Blogging During A Pandemic [Updated]

Trying to keep current on the State's COVID-19 statistics has consumed a lot of space on this blog and time.  June 1 I added a tab up top and am doing briefer updates along with updating numbers on the chart.
Also trying to get things done around the house - almost have our taxes ready to go to the accountant.  Trying to get out early - or on rainy days - so I don't pass too many people on the bike trail, and balancing that with a knee that acts up has been tricky.  Late Netflix watching makes getting up early harder.  We have managed to limit that too evening.

Zooming with my granddaughter - never know when I'm going to get a text "May I please zoom with you and Bubbie? Now?"  followed shortly after by "I'm waiting" - takes precedence over everything else.  And my son and I are working out how to play games with my SF grandson.  He really likes things like DinoTrains on PBS Kids.

Our garden brings joy.  It's green and sitting on the deck is like being out in the woods almost.

The COVID-19 updates on the tab are like a mini-post every day already.  Plus there are so many things to post about, things important enough that I need to think carefully and do some research.

Like what does "Defund The Police" mean in practical terms?  I love the idea of focusing on the reducing the long term causes of crime rather than on militarizing the police.  And it seems like when the police presence faded away in the last few days, the protests were much more positive.  And what happens to the police let go, particularly the bad apples?  In Iraq, when Saddam Hussein's army and police were disbanded, those highly trained officers became an anti-government force - the insurgency.  I don't think we need to add more folks to white supremacist groups here, so there needs to be a plan for what to do with the old police.

And how are the 2020 elections going to work?  While Republicans cry voter fraud, the real problem seems to me to be Republican election fraud and voter suppression.  Ideally, the folks out in the streets and those supporting them in isolation will all vote and crush Trump so badly that no amount of election fraud will matter.  But I don't know that we can count on that.  

Then, there's redistricting coming up next year after the census numbers are in.  I spent three years of my life reporting on Alaska's Redistricting Board ten years ago.  I didn't intend to, but no one else was covering it.  And the tab on top of this blog on Redistricting has been getting a constant flow of visitors.  It's basically the only real serious source of material on what happened.  And since the state's redistricting website has been dismantled, many of my links to maps don't work any more.  Are we going to have mapping software this year that everyday people will have free access to so that they can make their own maps?  Will there be legislation that will make the new Board's website something that won't disappear so only those who had sway with the Board can use the information on it now?  Lots to think about.

And I've got a birthday book I'm trying to create for my grandson.  I got one done for his cousin when she was two years old and hoped he would get one too for his second birthday.  Life and an errant muse got in the way.  He's going to turn six now, so I'm way behind schedule, but I do have a number of pages in draft form.  Just getting the story to match the pictures now and then get it printed.

And I picked up Philip Caputo's Hunter's Moon this weekend - Barnes and Noble brought it out to the car - and I have to read that before my next book club meeting.

Isolation really hasn't been that great a change in my life.  Just don't see our friends at all, or go out to eat, or hike or camp.  We missed our annual May trip to Denali National Park and our grandkids won't come visit this summer.  But there's plenty to keep us busy.  Another crimp in our lives is our upstairs carpet.  It was supposed to be replaced last fall.  (It's about 25 or 30 years old now and it shows.)  But we also had the kitchen linoleum replaced with a bamboo floor.  They wanted the floor in first because it makes it easier to connect the wood to the carpet that way.  But the bamboo was delayed until November and by the time they got it in we headed out for Thanksgiving, then December again with family and then again January and February Outside with family.  By the time we got back and were arranging the carpet, COVID came.  I was sick (but couldn't get tested for COVID) and since then we've been wary of someone in the house for two days.)
The crimp comes from us having started last fall to move things downstairs so they could do the carpets.  So lots of stuff is in temporary storage downstairs, things we would like to use, but are having trouble finding.

Hope everyone else is surviving reasonably well.  I hope all the demonstrators are getting COVID tests and taking appropriate actions to minimize bad health impacts of the demonstrations.

[UPDATE June 8, 2020 12:20pm:  I totally forgot to mention blog subscriber problems.  That was one of the reasons I was doing this post.  I've had two folks contact me to let me know that they are no longer getting their email notifications of new posts.  I then realized I'm not either.  I've been trying to figure out the problem.  I'm not sure if this affects all subscribers or just those using the subscription option in the upper right hand column.  I'm working on it, but it's just one more of the many leaks I'm trying to plug in my life right now.  None serious, but just irritating and time consuming.]

Delayed Spring And, Uh, Tiger King

Two or three more inches of snow overnight.

I'd love to get out the cross country skis, but I'm unsure of social distancing on the trails.  With everyone isolating, I suspect a fair number of folks will be out today.

But I did go for a walk in the neighborhood.  No people out - except two way off in the distance.  And there's lots of room to get out of the way - just walk into the street.



Meanwhile, I've had these two mystery seeds lying around.  I know we got them out of a seed pod in California with my granddaughter, but I don't remember what plant it was.

I planted them yesterday and maybe I'll find out what the plant was.

And our tuberous begonias popped out the other day.  I'd cut them back last spring and put the flower pot in the garage.  Didn't even ask the house sitter to water them.  Though when we were home, I watered them.  Wasn't sure they'd come back.

A good sign, especially since sprouting outside will be more like 25 years ago than in recent years.

Not sure how the time goes by so quickly - and my todo list gets checked off so slowly.  Partly, I think because of the unexpected things I end up doing and forgetting to look at the list.  J likes to go to the market generally, but since we're using the app to get home delivery, it falls to me.  Ugh.

And I have to admit it - we finally finished Tiger King last night on Netflix.  Sure, the producers spiced it up, but the overriding question for me is:  What does this tell us about people in the United States?  The animal collectors, the breeders, the PETA folks, the people who go to the private zoos?  The people who send in donations to 'save the tigers'?  I couldn't help thinking that Joe Exotic behaved exactly like our president in many ways, just in a different environment.  Apparently a lot of other folks watched it too.  If any of you readers have seen it, please tell me what you thought.  

I'd recommend The English Game for those with Netflix.  About the working class football teams that challenged the upper class football players in Great Britain in the late 1800s.

What Do Evil And Plague Look Like?

Let's start with Evil.  I first learned Alex Gibney's name when Taxi To The Dark Side played at the 2006 Anchorage International Film Festival.  The story of the Afghan taxi driver who ends up tortured and dying in Baghram Air Force Base.  It was powerful and my favorite doc that year and probably my favorite film overall.  And it went on to win an Oscar for best feature documentary.  Gibney has made a lot of films since then.

Netflix has Slumloard Millionaire up now, a look at Jared Kushner's real estate world.  One section of the film looks at how Kushner bought rent controlled apartment buildings in NYC and then practiced all sorts of harassment techniques to get renters out - ceilings fall in from floods above, jackhammers all night, nothing repaired, toxic materials, etc.

Then there's the story of 666 Fifth Avenue which Kushner bought when prices were sky-high, just before the 2008 crash.  And how he then had to scramble to find money to pay his debts.  Among the schemes was squeezing low income tenants in his various buildings - and the film particularly focuses on the Baltimore area.  There are late fees, tacked onto rent that get deducted so that the renter hasn't paid the full rent which allows for more fees the next month.  Meanwhile the renter doesn't know any of this is happening and just keeps paying the regular rent and falling further behind. While this nickle-and-diming can't raise what Kushner needs, over thousands of tenants it adds up.  A reporter walks the neighborhood and shows us all the doors with shaming notices prominently taped onto people's door.  Then there's the lady who has complained about the lack of repairs in her apartment and gotten a signed waiver to leave her lease.  Three years later she starts getting notices from JKSomethingLLC.  She has no idea who that is.  They are demanding $3000 for cutting out on her lease three years ago. She no longer has the waiver, she never thought she'd still need it.  Fortunately, an investigative reporter finds her and writes about her.  That gets her an attorney who locates the housing records that prove her allegation she left legally.  And JK suddenly and magnanimously agrees to drop the bill.

