Life on "The Rock"
Front Page Photo by CINDY BALZER

It was two years after the close of the War Between the States and the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln that the Purchase of Alaska was engineered. At the time, Washington D.C. was a springtime quagmire of muddy and rutted, manure-fouled streets. Men carried side arms and spat tobacco juice. The seemingly lawless nation's capital still wore the in-progress look of a "created" community, the progress halted by the empty coffers of a country devastated by a long and costly civil war.

The two men who engineered the Alaska Purchase, U.S. Secretary of State William Henry Seward and Russian diplomat Edouard de Stoeckl - couldn't have been more different.

William Henry Seward had been Secretary of State under President Lincoln - against whom he ran unsuccessfully for the presidential nomination in 1860. After Lincoln's assassination, Seward remained as Secretary of State under President Andrew Johnson.

Seward was born to a wealthy family in New York state, became a lawyer like his judge father, and entered politics at a young age, becoming a two-term governor of New York before he exercised his presidential ambitions. As Lincoln's "right hand," he was said to have been an effective secretary of state.

Seward's most notable physical characteristic was his large "noble" nose, which he himself may have considered handsome. A proud and full profile photograph of him hangs in the Seward, Alaska, museum. In life, his nose definitely preceded him! He had a distinctive upper lip, an abundant head of hair, a passionate nature for causes, and a fierce determination.

His face carried the scars of an assassin's attack from the evening of April 14, 1865, when Abraham Lincoln was killed at Ford's Theater. Lincoln's assassination by renowned actor John Wilkes Booth was not a solo act but was a part of a much larger plot to kill the president, the Vice-President, the Secretary of State, the Secretary of War and perhaps others. However, some of the assigned assassins were less determined or trustworthy than others. The vice-president's assigned assassin got drunk to screw up his courage and passed out before he could act. The spared war secretary's potential assassin was never identified, a fact that fueled rumors that perhaps it was the Secretary of War himself who sponsored the deadly plans! - More...
Monday - March 28, 2011

Sitka: Meet Commercial Fisher Linda Behnken - Behnken has been fishing for halibut, sablefish and salmon in Alaskan waters since 1982. With her husband, she co-owns the Woodstock, a 40-foot boat home-ported in Sitka, a small community in Alaska’s southeast. Behnken is the executive director of the Alaska Longline Fishermen's Association, and she served on the North Pacific Fishery Management Council for nine years.

Why did you get into fishing?

I came here because I wanted to see the wilds of Alaska and needed to earn some money for college. I very quickly fell in love with the community of fishermen and the family fisheries of southeast Alaska.

In what ways have you seen commercial fishing change in the last 30 years?

Probably the biggest change has been the switch from open access fisheries with sablefish and halibut to the individual fishing quota program, a catch share program that started in 1995. That had a huge effect on the fishery and the fishing. - More...
Monday - March 28, 2011

Fish Factor: Ocean Zoning will affect all users; Poachers biggest threat to Alaska fisheries says Begich By LAINE WELCH - Alaska Senator Mark Begich is quick to name the issue that’s giving him the biggest earful so far in his new post as Chairman of the Commerce Subcommittee on Oceans, Fisheries, and Coast Guard: “marine spatial planning.”  

The concept is listed as a top priority by the 2010 National Ocean’s Council which is already preparing to draft action plans on nine coastal/ocean objectives. It would affect all users and uses, on and beneath the oceans.

“I hear it over and over again,” Sen. Begich said in a phone call from D.C. “Let’s call it like it is, pure and simple – ocean zoning.” 

“I don’t think Dr. Lubchenco, the director of NOAA, appreciated my blunt categorization of it,” Begich added, “but as a former mayor, that’s what it is. You  are determining winners and losers in terms of utilization of the oceans, and that is what zoning does. - More...
Saturday - March 26, 2011

DAVE KIFFER: Pondering a weighty matter - We used to weigh a lot less.

I know this for a fact because our scales were smaller.

For years we had one of those round silver and black scales in our bathroom and it only went up to 200 pounds. Then - like those produce scales at the grocery store - it would start over again.

Leaving one to do some quick math to come up with the actual number. And also having to remember how many times it had gone completely around!

For example, I had an uncle who was roughly the size of a small Caribbean nation. But according to our bathroom scale, he only weighed 126 pounds! (It was his second time around).

I was thinking about this as I was listening to a radio news program about new high tech measuring devices that will not only weigh you and determine the specific body fat of specific body parts but it would then transmit that data via a wireless receiver.

Just in case you wanted to immediately post the results to your Facebook status (uh huh).

Of course, the idea of that vital personal information being transmitted anywhere beyond my personal frontal lobe is somewhat horrifying enough. But here was the kicker.

Since we are "bigger" than we used to be, the scale would now be able to go as high 400 pounds. I’m not so sure that is a good thing.

Years ago, I was at a county fair outside of Seattle and there was one of those weighing machines. Of course, no one was going anywhere near it except for children to whom weighing “more” was a good thing.

Then I noticed a very large man step on the scale. It was like someone whaling away on one of those strong man ring the bell carnival games where you used  a mallet to make the ball go higher up a scale. The top of the weight scale read "What a big baby you are!" The ball rocked off the top of the scale.

"I already knew that," the big man huffed.

I was surprised the scale didn't ask him to get out of his car before weighing himself. - More....
Monday - March 29, 2011

Viewpoints
Commentary
Opinions/Letters
Basic Rules &
Freedom of Speech