Ketchikan: Ketchikan Theatre Ballet Presents Annual Spring Gala - Ketchikan Theatre Ballet's annual Spring Gala "KTB Corral" featuring all of their students ranging in age from four to eighteen kicks off this weekend.

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"Fun and Games on the Farm", the matinee performance on Saturday, May 13th at 2pm at the High School auditorium gives the younger dancers a chance to shine and show their stuff. There are 103 performers from four years old to nine years old. Each class expresses in their dance some kind of fun and games you could have on a farm. There is kite flying, potato sack races, tea parties and fishing just to name a few, but it is all done in dance form using the skills they have learned over the year. You can just picture yourself on a farm in the summertime having fun with the dancers.

The evening performances, Friday, May 12th and 13th at 7:30pm, feature KTB's older dancers from ages eight through eighteen. This performance lets you experience a day on the farm starting Act I with the Candle Dance. This dance starts in the dark with only the light from each Ballet IX dancer's candle lighting the way. The sun slowly comes up and the farm gets to work with morning chores and children playing. Act II is the afternoon with a picnic and lunchbox social. There are fun and games in this performance too - hide and seek, a challenge dance between tap classes and the young ladies picking flowers. Act III takes us to the Barn Dance. One of the highlight of this act is the bandits whose dance is interrupted when the local sheriffs see a wanted poster featuring our dancing bandits. After the sheriffs arrest the bandits, they dance in celebration of their nabbing the crooks. The "Five Gals from Georgia" tap dance is a rousing piece set to Charlie Daniels' "The Devil Went Down To Georgia" country favorite. It is a piece that is sure to bring the house down. The last dance of the show is a rendition of the "Seven Brides for Seven Brothers" challenge dance that pits the girls against the boys. - More...
Friday - May 12, 2006

National: Furor erupts over NSA telephone call database By JAMES ROSEN - New disclosures of a secret government initiative to track domestic phone calls Thursday compelled President Bush to assure Americans that their privacy is being protected in the hunt for al Qaeda and affiliated terrorists.

The government's collection of the records of billions of phone calls from three major telecommunications firms, reported Thursday by USA Today, stunned an administration already on the defensive over Bush's nomination Monday of Air Force Gen. Michael Hayden as CIA director. - More...
Friday - May 12, 2006

National: Conservatives shocked by NSA phone program By MARGARET TALEV - "Astonished." "Outrageous." "Troublesome." "This adds to the problem the president has."

And those weren't Democrats talking.

Conservative voters, who have driven President Bush's job approval ratings into the low 30s as they split with him over his handling of issues such as the Dubai ports deal and immigration, threatened Thursday to push the president's standing even lower with the latest revelations about the National Security Agency and ordinary Americans' telephone calls. - More...
Friday - May 12, 2006

National: Disclosure could test Bush on key issue By MARC SANDALOW - Americans have accepted many intrusions on their civil liberties in the name of security since Sept. 11, 2001, from opening bags at baseball games to shoeless searches at airports.

And for the better part of five years, the politics of terror has served President Bush and the Republican Party well, contributing to his re-election and the party's majority in Congress.

Those inclinations will now be tested by the disclosure that the National Security Agency has been collecting data on tens of millions of Americans' phone calls. - More...
Friday - May 12, 2006

National: Data mining is commonly used in business to find patterns By MATTHEW B. STANNARD - Somewhere in America, powerful computers ingest crumbs of data about your personal life. Your income level. The kind of car you drive. Your home address. Your credit rating. All input, assimilated and analyzed at lightning speed.

The result: A piece of paper arrives in your mailbox offering you 10 percent off an oil change at your local service station.

That, in a nutshell, is data mining as practiced for more than a decade by companies around the world to target current and potential customers. The methods have changed since the old days of reverse telephone directories and mailing lists, but the basic objective is the same. And data mining of some type, experts agree, is almost certainly what is behind the National Security Agency's reportedly successful efforts to obtain the phone records of tens of millions of Americans from private telecommunications companies. - More...
Friday - May 12, 2006

National: Senate leaders agree on immigration debate next week By MARGARET TALEV - Stalled legislation that could put millions of illegal immigrants on a path to citizenship is back on track, with debate to resume next week and a vote possible before Memorial Day.

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist and Minority Leader Harry Reid announced Thursday they had agreed to various rules for debate that would give Democrats the comfort level to proceed on Monday. - More...
Friday - May 12, 2006

Washington Calling: Terrorists in Canada ... singing in your car ... and more By LANCE GAY - The State Department is sending an icy blast to our northern neighbors, blaming Canada's liberal immigration and asylum policies for allowing terrorists to set up anti-U.S. operations north of the border.

The State Department says in its annual report on global terrorism that Canada is becoming a haven for terrorists. "Terrorists have capitalized on liberal Canadian immigration and asylum policies to enjoy safe haven, raise funds, arrange logistical support, and plan terrorist attacks," the report says. - More...
Friday - May 12, 2006

Pesticide traces found in Alaska wilderness The snow near Burial Lake, in the foothills northwest of the Brooks Range in Noatak National Preserve, contained traces of a pesticide that were higher than samples from other western national parks. Photo by Don Campbell, USGS Denver.

Alaska: Pesticide traces found in Alaska wilderness By NED ROZELL - Burial Lake, named after a nearby Eskimo burial ground, is a half-mile-long body of water north of the Brooks Range. The lake is far from any village, and even farther from the nearest fruit orchard, so why did snow from near Burial Lake have traces of a commercial pesticide?

