Holy Heart Failure, Batman!

Here is what I have been wondering for the past two days: how many pounds do 68 slices of bacon make?

A little research reveals that the answer really depends on how thick the bacon is sliced, but for regular bacon, 16 to 20 slices.

Thus, 68 slices is a little over three pounds of bacon.

68 slices is also the equivalent of the amount of fat contained in one 24-ounce serving of a PB&C shake* from Cold Stone Creamery. That same serving packs a walloping 2,010 calories too: basically the full daily caloric intake for a healthy, active individual (and that is active as in old school active, not like nowadays where people sit around all day watching TV, engaging in social media, and well, uh, blogging).

What are the odds that the people who slurp down a PB&C shake eat nothing else throughout the course of their day? Not so good, I would imagine. And would those same individuals also sit down and consume at one sitting three packages of bacon? Not likely. Because while Americans are getting huger and fatter and more unhealthy with every passing day, most are not, in all likelihood, setting out to eat to become large enough to be buried in a grand piano-sized casket.

But if this shameless, irresponsible marketing of fatty, sugary crap continues, that is where a majority of Americans will end up.

Now, I should note that I am among the first in line to say that people are responsible for their choices, and to recognize that in a capitalist society, markets are driven by consumers. If people werent sucking down those PB&C shakes, well more than likely Cold Stone Creamery wouldnt be making them.

But....wait a minute. Ice cream milkshakes have been around forever. There is nothing wrong with having a sweet, cold treat once in awhile. But at 2,010 calories a pop, this type of drink is not a treat, its a threat. Old fashioned milk shakes, even ice cream made from pure heavy cream, don't pack that sort of caloric punch. So clearly, Cold Stone is adding a lot of something else to its products.

On its website, the company is not entirely forthcoming about what that something else might be. In fact, rather obviously the information about its products (all of which, including PB&C, are trademarked) appears to imply that these milkshakes are leaner and more nutritional than milkshakes of yore. According to the company's ice cream FAQ's, the PB&C (TM) is nothing more than peanut butter, chocolate ice cream and skim milk (there is that masterful stroke to lull those itchy dieters).

And while the company likes to blat about how its ice cream is "made fresh daily" (not obviously trademarked), with only the freshest ingredients, it is darn hard to find out just exactly what those ingredients are - let alone what their nutritional value is.

In fact, it takes following about four links on their web site to finally drill down to the table that reveals the dietary horror that its products truly are. Personally I have never stepped foot in a Cold Stone Creamery but I am willing to bet its even harder to get nutrition information from a server at one of the franchises.

Besides which, that is not the point. The point is that this corporation, like McDonald's and so many other processed, fast food corporations that try to pass as responsible corporate citizens, is packing its products with an excess of sugar and fat, while simultaneously using copy that appears to promote health, responsiblity**, slimness and in some extreme cases, weight loss (even though in reality, their products results in its antithesis).

If this was America in the days before there was a Starbucks on every corner and a Lowe's in every strip mall, this wouldn't be so bad. Sure, there have always been eateries that have promoted severely unhealthy eating. But they were local businesses that had impact only within their own regional reach.

Nowadays, where Anywhere USA clones Olive Gardens, Chilli's, Cold Stone Creamerys in every hamlet, burg and city in this nation (and beyond), their menus reach us all. Their dietary influence is ubiquitous and pernicious, especially as the new breed of fast crap food is re-packaged in ways that lull people into thinking its safer and healthier.

Case in point: Cold Stone Creamery's architecture, internal decor, marketing and packaging plays on people's nostalgia and memories of days when ice cream was ice cream: sweet and a bit fatty, but certainly not three-pounds- of- bacon fatty!

*Named "Worst Beverage in America" by the authors of "Drink This, Not That!", a timely expose of the hidden calories in common and popular beverages like bottled, flavored water, ice teas, energy drinks and coffee and ice cream specialty drinks. Rather than just list calories and grams of sugar and fat, the book does a nice job of putting the #s into equivalents that people can immediately relate to - such as 68 slices of bacon.