This is just evil.  And this is one of the key people advising the president.   Some even say he's running a shadow coronavirus task force made up of business leaders.  But we don't get daily reports from them.  The behavior highlighted in the movie is fair warning for Kushner's task force is to help him and business campaign supporters figure out how to siphon off as much of the money earmarked to fight Coronavirus as possible.  helps himself and his father-in-law to every spare dollar they can get off the government.    Trump even referred to the head of Carnival Cruises today as his friend Micky who is offering cruise ships for non-COVID-19 hospitals.  I'm sure 'offering' as in I'll only charge twice what I would make if all my ships weren't sitting idle now.  (I'd note that Carnival owns Princess Lines.)


Now let's switch to Plague.  Here's a paragraph from an article by Jennifer Cooke, a plague expert.  She wrote her dissertation on the Bubonic Plague and then converted it to a book.  She writes about how she hadn't expected to experience one.

"What can I tell you about contagious epidemics? What will happen to us? Soon, we will see people scared of one another. Soon, a celebrity with COVID-19 will die. Soon, infected houses will display a sign warning delivery drivers and neighbours. Or non-infected houses will, attempting to reassure. Soon, there will be pets without owners, newly made strays fending for themselves. The most vulnerable will suffer even more. Domestic violence rates will sky-rocket. We will see armed forces patrol the streets. We will tell each other incredible stories we have heard of cruelty, of misery, but also of heroism, of generosity. There will be social unrest. There will be cult weirdos and strange beliefs, doomsters baying about the end of times. There will be exploiters, quacks, and fraudsters. But there will also be simple kindnesses, more phone calls between family members, between friends. We will all work less, if at all. There will be absurdity. And there will be incredible community support, for the people by the people. There will be ingenious new forms of entertainment and the revival of older forms that we have forgotten or stashed at the back of the cupboard. There will be incredible boredom and a lot of cleaning. This is what my knowledge tells me."

There's lots more there.  She also gets into Daniel Defoe's book on the plague, which ADN write Michael Carey also wrote about today.   There's also a link to the original Journal of The Plague Year for people who want a preview of what's coming.  (Times are different.  Science plays a bigger role now, but we still have many religious charlatans who use calamity to their advantage.  (As I recall, every natural disaster during he Obama years was a sign from God.  I don't see that so much not that the charlatan in chief is in office.)

AIFF 2019: The Body Remembers When The World Broke Open Is Now On Netflix

Life is going by too fast for me to keep up with all the posts I want to write - like one on my favorite films from the Anchorage International Film Festival 2019.

But one that I did really like, The Body Remembers What The World Forgot is now available on Netflix.

The film, written and co-directed by Canadian Indigenous woman Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers, who also plays one of the two main characters.  The other lead is also a Canadian Indigenous woman.

This was the kind of film you go to festivals to see.  It's not from a Hollywood point of view.  It tells its story the way it needs to tell it without having to satisfy funders or marketers.

[Note:  Netflix doesn't allow screenshots - they come out black.  So I had to take a photo.  I apologize to the film makers for the quality.]

So the pace is not what people are used to, at least what non-Native people are used to.  There are lots of long pauses in the dialogue.  The whole story takes place in real time.  Very real time because, after the title appears, about 12 minutes into the film,  it's basically one long scene in one long camera shot.  (I read that they had cameras ready to pick up where the other ran out of battery)  So they couldn't cut from the women getting into the taxi at the apartment  to where they get out at the safe house.  You watch them get in, then you get in with them and travel the whole distance in very close proximity.

I knew that a film in the festival had been done as a single shot, but I didn't remember which one.  After a while I began to look for the cuts from shot to shot and there weren't any.  Paying attention to the camera made it easier for me to just sit back in the taxi and ride along and not get impatient with the pace.

And having just had seven weeks of a class on homelessness, this film helped illustrate things I'd learned.  There are no easy answers.  People don't break habits quickly.  Helping can be trying.  There are serious societal structural problems that result in homelessness and while individuals can perform acts of kindness, they are only temporary solutions at best until the system is worked on.  And adding in the issues of indigenous peoples in North America requires understanding even more factors.

I would urge people who have Netflix to at least watch the beginning of the film - not as much for the content, but for the feel of this very intimate film.

And I'd like to thank Netflix for putting films like this up.

Netflix and Unions - So Far So Good

LA Times article by Wendy Lee  

"As Hollywood’s major unions gird for potentially contentious contract negotiations with the major studios, streaming giant Netflix is moving to hash out its own labor deals that could give it a competitive advantage in the event of a strike.
This summer Netflix negotiated its first overall agreement with actors union SAG-AFTRA. Last month the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE), the union that represents Hollywood’s craftspeople and technical workers, revealed it will negotiate its own contract with Netflix. And labor experts expect other Hollywood unions will seek their separate agreements with the streaming giant. . . 

Netflix has the ability to go it alone in labor negotiations because unlike Hollywood studios such as Disney — as well as tech rivals Apple and Amazon — it does not belong to the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP), the collective bargaining group that represents studios in negotiations with unions representing actors, writers and directors.
As a result, Netflix would not be subject to any contract dispute that erupts between the unions and the studios should they fail to reach agreement on new film and TV contracts — all of which expire next spring or early summer. Writers, actors and directors could continue to work on Netflix shows even if they staged a walkout with members of the producers alliance.

As a Netflix subscriber, this is good news.  Not only do we get lots of good movies, but it turns out I'm supporting a company that, for now anyway, has a healthy understanding of unions.  But if they heads of Netflix watch the movies I see there, then one would expect a positive attitude toward unions.

But I won't assume that things will always be this way.  As corporations get larger and more powerful, they often forget their original values.  

A Thinking Break

So, does that mean a break from thinking?  Or a break so I can think?  More the latter, but it's the thoughts invading my brain more than my deliberately saying, "Whoa, I need to stop and think a while."

So this post is just a brief (yeah, that's always my intent) overview of the action taking place in my brain, in hopes of not forgetting the many loose ends.  [And it didn't stay brief so I'm adding an overview so you don't get lost in the meanderings.]

• OLÉ classes - Project Innocence and the Fairbanks Four  and a proposal for police to have Devil's Advocates keeping them from straying after the wrong suspects
• OLÉ classes - Homelessness 
• The Struggle for Modern Tibet
• Dan Sullivan and the tension between loyalty and the rule of law and Profiles In Courage

I've bolded these highlights and enlarged them so you can scan on down to the ones you're most interested in.  Or just quit right here.


Thursday I went two OLÉ classes:  The Innocence Project and the Pebble Mine class.
Friday was State and Federal Courts in the morning and Homelessness in the afternoon.

I'm also reading ahead for my December book club meeting - The Struggle for Modern Tibet, by Goldstein, Stebeschuh, and Tsering.  It's Tsering's story and the other two helped him getting written down in English.  He's a Tibetan, from a peasant family, who gets to Indian and works with the Dalai Lama's older brother and then manages to get a scholarship to the US.  He feels the Tibetans in India who follow the Dalai Lama are basically supporting the old Tibetan class system and he feels appreciation for the Chinese who are interrupting that and bringing roads and schools and hospitals to Tibet.  He wants to help with bringing Tibetan culture into the modern world (he was partly influenced by reading medieval Western history in the US and thinking they had the same kind of religiously dominated class system then too, but were able to modernize yet keep their distinct cultures.  Everyone thinks he's crazy to go back, but he does and gets sent by the Chinese to a    that is training Tibetans to be teachers and to go back to Tibet.  It's the beginning of the Cultural Revolution and gets to go on a field trip to march before Mao at Tiananmen Square.  That's as far as I've gotten.  I'm still waiting to see how it ends up.  (Well, I know he got back to the US somehow and with the two co-authors to write the book.)

Tibet was one of about three or four topics that my Chinese students were united and unbudging on:  China saved the Tibetans from a slave culture run by the Dalai Lama and the ruling class.  And Tshering gives support for this interpretation.  So I'm challenging my own Western take on Tibet by even reading this book.