Because pollutants travel staggering distances through the air, said Kim Hageman, a chemist with Oregon State University. She is one of the authors of a paper about pesticides found in western national parks, including Noatak National Preserve in northwestern Alaska. She looked at contaminants in melted snow samples from different parks and found an unusual spike of a banned pesticide compound in snow collected near Burial Lake. - More...
Friday - May 12, 2006

Health - Fitness: Nicotine found in urine of babies whose parents smoke By LEE BOWMANScientists have found cancer-causing chemicals from tobacco smoke in the urine of nearly half the babies of smoking parents they tested in a new study.

The study found "substantial uptake" of nicotine and the chemical NNAL in 67 of 144 infants, or 47 percent, and the levels were directly related to how much their parents smoked around them in the home or car. NNAL is a byproduct of a toxin in tobacco that's known to cause lung cancer. - More...
Friday - May 12, 2006

Viewpoints Opinions/Letters Guard Island Lighthouse By Rob Holston - Thursday PM ALS Advocacy Day and Public Policy Conference By Linda (Teal) Kreider - Thursday PM My experience at Revilla By James Llanos Jr. - Thursday PM Emergency evacuation plan? By Laurie Price - Thursday PM No to legalization By Starr Small - Thursday PM Attitude Regarding Revilla By Eileen Small - Wednesday Revilla Students Should Be Allowed Choice By Chris Elliott - Wednesday Thanks For Helping to Keep Ketchikan Clean By Jerry Cegelske - Wednesday THE ALASKA-CANADA BOUNDARY DISPUTE(S) ARTICLE By Michael Nicoll Yahgulanaas - Wednesday School belongs to entire community By Karen Hollywood - Tuesday PM Misconceptions By Doug Gregg - Tuesday PM Responsible school board needed By Eileen Small - Tuesday AM Taxes on oil By Alan R. McGillvray - Monday Propaganda from British Petroleum By Mike Moyer - Sunday Retired military officers, not felons By A. M. Johnson - Sunday Back when "Dance Halls" were being built By Alan R. McGillvray - Sunday Drinking, smoking and throwing trash from cars? By Michael Fitzgerald - Sunday America Deserves Better! By Robert Freedland - Sunday TAX REFORM FOR ALL By Robert J. Ransom, Jr. - Sunday Which one of us is on heavy drugs? By Iliya Pavlovich - Sunday RE: I'm an Alaskan Ad Campaign By Ralph Mirsky - Saturday THANK YOU By Marie L Monyak - Saturday Wasteful and Reckless Spending By Robert D. Warner - Friday Ketchikan's kindess and generosity By Carrie Allen - Friday More Viewpoints/ Letters Publish A Letter Political Cartoonists Political Cartoons Ketchikan May Calendar Arts This Week Today's Forecast Ketchikan Weather Data Current AK Weather Map City Police Report AK Troopers Daily Dispatch Classifieds & Announcements May 2006 Click on the date to read the stories published on that day. S M T W T F S   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

Dave Kiffer: Warning: This Warning May Make You Crazy - I was at my favorite office supply purveyor last week, when I noticed something odd on the pens I was buying. They came with a disclaimer which read in part "please remove cap before use. Failure to remove cap will prevent proper operation."

Well, duh.

I made a smarty pants comment about it at the check stand and the award-winning customer service representative April replied "well, there's your next column."

Well, double duh on me!

A few weeks ago, I was reading a sleeping pill label (slow day!) and I noticed that amongst the warnings was that the product "could cause drowsiness."

One would hope so, but I like the fact they qualified it with a "could." Even a "should" was apparently too definitive. I assume they have been sued in the past by someone who was not drowsy while operating heavy machinery after taking a sleeping pill. Go figure. - More...
Friday - May 12, 2006

Dale McFeatters: NSA knows if you forget to call Mom - What else is the Bush administration not telling us?

It turns out that since shortly after 9/11 the National Security Agency has been secretly amassing the calling information of tens of millions of subscribers to three major phone companies, according to USA Today.

The three companies covertly cooperating with the NSA - AT&T, Verizon and BellSouth - are said to have an aggregate 200 million subscribers. A fourth company, Qwest, declined, insisting that the NSA first get a court warrant, which the agency refused to do, said USA Today. - More...
Friday - May 12, 2006  

Michael Reagan: GOP Better Hope "It's The Economy, Stupid" - A week before he died I asked Lyn Nofziger if the White House was arrogant or just plain stupid.

"Both," he said.

Nofziger was one of the nation's most astute political analysts and a White House aide my father Ronald Reagan greatly admired. If you need proof that Lyn knew what he was talking about, you need only consider the White House policies on illegal immigration, which are both incredibly stupid and incredibly arrogant. - More...
Friday - May 12, 2006  

Dan K. Thomasson: Democrats need to call for more than revenge - If you are one who believes returning control of the House to the Democrats this fall would bring some civility back to Capitol Hill, perhaps you should reassess your thinking. From every indication the venomous partisanship would not only not disappear but increase in ferocity, at least for the next two years.

House Democratic leaders have practically assured us of that as their prospects have soared, promising a series of investigations into President Bush's handling of everything from the conduct of the two wars, terrorism and Iraq, to formulation of energy policy. One senior Democrat, the seemingly perpetually angry John Conyers of Michigan who would head the House Judiciary Committee in event of a Democratic victory, is even openly talking about hearings to impeach the president. - More...
Friday - May 12, 2006

Steve Brewer: Some new disorders - Modern life drives us all a little crazy, often in unexpected ways, which means perpetual job security for the psychiatrists who give new names to mental malfunctions.

For shrinks, the bible is a book called the "Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders IV," or "DSM-IV," which details the assorted ways people can go loony. The latest edition is - no joke - 943 pages long.

As you can tell from that "IV," the "DSM" is updated every few years to include more of our delusions and dementias. In between updates, people in the mental-health field write long papers about illnesses they've discovered and argue over which should be included in the next edition. - More...
Friday - May 12, 2006