A field of summer fireweed (Photo by Dan O'Neill)
“The more things change, the more they stay the same.” French writer Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karrmay coined that truth in the mid-1800s for all time, including for today. In his newly released book, “The Impertinent Question: The Words and Adventures of a Liberal Columnist at a Conservative Newspaper in the Red State of Alaska,” Fairbanks author Dan O’Neill offers some of his best columns published in the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, along with other pieces published in the Anchorage Daily News and other Alaska newspapers. The News-Miner fired him in 2002. While times have indeed changed in the past quarter-century in Alaska and nationally, many of the same issues remain before us, and so speaking truth to power has not changed at all. It still gets people fired in 2025, just as it always has.
O’Neill sat down for an interview recently with John Creed, emeritus professor of the University of Alaska Fairbanks, who taught writing and journalism for 30 years at UAF’s Chukchi College in Kotzebue.
John Creed: Your new book is called The Impertinent Question. What’s it about?
Dan O’Neill: It starts with the fact that, until I had sufficiently irritated enough of the right people, I was a liberal columnist at a conservative newspaper, in a conservative town, in the red state of Alaska. As you might imagine, that’s a job with a limited lifespan. But while it lasted, it was quite exciting.
Creed: You were sacked. Let go.
O’Neill: Yes. The long-gone managing editor’s stated reasons were a rotating set of inconsistent and unlikely explanations. Nothing to do with my work. But the firing happened right after I broke the story that the university and the Army planned to launch—and crash—Scud missiles into the Brooks Range in northern Alaska. The Army quickly cancelled the project; the town and the university lost significant military spending, and that was the end of my column.
Creed: There was some uproar over your dismissal, is that right?
O’Neill: Yes. One hundred-thirteen people took the trouble to write letters to the editor complaining about it, and more than 100 picketed outside the News-Miner offices. It was a wonderful validation of the work, deeply appreciated, but it did not move the paper’s management.
Creed: So, the book collects your columns from the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, among other editorial writings. But the pieces are not all political, not all liberal versus conservative.
O’Neill: Right. The pieces span 40-odd years, and they range from glimpses of Alaskan outdoor life—like hunting, trapping, fishing, and dog mushing—to some of the bizarre aspects of our political environment—such as the self-styled “Corrupt Bastards Club” in the legislature and the secret missile launch that did me in. And there are sketches of inimitable Alaska characters.
Creed: Quite a few pieces offer serious takes on political affairs or social-justice issues, as you say in the introduction—gay marriage, gun violence, policing methods, the mendacity, or dishonesty, of public figures, ideological bias in media, environmental protection versus economic development, the university’s proper role in society.
O’Neill: Yes, though often even the weightier ones try to grab readers with humor and to address the polemic with a light touch. So, the pieces can be funny and contentious at the same time. Occasionally I let rip, the way you would confront a bully.
Creed: To offer this collection now, you must see these writings as still relevant.
O’Neill: I do. We’re still struggling to clarify the same issues.
Creed: In the book, you set each piece up with a paragraph or so of context, often relating the earlier events to the downstream reverberations apparent to us now. There are just all kinds of similarities, aren’t there—warnings we might have heeded, reasoning we can still apply?
O’Neill: So far, readers have consistently said that to me—that much of what I was writing about some years ago tracks quite closely with what we are facing today in the Trump era.
Creed: I said “relevant” a minute ago, but your word is “pertinent,” or rather “impertinent.” Where does that come from?
O’Neill: Well, my father would have called me a “s*** disturber.” Probably he did. And I guess it’s in my bones to question authority. Of course, that trait can be obnoxious. But it can also be usefully deployed. It is usefully deployed by people who try to make new knowledge, whether in the sciences or the humanities or the arts.
A journalist probing for information that is not on offer—or that’s being withheld or misrepresented—sometimes needs to push the limits of polite behavior, like pressing an uncomfortable question upon someone in power. The questioner needs to be skeptical of the formulaic answer—the received wisdom, the default belief system—and put the purveyors of orthodoxy on the spot. In this way, things might be shaken up quite usefully.
To one person, the impertinent question is ill-mannered and boorish. To another, it is “the glory and the engine of human inquiry,” as the cartoonist Gary Trudeau says in the epigraph to the book.
Creed: Speaking of cartoons, I see you drew some that are included in the book.
O’Neill: Yeah, they were published alongside the original columns. I drew some and Dan Darrow drew some. I’m an amateur; he’s a pro.
Creed: Your work seems something like an Alaska version of what the late syndicated columnist Molly Ivins—who often used biting humor and satire to skewer politicians—did in another big, red state: Texas.
O’Neill: She was an amazing talent and had a long and distinguished career. I admired her very much, but much as I’d like to, I wouldn’t try to borrow her literary luster. But you go ahead.
Creed: The book is an excellent read. Where can people buy it?
O’Neill: At your local bookstore. I’ll be signing books Friday, August 8th, between 1:00 and 3:00 at Title Wave Books [1360 West Northern Lights Boulevard]. And the same day, I’ll be interviewed by Steve Heimel (retired public radio journalist), rounding out a three-writer event beginning at 6:00 at Cyrano’s Theater [3800 DeBarr Rd.]. The next day, Saturday the 9th, I’ll be signing at Fireside Books in Palmer from 1:00-4:00 pm. The book is also available at Amazon.com, and vendors can get it through Todd Communications in Anchorage or direct from the publisher, Cirque Books.
Disclosure: This interviewer is included in the book’s acknowledgements after consulting about the work’s structural organization but not its editorial content.
