Listen in to a first hand account from Oklahoma by a photo-journalist covering the storms.

Marcus DiPaola is a photo-journalist with the Xinhua News Agency based on the east coast – you’ve probably scene his photos as he’s been published on internationally on Buzzfeed, Charlotte Observer, Latino Times, Forbes, The Star-Ledger- dozens of Chinese Papers and on The Discovery and Weather Channels.

He joined us for the first segment of the show Tuesday night from Tornado Alley. Listen to the podcast here.

Shannyn Moore – for the Anchorage Daily News

Well, I’m surprised. Gov. Sean Parnell announced Friday that he will run for governor again.

“Fantastic! I get to vote for Sean Parnell as governor again!” said no one within earshot of me ever. The anticipation of his announcement, and the speculation around it, was fierce. Would he give Mark Begich a run for his money for the U.S. Senate? Would he figure his work was done, having succeeded in passing a bill to give billions to oil companies for no guarantees, and just start picking out wallpaper for a K Street office?

He’s dug in like a tick.

I realize that hoping he would pull a Palin and quit was just wishful thinking.

By Shannyn Moore — for the Anchorage Daily News

There’s a man who hates his job. Oh, there are lots of them but this guy can’t quit and his boss knows it. His son has asthma and has been in and out of the hospital since he was born.

The job he hates includes health insurance for him and his family. He can’t be sure that health insurance at a different job would cover them. If he interviewed for a new job, and asked too many questions about health coverage, he might scare them off — fearful that he would drive their premiums even higher.

The man can’t say no when he’s told to stay late by the boss because the boss knows he’s trapped.

Across town, there’s a woman not sleeping, drinking the last of a bottle of wine. Her husband is out all night — again. It happens all the time. She’s talked to her friends, her pastor, family and even a counselor. The husband doesn’t give excuses, he doesn’t have to. Is she going to leave him? Where would she go? She doesn’t have health insurance without his job, and since she had a mastectomy a few years ago she too is trapped.

Maybe it’s time, when we talk about protecting family values, that we talk about health care. Health care, or the lack of it, goes right to the heart of families and their day-to-day struggles. How do average working men and women protect their spouses and children from the constantly shrinking coverage and continually rising costs? Too often the answer is sacrificing dreams and relationships.

More than 60 percent of U.S. bankruptcies are the result of catastrophic medical bills. In 75 percent of those cases, the people had at least some health insurance.

After last week’s column, I got an email from a reader. Apparently Alaska needs a pipeline for all my solution-less bitching and moaning. The email asked what idea I had to improve the economy in our great state.

I do complain bitterly about our lawmakers. I’m not ashamed of bellyaching about the billions of dollars of public wealth we’ve handed to some of the richest corporations in the world — in exchange for exactly nothing.

But fair enough. I’ll take the challenge. What I would do differently?

By Shannyn Moore for the Anchorage Daily News

Media saturation and outrage fatigue. That’s the kind of week it’s been.

There were so many stories — from all over the country and world in such terrible detail. There seemed nothing to do but watch as horror after horror unfolded. When was the last time I heard “Breaking: Good News?”

As summer draws near, we watched the U.S. Senate — including both of our senators — fail the victims of past and future gun massacres. On Patriot’s Day blood spilled on the streets of Boston, limbs lost, lives lost. We saw a deadly explosion at a fertilizer plant in West, Texas, the victims literally vaporized under a mushroom cloud.

An Elvis impersonator is accused of sending poison to the president and a congressman — and it didn’t even make the front page.

We learned that pressure cookers aren’t just for canning salmon. The manhunt for heartless terrorists unfolded relentlessly, bit by bit, in our living rooms. It’s no wonder so many of the ads during the 24-hour cable news broadcasts are for anti-depressants, anti-depressant boosters, sleep aids and blood pressure medications. Maybe a news week like this can actually make you sick. I like to believe our brains are wired to feel empathy for our fellow humans in peril and pain and to help if we can. I dare say it’s our better nature.

