The Funeral Mass That Sparked Hope in Nazi Prison Camps Coming to Alaska

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“Defiant Requiem: Verdi at Terezin,” a multi-media concert which honors the performances of Giuseppe Verdi’s masterpiece by Jewish concentration camp prisoners, is coming to Anchorage in April.

And in conjunction with it, the city will observe “Defy Fear Week” with a proclamation from the mayor and activities planned throughout Anchorage.

Defiant Requiem tells the story of the performance of Verdi’s funeral Mass by 150 prisoners at Terezin, also known as Theresienstadt, a camp in Czechoslovakia where Jewish artists and intellectuals were imprisoned.

Dr. Grant Cochran, conductor of the Anchorage Concert Chorus, said the compelling story is what led his group to endeavor to bring the performance to Anchorage’s Performing Arts Center.

“As a conductor, I was amazed at these prisoners in a concentration camp committed to learning this music despite hardships, starvation, beatings and constant fear.”

Only one copy of the complex music had been smuggled into the camp by Jewish conductor Rafael Schachter, Cochran explained. Under those circumstances, “the musician in me is amazed by how they were able to learn it.”

“Defiant Requiem” is a project of the Defiant Requiem Foundation and its creator and conductor, Murry Sidlin. The performance is being done in collaboration with Anchorage Concert Chorus and University of Alaska Anchorage’s Department of Music.

Eventually, the camp’s prisoners performed the Requiem 16 times, including before an assembled group of Nazi officials and a Red Cross delegation.

Schachter told the choir, “We will sing to the Nazis what we cannot say to them.”

“Defiant Requiem” features the Verdi masterpiece interspersed with live narration and video testimony from Terezin survivors, as well as “show” footage the Nazis shot in the camp. There will be no intermission during the two-hour performance.

Sidlin launched “Defiant Requiem” in 2002. Since then, it has been performed more than 30 times around the world, including three times at Terezin. Sidlin will conduct Anchorage’s performance.

Despite its brutal setting, the Requiem at Terezin is actually a story of hope, Sidlin said.

“In a concentration camp full of persecuted Jews, why would Schachter, the conductor, reach out to teach a work steeped in Catholic liturgy?” he asked.

“As the singers sang the words of the Mass, ‘nothing shall remain unavenged,’ it reinforced their faith that God was in charge and will take care of them,” he said. Over the years, Sidlin said many survivors of Terezin told him that the Requiem had filled them with hope and strength.

“When they heard the words, ‘Deliver me, O Lord,’ they saw that as ‘Liberate me.’”

“Keep in mind,” Sidlin said, “the conductor had to teach this music by rote. There was little nutrition, 10-hour workdays in 8-day shifts, and yet in the evening the prisoners came to rehearse. These were extraordinarily dedicated people who found in this music and this conductor inspiration.”

Cochran added, “The choral tradition is largely a sacred tradition. Requiems are one of the great pieces of art to which composers gravitate.”

Schachter’s Requiem performances were held between October 1943 and June 1944. After the first performance, more than half of his singers were shipped to Auschwitz. So he recruited more singers. After his last performance, for the Red Cross delegation, Schachter himself was sent to Auschwitz where he died.

The performance for the Red Cross delegation was part of a propaganda event staged by the Nazis. The camp was a transit point for people being sent elsewhere to their deaths, but for the Red Cross visit, the prison was made to look like a small town, with shops and happy children.

Prior to the event, many prisoners were shipped to Auschwitz to reduce overcrowding at Terezin. The real conditions of the camp are illustrated by the figures: in 1942, 15,891 prisoners, or one-half of the residents, died of sickness and malnutrition.

Sidlin discovered the Terezin performances by chance while reading a book about music in the Holocaust, and was able to locate Schachter’s bunker mate at Terezin, Edgar Krasa, who supplied background and history on the performances.

