No Kings Anchorage

 There's still nearly a foot of snow on the ground.  Fortunately, the temperature warmed up during the day into the 20s so if you were standing in the sunshine, it was not too bad.  

This is a bit late because I was having trouble loading photos - you'd think after all these years that wouldn't happen.  

When I got there I moved up onto the hill on the south side of the Town Square.  There was about a foot of snow, some of it reasonably packed, but some steps had me sinking down into the snow.  The view from here was not conducive to a good view of everyone.  

So after a while I moved over to the steps at the Performing Arts Center.  (You can see people there on the far left about in the middle.  The view from there, while still not perfect was much better as you can see below.  

How many people were there?  Not an easy job to calculate from the ground.  There were clearly a lot more people than had been at a previous protest demonstration at the Town Square that had about 2,500 people.  I tried counting a cluster of 50 and then trying to see how many clusters there were.  It really was hard to do that accurately, so I'll leave a broad ranged guess of 3000-5000 folks.  

Snow - Still Here, Still Covering The Ground, But Its Days Are Numbered

 

 It's been a cold winter and it's been a snowy winter.  

On March 9, 2025 - there was no snow in our back yard. 

Today, March 27, 2026 - the yard is covered with about a foot of snow.

Until last week, I was leaving the house around 9:15 am in below 0˚F weather. 

Last week all our high temperatures were below the normal low temperature. [Tried to post this a week ago, but I couldn't get Blogger to accept my photos, so two weeks ago our teams were way below normal.)

This past week the temps have shifted up slightly.  My I've walked to Lake Otis School in below +10˚F each day.  Highs have been 28˚-31˚F.  And it's been sunny.  The weather app shows us slowly moving up in the next ten days.

But it finally looks like were going to shift upward, slowly

We're having bright sunny days and the snow is evaporating more than melting because the temps have been below 32˚ F.  

Most of our street is ice free because the Municipality had plows out scrapping the snow and ice off the pavement.  Thought there is a bad spot down at the corner at Lake Otis.  

Some of the evaporating snow is pretty dirty.

But a lot starts to look like clouds and cotton candy as the water is sucked out.

And in some spots it drips.

As I mentioned, this was supposed to go up a few days ago.  I had hoped to put up pictures of Anchorage's No Kings Day yesterday, but having trouble loading pictures here.  That seems to have been overcome and I'll get the No Kings Pics up soon.  

Navigating Social Media - Just Find And Read The Good Stuff

[This starts with an introduction that you can easily skip.  "Starts Here" is where I get into some recommended reading. Not books, Not 280 character platitudes.  But serious, thoughtful articles.]

INTRODUCTION

 'Influencer' as used today is a disgusting word for me.  I was reminded of this last night when we watched Manosphere on Netflix.  Louis Theroux  interviews 'manosphere influencers,' basically men who populate social media on various platforms advocating for a world of alpha-males and subordinate females and showing off their (apparent) wealth.  Basically, it would seem they are using the internet to make as much money as possible.  It doesn't matter to them if they say hateful and stupid stuff; truth and reality are irrelevant.  Just hits and followers.   

As a novice blogger 19 years ago, I quickly learned that various businesses were willing to compensate me to plug their products (always said, no thank you) and that the more controversial my headlines, the more hits I would get.  (That was back in the day of Sarah Palin, and if I mentioned her in a headline, I'd get considerably more hits.)

I wouldn't say the show is hard-hitting, but for people who don't wander off into the darker corners of the internet, it's probably enlightening.  It helps to understand where the White Christian Nationalist and bullying cosplayers in the Trump administration get their material.  The BBC has its own review that highlights some young men who follow the toxic ranters and say, "Wow, I didn't know it was that bad."  Is that supposed to reassure us?  

In the worlds of Twitter, and TikTok, Only Fans, ad nasuem, this has become a way for some folks to make decent money, and has turned what was once a potential international communication, exchange of ideas platform, into a medium whose monetization logic promotes hate and extremism.  

But even among those platforms who offer no hate (well try to minimize it), there's still a good deal of attention seeking and fluff.  You can read a 2013 post explaining my reluctant dive into Twitter. I stopped checking Twitter when Musk bought it and moved to Spoutible and Bluesky.  Each has its strengths and weaknesses, but the toxicity is kept to a minimum and both get me links to stories and articles I wouldn't see elsewhere.  I share a few below.

