Being a Tourist at Home - Anchorage Saturday Market

After the traveling we did this past year, it was fun on Saturday to play tourist at home in Anchorage. Anchorage Market and Festival started as the Saturday Market, but now it seems to have gotten branded and logo'd. But it is still a good way to spend a weekend afternoon - checking out the Alaskana, the tourists, the food, and the entertainment. Here are some pictures from this last weekend.





















Greg Frisbee is a San Francisco performer who is up for two weekends at the market. His juggling,fire-eating, and general comedy show drew a big appreciative crowd that filled his hat after the show.





Mary Ann Koury is from Wichita, Kansas and has been coming to Alaska summers to volunteer in Kodiak raising money for the Russian Orthodox Church.

































If you don't want a quart of birch syrup...











you could get a birch bark basket instead.










Or get your picture taken in parkas on a dog sled. I've got a picture from Korat, Thailand Chinese New Years of people getting pictures taken at the festival there as ancient Chinese royalty.











Lincoln Riley had a Whaling Commission hat on and I thought he might be in town for the International Whaling Commission meeting this week. But it's just an old hat. He's from Unalakleet but he lives in Anchorage now and goes to Unalakleet for the summer to go fishing.






Victor and Carolyn are Lincoln's brother and sister-in-law.




Or buy some children's books.







Or something from
The Quilted Raven. The link doesn't work yet as I post this. She said the website is coming soon, so try it again later if it doesn't work yet.

Three Other Views of Chabon at Loussac

In my quest to map Alaskan bloggers, I found three others who blogged about Tuesday night's talk at Loussac by Michael Chabon.

http://gatogrande.blogspot.com/2007/05/you-put-me-in-building-with-pie-and-i.html

http://littleboats.blogspot.com/2007/05/saw-michael-chabon-here-last-night.html

http://leafingthrough.typepad.com/leafing_through/2007/05/chabon_youre_so.html

Sears, are you listening? Leak part of washer design?

We got our new stackable Kenmore washer-drier last week. Rick, the salesman told us that if we take a trip, we should wipe dry the rubber seal at the door because water can get caught in the folds and get moldy. So yesterday I went to unload the new washer and there was a small puddle on the floor and I could see drops going down the face of the washer. It took our Maytag 32 years to start leaking.


After negotiating the 800 number computer voices, getting cut off, starting all over again, someone scheduled a service person to come this morning. That's good, no waiting. They also suggested asking for the machine to be replaced if the service guy couldn't make an easy fix of it.

Kyce came this morning and basically said:
K: "They all do this. Just put a cloth on the floor. It's the condensation on the door when you open it."
Me: "You're saying that they are built to leak?"
K: Squirming a little, "Well, all front loaders do this."
Me: "They don't leak at the laundromat"
K: "Well, those are $3000 machines, built for abuse."
Me: "We only did three loads. We haven't abused it."
K: "No, I wasn't suggesting you abused it."

Anyone have a front loader? Does it leak every time you wash?

Also, today Joan put it on normal for the first time. I thought they were doing construction work outside. It turned out it was spinning really fast.

Morels

Each year the morels come back in our back yard. Two the first time a couple of years ago, now there are four. Maybe I should look around to see if there are others hidden in the leaves.

Michael Chabon and the Names of Yiddish Sitka

When my book group picked The Yiddish Police Union by Michael Chabon, I was excited. I loved his Pulitzer Prize winning The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay. Then I heard that Title Wave was having him up for a talk and book signing. So we got the book and free tickets for the talk (unlike the Sedaris talk.) I won't go into the book much - there's been plenty of press on it (in the New York Times (I guess it's a lot easier for New Yorker Michiko Kakutani to imagine that "Mr. Chabon has so thoroughly conjured the fictional world of Sitka" than it is for this Alaskan living in the state's largest city of 260,000 people, nearly half the state's population, to imagine an urban center of over 2 million people in Sitka), The Jerusalem Post (no, Mr. Freeman, Sitka is not in the tundra), or on Terry Gross' Fresh Air. I'll just focus on a part that intrigued me that I haven't seen covered elsewhere - the names of people, places, and things in this fictional Sitka. So you need to know that the book's basic premise is that Sitka, Alaska was designated as a temporary homeland for post-Holocaust Jews.

Last night was Chabon's talk - at Loussac Library's Marston Theater because Title Wave wasn't big enough for all the people who wanted to attend. I got to ask Chabon how he came up with all the various names of streets, buildings, places, and characters. A few I could already figure out. Bina Gelbfish (Goldfish), for example, always wore a bright orange parka outside. Others I could work out through google. Max Nordau (the book opens in the Zamenhof Hotel on Max Nordau Street) was an early Zionist who argued for a homeland for the Jews. On page 3, we read,

Landsman puts his hand on Tenenboym's shoulder, and they go down to take stock of the deceased, squeezing into the Zamenhof's lone elevator, or ELEVATORO, as a small brass plate over the door would have it. When the hotel was built fifty years ago, all of its directional signs, labels, notices, and warnings were printed on brass plates in Esperanto. Most of them are long gone, victims of neglect, vandalism, or the fire code.

And the fact that Yiddish became the language of Chabon's Sitka. Google quickly tells us that Zamenhof was the originator of Esperanto, the language that was supposed to become an easy to learn universal language. The Dnyeper Building overlooks the Schvartsn Yam, just like the actual Dnieper River flows into the Black Sea. And when you read the book, the last name of Shemets (shame, scornful whispering, according to the Yiddish dictionary online) makes sense for both Hertz Shemets and his son Berko.

Chabon's answer to my question about how he came up with the various names offered some extra insights one can't track down on Google. He'd read to us in his talk about a 1997 article he wrote on finding a Yiddish traveler's phrase book and imagining where it might be used. He was alerted to the Yiddish Online Discussion Group Mendele that was discussing his article. While the first post referred to the article as

a delightfully humorous essay regarding Uriel and Beatrice Weinreich's little paperback phrase book "Say It in Yiddish"

other discussants were not as amused. (If you go to the link, search for Weinreich to find the various parts of the thread, which starts at June 24, 1997.) He also got an indignant letter from Beatrice Weinreich, by then the widow of Uriel. He wrote back an apology, but, as he told us, she didn't accept his apology.



So when he started to talk about how he named the characters in the book, he began by saying, Bina (Gelbfish, the ex-wife of the main character) was the nickname of Beatrice Weinreich. Many are names of important Jews as I mentioned earlier with some relationship to this fictional Jewish homeland. And some of the less savory characters in the book are named after people in the Mendele forum who were especially vocal in their displeasure with the original article on the phrasebook. I've now read through a number of the entries in the debate on Chabon's book on Mendele. I trust that Chabon, given his manner at the talk, was giving a friendly nod of recognition to his critics at Mendele. Certainly, contributors like Robboy ('the gaunt giant, Roboy') were thoughtful and respectful in their criticism . And I hope that they appreciate being immortalized in this book by a Pulitzer Prize winning author.

Update: I've added three other views of Tuesday night in a later post.

ADN Story: Fed's Eye [Ted] Stevens' Home Remodel

Someone said the other day that there are so many FBI agents in Anchorage working on the investigations of corruption that they keep bumping into each other.

Today the Anchorage Daily News (ADN) published another episode in the unfolding story - this is the first one that directly names the senior Republican US Senator Ted Stevens. Rich Mauer writes among other things:

How the Girdwood home fits in with the broader investigation, or what possible crimes are being investigated, is not clear. There was a brief, unexplained reference to residential remodeling in the government's statement of facts that accompanied Allen's and Smith's guilty pleas. The sentence, preceded by a listing of a dozen Veco-related enterprises around the world, said: "Veco was not in the business of residential construction or remodeling."

Asked whether that line related to the construction at Stevens' Girdwood home, Persons first said, "I'm sure it does." When pressed, he said he wasn't certain.

Bill Allen and Rick Smith are the two VECO, a key oil-field services company that has made significant political contributions, executives who have confessed to bribery, extortion and other misdeeds that were captured on tape in their Juneau hotel suite last year. One sitting and two very recent state legislators have been indicted and two state senators are mentioned in the indictments as Senators A and B. These are generally assumed to be John Cowdery and Ben Stevens, Ted's son.

Person's is a Stevens friend and neighbor who oversaw the construction while Stevens was in DC.

