Dear Alaskans: All my brother Bill and I have ever known about accomplishing goals is that it takes hard work, long hours and dedication to the cause. As elementary school students we started working construction with our dad. When the 1964 earthquake destroyed our livelihood and the tsunami washed away our building materials, we started […]
Dear Friends and Neighbors: Republicans, Democrats and Independents, many of great intelligence, and sadly fewer with great desires to reach compromise, need to get their act together. Fast. Today’s Alaska is more important than November’s election. And while we’re all tempted to say we are right and they are wrong – this solves nothing. It just […]
Back in September I wrote about our “ethically challenged” democratic system. I said, “We are caught in a downward, self-destructive [debt] spiral.” If you doubted me then, those doubts should have been exploded last week. Congressional leaders agreed to increase federal spending by nearly $300 billion above the already-rising limits stipulated by the Budget Control Act of […]
The high school counselor lowered his head, peered over his reading glasses, and looked straight into the eyes of the young man before him. “You’re not going to graduate this year.” Justin (not his real name) was stunned. He was always the cocky smart-aleck, holding school – and most everything else – in disdain. Truancy? […]