AIFF2020: Dinner In America: A Movie I Shouldn't Have Liked, But I Did

 I'm falling way behind here.  I'm pretty much picking pictures based on the photo, title, and description.  Here are some I think are worth watching.

Narrative Features

I really didn't expect to like Dinner in America   It starts off in an institutional dining room.  Someone throws up on his tray of food.  I almost stopped it right there.  But I didn't and we get to follow an out of control drug dealer (no, that's just one of his personas) have family dinner in three different homes, do a lot of crazy shit (sorry, that's the best description), and win over both of us.  This is a good movie.  Filmed in Michigan.  

Small Town Wisconsin was filmed in Wisconsin.  We even get a tour of Milwaukee.  Another main character who does lots of things that don't endear him to the others characters or the audience.  A little past midpoint we discussed abandoning the film.  We didn't.  It would have been a mistake.  

Foster Boy - This is more Hollywood than film festival.  It has two well known (there may have been others) actors - Matthew Modine and Louis Gossett Jr. - and  Shaquille O’Neal is the executive producer.  This is a court room drama.  A rich, conservative corporate attorney is assigned, against his will, a pro bono case of a 19 prisoner who is suing the foster care corporation that placed him in about a dozen homes.  A compelling film with appealing heroes and appropriately nasty villains.  

Of the three, I'd say Foster Boy had a number of loose ends - where I couldn't quite believe a) the lead attorney didn't get suspicious faster about his son's cancelled trip or b) all the dirty tricks that happened over Thanksgiving weekend.  I attribute b) to squeezing events that happened over a longer period of time into a couple days to fit the condensed time line of the movie.  The film said it was a fictionalized account of a true story.

Shorts  I think are worth watching:

Masel Tov Cocktail - I've already written about this, but I'm including it again just in case you missed my earlier mention.  At this point, this is my favorite film of the festival.  This was a tricky project and it all fit together wonderfully.  It couldn't have been told as well in any other format than film.  

 Cake Day - A good story told economically and movingly.  

Woman Under the Tree  - Maybe a bit longer than necessary, but it's a well told tale of a homeless woman.  

The Marker - Like Cake Day, a good story told well.  

Happy (Short) Films -  I've added this category because this festival is heavy with issue films.  Here are two shorts, particularly Pathfinder, that present the beauty and wonder of the natural world.  

 Pathfinder - A small group of adventurers put up a slack line high up among snow peaks in Norway with Northern Lights in the background.  Pure joy.

Sky Aelans - Also up in the mountains, the people of the Solomon Islands are protecting the mountain environment.  The camera shares some of the wonders up there worth their care.  

I still have lots of movies to see.  There appears to be a lot worth watching.  More later.  

Two Excellent ADN Letters To The Editor - One On Climate Change, One On Ambler Road

In this time of strong partisan divide, of fake news, and intentional distortion of facts, and even creation of totally fabricated stories, I'd like to share two excellent letters from today's Anchorage Daily News(ADN).  But I also recognize that in this age I probably need to explain why I rate them so highly.  I'll do that later. But first I'll let you look at the letters yourselves.  Well, I'm only excerpting them, you can see the complete letters at the links.*

First, from Kendra Zamzow** of Chickaloon:

"Climate Change is not an environmental issue.
It’s a real estate issue when people leave behind homes destroyed or at risk from fire and coastal erosion. It’s a public health issue when saltwater seeps into drinking water wells as seas rise. It’s a public health crisis when heat kills hundreds or thousands of people.
It’s a public works issue when major cities like Miami run pumps to de-flood city streets and sidewalks.
It’s an infrastructure issue when railroads collapse and roads melt. It’s an agricultural issue when sustained flooding prevents crops from being planted. It’s a ranching issue when drought forces cattlemen to kill their herds. It’s a national security risk when military bases repeatedly flood, leaving planes and equipment stranded.
It’s an immigration issue when crops fail and farmers move, seeking land or work. It’s a defense issue when water tables drop, disrupting livelihoods and driving conflict. It’s a food resources issue when warm ocean waters drive algal blooms that cause shellfish to be poisonous .  . ."

