Opinion / Publisher's Column


Sorted by date  Results 26 - 50 of 151

Page Up

  • Stop serving up PFD as a sugary dessert

    Larry Persily Publisher|Apr 3, 2024

    Alaska faces a seriously long list of long-term serious problems. Our population is aging, people are not moving here fast enough to replace those who leave, too many employers lack enough workers to fully staff their operations, and the state’s finances are as stable as oil prices — which is to say not. State funding for K-12 education is frozen in time from the past decade. We maintain our deteriorating public buildings about as well as a teenager cleans their room. And we seem in a contest to see which is in shorter supply in our com...

  • Tax credits no substitute for state responsibility

    Larry Persily Publisher|Mar 27, 2024

    Tax credits have long been popular, growing more so every year. Supporters push them to provide government backing for new initiatives or ongoing programs, steering money to worthy causes — some unworthy ones, too — bypassing actual appropriations by federal, state or municipal lawmakers. With a tax credit, businesses or individuals can make donations to a program or invest in a project, such as housing, and reduce their taxes to the federal, state or municipal treasury. Tax credits divert private money that otherwise would become public mon...

  • It's always been free, now it's free to see

    Larry Persily Publisher|Mar 20, 2024

    The Sentinel has never charged for listings in the community calendar, which has been displayed on Page 2 for years. Easy enough for print subscribers to open the paper and see what’s happening in town, whether public meetings, fundraisers, youth activities, multiple Parks and Recreation activities, movies and more. But it did not dawn on me until last week that anyone wanting to read the calendar online needed a subscription. My apologies for never thinking about that. It’s another reminder that my 72-year-old head still thinks of new...

  • Russia's loss could be Alaska's financial gain

    Larry Persily Publisher|Mar 13, 2024

    Even in winter, there are hot opportunities. And since the state’s prospects for economic well-being are in short supply these days — like being short of buyers for Alaska salmon, running short of energy for Southcentral residents and businesses, and falling woefully short of funding for public schools — the state needs to seize whatever unexpected opportunities arise. Alaskans have long prided themselves on ingenuity, making something anew from the discard piles left behind by others. In this case, there are six ice-class liquefied natur...

  • Alaska needs to control its PFD politics

    Larry Persily Publisher|Mar 6, 2024

    It was a perplexing week in the Legislature. While the Senate Finance Committee was reviewing honest numbers about real budget needs hitting up against the limit of available state revenues, the House was debating whether the exalted Permanent Fund dividend belongs in the Alaska Constitution, putting the PFD above all else in life. The Senate committee last week was doing the math, realizing the state would not have enough money for a fat dividend this year, no matter what the governor and too many legislators may pledge, promise and promote....

  • Make all schools better, not just some

    Larry Persily Publisher|Feb 28, 2024

    The governor’s growing obsession with charter schools is frightening for the future of public education in Alaska. He talks as if charter schools are by far the best answer to the state’s low student test scores. He has told Alaskans he would not support an increase in state funding for public schools unless the Legislature also backs his proposal to bypass local school boards when parents want to start up a new charter school. At the same time, he resists providing adequate support for public school districts that have not seen any real inc...

  • Too risky for the state

    Larry Persily Publisher|Feb 21, 2024

    The advice for Las Vegas gamblers is don’t bet more than you can afford to lose. It’s generally the same advice for investors: Don’t take more risk than you can afford, even when the riskier bets look like they could pay off the same as 21 at the blackjack table. The six members of the Alaska Permanent Fund Corp. board of trustees should take this advice to heart. Most every investment is a gamble — company stocks can drop in price, bonds may be worth less if borrowers stop repaying their debts in full, real estate can fall in value, interes...

  • Don't empty the pocket that feeds us

    Larry Persily Publisher|Feb 14, 2024

    Think of the state’s Constitutional Budget Reserve Fund as the rich uncle or rich aunt you can go to when you’re short of cash to pay bills and need a loan. But even that wealthy relative has a bottom to their pocket. Take too much out and that pocket could be empty when you really need it. It’s like that with Alaska’s budget reserve fund, the voter-approved, 34-year-old savings account that was created to hold excess oil and gas revenues for when the state needs readily available cash to balance the budget. The budget reserve provides an infi...