** From the company web site comes this gem of meaningless marketing babble: " Despite the general perception that ice cream isn’t as good for you as it tastes, at Cold Stone, we’re all about making people happy – for the long haul! – which requires a balanced and sensible approach to eating fun treats like ice cream. We therefore obsess, far more than most companies, about the nutritional aspects of our products as much as we do their taste. For some people, Cold Stone is a ritualized special treat, for others, a daily must-have."
http://www.coldstonecreamery.com/nutritional/nutrition_ingredients.html

The Mask of Ignorance (Part 2)

Had the new city police chief – Laren Zager – hailed from parts Outside perhaps he could be forgiven some of the ignorance he apparently possesses regarding Interior Alaska Natives and villages. In fact, if he had lived and worked only in Anchorage, it might even make a tad bit of sense. But police chief Zager has spent 20 years in Fairbanks.

Of course, there are lots of people born and raised in Fairbanks that haven’t a clue about that portion of our Interior’s population who come from a totally different culture and race. True, Interior Alaska Natives (like all Alaska Native and Native American groups) may be demographically small in number relative to the majority population, but their rates of incarceration, suicide and violence perpetrated against them by members of the non-Native population (especially by non-Native men against Native women) are disproportionately high. Much of this is tied to their perpetually lower socio-economic status. Disenfranchised as they are*, Natives lack the political and economic power to substantively impact the racism and prejudices that make them more likely to be victimized, rather than championed, by our western legal system.

Thus, I would argue, if you are heading up a law enforcement department that has a long (and in many minds deplorable) history of dealing with arresting Natives, some extra effort at personal education about village realities might be on order. It might also help the police chief overcome some of the banal (but dangerous) assumptions about Natives that he appears to hold.

Case in point: I return to my personal bug-a-boo of the moment, police chief Zager’s assertion that, since spring, the number of chronic inebriates downtown has doubled, if not tripled (from about 100 to as many as 300). Towards the end of the August 19 article, Zager is asked to give his opinion on why this sudden rise in chronic inebriates.

"As for what’s behind the increase in the chronic inebriate population, Zager said one theory is spring flooding along the Yukon River might have displaced many village residents who have turned to the streets of Fairbanks because of the city’s reputation as being accommodating to the homeless. "

Wow – that is jaw-dropping.

First off, no one in a village is homeless if they lose their home. Most people have several homes. These are the homes of their relatives and extended families. Even without loss of a physical structure, people tend to move around within households. Village home life is more like having different components of a “home” distributed throughout the community, than it is about one single residence that is dedicated for the specific use of an individual and their immediate family (as it is in our culture). So unlike our culture, where a misfortune can result in one being out on the streets, this is not the norm in Native culture. People are much more generous and communal about their living spaces than we tend to be on our side of the street – where the notion that one’s home is their castle is still very much alive and well, even in these times of underwater mortgages.

Natives don’t end up sleeping in cars – they end up sleeping on a relative’s couch.

So the notion that spring flooding would have resulted in droves of homeless villagers moving to Fairbanks to live on the streets is just – well – ridiculous.

Secondly, this so-called theory completely ignores the possibility that maybe, just maybe, Natives live in a contextual sphere that is totally different than ours. Westerners’ sense of place is tied to physical possession, chiefly embodied by our house/property. Thus, for us, the loss of a house does open up the possibility of relocation, especially for young single men.

However, the flaw in application here is the assumption that what works for western sensibilities works for Native ones. It ignores the absoluteness of connection to the country experienced by Natives. And it overlooks the fact that this connection is organically different than any bond, tie or other attachment a non-Native may have for a particular patch of land. There really are no English words that convey the essence of the Native sense of place and connection within the larger sphere of country – because in our world view this simply does not exist. And while people from the vil like to come into town to shop, go to the fair, visit and to do all of those town things that we all do, in very short order most become very homesick: for their families, for the village, for their way of life and for Native food, and most of all, for the country.

The metaphysical aside, Zager is talking collectively about a people that are supremely used to dealing with and rolling with the punches that nature can deliver. A spring flood, even one as severe as the one that just occurred this past spring, is not about to turn any villager’s life upside down, nor drive them out of the country.

Finally, Zager shouldn’t misconstrue the fact that most of these people can live very comfortably outdoors, whether in the woods or in the city, as evidence that villagers find Fairbanks “accommodating” (to homeless or others). Few Natives view Fairbanks as hospitable. Most see it as an unfriendly place filled with unfriendly people (who are always willing to take their money), as well as a place that is just outright dangerous for them.

Maybe instead of trying to shoehorn Native motives into the misfit of western thinking, Zager should think harder about what might be more likely the cause of increasing numbers of younger, angrier men drinking on the streets. Interior Natives have been experiencing and surviving spring floods for eons, but they have been dealing with the white man for a little more than 100 years.