Second, from Rachael Gaedeke of Anchorage:

[*It turns out the second letter is not yet posted online in the ADN.  I'll offer you part of it and will put up a link when the whole letter is available.]  It talks about the hearings to take testimony on the Ambler Road, being proposed into roadless land for the benefit of a private mining project. The letter was written by Raechel Gaedeke:

"When I read through the DEIS, it was sadly apparent that no one had thought to address the negative social impact of this proposed 211-mile road. . .
"Study after study has shown that when mines are built, the communities closest suffer from increased rates of alcoholism, increased rates of domestic violence and increased rates of sexual assault.  The villages in proximity to this propose road and this potential mine(s) do not have the resources to support the influx of miners, truckers and "man camps" that will follow.  I greatly fear for the women and children in every village that comes close to the proposed Ambler Road. . .
"I strongly urge BLM to address the following questions:
1.  How will you ensure the safety of the women and children living in the communities within proximity to this proposed road and the mine(s) that will follow?
2.  What security measures will be taken to ensure that alcohol or drugs will not be bootlegged into the communities via this road either by truckers employed by the mine(s) or potential poachers?
5.  What security measures will you take to keep poachers off the road . . .
6.  How will you prevent the potential for sex trafficking on this road via truckers, poachers, etc. into the mine(s) or the man camps or the villages?
7.  When More police officers  and Village Public Safety Officers are needed, who will pay?
8.  How will you research and document and mitigate the potential for negative social impact on the indigenous people in the region of the proposed mine . . ." 

So, what makes these good letters?

1. They broaden the scope of the issues.  The climate change one moves the discussion from simply 'record temperatures' or 'more intense storms and fires' to all the many ways a warming climate is going to affect people.  These things are already affecting many people, but the scope will get greater and greater.  This is not somebody else's problem.  It's a human problem.  The Ambler Road letter moves the discussion from narrow physical environmental impacts of the road to the social impacts of this sort of large scale remote development tends to bring with it.
2. These letters are sensational.  The issues they raise are well documented.  
3. I can't spot any factual fabrications or distortions.  
4. They pack a lot of information into relatively few words, though the Ambler Road letter is a little repetitive in its list of questions, though what I'm calling repetitive points seem to focus on a slightly different aspect.
5. The language of each letter is clear and easy to understand.  It's strong, but focuses on issues and does not attack individuals or categories of individuals.  (That last sentence should go without saying, but nowadays needs to be said more and more.)

I realize those who emotionally deny climate change will be unhappy with the first letter and call it alarmist.  The nearly 70% of US residents who think it's real and are worried about climate warming will learn more about the many likely impacts. (If they want to do something to help slow down climate change they can check out the Citizens Climate Lobby website.)

And those financially in favor of the Ambler Road, really are responsible for answering the questions raised.  Can they prevent these likely externalities of their project?  If not, should the State of Alaska allow a project that is likely to add to Alaska's high level of sexual violence to a large extent fueled by drugs and alcohol, and to increase sex trafficking?

So I thank these two letter writers for their strong and articulate letters raising important issues for Alaskans (and all US residents) to consider.  And I thank the ADN for publishing them.


**I didn't know anything about Zamzow when I read the letter in the hardcopy paper today (Yes, it's still coming.)  But there's a brief biographical blurb in the online version, which helps explain why the author wrote such a powerful letter:

"Kendra Zamzow, a resident of Chickaloon, is an environmental chemist and the Alaska representative for the Center for Science in Public Participation. She has a doctorate in environmental chemistry from the University of Nevada, Reno and a bachelor's degree in molecular and cellular biology from Humboldt State University, California."

