"The weather of this broad climate of Alaska is severely criticized in outside circles for being too wet and too cold it must be a fastidious person who complains of climates in which, while the eagle delights to soar, the hummingbird does not disdain to flutter." --William H. Seward in a speech at Sitka, 1858 Photo courtesy Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C.

Alaska: William Henry Seward 1801-1872 By JUNE ALLEN - We Alaskans don't seem to remember the state holiday until it happens, but every year Seward's Day rolls around, always on the last Monday in March. This year it will be March 27. There's generally someone or several someones who say, "A state holiday? For Seward? Oh yeah. He had something to do with buying Alaska, didn't he?  Say, do you know if the banks are closed?"

William Henry Seward ought to be a more shining figure to Alaskans if only for the fact that he did indeed almost single-handedly engineer the Purchase of Alaska. He visited this great land generations before its majesty earned the description as the home of  America's Crown Jewels. He fell in love with Alaska just like those of us who live here have done.
 
Also to his credit, Seward claimed the distinction of being the beloved President Abraham Lincoln's best friend. Both men are large figures in American history, and both are immortalized in totem poles in Saxman Totem Park just south of Ketchikan. A top-hatted Lincoln stands alone and high atop a starkly uncarved pole ­ a position of high honor. His image was, however, carved from an oval-framed photograph that ended at his knees. His top-hatted totem likeness, too, is missing his lower legs.
 
Seward is also at the top of his more traditional pole, the totemic features of his face painted bright red. The Tongass Tlingits explain today explain that it is red because it is a shame pole noting the fact that the Secretary of State didn't bring gifts to the potlatch thrown in his honor during his visit to Alaska in 1868, a year after Alaska's Purchase from Russia. Maybe. and maybe the red face represented still unhealed scars from Seward's attack the night of Lincoln's assassination. - More...
Monday - March 27, 2006

Top Stories U.S. News U.S. Politics Alaska Ketchikan

National: Bush's PR push on Iraq seen as a tough sell By EDWARD EPSTEIN - President Bush is trying to sell the American people on the idea that they should stick with his policy in Iraq, but experts on war and public opinion doubt he will meet with much success.

Short of significant progress in Iraq that will sharply reduce American casualties and allow large numbers of troops to come home, the president's latest round of speeches and news conferences to reverse souring public opinion about the war faces a near-insurmountable burden, these nonpartisan analysts said.

At best, they said, the president, who has seen his popularity and support for the 3-year-old war skid steadily, can produce a temporary upward blip by using the presidential bully pulpit. - More...
Monday - March 27, 2006

National: House off to very, very slow start this year By MICHAEL DOYLE - Some day, Congress will run out of post offices to rename.

And then what will it do to keep busy?

The lawmakers who returned Monday from the "St. Patrick's Day District Work Period" are off to one of their slowest starts in years. They've been in session less, conducted fewer hearings and passed fewer bills than almost any other time in the past decade. What is getting done, some grumble, falls far short of crucial. - More...
Monday - March 27, 2006

National: Nation sees a sharp drop in gun dealers By KEVIN DIAZ - In a little-noticed victory for gun control advocates across the nation, the number of gun dealers in the United States has plummeted 78 percent in the past 10 years as tens of thousands of home-based dealers surrendered their federal licenses.

The drop shows how the gun debate has moved from a national stage - where gun control advocates lost congressional battles to ban assault weapons and to sue gun manufacturers - to local zoning boards that are creating a growing web of fees and regulations that indirectly restrict firearms sales.

"The gun control agenda has evolved from the halls of Congress and the courts," said Andrew Arulanandam, director of public affairs for the National Rifle Association (NRA). "Now we're seeing it evolve to the micro level in local municipalities." - More...
Monday - March 27, 2006

Health-Fitness: A reason why bird flu is not easily spread from human to human By LEE BOWMAN - Perhaps not by accident, cells that line the upper airways of humans lack the type of receptor that the deadly bird-flu virus requires to multiply and spread from person to person, two new research papers published Thursday show.

But the virus does readily attach to certain types of cells deep in the lungs, both in humans and in several mammal species that have also recently been victims of the H5NI avian-influenza virus.

The findings, reported in the journals Nature and Science, help explain why even though nearly 200 people have become infected with the bird-flu virus in eight countries since 2003, mostly from close contact with infected poultry, the virus has not been easily spread from an initial human host to other people. - More...
March 27, 2006

Business-Technology: Phone menus press callers' wrong buttons By CLINT SWETT - Elizabeth Kuehner wanted to call her credit-card company recently about using her card in Europe.

But when dialing her card issuer, she found herself laboriously punching through an interminable series of phone menus. Frustrated, she finally hung up, unable to reach a customer-service agent.

"They want us to tell them if we are going to be using the card (overseas)," said Kuehner, a Sacramento, Calif., retiree. "But I couldn't figure out any way to talk to a live person."

