"He walked through the Darién Gap between Panama and Colombia... Later, he reached the Bering Strait between Alaska and Russia — the midway point of his walk...."

"In the winter, he said, the strait does not entirely freeze over. 'It is this massive body of crushed ice and seawater…you’re literally climbing over the ice to make any short distance,' he said. He met a fellow adventurer in Alaska who traversed the strait with him. 'No one believed we were going to make it,' Bushby said. 'As it turned out, we managed to nail it on the first go, which no one expected, least of all us.' Once Bushby arrived in Russia, he hit another hurdle: he was detained for entering the country at an incorrect border. He spent 57 days in detention, he said, and faced a trial, until authorities agreed to let him continue his walk. 'It was just a whole series of miracles,' Bushby said...."

From "He set out to walk around the world. After 27 years, his quest is nearly over. Karl Bushby is expected to finish his globe-walking expedition by September 2026" (WaPo)(gift link, so you can see the photos, including Bushby immersed in Bering Strait ice).

"I know the president said on Fox News this morning that he's partially seeking peace in order to get to heaven. Was he joking or is there spiritual uh motivation behind his peace deals here?"

Asked Mary Margaret Olohan, of the Daily Wire.

That happened at yesterday's White House Press Briefing. Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt answered:

"I think the president was serious. I think president wants to get to heaven as I hope we all do in this room as well."

Trump's quote was the title of yesterday's post: "I want to get to heaven if possible. I'm hearing I'm not doing well. I hear I'm at the bottom of the totem pole. If I can get to heaven, this will be one of the reasons." Video of Trump saying all that at the link.

Was he serious? The question is how serious?

Was Mary Margaret Olohan serious — seriously hoping that he was serious?

"So when we've met, when I came out of the plane and I said, 'Good afternoon, dear neighbor. Very good to see you in good health and to see you alive.' I think that is very neighborly."

"I think that's some kind words that we can say to each other. We're separated by the strait of Bering, though, there are two islands only between the Russian Island and the U.S. Island. They're only four kilometers apart. We are close neighbors, and it's a fact."

Said Vladimir Putin, quoted in "Here's the transcript of what Putin and Trump said in Alaska." 

I pulled that quote because it's very near the beginning and because it reminds me of "I can see Russia from my house and because "to see you alive" might be what he'd say if he had been behind the 2 assassination attempts.

But I want to read it all. I'm going to live-blog my reading of the transcript here. Sorry I missed the live event last night, but at the last second we realized we could get access to the baseball game by submitting to the plot to force us to subscribe to Apple TV. The home team extended its winning streak to 13. We're joking please, please it's too much winning, we can't take it anymore.

On to the transcript. Putin continues:

Mount McKinley.

I'm reading "Restoring Names That Honor American Greatness," one of the executive orders Trump signed yesterday. Excerpt:

President William McKinley, the 25th President of the United States, heroically led our Nation to victory in the Spanish-American War. Under his leadership, the United States enjoyed rapid economic growth and prosperity, including an expansion of territorial gains for the Nation. President McKinley championed tariffs to protect U.S. manufacturing, boost domestic production, and drive U.S. industrialization and global reach to new heights. He was tragically assassinated in an attack on our Nation’s values and our success, and he should be honored for his steadfast commitment to American greatness.

In 1917, the country officially honored President McKinley through the naming of North America’s highest peak. Yet after nearly a century, President Obama’s administration, in 2015, stripped the McKinley name from federal nomenclature, an affront to President McKinley’s life, his achievements, and his sacrifice....

Obama changed the name to Denali, and Trump opposed the change at the time — "Great insult to Ohio. I will change back!" With this order, he's done what he said he would do — though now it's about recognizing a man as a hero and not about a particular state that supposedly cares a lot about that man. Note that "Denali" was not a person's name, so Trump isn't elevating one state's hero over another.

Perfect ice skating conditions — on Rabbit Lake, in Alaska.

"A base knowledge in history and civics is critical for students to become engaged, informed citizens, particularly amid misinformation on social media platforms..."

"... said Kei Kawashima-Ginsberg, director of... an organization focused on youth civic engagement. She cited a recent TikTok campaign against an Alaska oil project, which resulted in a misguided petition urging President Biden not to sell Alaska. 'You need some basics to understand what’s even verifiable: Does it even jibe loosely with what I learned?' she said, noting that the president does not have executive power to sell a state."

From "U.S. History Scores Are Falling, but It’s Not Just Because of the Pandemic/The latest test results continue a nearly decade-long plunge, as reading and math take priority" (NYT).

