and harvests could help manage these challenges. As temperature and precipitation increase across the Alaska landscape, physical and biological changes are also occurring throughout Alaska’s terrestrial ecosystems. Degradation of permafrost is expected to continue, with associated impacts to infrastructure, river and stream discharge, water quality, and fish and wildlife habitat.

Longer sea ice-free seasons, higher ground temperatures, and relative sea level rise are expected to exacerbate flooding and accelerate erosion in many regions, leading to the loss of terrestrial habitat in the future and in some cases requiring entire communities or portions of communities to relocate to safer terrain. The influence of climate change on human health in Alaska can be traced to three sources: direct exposures, indirect effects, and social or psychological disruption. Each of these will have different manifestations for Alaskans when compared to residents elsewhere in the United States. Climate change exerts indirect effects on human health in Alaska through changes to water, air, and soil and through ecosystem changes affecting disease ecology and food security, especially in rural communities.

Alaska’s rural communities are predominantly inhabited by Indigenous peoples who may be disproportionately vulnerable to socioeconomic and environmental change; however, they also have rich cultural traditions of resilience and adaptation. The impacts of climate change will likely affect all aspects of Alaska Native societies, from nutrition, infrastructure, economics, and health consequences to language, education, and the communities themselves.

The profound and diverse climate-driven changes in Alaska’s physical environment and ecosystems generate economic impacts through their effects on environmental services. These services include positive benefits directly from ecosystems (for example, food, water, and other resources), as well as services provided directly from the physical environment (for example, temperature moderation, stable ground for supporting infrastructure, and smooth surface for overland transportation). Some of these effects are relatively assured and in some cases are already occurring. Other impacts are highly uncertain, due to their dependence on the structure of global and regional economies and future human alterations to the environment decades into the future, but they could be large.

In Alaska, a range of adaptations to changing climate and related environmental conditions are underway and others have been proposed as potential actions, including measures to reduce vulnerability and risk, as well as more systemic institutional transformation.

HERE'S A LINK TO THE COMPLETE ALASKA SECTION

  

Adaptation Planning in Alaska

Map shows the locations of tribal climate adaptation planning efforts across Alaska. Adaptation activities include community-led impacts assessments, trainings, workshops, webinars, and adaptation plans. Activities are concentrated in the northwest and southwest regions of Alaska, however, a number of adaptation plans are currently in progress in the southeastern part of the state.

The map shows tribal climate adaptation planning efforts in Alaska. Research is considered to be adaptation under some classification schemes.1,2 Alaska is scientifically data poor, compared to other Arctic regions.3 In addition to research conducted at universities and by federal scientists, local community observer programs exist through several organizations, including the National Weather Service for weather and river ice observations;4 the University of Alaska for invasive species;5 and the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium for local observations of environmental change.6 Additional examples of community-based monitoring can be found through the website of the Alaska Ocean Observing System.7 From Figure 26.9 (Source: adapted from Meeker and Kettle 20178).

Observed and Projected Changes in Annual Average Temperature

Figure 26.1: (a) The graph shows Alaska statewide annual average temperatures for 1925–2016. The record shows no clear change from 1925 to 1976 due to high variability, but from 1976–2016 a clear trend of +0.7°F per decade is evident. (b) The map shows 1970–1999 annual average temperature. Alaska has a diverse climate, much warmer in the southeast and southwest than on the North Slope (c) The map shows projected changes from climate models in annual average temperature for end of the 21st century (compared to the 1970–1999 average) under a lower scenario (RCP4.5). (d) The map is the same as (c) but for a higher scenario (RCP8.5). Sources: (a) National Oceanic and Atmospheric Agency and U.S. Geological Survey, (b–d) U.S. Geological Survey.