Augie Paone, owner of Christensen Builders Inc. of Anchorage, said in a recent interview that it was Bill Allen who hired him to complete the framing and most of the interior carpentry at Stevens' home. Before he could send a bill to Stevens for work in progress, he was directed to provide it first to Veco, where someone would examine it for accuracy, he said. When Veco approved the invoice, he would fax it to the Stevenses in Washington, he said.

Paone said that as far as he knew, Stevens and his wife, Catherine, paid his bills themselves. He said he sent at least $100,000 in invoices to the Stevenses in Washington. They paid him from what he said appeared to be a checking account opened for the project. The checks, imprinted with the couple's names, had single- and double-digit serial numbers, he said.

The project involved jacking up the existing one story house and building a new foundation and new first floor and then lowering the original house onto the newly built first floor. But there were problems in the construction.

Paone said he was called in late that summer to rescue the project.

"Bill Allen and some of the Veco boys, some of the Veco guys, were the ones that approached me and wanted to know if I could give them a hand," Paone said. "I did it more as a favor, you know. It's one of those things when somebody is the head, and packs that much power and asks you for a favor, it's kind of hard to say no."

Paone said that by the time he finished his work in late October or early November, he had sent Stevens more than $100,000 in invoices for his own work.

As I mentioned above, up to now we knew that the FBI was investigating VECO, the oil field support company, for bribery and extortion of Alaska legislators. The two top VECO executives have confessed and one sitting and two recent legislators have been indicted. Another former legislator was indicted last fall, but on what seems a separate issue. We also know that two more state senators have been investigated, but not indicted. These indictments are expected soon. One of the two is Ben Stevens, Ted's son.

In September 2005, Rich Mauer wrote

State Sen. Ben Stevens held a secret option to buy into an Alaska seafood company at the same time his powerful father, U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens, was creating a special Aleutian Islands fishery that would supply the company with pollock worth millions of dollars a year.

And since Bill Allen, the head of VECO, has confessed to various counts and worked out a deal with the FBI, we can assume that he also may have talked to them about who paid for remodeling Ted's Girdwood house.

And finally, since this is a Republican administration in DC, the skeptics can't say it is a Democratic witch hunt.

How did Carnival Cruise Lines get US taxpayers to buy them a $28 million train depot?

Our friends Harry and Michelle, former Alaskans, stayed with us a few days before catching a Princess Cruise to Vancouver yesterday. Yesterday morning I took Harry to the Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport to return his rental car. We passed the Bill Sheffield Depot, which in 2004 won an American Institute of Architects Award.[Depot picture not my picture, from AKRailroad site]

Later we took them downtown to catch the bus to Whittier where they get on the cruise ship. Getting the tourists and their luggage from here to there is like an assembly line. I knew this already from taking other visiting friends to catch their buses to the cruise ships and from people who work for the cruise line.
You can get a sense of the enormity of the business from looking at all the luggage lined up at the hotel for just a few of one day's set of passengers.



But what got me thinking, and which you can't see completely on this picture, is the sign on the bus that says "Holland-America Tours" and the sign on the post to the right of Harry's head that says "Princess Tours." People had told me a lot of the cruises were all owned by the same company, so I started googling when I got home. Here's what I found.

The Princess Cruise Line, along with Holland America, is owned by Carnival, the largest cruise line company in the world, with a 2006 net profit of $2.279 billion In addition to Princess and Holland America, Carnival owns, as their website lists, "our brands:"

Carnival
Princess
Holland America
Cunard
Aida
Costa
P&O Cruises
Ocean Village
Seabourn
P&O Cruises Australia

Different financial sites lists their competitors as Royal Caribbean Cruises, the second largest, with 2006 net income of $633.9 million. The other two listed are TUI AG (a German firm) and Hong Kong based Star Cruises.

Alaskans heard a lot from the cruise industry prior to last fall's election because Ballot Measure 2 called for strict regulations of the cruise industry - including putting rangers on all the cruise ships to monitor them in Alaskan waters and requiring them to disclose the commission they get from Alaskan vendors they send passengers to. Despite a very expensive industry sponsored campaign against it, Ballot Measure 2 won. In this last legislative session there's been a lot of public concern because of legislative attempts to water down the new regulations. So, we aren't ignorant of the cruise industry and its influence. But I started thinking.

Back to the Bill Sheffield Depot at the airport. Anyone who asks a few questions knows that, despite the arguments when it was first proposed that supporters argued that it would help ease commuter traffic in Anchorage. The Alaska Railroad's 1998 Annual Report says about the Depot:

Anchorage International Airport
What It Is: A $28 million project to develop a state-of-the-art rail
station at the Anchorage International Airport. The station will be
the centerpiece of all passenger services development at the
Railroad, connecting Seward, Whittier and Girdwood, making
commuter services to Wasilla and Palmer a more viable option. (p.10)

In the Chairman's message it even gives a time estimate:

And by 2005, we hope to be
carrying commuters from the Matanuska-Susitna Valley and Girdwood into
Anchorage with safe, cost-effective, environmentally friendly rail transit.(p. 1)

The originally arguments that this train spur would help Anchorage commuters was never too convincing since it only would go from the airport to downtown and that's not where most commuter traffic goes. There's nothing here about cruise lines, yet today, in May 2007 the only people who ever use the airport depot to get on or off a train are cruise ship passengers.

While googling I found out that on May 7 of this year, Anchorage Daily News published a letter from a David McCargo of Anchorage:

"About a year ago I called Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport to inquire about scheduled train service to and from downtown Anchorage. The person who took my call was not even aware that there was a train station at the airport, which started me wondering why we spent almost $30 million to build one. My next call was to the Alaska Railroad, which was worse than trying to get through to an airline representative in Bangladesh. After considerable persistence, someone finally called back to say that the only way that I could get to the airport by train was to book a cruise from Vancouver."

I further found a Railways enthusiasts' website that had a page entitled "Lines with obscure passenger services" with this interesting tidbit:


"Anchorage, Airport Branch Junction, AK - Anchorage Ted Stevens International Airport US28
This spur line - approx. 2 miles long - is used only by chartered trains for various cruise companies (including Holland America, Princess, Carnival, Royal Celebrity and Radisson). On days when a relevant cruise vessel arrives at Seward, a train leaves there for the airport in the morning (journey time 4½ hours) and returns at about 1330 from the airport to Seward to connect into the vessel's evening departure. Tickets are obtainable only from the cruise line concerned. Reported: August 2005"

So how did the cruise lines, Holland America, Princess Lines, and Carnival principally, get this $28 million depot and train spur between downtown Anchorage, and the ports of Whittier and Seward to take their passengers directly to the Anchorage Airport? Rattling some old brain cells and working google leads to this narrative.

Bill Sheffield (for whom the Depot at the airport is named) owned Sheffield Enterprises, which eventually was a chain of 16 hotels in Alaska and the Yukon.
1982 - Sheffield is elected Governor of Alaska and serves until 1986
1987 - Sheffield sold Sheffield Enterprises to Holland America. His number two man at Sheffield Enterprises, Al Parish, eventually became a vice president of Holland America.
And from the Alaska Railroad website we get the following:
April 1995
Former Governor Bill Sheffield is appointed to the Board of Directors and elected chairman.
1997
Former Governor Bill Sheffield becomes CEO and President of the Alaska Railroad and John Binkley is named Chairman of the Board of Directors.
1997
Alaska Railroad develops a program of projects with plans to build new depots and docks, improve rail infrastructure and modernize through new technology.
2001
Former Governor Bill Sheffield retires from the Railroad. Patrick K. Gamble, former Four Star Air Force general, named new CEO and President of the Alaska Railroad Corporation.

So, Sheffield has close ties with Holland America - which eventually gets bought by Carnival which owns most of the ships cruising in Alaska - because he sold his company to them and his number two man becomes a VP for Holland America. When he retires as governor he becomes head of the Alaska Railroad and pushes for a train depot (which bears his name) at the Anchorage airport. Uncle Ted, as Alaska's senior US Senator is affectionately called, gets $28 million funneled to Alaska from US taxpayers to build the depot at the Anchorage Airport (which bears his name.) Since it was completed in 2002 it has only been used by summer cruise line passengers and is closed most of the year.

Now I think Sheffield and Stevens believe that what they were doing was in the best interests of the State of Alaska. And most Alaskans appreciated the federal largess that Stevens has sent our way, though many have smirked a bit at some of the excesses like the train depot. But the so called "bridges to nowhere" have brought attention to the cumulative effect on the US budget of all the special earmarks Congress has slipped in. And in this case, there is a project whose sole beneficiary in its first five years has been the cruise ship industry.

