Sunday, June 10, 2007

Palladium Shoes Delivers

I hate going shopping to find something I need. I can never find it. So if I find something I like and I know I can use, when I'm not really looking, I buy it. Doesn't happen often. So in Seattle a couple of months ago, I found this pair of shoes. I bought em. They were comfortable and looked cool.

I wore them maybe three times. We were back in Anchorage when the metal hook on the right for the shoelace broke off. You can see the left hook still there. I tried to just put the shoelace through the hole, but the hole was too small. I went to the Palladium website and emailed in my problem. After a week with no response, I got the 800 number and called Caryl. When I said the email didn't get answered, she said, "That's my fault, I'm behind." Wow, she didn't blame anyone else, admitted to being the problem. When I told her what happened
Caryl:"That shouldn't happen. I'll send you a new pair."
Me: "Well all I need is a new hook."
C: "No, we'll send a new pair."
Me: "Should I send the old ones back?"
C: "No, keep 'em, donate them to charity, do whatever."


A week later a new pair arrived. Part of me thinks only in the modern Western world is it 'cheaper' to send a new pair of shoes than to make a minor repair. But as a customer with a problem, I got back no attitude, no questions, just concern about my problem, a sense of humor from a real person, and immediate and generous response.

Since I've complained here about companies that seem to prey on the unsuspecting, I think I ought to also give credit to those companies that do a great job of serving their customers. Thanks Palladium, you've got a great employee in Caryl!

Friday, June 08, 2007

The Perfect Prayer at Cyrano's Playhouse



Immigrant parents, American born daughter, and 'real' American boyfriend. Novels, plays, movies about the cultural obstacles faced by immigrants are traditional American fare. Just different sets of immigrants over the years. In this play, the father is a devout Moslem from Egypt, the mother not quite so devout ("I pray in my own way"), the daughter caught between the rules of home and the rules outside. In this case, outside is Mississippi.

This production at Cyrano's in Anchorage is the West Coast premiere of the play and the playwright (Suehyla El-Attar) was up here last week. Just four actors (Jamie Pauley, Vivian Kinnaird, Marius Panzarella, and Anthony Oliva) powerfully conveyed the story, with gentle overlays we saw the daughter and boyfriend together in the foreground, while the parents, in the background, spoke the words embedded in Hadia's brain, fitting in beautifully with the foreground dialogue.


At Cyrano's it's clear - no photography during the performance - so luckily we got there pretty early so I could shoot the set and the new seats before they filled up. It's a very intimate theater.









We learn some basics of Islam very painlessly as the father teaches his university class on the subject and Hadia is a student in that class ("don't tell anyone I'm your father") where she meets Adam. It sounds a little contrived, but it worked seamlessly. The actors were all superb - the program says that local Arab/Americans worked with the actors to perfect their accents and their Arabic pronounciation.









Given the no picture rule, I had to make do with the photos on the wall outside the theater as we came out. I expect this is a play that people will hear about. It is funny and powerful and timely. Thanks to Sandy Harper at Cyrano's for recognizing the importance of this play and getting it to Anchorage.

Charlie's Bakery

I met a friend for a late lunch at Charlie's Bakery today. Charlie's is one of those Anchorage gems hidden in an ugly strip mall. One doesn't expect good, authentic Chinese food at a place called Charlie's Bakery that has French bread in the window. We all see places and people and unconsciously categorize them, and often we don't easily let them out of that first impression box. Just as the facade of the bakery hides a lot, I suspect that Charlie's appearance hides a lot for many people.

I first met Charlie and his wife Jade when we came back in 1990 from a year in Hong Kong and I was looking for real Chinese food. People steered me to the Golden Pond. I wanted to set up a real Chinese dinner and an audio conference meeting with a university program I'd gotten to know in Beijing.
That was when I learned that Charlie was a trained chef, not "just" an immigrant who started a restaurant. He'd gone to a good culinary school in Taiwan and came out with some of his cookbooks when we started to plan the menu.


