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Mayor of Kenai Borough says he’ll take Capt. Cook statue off Mayor Ethan’s hands

Suzanne Downing
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Mayor of Kenai Borough says he’ll take Capt. Cook statue off Mayor Ethan’s hands

The mayor of the Kenai Peninsula Borough thinks the statue of Captain Cook, which stands at Resolution Park in Anchorage, would look fine in Kenai.

If Anchorage Mayor Ethan Berkowitz is going to take down the statue of the famous explorer, Kenai Mayor Charlie Pierce says he will find a place for it.

“As Alaskans, we are strong, independent, and resilient,” he said today. “Eradicating history is not a good idea. Captain James Cook played a crucial role in Alaska’s State history, which we have been proud of over the years.  

“A small but loud faction of people demanded the taking down of this statue in Anchorage, and their Mayor Ethan Berkowitz has the consideration ‘under review.'”

If the Anchorage Mayor wants to throw away history to appease the media and a small group of folks, please don’t throw this statue away. The Kenai Penisula Borough will take it. – Mayor Charlie Pierce

The explorer Captain Cook actually never made it to the site of where Anchorage sits today. And he wasn’t the first in the area; as far as anyone knows, a people who became the Dena’ina people had discovered it a thousand years or more before European explorers did. But the Europeans had to cross several oceans to get to what is now Alaska, and that took time and technology. The Dena’ina crossed on a land bridge from the adjacent continent.

Cook’s ship, the Resolution, arrived in what is now called outer Cook Inlet on his third voyage to the Pacific Ocean. A farmhand’s son from Yorkshire, England, he apprenticed on ships built to carry coal to ports along the English coast. When he was 26, he joined the Royal Navy and, due to a talent for math and science, was able to work his way up to captain. He surveyed the coast of Newfoundland and then commanded expeditions to the Pacific Ocean, finding the continent of Australia, as well as Tahiti, New Zealand, New Guinea, and other places unknown to Europeans.

He also explored Antarctica, and on his third voyage set north to find the Northwest Passage, which was thought to link the Pacific with the Atlantic Ocean. His best bet was Cook Inlet, but that turned out to be a dead end. Nevertheless, he and his men explored the entire area and his reputation lives on as the greatest explorer in world history.

A group of Anchorage progressives is asking the Municipality of Anchorage to remove Cook’s statue. It might be a polite request or it might be a threat; across the country historic statues are being removed, desecrated, and destroyed by rioters. Pierce said he’d like to have the statue of Captain Cook moved to Kenai, preferably before it’s desecrated in Anchorage.

Masks: Progressives pressing for mandates, and Berkowitz says he is considering it

Suzanne Downing
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Masks: Progressives pressing for mandates, and Berkowitz says he is considering it

FRIDAY’S UNPUBLICIZED MEETING WENT SIDEWAYS FOR ASSEMBLY

Pressure from some quarters is bearing down on Gov. Mike Dunleavy to issue a statewide mandate requiring all Alaskans wear masks when in public places.

Since that seems unlikely, Anchorage Mayor Ethan Berkowitz is considering making it a local “cover your face” order for Alaska’s largest city.

During his Friday update, Berkowitz said that Anchorage is in “Condition Yellow,” and that if more cases of COVID-19 arise, he will consider imposing a mask mandate. It was an “or else” warning to the public. Listen up:

“We have not mandated masking to this point,” Berkowitz said. “I would not like to get to the point where we have to mandate masking, but mandating masking is something that is on the table.”

Although the vast majority of Alaskans do not want a statewide mask mandate, according to a recent Must Read Alaska poll, some members of the Anchorage Assembly are pressing forward. for the local mandate at least.

A local mask mandate in Anchorage has already failed to pass the Assembly twice on a vote of 5-6.

Meg Zalatel and Forrest Dunbar pushed the issue during a special Assembly committee meeting last week, and they brought a handful of doctors to support mandatory face coverings for all Alaskans.

Also speaking at the meeting were Reps. Geran Tarr and Zack Fields, who stated that they support a mask mandate but don’t think they could get the governor to change his mind.