Did I mention that Carnival and its subsidiaries also own in addition to the Sheffield Hotels, a series of Princess Hotels, where many, if not most, cruise passengers sleep when they are on land. And they own Grayline of Alaska which their cruise passengers travel in when they aren't on the railroad. And they steer their passengers to shore based shops and services for which they get a hefty commission. One of the reasons Ballot Measure 2 passed was to give passengers more information about the business relationships between their cruise ships and the businesses they recommend.

Oh, I forgot to mention that the Baranof Hotel in Juneau, where the Veco executives were taped by the FBI bribing Alaska politicians, is part of Holland Alaska.

June 7 update: For a more recent post on cruises see New Pirates of the Seven Seas
For more on the Airport RR Depot,
click here.

New Look

I've wanted to put a picture into my heading since I started this blog. Google even got me instructions, but they all said to back up the template before you start and I wasn't totally sure what I was doing and didn't want to risk having to reconstruct everything. So the other day as I was logging in I saw the Blogger Dashboard Blogger Buzz had the following heading:
Learn how to add an image to your blog's header. Now it's just like adding a picture to a post, sort of. I've had this photo ready for the heading since July. But getting it the right size isn't all that easy as you can see. It's a little bigger than I intended, but it will have to do for now. I'd also like to get rid of the ........, but it's the only way I can figure out how to indent the subheading. Anyone suggestions for fixing those things would be appreciated.

And the picture. It's from a set of three pictures by Malaysian artist Zainol.

My Short Block's Contribution to Global Warming

On our side of the street there are six dwellings (two houses, four duplexes). On the other side there is a house and a duplex (their lots are lengthwise along our street.) Here are a few of the vehicles that belong to these eight dwellings.

"How else can you explain the lack of legislative outrage?"

Let's look at a couple (of the many possible) references to political corruption. John Strohmeyer's column in the ADN yesterday calling for the Alaska legislature to move out of Juneau and Marcus Stern's Pulitzer Prize winning book on Randy "Duke" Cunningham.



"This is about as crass as bribery can get. But such is the environment in Juneau. It is a cesspool for political corruption. There are no whistle-blowers in the legislative chambers. Legislators learn soon they are accountable to each other more than to the people they represent. How else can you explain the lack of legislative outrage when Senate president Ben Stevens, R-Anchorage, who was paid a total of $243,250 by Veco, prevailed without challenge last year in the thick of the negotiations over oil and gas taxes." Drag political cesspool out of Juneau, ADN, May 22, 2007.

My question echoes Strohmeyers lament about the lack of legislative outrage: why it is so hard to stand up to corrupt politicians? OK, I know the basics, but if we are going to make being corrupt harder, we have to really understand the forces that keep the good politicians from bringing down their corrupt colleagues and keep the public from voting them out. I'll start a few conjectures here and I hope to pursue this further.

OK, let's start on factors that 'allow' corruption to flourish:

1. Strohmeyer's conclusion is that Juneau is the problem. Juneau is too small and too isolated. But the Cunningham case took place in Washington DC, so do we move the US capital out of DC? I suspect that wherever the capital is, these forces will converge there. So we have to understand the forces.

2. Power certainly plays a big role.
A. Minority v. Majority power - Minority leader Ethan Berkowitz chastised now indicted Rep. Weyhrauch on the house floor of being at the beck and call of lobbyists. You can hear that exchange in an earlier post. Berkowitz made the attempt to call attention to the blatant behavior, but to little avail. Or maybe the accumulation of a lot of evidence like this played a role in the eventual investigations and indictments.
B. Bullying and bluster - Ken Silverstein, in a Harper's interview with Stern writes, "When former Congresswoman Pat Schroeder stood up to challenge him [Cunningham] he called her a socialist and told her to sit down." He links to this video:

Standing up to such bullying is tiring. It would be interesting to study politicians who shout down their critics with anger and name calling and questionable behavior.
C. Retaliation - Seats on important committees are taken away. Favored bills are sabotaged. Funding for one's district is cut. Those willing to stand up to corruption often find themselves isolated and powerless. This is closely related to A - Majority v. Minority power.
D. Structural interdependence - how committees are established, assignments made, the power of committee chairs over agendas, the need for campaign funds, all weave a net that makes it difficult for politicians to fight as individuals against corruption. All these entanglements mean that every politician is liable to have some skeleton in the closet - an earmark for an important donor, a paid trip, attendance at a conference that later gets tied to a questionable person or cause. Thus anyone who stands up, invites scrutiny of his or her record, and attack, whether justified or not.

3. Time and resources - In today's Fresh Air, Marcus Stern said Cunningham first came to his attention seven years ago when two women staffers he knew told him about being invited to Cunningham's boat one night. He looked into it, but eventually gave it up.

4. Access to information - Moving suspicion to proof isn't easy. Rep. Berkowitz and others in Juneau couldn't secretly tape the conversations in the Baranof Hotel's Room 604 the way the FBI could. Tracking down who bought Cunningham's house for $1.6 million and later sold it for $700,000 less takes research skills and the knowledge to make the necessary connections.

5. Stories, Models, Narratives - Beliefs people have in their heads play a critical role in limiting or empowering them. The stories about how things work, about what's important, about what they can and should do, all affect how they react to others. Whether they even see the corrupt behavior. And when they do, whether they accept it as normal or outrageous. And if outrageous, whether they have the power to do anything about it. And if they take action, what they might lose. So, some fellow legislators see nothing wrong in what their corrupt colleagues are doing. Others see it and accept it as 'the way things are.' Some stand up to it. What differentiates them?

OK, that's enough for this post. There's lots more to explore here. I haven't even touched why citizens reelect someone with clear signs of problems such as the FBI searching his office and carting off files and other evidence.


Ultimately, it seems to me that if it is true that the vast majority of legislators are honest and well intended, that they must unite and stand up as a block against violation. It isn't easy, if getting tainted is inherent in the fund raising necessary to get elected. The possibility of not winning the next election is clearly the price one has to accept in order to keep one's honor (if only to oneself) and to look after the public's interest.

There are examples of people successfully standing up as I've mentioned earlier. The current Governor of Alaska, Sarah Palin, stood up to her party bosses and beat them. Ray Metcalf kept after Ben Stevens, in what seemed like a Quixotic effort until the FBI stepped in.

Maytag A207 August 1974 - May 2007

In January, the washing machine had its first serious leak, but with the help of automaticwasher.org I was able to diagnose the problem, get the parts and repair it. But in April there was a new leak. I first checked to see if my repair was the problem - it wasn't.

It was leaking from down below.



After the repair man said this was the beginning of the end, that he could stop the leak, but it would come back, we bit the bullet and bought a new stackable washer and drier. They arrived today. The Maytag was a great machine. Everyone says they don't make them like that any more. I know the market economists think that the market is incredibly efficient. But appliances that last for 32 years without repairs mean fewer machines are sold. Now they make machines that break down in 5-10 years.

On the upside, our old machine, they tell us, used 45 gallons of water per load and the new one only uses 16 gallons. So if the Anchorage Water and Waste Water Utility billed us by how much water we use rather than a flat fee, we'd save some money. And while Anchorage has no shortage of water, I can feel good that we are using much less.

Another thing, the salesman said the electrical cord was on the left of the drier, but it's on the right. The longest cord is 6 feet, so we can't push the new washer/drier all the way back. We'll have to either have the 220 outlet moved or see if we can get a longer cord.

Oh yeah, anyone want to buy a 7 year old GE drier?

Midnight Soapscum:Porn! #6 at OutNorth

Christian Heppinstall has been writing, directing, and acting in a live soap opera- Midnight Soapscum:Porn! It was supposed to be a playful, but serious exploration of the porn industry and Christian did a lot of reading and websurfing in preparation. The porn studio was going to do all the Shakespeare plays as porn. We were out of town for the first two episodes. We caught the third episode, but have missed the next two and finally Saturday night got to see episode #6. It was held at OutNorth, beginning in the art gallery with music by Tom Begich and friends. The ADN wrote (and I can't say it any more succinctly):

"Queer Space will attempt to capture 2,500 years of gay and lesbian drama, poetry, essays and short stories in a single night of theater this weekend at Out North, culminating with a melodramatic, absurdist soap opera about people trapped in or happily employed by the porn industry.