So what else am I thinking?

The Innocence Project - Thursday was the last class.  The executive director and until recently the only employee, Bill Oberly, is the main speaker, sometimes backed up by Board president, Mark Johnson.  Thursday, Bill finished up the reasons people are wrongly convicted and then chronicled the Fairbanks Four trials, the one case the the Alaska Innocence Project has overturned and gotten the wrongly convicted freed.
As he told the saga, he illustrated the reasons for wrongful convictions he'd just finished.  The problems included:

• false confessions
• false eye-witness testimony, 
• misuse of forensic pattern identification (in this case using bootprints to 'prove' a suspect's boot was involved) (I did a blog post on this topic a week or so ago)
• false informant testimony
• police misconduct (intentional and unintentional)

In fact, all of the problems as Oberly tells it (and I don't doubt him, but he's my only source) seemed  to stem from police misconduct - from how they got the confessions, how they pressured a witness to tell their story even though it was different from the witnesses original and then later story, and the coached testimony of a prison inmate who said one of the Fairbanks Four had confessed to him in prison.

This issue is one that's been rummaging through my brain and has come up with the idea that police (and probably many other types of government, and for that matter private companies) need to have some form of Devil's Advocate involved in murder and other felony investigations.  The Devil's Advocate would be there to challenge the lead investigators when they seem to be caught up in confirmation bias (seeing the facts that confirm their suspicions, and not seeing ones that challenge their theory of the case).  The Devil's Advocate's job would be to put pressure on the investigators when their not following proper procedures for interrogating suspects (no lawyers, no parents even for minors, planting false scenarios (in this case on pretty intoxicated suspects who couldn't remember anything from the previous couple of hours), etc.

We have people who do this sort of work after the fact - Ombuds offices, Inspectors General, etc.  But if this work had been done on the front end, innocent people wouldn't end up spending five, ten, fifteen, and more years in prison.  And the actual murderers wouldn't still be loose killing other people.  And overzealous cops and prosecutors would be checked early, and perhaps disciplined or terminated before doing more damage.

Would this cost more?  Cost isn't supposed to be a factor in getting to justice.  But trying innocents suspects costs way more than the cost of a position of Devil's Advocate.  And if the victims are able to sue and win a wrongful conviction case, well, there's money that would have funded a dozen Devil's Advocates.

I've not given details of this case yet and won't today.  So it's hard for readers to feel the injustices done in this case.  But I've recommended several times already that readers here watch the Netflix short series When They See Us about the Central Park Five.  All the reasons for wrongful convictions are clearly illustrated in that case.  It's heartbreaking, but compelling viewing.  And all five have been exonerated and released.

Tied to all this is a notion of written about professionally on corruption.  There's a natural tension in all of us between following our human social value of loyalty and the value of following the rule of law.   We all have genetically built into us a loyalty to our 'group' whether that be family, team, school, profession, work group, whatever.  And that notion of loyalty is reinforced by our society and every other society.  Studies show that loyalty is a more important value for political conservatives in the US than for liberals.  We can see that playing out in Washington now as the Republicans are being held tightly in control by the president, despite their private misgivings.  It's the power that mafia bosses and platoon leaders and sports coaches have.   They are far less likely to vote, as the Democrats did with Senator Al Franken, to give up one of their own because of a violation of principles.

The idea of rule of law is, in part, to counter blind loyalty so that people are treated fairly and equally.  While loyalty can work in concert with the rule of law, it can also thwart the rule of law.  In police and military and corrections organizations unwritten "Codes of Silence" or "The Blue Wall" will keep police and corrections officers from reporting crimes within their ranks.

This loyalty vs rule of law tension also got me to thinking about one of my Senators - Dan Sullivan.  While he has said he did not vote for Trump, he's since been caught up in the loyalty to the Republican Bully in Chief (sorry conservatives, that characterization is pretty accurate - just look up any literature on bullying and the spell they hold on those around them).  He even signed Sen. Graham's letter condemning the House impeachment investigation.  (My other Republican Senator did not.)

So I've been wrestling with how to reach out to him - not to attack him, but to find ways to open his brain to alternative ways of seeing all this.  He's a Marine (still in the reserves) and their values are all for courage.  But they are also indoctrinated into a loyalty to the Marines that means not following orders to run into danger takes less courage than not.  So while he might have tremendous physical courage and be willing to risk his life on the battlefield, the moral courage to break with his loyalty to the president and the Republican Party is much more difficult.

So how can someone talk to him about that?  I've started looking at John Kennedy's book Profiles in Courage (it's available at the link online.)
 Kennedy wrote about six US Senators who stood out by overcoming all the pressures weighing dow US Senators.  Maybe that would help, but I doubt it.

I'm also pondering all the data we've gotten on homelessness.  The Municipality of Anchorage is participating in a data gathering and management plan based on a nation wide data system, Built For Zero. It tracks monthly:

• newly homeless (and where they come from in terms of previous housing)
• current homeless
• exiting homelessness

 The intent is to always have enough beds so that zero people spend the night homeless.  It involves collecting and sharing data on all the homeless, why they're homeless, what level of services they need, etc. so that they can find the right level of help for people in different categories of need.  And always making sure there are enough beds.   The plan they have addresses most of the questions the class raised the first week.   Here are some links - though they don't quite deal with some of the programs and data we've seen in class:

• MOA Housing and Homelessness Page - the basic Muni page on homelessness with links
• Data Dashboard - some numbers on the Anchorage homeless population

That's just a smattering of the activity going on in my skull.  When things get so busy, it's hard to sit and write something that doesn't meander a bit.

Why People Are Falsely Convicted

Here's some info from the Innocence Project class I'm taking through OLÉ.  I'd note that most of the information in this post comes from the class, though I've added some links for people who want to dig a little deeper.

The Innocence Projects seeks to help prisoners who have been wrongfully convicted to get released from prison.  To date, according to the class, 367 people in the United States have been exonerated by DNA testing and 162 actual assailants identified.  (That is the people who actually committed the crimes.)

6 Common Causes of Wrongful Conviction
1. Eyewitness misidentification 2. False confessions or admissions 3. Government misconduct 4. Inadequate defense 5. Informants (e.g., jailhouse snitches) 6. Unvalidated or improper forensic science

Today I'm going to just look at number 6.

6.  Unvalidated or improper forensic science

“When we looked at all the cases of people who have been exonerated by DNA evidence, we found that in 60 percent of those cases, experts who testified for the prosecution produced either invalid evidence or the misapplication of science in their testimony.” Peter Neufeld, Co-founder of the Innocence Project

• DNA is now 'the gold standard' for criminal cases.  However, there are cases of contamination of DNA - the DNA that is gathered at the scene, or contamination in the lab.  But modern technology is more likely to be able to detect contamination.  
• Odontology - This is used most effectively when there's a fire or accident, and the teeth are used to identify a body.  But there were experts who claimed to be able to match teeth based on bite marks and a number of people have been convicted based on testimony from 'experts.'  But it turns out this can be bogus.  There was no real science behind it and different experts could interpret it differently.  
• Pattern Evidence - Shoe Prints, Tire Tracks, and bullet striations - all these methods were also shown to be unreliable, that is, different experts could come up with different conclusions and there was no scientific standards for showing how close the match was.  You can read more about this and scientific advances here.
• Arson - Again, a few 'experts' gained credibility on being able to determine arson.  However, the case of Cameron Todd has debunked this method.  Todd, unfortunately had been put to death before the evidence in his trial was faulted.  
• Fingerprints - once the gold standard (before DNA) the infallibility of fingerprints was shattered in a case that came from a terrorist bombing in Madrid.  The Spanish police put fingerprints out worldwide and the FBI found an attorney in Oregon whose prints matched.  And he'd recently become a Muslim.  Three FBI fingerprint experts agreed and sent the data to Spain.  The Spaniards were dumbfounded.  How could this be?  There was no record the lawyer had ever even been to Spain.  Other fingerprint experts identified an Algerian terrorist whose prints matched better than the Oregon attorney.  Because of this case, they no longer say they're 100% sure.  Instead they say "it matches on these points."  Here's a link to the FBI's report on that case.
• Shaken Baby Syndrome - A pediatrician in 1971who had a number of infant deaths tried to figure out what had caused them and decided it might stem from shaking the baby.  He came up with three symptoms.  If the baby had those three symptoms, then the last person in contact with the baby was guilty.  The case of Audrey Edmunds was the case that eventually debunked that theory. She got out of prison, but there are still many other prisoners in prison because of the shaken baby theory.  

