Scared Of Men In Dresses, Again

Anchorage folks, just go vote yes on Prop. 5.  Today. I'm tired of people using their gods to persecute other human beings.  A fanatic Jerry Prevo has fought against gay rights in Anchorage - just to keep a job or apartment, we're not even talking partnerships - here for far too long.

I heard about a Dittman poll on the radio yesterday saying Sullivan was ahead 57% to 30something% for mayor, but Prop 5 was ahead 50% to 42%.  That's promising, but I can imagine some people saying:  "Well Sullivan's in but Prop 5 will win, so I don't have to vote."

Don't you believe it.  I wouldn't be surprised if they put those numbers out there to keep people away from the polls.  "Your vote won't matter anyway, so why bother?"  NOT TRUE.  They certainly haven't given up.  There were big media buys for the weekend and Anti-5 people were on a bunch of corners on Monday already.  In force.

This year they've brought men in dresses back into their scare tactics as well as the idea that Prop. 5 would take away people's religious rights.  I don't recall any religious practices that require Christians to turn gays away from their rental property or workplace.  Where does it say, "Thou shall not rent to gays"?   It doesn't.  Instead it says repeatedly to be good to strangers - in the Old and New Testaments.  No one is saying that Prevo can't spew his hate in his church.  Or that people can't pray anyway they like  Just that they can't use their religion to keep gays from working at their businesses or renting their apartments.  And if it's a fourplex or smaller, it doesn't apply to you.  They can even boycott businesses with gay employees.  So chill.  Can someone say, "I won't rent to you because you eat pork and shellfish, which is prohibited in the bible"?  Of course not.   It does say to love your neighbor though. 

I'm really depressed that so many people are so ignorant and so personally needy that they have to lash out against others to make themselves feel better. [Is that a gross generalization?  Maybe, but surely it applies to many of these frightened individuals.]  Slavery and then segregation were also defended with the bible.  At least we aren't fighting a civil war over this.

We need to step back.  Breathe deep.  Each take responsibility to make sure three other people go vote yes on 5, and approach this with a little humor.  So I'm reposting a piece I put up last time Anchorage battled over this.  Enjoy.

Thursday, May 28, 2009

Men Jerry Prevo Would Ban from Anchorage Schools

[Note: The pictures in this post are NOT mine. To see the source of the picture, click on the picture. UPDATE:  Not all of them still work three years later.]

In his ADN letter opposing the addition of "sexual orientation" to Anchorage's anti-discrimination ordinance, Reverend Jerry Provo wrote:

Maybe, worst of all, this ordinance would allow a man who teaches a second grade class or any grade to show up as a woman in the classroom and the School District could do nothing because of this ordinance.

I confess that I laughed when I read this letter last Friday. Phil had an overview of some of the blogs that showed how each point in the letter was dead wrong. The letter is ludicrous. His biggest worry was about men dressing like women. Where are his public crusades against drunk drivers? Against redlight runners? Against heterosexual adulterers? It seems to me that murder and adultery are both prohibited in the Ten Commandments, not in some obscure passage in Deuteronomy along with other obscure prohibitions that we no longer observe. After all, what is the big deal about men who want to dress like women?

Men have a long tradition of wearing clothes that are more like women's clothes than than the "pants of the family" we associate with men in the US.

Religious men, particularly, seem to like to wear gown like clothing. Probably foremost is the Pope who wears some of the most elaborate clothing of anyone in the world. But this trend of dressing in garments more like women's clothing isn't confined to Catholics. Protestants also find this appropriate for the leadership.






Like these Episcopalians.
















And Russian  Orthodox.









Muslims clerics don't wear trousers either.

Nor Buddhist monks. They wear robes.

Nor Hindu priests

Even rabbis.

All the religious leaders I know of are also considered teachers. Would Rev. Prevo protest any of these people teaching in an Anchorage school wearing their work clothes? (I know some people are thinking "separation of church and state," but it's ok. If they are teaching ABOUT their faith and NOT teaching their faith, it's ok. And most such religious leaders also have expertise in other areas they might teach.)

And it's not just religious leaders who wear clothing that would be more closely associated with women than men.

Surgeons wear gowns at work.

And academics also have a tradition of wearing gowns. Even our former President whom Rev. Prevo supported so strongly.






And would Rev. Prevo prevent these two gentlemen from coming to class dressed this way to talk about Scotland?


