The United States House of Representatives (Congress) consists of two teams of elected members. The majority team runs the show. The minority team watches. The majority team elects its House leadership and its committees that craft all the legislation that comes to House floor for a vote.
How does a member become a meaningful member of the majority, like a committee chair?
Consider the demographic description of the Members of Congress. The average member is 57.9 years of age and has served 8.5 years in Congress. The average age of a new member is 47.8 years of age. These statistics are from the Congressional Research Service, published on March 11, 2024: “Membership of the 118th Congress: A Profile.”
Advancing to congressional leadership is critical in achieving Alaska’s goals. Congress has 23 committees currently run by Republican chairs. Rookies are not elected to chair a committee.
The current 23 chairs were in Congress for over eight years before they were elected as a committee chair, or even a ranking member of a committee. The data is skewed since most chairs on extremely important committees initially were selected to lead a lesser committee. Hence the time served to chair a major committee like Judiciary, Natural Resources or Rules would be much greater.
What does this mean for a typical legislator? Newly elected members are usually under age 50. That typical member will serve four terms in Congress before departing for other duties and interests.
Since the average chair was not elected to their position until after eight years, the average member never participates in this Leadership process. Alaska was well served by Congressman Don Young, who entered Congress at age 39 and chaired major committees for 12 years. Sen. Ted Stevens did likewise, first entering Congress at age 46. Lisa Murkowski began serving in the US Senate when she was 45 years old.
Let’s consider our two 2024 Republican Congressional candidates:
Nick Begich is entering this election at age 47 (born 10/21/77). His age is similar to his new peers. As our congressman, he would compete with his peers for leadership positions as he serves on various committees of relevance to Alaskans. As he approaches age 55 after eight years in Congress, he could be tapped for a committee leadership position.
Nancy Dahlstrom is age 67 entering this election (born 8/13/57), a nominal two decades older than the typical new member. By the time she has served eight years in Congress, she will be over 75 years of age. Her competitors for leadership roles will always be 20 years younger. Instead of being an active candidate for Republican House Leadership, she would be approaching the end of her political career.
Why vote for someone who lacks the actuarial capacity to achieve seniority for Alaska?
Alaska needs someone with enough runway left to make a difference. Alaska needs Nick Begich.
Randy Ruedrich is former chairman of the Alaska Republican Party and is a retired petroleum engineer.
Schools in Alaska are not yet on summer break, but teen violence has been the ramping up this spring in Southcentral Alaska.
On Thursday, three masked teens invaded a Muldoon neighborhood Boys and Girls Club, and physically attacked another youth, who is a member of the recreation center that is in Northeast Anchorage. During the attack, a weapon — said to be a firearm of some sort — fell from one of the suspect’s clothing, but was not discharged during the attack. It was picked up by one of the attackers who fled the scene with the other two.
The club was closed and is set to reopen on Monday, and police have not made any arrests in the investigation, which is ongoing.
On Friday evening, Wasilla Police Department officers were dispatched to the Valley Cinema, on Old Matanuska Road, after a stabbing had occurred inside the theater.
Police and Alaska State Troopers arrived and found that several teenagers had been involved in a fight. During the fight, one teenager was stabbed.
The suspect remained on scene and cooperated with officers, while the victim was transported to Mat-Su Regional Medical Center. The victim later died of his injuries after being air-lifted to Providence Hospital, Wasilla Police reported.
This incident is being investigated as a homicide. Neither the suspect nor victim names are bring released, as they are both under the age of 18. Must Read Alaska has learned the victim was 15.
Last month, a gang of girls brutally beat a girl at Clark Middle School, causing multiple contusions in an incident that has focused attention on violence in Anchorage schools during school hours.
President Joe Biden is taking heat from Republicans for easing sanctions on Iran – including giving the terrorist-sponsoring nation access to billions of dollars in previously frozen assets – before it launched a massive drone attack on U.S. ally Israel.
Iran fired more than 300 drone and other missiles into Israel during the early morning hours Sunday (Israel time) in response to Israel’s strike on the Iranian consulate in Syria on April 1. Israel said 99% of the missiles were intercepted and damage from the attack was limited, with no fatalities, but the escalation is drawing wider concern of a potentially heightened conflict in the Middle East.
“At my directions, to support the defense of Israel, the U.S. military moved aircraft and ballistic missile defense destroyers to the region over the course of the past week,” Biden said. “Thanks to these deployments and the extraordinary skill of our servicemembers, we helped Israel take down nearly all of the incoming drones and missiles.”