[Read the June 18 order for mandatory masks in California]

Rep. Tarr asked the doctors invited to the meeting if they thought it would be helpful for Tarr and Fields to hold a press conference to demand the governor mandate masks, and the doctors answered that they believe a press conference by the two would be helpful.

“Very helpful,” said Dr. Helen Adams, one of the featured speakers. The doctors said that the science is now very clear that masks reduce the spread of COVID-19, and a lot of misinformation is being spread by opponents of mask mandates.

“If you look at the conversations that are happening in places like social media and even on the news, there’s misrepresentation of what we’re looking for,” said Dr. Monique Love Child, an Anchorage pediatrician.

During the phone-in meeting that was not well-publicized, the public learned of the proceedings and called in with their objections, sometimes interrupting the officials and doctors to get their points across. It was apparent that meeting chairman Felix Rivera was not expecting the public to call in and he had to admonish the callers to stop talking over the experts.

Assembly member Forrest Dunbar was not pleased with the public’s participation:

“Wearing a face covering to slow the spread of a pandemic should be the least political policy choice a community makes in a year. Instead our work session attracted people claiming scientists are inflating fatality numbers and the elderly/vulnerable should fend for themselves,” Dunbar wrote. “Do you want businesses to stay open? Great! Then everyone wear a face covering to slow the spread. Otherwise we are going to be back in lock down.”

On Wednesday, June 24, Alaska House Democrats will hold another meeting on the topic in the House Health and Social Services Committee. The meeting convenes at 9:30 am and is accessible to the public at this link.

‘Into the Wild’ bus removal was long overdue

Anchorage Daily Planet
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11
‘Into the Wild’ bus removal was long overdue

Finally, the bus made famous in the 1996 book “Into the Wild” has been unceremoniously yanked from the backcountry along the Stampede Trail where it has sat for the past six decades.

The abandoned bus was the site of the 1992 starvation death of 24-year-old Virginian Christopher McCandless. His ordeal was depicted in the book, by Jon Krakauer, and in a 2007 feature film.

The Alaska Department of Transportation and the Alaska Army National Guard collaborated to get the bus out of the wild where, over the years, it has served as a beacon for many trying to retrace McCandless’ footsteps.

There have been scores of rescues and searches and at least two hikers have died trying to cross the Teklanika River near the decrepit, long abandoned bus – Fairbanks Transit Bus 142. It routinely lured adventurers attempting to retrace McCandless’ steps for whatever reason. It was dumped on state land in about 1960 near the boundary of the Denali National Park and Preserve.

McCandless in 1992 could not get back across the river and died of starvation after living for about 114 days at the bus. His death, and the controversy following publication of “Into the Wild,” are not seen by all as a sort of heroic tragedy. It rather is seen as a gritty and not unexpected testament to what happens when you venture into Alaska’s wilds unskilled and unprepared and unaware.

Denali Borough officials have wanted the bus gone because of the deaths and rescues and searches that cost time and money. It was a continuing danger.

The only question we have about the removal is: Why did it take the state so long?

Flag flap: Retired UA prof says the American flag on Flattop is abuse of power by Dunleavy Administration

Suzanne Downing
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77
Flag flap: Retired UA prof says the American flag on Flattop is abuse of power by Dunleavy Administration

WHO IS RICK STEINER AND WHY DOES HE HATE THE FLAG ON FLATTOP?

Anchorage environmentalist and retired University of Alaska biology professor Rick Steiner says that the American flag on top of Flattop Mountain represents an abuse of power by the Dunleavy Administration and Rep. Laddie Shaw of Anchorage.

For decades, a flag has flown on top of one of the iconic hiking experiences in the Anchorage bowl, and scores of hikers make the flagpole their destination so they can take a picture of themselves at the flag.

Chugach State Park rangers have been taking the flag down, and patriots have been replacing it for years. The flag fight went on because it’s against State of Alaska policy to fly flags in State-owned parks.

Rep. Shaw has, for years, hiked the peak and replaced the flag.

