2024 Election Is Almost Over, Now What?

Having lived a fairly long time gives me the advantage of knowing some history, not from only books, but from living through it.  What's there to say that hasn't already been said?  Again and again.  Let me try to offer some thoughts I haven't seen often, or at all.  

A.  People keep saying this is the biggest Congressional turnover since 1974.  I watched/listened to the Watergate hearings and voted in 1974.  It was a big deal.  And there were a bunch of new laws against corruption in the new Congress.  People said the Republicans were obliterated.  

But Ronald Reagan won in a landslide in 1980, just six years later.  (Reagan was a Republican for the younger readers.)

So how was this different from 1974?  

1.  The US was divided over the Vietnam war, but not over democracy.  And issues like abortion didn't separate the parties like they do now.   Roe v. Wade had been decided in 1973 and there wasn't the outcry there was when the ban on abortion ended.  Nixon had made no public statement on the decision.  Here's an NPR piece from 2009 when the Nixon White House tape that mentioned abortion was finally released.

Both Republicans and Democrats were part of the Watergate Hearings, and while Republicans spoke up in defense of Nixon, they worked diligently and cordially with the Democrats.  And they weren't  the  sycophants today's GOP are with Trump.

2.  The 1974 blowout election was a reaction to the fact that the President had lied. (Can you imagine that?!)  When the Watergate committee learned the White House secretly recorded all the conversations in the Oval Office, and finally got the tapes (the Supreme Court did not side with the president that the tapes were confidential), it was clear that the president had lied to the public, and the Republicans told him he would be impeached and convicted if he didn't resign.  

The election was based on shock that the president had made a bald faced lie about not being involved in the Watergate burglary (of Democratic headquarters). Then, when the tapes were played,  hearing him discuss how to hide his involvement.  That was too much for most people.  Sounds quaint doesn't it?  

3.  The media was respected and they took their job as journalists seriously.  They had their biases (they really didn't understand the seriousness of racial discrimination for the most part, for example).  There was universal outrage over the president's actions - the evening news was unified in its condemnation - and the public voted overwhelmingly for Democrats.  

4.  No one questioned the validity of the elections. Sure, there were local exceptions like in Daley's Chicago, but generally, the elections were assumed to be fair.  Today, we have a president who has challenged every election except the two he won.  He even fomented an insurrection  to overturn the 2020 election.  And he worked hard to make it difficult for Democrats to win.  He got Texas and other states to have mid-decade redistricting to gerrymander more Republican seats.  He pushed the (unsuccessful) SAVE Act to impose restrictions of voters.  Red states closed polling places on college campuses where younger, more Democratic voters, could easily vote.  He demanded that states turn over their voter registration lists.  

While there might have been remnants of Jim Crow voting restrictions in the South, for the most part, in 1974, people trusted the integrity of voting.  People used paper ballots that were counted by hand.  

I was amazed at how smoothly the elections went this year.  Despite all the attempts to crush Democratic voters, the Trump administration was challenged relentlessly and routinely lost in court.  And, like most bullies, in the end, Trump seemed to back down.  He said he wouldn't contest the elections.  From The Guardian:

"Trump did something almost unprecedented [for Trump]: he accepted the results. Trump said he was “absolutely willing” to accept the outcome and looked forward to working with Democrats." 

5.  Today I see a mass movement that opposes Trump.  Organizations have recruited ordinary citizens whose main form of political activity had been voting. Around the country groups of citizens What's there to say that hasn't already been said?  Again and again.coming together for No Kings rallies, In Alaska, organizations like Stand Up Alaska have been relentlessly organizing 'normal' people to become activists, and this has been happening throughout the country.  These are people who are putting up signs at overpasses and busy intersections, writing letters to their members of Congress and postcards to voters.  Registering people to vote, calling voters, knocking on doors.  Stuff only the hard core used to do. 

That wasn't what happened in 1974.  But there was another kind of activism - the anti-War movement, driven to a large degree by young men, their girlfriends, and parents who didn't want to be drafted to go fight a war they didn't support in Vietnam.  The focus was on stopping the war, more than getting people to vote.  Though, of course, the voting for candidates who opposed the war followed.  

Conclusions

1.  This election changes some things, but without results from the Democratic Congress in the next two years, the 2028 election could be another shock.  