A more plausible line of reasoning is that we are beginning to experience the full results produced by two generations of Natives who have struggled with the social, emotional and psychic impacts from contact and colonialism: the loss of language and generational disruption from boarding schools and disease, the sexual abuse by missionaries and priests, and all the other systematic attempts by the majority culture to eradiate Native language, culture and tribal structure. Post-traumatic stress syndrome, self-medication and violence born of unresolved anger over the historical trauma suffered by these men and their families are more likely drivers behind an increase in downtown alcoholics than are the spring floods.

But better for the police chief to turn to deus ex machina, in this case the mighty Yukon, than to lift the blinders of ignorance and confront the problem head on. Because to do so would require Zager, the Mayor, the council, and all of us to grapple with the fact that the alcoholism, violence and homelessness hopelessness experienced by these men are rooted in human-caused catastrophes, not acts of God. And that might mean we have a moral, ethical and spiritual obligation to acknowledge, address and attempt to make right the wrongs done.

Far better to put the solution on FEMA’s doorstep, than to look at what really is going on in the city of Fairbanks – in its police department, its treatment of Native people, and its ridiculously inadequate treatment facilities and social services resources.

* a status that is shared by other minority populations as well – such as inner city African Americans and rural poor Caucasians in Appalachia.

The Mask of Racism (Part 1)

Chronic inebriates. This is what the City of Fairbanks, its police department and all the rest of the public policy makers here like to call the people with drinking problems who drink downtown (and who happen to be, 99 out of 100 times, Native). Lately there have been at least two articles in the Daily News Miner about the "chronic inebriate" problem. This is a re-occurring theme. And each time it reoccurs, I get more and more disturbed.

The last time this term cropped up was on August 19, in an article that blatted the headline: Fairbanks police step up patrols as downtown chronic inebriates increase. The nut of this story was that, under new police chief Zager, the city police are increasing their patrol unit by four in response to business owners' complaints that "a larger, younger chronic inebriate population is becoming increasingly violent."

There is so much that is so wrong with this article as well as the persistent and shrill attacks on the so-called chronic inebriates that it is hard to know where to begin. But for starters - let's look at why the City, the cops and everyone else in power in these parts uses the term "chronic inebriate" as opposed to the medically-accepted term "alcoholic"*.

These two terms are not interchangeable. If there is any organization that is up on the lingo associated with alcohol abuse, it's the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, part of the NIH. The term "chronic inebriate" appears nowhere on its website or in its publications. It's not used in its research papers, press releases, FAQs, publications or fact sheets.

So, what is up with the persistent use of this phrase by Fairbanks' mayor, city council, and police force? The term itself is not formally defined in medical, sociological or psychological reference books, but is understood to mean a chronic alcoholic who is homeless and drinks in public. Thus if challenged, I suspect the city and its police chief would defend their usage of the term by saying that these are homeless drunks, and thus their use of the phrase is perfectly justified, racially neutral, and transparent. No man behind the curtain here.

Except for one troubling little issue ---- very few of the people that they are labeling as chronic inebriates are homeless. They have homes; most of them in villages, some of them in Fairbanks. They may be alcoholics, even very advanced-stage alcoholics, but they are not homeless.

A majority of this pool of downtown alcoholics (to call them what they are) are cyclical. Throughout the year, they come into town and for varying lengths of time end up on Two Street or along the river. They come in for a variety of reasons: to drink legally (if from a dry village), for medical, to shop, or to visit. The fact is --- people who suffer from alcoholism, no matter how good their intentions are when they get on the Fairbanks-bound plane, are going to have a hard time resisting booze that is $11 a bottle (the current going rate for R&R) and a virtually unlimited supply when bootlegging in the vil puts alcohol at anywhere from $50 to $300 a bottle.

Furthermore, even if these drinkers are from villages, they aren't homeless when in town either. The majority of village drinkers (even those with relatives in town) stay in hotels - and not flop hotels. There are quite a few hotels downtown that are all too happy to cater to the village alcoholic (and even tolerate the impacts that go along with that) who comes over and gets stuck in town on a bender. Thus, the chronic inebriates and their relatives contribute quite a handsome sum to the hotel industry, especially during the winter off-season --- something that is never mentioned by the troubled downtown business owners.