POST STARTS HERE

There is so much 'news' happening daily that it's almost impossible (and unnecessary) to have a deep understanding of everything.  Rather, I wanted to point out some articles that cut through to the guts of some issues.  

The Worst Acquisition in History, Again: Warner Bros. by SCOTT GALLOWAY

"After six months and eight failed bids, the Ellisons made the Warner Bros. Discovery board an offer they couldn’t refuse. The potential Netflix acquisition would’ve been akin to fusing LVMH and Walmart — HBO’s prestige TV and Warner’s iconic IP, plus Netflix’s scale. Paramount Skydance buying WBD is the fusion of a dog and a car bumper traveling 80 miles an hour. Spoiler alert: It’s not going to end well."

This is an amazing piece that tells a story I did't get about this merger elsewhere.

Also A Review of Habermas - Matthew McManus

Jürgen Habermas died last week at the age of 96.  He'd kept writing almost to the end.  

"To some, Habermas is the greatest philosopher of our time. . . For others Habermas is the court philosopher of the German center-left SPD or perhaps at most the EU."

I briefly dipped into the world of Jürgen Habermas as a grad student.  I was mightily taken by what I read,  but never took the time to delve deeper into his other works.  But he's an important figure in 20th Century thought who, I'm guessing, most people have never heard of.   This is a chance to learn a bit about him in a relatively easy essay on two books about him.  (This is a substack article that while not requiring money, does make you pay with your email address.  I have found putting a fake email seems to work, at least for now.)

Nicholas Field:  Double Book Review: Newsom and Shapiro Memoirs Shed Some Light on 2028 Hopefuls  

 I think Governor Gavin Newsom has been useful in the fight against Fascism, but I wouldn't want him to be president.  I didn't know much about Governor Shapiro beyond election headlines. This article raises some issues we should pay attention to.  In any case, Nick Field gives more background to store as the presidential primaries come into view. 

‘The dream is to be a standup, but everyone who knows me says: Please don’t’ – Riz Ahmed on  chaos, comedy, and defying categorisation"  - Simran Hans

 The arts are important to human life.  I didn't know this performer, but found the interview interesting.

This article includes Riz
in various fashion shots

I'm going to check out Relay on Netflix tonight to see him act. 

Anyone paying attention has noticed the rising number of people of South Asian heritage  in a variety of fields in the US and the UK.  This interview gives a glimpse at what the world looks like from their perspective.

"Ahmed describes Mirza [his wife] as 'a truly creative person' whose writing 'floors me every day', though he says they try not to discuss work too much at home. 'I probably try and hassle her for her opinion on things a lot more than she needs to hassle me for mine on writing. She doesn’t want my GCSE English ideas,' he says, self-deprecatingly.

But while he may wear it lightly, Ahmed’s intellect is no secret. A working-class British Pakistani kid from Wembley who won a scholarship to private school, he got into Oxford to study politics, philosophy and economics, a typically star-making degree favoured by politicians, broadcasters and public intellectuals. He has never felt as if he was a natural fit for the establishment, but has always found a way to navigate it."

A reminder that people of color often have much better credentials than their white counterparts, credentials that belie the claims that somehow they got their positions through 'DEI.'  He sounds like a much healthier male than those interviewed by Louis Theroux.  

"How often does he see his parents these days? 'All right, Auntie. Jesus Christ! You’ve got me on the hook here. Lemme get my calendar out,' he says, pretend-reaching for his phone. 'I try to see them very regularly,' he says. Every week, every month? Ahmed looks at me quizzically. 'Are you Asian?' he says, noting my own Punjabi-Sikh heritage. 'You’d have a chappal flying at you through space and time if it was every month.' A chappal is a slipper, jokingly deployed by Asian parents of all backgrounds as a form of discipline. 'Of course, at least every week. A few times a week.'”

I've got a few more saved up, but this should keep you more than occupied if you follow the links.   

The Long Winter - Snow Finally Removed In Our Neighborhood

 

Temperatures like -5˚F and lower have been pretty common morning temperatures.  Temps like these weren't uncommon in 20 or 30 years ago, but they didn't linger for three months.  There might be a spell of cold (down to -20˚F) for a week or even two.  But the below zero temps didn't hang around all winter. More recently there have been winters when it never got below zero and others when it only happened a few times.

This winter is different.  It's been below zero frequently since early December.  

[If you're confused, it's an indoor/outdoor thermometer.  Red is for inside and navy blue is for outside.]

And here it is mid March and it's still below zero when I check the thermometer in the morning.  

