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43 Alaska B. Rag 1 (2019)

handle is hein.barjournals/askabar0043 and id is 1 raw text is: Ptarmigan, raven square off in legislative smackdown By Dan Branch Last week a raven and a ptar- migan flew into a Juneau bar. The ptarmigan ordered a bowl of willow catkins. The raven said that he'd make do with what he could find in the trashcan. Look, the bartender said, this ain't a vegan joint, and we don't serve carrion. Either order a drink or get out. A lobbyist slipped the barkeep a twenty and guided the ptarmigan to a dark corner of the bar. After checking to make sure no one could overhear him, the lobbyist whispered, I represent some people who would like the raven named the state bird. What would it take for you to support that? It's sausage- making time again in Juneau. The Senate has already held committee meetings on governor bills designed to gut public educa- tion, the Alaska Marine Highway, and the rural criminal justice sys- tem. Other bills, like SB 28 - an act to make the raven our state bird - have yet to get a hearing. By the deadline for this column, the House had finally chosen someone to lead them. Given the governor's commit- ment to cut his way to prosperity, I expect him to submit a proposed budget that would force schools to replace computers with slates and chalk, expensive textbooks with Mc- Guffey Readers. After masticating a while on such heavy fare, our leg- islators might feel relief when they take up S.B. 28 (The Raven Bill). But like the periodic effort to legis- lature away daylight savings time, SB 28 could drag them into a troll- filled swamp. By naming raven the state bird, the Legislature would be dethroning the willow ptarmigan, a plump and tasty relative of the pheasant that has served as Alaska's official bird for 64 years. In 1955, when every American liked Ike and Alaska was the country's largest territory, the Alaska Legislature designated the willow ptarmigan the territory's offi- cial bird. H.B. 2, the ptarmigan bill, flew through the legislative process. The House passed it unanimously on the third day of the session. Two days later, the Senate approved it and sent it back for House concur- rence. The ptarmigan was crowned territorial bird on Day Five Little of the legislative history of H.B. 2 exists today. But thanks to the bill's preamble, we know that it ratified the results of a student poll conducted by the Territorial Depart- ment of Education and the Educa- tion Section of the Alaska Native Service. Approving S.B. 28 would overturn that election and substi- tute the preference of our current legislators for pre-statehood pio- neers. Anchorage Daily News supports S.B. 28. In a Jan. 9 Op Ed piece, they argued that the raven is smart and the ptarmigan is dumb. No one can contest a raven's intelligence. But that intelligence is often used for bad rather than good. More than once I've had to rescue a neighbor's package from ravens. After our post- man leaves a box on someone's door- step, one or two ravens will strut over and start ripping it open with their powerful beaks. One box, de- livered just before Christmas, was reduced to See's Candy wrappers and torn cardboard before I could intervene. As for those folks who call ptar- migan stupid, may I point out that Chicken Ridge in Juneau and the Alaska town of Chicken, both once popular places for hunting ptarmi- gan, were so named because the lo- cal humans couldn't spell ptarmi- gan. The ptarmigan's tendency to hold their ground as people shoot at them is often seen as proof that they are stupid. I ask folks who believe this to consider the tendency from a survival-of-the-species point of view. During the spring mating season, ptarmigan gather in large flocks. If a hunter approaches, most of the birds fly to safety before the first shot. A small number hunker down, hoping that their white bodies will make them hard to spot against a snowy Continued on page 11 'Till death do us part, not to exceed maybe a year or two By Mark Andrews It was an Alaskan legislative oddity. In 1980, Alaska State Rep. Mi- chael Beirne introduced a bill au- thorizing marriages of limited dura- tion. As its title indicates, the bill provided for marriages that would end neither upon death or divorce, but rather on a fixed date that bride and groom agreed upon. The proposal had good inten- tions. It was aimed at the problem that the traditional marriage of unlimited duration has not met the needs or aspirations of many Alas- kans and as a consequence many couples in the state are living to- gether out of wedlock. Also, many couples who would divorce could not do so for a variety of reasons (includ- ing inertia). And the bill sought to minimize the ugly consequences which can accompany a divorce. As radical as this notion was. its purpose was to support a traditional view of marriage. According to the legislative findings, marriage im- bues a man-woman relationship with a special significance in the minds and hearts of most Alaskans, and many of the joys and satisfac- tions of life arise out of caring and trusting relationships between members of the opposite sex. To solemnize their time-limited marriage, the semi-happy couple would file an agreement with the registrar of vital statistics, stating when the marriage would expire and describing the future division of property if the marriage were not renewed. As time passed, the now happy, if somewhat cautious, couple could re- new their marriage for another lim- ited time before it expired. This re- newal required only a notice, filed again with the registrar. Finally, the bill provided that He and She, of limited duration, could Mark Andrews throw their discretion to the four winds and re- move the time limit entirely. The notice to the registrar would rescind the original agreement. Of course, kids happen. Child custody disputes over the issue of a time-limited marriage would be decided under the same statute gov- erning all such disputes. The bill specified no minimum time for a marriage. A series of mar- riages, each one month long, was Continued on page 11 I

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