SHRINK

Patience, my dear, patience

   
 This meme showed up on facebook a day or so ago. For anybody who writes it certainly rings true. It reminded me of an event in my own life.
     Some years ago I was walking with a woman friend in downtown Anchorage. This was in the days of the Book Cache of Fifth Avenue, I believe. We passed the book store's window and stopped for a moment. It was dedicated to a single book and I recall saying in a low under-confident voice, "someday I am going to have that window."
    Her response was less than enthusiastic. I don't recall her saying anything, just giving me a "yeah-sure" glance.
     Four years later I walked past that same window, alone this time. And guess what: the only book in that window was one I wrote.
     A few years later I was walking by the same window: same book, different woman. As we
stopped to look at it a fellow we knew walked up. He asked what we were looking at. "Tim's book," she said.
In a challenging tone he demanded to know what I had to do with that book. "He wrote it," she said. The surprised expression on his face looked more like an insult than an compliment, but …
… sometimes the medicine does work.

Stories I've written, always meaning to send

 
  Let this be a lesson to some young person out there. If you have an idea, about anything, carry it through as far as you can. You will often stop at some point when you realize it's not going to work, but everyone has at least one good idea and it's a goddamned shame when you look up one day and find out someone else had the same idea and carried it through.
     Case in point. Tonight while watching television and ad come up for a new show scheduled to begin in January. It's called "Found Innocent." It gave me a cold chill.
    You see, I had this idea years ago, even wrote what's called a treatment for it. I have searched for that treatment but so far no luck. In it the main protagonist each episode took on the case of a person imprisoned and maintaining his innocence. Each prisoner would provide a different story, some of them actually innocent and others who were just where they were supposed to be.
     I found it. It's dated May 5, 2014, but it may have been updated on that date. I probably had been thinking about it long before that, Anyway, just because I can, this is what I had prepared: ( And for the sake of truth I am not going to make any corrections or changes at all. This is the way I left it in 2014)

INNOCENCE

BAsed in the cliche that everyone in prison says he's innocent and loosely based on the Innocence Project

 Main character former prosecuting attorney who learns he send a man to the chair who was innocent.  Now in private practice, he volunteers pro bono at a prison advising people in prison.  Nrried, young old girl friend  what?

He has a buddy in the police department.  They meet when the detetective forces his way into the office (most police don't like the lawyer)  and makes him very nervous.  Turns out the lawyer ahd been instrumental in proving the policeman's convicted brother was actually innocent and so he says a faver is owed. Lawyer takes liberal advantage of access to police files.

He has to have a secretary gatekeeper helper but this is cliche.  He could have a law grad student helpling with all the hyoung innocence'

Private detective.   This is going to be a woman, tough and capable who does investigations for the lawyer. There can be sexual tension here, but she over the long run pushes off any hint of  connection.

Detective's boss and colleagues don't like his connection with the lawyer and at times try to subvert him.

Head of  the firm:  Silver haired white guy who doesn't like all the pro bono work. )A thought here some civil case he forces on the lawyer turns out to be connected to one of his innocence cases.

Maybe need a nemisis prosecutor.

FIRST CASE

 ANOTHER MORE TIMELY STIMULUS:   A kid in jail for 20 years for having a pocketfull of pot.

 First case: Hard looking goth girl comes into his office.  Says her boy friend is innocent and he told her the lawuyers name becasue he heard it from someone in prison.  She explains the case but says they have no money and says her boyfriend told her to fuck the lawyer if she had to.  Looks:  a teardrop tattoo under one eye and that one with heavy goth makeup....  the other eye just shadowed like sunken zombie like. Nose ring, short straight dark hair.  fingerless gloves and sexy. And makes no bones about fucking the guy.

Prisoner, hard case biker gangster who is guilty of a lot but not the crime he was convicted of. not very likable  but that's part of the deal of the innocence project, if the person is not guilty he is not guilty no matter what kind of person he is.