And without the many local groups of activists continuing the fight for Democracy and adding more people to the fight, the gains of this election could start to dissolve.  Democrats could lose their power in Congress - a smaller majority or even lose it altogether.  Though I suspect the country won't be ready for another Republican in 2028.  

2.  The wealthy right-wing conservatives who worked for 40 years to get a strongly pro-business, pro-wealth Supreme Court and to elect a Trump, are not going to just quit.  The people who wrote up Project 2024 are not going to stop plotting.  And the Tech billionaires still want to control what happens in the world and they'll just get smarter than Elon when it comes to buying elections.  

3.  Different people voted blue for different reasons.  Was it prices?  If they don't go down, the Democrats might go down.  Was it ICE?  Will abolishing ICE eliminate the reason these people voted blue?  Was it corruption?  If the Dems don't get convictions, will they lose?  Was it data centers?  Can the Dems stop them?  If they can will they keep those voters or will they float off because of other issues? 

Demographics seem to be in the Democrats' favor.  If only under 30 voters or only Black voters voted, a TikTok that Joy Ried has up says all the states would be all blue.  That video is the best  representation of the demographics of the midterm elections I've seen.  Rural voters make the map mostly red, as do Protestant voters, and White non-college grads.  Do click the link. It's a short but effective video.  You'll probably want to watch it several times because it doesn't linger.  

So, everyone who has worked to make this blue wave happen, I thank you and congratulate you.  But don't go home yet.  Sure, take a break.  Celebrate.  But I hope you've gotten infected with citizen power (look up the word efficacy if you don't know it)  and continue to organize, continue to recruit, and continue to let politicians know you're there and paying attention.

4.  How government works, how the economy works, how the climate works, how immunizations work are all complex and not something you come to understand on social media - unless your feed gives you links to much longer articles and videos.  My hope is that at least the Trump administration has gotten people to pay a little more attention to government.  I'd like to see some video series that follow laws, or follow individual legislators, or Congressional committees in ways that make them fascinating, but without distorting them.  I'd like as many people to follow politics as follow football.  Any topic is fascinating once you get into it and start to learn how it works.  Think of all the people who are birdwatchers or astronomers or can take apart a car and put it back together.  Politics is everyone's responsibility in a democracy.  Even if it's not your thing, you need to get some trusted friends to advise you how to vote in your own and the nation's interest.

We can't master all the aspects of government - federal, state, local - and all the issues.  But we do need people with aptitudes for different things to pay attention and help the rest of us understand why we need to vote and who we need to vote for.  

[We're still waiting for the Mississippi and Alaska elections to be conclusive.  In both cases as more votes have come in, the Democratic US Senate candidates have increased their leads.]

B.  What will Trump do in the last two years? 

Who knows?  Some are telling Democrats to pass as much legislation that can be seen to help people (social security, SNAP, voting rights, ending tariffs, ending the Iran war, a peace in Ukraine that restores all their territory, abolishing ICE or at least unmasking them and stopping their cruelty, etc.) just to make Trump veto everything and give them fodder for the next election.  

But I think there's also the chance that Trump will cooperate more than anyone expects (or even just a little bit) with Democrats.  He's a bully.  Bullies retreat when the victim fights back.  He's already said he wouldn't contest the midterms (though I'm seeing hints he might at the swearing in).  He's had cordial meetings with Mamdani.  If he thinks that restoring Social Security or universal health care will improve his reputation, he might sign such a bill and claim credit.  Senator elect Abdul El-Sayed recognizes this and has offered to call a Medicare-for-all bill the Trumplan if Trump will sign it.  

Trump has no ideology other than promoting himself. So working with Democrats, if he sees a benefit to himself, is possible.  But he's still siccing the DOJ on Democratic members of Congress.  He's internalized the mantra he learned from Roy Cohn - attack, counterattack, never apologize.  And Stephen Miller will always encourage him to be his worst possible self.  

  

Let's see what happens.  

The Man Of Noble Mind . .

 

If you haven't already voted, consider this bit of wisdom. from the Analects of Confucius, Book XII:

XVI.  The Master said:  'The man of noble mind seeks to achieve the good in others and not their evil.  The little-minded man is the reverse of this.'

