What Does a Climate Change Worker Do? John Streicker

At the Indigenous Peoples Global Summit on Climate Change (click link for all the posts on the summit) last week, one of the people I spoke with was John Streicker from the Yukon. He said his job was in climate change, so I asked him what that meant. And he gave me a well thought out reply.


He listed five things climate change workers do:

1. Monitoring
2. Creating Scenarios - Projecting Changes
3. Public Education
4. Mitigation
5. Responding To The Changes We're Feeling Now

In the video he gives a little more explanation of each.

Susan and William Goldenberg Make Stunning Music

In amongst the books I've been reading simultaneously is this passage about a married couple who go off into another world while playing the piano together:

The millions sank, as Nietzsche describes it, awestruck in the dust; hostile boundaries shattered, the gospel of world harmony reconciled and unified the sundered; they had unlearned walking and talking and were about to fly off, dancing, into the air. Faces flushed, bodies hunched, their heads jerked up and down while splayed claws banged away at the mass of sound rearing up under them. Something unfathomable was going on: a balloon wavering in outline as it filled up with hot emotion, was swelling to the bursting point, and from the excited fingertips, the nervously wrinkling foreheads, the twitching bodies, again and again surges of fresh feeling poured into this awesome private tumult.

Robert Musil's description on page 45 of The Man Without Qualities came to mind last night as I listened to the Goldenberger Duo - a brother and sister - play the violin and piano together. While last night's music was mellower than Musil's couple's, the Goldenbergs too were invisibly connected, their fingers and souls producing magical sounds that is the promise, but rarely the reality, of live music.

The sanctuary at Beth Sholom has great acoustics, and the trees through the window made a soothing backdrop that included, for a while, a bald eagle making lazy circles in the sky.

I did take a bit of video, but if you watch it, remember it was taken with my little Canon Powershot and so the sound is a raspy whisper while their live sound was rich and enthralling.

For people like Phil who know the music, here's what they played:

Antonin Dvorak - Sonatina in G Major, op.100, Allegro risoluto

Astor Piazolla - Oblivion

Manuel de Falla - Suite Populaire Espangnole (six songs)

John Williams - Theme from Schindler's List

Ernest Bloch - Nigun - Improvisation from Ball Shem Suite

Antonin Dvorak - Sonatina in G Major, op. 100, Allegro

Traditional Hebrew and Yiddish Folks Songs


The last because this concert, nominally, was a musical performance for Yom HaZikaron and Yom Haatzmaut.

The two musicians were concluding a busy week, having played in Juneau, Skagway, Haines, Homer, Eagle River, and a morning concert at West High School in Anchorage before last night's concert.

Thank you, William and Susan, for sharing your window to a better world.

Biking in Anchorage

Talk of Alaska is discussing increasing numbers of bike users in Anchorage right now (the show will be available as a pod cast later today or tomorrow). There's a draft bike plan and the commenting period has been extended to May 7 I think they said. (As I post this the website still says April 30 is the deadline, but don't believe it.) Lori Schanche of the Municipality said they've already got 80 comments. I suspect that some people haven't commented because they didn't have the time to read the whole plan. But if you're a cyclist and don't have the time, just say you didn't get time to read it all and tell them you support the general idea of improving biking conditions in Anchorage.

I did ride my bike three days last week to the Indigenous Summit last week, but there was lots of summit stuff to post on and I feel that some people out there get sick of cyclists pushing the idea of riding. However, it really is a viable alternative for many people for many trips. Not everything. The parts of Chester Creek I was on were almost totally clear of snow and ice. The picture shows one of the exceptions on the first day. But just in the three days I rode my bike, things cleared up significantly. And while I was disturbed that all the gravel that had been on the streets was now piled in the bike lane (on A Street) and the bike path next to the streets. But then the next day they were cleaning the A Street bike path - see the picture - and the day after the E Street path was clear of gravel.

Our streets were designed for cars so many people think that riding bikes isn't viable the winter makes it impossible here. But improving the infrastructure summer riding can be much safer and the advent of mountain bikes and LED bike lights has made winter biking much easier. And if people can ski or ride snow machines in the winter, then it isn't too cold to ride a bike. Listen to the show pod cast to hear what they are doing. Here's the Talk of Alaska link again.

IPS - Eriel Tchekwie Deranger, Canada

I've still got a couple more interviews and other video from the Indigenous Peoples Global Summit on Climate Change (click link for all the posts on the summit). I also have more observations after four days at the summit. This video was done Friday. Eriel was one of the youth representatives and had just been interviewed by an AP reporter and was upset because she felt the AP reporter had gotten her to say more than she should have. I'll have more to write about that topic - I saw that same AP reporter again soon after at the press conference, which I reported on here. She's identified in the rough transcripts as Mary. In any case, I mention that because Eriel was a little distracted when we did this quick video. But I think the content is important for Alaskans and others to hear.

Indigenous People's Global Summit - Felipe Iniquez, Mexico

It's late Saturday night already and I have a lot of video and pictures and thoughts about the Summit. Yesterday (Friday) afternoon I went with three of the African delegates on a short Anchorage tour. Their biggest interest was to go to the mountains and see the snow. We picked up my friend Jeremy on the way and went to Glen Alps and walked to Powerline Pass. I'm sorry I don't have any pictures - all my memory cards were full - but they had a great time playing in the snow for the first time. We even had some big fluffy snow flakes come down while they were up there.

On the way up the hill, Jeremy got a call that his Friday night live host couldn't do the show. Jeremy's been pestering me - and I've been pushing him - to do more live shows with interesting people. So I proposed that we had three delegates to the Summit from Africa who would make a great show. We ate dinner when we got back to Jeremy's and he played with wires, the mic, and his computer until he said, "OK, you're on in three minutes." And we talked about the Summit and their issues back home for the next hour plus. Jeremy's wife came home in the middle and I went to explain what was going on and she said, "I know, I've been listening in the car." Add my wife and I know there were at least two people listening to KWMD while we were on. I don't normally see myself as a radio type, but I was really into the topic and mostly what I had to do was ask the three guests questions.

Today I went with five others who had an extra day before heading back from Anchorage. We went to Hope and back with lots of stops on the way. And despite the strong winds along Turnagain Arm, they seemed to all have a good time.

Here's one video from the Summit - of Felipe de Jesus Iniguez Perez of Jalisco, Mexico.





Here's a link to all the Indigenous Peoples Summit posts.

Indigenous People's Global Summit - Friday 4 Press Conference

I've got to check some names but I'll post this now and fix the details later.

The signing hasn't happened yet. There are still disagreements to be worked out. The Youth group has language they want in and like all groups with committed people, they have to work through the differences between what they really want to say and what they think is politically most effective. I got in a couple of more video interviews and I'm spending free time - what there is of it - to delete old video from my Mac.


What's dividing the group?

Patricia Cochran: Like the UN we are a diverse group. We worked until 5am. Five of the seven regions have signed the declaration. We're working out the language for the last two groups.

Andrea Carmen: Still some concern for language added, strengthening. It's a timing issue. We had a time set for signing, but we didn't get it finished in that time. Not a matter of rejecting the declaration, but just need the process of consensus to work out. I fully expect to sign off by the end of the day.

Vicky Tauli-Corpuz: It is not easy to come up with a declaration to sign after 20 years in just four days. We are a diverse people, we still have to understand concerns of people not in our own region. Generally, if you look at the areas where there are full agreement, we all agree we must do something significant to mitigate climate change happening now. And we have a responsibility to do this. Indigenous people are also caught up in the modern world and are not carbon neutral and we too have to figure out how to move from fossil fuel to renewable energy, small scale energy systems. How do you address the socio-economic implications of moving to there. It's really a natural process you have to go through.


Mary ?, AP. I want to ask specifically. I heard one of the two regions not to sign on is the ARctic.

Patricia C.: I am the Arctic Rep and I signed up.

Mary: What is the sticking point and who is holding up

Kimo Carvalho: Pacific, we respect our elders and the steering committee, and we could not move on with out the permission of our elders. We want to represent our voices well in this document. I want to emphasize we are not here to cut off from any document coming from this summit, and we will work with everyone to get it done.

Mary: What's the problem?

Kimo C: Still under discussion. Sorry, I can't share more now. We will be signing it tonight.

Mary: Speaking as part of the youth group?

Kimo C: Youth Group will also meet and add language they want and bring it to the steering committee meeting and articulate their.

Mary: The moratorium on fossil fuels, you signed on, am I confused here?

Patricia: I've signed on for the Arctic. There are issues. We're talking about a two and a half page document. The whole report will be made available to the world - energy, sustainability, traditional values, all will be there. Good, bad, and ugly. What we hope with the declaration was to find consensus points we could all agree on. We're still working on that. The rest will all come out in its entire form.

Mary: When you say Arctic concerns satisfied. It does not include moritorium on fossil fuels?

Patricia: At the end of the day, all that will be clarified.

Kimo C: I hope you can be respectful as the press, to let us follow through on this process. There are only two small points out of the whole document that everyone has agreed to. I hope you won't put the emphasis on the sticking points, and recognize this is democratic.

Reporter: How realistic is it to call for a moratorium on new gas development.

Patricia: Our document will cover that. It's not just an Alaskan issue. We are trying to find a point of view we can all share. Not easy. Trying to get to consensus.

Vicky: On realistic? STrategically, important to call for moritorium. Big oil, oil disappearing. The call is for phasing out oil. Of course not realistic at this point because there are many socio-economic implications. We have countries totlly dependent on oil. They will ask: "Can you imagine the consequences for us?" They have to work out how to shape their economy so they won't starve. We are not the ones deciding how these resources are extracted. In principle we should all agree to that, but we have to be realistic

James Miller, CBC: Interested in process, you talk about hashing it out this afternoon. What happens if you can't come to common language agreement?

Patricia: We aready have five regions that have signed on. No one disagrees with the conference report and all agree that is far more important than the declaration itself.

Miller: Will the declaration go if you don't have unanimity?

Patricia: It will. Along with the full conferenc report. We want people at the UN to know that we considered all the problems and all the solutions we may or may not have. Perhaps the President has some words.

President UN: I think this has been a very successful gathering. Ive been at many gatherings and these are processes that take some time. The final declartion will be strengthened by presenting the whole report, for people in Copenhagen will have access to the richness of the time spent here. This sort of thing happens always. I'm happy and proud to have been here and this task.

Cletus Springer: When I reflect on where this process was and where it is now, I'm in awe at what has been achieved. This is the first major gathering of indigenous people on climate change. This is the first time they have examined the issue. The point of the declaration is only significant, where the language tends to be so specific, the negotiation becomes intense. You almost had to be working on the declaration. The process of getting the feedback... We did the best we could...amazing to get five regions to agree. One or two issues that separated us will

John Strieker, Canada: ABout UN declaration on indigenous people. How important and your work on climate change, and what it might mean that Canada, US, and New Zealand have failed to sign on.

Vicky: The UN declaration will be the main framework we will push for. I have been present at almost all declarations after it has been adopted. Canada, US, and NZ have not signed that this declaration should be the guidelines. That is our main demand, but not easy to get. Australia has just signed. Still have to work on the other three.
Hope our sisters and brothers from these countries will be able to support or not object. I'm hoping the new US administration might change. NZ might consider following the example of Australia. That leaves Canada.

John: Hoping through Copenhagen Declaration it will put pressure on the holdout countries.

Andrea: Important to recognize that the resolution tells all members to uphold and respect the rights of indigenous people. We all agree strongly on that. I know the press likes to focus on the disagreements.


Mary: Can we talk on what you do agree on:

Andrea: 1. IP are facing a crisis in our communities. Each and everyone of our regions is profoundly affected. Our food, homes eaten by oceans. Extreme impact on IP because we are so close and dependent on our natural environment for life.

2. IP have very significant contributions because of our close relations to the natural world and our knowledge.

3. We have not been included fully and we are calling UN and CCC to take our traditional knowledge seriously. We must make contributions to advance the work of international bodies because our life is at stake.

Vicky:
4. Call for full participation of IP. Very specific suggestions to get UN to recognize the IP forum on climate change as an official advisory body. Hire someone to help support and enhance the work of IP. Call on UN to organize technical briefings to countries on knowledge of IP. There should be an IP member to various UN boards making decisions on how to distribute money. We are contributing to mitigation and have to adapt.

Kenya: It was clear at meeting that one of the challenges as IP is security of land and natural resources, prior to implementing any program, stop any forced eviction of people from their land and territories. Article ?? requires prior consent before relocating IP from their land. Particularly in countries like Africa where governments do not understand our customs. Issue of mobility is also a critical issue. Mobility is a tradition system.

John: Because it can't happen in a day like this process. Indication you're being received.

Patricia: This is just the beginning. We are putting together our own roadmap. We are looking to UN and many others for IP to present their views. Next opportunity in two weeks in NY to review where we are and take steps forward. We have in our plans to address those hold out nations. We intend to follow through to ensure that information from IP goes to administration. Also now realizing and recognizing our own abilities to look at our opportunities we have to address solutions before us. Strength in numbers, strenght in dialogue, shared what's happening in these communities. We have relatives we can call on when looking to solve problems.

Cletus: You who have seen the conflicts in the global warming process have seen how nations have had problems agreeing. The negotiating system in UN is very rigid and fixed. You can only speak in certain bounds or forums in the UN. Structural limitiations on IP to speak. We will have to work around this. Sustaining momentum is also important. People asking Patricia when the next forum.

Patricia: We'll put it out on the website. If not completed this afternoon, we'll put up what we have.

Mary: Before six or seven? Deadlines...

Patricia: Full report not ready for several months. We're doing a video, a book, and the report.

Indigenous Peoples Global Summit on Climate Change (click link for all the posts on the summit)

Indigenous People's Global Summit - Friday 3 Signing

The Steering Committe is at the front and the President of the UN General Assembly is with them as well and they are asking him to take the Declaration to the UN General Assembly.

UN General Assembly President (these are disconnected snippets as best as I could keep up, this is not in anyway even a partial sense of what he actually said):

Your work plays an important role in changing the mindset of the world on Global Warming and you make it clear that indigenous people must play a prominent role in discussions on climate change.

Scientists have pointed out that we may be at a poiont where the damage of climate change is irreversible. The question is how to slow this decline, or in the best of scenarios, how to reverse it and return the plan it to good health. We are also at a turning point in our awareness of how human have impacted mother earth. Indigenous people are now being listened to as never before. Still, humans continue to squander our tremendous abundance. The unfolding global economic crisis must not only be seen as economic failings, but that we must change our lifestyle and we must put love and justice at the very center of human undertakings. I've come here to demonstrate that the UN stands in support of indigenous peoples. We are putting people and good treatment of the earth at the center of our attention.

The UN has just declared April 22 Mother Earth Day. President Morales of Bolivia has been a champion of protecting the earth. We have called a summit of world leaders in June to address global climate change. We must address these issues now.

(Again, though this is written continuously, it is fragments of what he said.)

Indigenous Peoples Global Summit on Climate Change (click link for all the posts on the summit)

Indigenous People's Global Summit - Friday 2

It's 11:30, they've just reopened the doors to where the delegates have been discussing final language for the Declaration. There was a lot of people hanging around outside so it was a chance to talk to people. And today I remembered why I have been riding my bike down here the last three days. I had to run over to the credit union to get more quarters for the parking meter. The Denali Credit Union has a branch across the street in City Hall. But their policy is they won't even give change to someone who is not a member! I couldn't believe it. They said they have to run everything through an account, even change. Fortunately I ran into someone in the City Hall lobby I knew and when I told her what happened she took me back into the Credit Union and got the change through her account. Then I went down the street and put quarters into the meter and was back in plenty of time.

The Youth Delegation is announcing that they are meeting next door and that they aren't compromising. Not sure what that means. Patricia Cochran is calling all the steering committee members to come forward for the signing.

Indigenous Peoples Global Summit on Climate Change (click link for all the posts on the summit)

This is that part of the meeting where people are quietly reading and talking in small groups. The media have been allowed back into the hall, but not much is officially happening.

Indigenous People's Global Summit - Friday 1

I just got here at 9:30am. I'm not quite sure what is happening. An Indonesian woman was speaking when I got in. Now and elder from Bangladesh is speaking. Fortunately there is a time lag for the translation so I can get something down.