Go to Free Press to say NO.
Go to Electronic Frontier Foundation to say NO.

Shannyn Moore for the Anchorage Daily News

April 6th, 2013

Last week Exxon went to Juneau. Not just to lobby, but to appear for questioning at a hearing. The company has long kept a low profile in Alaska. Why? Maybe because its front men would rather not run into any of those Alaskans who waited 20 years for their 10 cents on the dollar.

And what would legislators want to ask the company that sat on its Point Thompson leases for three decades — until the state finally tried to take them back? Maybe some tough questions about how to incentivize oil production, and what specific projects would come on line if oil taxes are cut?

I wish.

Soldotna, here’s your Republican Rep. Kurt Olson, standing up for Alaska:

“Your company has been tied to the history of Alaska probably for an event that had more to do with the name of a vessel than something that you may have been directly responsible for.”

Read that again. This is probably the first time you’ve heard someone suggest Exxon got a bad rap for spilling millions of gallons of oil into Prince William Spill. (The closest may have been John Shively, of Pebble mine, who expressed his gratitude to tipsy Capt. Joe Hazelwood for saving the Alaska economy.) 

Does Rep. Olson have any idea how many victims of the Exxon Valdez disaster committed suicide? They were left with nothing but wait and frustration. It was too much for some, and way too much for others.

Olson’s backside smooching seemed to take Exxon’s man, Dan Seckers, off guard.

The legislative session for Alaska, only lasting 90 days, has been fierce this year. On deck, Governor Sean Parnell’s $5.5 Billion dollar giveaway to Big Oil – SB21 – with nothing in return for the citizens of Alaska. During a hearing in front of the House Resources Committee, Exxon representative Dan Seckers explained to Representatives what the fundamental problem was for his company.

Paraphrased, they just aren’t that into us unless we make ourselves more attractive. His testimony makes us sound like we need to get a relationship counselor and gym membership to be able to woo the company that once abused us to just come back.

Shannyn Moore can be heard weekdays from 10pm to 12am est. on KOAN 1020 AM and 95.5 FM radio. You can stream the show at 1020koan.com. Every Sunday her column can be found in Anchorage Daily News, she also writes for The Huffington Post and TheMudflats.net.

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Shannyn Moore is a contributor to the book Going Rouge.

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Read the article at the Anchorage Daily News

In an interview with Ketchikan’s KRBD,  Alaska’s one and only Congressman, a Republican, Don Young in comments regarding the economy and employment, was able to include a racial slur. Congressman Young said, “My father had a ranch; we used to have 50-60 wetbacks to pick tomatoes,” he said. “It takes two people to pick the same tomatoes now. It’s all done by machine.”

Congressman Young is again under investigation by the House Ethics Committee. The fresh charges are that he failed to report gifts, misused campaign contributions and lied to investigators.

The National Republican Party has recently acknowledged their lack of outreach to the Hispanic population, and have vowed to repair and reach out. Something tells me this wasn’t party of their new program.

The colorful Congressman, in 1994, wavee an Oosik (Penis bone of a walrus) around at a US Fish and Wildlife Service hearing. When speaking to students in Fairbanks, Young was answering questions about cutting federal funding for the arts. “He said had underwritten, “photographs of people doing offensive things,” and “things that are absolutely ridiculous.” Asked for specifics, Young answered, “Buttf**king.”

Congressman Young has represented Alaska since 1973.

I had the pleasure of interviewing John W Dean this week. He was Counsel to President Nixon when Roe v Wade was decided by the Supreme Court in 1973.  “No Big Deal.”

Mr. Dean’s latest column on Senator Ted Cruz; The Teaparty’s New Intellectual at work can be found here.

Here is a portion of my interview with him. The rest can be found here at podbean 3-25-13 First Hour.

Follow Mr. Dean on twitter. @JohnWDean He’s a hoot!