I think it's interesting that the NYT thought its readers needed that explanatory phrase, "noting that the president does not have executive power to sell a state."

It's hard to believe in the future of democracy in American when you realize how little grip voters have on even the most basic facts and concepts. Why are we asking ourselves who should govern us? We're idiots.

" In one of its most consequential climate decisions, the Biden administration is planning to greenlight an enormous $8 billion oil drilling project in the North Slope of Alaska...."

The NYT reports.

Willow would be the largest new oil development in the United States, expected to pump out 600 million barrels of crude over 30 years.... Environmental activists, who have labeled the project a “carbon bomb” have argued that the project would deepen America’s dependence on oil and gas....

Willow was initially approved by the Trump administration and the Biden administration later defended the approval in court. The project was then temporarily blocked by a judge who said that the prior administration’s environmental analysis was not sufficient....

"The National Park Service is moving to prohibit hunters on some public lands in Alaska from baiting black bears with doughnuts and using spotlights..."

"... to shoot hibernating bears and cubs in their dens, techniques allowed by the Trump administration but considered inhumane by conservationists. A rule proposed by the National Park Service on Friday would essentially restore restrictions that existed during the Obama administration but were gutted under President Donald J. Trump. Under the new policy, hunters on Alaska wildlife preserves would also no longer be able to kill adult wolves and pups in their dens, or use motorboats to shoot swimming caribou.... Sara Amundson, president of the Humane Society Legislative Fund, issued a statement calling the new rule 'a victory for Alaska’s iconic wildlife species. Baiting bears just to blast them over a pile of doughnuts is just wrong'...."

From "Biden Moves to End Doughnut Lures and Other Bear Hunting Tactics in Alaska/A new rule proposed by the administration would also bar hunters from invading wolf dens to kill pups" (NYT).

"[Santa Claus] is not affiliated with any party but describes himself as an 'independent, progressive, Democratic socialist.'"

"The man once known as Thomas O’Connor changed his legal name in 2005 and now lives, aptly, in the city of North Pole, outside Fairbanks, where he serves on the city council." 

From "51 candidates: A wild U.S. House race takes shape in Alaska" (Anchorage Daily News).

I'm happy to announce that I'm a Candidate in the Special Election for the U.S. House of Representatives for Alaska in 2022!
I'm an independent, progressive, democratic socialist, with an affinity for Bernie Sanders, and aim to represent ALL Alaskans :-)} https://t.co/DrYTU63Xp3 pic.twitter.com/r8HplPVC3z

— SANTA CLAUS FOR ALASKA (@SantaClausforAK) April 1, 2022

Santa's a familiar face in the crowd of 51. So, too, is Sarah Palin, who, unlike Santa, does not shake when she laughs like a bowlful of jelly:

Join our campaign -> https://t.co/CrlfiG8MJn

“Today I’m announcing my candidacy for the U.S. House seat representing Alaska. Public service is a calling, and I would be honored to represent the men and women of Alaska in Congress, just as Rep. Young did for 49 years.” - SP pic.twitter.com/pdMpeDGlRV

— Sarah Palin (@SarahPalinUSA) April 2, 2022

"Oh, you thought that too, didn't you? No? What an angel you are!"

I said, expressing skepticism about the story, reported in the NYT, about a grizzly bear in Alaska that "terrorized a man for days."

Now, I'm seeing the Daily Mail report, "Alaska gold miner is accused of making up story about bear stalking him for four days":

Now, however, locals are questioning his version of events after going to the cabin where he was rescued but finding no evidence of the days-long battle he described. Other local miners who were interviewed by The Nome Nugget went to the cabin where Jessee was rescued but found no bear tracks. They did however find the ATV and attached trailer that Jessee said the bear pushed into the water. They think he simply crashed the ATV but was too embarrassed to admit it, so made up the story after being rescued....

'There’s no hair, no tracks, no scat, nothing. He made a fool of us. We found out that his story didn’t match what we found.'... 

Thanks to reader Scott for sending me that link and for making one of the cleverest comments ever back on the original post, processing the elements of the NYT-reported story from the perspective of the bear:

"A bear followed me in the woods for several hours on a trail outside Skagway, AK, one not-too-fun night."