In today's automated world, it's often impossible to find a human on the other end of a customer-service line. And for customers like Kuehner, navigating phone-menu systems can seem like a trip into a Kafka novel. It's often byzantine, occasionally darkly humorous, but almost always frustrating. - More...
Monday - March 27, 2006

Michael Keye Schuler Photo courtesy Keyephotos http://www.keyephotos.com

Ketchikan: MAKING A SPLASH; A Review of Michael Keye Schuler's Gallery Exhibit of "On the Waters of Revillagigedo" By SHARON ALLEN - Michael Keye Schuler is making a splash in town. If you don't know of him, he's a local Ketchikan photographer with over twenty years of experience. His website at www.keyephotos.com states that he has "developed a uniqueness for capturing on film, moments and emotions that are fleeting. . ."

If you doubt those words, you should stop in at The Mainstay Gallery before the end of the month to see his latest exhibit. Entitled "On the Waters of Revillagigedo," it is what it advertises itself to be - it consists of a series of color photographs that catch moments of life spent beside and on the waters of Revillagigedo. You'll find it all there: from the serene panoramic waters of Misty Fjords to the focused frenzy of the elbowing boats along the waterfront. And although Schuler does indeed capture the fleetingly familiar, his work has a unique crispness to it - a cleanness, a focus, an appreciation for life that gives you pause and makes you come away with a new respect and a new perspective of the beloved land, water and people of Ketchikan. - More...
Monday - March 27, 2006

"Hen-and-Chicks" which is a variety of Christmas Cactus. The Echeveria Agavoides is a member of the Crassulaceae family of cactus . This is the same family as the Jade Plant. They are very hardy and require well drained soil. This one lives outside in an old leather boot all year and gets very little attention. Front Page Photo by Paul Perry - Ketchikan

Sharon Allen: SPRINGS' SPROUTING BUDS, BLOOMS AND BOUQUETS! Do You Know What Your Flowers Are Saying? - April is almost here and Spring is fast approaching. And although Deer Mountain will most likely have a snowcap for a while yet, the snow has almost melted from the low-lying areas. It won't be long before we'll be seeing the first buds of the season and everyone will be feverishly planning, planting, weeding and buying all kinds of seeds, sprouts, sod, mulch, bulbs, plants and bouquets.

But the question is: as we go about our yearly ritual of growing green, do we have any idea what our flowers, herbs and plants are saying to, for and about us?

Shakespeare may be right in saying that "a rose by any other name would smell as sweet," but the COLOR of the rose, its condition and its position may MEAN completely different things. For example, everyone knows that a red rose says "True Love" but did you know that a yellow rose reveals "Jealousy" or "Infidelity" and a withering rose signifies "Fading Beauty?" Or that an upside-down rose indicates "The Love Affair Is Over?" Even rosebuds have their own secret meanings. A rosebud with leaves, but no thorns say "I fear no longer; I hope." A rosebud with no leaves and no thorns means, "There is nothing to hope or fear" and a full-blown rose placed over two buds signifies "Secrecy." - More...
Monday - March 27, 2006

Viewpoints Opinions/Letters More Work To Do! By Jerry Cegelske - Monday PM Draft is last thing needed By Devin Klose - Monday PM Jet is good, fast ferries are bad By Sen. Kim Elton - Monday PM Time Right to Move Legislature to Mat-Su By Rep. Mark Neuman - Monday PM Annual launch fee increase By Ty Walker - Saturday PM Time for a draft By Patrick Jirschele - Saturday PM Support the Ketchikan Kanayama Student Exchange program please! By David Bergeron - Saturday PM Our School by Emily and Paul - Saturday PM City Park Needs Attention By Pat Sunde - Saturday PM Last thoughts on the Perm Fund By Alan R. McGillvray - Saturday PM A plethora of confusion By Kevin Mackey - Saturday PM Take pride in KETCHIKAN By Jerry Cegelske  - Saturday PM  Ghosts? By Jennifer Brewer - Saturday PM Cost of expansion? By Robert McRoberts - Saturday PM After living in Ketchikan... By Rob Glenn - Saturday PM Support port improvement project with a Yes vote By Chris Herby - Thursday A CERTAIN BRAND OF SELFISHNESS By David G. Hanger- Thursday State Must Focus on Oil Tax By Rep. Kurt Olson- Thursday Spraying on Long Island will be a violation of our Human Rights By Carrie James- Thursday ALTERNATE ENERGY SOURCES. NOW! By Peter Stanton - Thursday Scope of the destuction By Dr. Jolie Harris- Thursday GOVERNMENT PANDEMIC PLAN WON'T FLY By Jack Saporito- Thursday KAYHI Football By Richard Cropp - Thursday Enough Government Regulation By Janice Norman - Thursday Looking for information By Laureen Curtner - Thursday Waterfront Storage Development By Neil Gray - Tuesday PM More Viewpoints/ Letters Publish A Letter Political Cartoonists Political Cartoons Ketchikan April 11, 2006 Special Election Port of Ketchikan Improvements Project - Detailed Project Description; Ask A Question, Get an Answer; Special Election Information; and much more... Alaska Permanent Fund filing deadline is midnight (Alaska Standard Time) on Friday, March 31, 2006. Constituent meeting Tuesday, March 28, 2006 at 6:00pm.  This is an informal teleconference for members of the community to discuss issues or concerns with Senator Stedman, Rep. Elkins and  Rep. Wilson. For more information, call 225-9675.  April 13, 2006 at 5:30 - Democratic caucus for those interested in developing a local platform and organizing the local democratic party - IBEW building on Stedman, contact Micheal Hyre 617-0238 for information. March Calendar Arts This Week Today's Forecast Ketchikan Weather Data Current AK Weather Map City Police Report AK Troopers Daily Dispatch Classifieds & Announcements March 2006 Click on the date to read the stories published on that day. S M T W T F S 26  27 28 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31   Front Page Archives