That should be enough for one bite.  I'll add more in future posts.  I'd also recommend watching "When They See Us" to those who have Netflix.  It's about the Central Park Five.  I didn't want to watch it at first, but it got good reviews, and so I checked the first episode and then finished them all.  Including the last one with Oprah Winfrey (who was the producer of the film) interviewing the  key actors AND the actual exonerated men who had been wrongly convicted.  That show illustrates most of the six common causes listed above.  It does a particularly good job on false confessions, which most people have trouble understanding.  

On The Edge Of Snow - And OLÉ Classes Continue

It was in the mid 30s when I went to Pecha Kucha class yesterday, but the streets were good, so I biked.  My presentation was ok, people said nice things afterward.  Here's the first of the 20 slides.

and I tried to make the case for how learning another languages let's you escape the confines of English (or whatever your first language is) as you learn that the words and grammar of one language reflect the world differently from other languages.  This shows most concretely in the fact that words of one language don't translate exactly into the words of the other language.  Even concrete objects might not translate right.  Banana would seem an easy translation, but in Thailand there are about 20 kinds of bananas that regularly show up in the market and many people there pick bananas off trees in their garden.   And that, say, a black cat, has meanings in one culture that it might not have in another.  And words that describe relationships get even trickier.

The Thai words closest to brother and sister really focus on the older/younger relationship more than the gender relationship, or even the blood relationship

People without any blood connection use the terms for older and younger about each other all the time. (And it's different from the more recent US use of 'Bro'.)  At one point I asked somebody, after he'd introduced me to his sixth or seventh 'brother', how many brothers did he have.  Oh, they aren't that kind of brother, he said.

The class liked the blue and red circles I used to show how much the English and German or Thai words overlapped.  I didn't think of that until I was finishing the last slide, the night before the presentation.  Then I went back and put in circles for the different slides that compared English and German or English and Thai words.  Good thing I did.  I argued that when the words don't overlap completely (usually the case) is when you learn what your own language doesn't capture about the world.  And the less the words overlap, the more you learn about yourself and the world.

It was just starting to rain when I returned yesterday.  It was more a light drizzle, and the drops were tiny specks of hail.  Much better than raindrops, not as good as snow.  I could feel them on my face.  But I got home fine, but I was expecting snow on the ground this morning.

There wasn't any and the street in front of our house was wet, but not icy.  And large chunks of sky were blue.   So I biked.  For the most part it was ok but then I saw a police car's lights flashing ahead and this car on the side of the road.

The culprit seems to have been a piece of light brick colored cement at the intersection.  While all the other surfaces were fine, that piece of cement was really slick.  Was there a second car involved?  I don't know.  A stop sign had been flattened.  (I thought I took a picture, but it's not on my phone.)  I walked the bike around the debris and down the hill.  Back on the flat I rode carefully to the church where today's OLÉ classes were held.

By 2:30 when I came back, the sun was out and any ice or frost that had been there was either a puddle or dry pavement.  But I did have two voices in my head this morning.  One said:  "Don't be such a wimp.  You can't let a little weather threat keep you off the bike."  The other said, "A broken arm would really be a pain.  Don't be stupid."  Stupid beat wimp today, but I know I should be more careful.

The classes today were good.  The Innocence Project class was a continuation of last week's list of reasons innocent people are convicted.  I'll put that into another post.  It's interesting.  And this class is a great one after seeing "When They See Us" the Netflix series on the Central Park Five case.  Everything they talk about in the class happens in the series.

The afternoon class was on Pebble Mine.   We've had a representative from Pebble. A person from the Army Corps of Engineers, whose in charge of the Environmental Impact Statement, and today, was someone from Bristol Bay Native Corporation who are strongly opposed to the mine.

How Did A Jewish Comedian Become President Of Ukraine? Netflix Has Season One of "Servant Of The People"

Volodymyr Zelensky burst into many people's consciousness last week.  Some knew that he'd been a Ukrainian comedian with a hit TV show already.  In the show he plays a history teacher who's caught on video by one of his students while he's ranting against the corruption of his government.  The video goes viral.  His students use crowdsourcing to get enough money to register him as a candidate.  And he wins.

And then the comedian actually runs for President.

I just discovered that Season one of the television show - Servant of the People - is on Netflix.  The episodes are short (about 25 minutes) and we got through about five last night.

The show doesn't tell you much about the actor himself, but it does give you a sense of what caused Ukrainians to elect a man with no previous political experience.  And you get a sense of the overwhelming corruption in the Ukraine government.  And it's fun.

So if you have Netflix, this is definitely worth your time to give you a better sense of the Ukraine and Kiev and the man Trump tried to force into finding dirt on Biden's son by withholding several hundred million dollars in aid.

Of course, you may want to know more.

This April 4 Slate article looks into the crystal ball to predict what sort of president he might be.

An April 27 Al Jazeera report.

Here's an alternative bio with some quirky English from Height Of.


In the episodes we've seen on Netflix, the school teacher/president is having some problems dealing with the layers of corruption and wealth of the many, many friends and relatives of government officials whorls  hold positions in the government.  It's not clear how the now real president of Ukraine is handling these problems.  At least he's been introduced to the dilemmas he's facing through his role in the show.

But there may be more to this.  He's an owner of the production company and a writer of the show.    Was the show a setup to get him elected?  It will be interesting to see how this all unfolds.

[I'm not linking to the Netflix show because while I know how to get there from my Netflix account, I'm not sure how to send others there.  In any case, when you're into Netflix, just put Servant of the People into the Netflix search.]

The US Department of Compassion Announced A Growing Shortage Of Thoughts And Prayers

That was my reaction to the Odessa shooting.  The rest of this is me thinking out loud while my nieta* is off with her mom for a bit.

But I've also been thinking about what we're going to need globally as climate change forces people out of their traditional homes through floods, droughts, disease bearing mosquitos and other critters expanding their range.  Normal crops in areas will fail as conditions change.  Refugees will be on the move for more hospital climates.  Well, for food and water and relief.

That's already happening in places.  Alaska native villages are being forced to move from their coastal locations because heavy waves are eroding the shoreline.  The waves are there because normally sea ice prevents the formation of waves most of the year.  No longer.

The Syrian civil war was caused in part by a years long drought that led farmers to move to the cities.  That led to many refugees trying to get to safe countries.  That's a taste of the future.

Even those who profess to not believe climate change is real talk about mitigation rather than prevention.  They think that we should take steps to adapt.  Yes, of course.  Where we can.  Are you listening South Pacific nations?  Are you listening  South Florida?  I guess people in Manhattan can make the third floor of buildings the new entrances and work with Venetians on gondolas.

Of course, there will need to be technical fixes.  People are creating floating cities in the South Pacific for nations that will be underwater soon.

But one thing I haven't heard people talk about is lessons in civilization and community.  There are organizations working with indigenous peoples around the world to help sustain their languages and cultures.  Others working with poor farmers and others.  But their stories don't generate clicks for new media they way violence and fear-mongering do.  But we do hear after many disasters that communities pull together and help each other.  After fires, floods, mass shootings, there are outpourings of volunteers and of money to help the victims.  But what happens when everyone is the victim?