[From Wikipedia:  

The Analects, also known as the Sayings of Confucius, is an ancient Chinese philosophical text composed of sayings and ideas attributed to Confucius and his contemporaries, traditionally believed to have been compiled by his followers."]

Treefall, Absentee Ballot Review [UPDATED]

 Woke up to the sound of high winds - wasn't sure at first if it was winds or planes.  But it was wind.  And a spruce tree we'd planted 40+ years ago, toppled over and is resting on the corner of our neighbor's roof.  The tree was on a hill, like the one that fell over last winter.  So the downside roots have less to grip.  Last year the tree fell into another tree which stopped it from falling further. When the top, that was leaning onto the other tree was cut off,  the tree stayed standing at about a 50˚ angle.  The tree man who came out to look today said he thought the tree today would have come down slowly.  

Tuesday I was at the Division of Elections to observe the the DoE employees as they reviewed the incoming absentee ballots.  Two workers sit at a small table.  They get a plastic bin with ballots in it.  They are sorted by date received and district.  They get a slip of paper with info on it - district, date received, number of electronic ballots and mailed in ballots, total number, and sequence numbers.  Another paper has a list of the voters with the information on the voter.  Then they count the ballots to make sure the numbers are right.  Next, they check the information the voter has put on the ballot against their list - name, address, id number, etc.  

photo from ADN* - no phones
allowed when observing

I was there just half a day because there were too many observers, so I split the day with another observer.  Half a day was plenty.  The two workers I observed Tuesday were terrific.  They welcomed me to the table and said they'd answer any question I had, but not to talk while they were counting ballots.  They went through the ballots really fast.  The bins had anywhere from half a dozen ballots to one with 324 ballots.  

There were very few ballots that were flagged with problems.  Two, from a married couple, had been written on the wrong envelopes.  He was listed on her envelope and vice versa.  The reviewers were able to get permission from a supervisor to accept those ballots.  Another two people from the same address didn't have witnesses.  They were rejected.  Someone else had used a primary election envelope and that too was rejected.  (I asked the next day if anyone had checked to see if the person had possibly used the correct ballot, but the wrong envelope.  They assured me someone had checked.)   Other voters had moved and were in new districts but used the old district ballots.  So their choices for state offices (based on their district) would not count because they no longer lived in that district, but the statewide offices - Governor, US House and Senate and some or all of the judges (depending on which judicial districts they lived in) would count.  

Wednesday, I observed a different pair of workers, but they were equally friendly and efficient.  But this time they encouraged me to get a copy of the register they were reviewing.  At first I was confused.  When they read off the identifier number (drivers license, social security (last four digits ok), voter id, or date of birth I couldn't find them on my register.  I asked and was told it wasn't on my copy - confidential information.  

The first day, without my own register, I watched the envelopes carefully,  Some had one forever stamp, some had two, others had no stamps. One had a stamped price from the post office.  $1.11.  That's more than a forever stamp.  So I asked.  Turns out, the post office will deliver them without stamps.

[There's been the sound of chain saws in the neighborhood most of the day, and just now it sounded closer.  They're working on our tree now too.]

One of the things I realized was that the ballots had already been reviewed once.  People had collected them, taken off the privacy cover, reviewed the information, marked some for rejection, and resealed them.  

Let me explain that a bit more.  I don't have a photo of back of the envelope because I didn't take a picture of ours and we had to leave our phones outside the room we were observing in.  

[UPDATED Nov 1, 2026:  I've talked to folks and found my memory faulty because they say the ballot, in the secrecy sleeve, is inside a sealed envelope before being put into the mailing envelope.  While such a seal can be opened, it's much harder and probably not feasible to do in any number.  So, my concern about a ballot being easily accessible, is much reduced.  There is, though, still seems to be a step that is unobserved, which makes the show of having observers seem a bit odd.]

This is my drawing of the flap on the back of the envelope.  The ballot is put inside the envelope and on the back, the voter writes their information and the witness signature.  Then the flap is pulled down, the adhesive at the bottom inside the flap is licked and sealed, covering all the information.  

The envelopes the people I observed worked with, had that privacy cover taken off [below] and it was resealed with the adhesive near the top of the flap.  I did look at one such envelope that someone had [in the review room so I didn't have my phone to take a picture] because they hadn't voted yet.  There was no perforation to help tear the flap off.  And some of the ballots had been torn off roughly.  Several the workers had to use tape to seal them better.  

