Medals for Killing, Discharged for Loving and Other Randomly Related Thoughts

People sometimes think bloggers are on the cutting edge, but let me tell you, this blogger feels like the edge is cutting me.  I'm still trying to figure out how to get the most out of Facebook.  There are a couple of long lost students and others who found me through FB, and there are some people I can find often in chat if I need to talk to them.  But I wasn't pleased when my FB picture and link showed up on a comment on a totally unrelated blog.  On the other hand, Skype makes sense to me, but maybe that's because it's relatively limited in scope.  Tweet?  I don't get it.  Is that a blog for people with short attention spans?  And then there's Tumbler - which seems to be for people to blog in pictures.  And they tend not to be their own pictures.  Photographers seem to have no control at all over the pictures any more.  It's fine if you just want to spread a message or like knowing so many people have seen your picture - even if they don't know you took it.  But what about photographers who make a living taking pictures?

Mark Myers who seems to have changed the title of his blog from A Genius So To Speak For Sauntering, to Mark Myers Photography: Photo Blog and one of the most thoughtful Alaskan bloggers mused on the future of professional photographers two weeks ago.   Another Alaskan photographer whose work I ran into after he left a short comment on one of my posts - Stephen Cysewski - has great pictures of 1970s Anchorage and more recent shots of Bangkok and Sukhothai - all places close to my heart. (My Peace Corps home was in the southern border town of the Sukhotai kingdom and so the Buddhas are the same style.)  But how does one find him without being pointed there?

All that is lead-in to a couple of  pictures I saw on tumbler yesterday.  To be precise, this one is from Obsessive Cumpulsive Disaster:

"They gave me a medal for killing two men and a discharge for loving one"

If this were a perfect picture, I wouldn't have to write the words of the T-shirt in the caption.  But it's pretty powerful nevertheless.  What more perfect commentary can there be on the world today?  Technologically in the 21st Century, emotionally still in the dark ages.

And this one is from Come On Home:

I think the issue is that we all now have so many different tools - whether programs on our computer which are constantly changing, phones, cameras, sound systems, microwaves - that all come with (or even worse don't) extensive instructions manuals.  It's impossible to just sit on your old technology, because soon it won't work with the new versions and so you have to update.  And all your routines are thrown out the window because they work differently now. And dollars change hands too. Considering that humans went centuries with relatively minor systemic changes (no I'm not asking to go back, many were locked into grinding poverty and oppression) I'm not sure we are wired for this rapid change.  It may be a reason so many people can't cope and drop out and/or turn to alcohol, drugs, or Fox News to inure them to such rapid change.  Maybe the guy hanging on to the balloons is hoping to escape the modern world. 

When I read in the history books about the changes of the industrial revolution, I didn't dwell on the disruptions in people's lives that we've all eventually become the beneficiaries of.  But now that we are going through that again, I think about whether there are ways to do this without as much social upheaval.  Which, is nothing compared to the upheaval we're part of in Iraq and Afghanistan.  Think I'm wandering a bit?  Everything is related. 

Assembly Exchanging Barbs: Barbara Jones To Replace Barbara Gruenstein as Municipal Clerk

PRESS RELEASE

 5/30/2012
Chair of the Anchorage Assembly

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

On May 30, 2012, Anchorage Assembly Chair Ernie Hall announced that Barbara A. Jones will be appointed as Anchorage Municipal Clerk effective July 1.

Jones will be replacing Barbara Gruenstein, who retires on June 30.
Gruenstein has been Anchorage Municipal Clerk since June 16, 2003.

Jones is currently the Municipal Ombudsman and previously served for 12 years as the Executive Director and Staff Attorney for the Anchorage Equal Rights Commission.

CONTACT:
Ernie Hall, Chair, Anchorage Assembly
Phone:907-562-2088
Email:  hallER@muni.org
 

In the interest of full disclosure, let me say that I know Barb Jones because she serves on the Healing Racism in Anchorage steering committee on which I also serve.  From working with her there, I've seen her to be both technically competent and personally dedicated to serving the public well and fairly.

Taku Lake Beaver and Campbell Creek Bike Trail Improvements

Riding home on the Campbell Creek bike trail from last night's book club meeting near Campbell Lake, I saw a big brown lump swimming through the water of Taku Lake carrying a good sized piece of wood in its mouth.








It was clear that he had been busy for a while.  There were quite a few of these chewed off tree stumps. 






A couple of big cottonwoods showed the early chewing of a beaver, but someone had put wire around the trunk before it got too far.

The beaver disappeared under the water where the chewed tree goes into the water.

The Campbell Creek trail ends (for me, begins for others) in the southwest near Victor and Dimond.  It's a great diagonal commuting trail for anyone going from that area - Dimond High is near that end too - to the Alaska Native Medical Center on Tudor past Elmore or spots in-between.  From Dimond to ANMC it's through the woods with occasional views of houses or businesses and there are only three spots where the trail abruptly ends to cross a street - Dowling, Seward Highway, and Lake Otis. 

They've already begun work at Dowling.  According to a Department of Transportation document   they will "replace Campbell Creek Bridge, install a new traffic signal at C Street, re-align the Campbell Creek Trail to go under the new bridge. . ." 


The picture is of the trail yesterday, from north of Dowling.  A new trail goes up to the left.  I think it will go to the new trail along Dowling, and the old trail will go under the new bridge and no longer cross the street.  The orange fencing on the right of the picture is where they are re-aligning the creek.