What a true delight it was to share with my Anchorage friends some 'real' Chinese food right here in Anchorage. At that time, Jack Dalton (Jack comes at the bottom of the post, so scroll way down), was a student who worked as a waiter at Golden Pond. I mention that because Anchorage is a small town in many ways and there are all sorts of connections like that. We were able to have several special, six or seven course dinners at Golden Pond, including a few fund raisers for worthy causes. Well, at some point Charlie left (sold?) Golden Pond and I didn't know where to find real Chinese food in Anchorage. There are lots of Chinese restaurants, but only a couple are actually owned and run by Chinese, and fewer by any who have actually been professionally trained in Chinese cooking. (And if I'm wrong in that perception, please let me know.) Chinatown Restaurant is another good Chinese restaurant owned and run by people from Beijing that I found out about when I learned they'd taken the Chinese Consul General from San Francisco to dinner there. And if you get their fancy menus, you can order very good, authentic Chinese food - they even serve the same kinds of cold appetizers they serve in Beijing.





Anyway, after leaving Golden Pond, Charlie eventually opened Charlie's Bakery which does also offer French bread and and pastries along with Chinese pastries and a long list of lunch specials. But I too was deceived by the French flag imagery of the sign and didn't realize it was the same Charlie for a while. They are mainly open for lunch until early dinner. And the fancy Chinese dishes aren't on the menu. By the way, you can click on the menu to enlarge it and you should be able to read most of it. And while Charlie's name is on the sign and he's the person responsible for the food, Jade plays an equally important role managing the business.

So today I learned about another interesting facet of Charlie's life. In the late 80's he spent a month wandering around India and Nepal. He just rode trains and buses mostly and got off where things looked interesting. It takes a special person to go to India for a month, especially traveling on his own, and Charlie was well past the typical
backpacker stage of his life. I know he must have a lot more interesting stories to tell. So if you stop by for lunch, ask him.

Thursday, June 07, 2007

The New Pirates of the Seven Seas

The googling I did on the earlier post on Carnival Cruise Lines has got me more interested in the whole cruise business. Of course, front page NYTimes stories on Ted Stevens and Don Young, also helped pique my curiosity. So here's a book of interest to Alaskans whose legislature has been tinkering with an cruise line initiative Alaskans passed last fall at the behest of the cruise industry. Of course, this is a good time to raise issues about campaign contributions in Alaska.

The book's called Cruise Ship Squeeze The New Pirates of the Seven Seas by Ross A. Klein published by a Canadian company, New Society Publishers. USD$ 17.95

I don't normally feature books here that I haven't read, but they do have a 5 1/2 page overview of the book available as a pdf file. And I'll offer some quotes here along with my comments. And Klein, a college professor, has published numerous articles and books on the topic, and even testified before Congress as an expert witness. He's not without credentials and expertise And he runs www.cruisejunkie.com, with information on environmental issues, health issues, crew issues, etc. It also says on the New Society website that he's been on 300 cruises. So if he's writing about cruise lines, I bet they're all tax deductible.

THIS BOOK IS ABOUT MODERN PIRATES— the ones who sail huge cruise ships from one port to another and offload thousands of day-visitors at a time.


OK, the Pirate title is kind of provocative and certainly tells us what the author thinks before we even open the book. So we know we have to read this book critically and skeptically. But at least I'm hoping it will give us some good leads and facts to check up on. And it can't be any more biased than the cruise industries ads all over Alaska last summer and fall trying to defeat the cruise regulation initiative. And I recognize the marketing value of a catchy title, so I've used it for this post.

Passengers buy tours ashore provided by local folks in the ports they visit, but the cruise ship keeps more money from the sale than is given to the person providing the tour.On top of this,the stores where passengers shop kick back substantial sums for the privilege of having cruise passengers in their place of business,ports often provide incentives for cruise ships to stop,and governments look the other way regarding cruise industry environmental practices.


