Ketchikan: By MARIE L. MONYAK - Over 35 Employers Participated in 7th Annual Job Fair - Over 35 employers were represented at the Plaza Mall this past Friday during the 7th Annual Job Fair sponsored by State of Alaska, Department of Workforce Development. The mezzanine floor of the Plaza Mall was lined with booths staffed by local employers displaying their services or products on colorful displays.

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As expected, many of the employers were recruiting for seasonal positions in the tourism industry but many year round employers were represented as well.

Serious applicants showed up dressed and ready for an interview with resume in hand.
Many job seekers could be seen going from one booth to the next asking questions to determine which employer and what position they were best suited for. - More...
Monday - March 13, 2006

National: GOP is in 'deep funk' over Bush spending By CAROLYN LOCHHEAD - he Republican rebellion that President Bush smacked into with the Dubai ports deal was the tip of an iceberg of Republican discontent that is much deeper and more dangerous to the White House than a talk radio tempest over Arabs running U.S. ports.

A Republican pushback on Capitol Hill and smoldering conservative dissatisfaction have already killed not just the ports deal but key elements of Bush's domestic agenda, and threaten GOP control of Congress if unhappy conservatives sit out the November midterm elections.

The apostasy in some quarters runs to heretofore unthinkable depths. - More...
Monday - March 13, 2006

International: As third anniversary of war nears, Iraq reconstruction stalls By LISA ZAGAROLI - As the third anniversary of the war approaches, the $21 billion the United States has allocated for reconstruction of Iraq has yet to lift the war-torn nation from ruin.

Power outages are the norm; in fact, there's less electricity available than before the war began. Fewer people have clean water and sanitation systems. And fuel production isn't at pre-war levels, either.

The slow progress is largely a result of continued insurgent attacks on infrastructure and the need to divert building dollars to protection. There also has been evidence of mismanagement, fraud and incompetence in the reconstruction efforts. - More...
Monday - March 13, 2006

Alaska: Report: Health care costs Alaskans much more By SARANA SCHELL - The cost of living in Anchorage rose slower than inflation nationwide in the last 15 years - except for medical costs, which zoomed past increases in the rest of the country, University of Alaska researchers say in a new report.

Last year's health spending statewide hit an estimated $5.3 billion - one-sixth the value of all the state's goods and services produced that year - up from $1.6 billion in 1991, according to the report titled "Alaska's $5 Billion Health-Care Bill - Who's Paying?"

Nationally, technology is the biggest reason health care costs jumped more than twice the inflation rate, said Mark Foster, who co-authored the report with Scott Goldsmith of the University of Alaska Anchorage's Institute of Social and Economic Research. That agency plans more studies to better understand cost pressures, he said, particularly in Alaska.

In Alaska, part of the reason health costs are rising faster than in the Lower 48 is the high portion of Alaska residents covered by federal programs, Foster said. - More...
Monday - March 13, 2006

Discovering traditions and customs Haida Native, Discovery Center tour guide and narrator, Merle Hawkins. Hawkins is pointing out the display of items made from the spruce tree bark or roots. Front Page Photo by Marie L. Monyak

Ketchikan: Discovering traditions and customs By MARIE L. MONYAK - The Friday Night Insight Program sponsored by the Southeast Alaska Discovery Center offered a pleasant surprise for those in attendance this past Friday. The scheduled presentation had been cancelled and in its place was the opportunity to take a guided tour of the Discovery Center instead.

Participants had the pleasure of being led through the Center's Native Tradition Exhibit by Merle Nancy Hawkins, a direct descendant of Haida Elder, Vesta Morrison Johnson and seasonal employee of the Discovery Center.

Hawkins began her presentation by saying how much she enjoys her position as a narrator/tour guide at the Discovery Center, talking with the tourists every summer and educating them about Native ways. "I've been here for nine seasons and I can't believe that they pay me just to talk about my traditions and customs," Hawkins exclaimed. - More...
Monday - March 13, 2006

Southeast: Coast Guard suspends search for crew of fishing vessel Slayer  - The Coast Guard has suspended the active search for two fishermen from the fishing vessel Slayer at 7:50 p.m. Sunday. 