The infamous 'gap' under the New Seward Highway where you had to carefully maneuver you bike under four bridges of rocky trail (I see that some of the pictures have vanished from that post, I'll try to recover them soon) and sometimes high water, is now being changed into official bike trail.  They are going to raise each of the four bridges (north and south parts of the highway and the frontage roads).  Here's a shot from the east side of the Seward Highway from last week.    The project engineer told me that the September 2014 completion date will be for landscaping, but the trail should be complete by September 2013.




They've blocked it with a big chain link fence.

The only place you'll have to cross a street is at Lake Otis.  Either a few side streets to get to the tunnel or if you go directly, Lake Otis itself. 

The Seward Highway is less than 1/4 mile west of this map.


For now, the best option (going southwest) seems to be to go to Tudor and back up Old Seward Highway to the Peanut Farm or Arctic Roadrunner to pick up the trail again. 

Blog Contest: How many dandelions are in the bag?

 Be the first to get the right answer and win a prize.  Details below.

This contest arose when I saw the yellow flowers in the lawn.  Pick them now, this voice said, or they will multiply beyond counting.  OK, I’ll pick 200 today and maybe get my wife to do another 200 and keep that pace until they are gone.  [I know, purists dig the whole plant out of the ground, including the long deep roots.  That’s just not going to happen.  I can do the minimum which is stop the seeds from forming and blowing all over.]

So I got a bag and started picking and counting.  I stopped at one point and took the picture below just to have a record of what I’d done - besides the bag. 


   

As I counted toward my 200, my mind wandered to the recent election and the problem of counting the ballots.  Would readers challenge my count?  How could I prove how many dandelions were in the bag?  And I found myself picking not just yellow dandelions, but also dandelion buds that hadn’t opened yet, and dandelion flowers that had finished, but not yet turned to seedballs.  Do all three all count?  In the ultmate number in the bag? 

If someone challenged me, could we do a recount?  Maybe I should build a dandelion counting machine.  I could put them in the machine to verify the handcount. 

Was it necessary to count at all?  Couldn’t I use the picture of a patch of dandelions and see how many dandelions were in six square feet of lawn?  We could, but not every six square foot patch had the same number of dandelions. 

How important is it to be exact?  Well, if I have a contest and four people were within five or six dandelions from the exact number, surely they would want to be sure that the person who was the closest won.  Unless, of course, they were close but not the closest.  Then a miscount might make them the winner.

In the recent election, assuming that no voting machines were hijacked, the margins of victory were high enough that miscounting by three or four, even 20 votes, wouldn’t have mattered.  It was close enough to know who won.  But what happens when the elections are closer?  Where three votes off would change the winner? 

And because we have machines, we need to do hand counts regularly because that seems to be the only way to be assured that none of the machines were hijacked.  I tend to think this didn’t happen in this election, but I also have no patience with people who dismiss this possibility completely.  It’s more than a theoretical possibility.  It’s happened in other locations using the same machines.  If you haven’t watched the film Hacking Democracy, (it's free online at the link) I think you have no standing to dispute me on this.  If you have watched it, and still think it’s impossible or even unlikely, then tell me why.  People are spending billions of dollars to get their favored candidates elected.  Why wouldn’t they be likely to try to tamper with the cards in the voting machines? 



CONTEST DETAILS

OK, back to the important things.  How many dandelions are in the bag? 

How to participate:
1.  Post your answers in the comment section.  You can post anonymously if you like, but you need to sign a name (any name you like) and city (real city) in the comments.
2.  Email me to let me know that you made a comment, the number of dandelions, the name you used, and the city. 

Deadline:  Thursday, May 31, 2012 5pm Alaska Daylight Savings Time.

Prize: 
For people near Anchorage - I'll take you to dinner at the Thai Kitchen.  (People in the Seattle or LA areas, we can possibly work a dinner somewhere in late June.)
For others:  I’ll make and send you five hand made greeting cards using images you choose from this blog. (I have most, but not all, in high enough resolution to do this.)

Verification/Security:  
Although this contest has relatively minor consequences, it seems important, even here, to have reasonable security measures, so that you can be assured the contest is not rigged in any way.  Therefore, I have emailed the actual number to an Anchorage expert on plant biology.   I won't name her now so people do not pester her for the number (which she wouldn't give anyway.) 


Additional notes:
1.  I went well beyond 200.
2.  There will be no recount of the dandelions, but you can have the bag of dandelions if you pick it up or pay for shipping.

Memorial Day Sees Hmong Vets Shut Out Of US Veterans Cemeteries That Include POWs

[UPDATE October 23, 2014:  News on Hmong vet march on Congressional offices here.]

Brief Overview:  Hmong soldiers played a major role in what is called the CIA's Secret War in Laos during the Vietnam war.  The percentage of their population that gave their lives in the war was enormous.  Many ended up in refugee camps in Thailand where they waited for years before being able to emigrate to the United States.  Now, some of those who fought with the US are dying and they would like to be buried in Veterans Cemeteries like the men they fought with.  But they are being denied this, being told the cemeteries are for Americans only.  But I've found that Arlington National Cemetery alone has 61 foreign nationals buried there, including one German and two Italian POW's.  The Chatanooga National Cemetery has another 78 German POWs.


The Role of Hmong Soldiers in the Vietnam War.  (From culturalorientation.net):

Map from Geology.com

After the defeat of the French in Indochina in 1954, the United States, fearing a communist takeover of Indochina and eventually all of non-communist Asia, became a major player in the region. Laos, strategically situated between Western-aligned Thailand, Cambodia, and South Vietnam and their neighbors Communist China and North Vietnam, became a key domino in the Cold War. President Eisenhower warned that “if Laos were lost, the rest of Southeast Asia would follow and the gateway to India would be opened.”

