Enjoy Your Turkey Or Your Turkey Alternative

Happy Thanksgiving everyone.  Whether you live in the US or not.  The idea of a holiday when you give thanks is a good one.  And the US has been examining the origin story of this holiday for many years now.  We will, eventually get it right.  

I found this picture in a shopping bag of things I brought home last March from my Mom's house.  I finally got to looking through what was in there.  This turkey has my name written on the back, so it's a really old turkey!  There were also letters my mom got from her parents at the end of 1939 and through 1941.  She had made it to the US, but they were stuck in Germany.  I haven't read through them carefully, but they have to be the last contact my mother had with her parents.  There's also a letter she sent to them in late November 1941.  It was returned to sender.  It must have been on-route when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor and the US declared war against Japan and Germany.  

With that in the back of my head, I can't help thinking about COVID-19.  A good friend dropped off a small Thanksgiving feast.  Our fresh baked bread in return seems paltry.  

But I'm also thinking about the 3 people who died of COVID yesterday in Alaska.  No Thanksgiving for them.  And an unhappy one for their relatives and friends.  And the 24 people who were hospitalized.  Their Thanksgiving is also messed up.  Or the 553 people who tested positive yesterday.  Many of them will get through it fairly easily.  Some will get pretty sick before they get better.  A few might not get better.  

When my son, maybe 9 or 10 years old, did something he oughtn't to have done, and I'd started out letting him know what I thought about it, he'd put up his hand and say, 

"Dad, stop  That's lecture number 473."  

Me:  "If you know what I'm going to say, tell me."

And he would.  

Me:  "If you know it, why don't you do it?"

It turns out that he had all the lectures very retrievable in his brain.  And as he matured, his behavior matched  the goals of my lectures.  

What I eventually realized, was that he knew what to do, but that he wasn't emotionally able to do them.  

I'm guessing that not wearing a mask is like that, or like not being able to apologize.  You know you should, but you have emotional obstacles to overcome.  Masks don't match your self-image of  ____________ (fill in the blank).  Maybe of a Trump supporter.  Maybe of a person who does what he or she wants, not what they're told.  

There were a few times while I was teaching that I'd get some unprovoked pushback from a student.  When I asked other students, after class, what I had done, they'd say, "Nothing."  My sense was that there are people with authority issues.  And when people can't vent against the person they're really upset at, they pick another, less dangerous authority figure to lash out at.  

That's the only thing that makes sense to me with anti-maskers.  After all, the physical act of putting on a mask is no big deal.  Bank robbers have no problem with masks.  Trick or Treaters have no problem with masks.  Millions of Muslim women adapt to face coverings.  It's not the physical 'sacrifice' of wearing a mask that's the problem.  It's the emotional barriers that are the problem.  

I get that people want to go back to some semblance of their old lives.  Even if they weren't that happy with those old lives.  

The irony is, if we all had been wearing masks when out in public and been practicing social distancing, most commercial businesses could be open now.  

And had we all been doing this, and the experts are right, then most things could be open now - with some accommodations - and two thirds or more of the people who have died, would still be alive.  Including the many health care workers and low income folks deemed "essential workers."

And if the experts turned out to be wrong, the great sacrifice would have been wearing masks in public.     It's sort of on the level of wearing a seatbelt.  Or brushing your teeth every day.   And given that the numbers of cases and deaths in the US far exceeds most other places where people do stay home and/or do wear masks in public, it appears that masks and avoiding large gatherings do work.  

So anti-maskers, just humor me and the others concerned about the health of people in my community and country.  Get a mask that marks you as an Trump supporter or an independent thinker or as someone who doesn't believe in masks, but is willing to make a 'sacrifice' if so many others think it's important.  It's not like you have to cut off your right ear to help others survive.  

I also wish that hospitals could figure out some ways to show what is actually happening in COVID wards without violating patient privacy rights.  Some live "COVID-cams" where people can see what's happening behind the walls of the hospitals.  

Prep Phone For Protests And Anti-Racism Resources

Alaska is now surging on a second COVID-19 wave.  We hit 190 active cases today (19 more from yesterday- State says 20).  Our previous high was April 22 with 188 active cases.  The isolation measures got us down to 33, but now we're rising and likely to keep on going up.  See the Alaska COVID-19 tab above for more details.

Meanwhile here are a couple of useful links:

How Do I Prepare My Phone for a Protest?

Here are the basic recommendations:

1. Subdue Your Signals (and Download Signal)
2. Lockdown Location Tracking
3. Harden Your Hardware
4. Use a Passcode, Not a Fingerprint
5. Neutralize Notifications
6. Think Before You Share
7. Physicalize Your Phonebook

If these don't make a lot of sense to you, then that's all the more reason to go to the article to find out what it all means.  Our phones do lots of things for us in ways few people understand.  Not knowing means you don't have to worry, but knowing means you can take some basic steps to protect yourself.

