Panhandling, Inflation, Clouds

 Despite three different topics in the title, this isn't going to be a long post.

1.  It's ok for firefighters, but not for the hungry

Lake Otis and Tudor is one of the busiest intersections in the city.  I also have to get across it on a couple of my regular bike rides.  

Two weeks ago it was crawling with firefighters raising money for charity.  Though collecting money in Firefighters' boots seems a little gross.  They didn't look like new, unused boots.  

That's an admirable activity.  But they were doing it standing in the intersection.  Some in the middle, others between the right turn lanes and the through traffic lanes.  

Photo by ADN photographer Marc Lester

Eighteen months ago, signs like this caused a stir in Anchorage.  

The ADN article tells us:

"The municipality spent more than $8,000 to post anti-panhandling signs at dozens of Anchorage’s busiest intersections in December — but the city law cited on the sign was found unconstitutional by a state court years ago."

"Corey Young, a spokesman for Mayor Dave Bronson, said the signs are meant to 'keep pedestrians away from dangerous situations in the roadway.'” 

It appears from the article that this was done by the mayor's office without consulting affected  departments like the Police Department.  I don't think anyone disputes the idea that there's an element of danger involved in walking the lines of cars at busy intersections, but the courts had said it couldn't be prohibited. 

If the mayor's office thinks this is dangerous, why are they letting the Fire Department do this?  Did the mayor's office even know the Fire Department was doing this?  

Or maybe we should ask if the original signs were an attempt to make those experiencing homelessness less visible to the general public, and danger wasn't the real issue.  

2.  Who's responsible for inflation

I like seaweed.  I don't eat it everyday, but I do now and then.  Last week I went to the Korean grocery story on Fireweed and Eagle to get some more seaweed.  Here's last year's empty package.

And the new one I got last week.  

The weight and number of servings are both the same.  It's at least a year since I bought the first package of seaweed there.  But the price of both is still the same!  

While national chain groceries have been rapidly raising their prices, this local Korean grocery is charging the same amount as they did a year ago - $9.99.  A similar product at Carr's, for instance, is advertised:

This is a total of .92 ounces for $8.99.   The Korean store seaweed is 65 servings at .07 ounces per serving, or 4.55 ounces!  One is $9.77 per ounce  and the other is $2.20 per ounce.

But my point isn't that you can get seaweed much cheaper at the local Korean grocery than at the chain store.  

It's really about inflation.  We know prices have gone up rapidly in the chain store groceries.  But on this item, the Korean grocery has kept the price the same for over a year.  No blaming inflation to raise the price, and adding further to inflation.  [But it's true that I don't know how much the Gimme packages were selling for a year ago.  It's possible that no one increased the price of seaweed.]

3.  Clouds

Anchorage has been having weather this month.  By that I mean wind and rain and sun all fighting it out.  I put up some cloud pictures two weeks ago.  Here are from one this week's bike rides.

Same corner as top pic but with little traffic and no fire department panhandlers. 

Taku Lake

4.  Biking.  And since I've mentioned bike rides, I reached my 1000 km goal for the summer (since April) and then got to 1100.  Getting most of my rides done on the local bike trails and getting regular views of places like Taku Lake make the riding a pleasure.  For lots of folks 600 miles is not that much, but it's kept me out exercising regularly all summer.