Sign in

James P Bennett

@akjpb.bsky.social
1.1K followers 962 following 896 posts

An ordinary old guy trying not to have an ordinary life. Non-motorized outdoor things. Mediocre writer. Locavore. Alaska. Grandfather. 🚵‍♂️🥾⛷️⛰️🏕️🌊 A Few Choice Words substack.com/@akjpb

PostsRepliesMedia
James P Bennett @akjpb.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
A startup here, AlaskaNews, is an AI news platform that reviews sources and generates AI stories. The AI persona, Walter (named after Walter Cronkite) was interviewed by Nat Herz, a human, a Pulitzer StoryReach Fellow, and local journalist. This story absolutely blew my mind.
anchoragepress.com
This AI agent has written thousands of Alaska news articles. We interviewed it.
The AI behind AlaskaNews.com cracks jokes and acknowledges a “trust burden.”
083
James P Bennett @akjpb.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
Bike Anchorage and the Anchorage Health Department are sponsoring a Week Without Driving, October 1-8. I was tapped to be the bike rider in a promo video. Kinda funny, they filmed for @ 4 hours in 3 locations for this 30 second spot🚵🚍🚏
061
Reposted by James P Bennett
Eva Holland @evaholland.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
Did you know that Transport Canada HQ was behind a picket line on 9/11? When news of the attacks arrived, the striking workers went inside and back to work, knowing they’d be needed. I learned a lot working on this story:
canadiangeographic.ca
9/11 in the North: how terror touched Whitehorse and Yellowknife
In the Yukon and NWT, unexpected arrivals and a major hijacking scare brought the terror attacks closer to home
812238
James P Bennett @akjpb.bsky.social · 12/09/2026
What a story and so well told! Thanks.
020
James P Bennett @akjpb.bsky.social · 12/09/2026
I’ll soon be leaving Alaska for a 5-week adventure. It could be full-on winter when I return. I’m thinking of switching over to the studded tires for my car before I go. But I wore short pants today & can’t make myself prepare for snow&ice quite yet.
1101
James P Bennett @akjpb.bsky.social · 07/09/2026
Sure, better gate designs would be ideal, but both pics show that bikes have a slightly inconvenient work around (as evidenced by obvious bike tire wear), so not quite a complete disrespect for intended users. That the gates keep cars out shows considerable respect for the intended users 🤷‍♂️
100
James P Bennett @akjpb.bsky.social · 30/08/2026
We all deserve a poem. This guy was in a park. Here’s the poem I deserved. I had his name on a slip of paper, which I lost however.
170
James P Bennett @akjpb.bsky.social · 29/08/2026
If the tRump administration only did 1 despicable thing a month, that would be atrocious enough, but every damn day, tRump and Rs openly prove their incompetence, greed, spitefulness, and hate. Unless the midterms initiate a major change, there’s not going to be a turning back.
020
James P Bennett @akjpb.bsky.social · 22/08/2026
I’m trying to imagine how the oysters and pickled eggs taste together. I think it’s one of those things that you instantly love or hate, it’s not an acquired taste combo.
110
James P Bennett @akjpb.bsky.social · 16/08/2026
That’s me most every Friday/Saturday night. I kinda like it.
010
James P Bennett @akjpb.bsky.social · 16/08/2026
Didn’t find out about this until it was well-underway. So sorry to have missed it.
0100
James P Bennett @akjpb.bsky.social · 14/08/2026
I don’t know if you get cool ‘I Voted’ stickers where you live; if you do, I’ll bet they are not as cool as those we get in Alaska. Hey Alaskans, we can help bring decency & sanity back to our state & the USA. Please vote the MAGAts out!
An ‘I Voted’ sticker from Alaska, depicting a dog sled team with the musher wearing traditional Inupiat clothes.
4283
James P Bennett @akjpb.bsky.social · 10/08/2026
View of mountains while mountain bikingCrossing a bridge on a new segment of the Alaska Long Trail There’s a moose behind that tree!
050
James P Bennett @akjpb.bsky.social · 09/08/2026
Triple sunrise in Hope this morning
Reflections on Turnagain Arm of Cook Inlet in Hope, Alaska appears as 3 suns rising.
2469
James P Bennett @akjpb.bsky.social · 25/07/2026
Yikes! Benadryl will help, but I’m sure you already know that.
010
James P Bennett @akjpb.bsky.social · 25/07/2026
I had no idea he was ill and the news of his passing is hitting hard. A friend I never met.
1201
James P Bennett @akjpb.bsky.social · 25/07/2026
I was stung in the neck by a yellow jacket up in Denali NP some years back and went into anaphylactic shock, revived by a NP at the clinic in Glitter Gulch. She saved my life. Yellow jackets are nasty.
