We’ll be right back

(UGH. This was SUPPOSED to have been published on Thursday, Sept. 10, but got caught in the pipes. Sorry for leaving y’all hanging.)

Hi everyone,

Rather than continue to limp through the week, I’m taking a break from the blog for a few days. It’s been an exhausting few weeks after an exhausting few months in the middle of a pandemic. The Pacific Northwest fires have been weighing on me heavily. Luckily, my family and friends in the region are all safe and prepared. I just don’t have a lot left right now for politics.

If you need your dose of political news, please go read the report by the Anchorage Daily News/ProPublica detailing the story behind former Lt. Gov. Byron Mallott’s resignation: “The woman propositioned by Alaska’s former lieutenant governor tells her story for the first time.”

This story serves as a sharp reminder of the media’s power to give voice to someone’s story or, as was the case with the rumors propagated by politically motivated blogs, to take away someone’s voice and their agency over something so sensitive and life-changing. “She took our own story away from us,” Quannah Chasing Horse Potts told the ADN about the rumors that she had been propositioned by Mallott, a nasty and unfounded rumor that has continued to haunt her long after its spreaders had moved on.

Be thoughtful, be kind and we’ll see you on Monday,

Thanks,

Matt