Tapping Into People's Natural Goodness

We need to learn how to tap into that love we see in times of crisis. The love parents have for their children.  The camaraderie we're told soldiers feel during war.  What is that and how do we grow it? We need to study it and find out how it works, who does it, and how to nurture those kinds of reactions in the hearts and minds of everyone.  What is the difference between those who come after disasters to loot and those who come to help?

Disaster movies are a very popular genre, but how many teach people community survival behaviors?  (That's a sincere question, because those aren't my top choice of entertainment.)

We have a Department of Defense (which should more truthfully be called the Department of War as it once was.)  And we also need a Department of Compassion, or, if you prefer, a Department of Peace.  Humans are capable of both good and bad.  Under the right conditions - child rearing, schooling, national values, and role models - more people will be peaceful, caring, and happy.  Under the wrong conditions, more divided and violent.

This week research was announced that attempted to find a homosexual gene.  It's more complicated than that.  Genetic disposition for sexuality, they say, is all over the genome, and environment plays a role as well.  I suspect the same is true for sainthood as well as sociopathy.

The Netflix series Mindhunter, which added new episodes recently, follows two FBI agents, helped by a university professor, who decide that interviewing imprisoned serial killers to find out why they do what they do.  That start out doing this secretly and are chastised when they're found out.  But they already have enough insights for catching other serial killers that the Bureau lets them continue.  In a basement office.  The most persuasive argument is something like "who knows why serial killers do what they do better than serial killers?"

We should be doing the same thing with mass shooters (and I'm sure there are people who are already doing this.)(I looked.  Didn't find much, but here's a 2018 article about a project tthat was going to start interviewing mass shooters.)  (And here's Dr. Jillian Peterson, the head of that study doing a Ted Talk May 2019.)

And I suspect they will find out the same thing that the Mindhunters learned (this is based on a true story):  that they all had serious self image problems due to absent and/or abusive parents.

This trail leads to lots of different areas - rights of parents, education of parents, birth control, abortion, foster care issues . .  just as starters.  The Department of Compassion - as I write this I realize we need both the Departments of Compassion and Peace - one more on the individual scale and one on the national scale.  But they overlap, because ultimately, 'nations' don't make war, the individual people in control of the military make war.

That sentence took an abrupt turn and never got finished.  The Department of Compassion would work on all these micro and macro environmental factors that impact how kids learn to feel good about themselves and how they learn to work with and for others instead of against them.

That's enough for today.  Remember that every human you encounter is, surprise, a human, with a whole history trailing them.  And a mind, and feelings, and a sense of self.  Imagine what that person doesn't know about you, and there's just as much you don't know about them.  Try to connect to all those people in a way that makes them feel better for having interacted with you.  Just a genuine smile as you pass someone on the street.  And I guarantee you'll discover the people around you have rich and interesting lives that will make you feel better too.  99.9% of the people you pass are NOT people you need to fear.  (I just made up that number.  I don't know if it's true.  I suspect it's definitely not if you are a person of color or a woman.  But even the people who might do someone harm, probably won't do harm most of the time or to most of the people they encounter.)


Glossary
*nieta is Spanish for granddaughter

The Great Hack - Why You Should See It

Netflix was dangling The Great Hack in front of me, but I just didn't want to deal with more bad news.  Let's wait for a better time I said.  Then I heard something somewhere about how good and important it was.  But then Netflix threw The Family and I could justify avoiding Hack with the assumption that Family was also 'educational.'

Well, we bit the bullet Thursday night and watched The Great Hack.    It wasn't nearly as depressing as I expected.  In part because I knew the general outline already, I just didn't know a lot of the details and people involved.  There are some real heroes here:

Carole Cadwalladr is an investigative journalist for the Guardian and focused maniacally on Cambridge Analytica and teased out lots of important information.

David Carroll is a professor of  who sued Cambridge Analytica for his own personal data.

Ravi Naik was David Carroll's solicitor in his data rights case.

Chris Wylie is the guy with the fluorescent red hair and nose ring who worked for Cambridge Analytica who became a whistle blower

Brittany Kaiser also worked for Cambridge Analytica  and also became a whistle blower and is  the major character of this documentary.

There are villains too, particularly Alexander Nix, the head of Cambridge Analytica.  And Mark Zuckerberg doesn't come across too well either.

If Climate Change is the most important issue to focus on for the physical survival of humans on earth, then Data Rights is the most important issue to focus on for the political survival of democracy.  We may all think we're smart enough to resist the bombardment of fake ads, but I had to keep reminding myself, despite all the Lock Her Up chants, that Clinton was a very well qualified candidate.  Much more than the lesser of two evils.

All I can say is WATCH IT if you have Netflix and if you don't, find a friend who does who will invite you to watch it.  (The other day I suggested reading an article by convicted Trump supporter Sam Patten.  The Great Hack is a much easier way to absorb this kind of background information.

Get a better understanding of how Cambridge Analytica got enough Facebook data to be able to personalize ads that would emotionally anger voters into voting for the candidate they were supporting or get opponents' supporters to not vote.  Cambridge Analytica (and its parent company Strategic Communications Laboratories (SCL) did this in Trinidad, Malaysia, India, Brazil, Nigeria,

I'd also note that back in 1977 my doctoral dissertation on Privacy was completed and approved.  (At that time there were mainframe computers and the first personal computers became available as kits in 1975.  We didn't get our first computer - a Vic 20 - until 1981.  It was pretty primitive.)

But I argued back then that most people had focused on privacy as a psychological issue - a human need to keep things hidden from others.  But I argued that privacy wasn't so much a psychological need, but rather it was about power.  Who had the power to get others information and who had the power to prevent others from getting their information?  Hiding info wasn't so much about a psychological need as it was about  the consequences of others knowing.  Publicizing sex life and drug use was good for most rock stars, but a career ender for a teacher or a priest.  (At that time for a president too.)  Privacy, I argued, was about power.  And this film essentially meshed people's private information with data being the most valuable commodity on earth now and how the large tech companies have all the power and individuals have no control over their information.    I'd figured that this was a privacy was about power back in the mid 1970s, and it's why I think about why I try to read the privacy notices, despite the fact that the they are way too long and unintelligible.  

I Haven't Seen Any Game of Thrones. Does That Make Me Culturally Deprived?

We have never had cable, though I've seen it at my mom's and in hotels.  I remember when they were first starting to promote something called "Pay TV."  The big advantage was going to be "no commercials."  

I finally broke down and signed up for Netflix.  It was to show my mom a movie when she was no longer able to get out of the house much.  Netflix has a lot of good movies and shows.  I'm amazed at the amount of raw talent that exists in the world.  We get to see it because the cost of making a movie has dropped drastically with modern technology as have the distribution costs.  And films we have access to nowadays, represent many different world views and show many different images of heroes.  It's great.

But I really don't think I need to spend any more time on the computer beyond Netflix and my blogging and other non-entertainment activities.  I just don't need Prime or HBO. I can't watch everything.   And I'm particularly concerned about Prime after reading an article in The Sun that suggests it's the 'free sample of consumer heroin" to hook people into buying everything via Amazon, which, this article argues is trying to become the world marketplace and take a cut of every transaction there is.  (This is an eye-opening interview!)

But with all the hype about GOT, I began to wonder if there was something so important, that not watching it makes me less capable in important ways.  I've heard that it is riveting.  That it's about ruthless people.  Perhaps there's something to learn about our current national and international politics.  But in what I have heard, no one has said it presents ideas and insights that you can't get anywhere else.  Is it just really good story telling that plays on human emotions in a way that gets people hooked for however many seasons?

But then I began to wonder how many people who gave up other events so they could watch the latest episode of GOT, have also read War and Peace or Crime and Punishment?  I'm sure many have done both, but many haven't.  Is missing one more significant than missing the other?  What about seeing a performance of King Lear?

I also wonder how many people who don't have time to read the Mueller Report, did watch Game of Thrones.  How many of those folks are members of Congress?

I have enough to keep me distracted.  I think I'll survive.  I might miss some comedic references to characters or events in the series, but I don't think that will be debilitating.