I would like to thank the organizers for inviting me to be here. I feel honored to be selected as an elder from Asia and to speak. I do not feel knowledgable to speak for the delagates here.

Climate change is a cruel reality of present. I have been seeing climate change. Before I couldn't imagine it and thought the changes I was seeing were related to the hydro electric dam. But now I understand it is global warming.

When I was 14 years old, there was deep forest, wetland. In the past we didn't have to buy anything. Now we produce for profit and have to work in other jobs. We see changes in norms and culture. Due to the hydro electric dam, there are more people moving to the cities. [This is really rough, it was hard to understand every word.]

Indigenous people are not able to keep their land taken by the settlers. Some believe if they change to Christianity they can keep their land. The flora and fauna have changed. People are oppressed and marginalized.

Our planting is destroyed, indigenous people have had to flee to India. Trees were all cut by non-indigenous people. The government doesn't want to bring back the indigenous people. In any disaster, natural or human, the indigenous people are most vulnerable. The countries are developing and changes are affecting indigenous people most.

In conclusion, I would like to say, human needs are part of nature. Destroying nature is destroying human beings. Changes are destroying human kind through floods, etc. We know how to live with mother earth. Modern culture is destroying mother nature. For our survival we have no other option but unity. The UN must include indigenous people in all its programs. Maybe this summit will become a milestone for us in order for us to survive.

In our indigenous crisis we have norms on how to live with nature. We cannot violate the rules. If we cut trees we have to sacrifice life, slaughter pigs etc. or lose our life...Lets all stand up - Here in this beautiful land of Alaska we must promise to all protect Mother Nature.

We just had a Mongolian woman sing a beautiful opening prayer.

They've asked non-delegates to leave the room so that they can have final discussions of the Declaration. The declaration is the key reason people are here. To have a statement giving voice to the needs and concerns of indigenous peoples when the Copenhagen meeting on climate change takes place. Here's a picture of some Russian delegates discussing the declaration in the lobby just now.













Indigenous Peoples Global Summit on Climate Change (click link for all the posts on the summit)

Indigenous People's Global Summit - Thursday - Private Sector

Patricia Cochran, the coordinator of the whole summit went over the schedule. There will be an extra hour for people to work on the Declaration. Dinner tonight, then program at 7:30 with performances from all over the world, a night to have some fun. It's five pm already, so I don't think the program will start at 7:30.

Mead Treadwell - Talking about work his company has done with Native Corporations in Alaska and the importance of indigenous people in a variety of areas. I just have to commend the indigenous community for taking leadership in this area. You have high moral ground.

Mary Jean (MJ) Longley ? - Went from science to education because of the high dropout rate around the country. Bringing youth into science fields. Climate change is not in our education system or how it is impacting indigenous people.

Ian Dutton, CEO of the Alaska Sealife Center, before that with Nature Conservancy. The challenge we all face: climate change. I've worked with mining companies, banks, in Australia, Mongolia. Surprising how similar their conversations are to the ones here.
Changes are synergistic. Now 1 million camels walking around Australian desert. Effecting the ecology of Australia.
Asian Tsunami - we've already diminished the resiliance of the land to recover

Reality 2: Geographic Impacts

Emerging Business Foci - what can we do
Risks Opportunities


Barnaby Briggs, from Shell - humbled to be here, but there's no time. We believe in the importance of indigenous people. Energy demand will double by 2050, but the problems of climate change are now. (I didn't get the first part about indigenous people on video, but I got the rest. I'll try to get this up, but the video is building up on the computer.)

Pat Spears, Council on Utility Policy, Tribes in the Northern Plains, Serve of President of Intertribal Council
Development of wind energy, a huge resource. Pat's been talking a while about wind energy, the Missouri River being dammed and the loss of rain and snow over the years. I'm running out of energy myself here, so I'm not doing a good job of tracking him.

Q: How are we sure that wind power won't affect climate?
Q: Interdisciplinary knowledge and indigenous people.

Answer: Spears: If I understand right, you think wind power might affect climate somehow. I haven't seen evidence of that yet. There is a lot of wind projects in US. We think climate is affecting the wind. We get more winds from the south now. It used to be north winds. Winds becoming stronger, more violent, frequent. But no rain. Wind turbines shut down at 55 miles per hour. We don't do anything without prayer. It's been good, we got permission.


Answer 2: Dutton - I (Steve) just can't concentrate enough to figure what Dutton is saying or even what the question was.
Treadwell: Have seen several examples of Alaska Native traditional knowledge adding to what scientists know.

I thought this panel would be more about how to work with business on this issue. It was more about telling the panelists' experiences.

Indigenous Peoples Global Summit on Climate Change (click link for all the posts on the summit)

Indigenous People's Global Summit - Thursday - Hassab Yousif, Sudan

Hassab is studying at the University of Alaska Fairbanks and was delighted to learn this Summit was being held in Anchorage. He's studying the way Alaska Natives dealt with and were affected by oil and gas development in Alaska so that he can help the people of Sudan to be better prepared for what is happening there. He briefly sums this up in the video.






Indigenous Peoples Global Summit on Climate Change (click link for all the posts on the summit)

Indigenous People's Global Summit - Thursday - Donor Sector

Again, this is written on the fly for immediate posting. Spelling and names are not necessarily all they should be. It's bits and pieces, not a holistic view. I'll add some photos and videos later if I can.

Ken Wilson, Christensen Fund - Amount of money to indigenous peoples increased from $10 - $40 million from 2005 and 2007. About 80,000 foundations in the US and they give about $80 billion so this is a very tiny fraction. We look a little differently, because we want to see how much actually goes to indigenous people, not to organizations that operate in their name.
Environmnet - 80% plus - is the area that they coordinate with. Recognition of the leadership that indigenous people have in global warming. Fairly well balanced in Asia, Africa, and South America, less in Arctic.
Constraints - foundations are creatures of Western Society. Have difficulty being holistic. Divide the world up. Created why powerful wealthy people. Top down outlook. Staffs had very little experience with lives of indigenous peoples. Have difficulty creating mechanisms that are flexible.
We have lost large proportions of our investments. McArthur foundation not here because of travel restrictions. Two have joined the Obama administration - EPA - head of international affairs.

James Stauch, Gordon Foundation Canada - Connecting Northern peoples with the public policy process at all levels. Most grants go directly to first nations governments, inuit organizations. Culturally relevant policies, emerging generation of leaders, research that is community policy related. Storytelling is important. It moves people more than facts. Supporting non-state actors.
As the ice melts in the Arctic - bizarre consequences of nation states jockeying about their role in the open sea. Canada, for instance, is talking about sovereignty. Need to talk about who is really using the land.
We shouldn't be doing nuclear, biofuels, wind, all of these things have negative consequences on Indigenous people. Listing polar bears as endangered species affects programs already in place. We should be talking about who is creating the carbon.
If going to support only one thing - support youth working with elders.

Claire Greensfelder, The Lia Fund
Small foundation - founder left $5 million in her estate, mostly in real estate, and our job is to give away the money : arts, access to holistic health and healing, climate solutions. 50% of funding toward climate solutions - about $2.5 million. Interdisciplinary projects.
Concerns: social and economic justice , diversity, equity, non-violence

Hope that my talk here will inspire others to copy the Lia foundation in their organizations - founding small foundations.

Ann Henshaw, Oak Foundation, family foundation centered in Switzerland. Oak believes that indigenous people around the world have a unique understanding of climate change and has important things to tell the conference in Copenhagen.

David Secord, Wilburforce Foundation, Pacific Northwest, Our board has come to understand how to do our core mission
As place based funder, landscapes do not just have animals, also have people, it's obvious, but it's new
Lots of conversations on climate change - realizing how climate change impacts our interests
More and more recognition that creative and novel partnerships are essential to have outcome producing strategies.


Christensen Fund, 1957 Palo Alto,California, 2003 new mission around biocultural diversity, $50,000,000 in grants through 5 regional and 2 global programs.
Five regions with high cultural and biodiversity: Greater Southwest, Central Asia,

Kai Lee, Conservation and Science Program, Packard Foundation
$100 million in grants every year. Worked closely with indigenous people over the years.

Indigenous Peoples Global Summit on Climate Change (click link for all the posts on the summit)

OK, I'll try to get some pictures and video up later. This panel is just closing down, there's no time for questions from the audience.

Indigenous People's Global Summit - Thursday - Neza Henry, Uganda

Neza's people were forcibly removed from their land that had been designated a national park. In the video recorded this morning, he briefly tells the story of his people.



Indigenous Peoples Global Summit on Climate Change (click link for all the posts on the summit)

Indigenous People's Global Summit - Thursday - Panel Foundations and Donor Community

I'm finally getting into synch here and figuring out how to report this with both my fingers at the computer and the still and video pictures. I'll try to get a little of what people say up right away. This snippets do NOT represent all they say, just parts I could capture. I'll try to add pictures and possibly video later.

Kristen Walker Painemilla, Indigenous and Traditional Peoples, Program, Conservation International
Deborah Williams, President of Alaska Conservation Solutions
Jenny Springer, World Wildlife Foundation
Doug McGuire, Mountain Partnership

They were asked to talk about their organizations' goals, their work with indigenous peoples, and their recommendations for the declaration.


Kristen spoke about the goals of Conservation International and their interest is doing more with and for indigenous peoples.

Debora Williams, working on climate change for the last decade and working with indigenous people has been a great pleasure. Climate change is the biggest problem facing us today. Climate change represents a fundamental human rights violation for most indigenous peoples.

Jenny Springer,

• Indigenous Peoples are disproportionately affected by climate change
• Indigenous Peoples have critical roles to play in climate change solutions - traditional knowledge, practices, institutions
• Actions to address climate change can have negative impacts on indigenous peoples - need to prevent these

Doug McGuire,

Mountains are home for some of the poorest people in the world. Of the 1 Billion hungry people in the world, one-third live in mountains, though they represent only 12% of the world's population. All our water comes from mountains.


Indigenous Peoples Global Summit on Climate Change (click link for all the posts on the summit)

Indigenous People's Global Summit - Thursday - Q&A

Questions to the previous panelists.

1. In French: Many indigenous people especially people of the forest do not know that they are represented. Please help get the information out.

2. In Spanish: We need to understand and acknowledge indigenous peoples organizations and I would like to denounce that you have not provided the answers to the questions I've requested:

Please ask your question:

Are the policies about the forests legally binding?

Answers - Terrance

Charles: Who was being denounced? Not clear. I asked you many times to visit our discussions. Sincere apologies, if I've overlooked something I apologize. I wasn't aware of the problem. Question about Sudan with regard to China, China is a country we are dealing with. I appreciate youre alerting us if we do work with China.

About getting message to national governance about needs of indigenous people. In collaboration with World Bank, working with the bank. There was a joint mission with DRC (?) where we were able to bring local community voices right into the discussion between the government and local people. We think we can play such a role.

Joseph: Thank all the speakers. Comments.
1. Human rights - frustrations there. UN tendency to develop any problem, the UN declaration needed to have indigenous people at the beginning, not just at implementation. In Africa, but indigenous people not on board. Failure of UN. Need to find way to address it.
2. Serious conflict in Africa, due to resources. Implementation will be done on indigenous people's territories. What matters putting in place to insure local people will be direct beneficiaries? Indigenous people are the poorest of the poor. Minorities in most countries. We don't want to become victims of these programs.
3. Thank the UN Gen Assembly President. Yesterday shocking when agency said could not adopt. All most adopt. Appreciate person from Greenland.
4. When we talk about capacity building - UN, World Bank, and others need to be taught about indigenous people - they have no idea how we are coping.

Humble request - never hide behind governments. Never tell us you are a government institution. Bring government to the table and bring indigenous people to the table.

Nina (Indonesia): Many of seek long term change for the better in our countries. How do you support better change in policy and behavior in ten years.

Tanzania - Want to underscore the importance of including indigenous people at the grassroot level, at the beginning. I participated in Philippines, but when I went back home there was nothing.


Response: Greenland - we have contacted the government of Denmark that indigenous people need to be included. But I cannot guarantee. We need everyone's support.
Vicky- ask Danish government to ask Patricia to present. We will have an indigenous people's day.
Jackie - During the course of the meeting hard to find space, so we have offered them space in downtown Copenhagen and invite you to organize meetings there. We would be very happy to have you there. In a practical and political way, I will - Europe will play a critical role and in mu role as head of an agency I will make sure your concerns will be brought to their attention at the meetings. They would be horrified if they thought their solutions were causing more problems on the ground.
Charles: Thanks to reps from Tanzania about not being involved. Two leaders like yourselves not being involved is a huge oversight and I will check on why. I take your point that the UN needs capacity building. Point about not hiding behind governments - understood and need your help on the policy board. Ask for your engagement with the indigenous peoples guidelines.
Indonesia's questions - others can talk about various programs, but also possibility if governments engage in REDD pilot, that there will be benefits for local people.
REDD = Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation in Developing Countries

OK, my fingers are dying here, but this should give a sense of the questions and responses.

Talking about translations into many languages now for projects. Not sure who is talking or what organizations he's talking about.

Indigenous Peoples Global Summit on Climate Change (click link for all the posts on the summit)

Indigenous People's Global Summit - Thursday David Chinquehuanca

The Bolivian foreign minister's speech was in Spanish, so I got some earphones to hear the English and typed as fast as I could. I'll fix the typos later. This is a fast and somewhat loose transcription of what I heard. I'm assuming this was President Evos Morales' speech, being given by his foreign ministers, since Morales was unable to come today.


.....We're in unbalance and we have to get back to equilibrium. Unbalance will have fatal conseuqences for planet earth. It's the Western world that is in crisis, the model of West that looks to living better is in crisis. Made it so some people better than others. It allows some to be better than others. Some regions better than others. Some people better than others. Generated unbalance among people, among regions, among countries. But also this development model of the West has also created disequlibrium between man and nature. Mother earth has wound threatening life today.

So important that humanity and international organizations become aware so we have international day of Mother Earth. Not just humans, but everything. All of creation we live on the skirts of our mother. All living off the milk of our Mother which is water. The plants live off the milk of Mother earth - water - all creations of Mother Earth, we are all brothers and sisters. Not just brotherhood among humans, looking for life in harmony with ourselves, we want a harmonic life with our enivornment, because all nurtured by mild of Mother Earth are brothers and sisters - not just humans, animals and plants.

Indian cultures cannot easily attack a tree. Not capable of doing so because all life brothers and sisters. We have been living based on the laws of man, taught at Unitiversity, but do not take everyting into account. Unbalanced. Leave out Mother Earth. Just based on mankind. Not living under law of nature. Not taking into account the Natural University. Contribution of indigenous people could be important there, people who have maintained their balance.

Edge of precipice, we have this summit on climate change, thanks to the implementation of methods and policies that have taken us to where we are now. Two roads. One to capitalism. Most important thing is money, profit, life doesn't matter Two is socialism where mankind is most important. For us indigenous people most important thing is not just mankind, we have that common with socialism, but we also believe the most important thing is life.

Wehn talking about climate change, were talking about life at risk. As Father Iscoto said, not just risk for humans, but climate change threatens life. And for us as indigenous people the most important thing is life. Life of rivers, life of mountains. We had snow in La Paz. Now it is disappearing. Someone said we will have to paint snow ont he top of our mountains. Life of plants, animals, birds, fish is disappearing.

We need to find avenues of discussion to create proposals, have to listen to everyone, not exclusive, inclusive. I thought I'd be here with the indigenous people of Alaska and hear what they think about these issues. We have to know that life is at risk.

We in Bolivia have taken certain actions. First the Bolivian people decided to elect an indigenous president. Second, the recovery of natural resources is important, water, for all people, not just a few. I was in Trinidad and people were alarmed. In Mexico they are rationing water. Working to start to talk about rights of mother earth. First human rights, continue to advance beyond individual rights to collective rights, indigenous people's rights. Bolivia was the first country to implement the declarion on indigenous peoples rights. Today we continue to work at UN, but the rights of everything. Of plants of fish, rivers, animals, and surely on the rights of mother earth. In some countries, Ecuador for example, the constitution considers Mother Nature as a right holder. We are advancing and I hope at the UN will be working on these. UN had to include rights of indigenous people. In a few years we can have a declaration on the rights of mother earth.