"It is a straight-friendly celebration of inspiring and funny literature from the Greeks through today that concludes each night with Alaska's most contemporary gay and straight performance work, 'Midnight Soapscum: Porn!'?" said Christian Heppinstall, the director of both shows.

The cast at the opening of the episode.

Thirteen performers will enact works by the likes of Sappho, Shakespeare, Marlowe, Whitman and Maupin, followed by the sixth episode of a live soap opera that includes a riotous hostage crisis, space aliens, a post-operation tryst between a transsexual and hermaphrodite from Transylvania, and far too much smooching."

Queer Space was 13 black clad actors sitting in a circle on a black stage The readers alternately stood and each with passion, wit, humor, and all with considerable talent and great timing read short passages from the writers spanning over 2000 years. The passages variously praised, described, lamented, and condemned love between same sex partners.


Soapscum never quite lived up to its promise to seriously consider the impact of pornography on society, though the relationships, the lies (Narcisso really didn't have a wife and ten children it turned out), the emotions, the money, the titillation, and the press' fixation on celebrity and various other consequences and impacts of porn were there on the surface as the scenes rapidly changed. The quality of the acting was impressive and it was never dull. Considering that Broadway plays spend a lot of time on the road working out the kinks, and that Christian has been writing the episodes as the run proceeds, with little time for the ensemble of actors to rehearse before the performances, it was quite good. And considering how much a Broadway play costs, I'm sure the value here (quality of script and performance/time+money spent) is considerably greater than any Broadway show.


Things went by so fast, I really don't remember where the aliens came from, though I guess the point was that other people were not necessary for sex if you have the right technology (they had a pleasure ball, that produced spectacular orgasm when you held it.)

I'm not sure if this clip from a previous episode that I got from Youtube proves that a) the live show just can't be captured on video tape or b) the show, isolated from the whole environment of the theater, is pretty thin. All I can say is that we enjoyed the two episodes we saw, and I stand by what I said above - this is a a rough draft that needs the kinks worked out and some of the social commentary originally envisioned to be slipped in.

Alaskana isn't Art

Our friend Joe was featured in the Anchorage Daily News yesterday.

"I WILL NOT DO ALASKANA.

I WILL NOT DO ALASKANA."

That has become Joseph Senungetuk's mantra as he has watched other artists rush to produce souvenirs for the crowds tumbling off cruise ships.

The Anchorage artist said Alaskana is about the exchange of money, not the exchange of culture or ideas. You can read the rest at Anchorage Daily News.

It's Summer in Anchorage

Back on April 28, I set out the criteria for determining when spring had arrived in Anchorage. It is only roughly related to the calendar.





Three weeks later I'm saying that summer is here because the tulips are out (though sad to say our dozen or so regular tulips of the last five or six years didn't come up at all) and the birch leaves have burst out. It could still cool down again, but we are out of the brown season and into the green. The arrival of mosquitoes is another sign. You can also see the difference between our rock garden today and April 28 by clicking the link above.

Jim Gottstein - Shining Lights Award 2007

Jim Gottstein tonight was honored by Temple Beth Sholom, Anchorage, as this year's Shining Lights Award winner. Jim comes from a prominent Anchorage family, and as he said tonight, his privileged life has enabled him to doggedly fight for social justice for those who can't fight for themselves. As an attorney, he has pursued rights for the mentally ill. [In the picture he has just gotten an Alaska Legislative Proclamation from Rep. Max Gruenberg.] He was critical in the establishment of the Alaska Mental Health Trust, which put aside money and land for the benefit of the mentally ill. He also won an Alaska Supreme Court case severely restricting forced medication of the mentally ill and has helped established a number of organizations to help the mentally ill. Jim's own mental health story, obviously and important part of this story is told, partially, by Jim at the Alaska Mental Health Consumer Web.

The Psych Rights site gives a more about the projects Jim has worked on. Below is a sample from that site:

PsychRights^�
Law Project for
Psychiatric Rights

James B. (Jim) Gottstein
(President)

Jim Gottstein grew up in Anchorage, Alaska. After graduating from West Anchorage High School in 1971, he attended the University of Oregon and graduated with honors (BS, Finance) in 1974. Subsequently enrolling in Harvard Law School, Jim completed his formal legal studies in 1978, graduating with a J.D. degree. In addition to over 25 years of private practice, emphasizing business matters and public land law, Jim has been an attorney advocate for people diagnosed with serious mental illness: Co-founded the Law Project for Psychiatric Rights (PsychRights) in 2002. Jim is currently president. See, http://psychrights.org. Co-founded Soteria-Alaska, Inc.,, in 2003, to provide a non-coercive and mainly non-drug alternative to psychiatric hospitalization. See, http://soteria-alaska.com/. Jim is currently president. Co-founded CHOICES, Inc. (Consumers Having Ownership in Creating Effective Services) in 2003 to provide peer-run, alternative services, especially the right to choose not to take psychiatric drugs. See, http://choices-ak.org/. Jim is currently president. Co-founded Peer Properties, Inc., in 2002, to provide peer (mental health consumer) run housing for people diagnosed or diagnosable with serious mental illness who are homeless, at risk of homelessness, or living in bad situations. See, http://peerproperties.org/. Jim is currently vice president.

Denali Trip 3 - Bears, Wolf video

Thursday was a great animal viewing day. Lots of caribou, hares, ptarmigan. A Northern Harrier. At the Teklanika River bus stop the tour bus passengers were using the facilities and out on the deck looking out over the river. Way over on the other side was a mother grizzly with three cubs, probably last year's. With the binoculars you could see them enjoying themselves first on the ice and then in the brush. There was also a herd of about 20 caribou grazing its way slowly toward the bears, maybe a mile or two off. But we wanted to walk. The road is blocked off for cars at that point, but you can walk. We quickly got down to the bridge over the river. And then continued on along the road for an hour. Part of the time we walked with a young Spanish couple who were going on to camp for a couple of days. They were equipped with their bear proof food containers (the park supplies those to backpackers) and their bear spray. They weren't happy that there were no rental bikes available this early in the season, but were enjoying the fact that we had the road pretty much to ourselves and the various park service vehicles. At mile 33 we said goodbye and turned around as they continued on.

When we got back to the bus stop the four bears were still there, and a quarter mile up the road cars were parked looking at another two bears playing on the ice shelf. I'm sure the giant telephoto lenses people had are great, but you have to wonder about their phallic symbolism. Anyway, I decided to try a little video since maybe the movement would show up better than I could get with a still. Had to push the telephoto all the way so it's pretty rough, but it gives you an idea. The second part of the video (and don't worry, it's very short) is much better. It's a wolf that came onto the road about 15 minutes later as we were driving along.

It crossed the road and disappeared. Some cars stopped to find out what we were stopped for, but they couldn't find the wolf. After they left, we saw it again, loping through the brush. Fortunately for the others, it was pretty fast, and a mile or two later we saw the cars stopped along the road watching the wolf continue at very good speed. Again, the pictures are great. This documentation rather than photography.

Denali Trip 2

We started with a hike along Savage River, enjoying the sun and blue sky. It was windy.








Soon we were near the Dall sheep that hang around there. On Friday, we looked into the new (our first time inside was last year) visitor center and caught their version of the Dall sheep. Taxidermy is out, the animals in here are sculpted.











We went on beyond the footbridge that loops back to the road and found a nice spot in the tundra to sit and enjoy the sun and scenery. We sat across from this ice patch (don't think it would qualify as a glacier) and relaxed and talked.

Eventually we made it back to the car and drove slowly along, stopping now and again to walk out into the tundra and to look at animals. As always at this time, caribou are plentiful and some are fairly close to the road.

The Alaska state bird, the ptarmigan, is plentiful in the park as they change from winter to summer plumage. This is a willow ptarmigan.

And arctic hare were regularly playing chicken, dashing in front of the car at the last possible moment.








Sanctuary campground was open (but not for overnight yet) so we pulled in, heated up the cashew chicken we had from the Thai Kitchen, read, slept, and generally enjoyed the sun and peace and quiet. Then the slow drive back to the Riley Campgrounds near the entrance. And to bed about 11pm.

Denali Trip 1

We just got back from three days at Denali National Park. (Denali is the Native name for the tallest mountain in North America, but the Ohio Senators always find a way to block changing the name of the mountain to Denali from McKinley, who just happened to be President when white explorers found the mountain.) The park is just shedding its winter look (the snow is gone from the road and the lower elevations except along the rivers and plants are just starting to poke out from the ground.



