The crew of the fishing vessel Slayer, Richard Nebert, 42, of Juneau and Matthew Young, 18, of Sitka, got out a brief mayday call at 6:54 a.m. on Friday before presumably going down four and a half miles south of Point Gardner.  - More...
Monday - March 13, 2006

Science: Space: the final junkyard By KEAY DAVIDSON - Outer space is fast filling up with human-generated junk, from exploded satellites to leaky nuclear reactors, and the debris threatens the safety of cosmic exploration.

International agencies have met for years to try to solve the problem. One possible solution is to encourage space-launching nations to build sturdier rockets that don't blow up in space and spew debris everywhere, ones that burn up in the Earth's atmosphere upon their return.

Another is to have inventors develop futuristic laser beams that can "sweep" space junk from the skies. - More...
Monday - March 13, 2006

Slip-slidin'-snowy day 7:30 am at Bunchberry Lane and S. Point Higgins Front Page Photo By Judy Roush

Ketchikan: Slip-slidin'-snowy day by M. C. Kauffman - Unplowed side roads made travel difficult for two Laidlaw busses this morning at Bunchberry Lane and South Point Higgins where they both slid off the road.

According to the photographer Judy Roush, "The driver of the small bus, was busily trying to put chains on his bus, after the fact. He managed to get one on the right rear." Roush said there were no State Troopers for quite a while, but Laidlaw's "man" was right there! "Purdy Towing saved the day and the busses." - More...
Monday - March 13, 2006

Alaska: Alaska's Young a frequent flier on corporate jets By LIZ RUSKIN - Alaska Rep. Don Young has enjoyed the use of corporate jets for his political campaigns more often than almost every other member of the U.S. House.

Federal Express, Union Pacific and the tobacco company UST are among the corporations that have let Young use their executive aircraft, according to a report by PoliticalMoneyLine.com.

With 31 campaign-related flights on private jets since 2001, Young is in third place among House members.

"We have events and campaign all over the country," said Young's campaign manager, Steve Dougherty. "We just want to maximize his time." - More...
Monday - March 13, 2006

Opinion Poll Web Polls Are Not Scientific Polls On April 11th city voters will have an opportunity to vote on the City of Ketchikan's $38.5 million port improvement bond. How would you vote? View Poll Stats Viewpoints Opinions/Letters DEC refuses to answer our questions! By Carrie James - Monday Don't bash teen parents By Christina Lewis - Monday Republican agenda By Martha Leftwich - Monday Drug usage ... or non usage By Shirley McDonald - Monday FEMA Wasted Much More Than Our Dollars By Bob Smither - Saturday PM Drug problem trickles down By Ken Lewis - Saturday PM The World's Oil Supply By Don Hoff Jr. - Saturday PM Voice for Naha Country By Lisa Grogan- Thursday PM TIME FOR SOME HEADS TO ROLL By David G. Hanger- Thursday PM Re: Troubled Youth By Stephen Smeltzer- Thursday PM Looking for Mark Wheeler By June Allen - Thursday PM More Viewpoints/ Letters Publish A Letter Political Cartoonists Political Cartoons Ketchikan March 16, 2006 - Thursday - 7:00 pm - Ketchikan City Council Meeting - City Council Chambers Agenda & Information Packets March 16, 2006 - Thursday - Noon - Assembly/School Board Liaison Committee meeting i - City Council Chambers, 334 Front Street. The committee will be discussing items of mutual concern to the Assembly and School Board. The public is invited to attend. LIO: March 16-Alaska Board of Education will meet at 8:00am.  Testimony from 8:00am-9:00am   LIO: March 18-House Finance Committee will meet at 10:00am.  Topics of discussion will be HB365 & HB366.  Testimony from 10:00-11:00 only with 2 minute limit. March Calendar Today's Forecast Ketchikan Weather Data Current AK Weather Map City Police Report AK Troopers Daily Dispatch Classifieds & Announcements March 2006 Click on the date to read the stories published on that day. S M T W T F S 26  27 28 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 31   Front Page Archives