  • Alaska's attorney general working for the wrong state

    Larry Persily Publisher|Feb 7, 2024

    The U.S.-Mexico border is a humanitarian disaster, with U.S. Border Patrol agents taking custody of upwards of 200,000 people a month trying to cross a line in the sand, river, desert shrubs or razor wire in search of a better life. The numbers are staggering — for the burden it imposes on U.S. border cities, on federal agents, and on the immigrants caught up in the political war of a U.S. election year. A bipartisan group of U.S. senators worked hard to find solutions to tighten the border, only to watch as presidential candidate Donald T...

  • Story of Alaska's income tax like a soap opera

    Larry Persily Publisher|Jan 31, 2024

    Just because few to none of Alaska’s elected officials are talking about bringing back the personal income tax is no reason to ignore its anniversary. OK, maybe it’s weird to celebrate your anniversary with an ex, but it’s different with the state income tax. Whereas you’re unlikely to remarry an ex, Alaskans eventually may reunite with the tax. Not willingly, of course. More like a shotgun wedding based on financial necessity. It was 75 years ago this month that the territorial Legislature enacted Alaska’s first personal income tax. It was als...

  • It's smart to try on different work shoes

    Larry Persily Publisher|Jan 24, 2024

    This column has little to do with actual footwear — dress shoes if you have an office job, work boots if you’re a contractor, comfortable shoes if you’re on your feet all day or rubber boots if you work on a fishing boat. It’s about walking in their shoes or, more specifically, walking and working in the shoes of people in other jobs. It’s about elected officials and office bosses who make decisions about the jobs and lives of other people. What better way to make good decisions than to know what your employees deal with on the job, the probl...

  • Trump excels at something - being mean

    Larry Persily Publisher|Jan 17, 2024

    Children are taught not to make fun of others, tease them or be mean. Parents, teachers, counselors, church leaders and community mentors such as Girl Scout and Little League volunteers work hard to explain why it’s hurtful to make fun of someone who is different. Most seem to get the message. But not all. Bullying and shaming continues to be a problem, made worse by social media which treats so many things as a joke or an amusing video, regardless of how it may hurt someone. And rather than set a good example, Donald Trump makes it worse — and...

  • AI is similar to a teenager, but costs more

    Larry Persily Publisher|Jan 10, 2024

    There is at least one big similarity between artificial intelligence and teenagers. They both think they know everything. And now, an AI applications provider is promoting in its marketing material that it is just like a teenager. But first, a bit of the history that underlies my commentary. And, no, AI did not assist in writing this column or augment my memory or provide data scraped from the internet. Though I do enjoy the crispy pieces scraped from a good mac-and-cheese casserole. Several years ago, actually three decades ago, I was dating...

  • We less partisanship, not more

    Larry Persily Publisher|Jan 3, 2024

    Partisan politics itself is not evil. Disruptive, yes. Phony, certainly. Shortsighted, no doubt about it. On its own, partisanship is a childish game played by adults who care more about headlines, fundraising and winning elections than anything else. But in recent years, partisanship has devolved into something much worse than a political shouting match. Stoked by social media, half-truths and everything but the truth, partisanship has grown into a divisive force that threatens the country by threatening our elections. Far too many Americans...

  • PFD the center of governor's budget universe

    Larry Persily Publisher|Dec 20, 2023

    Gov. Mike Dunleavy is starting his sixth year as the state’s top elected leader. Sadly, he’s not providing much fiscal leadership, other than beating the drums for his perpetual political bandwagon that trumpets the Permanent Fund dividend at the front of the parade, with public schools playing second fiddle. It’s off-key and off-base. The governor unveiled his proposed state budget last week, setting out a spending plan for the fiscal year that will start July 1 and which legislators will start working through when they reconvene in Junea...

  • Elon Musk provides a megaphone for fraud

    Larry Persily Publisher|Dec 13, 2023

    Elon Musk brought Tesla, SpaceX and Starlink to the world, which has mostly been good. He certainly is creative and extremely wealthy — gotta give him credit for that. Musk is brash and boastful, which has been obnoxious but mostly harmless. He also is rude and insensitive, which can be hurtful. But he doesn’t understand his responsibilities to society, and that’s dangerous. Really dangerous. The guy who renamed Twitter as X needs to relearn his ABCs of civic responsibility. Especially after earning a big fat F for Fail after he restored the X...

  • Maybe our politicians could learn from AI

    Larry Persily Publisher|Dec 6, 2023

    All this talk about artificial intelligence is a bit unsettling. Sure, in time, it will bring a lot of good to the world, particularly in medicines, finding and treating cancers, improving weather forecasting, eliminating boring and repetitive work, answering questions and researching data faster than humanly possible. It also will make it easier to cheat on school homework and copy (and steal) someone else’s creative ideas, while adding to the loss of privacy, eliminating jobs and making people overly dependent on computers to manage their l...