In May, before the official park busses start, cars are allowed to drive to Teklanika Campground, about 30 miles in from the entrance. And there are hardly any tourists around. We left Anchorage at 8:30pm on Tuesday. Even though summer solstice is still more than a month away, the late light is with us as you can see in the pictures below as we drove the 237 miles north to Denali.

Here we are half an hour out of Anchorage, a little after 9pm.









And here's 11pm from Mile 135, the Denali viewpoint. Those are the lower level mountains of the Alaska Range, with the peak of Denali covered in clouds.




Further along, it's now midnight, but the sky is dusk, while the ground is still not 'dark' but headlights advised.


We're now only a few miles from the park. It's almost 1 am. That dark spot standing on the gravel bar is a moose. Most of these pictures will show more detail if you click on them. You should be able to see the moose.

I'll add the rest of the trip in a few separate posts.

Smart Pigs, but Dumb BP Execs: Does changing the report make the problem go away?

"Oil giant wants to rescind memo on corrosion," The Anchorage Daily News (ADN) carried an AP story today that reports that British Petroleum (BP) wants to revise an internal report they commissioned from Booz Allen Hamilton which found that "'[B]udget pressure' leads company managers to discontinue corrosion prevention programs at Prudhoe Bay." And no one has disputed that the corrosion led to the large pipeline leak and oil spill March 2006.

"The report examined the causes of the leaks, including how management decisions contributed to the incidents. One conclusion was that BP decided to save money by cutting the use of devices called "smart pigs" that detect weaknesses in pipelines.

"The incriminating documents and e-mails suggesting cost-cutting at BP surfaced earlier this month, according to the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner. BP officials had previously denied any role cost-cutting might have played in the leak or the partial shutdown.

"Your own report clearly contradicts this assertion," U.S. Rep. John Dingell, D-Mich., who chairs the House Energy and Commerce Committee, and Rep. Bart Stupak, D-Mich., chairman of the subcommittee on oversight and investigations, wrote in a letter to Malone on Friday.

"In meetings with congressional staff, BP officials said they planned to remove lines from the report reading, "Budget pressure eventually led to de-scoping some projects and deferring others. For example, the plan to run a smart pig in the (Oil Transit Lines) was dropped in 2004 and 2005."

So, as I read this, they want to get rid of the lines that say their budget cutting led to the spill. Now, presumably there could be some legitimate challenge to the conclusion that Booz Allen Hamilton made, but BP isn't talking until the Wednesday Congressional hearing.

Most of the reports online seem to get there facts from Fairbanks News Miner, Reuters, and The Wall Street Journal. They all basically report the same things. The House subcommittee members and staff have seen the Booz Allen report and the Friday letter to BP from the committee. Presumably they or the legislators themselves are the sources of the information.

Upstreamonline adds "Sources familiar with the full report told Reuters this week the document blamed cost cutting at BP following two mergers for decimating internal controls over operations."

Jim Carlton at the Wall Street Journal adds that:

"The congressmen also disclosed in the letter that they had recently uncovered a Feb. 5, 2003, email from BP which they say suggests the company planned to pig the very lines that failed. However, they said, those plans appear to have been nixed by superiors. The email contains an "Authorization for Expenditure" that the congressmen said appears to be a proposal to "install permanent pig launching and receiving facilities" in several places, including transit lines where the spills later took place. But the expense request appears to have been turned down, they added, since it included a notation: 'rejected...for approval.'

"BP officials declined comment, saying those were "matters of interest" at Wednesday's hearing. Booz Allen officials weren't immediately available.

"Cost cutting has also been brought up as a possible link to a March 2005 explosion at a BP refinery in Texas City, Texas. BP officials have said they believe budgetary decisions didn't play a critical role in the accident, which killed 15 people and injured 180."

Either BP (1) really feels that the Booz Allen report is in error or (2) they want to disavow that the spill was due to negligence on their part. From what little is available, the second option seems a lot more likely.

So, why does this matter? I can think of a couple of possible implications. Some specific to the case, some more generalizable to longer term issues.

Specific BP implications:

1. One possibility is that BP is looking at potential lawsuits ahead and doesn't want their own internal documents saying that they could have prevented the spill if they hadn't been so cheap. (BP's 2005 annual net profit was $19 billion.) Not only are they exposed for the 2007 spill in Prudhoe, but also, according to the WSJ article, for the Texas fire that killed 15 people.

2. Alaskans were chagrined to learn that BP was claiming the money spent cleaning up the March 2006 oil spill as a business expense on their state taxes, thus lowering their tax liability. A May 8, 2007 press release from the House Labor & Com. Committee of the Alaska Legislature House says this about House Bill 128:

"In light of the recent events we, the Legislature, must work to close any loop holes we find in PPT." Rep. Kurt Olson (R-Soldotna), the bill's prime sponsor said. "The ability of producers to write off expenses incurred due to their own improper maintenance is a prime example. "When a producer makes the choice to cut corners on maintenance, the people of Alaska should not be made to pay." The bill , as of May 5, 2007, would be retroactive.

If this bill passes, and given the very recent scandals in Juneau concerning big oil's influence on the legislature, and the PPT (Petroleum Profits Tax) specifically, there's a good chance it will, BP would obviously not want internal studies 'admitting' their own improper maintenance becaue of cutting corners.

More General Implications

1. Enron told Arthur Anderson to get them better accountants when the accountant assigned to Enron raised questions about their accounting methods. Enron claimed the accountant was stuck in the old school and simply didn't understand the new world they were working in. They probably believed that, but they were also concerned that changing the way they reported their finances would negatively affect their stock. Anderson, not wanting to jeopardize one of their most successful clients, complied. When Enron eventually collapsed, Anderson went down with them. It's nice to see that Booz Allen wrote a report that did not reflect well on their client. But it looks like BP is playing Enron here by disavowing their own hired experts' conclusions.

2. What does this say about the ability of large corporations to deal with bad news that might expose them to liability? If having it in writing from your own hired consultant sets up a company for a lawsuit, it's better not to write it down, or even ask the question in the first place. One option, that I'm sure already exists in practice, is to recognize the company's own attempts to honestly deal with a problem and give some credit when determining penalties. For companies that don't even study the problem or have white washed reports, the penalties would be greater. Perhaps consulting firms have different reputations and you hire one kind if you want a white wash and another kind of firm if you want honest, even if painful, feedback.

Goodbye John Alexander

We left the Bat Mitzvah lunch a little early to get to the memorial for John Alexander. Along the way we passed an anti-war rally, something I mention because John would have strongly approved.

I don't know when I first met John, probably around 1982 at the Municipality of Anchorage where he was Director of Labor Relations. We also had another connection at the University of Alaska Anchorage when John was enrolled in a doctoral seminar. John was always (at least outwardly) calm. He seemed to be seeing things from above and back a ways where his view was clearer than those of us caught up in the middle. He always saw the humor in the situation. It isn't that he didn't take things seriously. He took things so seriously, that he had to have a little distance to keep his sanity. John was always out doing things for other people and was involved in so many community activities, including theater.

The picture is from our Labor Day BBQ last September.


The memorial was at the IBEW meeting room, an appropriate place for a strong union man, and in addition to some local folks talking about John, his brother and brother-in-law gave us a glimpse at the John before he came to Alaska. Roseanne, John's wife, left us not that long ago, and I still miss her warmth and wit.


It was also nice to see Layli, the niece John and Roseanne loved so much, here with Craig ("the reason I'm living in New Jersey.") I hope we can keep in touch with her, John and Roseanne's living legacy.






John, we'll save a spot for you at this Memorial Day BBQ. And several desserts.





See also Good-bye Bea Rose for more on John and Rosanne

Leah's Bat Mitzvah and Sabbatical Year

I didn't really know Leah, but her Mom is my dermatologist and I like her mom a lot. I was impressed by her poise, her seriousness, and preparation and the thoughtfulness of her comments. Her mom should be (and was) very proud of Leah today. So were the relatives who came from out of state. She even had a moose looking in through the picture window for a few minutes.



Her Torah portion from Leviticus was a reminder of how old the environmental movement is. Moses is to tell his people to rest the fields the seventh year.




And God also tells Moses that the land belongs to God, that people cannot own the land, they can only use it for a while and they must protect the land. Something that doesn't seem to have translated well into most economics texts. Click here for a commentary on this Torah portion.












