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 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.
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.
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.
Protesters will gather again in a nearly empty downtown Anchorage on Friday evening to demand defunding the police, to demand the control of police be turned over to neighborhood councils, and to voice objections to police brutality.
At 4:30 pm, the Party for Socialism and Liberation Anchorage and its supporters will meet at 544 West 5th Avenue to march against the Municipality, which the group says has thus far ignored its 13 demands, which are:
1. Police officers must undergo extensive mental health training while the Municipality of Anchorage transitions away from police intervention to a civilian based intervention.
2. Decriminalize low-level offenses such as minor possession of drugs and sex work.
3. End Camp Abatements and Decriminalize Homelessness.
4. Increase Penalties for Sexual Assault and Harrassment.
5. Disarm Police Officers.
6. Civilian Control.
7. Neighborhood Councils Directly Control Police in their Neighborhoods.
8. Police Records Must be Public.
9. Three Strike, You’re Out. (Unclear who this refers to)
10. Abolish the Police Union.
11. Empower the Expand the Anchorage Police Community Relations Task Force.
12. Defund the Police and Reallocate Resources toward Community Health and Wellness Programs.
13. Justice for Dae. (Dae refers to the late Lufilufilimalelei “Daelyn” Polu, who was pulled over by Anchorage police in February, and who pulled a gun on the officer, and was subsequently shot dead by the officer. The mother of “Dae” does not think her son would have done this, and has a petition demanding an apology of Mayor Ethan Berkowitz and that the case be reopened.)
SATURDAY’S ANTI-POLICE EVENT
On Saturday in downtown Anchorage, a Queer Wrath event is scheduled to meet at the Delaney Park Strip at 2 pm.
This is an event being sponsored by the “queer members of PSL” to stand together in “solidarity with the uprising in the Lower 48 and in opposition to police brutality.”
Starting at West 9th Ave & L Street, the group will rally and hear from LGBTQ+ speakers about their experiences with the Anchorage Police Department.
“We encourage folx to take this opportunity to voice your story with us,” the group writes. “Protestors can choose to participate in either the car caravan or the marching rally. Some car decorating supplies will be available 1 hour before the event.”
Anchorage Mayor Ethan Berkowitz and two Assembly members are pushing a proposed ordinance that would allow the city to put homeless shelters pretty much wherever it wants – while stifling the public process.
The ordinance, AO No. 2020-58, would amend the municipal code to allow such things as homeless and transient shelters outside the Public Lands and Institution zoning district, placing them in B3 zoning areas intended primarily for general commercial uses in commercial centers. The ordinance also allows all that without Planning and Zoning Commission review.
It was offered by Berkowitz, and Assembly members John Weddleton and Meg Zaletel.
“Anchorage is in its capability to provide mass shelter and has permanently altered the landscape for homeless sheltering,” the memorandum accompanying the ordinance says. “Now, more than ever, it is imperative that we Anchorage provide more options for locating these critical social services, which can only happen by allowing Homeless and Transient Shelters in more than one zoning district.”
The move is being driven by the limited, and shrinking, availability of suitable parcels within the Public Lands and Institution district, ordinance sponsors say.
“Additionally, as most PLI zoned properties are undeveloped or developed with public institutions, there is virtually no opportunity to take advantage of existing infrastructure that could be renovated to accommodate homeless or transient facilities,” the memo says.
The memo also suggests the “ordinance has no private sector economic effects.”
We are not impressed. Good, bad or indifferent, when government eschews established public process to hastily achieve an aim it deserves more than a hard look from the public. Allowing the spread of homeless and transient facilities all over Anchorage will have serious and lasting private sector economic effects on businesses and neighborhoods.
Revenge is a dish best served cold, the saying goes.
The Alaska Public Employees Association, still upset over the Dunleavy Administration’s decision to not force people to pay union dues, is serving filet of revenge to its members this week.
