For more than 20 years, I have been frequenting Creamer’s Field Migratory Waterfowl Refuge off College Road, looking for photographs to share with our News-Miner readers. The iconic barn has been the backdrop of dozens of images over the years, and the migratory waterfowl are a staple for vi…
To get an idea of the chaos of even a less intense problem, go to British newspapers and read online about Britain’s recent power outage.
Garg was a fledging computer engineer in 1994 when he founded an English language-based webpage called Wordsmith, that’s home to A.Word.A.Day.
The armed services appreciation trip is the result of collaboration between Trout Unlimited and Kinross Fort Knox. The two organizations have worked together “on abandoned mine site remediation and reclamation work around the country” and Kinross Fort Knox “has a high level of environmental safeguards with respect to the fisheries at Fort Knox,” Weiss said.
“Angst” is a relatively new word in the English language, when in 1944 it had ceased to be quoted as the foreign word it was in psychology.
George Bernard Shaw wasn’t always right, but he was spot on when he said, “The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place.” It’s awfully easy to leave out things we mean to impart and poorly organize our words, and human frailty doesn’t help. Recently I w…
“Legacy” joined English in the late 14th century, originally spelled “legacie,” from the Latin “legatia” or “legatus.”
Serious summertime reading’s led to musing about cats. Barbara Tuchman’s 1978 classic, “A Distant Mirror: the Calamitous 14th Century,” informed me that folks back then didn’t fear the Black Death; they dreaded the Great Pestilence, “Black Death” being the Victorians’ later, more dramatic te…
Many people are thinking ahead as vegetables mature in the garden and hunters get ready for the fall hunting season. For some, September is about getting large amounts of food all at once.
Although competitive exhibits are at the heart of the Tanana Valley State Fair, you don’t have to be competitive to enter. The fair’s long-standing tradition also includes education. People love looking at the horticultural and crop exhibits.
As I’m sitting down to write this column, we are heading into our second week of the Inlandboatmen’s Union (IBU) strike, which has essentially shut down the Alaska Marine Highway System and stranded hundreds of Alaskans and tourists during the busiest travel season of the year. Here in Kodia…
“It’s been recognized that visiting Denali poses some challenges to families with young kids (cost, long bus rides, etc.),” said David Tomeo, director of Alaska Geographic at Denali. “We are pleased that this program seems to be hitting the needs of that demographic quite well.
Good news: August is National Happiness Month! Joy is in short supply these smoky, hyper-political days, so the arrival of the new “happiness” issue of Lapham’s Quarterly was appreciated. The magazine features excerpts from writing through the ages, along with gorgeous art, maps and charts, …
In these discussions of financial exigency, though, two pronunciations of the word exigency have wandered about: EX-igency, which is how I pronounce it, and ex-I-gency.
I used to wear more fashionable shoes to work. Now, it’s sneakers so that I can get up and walk a few minutes each hour. In good weather, I take a couple minutes to go around the building, or I do laps in the hall when there is smoke or rain.
The idea to reunite at 116 Bridget was born last summer, when Debbie Tilsworth picked up her mother from the Pioneers’ Home on the Fourth of July and drove her around town on a “trip down Memory Lane.” The two visited each of the 10 houses the family lived in, beginning with 116 Bridget.
George Herbert claimed that “the eyes have one language everywhere,” meaning that we see the same thing regardless of our race or location, but verbal processes differ markedly. That’s why today I’m celebrating two language heroes: Tashi Wang and Nachman Blumental. Tashi is in Chinese prison…
Babies cooed and gurgled and dogs eagerly eyed the barbecue grills as adults and kids of all ages celebrated the 243rd Independence Day in the communities of Two Rivers and Pleasant Valley. Held near the community center in the ball fields, the festivities started with the Skordelis sisters,…
The “Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans” report recommends that adults get a minimum of 150 minutes of physical activity a week. This breaks down to 22 minutes of exercise a day over the course of a week.
Buckminster Fuller was a seminal and original 20th century thinker, a self-trained architect, systems theorist, author of 30 books, designer (including the geodesic dome), inventor and futurist: a most unusual man, and a personal hero. Among his notable quirks was deciding in 1927 that words…
The special fundraiser held last weekend to help the Nenana Volunteer Fire Department raised enough money to pay insurance for this quarter and workman’s comp for six months.
Grilling salmon led me to contemplating several nonfiction library books, such as “How to Behave Badly in Elizabethan England” by Ruth Goodman and “Courtesans & Fishcakes” by James Davidson.
“There’s a difference between interest and commitment. When you’re interested in doing something, you do it only when it’s convenient. When you’re committed to something, you accept no excuses, only results.” — Kenneth Blanchard
Modern medical science left me blissfully ignorant about what transpired during my recent colonoscopy but didn’t diminish my interest in reading “Could Boosting the Gut Microbiome Be the Secret to Healthier Older Age?” on ScienceDaily.com.