130
James P Bennett @akjpb.bsky.social · 18/07/2026
I was totally in favor of Matt, but now enthusiastically voting for anyone that might get Nick B out of office. Bill Hill it is.
170
James P Bennett @akjpb.bsky.social · 01/07/2026
We’ve become the Creator of Life. Implications? End of religion/god? Pandora’s Box of unintended consequences?
nytimes.com
This Cell Feeds, Grows and Reproduces. And It’s Manmade. (Gift Article)
From chemical building blocks, scientists have created synthetic cells that have most of the hallmarks of life.
030
James P Bennett @akjpb.bsky.social · 27/06/2026
Check this out about Mr Cox from 2011: solinsoldotna.blogspot.com/2011/03/pall...
solinsoldotna.blogspot.com
Suckers for Cox
photo by D Petri from the PC It was just two years ago when Schaeffer Cox (the dapper gent in the hat pictured between Bob Bird and Tom ...
030
James P Bennett @akjpb.bsky.social · 24/06/2026
Alaska man plays at being an Alaskan tourist.
080
James P Bennett @akjpb.bsky.social · 19/06/2026
Yesterday was a lovely day to bike the Moose Loop 🫎 in Anchorage. In the evening, we, from Bike Anchorage, parked 70 bikes for the Hussy Hicks outdoor show downtown.
151
James P Bennett @akjpb.bsky.social · 16/06/2026
@ 60% of those affected voted for Kamala. Unfortunately, 54% of the state voted for tRump.
160
James P Bennett @akjpb.bsky.social · 14/06/2026
Heck, yeah. I have 2 South-facing balconies at my Anchorage condo and would happily install these plug-in solar panels. The Tiny Solar Panel That Could Change America www.nytimes.com/2026/06/14/o...
nytimes.com
Opinion | The Tiny Solar Panel That Could Change America
1212
James P Bennett @akjpb.bsky.social · 09/06/2026
Last night in Tenakee Springs, Alaska. Back home to Anchorage, tomorrow.
1271
James P Bennett @akjpb.bsky.social · 07/06/2026
We had a great conversation. I started asking him questions to figure out what his gig was. I’d come across his sea kayak guides here in Tenakee. I knew they were going to take 4 months to kayak to WA and figured they were guiding some rich dude. Glad he was on the job, doing a cool thing.
030
James P Bennett @akjpb.bsky.social · 07/06/2026
We had a most curious conversation as I’ve walked/biked/kayaked/visited some small fraction of the route he has taken. www.nationalgeographic.com/culture/topi...
nationalgeographic.com
Out of Eden Walk
The Out of Eden Walk is writer and National Geographic Fellow Paul Salopek’s multiyear, 21,000-mile storytelling odyssey across the globe in the footsteps of our ancestors.
161
James P Bennett @akjpb.bsky.social · 07/06/2026
Met a man in Tenakee Springs today, Paul Salopek, a photojournalist for National Geographic, who has been walking the globe for the past 13 years & intends to kayak to WA then continue, on foot, to the tip of South America. His series is the Out of Eden Walk. youtu.be/a6EyLXcz2JM?...
youtu.be
He’s Spent the Last 13 Years Walking the Globe - Here’s What He’s Learned | Amanpour and Company
YouTube video by Amanpour and Company
271
James P Bennett @akjpb.bsky.social · 06/06/2026
It exists, but not up and running at the moment.
020
James P Bennett @akjpb.bsky.social · 06/06/2026
Nearing the end of a 10-day visit to Tenakee Springs in SE Alaska, accessible only by boat or floatplane. Lovely, quirky village with hot springs, whales and some oddballs.
Approaching Tenakee Springs via floatplaneThe view from the deckThe one street in town. Hot springs bathhouse rules
2141
James P Bennett @akjpb.bsky.social · 30/05/2026
Landed in Juneau and as I was checking in for my floatplane flight to Tenakee Springs, I had the chance to meet and talk with Mary Peltola, ahead of me in the queue with her entourage, on her way to Haines for a campaign rally.
2110
James P Bennett @akjpb.bsky.social · 30/05/2026
I used to live in the Lower Kusko area and wrote several short stories based in those locations. Here’s one about Bethel with a picture from that sign where you were: open.substack.com/pub/akjpb/p/...
open.substack.com
Not Too Cool
Fiction
020
James P Bennett @akjpb.bsky.social · 30/05/2026
My first teaching job in Alaska was in Naknek back in the mid-1980s. I was stunned that middle/high school students from South Naknek were flown to/fro school every day. On a side note, I used to play on adult league basketball and volley ball teams with the pilot, Jon, and his brother.
alaskapublic.org
This Alaska pilot has been flying kids to school for the last four decades
Students in South Naknek fly across the river to school every day. Being part of the borough has meant high school students don't have to go away to boarding schools.