So why am I bringing this up?  It seems to me that the whole point of allowing observers to watch the process of reviewing the ballots is to give confidence to the public that everything is on the up and up.  

But apparently, there's a whole process where the flaps are taken off, and the envelopes are unsealed with the ballots inside, before they are resealed.  And then the first round of checking the envelopes takes place.  All that happens, as far as I can tell, without independent observers watching.  

As I said, the people reviewing the ballots were absolutely professional AND welcoming to the observers (at least the four people I watched were to me.)  But behind closed doors, there are people with envelopes that are NOT sealed for a while.  It's a time when someone could slip out a ballot and add marks to the ranked choice ballots that would invalidate the ballot, at least for that race.  

Wednesday, I came in at noon and they were out of ballots at 2:30pm so I got to go home early.  Thursday's review was also cancelled and  Friday was too.  I'm not sure why.  

[The tree was cut while I wrote this and is gone now.  Cutting a tree takes less time than writing a blog post.]

*ADN = Anchorage Daily News

DOJ's Suit To Invalidate Alaska Election If Daniel S. Sullivan Doesn't Win [UPDATED] [UPDATED #2]

UPDATE 10/27/26: 

"State of Alaska says DOJ lawsuit over Senate race ‘has no legal basis’

Alaska Public Media | By Liz Ruskin

Published October 27, 2026 at 10:37 AM AKDT

Alaska Public Media

Alaska Elections Director Carol Beecher at a legislative hearing on July 22, 2026.

The State of Alaska is urging a federal judge to “immediately” dismiss a Trump administration lawsuit that could block certification of the U.S. Senate election if Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan narrowly loses.

“Delaying certification of Alaska’s election results—but only if a particular candidate does not win—would interfere with state election administration and threaten election integrity,” the Alaska Department of Law, representing the Division of Elections and director Carol Beecher, wrote in response to the lawsuit.

The state said the lawsuit “has no legal basis” and would sow distrust in the vote. . ."

From:  https://alaskapublic.org/news/politics/elections/2026-10-27/state-of-alaska-says-doj-lawsuit-over-senate-race-has-no-legal-basis  

This was not something I expected!  Very positive move.  I guess they know it will only interfere with getting election results out in a timely manner. 

Also, commenter Allen gives the link to find the court docket for Alaska court case that began last June.  Thanks, Allen.  This new case is a Federal, not State case.]]

UPDATE 10/24/26:  

"Under representation from the ACLU of Alaska, the League of Women Voters of Alaska joined two individual Alaskan voters and Common Cause in a filing to intervene on the case on Friday, October 23. If granted, an intervention allows these additional interested parties to join the existing suit to present our unique perspectives. We also filed a motion to dismiss the lawsuit, which would be considered by the court after the decision on the motion to intervene."] From an email from League of Women Voters

 This is getting lots of national and international attention already and I don't need to repeat more than the basics. Here's the start of The Guardian article:

"Donald Trump said he ordered the justice department to file a lawsuit to block the certification of Alaska’s US Senate results if the Republican incumbent loses, a move that voting rights experts called an “unprecedented intervention” by the federal government with control of Congress in the balance.

“I’m the one that said do it,” Trump told reporters as he landed in Florida for a campaign rally on Friday."

Some others:

CNBC

Newsweek

(Several others had paywalls so I won't link them, but you get the picture.  This is big news.  The first actual salvo of the Trump administration's attempt to overturn elections that don't go his way.)

Basically DOJ has filed suit to invalidate the Alaska Senate election if the sitting Republican Senator Daniel S. Sullivan doesn't win the election on the grounds that another candidate, named Daniel J. Sullivan, will have confused voters into voting for him instead of Daniel S. Sullivan.  (I'd note that I wasn't confused after I marked Daniel J. Sullivan as my second choice - my first choice was NOT Daniel S) (Because we have Ranked Choice Voting I can make a second and third choice when I vote.  You can even make a fourth choice vote, but I haven't figured out how that would ever matter because one of the candidates would have a majority before it got that far.)

What I can provide are links to nine blog posts I wrote in June and July of this year, where this battle was already fought out in the Alaska Courts and the Alaska Supreme Court ruled the State could not throw Daniel J. Sullivan off the ballot.  

