Among the bills introduced in the Alaska Legislature this session, there seems to be a variety of matters, unlike some years when the chances of politics being a spectator sport aren’t so good.
Of the 120 plus bill list introduced so far, citizens can, and should, spend a bit of their couch time browsing the bill tracker granted for free to anyone with a computer and Internet.
As the snow grow deeper outside, citizens can keep warm pondering through the list of bills and constructing learned opinions by reading sponsor statements.
For example, where do you stand on the matter of whether “American Constitutionalism” should be required of future high school graduates? House Bill 5, otherwise called the “American Constitutionalism History Literacy Act,” is proposed by Wasilla Republican Rep. Wes Keller.
Do you know your U.S. Constitution Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Confederation and the Federalist Papers? If not, you wouldn’t be able to graduate until you master these documents, under Keller’s bill.
Keller has also filed House Bill 8, which would try to challenge the federal government’s authority to make Alaska do things the state considers unconstitutional.
Do you think church property – the dozen or so houses used by church staff at the Anchorage Baptist Temple is the example sited most – should be exempt from paying property taxes? HB 305 would change that.
Got an opinion about naturally occurring asbestos in gravel? There’s a bill to address that, proposed in SB 180 by Sen. Donny Olson. He would like to be able to use this gravel in transportation projects.
You’ve heard a lot about texting while driving, after the tragic death of a pedestrian in Anchorage who was run down by a texting driver. That’s on the table as well, along with bills wanting drivers to quit talking on their phones. Rep. Cathy Munoz (R-Juneau) and Anchorage Democratic Reps. Mike Doogan and Max Gruenberg filed bills trying to outlaw driving while talking on a cell phone.
Gruenberg’s HB 68 wouldn’t allow police to ticket drivers for talking on a cell phone unless they pulled them over for another reason.
Want to lengthen the legislative session? Sen. Gary Stevens’ SB 18 would lengthen it to 120 days, but only every other year. So one year would be 90-days, the next 120 days.
Where do you stand on getting a medical school or law school established in Alaska? It’s a pricey call, but Fairbanks Rep. Scott Kawasaki (D) has introduced a bill to do that. The medical school would be at the Fairbanks campus, and the law school at the Anchorage campus.
This brief tour of bills doesn’t even crack the door open on all the oil and gas legislation in the works. Do you want to give incentives for drilling? Do you know the special incentives for Cook Inlet gas, as proposed by Sen. Tom Wagoner? Do you want to tinker with the incentives already passed so far? If so, there’s a ton more material to take you happily all the way to spring when these many feet of snow have finally melted.
And, don’t worry. In case the thought of certain bills making it to the light of a vote should give you indigestion, remember the relatively short list of what gets passed. Here’s last year’s record:
In the House, 306 bills and resolutions were proposed. Only 26 passed.
In the Senate, 183 bills and resolutions were introduced. Only 14 passed.