So Alaskans seem to be a little ahead of the curve. Of course, Alaska is a general destination. While the cruises can play one Southeast port against another, as they do in the Caribbean, it would be hard to just drop out of Alaska altogether...I think. Anyway, the initiative has language to tell passengers what kind of cut the ships take on the tours booked on board and from the stores they send them to. Hmmm, our cruises often start in Vancouver (where this book was published.) I wonder if the initiative writers read the book, or even know the author. He teaches way on the other side of Canada. I'll have to check to find out who was behind the initiative and how they came up with the language.


The North American cruise industry earned more than $2.5 billion
in net profit in 2004.It pays virtually no corporate income tax and is exempt from
most laws in the countries that the ships visit.

I got the money in the previous post, but not the tax deductions.

Princess Cruises,Norwegian Cruise Line,and Royal Caribbean Cruise Line
all began operations in the mid to late 1960s.Carnival Cruise Lines was a latecomer,
starting in 1972.

Carnival was the leader in takeovers and mergers. It was smaller than Princess
and Royal Caribbean in 1988,but by 1990 it eclipsed both.It was unsuccessful in its
1988 attempt to take over Royal Caribbean, but succeeded in acquiring Princess
Cruises in 2003.

Didn't know the timing of taking over Princess. What about Holland-America? Maybe the train station at the Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport was worked out before Carnival took over.


Chapter 3 looks at how the industry avoids taxes and how it uses
lobbyists, campaign contributions, and contributions from industry-controlled
foundations to influence political decision-making.In stark contrast to the Boston
Tea Party’s cry in the 1770s against taxation without representation, the cruise
industry enjoys representation without taxation. The industry exercises its influence in national politics as well as state,provincial,and local decision-making.


I found www.newsmeat.com before I found New Society Publishers. I was trying to see what kind of contributions Carnival made to Stevens or Sheffield. The Alaska Public Offices Commission doesn't seem to have its records on-line. But newsmeat popped up a long list of contributions by Micky Arison, 67, Chairman of Carnival Cruiselines and owner of the Miami Heat. According to newsmeat Arison gave $181,150 to Republicans, $115,650 to Democrats, and $101,500 to special interests for a total of $398,300 from April 11, 1986 to March 3, 2007. Don Young's first contributions from Arison are listed as November 11, 1980. Not sure what the date means (date of contribution or of report of contribution?) because Young got $1000 on that date for the primary and another $1000 for the general. And, of course, the election was over by November 11. Frank Murkowski shows up first in December 1991 for $1000 primary contribution. Theodore Stevens gets his first $1000 in primary money in July 1993. I can see I'm going to have to bite the bullet and learn how to go through the campaign contribution websites more efficiently. On this one I don't seem to be able to sort so I can look at what Arison gave specifically to Stevens, to Young, to Murkowski, etc. Then, there is Mrs. Arison, but she doesn't seem to have given to Alaskans. But this is only Arison's money, not Carnival money, or money from other Carnival owned companies or employees.

Chapter 4 focuses on a strongly held perception that cruise ships are “cash cows.”The cruise industry, its lobbyists,and its various regional trade organizations promote this view. It is based in part on consistent claims by the cruise industry,and adopted by many ports,that the average cruise passenger spends more than $100 in each port a ship calls upon.


Too bad I didn't save those ads that helped keep the Anchorage Daily News profitable last summer touting how much money each passenger brought to the State of Alaska.

A passenger today can have a cruise for a fraction of the cost 10, 20, or even 30 years ago, but additional onboard costs today are exponentially higher than in those
earlier days. And as passengers spend more money onboard, they have less to spend onshore. Unbundling helps the cruise line with its income, but undermines the potential income for ports on which cruise lines depend.