Anchorage Elections - Cemeteries and Alcohol Taxes Going Down

Everything else seems to be going as expected.  See the results here.   Since this is an all mail-in ballot, there will be some time for more ballots to arrive.  But both the cemetery bond and the alcohol tax are losing by about 2000 votes so far, unless the rest of the votes are from tee-totalers or the dead, I'm guessing things will stand.

Here's what it says about the $5 million in Prop 3:

PROP 3:  AREAWIDE FACILITIES AND CEMETERY CAPITAL IMPROVEMENT PROJECTBONDS

For the purpose of providing areawide facilities and cemetery capital improvements within the Municipality of Anchorage, including roof replacements, HVAC, safety and code improvements, elevator modernization and bathroom renovations to public facilities, and lawn marker, fence and landscaping renovations at the Anchorage Memorial Cemetery, and other capital improvements, as provided in AO 2019-4, shall Anchorage borrow money and issue up to $5,513,000 in principal amount of general obligation bonds?

Chrystal Kennedy is beating  Oliver Schiess in the Eagle River  (#2) Assembly race.
Kameron Perez-Verdia is beating Liz Vazquez in District 3.
Meg Zalatel is beating Christine Hill and Ron Alleva in District 4.
Forrest Dunbar and John Weddleton are running unopposed in Districts 5 and 6.

Margo Bellamy and Starr Marsett are winning their races comfortably for School Board.

School bonds have a big majority.
Transit improvements, which often have problems with voters, won easily, maybe because it was bundled with some safety fixes.
Parks bonds won easily, roads and water passed easily.
Fire and Police won.
Changes to allow lease to own by the Muni passed and a change to allow someone other than police to remove junk cars passed.


I understand why the alcohol tax lost - there was high powered opposition from the liquor industry.
But cemetery improvements?  I don't get that one.

Why Did Kavanaugh Drink So Much In High School And College?

Here's my short hypothesis:

Kavanaugh was an only child of two well-off and well-connected Washington insiders.  His mother was a judge - and he talked about her at length at his confirmation hearing.  He didn't talk so much about his father, who, according to the New York Times in a long July 2018 bio of Kavanaugh, was

".  .  . a top lobbyist for the cosmetics industry, courting Congress and combating regulations from the Food and Drug Administration and other agencies. (Among his hires for legal work: John G. Roberts Jr., now the chief justice.)
In current parlance, as an old friend put it, the elder Mr. Kavanaugh and his associates were “swamp creatures,” using money and connections to fend off demands for safer products and greater transparency about ingredients. He was a golf partner of Tip O’Neill, the longtime Democratic House speaker, who weighed in to support Martha Kavanaugh’s nomination to a judgeship. He was paid $13 million, including his retirement package, in 2005, his last year at the Cosmetics, Toiletry and Fragrance Association, records show."

So the key thing that triggered this post was Kavanaugh's answer to Sen. Whitehouse, who asked him about whether his 'ralphing' was related to alcohol:

"Senator, I was at the top of my class academically, busted my butt in school. Captain of the varsity basketball team. Got in Yale College. When I got into Yale College, got into Yale Law School. Worked my tail off."(from The Atlantic)

I'm guessing that Brett Kavanaugh felt a lot of parental expectation on his shoulders. He doesn't tell us how much he enjoyed his academics or his basketball or his football.  Rather he tells us "I busted my butt in school."  "Worked my tail off."  This particular quote doesn't include his volunteer work or his weekly mass attendance.  

Aside from the fact that his response doesn't answer Whitehouse's question, it does seem to raise the question, why did he work so hard?  Why did he have to be on both the football team and the basketball team?  Why did he have to be top of his class?  

What this response of Kavanaugh says to me is this:  Brett Kavanaugh was under a lot of pressure to excel, to create a record that would get him into the best schools, and for some reason, Brett was compelled to meet those expectations.  His parents didn't have other kids to hang their hopes on so all pressure was on Brett.  And we don't know how much time they spent with him.  The Country Club seems to have been an important place for his father's business - playing golf with those he needed to persuade to keep the regulations off the cosmetics industry. 