In his state of the State address last week, Gov. Parnell set out a path for reaching Alaska’s hoped for natural gas development. Its two pronged approach looks at getting Alaska gas for Alaskans, and as an ambitious new economic project to serve for years to come.
Let’s hope this new momentum holds so that the community goal in Homer to gain natural gas becomes part of the entire picture. Fairbanks also shoulders its energy burden, and would like to pursue broader natural gas distribution for its citizens.
Other remarks by Gov. Parnell place Alaska in the context of great changes and challenges ahead. Yet, we go there in a stable frame and for the most part, the governor imparts a great deal of optimism.
Parnell contrasted Alaska’s stability with a period of global challenges. In the Middle East and Africa, revolutions have swept across the region, while Iran’s nuclear ambitions “cast a menacing shadow. In Europe, a debt crisis threatens to plunge the global economy into an abyss. Meanwhile, America’s economy teeters between recession and recovery,” he said.
Amid this sea of uncertainty, “Alaska has emerged as a rock of stability.” Millions of Americans go without work, yet Alaska’s unemployment rate remains nearly one and a half points below the national average. While the dream of home ownership has turned into a nightmare for many American families, Alaska has posted the nation’s lowest foreclosure levels.
“While more Americans slip below the poverty line, Alaska’s median income has remained among the highest in the country. And while many states face unprecedented budget deficits, we have preserved surpluses of nearly $13 billion. As Alaska leads our nation to a new era of growth and opportunity, our friends in the Lower 48 have more reason than ever to look north to the future,” he said.
“The upheaval in the Middle East can seem a world away, but Americans pay the price for our heavy dependence on foreign oil. The debt troubles in Europe can sound distant, but our fishermen – and their families – depend on these nations to buy their seafood.”
With these challenges looming, the governor warns that Alaska shouldn’t be complacent.
Parnell made an appeal to Alaskans to stand with him. How we do that is to understand the downward trend of flow in the Trans Alaska Pipeline, he said. Unless we act to reverse this decline, Alaska will pay a stiff price in lost jobs and lower revenue. How that bears out in his quest to grant incentives in the form of lower taxes is the battle in the weeks ahead.
How the governor frames that is a continued insistence that Alaska needs to give up short-term gains for long-term growth. For legislators and citizens to say yes to his proposition, there needs to be give and take.
“So tonight I’m asking each of you to vote yes on meaningful tax reform. The logic is clear: Meaningful tax reform means Alaska will have a more competitive economy. A more competitive Alaska economy means more investment in Alaska. More investment in Alaska means more oil production. And more oil production means a bigger economic pie for Alaskans.”
We will see how legislators analyze the governor’s plans in the give and take ahead, what exactly emerges as Alaska’s tax policy on the oil companies whom Alaskans are forced to depend upon.
As the governor has asked, Alaskans will stand beside him with the hope of a stable future, jobs and a diversified economy. We hope he stands by Alaskans as well, as they point out any fair gas development in the future needs to include supplying it for Alaskans.

By Naomi Klouda

The recent spate of snow storms and blizzards reminds us how vulnerable humans are when the elements turn against us. Enduring the cold to shovel out huge snow drifts is one thing. It’s another matter when even standing outside grows impossible, sharp winds and horizontal snows aimed straight for ones eyes.
Homer’s first snow day was called Tuesday Jan. 10, the only one so far this year. It reminds us of how tough Alaska kids and teachers are asked to be. School goes on pretty much no matter what is going on in the sky or falling on the ground. That wasn’t the only storming day, though, it would be hard to top. Winds picking up Monday night shook houses as though they are made of lesser stuff, leaving drifts of snow cast down from a sky so loaded with precipitation by Tuesday, it seemed we wouldn’t see the end of it.
As a kid growing up in Anchorage, I do remember what felt like one constant snow storm. No doubt this is a faulty memory, but if I imagine walking to school, there’s almost always snow at my feet. If I think of learning to drive, snow’s in the picture. If it’s a volcano going off, the ash landed on snow. Even if it’s the memory of prom night, snow remains in the backdrop, something to tiptoe across in high heals, holding a long skirt aloft so it doesn’t drag in the muck.
At some point in my childhood, and I’m sure this is the case with most Alaska kids, snow becomes an ever present friend. When it’s gone, you tend to complain.
A memory that brings this home most clearly is when I realized it anew as a teenager. Our household was crowded with my siblings (nine of us growing up) and whatever friends happened to be swelling the ranks in the living room or kitchen. We lived out near Jewel Lake, and I recall needing to read a letter in privacy. I left the building with a flashlight and found a bench we had recently made. A blocky thing of snow that you could sit on in that skinny forest of malnourished spruce trees. I took out my letter and read it in the beam of a flashlight, and afterwards sat for a long time contemplating the contents. My first boyfriend had just broken up with me.
Snow wasn’t an alien force. It was the friend who cushioned me when I felt what I thought was a heart breaking. It gave a private place away from a large family.
As I grew up, I had unconsciously enjoyed snow for skiing and sledding and any number of services. These services were all too quickly forgotten as I grew older. Snow became a nuisance, something to be shoveled and scraped and dreaded. As a mother and a newspaper reporter, I’m guilty of being too busy and too stressed to appreciate the thing that hinders me from getting where I need to be.
Then enter a storm, a swirling energetic force of nature. It was enough to stop me in my hurried tracks and force me to watch: great drifts of snow spiraling and piling in endless supply. At the end of its efforts, by Friday when the sun finally returned, the landscape rested, resculpted and cleaner, feeding the fresh crisp air with new breath.
That’s when an inner voice forgets to complain and instead exclaims, Oh, there you are. I forgot you, my old impressive friend. Snow.