I've been wondering why some of the cruise prices in the newspapers seemed so cheap. Unbundling. And it seems, based on a few letters to the editors, that the cruises are specifically identifying Alaska's new passenger tax for passengers instead of bundling them invisibly in the whole price. Well, if they can do that, it shouldn't be so hard to unbundle the commissions they get from Alaska shops and tours required by the new initiative.

OK, enough for now.

Wednesday, June 06, 2007

Hike to Reed Lakes

[For a view of this trail August 8, 2008 go here.]
I hiked almost to Reed Lakes today with Iulian's grandfather, who's visiting for a couple of weeks from Moldova. (I'm not sure how to spell his name, it's pronounced "Lorentine.") If you look at the picture above, there's a big grey rock mountain in the back in the middle (snowy peak just to the left of it.) There's a long green slope from the right side of the pic, across the bottom of the grey mountain. Right in the middle are some tiny white spots above the green. They are rushing water falls. We went up a little ways into the valley at the bottom of the grey mountains. (It would be so much easier if I had a software program at home that let me draw on the picture, wouldn't it?) The ponds in front are beaver engineered, but we didn't see any out.




We didn't get all the way for two reasons. First, the dirt road from Hatcher Pass Road, was barred, so we had an extra 2.3 miles to go each way. Second, after climbing through the rocks - you'll see them below - when we saw the train was still so wet and snowy here and there that it meant more rocks, boulders really, we decided enough was enough.








Those rocks sitting on the tundra are the size of large moving vans.








Didn't get a chance to try to look up what kind of mushroom this is. About 2 inches tall, about three inches across the top (this was the biggest and strangest of the half dozen we saw), and on the edge between the sandy trail and the grass.


















This 'swimming hole' was where we turned around. It looked so inviting - clear, slow moving water, about 6-10 feet deep. Except for the ice chunks still floating here and there.











But that was ok, Lorentine had already washed his feet in equally cold water earlier.















All in all, we did about 10 miles (16km) round trip. If you are wondering why 'mental health' is one of the labels, then you haven't spent a day in the wilderness for a while.

Tuesday, June 05, 2007

Cheney on Good Guys, Bad Guys, and Prison

Today Vice President Cheney issued a press release saying what a wonderful person Scooter Libby is. Libby was sentenced today to 30 months in prison for covering up the leak of the CIA covert agent Plame.


Scooter has dedicated much of his life to public service at the State Department, the Department of Defense and the White House. In each of these assignments he has served the nation tirelessly and with great distinction. I relied on him heavily in my capacity as Secretary of Defense and as Vice President. I have always considered him to be a man of the highest intellect, judgment and personal integrity-a man fully committed to protecting the vital security interests of the United States and its citizens. Scooter is also a friend, and on a personal level Lynne and I remain deeply saddened by this tragedy and its effect on his wife, Harriet, and their young children. The defense has indicated it plans to appeal the conviction in the case. Speaking as friends, we hope that our system will return a final result consistent with what we know of this fine man.


To my knowledge, he did not issue a statement today giving comfort to the family of the nearly five year detainment of, now 20 year old, Omar Khadr at Guantanamo Bay detainee whose charges were dismissed yesterday by a a military judge. Or to Salim Hamdan whose charges were dismissed by a different military judge as reported in the Anchorage Daily News today.

It seems to me, based on what he said about Libby and what he said two years ago,


Mr Cheney says that those prisoners who remain [in Guantanamo] are "bad people" and "hardcore".


that good good guys, even if they are guilty, should NOT go to jail, but bad guys, even if they are innocent, should rot there.

Monday, June 04, 2007

Days of Glory/Indigènes

It's 1943. An older Arab walks through his Algerian village calling for the young men to come out and join the French cause to defeat the Nazis. It ends in 2005 at the war cemetery in Alsace. Crosses across the hill. Then Muslim graves in another section. And an old man, one of the those young African recruits, visits several graves, then returns to his modest room in town. Screen words scroll the story of soldiers from newly independent colonies losing their pensions in the 1960s, regaining them briefly, then seeing a new government reduce them once more. (Photo from IMDb.)

