Resolutions of the 2008 APCG Meeting Fairbanks, Alaska

Whereas, the geography faculty of the University of Alaska Fairbanks has hosted the 71^st meeting of the APCG with panache, snow flurries, and class, and

Whereas, we have all benefited from their splendid efforts at organization, planning, and hospitality, and

Whereas, we particularly want to recognize the efforts of our dedicated conference hosts, Mike Sfraga, Roger Pearson, Katie Kennedy, Louro Valcic, and tomorrow’s field trip leaders whose identities have remained hidden to shield them from the vicious and cynical Resolutions Committee, and

Whereas, and regretfully, despite the sterling performances of all of the aforementioned drones (which in this context, according to the hotel business center’s computer thesaurus, means either an unpiloted aircraft , a nonworker male bee, or a low humming sound), said drones have devoted over a year of relentless effort to support our fun and intellectual edification over four days in the circumpolar north, certain events, occurrences, and slippages have come to the attention of your ever-vigilant Resolutions Committee and, as in the past, its literally hundreds of well-placed informants— well, at least four this year—such that they require special mention in the accounts of this meeting, to wit, and

Whereas, Mike Sfraga has proven APCG’s answer to Jay Leno and rumor has it that soon he will be opening his own late-night program on Fairbanks’ local cable TV station, received in at least 43 homes, and

Whereas, our hosts committed the shameless publicity stunt of having their governor nominated for the Vice Presidency before being fully vetted by the APCG, and

Whereas, the Welcoming Keynote introduced a veritable tsunami of references to said governor that eventually totaled 4,324, and

Whereas, the exceptional and unconscionable request that all PowerPoint presentations be submitted prior to the conference left no opportunity for time wasters with 10 minutes’ worth of real material to waste the first half of their presentation time fiddling with files and thumb drives, and

Whereas, our hosts conducted a highly sophisticated experiment in social engineering, setting airfare and distance values that screened out many less-hearty types, yielding a disproportionate representation of field geographers, and

Whereas, our hosts provided a hot Yukon room expressly for the tender human geographers, made even hotter by the hot air of postmodern critical geography; and an invigorating cold Minto room where physical geographers could discuss Fairbanks’ location in the new Koppen climate classification of Dfc as Dead Flippin’ Cold, and

Whereas, while many of the keynotes and presenters focused on global warming and anthropogenic climate change, the hotel gave geographers the special opportunity to contribute to global warming with two immense TVs, a subzero refrigerator, and an industrial-size microwave in each room; regrettably, there was nowhere within a two-mile radius to purchase any food items to warm up or cool down in these global warming units, and

Whereas, while witnessing the fall of the stock market, many geographers were later sighted sneaking into an adjacent meeting room where Unemployment Insurance Training was held, and

Whereas, we enjoyed our strategic positioning between the Inland Republicans, represented on the hotel TV advertisement with a fierce and powerful bald eagle, and the Inland Democrats, represented by an innocent and naïve wolf pup, where we built a bridge to nowhere, and

Whereas, the lack of affordable libations within a 10-mile radius left us plenty of sober time each evening to scan the horizon for a view of Russia from our spacious hotel rooms, and

Whereas, the first-ever APCG keynotes by a two-star general and a commander in the United States Coast Guard comforted us in the knowledge that we would be well protected in the event that Putin reared up, and

Whereas, all of those who teach physical geography appreciated the explosive flushing toilets occasioned by the tight convergence of meridians at this high latitude, and

Whereas, in this land of abundant fresh water supplies, this APCG shall forever more be remembered as having had the most foul...