A sure way to feel alienated from food is to avoid knowing where it comes from. Alaskans in particular may fall into the danger of that: red tomatoes show up in the cold of winter, loaded off planes from who knows where. Grapes appear with south America stickers. Corn on the cob that couldn’t possibly be American, given that the midwest is experiencing the same cold as we do.
A handy tool exists to help clear up the mystery, and thereby take a step toward making better food decisions. They’re known as food barcodes, and not all of them provide unequivocal answers, but many do.
Consumers won’t know, for example, if a product was made elsewhere but packaged in the U.S. Yet, here is a simple way to start determining where food comes from by analyzing the first digits of a barcode.

00 – 13 ~ USA and Canada
30 – 37 ~ France
40 – 44 ~ Germany
49 ~ Japan
50 ~ UK
57 ~ Denmark
64 ~ Finland
76 ~ Switzerland and Lienchtenstein
471 ~ Taiwan
628 ~ Saudi-Arabia
629 ~ United Arab Emirates
690-695~ China
740-745 ~ Central America
All 480 Codes ~ The Philippines

Arizona Green Tea

A full list of barcodes numbers by country is available online in a variety of sources.
These codes work for food products, most of the time, but won’t always for non food items. For example, The Homer Tribune’s barcode, you might notice, starts with an eight. We can assure you it’s made in the U.S. Printed materials, including magazines and books, won’t be recognizable by country barcodes. An organic tea hanging about the office starts with an 8 code, though its label promises it was created in Denver and it carries a “USDA Organic” sticker. Arizona Green Tea, whose code is pictured below, also begins with a 6, even though it is touted as made in America.

Betty Crocker Cake Mix

In any case, this should prove at least a starting guideline in navigating through the coded registry. Give it a try while shopping through the aisles. Knowledge is power to grant us better control of what we eat.
A movie documentary on food “Forks Over Knives” also promises to provide healthy insights. The free film airs 6 p.m. Thursday at the Homer Theatre.
Perhaps 2012 will shape up to be the year when you might not lose a ton of weight or suddenly sprout a muscular physique. But ingesting healthier foods based on better information could be the start of a beautiful habit.