Israel promised retaliation, but Biden said the U.S. would not assist Israel in any counteroffensive. Instead, Biden said he “will convene my fellow G7 leaders to coordinate a united diplomatic response to Iran’s brazen attack.”
Former President Donald Trump said on social media late Saturday that Iran would never had attacked Israel if he were still president.
“The weakness that we’ve shown is unbelievable,” Trump said on Truth Social. “It would not have happened if we were in office.”
Israel has been engaged in a war with Hamas in Gaza after the Iranian-backed terrorist organization killed more than 1,100 people and took hundreds of hostages in an Oct. 7 sneak attack. After Israel invaded Gaza, antisemitic incidents increased throughout the U.S. by 360%, according to preliminary data published by the Anti-Defamation League.
On Saturday, the Alaska Democratic Party held a voice vote, abandoning their party’s experiment with a paper-ballot “presidential preference poll” style caucus.
There was only one person on the ballot for president — Joe Biden, and a lackluster turnout would have been embarrassing and, regardless of turnout, a presidential preference poll is expensive to manage in a sparsely populated state the size of Alaska.
A voice vote makes it impossible for non-party officials to know how many actually participated. Biden won the party’s majority voice vote, but the vote was not announced by 7 p.m. Alaska time on Saturday. Two Democrats from Fairbanks — Sen. Scott Kawasaki and Rep. Maxine Dibert — were on a plane to Seattle early Saturday morning and it was unclear if they intended to participate in the party vote.
Alaska delegates to the Democratic National Convention will be picked at the Democrat Party’s state convention in Juneau on May 18. All Alaska Democrat delegates will be awarded to Biden.
Meanwhile, in Wyoming, Biden also won the Democrat caucus. Those results, unlike Alaska’s, were announced publicly on Saturday. Biden won 380 votes for 95.7%. Uncommitted were 13 votes. Marianne Williamson received two votes. David Olscamp also received two votes.
In 2020, the Republican Party of Alaska also did not hold a caucus-by-ballot because it only had Trump on the ballot, and officers decided it was a waste of time and money.
However, at the 2024 Alaska Republican Presidential Preference Poll, held by ballots cast in person, over 10,000 Alaskans participated: Donald Trump received 9,243 Alaska votes, Nikki Haley received 1,266 votes and Vivek Ramaswamy received 45. Since then, Ramaswamy has dropped out and endorsed Trump; Haley, also no longer a candidate, has refused to endorse the presumed nominee, going back on the promise she had made to the Republican National Committee that she would support the nominee.
Fully one in seven Alaska Republicans took part in the March 5 Presidential Preference poll, which is a party function, rather than a state-run primary.
Jordan shut down its airspace in advance. Israel closed its schools and educational centers in anticipation. And, as predicted, Iran launched missiles at Israel on Saturday, using a combination of drones and other aircraft. Iran also captured a Portuguese ship in the shipping lanes of the strategic Strait of Hormuz, saying the ship has ties to Israel.
The aggression was in retaliation for Israel’s attack on Iran’s embassy in Syria two weeks ago, when Israel took out top terrorists with a missile strike. Israel is attacking Iran because it is one of the prime sponsors of terrorism and underwrites the Hamas fighters that started the war on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
“Iran launched UAVs from within its territory toward Israel a short while ago. The IDF [Israel Defense Forces] is on high alert and is constantly monitoring the operational situation. The IDF Aerial Defense Array is on high alert, along with IAF fighter jets and Israeli Navy vessels that are on a defense mission in Israeli air and naval space. The IDF is monitoring all targets,” the Israel Defense Forces said.
A day earlier, a reported 40 launches were identified crossing from Lebanese territory, some of which were intercepted, the IDF said.
On Friday, during an address to Al Sharpton’s National Action Network group, President Biden said his message to Iran is “don’t” attack Israel, but had just predicted an attack would come “sooner than later.”
FlightRadar.com showed that the Israeli “doomsday plane” had left the country’s airspace and may have Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on board.
“Iran will bear the consequences for choosing to escalate the situation any further,” said IDF Spokesperson Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari in a broadcast statement:
“Iran will bear the consequences for choosing to escalate the situation any further.”