In between, we see these Arab men become soldiers, fight for France, initially in North Africa where they produce the first French victory over the Germans since 1940. We see them shipped to France where they are briefly treated by the liberated population of Marseilles, not as 'wogs' but as men, and through all the slights, small and large ("The tomatoes are not for you;" home leave for the white French soldiers, but not the Africans, etc.), through stirring calls to arms for liberty, freedom, and equality, through acts of great bravery, and cold deaths.

We can learn a lot from history. I can't help but see this movie as a primer of how the West has contributed to the Muslim world's distrust of us. This movie shows us that the African soldiers who fought for the French were men like the Europeans they fought with, men who believed in liberty, freedom, and equality. Men who came to see that those words in the mouths of most French, did not apply to them.

The West has conquered the rest of the world, first by force, then through commerce, first in the name of Christianity and then in the name of Democracy. The conquered weren't the ignorant, uncultured savages that Western myth created. Sure, many were poor and uneducated, but they had rich cultural traditions, which we, in our ignorance couldn't see, or if we did, we dismissed. The colonized peoples of the world wanted freedom from Western rule, just as the American colonists wanted to escape the English yoke. Ho Chi Minh was turned down by the West after President Wilson's post-WWI fight for freedom for colonized peoples was lost. It was after American rejection that he got Russian help to get the French out of Vietnam. We too take unsavory partners like Mushareff of Pakistan to get the Taliban out of Afganistan. Those colonized peoples of the world who believed the noble ideals of the colonists, were embittered by the hypocrisy of those who spoke them. This is not to say there aren't ruthless dictators in formerly colonized nations; that there aren't radical Muslims who stir up hatred through extreme interpretations of the Koran. But Western behavior in non-Western nations for the last few centuries has also left a conflicting legacy, including many people very receptive to the radicals. This is not a simple, black and white story. That's my point. As I get to understand things more deeply, they often get more and more ambiguous. (Though some become clearer and clearer too.)

I know those out there whose reaction to that paragraph (of course, that assumes anyone out there has even gotten this far - honk if you have) will echo one of the Republican talking points: How dare you say that we had any responsibility for the attacks of 9/11? Blaming the victim ("women wouldn't get raped if they didn't wear such provocative clothing," etc.) is only an acceptable argument when the speaker is not the victim. But I'm not blaming the victim. I'm not saying the West is responsible for the attacks. It is all far more complicated than that. I am trying to expand the possible ways we can think about why 9/11 happened beyond 1) we are good and they are evil; or 2) we are good and they are crazy; or 3) we are rich and they are jealous.

In the 1960s the South was forced by the rest of the United States to accept, at least legally, that black folks had the same rights, under the law, as white folk. This didn't comply with their learned segregationist narratives that whites were superior to blacks, that blacks in the south knew their places, and they liked how things were. They didn't see how the hypocrisy rankled 'their' blacks.' And 'their' black men, coming home after serving in WWII, no longer were willing to settle for second class citizenship at home. (The movie traced a similar situation with France's African colonial people's situation in the French army.) And I would hasten to add that there were white Southerners who saw and hated the inequities of the South.

Today, many Americans feel the same way about their privileged lives and their special moral place in the world, as white Southerner's felt about their privileged lives and special moral superiority over blacks. Giving up segregation, meant giving up status (the most educated black in the South had to sit in the back of the bus, while the least educated white could sit in the front), it meant giving up white access (over blacks) to higher paying jobs , it meant giving up cheaper labor for white businessmen, all because blacks would no longer be forced to walk behind the whites.

