Moral Codes and Other Goodness

Another week of the extended working honeymoon in Bethel has passed again! Time flies up here in bush Alaska, at least for this gussok. (Gussok means big whitey around these parts). We had stellar weather and a refreshing amount of blue sky. The entire month of September was very Seattle winterish, so the last week was a nice change. We celebrated with a couple of farewell to summer boat outings on the Kuskokwim. Unfortunately, trusty “Boat”, as Judge Devanay’s watercraft is affectionately called, was having some troubles which limited our range. We explored some side sloughs. We’re pretty sure we were the first to ever check them out.

Aside from frequent walks in the sunshine, we didn’t do much of note. We checked out some arts and crafts on Friday, and got to see the Yup’ik museum for the first time. It’s very interesting. Phenomenal craftwork. At the museum we bought a book called The Kuskokwim, put out by Alaska Geographic. It’s awesome and has lots of great pictures. It also came with two large maps of the area. The text is informative. I enjoyed reading the Russian descriptions of their first contacts with the natives. The following is a totally legal in full compliance with all copyright laws excerpt of what Lt. L.A. Zagoskin*, had to say in 1842:

“There are no poor among them: the wealthy use their possessions for the common good. After a successful action that brings them profit, their one ambition is to expend all they have collected in a celebration to honor the dead… They are people who place the principle of helping their neighbors at the head of their moral code.

“The spirit of community living is such that the charitable, or better liberal, man earns general respect; nevertheless each one remains free in his action and nothing ties the poor man in service to the rich.”

There’s a bit of that spirit still here today, and that’s why I love it.

Speaking of moral codes, I’m reading John Perkins’ Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, an excellent book about “highly paid professionals who cheat countries around the globe out of trillions of dollars.” In the name of America, of course. I give it a big thumbs up - it’s like reading a spy thriller, only real. And enlightening. And I'm not just saying that because it says that on the back of the cover. If you enjoyed Palast’s Best Democracy Money Can Buy, you’d like this one too. And while I'm at it, I'm eagerly awaiting the release of Robert Fisk's The Great War for Civilization**. Select chapters from it have been released on line, and they are not boring. In addition to being one of the foremost reporters on middle eastern affairs, Fisk is the only western reporter to have interviewed super evildoer number one Osama Bin Laden.

Okay, that’s the latest from this tundra dwelling gussok. DW

*It’s a little known fact that the city of L.A. was actually named after Zagoskin, not the Spanish word for angels, but over time the nickname Los Angeles stuck and became a part of the modern day vernacular.

**I finally learned the easy way to do links in the text, so pardon me for living it up.

This final shot is the bowling alley which is closed, but looks dreamy.