In a letter to public work forces around the state, the APEA Board of Directors asked the public employees — the Alaskans who have actual paying jobs — to not only sign the recall petition, but to commit to voting against Gov. Mike Dunleavy, if the measure ever makes it to a ballot.
“…he has directly attacked our union with his indefensible interpretation of the U.S Supreme Court Janus decision,” the union wrote to state employees in an email this week.
“The court decision tries to drive a wedge between workers and their unions by eliminating automatic registration in public employee unions and is an unprecedented attack on our organization,” APEA wrote.
Actually, the interpretation of the Janus rule is defensible, but that takes political courage. If Dunleavy survives his term in office, this interpretation of Janus could be defended all the way to the Supreme Court.
The Dunleavy Administration doesn’t think it’s legal, under the Supreme Court’s earlier Janus ruling, to force public employees to pay union dues, and instead says that workers must be provided true freedom to enroll or not enroll as a dues-paying member of a union. Attorney General Kevin Clarkson says that the State of Alaska isn’t going to be part of a system that coerces people into having their dues deducted by the State and sent to the union without the employees’ express consent.
The public employee union is striking back.
“In our work, we strive for professionalism and impartiality as we work in the best interest of the public. However, we are also Alaskans and this governor’s failures and the moment we find ourselves in calls for bold action. We have determined that recalling Governor Dunleavy is the best option for Alaska’s future,” the group wrote.
The recall committee says that COVID-19 has hampered its efforts in collecting signatures, but the public employee union has tens of thousands of possible names that could be harvested. Workers at the State of Alaska, Alaska Housing Finance Corporation, Anchorage School District, Cities of Seward, Bethel, Nome, Petersburg, and boroughs of Fairbanks, Ketchikan, Kenai, Mat-Su, numerous school districts around the state and many employees of the University of Alaska system received the union memo.
To get the recall on the ballot Alaskans need to turn in at least 71,252 signatures by July 3, the group wrote. The Recall Dunleavy Committee is believed to have nearly 40,000 signatures.
The group has just 14 days to collect more than 31,000 valid signatures. This amounts to needing in excess of 2,200 signatures per day for the next two weeks.
The only realistic place to get that many signatures is in the rank and file of the publicly funded workforce.
A group of prayer warriors is calling the Body of Christ to gather on the Delaney Park Strip in Anchorage between E Street and I Street on June 19th, 2020, at 6 pm for a time of prayer.
“In light of recent events, we believe it is imperative for the Body of Christ together in unity to pray, repent, lament and ask God to do a miracle in our state and nation in terms of racism,” the group wrote on Facebook.
“All people are image-bearers of God. Therefore racism is inherently evil and demonic in nature. All forms of injustice cause the heart of God to burn with anger FOR his kids. We the church cannot tolerate what God does not tolerate. Racism is sin, and we want God to expose any wicked way in US, His Church, so we can join Him in healing the brokenness in the world around us.
“It’s time to grieve with those who grieve. It’s time to be crushed in spirit. It’s time to lament and mourn and cry out and repent.”
The group suggests participants will pray silently for justice reconciliation, restoration and revival. Those who feel compelled to lament and mourn may do so.
“Pray for God to tear down spiritual strongholds that have held this land captive,” organizers wrote, asking people to educate themselves on the history of racism in Alaska.
“We are gathering together to pray against injustice in Alaska. We are asking God to search our hearts according to His standard and expose any sin that has empowered racism in our hearts. We are gathering to repent and lament for the brokenness we see around us in the area of racism. And we are gathering to pray in faith for great change to take place in Alaska.”
The group has a permit to use the Delaney Park Strip. Participants are asked to follow the municipality’s mandate that participants wear masks.
“This is a peaceful prayer gathering. We do have a team of volunteers who are serving as security to help deescalate any situations that might arise,” the group said.
Worship + Justice Movement has partnered with Civil Righteousness, a national prayer movement that has been carrying a burden of intercession over racism.