The chart below from the Anchorage Daily News gets the point across .  Two days our high temperatures were below the normal low temperatures.  Three other days they were just slightly above the normal low.  

And we've also had lots of snow.  One morning there was a deep horn blowing outside.  I looked out to see  a garbage truck faced with a car parked on one side of the street and the berm on the other side so far out in the street that the truck couldn't get past.  I went out and talked to the driver.  "I can't do this street because I can't get by."  I asked if I could bring my garbage can around to the other side so he could take it.  I did and he did.  And then the guy came out to move his car.  I think he works the night shift.  

But at one corner, the snow was piled up so high and so far out into the street, you couldn't see if there were cars coming down the cross street.  

But this Thursday afternoon, there were plows on the street and they had no parking signs in front of every house for Friday.  I've suggested some kind of notification so that people could move their cars for the plows, because you never know when they are going to come. So this is a big improvement.  I managed to get my car up our driveway.  

Then Friday, they spent the whole day in our subdivision plowing snow and shooting it into dump trucks to haul away.

It takes about 30 seconds to fill a dump truck.  They have a line of dump trucks, so as soon as one is full, the next one pulls up.  I'm not sure where they are dumping all the snow.  It couldn't be too far because the trucks were back in line quickly.  

Our street is back to its normal width.  The surface of the road was scraped as far as they could go.  Still some snow, but not the several packed down inches.  

Of course, today we got more snow, but so far it's really only a light dusting.  

And Friday was the day the stove man was coming over to fix the oven door, which decided not to open when my wife wanted to get some chicken legs and yams out.  But with the snow plows, there just was no place for him to park. He kept calling after each job to see if it was clear for him.   Eventually I was able to get my car out of the driveway and over to the university and he could get into our driveway.  

Let me add that I'm reading Coming Into The Country which was released 50 years ago next year.  This is a book club book.  I read it when I got to Alaska, when it came out.  Much of the book is focused on Eagle, Alaska and the folks who live in cabins along the Yukon tributaries near Eagle.  Those folks had normal temperatures in the winter of -20˚F to as low as -60 and -70˚F.  So -10˚ is not that big a deal.  You just have to be dressed for it.  

Anchorage Snow 2025 and 2026

 

March 9, 2025

March 9, 2026

If you look closely, you can see a leaning tree in the 2025 picture, upper right.  It's firewood now.  

What doesn't change is the change in daily sunlight as we move closer to the equinox.  The sun is almost at the deck today.  

It's Daylight Savings Time Again Today So The Legislature Has Yet Another Bill To End It

We set the clocks ahead again last night or this morning.  And the Alaska legislature has a bill to end Daylight Savings.Again    [I suspect the link to the Anchorage Daily News is paywalled for non-subscribers.]

The session I blogged the legislature from Juneau (2010) there was also a bill.  And it seems there's one every year.  So I'm not expecting it to pass.

From an Alaskan perspective there are extra wrinkles in all of this.

1.  When I first got to Alaska in 1977 the state had four (yes 4) time zones.  That was ended so it was easier for Alaskans, scattered across so many time zones, to know what time it was everywhere else in the state and for airlines and their passengers to stay sane traveling in the state.  

2.  Besides size, Alaska is north.  In the summer much of the state never actually gets dark.  In the winter much of the state has, at the winter solstice, five hours or less from sunrise to sunset.  So school kids are going to go to school or come home in the dark no matter what.  In some places both.  (Though when there is a white ground cover, it isn't quite as dark as you would expect.)

3.  I don't think we're going to end Daylight Savings time this year.  But I expect that one day it will happen.  Maybe on the national level.  But the legislature meets in Juneau, and as the post below says, 

"People in Southeast Alaska have a real issue because they are basically in Pacific time, so they get less light in the evening while the sun comes up 3am at solstice."

Below is that 2010 post on Daylight Savings time: 

Thursday, March 18, 2010

HB 19 to End Daylight Savings Time

The other two meetings going on right now are dealing with issues of far greater impact on Alaska I presume.  But this is one most Alaskans can understand easily and are impacted by most directly and tangibly.


Here is the table with copies of emails and letters for and against the bill.  










[Update:  I looked through these and they are all dated March 18 and some 17.  Actually this stack is misleading.  I didn't realize I have one big stack twice.  The vote was 62 for HB 19, 18 against, and four had other options, like get the US to change, but not just Alaska.]