Krasa had survived Auschwitz, and was living in Massachusetts when Sidlin met him. The survivor had performed in all 16 Requiems at the camp, and his sons performed at “Defiant Requiem” when it was brought to Boston.

Sidlin said Krasa is still alive, now in his 90s.

Since Terezin was essentially the prison for Czech intellectuals, they created a lively cultural environment at the camp despite the horrendous conditions.

In addition to the Verdi concert, “artists and musicians presented 1,000 concerts and 2,400 lectures during their years of imprisonment,” Sidlin said.

“It was a hotbed of the arts and humanities,” he added. People saw it as an opportunity to take the high ground against their Nazi persecutors. Their art became an act of defiance and a way of demonstrating the brutality of the Nazi regime.

April Wilson is a board member and singer with the Anchorage Concert Chorus. She also chairs the “Defiant Requiem” Committee. She said the event seemed so important they wanted all of Anchorage to share in it.

The Defiant Requiem Foundation provided a $25,000 grant and other assistance for the two performances at the Performing Arts Center.

The Concert Chorus agreed to involve various departments at UAA in the themes and history of “Defiant Requiem.”

“Once we got into it, though, we were so moved by the timeliness and importance of the themes that we decided to expand our activities to the entire Anchorage community,” Wilson said. As a result, the week is full of activity. Besides the long list of scheduled events, there will be poetry readings, music, discussions and exhibits throughout the week at UAA, the Anchorage Museum of Art, Loussac Library and bookstores in the city.

In addition to promoting Defiant Requiem: Verdi at Terezin,” the Defiant Requiem Foundation has three other core components: a film documentary, “Defiant Requiem,” which will be shown at the Beartooth; a Rafael Schachter Institute for Arts and Humanities at Terezin and educational lesson plans for students and teachers hosted at DefiantRequien.org. (For more from the author of “The Funeral Mass That Sparked Hope in Nazi Prison Camps Coming to Alaska” please click HERE)

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Cruz Wins Alaska Caucuses to Wrap Super Tuesday

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Photo Credit: Justin Sullivan / Getty ImagesBy The Associated Press. Texas Sen. Ted Cruz has won the Republican presidential caucuses in Alaska. It’s his third win on Super Tuesday, adding to victories in the Texas and Oklahoma primaries.

Cruz adds 12 delegates to his total with the win in Alaska. Donald Trump will take home 11 delegates from the state, and Florida Sen. Marco Rubio gets five delegates.

Cruz’s win in Alaska is the final Super Tuesday contest. The 2016 presidential race will resume on Saturday, with primary elections and caucuses in Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine and Nebraska. (Read more from “Cruz Wins Alaska Caucuses to Wrap Super Tuesday” HERE)

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Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton Score Big Super Tuesday Primary Wins

By Andrew Rafferty. Republican Donald Trump and Democrat Hillary Clinton closed in on their party’s presidential nominations by racking up big wins on Super Tuesday, though the rest of the field showed no signs of clearing the way for them just yet.

Clinton won seven states — Virginia, Tennessee, Alabama, Georgia, Arkansas, Texas, and even Massachusetts, a state where rival Bernie Sanders was expected to run particularly strong. The former secretary of state fell to Sanders in his home state of Vermont, Oklahoma, Minnesota and Colorado.

Trump scored seven victories Tuesday in Massachusetts, Virginia, Tennessee, Alabama, Georgia, Arkansas, and in Vermont, where NBC News declared him the apparent winner.

Sen. Ted Cruz picked up much-needed wins in his home state of Texas and in Oklahoma, and was the projected winner in the Alaska caucuses. Florida Sen. Marco Rubio picked up the first victory of his presidential campaign by winning the Minnesota caucuses, leaving John Kasich and Ben Carson as the only candidates without a No. 1 finish in a nominating contest. (Read more from “Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton Score Big Super Tuesday Primary Wins” HERE)

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Bills on the Move Dealing With Parental Rights, Faith-Based Health Care Options

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In Alaska’s State Legislature this session, lawmakers face myriad bills of concern to Alaskan Catholics. Following is an update on several bills moving through the legislative process, including dates of upcoming hearings.

