Ketchikan: Bomb Threats Close Ketchikan Airport By DICK KAUFFMAN - "The Ketchikan International Airport received very specific, multiple threats this morning which necessitated evacuation of the terminal and closing of the airport," said Ketchikan Assistant Borough Manager Steve Corporon.

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The airport was closed around 9 am Thursday and passengers and employees were evacuated from Gravina Island where the airport is located. During the airport closure no passengers were allowed on Gravina. Alaska Airlines arrival flights were also impacted with three jets forced to over-fly Ketchikan. - More...
Thursday PM - October 12, 2006

National: Why Friday the 13th is considered unlucky By TIM CLODFELTER - It's Friday the 13th, the day when all the bad luck associated with Fridays teams up with all the bad luck associated with the number 13. In other words, it's a double whammy, which is to say "if anything bad happens to you today, you can chalk it up to the fact that it's Friday the 13th and not just that you happened to be misfortunate on a random day among 365 in this year's calendar."

Now, for fans of the children's book series "Lemony Snicket: A Series of Unfortunate Events," this could be seen as a good day. This is the day the 13th installment of that series hits bookstores.

That book, "The End," provides fans with one more chance to visit the Baudelaire children and see what further misfortunes befall them.

On the other hand, this being "The End" is unfortunate in that many people will miss the Baudelaires. The 13th book in the series (in which each book has 13 chapters) is the finale. Unless Lemony Snicket (or his alter ego, Daniel Handler) needs a new boat, this is probably the last we'll see of these adorable, misbegotten tots.

Fans of Sarah Michelle Gellar could also see this as a good day. Her movie "The Grudge 2" hits movie theaters Friday. On the other hand, the movie might not be any good.

Perhaps you've heard the word paraskevidekatriaphobia before. It is a fancy way of saying "fear of Friday the 13th."

Between 17 million and 21 million people suffer from that phobia, according to Donald Dossey, author of "Holiday Folklore, Phobias and Fun." And millions of dollars of business are lost each year because of people not wanting to travel, conduct business, sign contracts or do much of anything on Friday the 13th.

Dossey, a clinical psychologist and folklore expert, runs the Stress Management Center and Phobia Institute in Asheville, N.C. He coined the term "paraskevidekatriaphobia" back in the late 1980s, feeling that there needed to be a specific word for the fear of that specific date. The word has since gone into general usage.

"I used to tell my patients that when you finally learn how to pronounce it, you're cured," he said, then laughed.

Friday has been associated with misfortune for centuries, dating back to Jesus crucifixion on a Friday. Friday was a traditional execution day in ancient Rome and Hangman's Day in Britain. There are long-standing beliefs that a trip started on a Friday will end in misfortune. That belief was especially widespread among sailors, traditionally a superstitious lot. And one story says that in the 19th century, the British government tried to put an end to such superstitions by launching a ship called the HMS Friday, captained by a Jim Friday, on a Friday.

As the story goes, the ship disappeared and was never again heard from. - More...
Friday AM - October 13, 2006

Alaska: Moose hunt turns into a rescue mission for accident victim By CRAIG MEDRED - The blood-curdling scream left no doubt about the violence of the accident Steve Kosterman had just witnessed.

What he'd seen had been scary enough without the noise - the four-wheeler tumbling downhill, bouncing and then flying into the air only to land rack down on the leg of 43-year-old Kevin Kidder.

"I knew it was bad," Kosterman said. "The whole rig was standing up on end on his leg, and then it fell over."

Only hours after setting out on a moose hunt in late September, all thoughts of hunting were gone. All Kosterman could think about now was what he needed to do to save Kidder.

"I tried to stay as calm as possible for him," Kosterman said, "but my brain was spinning."

Kosterman scrambled uphill to the longtime family friend. Kidder's leg was mangled and bent obscenely, but there was no serious bleeding.

As a staff sergeant in the U.S. Air Force back in Alaska on leave from a base in Japan, Kosterman, 29, had taken an annual first-aid refresher course. His training had taught him what he had to do in situations like this: stay calm, assess the situation and treat what you can. - More...
Friday AM - October 13, 2006

Health - Fitness: To keep weight off, get on the scale daily and react By LEE BOWMAN = The secret weapon against yo-yo dieting may be to keep the string short, a new study suggests.

