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Tuesday
November 23, 2010
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Smoking Volcano?
A cloud viewed from City Dock gives the appearance of a “smoking volcano” on Gravina Island just south of the Airport.
Front Page Photo by PAUL PERRY
Alaska: Miller takes election fight to state court By JILL BURKE, ALASKA DISPATCH - U.S. Senate hopeful Joe Miller, trailing behind incumbent Lisa Murkowski, makes a few new claims about misdeeds from Election Day that, he believes, could affect the final vote tally. Still, much of Miller's election lawsuit, filed Monday in state court in Fairbanks, is unsurprising. It raises many of the same claims already lodged in a companion lawsuit filed earlier this month in federal court: - Read this Alaska Dispatch article...
www.alaskadispatch.com
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Ketchikan: SHAY: Fifty Years of Politics, Plays, And Puns A Feature Story By
DAVE KIFFER - It’s hard to imagine Ketchikan public life without Jack Shay.
Jack Shay
Photo courtesy Alaska Municipal League
The performer/politician has been a near constant presence in local elected life for nearly 40 years and has been a prominent local jokester and performer for nearly 50 years. He has served on the school board, the borough assembly and the city council. He has been the only person in the history of Ketchikan who has been both the city mayor and the borough mayor.
Yet, few people know that the man with a joke (or ten) for any occasion was once so paralyzed by a “horrible” stutter that he barely opened his mouth. He also concedes that has been a “reluctant” politician over the years, frequently needing someone else to convince him to run for office.
Shay was born on May 10, 1931 in Minneapolis, Minnesota, the son of John Shay and Emma Henke.
“The doctor took one look at me and slapped my Father,” Shay noted.
His father was a map maker and a printer. His mother was a teacher and later worked for many years at Dayton’s department store. From his mother, he got his singing voice. The jokes came from his father. They had met in North Dakota and moved to Minneapolis before Shay was born.
His parents were fortunate to be employed during the Great Depression, his father working for the Works Project Administration and his mother at Dayton’s.
One of Shay’s enduring memories when he was young was that he bore a striking resemblance to the child of Aviator Charles Lindbergh.
“When the Lindbergh baby was kidnapped, people would give me very funny looks,” Shay said. “They still do.”
Shay’s father also had a small printing press making signs, menus, store catalogs and the like. Eventually, he started printing a monthly Minneapolis events calendar, called the Minneapolis Daily Events. Within a few years, Shay said, it was running 32 pages each month. Unfortunately, he added, it was so labor intensive that it was hard to keep meeting the monthly deadline and it’s publication date kept getting later and later each month.
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Shay’s first “job” was as an illustrator for the “Daily Events.” He also learned to set type and still remembers what compartments held which letters in which system.
Shay also got his “performing” gene from his father who was a gregarious jokester and a magician who specialized in card tricks.
When World War II began, Shay’s father stopped his printing business and went to work for DuPont as a safety engineer.
In 1943, DuPont transferred Shay’s father (and the rest of the family) to Hanford, Washington where he helped build the plant that created the plutonium for the atomic bomb project.
“They worked on the plutonium that was used for the Fat Man bomb that was dropped on Nagasaki,” Shay said. “But we didn’t know about that at the time. No one said much of anything.”
Shay noted that despite being on a secret military base life was fairly “normal.” He remembers being in the Boy Scouts and going on a hike up nearby Mount Baldy; primarily because he tired out near the end and had to be carried to the top.
After the war, the family returned to Minneapolis, where his father went back to his printing business and his mother returned to Dayton’s.
In high school, Shay said he had a “terrible” stutter.
“Some people thought I couldn’t speak because I literally wouldn’t speak unless I could write down what I wanted to say.” He said. “But I discovered that when I memorized things, I didn’t stutter. That’s what led me to singing and drama.”
During high school Shay also determined that he enjoyed math and sciences and he entered the University of Minnesota hoping to study more. Unfortunately he ran into a mental road block at “analytic geometry” and realized he needed to rethink his plans.
The Korean War also intervened. He was encouraged to enlist, he said, but didn’t want to join the Army and become “cannon fodder.”
So he joined the Air National Guard and trained as an airman, He expected to get shipped overseas, but instead spent his time at an air base in northern Missouri. He eventually rose to the level of E5, the equivalent of sergeant. - More...
Tuesday PM - November 23, 2010
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Columns - Commentary
BEN BOYCHUK and JOEL MATHIS: Has airline security gone too far? - It's been a bad couple of weeks for the Transportation Security Administration. A U.S. Senate subcommittee on Wednesday grilled top TSA officials about air travelers' concerns and complaints over new full-body scanning procedures and aggressive pat downs and frisking at U.S. airports.
The hearings followed an incident last weekend, when a California man recorded a confrontation with TSA agents at San Diego International Airport. TSA officials said this week they would investigate John Tyner, who posted video of himself on YouTube telling an agent, "If you touch my junk, I'll have you arrested." Tyner could face jail and an $11,000 fine for allegedly failing to complete security screening.