"I'm from Manhattan, and was young at the time... ignorant. My first thought when I heard it was: 'Oh, there's heavy machinery digging up a tree here,' because it sounded like a crane. Then nothing. Then it knocked over another tree. But of course, there was no heavy machinery up there. The only useful thing I'd learned was to yell like hell at them. My curses ranged from Brooklyn to the Bronx that night. This kept it at bay for long enough for me to walk my sorry-self out of there. Funny thing is, I'd been a gun-control advocate. Maybe five minutes of that bear following me, and I wanted a bazooka. Context is everything. The largest Brown Bear discovered in Alaska was 13 feet tall, weighing roughly 1500 lbs. Each pound of muscle is roughly 25x stronger than your muscles. Oh, and they can sprint 35mph, so you can't run. But at least they teach us to curse in NY."

That's a comment someone put up on a NYT article that has the headline, "A Grizzly Bear Terrorized a Man for Days in Alaska. The Coast Guard Saw His SOS. Down to his last rounds of ammunition, with bruises and a leg injury, the man was rescued by a helicopter crew that just happened by." 

Here's another comment, displaying some first-class cynicism: "He probably just needed a ride home. Air taxi, courtesy of the USA." Oh, you thought that too, didn't you? No? What an angel you are!

“At some point, a bear had dragged him down to the river,” Lt. Cmdr. Jared Carbajal, one of the pilots of the Coast Guard helicopter, said in an interview on Wednesday. “He had a pistol. He said that the bear kept coming back every night and he hadn’t slept in a few days.”

Did the bear want him or not?!

“We don’t really come across people in the middle of nowhere,” Lieutenant Hammac said. “He was kind of struggling. When we came around, he was on his hands and knees waving a white flag.” Lieutenant Hammac said the man’s leg was taped. “He definitely looked like he had been out there for a while,” he said.

"Into the Wild Bus That Became a Dangerous Tourist Attraction Airlifted Out of Alaskan Backcountry."

New York Magazine reports.

[T]here were 15 costly search-and-rescue missions related to the bus between 2009 and 2017. In 2019, a Belarus woman died trying to cross the Teklanika River to get to the bus, and another visitor drowned in the river in 2010. “We encourage people to enjoy Alaska’s wild areas safely, and we understand the hold this bus has had on the popular imagination,” Feige said in a statement. “However, this is an abandoned and deteriorating vehicle that was requiring dangerous and costly rescue efforts, but more importantly, was costing some visitors their lives. I’m glad we found a safe, respectful and economical solution to this situation.”

Some men see things as they are, and ask why. I dream of things that never were, and ask why not.

This morning, I'm pairing the famous RFK quote with the coat of arms of Greenland.

ADDED: Picture the map of the world with Greenland as the 51st state:



What a legacy for the real-estate mogul!

AND: If what they're saying about global warming is true, Greenland is the place to which the entire population of the United States could relocate. If we bought Alaska from Russia, why can't we buy Greenland from Denmark? We're already using Greenland for military purposes — there's an air force base — and our military protects Europe....

ALSO: The Mercator projection is like the wide-angle lens in real-estate photos on Zillow.

MORE: From "Trump Eyes U.S. Buying Greenland" in The Wall Street Journal:

The idea of the U.S. purchasing Greenland has captured the former real-estate developer's imagination, according to people familiar with the discussion, who said Mr. Trump has, with varying degrees of seriousness, repeatedly expressed interest in buying the ice-covered autonomous Danish territory....

Some of his advisers have supported the concept, saying it would be a good economic play, two of the people said, while others dismissed it as a fleeting fascination. It is also unclear how the U.S. would go about acquiring Greenland even if the effort were serious.

It's a great topic for conversation. There's even potential for racial politics, I think. Trump seems to love the Nordic places (in contrast to "shithole countries")?

With a population of about 56,000, Greenland is a self-ruling part of the Kingdom of Denmark, and while its government decides on most domestic matters, foreign and security policy is handled by Copenhagen....

U.S. officials view Greenland as important to American national-security interests. A treaty between Denmark and the U.S. gives the U.S. military virtually unlimited rights in Greenland at America's Thule Air Base. Located 750 miles north of the Arctic Circle, it includes a radar station that is part of a U.S. ballistic missile warning system.

The U.S. has sought to derail Chinese efforts to gain an economic foothold in Greenland. The Pentagon worked successfully in 2018 to block China from financing three airports on the island.

People outside the White House have described purchasing Greenland as an Alaska-type acquisition for Mr. Trump's legacy, advisers said...

Greenland relies on $591 million of subsidies from Denmark annually, which make up about 60% of its annual budget, according to U.S. and Danish government statistics. Greenland is culturally and politically linked to Europe. Following World War II, the U.S. under President Harry Truman developed a geopolitical interest in Greenland and in 1946 offered to buy it from Denmark for $100 million. Denmark refused to sell.