“An optimist stays up until midnight to see the new year in. A pessimist stays up to make sure the old year leaves.”
– Bill Vaughn
It sure seems that the year 2011 will be remembered for odd storm surges. If there were any necessary proof of a changing climate, one only need point out the window at September rains that poured in December and the severe January cold that struck in November. Deep Christmas snows changed the landscape and sent out shouts of joy among children, snowmachiners and skiers, even if more trepidation haunted drivers who must take to our single highway.
The year that launched us further into a new decade likely will be remembered for other storms as well. Politically turbulent wars in Congress lined up generals on each of the aisle who either favored extending the tax cuts for the rich or extending cuts for the working class. Fortunately, by year end, Congress appears close to extending the cuts for the middle class – at least a few more months while other solutions are sought. Unfortunately, they’re also holding out for the wealthy.
It was also a year when America pulled out of Iraq, no small achievement. Christmas for thousands of soldiers’ families proved a much kinder one this time. Flare-ups with Pakistan, however, were set to get worse when American’s killed 26 Pakistani soldiers just before Christmas.
What kind of year might 2012 be? Well, can’t argue with a guy who points out “forecasting is very difficult. Especially about the future.” Though you might be closer to agreeing with French mathematician and political philosopher, Henri Poincare, who says, “It is far better to foresee, even without certainty, than not to foresee at all.”
Websites are rife with predictions, each based on observations of narrow topics. The 2012 AD galactic alignment is much discussed for dooms day prognostics. Economic analysts espouse statements like “Going into 2012 shows more advantages than going into 2011.” Panic over a 1930s style global economic meltdown is scoffed at by Louis Navellier, editor of Blue Chip Growth. Even air travel and real estate predictions delve into the nitty-gritty of those industries to swing between optimism and pessimism, not-so-strangely, at times both in the same paragraph. Technology experts predict we’re going to interact differently with glass, meaning, touch screens. We’ll get away from “mice” to increasingly use finger power to shift words and items across the screen.
Whatever 2012 brings, our hope is that Alaska continues to be somewhat cushioned from the slings and arrows of misfortune. Homer, at the end of the road, or the beginning of the sea, could see some cruel shifts ahead in dwindling halibut stocks. But, we also are a town made up of numerous small, family or independently owned businesses that are more flexible during economic hard times. Crime, poverty and homelessness crept a bit closer to our mile posts, judging by the year’s news printed in these pages. But, we didn’t see a single murder or shooting death and our social agencies served their higher numbers without panicking over shortages.
All in all, we predict Homer will sail through 2012 in its usual cosmic finesse. There’s no avoiding that the many ways we categorize life will see its ups and downs. There’s going to be hard times and there’s going to be good ones. You can count on it that we will find a way to weather whatever 2012 hurls at us.
Happy New Year, Homer.

How’s the Shopping Small Business movement going? We’re not hearing a lot about it yet. Are more local people persuaded this season to attend their town’s shops and stores? Like most small beginnings for new habits, you might expect this one to wobble on shaky legs that over time may grow stronger. It takes a while for consumers – your neighbors, friends and relatives, and ours – to make a shift. In hard economic times, however, more thought tends to go into purchases. We can’t afford to make careless choices.
Last week, a major book seller in America inadvertently helped bring this point home. Amazon.com sent out a $5 coupon offering a discount for people if they went to their local book stores and used a price-app to swipe the book’s cost. Amazon boasted it could beat the costs – and reward the spy.
This practice has to strike as flat wrong for a number of reasons. It raises legal questions about predatory pricing. It poses an ethical dilemma by encouraging consumers to act as spies for big corporations. Come on, how far is corporate “personhood” to be taken? It makes even authors who depend on Amazon.com to market their books feel poorly. Stephan King called it going “a bridge to far.”
Homer is fortunate to have three book stores whose hefty stacks provide endless fodder for leisurely browsing. The Homer Bookstore, whose long-time residents are extremely helpful and provide a well-lit, inviting space, the ancient-feel of Old Inlet Books and An Observance of Hermits offer timeless minutes stretching to hours of pleasurable rambles through stacks and stacks.
Places without these luxurious time traveling tomes keenly feel their loss. Kodiak lost its only bookstore this month, a lament that was broadcast as a statewide news story. How sad for the people who live there, a population just over that of Homer area’s 10,000 people. Worse yet, when an entire island is factored in.
The shop local movement espouse an opposite philosophy from the giant invisible wholesalers out there in the Neverland of cyberspace. It points out that local jobs and sales tax revenue that cities rely on to operate are on the line when people buy from the Internet. It points out that buying from the big guys instead hurts our own neighbors and friends in the long run. And it could be hurting you through the trickle-down effect. In this season of giving and hope, let’s keep the conversation going. That’s what you might call putting your money where you live.
Merry Christmas to all, from the Homer Tribune. We will be closed Monday, Dec. 26 so that we can spend time with our families.