Need to work on actions - not privatize water, because water is life. We have to defend life, we have to be pro-life.

Thank you for the invitation. Not a lot of time. Have to listen ttaro one another. Have to start to read the wrinkles of our grandparents. The codes that have existed for more than 500 years. Implementation of indigenous universities that bring in these principles, the codicles of that ancient knowledge, we call that our cosmo knowledge. Indigenous peoples can make a contribution to the saving of planet earth so we can recover life.

Thank you very much.

Indigenous Peoples Global Summit on Climate Change (click link for all the posts on the summit)

Indigenous People's Global Summit - Wednesday Father Miguel d'Escoto Brockmann Speaking

[Picture of UN General Assembly President Father d'Iscoto with Bolivian Foreign Minister before the speech.]
Father d'Escoto Brockman is now speaking. He's reading a speech, so he sounds much less compelling than most of the other speakers. He began by announcing that the UN yesterday recognized the day as Mother Earth Day.

He has also noted the irony that indigenous peoples who have contributed the least - the lightest ecological footprint - have been impacted the most and have called out the first warnings years ago.

A summit of leaders from all 192 member states will meet 1-3 June to discuss the impact of climate change. Many others have met on this, UN is the appropriate forum where the needs and interests of all countries to be taken account. The 21st Century, inclusiveness is critical. The third world cannot continue to subsidize the first world. Those who are subsidized characterize themselves benefactors and the victims are like beggars. Time to call a spade a spade. Always with love, but love must not be interpreted as cover up.


In addition to reform, I hope this meeting will discuss global economy as it emerges from economic crisis. It's time for a change in how we think about mother earth. We need and most peoople want healthy societies not driven by consumerism and hyper emphasis on wealth. Need reorientation of society in direction of solidarity, our guiding star.



Indigenous Peoples Global Summit on Climate Change (click link for all the posts on the summit)

Indigenous People's Global Summit - No Evos Morales in Anchorage

The President of Bolivia Evos Morales WILL NOT speak in Anchorage today. Critical issues in Bolivia prevented his coming here and the foreign minister of Bolivia
David Choquehuanca will speak in his place.


Wikipedia says about him:

David Choquehuanca Céspedes (born May 7, 1961) has served as the Foreign Minister of Bolivia since 23 January 2006.[1] Choquehuanca, who is an Aymara Indian, is an Aymara activist. He has worked with international agencies and has been an advisor to President Evo Morales, a fellow Aymara, since before Morales's election to the Presidency.

Indigenous Peoples Global Summit on Climate Change (click link for all the posts on the summit)

Indigenous Peoples Summit Anchorage - Thursday -H.E. Father Miguel d'Escoto Brockmann, M.M.H.EH.E. Father Miguel d’Escoto Brockmann, M.M. President

I don't usually post entire articles, but this is from the official UN press kit so it is intended to be used. But, of course, read between the lines as well. As the official puff piece, it is intended to show him in his best light.

The President of the UN General Assembly is scheduled to speak after President Evo Morales today.

H.E. Father Miguel d'Escoto Brockmann, M.M.H.EH.E. Father Miguel d’Escoto Brockmann, M.M.
President of the 63rd session of the United Nations General Assembly

H.E. Mr. Miguel d'Escoto Brockmann is President of the 63rd session of the United Nations General Assembly since 16 September 2008.

A veteran statesman, politician, community leader and priest, Father d’Escoto served for over a decade as the Republic of Nicaragua’s Minister for Foreign Affairs, a post he held from July 1979 until April 1990. During his tenure, he played a key role in the Contadora and Esquipulas peace processes to end internal armed conflicts in Central America in the 1980s. Also at that time, he spearheaded his Government’s decision, in 1984, to bring to the International Court of Justice a claim against the United States for supporting military and paramilitary actions against his country, with the Court subsequently ruling in favour of Nicaragua.

Father d’Escoto is currently Senior Adviser on Foreign Affairs, with the rank of Minister, to President Daniel Ortega Saavedra, a post which he has held since 2007. He also chairs Nicaragua’s National Committee on Water, in which capacity he plays a leading role in efforts to conserve Lake Cocibolca, the largest source of water in Mesoamerica. He is a member of the Sandinista National Council and the Political Commission, the highest governing body of the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN).

Ordained a priest of the Maryknoll Missionaries in the early 1960s, Father d’Escoto has travelled extensively, visiting most of the world’s capitals, as well as many remote and less accessible areas of the globe, and has dedicated much of his life to helping the poor. In 1963, he founded the National Institute of Research and Population Action (INAP) in Chile, aimed at empowering the disadvantaged populations of the callampas or slum neighbourhoods on the periphery of Santiago and other cities, through community action in defence of labour rights. Following the earthquake that devastated the capital city of Managua (Nicaragua) in December 1972, Father d’Escoto mobilized assistance for quake victims and, in 1973, established the Nicaraguan Foundation for Integral Community Development (FUNDECI), now one of the oldest and most prestigious non-governmental organizations in Nicaragua.

In 1970, Father d’Escoto assumed responsibility for Maryknoll’s Social Communications Department at its headquarters in New York, where he founded Orbis Books. The publishing arm of Maryknoll Fathers and Brothers, Orbis quickly became a leader in religious publishing, offering works on spirituality, theology and current affairs, often from a Third World perspective. Later, while living in New York, Father d’Escoto was one of the founders of the “Grupo de los Doce” (Group of 12), composed of progressive, democratic intellectuals and professionals who supported the FSLN in its struggle to overthrow the dictatorship of Anastasio Somoza in Nicaragua. He was appointed Foreign Minister of Nicaragua shortly after Somoza’s downfall.

Inspired by the lives and works of such personalities as Leo Tolstoy, M. K. Gandhi, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and Dorothy Day, Father d’Escoto is an advocate of multilateralism and respect for international law, and is deeply committed to the principles of active nonviolence, solidarity and social justice, which, together with a deep sense of ethics, have formed the basis of his political life.

Father d’Escoto is the recipient of numerous awards, such as: the Order of Cardinal Miguel Obando Bravo (2007), the highest honour awarded by the Catholic University Redemptoris Mater (UNICA), for his work for peace; the Thomas Merton Award (1987), for his commitment to world peace; the Order of Carlos Fonseca Amador (1986), the FSLN’s highest honour, for his contributions to international law; the International Lenin Peace Prize (1985/86) awarded by the Soviet Union; the Julio Cortázar Prize for Peace and Democracy in Latin America and the Caribbean (1985), awarded by Argentina’s Institute of International Relations; and the Alfonso Comín Peace Prize (first recipient, Barcelona, Spain, 1984), which he accepted on behalf of the Nicaraguan people. In June of this year, Father d’Escoto received the unanimous endorsement of the Group of Latin American and Caribbean States (GRULAC) within the United Nations as its candidate for the Presidency of the sixty-third General Assembly of the United Nations.

Born in Los Angeles, California, in 1933, Miguel d’Escoto spent his childhood years in Nicaragua, but returned to the United States in 1947 to study. He entered the Catholic seminary at Maryknoll (New York) in 1953, and in 1961 was ordained a priest. In 1962, he obtained a Master’s of Science from Columbia University’s School of Journalism (Pulitzer Institute).

Indigenous Peoples Global Summit on Climate Change (click link for all the posts on the summit)
Published by the United Nations Department of Public Information - DPI/2516A

Bolivian President Evo Morales To Speak Today In Anchorage

[UPDATE: President Morales did not come to Anchorage. His Foreign Ministers spoke in his place. That post is here.]

Bolivian President Evo Morales is scheduled to speak today at 10:45 am the Indigenous Peoples Summit on Climate Change here in Anchorage. The best known fact about Evo Morales around the world seems to be that he is the first indigenous President of Bolivia. Thus he brings to the office a perspective that is different from the past presidents. He sees the world through different eyes. And, of course, that is why he is due at this conference of indigenous peoples. He speaks today as both a national president AND a one of the people gathered here in Anchorage this week.

Here are a few glimpses of the way the world portrays President Morales:

From the Miami Herald, on Evo Morales in Trinidad the other day:

''Our government will not sign this document,'' he said at a midday Saturday news conference. ``Garbage is more important than human life. We should go for human life rather than the scraps of the United States.''

Morales' threat to reject the summit declaration followed a similar announcement by Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez prior to Friday's opening ceremony. At a gathering in Venezuela, Chávez said he would ''veto'' the declaration because the written document appeared ``as if time had not passed.''

At the Morales press conference, the Bolivian leader used the opportunity not only to voice his concern over the summit document, but also to express his disappointment over the absence of Cuba. He said he could not understand how debates over human prosperity and the environment could take place at the summit without Cuba's presence. . .

Morales also railed against capitalism, blaming it for the global financial crisis, and he also accused Washington of previous meddling in his country's affairs. He said he wanted Obama to repudiate a recent alleged plot to assassinate him, otherwise, ``I might think it was organized through the embassy.''

Last year, Morales ejected the U.S. ambassador and Drug Enforcement Administration officials based in his country over accusations that American diplomats had supported the opposition. He said that while President Obama has promised changed, it has not reached U.S. officials in Bolivia.

''Those staff members continue to operate as if they were serving the Bush administration,'' he said. ``It's up to the U.S. government to improve our relations. If diplomatic relations have to do with investments ... and not meddling and conspiracies, they are welcomed.''

Morales said he came to the summit ``seeking a dialogue of cooperation, not relations built on conspiracies.''

''One hundred days have gone by and we in Boliva [sic] have yet to feel any changes,'' Morales said, referring to Obama's length in office. ``The policy of conspiracy continues.'' [Full article: the Miami Herald]

PBS' Wideangle has this overview of President Evo Morales. You can get the whole report at the link:

Evo Morales Speaks at Columbia

• Bolivian Constitution Approved, but Nation Still Divided
• Obama and the World
• Coca and the Congressman ~ Introduction
• Coca and the Congressman ~ Resources
• Coca and the Congressman ~ The New South America: Is the Continent Changing?
• Economic Crisis in a Globalized World
• Victory is Your Duty ~ Introduction
• Victory is Your Duty ~ Olympic Timeline
• Victory is Your Duty ~ Photo Essay: Cuban Political Posters
• Victory is Your Duty ~ Filmmaker’s Notes

Jeff Seelbach

Juan Evo Morales Ayma, President of Bolivia, spoke in New York on Tuesday as part of the Columbia University World Leaders Forum. Morales, the first indigenous president in Bolivian history, was elected in 2005. In September of this year, he kicked out the U.S. Ambassador to Bolivia, accusing him of conspiring against the Bolivian government, and America followed suit by expelling the Bolivian ambassador. Diplomatic relations deteriorated further this month when Morales suspended the Bolivian operations of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA). (The complete article here.)

The Economist talks about his hunger strike:

Bolivia's Evo Morales

Fasting and dealing

Apr 16th 2009 | LA PAZ
From The Economist print edition

A presidential hunger strike

DURING his career as a cocaworkers’ leader, Evo Morales took part in hunger strikes on 18 occasions. Then he was elected as Bolivia’s president. So it came as a surprise when just before Easter he unrolled his mattress on the floor of an ornate state room in the presidential palace and began a five-day political fast, fortified by chewing coca leaves. This time the object of his gesture was not to change government policy but to implement it. In January Mr Morales won a referendum approving a new constitution inspired by his Movement to Socialism (MAS). This calls for a fresh election on December 6th, in which the president hopes to win a second term. But the opposition, which controls the Senate, was holding up the requisite electoral law, because the government refused to agree to a new electoral register.

And Wikipedia's bio of Morales begins like this:

Morales was born in the highlands of Orinoca, Oruro. He is of indigenous (Aymara) descent.^[6] He was one of seven children born to Dionisio Morales Choque and Maria Mamani; only Morales and two of his siblings survived past childhood.^[7] He grew up in an adobe house with a straw roof that was "no more than three by four meters."^[7] At age six, he traveled with his father to Argentina to work in the sugar cane harvest.^[7] As a result of his indigenous heritage, his parents made offerings of coca leaves and alcohol to mother earth, or Pachamama.^[7] At the age of 12, he accompanied his father in herding llamas from Oruro to the province of Independencia in Cochabamba.^[7]

When he was 14, Morales showed his organizational skills by forming a football team with other youths; he continued herding llamas to pay the bills.^[8] Three ayllus (network of families) within the community elected him technical director of selection for the canton's team when he was only 16 years old.^[8] That same year, in order to attend high school, he moved to Oruro. There he worked as a bricklayer, a baker, and a trumpet player for the Royal Imperial Band (which allowed him to travel across Bolivia).^[8][2][9] He attended Beltrán Ávila High School but was not able to finish school,^[10] and fulfilled his mandatory military service in La Paz.^[8][11]

[Morales bio continues here.]

Indigenous People's Global Summit - Elaine Abraham

Tuesday a beautiful woman whom I haven't seen for several years sat next to me and we starting talking. We knew each other at the University of Alaska Anchorage. I was asking her impressions of the summit so far. Eventually I asked if I could video tape some of what she had to say. . .



Indigenous Peoples Global Summit on Climate Change(click link for all the posts on the summit)

Indigenous Peoples Summit Anchorage - Wednesday 2

Actually, this is from Tuesday night's film festival. Here is a taste of the second Australian film they should where people from the film then addressed the audience. They talked about how the rising ocean tides were going further inland and the salt water was killing the plants and fouling the fresh water there. This was eating into the habitat of traditional plants and animals use for food and medicine.

After watching about ten of these short films I was struck by a couple of things:

1. How similar the stories were. The weather changes affecting the environment where indigenous people live, threatening their ability to continue their own way of life. In the case of Carderets Islands, the sea water is literally destroying all arable land on the island forcing them to leave because there was nothing left to eat except fish and coconuts.

2. There was also concern about international corporations - timber, mining, energy particularly - reaching into their environment and adversely affecting the life in that environment on which they depend.

3. In some cases problems with other people - including indigenous peoples - who had been induced to 'sell' natural resources - animals they shot for food, timber to multinational companies, etc. And so their own neighbors were causing problems.

4. A high level of historic awareness of their natural environment which enables them to document changes that otherwise would go unnoticed.

A skeptic might argue the similarities are due to the film makers who have packaged these stories from different locations to all tell the same story. Certainly this plays probably a minor role and that is inevitable. But my experiences in Thailand last year and this was replete with similar stories that I wasn't packaging. This is a universal phenomenon. And those who still believe that global warming is a myth concocted by liberals, or that it is just a natural swing like the earth has experienced forever, well, there's a link on the right for global warming skeptics.

I'm sitting out in the lobby while people are meeting closed off to media. I'm not sure I mentioned that I got in here as press, covering this on my blog. I assumed that an organization that is made up of 'marginalized people' would be inclusive for marginalized media types. And I was right. So I'm taking advantage of the time to catch up a bit and I'm waiting for the video to upload to viddler so I can embed it here. OK, it's done. This is not great video, but it gives you a sense of things.

Indigenous Peoples Global Summit on Climate Change (click link for all the posts on the summit)

Indigenous Peoples Summit Anchorage - Wednesday 1

I had a dental cleaning appointment this morning so I'm just getting to the summit this afternoon. People are reporting on their group work.

Speaker now:
"I've never before encountered a group characterized with so much honesty, righteous indignation, and a lot of commitment and determination. People shared their dreams, willingness to go to jail if necessary...I was moved... most poignant changes that have taken place in history have taken place in jail...Martin Luther King....Nelson Mandela..."

Larry Merculief just spoke with real emotion about how powerful his group prior this current speaker.

Theme Four - Energy Security



Summary of what we discussed so far. How have people been affected by traditional development in our territory.
Dams that have devasted and displaced communities
Oil development - including tar sands - displacing.
Bio fuels - devasting to some of our communities, people displaced for planting.
Nuclear power - continues to devastate people, not only in production, but extraction.
Clean coal - no such thing, no way to make it clean

In addtion to these projects being negative, also addressed carbon trading.

I'm not going to try to catch the recommendations because they are still tentative and I'm sure I won't capture them accurately. But this should give you an idea of what is going on. You can also check the podcasts which are live for many of the sessions.

Now they are going to break into regional caucuses. This is all leading up to a declaration the Summit wants to agree on by Friday.








Indigenous Peoples Global Summit on Climate Change (click link for all the posts on the summit)

Seward Highway Road Closure this Weekend!