So, this is not really a chronic inebriate problem but an alcoholism problem --- the same heartbreaking disease that strikes so very many in the non-Native population. Yet if the city officials used the term "alcoholic", they would have to acknowledge that Natives are vulnerable to the same disease as non-Natives. And in doing so, they then would have to look at the ugly fact that Natives are denied, through widespread indifference, often willful ignorance (of the problem) and an abominable lack of resources, many of the options for help and support that the majority population can secure for its members that suffer this dreadful disease.

Better to use a different term. One that does not imply disease as much as the fault of the individual. The words chronic inebriate literally translate to always-drunk: a hopeless drunk. In other words, one that chooses to exist in a persistent state of drunkenness, with a not so subtle top note of insufficient moral and character fiber to snap out of their derelict and debauched state. Its baggage is the implication that this state of being arises out of the individual's agency (blame the victim), not through the conjunction of biological predisposition, personal choice and the roll of the cosmic dice as with disease.

On the surface, city officials talking about chronic inebriates appear to be engaged in a neutral and rational discussion of a problem that is vaguely medical in nature. Look deeper and what you see is a term that is being used to mask the same racial biases and prejudices that the majority population has nurtured against Native Americans since contact. Not so ironically, it is these same prejudices and stereotypes that are responsible for the chronic low socioeconomic status that contributes to the high alcoholism rates among Natives and restricts their options for treatment and prevention.

This type of code talking serves no one well. It is time for city officials and other policy makers to address the severe alcoholism problem that plagues this region as well as the rest of the state. Contrary to what police chief Zager said in the paper --- it is about social services (and medical and behavioral health services). Alcoholics of all backgrounds and races face significant challenges if they want to go into recovery here, particularly those living in small villages. It is not about adding more police or establishing alcohol impact zones or a do-not sell list. It is about taking a hard look at the reasons why the people in power (local, regional, state and federal) do not want to allocate funds for the prevention and treatment of substance abuse, but instead prefer to fund those institutions which punish and incarcerate rather than heal.

*Doubt this? A simple google search on both the web and the FDNM site comparing the two phrases will amply demonstrate the veracity of this statement.

They're asking entirely the wrong question

Forget about whether the state of Alaska should continue to support the existence of villages. The villages ought to be asking themselves why they should continue to support urban, suburban and wilderburban Alaska.

Truth is, urban Alaska is dependent on the continued existence of Alaska’s villages. Tell me, what exactly does Anchorage produce? Fish? Uh, no. Timber? Nope. Coal? Negatory. Oh, the urban areas could say that it is not the villages, just the land out there (and everything on or under it) that they need, but they'd be wrong.

What Anchorage, Wasilla and Fairbanks do produce is infrastructure and employees of that infrastructure through which money flows to various programs serving village Alaska. A lot of that money is federal money. And a whole lot of money that should be going to services is spent on employing people in Anchorage, Wasilla, Fairbanks and Juneau. A lot of it is spent transporting them to village Alaska.

Our urban areas produce nothing. They are where the paper is shuffled and the point through which money flows. (After a lot of it stays behind.)

Those folks, in turn, can maintain a lifestyle that allows for the growth of communities that support all sorts of ancillary services – restaurants, tanning salons, doggie day care, Nordstroms, strip malls, Range Rover dealerships – all the crap that the folks who move to Alaska but want to turn it into the place they left want and have. They all in turn can buy houses and cars and lots of toys.

And it’s not just bureaucrats and TWPs (pronounced ‘twips’) … those transient white professionals that spend a year or two our in the Bush making bank and then move out. It is high paying work, whether you’re an itinerant health care worker, or one of the army of consultants, a lawyer, or an ‘expert’ on rural issues hired to do research every time there is an EIS or project proposal. There are scores of grants funding jobs at universities, all of which poke and prod and make vague promises about how they will help lower suicide rates or foster culture or promote local agriculture or something out in the villages.

And lest the conservatives sneer at these jobs related to ‘programs’ – a large number of the skilled trades would be screwed if village Alaska disappeared. Think of every construction and maintenance project – be it building homes, improving airports, water and sewer, weatherization, school construction, boiler work, hell even the AVEC guys (that’s Alaska Village Electric Cooperative for you Outsiders or urban residents) who work on the electrical generation plants … all these people fly in and out of village Alaska and collect a big fat paycheck. We’re talking carpenters, electricians, operators, and the like. And if it is a federally funded project, they make Davis-Bacon wages (a name I’ve always found ironic.) These folks, too, spend their money in urban Alaska.