These ideas apply to travel to police state countries where the authorities may just take your phone.




Anti Racism Resources

"This document is intended to serve as a resource to white people and parents to deepen our anti-racism work. If you haven’t engaged in anti-racism work in the past, start now. Feel free to circulate this document on social media and with your friends, family, and colleagues."

Here are the categories:

1. Resources for white parents to raise anti-racist children:
2. Articles to read:
3. Podcasts to subscribe to:
4. Books to read:
5. Films and TV series to watch:
6. Organizations to follow on social media:
7. More anti-racism resources to check out:

Please Go To The Alaskan Youth Climate Change Lawsuit At The Supreme Court Wednesday - I Have A Conflicting Obligation

I saw this message today:

As wildfires rage across Alaska and salmon die in the state’s warmed rivers after a summer that reached the hottest temperatures on record, these young Alaskans are standing up for their rights and for a future free from climate chaos.
WHO: The 16 young Alaskans who are suing the state of Alaska for violating their constitutional rights by knowingly contributing to climate change.
WHAT: The youth plaintiffs have a hearing before the Alaska Supreme Court after appealing a lower court’s ruling against them and they need YOU in the courtroom to show the public that their community stands behind them in their fight for climate justice.
WHY: The lower court mistakenly ruled that the youth had not identified a state policy that contributes to climate change, even though the youth clearly identified the statute declaring the State’s Energy Policy to promote fossil fuels and explained how the State’s implementation of that policy causes climate change and violates the constitutional rights of young Alaskans.
WHEN: Wednesday, October 9 at 1:30 p.m. Arrive early to secure your seat in the courtroom. There will be a press conference following the hearing at about 2:30 p.m. near the courthouse (location TBD) where you will have a chance to hear from some of the youth plaintiffs and their attorneys.
WHERE: 303 K Street, Anchorage 99501

I should be there!

But Wednesday is also Yom Kippur.  Although I have lots of issues with the persona of the Old Testament God, the time between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur is an important, traditional period set aside to think about one's deeds of the last year.  Whom have I wronged?  Who has wronged me?  How can I make things right?  Can I forgive those who did me harm?  And just as important, it is time to think about how I can be a better person in the next year.

And there is something much greater than thinking about attending Yom Kippur  as one individual act.  Going to high holiday services, even though I miss most of the other services during the year, is a way to honor my ancestors who struggled hard, and even died, because of their membership in this family of people that goes back to Moses and Abraham.  I can't just walk away from that. So I cringe at the demanding, paternalistic diety in the prayer book, and the fatalistic sealing of people's fate:

Oh Rosh Hashanah it is written,
on Yom Kippur it is sealed:
How many shall pass on, how many shall come to be;
who shall live and who shall die;
who shall see ripe age and who shall not;
who shall perish by fire and who by water;
who by sword and who by beast;
who by hunger and who by thirst;
who by earthquake and who by plague;
who by strangling and who by stoning;
who shall be secure and who shall be driven;
who shall be tranquil and who shall be troubled;
who shall be poor and who shall be rich;
who shall be humbled and who exalted.*

OK, you've got ten days to change what is written, before it is sealed, in this narrative.  You do have some say in this.  And while some of these seem like ancient fates, most are still fairly common even in the US.  And around the world there are people still being stoned to death, but how are these sorts of fates due to an individual's unholy behavior? Are the people dying by fire more sinful than those who have less painful deaths or even those who live for another year?  Are the rich really better people than those who are poor?  There are so many examples of this not being true.  (Of course I'm accepting our society's belief that rich people are somehow better than poor people.)

But other parts of the prayer book are more subtle and relevant to today's world.  So I concentrate on those parts.  Such as:

We sin against You when we sin against ourselves.
For our failures of truth, O Lord, we ask forgiveness.

For passing judgment without knowledge of the facts,
and for distorting facts to fit our theories.
For using the sins of others to excuse our own,
and for denying responsibility for our own misfortunes.
For condemning in our children the faults we tolerate in ourselves,
and for condemning in our parents the faults we tolerate in ourselves.

For keeping the poor in the chains of poverty,
and turning a deaf ear to the cry of the oppressed.
For using violence to maintain our power,
and for using violence to bring about change.
For waging aggressive war,
and for the sin of appeasing aggressors.
For obeying criminal orders,
and for the sin of silence and indifference.
For poisoning the air, and polluting land and sea,
and for all the evil means we employ to accomplish good ends.