By Naomi Klouda

My reading transgressions this winter have led me to the Middle East. I’m not sure what progression of thought leads to whole swaths of time spent on given geographic locations, like the years I spent in Victorian England, wanting the gloomy Bronte sisters or Charles Dickens stories. Some winters lead me to the Aleutian Chain or the Yukon River. This winter I’ve ended up in Afghanistan.
It all started with the excellent “A Thousand Splendid Suns,” by Khaled Hosseini, which I highly recommend. He is the author of “Kite Runner,” also about Afghanistan. Both books shed light on the past four turbulent decades under first Soviet invasion, then the inter-tribal uprisings until the Taliban took over. And both tell all too clearly the constant living trauma of men, women and children as they survive wars and seek America’s protection.
Another book I’m involved in now is “The Swallows of Kabul” by Yasmina Khadra (Nom de Plume for a former Algerian army officer Mohamed Moulessehoul). It too is set in Afghanistan under Taliban rule. It begins with a graphic stoning of a woman accused of adultery. For her, they dig a waist deep hole, hands and feet tied, and cover her in shrouds so that she looks like a mummy. Heaps of stones are dumped at the site and crowds that show up for the viewing will also do the stoning. Where is the other half of the adultery, the man who engaged in this? No where. Only the woman is the guilty party.
Painful stuff to read, but important to try to understand since America is trying to pull out of that troubled area, responsible for so many deaths of our soldiers and the consumer of so many finances that our country has sunk into debt.
The truth about being an Islamic woman is hard for a free-born American to wrap her mind around. Yet, it lies at the root of many other problems from poverty to social ills. A culture that works against women also works against its children and future generations.
The lives of women in such novels are inextricably bound by hundreds of petty rules, stuffed inside a culture that coddles and protects them at the same time as they hold them contemptible. One of the sayings is that the “word of one man is to be believed over two women.”
At the stoning, the crowd is described as slobbering and manic in their punishment of the woman. She’s dead well before they quit stoning.
What I’m coming away with are impressions of a desperate area of the world where most all political, economic and social turmoil is rooted in instability caused by warring factions. Yet, these authors bravely encounter their characters, telling the harsh truths so that when the book is placed back on the shelf, we are left with an understanding of sorts.
In an interview, Hosseini is quoted as saying what he wants readers to come away with is “a sense of empathy for Afghans, and more specifically for Afghan women, on whom the effects of war and extremism have been devastating. I hope this novel brings depth, nuance, and emotional subtext to the familiar image of the burka-clad woman walking down a dusty street.”
With thoughts of these women, then, I read that the three 2011 Nobel Peace Prize laureates are all women leaders in nations where females have carried unfathomable burdens. Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, Tawakkul Karman and Leymah Gbowee are the prize winners.
Johnson-Sirleaf, who was recently re-elected as president of Liberia, said the women of her country had “carried the burden of conflicts.”
“This prize to me, represents them, their suffering, their contribution.”
Karman, a Yemeni pro-democracy activist, is the first Arab woman to win the Peace Prize. Gbowee, an activist from Liberia who is based in Ghana, headed the Ghana-based group Women Peace and Security Network Africa.
The plight of women in this war-troubled part of the globe was no doubt on the Nobel Peace Prize committee’s mind. Awareness is only one of many steps hopefully ahead.