Young teachers go out to village Alaska to get experience and make much better money. Typically they stay a year or two and then leave.

The regional hubs need the villages, too. There are a lot of high paying jobs in the hubs predicated on the existence of village Alaska. That’s true of every regional corporation, be it the non-profit or for profit. What supports all the small regional airlines? It’s not flying people out to the villages. It’s flying bypass mail and freight and all those white collar and blue collar people and their excess baggage out to village Alaska to work. (Although admittedly, the price of fuel is making bypass mail much less of a profitable enterprise. Whatever did happen to the proposed changes to bypass mail last year. Seriously. I lost track of that one.)

What would the snowmachine and ATV dealers do if rural Alaska emptied out? What about the barge lines that deliver goods to communities?

All this talk of whether the State of Alaska should support Alaskan villages misses the point. The fates of urban Alaska and village Alaska are inextricably entwined.

And frankly, this is merely the economic end of the discussion. Issues of history, values, and culture trump all this. But that is for another time.

Are We Tired of All the Energy Blah Blah Yet?

Hey, don't get me wrong - I am sitting here nervously wondering if next year at this time I might be contemplating losing my house if fuel costs keep going the way they are - but the overweening blather of assorted politicos and others trampling each other to get on the bandwagon of the great energy crisis is getting old.

However annoying it may be, this mad rush by talking heads to offer up profound opinions on what all the rest of us should be doing to correct the situation offers prime views of primate preening.

Recently, Rep. Mike Kelly*, formerly of GVEA, and David Van den Berg, ED of the Northern Alaska Environmental Center, got into bed together when they demonstrated their paternalistic attitudes towards others - aka those beneath them, the hoi poi loi, the great unwashed. It's not too surprising however, when one reflects that the most self-righteous tree huggers share much with their conservative NRA-loving counterparts...most particularly a finely-honed hypocrisy that enables them to judge others without looking too closely at their own lives.

In a rare congruence, there were Rep. Kelly and Mr. Van den Berg united in their opposition to Gov. Palin's proposed $100/month energy assistance to Alaskans. Mr. Van den Berg is of the opinion that "if electricity costs half as much as it does now, people would likely use more of of it". (Fairbanks Daily News Miner: Administration re-evaluating its short-term energy plan )

Sure. If I get that $100/month from Palin, you betcha David, that is just what I am going to do with it - turn on every light in my house and leave them burning 24/7. Talk about patronizing; Mr. Van den Berg, an enviro elite, plays Conservation Papa (and not for the first time either) for the rest of us who obviously are too ignorant and too greedy to be able to wisely budget or use any fuel assistance that might come our way.

Rep. Kelly and Mr. Van den Berg also assume that the reason people aren't retrofitting their homes, or buying hybrid cars, or biking to work is because they just are choosing not to. It doesn't enter these elites' heads that there are many people (in fact probably the majority) who simply do not have the financial resources to take on another car loan, front the money for energy retrofits, or have a job/lifestyle that allows them the option of commuter biking.

What makes their sanctimonious comments even more galling is their own lifestyles. Mr. Van den Berg is married to a scioness of the Cook family - and thus quite closely associated with extractive resources of the oily sort. He drives a pick-up truck, and owns a guiding/rafting business that utilizes heavily small aircraft to ferry supplies and high-paying clients in and out of remote places.

Rep. Kelly, as a member of the Fairbanks political and business elite, surely does not face the same financial constraints that a majority of Alaskans, urban and rural, are dealing with now as energy costs escalate. Rep. Kelly is also very fond of flying his private plane all over Alaska, and enjoys access to remote places of this state that many of us only dream about. Yet he too feels very qualified to speak on the subject of energy conservation, especially as it applies to the rest of us.

Personally, I don't really care how either of these two use energy - but I do care when they presume to speak for the rest of us, especially when they suggest that we are all too ignorant to make wise decisions about how to cope with escalating energy costs.



*Not my representative - I didn't vote for the man!

Six Down, How Many More to Go?

Jim Clark, most bad-ass of the Alaskan Republican establishment, former Murkowski chief of staff, once dubbed Alaska's most powerful (unelected) official, timber lobbyist, and general anathema to anything remotely pro-environmental ... has pleaded guilty to fraud in a case relating to the Corrupt Bastards scandal.