Truman tried to buy it! Trump endeavors to close the deal that was Truman's! If Greenland is draining $591 million a year from Denmark, they should pay us for taking it off their hands and taking care of it well and preventing China from acquiring dominance. But if China is so ambitious in Greenland, Denmark should wait for a good bidding war between the world's 2 superpowers. And every year gets us closer to the global warming disaster that will make Greenland the most desirable place on earth. In that light, Denmark should hold on as the landlord, charging exorbitant rents and until things become so catastrophic that Greenland is snatched away from them by military force.

At a dinner with associates last spring, Mr. Trump said someone had told him Denmark was having financial trouble over its assistance to Greenland, and suggested that he should consider buying the island, according to one of the people. "What do you guys think about that?" he asked the room, the person said.

The person described the question less as a serious inquiry than as a joke meant to indicate "I'm so powerful I could buy a country," noting that since Mr. Trump hadn't floated the idea at a campaign rally yet, he probably wasn't seriously considering it.

The person believed the president was interested in the idea because of the island's natural resources and because it would give him a legacy akin to President Dwight Eisenhower's admission of Alaska into the U.S. as a state....

PLUS: Kudos to the stable genius if he floated this idea intending to get his antagonists to declare it stupid and knowing that on further examination it would actually make enough sense to intrigue us to talk about this rather that whatever the hell we were talking about before this came up. I see WaPo is getting ahead of the curve with "Trump reportedly wants to buy Greenland. So did the Truman administration" (by Antonia Noori Farzan):

"A Belarusian woman was swept away and died while trying to cross a fast-moving river in Alaska in search of an abandoned bus made famous by the book and movie 'Into the Wild.'"

"... At close to midnight on Thursday, Piotr Markielau, 24, called the Alaska State Troopers to tell them his wife, Veramika Maikamava, 24, had been dragged under the water in the Teklanika River, just outside of Denali National Park. A rope extended across the river is meant to help hikers get from one side to the other, but the water was rapid and waist-high... About 75 to 100 feet downriver, Markielau was able to pull the body of his wife, whom he had been married to for less than a month, from the river, according to Alaska authorities.... Some hikers come to the bus because of deep emotional feelings they have toward [Christopher] McCandless and his story.... The river kept McCandless from crossing back because it was too high... McCandless’s cause of death was thought to be starvation...."

WaPo reports.

Some people say that bus should be removed. It attracts pilgrims, some of whom, in their spiritual quest, like McCandless himself, take insufficient care of their earthly body. But the bus is a shrine. It means something to people. Don't destroy meaning.

The article quotes Eve Holland, who's written about pilgrimage to the bus-shrine: "I think that there are probably better ways to sort of honor the spirit of Chris McCandless. Finding your own adventure maybe, rather than trying to follow this very well-trodden path." Well, that is what McCandless did, and he died. Must people find more original ways to risk their lives?

This is a kind of travel that has a human individual at its center. People go to a geographic place not because of its natural wonder but because of what somebody once did there. You might say, stop idolizing human individuals. It's all in your head, this idea that some person who's gone is somehow here in spirit. But this is an attack on all spiritual journeys.

From Holland's article:

"All in all... I prefer a campfire-roasted porcupine that I killed and butchered... slathered with highbush cranberry ketchup..."

"... foraged chickweed salad with mushrooms on the side, a hot cup of stinging nettle tea to wash it down and a handful of wild blueberries for dessert. Bugs, sticks, sand and assorted forest floor debris sometimes makes it into my vittles but... 'It’s clean dirt.'.... My toilet is a hollow cottonwood stump and I bathe with a kettle of hot creek water. Some places along the highway offer showers but they cost money and contribute to ecocide, so I clean my crotch in the creek occasionally. But personal hygiene is not a priority.... Instead of washing my clothing – layers come cheap from thrift shops – I air it out, hanging it on a tree branch for a snowstorm or two, then turn it inside out and put it back into rotation.....  My presence on this planet leaves little trace, which is how I feel it should be. While that’s pleasing to me, I also understand my withdrawal is meaningless in the grand scheme. The world needs systemic change. In my solitude and self-imposed isolation on the side of a mountain in an undisclosed location, I find it all mildly amusing."