For more information and to contact your legislators, go to akleg.gov or call 800-478-4648. To follow Catholic Anchor reports, including news updates on public testimonies and bill hearings, go online to CatholicAnchor.org.

The current legislative session runs until April 19.

CONTRACEPTION MANDATE

In an effort to force health insurance companies and private business owners in Alaska to provide coverage for the “full range” of prescription and over-the-counter contraceptives, sterilizations and contraceptive-focused exams, Anchorage Democrat Rep. Matt Claman has introduced House Bill 345.

House Bill 345 would force health care insurers operating in the state to cover the contraceptive Pill, so-called “emergency contraception” and IUDs (inserted in outpatient procedures) — all of which can cause early abortions of living human embryos.

A companion bill, Senate Bill 156, has been introduced in the Alaska Senate by Anchorage Democrat Sen. Berta Gardner.

FAITH-BASED HEALTH CARE OPTIONS

Senate Bill 18 would exempt religious-based health care sharing ministries (HCSMs) from being regulated as health insurance in Alaska. A distinctive and attractive aspect of HCSMs for many Catholics and non-Catholic Christians alike is that HCSMs are not subject to federal or state contraceptive or abortion mandates.

Sponsor: Sen. John Coghill

Status: The bill was introduced last year and referred to the Committees on Health & Social Services and Labor & Commerce. As of press time, the bill had passed out of the Labor & Commerce Committee and was referred to the Rules Committee.

PARENTAL RIGHTS IN EDUCATION

Senate Bill 89 seeks to ensure a parent has the right to direct the education of his or her public school child, including the right to object to and withdraw the child from state-mandated tests, and from activities or classes on sexual matters which parents find objectionable. The bill also would prohibit public schools from administering student questionnaires that inquire into personal or private family affairs of the student. And the bill would prevent school districts from contracting with an abortion services provider for course materials or to provide instruction relating to human sexuality. According to the Catholic Catechism, “Parents have the first responsibility for the education of their children.”

Sponsors: Sens. Mike Dunleavy, Cathy Giessel, Charlie Huggins, Bill Stoltze, Pete Kelly, Anna MacKinnon, John Coghill, Kevin Meyer

Status: The bill is set for a vote by the full Senate on Friday, Feb. 26.

RESTRICTING ABORTION PROVIDERS FROM PUBLIC SCHOOLS

A bill to restrict Planned Parenthood and other abortion providers from teaching or distributing materials in Alaska’s public schools has been introduced in the Alaska Legislature.

Introduced by Senator Mike Dunleavy, Senate Bill 191 will provide for civil penalties and the revocation or suspension of teacher certificates for those instructors who violate the proposed law by inviting abortion providers and their legal affiliates into classrooms for instructional purposes.

Senate Bill 191 states that abortion providers may not “present or deliver any instruction or program on any topic to students at a public school. Abortion providers that violate the proposed law would be “liable to civil action for a penalty of $5,000 or actual damages, whichever is greater, plus costs and reasonable attorney fees, to each aggrieved student or the student’s estate.” Additionally, a school board member who violates the proposed law would note be eligible to receive state funds on or after the date of the violation.

For more information about the bill go to akleg.gov and enter SB 191.

A companion bill, House Bill 352, has been introduced in the Alaska House by Rep. Lynn Gattis.

PLANNED PARENTHOOD TAKES NOTICE

Planned Parenthood in Alaska has taken notice of recent legislative proposals to restrict abortion providers from public schools and is taking an active role in pressuring lawmakers to reject such legislation.

The state’s largest abortion provider has lobbied hard against SB 89, which would restrict their access to public school students and give parents the option to pull children from unwanted sex education classes. Likewise the abortion provider has lobbied hard against SB 191 which bans abortion providers from access to public school classrooms.