Watch IDF Spokesperson RAdm. Daniel Hagari’s statement regarding Iranian involvement in the war and its effect on the Middle East: pic.twitter.com/AdaJB2WtJd
It’s the 18th victory at the Supreme Court for the Pacific Legal Foundation. A decision announced Friday was also a victory for property owners.
The case involved a California man who wanted to put a small manufactured house on a rural vacant lot, where he and his wife could raise their grandson. He was slapped with a $23,000 traffic mitigation fee by the local El Dorado County in 2016.
George Sheetz challenged the fee and said it was unconstitutional.
The justices were unanimous in their decision in Sheetz v. El Dorado County, saying that government fees must have a “roughly proportional” to the impact that the proposed action is likely to have.
The Court held that fees also known as “legislative exactions” must satisfy the doctrine of unconstitutional conditions — meaning they must be closely related and proportional to any adverse public impacts caused by development and no more, Pacific Legal Foundation explained.
The county’s argument was that Sheetz was required to pay the fee to address existing and future road deficiencies.
“Holding building permits hostage in exchange for excessive development fees is obviously extortion,” said Paul Beard, partner at Pierson Ferdinand and co-counsel in the case. “We are thrilled that the Court agreed and put a stop to a blatant attempt to skirt the Fifth Amendment’s prohibition against taking private property without just compensation.”
“Thus, the County imposed the fee without any evidence tying George’s new home to any specific public costs or impacts,” the nonprofit legal group said.
The Court returned the case to the Ninth Circuit to determine if $23,000 is “an exaction subject to the unconstitutional conditions doctrine. If so, the lower court must determine whether the fee was disproportionate to the traffic impact caused by a modest manufactured home in a rural area, and thus, unconstitutional,” Pacific Legal Foundation explained.
Justice Amy Coney Barrett wrote in the opinion: “In sum, there is no basis for affording property rights less protection in the hands of legislators than administrators. The Takings Clause applies equally to both—which means that it prohibits legislatures and agencies alike from imposing unconstitutional conditions on land-use permits.”
The Alaska Senate passed Senate Bill 88, legislation that would revive a pension plan that was retired by the Legislature in 2006, when it became clear that such pensions were unsustainable for the State budget. Newer hires in public employee jobs were put into 401(k) contribution plans that built retirement accounts for their later years.
SB 88’s sponsors are Big Government Democrats and nominal Republicans, including Sens. Cathy Giessel, Click Bishop, Gary Stevens, Jesse Kiehl, Scott Kawasaki, Loki Tobin, Bill Wielechowski, Elvi Gray-Jackson, Forrest Dunbar, Matt Claman, and Donny Olson. They are backed by the biggest unions in the state, including ASEA and AFL-CIO.
On the House side, sponsors are Reps. Ashley Carrick, Cal Schrage, Andy Josephson, Jennie Armstrong, Alyse Galvin, Rebecca Himschoot, Andrew Gray, and Cliff Groh, all Big-Government Democrats or “independents” who use the nonpartisan label for cover.
That bill, transmitted to the House on Feb. 2, is now in the House State Affairs Committee.
Meanwhile, in Illinois, a harbinger of what awaits other states that go deeper into pensions. A proposed Tier 2 pension change may cost taxpayers billions of dollars at a time when the Illinois state pension plan is already on the verge of collapse.
According to theIllinois Policy Institute, pensions with funding ratios under 60% are deeply troubled and plans with funding ratios under 40% are likely to be past the point of no return.
Illinois, at 44% funding ratio, is home to the nation’s worst pension crisis and Chicago alone faces more pension debt than 44 states. And the reason? Much of it is due to galloping pay raises for public employees.
State Rep. Blaine Wilhour, R-Beecher City, told The Center Square that the early conversations were about fixing Tier 2 to ensure it didn’t get employees hurt by the “safe harbor” rule, a requirement in which some public employees do not have to pay into Social Security, since they’re covered by pension plans that are equivalent to Social Security benefits.
“I suspected at the time [the conversation] would transform into a massive pension enhancement the taxpayers simply can’t afford,” Wilhour told The Center Square. “We passed through the pensions committee a couple bills that are going to put billions of dollars onto the taxpayer when property taxes are already out of control. Let’s be honest about the conversation we are having. Are we trying to fix the Tier 2 system or are we trying to do a massive pension enhancement?”
Wilhour said nobody has been able to show lawmakers where a single pensioner is going to fall below safe harbor. State Rep. Stephanie Kifowit, D-Oswego, said there was expert testimony last summer.