Since 2011 they have traveled to places of pain across the United States to cry out for justice and intercede for change in our nation. To learn more, visit civilrighteousness.org.
Americans are being carpet-bombed by stories about Juneteenth, celebrating the day that 155 years ago the final fighters of the Civil War got the memo that the slaves were emancipated. We’ll leave that to the other pundits to discuss, because we’ve got our own Civil War history in Alaska to review.
While Texas was just getting word of the end of the war on this day in 1865, a Confederate war ship was still prosecuting a sponsored piracy campaign and taking down the commerce of the Union whaling industry.
Few in America have heard of Alaska’s unique role in the end of the Civil War.
In June of 1865, the Confederate raiding ship CSS Shenandoah was underway toward St. Lawrence Island, in the Western Bering Sea, where Yankee whaling ships were working.
The war ship was burning and sinking the U.S. whaling fleet in its path after the captain of the Shenandoah had gotten rough coordinates for where the Yankee whalers were working. He took them from a whaling ship in the North Pacific.
By this time in 1865, the Shenandoah had destroyed a number of these American whaling ships — as many as 20.
On June 22, 1865, the Shenandoah, fired what is said in some accounts to be the last shot of the Civil War, aiming upon Yankee whalers, some 74 days after General Robert E. Lee had surrendered his Confederate forces at the Appomattox courthouse, and nearly two months after Confederate Army had actually ended the war on land.
There are lots of credible sources that say the event occurred on June 28, 1865, and that whaling ships were still being burned and sunk right and left on June 22, but most historians agree on one thing: This was a well-executed mission and it decimated the whaling fleet.
When Commanding Officer Lt. James Iredell Waddell of the Shenandoah learned of the South’s surrender, he made his way south. Some accounts say he didn’t believe the war was over and was heading to the young state of California to shell San Francisco, another commercial center. California had supplied thousands of soldiers for the Union war effort, and troops from California had pushed the Confederate Army out of Arizona and New Mexico in 1862.
On the way south, his ship encountered a British ship that confirmed the war had ended and that if he showed back up in the United States he would be tried and hanged.
By this time, Waddell had a bounty on his head and he decided to sail his teak-hulled war ship on to Liverpool, England, where he surrendered on Nov. 6, 1865.
Waddell’s was the last surrender of the Civil War, and he presided over the lowering of the Confederate flag on his ship while at anchor on the River Mersey.
The ship itself was put in the custody of the British government via a letter that Captain Waddell penned himself and walked up the steps to the Liverpool Town Hall, presenting it to the Mayor of Liverpool.
The Shenandoah is the only Confederate ship to circumnavigate the globe. Her flag is now in the possession of the American Civil War Museum, which brings it out only occasionally, due to its size.
The Shenandoah’s flag is rarelydisplayed due to its size (roughly 7 feet x 12 feet),
The Shenandoah, which was commissioned to destroy the commerce of the North, had spent nearly a year at sea and had captured 38 ships — two thirds of them after the Confederacy had surrendered. Waddell had reportedly taken more than 1,000 Union prisoners.
The history of how the news reached Captain Waddell is conflicted. The Civil War Museum says that raids continued in Alaska, which was in Russian ownership at the time, until August.
After the Civil War ended, the whaling business fell on hard times, as it was no longer essential to the war effort, and with so many of the Union whaling vessels destroyed, America lost footing in the world as a leader in shipping.
And now, 155 years later, Democrats are destroying the monuments to their Confederate war heroes, and, ironically, they are still trying to destroy United States commerce. Also somewhat ironically, Republicans are still trying to respect the confederacy and its history, because it is the history of the nation.
Alaska had a unique role back in the 1860s. It was not American territory, but it soon became part of the United States under the advocacy of abolitionist William Seward, secretary of State for President Abraham Lincoln. Democrats in Alaska are now trying to remove the statue of Seward from in front of the Capitol.
A nation should be able to talk about its Civil War without getting into another one. The important lesson is that we learn from history, so that we don’t repeat it.