I'd also note a couple of other points I didn't see much in the other coverage:

1.  The GOP have pushed hard* to get Democrats to vote for Eric Hafner for US Representative instead of Independent Bill Hill.  Hafner is a resident of a New York prison.  

*"Pushed hard" = sending out millions of dollars worth of flyers and other advertising to push Hafner and other non viable candidates to take votes from leading Democratic candidates. 

2.  The Alaska Division of Elections initially chose to drop Daniel J. Sullivan on the grounds that he was trying to confuse the voters (not a legal criterion of keeping someone off the ballot).  There is a good chance that the Republican led State and State Division of Elections won't challenge the DOJ lawsuit and simply invalidate the election.  What happens then?

Here are the posts I did in June and July of this year, chronicling how the State tried to keep Daniel J. Sullivan off the ballot and how the Alaska Supreme Court rejected that move.  

June 22, 2026 Senator Dan Sullivan Does Not Want To Run Against Dan Sullivan [UPDATE] 

June 23, 2026 The Dan J Sullivan Removal From Ballot Hearing 

June 25, 2026  Daniel J. Appeal Of Division Of Elections Decision Plays Out In Nearly Empty Court Room

June 26, 2026 It's Almost 7pm -I Can't Find The Sullivan Decision - [Update - His Name Goes Back On The Ballot]  

June 28, 2026

Supreme Court Hearing On Daniel J. Sullivan v Alaska Division of Elections Appeal On Zoom Only

Monday, June 29, 2026   Alaska Division Of Elections v Daniel J. Sullivan At Supreme Court

Monday, June 29, 2026   Supreme Court Keeps Daniel J. Sullivan On The Ballot 

Tuesday, June 30, 2026  Division of Election's Sample Ballot Leaves Off Daniel J's Party Affiliation

Tuesday, July 07, 2026  Silence [UPDATE: Ballots Printed And Overseas Ballots Sent]

I've already thrown out the flyers supporting Hafner, but I do have one that is in response to those flyers:  

My sense is the Republicans are sure the Democrats have put up Daniel J. Sullivan to run for Senate to confuse voters, because that's what they would do. And are doing with other candidates.  During the primaries they spent close to a million dollars promoting Outside (of Alaska) candidates like Hafner.  

The Ruckus Room, No Kings, Voting

 

Saturday was No Kings Day again.  But in Anchorage the energy has been dispersed in many directions.  I joined the car parade that StandUp Alaska organized.  Cars with "Vote" messages all over paraded through Mountain View, Fairview, and Government Hill.  

There was also a bicycle component.

Meanwhile the League of Women Voters had a Democracy Fair at the main library.  Democrats had people going door to door to urge people to vote for their candidates.  Others waved signs at a busy intersection  

The car and bike paraders ended up at the Ruckus Room which I'd never heard of.  It's in a closed dispensary that was renovated for over a year and now has some spaces for rent for community activities.  

It's at 2612 Eagle - between Northern Lights and Fireweed.  

I was impressed with this Tolkien vibe door, and the decor in general.  

It's a clean and interesting space if you have relatively small events.  There are even several very small rooms.  

The owner and operator of the Ruckus Room is Shel Weitzman.  

Blogger notes:  This blog has been competing for my time with life. I feel the pressure of the Óle writing group for something new each week.  And time seems to go by so fast.  Maybe that's a facet of getting older - a year is a much smaller fraction of my life than it was 50 years ago.  A week goes by like nothing  So, I wanted to write about No Kings and also about the Ruckus Room because the space there is cool and people should know about it.  No Kings gets plenty of coverage, but I had never heard of the Ruckus Room until Saturday.  And Shel appears to be a warm and interesting person.  I'm sure he's got a lot of interesting stories.  He did, for example, mention that his teenage sons helped with the remodeling.  And most posts take longer to write than it might appear.  Especially when I add a video in.  

My school volunteering has been limited this fall.  Monday mornings at the Rilke Schule and we haven't worked out time yet at Tudor (with the teacher I've worked with before Lake Otis was dissolved.)

And I'm signed up to be a poll worker and also to be an observer when the Division of Elections goes through the absentee and then the questioned ballots.  Which got me to drop off our absentee ballots on the first day - yesterday, October 19 - at the Division of Elections and then go see how the first day of voting was going at the Mid-town Mall (formerly the Sears Mall).  