And Americans have lived a life of privilege compared to much of the world. We have come to believe we are a special nation destined to lead the world. Yet our rhetoric of freedom and democracy hasn't always been matched by our deeds. We've backed ruthless dictators when it met our economic interests. We've treated non-white peoples with less respect than white peoples. (In all the immigration debate, I hear a lot more rancor against illegal Mexicans than I do about illegal Canadians.) We can say that our leaders have done this in our name, but in a democracy, we are all responsible for what our leaders do.

Saying that our actions caused people around the world to dislike us, is not the same as saying we are to blame for the attacks of 9/11. Nor does it absolve the attackers of their responsibility. But if we understand how the rest of the world thinks about us (and there is no unified "rest of the world" that has a single view of the United States) it will help us find ways to create a safer, more stable world, to find a way of exiting Iraq that will result in the least loss of life. Refusing to acknowledge that we as a nation do things wrong in the world, is no different from the many white Southerners who believed that their world was fine just the way it was, thank you very much.

Now that I've had my say, I'd strongly recommend the movie. Along the same lines, I also suggest you rent "The Battle of Algiers" another movie in French and Arabic about the Algerian independence movement. This is a movie that change my whole understanding of world politics and one I was glad to see was assigned to many American policy makers after 9/11. I guess George didn't see it.

Sunday, June 03, 2007

Picnic with Yakov and Lisa




I played billiards with Yakov at the Anchorage Senior Center this morning while Joan and Lisa walked the bike trails. Yakov was 60 when he first came from Moscow to Anchorage for two months to visit his sister. He was a surgeon in Russia and Lisa did internal medicine. When Russia allowed Jews to leave, he and Lisa came to Anchorage to live. That was 1994. Both Lisa and Yakov are among my favorite people here. So warm and loving, so intelligent, Lisa has eyes that sparkle with fun and humor. In many ways Anchorage is not too strange for people from Moscow. They've taught us, for instance, a lot about finding mushrooms in the woods and recipes for cooking them. They taught me one of my only Russian words (but not how to spell it) - pagunka, or bad mushroom.


Yakov, until he had a stroke and heart surgery two years ago, was riding his bike everywhere, swimming every day, cross country skiing, and drinking vodka. Even though he's been studying English since he got here, it is hard for him. He told me today about problems learning English, "Old dog (that's me), No can learn new tricks."



He's not as energetic as he was, but he still drives with a bike rack on the car, or puts his bike on the bike racks on the city buses. Walking (that is for a mile or more) is hard for him because of a hip problem, but biking and cross country skiing are fine.

So after he beat me in every game, except one where he seemed to purposely miss the pockets, we biked over to a small lake to meet the women where we had picnic. A nice, relaxing, quiet day.

Saturday, June 02, 2007

The Next Hurrah - Blogging one's life away?

How much do I need to know? How much time do I need to spend to keep up?

Here's what the Anchorage Daily News had to say in its "In Brief" section today:

Longtime Bush Aide to Leave White House

WASHINGTON — Dan Bartlett, President Bush's longest-serving aide and one of his closest confidantes, said Friday that he would leave the administration in the summer. Bartlett's is the latest and most significant departure in what has been a shrinking of Bush's inner circle. Bartlett, who turned 36 on Friday, has spent more than a third of his life working for Bush, starting as a junior policy aide when Bush ran for governor of Texas. Bartlett said he was leaving to spend more time with his family and pursue new career options. -Daily News Wire Reports
A quick Google search found an expanded copy of this on the Houston Chronicle website, which included:

By JIM RUTENBERG
New York Times

plus half a sentence more the ADN left out of the selection above, and then it went on further, though I suspect less than the original NY Times article. OK, Bartlett's a Texas boy, so Houston should spend more time than Anchorage.


But I've been reading The Next Hurrah a political blog that, while I've been reading it, has focused on the inner workings of the Department of Justice. I think I must have first found it when they were talking about the Alaska Legislative indictments - from a DOJ perspective, of course. It's refreshing to read well written, thoughtful discussions of the inner workings of government, by people who have much more access to the players than I have. They've been discussing the Libby trial and sentencing, the firing of the United States Attorneys, the Gonzales hearings, and other DOJ business. Yesterday I read Buh Bye Bartlett at The Next Hurrah. The post wasn't that long, but there were 68 comments dissecting every possible (liberal) interpretation of his leaving.