Sen. Olson and Sen. Menard listen to phone testimony on the ending daylight savings time in Alaska.  

Rep. Anna Fairclough, the bill sponsor, responded to the comments received through the mail, email, and by phone today.  She said there were two reasons that have real justification for not changing:

1.  People in Southeast Alaska have a real issue because they are basically in Pacific time, so they get less light in the evening while the sun comes up 3am at solstice.
2.  The difficulty in coordinating with people outside of Alaska.  (I think this was the second one)

Other than these two points, most people prefer getting rid of daylight savings time.  A lot of this is about having to change and the disruption that causes with relatively little daylight impact for most Alaskans (further north and west than Southeast.)

Other issue:  Why don't we just spring forward and stay on daylight savings time the whole year.  There area a couple of issues:
1.  Feds, not states, can change time zones.
2.  Western Alaska would be even further off of sun time (opposite problem of Southeast.)

Meeting was adjourned just about 5pm with the decision postponed.

A South African Jewish Podcast On The War On Iran (Updated)

 I've been keeping too busy.  There are different events to comment on.  The attack on Iran seems to be on the top of the list, though it shouldn't displace so many other things, like ICE and the Epstein files.

The video below is from a podcast/Youtube channel called the South African Jewish Report.  After all the fatuous speculation in the US media, this is a refreshing change.  It is a discussion from people who actually know something.  

There's a lot missing.  They treat the US and Trump as important allies in the attack on Iran.  My sense is that like others have figured out, you need to stroke Trump's ego.  They don't do that directly, but neither do they say anything negative about Trump.  

The podcasters have two guests:

Col. Miri Eisin and Brig. Gen. Amir Avivi

Miri grew up in California and got her college education in Israel.  She was part of the higher ranks of Israeli military and, she tells us, she now advises the military.  She explains that the military brings her and others in to look at and critique their plans.  Of the two, she seems to have a larger perspective, a more balanced and nuanced view of the world.  At one point she tells us that as someone who grew up in the US and has many relatives there, and whose first language is English, she sees things a bit differently from other Israelis including the other guest.  

She hopes that a new regime, made up of leaders of a new generation in Iran, will abandon the goal of eliminating Israel.  She hopes there is a new Middle East focused more on economic development and peace.  That's how it came across to me. 

Amir talked about the golden age of Israel arriving now, it will become an economic giant, and Jews around the world should be ready for Aliya - return to Israel.  (Ironically, I saw an article today that said more Israelis are emigrating than immigrating.  

While Miri says a problem for Israel, with its dominant military power, has often been that they did not know when to stop and often went on too long.  Amir disagreed and said too often they stopped too soon.  

But basically, they see the goal of this war as regime change in Iran.  They portray Iran as the many headed serpent which funds and arms groups like Hamas and Hezbollah and other terrorist organizations and they quote the Ayatollah as having declared the goal to destroy Israel.  

[UPDATE Sunday, March 8:  In the video, Miri emphasizes that they are leaving the Iranian oil production sites alone so that the next Iranian government will have a source of income.  But reports today say that oil facilities have been attacked.]

My sense is that having the US as a partner in this war gives them cover as well has the fire power of the US.  But they also make it sound like this is an Israeli operation, based on sophisticated intelligence gathering.  

'

Some context:  

• The whole situation is not black and white.  I made a series of posts on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict which you can see here.  
• Israel is 20,770 square kilometers (8,019 square miles).  The most similar sized US state is New Jersey at 22,591 square km or 8,722.58 square miles.

• When the the Twin Towers were destroyed in 9/11, the US went to war with Iraq and 

The September 11 attacks were the deadliest terrorist attacks in human history, causing the deaths of 2,996 people, including 19 hijackers who committed murder–suicide and 2,977 victims. (Wikipedia) 

• That comes out to about  0.00087% of the US population.  And the US immediately went to war against  

• When Israel was attacked on October 7, they went to war to eliminate Hamas

In total, 1,195 people were killed by the attacks:[22][e][f] at least 828 civilians[22][23](including 36 children[24] and 71 foreign nationals)[24] and at least 367 members of the security forces. 364 civilians were killed while they were attending the Nova music festival and many more wounded.[39][40] At least 14 Israeli civilians were killed by the IDF's use of the Hannibal Directive.[41][42] About 250 Israeli and non-Israeli civilians and soldiers were taken as hostages to the Gaza Strip. (Wikipedia)

• That comes out to 0.0124% of the Israeli population.