There was a long line!

The second picture was taken from the red star looking back to the entrance to the polling place, but also including the alcove that goes to an entrance to the mall and where the line looped and comes out back into the mall.

The third photo is also from about the red star in the first picture and looks at the alcove and back out at the line going off into the distance in the mall.  

And there was about an inch of snow outside this morning - the first of the season!

And tomorrow and Thursday is the AFN (Alaska Federation of Natives) Convention.

Trump's Supposed To Be In Alaska Today [Updated]

 It's after 4pm.  He was supposed to speak at 3.  I can imagine them trying to get him to the arena and then to the stage.  Kalshi doesn't seem to have bets on the time, but they do on the subjects:

Screen shot:

 A lotta white faces waiting for him.  YouTube is covering it:

[The video is still available after it was over.  Trump starts about 2 hours 16 minutes.]

I don't think it will help Dan Sullivan. Not sure what's going to happen in the US House race. I'm guessing the incumbent Nick Begich is ahead. But there is a lot of campaign activity going on. Lots of Outside money flooding the airwaves and mailboxes with nasty lies about candidates.  

There are also supposed to be protesters outside the arena in Wasilla. Here's a picture from folks protesting at Church and Parks Highway.

[UPDATE 6:25pm:  Trump took the podium, about 4:35pm.  He spoke for over 90 minutes.  He seemed to be on task at the beginning - pushing voting for Dan Sullivan "not the fake Dan Sullivan" and Nick Begich.  He also endorsed Bernadette Wilson for Governor and said the other two Republicans should drop out.  He also told people to vote yes on Prop. 2 to get rid of ranked choice voting.  

He told countless lies about how everything in the United States is twenty times better than in all of history because of Trump.  He was typically derisive about Mary Peltola and Bill Hill.  It was unclear how many people were in the arena because the camera was focused on the podium.  

He also promised every voter $5000 if the House and Senate stay Republican.  That would seem like a blatant bribe, but if Congress stays Republican he doesn't have to worry about that.  If they change to Democratic, he needs to start worrying about being accountable.

He also raised some of the current GOP talking points about Democrats being Communists, about them being a threat of cutting school kids up to change their gender, and men in women's sports.  

I find it a little ironic that he had two Black (what I assume were) Secret Service men, and that the music at the end was the gay anthem,  YMCA.  Though I guess that's a song Trump heard a lot in the 1970s when he was a regular at NY City disco clubs.]

Some Things Still Work: Ballot Arrived Today

Despite all that's been written about how the post office is/might hold up mail-in ballots, today (10/9/26) our ballots arrived.

The US Senate race is showing in the picture.  For those of you who don't have ranked choice voting, you can see what the RCV ballot looks like.    

Yesterday (10/9/26) according to the Alaska Division of Elections website, the ballots were mailed.  

One day!

If Trump's team isn't planning to delay ballots, they're at least doing a good job of getting Democrats to believe they will and to spend a lot of time getting ready to counter any such moves.  

At least in our household's case, things worked well.  

 

Anchorage Trails Making Biking Spectacular

 I'm close to my summer goal of 1600 kilometers (a bit over 1000 miles.)  Last year I was able to start in March already.  This year even in April the trails still had ice and snow.  And then we took two weeks off to visit family and friends Outside. 

But I'm at 1564km.  The finish line is in sight.  Anchorage bike trails are a big part of why I'm able to do this.  Not only are they car free and go on for miles and miles within the city, but they are beautiful.  So here are a few pictures from the last week.  

This stop at Goose Lake offers a different view every time.  It's also a spot where people feed ducks, so they often come over if someone stops here.  

It had rained during the day, so this was an early evening ride.  

This is the lake at the Waldron Park soccer fields, filled with geese.  I can hear them arguing - "it's time to head south" but the procrastinators are ready to take off yet.  This is on the Campbell Creek South trail, not far from the eastern entrance on 47th Avenue off of Lake Otis.  

Another late afternoon at Goose Lake, a different view altogether.  But the same spot as the first picture.

Thursday I had an 8:30 dental appointment which is on the way to the Campbell Creek South trail.  This time I picked it up off of Tudor and through the neighborhood near Tudor Elementary.  It was about 9:30, overcast and a bit mysterious.  I'm generally on this trail in the afternoon.  But the mood is always much nicer in the morning.  I was trying to catch that mood and the creek that the trail follows.  