At the end of the service we had the blessing over the bread and people gathered together for a beautiful meal in the newly enlarged room in the Synagogue.




[Blog etiquette is something I continue to improvise as I go along. Picture taking during the services is generally frowned on and I decided I'd leave out pictures of people altogether for this event. Can't explain why. It feels right.]

Looking for the hooded merganser at Goose Lake

After dinner at the Thai Kitchen, Catherine wanted to look for the hooded merganser she'd seen the other day at Goose Lake. We didn't find the mergansers but there were widgeons, a bonaparte gull, and a pair of magnificent Pacific loons, and a yellow legs.




Joe and I, fooled by the bright sun, and thinking we wouldn't be out long, only were in our shirts. So while Joan and Catherine were watching birds, we took one of the cars home to warm up. When the ladies got home they said the loons 'ran' across the lake several times making all kinds of noise. And the only bird close enough for the camera was the yellow legs.

DELTA Meeting

Spent this afternoon with the Statewide Steering Committee of DELTA, a non-profit that works to prevent intimate partner violence. Given Alaska's position as the state with the highest rate of domestic violence, this is a critical project. See, for example, Amnesty International's Report: The Failure to Protect Indigenous Women from Sexual Violence in the USA. We've got a lot of high power talent on the committee, with lots of experience dealing with the issue. Most funding goes to intervention - working with the abused and the abusers after the fact. The emphasis is on prev
ention - focusing on those conditions that contribute to violence in the community and society as a whole so that structural changes can be designed and implemented. We are following a set of steps established by the Center for Disease Control and have been trying to gather data documenting various aspects of the situation in Alaska. We're also mapping people and agenices that deal with intimate partner violence or otherwise affect the lives of the abused and abusers.

Cal Thomas - Victory or Defeat - False Dichotomies and Zero Sum Games

May 01, 2007
Defeat, Retreat, and Repeat (RealClearPolitics
[The title for this at the Anchorage Daily News was "War opponents are wrong; we must stay and fight to win"]
By Cal Thomas
For the sake of argument, let's say former CIA Director George Tenet is right in his book and that Vice President Dick Cheney pushed too hard with questionable or inaccurate intelligence because of a predisposition to go to war in Iraq and topple Saddam Hussein. So what? We can't go back and fix the mistakes of the past. Only two choices are available: victory or defeat.

Thomas is presenting us with what is called by many "a false dichotomy". Don Lindsay calls it 'excluded middle:"

"Excluded Middle (False Dichotomy, Faulty Dilemma, Bifurcation):
assuming there are only two alternatives when in fact there are more. For example, assuming Atheism is the only alternative to Fundamentalism, or being a traitor is the only alternative to being a loud patriot."

To get the point, we could ask Cal Thomas what he means by victory? Maybe he'd say:

Americans can claim victory when whatever Iraqis are left have a peaceful, democratic nation; with an economy that affords Iraqis at least as high an average standard of living as they had under Saddam Hussein; that is friendly to American business interests and has a strong enough military to prevent takeover from Iran or other neighbors.

If not this, what are you willing to settle for Mr. Thomas? What would a victory look like to you? Because I can't see any possible way we'll end up with the one I've pictured here. Here's an alternative to that one.

Americans can claim victory when all Iraqi weapons of mass destruction are destroyed and Saddam Hussein is brought to justice.

In this case, we can pull out now.

By giving us the choice of 'victory or defeat' Thomas is giving us no choice. If you buy into that false dichotomy, there's only one option. But as the two descriptions of victory above show, there are a lot of variables he hasn't factored in and probably an infinite number of points on a line from the first victory described above and some equally extreme defeat (maybe Islamic forces led by Osama Bin Laden taking over the United States.)

Let's look at some of the variables:

Number of dead Iraqis (but then this would have to be broken down into types of dead Iraqis - military or civilian; Sunni or Shiite; male or female, under 15 or over 15; wealthy or poor; Southerners or Northerns; educated or un-educated; you get the picture. And if you are thinking these are all false dichotomies too, I'm happy.
Number of dead Americans, non-Iraqis (you can fill in the details here)
Cost to get to the end of the war (we've already discussed lives, but there is also money, prestige, impact on US economy, on familes of soldiers - dead, wounded - mentally or physically; level of environmental degradation, archeological damage, and on and on)
Benefits(here we could list anything from ownership of Iraqi oil reserves; increased skills and abilities -knowledge of Arabic or English, skills with weapons, flying planes, inspiring others, better understanding of geography, and on and on; greater power; and I'll leave it for any readers who make it this far to think of other benefits)
Distribution of the costs and benefits (who ends up with which costs and which benefits will affect the balance of power, in individual families, individual countries, and in the world)

Of course, I'm assuming that Cal Thomas knows all this. His purpose wasn't an attempt to clarify what we know about American defense policy and to help find a path to a policy that is built on models that describe cause and effect relationships that, when implemented, lead to the predicted outcomes. Getting us more accurate models than the one that said, "if American troops take over Bagdad, the people of Iraq will welcome them like heroes." No, people who use rhetorical devices like false dichotomies are trying to hoodwink people into accepting their argument by limiting their choices. In this case he is trying to discredit George Tenet who's written a book critical of Bush by making it look like he's calling for defeat.

While I would hope the reader can see that Thomas' "Only two choices are available: victory or defeat" is a ridiculous false dichotomy, I'm more interested in readers spotting other dichotomies and learning ways to expose them. "What do you mean by victory?" "What do you mean by defeat?" "What do you mean by traitor?" "Who is them?" "Who is us?" etc.

And kids shouldn't graduate from high school without being able to spot and expose the most common logical fallacies. This link or the Don Lindsay link above will give you enough to cover most situations.

And what's the connection to Zero-Sum games? This post is getting pretty long already. Briefly, zero-sum games are those in which there is a winner and a loser, or at least when the players think that way. What the winner gains, the loser loses. It's like sharing a pie. What I get to eat, you can't eat. By framing our options as Victory or Defeat, Thomas is using zero-sum game thinking. But, as I showed above with all the variables involved (number of deaths, other costs, various possible benefits and how they are distributed, etc.) we see that the outcome isn't either/or. It's variable (non-zero sum game is often called variable sum game). We could have 'victory' by killing every last Iraqi and hundreds of thousands of Americans or we could have declared victory when there were clearly no weapons of mass destruction and Saddam Hussein was brought to justice. This is a real simplification, but I at least wanted to make the connection. For those who don't know these terms already, you can look them up. I haven't found a good simple link on this, but try wikipedia for game theory, zero-sum games, and non-zero sum games.

Bill Allen of Veco Pleads Guilty

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
MONDAY, MAY 7, 2007
WWW.USDOJ.GOV
CRM
(202) 514-2007
TDD (202) 514-1888
Chief Executive Officer and Vice President of
VECO Corporation Plead Guilty to Corruption and Tax Charges

WASHINGTON – Bill J. Allen, chief executive officer and part-owner of VECO Corporation, and Richard L. Smith, vice president of community affairs and government relations of VECO Corporation, have pleaded guilty to providing more than $400,000 in corrupt payments to public officials from the state of Alaska, Assistant Attorney General Alice S. Fisher of the Criminal Division announced today.

Allen and Smith each pleaded guilty at hearings in federal court today in Anchorage, Alaska, to a three-count information charging them with: bribery; conspiracy to commit bribery, extortion under color of official right, and honest services mail and wire fraud; and conspiracy to defraud the Internal Revenue Service of the U.S. Department of Treasury. In filed court documents, Allen and Smith each admitted to conspiring with five current and former members of the Alaska Legislature – identified in court documents as State Representative A, State Representative B, State Representative C, State Senator A, and State Senator B – to provide illegal financial benefits to multiple Alaska elected officials in exchange for those officials’ support on legislation pending before the Alaska State Legislature. Allen and Smith also pleaded guilty to one substantive count of bribery, and admitted that they provided greater than $400,000 in benefits to public officials from the state of Alaska in connection with the scheme.
click herefor the rest of the Justice Department statement.


OK, State Reps A, B, and C have already been arrested. The Anchorage Daily News writes this afternoon:

"But enough information is given in the Allen charges about most of the anonymous players
to figure out who they probably are.
The one exception is Senator A, about whom little data is offered and whose identity remains obscured.
Senator B is described as being part of a conspiracy in which Allen and Smith say they paid him "for giving advice, lobbying colleagues and taking official acts in matters before the Legislature."
One former senator matches the description of Senator B: former Senate President Ben Stevens.