And with all that pressure, getting really drunk on weekends would be an easy way to release it.   And then there's all the anger he's reported to have expressed when drunk and which he displayed for us at the hearing.  He couldn't, apparently, rebel against his parents, so he lashed out at others.  He had a lot of pressure and a lot of anger.  Beer was his refuge.

I would further add that his self-image of a good person clearly reflects the standards he thinks his parents wanted him to be - a judge (for his mom) and an inside player  (for his dad.)   He's pretty much fulfilled all his professional goals, and now he sees this Supreme Court position as his well deserved right for all his hard work.  

And it doesn't seem like his less admirable behaviors - like the drinking and alleged sexual aggression - have ever gotten him into trouble.  His privileged status seems to have made him immune from all that.  

Until now.  And when you are used to always getting what you want, you begin to assume you are entitled to everything you want.  

One thing I haven't seen mentioned much is his current drinking habit.  How much does he drink now and how often does he become a belligerent drunk?

Does An Accusation Of A 33 Year Old High School Sexual Assault Matter?

We've been hearing about a letter alleging Brett Kavanaugh sexually assaulted a girl in high school. Should that have any bearing on Kavanaugh's confirmation to the US Supreme Court?

None of us are the same people we were in high school.  Or so we would like to think.  Sure we change in many ways, but many of our behaviors then, good ones and not so good ones, still are part of us.

But is the story true even?  The Washington Post has an article today about the woman who wrote the letter detailing why she didn't talk about it sooner (well she did with her therapist and her husband) and why she did now.  Why she wanted it to be anonymous and why she's coming out publicly now.

After reading the article, I'm going to assume that it's quite likely this did indeed happen.  Kavanaugh categorically denies it, but the article brings out aspects of Kavanaugh's past that didn't surface in the Senate Judiciary Committee hearings.  These facts lend credence to the accusations.

"In his senior-class yearbook entry at Georgetown Prep, Kavanaugh made several references to drinking, claiming membership to the “Beach Week Ralph Club” and “Keg City Club.” He and Judge are pictured together at the beach in a photo in the yearbook.
Judge is a filmmaker and author who has written for the Daily Caller, The Weekly Standard and The Washington Post. He chronicled his recovery from alcoholism in “Wasted: Tales of a Gen-X Drunk,” which described his own blackout drinking and a culture of partying among students at his high school, renamed in the book “Loyola Prep.” Kavanaugh is not mentioned in the book, but a passage about partying at the beach one summer makes glancing reference to a “Bart O’Kavanaugh,” who “puked in someone’s car the other night” and “passed out on his way back from a party.”
Through the White House, Kavanaugh did not respond to a question about whether the name was a pseudonym for him."

Kavanaugh was an athlete, his mother was a judge.  I suspect if there were any serious issues in his life, his parents were positioned to make sure he didn't get into serious trouble for them.

The accuser is a college professor in Palo Alto, California who teaches at a college that is in a consortium with Stanford.  So she teaches Stanford graduate students psychology.  On the surface, there is nothing in her life - aside from a 33 year old sexual assault - that might account for her wanting to put her life onto a Republican target with a letter that probably wouldn't stop Kavanaugh's nomination anyway.

And the overwhelming number of sexual assault accusations turn out to be true.  There's no evidence so far that she was paid or otherwise pressured to make these accusations.  I'm sure that will come - the accusations, probably not the evidence.

So should a 33 year old drunken romp on a bed with a girl who didn't want to be there, matter in the nomination of Kavanaugh?

Again, these points I'm making, assume this happened.  (I'll make some points later that assume it didn't happen.)

