Deja Vu Diss: SJR 20 HJR 9

[Edited on March 21, because it's HJR 9, not SJR 9.]

Quick folks, get the torches and pitchforks! Time to whip the extreme right wing base into a froth about the very existence of gay people!

Time to spend $1.2 million on an advisory vote to decide whether to put a striking bit of anti-gay legislation on the ballot in November, but if Alaskans (a frequently Libertarian bunch) demur, get it onto the ballot in November anyway!

So, apparently, what with my subconscious moratorium on/break from state politics, I missed this one completely. Thanks to Deidre for posting on the newest bit of legislative poison cosponsored by Representatives John Coghill Jr., John Harris, Vic Kohring, Peggy Wilson, Bob Lynn, Carl Gatto, Nancy Dahlstrom, Mike Kelly, Mark Neuman, Bill Thomas Jr., and Bill Stoltze.
I'm referring, of course, to House Joint Resolution 9, introduced on March 12, which is yet another proposal to amend the Constitution thusly:

SENATE JOINT RESOLUTION NO. 20 9

01 Proposing an amendment to the section of the Constitution of the State of Alaska                                        
02 relating to marriage.                                                                                                   
03 BE IT RESOLVED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF ALASKA:                                                               
04    * Section 1. Article I, sec. 25, Constitution of the State of Alaska, is amended to read:                          
05            Section 25. Marriage and related limitations. To be valid or recognized in                               
06       this State, a marriage may exist only between one man and one woman. No other                                 
07       union is similarly situated to a marriage between a man and a woman and,                                      
08       therefore, a marriage between a man and a woman is the only union that shall be                               
09       valid or recognized in this State and to which the rights, benefits, obligations,                             
10       qualities, or effects of marriage shall be extended or assigned.                                              
11    * Sec. 2. The amendment proposed by this resolution shall be placed before the voters of the                       
12 state at the next general election in conformity with art. XIII, sec. 1, Constitution of the State                      
13 of Alaska, and the election laws of the state.          

If it looks familiar, that would be because they're trotting out the same proposed constitutional amendment that failed so miserably last year. In fact, it was one of the first things I posted about when paying attention to the world beyond my junky little cabin drove me to blogging in April of last year.

The bill has been referred to the State Affairs, Judiciary and Finance Committees.

How ironic that in the invocation that opened the day's business, the Reverend Dr. John Zimmerman of Chapel by the Lake Presbyterian Church led a prayer that began:

"In deepest respect for the religious beliefs of each person here, I invite you into a time of prayer and reflection. Let us pray. Eternal and Gracious God, grant that the members of this House, elected by the choice of the people of their districts, may do the people's work well this day. May they never lose sight of the concerns of all citizens, especially those hidden by distance or circumstance. May their work be marked by the standard of justice for all people."

How distinctly Christian-sounding, in a New Testament sense.

The cynic in me, after recovering from a nearly fatal bout of eyerolling, wonders whether Coghill and his cosponsors introduced this bit of crap again in anticipation of the April 3rd advisory vote failing - so they could still get the same nonsense on the ballot in November 3rd anyway, and have ample time to whip the most extreme right sheeple into a froth and therefore to the polls?

Recipe #2: Roast Turkey with Grand Marnier Apricot Stuffing

Recently, when faced with a growing number of dinner guests, I decided to make a turkey, even though it was the beginning of March, and there wasn’t really any traditional turkey days in the offing. Odd that – turkey is cheap, turkey is easy, and turkey is tasty, but I always fall into the Thanksgiving/Christmas trap of preparing turkey only then. But I grew bold and broke out of the mold, and roasted up a very fine turkey. The hit of the meal, though, was the stuffing.

Credit for this recipe goes to the Silver Palate, Good Times Cook Book. Contrary to a lot of the “gourmet” items in that cookbook line, this stuffing is a snap to make, and requires no hard-to-get ingredients. However, it does necessitate the purchase of a bottle of Grand Marnier, which at least at the local Freddy’s – comes quite dear. Thus, the $40/bottle expense for the Grand Marnier obliterated the cheap turkey, but as it also was very good in its typical role of an after-dinner drink, it was enjoyed by all that came to the turkey dinner. A worthy investment.

Grand Marnier Apricot Stuffing (enough for a 21 – 24 # turkey)

Ingredients:

1 cup diced dried apricots
1 ½ cups Grand Marnier
Turkey liver and heart
1 cup (two sticks) butter
2 cups coarsely chopped celery
1 large yellow onion, chopped
1 pound bulk pork sausage (reindeer would work too)
1 pound herb stuffing mix
1 cup slivered almonds
2 cups chicken stock
½ teaspoon dried thyme
salt and pepper to taste

1. Place the apricots and 1 cup of the Grand Marnier in a small saucepan. Heat to boiling. Remove from the heat & set aside. Simmer the turkey heart and liver in water to cover in a small saucepan for 5 minutes; set aside to cool.