They also say that the deal Bill Allen made in exchange for cooperation was that his son and other members of his family will not be indicted.

This is a big day in Alaska politics. Bill Allen and Veco have had significant influence on the Alaska legislature for years now. Will this convince the The Anchorage Daily News to drop their half page unpaid daily advertising for Veco?* Will Alaska Pacific University change the name of Veco Drive on their campus? Will legislators AND MORE IMPORTANT, will citizens behave better in the future? I wouldn't hold my breath, but this is definitely a teachable moment. For those who believed in the candidates who have been indicted - will they be more questioning in the future? Or will they still be seduced by sweet talkers whose focus groups have told them what words to use to push their emotional buttons? Or will they not distinguish between the corrupt and the honest and just condemn all politics?

Alaska Robotics'video suggests a way to prevent private companies from biying our legislators - the public buys them first! Check it out.

Barbados Free Press Curious About Who Veco's Bought in Barbados

The Barbados Free Press in a May 5th post picked up on Pete Kott's interest in a job in Barbados.

“You’ll get your gas line, the governor gets his bill, and I’ll get my job in Barbados,” … Peter Kott, former Speaker of the House, as recorded during FBI Alaska bribery investigation. Kott was offered a position with VECO involving the new Barbados prison.

Breaking News: On Friday, May 4, 2007, American politicians and businessmen were indicted in a bribery scheme involving VECO Corporation, a company that is heavily involved with the Barbados government and various Barbados politicians and business people. VECO’s Barbados projects include the oil terminal and pipeline, and the building of the new prison.
Which Barbados Politicians Are Involved?

VECO is a huge corporation headquartered in Anchorage, Alaska. With close ties to the Bush Republicans and operations in Alaska, Washington State, Alberta & British Columbia - Canada, India, Russia, United Arab Emirates and Barbados, VECO is a powerhouse in the oil and natural resources industry. VECO also has large interests in construction, pipelines & terminals, power generation, manufacturing, biotechnology and military contracts industries.

VECO Corporation and it’s wholly owned subsidiary Commonwealth Construction were the primary contractors on the Barbados Terminal and Pipeline project, and the (then) “$120 Million” new Barbados jail.

The company has often been criticized for having a corporate culture of unethical behaviour, bribes and undermining democracy. (Obviously, the American Federal Bureau of Investigation would probably agree with that statement.)

If VECO Corporation has acted unethically on their home turf of Alaska, one has to wonder what they might be guilty of in a foreign country like Barbados.


We know from media articles that the FBI even has recordings of telephone conversations between VECO officials and the corrupt politicians - where VECO’s Barbados operations were a topic of conversation.

What else does the FBI have?

You can bet that the Prime Minister of Barbados and many of his gang aren’t going to get much sleep in the next little while as they wonder what will surface during the trials and investigations yet to come.

Barbados Free Press will continue to follow up on this important story - even if no one else in the Barbados media mentions it.

Maybe the people of Alaska and of Barbados should be working together here. And where else does Veco do their business?

When Should One Resign?

Resignation of Ambassador Randall Tobias
Resigned when his name came up on a list of call girl customers in Washington,DC. He was working on programs to stop prostitution around the world.

I will not resign, says Wolfowitz
Having made corruption his most important battle at the World Bank, his staffers now say that effort is compromised by Wolfowitz's working out a high paying job for his girlfriend. So far he refuses to step down.

BP boss quits over private life lie Lord Browne has brought British Petroleum from the sidelines of the oil industry to one of the big boys. He's also transformed the image with a strong environmental theme. More recently there have been problems with a fire in Texas that killed workers and an oil spill in Alaska caused by the erosion on neglected pipelines. But it was accusations from his former boyfriend and how he responded to them in court, that caused his resignation this week. He was planning to step down this summer.


Bush rejects calls for Gonzales resignation The list against Gonzales is both extensive and probably better known to most. After a dismal Senate grilling where he 'couldn't recall' over 70 times details of the firings of Federal Prosecutors, even Republicans are calling for his resignation.


Olmert hangs on amid resignation calls The results of the investigation of last year's invasion of Lebanon has reignited calls for Israeli Prime Minister Olmert to resign.


Embattled University of Alaska regent resigns
Jim Hayes, the University of Alaska Regent, only resigned April 27. He was first asked to resign by the governor in January and has been refusing to resign despite being under indictment for felony fraud misusing $450,000 in federal grant money at a non-profit he ran. The Alaska Legislature was working on a bill to give the Governor the power to remove the Regent when he resigned.


We have here three office holders trying to hold on, and three who have resigned in the last week. The only two didn't fight their resignations. How can we balance the public interest with fairness and justice? Well, for one thing, no one is owed public positions, though they shouldn't be removed against their will without some reasonable cause. What are reasonable grounds for asking for one's resignation or for refusing to resign? Here are some preliminary thoughts:

When people should resign:
1. They've abused the public or their employers' trust through misuse of their position - they've used their office for personal gain, and/or they have made decisions based on personal criteria, not the objective, professional criteria required.
2. They have caused harm or damage through neglect, incompetence, or other inability to do the necessary work
3. A significant portion of the public and/or the people who work with or for them no longer trust them or have confidence in them to the point that it affects the credibility of the agency or company

[March 14, 2008: The Spitzer resignation raises a possible fourth category, or maybe it's part of number 3 - hypocricy. If someone is caught violating a value he has espoused strongly, perhaps that increases the pressure to resign.]
When people should fight to keep their positions:
A starting assumption for all of these is that, using as objective evaluation criteria as possible, they are doing a good job.
1. Despite doing a good job others are attacking them This could arise for various reasons:
a. Whistleblowers are often attacked for revealing bad practices.
b. Someone's good performance can make others look bad in comparison
c. Someone else may covet their jobs - it appears this was part of the reason behind the firing of the federal prosecutors
d. There may be a power struggle between different political camps or ideologies
2. They want to finish a project or program they have begun.
3. They want to hold their place until the regime changes - Supreme Court justices may wait until after an election hoping the new administration will replace them with someone of the same legal philosophy


Why people might fight to keep their jobs even if the above conditions do not hold:
1. Stepping down is seen as an admission of guilt, fault, wrongdoing
2. Admitting wrong would result in shame or disgrace
3. Stepping down would result in loss of income, or they may need a little more time in the job to qualifiy for retirement or other benefits
4. They haven't finished the work (legitimate or illegitimate) they want to get done.
5. They want to retain the power or prestige of the position
6. They want to block a rival from gaining the position
7. They honestly believe they are doing a good job
8. Stepping down reflects poorly on their supporters or allies
9. Their personal identity is wrapped up in the job and without the job they have nothing to do
10. They are afraid to face reality and accept that they aren't doing a good job

Of course, more than one could apply.


So we can create 'stories' around any of the headlines above that would justify a swift resignation or a vigorous fight to retain the job. The dilemma for us is to be able to fill in the facts well enough to determine which story actually fits. The media should play a key role in this. And some media do. Unfortunately, the media have various motives other than exposing truth these days. Making a profit is essential for any business. For many media organizations, improving the bottom line is easier if they produce cheap and sensational stories rather than in-depth investigations. Other media outlets are simply propaganda machines to gain power for their ideological causes. There is no interest in the truth, only the appearance of being fair and unbiased. But ultimately, citizens bear the responsibility of knowing about the people they vote for or against. There is enough available information to gain informed judgments, that enable one to determine if Wolfowitz is being hounded because the action with his girlfriend a) was a serious breach of ethics and a crippling blow to the World Bank, b) was an understandable issue to use to oust him for other more serious, but complex problems or c) an issue to be used because he has been threatening the cushy jobs of long time World Bank bureaucrats. I'm afraid it's harder for me to find facts that justify Gonzales' continued tenure as Attorney General. though if his supporters strain hard enough they could argue it is simply a political attack on his ideology. You can evaluate the other headlines yourselves.

Three Republican State Legislators Indicted

[June 24, 2008: For a much more thorough and informed overview of the Alaska US House and Senate races see this post by Phil Munger at Progressive Alaska.]