He did so this past week with Reps. Sara Rasmussen, Lance Pruitt, and Kelly Merrick, all who represent Anchorage. The four huffed and puffed their way to the 3,510-foot peak to take away the tattered Old Glory, and put a fresh flag in its place.

Reps. Lance Pruitt, Sara Rasmussen, Kelly Merrick and Laddie Shaw retire a tattered American flag from Flattop Mountain and replace it.

Shaw has a conditional use permit from the Department of Natural Resources to place the flag there, although according to Steiner, this was an illegal action by the Dunleavy Administration.

“A permanent flag on Flattop in CSP clearly serves no recreational or bona-fide park purpose whatsoever. As such, the permit for this flag must be rescinded, the flag removed, and no other such permit should ever be issued in any state park, as per state park policy,” Steiner wrote, saying that Alaskans climbing Flattop “come face-to-face with yet another abuse of power and public process by the Dunleavy administration – an illegally permitted American flag on the summit.”

Steiner says the conditional use permit that Shaw has circumvented the public process and he goes on to say it was issued at an illegal meeting between Shaw and DNR.

Steiner’s name also appears on the official application for a recall petition against Gov. Mike Dunleavy, and he is a frequent critic of Dunleavy and President Donald J. Trump.

SHAW HELPS RETIRE FLAG WITH EAGLE SCOUTS

On June 15, Rep. Shaw spent the afternoon with Scout Troop 210 at Mirror Lake’s Camp Gorsuch, and brought some of the old and tattered flags that he had replaced over the years on Flattop Mountain. He spoke to the scouts about the symbology of the flag and then participated in a retiring ceremony for the tattered emblems over a bonfire.

Rep. Laddie Shaw and Scout Troop 210 retire flags from Flattop Mountain that Shaw has saved over the years.

“Every person forms their own relationship with our flag. For me, my relationship to it is shaped by the years I spent serving under that flag, and the legacies of the men and women I served with — some of whom never returned home,” said Shaw a retired Navy SEAL.

“I want to thank the troop leaders for inviting me to tell the scouts about my relationship with the flag, and to share some of my experiences as a veteran and a legislator with our young scouts. What an impressive group of future leaders,” he said.

READERS, WEIGH IN

Should the flag on Flattop Mountain remain or should it be prohibited? Leave your comments and vote in Must Read Alaska’s poll on Facebook.

Man who picked Palin for VP connects himself to caper that sabotaged Trump rally

Suzanne Downing
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33
Man who picked Palin for VP connects himself to caper that sabotaged Trump rally

Steve Schmidt. A name from the past in presidential elections, remembered by some politically minded Alaskans as the guy who chose Gov. Sarah Palin to be the running mate for Sen. John McCain in 2008.

[Read: Who failed upwards better: Steve Schmidt or Sarah Palin?]

Schmidt showed up as a savage commentator over the weekend applauding his teenage daughter and her friends for acquiring hundreds of tickets to the Donald Trump rally in Tulsa — tickets they had no intention of using.

The teen ploy that went viral across the country sucked up thousands of tickets and made it look like more than a million people had requested tickets to the Tulsa rally, only to make it appear that getting inside the arena was impossible due to the numbers having reached beyond the capacity. The media then reported that the turnout was disappointing to the Trump campaign, and that was the narrative that led the news cycle.

“My 16 year old daughter and her friends in Park City Utah have hundreds of tickets. You have been rolled by America’s teens. @realDonaldTrump you have been failed by your team. You have been deserted by your faithful. No one likes to root for the losing team,” Schmidt wrote on Twitter on Saturday night.

It was an ingenious youth-executed political disinformation campaign that cost the Trump camp a round in their battle with the mainstream media, as story after story on Saturday evening focused on how the stadium was not full, as it had been expected to be. Seats in the upper tiers of the stadium were empty.

The teens had used the app Tik Tok to communicate to others how to hoard tickets to the event and deprive Trump of an overflow crowd. From there, the social media trend went to Twitter, Instagram, and Snapchat, and stayed under the radar from the Trump campaign.