[UPDATE, Tuesday noon: The road work was NOT completed at 5am Monday as scheduled. People were told it could be 5pm or later. The following is now up on the State site, saying the road is now open:

Open To Traffic - Seward Highway

Seward Highway: at Falls Creek Bridge road open to traffic, short delays -- look out for flaggers last updated today [Tuesday, April 28] at 11:18 AM]

One of the visitors to the Indigenous Peoples Summit told me last night he wanted to go to Seward Saturday before he left for home. Wanted to see a bit of Alaska. But the tour agency said the road was closed. After I thought about that a while, I thought, "They can't close the road all day. They can't shut the people of Seward off from the world like that." So today I emailed a friend in Seward to check. After that I thought, "Why didn't you just google?" (Cause it was an excuse to say hi to my friend probably.) So I googled and got this:

Alert - Seward Highway

Seward Highway: from Milepost 22 to Falls Creek Bridge delays, lane closed due to road construction work — until May 30 Comment: PLEASE NOTE: ROAD CLOSURE - The Seward Highway will be closed at Milepost 24.8 - Falls Creek this coming Friday, April 24th at 10:00 PM until Monday, April 27th at 5:00 AM. All construction is scheduled to be completed by Saturday, May 30th. For more information you may contact either DOT at 907-269-0450 or Tal Maxwell, the project engineer, at 907-632-2729 or the contractor at 907-288-6700.. Thank you. last updated yesterday at 4:29 PM

Read that. What does that mean to you? I see "delays, lane closed..." But then it says "will be closed at Milepost 24.8...Friday...until Monday."

Then I got this back from my friend in Seward:

Crazy as it sounds, DOT is actually closing the road on Friday at 10 pm and not re-opening it until Monday morning at 5 am. It is unbelievable. They have three bridges that need major work, and the intent is to place temporary bridges on two of them. Sadly, DOT did not include the community in planning for the closure, so it took us all by surprise. We found out about 4 weeks ago and have been scrambling to address the issue. Lots of businesses have had to cancel bookings which had been booked a year or more in advance.

OK, I know there were some serious bridge problems, and making an extra lane over water in the narrow canyon could be tricky. And I'm sure they can get more work done if they don't have to let cars go by every hour or less. It's a trade off and probably it would cost a lot more to pick an option that lets people use the road. Or maybe it would cost a lot more in terms of imagination and creativity - how about a ferry on the lake? When I was on a bus in Nepal in another lifetime, we came to a huge rock slide. We were simply told to climb over the rocks and there was the bus coming the other way. The passengers just traded buses which gingerly turned around on the narrow mountain road. Isn't there a railroad bridge there? Why not work with the railroad for some extra trains that day, or at least a shuttle car over the railroad bridge. People could arrange to swap cars or there could be shuttle busses. There are lots of options if we put our heads together. It could even be fun. But cutting off a town of about 3000 plus everyone else that lives south of Moose Pass for a whole weekend seems pretty extreme.

Indigenous Peoples Summit Anchorage - Tuesday 2 PV Films

I've got a lot of video, but my computer is also full and I still don't trust my external hard drive, but I've been trashing old video so I can download new stuff. It's much easier to just write.

This evening I went back to the Denaina Center for the Summits film festival. I'm not sure what I expected, but I was really excited when I left. Basically, the films were all short films - up to about four or five minutes - made by the people in the films. There are some helpers. The UN has a whole program to help indigenous peoples make PVs (participatory videos) as a powerful way to tell their own stories. Two people who help people make such films - Citt (pronounced Kitt) Williams and Nick Lunch - were there to give some background. There were also some people who were in the films. (Nick's link goes to a video of Nick and his brother talking about making PVs.)

For this conference, the them was climate change, and most of the films showed us how climate change was affecting the lives of the people in the film. Films we saw covered a wide variety of locations:
Inuit Canada
Carterets Island - these people are being forced to move to the Papua New Guinea mainland by rising tides which is destroying their crops. The one hundred twenty families on the island are all preparing to leave their homes. Here's the video itself from Citt's blog on the site Media Studio. It's from her post yesterday from Anchorage.



Masai in Kenya - Drought is killing their livestock - you can see this film at Conversations with the Earth. Click on the video tab and the Masai.
Madagascar - drought is causing dunes to take over arable land. They are fighting back planting in the sand.
Borneo - A village where each family has ten plots. Each year they plant on one of those plots on a ten year rotation. They also protect the forests around them, while neighboring villages have had their forests cut by timber companies.
Camaroon - Looking at the loss of forest and the impacts that has on their culture. This film was their first film and made just last week!
Australia - Discusses the problems of fires.
Madagascar - Here an older woman teaches a younger woman about sorghum.
Peru - This film was different from the others. It is a more traditional documentary with a God-like narrator discussing how the glaciers are melting and other issues.
Australia - Two more Australian ones. People from both these films were in the audience and spoke to the group. Below is a bit of video I took of the first one and the woman from that movie. I'll try to add another one with the other guys who were here after the movie. But I'll do that later.



This was really good stuff. I realized that this is what I was starting to do in Thailand. But I was thinking that the videos were not really my job, just something I was doing on the side. But clearly next time I could focus on the sort of work that produced these videos of people telling their own stories. It was good to be able to talk to Nick and Citt afterward.

Indigenous Peoples Summit Anchorage - Tuesday

It's lunch break at the Denaina Center in Anchorage. I got here at the tail end of the morning sessions of the Indigenous Peoples Summit. This shot of the lobby shows a bit of the crowd from all over the world.
While I know something about these topics on a general level, I really have no indepth knowledge of what's going on in the world of indigenous people and climate change. So once I got into the room, I just pulled out the computer and started typing as people were talking and taking pictures. What you get here is my somewhat overwhelmed glimpses at the last panel of the morning. The afternoon sessions are closed to media so that delegates feel comfortable talking to each other without fear their words will show up somewhere for the whole world to see. That's certainly reasonable.

John Crump from the UN was discussing various UN activities related to climate change. That's him under the overhead on Objectives (of the UN in regard to climate change and indigenous peoples as I understood it.) Again, you're getting bits and pieces here out of context - think of it as sticking your head into a restaurant and catching some of the smells from the kitchen.

Now the UNESCO presentation - Peter Bates - He said there's general agreement about climate change and it's unlikely we'll be able to stop it so the focus is now on adapation to climate change. (I can't emphasize enough that you shouldn't take anything I write here as the gospel. It's possible that I've totally misinterpreted what I heard.)

Indigenous people are the first people already to experience with climate change and have a history of adapting to climate change. So they will get a larger role in UNESCO.

Discussion of UNESCO activities:

• Internet Forum - French, English, and Spanish
• Field Projects - Funded by Denmark - small projects, money available, proposals can be made by anybody = calls for proposals will be at info desk. Looking for coordinator for these projects.
• Website - www.climatefrontlines.org peoples@climatefrontlines.org
• Other Activities - Monaco Meeting - Climate Change and Arctic Sustainable Development - interdisciplinary dynamic - scientists as well as indigenous peoples had good interchange and there will be continuing work

• www.unesco.org/links has the report and presentations online.
• Aug 2007, Canberra Australia Indigenous Knowledge and Changing Environments - publication coming soon and will be at the previous link.

Then we had Violet Ford, ICC (Inuit Circumpolar Council) Canada, The Convention on Biological Diversity and Climate Change

Parapharasing what I heard: Indigenous people were able to participate in this project. We were put on government delegations, where we try to influence the delegation, but are also forced to compromise. This forum has opened the door for indigenous peoples around the world to participate in BDCC process.

We hold traditional knowledge of these resources. The Convention recognizes the dependence of indigenous and local communities on biological diversities.

She discussed the relationships of various international conventions which require countries to conform with the agreements.
Decision iX/13 - alerts nations to keep the agreement. (All the pictures can be enlarged by double clicking them)

I don't know how the parties will take on the obligations to indigenous people. But the Inuits of N. Canada are already adapting - new travel and hunting routes as geese and caribou have shifted their migration routes. The significant role of indigenous people needs to be recognized by post Kyoto Convention. We can't wait though. What will happen to our traditional knowledge when we can no longer hunt, when there is no need to pass own our knowledge.

Indigenous Peoples Global Summit on Climate Change (click link for all the posts on the summit)


I'm going to stop here and post. I've got one more speaker to go, but I'm putting the video together for her - Vicky Tauli-Corpuz - and some of the questions.

Helen Louise McDowell Sanctuary

An end of the legislative session email from my representative Berta Gardner mentioned some parks in our district. But one didn't ring any bells - Helen Louise McDowell Sanctuary. We looked it up and recognized it as a park we've stumbled into a couple of times and couldn't find a couple of other times. Well, it seemed more like undeveloped property at the time, between the south side of Geneva Woods and Tudor, right up against the Seward Highway at the exit to 36th. So on the way to Yamato Ya for dinner, we rode over to find the park. We went along the St. Gotthard as we'd seen on an internet map. St. Gotthard Avenue is full of the typical Geneva Woods giant houses on disproportionately small lots. We got to the end of the street, (the red circle with the 1 on the map - modified from Google Earth and enlargeable with a double click) without seeing an entrance to a park. On our right were the pink and white houses on the bottom of the first photo above, right. On our left was the long fence below. So where's the park entrance?

Well, we looked in a hole in the fence and then saw that
there was a gate. (It's where that little beige circle is on the left)

It didn't open very wide and there weren't any signs and it all looked like private property, but once we poked our heads in we could see that this did get to the park.



Inside the gate we saw graveled area (a future parking lot?), at the end of which was the park sign in the picture below.

(As always, double click any picture to enlarge it.)

We took the trail to the right. We could have ridden our bikes from the trail right onto the Seward Highway as it adds a right lane to exit onto 36th. There's no separation except some trees.










Things started getting wet, though the trail was good until it disappeared in the snow and dead grasses.

So we rode back to the signs and took the other trail over to the view below.

A little further on we found the boardwalk we'd read about online.
It doesn't go very far yet

And ends in the mud - which was why we had turned back from the other trail. But we weren't able to see the boardwalk from there.

We ended up going out the way we came and riding
back to 36th through Geneva Woods. The view from this corner looking up a street appropriately
called Matterhorn was pretty spectacular.

On the way back from dinner we rode along Tudor and turned into Eau Claire to see if the entrance to the park on the south side was any better. The picture below is at the red circle with the 2 on the map way above.

The entrance is at the end of the street behind the dumpster.

Here's a closer view. The sign in the distance says "Municipal Park Land."
There aren't any benches yet, but there was this mattress .

The Geneva Woods side did remind me of places along the California coast like Malibu where it is very hard to find access onto the beach. Somehow, the fancy neighborhoods are good at making access to their public parks much harder than most other places. But I'm thankful that this piece of wetland got preserved and will remain relatively natural as the rest of the town gets more and more urban. And the neighborhood on the south side is pretty basic and on the map it looks like there are a couple of other access points.

And who is Helen Louise McDowell? It took a bit, but I did find the ADN obituary (you may need a password on this link I got through the UAA library) from November 24, 1999.

Longtime Anchorage resident Helen Louise Socha McDowell, 84, died Nov. 14, 1999 at Providence Alaska Medical Center in Anchorage from complications following a stroke.

No local service is planned. As she requested, her ashes will be scattered over Mount Susitna.

Mrs. McDowell was born July 2, 1915, in Glide, Ore., and arrived in Alaska in 1921. As a young girl she lived for a short while in the coal mining camps at Eska and Jonesville until her family moved to Anchorage, where she attended elementary and high school.

She has been a permanent resident of Anchorage since 1927. In 1933, she married Willie Williams of the U.S. Army Signal Corps WAMCATS, and their son was born in Anchorage at the old Railroad Hospital in 1936.

During World War II, she worked as a desk clerk at Anchorage Hotel and during the mid-1950s was co-owner of Gilman's Fountain Lunch on Fourth Avenue. Mrs. McDowell was one of the few remaining longtime residents living in downtown Anchorage, residing at her home on Sixth Avenue for the past 50 years.

Her son said: ''Helen dearly loved animals, especially dogs and an occasional cat. She enjoyed reading and playing cards and, even after being confined to a wheelchair, was a cheerful and positive inspiration to all who knew her.''

She is survived by her son, Stanley J. Williams of Anchorage, and her dear friends, Curlene Harker, Kenneth Hall and Jeanie Markley.

Family requests memorial donations may be made to Friends of Pets, P.O. Box 240981, Anchorage 99524.

Indigenous People's Global Summit on Climate Change

There's a major event happening in Anchorage this week. It's so important that even the Anchorage Daily News covered it today.

Hundreds of indigenous people from around the world are gathering in Anchorage this week to discuss climate change and solutions for a warming planet. The Indigenous Peoples' Global Summit on Climate Change, a five-day United Nations-affiliated conference, will run through Friday, with about 400 people from 80 nations expected to attend.

There's no question that modern science doesn't have all the answers and I think that humans, through genetics and through their life experiences, have different levels of risk aversion and tendencies to prefer doing things individually or in groups. These and other factors affect how they react to issues like global warming and whether they prefer collective or individual solutions. And these preferences tend to affect which facts they believe and which they are skeptical of. I have had a link for global warming skeptics on my right side bar for a long time. It addresses just about every argument skeptics raise about climate change.

There are a lot of people who ridicule the idea of global climate change (probably a better term than global warming) because they see themselves negatively impacted if Global Climate Change is more extreme than just natural fluctuations and steps to reduce carbon emissions are taken. They see deterioration of their lifestyle, deterioration of their income, and other dire consequences.

The lifestyles and cultures of indigenous peoples, as materially modest as they have been compared to modern Western lifestyles, have been threatened all over the world as the capitalist economic systems seek natural resources in the local environments of indigenous peoples whether in the Arctic or rain forests or in deserts. (I know that some people will get apoplectic seeing me use a word like 'capitalist' in that previous statement, but I'm merely stating something that I don't think anyone can dispute whether staunch capitalist or diehard socialist.) Western (and Eastern) ideas of legally owned private property are in stark contrast with collective and migratory connections to land of many indigenous peoples. Australian Aboriginal songlines most captivatingly discussed by Bruce Chatwin in his book Songlines, are an alternative way of mapping and of conceiving of how humans and land are related. I'm not saying it is a better way, but it was their way which was in conflict with how the European immigrants to Australian conceived of land.

The website for this week's conference offers a fair amount of background material. One document is a guidebook on climate change for indigenous peoples and I've copied section 12.

12 Guide on Climate Change and Indigenous Peoples

Massive floods, strong hurricanes, cyclones and typhoons and storm surges lead to the destruction of houses, infrastructure (bridges, roads, electrical lines, dams, mine-tailing ponds, etc.), forests, agricultural lands, crops, livestock, marine and coastal resources; massive land slides; loss of freshwater supplies, increase of pathogenic micro-organisms and vectors which are carriers, loss of
electricity, etc.

• These lead to human impacts such as physical isolation because of floods and massive landslides which reduce possibilities for them to market their crops, livestock, marine and coastal resources, etc.; the loss and destruction of ancestral lands, resources and homes, food insecurity and hunger (destruction of crops, destruction of coral reefs and mangroves, and spawning beds of local fish, decrease and loss of livestock, etc.); fresh water-insecurity; energy insecurity; increased prevalence and virulence of infectious diseases such as cholera, etc.
• More frequent and prolonged droughts and floods cause the disappearance of plant and animal species that have sustained indigenous peoples as subsistence food sources or as essential to their ceremonial life.
• Extreme and unprecedented cold spells and prolonged wet environment results to health problems, such as hypothermia, bronchitis and pneumonia, especially among old people and young children.
• A drop in water levels, drought, desertification and saltwater intrusion leads to more hunger and impoverishment. Water and food insecurity is exacerbated.
• Traditional livelihoods ranging from rotational agriculture, hunting and gathering, pastoralism, high montane livestock and agricultural production, coastal and marine fishing, trapping, agro-forestry livelihoods, among others, are undermined because of climate change.
• Adverse impacts on traditional livelihoods and their ecosystem will also mean loss of traditional knowledge, innovations and practices associated with these livelihoods and ecosystems.
• Loss of revenue, economic opportunities and the practice of traditional culture are expected to increase the social and cultural pressures on indigenous peoples. The outmigration of indigenous youth to seek economic opportunities elsewhere because climate change has limited further their opportunities in their own communities, could lead to erosions of indigenous economies and culture.
• Increase in a number of indigenous persons who end up as environmental refugees or who outmigrate because their lands have gone underwater or have eroded due to landslides.
• Capacities of indigenous women to perform their roles as seed-keepers, water bearers, transmitters of culture and language, among others, are undermined.
• The loss or migration of culturally important species will make it more difficult for elders to practice and pass their traditional ecological knowledge to the next generation. (from the Background page)
  

Indigenous peoples, just as people who have moved into their territory from elsewhere, include very smart and not so smart individuals; people who are well-centered and those who have serious problems. Some are well educated others haven't had that opportunity or inclination. Some contribute to their own problems, some make life better for themselves and for others. In general, their issues are everyone's issues, though the specifics may be different. They tend though, as societies, to have maintained a closer tie to their land and natural environments than have people who live in more human constructed environments. What they know about how their environments are changing is something the rest of us should pay attention to.