June Allen: The frozen eagle - I had to smile when I saw the picture of the beautifully painted eagle on the KPU truck! That eagle no doubt has different significance to different people. Up until maybe 25 to 30 years or so ago, Ketchikan admittedly suffered from an awful lot of power outages! I know that when I moved back to Ketchikan in 1987, after an absence of almost 20 years, I made sure I packed a nice oil lamp and a hefty supply of candles. There are a lot of folks who still have stories about holiday turkeys and dinners left half-cooked in the dark because of a power outage. It's bound to happen once in awhile in any town visited by wind and rain of the super-sized kinds experienced in Ketchikan! The response to the temporary inconvenience of a blackout ranged from amused to downright angry ­ it just happened too often back then.

So people used to say, tongue-in-cheek, when the lights went out, "Yep, an eagle just flew into the lines somewhere, again." The joke went around town that KPU kept a frozen eagle or two on hand to haul out for PR occasions! - More...
Monday - March 13, 2006

Star Parker: Private savings accounts don't attract less educated - Recent research by behavioral psychologists might shed some light on why President Bush had difficulty in selling his concept of private retirement accounts as a central feature of reforming Social Security.

As you might recall, the president promoted the plan through the idea of moving to an "ownership society" and providing the opportunity of choice regarding our retirement funds.

However, according to a team of psychologists from Swarthmore and Stanford, who discussed the results of their work recently in the New York Times, Americans do not uniformly welcome more choices into their lives. - More...
Monday - March 13, 2006

Dale McFeatters: Escaping court's verdict but not history's - The Butcher of the Balkans is dead. Slobodan Milosevic, 64, died of an apparent heart attack Saturday in his jail cell at The Hague. There were ambiguities about his death - perhaps linked to a medicine he was taking surreptitiously - that Dutch and international doctors should quickly resolve, as the former Serbian dictator's part of the world is too prone to conspiracies already.

Milosevic had been on trial for war crimes and genocide, crimes for which there really was not much question of his guilt. He launched four wars in the Balkans and lost all of them, but not before some 200,000 to 300,000 people had died and his regime had given the world the phrase "ethnic cleansing." - More...
Monday - March 13, 2006

Bonnie Erbe: Women's rights lose ground under Bush - Now it's official. Many of you have read my detonations during the past year about the fact American women's cultural progress is in a stall, if not in a freefall. I've written that the number of women in Congress has remained relatively stagnant for the past decade. I've reported on data that prove the percentage of women occupying seats in state legislatures (the training ground for national politics) is down for the first time this decade after three decades of rising rapidly. I've written that women's progress toward CEO status in major corporations is edging forward at a molasses-like pace and the same is true for women on corporate boards.

But now it's official. The Associated Press reports from Rome, "Over the last 10 years, more than a dozen countries have made it easier to get abortions, and women from Mexico to Ireland have raised court challenges to get access to the procedure. The trend contrasts sharply with the United States, where this week South Dakota's governor signed legislation that would ban most abortions in the state. The law is intended to set up a direct legal challenge to Roe v. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court decision that made abortion legal." - More...
Monday - March 13, 2006

Steve Brewer: Land mines lurk in group dynamics - Greetings, class. Today's lesson is on group dynamics.

No matter what your field, you'll sometimes find yourself in a group of people trying to accomplish something. Even those of us who work alone at home eventually must go reeling into the world to meet with employers or colleagues or creditors.

At those times, you need a working knowledge of group dynamics. Without it, you can make blunders and upset your fellow humans and risk embarrassment, financial ruin or, in extreme cases, a swift and painful death.

Group dynamics arise in all arenas, from the traditional business meeting to charity board proceedings to team sports to five guys leaning on shovels, staring at a pothole. - More...
Monday - March 13, 2006