Schmidt has a special hatred for Trump, and left the Republican Party in 2018 out of his disapproval of the president. He has a podcast focused on Trump and spends his days tweeting against the president in the most personal and hateful terms:

“Tonight you sweated and snarled your way through what will be remembered as the ‘Emptysburgh Address.’ The story of your dangerous shuffle down the ramp was pathetic. Tonight was a failure, just like your Presidency. America saw a small crowd looking at a loser,” Schmidt wrote.

Schmidt knows a thing or two about losing. In 2008, Schmidt was the senior campaign strategist for Sen. McCain, the Republican nominee for president. At the time, McCain was leaning toward his preferred running mate, Sen. Joe Lieberman, but most of his advisers were against that choice because the ticket needed something to dazzle voters with, since Barack Obama had such celebrity status. They also needed more women voters for McCain. Schmidt convinced McCain to pick Palin and the ticket went on to lost to Obama-Biden. Back then, Schmidt had become a household word in presidential politics.

[Read: Steve Schmidt’s war against Palin]

It’s not clear that Schmidt himself was working on the ticket-hoarding caper against Trump, but he knew about it and condoned it.

Several who attended the Trump rally told Must Read Alaska that thousands of Trump supporters outside the stadium were not able to reach it due to the protesters and the police barricades.

Although the stadium was by no means full, the Trump campaign said over 4 million watched the rally on television and thousands milling outside would have been welcomed in, had protesters not prevented them.

No more Eskimo Pie

Suzanne Downing
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73
No more Eskimo Pie

Dreyer’s Ice Cream says it will stop marketing its iconic chocolate-covered ice cream as “Eskimo Pie,” because, the company says, the term “Eskimo” is derogatory.

The announcement came Friday and is the latest in a number of announcement from companies that are banishing African-American and Native American images from their products: Aunt Jemima, Uncle Ben, Mrs. Butterworth’s and Cream of Wheat all had African-American representations that are now considered too hot to handle.

Land o’ Lakes, an agricultural cooperative, is also removing the brand image of a Native American woman because the company said it was degrading.

“We have been reviewing our Eskimo Pie business for some time and will be changing the brand name and marketing,” Dreyer’s Grand Ice Cream’s spokesperson told CBS News. “We are committed to being a part of the solution on racial equality, and recognize the term is derogatory.”

The company has not yet announced what the new name of the ice cream confection will be, or whether there will be a human face associated with it.

Alaska Family Action issues a big endorsement: Jesse Sumner for District 10

Suzanne Downing
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61
Alaska Family Action issues a big endorsement: Jesse Sumner for District 10

Alaska Family Action issued its first candidate endorsement of the Primary Election, and it’s a big surprise: Republican Jesse Sumner for House District 10.

Sumner is challenging incumbent David Eastman in the Mat Su Valley, who is a lightning rod conservative that many lawmakers say is the reason Republicans are not in control of the House, in spite of their majority numbers.

“Regardless of your views on Representative Eastman, it is clear he isn’t an effective policy maker and legislator. He hasn’t delivered for his constituents and he certainly hasn’t advanced our conservative values,” wrote the group in its endorsement.

“There’s a hard truth about conservative politics: it’s easy to make a statement, but very difficult to make a real difference. Rep. Eastman excels at talking in a way that draws attention to himself, but he utterly fails at moving forward conservative policies. To actually achieve pro-family, pro-life victories, you must be able to work with other conservative legislators to get the job done. Unfortunately for all of us, Rep. Eastman has proven incapable of doing that.” 

The pro-family group said that Jesse Sumner is a pro-life, pro-family Republican.

“As a life-long Mat Su resident with a growing family, Sumner builds houses for a living and serves on the local Borough Assembly where he has consistently fought for lower taxes and conservative policies in line with family values. Sumner will build relationships in the legislature rather than build walls that alienate everybody and prevent good things from happening,” the organization wrote.

Milestone: Must Read Alaska reaches 10 million mark

Suzanne Downing
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Milestone: Must Read Alaska reaches 10 million mark

UPDATE ON THE LITTLE NEWS BLOG THAT COULD

A big thanks to all Must Read Alaska readers this morning.

Four years after launching this website, Must Read Alaska has reached a milestone, passing the 10 millionth visitor mark.