Call From 424 277 2647 - The Dead? Time Travel Message? Momo?

We've been watching The Umbrella Academy on Netflix.  It's entertaining in a bizarre way involving time travel, special powers, and a weird rich family.  It also features time traveling assassins whose job it is to keep people from messing with the space-time continuum.  We had just watched a scene where many (all?) of the people killed by these two assassins were in the room with a current torture victim (and the two assassins, who can't see or hear the ghosts) telling the torture victim - in many different languages - how they had been tortured and killed.

Not long after that scene our phone rang.  It was late and we don't answer the land line anyway if we don't know who it is.  They don't usually leave a message but this time there were two.  As I was listening to the first message, a a third call came in.

My immediate reaction while listening to the messages was - it's from one of the assassins' victims.  Or maybe someone from a different time is leaving a message for a time traveler.  Here, you can listen yourself:




I looked up the number - 424 - 277 2647 - but didn't find much about it online.

Screen Shot from Who Called Me?

It's hard to read, but the first comment is:  "this is momo number"

I looked that up.  It's probably even creepier than my theory.  You can look up momo here.

It's probably a fairly mundane message in some language I can't identify or understand.  Maybe she's just saying numbers.  If anyone knows the language, please leave a comment explaining what is being said.

So Many Good Movies On Line - This Is A Golden Age - My Favorites For 2018 On Netflix

We only have Netflix.  They have more good movies and shows than we could ever watch.  Truly this is a Golden Age of film.  Not everything is perfect, but there is so many films that offer something worth watching - whether it's great cinematography, great story telling, great acting, great writing, or ideas worth considering.

And there are lots of ways to find the good stuff, For instance someone tweeted a link to this list of art related documentaries.  Fortunately, only a few are on Netflix.

Various sites tell you what's new or what's best or what's leaving Netflix 'this month'.  Just google. I'm finding lots of great foreign films (an ethnocentric way of saying made by someone other than a US citizen).  Some show up in Netflix's lists for me, though Netflix seems to think that no one wants to watch non-English films so they never say in their descriptions "Danish language."  I'm sure I've missed shows I would have watched because I didn't realize it was not made in the US.

Here are some really stellar shows and movies I can think of off the top of my head:

Occupied - this is a truly gripping tv show from Norway.  The Norwegians have discovered an alternative source of energy and have told the European Union they are shutting down their oil production.  The Russians send troops in to occupy Norway and the EU, concerned about their energy source, doesn't object too seriously.  Tense!

Babylon Berlin - a German tv show that takes place in pre-Hitler Berlin.  Great characters, stories, and history.

Fauda - an Israeli tv show about a counter terror unit that doesn't glorify the Israelis and doesn't paint the Palestinians just negatively.  Though it's told from the Israeli perspective and I suspect most viewers will be rooting for them.  But they will see the cruelty and humanity on both sides.

The Good Place - A US show that features a lot of philosophy, humor, and thoughts about the meaning of heaven and hell and being a good person.  Very well done, very funny.

Mr. Sunshine - Not quite as high quality as some of the others, but this Korean series offers a look at a period of history I knew nothing about - as the Japanese and US spar over Korea.   A little more romantic, but interesting characters and a different world view.  And a very good story.

Atypical - The world as seen by a high school kid on the Autistic Spectrum.  Well worth watching this US show.  Funny and enlightening.

Hannah Gadsby - Nanette - This Australian comedian starts out telling jokes like any other stand-up and then somewhere along the way it all changes and becomes one of the most powerful standup act I've ever seen.  This is just a single show, won't take up that much of your time and it will suck you into something you didn't expect.

Sense8 - This show has about eight people living in different parts of the world - US, Mexico, Iceland, India, Germany, Korea, Kenya - who are all connected in a bizarre way.  This series follows how they discover each other and help each other.  Well made and worth watching because the concept is so unique and you connect with people in a variety of countries and sexual orientations.

13 Reasons Why -  I decided to try out the first episode because there were stories that Netflix was going to take it down.  I'd thought it was a documentary about teen suicide, but it isn't.  It's a fictional story about a high school girl who leaves a set of 13 tapes and instructions for who should listen to them in what order.  As I recall, each episode is a different tape as we find out what was happening in her life and the complex lives of the kids and parents in her world.  Gripping and original story telling.  And enlightening.

Dear White People - We see the world through the eyes of the black students at a predominantly white college.  Dear White People is a radio show one of he black students airs that talks about things that normally don't get talked about across races.

Gracie and Frankie - Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin are friends only because their husbands Martin Sheen and Sam Waterston have been good friends.  In the first episode, the men take the women to dinner to tell them they want divorces because they are lovers and have been for 30 years and now they want to get married.  The two women, who never liked each other much, now have to learn to share the two families' joint beach house.  This is a funny show, with characters in their 70s, and was a great way to dispel the tension after watching an episode of Occupied or Babylon Berlin.  The characters are NOT poor people.

All but the Hannah Gadsby comedy special are series.  I suspect they stick in my mind more because I saw a lot of episodes over a period of time.  Enjoy this feast of great film.  This is just 2018.  A good year.  Not sure all of these are still available, but enough are.

Merry Christmas.

Babylon Berlin NEIN

I follow NEIN ('No' in German)  (@NEINQaurterly) on Twitter.  I think I saw his book first in a Seattle bookstore and then his Twitter feed.  He tweets with extremely wry irony and wit.  He tweets in German but mostly in English.

We've also watched the Netflix series Babylon Berlin which takes place over a couple of years prior to Hitler's rise to power.  (Well, while he was rising, but not yet there.)  It's an incredible production.

For those who dismiss anyone who makes comparisons to Nazi Germany, I highly recommend this show.  Yes, the soup Nazi and other such inappropriate usages have often diminished more serious comparisons.  And to a certain extent, the omission of ways Hitler improved the lives of many Germans, has blinded Americans and others to how someone like Hitler could have risen to power.

So a show like Babylon Berlin is important in getting a better understanding of the conditions in which a person like Hitler could come to power in a country that had been the cultural, scientific, and intellectual power of Europe.

So when I saw this Tweet today, I'm intrigued - an online course on Babylon Berlin.

Zu Asche. Zu Staub.
Dem Licht geraubt.
Doch erst ab 20. September.*

Join me for a course on #BabylonBerlin and Weimar politics, philosophy, and culture at ⁦@DeutschesHausNY⁩. Details soon.

Pre-course reading via @NoahIsenberg and @nybooks: https://t.co/1sFyE5x5B2 pic.twitter.com/9k5k7sWIQG

— Nein. (@NeinQuarterly) July 21, 2018

I was hoping this was an online class, but it appears it will be limited to a few folks in New York who can get to DeutchesHauseNY.  But there's some extra reading here to follow up on.

If you have Netflix and haven't seen this series, at least watch the first episode.  Great characters, powerful story, and it will pique your interest in the times, which are definitely relevant (not the same as but relevant) to what's happening in the US.


*To Ashes. To dust.
Stolen from the light.
But not until the 20th of September.

A Serious Life And The Two Horses Of Genghis Kahn

I met Michael Sidney Welch a number of years ago when I taught a class at Olé on blogging.  I insisted that we have it in a computer lab and that everyone would get their own blog in the several weeks we met.  My expertise was just my own blogging experience, but I knew if I just talked and they didn't try it out themselves, it would be really boring.

Just about everyone - I think there were about 20 folks - got a blog up and several have kept those blogs going or got new ones up after that.

Michael is a philosopher.  I see him around town, usually he's with his wife, particularly at the Anchorage International Film Festival.  Recently his wife invited us to a group I can best describe as a movie club.  I mean that in the sense of a book club that watches movies rather than reads books.

This week we met to see "The Two Horses of Genghis Kahn" - a really beautiful Mongolian movie about a woman who travels around Inner and Outer Mongolia in search of the lost lyrics of a song her grandmother taught her.  She knows some of them, but there were more inscribed in a horse head violin that was destroyed during the Cultural Revolution.  She still had the broken off horse head and sought someone to make a new violin for it while she went searching elders for the missing words.