So how much do I really need to know? The ADN brief paragraph? Or The Next Hurrah's version? As I ponder this, first it seems that someone has to watch closely every branch of government and various corporations as well. Second, when something important happens they need to send the alert beyond the confines of their blog. Of course, if the general public gets word something is happening they can google the term and find these specialized blogs, and good reporters are also monitoring them for tips. Third, citizens need occasionally to dip into these much deeper than normal discussions of an issue just to get a sense of how an administration or a party looks under a microscope, rather than the superficial documenting of events from the mass media and the spin industry.

Keeping up with The Next Hurrah takes way too much time for me to read the posts and all the comments on a regular basis, but it's nice to know it's there and I can peek when I want. But now I'm wondering about the blog communication across ideological lines. Clearly Hurrah's bloggers believe they are keeping the Bush administration's feet to the fire, making sure wrong doing is exposed and corrected. While there are disagreements, I haven't seen anyone challenge the basic assumptions that the DOJ is in crisis because of Gonzales and the Bush administration. But surely conservatives felt the same when they were going after Clinton. Some have argued that Rove really doesn't care about decency, the law, or other common values; he only cares about winning. But no doubt there are liberals who fit that category too. A number of the posters at Hurrah can't resist the catty remark now and then, and a number would take glee if Bush were impeached. Even if he deserves impeachment, it would be a sad day for the US. And I know as I write these words, that most of us can't help but feel good seeing a criminal brought to justice. But how do we prevent those emotions from taking us beyond reasonable?

How can people with differing ideological stances get past the bluster and posturing and the need to be right, the need to win, and look at the facts that are available and the various reasonable interpretations of those facts? I remember during Watergate the Republicans on the committees, while making sure Nixon got a fair hearing, recognized their duty to the citizens of the US was a higher duty than protecting their party from scandal. They knew the party would take a big hit, but the violations were clear and most did what was right.

For various reasons, discussed by many - such as redistricting which favors the extremes rather than the middle - we are in a different era. There are more nasty, greedy zero-sum players. Perhaps bloggers can play a positive role in forcing the mainstream media and legislators to do a better job of reporting on government and of governing.



Thursday, May 31, 2007

Being a Tourist at Home - Anchorage Saturday Market




After the traveling we did this past year, it was fun on Saturday to play tourist at home in Anchorage. Anchorage Market and Festival started as the Saturday Market, but now it seems to have gotten branded and logo'd. But it is still a good way to spend a weekend afternoon - checking out the Alaskana, the tourists, the food, and the entertainment. Here are some pictures from this last weekend.





















Greg Frisbee is a San Francisco performer who is up for two weekends at the market. His juggling,fire-eating, and general comedy show drew a big appreciative crowd that filled his hat after the show.





Mary Ann Koury is from Wichita, Kansas and has been coming to Alaska summers to volunteer in Kodiak raising money for the Russian Orthodox Church.

































If you don't want a quart of birch syrup...











you could get a birch bark basket instead.










Or get your picture taken in parkas on a dog sled. I've got a picture from Korat, Thailand Chinese New Years of people getting pictures taken at the festival there as ancient Chinese royalty.











Lincoln Riley had a Whaling Commission hat on and I thought he might be in town for the International Whaling Commission meeting this week. But it's just an old hat. He's from Unalakleet but he lives in Anchorage now and goes to Unalakleet for the summer to go fishing.






Victor and Carolyn are Lincoln's brother and sister-in-law.




Or buy some children's books.







Or something from
The Quilted Raven. The link doesn't work yet as I post this. She said the website is coming soon, so try it again later if it doesn't work yet.