Are humans growing nicer?
The Share the Spirit Spaghetti Feed Tuesday functions as a major fundraiser to helping folks out during the holidays. Homer is accustomed to this holiday tradition. Volunteers step forth to cook the spaghetti, to box individual lunches for take out, to drive the lunches to local businesses for drop off and so many other tasks. Just as the darkest time of year arrives, this town poised on the edge of the Kenai Peninsula spreads human warmth and light. This year, the annual spaghetti dinner Dec. 7, coincided with the commemoration of Pearl Harbor, the bloody battle that launched the U.S. into World War II.
Amid economic discomforts, tragedy, wars, and veterans returning wounded physically and psychologically, new stories and theories emerge about the human condition. A new book by Steven Pinker, a psychology professor at Harvard, called “The Better Angels of Our Nature” poses the theory that humans are getting kinder. Like you might do, we ask really?
“Today we may be living in the most peaceable era in our species’ existence,” Pinker writes, and he describes this decline in violence as possibly “the most important thing that has ever happened in human history.” He acknowledges: “In a century that began with 9/11, Iraq, and Darfur, the claim that we are living in an unusually peaceful time may strike you as somewhere between hallucinatory and obscene.”
As evidence, New York Times critic Nicholas Kristof cites Pinker’s recitation of modern death statistics:
Only some three percent of humans died in this century from man-made catastrophes. In contrast, a study of Native-American skeletons from hunter-gather societies found that some 13 percent had died of trauma. In the 17th century, the Thirty Years’ War reduced Germany’s population by as much as one-third.
Wars today don’t typically kill as many people, Pinker tells us.
Even homicide rates are lower than in previous centuries. That Britain’s murder rate fell by 90 percent since the 14th century, when Chaucer was at work on the “Canterbury Tales,” is chilling. It begs the question of what were they doing to one another back then?
Several of the but-what-about questions one reasonably conjures are snapped up by both the columnist, apparently, and the author, and dealt with in a tidy, dismissive fashion that may leave you shaking your head in skepticism. For Egypt’s uprisings, for Africa’s sorry endless woes, for the Middle East’s massacres? The author insists that even in these monstrosities, man’s inhumanity to man isn’t what it used to be.
What about children’s video games where they rack up the killings as scores? What about violence in movies of most all genres? Is this a “nice” society?
They don’t answer the question about video games, but they do go into another major influence on youth across time. Nursery rhymes and Grimms Brothers’ type tales were tabulated for violence in a study. Apparently, there were 52.2 incidents of violence on the average for fairy tales and nursery rhymes, but only 4.8 incidents per modern cartoon.
Kristof’s conclusion is that although human advances are complex, they “may have to do with the rise of education, the decline of chauvinism and a growing willingness to put ourselves in the shoes (increasingly, even hooves) of others.”
Are you convinced? The question is whether humanity is siding with the better angels of his nature these days. It’s certainly the season of hoped-for goodness, a time when people reflect in gratitude on their bounty of loved ones, friends and adequate material possessions; a time when we like to give fellow humans the gentle nod of good faith.
We can hope.

This spring, news of the halibut catch sharing plan downgrading charter boats to one halibut seared the town in a wave of worries. Upon reflection, it became apparent that any economic squeeze on the charter boats would also pinch hundreds of other entrepreneurs in town. The potter, the sandwich maker, the fish processors, the bait shops and the halibut whackers, among others, would all suffer.
The Homer Chamber of Commerce acts as an umbrella for more than 400 of these member businesses. Director Monte Davis was asked to go to bat for them. Many suggested a concerted effort to point out that there needs to be an economic study and more justification before the National Marine Fisheries Service imposed the new rule.
The chamber stepped up to the plate. Members voted; the board voted. Sure, it was a divisive issue. Charter boat captains didn’t want to go up against their friends in the commercial fishing industry. But, favoritism by the National Marine Fisheries Council seemed clearly pointed toward the majority interests of its own members that is stacked with commercial fishermen. In order to be heard, Homer businesses asked the chamber to send a strong message to the Fisheries Service. Commercial fishermen argued the chamber should sit this one out. It wasn’t the chamber’s place to speak for any single industry, they said.
Davis countered the argument by pointing out the majority of business members belonging to the chamber didn’t want a passive, no-action call.
And, to the credit of the NOAA who oversees the Fisheries Council, they listened to the flood of letters, including the chamber’s letter calling for better economic analysis and questioning on how the plan fit in with a harvest quota plan. As a result, the catch-sharing plan is on hold while essential information is being gathered to check the wisdom of the plan.
Now, it’s a cold November and Homer City Council budget time. Councilman Kevin Hogan, who has argued bitterly against the chamber’s involvement, and at one point walked out on the council, was of the group that didn’t want the chamber to take a stand. He owns the Auction Block, a business that moves tons of halibut across the dock and earns its profits from commercial fishermen. It is in Hogan’s economic interest to fight for his livelihood. But, it’s not in his interest when serving on the Homer City Council. He is there to represent constituents’ interests.
At Monday night’s city council meeting, Hogan made a move that appeared to favor his own economic interests over his constituents. His proposal was to yank all the funding, over $21,000, from the Homer Chamber of Commerce even though the chamber is in essence a contractor hired by the city to promote economic development.
As reason for zeroing out funding, Hogan claims the chamber doesn’t represent all the town’s business interests and, by taking a side last spring, it proved that.
Let’s hope that when it comes time for the final vote on the budget, that the council members will vote to sustain funding to the chamber.
The council should gather up the courage to question such moves when they surface. Ask Mr. Hogan if he is fulfilling his obligation as a city official if he is also worrying about a worthy organization that didn’t happen to agree with his sentiments?
In essence, was Hogan doing as he accused the chamber: taking a side of one industry over another? And is this appropriate, given that council members are elected by citizens?
Open government means not having to guess. Measures are in place for Hogan’s colleagues to ask about motivation for cuts aimed as a punitive lesson.