In the early 1960s, the United States, barred by a Geneva agreement from committing American troops to Laos, launched what later became known as the secret war, a 10-year air and ground campaign that cost an estimated $20 billion. Between 1968 and 1973, U.S. Air Force planes flying out of bases in Thailand dropped more than 2 million tons of explosives on communist targets in Laos, making that country one of the most heavily bombed nations in history.

The ground war in Laos was a CIA-run operation that began as a ragtag collection of a few hundred guerrillas and grew to an army of nearly 40,000. Most of the soldiers in this secret army were Hmong, who the Americans believed possessed an aptitude for warfare that the easygoing lowland Lao lacked. At first, the Hmong were used only to gather intelligence on North Vietnamese movements in Laos, but by the mid-1960s, under the leadership of Major General Vang Pao, Hmong soldiers were rescuing downed American pilots, flying combat missions, and fighting the ground war. Not all Hmong supported the American side, however: About 20% of the Hmong in Laos joined the communist side, under the leadership of Touby Lyfoung’s old enemy, Faydang Lobliayao.

Why did the Hmong join the American cause? Different answers have been proposed by different writers. Anticommunism is one answer that has been offered, and a fear of what life under a North Vietnamese-dominated government would be like for the Hmong is another. Other writers claim that Hmong leaders hoped that a U.S. victory would serve to improve the status of the Hmong in Laos, perhaps even earning them a measure of self-rule.

Whatever their reasons for supporting the United States, almost all Hmong share the conviction that their involvement in the war was part of a promise made to them by the U.S. government. While there is no evidence that the promise was ever written down, almost every Hmong who fought in the war can repeat some version of it. According to a study by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services,“[t]hough there are several versions of the ‘Promise,’ there can be no doubt that assurances were made to support the Hmong during the war, and to provide assistance in the event Laos was lost to the communists.”

The decision to support the United States in Laos cost the Hmong dearly. An estimated 30,000 people, more than 10% of the Hmong population in Laos, were killed in the war. (Had the United States suffered an equivalent proportion of deaths, 17.5 million Americans would have died in the war.) Another 30%—about 100,000 Hmong men, women, and children—became refugees inside Laos, settling into already-existing towns or in resettlement centers. [Emphasis added]

Hmong Vets Denied Burial in US Veterans Cemeteries

An article in the Star Tribune (Minneapolis/St. Paul) describes the problems of Hmong veterans living in the United States who wish to be buried in veterans cemeteries, but are told they cannot.

When they die, these secret warriors of a secret American war want to buried in veterans cemeteries alongside their American comrades. But even though they now are commonly acknowledged as having fought for the United States in northern Laos, they are prohibited by law from being buried in national or state veterans cemeteries, which are reserved for American service members and honorably discharged U.S. military veterans and their families.

 . . .Minnesota Veterans Affairs Commissioner Larry Shellito, himself a Vietnam veteran, acknowledged the role Hmong fighters had in the secret war in Laos, and pointed out that the state has proclaimed a special Royal Lao Armed Forces Day each year. But, Shellito said, granting special rights for Hmong fighters would represent a precedent, and any honor bestowed on Hmong veterans would have to be provided equally to others, such as Vietnamese, Iragis, Afghans, and Somalis.
"As you know, the Laotians are not unique in having served alongside U.S. Forces in the past," he wrote.   (The article goes into much more detail.)

But it turns out there are 63* foreign nationals interred in Arlington National Cemetery alone:

Foreign Nationals Buried at Arlington National Cemetery Totals Australian 1 British (U.K.) 23 Canadian 4* Chinese 1 Dutch (Netherlands) 2 French 13 German (1 POW) Greek 1 Italian 4 (2 POW) South African 1 South Vietnamese 9* Unknown Origin 1 61* Total
*This chart comes from the Arlington National Cemetery Site but is two off from a more detailed list that includes 5 Canadians and ten Vietnamese.

As you can see, there are non-American soldiers buried in Arlington which is the premier cemetery for active military and veterans.  This includes Vietnamese, even though Shellito mentioned in the article above that needing to allow Vietnamese soldiers was a reason not to allow Hmong.  Altogether there are 131 national veterans cemeteries and about 90 state veterans cemeteries.

There's a even a German POW among those buried at Arlington and two Italian POWs.

How did Hilberath end up at Arlington? Under the Geneva Convention, prisoners were given military funerals at the nearest government cemetery. At the time that was Arlington.  After dying of an undisclosed illness, Hilberath along with deceased Italian soldiers Arcangelo Prudenza and Mario Batista were buried in Arlington.

There are 78 more German POWs from WWI buried in the Chatanooga National Cemetery.

In addition to Civil War veterans, there are 78 German prisoners of war buried here. Pursuant to provisions included in the peace treaty between the United States and Germany at the end of World War I, the German government sought the location and status of the gravesites of Germans who died while detained in the United States. An investigation conducted by the War Department found that the largest number of German POWs was interred at Chattanooga National Cemetery. For a short time, thought was given to removing all other German interments to Chattanooga. In the end, however, the German government decided that only 23 remains from Hot Springs National Cemetery should be reinterred here. The German government assumed the cost of disinterment and transportation to Chattanooga, and erected a monument to commemorate the POWs.

 I understand that some of these foreign nationals ended up in US veterans cemeteries at an earlier time and laws have probably changed.  But the law can be changed again.  It would seem that these soldiers who played such an important role in the Vietnam war and who are not welcome in today's Laos, should have access to burial in US veterans cemeteries, especially since enemy combatants such as the German and Italian Prisoners of War are interred in US veterans cemeteries.  