In multiple emails to its supporters, Planned Parenthood has attempted to inundate lawmakers with emails and phone calls opposed to the legislation that would roll back Planned Parenthoods influence in public schools.

HOW TO TAKE ACTION

For information about public hearings and upcoming action on certain bills, go to https://akleg.gov/index.php and type in the name of specific bills at the top of the page.

Information on how to read bills and follow their progress through is available at https://akleg.gov/start.php.

To contact a senator or representative, click here: https://akleg.gov/docs/pdf/doso/DosoALL.pdf#page=12

(For more from the author of “Bills on the Move Dealing With Parental Rights, Faith-Based Health Care Options” please click HERE)

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Proposed Bills Would Force Alaska Pharmacists and Insurers to Supply Abortion-Causing Contraceptives

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In the Alaska State Legislature, Democratic State Senator Berta Gardner has introduced two controversial bills to allow pharmacists in Alaska to dispense – without a doctor’s prescription – self-administered hormonal contraceptives, and to force health care insurers in the state to cover contraceptives, sterilizations and contraceptive procedures and devices – including those that cause abortion.

PHARMACIST MANDATE

Sen. Gardner’s Senate Bill 169 would allow pharmacists to dispense – without a doctor’s prescription – self-administered hormonal contraceptives as listed by the federal Food and Drug Administration. Those include the Pill and so-called “emergency contraception,” which can cause an early abortion of a living human embryo by inhibiting his or her implantation in the womb.

Moreover, SB 169 would mandate Alaska’s state Board of Pharmacy to develop a pharmacists’ “training program” on prescribing those hormonal contraceptives and counseling “patients” on “all contraceptive methods,” including long-acting reversible contraception, such as abortion-causing IUDs.

RIFE WITH CONCERNS

There are numerous concerns surrounding the pharmacist-prescribed contraceptives bill.

The bill does not only allow, but could force pharmacists to dispense – without a doctor’s prescription – and to recommend contraceptives. Senate Bill 169 does not contain any conscience protections to allow pharmacists for ethical or moral reasons to refuse prescribing or counseling for contraceptives, including abortion-causing drugs – or to opt out of the state board’s training program.

Moreover, the bill would have pharmacists prescribe and dispense strong-acting, hormone-based contraceptive drugs to patients who have not first undergone a basic consultation or clinical breast or pelvic exam by their primary care practitioner. The National Institutes of Health (NIH) stresses that “individuals should consult their health care providers” before choosing a particular method of contraception. Such conversations and exams can reveal underlying medical conditions and family histories that would make certain drugs especially dangerous to the individual. For instance, the NIH explains the use of combined oral contraceptive pills – such as the Pill – which contain various combinations of strong synthetic estrogens and progestins, is “not recommended” for women in certain circumstances, including those with a history of blood clots or a history of breast, liver or endometrial cancer. The use of combined oral contraceptive pills is linked to the development of deadly blood clots.

Senate Bill 169 would require a pharmacist to receive a “self-screening assessment tool” from the patient before dispensing the hormonal contraception, but the bill does not require the patient to have first seen her health care practitioner, as she would before accessing similarly potent drugs from the pharmacy. In fact, the bill even prohibits the pharmacist from requiring a patient to schedule an appointment with him or her before receiving the drugs.

The bill would require pharmacists to dispense hormonal contraceptives to a “patient” but the bill does not identify a minimum age for patients. So it is unclear whether pharmacists would have to dispense prescription contraceptives to 14-year-old girls on demand; the bill does not require pharmacists to first notify or obtain consent from a girl’s parent. Moreover, it’s not clear how the pharmacist could secure health background information from a young patient who cannot assess her own health or recall family health history – or how the girl could manage serious possible side-effects of the Pill like high blood pressure and heart attack.