Have security measures gone too far? How should Congress rein in the TSA? Ben Boychuk and Joel Mathis, the RedBlueAmerica columnists, weigh in.
BEN BOYCHUK
If I had my druthers, I'd abolish the Transportation Security Administration, jail its administrators and exile its agents to North Dakota. But I'd settle for Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano's resignation and for Congress to simply "zero out" appropriations for these invasive, full-body scanners that have many travelers rightly outraged.
And instead of investigating citizens like John Tyner who stand up for their right not to be groped, Congress should be investigating TSA bureaucrats who openly violate those rights.
Napolitano and her allies in Congress, such as Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.), would have Americans believe their liberties and personal dignity is nothing compared with the terrible toll a terrorist could inflict without such invasive measures in place.
But the new scanners seem to be of limited utility. I went through one at Lihue Airport in Kauai a few months ago, and TSA agents still had to frisk me because of some anomaly that appeared on my shoulders, of all places. The process was laborious and slow, and I was lucky the airport wasn't very busy. - More...
Tuesday PM - November 23, 2010 |
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Viewpoints
Opinions/Letters
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Questions, please contact
the editor at editor@sitnews.us or call 617-9696.
Raw Fish Tax By
Kevin Kristovich - To all Ketchikan commercial fishermen and local harbor users. Show your support to see that the Ketchikan City Council returns the recent funds stripped from the harbor department that were actually voted in by the council in December of 2008 to be held in trust by the harbor department for future harbor improvement and developments. - More...
Tuesday PM - November 23, 2010
Kyle Johanson Should Resign By
Robert Thompson - At the meeting with District One Republicans our representative, Kyle Johanson, encouraged folks to call him - of course, he doesn’t bother to answer his phone. Kyle J. said he is willing to meet with anyone. Yet no one seems to know where he is or how to get a hold of him. - More..
Tuesday PM - November 23, 2010
Herring By
Lawrence "Snapper" Carson - The Alaska Dept. of Commercial Fisheries has decided it is time to fish herring for sacroe in the spring of 2011 in Behm Canal. This is a dormant mandated fishery. It is scheduled to happen when the herring population has reached a threshold population established by the Alaska Department of Commercial Fisheries. - More...
Tuesday PM - November 23, 2010
Profiling has its place. By
A. M. Johnson - As it relates to our current National airport TSA situation... "Once upon a time in the early days of our Western Territory development, a young Eastern newspaper reporter ventured west to witness and report on daily events. Stepping down from the stagecoach in a Western town, he witnessed the crowd gathering around a newly constructed gallows. Inquiring, he found that there was to be a hanging of a young horse thief. Horrified, he witnessed this act and was distraught. Several days following the hanging, it was discovered that the wrong man had been hung. - More...
Tuesday PM - November 23, 2010
Open Letter: New fence at the South Tongass Fire Station By
Scott Cragun - I received (the STVFD) letter regarding the proposed new fence at the South Tongass Fire Station and I have a few questions or comments that I would like to have answered or addressed. - More...
Tuesday PM - November 23, 2010
RE: Cutting Public Safety By Roger Hackstock - Darlene Guzman is absolutely correct, 100%. I've known her for years and if anybody has a grasp on things in Ketchikan she does. The police department and the fire department in the city need your full support. - More...
Tuesday PM - November 23, 2010
Miller needs to let go By
LeAnn Pickard - Am I the only person who is rather shocked by the way Miller is handling the outcome of the votes? He seeks to challenge misspellings of Murkowski's name, regardless of voter intent, and is now planning on calling for a recount because there were volunteer observers who did not have the training needed and therefore some ballots that should have been challenged were not. The math says that even if he gets all the 8,000+ ballots taken out of the equation, Murkowski is still in the lead by a couple thousand votes. - More...
Tuesday PM - November 24, 2010
Man-up Joe By
Michael McColley - I've lived in Alaska most all my life. I know Joe Miller and have met Lisa Murkowski. I believe the people, the voters of Alaska have had their say. Joe you can not push the Alaskans around. Man-up you lost, Lisa won. - More...
Tuesday PM - November 23, 2010
What's sauce for the goose? By
Sandy Powers - I was intrigued by the Kevin Sweeney (Murkowski's campaign manager) quote as reported in Sitnews [Nov. 17th]. - More...
Tuesday PM - November 23, 2010
RE: Iranian Nuclear Weapons Threat By
Adam Price - Mr. Donald Moskowitz’s letter (Iranian Nuclear Weapons Threat, 11/9/10) basically said it’s time to use force against Iran in an effort to stop their nuclear program. The letter states that a number of countries have nuclear weapons, but are considered “stable” and they behave with “rational conduct.” Umm…let’s see, which country is the only one in history to drop not one, but two atomic bombs? - More...
Tuesday PM - November 23, 201o
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