These are behaviors that people do every day and these lines force them to face the consequences of their seemingly minor and benign behavior.    And I'm comfortable with "O Lord" being a metaphor for humanity or nature, or some other collective being other than a tyrannical deity demanding obedience of the imperfect creatures he's created.  (So very much like many parents.)

*After writing all this, I found a discussion above of the list of ways people might die, by Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg who shares some of my reactions, but offers this more as a collective rather than individual fate.

". . .how can we accept that tefillah (prayer) and teshuvah (repentance) and tzedekah (acts of righteousness, usually translated as “charity”) are going to save us from earthquakes, car accidents, persecution? We know that lots of very good people suffer every day, and that many people who do horrible things prosper. One could write off the prayer as reflective of an era in which people found solace in trying to control their fate, but I think that’s unfair and dismissive of the liturgy. . .

What if it weren’t about my individual repentance as it affects my individual fate? What if our repentance as a society (which demands that each individual do his or her part) is the thing that affects our collective fate? What if the reason a person gets cancer is not because he or she personally has done something wrong, but because we as a nation and a globe have poisoned our air, our water, and our food with toxic chemicals and negligence? Are the tsunami of two years ago and the hurricanes of last year a sign that entire sections of the world were filled with sinners, or a tragic by-product of global warming? Are the women killed by stoning–yes, today–in honor killings around the world guilty of insufficient prayer, or should we assign responsibility to everyone who perpetuates a culture in which this is considered acceptable? Are the war refugees (like those fleeing the genocide in Darfur or the Lost Boys of Sudan) who sometimes fall to wild beasts personally responsible for their situation, their fate? Of course not. "

I can live better with this interpretation, but why not change the language of the prayerbook to reflect this?

So, in my life, I've accepted that attending High Holiday services is something I should do.  My mother took me with her, even though she didn't go to weekly services.  And there were times when going was difficult - as a student in Germany when the Jewish community was not yet visible again, and as a Peace Corps volunteer in a remote Thai province.  But I usually attend.  I work past the language that's troubling, and focus on the language that connects me, individually, with righteousness and humanity.

And so, I hope that many of my friends who believe in the importance of fighting Climate Change in as many ways as possible, are at the Supreme Court Wednesday afternoon to support the 16 who are suing the State of Alaska.

Anchorage North-South Runway Almost Done. Quiet Starts Oct 1, Maybe

My daughter sent me a picture of the Anchorage airport North-South runway that she took as her plane was leaving two weeks ago.  There it is out past the wing to the north.  I was told a couple of weeks ago that it needed grooving, painting, electrical work, and FAA approval.  Looks like - and admittedly the picture doesn't show all the runway that clearly - most of the work is done.

Checking the project website today, there's nothing new since the August 16, 2019 update.  There really never were very many updates.  The FAQ link still goes to "Not Found" within weeks (I hope) of the two year project.

The Update Video is still the same pre-project video.  The August 16 update was hidden in the Project Documents tab.  I say 'hidden' because the project page had two other links with the word "updates" which didn't give updates.

I talked to Jason Lamoreaux again.  It's still on schedule for October 1 reopening of the North-South Runway.
FAA is due to do inspections Sept 23, 2019.

But I'm still doubtful that the airport did this as fast as it could.  We had the driest summer on record.  What if there had been lots of weather problems?  Lamoreaux assured me that the only weather dependent work was the striping at the end, and that airport employees have to live through the noise as well.  He said they were working 24/7, though the only time I went out to look at the runway, there didn't seem to be much happening.  A few guys working near the fence.

Summary  (since this is getting long)

1.  I accept the need for renewing the runway. 2.  I doubt there was any real concern of the impacts on the people of Anchorage - only to the extent they might complain and interfere.  We've been watching the Netflix series Unbelievable in which the first set of cops interviewing a rape victim are two men who just don't take her seriously.  I'm sure they believe rape is terrible, but the victim wasn't someone they were sympathetic to.  The next set of women detectives were totally different in their empathy to the rape victims they met with.   I feel like the airport's interest has been like the first male detectives.  They wanted to get the job done and how the noise affected the people of Anchorage wasn't a high priority. 3.  Their noise maps that show 65 decibel noise levels end at the airport boundaries are a joke.  The levels are way above 65 decibels over our house often. 4.  I can find no concern - other than compliance with regs - about health or pollution in their reports 5.  Even with a perfect summer for construction, I see no evidence that they are trying to open the north-south runway ahead of schedule so planes can stop taking off over residences non-stop. 6.  Because there are so many other political distractions nationally and in Alaska, people were out of energy to protest something that at least had an end point.  And few were opposed to the idea of renewing the runway. 7.  Nothing will change this time, but they're going to want to do this again in the future and perhaps this documentation (along with last year's) can be helpful in preparation.