FORCING HEALTH CARE INSURERS

Another bill sponsored by Sen. Gardner – SB 156 – would force health care insurers operating in the state to provide coverage for the “full range” of prescription and over-the-counter contraceptives, sterilizations and contraceptive-focused exams, “procedures and medical services.” Health care insurers would be forced to cover the contraceptive Pill, so-called “emergency contraception” and IUDs (inserted in outpatient procedures) – all of which can cause early abortions of living human embryos.

The bill has a narrow exemption for some health care insurers that provide an insurance plan to an objecting “religious” employer, namely a church, an association of churches, the “exclusively religious activities” of any religious order, or a non-profit religious organization that objects and has “self-certified” as such with the federal Department of Labor or has provided notice to the effect to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

This could leave out various organizations, including religious orders or religiously-affiliated organizations with a focus on social services that aren’t officially “religious” activities. Moreover, the bill would force health care insurers to cover contraceptives when they provide insurance plans to non-religious, for-profit businesses or non-profit organizations that aren’t officially “religious” but oppose covering contraceptives and abortifacients for religious or ethical reasons.

In addition, SB 156 prohibits health care insurers from requiring copayments, deductibles or other forms of cost sharing to offset the costs of covering contraceptives. But the bill does not prohibit insurers from raising the prices of insurance plan premiums – including of objecting and exempt organizations – to pay for the abortifacient contraceptives provided to others.

CATHOLIC TEACHING

From the first century the Catholic Church has affirmed the moral evil of procured abortion. “Direct abortion, that is to say, abortion willed either as an end or a means, is gravely contrary to the moral law,” explains the Catholic Catechism.

Moreover, Christianity has always recognized that the marital act has a two-fold purpose — to foster loving unity between spouses and to produce children. Each time a couple rejects the life-creating nature through contraception, that falsifies “the inner truth of conjugal love, which is called upon to give itself in personal totality,” Saint Pope John Paul II explained in his 1981 apostolic exhortation, Familiaris Consortio.

The Catholic Catechism notes that for just reasons spouses may wish to space the births of their children, while respecting God’s design for human sexuality. The church supports Natural Family Planning, morally sound methods to achieve and avoid pregnancies. NFP is based on a woman’s observations of the naturally occurring signs of the fertile and infertile phases that God built into the menstrual cycle.

HOW TO TAKE ACTION

On Wednesday, Feb. 24, at 1:30 p.m. the Senate Health & Social Service Committee will conduct a hearing on Senate Bill 156. The hearing in Juneau will be teleconferenced.

For more information and to contact legislators about SB 156 and SB 169, go to akleg.gov or call 800-478-4648.

To follow Catholic Anchor reports on these bills and others, including news on public testimonies and bill hearings, go to CatholicAnchor.org. The current legislative session runs Jan. 20-April 19. (For more from the author of “Proposed Bills Would Force Alaska Pharmacists and Insurers to Supply Abortion-Causing Contraceptives” please click HERE)

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Left-Wing Activists Wage War on Parental Rights

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Here are the key provisions that have drawn the most attention:

1) First, SB 89 requires local school boards to adopt policies that recognize a parent’s inherent authority to withdraw their children from tests or assessments that they find objectionable; and to allow parents to withdraw their child from any activity, class or program that instructs on human reproduction or sexual matters, or which inquires into personal or private family affairs of the student that are not a matter of public record.

2) Second, if a school plans to offer instruction dealing with human reproduction or sexual matters (i.e., sex education courses), then the parent must be provided at least two weeks notice, and the signed consent of the parent is required before the student may participate in such instruction.

3) Third, SB 89 states that an “abortion services provider” may not offer course materials or teach sex education programs in the public schools.

