I COULD BEGIN with a death, that of one James Sullivan, age forty-seven, who climbed, muttering and despondent, onto the rail of the bridge that spans the churning waters between downtown Juneau and Douglas Island. From his perch seventy-five feet in the air— closer to ninety, really, since it was low tide at the time and the tides of Southeast Alaska average fourteen feet from high to low— Sullivan could have looked south down Gastineau Channel to a breathtaking view of the blue and green mountains of the Coast Range, or to his left across the rooftops of a cluster of homes and small businesses nestled along the foot of a closer range of forested mountains. Of course, a crowd gathered. Juneau is a small town and people care. They vote regularly, school board meetings are well