The Council of Asian Pacific Minnesotans is working to change the law.

Where Would You Celebrate The Life Of Someone Who Died Of A Massive Heart Attack?

Occasionally, I can't help but comment on something from the obituary page.  If I think my comments in any way could add to the family's immediate grief, I'll wait a month or more before posting. If anyone reading this knows the deceased, my condolences go out to you.  This is not meant to be any disrespect to you or the deceased, but rather to raise some health issues of importance to everyone. 

Here's part of an obituary I saw a while ago. 

[Someone] passed away in Anchorage on [Month day], 2012, surrounded by his loving wife and sons after suffering a massive heart attack. .  .

It goes on to describe someone I think I'd have liked to meet.  And then . . .

A Celebration of Life will be held at ********* Steakhouse in Anchorage.

Seriously.  The guy died of "a massive heart attack"  and they are having the celebration of life at the steakhouse.  I'm guessing they chose it because it was a favorite restaurant.  But to me it seems like inviting the murderer to the funeral.  Or pushing more family members to the edge of the same cliff. 


 How long should he have lived?

The man was born in 1942 but it didn't say the date, so he would have been 69 or 70 when he died.  As the excerpts below show, life expectancy increases as you get older - as you survive childhood and teen risks.  Someone 65 today, according to this source, should live to 83.  So, presumably, enjoying steak maybe cost him 13 years.   Maybe it was worth it to him.


From About.com

Life expectancy is the average life span for an individual. Life expectancy figures are collected by national health systems and by projecting current mortality statistics. Life expectancy is generally given for a person born this year. For example, according to the CDC, anyone born in 2006 could expect to live about 77.5 years. But this is tricky, because life expectancy changes based on age and gender.

Life Expectancy at Birth:

The life expectancies that you usually read about are life expectancies at birth. The current U.S. life expectancy is 77.5 years. This number takes the current rates of mortality at each age and figures out where the average is. Deaths at young ages impact life expectancy averages much more than older deaths. If a person dies at 18, that is 59.5 years lost. A person dying at age 70 only loses 7.5 years. Young deaths impact life expectancy at birth statistics. If you can reduce your risk to some of the most common causes of death of young people, such as car accidents, you can significantly beat this number.

Life Expectancy at 65:

As people age, their life expectancy actually increases. Each year you live means that you have survived all sorts of potential causes of death. If you were born in 1942, your life expectancy at birth was about 68 years. But the good news is that you didn't die of infectious diseases when young, car accidents, or anything else. The average 65-year-old today can expect to live another 18.4 years. So your life expectancy now is not the same as it was at your birth. It is 5.9 years longer than the current life expectancy figure (which is for people born in 2006) or 83.4 years. [Emphasis added.]

Is there a link between steak and heart attack?

The Wall Street Journal writes about a 2010 Harvard meta analysis on the relationship between steaks and heart attacks:

Maybe that juicy steak you ordered isn't a heart-attack-on-a-plate after all.
A new study from the Harvard School of Public Health suggests that the heart risk long associated with red meat comes mostly from processed varieties such as bacon, sausage, hot dogs and cold cuts—and not from steak, hamburgers and other non-processed cuts. . .

. . .  Based on information about meat products sold in the U.S., levels of saturated fats are similar in processed and unprocessed meats, while steak and other red meats have on average slightly higher levels of cholesterol, the researchers found. But sodium levels average about 622 milligrams per two-ounce serving of processed meat, about four times the 155 milligrams found in steak, hamburger or pork. Other preservatives, called nitrites, were also higher in the processed meats. In some studies, nitrates have been shown to interfere with the health of blood vessels and the body's ability to process glucose.

None of this suggests that steak is a new health food. While red meat wasn't linked to an increased risk of heart disease in the study, it didn't lower it either. Other research suggests frequent red meat consumption is associated with increased risk of colon cancer. The new report didn't look at cancer effects.

"Should people eat more red meat because of this analysis?" asked Robert Eckel, a cardiologist and nutrition expert at University of Colorado, Denver. "I don't think that is what the study is saying."

That's not necessarily a license to unleash your inner carnivore. Calorie control as well as a diet rich in fruits and vegetables, fish, whole grains and nuts remain the mainstay of heart-healthy eating, he said.
"If once in a while somebody wants to eat meat, our study suggests steak or other unprocessed cuts aren't going to increase their heart risk," he said.
 [emphasis added]

But a report in the Telegraph on a Harvard School of Medicine (not Public Health) study suggests that maybe comparing red meat to processed meats isn't the test.  It also concludes cutting back (but not necessarily out)  is the answer.

Small quantities of processed meat such as bacon, sausages or salami can increase the likelihood of dying early by a fifth, researchers from Harvard School of Medicine found. Eating steak increases the risk of early death by 12%.

The study found that cutting the amount of red meat in peoples’ diets to 1.5 ounces (42 grams) a day, equivalent to one large steak a week, could prevent almost one in 10 early deaths in men and one in 13 in women.

"The United States government has never acknowledged any error in detaining Mr. Boumediene, though a federal judge ordered his release, for lack of evidence, in 2008."

IT was James, a thickset American interrogator nicknamed “the Elephant,” who first told Lakhdar Boumediene that investigators were certain of his innocence, that two years of questioning had shown he was no terrorist, but that it did not matter, Mr. Boumediene says.

