Do not call

Constitutional obstacle is just a bump on the road to relief

Few political causes are more popular than the war on phone calls from telemarketers. Americans by the tens of millions want relief, and they want it now. They don't want obstructionist telemarketing lawyers and legal technicalities to stand in the way of reclaiming their privacy.

That helps explain why the telemarketing industry's first legal victory disappeared so quickly. Congress took less than two days to pass a new law making clear that federal agencies are indeed authorized to create a do-not-call list.

That Congressional counterattack, however, was blunted by another judicial ruling. This one will take a little more time and attention to overcome. A lower federal court in Colorado held that the government cannot create a do-not-call list that discriminates between for-profit telemarketing calls and solicitations from nonprofit charities. The entire list is on hold until the legal questions are cleared up.

OK, then, let's get those questions cleared up. Ideally, a higher court would suspend the ruling until the legal issues are resolved, and let the do-not-call list take effect. Failing that, the exemption for charitable calls may have to be dropped. Those calls might be banned outright, or the list might give people the option to permit charitable calls while still banning for-profit solicitations.

Responsible telemarketers understand there is not much point in calling people who don't want to be called. That's why one major industry association has agreed to honor the national do-not-call list even if it is still tied up in court. Still, some in the industry would rather fight to the bitter end in court. They may win temporary victories, but popular resentment is so strong that one way or another, Congress and the federal government will find a legally supportable way to limit these unwanted intrusions.

Then it will be time to declare war on the other scourge of modern telecommunications: e-mail spam.

BOTTOM LINE: One way or another, the federal government will find a legal way to end unwanted telemarketing calls.

Good ship

USS Anchorage ends long service

From the evacuation of Vietnam to the Persian Gulf War to the attack on the USS Cole and this year's Operation Iraqi Freedom, the Navy ship that carried our city's name and her crews has given steadfast service to the United States.

Today, the USS Anchorage is to be decommissioned in San Diego.

The dock landing ship is the last of her class in service.

The ship's connection to the city wasn't only in name. The Navy donated one of its anchors to the city, and its sailors have graced our shores, given tours and played softball here. Alaskans have served aboard the Anchorage. The anchor, weighing more than 11 tons, is the centerpiece of a park at Ship Creek Point called Sea Services Veterans Memorial Park, in honor of those who served in the Navy, Marines, Coast Guard and Merchant Marine.

But even when the connection is tenuous, a city tends to identify and take pride in a ship that bears its name, especially one that has sailed into combat.

Launched 35 years ago, the old ship has earned an honorable retirement.

Blue Ticket

I have heard about them for years but never seen one. Alaskans of my father's generation talked about Blue Tickets as if cops and judges handed them to criminals, prostitutes and drunks every day.

The Blue Ticket: in territorial days, a one-way trip to the states for troublemakers.

Yet after reading thousands of territorial documents without seeing a Blue Ticket, I wondered if the old-timers' memories were a little too active, if the story of the Blue Ticket was just that -- a story.

Well, I don't know if the tickets were blue, but thanks to some newspaper clippings my friend Karen Erickson sent me, I now know drunks definitely were deported from Fairbanks by government order.

On Sept. 5, 1944, The Fairbanks Daily News-Miner ran the story "26 Drunks Sent Out By WMC.'' The WMC -- War Manpower Commission -- was a wartime agency created in 1942 to manage the nation's labor supply. Apparently, it had powers Attorney General John Ashcroft would love because the WMC, working with local police, weeded out "an undesirable and detrimental element.'' The "element'' did not get free tickets, however. The WMC forced them to pay their own way Outside or to a dry construction camp out of town.

"The War Manpower office," the News-Miner continued, "has continually been receiving complaints from contracting companies that construction men were working a few weeks, then disappearing when they had enough money to go on an extended drunk.''

Peter Wood of the WMC office told the paper, "These outsiders, many with criminal records, were parasites of the community.'' The roundup occurred after Fairbanks police arrested 222 people on drunk and disorderly conduct charges in one month. The News-Miner noted, "A similar evacuation took place last fall when 100-odd drunkards, ex-convicts and undesirables were evacuated." Branch offices of the WMC were preparing to move against rum-dumb workers in Nome and Galena, the story concluded.

Where did the term Blue Ticket originate? Perhaps it is literal, the color of a steamship ticket. But more likely it is a metaphor, perhaps a variation of the Blue Ticket known across the Old West -- a dishonorable discharge from the Army.

The various dictionaries of slang I consulted did not include the Alaska version of the Blue Ticket. But they did note "The Blue Johnnies,'' delirium tremens.

Between Blue Tickets and Blue Johnnies, some wartime construction workers felt really blue as they departed for Seattle.

-- Michael Carey