1.  Kavanaugh never was confronted with this accusation and has never been held accountable.  And this stuff happened often back then (and still today).  Girls and women simply had to deal with things like this on their own.  This would be one example of a situation where he suffered no consequences for his inappropriate behavior.  Getting drunk during high school when his drinking was illegal, is another.  Sure, lots of people get drunk in high school, but for this future judge, it's another example of breaking the law with no consequences.  He even bragged about it in his yearbook.

2.  Kavanaugh categorically denied this ever happened.  That's textbook response for powerful men being accused of rape or sexual assault.  Though some, like Sen.  Franken, take responsibility for what they did and resign their positions.  If this did happen, Kavanaugh is lying.

3.  If a 33 year old high school indiscretion doesn't matter, then why not acknowledge it, apologize, and say that was long ago and I've learned and I'm no longer that person?  Trump didn't even have to apologize or say he was no longer that person.  But Supreme Court judges are expected to be truthful.

4.  In many of the #metoo cases we've seen in the last year or so, after a high profile accusation, other women come forward.  By rushing the vote to approve Kavanaugh, the Senate might be able to get him onto the court before anyone else comes forward.  Though this sounds like a particularly inept assault and perhaps it was a one-off.  Even if it wasn't, it may not have happened often or past high school or college.  But we should give others a chance to come forward.

5.  The accuser's hired an attorney who specializes in women accusers.  The attorney told her to take a lie detector test before she did anything else.  She passed the test.  I'd like Kavanaugh to take such a test if he's so certain it never happened.

6.  Republicans had a list ready of 65 women* who knew Kavanaugh in high school who all attest to his upstanding character.  (Does that include his self admitted drunken parties?)  If there are questions about the accuser's credibility, I'd like to see some reporters check with these women on how their names got on the list and whether they knew their names were going to be used to counter a sexual assault charge.


 Kavanaugh, and his Senate supporters, at his confirmation hearings, repeatedly talked about how Kavanaugh hired more female interns and people of color than the average judge.  While this is admirable, there's also something about men who surround themselves with women subordinates.  (It's interesting that google did poorly when I asked "male executives with mostly women subordinates."  It gave me articles about whether men or women are better bosses for women.  So I'm going to go with undocumented hunches here.)   My sense is that women, generally, are less confrontative than men.  Women are socialized to make nice.  (See Deborah Tannen's classic work on how men and women talk and act at work.)  I'd guess that, on average, life is easier, more pleasant, with women subordinates who are more grateful for getting an opportunity and less likely to challenge their boss.  He talked about all his mentoring - as girls basketball coach, all the women interns, the black students at Harvard.  All these are laudable things, but he actually used the young basketball players as props as they sat behind him one day during his hearings.  One can't help but wonder how much of this is stuff he's done to make his Supreme Court application look better.  Like high school kids volunteering at soup kitchens so they can put it down on their college applications.

7.  If Kavanaugh gets confirmed to the Supreme Court, we'll have two judges on the court who got there despite credible accusations of sexual harassment/assault by women college professors.



What if the accusation is false?

1.  The committee could wait to be sure that accuser is lying.  They could wait to see if any other women come forward.   They could ask Kavanaugh to take a lie detector test.  (While they're at it, they could ask him some of the questions he seemed a bit cagey about during the public hearings.)

2.  Even if Democrats took the Senate in November, the Senate would still have a almost 2 months to confirm Kavanaugh before the new Senators are sworn in.  But given Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Years, it would be tight.

3.  Senator Harris quoted Kavanaugh on 'rushed decisions.'

"As Judge Kavanaugh relayed to me in our meeting, with respect to judicial decisions, rushed decisions are often bad decisions. I agree. But this time, this is for a lifetime appointment to the Supreme Court."

3.  If would end up hurting the credibility of Democrats.



I suspect the Republicans and Kavanaugh, want him on the court so bad, and they feel like they are so, so close, that they want to rush this through before anything comes up that might quash their hopes.  They've already rushed the hearings through without hundreds of thousands of pages of documents that Democrats requested.  They're going to accept Kavanaugh's denial and not give time for others to come forth.  They want this done before the November election, even though the numbers suggest that they have a decent chance of keeping the Senate majority.