The guy's crime: Seeing a biker gang fight.  Gun shots. A guy goes down.  Just then someone attempts to drive a pickup truck through the center of the fight scattering combatants in all directions. The prisoner sees a guy layng in the street and grabs the shoulders of his lether jacket and pulls him to safety, only in turning the guy over to learn he is not only dead,  he is wearing the jacket of the other gang. Our biker pulls th body into the bushes and hightails it not realizing he has dropped his knife by the body and picked up some blood on his own clothing.  By a circuitous route he makes it to his bike as he hears sirens. He atempts to get out of there but the street he heads down has cops coming at him.  He makes a quick turn into an alley. but his rear wheel hits a spot of oil and he skids out of control into the side of a building right in front of the comps and knocks himself out.  He wakes up in jail. The bllood on his coat, his knife by the body, and a witness who saw him dragging the bodyh away  are enoujgh to convict him. He gets 15-30 for second degree murder largel becasue of the prior arrests and convictions. mostly for assault but a couple of minor possession drug busts. His gang is supected of drug trafficking.

During the fight: whole bar erupts.  Spills out into the street. As it does a big guy grabs the girlfriend and drags her kicking out a side door into an alley.  There he slams her against a dumptster then throws her to the ground, holds her down and starts to tear off her jeans.  from her pocket she pulls a knife and stabs him in the stomach. and while he is still shocked she cuts him across his neck.  Then she is abel  to squirm out from under him and head away from the meless int he street down toward to opposite end of the alley.

In the street sirens and then police and the boyfriend runs and turns into thee ame alley to escape. when he is about halfway down the alley a car roars into the alley heading toward him.  He sees the victim laying there and runs, pulling him out of the way just as the car passes.  But, right behind the car comes a police car.  The police see the guy with the victim, come to a stop and jummp out to subdue the guy and put him under arrest.  

Meanwhile the gril has left the alley just before the first car, hides agains a wall is it also emerges and turns away from where she is hiding.  Once free of any observation, she makes her way down the street and into the darkness whil her boyfirend  is hauled off to the jail.

CHANGE THIS SLIGHTLY TO AVOID IDENTIFYING THE REAL KILLER.  During the fight a big tough guy drags the girl out of the bar by a back door opening into the alley.  Minutes later the boyfriend/convicted runs into the alley to escape police. He sees another figure farther donw the alley running away. He starts to follow mostly for his own escape but trips over  the guy. A car screetches into the alley chased by police. The figure disappears at the end of the alley in the same shot where the biker is pulling the victim out of the ay of the car. The car roars past followed by a police care which sotps when they see the biker with the body.

Now how do they prove him innocent.             

1  did they check his knife for blood

2. attack the witness...  did he actually see the guy stab the victim   no  only dragging him away

3. forensices:  blood on his jackt is it the kind of spatter that would come frtom stabbing someone?  No only dragging and turning over. Knife found by body, too bloody from neck wound, no prints, blood washed away.   Might somewhere find an odd print of partial finger but cut off evenly.  Like made from fingerless gloves like got girl was wearing.  Looking at one print taken.middle and lower sections of finger but no tip print.

4.  Depth of stab wounds,    neck wound is shallow but evidence knife was twisted while in the wound.

5. Investigation centers on identification of the mystery person in the alley.  Interview people in the fight. Did anyone see anyone go out the back door?  Identifiable. Bartender might have seen (a man and a woman leaving) Later admits, man was forcing woman out the door.

SOULUTION

Turns out she did it. WEaker knife wouldnds plus a gun shot from a small weapon.

 WRITING PROMPTS

What are protagonist's top five monthly expenses

 So that's it. Obviously not a finished, polished treatment, but you get the idea. So, now as I anticipate a television show coming up in January all I can say is godammit!  At least I can hope I will be at the East Pole and unable to watch it. And I can hope some young writer will be encouraged to believe in his work and follow it through. At times like this I recall something overheard near a harbor one day. A woman owned a restaurant one step up from a food truck. By herself she was digging a trench to run a water line from a nearby building to her restaurant. As she worked several men stopped to watch for a minute or two. When one of them shouted a wise crack she hollered back: "You can pick up a shovel, you know. Nothing's stopping you but fear."