Planned Parenthood is lobbying furiously against the bill, arguing that SB 89 is designed to “target” them specifically, and further arguing that it will prevent students from receiving sex education. In reality, the bill’s language speaks for itself: entities that are making money by performing abortions ought not to be given a free, taxpayer-funded venue for promoting their services in front of impressionable young people. That applies not only to Planned Parenthood, but also to other abortion facilities and their employees. As Senator Dunleavy put it, “We’re not outlawing abortion service providers; we’re saying, ‘Take it out of the school.’”

For most of us, that’s just common sense. But Planned Parenthood, which makes more money from doing abortions than any other entity in the world, apparently has a sense of entitlement. Planned Parenthood thinks they’re entitled to be teaching your child about sex, and peddling their “services” to your child, in the public school that you pay for. Here’s reality: there are dozens of options that schools have for teaching about human sexuality that don’t involve giving free advertising to America’s No. 1 abortion business. There is nothing in SB 89 that disallows schools from offering sex education programs – provided they have the permission of parents to do so.

But Planned Parenthood isn’t the only entity opposing this bill. The public school bureaucracy is also launching salvos against SB 89. They claim it would just be way too burdensome to obtain the parent’s written consent before students can participate in a sex education class. This is nonsense. Schools obtain parental consent for all sorts of things – most notably field trips. As just one example, click here to see the parental consent form that Alaska’s largest school district requires before students can go on a field trip.

Guess how many times this form is filled out every year and collected by school staff? Well, the Anchorage School District website says that, “The Transportation Department dispatches approximately 6,000 field and activity trips annually.” You do the math – how many students on average attend each field trip, and then multiply that by thousands. The notion that this couldn’t easily be done for the infrequent sex education class is ludicrous. Let’s translate what the public school bureaucracy is really saying: “We don’t want to lift a finger to help protect the rights of the parents – the same parents who happen to pay our salaries.” If you’re not infuriated by that attitude, you should be.

Click HERE to see what Planned Parenthood is already teaching your kids. Caution – It’s a graphic but eye opening look at what the largest abortion provider in America is doing in public schools today.

My friends, it’s time to saddle up and defend Senate Bill 89. Senator Dunleavy has shown tremendous leadership in advancing this idea, but now the progressive left has simply come unhinged. Don’t let them get away with their “Indiana-style tactics” for demonizing a perfectly reasonable, perfectly common sense bill.

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Sarah Palin Goes on Attack Against Glenn Beck

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Former Alaska governor, vice presidential candidate and Fox News pundit Sarah Palin took to Facebook to slam Glenn Beck for his recently spouted political views and criticisms of Republican front-runner Donald Trump, bluntly asking the Blaze TV and radio host: “What’s conservative about that?”

Palin recently endorsed Trump; Beck, who endorsed Sen. Ted Cruz, has been one of Trump’s most vocal critics.

Palin wrote: “Ted Cruz’s star spokesman and campaign partner, Glenn Beck, promises he will support a socialist vs. the pro-life, pro-2nd Amendment, pro-growth, pro-American GOP front runner … what’s conservative about that?”

She then included a link to a Gateway Pundit article entitled, “Huh? Glenn Beck Tells Iowa Crowd He Prefers Bernie Sanders Over Donald Trump” . . .

She wrote: “Beck would have chosen Hillary Clinton over the GOP nominee and evidently thinks Barack Obama is a pretty swell guy as president … what’s judicious about that?” (Read more from “Sarah Palin Goes on Attack Against Glenn Beck” HERE)

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Time to Fight Back: Anchorage Businesses Forced to Allow Transgender Bathroom Use

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Under the ordinance the Anchorage Assembly passed recently regarding sexual orientation and gender identity, here’s what an employer or operator of a place of public accommodation is lawfully allowed to do –

“Maintain and enforce gender-segregated restrooms, locker rooms or dressing rooms, provided that persons are allowed to use such facilities consistent with their gender identity and nothing in this chapter shall be deemed to require the provision of special facilities to accommodate any person(s) based upon sexual orientation or gender identity.”

