Random Bits Of Weirdness For The Week Ending July 5
- Mark Sabbatini
- Jul 6
- 3 min read
It’s weird enough Gov. Mike Dunleavy called a special session starting Aug. 2 and then told fellow Republicans to stay away for the first five days, openly admitting the goal is to derail a veto override vote on an education funding increase that 46 of 60 legislators favored.
Among other things it’s setting off a scramble to find scarce and expensive housing during peak tourism season. The Capitol with its lack of air conditioning can be a cruel place to be captive should temperature approach or surpass that 80-degree mark that now triggers official National Weather Service heat alerts.
But consider the first week of that special session will also coincide with the anniversaries of record glacial outburst floods during the past two years that have damaged hundreds of homes and caused a lot of other general chaos. If another flood happens that forces a huge number of families from their homes for days or weeks the situation is going to be very surreal indeed…
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The other obvious embrace of what’s politically unpopular occurred at the national level with the federal budget bill passing with bare-minimum votes in the House and Senate, with U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) taking the most heat for her decisive vote to pass a "not good enough" bill she hoped the House would adjust (they didn’t).
A Juneau-specific item that got a shoutout in that bill is the U.S. Coast Guard icebreaker destined to be homeported here — funding that was set to happen in some form regardless of whether the headline-grabbing stuff involving Medicaid and tax cuts were part of the budget or not. But it did offer a chance to check in — and get a reality check — on what the Storis is up to with a ceremonial welcome in Juneau and initial voyage further north expected by the end of August.
Social media photos published July 5 show the 360-foot-long ship departing San Diego as it continues a maiden voyage that officially began a month ago. Also occurring during the week that will add a new element to the commissioning ceremony scheduled in August is the Coast Guard renaming all of its operational districts from numerical to geographic designations — so what used to be District 17 in Alaska is now officially the Arctic District.
Juneau is, of course, quite a bit south of the Arctic Circle, as one social media skeptic opined in a comment responding to a post by U.S. Rep. Nick Begich III (R-Alaska) about the icebreaker funding in the budget bill.
"Can you explain the reasoning behind spending $300 MILLION Dollars to build a new home-port for this Ice Breaker in Juneau and not somewhere closer to where it's going to be Utilized, like Kodiak, Sand Point, Etc.... Why are we Docking this thing as far away from the Bering Sea as Possible?" the commenter noted.
Begich and other officials, BTW, have noted Juneau is the designated port because is it deemed as the site that eventually will have sufficient facilities and community support for year-round operations, although those facilities are several years away from being completed…
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Speaking of geographically-challenged social media: "Took a long train in Alaska. Loved it but not that long. We even rode over a rickety wood bridge over a stream. The ride was to Juneau." (Saturday evening post on X, complete with GIF showing what looks like train going through rather arid mountain terrain in someplace like Montana).
For folks looking for something a little more chill there’s this X post a short time later declaring "Guys I’ve been in a cruise ship I’m finally on land today so j have wifi 🩷🩷🩷 thank god bc I needed to talk to oomfs. We’re in Juneau, Alaska rn 😋😋😋freezing my ass off." It was 53F with light drizzle at the time of the post.
• Contact Mark Sabbatini at editor@juneauindependent.com or (907) 957-2306.