Nothing stopping any of us but fear. Go for it.

It was the best of days; it was the worst of days

     Today I was chatting with a friend and the subject of computers came up. I told her the story of the
day a young fellow in the newsroom whom I was training to work on the web site told me in effect he was surprised somebody "your age" was computer savvy. I asked the kid who he thought invented them and that was the end of that.
     But that brought to mind another computer story. They say the best and worst day in a boy's life is the day he beats his father at something. Well at the time this happened I only had a daughter. Her mother related  the story to me. It seems one day my daughter complained to her mother that she had always gone to me when she had a computer problem. And then one day I had to go to her with a computer problem. Best day/worst day. So it goes
     And my son who came along later? I don't remember the exact day, but it was somewhere around eighth or ninth grade and in succession he threw up a 3-pointer over me and then on the very next play got me off balance with a quick-step fake, dribbled around me and put up a layup while I watched flat-footed — posterized. I won't go into his expertise with video games.  I never had a chance there.
    I have to say they may be best and worst days for my kids, but for a proud papa, they were the best.

There's no logic, no logic at all

The Bering Sea threatens the beach at Kivalina.
Photo from University of Alaska Fairbanks journalism

    "There's no foundation, no foundation all the way down the line." — from The Time Of Your Life © 1939 by William Saroyan
    
 Get this. On the northwest coast of Alaska there's a small village named Kivalina. For years the shoreline in front of the village has been eroding to the point where the village is in danger of falling into the ocean and a very expensive effort is being undertaken to move the entire town to higher ground, Tuesday the village voted 51 to 20 for a congressional candidate who is a noted climate-change denier while ignoring his opponent who has openly advocated for measures to curtail the effects of global warming. As Bette Midler said, "why bother."
     In a state that largely relies on salmon for commercial fishermen, sports fishermen including a large number of nonresidents whom guides depend on, and subsistence fishermen, voters rejected a ballot measure that was largely opposed by resource extraction industries. Just the commercial fishing portion employs 57,544 people. The proposal would have protected salmon habitat in watersheds and streams around the state. All that measure would have done was codify conditions for permit applications that had been already in use for years. The proposition lost by more than 5,000 votes.  Let this sink in: ALASKANS VOTED AGAINST SALMON.
     In fact just about every state showed some inroads by the new wave except Alaska.
     Elsewhere this sort of thing happened: A Nevada brothel owner who died a few weeks before the election won a seat in the state's legislature.
     The list probably goes on and on. For instance, pundits are heralding the fact that about 50 percent of senior citizens (frankly I would rather be a dirty old man than a senior citizen) voted for candidates who vowed to protect Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. This they said was a massive movement from one side to the other. You have to wonder why the other 50 percent would vote for a party determined to cut into those vital services for the nation's elderly.
    Two candidates for the US House, one in New York one in California, who are currently facing felony trials were re-elected.
     On the other hand: A gay Native American female MMA fighter won a Congressional seat in Kansas. 
    Meanwhile across the country voters continue to support the very people who are committed to do those voters the most harm by supporting the richest two percent of the population. 
    It all recalls the comment that political science teaching assistant wrote on my paper giving  logical explanation for a political campaign and election in South America:                                                          "There is no logic in politics. C– "
    At least we have half a Congress that has the opportunity to turn things around. One can only hope.

Better Midler. "Angst on a shoestring"

A memo to the young voters of Alaska

This is Anthony Borges. He saved
the lives of 20 of his Parkland
classmates. He used his body
to keep the shooter from coming 
in to kill them. He was shot five
times Feb. 14 during the school 
massacre. The photo on the
cover of New York magazine byMichael 
Avedon features him shirtless with 
his surgical scars exposed  and wearing 
a colostomy bag.