Digital Detox - Monday April 20

I was just thinking this morning that maybe I should have a day a week where I don't touch my computer. (If I were an orthodox Jew I'd already have this on the Sabbath.)

And then I got an email just now with this message:

Computer screens, iPods, TVs, phones and the dozens of other devices we’re cybernetically attached to are so pervasive that we can’t escape them. We live them, we breath them, we need them ... Or do we?

On Monday, April 20, Adbusters challenges you to do the unthinkable: unplug. Say good-bye to Twitter and Facebook. Turn off your TV, iPhone and Xbox. Reconnect with the natural world and the people around you. You’ll be amazed at how the magic creeps back into your life.

Go to www.adbusters.org for inspiration, articles, videos, posters and more. Next Monday, don't be afraid and don't find excuses ... take the plunge and see what happens.

Did that suggest a whole week? I think just one day would make a good start. So, I challenge you to pick one of the next seven days to just shut off everything digital (good thing I still have a turntable) and take in reality without the virtual shield.

Thanks, Jim.

Poster from this Adbuster link.

[For those of you who saw the earlier version of this with the message cut on the right, I just got rid of the box. But if someone would like to suggest a relatively easy way to adjust the code in the box to do the same thing, I'm listening.]

David Chalmers Extending Our Minds

It was standing room only at the talk by philosopher David Chalmers. In a room that sits maybe 200 people, about 15 or 20 had to stand because all the seats were full. On a Friday night. Thirty years ago you might have said that's because there's nothing to do in Anchorage, but that is definitely not true today.


Chalmers' talk at UAA reminded me of what I like and don't like about the discipline of philosophy. What I like is the imagination and creativity where a proposition is made that goes beyond how we normally think about things. A bit like science fiction. But philosophers then make careful and detailed, excruciatingly detailed arguments, to support this newly created conceit, to attack it, and to defend it. I like the conceits and the thought that goes into initially developing the logical argument to support the conceit. What gets old for me is how long they'll argue over things that seem irrelevant to anything that matters. But then I'm sure that people who accidentally get to this blog often react the same way to what they read here.



In any case, the conceit that Chalmers and his colleague Andy Clark created about ten years ago (in a paper called The Extended Mind)is the idea that something outside your skin - like your i-phone or like an Alzheimer's patient's notebook where he keeps track of things he needs to remember. I'm using 'he' because in his example, Otto is the Alzheimer's patient who is compared to a 'normal' human named Inge who performs the same functions (the notes in the notebook) in her mind.

Chalmers challenged us to think outside the skin and it was an interesting exercise. He argued that objects can act as mind extenders if they had several characteristics. Sort of like the way a cane helps aid in the act of walking, a calculator or a notebook, can aid the act of thinking. And when it does, it becomes part of the mind. Or put another way, the mind expands outside the skin to include the notebook.

The video gives a snippet of the talk. This is not the most important point, but it was a time when he walked over to our side of the room and there weren't so many heads in the way.



It was good to see so many people out for a philosophy talk. No, our governor was not there. But others were and they stayed around to ask questions afterward.

What's Consciousness?

[photo from Chalmers' website]
We may or may not find out tonight (Friday April 17) at UAA when Australian philosopher David J. Chalmers talks at the

UAA/APU Consortium Library Room 307.
7 pm.

My daughter, a philosphy major at UW, says "He's big!"

Here's a bit from on

Publish Post

e of his papers:

Facing Up to the Problem of Consciousness
David J. Chalmers
Philosophy Program
Research School of Social Sciences
Australian National University

1 Introduction
Consciousness poses the most baffling problems in the science of the mind. There is nothing that we know more intimately than conscious experience, but there is nothing that is harder to explain. All sorts of mental phenomena have yielded to scientific investigation in recent years, but consciousness has stubbornly resisted. Many have tried to explain it, but the explanations always seem to fall short of the target. Some have been led to suppose that the problem is intractable, and that no good explanation can be given. To make progress on the problem of consciousness, we have to confront it directly. In this paper, I first isolate the truly hard part of the problem, separating it from more tractable parts and giving an account of why it is so difficult to explain.

Sutton's Greenhouse - Buy Local

It was pushing 50˚F (10˚C) when I did my run today and the sun was bright and the sky blue.

But it was grey Tuesday until I got to Sutton's. This is our neighborhood greenhouse. Family owned and run. It's not your spic-n-span everything-in-order store. It feels like it's lived in. It's one of those vestiges of how things used to be. Like Spada's that used to be near the corner of Tudor and Lake Otis. You know this is a labor of love because they can't be making too much money from this. The back rooms aren't open yet, but the green and the warmth and the fragrance made for a great stop.

And there are bargains still to be had. Most of the plants for sale in the picture are plugs - little plants in individual plugs of soil. The ones in front here weren't cheap - $1.95 each. But the ones in back were only 25¢. There were too many good ones for me to decide. And if I get them, then I have to care for them pretty quick. So I just bought some seeds, for now, and I'll go back and pick out the plugs I want and can handle.


Before you go get plants at national corporate stores like Lowe's or Home Depot or even Costco, check out the local greenhouses like Sutton's that are run by local folks and much more of the money you spend stays in Anchorage. Even if some things are a little more expensive, you know that most of the plants were grown locally [I called and asked and they guessed about 60% are locally grown.]. That saves energy shipping them up here. (OK, what's the tradeoff between the shipping energy use and keeping greenhouses going here? I don't know, but most things from Lowe's are grown in greenhouses outside as well.) And the plants here are grown by people who know what grows well in Anchorage. And unlike most of the clerks at Lowe's, the people here can answer your questions.

Sutton's is at 2845 E Tudor Rd on the corner of Wright Street and Tudor - a few blocks east of Lake Otis. If you're headed toward the mountains, it's on your left. 907-563-5521

Anonymous Bloggers

Anonymous left another message. There's been quite a few actually, a number of which I didn't post to allow him to give me information without publicly revealing clues to his identity. The style of Anon's posts range from 'loose' to 'very reasonable. You may have read a few and not realized it was the same person. And then he slips back into this sort of post. It slides along the edges and over the boundaries of respectful and seems at places to be reacting more to his image of what I'm writing, rather than what I'm actually writing.

OK, being rational isn't the only reasonable option. There's also funny. And tapping into one's emotions is also fine. But being irrational - things like jumping to conclusions based on false assumptions, not responding to the other person's arguments, not being internally consistent, etc. - doesn't help the discussion along. I understand that someone can forget all those things in an emotional reaction. But then as we calm down a bit and get to chatting, I expect one to get over that and into a more rational discussion, one where we aren't making snide comments. That doesn't mean we can't identify behavior that we see as negative or harmful, but that when we do that we try to separate the behavior we see as problematic from the person were talking to. And we point out the behavior we have problems with. When the discussion is in writing, it's not too hard to do.


As I've said in an earlier post, getting something like this once in a while is not a problem. If someone is doing their best to express themselves, but they aren't great writers, no big deal. But it was a flurry of such posts that caused me to turn on the 'review comments' function and to offer some guidelines for commenting here. And suddenly this and at least one other anonymous poster took more care on their posts. So I began approving them.

Let me go through the latest comment with my reactions. This is a comment on the post Blogging - What's Real? How Do We Know? Stevens, Kepner, Joy? posted April 3 and this comment is dated April 15, 12:27pm. (I've been rejecting this sort of post since last week, but I do want my readers to know what I'm reacting to.) In the comment prior to the one below, I say I have a life beyond the Stevens trial, but I'll pay attention and if I think I have something of important to say, I will. I end with, "If anyone has important info that isn't available elsewhere and they are willing to write in an objective, non-derisive way, I'll consider guest posts." Anon writes:

Well, derivise, and non-objective commentary, has been thrown at some DOJ attorneys from assorted, as if that is some Soccer Club thing, the Artic Bears vs, AMERICA & fed by the cheering, and Esq AK club fans in assorted artic circles.Wev the head, the main nail 'em,, nail the public servants, those outsiders, those lower 48ers

OK, I take this to mean there are Alaskans who are being derisive and non-objective about some DOJ attorneys.

The main public servant attorney under attack by the Artic Club is Nick Marsh.
He acheived a substanial victory in the 9th Circuit, when some of the Artic Club sought to withhold evidence(the Ak bribe matters).
He is a graduate of Duke Law School, and used to work with a big NYC law firm, Sullivan and Cromwell, and was noted in this case:

http://bulk.resource.org/courts.gov/c/F3/351/351.F3d.1348.01-16973.html

OK, I've seen Nicolas Marsh in action at the Alaska political corruption cases. I've given my impressions of him in court which in terms of the important things were mostly positive. I did find him very technically competent, but, particularly in the first trial, I thought his person to person communication with the jury could be stronger. I know about Marsh's previous employment because I googled him during the Alaska trials since the DOJ would give no background information about the attorneys. I'm guessing the victory in the 9th circuit was the Weyhrauch appeal, but I'm not sure the importance of the linked case. It mentions Marsh once as the eighth of eleven attorneys listed for the Plaintiffs-Appellees.

With all the artic club white collar club support group, now -- will Mr Marsh have to hire an attorney(his own attorney), given how the artic club is yapping, and jiving, and going on about the low
fatality rates on red shirts, and the flow of traffic.

Since my most recent post was about traffic fatalities in Thailand during Songkran and how much higher they were than deaths in the red shirt demonstrations, it seems reasonable to conclude that Anon is including me amongst the 'artic club' 'yappers' that are responsible for Marsh apparently hiring a private attorney. (And I have reason to believe that the Anon comment on the Thai traffic post is from this same Anon.)

Here's a spot where I don't see the logical flow of Anon's argument. I've hardly said anything about Marsh for a long time. I did note a couple of times that he had been on the team that very competently handled the Alaska cases. If anyone cares, they can put Marsh into the 'search blog' window in the upper left on the tool bar above. Is it because I'm not dropping everything else I'm doing to pursue this? Since when are bloggers beholden to do the bidding of their commenters? Now, Anon may take that to be a derisive comment. I think it's a fairly reasonable statement of my take on this. I could be wrong on it being presumptuous, but rather than taking it as an insult or condescension, if Anon were to take issue with this, he should point out why it isn't presumptuous.

I suppose derivise is in the eye of the beholder, it does point that up.
For a while, it looked like Steve was obssessed on blowing the cover for some "annons", to tell who they were not, as if he has that copy right, & as if telling 'em how to write comments on SEA Museums, or fear abounded he would lose friends, if he did not.

I can understand the confusion based on one of my post titles.. But I did address this in an earlier post or comment. And the post itself isn't about identifying the commenter. My post on "Figuring out My Anonymous Commenter" was not aimed at figuring out who the commenter was, but at the commenter's motives and how I could determine if the commenter actually had access to important information relevant to the Stevens trial fallout. While I think I have an obligation to be polite to people who post here, I don't have an obligation to spend my time responding to whatever they propose for me to do. If I determine it isn't leading to something useful (the commenter has the responsibility to help me see the importance,) I don't need to spend more time on it. And if the commenter is changing the tone of my blog by the number and tone of the comments, I have no obligation to keep posting them. Fear of losing friends? It might be interesting to see who Anon thinks my friends are. My friends respect what and how I write even if they don't always agree with me.

I don't have a need to know who Anonymous is. It would be helpful to be able to distinguish between one Anon and another Anon so I can be sure to respond to them individually. But I respected Anon's privacy and suggested he email me instead of posting to the world if he was concerned.

Anon's response was links to sites explaining government programs to eavesdrop on private email. Since I thought he was telling me he didn't want to be tracked down, I then tried to set up a way for Anon to communicate with me without having to post his comments for the whole world to see. The response to that was blasting me for censoring his comments. I do recognize that trying to communicate that way raised the possibility that some messages from me didn't get read. But I have evidence that most if not all were read.

We have lost all hope of objective, fairness, and bringing out to the artic club other aspects on things, it is most obvious how the Artic Club works.
So, now band this post too, with so many others, and pat yourself on the back as some fairness objective: IN the KNOW from your perspective.
Hey, you pay the hook up fees, that must make you non-derivise, and in the know.
Now, do as your usual -- push your remove button. And, wait for others to examine matters, who do not have that Artic edge/ slant.

I understand this to mean that I'm still hopelessly unfair and subjective, and I'm still going to ban this commenter. I have a license to be derisive (no examples of where I was being derisive.) Then Anon seems to back off a bit. Go ahead, Anon, seems to be saying, give it up and let others, without an Alaska perspective, pursue this story.


This good cop/bad cop routine is starting to get tiring.

So, why am I spending all this time on this Anonymous commenter? (Yes, I'm pretty sure there are more than one of these Anon bloggers, but I'm also reasonably sure that many are from the same person). Because:

• Writing things out helps me think through them.
• I assume that there is a person inside every body despite the masks people hide behind. So I'm giving a shot at some real conversation before I pull the plug on these comments.
• Anonymous bloggers and anonymous commenters are something of an internet phenomenon. I hope that my thoughts here might be helpful to others facing this.
• Maybe someone who has a better handle on this will email me with sage advice.
• Even if I'm wrong and my effort to engage Anon in a real conversation fails, other readers can understand my thinking process as I try to work this out.

Thailand: 220 deaths and 2,658 injured

You didn't read that news about Thailand in the New York Times, did you? Or any other US newspaper or tv news?

Because this was traffic deaths during the Songkran holiday period which began as the rioting was winding down. Traffic deaths are not as important to us as rioting or terrorist deaths. (I imagine to the families they are, but not to the media or to politicians.)

There are about 40,000 annual traffic deaths in the US. That's about 340,000 people killed in the United States since 9/11. The number of people killed by terrorist attack inside the US has been about 3000 since 9/11. (A recent National Highway Traffic Safety Administration report says 2008 was the lowest number - 37,313 - since 1961 due to more seatbelt use and less driving because of high gas prices.)

Finding figures on how much we've spent on the war on terror - including Iraq and Afganistan - is much harder on Google than one would expect, but the numbers in this March 2006 article cover the range pretty much:

within another three years, total direct and indirect costs to U.S. taxpayers will likely by more than $400 billion, and one estimate puts the total economic impact at up to $2 trillion.

So, we got lots of news about Thai red shirt demonstrators in the streets, but the reports I've read say that only two people died. But right after the demonstrations were over and Songkran festivities began, 220 people have died already in Thailand. And who is covering that?

Tourists left Bangkok because of riots. But being on the roads of Thailand is much more dangerous. Especially on a motorcycle. What we know about the world - especially places and events we don't see with our own eyes - is largely shaped by the media and what stories they choose to report and choose not to. And how they report the stories and how much time they spend on them. So the tourists came to Thailand even though traffic collisions are high because they don't pay much attention to that (until they get there.) But the visions of rioters in the street looked far more dangerous. But actually weren't.

We pay much less attention to traffic deaths than to riot or terrorist deaths. If saving people's lives were the important factor, would we have spent huge amounts of money to send soldiers to Iraq and Afghanistan while spending a tiny fraction of that to prevent traffic deaths? Don't forget 340,000 in traffic deaths v. 3000 in terrorist attack in the US since 9/11. But we didn't spend 100 times as much to prevent traffic deaths. What if we did? or just 100 times more than we spend now to prevent traffic deaths?