OK, these men aren't exactly dressed as women, but my assertion that what they wear is more like women's garments than men's is much closer to the truth than Prevo's various assertions about the 'horrible' things that would happen if the ordinance passed.

And what should we do about all the women teachers who come to school already wearing pants? Prevo doesn't raise this 'serious' problem. My belief is that in our society it's less of a problem for a woman to dress like a man, because it's natural for people to want to be mistaken for the people who have the most power. But it seems perverted, to some people, for people with power, to try to be like those with less power. So men shouldn't dress like women. It's giving away their male based privilege.

Sorry I can't let go of this quite yet. I suspect Prevo knows this is ludicrous, and he probably knows that those who introduced the ordinance did so because they think they have the votes to pass it. Last December, Frank Schaeffer was interviewed on National Public Radio. You can hear the interview at the link. From the NPR page:

Frank Schaeffer's parents, Francis and Edith, were best-selling authors who were instrumental in linking the evangelical community with the anti-abortion movement.

But after coming of age as an evangelist and helping to organize religious fundamentalists politically, Schaeffer had a crisis of faith: Though he is pro-life, he decided that abortion should remain legal.

One of the things he says in the interview is that abortion and gay issues were no big deal with his father when Frank (the son) was little. They became big issues for evangelicals because whenever they talked about them, they got lots and lots of donations.

So, I'm guessing that Prevo has a knee jerk reaction to the word 'gay'. It's less about stopping the ordinance than it's about raising money. This letter isn't aimed at the vast majority of people in Anchorage. It's far too silly. It's aimed at the rabidly ignorant who will open their wallets to fight the 'perverts.' So when Prevo writes:

It would allow any man to dress like a woman and use any public women's restroom. Ladies, do you want that to happen?

it's to alarm those folks, who don't think, into supporting Prevo's high lifestyle.

Of course, thinkers would shake their heads in disbelief. What's to stop men from dressing up as women now and going into women's bathrooms? The law? It's illegal to go through red lights, to litter, to beat up women, yet people do these things every day. And when the ordinance has passed and is law, I promise you that it won't prevent the police from arresting men who dress as women in order to get into women's restrooms.

First, the ordinance says:  [April 3, 2012: it's basically the same this time around]

The assembly finds that invidious discrimination in the sale or rental of real
property, financing practices, employment practices, public accommodations, educational institutions, and practices of the municipality, based upon race, color, sex, sexual orientation, religion, national origin, marital status, age, veteran’s status, or physical or mental disability, adversely affects the welfare of the community. Accordingly, such discrimination is prohibited.

Only the bold is new language. It is already illegal based on sex. So using Prevo's logic, men already can't be prevented from using the women's room. But simple practical logic tells us that since men already have an equal, alternative place to wash their hands, they aren't being discriminated against. In fact at big events, the lines are usually longer at the women's restrooms, not the men's. Sexual orientation doesn't change the fact that gay men are still men. So the same logic that applies to "sex" will apply to "sexual orientation." If it didn't happen when 'sex' became a protected class, it won't happen now.

Second, even if the ordinance did what Prevo asserts, the sexual orientation clause wouldn't save men who dress up as women to get into the women's room. Why not? Simple. Gay men aren't sexually interested in women. It is only straight men who would try to see women's private parts exposed. And they couldn't claim they were being discriminated against because of their sexual orientation.

There is one serious issue here though. Transgender folks. Despite what we've been taught, the distinction between men and women is not as clear cut as we tend to believe. This topic is far too complicated to start after I've already written so much here. My advice is for people to read Eugenides' Middlesex. Wikipedia says:

Middlesex is a novel by Jeffrey Eugenides. It was published in 2002 and won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2003.
The narrator and protagonist, Calliope Stephanides (later called "Cal"), an intersexed person of Greek descent, has 5-alpha-reductase deficiency. The bulk of the novel is devoted to telling his coming-of-age story growing up in Detroit, Michigan in the late 20th century.

I'm not an expert on this topic, but this novel gives at least one view of the topic in a way that makes the issue understandable to people who otherwise might dismiss people having a sex change as crazy. And it is a well written and interesting story. I would say this is the easiest way to get a good understanding of the topic.

