Todd Palin’s grandmother

A good article to read, especially this time of this year.
vuee

Yup’ik ties give Palins unique Alaska connection
NATIVE: Grandmother on Todd’s side calls the governor a ‘special gal.’ By TOM KIZZIA

Lena Andree, Todd Palin's grandmother, Sarah Palin's in-law

Published: October 19th, 2008 11:20 PM
Last Modified: October 19th, 2008 10:04 AM

HOMER — Like many Alaska Natives of her generation, Lena Andree, Todd Palin’s 87-year-old Yup’ik grandmother, grew up living between two worlds. [read more]
http://www.adn.com/news/alaska/story/561419.html

For more on Todd Palin, Sarah Palin, and rural Alaska, Todd Palin, Sarah Palin’s husband, and rural Alaska living

---

Site Search Tags: Sarah+Palin, Yup’ik, Alaska, octogenarian

Alaska Elders as refugees [internally displaced persons]

I was wondering if anyone else * noticed the impact of the negative conditions in rural Alaska affecting older people? especially if this means older people have to move to Anchorage or Fairbanks. This topic came up recently among the groups that need to be (or should be) prepared to assist those folks, despite Gov. Palin’s and the Republican’s inaction.

If you know of someone else that can give a feel or better yet, actual numbers or examples, please ask them. Post your results in comments below or e-mail me.

* Sarah Palin, the elderly, the disabled, older Americans and rural Alaska

---

Site Search Tags: Palin, refugee, migration, community+disruption, can+you+help

What else happened during Sarah Palin’s speech (the ice shelf collapsed)

from a correspondent–

Alaska and Tucson forever associated… Perhaps she can give you a free ride:
http://www.azstarnet.com/sn/hourlyupdate/256059.php
This article asks whether she will put on eBay her new plane.

OOPS, she ordered Al Gore to stop flying his plane. Presumably it was a reference to climate change. The only one during her speech. Now she got a plane with a big carbon footprint. She can transport some moose or hundred reporters.

Her Al Gore joke contrasted with a week full of estimates of the magnitude of the expected magnitude of the sea level rise, news about the Canadian ice shelf loss and of polar bears in peril. Neither the media nor the pundits tearing apart her speech thought of asking whether she has any plan (or plane) to relocate the affected Native populations.

No one thinks about relocation nor have they much. There are several hundred towns which must be relocated some or great distances, including houses, schools, electrical plants, sewage, garbage, telephones, churches, graveyards, water treatment, etc etc.

By the way, the Republican Murkowski jet, which was unable to visit most places in Alaska (no runways large enough), did NOT sell on e-Bay. It finally had to be given away, relatively speaking.

---

Site Search Tags: Palin, jet, eBay, climate+change, Alaska+Native, erosion, Republican

Sarah Palin, the elderly, the disabled, older Americans and rural Alaska

[revised]

naomidagenbloom 2008 September 2

Vuee, Vuee, We need to hear MORE from you now about the way Alaska has come into our consciousness via your governor–the believer in “stakeholders.”

Readers can’t get off that easy, Little Red Hen– what questions do folks have?

The reason I have been rather quiet, blogwise, is because the news from rural Alaska about living there isn’t good. There has been next to nothing improved since earlier posts, this includes the past 18 months of the personable Gov. Sarah Palin. I’ll give examples below, but they sound depressing. So readers, what do enquiring minds want to know? If nothing else, I can at least point you to some good sources of facts or commentary from Alaska perspective.

An older friend of mine (from Tucson) sends this musing upon the early photo of Sarah Palin and her caribou ( http://newsminer.com/photos/galleries/2008/sep/01/sarah-palin-growing-alaskan/1156/. It is the photo of the red-nosed caribou NOT a reindeer.)

>My deep reflections, caribou inspired::
1. Macho women don’t need to wear pantsuits to assert themselves.
2. Most currently popular female names go from my daughter Michelle to my mother Sarah.
3. Sarah definitely shoots better than Dick. How about Joe’s expertise with firearms?
4. Candidates should not be judged only on basis of age, gender, and looks.
5. Candidate’s children are given on-stage prominence. It should be unfair to have the youngest ones debate politics, but what about having a food fight?

