Buccaneer officials saw mere glimpse of Inlet storms
The visit last week from Buccaneer Energy officials came at an unfortuitous time. A second giant storm blew in 50 knot winds. Rivers of rain fell out of the sky, prompting the Kenai Peninsula Borough mayor to declare the peninsula a flooded disaster area. Even guest Lt. Gov. Mead Treadwell couldn’t make it in. The [...]
Save the book
The Homer Public Library holds a book and plant sale Sept. 29. They are currently accepting donations of both books and plants, as a fundraiser for Friends of the Library. This raises a question of interest to us: Will the book sale be the beneficiary of people who switched from the real hard or soft-bound paper version of a book to a Nook, Kindle or iPad? Will books donated by the box loads be all the more plentiful because of the cultural switch?
That could be good and bad news. Good, because it could make for a more profitable fundraiser for the Friends of the Library – if there’s a grand turn out in both supply and demand for accumulating more books on the part of folks spending their money. I know I’ll be there to haul out my own deep stack. But do you perceive the irony?
According to way too many critics, the book in its hard and soft bound forms are doomed. What might this mean for libraries? Not necessarily doom, because people aren’t going to quit reading. They’ll go to the library to load new and ancient volumes on their Kindles. It was the Friends of the Library who raised the funds to buy the Kindles currently available for patrons to check out, no doubt funded in part from people selling off their books.
Green light on new trail, for safety’s sake
A new walking-biking trail along Kachemak Drive is a dream for a growing number of people in Homer who are advocating for it to be built. A number of roadways are hazardous, with barely enough room for cars to pass one another in pockets on East End Road and places like Kachemak Drive. Pedestrians slog along, trying to find a place to walk where they aren’t in the roadway. In places, that is an impossible task.
Add to this bike riders who want to commute from East End Road to areas along Kachemak Drive, and you’ve got yet another problem. Since the area is industrial marine, with the Homer Boat Yard traffic doing its seasonal business, the traffic on that road often involves trailering boats, even airplanes. Now you have walkers, bikers, big moving vehicles and regular traffic co-mingling.
Homer’s in the limb of Cook Inlet Basin?
Buccaneer Alaska’s plans to drill for oil and gas on a gravel pit in the grazing lands out East End Road hit families in the area hard last week. Reading of it in the newspaper was the first time many of them came to hear of it. We know this isn’t good public policy, to [...]
Bag-2-Bag recycling a good idea
Do we want to bag the use of plastic grocery bags? Judging by the testimony at the Homer City Council meeting Monday night, the answer is ‘yes’ from many in the community. The council responded by passing an ordinance to ban plastic bags.
Those plastic white grocery bags symbolize a modern problem: they are everywhere, useful and will never biodegrade. The bags are found on roadways, they get into the water and pose environmental threats. But with responsible handling and recycling, the bags are no more hazardous than tin cans.
The problem is in the responsible handling or disposing of all plastic.
Are political divides growing wider in Alaska?
Alaska is a place where more than 60 percent of the voters chose to describe themselves as independent or non-partisan, rather than Democrat or Republican. That 60 percent may in reality be shades of red or blue, perhaps even a blending into purple. Is Alaska, therefore, a state where the majority reject party politics? Or [...]
Sizing up the drug problem
People tend to voice their opinions confidently on the topic of drug use in Homer or the Lower Kenai Peninsula – that it is increasingly a problem showing up in other crimes such as burglaries. It does seem that now, more than in the years 2005-2010, drug use and arrests have risen. It is no [...]
Developing Cook Inlet
As the Buccaneer’s jack-up rig travels from Singapore to Alaska, and Escopeda’s jack-up rig is operating already, we’re seeing proof more oil and gas development projects are to become a bigger part of life in Cook Inlet. Buccaneer’s rig, the Endeavour, will be working near Anchor Point, and will be visible on the horizon as [...]
What’s the truth about Prop. 2?
In an op-ed piece this week, we hear from former Gov. Frank Murkowski who is urging Alaskans to vote no on Prop 2. This is a measure that many contend would put the vocal chords back in the voices of people living on Alaska’s coasts. Those who argue against it say it’s another layer of [...]
Our news cycles
Every now and then, a new cycle of activity or troubling matters strike towns. At times, the events are tragic beyond comprehension. Our hearts grieve for the families of those killed by a crazed gunman while attending, of all things, a Batman movie in Denver last week. In Homer, we get accustomed to not having [...]
