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March 31, 2006
Red Alert
by Soren Wuerth

Only a Settler of Csatan would let rural Alaskans freeze

     In the popular board game, “Settlers of Catan,” the object is to develop as much land as possible. Points are awarded for the longest road, the most sizeable army, and the greatest exploitation of natural resources.

     The game, created by Klaus Teuber, a German, has, apparently, a sort of cult following.

     When we were invited over to a friends’ house to play this game, I tried to convince my hosts that the German pronounce “Catan” with an “s.”

     It makes sense. The cover of Settlers’ “Seafarers” edition has a thin, dark-skinned woman wearing a revealing buckskin bikini leaning for a closer look at a mirror. A blonde, Spanish conquistador smirks as he holds the glass. Another “seafarer,” kneeling, dangles jewels on a chain, as, behind him, an unwitting indigenous teen gazes at the colonists’ ship, sails furled.

     While we played this game last weekend—it’s a real hit with the teaching staff—settlers across the state, in Juneau, were playing the real game.

     Get this:

     Two people died in a March 14 fire in New Stuyahok. They couldn’t afford stove oil so they burned wood for heat. Their propane lamp ignited a wall. When neighbors called for rescue, they learned the town’s fire truck (a rarity in the villages) had frozen lines. The town had shut the heat off in the garage—it costs too much for stove oil.

     Village residents resorted to the futile task of throwing snow on the blaze.

     It was scary stories like these that may have led Frank Murkowski to add more than $15 million into a supplemental budget to help Bush villages pay for high fuel costs next winter.

     And everyone would have thought the budget items were no-brainers, except for politicians like Con Bunde, who was busy crafting legislation that would actually add a tax on residents of poverty-stricken communities. (So reprehensible was Bunde’s attack that Rep. Woodie Salmon, of Beaver, called his actions “racist.” The Daily News editors, badly in need a refresher course in sociology, apologized for Salmon, failing to point out that Bunde’s positions represent a pure example of institutional racism.)

     Then Senate Republicans, who hold a majority, got a hold of the budget. With the calculated deflection of media attention onto Bunde’s extremely racist measure, Republican senators dug their chins into their chests and solemnly proclaimed that, though times are tough, they don’t want to fund “unsustainable” programs. They killed all four of Murkowski’s emergency energy assistance bills.

     You can only build a settlement when you turn in your resource cards, sayeth those from Csatan.

     The spending bill goes the House next. It is expected that conservatives on that side of the Capitol are a little more compassionate, since the House declared Bunde’s bill “dead in the water” in its Finance Committee.

     But, after the House’s Csatanians met with the Csenate Csatanians, the neo-cons in the House decided to go along with the rural energy cuts, axing a low-income energy assistance program, a small municipality energy assistance program, and full-funding for power cost equalization.

     Some House Democrats (the minority) tried to include the assistance and were able to restore only $3.3 million. Yet, this didn’t happen until a representative pointed out that, while cutting emergency funds for freezing villages, Republicans had included $3 million for an Oregon-based Republican PR firm!

     A classic Csatan move!

     I ended up losing the board game. Partly, I wanted to leave too much land wild. But what really proved my undoing was that I tried to play too fairly. Good settlers, in any case, hoard their wealth.


























 Soren Wuerth is perhaps Alaska's best known community activist. He resides in an undisclosed location in rural Alaska and can be reached at soren@insurgent49.com.
- Columnists -

Editor's Desk
by Aaron Selbig

Red Alert
by Soren Wuerth

Alaskan In Exile
by Neil Zawicki

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