Ketchikan: Unemployment rate rises slightly in September - Ketchikan's unemployment rate rose four-tenths of a percentage point in September from 4.5 percent in August to 4.9 percent. With a reported labor force in the Ketchikan Gateway Borough of 8,472 in September, 419 were reported unemployed. In August a labor force of 9,197 was reported with 417 unemployed. Despite the monthly increase in September, Ketchikan's unemployment rate in September remains below last September's rate of 5.6 percent. - More...
Monday - October 24, 2005

National: U.S. Health Secretary Predicts Continued Spread of Bird Flu - Confirmation of highly pathogenic avian influenza in Europe leads U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Michael Leavitt to predict that the disease will continue to spread.

"The virus has begun to use wild birds as its carrier, and it will go across predictable migratory flyways," Leavitt said at an October 21 press briefing. "There is no reason to think that it will not go to more [countries]. It is a natural phenomenon that is both predictable and certain." - More...
Monday - October 24, 2005

National: Learning about fish from restaurant menus of the past By LEE BOWMAN - In the 1920s, a plate of abalone could be had in San Francisco restaurants for the equivalent of $7 in today's money. Today with abalone harvesting commercially banned on the California coast, a similar plate of the slow-growing mollusks, imported from Australia or New Zealand, goes for $60 or $70.

Until the late 1880s, lobsters weren't even on the menu of restaurants in Boston and New York. A pound-sized boiled crustacean went for $5 back then, but by the 1970s, after a century of aggressive lobstering, the same meal was running $30 or more. Today, lobstermen are going out 200 miles or more to bring in 5-pounders or bigger to feed supersized American appetites. - More...
Monday - October 24, 2005

Alaska: Bears can't survive in a 'dump' By CRAIG MEDRED - The only constant that remains now is the almost spectacularly clear water gurgling down the tree-filled valley.

Gone are the salmon, the people and the grizzly bears. Only the hint of a track disturbs the yellow leaves covering the boardwalk down by the Cottonwood Hole. Below nearly leafless branches, the tall grass is dying and the woods are bare.

Seeing now what was invisible during the summer is a bit of an eye opener. It raises questions whether an angler walking down the riverside trail in daylight could spot any bears. - More...
Monday - October 24, 2005

Sports: Podsednik's ninth inning heroics give Sox 2-0 series lead By TRACY RINGOLSBY - The Chicago White Sox aren't worried about karama or destiny or luck.

The only thing that matters to them is wins.

Chalk up another.

Scott Podsednik provided the final blow in the White Sox 7-6 victory over Houston in Game 2 of the World Series at U.S. Cellular Park on Sunday night. His ninth inning home run off Astros closer Brad Lidge - the 14th game-ending homerun in World Series history - atoned for closer Bobby Jenks' failure in the top of the ninth when the Astros rallied to tie the game at 6-6, thanks in part to A.J. Pierzynski's failure to block home plate. - More...
Monday - October 24, 2005

Viewpoints Opinions/Letters We can't allow more bungling... By Patrick Jirschele - Monday PM Response to Question By Marty West - Monday PM KHRA Toy Run and Dance By Jen Brewer - Monday PM Mission Possible By Gary Ridenour - Monday PM Ketchikan's future By Glenn Bell - Monday PM Re: Peddling Fear By Dave Kiffer - Sunday Dock development By Thomas Ferry - Sunday Open Letter To Ketchikan City Council: Please Answer the Question By Robert D. Warner - Sunday Federal Agencies Obligated To Address Issue With Tribes By Randy Williams - Sunday Born to Read By Charlotte L. Glover - Sunday More Viewpoints/ Letters Publish A Letter Political Cartoonists Political cartoons Ketchikan Calendar, Meetings, Events Today's Forecast City Police Report AK Troopers Daily Dispatch Classifieds & Announcements October 2005 Click on the date for stories and photos published on that day... S M T W T F S 25 26 27 28 29 30 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

Laine Welch: Merchant Marines Shipping Industry Offers Careers To Displaced Workers - Crabbers who find themselves without jobs can avail themselves of better careers in the merchant marine shipping industry - and get trained for free. In fact, the opportunity is open for displaced salmon fishermen, loggers, or almost anyone who has been run out of business by the economics of free trade.

Since 2003 the Seafarers International Union (SIU) and the Ketchikan-based non-profit SEA Link have partnered to recruit and train dislocated workers from the fishing industry for hundreds of jobs aboard large ocean going vessels around the world. Using federal funds administered by the Department of Labor's Division of Business Partnerships, eligible people are sent to the SIU center in Piney Point, Maryland, regarded as providing some of the best merchant marine training programs in the world. - More...
Monday - October 24, 2005

Dave Kiffer: Vox Populi #6 - Recently, a reader emailed in to find out what "Vox Populi" really means. It's Latin (I feel sort of comfortable saying that, even though none of the original Latin speakers are alive to confirm that diagnosis). And it generally means "voice of the people" or "the people speak" although I firmly expect to hear from some dead language expert who will correct that assumption.

In my defense, many, many, many publications (physical and Ethernet alike) use "Vox Populi" as the title for their letters to the editor feature. So I do too (and I can hear my mother asking that "if all my little friends wanted to jump off a cliff would I" etc etc etc). - More...
Monday - October 24, 2005

Jason Love: Gift-Giving - My wife's forehead veins are popping out because I missed her niece's Quinceañera. A Quinceañera is like a bat mitzvah, only with tortillas and beans. And it's like a thousand other days I'm bullied to observe. Observe, of course, comes from the Latin root, "to buy meaningless presents."

Exhibit A: Christmas. A time to purchase something for everyone we know, pets included, lest we suffer what is known in professional circles as Gift Guilt. Last year I bought trinkets for everyone on the planet except my mailman, who kindly left cookies in my mailbox. So it goes. - More...
Monday - October 24, 2005

Preston MacDougall: Chemical Eye on the Competitive Edge - To stay on top of their game, some athletes develop their own extreme training regimen. My favorite example is the Czech long-distance runner, Emil Zatopek, who trained with his wife on his back.

Recent Congressional hearings about widespread abuse of steroids and other performance-enhancing drugs, in both professional and amateur sports, reveal that many athletes now train with a monkey on their back. Any long-time athlete can tell you that only the public testimonies are new.

Even more recent Congressional testimony concerns another kind of competitive edge, and how the economic well-being of everybody in the country will be negatively impacted if we lose it. The October 13th headline in The New York Times read: "Top Advisory Panel Warns of an Erosion of the U.S. Competitive Edge in Science." - More...
Monday - October 24, 2005