The broad landscapes and the search for lost culture are familiar to Alaskans and it provoked a lot of discussion about cultural change, both natural and. . .   I'm sitting here thinking about the right word and I'm not succeeding - unnatural isn't right.  Forced comes to mind - as when one culture tries to wipeout another culture by banning the language and music and other ways the culture is transmitted from generation to generation.  And we could talk a long time by what 'natural' cultural change entails.  We talked about how younger generations live in different worlds than their parents' generation.  But is this really natural?  Or is it a product of the industrial revolution that fosters so much rapid change in the last few centuries?

I haven't found any serious reviews, but this one gives an introduction to the film and the director.
Anchorage's Loussac Library has a copy. Youtube has a tease that looks like the whole copy from Netflix, but it doesn't seem to be so.  It apparently has been on Netflix (couldn't find it today) and may be on Prime.   It has a much slower pace than US viewers are used to.  Here's a preview, though we watched it in the original (which I assume was Mongolian, but may have been a dialect) with English subtitles.



As we were leaving Michael told me he has his newish blog - A Serious Life - up now.  When I say he's a philosopher, I'm not joking.  This is not for the Tweet at Heart.  I'll also link it in the right column, since some of the bloggers I've had there have been, shall we say, preoccupied with other things than their blogs.

For those who make it this far, the title of the movie is also the title of the song Uma is seeking.

Prepare For The Coming Fall Of Trump

Trump's past has been glossed over for many, but it seems to be bubbling up in the Justice Department.  If you want to understand how Trump got where he is and why that is soon to undo him, you need to dig deeper than social media and mainstream media.

I'd recommend a few sources of information to get you up to speed if you aren't already there.

This New Yorker article by Adam Davidson steps back then steps forward to explain why even Trump supporters will start having doubts when all the facts about his business dealings come out.  He talks about how, as a reporter in Iraq, he saw the inevitable, but it took the American public much longer to realize we weren't winning there.  Then he talks about studying the Collateralized Debt Obligations and realizing that the banking world was going to come crashing down.  Again before the public did.

"I thought of those earlier experiences this week as I began to feel a familiar clarity about what will unfold next in the Trump Presidency. There are lots of details and surprises to come, but the endgame of this Presidency seems as clear now as those of Iraq and the financial crisis did months before they unfolded. Last week, federal investigators raided the offices of Michael Cohen, the man who has been closer than anybody to Trump’s most problematic business and personal relationships. This week, we learned that Cohen has been under criminal investigation for months—his e-mails have been read, presumably his phones have been tapped, and his meetings have been monitored. Trump has long declared a red line: Robert Mueller must not investigate his businesses, and must only look at any possible collusion with Russia. That red line is now crossed and, for Trump, in the most troubling of ways. Even if he were to fire Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and then had Mueller and his investigation put on ice, and even if—as is disturbingly possible—Congress did nothing, the Cohen prosecution would continue. Even if Trump pardons Cohen, the information the Feds have on him can become the basis for charges against others in the Trump Organization.
This is the week we know, with increasing certainty, that we are entering the last phase of the Trump Presidency. This doesn’t feel like a prophecy; it feels like a simple statement of the apparent truth."

Essentially, when the remaining Trump faithful see behind the curtain, they too will realize they've been swindled.  Eventually it happens to all frauds.  Watch as Toto pulls down the wizard's curtain.



Next, for those of you who have Netflix, the documentary series Dirty Money  ends with an episode on Donald Trump.  For those who have been paying attention there isn't that much new, but as names like Michael Cohen start getting more airtime, this gives some background on them and their relationship with Trump .  Just search for Dirty Money on Netflix, then go to the last episode of that series.  [I don't think I can link you straight to the movie within Netflix since you have to put in your passwords, so the link just goes to Netflix and you have to find Dirty Money episode six yourself.]

If you have more time, Netflix also has a four episode series called Trump: The American Dream.  This one gets much deeper into the Trump story.  (The use of superlatives to describe everything he does goes back a long time.)

Watching these videos will be like reading the program at the opera.  Soon the names and stories of Trump's henchmen and cronies will flash by in the news.  If you read the program now you'll know the backstories of these folks.

Just like with Nixon, there was a majority of Americans who stood by the President, simply because he was the President.  But slowly the circle around him got smaller and smaller as people in his administration were indicted.

At that time the Vietnam War also had the country polarized and those who held onto their belief in the President's innocence the longest were those who didn't want to believe these things about the president who was waging the war they so strongly believed in.

The details will be different this time round, but I suspect the end will be similar.  Nixon was much more traditional, much better informed about how Washington worked (he'd been a member of Congress and Eisenhower's vice president for eight years.)  Trump, I guess, believed that saying  "if you can make it in New York, you can make it anywhere."  He's in way over his head. And he has no self-control.   So his decline will  probably much more volatile.


And here are some posts I did to understand who Trump was back in 2016 that give background into his father and his mentor:

March 13, 2016:  To Know The Son, Know the Dad - So What Can We Learn From Trump's Dad?

June 24, 2016 -  "Roy Cohn was one of the most loathsome characters in American history, so why did he have so many influential friends?"] Roy Cohn was important in Trump's rise to power and appears in the videos.

November 6, 2016:    What A Trump Presidency Would Look Like   -  If you do your homework, some predictions aren't that hard.  I suspect many of you would have made similar predictions.  I'm comfortable pointing out what I said before we knew who won the election.

Babylon Berlin (Netflix) Looks At 1929 Berlin As Democracy Struggles To Survive

Gereon Rath (Volker Bruch)

This tight German series focuses on a Köln (Cologne) police officer, Gereon Rath, transferred to Berlin.  There are lots of plots and subplots.   A secret army unit is rebuilding the German air force clandestinely in Lipetsk outside of Moscow and plotting with a rich industrialist.  Trotskyites have brought a train full of poison gas and gold to Berlin.  There's factions inside the police department, and everyone seems to cross paths in the Armenian's nightclub/whore house, which gives the Armenian useful knowledge and power.

The Weimar Republic is only a few years old as Germany tries to recover from WWI and the sanctions imposed by the Treaty of Versailles, which, forbade Germany from having an air force.

Charlotte Ritter (Liv Lisa Fries)

There are lots of other characters with rich parts, but the other key character is Charlotte Ritter, living in a wretched flat with difficult relatives, making ends meet working at the Armenians nightclub and aspiring to become a police detective in a force where women are only in supportive roles.

The New York Times writes:

This new epic crime drama, set during the Weimar Republic, the chaotic 15-year era that preceded the Third Reich, is widely predicted to become an international television sensation. Reportedly the most expensive German-language TV show ever produced,  . . .

"The makers of “Babylon Berlin,” however, were interested in exploring the prelude to the Third Reich. 'All these people didn’t fall from the sky as Nazis,' Mr. Handloegten said. 'They had to become Nazis. . .'

“In 1929, there were no Nazis in Berlin,” said the producer Stefan Arndt. “You cannot see or even smell that there’s danger coming.”

The acting is superb and the story gripping, with a dash of history just before the collapse into fascism.   A big hit since it began airing in Germany last October, it's on Netflix now.

[Screenshots turned out black, so I took photos of the screen to get the images.  These stills don't do these two charming actors justice.  And if you're having trouble seeing links to the NYTimes and other papers, try opening a "new private window" in your browser and pasting in the URL.]

How To Get More Variety From Netflix And Follow Up On Scam Film Festivals

"Netflix is always using algorithms to help you find the best movies based on your taste, but what if you want something completely different?"

So starts an article at Data Hand, which then goes on to list lots of codes that get you to very specific genres.

Hidden Netflix codes to help you find movies Netflix doesn't know you might like.