It was only after I took the picture that I noticed I wasn't alone.  To the left (of the picture) a young bull moose was resting.  Another perk of these trails.  

Since the trail goes along the creek, we cross bridges here and there.  This one is near where the trail goes under a railroad bridge as we get close to Taku Lake.  

Finally, here's a picture of the trail itself, just after going under C Street and over another bridge over the creek.  This stretch of trail goes about eight miles without ever intersecting a street (except through tunnels under bridges).  But there are houses and businesses around the trail everywhere.  Much of the trail has enough buffer you don't see them.  In other spots you do.  

These trails keep my head healthy.  There are a few more posts that show Campbell Creek and other Anchorage trails in different locations and seasons.  You can find them in the labels section in the lower right hand column.  

There Is No Such Thing As "The Government"

People often complain about 'the Government" as though there were one big government.  But the truth is, there are many governments.  Not just in the world, but inside the United States.  Beyond the Federal (national/USA) government, every State has a government and every city and town has a government, and on and on.  

From the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis:

"In the most recent Census of Governments, which was conducted in 2022, the Census Bureau counted 90,837 governments in the U.S. In addition to the federal government, the 50 state governments and the government of Washington, D.C., there were 3,031 county governments, 35,705 township and municipal governments, 12,546 independent school districts and 39,555 other special-purpose local governments."

We have governments to do the collective things we need to do, that the private sector won't,  can't, or shouldn't do.  And in a democracy, the people have a voice in who gets to run the governments.  It can get messy, but ultimately, the people are in control  

The idea that there are over 90,000 governments in the United States is not something that most USians seem to know.  Instead they rail against "The Government" not even distinguishing between those who are politicians and those civil servants who actually keep the many governmental agencies running.  Instead people, upset with whatever agency they think has done them wrong,  generalize from the specific government agency to the "Government."

On the other hand, when someone is frustrated with Home Depot or Delta Airlines or ATT, they call out that specific company by name.  They don't vilify "Business" or "Capitalism" in general.  

All that's an intro to Michael Lewis' book Who Is Government? which is my bookclub's selection for this month.  

He starts out talking about how the Obama administration had set up a transition team to brief the new administration after the election.  Whether Trump or Clinton won, they had prepared documentation and presentations to bring the incoming administration up to speed as quickly as possible.  

"A thousand or so Obama officials were waiting for them, along with briefings that had taken them six months to prepare.  But then, days after the election, Trump simply fired the 500 or so people on his transition team.  "Chris, you and I are so smart that we can leave the victory party two hours early and do the transition ourselves."  he told a perplexed Chris Christie, who assembled the team.  

Then he appointed Rick Perry as his secretary of energy.  In his own presidential campaign, Perry had called for the Energy Department's elimination - and was forced, at his Senate confirmation hearings, to acknowledge that he'd had no real idea of what went on inside the Energy Department, but now that he'd spent a few days looking into it, he really did not want to eliminate it.  At that moment, it became clear that none of these people, newly in charge of the United States government, had the faintest idea what it did.  (The Energy Department, among its other critical functions, manages our nuclear weapons.)  And they weren't alone!  I didn't really have any clue what went on inside the department either.  People capable of ruining panel discussions and dinner parties with their steady stream of opinions about American politics were totally flummoxed by the simplest questions about American government.  Questions like:  What do all those civil servants do all day inside the Agriculture Department?  (They preserve rural America from extinction, among other things.)"

So Lewis decided to take advantage of the Obama transition team to find out and spent time at the Energy Department and the Commerce Department learning, as a journalist, about what they did and interviewing employees about their jobs.  He eventually discovered an organization that gave awards to outstanding Federal Employees.  

The book highlights eight of those remarkable employees.  Two of the chapters are written by Lewis and the other six by different authors.  

The stories will take most people by surprise.  The two by Lewis are so well written, and so interesting, that I encourage people to find this book and read it.  It will give you an entirely new sense of what government does.  

Of course, I acknowledge that not all Federal employees are as brilliant and dedicated as the eight in the book.  But few resemble the stereotype of lazy wasteful employees either. 