“We had extensive subject matter hearings regarding safe harbor last summer and there were examples from both the Teacher Retirement System and State University Retirement System of individuals that would trigger safe harbor,” Kifowit told The Center Square. “So his [Wilhour’s] statement is technically false. I’m not sure what he’s basing it on. We had expert testimony that said we would trigger the safe harbor provision with regards to individuals that are retiring as soon as this year or next year.”
Illinois has an unfunded pension liability of $143 billion. Just two years ago it was $120 billion.
To compare, the State of Alaska’s unfunded pension liability is $6.7 billion, whereas two years ago it was $4.48 billion. Even with its pension plan closed over 15 years ago, its obligation continues to those pensioners who were in the system. In the early days of the Alaska Tier 1 pension, workers could retire and begin drawing their pensions at age 50. Some pensioners drew large pensions for nearly half of their lives.
That’s not the pension plan being proposed by SB 88, however. This is a modified pension plan, but it still contains the fiscal risks that other set pension plans carry. SB 88 would amend the Public Employees’ Retirement System of Alaska and the teachers’ retirement system to give certain employees the option to choose between the defined benefit and defined contribution plans of these retirement systems. The bill offers increased benefit payments to some disabled members or those aged 60 or older.
“We need to put efficiency back into state government by reducing the constant churn of employees,” said Senate Majority Leader Cathy Giessel, R-Anchorage and the bill’s prime sponsor. She believes by returning to defined benefits, more employees will stay in government work, and thus, government will be more efficient.
Another Alaska bill seeking changes for state worker retirements is House Bill 302, which would improve the defined contribution benefits currently offered to the state’s teachers, police, and firefighters.
HB 302 would boost state contributions into the defined contribution accounts of public safety workers, and it would give public school teachers access to the Supplemental Benefit System-Annuity Plan, which other government workers in the state have access to.
But both SB 88 and HB 302 are in the House State Affairs Committee, with Sunday, April 14 being the 90th day of the Legislature this year, and only one month to go until the House speaker and Senate president must gavel out on the 121st day, leaving any unfinished work to either die or be taken up in a special session.
Contributions from both Must Read Alaska and The Center Square are in this news story.
It’s a blow to school choice and a slap in the face of educational freedom: An Alaska Superior Court judge has made a stunning ruling against the State of Alaska in a case involving how the state financially helps families with funding for correspondence schools.
The lawsuit filed in 2023 sought to ban the use of state allotments for private or religious education. The judge agreed, and ruled that “AS 14.03.300-.310 must be struck down as unconstitutional in their entirety.” The statutes in question authorize all public correspondence school programs in the state.
The State of Alaska will appeal this ruling to the Supreme Court, Must Read Alaska has learned.
The ruling impacts 24,518 students, fully 17.3% of all Alaska enrollment in the 28 districts that have programs. It impacts the $119,559,805 these districts get in state funding.
If this ruling were to stand, there would be no public correspondence school options in Alaska and families currently in correspondence school would be forced to pay for what is otherwise public schooling out of their own pockets.
But the ruling is not in effect yet. Parents and school districts do not have to close down correspondence schools; the State Department of Law will ask for a stay until this is sorted out.
The case was filed last year by a group backed by the National Education Association-Alaska, with liberal activist attorney Scott Kendall (Alaskans for Better Elections fame) as one of the lawyers suing the state.
The plaintiffs were parents of students in public schools who were not using state-approved correspondence programs but offended that others use them and are reimbursed by state funds. The defendant was Acting Education Commissioner Heidi Teshner.
Students enrolled in an approved state correspondence program can use the annual allotment to homeschool or instruction provided by a private school, with allotments running between $2,000 and $4,000. It allows parents to opt their children out of troubled, sometimes violent, and provably low-performing public schools in Alaska.
“This suit challenges AS 14.03.300-.310, which is being used to reimburse parents for thousands of dollars in private educational institution services using public funds thereby indirectly funding private education in violation of Article VII, Section 1 of the Alaska Constitution,” the lawsuit said.
The funding for correspondence programs came from Senate Bill 100 in 2013, sponsored by then-Sen. Mike Dunleavy. In his sponsor statement back then, Dunleavy wrote, “[m]ost [correspondence programs] provide a student allotment to purchase educational services or materials to meet the student’s Individual Learning Plan (ILP). Under SB 100, a parent may purchase services and materials from a private or religious organization with a student’s allotment to meet the student’s ILP.”