The landmark event happened just after midnight on June 20, when the electronic counter rolled over to 10,000,000. There were no drum rolls. Your editor had dozed off, and by the time she woke up an hour later, she’d missed the turn, so here is the snapshot from 1 am Saturday:

Over 41,568 comments have been approved and posted on Must Read Alaska in four years.

Must Read Alaska began in in 2015 as a modest political newsletter whose readers were nearly all registered Republican voters. MRAK has always been about Alaskans and what policies are the best ideas for our state, from the conservative point of views.

In May of 2016, editor Suzanne Downing launched the website as an addition to the primary focus, which was still the newsletter.

The first story on the Must Read Alaska website was a feature profile of political consultant Art Hackney, published on May 16, 2016.

“You have to have a lot of life experience to be effective as a political consultant,” Hackney said, having been in the business of advising candidates in Alaska for over 36 years. (Make that 40 years now, and Hackney has even more profound life experience, and more awards to show for his work.)

The primary reader for MRAK has always been a politically tuned Alaskan who is open to conservative public policy. This is the place where conservatives can feel their points of view are honored. Politics and policy is our primary beat.

FACEBOOK AND YOUTUBE MILESTONES

Must Read Alaska’s Facebook page also reached a milestone this week, with now over 9,000 followers.

And the YouTube channel that MRAK launched last month? We’ve got work to do and it’s this year’s project, but we have nearly 500 subscribers already.

Here are the comparison statistics that show how Must Read Alaska rolls with the big boys out there. The MRAK site ranks at #9,160 in the United States. (In this comparison, everyone wants the low number, such as Google has at #1.)

What does being ranked #9,160 mean in the national website landscape? It’s very, very good.

But taking a look at the global ranking comparison, MRAK is really proud of this next chart, which shows where MRAK sits in the local media landscape (low number wins):

MRAK is also pleased to have working partnerships with Anchorage Daily Planet, and CraigMedred.news, as well as regular columnists Win Gruening, Art Chance, and Dan Fagan. Contributors, commenters, and news tips from all across the state make this a crowd-sourced project.

FUELED BY DONATIONS, ADS, AND GRIT

Must Read Alaska intends to stay small and nimble. We’re sticking to our focus here in Alaska — political reporting and observation of our state’s current events, as well as keeping the mainstream media accountable for its seemingly unending liberal bias.

This project still runs mainly on donations, with some advertising, which helps keep it all going through thick and thin. This spring, John Quick of Nikiski joined Must Read Alaska as vice president of business development, to grow our ad revenues and our reach. You can contact him at [email protected] (that’s right, there is no “m” at the end of that email address) if you’d like the rate sheet.

Must Read Alaska now has a column at NewsMax.com, and a new partnership with mynewsbuffet.com is also an exciting development.

But mostly, Must Read Alaska runs on grit and determination to get up every day and do the best we can do for all Alaskans. I’m very, very grateful for each and every reader who has made this project a success.

Thank you from the bottom of my heart!

District 30 Republicans endorse Ron Gillham, shun Rep. Knopp once again

Suzanne Downing
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17
District 30 Republicans endorse Ron Gillham, shun Rep. Knopp once again

Ron Gillham has won the unanimous support of the District 30 Republicans, who also unanimously censured incumbent Rep. Gary Knopp — again — for his aligning himself with House Democrats to take over leadership with a bipartisan working group.

The group reaffirmed its censure of Knopp, after he had written a letter to the Republicans saying that their censure was invalid since it did not follow a correct procedure.

The pre-primary endorsement of Gillham came after consideration of whether both Gillham and another Republican, Kelly Wolfe, should receive endorsements. But after discussion, the vote went entirely for Gillham, who has good name recognition on the Kenai after coming close to ousting Sen. Peter Micciche during the 2018 primary..

The district also voted to provide funding to the Gillham campaign as well as for the district to do its own “position” advertising.

Earlier, the District had formally requested that Rep. Knopp not run as a Republican.

Kenai Republicans officially ask Rep. Knopp to not run as GOP candidate
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