Tenth Anniversary Issue! FEATURES Birds of a Feather
by Alys Culhane Bill Fuller, inscrutable man, and how his reincarnated form came to visit.
Ester Thought Posse: The Last Report
December report Aiya, Ester Hamlets! I am now, after an AK-47 wedding in Mongolia, Soo Tan. Our village is destroyed, and Deepa and I are on the edge of the Bering Sea. We hear sounds like angry ducks.
Fifty Years of Statehood: The Historical Parade
The Long View, by Ross Coen Historians love anniversaries—but it's important to remember, when looking back at our history this year, the difference between commemoration and analysis.
Machu Picchu: a revised history of discovery
Part Two: The Oldest Map, by Paolo Greer Clues to early explorers' forays into Perú and its lost cities led me to old maps that showed the region around Machu Picchu. But older maps are not always accurate, and what we know today as Machu Picchu might be labeled differently or shown only as a sugarloaf mountain. When were the ruins actually known to their mappers?
The Missionary Position on the Teen Commandments
by Neal Matson God has communicated a lot more to us than just what's on those stones from Mount Sinai.
New Roads
by Peter Pierson Our 'cognitive maps,' as Bernd Heinrich calls them in his book Mind of the Raven, are learned, enabling us to return home without having to retrace the exact path we used when we left. Yet it takes a while to adjust, to develop that sense of home. We are going down new paths, all of us, and will need to slow down a bit to find our way in this new territory.
Skyrocketing Premiums and an Insurance Industry Bailout
Dose of Reality, by Neil Davis In large part because of increasing health care costs, Alaskans are financially worse off than they were eight years ago. Now, as reform of the health care system is beginning to gain traction, the insurance industry is fighting back with a proposal of their own. Industry's solution? Socialize the losses and privatize the profits.
A Venture into Subarctic Straw Bale Construction
by Jose Rueter, photos by Helen Rueter When we began to contemplate building a new home, we became fascinated with straw bale construction. We liked the idea of using local sustainably produced materials to build a house. But we had to contend with that dread enemy of straw, Black Slime.
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