In the 1980-81 school year I had a Fellowship at NOAA (the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.)  My boss at Oceanic and Atmospheric Services, set up a series of meetings for me with the heads of the key agencies he coordinated.  I got picked up by a car and driven to meet with the Director of the Weather Service, for example, and got briefed on all they did.  So I can understand how Lewis felt taking in all this information.  

My unit was made up of men (mostly) who were natural scientists - with advanced degrees in meteorology, oceanography, and such subjects.  I did ask my boss why he'd hired me - a social scientist and not a natural scientist.  His answer, "Because you're a social scientist."  

In my unit, they were all 20 to 30 years older than I was.  And I learned a lot from them.  A key lesson was about knowledge networks.   These men had served in NOAA for many years and in many parts of the United States.  (I wasn't the only one who had lived in Alaska.).  And what they brought to policy making was both personal expertise but also a network of people around the US who worked for NOAA.  People they had worked with at some point in their careers.  People they could call and immediately find out what was going on at any point.  

So, do find a copy of this book.  It's very readable and inspiring.  And also somewhat depressing knowing that some of these agencies have been gutted by the Trump Administration.  But you'll have ammunition for when you talk to or write your members of Congress - both House members and Senate members.  

If you read this book, you'll meet a man who spent over a decade figuring out how to lower the death rate of coal miners by making roof collapses far less likely;  the man in charge of National Cemeteries;  a woman who seeks out signs of life beyond our universe; and another woman who specializes in finding cures for raw diseases.  

Traveling Pics

We're on a fairly last minute trip to celebrate a birthday with family and friends.

We left a cloudy Anchorage a week or so ago, but the sun was there.

A change of planes in Seattle and a view of Rainier as we head east.  Our flight left Anchorage late and there was some question about whether we'd catch the next flight.  But it was late too.  

I'm guessing this was over Montana.  I'm always amazed at how much "empty" land there is when you fly over the US.  

As the Anchorage Assembly decries the lack of buildable land in town, we passed over miles and miles of such property.  How big do we want Anchorage to be?  Big enough that it is indistinguishable from cities in the Lower 48?

So this was in Chicago.  Oak Park to be precise.  Some of you will know why I took this picture, but I imagine most won't.  If you look closely, this bike has a generator to power the battery for the lights.  I had one of those on my very first bike.  When you want the light to work, you let the top of the generator lean against the tire, and as the tire turns, it generates electricity.

Here we are in Chicago  - picture from the transit train.

And we transferred to the subway downtown.

                                                           

 Which became the 'el' 9elevated) soon and we even passed practically through Wriggly Field during a Cubs game.

It took a bit to figure out the system, but by our second day we were getting around pretty well.  Until the second to the last station, where the train stopped but didn't start again.  There was an announcement that there was a person on the tracks ahead.  That was about a 30 minute delay.  

 And here's Lake Michigan.  I've been reading Halldór Laxness' Independent People.  This picture of Lake Michigan reminds of me of the passage when the girl Asta Sollilja is leaving her home in rural Iceland for the first time.  She marvels at the changing landscapes.  But then they reach a stretch that is more desolate and unchanging.  

"The chill isolation of the moorland plateau reigned over these two wayfarers and they were silent.  The dreary monotony of the landscape dulled their senses;  she  began to feel hungry and no longer looked for or delighted in the things that were strange to her. 

Again and again the girl waited for the next hilltop to refresh the eye with some variation, some new prospect, but always it was the same endless repetition except that the gleaming waters of the lake had long since been left in the rear.  She had lost all her anticipation and had long grown tired of expecting anything in particular when the road, turning suddenly, dipped downward along the side of a deep ravine with river at the bottom.  And when she looked eastward along the gap, expecting to see another hill in front of her, lo and behold, there was nothing to see; it was as if the world came to a sudden stop before her eyes and the depth of the skies took its place, though with a different shade of blue.  Or was it that the sky was supported out on the horizon there by a gleaming wall of blue-green glass?  This strange blue color seemed to embrace all the mysteries of distance, and she stood for a moment overwhelmed by the prospect of such infinity.  It was as if she had come to the edge of the world.

"Father," she said in a perplexed and hesitating voice, "where are we?"

"We've crossed the heath,"  he replied.  "That's the ocean."

Lake Michigan is not an ocean, but it does extend out into the horizon like an ocean.  Can you see the blue green glass supporting the sky?