The interrogations would continue through what ended up being seven years, three months, three weeks and four days at the prison camp at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. . .  [SCOTT SAYARE, NY Times May 26, 2012]

The United States claims to be a different kind of country.  A democracy that values freedom.  Our government was angry when three young American hikers were arrested in Iran after having crossed the border.  They were arrested in Iran, and it wouldn't be completely irrational for the Iranian government to wonder if they had had any contact with the CIA before entering Iran.  Our government demanded their release.   Boumediene was arrested far from US shores - in Sarajevo where he worked with orphans for the Green Crescent, the Islamic equivalent of the Red Cross.

Our moral high ground has been obliterated by Bush's reaction to 9/11 and the conversion of Guantanamo Bay into a 'terrorist' torture camp.  Despite campaign promises Obama has not closed Guantanamo.

American citizens are responsible for this, because we are a democracy.  We are the Board of Directors, so to speak.  And while in the private sector, such directors have found ways to avoid responsibility for their companies' misdeeds, that moral responsibility does lie squarely on them, and in this case, on us.

I've tried to pick out parts of the story that point to all the times he was declared innocent or that there was no evidence.  The rest of his story you can read in the article.  

The United States government has never acknowledged any error in detaining Mr. Boumediene, though a federal judge ordered his release, for lack of evidence, in 2008. The government did not appeal, a Defense Department spokesman noted, though he declined to answer further questions about Mr. Boumediene’s case. A State Department representative declined to discuss the case as well, except to point to a Justice Department statement announcing Mr. Boumediene’s transfer to France, in 2009. 

President George W. Bush hailed his arrest in a State of the Union address on Jan. 29, 2002.

A human being's life isn't worth anything if he can be used by a politician as a symbol of his prowess.  How many times does this have to happen before we (more than the skeptical 20 or 30%) challenge presidents who do this?  

In time, those accusations disappeared, Mr. Boumediene says, replaced by questions about his work with Muslim aid groups and suggestions that those groups financed Islamic terrorism. According to a classified detainee assessment from April 2008, published by WikiLeaks, investigators believed that he was a member of Al Qaeda and the Armed Islamic Group of Algeria. Those charges, too, later vanished. 

In a landmark case that bears Mr. Boumediene’s name, the Supreme Court in 2008 affirmed the right of Guantánamo detainees to challenge their imprisonment in court.

[T]he government’s sole claim was that Mr. Boumediene had intended to travel to Afghanistan to take up arms against the United States. A federal judge rejected that charge as unsubstantiated, noting that it had come from a single unnamed informer. 

The terms of his release have not been made public or revealed even to him.

If this article is accurate, Boumediene wasn't given an apology nor even told the terms of his release.  He's living in France, but without a passport.

Mr. Boumediene, as an American, I am ashamed at how you were treated and I offer you my sincerest apologies.   I know that isn't much, but it's something.  I understand when law enforcement, at any level, arrest someone because they have some evidence of criminal involvement.  But when they know they've made a mistake, there should be an apology, and in egregious cases like this one, some sort of compensation and assistance.  (The article says that he's getting a monthly stipend but he does not know from whom.  I'd like to think the US government is giving it, but I know that's probably wishful thinking.)

And if anyone reading this has a problem with my apology, I'd just ask how you would react if an Iranian apologized just like this to the three American hikers his country imprisoned. 

And to my American readers, we all have a responsibility for getting the US back on the right track.  If you aren't registered to vote, do it this week.  If you are, get ten others to register.  We also need to let Obama know that we aren't pleased with some of the policies that he has continued from the Bush administration.  I understand he's not dealing with a friendly Congress, but let's let him know that we want him to stand up strong for what he believes.  The majority of the American people don't need to agree with you 100%, Mr. President, they just need to know that your core values are good and that you stand firmly behind them. 

"Your wife will cry on the outside, but will be secretly relieved. To be fair, your marriage was falling apart. If it’s any consolation, she’ll feel very guilty for feeling relieved.” Andy Weir's The Egg

I stumbled on this story.  It's very short.  It'll make you think.  The two people I told it to were impressed.  I'd love to just post it here, but it's Andy Weir's work, so I had to do some value added to get you started and then you can finish it at Andy's site. 

Clicking the Picture will enlarge it. To finish the story click here.

I guess you'll just have to trust me that it's worth reading the whole thing.  All the way to the end.  It's short.  You can finish it in any of 30 languages (I'm counting Norwegian and Portuguese just once each.)

The Egg (English) The Egg (Arabic) The Egg (Bulgarian) The Egg (Chinese) The Egg (Croatian) The Egg (Czech) The Egg (Danish) The Egg (Dutch)

The Egg (Esperanto) The Egg (Estonian) The Egg (Finnish) The Egg (French) The Egg (German) The Egg (Greek) The Egg (Hebrew) The Egg (Hungarian)

The Egg (Italian) The Egg (Japanese) The Egg (Korean) The Egg (Lithuanian) The Egg (Macedonian) The Egg (Norwegian Bokmål) The Egg (Norwegian Nynorsk) The Egg (Polish

The Egg (Portuguese) The Egg (Brazilian Portuguese) The Egg (Romanian) The Egg (Russian) The Egg (Spanish) The Egg (Swedish) The Egg (Turkish) The Egg (Vietnamese)

HTML Tables

Andy, thanks for a thought provoking story.

It's only 1000 words.  To finish the story click here.  It will take you four minutes or less. 

Without The Rain, There'd Be No Flowers

How is it that when it's flowers, you can post explicit photos and no one objects?  A tulip.

Narcissus with a visitor.

It's a lot easier to the let the leaves and petals catch the raindrops and then shoot them.

Who First Said, "What Do I Know?"