2. Melt ½ cup of the butter in a large skillet over medium heat. Add the celery and onion and sauté for 10 minutes. Transfer to a large mixing bowl.

3. Cook the pork sausage in the same skillet, crumbling with a fork, until it is no longer pink. Remove from the heat & add to the celery mixture.

4. Add the stuffing mix, apricots with liquid, and almonds. Finely dice the turkey heart and liver and add to the stuffing mixture; stir to combine.

5. Heat the remaining ½ cup butter and the stock in a small saucepan just until the butter melts. Pour over the stuffing mixture, and add the remaining ½ cup Grand Marnier. Stir well to moisten the stuffing. Season with the thyme and add salt and pepper to taste.

Recipe # 1: Beer Bread, or...

What to make when you really want to go to that pot luck but are too lazy/poor to make something fancy

Think back to all those times when there was that last minute pot luck invite, and you really wanted to go, but alas, the fridge was bare but for beer, beans and eggs (staples in cabin-dwelling land where money is short, but the chickens cooperative). If you have an hour and flour – in addition to the required beer – here is something that will bail you out of this particular cabin-dwelling dilemma. This bread is fast, easy and has a sweet, nutty taste.

Beer Bread

Heat oven to 375, grease one regular size bread pan

Ingredients:

3 ½ cups flour (white, whole wheat or mixture thereof*)
¼ cup brown sugar
¼ tsp. salt
2 tbs. herbs of choice (dill, marjoram, thyme, etc.)
1 egg
1 bottle (12 oz) beer, preferably dark

1. Combine all dry ingredients.
2. Make a well in center, and crack egg into it. Beat egg in well.
3. Add bottle of beer, enjoy the foaming action.
4. Stir until all dry ingredients are moist.
5. Plop into bread pan, NO KNEADING OR RISING
6. Bake 45 minutes to 1 hour, or until done.

This bread smells wonderful when it bakes, so it could also be an ace in the hole for those cabin dwellers looking to impress new friends with home-cooked meals or home-made bread.

* Unless you are a huge fan of colon-blow type breads, I do not recommend using all whole wheat in this recipe.

Bearanoia At Least Halved...

Having heard this one (and gotten into arguments on the topic) not a few times here in Alaska, let me just say that I agree with Redneck Mother, and this was the best title for a post. Ever.

"Ten Out of Ten Bears Prefer Beef Fat to Menstrual Blood."

And, I might add, whew.

The Score in 2007: Bering Sea: 3; Adventurers: 0

In the category of Nature kicking human butt in Alaska, we have many fine examples. I admit to having my ass kicked many a time, on occasion merely by a few thousand mosquitos.

There is the now infamous trucks stuck out on the tundra story. (Which by last news coverage, are still stuck.) That was when the hunters from the base here ignored the rules and drove a truck four miles into an area where they weren't supposed to, got stuck, and then drove another truck a mile or so out, and got stuck again. Their efforts thus far to free the vehicles have been unsuccessful and just a wee bit entertaining in a serialized drama kind of way.

But better than that is the perennial story out on the Coast, where people-with-a-lot-of-time-and-money-to-waste adventurers decide to walk/ski/drive across the Bering Strait. Why? Well, I confess to not understanding the motivation, though I think it is related to the "man vs. nature", "being the first to do something" and "manufactured ordeal to prove something" themes.

"Man vs. Nature" always gave me a problem because, let's face it, we have better and better equipment all the time and nature is still playing with the same equipment from thousands of years ago. Everest without oxygen bottles (and sherpas carrying your stuff) is a whole different situation.

"Being the first to do something" also falls a bit flat in the Bering Strait, because, well, Alaskan Natives managed to cross back and forth a good bit years ago without GPS, goretex, and satellite phones. They just didn't have corporate sponsors, websites, and film crews following them documenting it all. You know who ought to be recognized? Not some tourist with thousands of dollars of gear and free time, but the elders who used to walk out onto the moving ice daily to hunt and support their families and it was just normal life.

But I digress.

And why the Bering Strait? Numerous adventurers have attempted it and most have failed¹. Why? There are very strong currents in Bering Strait. This means the ice is always moving, it is extremely rare for it to be frozen over completely². Huge pressure ridges are thrown up; leads open and close. And of course, there are polar bears. On the Alaska side, at the closest point between continents, lies the village of Wales. Over the years, many adventurers have shown up, been told by the locals about the weather and currents, and gone ahead anyway.