One doesn’t have to glance far to find much to be thankful for in any given year. In addition to being thankful for loving families, enough food and warm homes, a look at what we’re grateful for gives a rather telling story about our identities.
Here’s our top 10 list of things to be thankful for as we contemplate the holiday we are about to celebrate.
10: The weather. It could be climate change or simply Mother Nature on a rampage, but Alaska’s weather has been anything but monotonous lately. Storms that threatened to ravage much of the Bering Sea Coast didn’t end up doing as much damage as feared. Along Kachemak Bay, our storms are impressive to watch safely from a warm window. Plus, we get bragging rights, much as Sen. Mark Begich skillfully got everyone’s attention in the Senate when he wanted to talk about better weather forecast funding. “Alaska is No. 1 in reality T.V. shows because of our weather,” he told them.
9: Low crime numbers. Homer hasn’t had a single murder in a few years. Look at Anchorage. That town has three on a single weekend.
8: Sarah Palin isn’t in the news nearly as often as she was last year. Enough said there.
7: Homer’s schools scored high – again.
6: A thoughtful collection of 15 business people are working hard on financial solutions for the Homer Boys and Girls Club.
5: Eagles haven’t made the news lately for the shenanigans that used to get them on these pages, like hauling off the family dog.
4: Many residents participate in the public process: When the one-halibut rule plan was announced, more than 4,000 people testified, on par with what the polar bears elicit.
3: Hope is high for natural gasline funding that, if we keep our fingers crossed, could finally help with high fuel costs.
2: The beautiful view of Kachemak Bay when driving down Baycrest Hill.
1: Homer people are amazing. Better than the scenery, which is already spectacular.

Shop Small, feel great
This arrived in the Homer Tribune mailbox: “As the holidays approach, the giant Asian factories are kicking into high gear to provide Americans with monstrous piles of cheaply produced goods — merchandise that has been produced at the expense of American labor. This year will be different. This year Americans will give the gift of genuine concern for other Americans…”
Who says Christmas gifts need to come from malls or web outlets or from China? Last year’s buying local program transformed into this year’s Shop Small movement, a focus on our own stores and the uniqueness offered therein. Toward this goal, consumers are encouraged to shop at small stores on Saturday all across the nation.
We can locate wonderful gifts at Homer’s Tech Connect, Timeless Toys, Picture Alaska, from our own potters and hat makers, and book shops. In the process, our money circulates throughout the community $14 for every $1 spent, according to Homer Chamber of Commerce calculations. That helps keep our neighbors employed, streets plowed of snow and the environment cleaner since we don’t have to transport everything in.
Let’s all make a vow to shop as much as we can right here at home. We can get started Saturday.