A plethora of “p” words has cropped up. Podcasting’s popular, but us old-school audio book fans were interested in a NYTimes.com opinion piece by Daniel Willingham titled, “Is Listening to a Book the Same Thing as Reading It?” The short answer is “no” because different parts of the brain are…
June is National Papaya Month! As a frequent visitor to Mexico, I’ve had the opportunity to enjoy this fruit from seeing how it grows to picking and eating it. Finding papayas in Alaska isn’t as easy, but when in season, they can be found on sale and sometimes they even end up in the dollar …
The special session of the Alaska legislature drags on: no operating budget, no capital budget and pink slips being handed out. If a budget isn’t approved soon, Alaskans who rely on state payments to health care providers could be left in a lurch.
This is an authentic Alaska experience, one that Nenana residents are building on every year. Last season, 40,000 visitors stopped here for a quick visit en route to either Fairbanks or Denali National Park.
All these decades and books later, there’s still so much to know. I recently encountered Majd ad-Din Usama ibn Murshid ibn Ali ibn Munqidh al-Kinani, aka Usama, a Syrian nobleman, diplomat and faris, or knight, who authored the incredible “Book of Contemplation” in the 1180s, and the librari…
“This year, we were lucky to not only have some very talented art students, but half of those students were also students in the building trades program,” said Kassandra Mirosh, art teacher at Tri-Valley School in Healy. “It was a good year to ‘go big’ with our art projects and to combine some of the skill sets from each class.”
As a compound word, “logjam” is interesting because of its longevity in its figurative sense versus its literal sense. Its figurative sense, meaning a deadlock, originated in 1890, and is pretty much the primary definition today.
“Beware of ‘Snakes,’ ‘Invaders,’ and Other Fighting Words” warns a recent NYTimes.com article about the power of rhetoric and how it subconsciously influences all who listen to them, even those who disagree. In fact, “asking people even purely hypothetical questions unconsciously shifts thei…
When people talk of energy sources, they use categories such as fossil fuels or renewables. The one resource that usually doesn’t fit into either category is nuclear energy.
“Bjerremark” reads a neighborhood gateway sign installed when 23rd Avenue was repaved in 2015.
Springtime is typically a time of rejuvenation in Alaska: the sun is staying out longer, regional festivals — like Kodiak’s Crabfest — inject excitement (and tourist dollars) into small communities that expect a robust tourism season and school graduation ceremonies inspire us.
Sometimes it’s easy to identify with Robert Frost, who once said, “I’m not confused, I’m just well-mixed.” Mixed nuts are a family favorite and, since my housemate disdains filberts, over the decades I’ve enjoyed quite a few of the many she’s set aside. Now bookish meanderings have led to nu…
The city of Larsen Bay got some good news this past week: The city of Kodiak is donating their old ambulance to the 100-person community on the west side of the island.
Everyone gets a harmonica when Mike Stevens comes to town.
The problem with peas is that if you grew up eating canned peas, you have to experience peas fresh from the garden to know how delicious they can be. I don’t understand why gardens aren’t brimming with this easy-to-grow vegetable that has few pests except moose.
Micky Spillane once wrote a memorable line in his, to me, forgettable crime novels: “She was sitting by herself at a card table with a Scrabble game half finished, an empty coffee cup beside her, looking annoyed as hell.” Scrabble seems to elicit those sorts of emotions. After all, “Everyone…
We have to talk about this eagle, don’t we?
Caffeining up at the Fairbanks airport prior to a red-eye, I noticed the small print on my Starbuck’s napkin: “This napkin is made with 100% recycled content and a minimum of 40% post-consumer fiber.”
Despite many of us hating to use the word "help," avoiding it at all costs, it’s one of the oldest words in the English language that has maintained its original meaning for over a thousand years.
Everyone from pre-schoolers to senior citizens looks forward to Operation Bunny Hop every year.
My early food memories are not so clear and may certainly be embellished or conflated, but spring brings memories of crocuses, pussy willows and berries. My younger sister preferred scarlet, fragrant strawberries while I preferred plump, less showy blueberries.
Here’s a story about a priceless 16th century book that has just been rediscovered that describes 15,000 other books. Last week’s A.Word.A.Day terms from wordsmith.org were fittingly related to books, including “bibliolater,” meaning “one with extreme devotion to books.” Hernando Colon, the …
The ancient Chinese strategist Sun Tzu said we should feign inferiority to encourage our opponents’ unwarranted arrogance. That’s easy for most of us, according to “You Are Not as Good at Kissing as You Think You Are,” a recent nytimes.com article by mathematician Spencer Greenberg and econo…
Emergency medical service providers were honored March 29 at the 2019 Interior Region EMS Symposium. Awards were given for outstanding achievement and performance of medical and emergency services.
When a North Pole high school student found herself in the girls’ bathroom blocked by several boys, who were trying to stage a strange protest against a transgendered male using the boys’ bathroom, she kicked one in the crotch.