0141
James P Bennett @akjpb.bsky.social · 29/05/2026
When I was in grad school in Fayetteville (mid-1970s), there was a t-shirt with a map of wet/dry counties sold as the drinking man’s guide to Arkansas. Dry counties usually had private clubs one could join on the spot and imbibe. Is that still a thing?
110
James P Bennett @akjpb.bsky.social · 26/05/2026
The last news I saw about last year’s veto override to audit oil tax payments was August 2025. Has the audit been done? @forrestdunbarak.bsky.social @wielechowski.bsky.social alaskabeacon.com/2025/08/06/d...
alaskabeacon.com
Despite Alaska lawmakers’ veto override, getting an answer on oil tax settlements will take months | Alaska Beacon
The final result could reveal tens or hundreds of millions of dollars in missed revenue for the state of Alaska.
010
James P Bennett @akjpb.bsky.social · 18/05/2026
The tRump touch: everything he’s involved in turns to 💩
010
James P Bennett @akjpb.bsky.social · 16/05/2026
Likewise…so you created a ? of Kupreanof?
000
James P Bennett @akjpb.bsky.social · 16/05/2026
Reconstituted dried ‘shrooms & added the infused fluid to the sourdough starter for grainy/seedy loaves I’ll bake Sunday morn. It’s chilling overnight. The @ 150 grams of toasted seeds will be added tomorrow as will the @ 700 grams of various flour, tbd. Never let the matrix rule. Eat that, pagefle.
130
James P Bennett @akjpb.bsky.social · 15/05/2026
That would be as close as one can get to describing that color! It was really shiny. Here’s another angle.
000
James P Bennett @akjpb.bsky.social · 15/05/2026
The sunshine called me outside 3X today. For the first time this season, I wore shorts while riding my bike. I also took an after dinner walk to the park strip, watched a bit of a softball game, a rugby practice session, then strolled South Addition. I’ve never before seen a car with this color.
A shiny car in Anchorage
360
James P Bennett @akjpb.bsky.social · 15/05/2026
I’ll be counting bikes from 4-6 PM Friday on Chester Creek just west of the Seward Hwy underpass. Hope to see you out there. Stop by and say hello if that’s your route.
  Bike to Work Day poster with an image of a beluga whale riding a bike.
020
James P Bennett @akjpb.bsky.social · 15/05/2026
No one is surprised. Before he was elected, he had already sold his soul to the Cult of Maga and to his billionaire masters.
030
James P Bennett @akjpb.bsky.social · 12/05/2026
I read that piece this morning and was going to post the link. Cool story!
120
James P Bennett @akjpb.bsky.social · 10/05/2026
Yes. Scary. Not surprised. Now that the far left is designated as a terrorist organization, I’m expecting a knock on my door any minute, now. What’s that you say? Right. They won’t knock.
030
James P Bennett @akjpb.bsky.social · 10/05/2026
I prefer stouts, then porters, then IPAs. The IPAs pair well with warm sunshine and wild mountain bike rides. The other 2 are usually cold weather choices. Lagers lack gusto. Regular ales are ok. That fruit beer is not for me.
010
James P Bennett @akjpb.bsky.social · 09/05/2026
Pictures from the May 2013 snowstorm on a boating/camping trip on Hidden Lake on the Kenai.
Camping in the snow in May on the Kenai Peninsula.
150
James P Bennett @akjpb.bsky.social · 08/05/2026
Today in History, the Hard Hat Riot in NYC, May 8, 1970. NYC construction workers target student anti-Vietnam War protestors. Same as it ever was. www.pbs.org/wgbh/america...
pbs.org
Hard Hat Riot | American Experience | PBS
Hard Hat Riot revisits New York in 1970, when student protestors against the Vietnam War violently clashed with construction workers, ushering in a new political and cultural divide that would redefin...
010
James P Bennett @akjpb.bsky.social · 07/05/2026
Bike to School Day yesterday, with my 8yo g’daughter. Bowman Elementary, Anchorage
The author of the post and his granddaughter on Bike to School Day
1141
James P Bennett @akjpb.bsky.social · 07/05/2026
An intense partial one in my neighborhood.
040
James P Bennett @akjpb.bsky.social · 02/05/2026
Saw Yonder Mountain String Band at the Performing Arts Center in Anchorage last night. I’m still buzzing this morning.
110