Flic will be passing out, I suspect. Perhaps it is time to revisit her list from December:

Santa's The FBI's Little List --- (First posted in December 2007 - Updated 3-3-08)
Tom Anderson : Naughty Convicted
Bill Allen: Very, Very, Very Naughty Convicted
Rick Smith: Naughty Convicted
Pete Kott: Naughty and Easy Convicted
Bruce Weyhrauch: Naughty Indicted
Vic Kohring: Naughty Indicted Convicted
Ben Stevens: Very Naughty In the Bag
Ted Stevens: Very, Very Naughty and Haughty In the Bag Under Investigation and Getting Grumpier by the Minute
Don Young: Naughty and Rude In the Bag Under Investigation and Spending $ Like Crazy
Frank Murkowski: Naughty and Slow Give 'im rope
Jim Clark: Very, Very, Very Naughty There's always hope Pleading Guilty to Fraud

APRN tackles blogs in Alaska, sort of

I tuned into APRN's Talk of Alaska, one of my favorite shows, this morning hoping to hear some interesting discussion on the topics of blogs with Steve "Primal" Heimel.

My hopes, and I'm fully willing to admit that that my reaction may be colored by the onset of seasonal bitchiness disorder, were dashed. The converstation began with a "wow, check out these new things called blogs" tack, followed by a brief stay at the mainstream media v. unchecked amateurs (that would be us) theme, and ended up settling into "are the bloggers being too mean to Vic Kohring?" and staying there.

No, we're not being too mean to Kohring, or any of the other Corrupt Bastards, for that matter. Most of what I have read about the topic hasn't come across as personal attacks, or the 'piling on' phenomena common to those crazy right-wing talk radio types -- it's been pure outrage. And as much as I hate bumper sticker slogans, if you're not outraged, you're not paying attention.

TOA had on Alaskan bloggers Phil Munger and Steve Aufrecht (who have covered the Vic Kohring trial extensively in a way that makes me jealous.) Munger has started a new "Progressive Alaska" blog - welcome, by the way - which I'm looking forward to adding to my daily reading. If anything, perhaps it will mitigate extreme disdain for Wasilla.

I've promised Flic that I will host a Corrupt Bastards party if and when either Uncled Ted or Ben Stevens gets convicted of something. I confess that I'm a little scared at the idea of the possibility that Uncle Ted might get got. Or, as Flic might say, "Kott."

Because yes, he is rather a cranky, old (possibly Corrupt) bastard. But he is our cranky, old, (possibly Corrupt) earmark-bringing bastard. Perhaps the FBI could just settle for Jim Clark? Or according to local rumor, TCC?

Candidate non-answers ought to frighten Rural Alaskans

As a reluctant Fairbanksan (and a transplant from Rural Alaska), I'm pretty suspicious of the number of questions that Sarah Palin failed to answer that deal with the state outside of Anchorage, Wasilla and Squarebanks.

If you're reading this, you're either one of my friends bored at work or you are like me and read most of the Alaska blogs regularly, including Alaskan Abroad, who teamed up with the Anchorage Press on a gubernatorial candidate questionnaire, which is posted here. Their questions were a pretty well thought out survey on statewide issues.

Questions which Palin skipped:

• Do you support oil and gas exploration in Bristol Bay? How would you ensure that the salmon fishery there is adequately protected?
• How would you change the Alaska coastal management program? Would you move the Fish Habitat Division from the Department of Natural Resources back to the Department of Fish & Game?
• Do you support a 90-day legislative session?
• How would you rectify the long-standing issue of dual wildlife management in rural Alaska? Do you support changing Alaska's Constitution to match federal law on subsistence?
• Would you reinstate municipal revenue sharing? How would you find a sustainable way of paying for the program? Is a Permanent Fund community dividend a possibility?
• How would you improve health care in rural and urban areas? How would you lower health care costs?
• What is your position on law enforcement in rural Alaska and the wish by many predominately Native communities to use tribal courts and tribal police to resolve disputes in the absence of state troopers?
• How would you describe the cultural value of Alaska's Native communities? Should that be enough of a reason to preserve them?
• How would you deal with attempts to expand tribal sovereignty in the state?

I'm not sure whether she is unwilling to say what she thinks about these issues and risk showing her true colors/priorities and cost herself the rural vote - or more frighteningly, is perhaps so unfamiliar with Rural Alaska that she can't formulate answers to those questions... that it is all completely off the radar for her campaign. Which is worse, cluelessness or dissembling?

To be fair, Knowles skipped a question, too. Go read the rest already!