Many communities and States are taking proactive measures to protect women and girls. The South Dakota legislature just passed a common sense bill and they are now awaiting the Governor’s signature.

Residents of Anchorage. Residents of Alaska. It’s time to start up a conversation.

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Alaska: State of Chaos?

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Our regular readers know we long for good news but are dedicated to connecting logical dots wherever they may lead.

The connections between politics, economics and energy demand that they be looked at as a whole, not separately–for they truly are all connected.

[The] avalanche of political, economic and energy news is both broad and deep.

The connection we see among these dots forms a worrisome picture.

That picture today reflects a rudderless ship of state.

Alaska’s governor is loud, dogmatic and demanding but vacillates between contrary positions, as today’s news and an unremarkable year in office demonstrate.

The legislature is struggling to put the state’s budget and fiscal crisis in order without stable navigation from the helm.

The oil and gas industry, upon which the state government and private economy depend, is trying valiantly to maintain its own stable course amid the stormy political winds and waves.

We would hate to label Alaska a “State of Chaos”. But if decision makers and citizens do not connect the dots and see their state as it is, there is little hope for correcting its dangerous course.

We hope someone or several Alaskans with extraordinary leadership skills can now emerge to diplomatically but decisively and wisely calm the winds, waves and storms of uncertainty and unnecessary dispute.

We will eagerly jump on that good news as soon as it rises and distinguishes itself.

We long to once again think of our land as the great, Last Frontier rather than as a troubled, declining place.

Events are moving rapidly, deteriorating, and time is of the essence.

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Alaska State Budget Alamo

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Although Alaska is experiencing another painful trough in the oil price cycle, it is only temporary in nature and should not be used to permanently sandblast the shine off of Alaska. To go there would cause a rapid exodus of Alaska’s voluntary private sector causing a Detroit-style death spiral.

The responsibility for our hemorrhaging $3.8 Billion state deficit lies squarely on Juneau’s shoulders that has more than doubled the size of state government since 2006 under the ferry dust assumption that oil prices would remain boosted to their lofty heights and not cycle up and down as they always do with the ebb and flow of supply and demand.

Public unions, hundreds of 100% state funded non-profits, and various other government dependent groups have surrounded our state legislators in Juneau in a budget Alamo and have demanded they surrender to new taxes without making any meaningful cuts in state spending.

Only the free market sets the price for a barrel of oil. When prices go up, oil companies tend to drill more and hire more employees. Conversely, when oil prices plummet, they lay off excess employees and streamline their operations to ride out the low price cycle. The big three oil producers in Alaska have been doing just that. The public sector refuses to do so. Yet, cut we must- to near a pre-bubble 2006 spending level adjusted for population growth and inflation (around $4.1 Billion). Any politician can spend someone else’s money and get perpetually reelected, yet it’s in the streamlining of government in the face of staunch organized opposition where true leaders are born.

Elected leaders tend to forget that they were elected to serve the non-government sector, not the government sector. It’s the public sector that supports the private sector, not the other way around. We are a people with a government, not a government with a people.

Governor Bill Walker and Senator Lesil McGuire/ GCI have both sponsored plans to tax the private sector to pay for excess government rather than to cut back to a sustainable level. The biggest tax would be on your PFD check- Alaska’s way of providing a mineral rights dividend because our statehood compact restricts private ownership of mineral rights. For instance, the lion’s share of a $2000 PFD check could be hoovered up into state coffers leaving you with a paltry $300-500. Governor Walker has also proposed a plethora of other new creative taxes including a gasoline and a state income tax. His administration has evidently not researched the massive fleeing of labor and private investment capital that always results when a state drops an income tax on them- like dropping a wolf into a herd of caribou.

If we cut the Alaska state budget to sustainable amount ($4.5 Billion is this year’s target goal with some more cuts needed next year), we do not need to sandblast the shine of Alaska’s economy and punish Alaska’s poorest with a PFD tax. Governor Walker would not need to tax everything that drives, floats, or flies, nor hire a small army of tax collectors.