Most successful dieters regain much of the weight they lose. But researchers in Providence, R.I., found that dieters can maintain weight loss by simply stepping on the scale every day and reacting quickly to cut back calories and boost exercise.

Led by Rena Wing, director of the Weight Control and Diabetes Research Center at The Miriam Hospital and professor of psychiatry and human behavior at Brown University Medical School, the researchers taught a group of already successful dieters a technique called "self-regulation" and then followed them for the next 18 months to see how they did.

Compared to a control group that received quarterly newsletters about eating and exercise in the mail during the course of the study period, those who got the training - either in person or over the Internet - were significantly more successful at not regaining five or more pounds during the intervention period, according to findings reported Thursday in The New England Journal of Medicine.

All the people in the study group had lost at least 10 percent of their body weight - the average was 20 percent, or 42 pounds, during the two years before the study started. - More...
Friday AM - October 13, 2006

Viewpoints Opinions/Letters Basic Rules Police, kids, underage drinking By Karen Hollywood - Thursday PM RE: Police and Law Enforcement in Ketchikan By Stacey Stone Where's Tony ... part two? By Jeff Kemp - Thursday PM That time of Year. . . By Virginia E. Atkinson WARS and CONFLICTS - A Republican Legacy? By James Hanson - Thursday PM Taxed Out By Robert McRoberts - Thursday PM Cruise Ship Taxes and Consolidation By Eric Muench - Wednesday Minors Drinking By Sunny Jim Sundahl - Wednesday Sarah Palin on Native people By Karen Rhoades - Wednesday Trust and Honesty By Ken Levy - Wednesday Response to "Police and law enforcement in Ketchikan" By Kristin Fahey - Wednesday Thanks to the Community By Karen Eakes - Wednesday RE: Police and law enforcement in Ketchikan By Kathy Fox - Wednesday Police in Ketchikan By Rob Glenn - Wednesday Mark Folley - a premeditated deliberate PREDATOR. By Lynne Miller - Wednesday RE: Law enforcement in Ketchikan By Jessica Mathews - Wednesday RE: NEVER okay By Frances C. Natkong Just the Facts & Questions By Dan McQueen - Wednesday Correction: Harbon Bonds By Dave Kiffer - Wednesday What will our leaders do? By Viola Burgess - Monday Bike Show By Dan Hart - Monday Police and law enforcement in Ketchikan By Vicky Newlun - Monday Gravina Island Clean-up By Jerry Cegelske - Monday Just the Facts By Dave Kiffer - Monday NEVER okay! By Diana Chaudhary - Monday Aan Kadax Tseen is my Name By Aan Kadax Tseen - Monday Time to pay attention to November elections By Janelle Hamilton - Monday BoonDoggle Bridge By Lonnie Guthrie - Monday Hypocrisy? By Mark Neckameyer - Monday Election 2006 Stars aligned? By Alan Bailey - Sunday Go East For Development By Walt Bolling - Sunday Klukwan your Cultural Identity is at Stake By Albert K. White - Sunday Excellence in Teaching By Aaron Burns - Sunday Boondoggle Bridge By Don Hoff Jr. - Sunday Seniors are Elders. By Ken Lewis - Sunday Open letter to Congressman Don Young By Mike Jones - Sunday The Hypocrisy By Robert D. Warner - Sunday Why tax increases failed - Global Warming By Marvin Seibert - Sunday Folley flap?? By Mark Neckameyer - Sunday Much Ado About Nothing By Alan Lidstone - Sunday More Viewpoints/ Letters Publish A Letter Political Cartoonists Political Cartoons Ketchikan City Police Report AK Troopers Daily Dispatch Arts This Week Today's Forecast Ketchikan Weather Data Current AK Weather Map Classifieds Auto-post your ad in the proper category, or email your ad & photos to ads@sitnews.us  Classifieds: Categories Announcements For Sale / Free Stuff Garage Sales Homes / Apts/ Property Pets Wanted Lost & Found Local Services SitNews Archives October 2006 Click on the date to read the stories published on that day. S M T W T F S 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         More Front Page Archives

National: North Korea's detonation gives missile defense a boost By LISA HOFFMAN - Forget the misses and missteps that have plagued America's $95 billion national missile-defense program over the past decade.