Here's more on the Thai story from the Nation via ThaiVisa

BANGKOK: -- Road casualties climbed to 220 deaths and 2,658 people injured as 2,658 accidents were recorded nationwide in the first four of the "seven most dangerous days" of the Songkran festival.

Chiang Rai had the most accidents at 102 followed by Nakhon Si Thammarat at 94, Paichit Varachit, deputy permanent secretary of the Public Health Ministry, said yesterday.

Monday alone saw 863 traffic accidents with 81 deaths and 940 injuries.

Driving under the influence of alcohol was the major cause of accidents followed by speeding.

Most mishaps involved motorcycles driven from 4pm-8pm.

The rest is at the link above.


You may or may not have noticed that I have not used the term "traffic accidents" in this post. My son has convinced me that most so called traffic collisions are preventable.


Also, doing this post brought to my attention the difficulty in getting budget estimates for traffic death prevention. Obviously there are bits of money in different federal appropriations and then each state has its own appropriations on this. But you'd think there were people specializing in this topic who would have reasonable estimates. Maybe they just don't post them on the web. Or their sites come up low on Google.

Anchorage 24 Hour Film Competition Winner

Someone got here Sunday googling 24 hour film contest. Well, I knew there was one as part of the Anchorage International Film Festival back in December and that's where they got.

But last night at the Bear Tooth I learned there was another competition this past weekend. Before "Waltzing with Bashir" we got to "Oscar." The first video is from the Bear Tooth tonight when they explained the requirements of the competition and introduced the winner "Oscar".





And here's the winner straight from YouTube.

Keeping Up With Thai Crisis

Thaicrisis is another blog (in addition to Bangkok Pundit) where you can get a deeper understanding of what is happening in Thailand. The link is to the About page which has a brief overview of the blog and interesting comments.

This is another example of how blogs can give a much richer sense of what is happening than the Main Stream Media as events unfold.

It started with the bike pump

Martial chaos in Bangkok. Clues to check out on the Stevens' case. Local outrage about the comments of the Palin attorney general pick, but with hints his nomination isn't doing well. It was already afternoon when we finally got up - not sure I can still blame this on jet lag. And as I write I realize I totally forgot about the Songkran celebrations at the Thai Wat here in Anchorage. Taxes to get organized. And I found a website with links to Thai music videos - a great way to work on my Thai since they have the Thai words below. And unlike on Thai tv, I can stop them and play them again til I get it.

The relative warmth - low 40s, about 7˚C - and the rapidly disappearing snow were calling too. The deck was clear, the back and front yards are showing a lot more brown in just the few days we've been home.

So let's chuck everything and ride over to Suttons and look for some seeds, maybe even some seedlings.

But when I got the bikes out, J's tires were soft. The pump wasn't where it was supposed to be in the garage. I seemed to vaguely remember thinking about taking it to Thailand with us back in January, so where did it end up? Not in the two most likely places.



Then I looked into M's old room which has turned into our store room. We'd cleared out some closets and drawers and cabinets to give our house sitters some room. It got a little rough at the end as we just threw things in to get them out of the way before heading to the airport. Was it in there?

Well, sorting through the old stuff and getting rid of as much as we can was also on the list of todo's and maybe the pump was buried in there. About two hours later, with a lot more floor showing, I found the pump. But it was too late to go. We lived in two rooms in Chiang Mai quite comfortably. Certainly we can get rid of a lot of stuff in here.

Blue Shirts?

Before I left Chiang Mai on Monday, I joked about blue shirts and green shirts (in addition to the reds and the yellows) and now the blues have shown up. Basically, red shirts support the former prime minister Thaksin (the wikipedia summary leaves out the important point that he jumped bail and has since been convicted to two years in prison. Thus he's not in Thailand. It's in the entry way down near the end) who appeals to the poor. The yellow shirts support the current prime minister - Oxford educated Abhisit, called by some 'Obamark' because his nickname is Mark - and these, according to common belief (not necessarily truth) are mostly Bangkok middle and upper classes. I don't pretend to understand all the ins and outs of Thai politics and suggest readers read this and everything else with skepticism.

Mr. Kwai (kwai means water buffalo) has links to many Thai sources both in English and Thai. New Mandala and Bangkok Pundit (both linked on the right) are also decent (not necessarily neutral) sources as well.

Here's a comment from Mr. Kwai's post on red shirt demonstration and cancellation of the ASEAN summit. Note: honoring your parents is still very important in Thailand. Dissing them is a BIG DEAL.

chinesethai 11 April 2009 at 9:56 am

...FACT?
You obviously haven’t heard of the Blue Shirt before. The Blue Shirt belongs to Nevin’s faction. Actually, the Blue Shirt defected from the Red Shirt. Obviously, you are not aware that both colours have once clashed in Buriram when the Red Shirt threw rocks and fired bullets in front of his house in Buriram. That happened only a day after he announced giving his support to Abhisit.

Thailand’s English language media has disadvantages because news has to be translated into English while the situation keeps changing. CNN and BBC are also useless. Most of these journalists thought they were the experts but obviously they are telling you craps or half-truth such as the clip of Yellow Shirt shooting. They got shot first. The Yellow Shirt has to protect themselves when the police has taken the Red site. If you were them, would you be a sweet target? Common sense.

The country is unstable, yes. But if you are a well-wishing outsider and have that morality and neutrality, you are supposed to denounce anybody that will destroy this country, right?

And……may I re-post this?

90 Year-Old Mother of Jatuporn Prompan, Red Shirt Leader, calls her son to stop instigate chaos. “My son has not come home to visit me for 6 years.”

http://www.manager.co.th/Local/ViewNews.aspx?NewsID=9520000040302

So what did Jatuporn reply? “She is just an illiterate villager.” (From Pro-Thaksin Matichon Online)

http://www.matichon.co.th/news_detail.php?newsid=1239250104&grpid=03&catid=01

Is the Red Shirt were the force for good when its leader has such background, deserting even his own mother?

Common Cause Checking Out Alaska

Seems like our best known export after oil - political corruption stories - has made some people believe that a chapter of Common Cause might be welcomed here.

Paul Brown, one of the driving forces behind the Alaska Repertory Theater back in the late 70s and 80s has been in town for a couple of weeks scoping out the viability of establishing a state chapter of the public interest non-profit in Alaska. A friend asked if I'd be interested in meeting with him and I said, "Sure." So, uncertain about how messy the streets might be on a bike, I drove a car for the first time in three months to our meeting.

Common Cause was founded in 1970 by John Gardner. A PBS webpage on Gardner says:

Common Cause became one of the staunchest advocates of campaign finance reform. In 1971, they sued both the Democratic and Republican parties for violating campaign fundraising and spending limits, and began to push federal and state governments to open up legislative hearings and governmental decision-making. Common Cause's crusade did not go unnoticed. After the group sued President Nixon's re-election campaign, John Gardner was put on his infamous "enemies list." After the Watergate scandal and various abuses of power by the Nixon Administration came to light, Common Cause was instrumental in getting the landmark campaign finance reform legislation of 1974 passed which put in place limits on contributions and disclosure requirements for campaigns.

According to the Common Cause website, today they are working to:

• Advance campaign reforms that make people and ideas more important than money
• Make certain that government is open, ethical and accountable
• Remove barriers to voting and ensure that our voting systems are accurate and accessible
• Increase the diversity of voices and ownership in media, to make media more responsive to the needs of citizens in a democracy and to protect the editorial independence of public broadcasting
• Uphold the rule of law by opposing any attempts to undermine the United States Constitution and the Bill of Rights,
• Increase participation in the political process.

I knew the name - Paul Brown - sounded familiar but it wasn't til he started giving me some of his Alaska background that I realized who he was. I'm guessing that the Rep's high artistic standard back then is partly responsible for the high quality of theater we have in this small town far from the center of the arts universe.

We had an interesting discussion about lots of things including his mission here. There are a lot of non-profits here already, many doing overlapping work. The trick will be to work with them and not duplicate efforts. But it seems Paul has talked to most of the related organizations I could think of.

[I'd note that some of my friends have joked about not talking to me after they've seen my blog. I want to assure them and readers that when I meet with someone like I did yesterday, I get their permission before doing a post.]

Reviewing Comments

I've long taken the position that my preference was to leave comments unreviewed. They get up faster and take less of my time. That policy fits my general sense of free and open debate. However, I reserved the right to turn on 'review comments' if people violated my trust that they would post civil and respectful comments.

Well, yesterday I turned on the review comment feature. Anonymous (there appear to be at least two and maybe more - but one in particular I think that has led to this) has been posting long, rambling comments. OK, some people are better speaking than writing. I give people slack on that. I was more concerned about the tone when the comments first started appearing about a week ago, but they seemed to have some substance that was of relevance, though it was hard to be sure. They also made blatant, but unsubstantiated, allegations and characterizations about people that had a tone of self-righteousnous that bothered me. And they were repetitive. But I was hoping that they would evolve into more civil and informative comments.

One goal of this blog is to have a civil discussion. By this I mean that people are respectful of each other and the people they write about. That people present evidence for their allegations. They don't call each other names. They read what others write and respond directly to the parts they disagree with and explain why.

Yesterday there was another blizzard of comments that didn't meet any of those criteria. There are much worse comments on other blogs and this commenter does have something in mind. I was hoping he would reveal that with enough time. But I've had enough. Any single comment hasn't been that far over the line and I've left them up - about fifteen posted comments so far. But cumulatively they change the tone of this blog. I've criticized the ADN for not moderating their blogs and so I just decided the time I hoped wouldn't arrive, had arrived.

There are about ten comments awaiting approval now. I've discovered that Blogger gives me the choice of accepting or rejecting each comment. I can't even use the select and copy and paste feature.

Here's a part of a comment that is waiting for me to accept or reject. There are five or six more separate comments that appear to be from the same anonymous commenter awaiting approval:

Why should any ANON trust you, some have seen how the truth can be twisted when Ted is involved, and the raw power, for all most know you are just another in the TANK FINK for Ted, you showed your true colors, you think people are so gullible to trust you, & you think any are going to come to some sucker like you, as you delete this and other posts to slant things…
Like why would any even come to your and spill the whole thing. . .who in the hell are you, you proved you can’t be trusted, have some agenda. (LIKE CLUB TED, CLUB WEV)

Some bon Vo play boy with rich travel Money, you don’t mean shit to most hard working Americans, they see you as the reason why Alaska is seen as a big sucking machine to leave the US taxpayers the tab. SEF tax slaves.

One could argue that the commenter has some legitimate points and I shouldn't be picky about style. But the style here is a not-listening style. This person has lots to say, but doesn't seem ready to listen. The comments jump to conclusions without telling us how he got there. In the passage above he suggests he's talking for people other than himself ("most hard working Americans.") I've chosen this part because I'm the subject of the commenter's attack. So I'm posting those comments for all to see what he said. (There's more like that in other comments in the queue.) I'm not rejecting these because he is critizing me, but because of how he is talking about me and others. Being the subject of his ire also gives me more perspective on what he's saying about others.

So, I'm going to invite all posters to do a few things if they want me to push the accept button:

1. Be respectful of others. If you think they've done something wrong, identify the specific act that was wrong and point to specific evidence. If there is no specific evidence, point out the circumstantial evidence that leads you to your conclusion. For example in the second part of the snippet above, I think that you are saying something like, "Steve, your traveling suggests to me that you're rich. That reinforces people's image of Alaskans as sucking up all their tax dollars." Then I could ask in response:

• How do you define rich? How much money does one have to have to be rich? $1,000, $10,000, $100,000, $1,000,000? A billion?
  
• Is being rich bad? Don't most Americans strive to be, if not rich, at least comfortable? Don't they continue to vote for rich politicians?
• Do you differentiate between people who got their money from corruption and scam and those who worked for it and made good decisions about how to use it? Or whether they spend it for luxuries for themselves or to help others?
  
• And by the way, it costs a lot less to live three months in Thailand than it does to live three months in Anchorage. And if you read the blog carefully, you'd know our lifestyle there was pretty modest - bikes and walking were our main form of transportation and we were in a modest two room apartment which cost less than $10 a day. And those certainly weren't pictures of first class in the plane.
  

I'm not saying you have to write the way I write, but that you present your points rather than making slurs so that people can respond sensibly.


2. If you make allegations about others, present evidence.


3. Try not to repeat yourself too much.

This is not hard. The only comments I've deleted over the last two and a half years were spam and other ads that had nothing to do with the post.

Now let me address a reasonable challenge: Don't you believe in free speech? Why are you for censorship?

First, I'm a private citizen writing a blog. I'm not the government. The First Amendment protections of free speech are about the US government abridging free speech. It doesn't say that every private citizen who writes something has to also publish everything anyone else wants to say. If you need to tell the world your story, start your own blog. You already have access to a computer and setting one up is free on blogspot.

Second, the point of free speech and debate is for people to listen to different points of view, different facts, and to have conversations so that people from different perspectives can gain insight. After reading your posts for almost a week now, it's my sense that you are interested in the giving part of debate but not the listening part.

If you have something to say to me personally, email me. There's a link in my profile. Show me that I'm wrong and that you are reasonable and listen and adjust your perspective when warranted. Show me you can talk to someone without either buttering them up with compliments or slamming them with insults. That you can find a place somewhere in between - like polite normal conversation. Hotmail and others offer free email accounts that are reasonably untraceable. Certainly I couldn't trace them.

Since blogger makes it extremely difficult to edit comments, and since people would probably accuse me of distorting their comments if I did, I'll just make a judgment on all the incoming posts to either allow or delete. That's just the way it is. I'd rather have the comments go up right away. As I say, you can start your own blog if you don't want to conform to the standards I'm setting for my blog. I appreciate your visits here because they have pushed me to think through this more than I have before.

[I would note that I did accept a comment in the previous post on anonymous commenters that speculated that someone had skipped his meds. I thought about it before pushing accept. I think that mental illness is a serious and poorly understood issue everywhere. And medical science doesn't know that much and treatments can sometimes be worse than the original problem. ]

We're Home

Our house sitters left a very neat and clean house for us, plus this basket of fruit. Thanks! Our street is almost clear of snow, and the 1˚C weather didn't feel bad at all.

Figuring Out My Anonymous Blog Commenter

I've gotten a blizzard of posts from an anonymous blogger urging me on to keep digging about for skeletons in the Stevens' case.

With the traveling I haven't had time to go through everything carefully, but there are three key thrusts that stand out so far:

• He (I'm assuming the poster is a he) doesn't think much of Chad Joy
• He is similarly ill-disposed toward Wev Shea
• He points to the identities of the attorneys who interviewed Bill Allen "who (which, where etc) was the basis to tube the conviction(jury nullification)" as the crux to finding the 'real story' of the Stevens case.

Unlike a traditional newspaper reporter's source, this source posts all his tips are as comments on different posts related to the trial, out in the open for all to see. I've suggested he just send me an email, but it's all going up in comments. Maybe 10 or 15 posts in a couple of days. Most would never make it into the letters to the editor column. Most friends have raised their eyebrows and wondered about the writer's sobriety. The posts defy the rules of grammar and leap to conclusions with fragmentary evidence.

His last couple of posts have been much more grammatical and coherent and specific. Maybe he's getting impatient with me not being responsive enough. But I have been on airplanes a lot of the last 48 hours and still have one more (I hope that's all - I'm in Salt Lake City right now and the plane is listed as on-time about 3 hours from now, but I can only find pay wifi, and I'm not THAT addicted that I can't wait, so I can't check on volcanic activity) til we get to Anchorage.

But I have been thinking about him and here are some thoughts about ways to evaluate an anonymous poster. Here are some factors, each of which would have a continuum from a version of bad to a version of good.

1. Motive - Is this something he's doing for self gain or does he see this as a public service? Is he out for revenge or for justice? Is he trying to settle a score or right a wrong? These are not necessarily mutually exclusive. For example, revenge to right a wrong could be both for self-gain and public service.
   
   
2. Access to Information - Does he have insider information? Or is he someone who doesn't have special access to this story, but may have an ax to grind with some of the players.
   
   
3. Judgment/Wisdom - Assuming for the moment, that his motive is good and he has inside information, does he have the wisdom and judgment to interpret what he knows accurately? Or is he the type of person who sees a few bits of information which pass through his mental models and spit out nonsense? Having access to the facts is just step one. Then we have to interpret them. Is this guy good at doing that?
   

