The Market is Open: Downtown Anchorage Market and Festival Opening Weekend
Zach D. Roberts stopped by the Downtown Market to snag some shots of the opening weekend.
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Saturday Morning Funnies: This Week in Internet Memes
Every week, we troll the tubes to bring you the best internet memes. Why? Because we want you to start off your Saturday morning with a smile, a spit-take, and maybe a chuckle. Because you’re awesome, people love you – or in some cases don’t at all – and you deserve it.
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Can We Strengthen Food Safety in Anchorage Restaurants?
It is important that Anchorage consumers have the resources to make informed decisions. Usually we decide which restaurant to dine at based on the quality of the food and the friendliness of the waitstaff. Cleanliness is usually just a superficial thing that is a factor. If the plates appear clean and there is not an inch of dust we often do not think about it. As a former restaurant manager and someone who does not like to get sick, I notice the safety side of things a little more. It was always my number one priority to keep my guests and co-workers safe from food-borne illnesses. Before I dine out at a new-to-me restaurant, I check out the municipality’s website for their most recent inspection. But it’s far from perfect. It should be much easier to navigate. The reports are buried and hard to find. And no “grade” is available, just a list of the violations with no indication of action taken. Recently KTUU has had a couple of “Dirty Diner” segments that feature restaurants with low scores. (Fun Fact: A search for the segments provides four stories about filthy diners and then a story about Joe Miller.) They also had …
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Hey Alaska: Early voting starts today!
Early voting starts on October 22, 2012. Here’s some information about where you can go to vote early and find information about the candidates you’ll be voting on.
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High Tunnels May Be Too Big for UAF Cooperative Extension to Manage
The UAF Cooperative Extension muddles over the somewhat troublesome legacy of a deceased professor’s two (very) big high tunnel greenhouses.
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Pen Air Service Changes Could Affect Rural Alaskans
Pen Air has had a long history in Alaska. While a great success story, that history has had its ups and downs, and has been in the news lately regarding changes to their service plans. There are many questions regarding what the impacts of those changes might mean to Alaskans.
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Ode to a Record Snow Fall
A memorable year in Anchorage. Beating a 55+ year old record for snowfall and enjoying every minute of it.
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With Sullivan as Mayor: Claims vs. Statistics
When politicians start quoting numbers on the campaign trail, a little scrutiny should be the logical next step. Unfortunately, it is a logical next step that very often does not happen. I try to take that rare second glance and put those words into context. So it would make sense to do some research when incumbent Mayor Dan Sullivan said, “Anchorage was just rated by Businessweek the tenth best city in America. Forbes said we were the number one city for jobs, we were voted the number one winter city in America by Livability.com.” according to an article from the KTVA Channel 11 News website. It only took a few minutes for his statement to turn from vague to misleading. Let’s start with Businessweek. True, Businessweek rated us #10 among large cities, but how did they judge us? Let’s look at four key categories on how they voted. The first two categories are population and violent crimes. Anchorage has roughly 290,000 people whereas the other nine Top 10 cities are averaging 501,000 people each. We sit at less than 60% of the population of these other major cities, yet our crime is nearly doubled. Anchorage recorded 878 violent crimes last year, …
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Welcome to the New Alaska Commons
“It’s taken me a lot of years, but I’ve come around to this: If you’re dumb, surround yourself with smart people. If you’re smart, surround yourself with smart people who disagree with you.” – Isaac Jaffe, Sportsnight. The original purpose of my old and now-retired blog was to play host to community discussions. The goal was to bring together the smartest people I could find and then, whenever possible, get them to argue with each other for the express purpose illustrated in the above quote. Although I’m never absolutely confident which category I personally fall under, I always aim to either prove or disprove my own arguments by hearing those of others. It is my sincere belief that we are always one conversation away from changing our minds on any given issue. In an age of hyper-partisanship and ratings-driven political discourse, I think it is an imperative that we remember the incredible power that we all have access to inside of our own skulls. We need to push back against the tendency to be intellectual tailgaters – following so closely behind someone else’s opinion that you can’t react when the person runs (or thinks) into a tree. That vision is …
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