I raise this because there are people who, as they are transitioning from one gender to another, will be using new restrooms. (I notice that Prevo isn't worried about women coming into men's rooms.) If someone reads Middlesex, and their mind isn't totally shut down, they will understand that these people pose no threat at all to women in the restroom.

I'm not satisfied with what I've found on the topic online for those who want to know more, but are not ready to get Middlesex from the library. Here's the Mayo Clinic's take on ambiguous genitalia.

Lingering Signs of Fall as Winter Approaches

Rain drops washing fallen mountain ash leaves the other day, 

but the sun's out again. 

Not all Canadian geese have left for warmer climes.

 And the water flows freely along Campbell Creek as it tumbles wildly under one of Anchorage's most busy roads - the New Seward Highway.   Cyclists have to negotiate the rocky banks to get past this spot still,  but a memo from Rep. Berta Gardner tells us that a real bike path is scheduled here by September 2013.

 The Seward Highway Upgrade Project, Dowling to Tudor, will also go to bid in October with groundbreaking in spring 2012 and scheduled completion in September 2013.  We continue to confirm that sound barriers along the freeway are included in the plan, as well as the long-awaited connection of the Campbell Creek Bike Trail under the Seward Highway.   This connection will give neighborhoods safe and easy access between east and west portions of the trail, opening up miles of trail to surrounding neighborhoods.

"We continue to confirm" sounds less than certain.  And I've ducked my head negotiating my bike over the rocky and sometimes wet path under the highway often enough that I might just miss it when it's paved and civilized here.  And will it be open the year they are building?  Who knows?

But we can be certain that winter is on the way.   It's the end of October and so far the snow's stayed in the mountains.  But the word is creeping into the weather forecasts for us lowlanders.

Whistler at the Freer - Peacocks and Caprice

One of my favorite museums on the National Mall in DC is the Freer Gallery.

 "The gallery was founded by Charles Lang Freer (1854–1919), a railroad-car manufacturer from Detroit who gave to the United States his collections and funds for a building to house them. The Italian-Renaissance-style gallery, constructed in granite and marble, was designed by American architect Charles Platt. When the gallery opened to the public in 1923, it was the first Smithsonian museum for fine arts. In subsequent years, the collections have grown through gifts and purchases to nearly triple the size of Freer's bequest." (Smithsonian)

It specializes in Asian art, but it also has Whistler's Peacock Room.  The Smithsonian's website tells the story of
this room, how it was designed by an architect for Fredrick  Leyland's porcelain collection.  It has a large painting of Whistler's so the architect consulted with Whistler who offered to touch it up a bit.  Instead he radically changed the room while his patron, Leyland, was away.  Leyland refused to pay the 2000 guineas Whistler billed him for the changes - which included the peacocks, and eventually paid him half the amount in pounds instead of guineas which made it even less. (you can read the whole story at the Smithsonian link.)

Perhaps in retaliation, Whistler took the liberty of coating Leyland's valuable leather with Prussian-blue paint and depicting a pair of peacocks aggressively confronting each other on the wall opposite The Princess. He used two shades of gold for the design and highlighted telling details in silver. Scattered at the feet of the angry bird are the coins (silver shillings) that Leyland refused to pay; the silver feathers on the peacock's throat allude to the ruffled shirts that Leyland always wore. The poor and affronted peacock has a silver crest feather that resembles the lock of white hair that curled above Whistler's forehead. To make sure that Leyland understood his point, Whistler called the mural of the fighting peacocks "Art and Money; or, The Story of the Room."

The story, and much better photos, are on the Smithsonian site.  They also have a panorama of the room showing the ceramics here.

Another room has Whistler's "Nocturne" pictures of the Thames at night. As you might imagine, I found them rather dark and didn't take a picture, but I did find this interesting tidbit about them at abcgallery.com.

In 1877, Whistler began to paint a series of ‘Nocturnes’ based on the Thames views at night. One of his most famous works in this series in Nocturne: Blue and Gold – Old Battersea Bridge, originally called ‘Moonlights’. His patron, Frederick Leyland, an enthusiastic pianist, suggested the term ‘Nocturne’. Whistler replied, ‘I can’t thank you too much for the name Nocturne as the title for my Moonlights. You have no idea what an irritation it proves to the critics, and consequent pleasure to me; besides it is really so charming, and does so poetically say all I want to say and no more than I wish.’
Critics were outraged. John Ruskin, when seeing Nocturne in Black and Gold: The Falling Rocket and other night scenes at the opening exhibition of the Grosvenor Gallery in 1877, broke out in print: ‘I have seen and heard much of Cockney impudence before now; but never expected to hear a coxcomb ask two hundred guineas for flinging a pot of paint in the public’s face’.  Whistler sued Ruskin for libel and won the trial. Whistler was awarded a farthing damages; his feelings on the subject are embodied in the Gentle Art of Making Enemies (1890).