*I randomly picked a name from the list of 65 women who signed the letter supporting Brett Kavanaugh - Cindy Urgo - and google got me to her Youtube channel.  It has four videos up.  All with religious songs.   This is the most recent (2013):

Going Through The Old Liquor Cabinet - Mumms, Peter Heering, Vandermint, and Tawny Port

There were some old photo albums in the living room that I hadn't put back in the hall closet last time we were visiting my mom.  But to put them back I had to make room.  I did this by pulling out some old boxes that had alcohol in them.  Old champagne, tawny port, vermouth.  I'm not a drinker.  I drink a beer now and then and I like a good glass of wine, but I never really got into hard liquor.  Well, all the Mekhong - a common Thai whiskey - that was forced on me when I was a Peace Corps volunteer so many years ago, when I would, to be culturally open, say yes to anything, probably cured me of wanting hard liquor. 



I started googling how long champagne and the other bottles are good for.  The answers I found online suggest things are still drinkable but not in their prime.




From For The Love Of Port:

How long do I cellar Vintage and other styles of port?

Vintage Ports typically need at least 15 years to start reaching maturity. The top Vintage Ports can easily last 30-100+ years if stored properly.
Late Bottle Vintage Ports that are filtered are not meant to be aged. So there is no reason to do so. Unfiltered LBV’s generally will start showing their best at around 10+ years of age. Generally, they are not designed to be aged beyond 20 years, with a few exceptions.
Tawny Port with an Indication of Age is not meant to age in bottle. This type of Port group is usually best when consumed closer to the date of bottling.

This all led to another cabinet that was full of a wide variety of bottles.  I offered my mom a couple of sips of the Vandermint.  And she seemed to really enjoy it.  The fragrance lingered most of the night around the dining room table.  I found this description at This Next:

"Few things are as obscure and good as Vandermint: the chocolate and mint liqueur from Holland. You might not take milk glass-like bottle seriously but the contents will surpise and likely amaze. Unlike its lesser mint & chocolate counterparts this elixir is smooth, rich, creamy and alluring - all without being milky, syrupy sweet or heavy in any way. Dont be fooled, this is a serious drink with refined taste. If you want alcohol steeped candy, look elsewhere. A few sips and you'll be solving the world's problems from your sofa throne in no time at all."

After reading that, I guess I better try some before I go to bed tonight.

When I looked up the Peter Heering Liqueur, I learned this history about the Singapore Sling (which I'd known about, and I think actually have had one in my younger days.)  From Heering.com:

The Singapore Sling was created at Raffles Hotel at the turn-of-the-century by Hainanese-Chinese bartender mr Ngiam Tong Boon. Till today, in the Hotel’s museum, visitors may view the safe in which Mr Ngiam locked away his precious recipe books, as well as the Sling recipe hastily jotted down on a bar-chit in 1936 by a visitor to the Hotel who asked the waiter for it. Mr Ngiam Tong Boon concocted the very first coctail to achieve global fame by mixing 30 ml gin, 15 ml Heering Cherry Liqueur, 120 ml pineapple juice, 15 ml lime juice, 7.5 ml Cointreau, 7.5 ml Dom Benedictine, 10 ml Grenadine and a dash of Angostura Bitters. Shaken not stirred, served on ice in a cocktail glass.

Somewhere I have a slide of the Raffles Hotel from 1968 or 69, and a more recent one - it didn't look at all the same - from when I visited my son in 2008.

 One more thing.  Does anyone have any idea what this item is for.  I've photoshopped two views into this one image.  One of the excuses I've used to get my mom to allow me to go through the stuff in the closets now, is so that she can explain things.  But she didn't know what this was either.