Ketchikan: A Gift of Life By MARIE L. MONYAK - What would you give to save a life?  Would you sacrifice your own life for someone else?  What about donating an organ?  And what if the person in need wasn't even a family member, but just a friend?  What if it happened, not just in theory, but in reality?   How willing would you be to "go under the knife" to donate an organ for a friend?  That's just what Kim Kirby did for Sara Schroeder.  And that's just the beginning of a long journey that these two exceptional women embarked upon back in the spring of 2004.

A Gift of Life Sara Schroeder and Kim Kirby Photo courtesy Kim Kirby

 
If you have not yet heard the story about Kim Kirby, owner of Southeast Sea Kayaks, who donated her kidney to help Sara Schroeder, a good friend and former employee, you are one of the very few in Ketchikan who hasn't heard this heartwarming story.

Sara Schroeder is a young 19 year old woman from Ketchikan who's been both a kayak guide and more recently, a ticket agent at Taquan Air.  She's had dreams of going to college and becoming a commercial pilot.   Kim Kirby was nothing more than Schroeder's employer until the two found so many activities in common that they became fast friends.  - More...
Friday - December 02, 2005

Ketchikan: MV Taku Northbound Sailing Cancelled due to Boiler; Will Pick Up Southbound Schedule to Prince Rupert Sunday Morning - The Alaska Marine Highway System announced today that the northbound sailing of the MV Taku has been cancelled due to its inoperative boiler. The Taku had been scheduled to depart Ketchikan Thursday afternoon for Skagway, with intermediate stops at Wrangell, Petersburg, Juneau, and Haines. Its normal schedule would have it returning to Ketchikan by Saturday night. It is the intention of AMHS to have the vessel back in service in time to sail southbound to Prince Rupert on schedule at 2 a.m. Sunday. - More...
Friday - December 02, 2005

Alaska: Governor's Annual Open House Set for December 6; Thorne Bay Provides Christmas Trees for Governor's House - Alaska Governor Frank Murkowski and First Lady Nancy Murkowski welcome the public to the Governor's Annual Christmas Open House at the Governor's Residence, to be held Tuesday, December 6, from 3 to 6 p.m.  - More...
Friday - December 02, 2005

Washington Calling: Corruption scandal heats up ... Condi's dress size ... other items By LANCE GAY - Expect even more explosive disclosures of corruption on Capitol Hill to come soon as Justice Department investigations move into high gear.

Under recent plea agreements, both former Washington lobbyist Michael Scanlon and disgraced Rep. Duke Cunningham, R-Calif., agreed to tell prosecutors everything they know about friends and associates involved in misdeeds. What they've confided isn't yet known, but the Justice Department has reassigned more than 50 prosecutors to gumshoe the evidence.

Some very messy revelations could come as early as next month, when ex-Washington lobbying powerhouse Jack Abramoff goes on trial in Florida with his one-time business partner Adam Kidan. The charges involve phony financing of the 2000 purchase of SunCruz Casino - an offshore gaming concern wrangled from entrepreneur Gus Boulis, who was later assassinated by a Mob-connected hit squad.

Meantime, prosecutors in Washington are piecing together the alleged involvement of Scanlon and Abramoff in finding lucrative lobbying jobs for former aides to House Republican Leader Tom DeLay as well as the contracts awarded to several defense contractors that bribed Cunningham. - More...
Friday - December 02, 2005

Tax Talk: Tax cuts in jeopardy this holiday season By MARY DEIBEL - Tax cuts have been an annual Christmas gift from this Bush presidency, but this year Republicans are split over whose taxes to cut in the face of exploding deficits and spending cuts that target poor families.

Bush and House Republicans want a $63 billion package the House will take up when lawmakers return next week. It extends the president's dividend-and-capital-gains tax cuts for investors.

Senate Republicans approved a $58 billion alternative before Thanksgiving recess, but it dropped Bush's priority of extending capital gains and dividend cuts past their 2008 expiration date. - More...
Friday - December 02, 2005

International: Ordinary X-rays are tool in bird-flu fight By LEE BOWMAN - Researchers have found that ordinary chest X-rays can tell doctors which patients suffering from avian flu have more severe infections that require aggressive treatment.

The study by investigators at the University of Oxford shows that distinctive patterns of clouding in the lungs showed up in a group of Vietnamese patients hospitalized after testing positive for the H5N1 influenza virus.

Humans have little or no immune protection from the avian flu when the virus makes a jump from birds to people, which has been happening sporadically in Asia since 1997, with the latest round beginning in late 2003. - More...
Friday - December 02, 2005

National: Leftovers may be source of electricity By EDIE LAU - Scrape your dinner plate into an airtight container of bacteria and what do you get?

In the wrong hands, a stinky mess. But with some engineering finesse, food scraps can be transformed into fuel for electricity.

That's the thinking behind a $100,000 pilot project at the Sacramento Municipal Utility District, given the catchy name "Leftovers to Lights." - More...
Friday - December 02, 2005

National: Hubble telescope tries to wrest secrets out of moonlight By BYRON SPICE - The Hubble Space Telescope usually peers deep into space, revealing sights unseen and giving cosmologists and astrophysicists insights into the Big Bang and the evolution of the universe.