ABCGallery.com reminds us there can be consequences of saying what you think:

The loss of Leyland as a patron and the effect of Ruskin’s harsh criticism left Whistler in a bad financial position. In 1879, Whistler was declared bankrupt and left for Venice for the next 14 months. During that stay in Venice, he produced four oils, many etchings and almost 100 pastels.

But Whistler was to recover.  The next year, 1889, according to the lengthy abcgallery biography, he was to meet Charles Lang Freer.


The room with the Nocturnes also has a picture called Caprice in Purple and Gold: the Golden Screen.

The model here was

". . . Whistler’s mistress, Joanna Hiffernan, called Jo. For a few years, this beautiful, red-haired Irishwoman managed Whistler’s affairs, keeping his house and assisting him with the sale of his work. To give herself respectability, she called herself Mrs. Abbott; her drunken father also referred to Whistler as ‘me son-in-law’. She sat for many of his . . ."  (abcgallery)

"Although The Golden Screen is in some ways a conventional Victorian painting, the model wears a Japanese costume and is seated on the floor like a courtesan. The composition is even more radical than the pose, considering the prevailing pictorial style: to Western eyes, the picture appears full of spatial puzzles, with a lacquer box that looks out of perspective and a folding screen that seems to float above a tilted floor. Whistler's concern was not to create a convincing illusion of space but to arrange shapes and colors like the patterns painted on the golden screen. Moreover, in documenting his collection, Whistler may have appreciated the typically Japanese means of structuring pictorial space, in which every object is shown in fuller dimension than is possible with Western perspective.
Whistler designed the frame and decorated it with Asian motifs, including badges of palm leaves and paulownia blossoms, in imitation of Japanese family crests." (Smithsonian)

This is a glimpse of just two rooms from the Freer, one of the smaller museums in the Smithsonian collection of museums.  Like all of the Smithsonian locations (including DC's zoo), the Freer is free. (Don't tell Eric Cantor.)  I'll try to get up more from the Freer soon.  

Oh, yes, here's a portrait of Whistler in 1865 by Henri Fantin-Latour.  Whistler would have been about  31.

Rosa Parks' Bus, Kennedy Dallas Limo, Lincoln's Ford Theater Seat and More at Henry Ford Museum

Here are some pictures from the Henry Ford Museum in Detroit from this past Monday.  Eclectic is all I can say.  The Rosa Parks bus  (at the end) was the most inspiring exhibit  for me.

As we came to the entrance I had this strange feeling about the entrance.  It's only now as I'm posting that I realized its similarity to the entrance to Auschwitz.  This is the only hint of Ford's anti-Semitism at the museum that I noticed.

The first thing you see when you get into the museum is this:

This massive painting was a bit further along.

 From the Ford Museum site:

Light’s Golden Jubilee Honors Thomas Edison and Dedicates a Museum

On October 21, 1929, Henry Ford hosted an elaborate celebration in Dearborn, Michigan, in honor of his friend Thomas A. Edison. Known as Light’s Golden Jubilee, the date marked the 50 th anniversary of Edison’s invention of the electric light. Ford also planned his event as a dedication of his own lasting tribute to Thomas Edison and to American innovation, the Edison Institute of Technology (later renamed Henry Ford Museum) and Greenfield Village. Here, Henry Ford had moved the Menlo Park, New Jersey, laboratory where the inventor made his discovery so many years before.

Click image to enlarge

The RSVPs for Light's Golden Jubilee began pouring in to Ford Motor Company by early October 1929. Prominent businessmen like John D. Rockefeller, Jr. and J.P. Morgan, scientist Marie Curie, inventor Orville Wright, and humorist Will Rogers were among those who enthusiastically accepted Ford’s invitation to be part of the landmark event .
A t 10 o’clock that morning, President Herbert Hoover, Henry Ford and Thomas Edison arrived at Smiths Creek depot at Greenfield Village on a steam- powered locomotive, much like the one on which Edison had sold papers as a youth. They were met by invited guests that numbered more than 500. The crowd roared their approval and congratulations as Edison , Hoover and Ford stepped from the train to begin the day’s festivities.
More...