The attempts usually fail, ending with said adventurers being plucked off an ice floe by National Guard helicopters at great expense to the taxpayers. Which is what happened this week, as noted in the ADN:

ANCHORAGE -- Army National Guard members plucked three Korean backpackers from sea ice Thursday after they were stranded in the Bering Strait. Park Yough Seok, 43, Oh Hee Joon, 36, and Lee Hyeong Mo, 38, were picked up from an ice floe 17 miles southwest of Tin City on Alaska's west coast, said McHugh Pierre, a spokesman for the Alaska Department of Military and Veterans Affairs. There were no injuries. The backpackers were trying to walk across the ice pack from Russia to Alaska but became stranded, he said. Pierre said the backpackers carried a satellite phone and had made emergency arrangements with a private service, but that company's helicopter had mechanical problems Thursday.

¹Shparo made it on skis. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dmitry_Shparo. Others have driven. Far more have failed than succeeded thus far.
²And let's face it, it's going to be even rarer given global climate change.

Prozac Nation

About noon today it became clear that today was a mental health day. After a lunch time run with the new little pal, I just didn’t get back into work mode, and found myself ensconced on the sofa with the fire roaring and lots of dogs snoozing and reading Prozac Nation. This was a whim buy from Barnes & Noble executed while ghosting the self-help section trying to hunt down yet another book on relationships in the aftermath of abuse and neglect that himself had recommended I read for insight into why our relationship had gone south.

In other words, to see myself in the pages of this book. I declined; deciding that really what I didn’t need was another self help book, but rather the muster to just admit that loving someone isn’t enough to keep them from treating one very badly, and that it was time to let it go and exorcise himself from my life.

So, here I was this afternoon reading about a screwed up, upper middle class Jewish girl whining about her hard times at the Manhattan School and Harvard, and found it to be utterly refreshing to read about neglect constituting a daddy ignoring her birthday parties instead of engaging in really heinous and evil abuse activities. It was like slipping back into an old, familiar world.

But man, that book is tedious…just how many pages can one fill about feeling like crap and wishing they were dead… after about 100 pages, I was wishing she would just go ahead and do it, so I wouldn’t have to keep reading endless sentences about how she just wanted to end it all. Of course, I could stop reading, but the sensation of peeking over her shoulder into her diary exerts a pressure on me to read it to the end.

It is my wholly biased and completely unscientific thesis that, by and large, we as a modern American culture just have too much time on our hands. If we were back being busy finding food or trying to scratch a meager agricultural living out of Mother Nature who rarely cooperates, and we had to provide for all our own needs, such as shelter and clothing, we just wouldn’t have time to sit around and ponder whether or not we were clinically depressed or in need of the palliatives that Big Pharma keeps producing.

As I dribbled my way through the dreary reading of Prozac Nation, I could find snippets of myself and similar difficulties with relationships, with the all-consuming nature of need when you really fall for someone, when it all becomes so super-critical that they just look your way – but cannot find within that or other moments of ennui and despair really the justification that it is all so terrible that it is worthy of medical or psychiatric intervention. That is not to say that true mental illness does not exist, but what Elizabeth Wurzel catalogued in such excruciating detail and which I have to a somewhat more limited extent experienced is just the fallout of human existence. If we had to deal with providing the basics for ourselves we just wouldn’t have the time or the energy to wallow in these moods. I suspect we also wouldn’t fall prey so often to the sensations that there isn’t much meaning in what we do.

Iditarod Nitpick: What's With the ADN?

Malcontent's note: I started this post several days ago, but decided it was overly bitchy and held it. Then I read this morning's Iditarod coverage and rolled my eyes nearly to the point of injury.

What's with the reporters on the Iditarod trail putting less than shocking temperatures in the lead? Three examples of stories incorporating pretty normal weather in the first sentence like it is some kind of big deal.

"ANVIK -- Eight hours to the minute after finishing the seven-course meal that greets the first musher to reach the Yukon River during the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race, race leader Martin Buser was headed into the cold again with his dogs, battling north into zero-degree temperatures and a bitter headwind toward a tiny outpost called Eagle Island." - Kevin Klott, the Anchorage Daily Snooze

"The leaders in the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race were charging through minus-10-degree cold toward the halfway point in the ghost town of Iditarod on Wednesday as some of the key contenders in The Last Great Race appeared to be settling in for their mandatory 24-hour breaks." - Craig Medred, the Anchorage Daily Snooze

"PUNTILLA LAKE -- As the wind chill dipped to minus 37 and a ground storm pounded dogs resting on straw beds here, rookie musher Andy Angstman emerged from the direction of Rainy Pass in a cloud of blowing snow." Kevin Klott, the Anchorage Daily Snooze

Don't get me wrong, it's not like I want to be spending an entire day outside with a windchill like that. Not fun. One of the reasons Interior cold is not so bad, really, even if it is -45, is because we rarely have wind. Wind makes takes a situation from cold to miserable pretty quick. But -10? Zero? That's perfect mushing weather. For some dogs, it's a little warm.