SB 100 was introduced as part of a legislative package which included Senate‘ Joint Resolution 9 (“SJR 9”), which contained two proposed amendments to the Alaska State Constitution. The first amendment proposed deleting the final sentence of Article VII, Section I of the Alaska State Constitution which provides, “[n]o money shall be paid from public funds for the direct benefit of any religious or other private educational institution.” In 2014, successfully sponsored a bill that further enabled parents to be reimbursed for nonpublic education.
Judge Adolf Zeman ruled that there was an acknowledgement back in 2013 and later in 2014 that the change would require a constitutional amendment.
Zeman ruled that it is unconstitutional for the state to pay for educational services from private organization using private funds, because it is in contravention of Article VII, Section 1 of the Alaska Constitution.
The plaintiffs suggested that the matter could be remedied if the state simply strikes the words “private, or religious” from the statute and require people to purchase the educational support from the state. The judge appeared to agree, but he went much further in an example of judicial activism: In a case that only asked for the allotments to be changed, he threw out the entire correspondence program.
Judge Zeman wrote, “If the legislature believes these expenditures are necessary — then it is up to them to craft constitutional legislation to serve that purpose — that is not this Court’s role.”
Alaska Statute 14.03.300(a) provides that under a “correspondence study program” an individual learning plan is developed in collaboration with the student, the parent or guardian of the student, a certified teacher assigned to the student, and other individuals involved in the student’s learning plan. To meet instructional expenses, AS 14.03.310(a) allows a district to provide an annual student allotment to a parent or guardian of a student enrolled in the correspondence study program. A parent or guardian may purchase nonsectarian services and materials from a public, private, or religious organization with a student allotment if they are consistent with the ‘individual learning plan. AS 14.03.310(b).
This story will be updated as more details are known.
My good friend in Kiev (former Soviet Union), Slava Pilman, was a promising and struggling artist of visual art. In the early 1970s, he admired Western modern art of the mid-19th and early 20th centuries, including Impressionism (Claude Monet, Vincent Van Gogh), Cubism (Pablo Picasso), Surrealism (Salvador Dali), Fauvism (Henri Matisse), Expressionism (Edvard Munch) and several other styles of modern art; but he had no passion and tolerance for the Socialist Realism style.
From about the 1930s to the late 1980s, Socialist Realism was the official cultural doctrine of the Soviet Union. This style mandated an idealized representation of life and cultural traditions under socialism in literature and the visual arts. The doctrine was first proclaimed by the First Congress of Soviet Writers in 1934, which approved the standardized method for Soviet cultural production in all media.
Soon after the October Socialist Revolution in Russia in 1917, Vladimir Lenin laid down his thoughts on what purpose visual art must serve working masses. He believed that it was important that visual art was no longer a domain of the upper classes and the bourgeoisie. He stated that, “… art belongs to the people. It must leave its deepest roots in the very thick of the working masses.”
Writers and artists were required to follow the party line on style, especially under Joseph Stalin’s political rule (1922-1953). Moscow University and Moscow Metro are clear symbols of Stalinist’s architecture style. Then, socialist realism was seen as the means of educating people, so any deviance was often punishable by the NKVD/KGB (Soviet Secret Police) with varying harsh outcomes.
During the Nikita Khrushchev era (1957-1964), literature and visual art were still stagnant. Khrushchev declared: “As long as I am President of the Council of Ministers, we are going to support genuine art. We aren’t going to give a kopeck [cent] for pictures painted by jackasses. History can be our judge. For the time being history has put us at the head of this state, and we have to answer for everything that goes on in it.”
Leonid Brezhnev’s stagnant political era (1964-1982) in the Soviet Union continued to be sanctioned by only one artistic style—Socialist Realism. Paintings and sculptures emphasized idealized figures heroically enduring hardships and overcoming unjust opposition on a relentless crusade for progress and prosperity toward “delusional” communism.
So, Slava Pilman, as well as many other intellectuals in the Soviet Union, was trapped in the illusive socialist reality. I kept advising Slava to compromise and adjust his artistic style to the existing socialist environment, “Slava, paint cows, peasants and workers, otherwise you will starve to death.” Slava’s usual response was, “I am a free artist, and I will paint what I see and think, not what they want me to see and think.” “Slava, you are free from a job,” I reminded him, “… and you are going to die in the Gulag (Soviet labor camp) as a free man.”