I don't know enough to determine the answers to these questions. It clearly has a greater interest in the details of this case than most people, and writes about details that the average person knows nothing about. So probably he's more insider than outsider on this case. But the other two factors I can't judge yet.

Then there is the question: Why me? Why this blog? He thinks Chad Joy has done wrong and he thinks that people on the inside have thrown the case leading to the dismissal of the conviction. I've voiced doubts about the substance of the Joy complaint and raised questions whether this case was just badly handled or whether there were people intentionally messing it up. He might see me as someone who is open to the arguments he's making. But maybe I'm not the only one getting this stuff.

At least one reader has told me that I've already been charmed by Kepner into seeing things her way. Others - non-Thais in Thailand who know little about the case - are highly cynical about everything and think this could be someone trying to use me for some unknown agenda.

As I said above, the last couple of posts have gotten more coherent and specific. Maybe I don't have to do anything except let the poster keep posting comments.

Matthew, who's hawking Delta credit cards has offered me access to his wifi so I can even post this before I go.

SFO to SLC

Des arrived after our walk on the beach and we all went for breakfast nearby. Des was a student of mine in Hong Kong 20 years ago and helped me with research in China. He has since gotten his PhD at the University of Michigan and is a new professor in the San Francisco Bay area.

We dropped J back off at home, picked up our luggage, were able to check it in curbside at the airport and have dim sum at a nearby Chinese restaurant. We were lucky, the rain didn't start until after we got back from our walk on the beach.


We flew over Lake Tahoe.

And the Nevada Desert

And the mountains we flew over had snow still. But I'm sure we'll see a lot more if we get home.

There are plenty of shopping opportunities in the airport while we wait. Fortunately window shopping is good enough for us. We already have way too much luggage.

Besides, they have great little desks with plugins for the computer next to a beautiful view. Unfortunately, the wifi is not free in the Salt Lake City Airport.

Morning Beach Walk

Here's the beach we walked on last night.

Full Moon at Half Moon Bay

Our son and his roommate picked us up at the airport and we're now at their place just off the beach at Half Moon Bay. J and J and I walked Kona on the beach in the moonlight.

Here's the sound of the surf while you look at the iPhoto cranked up shots. If you look at the screen from the right angle, not only can you see my wife and son and his dog, but also their shadows and the surf.
Half Moon Bay surf under Full Moon by AKRaven

Looking toward Pillar Point, north of Half Moon Bay.

We left Anchorage a day after the full moon in January and we're due back tomorrow. The sun isn't quite full, but I used my poetic blogger's license with the title.

Taipei to San Francisco

I was impressed that they were able to carry our food preference onto the new flight. Usually when there's a late change of itinerary, we lose our vegie meals. This was Hindu Vegie breakfast. Very tasty.

I've never seen so many people waiting in line to pee on a plane.

The wing.

The seats were definitely too close together.

Almost in San Francisco.

Golden Fronted Leaf birds and Black Drongo Say Goodbye

The birds were out this morning as we did last minute packing. The video is not good enough to see the details of the birds, so I put up this picture of the leaf bird from our Thai bird book. But you can see the drongo chase the leafbird off its perch and hear the leafbird singing. There are two leafbirds. The one on the far right is singing.




I'll set this to go up when the Anchorage folks are just waking up and we should be waiting in the Taiwan airport to fly to San Francisco.

The Way Home - Intl. Flights Still Serve Food

We got picked up about 11:30am, including the bikes which were going to be dropped off at the office. The student interns came out to say good bye. Bon is with them too. It seems it was pink day for the women.

Here's another picture of the compound. One visitor suggested that the grounds looked more like being out in a village, and yes, that is the feel, even though we are in Chiang Mai.


Then to the airport, where despite the overnight in San Francisco, and then the journey to Salt Lake on the way to Anchorage, we were able to check our baggage in through Anchorage. We will get to briefly find stuff we might need going through customs in SF.



We picked Hindu Vegetarian from China Air's long long list of choices way back in December. It was a good choice and when you get special meals, they bring them first. That seems just to be a logistic decision, so they can find the people who ordered special and get them the right meals. The food was good, though extremely mild after eating Thai food.


The salad was very fresh. And I was surprised to see the jello. As this discussion group suggests, Jello itself is not vegetarian, but there are other ways to make a jello like dish that are vegetarian. I'll give them the benefit of the doubt, but we didn't eat it. Jello isn't high on my list of favorite foods anyway.


I watched the beginning of "Bedtime Stories." The sound was the best I've ever had through airline earphones, but there really wasn't anything worth listening to.




And here we are approaching Taipei, before dipping into the clouds.









And here's my floor view of the Taipei Terminal D plugged into the socket. There's free wifi in the Taipei airport. They even have free computers to use. Well, I probably should check on that. They used to. I'm on the free wifi though.

Why Travel Agents are Worth the Fee

You know that extra fee that travel agents now charge? For long, international flights, it's definitely worth it. Any number of things can go wrong and it's always nice to have someone who knows what she's doing covering you.

An email arrived just before I went to bed from my travel agent. She was on a mission, incensed that she hadn't been notified by China Air.

This morning (Thai time) when I got to the computer our new itinerary was all there. Mystery is gone. We'll fly from Taiwan to San Francisco. One night there, then to Salt Lake City (China's affiliated with Delta, not Alaska Airlines) and, Redoubt willing, on to Anchorage. We'll get back three hours after the polls close, so it will be the first time in 30 years that we miss a Municipal Election, but I'm guessing we'll get to vote in the runoff.

So, Lynda McMahon at "CWT Vacations formerly Navigant Vacations" (and about ten other names over the years,) who has saved my nether parts any number of times from the clutches of fickle airlines, you again get my travel agent of the year award. This is for reading your email after work on a weekend and then If anyone wants a great travel agent who will go head to head with the "Sorry, we aren't allowed to do that" folks on the other end of the phone, email me and I'll give you her email and phone. My email's in my profile on the right.

Last Night Before Mystery Trip as Volcano Diverts China Air Anchorage Flights

Our trip home gets more exciting each day. As I mentioned earlier, the first report from our travel agent was that China Air had diverted the Taipei-Anchorage-New York flight to Vancouver to avoid the volcanic ash around Anchorage.

Then we saw on China Air's website that flights were stopping in Seattle. Well, that's ok, we can see our daughter.

But today I checked and the first flight listed to Anchorage this week is on Friday. But our ticket on the the China Air website still lists us leaving for Anchorage on Tuesday. But the New York flight with our flight number is listed as non-stop to New York. What if they decided it was better to fly non-stop and skip the Anchorage stop altogether even after the volcano stops erupting. That would be awful for us.

Anyway, we have no idea what's going to happen in the next couple of days. All the offices were closed on Sunday so we couldn't try to rebook through LA or San Francisco. So, adventure lies ahead. Since my mom's in LA, our son's near San Francisco, and our daughter is in Seattle, we may get to see at least one of them.

I've tried not to think about this being the last evening as we first met Rachel for sorbets at Iberry.







Then as the sun was just setting behind Doi Suthep, we all went over to Khun Churn where we had dinner with Matt and Rit.







Khun Churn is a vegetarian restaurant that serves tasty and imaginative all vegie meals.

Here's Rit after we finished off most of the dinner. We met him first at Swe's village where he works through an NGO working on education and cultural preservation.


And Songkran begins next week, so the waterguns I couldn't find anywhere when we first got here (for J to ward off menacing dogs) are now everywhere in preparation for Chiang Mai's giant water fight in a week or so. I shot this on our ride back home. We're much more comfortable now riding in the street (there's no place else to ride) and going with the flow of traffic at lights. Our bright red flashing tail lights making sure that drivers can see we're there.

Then, finally, we stopped to pick up our last sticky rice and mango to take home for a snack.

Birding - Not the Video Game

Tomorrow we move out of our fourth floor bird viewing nest. We've had some great birds this week. J definitely saw an owl (she thinks a barred Asian owlet) and I saw either a brown hawk owl or maybe it was a besra. Today we saw a pair of leafbirds - probably golden fronted leafbirds, but they weren't quite the same. One looked like the one on the bottom left. The other looked like the bottom right, but all green on the belly too. Picture from นกเมืองไทย







All these pictures have birds in them. Enlarging the picture will make them easier to see. This one is a big grey bird that flew off before we could even start to identify it.
This pictures has three drongos in it. Double click it to see it bigger.

With the leaves gone now from most of the trees, it's much easier to see the birds. Here's a picture of the same trees back in January.



This isn't to mention our regulars - all the drongos, the bulbuls, the sunbirds (harder to see and photograph as the picture of the olive backed sunbird shows, but if you double click it you can see it better), the doves, the coucal - one flew lazily right past us today, it's brown wings contrasting to the rest of its black body - and the koels, heard more than seen.

Here is this free show, this game - spot the birds, identify the birds - that is available to all. Yet somehow electronic games, using up energy, usually inside, usually costing money is far more accessible to most than watching birds. But the ability to sit and wait for birds, the ability to know the different kinds of birds by sight and by their calls is something that has to be built into our genes. It's how humans survived for all but the last 100 years on earth.


Verlyn Klinkkenborg writes today in the NY Times about the importance of watching birds,

There’s an insouciance about birds in their element that always feels to me like a comment on the human species. I see a vulture looking side to side as it slides by overhead, and it looks to me as though it’s artfully and intentionally ignoring the skill of its flight. I saw the same thing in the Chilean fjords a year ago. We sailed past dozens of black-browed albatross, and every one of them — serenely afloat — looked up at me from the waves with the self-confidence of an athlete, effortlessly drifting on the tide and wondering what element humans call their own.

Blogger Lands in Jail for Insulting the Thai Monarchy

I don't mean to belittle the problems of Alaskan bloggers, but this news story shows that others have it much worse. I don't think the governor reads this blog, so I'm not worried she might try to see if Alaska can copy this too.

April 4, 2009

New: RWB on Suwicha’s sentencing

Internet user gets ten years in jail for posting content that “defamed” monarchy (3 April 2009):

Reporters Without Borders condemns the 10-year jail sentence which a criminal court in the northeast Bangkok district of Ratchada imposed today on Suwicha Thakor for posting content online that was deemed to have insulted the monarchy. Thakor has been held in Bangkok’s Klong Prem prison since 14 January.

“The charge of lese majeste has become a major tool of repression in Thailand,” Reporters Without Borders said. “The sentence passed on Suwicha Thakor violates online free expression and is out of all proportion to what he is alleged to have done. We call for his release and we urge the government to amend this law, which is being abused in an unacceptable manner.” The rest is at Thai Political Prisoners.

Blogging - What's Real? How Do We Know? Stevens, Kepner, Joy

It's Saturday morning in Chiang Mai. We have tickets for the Monday afternoon flight to Taipei and Tuesday afternoon to Anchorage. I've got things to do, but I got a comment today on the Let's Get Real about Mary Beth Kepner post that has my brain twisting.

How do any of us know what is real? OK, I don't want to go into a deep philosophical discussion, so let's limit this to what we see and hear in the news. Suppose you read that a prominent politician's conviction has been thrown out and that there were allegations of prosecutorial misconduct, and that there was an FBI 'whistleblower' who said his partner was violating the rules and was much too close to the witnesses. And the defense claimed this partner was having an affair with a key witness based on the whistleblower's complaint.


How do we cut through all that to find out what is true? I don't know about you, but I tend to rely on my beliefs which are based on my experiences and education. Those beliefs then inform the labels I read in the article. The interpretations are tempered by any personal experiences I have had directly with any of the people or places in the article.

I tend to 'think' more than the average person. My job was to think critically and to teach people to think critically. But I still get seduced by my stereotypes when I'm not being careful, especially if a story matches what I want to believe.

So I tend to be wary of 'politicians'. The nature of the system is that they need to raise money to get elected. And we know that people that help them get elected with big contributions are more likely to get an audience when they want one. Most people write checks to candidates they agree with, so if a candidate votes the way the contributor suggests, it isn't necessarily suspicious. But big lobbyists tend to contribute to all the likely candidates - it's not about ideology, it's about gettiing a foot in the door and getting what they want later on.

So 'politician' being convicted of corruption. My unthinking response is, "Yes!" If it's a Republican, then add another exclamation point. OK, I know there are honest politicians and good, decent Republicans. But if I don't stop to reflect on that, my gut reaction works through my stereotypes. But in this case, there are personal experiences too. I've met Ted Stevens on a couple of occasions. (I'm an Alaskan. Is there an Alaskan whose been around more than five years who hasn't met Ted?) He's smart, he's rabidly dedicated to doing what he thinks is right for Alaska which tends to mean getting money sent to Alaska. He also has been a Senator forever and from what I can tell, he already had an ego and temper long ago. All these years surrounded by sychophants hasn't helped his ego. And I know people who have told me the've seen some of the effects of that money close up how some of that money has spilled over into the waiting buckets of associates. Fishing and Seward for example. [Note: The ADN seems not to be giving free access to the Seward article. You made need a library password to get through on this link. The article citation is: Ben Stevens ' secret fish deal - State senator helped steer Adak pollock to a company he had financial stake in Anchorage Daily News (AK) - Sunday, September 18, 2005 Author: RICHARD MAUER Anchorage Daily News ; Staff ]

Whistleblower. That's a magic word for me. This is someone who sees a wrong and when the powers that be won't fix it, he or she risks everything to make sure the public is protected. Deep Throat. Daniel Elsberg. Jeffrey Wigand (played by Russell Crowe in The Insider). Karen Silkwood. These are all heroes. So the word whistleblower tends to turn on the 'good guy' reactors in my brain.

But in this case, I have some personal contact. I've watched in court and had several conversations with the 'corrupt' FBI agent. And the 'whistleblower's' comments are at odds with my sense of Mary Beth Kepner's professionalism and judgment.

Our science based society puts lots of weight on objectivity. We're supposed to keep an arm's length. We're supposed to judge the facts using rationality, not feelings. I had a conversation just yesterday with an anthropologist who is studying farmers in a small Thai village. Anthropology has gone through these debates about studying cultures 'objectively' from the outside or 'subjectively' by being a participant. This anthropologist is living in the house of one of the villagers when staying there and has been unofficially been adopted by the family. This puts some limitations on the anthropologist's movements, but on the other hand gives the opportunity to learn things that wouldn't be available to someone looking 'objectively' from outside. There is no one best way.

When I first started blogging the trials in 2007, it didn't occur to me to talk to any of the participants. I was somewhat surprised to see some of the reporters chatting with the defense attorneys, the prosecutors, even the witnesses. Well, of course, Steve, that's what reporters do. But to me it seemed like that would taint what I wrote. If I actually know someone, if they had the courtesy to talk to me, wouldn't I owe them something, some sort of restraint perhaps on what I wrote?

Eventually, I did one day ask an FBI technician a question about a missing exhibit and learned from the answer that they had been reading my blog and trying to figure out who in the courtroom was writing it. OK, so that's what I wanted, people reading my blog. But to what extent do I then become a participant? But every reporter has to deal with the fact that their subjects read their articles and in many cases their behavior is affected by what they read. There is no complete objectivity. That led me to invite Mary Beth Kepner to talk to a class. And there were, as I've said in other posts, other conversations when we accidentally met somewhere in Anchorage.

So, when I read her name in the newspaper along with the 'whistleblower's' allegations, I had to think carefully about whether those personal conversations gave me important information (like the anthropologist gets from the adoptive family) or whether those conversations bias me against the 'whistleblower' and make me miss 'the truth.' [I know that putting things in quotation marks can be annoying, but it's the cleanest way I know how to point out that I'm using these words with some skepticism.]

So I read the complaint carefully. While I acknowledge I couldn't totally erase my impressions from my mind, the complaint on its own just seemed peculiar. I've written at length about it. First the redacted version. Then the less redacted version. (I even blew my own horn a bit when there were news reports that Joy hadn't been granted whistleblower status, but that turned out to be another lesson in why you shouldn't blow your own horn. Whistleblower status turned out to not be so clear cut in the Justice Department.)

Law enforcement officers have a lot of pressure to not rat on their own - even when their own commit serious crimes. Whywould this agent rat on his colleague for things like being too close to an undercover source? It's an anomaly at the very least, if not bizarre.