     All along through this election cycle I've been wondering how the pollsters are including the young
people who have registered to vote at the urging of the March for our Lives kids, the survivors of the shootings at the school in Parkland, Florida, last Valentine's Day.
     The impression the pollsters give is that they are using traditional samples and haven't really considered the youth movement except as a minor portion of the main sampling groups. With so many polls showing close races including several in Alaska, that means the youth vote may make the difference.
    Today I read the 18-29 demograph members have registered and intend to vote in record numbers. Take for example the more than 100,000 who registered to vote after Tayler Swift posted on Instagram urging them to do so. Aryanna Grande put up the same numbers among her fans as well.
   I keep thinking in terms of Alaska young people. There was some movement early but the media here has let it drop and little has been written or broadcast about this group of potential voters since last Spring's demonstrations.
    Perhaps the kids have lost interest, or are just quiet or like a lot of things that happen Outside it just doesn't relate here.
   First of all, a school shooting can happen here and in fact one did even before Columbine and  Newton, let alone Parkland. Alaska students should be aware they face the same dangers as others. It was just the other day a threat was reported at UAA and a suspect arrested. The actual shooting occured at the school in Bethel some years ago. See the link at the bottom to an excellent article by former Anchorage Daily News reporter Lisa Demer about it.
     Next and most important to voters here, especially youth is Don Young who has been Alaska's only member of the U.S. House of Representatives since 1973 and supporter of the National Rifle Association and its efforts to block any kind of gun control that might be the first step in preventing mass shootimgs. He also has received thousands of dollars over the years from the NRA aimed at keeping his vote in Congress on the organization's side of the issue. There are a number of reasons not to vote for Don Young, but as young people maybe the biggest one us you should be able to attend school or any other activity without fear. Don Young is one of the people who is supporting that level of fear and a vote for his opponent would be a step toward removing his vote.
    So, remember the sorrow and grief and anger you felt in February and carry it to the polls Tuesday. With your votes we can finally retire this dinosaur and send someone to Washington who will advocate for people instead of gunslinging crazies and in the process make schools safer for you and for your own children some day.

And if you are still not convinced that it affects you too, read this.
Before Columbine and Newton there was Bethel Alaska

#walkout to vote

Is Giuliani laying groundwork for Trump family escape

     Here's a conspiracy theory to end all conspiracy theories. Today news websites reported two
seemingly unrelated stories. Both involve unknowns. The first is one I have wondered about over the last couple of weeks, Rudy Giuliani has all but dropped out of sight. At one time the visible mouthpiece for the #fakepresident on a daily, sometimes hourly, basis spoke for the administration, then all of a sudden it seemed he had disappeared.
   The second I hadn't realized but once exposed I could think back and say oh, yeah, Since around the first of September the #fakepresident has dropped his constant whining about the "witch hunt" as he terms the Mueller investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election, the one that gave us the #fakepresident.
   The first has been exposed. Giuliani has been making almost clandestine trips to Russia,  Ukraine and several other Russian satellites. No reason has been forthcoming from within the administration, only guesses by the pundits, about the reason for those trips.
   The general consensus for the second is mere speculation but it appears related to the special counsel's investigation. News reports without naming sources have posed the theory that Mueller is getting close to the #fakepresident to the point where he might have subpoenaed him to appear before a grand jury. This may have been enough to warn the guy that his attacks on the investigation and the investigators are working against him in the legal arena and has him afraid of the potential outcome.
    Of course it could be because he doesn't want to draw attention to the investigation as he campaigns for himself while supposedly supporting candidates in the coming election.
    Now how about this for a conspiracy theory? Suppose Giuliani is exploring sanctuary countries that would not extradite a criminal, and would offer a safe landing spot for the @fakepresident and his family if everything goes south and they have to flee the country, Perhaps he has even looking at real estate to house the refugees. Who would turn down a villa on, say, the Black Sea? What justice would that be to see that family as refugees in Ukraine or some other Russian affiliate?
     Of course that's only another wild conspiracy theory.

It's so easy anybody can do it
Giuliani's mystery trips