  • Regional monitoring system needed for landslides

    Larry Persily Publisher|Nov 29, 2023

    Southeast Alaska is known for rain, windstorms, mountainsides that loom above residential areas — and landslides that occur with increasing frequency. Sitka knows the risk, and the pain, losing three people in a 2015 landslide. Haines lost two people in a 2020 slide. And now Wrangell is added to the list. That list doesn’t include the multiple landslides over the years that caused damage and fear, but thankfully no deaths. After the 2015 slide, the Sitka Sound Science Center took the lead and worked with the community — and federal money — to...

  • Annual PFD debate is similar to a food fight

    Larry Persily Publisher|Nov 22, 2023

    I can be sentimental. Not often, but I’m working on it. I just need to figure out how to increase my sentimentality without decreasing my cynicism. Nostalgia is my favorite form of sentimentality. I enjoy recalling the more pleasant times before social media, before angry people felt entitled to yell at store clerks, flight attendants and their own mothers, before Donald Trump convinced millions of people it is OK to be mean and even dangerous. Routines and schedules help calm me. Which is a lot like nostalgia — looking forward to those thi...

  • Dreams are memorable but also forgettable

    Larry Persily Publisher|Nov 15, 2023

    It seems as I get older, the more I have dreams. Not of being a baseball player, writing an award-winning book or mastering the kitchen art of making great crusty bread. No, my dreams are nocturnal. They interrupt my sleep. The good thing is I have had some amazingly weird dreams. The bad thing is I often forget them soon after waking up — no matter how hard I try to keep them in my head. Several years ago, I became obsessed — in a healthy, problem-solving sense — with finding a way to make notes of my sleeping visions. Often, my dreams would...

  • Drug companies decide what our lives are worth

    Larry Persily Publisher, Wrangell Sentinel|Nov 8, 2023

    I’ve been reading more about prescription drug prices lately: How they are set; why they are so high, especially in the United States; and what can be done to reduce the costs. It’s not like I take a lot of drugs — just one prescription — but thinking about future medical costs, pharmacy visits and specialists goes along with being a senior citizen. Much like grab bars in the shower. Escalating prescription drug prices far outpace inflation. The high costs can force people to choose between their health and paying other bills. If you didn’t...

  • Asking why is a good place to start

    Larry Persily Publisher|Nov 1, 2023

    Normally, I would use this space to share my opinions with readers. That’s what newspaper columnists do: They give their opinions, the facts behind those views, and hope to educate, enlighten or at least entertain readers. But this week is different. I want to hear readers’ opinions. Actually, I need to hear from the Sentinel’s non-readers, which makes this column particularly difficult. I am writing this for people who won’t see it. Their choice, of course, but I want to understand why many people don’t read newspapers, the Sentinel in particu...

  • Alaska's gas line dream is out of alignment

    Larry Persily Publisher|Oct 25, 2023

    Alaska officials who say the stars are aligned for the long-dreamt, long-on-the-odds multibillion-dollar North Slope natural gas project are confusing shiny stars with black holes. Like the black hole the state already has poured close to a billion dollars into over the past two decades, thinking that international markets would like expensive Alaska gas better than lower-risk, less costly gas from anywhere else. But unlike black holes, where the force of gravity is so strong that nothing escapes, the Alaska gas line dream continues to survive...

  • Remembering a moment of sharing religions

    Larry Persily Publisher|Oct 18, 2023

    Jews in Israel and Palestinians in Gaza are embroiled in the deadliest fighting in decades, prompted by an organized assault by Hamas soldiers who murdered innocent people in Israel on Oct. 7, while also taking hostages. Israel has followed the Hamas raid with deadly retaliatory attacks on Gaza — military targets but also more innocent civilians caught in the war. I am losing hope for a lasting peace in the Middle East, even though I was always told it was possible and always wanted that to be true. I am Jewish — culturally, not rel...

  • Congressional Republicans too selfish to govern

    Larry Persily Publisher|Oct 11, 2023

    One of the many reasons — perhaps the biggest reason — that much of the public has lost confidence and even interest in Congress is that a shrinking number of the 535 House and Senate members bother to do their job anymore. They are too busy posturing for political gain, posting on social media for financial gain and positioning themselves to gain an edge on election rivals. Pretty soon, I expect some of them might steal a publicity page from Taylor Swift’s football playbook and be seen with star athletes to gain even more attention. The diffe...

Page Down