I've written quite of few posts on this topic. The one that comes closest to tying things all together with links to all the others is Checkered Swan at the Stevens' Trial? post.

But in this post I want to focus on the difficulty of really knowing and how each of us has stories buried in our heads which give meaning to the words we read, whether that meaning is really in those words or not. Even if we don't have an immediate personal stake and won't be affected in any way, we judge where the truth lies not so much on the facts (in this situation there are still enough missing facts that we have have to use circumstantial evidence) but on our beliefs, our prior experiences with the labels in the story, and our own emotional needs.

Perhaps Mary Beth Kepner did some voodoo on me that has kept me disbelieving Joy's allegations. Perhaps my ego is now invested in this and I want things to fall a certain way so that I will be vindicated as being right from the beginning. I work hard to make calls based on as much factual information as possible and with as much self-examination of my own hidden biases and motives as I can. Most of the time I don't write conclusions because there's still too many missing pieces. I just stack up the evidence as I see it and let readers draw their own conclusions. But, of course, which things I choose to list and which I omit, and how I tie them together will affect where the uncritical reader takes it. And the ideologically motivated reader will not be persuaded at all if my stacks of evidence don't point to the conclusion he wants to believe.

So, as someone who has followed this story closer than most people and still is not sure what it all means, I'd call on others who value the quest, if not the certainty, of truth, to be cautious in their conclusions. And to be skeptical of those who use any of this story to declare certainty about anything but the absolute facts - such as the fact that the Attorney General has written:

In light of this conclusion, and in consideration of the totality of the circumstances of this particular case, I have determined that it is in the interest of justice to dismiss the indictment and not proceed with a new trial.

And even here I'm taking the Anchorage Daily News' word for it, but there were many other similar reports so I feel reasonably confident this is accurate.



So, about that comment on the blog today. How do I know that the writer has something solid? Part of me wants to say, "Yes!' just because it would mean I was on the right track. But how much does he really know? It sounds like he's had a closer look than most, but that doesn't mean that his filters, his stories didn't lead him to unwarranted conclusions.

Ambiguity is not one of humankind's favorite places to be. We like to know. And even if we don't have enough evidence, we tend to jump to conclusions anyway. We like closure. I think that's why sports are so popular. At the end of the game we know who is the winner an who is the loser. Some may still dispute which is the best team, but they can't dispute who won the game.

Thai Elephant Conservation Center Hospital in Lampang and the Nursery

For anyone who wanted to see more of JP's research on elephant self recognition in mirrors, here's a link to the published article with videos . And here's another link to his interview on National Public Radio.



Can you see the Thai word for elephant hospital in both signs? I ask that only because most people just see seemingly impossible script, but if you look closely, you can see the letters. The last three letters of the top line of both pictures is 'elephant' - ช้าง. "Chang" The little ้ up above means it's high tone. Note also that letters look a little different in different fonts. The letters in front of ช้าง spell hospital.

Below is a list of the names of the elephants in the hospital when we were there on Wednesday. I would have photoshopped the three pictures together, but the final picture would have been way too small to read anything.

As it is you may want to double click to enlarge the pictures.

Owner indicates how the elephant got here. Anyone can send their sick elephant here for treatment. Confiscated seems to include Burmese elephants that somehow got into Thailand.

You probably have to enlarge this one, but it's the list of reasons
why each elephant is in the hospital.

This one was the most obviously injured. Probably this was a logging accident.

So this isn't the last picture you see here, here are some pictures from the elephant nursery.

This baby was four months old if I recall correctly.

And this one was eight months old.

Mom.

March 2009 Google and Other Search Terms

I put up these posts to highlight the power of internet searches, how they sometimes go poorly astray, some of the more unexpected things people search for, the satisfaction I get when someone appears to have found just what they want, and the frustration when they get close, but don't know how to get the rest of the way. I learn about how people get here and maybe someone reading this will figure out something useful here too.

• what can i do to be more interesting? A reasonable question, but I don't think this person found the answer here. The person got to the November google search page.
  
  
• do federal judges fly on sundays with us marshals I'm sure I didn't have the answer for this, but there was something about Federal Marshals flying with Vic Kohring on Monday.
  
  
• pomegranate phone release india - sadly the pomegranate phone is not a real phone, but I was surprised at the number of people who thought it was. The spot is very well done which is why I posted it originally. This query was from someone in Bombay
  
  
• does the fbi pay for house hunting for new employees - this person got to the post on the FBI complaint by Chad Joy which did not answer the question, but maybe raised a lot of questions the seeker hadn't even considered.
  
  
• what is the thai version of lol - Bingo! Here's someone who got exactly what was sought: lol in Thai.
  
  
• does a yellow shirt go with red shorts - Absolutely, but they didn't get that answer. Instead they got a post on the political implications of redshirts and yellowshirts in Thailand.
  
  
• do americans even know where wales is? This UK browser didn't get the answer either, but at least now knows that the US has a place called Wales too. To Live in Die in Wales Alaska was probably a lot more than the person was expecting.
  
  
• famous people born in pennsylvania with their last name beggining with u (1909) - If this browser, who got to Famous People Born in 1909, searched the page for Pennsylvania, he would have found that David Riesman and Joseph L. Mankiewicz were both born in Pennsylvania, but obviously neither had a U in their last name. The closest we got were a V(elez) and two W's (Welty and Weil) There was also U. Thant. But not from Pennsylvania.
  
  
• how many people are famous for knowing more than one languages - Think about this for a bit. I guess if someone spoke 25 languages fluently, that might be the reason they are famous. I can think of famous people whose knowledge of a second language was much appreciated - such as Jackie Kennedy who could speak French. Anyway, this person got to famous people born in 1909 too.
  
  
• did lady natasha spender home in france burn down - Also got to the same place where there was something on Stephen Spender, Lady Natasha's husband.
  
  
• who is the famous person successful in studying at university more than 1 - This came from a computer using US English in Cambodia. Also got to famous people.
  
  
• elvi gray-jackson's values seems to be affecting policy decisions - Is that surprising? Don't most politician's values affect how they vote on policies? This searcher at least knew how to search the blog for 'elvi-gray-jackson' when she got an archive page full of posts. But what she got was about the election between Traini and Gray-Jackson.
  
  
• know your cranes t shirt - Here's one of those google hits that doesn't work. I had a post on Chiang Mai T shirts (which the browser got to) as well other posts on Sandhill and other kinds of cranes. The browser clicked on a picture from that page Chiang Mai T-shirts. But that got me curious - was there a T-shirt that showed you the different kinds of cranes? So I looked at the google page they got to. Well, the "know your cranes" t-shirt wasn't quite what I was expecting. Nor was the other T-shirt google found.
  
  
• "abie baby" production - A number of people searched for variations of this. I'm not totally sure what they were looking for, but they got to a Lincoln's Birthday post I did with an excerpt from the Anchorage Hair cast singing "happy birthday abie babie".
  
  
• ted the dog hunting for rabbis vidios - I first thought this was some sort of sick anti-semitic joke. But eventually I realized that the searcher had left out the 't' at the end of rabbi. The post he got was definitely not what he was looking for. It was about Ted Stevens and the Seward Sea-Life Center.
  
  
• how do you increase morale in a deli - The wonderful serendipity of googling. In a post called doing what's possible I, by chance, gave some examples, two of which included the magic words

  "If she told you to pick up some bagels in a New York deli for lunch (and you were both in Los Angeles,) you'd laugh."
  "improve the morale and increase production"
  
  

• furniture that hangs from the roof inside - I really wanted to see what this looks like, but couldn't find it. The person did get to see some furniture in Hang Dong.
  
  
• chanot deed - Another bingo, almost. This was not something I expected anyone to be looking up. The search came from Denmark. I had just posted on this Thai form of property deed. So who was looking it up? An NGO worker? A corporation? Or maybe a Dane married to a Thai trying to figure out what happens when they buy property together in Thailand? Or maybe his attorney? Actually the post - on Chanot Chumchon - they got to probably wasn't as useful as a later post on the types of documentation for Thai property.
  
  
• how does the gut in death row work harder - Not sure what this person was looking for, but he got a post on why I think the death penalty shouldn't be reinstated in Alaska.
  
  
• kuala lumpur bird park owl take picture - This is a real bingo (I think, I'm never sure I really understand what people are looking for.) There's a spot in the KL bird park where you can have your picture taken with birds, including two owls. This googler got to that post which included this picture of people getting their picture taken with the owls in the background.
  
  
• steve keudell.blogspot.com - This one disturbs me. Actually, I got quite a few like this. Steve is a farmer in Oregon who got electrocuted when a tree branch fell on a power line. I started getting hits with his name one day and it didn't make sense, so I looked what else they got on google. I found an article about the accident. I've got Steve in my url so sometimes I get people looking for other Steves. So I put up a post about it, with some information about the accident and asked people to let me know if there was a better link for people to get info. They let me know about stevekuedell.blogspot.com. I posted it. But as a new blog (I assume) it wasn't as high up on google's radar as my blog so I kept getting more and more people. So this is someone who had the right url. If they had put it into the url window they'd have gotten directly to the right site. But they googled it instead and got to my site. Which now had a link at the beginning that sent them to the right site where they could get the latest update. And according the sitemeter information, they didn't go to that link. There were a number of hits like this. And others that did go to the better link. It's partly about knowing how to read and paying attention, it's partly internet literacy. And maybe some people didn't want to know more than I had up, even if it was a week old. Here's the most current information on Steve's condition.
  
  
• information on boyfriends cheeting on their girlfriends and the girlfriends pay the price - no comment. Not sure why this blog came up. Here's what their google search showed:
  

What Do I know?: March 2009
... charge less, hurting shops who pay the price of legally and safely disposing of waste. ... schools and a health clinic as well as information on various ...
whatdoino-steve.blogspot.com/2009_03_01_archive.html - 451k - Cached

I can't believe this was the best google could do.

• a day i will never forget in chiang mai zoo with my family - I'm guessing this is of the genre of "Googling to find stuff for the paper I have to write for school". It was US Pacific Standard Time, from a Thai language computer. And they got my post on a day at the Chiang Mai zoo.

Click here for all the other posts on interesting google searches.

And then there is Sarah Palin

The Gist:

The people she so righteously decries for making 'blatant attempts. . .to destroy Stevens' were from the Bush Justice Department. Those who made sure his rights were "well-guarded" and dismissed the charges were from the Obama Justice Department.

The Whole Post:

(Thursday, April 2, 2009, 8 am Thai time) I knew something was up when I started seeing hits for Mary Beth Kepner again. Then someone left a comment on my Does Race Matter? post saying that the charges against Ted Stevens had been dropped. Although it was April 1, that isn't the kind of thing you make an April Fool's joke about. But I couldn't find much detail on the story before I went to bed and decided to try to digest this before posting anything. I have had attorneys tell me that the prosecution team had been totally out of line and the case should be dismissed, so I wasn't completely surprised. But still it was a stunner.

Now, though, as I look through the comments by various players and observers posted in the Anchorage Daily News (ADN) this morning, I'm disturbed (my regular readers know I tend to understate things) by the comments of our Governor. All the other comments in the story address the legal and personal aspects a in a more-or-less objective and muted tone.

At the most neutral tone we have the attorney general's words:

“In connection with the post-trial litigation in United States v. Theodore F. Stevens, the Department of Justice has conducted a review of the case, including an examination of the extent of the disclosures provided to the defendant. After careful review, I have concluded that certain information should have been provided to the defense for use at trial.

Ted Stevens' comments are also focused on the facts with little emotional elaboration and give credit where credit is due.

I am grateful that the new team of responsible prosecutors at the Department of Justice has acknowledged that I did not receive a fair trial and has dismissed all the charges against me. I am also grateful that Judge Emmet G. Sullivan made rulings that facilitated the exposure of the government’s misconduct during the last two years. I always knew that there would be a day when the cloud that surrounded me would be removed. That day has finally come.

The defense attorney's statement discusses the points of the dismissal, then gives effusive credit before slipping into a bit of editorial language.

Attorney General Eric Holder, too, should be commended. He is a pillar of integrity in the legal community, and his actions today prove it. Moreover, he has demonstrated the kind of leadership that we defense lawyers seek and that the Department of Justice desperately needs. Ineffective leadership permits this type of prosecutorial misconduct to flourish.

This case is a sad story and a warning to everyone. Any citizen can be convicted if prosecutors are hell-bent on ignoring the Constitution and willing to present false
evidence.

And then there is Sarah Palin. She adopts the language, tone, and emptiness of a talk show host. Does she realize what she's saying?

Senator Stevens deserves to be very happy today. What a horrible thing he has endured. The blatant attempts by adversaries to destroy one’s reputation, career and finances are an abuse of our well-guarded process and violate our God-given rights afforded in the Constitution. It is a frightening thing to contemplate what we may be witnessing here – the undermining of the political process through unscrupulous ploys and professional misconduct. Senator Stevens and I had lunch together recently at my home and he reiterated the faith he held for vindication; he never gave up hope. It is unfortunate that, as a result of the questionable proceedings which led to Senator Stevens’ conviction days before the election, Alaskans lost an esteemed statesman on Capitol Hill. His presence is missed.

I'm sure there are people for whom the governor's statement hits just the right tone. But unlike Stevens and the Defense Attorney, she leaves out any credit for justice being done. But does she even realize who those adversaries were?

The people she so righteously decries for making 'blatant attempts. . .to destroy Stevens' were from the Bush Justice Department. Those who made sure his rights were "well-guarded" and dismissed the charges were from the Obama Justice Department.


Can you imagine any of George Bush's attorneys general taking similar action for a prominent Democrat? Or a McCain/Palin attorney general? If the Obama administration had the same sort of mind set that Palin displays here, this decision never would have been made.

All that said, given how the professionalism of the prosecution changed so radically when they moved to DC, I still have to wonder whether someone in that Bush Justice Department did things intentionally to get this trial thrown out.

[Update: See Cliff Groh's interpretation on all this. He was at the trial of Stevens.]

Elephants - Part 1

[Thursday, April 2, 2009 12:30am Thai Time]
The bus to Lampang (about 90 km south of Chiang Mai) dropped us off in front of the Thai Elephant Conservation Center and we called JP who told us to get our tickets and ride the shuttle up to the showgrounds. Here's another site that has videos of Center.



On the way up we saw this board next to information on getting a day of Mahout training.

The show focused more on skills the elephants had that made them so important for getting timber from the forest to the roads. But most such work is no longer available in Thailand because the government has programs to protect teak forests.

The show also included a non-traditional Thai elephant activity - painting.

Here are the three paintings we saw the elephants paint.

Apparently, elephants have very good control with their trunks and can do this sort of painting, but these representational paintings are done with close supervision from the mahouts. But when painting on their own, the elephants do much more abstract work than this. But the Center sells the paintings so this is a form of fundraiser.


After the show, people got to feed the elephants. A bunch of little bananas was 20 Baht ($.60). Most of the other visitors were Thai, though there were a a few other foreigners.



JP is a doctoral student doing his dissertation research here at the center. We met him last year and finally got a chance to go out and visit him in the center. His research is very interesting but I was sworn to silence until his work is published. But an earlier paper he published as a masters student on how elephants recognize themselves in mirrors. Here's the abstract:

Considered an indicator of self-awareness, mirror self-recognition (MSR) has long seemed limited to humans and apes. In both phylogeny and human ontogeny, MSR is thought to correlate with higher forms of empathy and altruistic behavior. Apart from humans and apes, dolphins and elephants are also known for such capacities. After the recent discovery of MSR in dolphins (Tursiops truncatus), elephants thus were the next logical candidate species. We exposed three Asian elephants (Elephas maximus) to a large mirror to investigate their responses. Animals that possess MSR typically progress through four stages of behavior when facing a mirror: (i) social responses, (ii) physical inspection (e.g., looking behind the mirror), (iii) repetitive mirror-testing behavior, and (iv) realization of seeing themselves. Visible marks and invisible sham-marks were applied to the elephants' heads to test whether they would pass the litmus “mark test” for MSR in which an individual spontaneously uses a mirror to touch an otherwise imperceptible mark on its own body. Here, we report a successful MSR elephant study and report striking parallels in the progression of responses to mirrors among apes, dolphins, and elephants. These parallels suggest convergent cognitive evolution most likely related to complex sociality and cooperation.

You can read the whole article at the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.