From "Houseless in Alaska: why I opted for mountain views and porcupine dinners/Homeless implies a moral failure while being houseless – lacking a permanent three-dimensional structure – is less stress on the planet and on my brain." Just something I noticed in The Guardian this morning. It feels like something Brits want to read about America. And for some reason it makes me want to embed this video I happened to watch yesterday:



I can see that this is a whole genre. Women go on camera and list 50 things they don't buy anymore. I'm interested in frugality as an active avocation.

"Obama paid a surprise visit Tuesday to Snow City Cafe, a hopping brunch spot in downtown Anchorage with a bit of hipster flair."

"Dressed down in a casual coat and sunglasses, he strolled past throngs of cheering crowds into the cafe, where it took just a few seconds for the cinnamon rolls to catch his eye. 'How many of those do you guys have?' Obama asked a bemused barista. 'I'm going to take all of those.'"

I don't know. Seems like a metaphor or something. Should we say the President should be in Washington working or not acting like a hipster or not getting in the way of local hipsters who were counting on getting a cinnamon roll at their hopping brunch spot? I really don't know. I just like the elements of the story, as my tags reveal. Sorry if you don't like "cake."

By the way, "bemuse" means "To make utterly confused or muddled, as with intoxicating liquor; to put into a stupid stare, to stupefy" (OED). Yeah, no one gets that from "bemuse" anymore. Did you know that "amuse" originally meant "To muse intently, gaze in astonishment" or "To cause to ‘muse’ or stare; to confound, distract, bewilder, puzzle"?

"President Obama announced on Sunday that Mount McKinley was being renamed Denali, using his executive power..."

"... to restore an Alaska Native name with deep cultural significance to the tallest mountain in North America."

Mr. Obama, freed from the political constraints of an impending election in the latter half of his second term, was also moving to put to rest a yearslong fight over the name of the mountain that has pit Alaska against electorally powerful Ohio, the birthplace of President William McKinley, for whom it was christened in 1896.

The government formally recognized the name in 1917, and efforts to reverse the move began in Alaska in 1975. In an awkward compromise struck in 1980, the national park surrounding it was named Denali National Park and Preserve, but the mountain continued to be called Mount McKinley....

The mountain came to be known as Mount McKinley after a gold prospector who had just emerged from exploring the Alaska Range heard that Mr. McKinley had won the Republican presidential nomination, and declared that the tallest peak should be named in his honor as a show of support....

I'd always assumed the mountain got the name as a consequence of the assassination of President McKinley, they way so many things were named after John F. Kennedy. That wasn't the case, and that makes the renaming more apt.

Do you approve of Obama's restoration of the mountain's name?

No. Obama does too much by executive order.

No. It's too politically correct.

No. McKinley was honored and the honor should not be so easily withdrawn.

Yes. Denali is the real name, properly restored.

Yes. It's an easy and nice way to show respect for the native people of Alaska.

Yes. It's offensive to slap a President's name on something the man had nothing to do with.

Yes, but only if Obama's name is never slapped irrelevantly on anything.

No, because I'm sure Obama's name is going to be everywhere.

No, because he should have renamed it Mount Obama.

Yes, but the next GOP Prez should re-rename it Mount Palin.

 

pollcode.com free polls

Oh, no! Crammed walruses!

They're hauling out onto dry land, 35,000 of them.

"It is really a reduction in the sea ice that is causing the change in behavior, and the reduction of sea ice is due to global warming...."

"Exactly 50 years ago Thursday, in Alaska, the second largest earthquake in recorded history, magnitude 9.2, remade the Last Frontier State."

"What had been gravel beaches rose to become 30-foot cliffs. What had been forests at sea level were submerged, leaving only the ghostly silver tips that you can still see. In Anchorage, 42,000 people were left homeless."

From a column by Timothy Egan titled "A Mudslide, Foretold," which is mostly about the recent mudslide in the Stillaguamish Valley in Washington.

Sarah Palin could be the next Oprah.

That's what reality-show maestro Mark Burnett thought, but Sarah said no.

Burnett has insisted that Palin do the show from either New York or Los Angeles, which would require her to move for a significant portion of the year from her residence in Alaska where she lives with husband Todd.

Whether that was really the basis for the no or not, it's great PR. She's devoted to Alaska and her husband Todd. That's the kind of thing that gives women — some women — chills of feeling, I say — experiencing this bodily chills, even as I'm am typing out the skepticism toward PR that reigns over my rational mind.

IN THE COMMENTS: prairie wind said:

Sarah doesn't strike me as someone who wants to be an Oprah. She won't be pushed into "women's TV"... not when men are a huge percentage of her supporters. And not when her Facebook page has more political clout than Oprah's tv show ever had.