Tax and spend socialism is the dark utopian model of the past. Individual freedom and limited government are the sunrise of the future. Alaska’s state motto is, “North to the Future.” Will Alaska continue to march “North to the future” or will it backslide into the insatiable bureaucratic model that has collapsed many economies in the past? It’s all up to you- the grassroots voter and taxpayer. Join me in individually contacting your legislators to stand firm on the $4.5 Billion budget line with no new taxes or PFD raid. You can also sign this letter and email it to the legislators listed below.

The Juneau Alamo is under heavy siege by an army of public lobbyists. Your voice must penetrate that siege. Rest assured that if they falter now, we the voters will remember the budget Alamo. This fall’s election will be their San Jacinto.

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SB174 Could Save My Life: Supporting Campus Carry

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I’m a sophomore at the University of Alaska Anchorage and every time I step foot on my campus, I’m not as safe as I should be. Doorways are adorned with signs reaffirming this fact to a would-be mass shooter. Students, staff and faculty complying with UA policy are all sitting ducks. While a mass-shooter style event is unlikely, statistics show that the possibility of a young woman like myself being subjected to a physical or sexual assault while on my way to or from class is not unlikely and has in fact been the terrible reality for some.

The Alaska State Legislature shouldn’t need to waste their time reining in the University of Alaska’s Board of Regents who’ve acted beyond their authority. UA Regents have no business denying me my God-given right to defend myself. The outright ban on concealed carry by the BOR’s policy is entirely unconstitutional and that is why the Alaska State Legislature must act by passing SB174. Article I, sec. 19 of the Alaska State Constitution affirms that neither the State, nor any political subdivision of the State (aka the UA BOR), shall deny or infringe the individual right to keep and bear arms. The Board of Regents has acted in direct violation of Alaska’s State Constitution which makes their present policy unacceptable.

SB174 does nothing but change where a concealed firearm can be carried, it does not change the requirements for obtaining or owning said firearm. The argument that college students are incapable of safely handling a weapon on a college campus belies the fact that these same adults carry a weapon in equally crowded public spaces, without incident. This bill simply allows law-abiding and then policy abiding folks like myself the ability to defend ourselves at school just as we may in other public areas.

I often hear that the “allowance” of concealed carry would distract from the learning environment. I vehemently disagree. I couldn’t tell you the last time I noticed someone carrying a concealed weapon. That’s the whole point; it is concealed. It’s equally bogus to say that professors will be too afraid to give out an earned poor grade to a student due to the possibility that they are carrying a weapon. If anything, instructors should feel safer knowing that they are allowed the means to defend themselves.

I hate to repeat a cliché, but it’s true that “when seconds count, police are only minutes away”. The average shootout lasts approximately 3 to 10 seconds. How anyone could think that a shootout between an armed citizen and an armed assailant (who are only shooting at each other) is scarier or more threatening than a mass shooter executing defenseless victims at point-blank range by shooting them sometimes several times in the head (as occurred in the Virginia Tech Massacre), for minutes while waiting for police to arrive is beyond me.

Truly, my favorite argument against campus carry is that “the answer to bullets flying isn’t more bullets flying.” Yes, I am sure that’s why when police arrive on the scene of an active shooter event they don’t bring any guns whatsoever. They just “hug it out”, or employ some other equally ridiculous fantasy based solution.

Choosing to carry a gun in any situation is a personal choice that everyone must make for themselves. It includes accepting responsibility for the consequences of drawing your weapon. When faced with a threat to one’s life, students, just like every other person in most any context, absolutely have the right to defend themselves. The University of Alaska’s Board of Regents has over-stepped its bounds and needs to follow the law. Senator Pete Kelly is attempting to require them to do just that with SB174 and he has my continued support. There is no legitimate reason for a law abiding citizen to be prohibited from carrying a concealed firearm for self defense.

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