[5. John D. Rockefeller, Jr.;  6. Mrs. Herbert C. Hoover; 7. George Eastman; 9. Marie Curie;  11.  Mrs. Thomas A. Edison;  12.  Edsel B. Ford;  13.  Charles Edison;  15.  Herbert C. Hoover;  17.  Henry Ford;  18.  Mrs. Henry Ford;  19.  Thomas A. Edison; ]  My understanding is that the dinner was in this building we were in.







A DC 3.

This is - I have to believe that they verified this - the chair Lincoln sat in at the Ford Theater when he was assassinated.

 


The Ford tri-motor that Admiral Byrd  flew in over the South Pole.

The Kennedy limo when he was assassinated in Dallas.  (Is there a pattern here?)  I was told the roof was added later.

Franklin D. Roosevelt's inaugural limo.

The apex of American auto making - the 1955 Chevy.

Again, from the Ford Site:

Allegheny Locomotive
Built in 1941 and weighing in at 600 tons, this was one of the largest steam-powered locomotives ever built. Designed for pulling huge coal trains over the Allegheny mountains of West Virginia, this locomotive could reach speeds of up to 60 miles per hour. This powerful behemoth is the centerpiece of our trains collection and a visitor landmark in Henry Ford Museum. The cab of the Allegheny locomotive is now open for public viewing.

C & O Allegheny #1601
Lima Locomotive 2-6-6-6

It's nice that the museum has all this information posted:

On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks, a 42-year-old African American woman who worked as a seamstress, boarded this Montgomery City bus to go home from work. On this bus on that day, Rosa Parks initiated a new era in the American quest for freedom and equality.
She sat near the middle of the bus, just behind the 10 seats reserved for whites. Soon all of the seats in the bus were filled. When a white man entered the bus, the driver (following the standard practice of segregation) insisted that all four blacks sitting just behind the white section give up their seats so that the man could sit there. Mrs. Parks, who was an active member of the local NAACP, quietly refused to give up her seat.

Her action was spontaneous and not pre-meditated, although her previous civil rights involvement and strong sense of justice were obvious influences. "When I made that decision," she said later, “I knew that I had the strength of my ancestors with me.”
She was arrested and convicted of violating the laws of segregation, known as “Jim Crow laws.” Mrs. Parks appealed her conviction and thus formally challenged the legality of segregation.
At the same time, local civil rights activists initiated a boycott of the Montgomery bus system. In cities across the South, segregated bus companies were daily reminders of the inequities of American society. Since African Americans made up about 75 percent of the riders in Montgomery, the boycott posed a serious economic threat to the company and a social threat to white rule in the city.
A group named the Montgomery Improvement Association, composed of local activists and ministers, organized the boycott. As their leader, they chose a young Baptist minister who was new to Montgomery: Martin Luther King, Jr. Sparked by Mrs. Parks’ action, the boycott lasted 381 days, into December 1956 when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the segregation law was unconstitutional and the Montgomery buses were integrated. The Montgomery Bus Boycott was the beginning of a revolutionary era of non-violent mass protests in support of civil rights in the United States.

As I said, this is an eclectic museum.  I'll try to post some more from the museum later.

Detroit Sightseeing along Woodward: GM, Tigers, DIA, Fox

I already posted about the Fisher Building.  This first picture, of the old General Motors Building (on the left), was taken from the Fisher Building.  On the horizon to the right of center you can see the new General Motors Building at the Renaissance Center.  It looks like:  ▟▖.  You'll see it close up at the bottom - but it will look completely different.



Then we drove a short distance to Woodward Avenue.

"I guess if I had to take somebody who had never seen Detroit, I'd start at the river and drive straight up Woodward. I can't think of a more expedient way to show the city," said Jerry Herron, historian and director of the honors program at Wayne State University.

Woodward offers work, play, most of our cultural institutions. It's the dividing line that distinguishes "east siders" from their west side counterparts and offers motorists a comforting geographical context. "Where are we? Oh, right, there's Woodward."    [From The Detroit News]

Our guide said, at one point, that he wanted to show us the parts of Detroit that would counter our stereotypes.  This section of Woodward was, he said, a gap that was rapidly filling back in.  And from the freeway we could see boarded up houses.  But on this tour, had I not heard anything about Detroit's housing woes, I would not have known anything was amiss. 