While searching for a post on my blog, I got this tidbit from google:

One of the most important figures of the Renaissance was Michel de Montaigne. The writer not only gets the credit for popularizing the essay, but for being the father of Modern Skepticism, coining the phrase "What do I know?".

 Something you'd think the caretaker of this blog would  know.  Well, I'll take it with a grain of salt.  It could be true, to the extent that anyone can be said to coin a term.  And I'm sure he would have said (written?) it in French. 


So, what do I know?  It seems this blog has taken me on an eclectic journey and I've come to know a lot of seemingly unrelated topics.  I'd like to think they are all connected, at least by the overall theme of the blog - how do we know what we know?  Below I've grabbed the search terms from a recent Sitemeter page.  I think it shows the varied topics that I've somehow gotten to.  (There are 25 hits per page on Sitemeter and I've left out those that didn't have explicit search terms.)   I noticed doing this that a couple of the links went to useless redirect pages.  You can check the Sitemeter listings at the sitemeter logo in the right hand column, down the list a ways.  To see how much detailed information each visitor leaves, click on the number of any hit.

   mark twain jr high school

   tube11

    cat litter technology   

    foot bones  

    elephants eating   

    "seven months, ten days in cap... by david rohde article review   

    calories oatmeal   

    low calorie oatmeal   

    the penthouse club seattle, wa  (This one had the word penthouse, but apparently it was the picture that distracted him)

    alaska state song   

    if you can't sleep at night it...you're awake in someones dream   (This goes to a redirect page,  but another person seeking this got the right page.)

    warren buffett chain e-mail

    picture of fungus gnats   

    define speaking through the chair   

    who were celebrities in the 1910's  (another redirect page, here's where it should have gone)

    hoffmann von fallersleben-helgoland anselm kiefer   

    nayeem mahbub  

Supreme Court Chooses Amended Proclamation Plan, With Original, Not New, SEast Districts

The Supreme Court issued an order today in response to the Redistricting Board

"It is ordered:

1.  The Amended Proclamation Plan adopted by the Redistricting Board on April 5, 2012, including the Southeast Alaska districts as configured in the plan of that date, shall serve as the redistricting plan for the 2012 elections."

So, after ordering the Board to reconfigure Southeast Alaska to only consider the state constitution and not the Voting Rights Act at all, the Board met and worked hard to comply, though they all said they were not pleased with the result.    Now the Supreme Court is telling them to just use the Amended Proclamation Plan with the Southeast districts as they were on April 5.

The reasoning?  The court was concerned about the numerous objections they got over the Southeast Alaska districts and that the Department of Justice wouldn't find the plan in compliance with the Voting Rights Act.

"The court has accepted the Southeast districts as configured in the plan of April 5, 2012 rather than the reconfiguration submitted by the Redistricting Board to the court on May 14, 2012 because of the numerous objections to the reconfigured districts that this court has received.  While the reconfigured districts may comply with the redistricting criteria of article VI. section 6 of the Alaska Constitution, there is a risk that the United States Department of Justice would decline to pre-clear them under the Voting Rights Act.  Notice of the failure of the Department of Justice to pre-clear the new districts would come so late in the 2012 election cycle that a great disruption to the election process would result.  In order to avoid this possibility, the court will not require the use of the May 15, 2012 reconfigured districts for the 2012 elections." 

Two of the judges dissented - Winfree and Stowers - who thought the May 15 districts should have been adopted.

The board also acknowledged the work they put the Board through to get the new districts and commended them for all the work they did.

Politically, this means that Republican Native Representative Bill Thomas will NOT be running against another incumbent and that Republican Representatives Peggy Wilson and Kyle Johansen will be in the same district. 

[UPDATE 9:00pm:  If I'm not thoroughly confused now, this is the map that will be used for the August 2012 primaries and the November 2012 election. ]

Potty Press

As various media are wondering how to survive the development of online media, here's a communication medium I hadn't seen before - the Potty Press.  The message tells parents it's illegal to serve allow underage folks to drink alcohol in their homes.  This is, as best I can tell, a project of the CMCA:

Communities Mobilizing for Change on Alcohol, or CMCA are a community organizing effort designed to change policies and practices of major community institutions in ways that reduce access to alcohol by teenagers by using environmental strategies.

Environmental strategies are focused on changing aspects of the environment that contribute to the use of alcohol and other drugs. Specifically, environmental strategies aim to decrease the social and health consequences of substance abuse by limiting access to substances and changing social norms that are accepting and permissive of substance abuse.

And Volunteers of America Alaska:

Volunteers of America Alaska is a national faith-based nonprofit providing a ministry of services dedicated to the relief of human suffering and the advancement of social justice. Founded in 1896 by Christian social reformers, Maud and Ballington Booth, we continue to provide services to the most vulnerable in our communities. We began providing residential substance abuse treatment for adolescents in Alaska in 1981. Our services have grown to include programs to meet needs of children, adolescents, families and the senior community. 

 I'm not sure what the relationship with Alaska Red Ribbon Coalition entails, but they have their logo on the website too:

The Red Ribbon Coalition is funded by the Office of National Drug Control Policy's Drug Free Communities program. Our long-term goal is to reduce substance abuse among youth in Anchorage. The Coalition contributes to the community by strengthening collaborations and supporting the city's prevention efforts. SAMHSA's Strategic Prevention Framework is the model used to assist the Coalition in implementing prevention work. This includes on-going assessments of the community, capacity building, planning & implementation of activities, and evaluation of our efforts. 

