In Alaska’s congressional races, challengers to the incumbents are common, particularly because incumbents’ tenures have traditionally been extraordinarily long.

In 1902 a pair of French brothers, Georges and Gaston Méliés, released their movie Le Voyage dans la Lune (that’s “a trip to the moon” for English-only readers) and treated moviegoers around the world to a combination of live-action, animation and special effects the likes of which no one had seen before. Their 14-minute tale of a pioneering voyage to near space also spawned one of film’s more popular—and problematic for viewers and filmmakers who want films to be believable—genres: the futuristic science fiction epic. Today of course we know space explorers are using rockets, and not cannons, to launch spacecraft. And most people agree that while we’ve reached the moon, the explorers sent from Earth did not find insect-like “Selenites” living on the lunar surface, let alone do battle with them.

Twice in four days, semis carrying heavy equipment struck the overpass bridge at the Eklutna exit while traveling out of Anchorage on the Glenn Highway. Monday’s bridge strike appears to have taken a chunk of concrete about the size of a car door from one beam that spans the highway. Commuters gawked, Flashlight stopped for photos, and within about five hours the Anchorage Daily News posted a story, sans bridge expertise, that featured Anchorage Police Department spokesman Dave Parker commenting about how the too-tall arm of a backhoe struck the bridge. Parker said the crash happened during rush hour and the truck driver was adept enough to make it under the bridge without involving other vehicles, except those that followed behind and were hit by debris. No one was injured, Parker reported, and the trucker pulled over to wait for police.

Guest op-ed by Senator Bettye Davis While stories of the governor’s veto of Senate Bill 13 and the funding for the expansion of the state’s Denali KidCare program fade from the media’s news cycle, just under 1,300 children and more than 200 pregnant women will be faced with the daily reality of not having basic insurance coverage. That is why I sponsored this legislation and that is where my interests in this remains. Some may argue that they still have the ability to seek treatment at an emergency room. While that is true, let’s look at some scenarios that Denali KidCare would cover with a less costly visit to a doctor’s office.

The Wasilla-based Conservative Patriots Group, a small collection of tea party ideologues, rescinded its endorsement of Mead Treadwell in the Republican lieutenant governor’s primary, after the group figured out Treadwell had donated money to Senator Lisa Murkowski’s campaign in March of this year. (CPG’s primary goal, it seems, is for Joe Miller to defeat Murkowski in the August primary; Treadwell’s donation was prior to Miller’s entrance into the race.)

When Flashlight went looking to assign an illustration to accompany this week’s cover story, we went first to Lukas Ketner, an Alaskan now living in Portland, and we were surprised to be politely rebuffed.

In the 1993 flick True Romance, Gary Oldman’s gangster character, Drexl Spivey, after he beats the shit out of Christian Slater’s character Clarence Worley, says to an associate, “He must have thought it was white boy day. It ain’t white boy day, is it?”

Most of the financial reports for the U.S. House and Senate races are in, and if you’re going by the numbers, the frontrunners are pretty clear—as pollster Dave Dittman recently told Flashlight, “People make a case that the most expensive campaigns don’t always win, but that’s the exception, and that’s because as a rule the more well funded campaigns simply win.”

Guest op-ed by Roman Dial Unique among the United States, Alaska enjoys easy access to 21st century technology, fiscal benefits of a 20th century economy, and—until recently—the purity of 19th century nature: clean, intact, and healthy. While wireless, satellite phone and GPS coverage spread, oil and fish supplies decrease, and the wild nature we have taken for granted is changing. Like many Alaskans I moved to Alaska fresh out of high school, looking for adventure. That was in 1977 when oil first flowed through the Alaska Pipeline. During my teens and twenties I climbed mountains, skied glaciers and rafted rivers. As a father and husband in my thirties, I mixed adventure and responsibility hunting moose and caribou to feed my family.

Briefs spent an entertaining few hours at the annual Governor’s Family Picnic on the Delaney Park Strip last Saturday. Besides saying hi to Governor Sean Parnell and his wife Sandy as they doled out burgers and sloppy joes, alongside his commissioners, Briefs took enjoyed observing some local wildlife on that uncharacteristically sunny day—and we don’t mean the bald eagle on display.

One of the earliest memories I have is of my mother reading to me from a Little Golden Book designed to teach preschoolers the alphabet by way of the Noah’s Ark story. On page one Noah gathered two apes—or aardvarks maybe, something starting with the letter A. I don’t remember. On the last page two zebras climbed up the gangplank to the big boat under Noah’s benevolent, animal-loving gaze just as the rain clouds opened up for the first of 40 extremely wet days and nights. What I remember most is the letter B, spoken for by two enormous brown bears, which, according to this version, Noah acquired in a place called The Great North Woods. The Great North Woods! I was a goner. Along with Never Never Land and that island where the little boys in Pinnochio went to gamble and smoke cigars, the Great North Woods became a fantasy destination I had to see.

The polls say it’s not going to happen, but both state Senator Hollis French and former House Minority Leader Ethan Berkowitz are campaigning hard to upset the Republicans hold on the state’s executive branch. First, though, that contender must be decided in the Democratic gubernatorial primary.

This is not how this column was supposed to have begun.

In Spring 2009 the state of Alaska had few policies regarding orphan moose taken into captivity other than what officials called “a verbal order” from then-Governor Sarah Palin and a couple posts to Palin’s Twitter account that said two moose had been given a “stay of execution” and that a “long-term solution [was] still needed.”

Last week we told you about the dueling press releases between Dallas-based Remington Hotels, which runs the Anchorage Sheraton, and Unite HERE Local 878, the union that represents the hospitality workers there. The hotel management and the union have been brawling since the union placed a boycott on the Sheraton in November of last year.

Against earbuds Everyday, as a bicycle commuter from south Anchorage to downtown, I am bewildered and amazed by the number of fellow bikers with personal sound systems replacing the reality around them. Of course it’s not just cyclists, but rollerbladers, skateboarders, and walkers. I would dismiss it as a somewhat faddish personal preference were it not that it might contribute to some unfortunate incidents, death being one, and impolite inconvenience to other trail users being another. Cheerily, we’ll discuss death first.

Briefs was disappointed to miss the fundraiser last Monday night for Alaskans for Parental Rights, in support of Proposition 2, the parental notification initiative. Jim Minnery of the Alaska Family Council heads the group, and had pulled together an impressive list of co-hosts for the much-publicized confab at Republican gubernatorial candidate Bill Walker’s house. Among those co-hosts listed on the invite (all Republicans) were U.S. Senate candidate Joe Miller, Congressman Don Young and his challenger Sheldon Fisher, lieutenant governor candidates Eddie Burke, Mead Treadwell and Representative Jay Ramras, plus Governor Sean Parnell and his two opponents, Ralph Samuels and Walker. Even Senator Lisa Murkowski showed up for a few minutes, despite not being listed on the flier.

It’s inevitable in a contested primary with an incumbent running that the incumbent—in this case Governor Sean Parnell—will be a virtual dartboard for his competitors.

Last week, Rick Sinnott, the Anchorage area biologist for Alaska Department of Fish and Game had two clogged voicemail boxes, one at his desk and one for his cell phone.

The political forums on the Palmer-Wasilla Highway have been rescheduled to include Republican Governor Sean Parnell, who is expected to appear with his challengers Ralph Samuels and Bill Walker on August 19, just five days before the statewide primary election. But don’t expect repeat appearances from candidates on the Democratic primary ballot. They haven’t been invited.