Our first stop on Woodward (5200) was at the DIA (Detroit Art Institute).  I posted on the DIA's Rivera courtyard murals in a previous post.  But there was much more.  I feel dumb because I didn't get the information on this Native American bead work.  I think it was from Kansas.  I got distracted because there were three cultures listed - Okvik culture, Punuk Culture, and Thule culture - in Alaska that I'd never heard of.  It turns out the most recent of them is listed as ending in 1200. 

Modigliana's long necked people have always intrigued me.





                              A Mastisse Poppy.














This is part of Fumio Yoshimura's wooden motorcycle.

Another piece whose description I didn't get.  It was in the Middle East section.

DIA underground parking

Then to the home of the Detroit Tigers (2100 Woodward)

Comerica Park 
Home of the Detroit Tigers

In October 1997, ground was broken on a brand new $300 million project to be known as Comerica Park. 

This amazing, and very modern, facility features a carousel, a Ferris Wheel and a mammoth water feature in center field. Liquid Fireworks, as the water feature is known, is a giant spectacular that synchronizes music to spraying water fountains. Over 60 percent of the projects funding came from private financing while the remaining funds were donated from public sources. Mitch Ilitch, owner of the Detroit Tigers, had a big hand in the design of Comerica Park. And why not? After all, this is the home turf of Major League Baseball's Detroit Tigers.

Fox Theater is at 2211 Woodward, just across the street from Comerica Field.

The Theater, an awe-inspiring combination of Far Eastern, Indian and Egyptian styles, was the second largest Theater in the world. But it surpassed all others in grandeur.

The lobby of this mammoth 10-story structure, which was six stories high and half a block long, was surrounded by blood-red marble columns. Each column held its own jeweled figure representing various Asiatic Gods.
The decorative scheme used subdued tones of gold to contrast a riot of color. Hangings in the lobby were in golden damask and stage draperies combined regal-red velour and damask which were set off by a festooned drapery with a wide silken fringe.
Guests were greeted by notes from a small Moller organ situated over the entrance. . .

Detroit's Fox theater changed hands several times before Mike and Marion Ilitch of Little Caesar's Pizza closed a deal in 1987 for the purchase of the theater and connecting office building. A multi-million dollar restoration project, which included a new 10-story marquee, culminated in a grand reopening Nov. 19, 1988, when the curtain once again rose at the theater known as the "Temple of Amusement." [Detroit News]

We passed some  buildings - fortunately there was a sun roof on the car.





And finally, at the end of Woodward  on the river, we were shown new General Motors home away from home.

Rising 73 stories above the Detroit River, the GM Renaissance Center dominates the glittering downtown Detroit skyline.  The Ren Cen is five and a half million square feet in size, has seven towers, dozens of stores and services, four movie theaters, a financial center, two foreign consulates, a fitness center, a 1,300 room Marriott hotel, four of the city’s hottest restaurants and an 1,100 seat food court.

The Ren Cen is about business too. It’s General Motors’ global headquarters with 5,000 GM employees, as well as over 4,000 additional people who work in the Ren Cen for tenant companies, retailers, restaurants and professional service organizations.  [From the RenCen website]

I learned a lot in the tour.  Thanks, MC.

Over the Snow Covered Mountains into Sunny Anchorage

We left cold, rainy Detroit at 7:25am yesterday and soon were in cold, grey Chicago.  But then we were on our flight home.  It was a long flight, but the last hour or so offered spectacular views of Prince William Sound.  It's always breathtaking no matter how often I see these views.

 

 Flying into Anchorage mid-day means I didn't have the dramatic shadows 

of sunrise or sunset, or the pink and orange glow.

This one is looking down  Powerline Pass into Anchorage.

It was encouraging to see the luggage handler in short sleeves.

And here we are awaiting the bus in mid-50's warmth.  And while it was much nicer than the weather in Chicago or Detroit, Anchorage does still have leftover ice and snow in the shady spots.  I was too tired from sitting on airplanes to even post yesterday when we got home.  And today I raked leaves in the front yard before finally opening the computer.  Enjoying the sun while it lasts.