————————————-

• there’s the older gentleman who is resigning himself to move 400 miles away from home to be near his grandkids because his grown children had to move to Anchorage to find work to meet the utilities payments
• there’s all the older people who need an assisted living arrangement or nursing home (a 400 mile trip, if one can afford to get into Bethel from the village to get on the jet)
• there’s fuel oil at $6-15 a gallon
• there’s the Bush-Cheney stimulus payments which only went to those who have taxable income. They don’t go to those who cashed in IRAs early to pay electricity or who struggle to make sense of their returns.
• there’s electricity at 40 cents or more per kilowatt hour (with a subsidy for residences) in rural Alaska (Wasilla pays considerably less, without subsidy)
• there’s gasoline, needed to go out and “grocery shop” on the tundra or out in the river, at $6 to $18 gallon.
• there’s gaining grandmother status at 34
• there’s raising grandchildren at 70
• there’s having your one-time $1200 “energy check” from the state stolen by your children for smokes and booze

2008-09-04 Look guys, what someone else found
gov-sarah-palin-call-in-kyuk/

2008-09-04 Fact Check of Governor Palin’s Speech http://progressivealaska.blogspot.com/2008/09/saradise-lost-chapter-twenty-five-obama.html

PALIN: “Senator McCain also promises to use the power of veto in defense of the public interest – and as a chief executive, I can assure you it works.”
REALITY: PALIN OPPOSED CRUCIAL EDUCATION, HEALTH CARE AND SENIORS FUNDING [...]

Andrew Halcro does a fine job at http://www.andrewhalcro.com/grading_palins_speech_a

Also: tech support has a listing of reasonable sources at Sarah Palin content

2008-10-27 Palin’s gaffe about her policy on “special needs” while her record shows she has none
http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/BlueOasis/~3/431498178/showDiary.do

---

Site Search Tags: Sarah+Palin, caribou, elderly, Alaska, aging, Little+Red+Hen, diasability, long-term+care

Money woes change Anchorage public television

It’s not just Anchorage. In rural Alaska those who don’t have cable or satellite TV and radio (yes, there are some, many, of us) get just 2 (two) TV stations and one or two radio stations. One TV station is just PBS, via Alaska One consortium based in Fairbanks but also including KAKM. The other station is a mix of commercial and PBS broadcasts on the ARCS (Alaska Rural Communication System a.k.a., the old RATnet, Rural Alaska Telecom or something). We’re fortunate to have two, kind of local, newspapers; one is based in Anchorage. Neither are able to support inquiries into local events or governments; the local public radio station only reads what the Anchorage stations feed.

The state legislature, urban and Republican, has cut funding for the past 10 years. Our current former governor (Murkowski) bought a “state” jet, too big to visit most Alaska communities.

But, I guess communicating to Alaskans isn’t the point; neither is learning about fellow citizens. Recently, an Alaskan blogger (from Juneau, the state capitol) told of her trip to a place on the northwest [sic] coast of Alaska, Bethel.

Read more about what the cutbacks will do,

http://www.adn.com/news/alaska/story/8123221p-8015549c.html

So, if Alaska is actually several time zones wide and the sidereal time in (north)western Alaska differs from Anchorage, does yesterday’s Barney finally catch up to when toddlers actually awake each day?

Shows such as the “Jim Lehrer News Hour,” “Antiques Road Show” and “Nova” will still be available, but they’ll be aired at the time KAKM receives them via a direct feed from PBS in the Lower 48.

• JOB LOSSES: Alaska Public Media is cutting seven jobs and not filling three vacancies, affecting TV and radio staff.

• CANCELLATION: Alaska Public Radio Network canceled its weekly, two-hour program called “AK.”

• LOWER 48 FEED: KAKM Channel 7 will air a direct feed of national programming from the Lower 48 instead of storing it and rebroadcasting to fit the Alaska time zone.

---

Technorati Tags: telecom, public+TV, public+radio, digital divide,

Site Search Tags: telecom, public+TV, public+radio, digital+divide