Here's are a few examples:

Anime Features: 3063
Anime Horror: 10695
Anime Sci-Fi: 2729
Anime Series: 6721
Art House Movies: 29764
Asian Action Movies: 77232
Australian Movies: 5230
B-Horror Movies: 8195
Baseball Movies: 12339
Basketball Movies: 12762
Belgian Movies: 262
Biographical Documentaries: 3652
Biographical Dramas: 3179
Boxing Movies: 12443
British Movies: 10757
British TV Shows: 52117
Campy Movies: 1252
Children & Family Movies: 783
Chinese Movies: 3960

Dramas based on Books: 4961
Dramas based on real life: 3653
Dutch Movies: 10606
Eastern European Movies: 5254
Education for Kids: 10659
Epics: 52858
Experimental Movies: 11079
Faith & Spirituality: 26835
Faith & Spirituality Movies: 52804
Family Features: 51056
Fantasy Movies: 9744
Film Noir: 7687
Food & Travel TV: 72436  

Martial Arts Movies: 8985
Martial Arts, Boxing & Wrestling: 6695
Middle Eastern Movies: 5875
Military Action & Adventure: 2125
Military Documentaries: 4006
Military Dramas: 11
Military TV Shows: 25804
Miniseries: 4814
Mockumentaries: 26
Monster Movies: 947
Movies based on children's books: 10056

Sports & Fitness: 9327
Sports Comedies: 5286
Sports Documentaries: 180
Sports Dramas: 7243
Sports Movies: 4370
Spy Action & Adventure: 10702
Spy Thrillers: 9147
Stage Musicals: 55774
Stand-up Comedy: 11559
Steamy Romantic Movies: 35800
Steamy Thrillers: 972

The numbers are the code you put in, not the number of films in that category.


On another track, though still related to films, back in 2009 I wrote about a copycat film festival that mimicked the Anchorage International Film Festival's name, but showed no films and had no Alaska connection at all except for a post office box that forwarded submissions somewhere.  That post, and a threat from the festival's lawyer for using the word scam in my post, led me to several other posts about legitimate film festivals and more questionable ones festivals.

A recent piece in a German film site - Shortfilm.de - cited one of my posts and went on to talk about the proliferation of festivals that take advantage of film makers.  It looks in depth at the  the “International Filmmaker Festival of World Cinema” in Berlin.  Here's the English version.  Or, if you prefer, the original German version.

Trump Supporters In The News This Week - Who Are They Really? Arpaio, Black Guy For Trump, Roger Stone, and Sam Clovis

The names and images flash past us quickly on the radio, TV, Facebook, Twitter, newspapers or wherever you get what passes for news these days.  There are so many different characters that most of us never really know who they are.   Here are a couple of Trump cronies you might want to know more about.

Joe Arpaio - Trump just pardoned Sheriff Joe.  How bad is he?  You already know about his racial profiling of Hispanics, and his role in pushing the Obama-is-a Kenyan bullshit. (Sorry, it's the right word), but there were other tricks too.  Here's a story from the Phoenix New Times* about how he staged an assassination attempt on himself including framing the fake assassin.

"In 1999, Arpaio's staff rigged the entire fake assassination plot – just so he could get his mug on TV.
News cameras were already rolling when deputies arrested Saville. Gullible TV reporters gobbled up Arpaio’s story about a local Unabomber who was plotting to kill America’s “toughest” sheriff.
In 2004, a jury found Saville innocent of all charges. Not only that, but it ruled that Arpaio’s minions helped buy the bomb parts themselves and “entrapped” Saville in a TV-ready murder plot.
Arpaio was re-elected just months after the jury verdict. (Journalists John Dougherty and Janna Bommersbach unraveled the tale in separate articles).
“Jurors listened in disbelief as testimony showed it was the sheriff’s money that purchased the bomb parts, and an undercover officer who drove Saville around to buy the parts,” Bommersbach wrote.
Records show that the final payment to Saville went out on August 28, 2008. The total $1.1 million that taxpayers spent to settle with him doesn't include money that the county attorney spent prosecuting him, or funds paid to deputies who worked long hours to frame him."

Here is the Phoenix New Times list of key stories they've written in the last 20 years on Arpaio.

*Since I didn't know this newspaper, I did check on line.  Wikipedia says that the Phoenix New Times has been reporting on Arpaio for a long time and the editors were arrested over an Arpaio story and the paper eventually won $3.75 million for false arrest.

Screen Shot from Daily Kos

Black Guy For Trump -  Maybe you saw this guy prominently behind Trump when he gave his 75 minute speech in Phoenix this week.  Well, here's some background on him from The Daily Kos.



That story links the website on his T-shirt in the picture.  Here's the first thing I saw there:

​​​ "The Real K K K Slave Masters Revealed, 2Thess.2:1-11 & they
are CHEROKEE Indians (Hidden Babylonians). The reason GOD​
YAHWEH chose TRUMP to be President is to be the  White & Black
Man's DELIVERER from the Babylon, like the Gentile  King CYRUS,
Isa.45:1-6!"

Roger Stone -  The other day, Fox News, among others, reported that Roger Stone

"'The people who are calling for his impeachment are the people who didn’t vote for him. They need to get over it. They lost. Their candidate had every advantage,' he said, pointing out that the Hillary Clinton campaign spent $2 billion dollars compared to the Trump campaign's $275 million.
'Sorry, he whipped her a**. It’s over. You lost,' Stone said. 'Try to impeach him. Just try it. You will have a spasm of violence in this country, an insurrection, like you’ve never seen.'

So who is this Roger Stone whose words are important enough to quote on Fox and other places?
If you have Netflix, find Get Me Roger Stone to see his life story starring Rogers Stone.  But if not, you can read the sordid tale on Wikipedia.  Here's a short excerpt:

"When he was a junior and vice president of the student government at a high school in northern Westchester County, New York, he manipulated the ouster of the president and succeeded him. Stone recalled how he ran for election as president for his senior year:
'I built alliances and put all my serious challengers on my ticket. Then I recruited the most unpopular guy in the school to run against me. You think that's mean? No, it's smart.' . . .
As a student at George Washington University in 1972, Stone invited Jeb Magruder to speak at a Young Republicans Club, then successfully asked Magruder for a job with Richard Nixon's storied Committee to Re-elect the President.[29] Stone then dropped out of college to work for the committee.[30]
Stone's political career began in earnest with activities such as contributing money to a possible rival of Nixon in the name of the Young Socialist Alliance—then slipping the receipt to the Manchester Union-Leader. He also got a spy hired by the Hubert Humphrey campaign who became Humphrey's driver. According to Stone, during the day he was officially a scheduler in the Nixon campaign, but: 'By night, I'm trafficking in the black arts. Nixon's people were obsessed with intelligence.'[31] Stone maintains he never did anything illegal during Watergate.[30]"

Image from Science 

Sam Clovis - Trump's nominee for for science advisor at the United States Department of Agriculture  (USDA) who will be in charge of $3 billion of research and education money.  No satirist could have made up a more ludicrous nominee.  Here's the Pro-Publica piece on Clovis.  A snippet:

"Clovis has never taken a graduate course in science and is openly skeptical of climate change. While he has a doctorate in public administration and was a tenured professor of business and public policy at Morningside College for 10 years, he has published almost no academic work.
Clovis is better known for hosting a conservative talk radio show in his native Iowa and, after mounting an unsuccessful run for Senate in 2014, becoming a fiery pro-Trump advocate on television."

You'll note it says he has a doctorate in public administration.  Since that's my field, I wanted to know where it was from.  Clovis' Linked in page says it's from Morningside College in Sioux City Iowa.  I checked Morningside College's website.  It says they have two graduate programs:  A masters in education and one in nursing.  It's Saturday, so I can't call Morningside College.  So there may be some explanation.  Maybe they had a program in the past.  But I couldn't find it on the website.

[UPDATED August 27, 2017:  Responding to Mike from Iowa - I should have given the link to the Clovis Linkedin page.  Here's a screen shot showing what is listed on education there.]