alaska

I discovered Naomi Hooley's warm, powerful music a few months ago, when a friend pointed me first to her song "Tornado" and then the album that spawned it, the gorgeous It was a Great October. Her sound is earthy and approachable, and her backstory is the stuff of serendipitous musical legend. My theory is, no matter where you listen to Naomi's music, you will be reminded of home.

In the Republican primary for Alaska's Senate seat last summer, Joe Miller beat Lisa Murkowski by the razor-thin margin of 2,000 votes, or less than 1 percent of the total ballots cast. This would have signaled the end for the vast majority of losing candidates, but when Murkowski was asked, again and again, to launch a write-in campaign by residents who apologized for not voting on primary day, she sat down with her extended family to talk it over. Against pollster and campaign experts' advice, and against the wishes of her own Republican Party, she launched a write-in campaign against Joe Miller. As of this weekend she is leading her GOP opponent by a little more than 11,000 ballots. If Murkowski wins, it will be the first write-in win for the Senate since Strom Thurmond did it in 1954 in South Carolina.

I am not a biker by any stretch of the imagination, but I love biking anyway. You can find me and my family firmly in front of the television watching The Tour de France every July, and one of my big dreams to be able to someday follow the Tour in person.

But because biking is not a mainstream sport, whenever it is shown on television or broadcast anywhere, it's usually the men that are highlighted. Why further marginalize a sport by highlighting (gasp!) women?