Granted, later on in Klott's story, he mentions the grounds storms and wind chills the mushers were enduring which definitely qualify as miserable. You want to tell readers about what a tough experience the race is, tell them about ground storms and wind chills; you can have a pretty decent temperature, but add a little wind and you're looking at a totally different experience.

On a final note, if the front runners remain close, I think the musher with dogs that are used to wind will have the edge on the final push up the coast. I don't remember if Mackey had to deal with wind (though he dealt with some major cold) in the Quest - but if his dogs have only trained her in the Interior, that will be a factor.

When the man acts like a dog, get a dog that acts like a man

So – fueled by the POW collection, and goaded by CabinDweller threatening to begin quoting chapter and verse from the Compendium (I), I focused my energies away from pining for a certain someone, and instead, found a cutie pie at the local shelter. This is not the first time, nor is it likely to be the last, that I have found canines to be really good replacements for relationships that went paws up, despite both parties’ best intentions to avoid the train wreck. In my case, as CabinDweller would concur, I had taken up residence in the tunnel and was regularly getting run over by the Metroliner.

It was time to make a change – so I picked up the handsome fella a few days back. He’s a loyal boy, always comes back, doesn’t cat around, likes to cuddle, and have his ears scratched. He’s an easy keeper compared to some, and will likely stay the course for a lot longer than his human counterparts.

To the POW list I would also add “Coin-Operated Boy” by the Dresden Dolls; although its not technically a break-up song, it does offer a viable alternative to those who have found the real-live thing to be at times troublesome and for all of those who after a very long and tiring day, just wished they came with an on/off switch…sort of like a Data. Data always was my favorite on Next Generation….hmmmmm, that’s probably telling.

TreeHugging Events This Weekend

Okay, so the nights are still a wee bit chilly, and you're still kind of hibernatory and eating entirely too much of that 'stick to the ribs' food and quaffing that good dark beer that we homebrewers like to make.

Well. That's what's going on in my life at least. So you won't see a Lege rant from me until next week at least. In the meantime, as a public service effort, I call your attention to two local events.

• March 3 - The Alaska Ocean Film Festival is happening at the Blue Loon on Saturday night @ 8 p.m. Last year, the Loon was packed with treehuggers, so the event marks an opportunity to see those friends you haven't seen while hibernating the last few months, meet likeminded individuals in our rednecky little town, and of course, enjoy some short films about the ocean. Admission is $8.
  
• March 4 - The Chena Flats Greenbelt Project is kicking things off with fundraising auction and brunch at Pike's Waterfront Lodge from noon to 3 p.m..Per their press release, because this treehugger had a long week and doesn't feel like coming up with a snappy synopsis:

"The Chena Flats Greenbelt Project is a coalition of local residents, property owners, and non-government organizations seeking to conserve a multi-purpose corridor of open space at the base of Chena Ridge and Chena Pump Road in west Fairbanks. This area, crossed by popular mushing, dog walking, and skiing trails, will be conerved for all to enjoy. Tickets are $25; available for at the door or in advance at Hoitts and Gulliver's. Auction items include a tour for two of the normally off-limits downstairs area of the musuem, a beautiful quilt in fall colors by Judy Regan, movie passes to the Loon, a bird walk by biologist Frank Keim, several hand-knitted hats, massages, some delicious cakes, and much, much more. Bob Henszey will also give a short presentation of the Chena Flats Greenbelt Project. Plus, there will be great brunch food to munch on!"

And on a sidenote, Googling 'treehugger' gets a ridiculous number of hits of people hugging trees. Literally. Ah, the wonder of the Internets, that system of tubes that allows the environmentally-minded to post pictures of themselves hugging trees.

Pictured above: a tree, yet unhugged, in my yard.

Playlist for POW

Zut alors, my peoples, it's been a busy week or so, so much that I'm scarcely keeping up with state politics. But that must wait for someone with an attention span - which is not me at the moment.

Instead, I offer the most recent playlist gracing my ITunes collection, custom-made for the pissed off woman in your life:

1. Long Shot, Aimee Mann
2. That's Just What You Are, Aimee Mann
3. Goodbye, Baby (Baby, Goodbye), Van Morrison
4. Heard it All Before, Sunshine Anderson
5. You'll Never Change, Bettye Lavette
6. Superhero, Ani Difranco
7. So Much for the Afterflow, Everclear
8. Santa Monica, Everclear
9. My Favorite Mistake, Sheryl Crow
10. Call and Answer, Barenaked Ladies
11. I Need You, the Eurythmics
12. I Will Survive, Cake
13. Haze of Love, Cake
14. Me-Jane, PJ Harvey
15. F--- and Run, Liz Phair
    
16. In State, Kathleen Edwards
17. Tyrone, Erykah Badu
18. Think (About It), Lyn Collins
19. You Were the Dog, Irma Thomas
20. Chain of Fools, Aretha Franklin