OK, two are former legislators. Alaskan's have known since August when another legislator was indicted and it was clear the FBI had been to other legislators' offices that something like this was coming. The Eagle River (suburb of Anchorage) voters at least were smart enough to vote out Pete Kott already in the primary, but the Wasilla folks reelected Kohring in the fall. According to several stories in the Anchorage Daily News(ADN) today the three offered and worked to deliver any help VECO, an Anchorage based oil and gas support company, needed with legislation. In exchange they got cash and promises for jobs. Some of this was pretty blatant and the Daily News reported last summer at one point how VECO lobbyists called legislators over to talk to them during the session and seemed to be giving instructions.

Here's an different exchange on the House Floor. First you hear the Speaker recognize Rep. Wehrauch, one of the indictees. This is May 8, 2006 in the legislature. He has just introduced an amendment which passed. Then there is a recess. Weyhrauch gets the floor and apologizes that he wants to rescind the amendment he just introduced. Then Rep. Berkowitz, a Democrat, blasts Weyhrauch charging that he's changing his mind because the lobbyists told him to. Weyhrauch gets the floor again and says he's been impugned and it isn't true. Berkowitz then gives a civics lesson about how legislators are there for the people of Alaska, not for company lobbyists. (This is described in today's newspaper, the audio, from Gavel to Gavel, the state's coverage of the legislature, is from the ADN website.)


[If the audio is not on, first turn up your speakers. If that doesn't work Click on the Yellow Square) First Rep. Weyhrauch speaks, then Berkowitz.
floorexchange2 uploaded by NoKnow

Some thoughts and questions:
1. Liars can sound convincing if we know nothing about them and the context. Just listening we don't know if Weyhrauch or Berkowitz is right. In hindsight, Berkowitz was on the mark and Weyhrauch was lying.
2. This raises new questions aboutWeyhrauch's strange adventure last week when he fell off his boat and swam an hour to shore and spent the night with the mosquitoes until he was rescued the next day. Was the accident really a suicide attempt and he changed his mind in the water?
3. How did the FBI bug the room at the Baranof Hotel? A reliable source who I trust and should know says the hotel knew nothing about bugging the room. And that makes sense. The fewer people who know the safer. So did they do it on their own? Did the VECO lobbyists cooperate with the FBI and does that mean they won't be indicted? The mission of thePublic Integrity Section of the Justice Department which brought the indictments says, "The Public Integrity Section oversees the federal effort to combat corruption through the prosecution of elected and appointed public officials at all levels of government. The Section has exclusive jurisdiction over allegations of criminal misconduct on the part of federal judges and also monitors the investigation and prosecution of election and conflict of interest crimes. Section attorneys prosecute selected cases against federal, state, and local officials ..." Although their language only mentions public officials, their 2005 Annual Report gives an example of a non-governmental target. "On November 21, 2005, former public relations specialist Michael P.S. Scanlon pleaded guilty to participating in a conspiracy to commit bribery, honest services fraud, mail fraud, and wire fraud from January 2000 through April 2004." Scanlon worked for Abramoff. Maybe they should add non-governmental targets to their statement.
4. The ADN says a "Senator A" also listed in the indictments did not run for reelection. Of the three who fit that description, two have denied being the person (one was having a baby at the time) and a third, who refused to comment, is US Senator Ted Steven's son, Ben. Will Uncle Ted be able to protect his son? Is there anything that needs protecting?
5. The Baranof Hotel ought to frame the newspaper article and put it in Room 604 so future guests will understand the historical significance of the room they're in. This is where VECO and the boys did their trading of favors. (I know, we should wait until the conviction, but the taped conversations reported in the paper are going to be hard to explain in court. And...
6. These indictments were brought by a Republican Administration. And given the PR fiasco of the firing of the Federal Prosecutors, I guess whoever is in charge of this is safe, even if Republicans are the target.

Spam?

There's a new comment on an old post - the one about branding. The comment is cut and pasted in about a website on Jehovah's Witness lawsuits. The person got there through a google search for Jehovah's Witness. And the commentor got through the screening. So I'm guessing it was a person, not a machine. . It's sort of relevant since JW is mentioned (though there was a much more relevant one that same day..) Should I leave it or dump it? Based on what criteria?

Possible criteria:

1. A real person left the comment
2. There's a relationship to the post content
3. It isn't abusive of someone or a group
4. The information posted might be of interest to a reader
Should "It isn't a cut and paste comment without direct reference to the post" be a criterion?


What should I do?

Number 1500

Here's what Site Meter says about you:

netvigator.com ? (Commercial)
IP Address (PCCW Limited)
ISP PCCW Limited
Location
Continent : Asia
Country : Hong Kong (Facts)
City : Chiu-lung-ku-ch'eng

So leave your email. But 1499 was from France, so if Hong Kong doesn't get back to me, you can claim the prize.
IP Address (T-Online France - Club Internet)
ISP T-Online France - Club Internet
Location
Continent : Europe
Country : France (Facts

Otherwise maybe 1501 will leave a comment and claim the prize.

You could be hit number 20001500

I've got 19498 hits on my site meter since I put it up last fall. So you may be hit number 20001500. Come back and tomorrow I'll post the information site meter gives about you so you can see if you were that special hit. Or look at the site meter number at the bottom of the right column. If it's 2000, then leave a comment and tell us who you are. I'll think of a suitable prize if you leave a way to contact you..

Damn, I can't even count. So it looks like 1500 was here, but I had said 2000. Sorry. It's late, I should go to bed. But if I can find you, I'll send a suitable prize.

David Sedaris Live in Anchorage

It's May in Anchorage, so the sun was still high as we went into the Performing Arts Center at 7:45pm tonight.













Mr. Sedaris was in the lobby signing books before (and after) the show.








We went in as the auditorium was filling up. Bede Trantina, the program director of KSKA, the local NPR station that sponsored the evening, whose cheery voice has greeted Anchorage at 9am on Fridays since about 1978 with "Yipee, it's Friday" got loud and sustained applause as she walked out to introduce Mr. Sedaris. And he got a rip roaring greeting when he walked out. And then he started reading. He is funny, and he sounds just like he does on the radio. But... Authors on book tours do readings in book stores. It's usually free. Somehow I thought he'd be actually talking to us.

Alaska is a red state. Our Supreme Court had to rule that the state had to pay health benefits for same sex domestic partners of state employees despite a Constitutional Amendment saying marriage is between one man and one woman only, so gays couldn't get married to get the benefits. And an advisory vote last month to prohibit the benefits through a Constitutional Amendment did pass, though not by an overwhelming majority. And it's only advisory. All the poeple at the PAC tonight must have voted no. The full house was right with Sedaris as he talked about being asked - not just by the girl friend in the trailer park of his pot supplier in North Carolina, but also by so called liberals - which of you 'is the woman?" ["Were both men, that's what homosexual means."] But he then went on a riff to describe the 'male' and 'female' roles his partner Hugh performs.

Eventually he stopped reading and talked about his recent trip to Japan where he 'finished' smoking, studied Japanese, and got a haircut. And he plugged the book The Zombie Survival Guide (Yeah, go ahead and click, it's a fun website) that he explained was written by someone he doesn't know, a Max Brooks. Most Zombie survival strategies, he told us, 'are just common sense." And then he answered questions.

I'm still mulling over the reading thing. After all, he's a writer, so reading his work sort of makes sense. But I'm guessing that he's scratching his head about us paying money to hear him read too. He did say one reason he stopped smoking was so he could stay in the $700 hotel rooms people put him up in. He thought it was kind of crazy but he wasn't going to argue since they were paying. Someone else told me it was also a fundraiser for KSKA, so it's ok. And he did some talking too.

New Running Shoes

Inner Blog Editor: You can't post about your running shoes, no one cares.
Me: But there's something about getting a new pair and retiring the old ones.
IBE: Yeah, 90 bucks to the US consumption machine.
Me: Now wait, I need new shoes. The old ones are about two years old, they're flat, and my toes get calouses.
IBE: 90 bucks? But no one cares man. Wasting everyone's time on such trivia.
Me: You're probably right, but not that many people read this anyway. Hey, there is something about a new pair of running shoes. They keep me running and happy. And I don't know if all the shoe hype is for real or not, but I don't buy new ones that often.
IBE: Are you going to get rid of the old ones or keep them in that huge pile of old shoes, 'just in case' you need them?
Me: Busted. But I can use them when I work in the garden...

Free Hugs Scotland

AARP's current cover story is 6 Secrets of People Who Never Get Sick." Secret #1 is to Smile. This video should help keep you healthy.