John Hall: Civil war or goodbye? - If you follow the strict dictionary definition, what's going on in Iraq isn't a civil war because it is not between geographic regions or political factions.

This is a religious war, mainly between the great branches of Islam, the Sunnis and Shiites. A third group, the ethnic Kurds, is mainly Sunni Muslim. They look out for themselves.

Since each of these groups inhabits a distinct geographic region of Iraq, they would fall into civil war if they start fighting each other for chunks of territory. But so far, they have avoided this.

The U.S. military has struggled to keep the Shiite warlords, particularly the Iranian-backed Badr Brigade in southern Iraq, from fully entering the fray. Talks, which began this week with Iranian officials, could be instrumental in steering this huge militia unit away from open conflict with the Sunnis. But some believe the brigade has been at work with crude reprisal tactics. - More...
Monday - March 27, 2006

Ben Grabow: March Madness? Some folks just don't get it - My bracket? Oh. Uh... the cat ate it.

No, no, I filled it out, right? And I set it on my desk when I left the office, and the cleaning people came around and must have thrown it away. Or stolen it. Right, there's a janitor out there putting five bucks in a pool with my picks in his hand.

No, I can't just write out another one. Because... well... OK, fine. Fine. I'll say it.

I don't care about college basketball.

I don't know which teams are doing well. I don't know which teams are in which divisions. I probably don't know the names of enough teams to fill out one side of a bracket. - More...
Monday - March 27, 2006

Steve Brewer: Thoughts on the way to nowhere - Like many of my fellow bloated Americans, I exercise daily in an attempt to shed pounds and to keep my stressed heart from one day popping like a balloon.

Many people pay for memberships to gyms, where they at least have the distraction of other members, including some in leotards. But those of us who work out at home are constantly reminded that exercise is boring.

Our minds wander all over, getting as big a workout as our bodies. I've got my treadmill set up in the garage with all kinds of distractions handy: a small TV, reading material, music. But my brain bounces from topic to topic like a pinball, always coming back to the fact that I could keel over from exertion any minute, resulting in the big "Game Over."

Random thoughts from a typical workout on the Dreadmill:

Remember when exercise was all about having fun? When did it become drudgery? Here I am, bored out of my skull, walking to nowhere. Let's not think about how that's a metaphor for Life.

God, my legs are going to fall off. If they did, could I get new ones grafted on? Ones that already had muscles? Then I could skip the workouts and still look better in shorts. - More...
Monday - March 27, 2006

Bill Steigerwald: Ivan Eland: It's time to partition Iraq - Why does Iraq -- an artificial country invented by British diplomats after World War I and composed of three religious and ethnic groups that pretty much hate each other -- have to have a unified national government? Why not let Iraq do what Czechoslovakia and most of the Soviet Union did in the 1990s -- carefully and peacefully partition itself? Why can't the Kurds have their own democracy, the Shiites their own religious theocracy, and the Sunnis their own strongman, if that's what they choose?

Ivan Eland is author of "The Empire Has No Clothes: U.S. Foreign Policy Exposed" and director of the libertarian Independent Institute's Center on Peace & Liberty. A longtime advocate of partitioning Iraq, he argues it's the best and probably only way to avert the bloody civil war he says is just getting started. I talked to him Wednesday by phone from his offices in Washington.

Q: How do you define a partition of Iraq?

A: My observation is that Iraq is already partitioned. You have all these militias running around with guns and the U.S. hasn't disarmed many of them because they are helping with local security. But the problem is that this thing has turned into "sectarian violence," as the president likes to call it, or "civil war," as other people like to call it. What they need to do is have a conclave and manage the partition of the country. Iraq is going to break up because it already is broken up, and it can either be done on a peaceful basis or one that is very nasty and violent. I think a "managed partition" is the best way.

Q: Are we talking about breaking Iraq into three parts -- for Kurds, Shiites and Sunnis?

A: Not necessarily. I don't think it's going to be that easy. What's going to happen is that they are probably going to have a bloody civil war. It'll be wherever the armies are. If one beats up on the other one, then the boundaries will be changed. When you have a war, it's hard to determine what will happen. A peaceful partition would probably be three or more parts. - More...
Monday - March 27, 2006