And the Office of National Drug Control Policy?  They're the War on Drugs folks:

The Office of National Drug Control Policy was established by the National Narcotics Leadership Act of 1988 (21 U.S.C. 1501 et seq.), effective January 29, 1989, reauthorized through the Office of National Drug Control Policy Reauthorization Act of 1988 (21 U.S.C. 1701 et seq.), and again reauthorized through the Office of National Drug Control Policy Reauthorization Act of 2006 (21 U.S.C. 1701 et seq.).
The Office of National Drug Control Policy assists the President in establishing policies, priorities, and objectives in the National Drug Control Strategy. It also provides budget, program, and policy recommendations on the efforts of National Drug Control Program agencies.

I really have not figured out what I think of all this.  I had no idea where these photos would lead me.  Maybe someone else reading this can tell me what it means.  

Capitalists and Other Psychopaths

That's the title of a recent NYTimes article.  Here are a couple of excerpts:

THERE is an ongoing debate in this country about the rich: who they are, what their social role may be, whether they are good or bad. Well, consider the following. A 2010 study found that 4 percent of a sample of corporate managers met a clinical threshold for being labeled psychopaths, compared with 1 percent for the population at large. (However, the sample was not representative, as the study’s authors have noted.) Another study concluded that the rich are more likely to lie, cheat and break the law. . .

The only thing that puzzles me about these claims is that anyone would find them surprising. Wall Street is capitalism in its purest form, and capitalism is predicated on bad behavior. This should hardly be news.  . . .

In other words, Enron, BP, Goldman, Philip Morris, G.E., Merck, etc., etc. Accounting fraud, tax evasion, toxic dumping, product safety violations, bid rigging, overbilling, perjury. The Walmart bribery scandal, the News Corp. hacking scandal — just open up the business section on an average day. Shafting your workers, hurting your customers, destroying the land. Leaving the public to pick up the tab. These aren’t anomalies; this is how the system works: you get away with what you can and try to weasel out when you get caught.

Read the rest of William Deresiewicz piece,  "Capitalists and Other Psychopaths" at the New York Times.


It's not either/or; not  either complete capitalism or complete socialism.  There are useful aspects of the individualism and competition of capitalism and the altruistic community impulses of the more communal systems.  Each benefits different members of society differently.  Though I would guess there are certain folks who will find their way to privileged positions no matter where they lived.  The psychopaths probably.  And surely we see prime examples in both systems. 

And today is a great time for psychopaths - people who knowingly and with no remorse lie and bully the weak and underprivileged (whether it's talk show hosts or Fox "News" casters) and who champion people people who kill and maim (American military, football players). 

Click here to see common traits for diagnosing psychopaths (also called sociopaths)

A key question for humans in the world today is how to create a system which blends the best of various systems (I don't want to assume that capitalism and socialism are the only possibilities) and minimize the negative aspects of them.

Zeitoun Part 2 - I had no idea where this book was headed

I put Zeitoun down after the last post and did some other things. 

Eventually I picked it back up later in the day.  Armed men (it turned out there was a woman too) were breaking into the front door at Zeitoun's rental property in flooded New Orleans just as he was to call his wife from this one working phone.  He called each day at noon. 

NSWFM, if you're about to read the book, just stop reading this post now. 

The next 20 pages focus on Kathy Zeitoun, in Arizona with the kids, and Ahmad Zeton, the brother in Spain as Kathy begins to fall apart when her husband doesn't call for the next week.  She imagines all the ways he could have died.  And finally, when she's thinking about funerals and life insurance and her future with four fatherless kids, a phone call comes.  And the story takes a turn I never saw coming. 

We then get a harrowing account of the US justice system gone terribly wrong.  I'll stop there.  If you think the Obama administration has problems, go back to Katrina and remind yourself about life under Bush.  This is not a pretty story.  But it's one that Americans need to know. 

In the aftermath of the recent flawed Anchorage election, I hear people telling of other people saying they won't vote any more.  There's no point. 

In the face of adversity, we have a choice to give up or stand up.  About 60% of Anchorage's registered voters did not go to the polls. (35% did vote, but since the voter registration rolls are purged so slowly, many on them really are no longer residents or alive, so I've cut out 5% and it could be more.)  If those just 40% more went to vote, the people who are not slave to a party label, people who are unhappy with the state of affairs and who pay just a bit of attention to the candidates, life in the US could be moved back into a positive direction. 

Dave Eggers, the author of Zeiton, is donating the proceeds of the book to the Zeitoun Foundation which has been set up a number of organizations working to

"aid  in the rebuilding of New Orleans and to promote respect for human rights in the United States and around the world."

Charity Navigator and Guide Star do not seem to list the Zeitoun Foundation.  

The other Eggers book I've read is A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius a book that bothered me.   While I found it interesting, I really didn't want to read anything else by the author.  It left a bad taste in my mouth.  I think I avoided this book because of that. But he's told the Zeitouns'  story well.

I've Been Canoeing Through Katrina Flooded New Orleans . . .

 . . . with Abdulrahmen Zeitoun, who stayed behind while his wife and four kids drove to her sister's place in Baton Rouge.  Born in Syria, Zeitoun made it to the US as a sailor and met Kathy, who had converted to Islam before she met Zeitoun, and married and settled in New Orleans where they started a house painting business and eventually bought rental properties.

As Katrina neared, his shipping captain brother in Spain, who'd been following the Florida storm online, kept calling him telling him to get out.  At first it was good that he stayed.  He was able to move some of their possessions to the second floor, saving books and the TV and the DVD, food from the refrigerator, and family photos. and the kids' games.  He had long ago bought a used canoe and now used it to explore the neighborhood, locating and getting help for stranded neighbors.