For three days in August, however, Hubble fell into the hands of geologists, who focused the school bus-sized instrument on the moon.

Using the mighty Hubble to study the moon, the first object that a kid with a new telescope is likely to spy, might seem like overkill. But Jim Garvin, chief scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., says the observations during August's full moon were nothing less than "a masterpiece, as yet unfinished." - More...
Friday - December 02, 2005

Viewpoints Opinions/Letters BOLLING BRIDGE SUPPORT NECESSARY By Pete Ellis - Sunday A Proposal By Patrick Jirschele - Sunday A Second Proposal By Patrick Jirschele - Sunday RE: A Gift of Life (SitNews 12/2/2005) By David J. Undis - Sunday Alaska Sportsman magazines By Peter Sullivan - Saturday Gift of Life Story By Karen Lybrand - Saturday Re: Gift of Life By Dave Kiffer - Saturday Intolerant Christophobes By Pat Long - Saturday Community Priorities By Walt Bolling - Friday We did just say "NO" By Charlotte Tanner - Friday U.S. Shrimp Industry By Joey Rodriguez - Friday HELP! By Jerry Cegelske - Thursday Readers: Does anyone remember? By June Allen - Thursday Tolerance is Foreign to 'Christophobes' By Bob Lynn - Thursday Hard Choices Await 2006 Legislature By John Harris - Thursday A suggestion By Michael Nelson - Wednesday Bridge to Somewhere By Virginia Atkinson - Wednesday More Viewpoints/ Letters Publish A Letter Political Cartoonists Political Cartoons Ketchikan Monday, December 05, 2005 5:30 pm - The Ketchikan Borough Assembly will hold a regular meeting in the City Council Chambers. Agenda & Information Packets Thursday , December 08, 2005 - The Ketchikan Legislative Liaison will meet at noon in the City Council Chambers to discuss community projects and a fly-in to Juneau. The meeting is open to the public. November Calendar Today's Forecast Current AK Weather Map City Police Report 11/26/05 AK Troopers Daily Dispatch Classifieds & Announcements Nov. - Dec. 2005 Click on the date for stories and photos 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 01     Front Page Archives

Dave Kiffer: Still Drizzly After All These Years - This column is about what didn't happen Monday, November 28, 2005

There was no measurable precipitation. It was the first day since October 19 that there was no precipitation.

That's 39 straight days of rain, for those of you playing along at home.

Is that a record? I don't know. I looked back through about 20 years worth of weather stats on the Alaska NOAA website and didn't find anything that long. It would take a true weather stat geek to find out for sure. Any takers? - More...
Friday - December 02, 2005

Michael Reagan: Disabled Vets Face a New War - I was in Washington Wednesday and while there I visited Walter Reed Army Medical Center and spoke with a number of amputees disabled while defending us in Iraq.

I was fascinated by the attitude of these brave men and women who have sacrificed so much in our behalf. Their outlook on life is uplifting. You see nobody with tears in their eyes. Every single one of them has a positive attitude that is absolutely inspiring. One young man to whom I spoke had just been accepted for admission to a university in Washington, D.C. where he plans to study international business. The fact that he lost an arm in Iraq has not deterred him one little bit. He has his eyes on then future. - More...
Friday - December 02, 2005

Dick Morris: Bill Clinton's War and W's War - Here's a story most newspapers buried, if they ran it at all: Bosnia's three key ethnic/political groups (Muslims, Serbs and Croats) have all agreed to unify their nation and end the tripartite government bequeathed them by the Dayton peace accords negotiated in 1995 after a heavy round of American bombing.

No longer were racial hatreds so deep that these three factions needed to stay away from one another. Now the desire to centralize to join Europe and grow economically has overcome the animosities that led to 250,000 deaths in the early 1990s. - More...
Friday - December 02, 2005

Preston MacDougall: Chemical Eye on Energizers - In "Scent of a Woman", Al Pacino's character was a blind veteran, with a decorated past. He was also quite fond of saying "HooAH!"

At first, I thought that this was just an outward sign of method acting. Then, during a 2003 chemistry convention at Middlesex Community College, I got my first taste of a HooAH! bar.

It's not what you might be thinking. Chemistry conventions are not at all like Tail-Hook Conventions. With a group of chemical educators, I took a side-trip to the U.S. Army Soldier Systems Center in Natick, Massachusetts, and learned that the HooAH! bar is a concoction of lipids, vitamins, dried fruit, flavoring, and, crucially, a blend of simple sugars and complex carbohydrates. - More...
Friday - December 02, 2005

Bob Ciminel: It's In the Bag - While in the kitchen preparing my morning cup of coffee today, I happened to notice a brown paper shopping bag lying on one of the kitchen chairs. Normally I would not pay much attention to something as mundane as a shopping bag, but lately we seem to be bringing home more and more plastic bags. That is intentional; we need something to put the kitty litter in after we've "mined" the litter box in the garage.

Big brown shopping bags were once the carry-all of choice when I was working in Pittsburgh, PA. My uncles, who were all steelworkers, used them, and so did my co-workers at the power plant, especially the old-timers who worked in the coal plants. They were bigger than a lunch box, which allowed you to pack a lot of leftovers. Why, you could even stick in a change of clothes in case you wanted to go out on the town after work. - More...
Friday - December 02, 2005