North Korea's test of a suspected nuclear device is certain to provide an enormous boost for the often-maligned, enormously complex system the United States is developing to protect its territory from enemy missiles.

That's the conclusion of proponents of the program, who say that no better example exists of why such a system is needed than North Korea's detonation of what is believed to have been a small, possible precursor to a bomb.

Even if the detonation was a dud, it still served to illustrate the pressing need to erect a missile-defense system against a threat that is at least looming on the horizon, they said.

"Our world has significantly changed from this reality," said Riki Ellison, president of the Missile Defense Advocacy Alliance, an Alexandria, Va., group that believes the United States should arm itself with the defensive system posthaste. "The United States must engage and deploy its current missile-defense assets and those in other theaters against North Korea."

No definitive U.S. assessment of what it was that the cloistered country set off has yet been publicly released.

North Korea's reputed test comes about a month after another significant event in the long, often-troubled history of efforts to design and build a workable way to protect the United States from long-range ballistic missiles. - More...
Wednesday - October 11, 2006

National: New federal law requires helping evacuate pets in a disaster By KIMBERLY GEIGER - States will be required to help evacuate pets during a natural disaster such as a hurricane or earthquake or risk losing federal money under a bill signed by President Bush.

The bill was prompted by reports that as many as 50,000 pets were stranded during Hurricane Katrina. Rescue agencies have been criticized for the "no pets" policy that required pet owners to abandon their animals or defy evacuation orders and stay in the disaster area. Nearly half of those who refused to evacuate said they didn't want to leave their pets behind, according to an April poll by the Fritz Institute, a nonprofit agency involved with providing humanitarian relief work.

"Katrina gave us insight into the lack of preparedness for people and their pets," said Michael Markarian, executive vice president of the Humane Society of the United States, an animal-advocacy group that rescued thousands of abandoned pets during and after the hurricane. Markarian said that even disabled people with guide dogs were being forced to choose between their pets and their safety. - More...
Wednesday - October 11, 2006

National: Sheriff's pink duds make inmates vow to reform By MATT PHINNEY - Three county inmates in the jail here lay on their bunks, not saying much.

They wore pink jumpsuits and pink slippers, and one was wrapped in pink sheets. They were surrounded by pink bars and pink walls.

They were not comfortable.

Despite the cramped condition of the tiny jail, the inmates said sitting there was better than working outside, where they might be seen by people they know. Using pink uniforms in a pink jail is a small step to deter inmates from ever wanting to spend more time in the Mason County Jail, which might be getting too old to operate, said Sheriff Clint Low.

"The county would have more inmate labor without them," said one inmate, who did not want to be identified.

"I'm not going outside in these things. It's a good deterrent because I don't want to wear them anymore." - More...
Wednesday - October 11, 2006

Health - Fitness: Exercise improves quality of life By EUGENIE JONES - Do you buy into the, "We're all going to die anyway, so why bother exercising," mentality? It's a familiar viewpoint, ranking right up there with, "I don't have time to exercise," "the dog ate my workout shoes" and "sweating makes me wet."

The problem with the fatalistic outlook of "why bother" is that it focuses on the wrong issue. The issue is not whether or not you're going to die, but rather how you're going to live.

If you choose to live a sedentary lifestyle, you are choosing to increase your risk of obesity, adult on-set diabetes, premature aging, bone mass loss and susceptibility to, heart disease and the gradual, continual loss of physical ability and vitality.

And while choosing to exercise and lead an active lifestyle is not a promise of immortality, it is a self-empowering choice that enriches the quality and dimension of your life.

Without movement you hasten the deterioration of your physical and mental wellbeing, but when you exercise you increase your energy, vitality and ability to live life to its fullest. - More...
Wednesday - October 11, 2006