Meanwhile his wife, after her sister's place gets too crowded, packs up and drives to her best friend's place in Phoenix.  By now Zeitoun's cell phone battery is dead, but there is a working phone at one of his rental properties on Claiborne Street and he calls every day at noon. 

The water that at first was fresh and clear is now oily and contaminated with who knows what plus floating debris including one dead body.  The military in town are proving less than helpful, treating him like a looter and potential danger.  He keeps resisting pleas from his brother and his wife to get out.  He's been placed here by God to help the people and dogs trapped in their houses that he's been feeding.  He's ok.  The violence they see and hear about on the news is downtown, not near him.   Then he returns to the Claiborne house with the phone and sees a strange boat tied to the porch.  Some guy named Ronnie saw the phone box above the waterline and had come to use the phone.  His friend, Nasser, whom he'd found with his canoe one day and is now was staying with him said he thought Ronnie was ok.  They discover that the water is running in the bathroom and they take showers.  It's nine days after Katrina first hit.  Seven days since Zeitoun woke up to discover the levees had broken and everything had flooded.  Zeitoun comes out of the shower and is about to call his wife when he hears Nasser talking to people outside.

"Zeitoun!"  Nasser called.
"What?"  Zeitoun said.
"Come Here,"  Nasser said.  "These guys want to know if we need water."
Zeitoun assumed it was more men like himself and Nasser  - people with boats who were roaming around, trying to help.
When he put the phone down and looked toward the front porch, he saw a group of men, all of them armed, bursting into the house.  Zeitoun hung up the phone and walked toward the door.

So, with the help of writer Dave Eggers,  I've been elsewhere all morning.  I stopped here, on page 180 of Zeitoun.   It took 20 pages or so before I got sucked completely into this book for my next book club meeting a week from tomorrow.  I decided this time I wanted to finish the book before the afternoon of the meeting.   That won't be a problem.

So this is my way of keeping the blog moving as I also try to do other things I need to get done. 

Anchorage to Mongolia, Mexico, and ???

Anchorage's returned Peace Corps Volunteers had a potluck to send off three Alaskans on their coming Peace Corps assignments.  


Michael Bardwell is headed for Mongolia at the end of the month.  He'll be teaching English there.

Becky Roberts is headed for Mexico.  I didn't know there were volunteers in Mexico, but she said the program started two [7 or 8 - see comment below] years ago and she'll be in group 13.








Jay Stariwat isn't sure yet where he is going, probably sub-Saharan Africa or the Caribbean.


The Peace Corps is very different today than when I went to Thailand (and got my first glimpse of Alaska during a 7 hour stopover).  We were farther away then - letters took at least a week or two to get home.  And the same for the answer to get back.  Volunteers today mostly have internet access.  But security concerns have put a lot more restrictions on volunteers who nowadays have to get permission to leave their towns and are not allowed to ride on motorcycles at all.  But as I wrote not too long ago, Peace Corps volunteers can impact many people they come into contact with in positive ways, and often they are not even aware of their influence. 

Michael, Becky, and Jay, it was a great pleasure to meet the three of you tonight and I wish you great adventures, lots of new friends, lots of patience, and good health.  I think I mentioned River Town by Peter Hessler to Michael because he's headed to Mongolia, and River Town is a fictionalized account of a PCV in China.  A very well done book that conveys his experiences in depth and insight. 

What's Happening With The Anchorage Election?

Recount Tally sheet Mayor's Race

A friend emailed me to ask what was going on since there wasn't much in the newspapers.  I was an observer the afternoon of May 10 and I've been trying to put together a post describing what it was like.  A brief preview

• Observers were given total access to watch the account, take pictures, take video, ask questions (if it didn't disturb actual counting) and the counters were patient and thorough in answering questions.
• Some counters were better than others.
• There hasn't been a recount in a long time and those were for individual close races, not for the whole thing.  This one has only been for 15 precincts.  That means that except for very brief descriptions in the Municipal Code, there are not guidelines for how to do this.
• Thus, a lot of what going on was learning by doing.  Different pairs of counters used different techniques.

City Hall Room 155 - Hand Counting Ballots

Inside "the Vault"

I had the feeling that while some security measures were in place, there were a lot of points where there process was vulnerable.   It felt like Alaska in the old days when everyone knew each other and people didn't lock their doors. I don't think anyone exploited the weaknesses this time, but the recount gives the Muni an opportunity to figure out how to lock all the doors and windows for next time.  Voting machines are too vulnerable to hacking.    The 'vault' (that's what they called it) where they stored the ballots, was actually just a small room on the ground floor with windows along the outer walls.  Using the word 'vault' was probably not a good idea because it conjures up an image of a windowless metal chamber with a giant lock on it. 

Since the Muni has posted a preliminary report  which identifies some sizable gaps in a couple of precincts between the voting machine count and the recount.  Not enough to change any race, but enough to raise questions that need to be addressed.  Some of the precincts were recounted a second time because of discrepancies between the voting machine count and the recount numbers.  

I was told that the newly elected school board candidates have had their swearing in postponed once again.  It won't happen this Monday and the following Monday is Memorial Day.

The Clerk's office is going to hold a press conference on Monday morning.  

Black Diebold bag with Service High ballots

Mel at Bent Alaska has been doing the very best job on the election and you can see her post on the recount that is much more detailed than mine.

LFSGUD

Blue sky, fluffy clouds, snowy capped Chugach, as the temps moved back up into the 60s.

  

The thalictrum (Meadow Rue) is just awakening.