I left the Soviet Union on March 16, 1977 under the status of a political refugee; and I lost track of my friend Slava Pilman. One day, however, Slava’s predicament re-appeared in my memories when in 1986 the Soviet delegation visited Juneau. Then, I was teaching archaeology, history and Russian Studies at the University of Alaska Southeast; I was frequently called to translate/assist for various delegations from the Soviet Union, visiting Alaska.
That delegation consisted of six high-ranking Soviet officials; it was sponsored by the Rotary International. My close friend, the late Bill Ruddy and his wife Kathy Kolhorst hosted and guided this group. Vladimir Nadein, a letters editor of the Izvestiya (News) newspaper was one of the guests in this group. Then, Izvestiya was the second largest newspaper after Pravda (Truth) in the Soviet Union, with a circulation of several million copies, which context was tightly controlled by the Communist Party “watch dogs and gate keepers.”
One day, Nadein asked me, “Sasha (Alexander), is there any way we can visit the State Archives? I am curious if we can locate any existing first-hand documents related to the Alaska-Siberia Lend-Lease Program during WWII.” Per his request, I took him to the State Library and in about 10 minutes the librarian brought us several original documents of the ALSIB program. “Remarkable,” Nadein proclaimed. “It would take months just to get permission to request the information in our State archives.” He examined the documents with a great interest and took some notes.
In fact, the editors of the major newspapers in the former Soviet Union, for the most part, were political appointees, with the connection to the State Secret Police. Their job was to suppress freedom of speech and advocate socialist propaganda.
I have never expected that today’s progressive American media, including our own Juneau Empire, would resemble far-left Soviet style practices—poorly edited publications, unchecked primary sources, and, periodically, publication of poorly written, misleading, and fabricated articles. No surprise that newspapers in Alaska (e.g., Juneau Empire since arrival of a current editor in June/July of 2023) are losing their readership.
As one of the commentators of my article “Plagiarism vs. Fabrication” published in Must Read Alaska on April 6 observed: “Every day, I wonder and despair about the condition of the media. I’ve always said, ‘why isn’t lying against the law?’ It is so common, not only in the media, but in our government, which has failed us miserably.” Sad!
Alexander B. Dolitsky was born and raised in Kiev in the former Soviet Union. He received an M.A. in history from Kiev Pedagogical Institute, Ukraine, in 1976; an M.A. in anthropology and archaeology from Brown University in 1983; and was enroled in the Ph.D. program in Anthropology at Bryn Mawr College from 1983 to 1985, where he was also a lecturer in the Russian Center. In the U.S.S.R., he was a social studies teacher for three years, and an archaeologist for five years for the Ukranian Academy of Sciences. In 1978, he settled in the United States. Dolitsky visited Alaska for the first time in 1981, while conducting field research for graduate school at Brown. He lived first in Sitka in 1985 and then settled in Juneau in 1986. From 1985 to 1987, he was a U.S. Forest Service archaeologist and social scientist. He was an Adjunct Assistant Professor of Russian Studies at the University of Alaska Southeast from 1985 to 1999; Social Studies Instructor at the Alyeska Central School, Alaska Department of Education from 1988 to 2006; and has been the Director of the Alaska-Siberia Research Center (see www.aksrc.homestead.com) from 1990 to present. He has conducted about 30 field studies in various areas of the former Soviet Union (including Siberia), Central Asia, South America, Eastern Europe and the United States (including Alaska). Dolitsky has been a lecturer on the World Discoverer, Spirit of Oceanus, andClipper Odyssey vessels in the Arctic and sub-Arctic regions. He was the Project Manager for the WWII Alaska-Siberia Lend Lease Memorial, which was erected in Fairbanks in 2006. He has published extensively in the fields of anthropology, history, archaeology, and ethnography. His more recent publications include Fairy Tales and Myths of the Bering Strait Chukchi, Ancient Tales of Kamchatka; Tales and Legends of the Yupik Eskimos of Siberia; Old Russia in Modern America: Russian Old Believers in Alaska; Allies in Wartime: The Alaska-Siberia Airway During WWII; Spirit of the Siberian Tiger: Folktales of the Russian Far East; Living Wisdom of the Far North: Tales and Legends from Chukotka and Alaska; Pipeline to Russia; The Alaska-Siberia Air Route in WWII; and Old Russia in Modern America: Living Traditions of the Russian Old Believers; Ancient Tales of Chukotka, and Ancient Tales of Kamchatka.