I went through the issues last year - the noise, the clearly bogus decibel maps, and how the people of Anchorage were not a high priority in this project.  The concern was for the collective income the city will get from the jobs and all the planes this runway will be able to handle in the future.  But issues like the effects of having 80 - 120 decibel planes flying over your house regularly for four months one summer and six months the next, nah, people just have to live with that.

My complaint isn't that they're 'renewing' the runway and making it wider.  I understand that will have impacts on those of us who normally enjoy the fact that the airport is a short ride away.  My concern is the project managers' apparent lack of concern for the public, shown by the lack of updates on their website AND their apparent lack of interest in getting the project done as quickly as possible.  We have had a summer of warm, rainless days.  Conditions couldn't have been better. But apparently we're going to have to have those planes rumbling overhead until the originally scheduled deadline.  Maybe Lamoreaux is right.  He sounds like a nice enough guy on the phone, but the website had very little information other than what they were required to put up.  Normally DOT has much more information with time lines and milestones for road building projects.  We had nothing like that for this project.  And the updates, for the most part, didn't exist.

And the noise is more than an annoyance if you live right on the flight path - which covers a large swath from mid-town to South Anchorage.  These decibel levels can have long time effects on people's hearing, on their blood pressure, and on their sleep which leads to other problems.  None of that shows up in their environmental impacts.  Nor do the fumes of all these planes falling on Anchorage.  Most of the EIS addresses problems from the actual construction and not the change in flight patterns that has had ALL planes in what the airport touts as one of the busiest airports in the world, flying over much of the city.

"Mitigation and Environmental Commitments
The environmental commitments below would be implemented to minimize impacts during and after constructing the proposed project. The terms, conditions, and stipulations of all environmental permits and clearances would also be met. All commitments will be part of the construction contract specifications.
Air Quality
Measures to control fugitive dust, such as pre-watering sites prior to excavation, covering or stabilizing material stockpiles, covering truckloads, removing particulate matter from wheels prior to leaving the construction site, and removing particulate matter deposited on public roads, would be implemented during construction. No vehicles, trucks, or heavy equipment would be allowed to idle unnecessarily. All motorized construction equipment would be routinely maintained and serviced.
Noise
DOT&PF has, in extensive coordination and research with ANC operations, air traffic control and the air carriers researched all possible mitigation measures to reduce temporary increased noise from aircraft departing to the east when RW 15/33 is shut down for approximately six months for construction during construction season one and possibly construction season two. The only feasible option resulting from coordination and research to mitigate this increased aircraft noise (as predicted by noise modeling) is DOT&PF would issue a Notice to Airmen (NOTAM). The NOTAM would request air carriers to follow noise abatement procedures to reduce noise impacts over the noise sensitive areas east of the Airport which would experience a significant increase in noise during the RW 15/33 construction shut down. Air carriers can choose to adopt or not adopt the NOTAM recommendations. The public would be notified in advance of construction activities via the project email list and project web site. The public would have access to the project web site and ANC contact information for construction updates and inquiries."

There is reference to a 1978 study that talks about health effects over 65 decibels:

"FAA’s and FICON’s findings support Schultz’s widely-accepted 1978 research.13 That research indicated the level of transportation noise to which a community is exposed is directly related to the community’s health, welfare, and annoyance. Schultz’s work, and FICON’s reassessment of that work, showed cumulative noise levels above DNL 65 decibels (dB) cause community annoyance levels that make noise sensitive land uses (i.e., residences, schools, churches, hospitals and certain businesses) incompatible with airport operations.
According to FAA Order 1051.1F Desk Reference, Chapter 11, for aviation noise analyses, the FAA has determined the cumulative noise energy exposure of individuals to noise resulting from aviation activities must be established in terms of yearly DNL, the FAA’s primary noise metric."

Their map shows that the DNL of 65 ends at the edge of the airport, but that's totally bogus.  I went through all this in one of last year's posts.  They mention noise, but they don't mention the kinds of things high decibel noise does to people.

Again, maybe they did it in lightening speed.  But I only have their very undetailed assurances of that.

This is here then, so that people can start getting prepared and know what questions to ask before   the North-South Runway needs to be renewed again, in I'm not sure how many more years. (Lamoreaux didn't know.  He told me to call the airport.  I told him I did and they transferred me to him.)

Next time we want to see:

1.  Detailed plans with milestones and dates for when each milestone is met and who's responsible.
2.  More realistic measures of decibel levels where the planes are taking off over the city.
3.  Plans to measure the decibel level in various locations well beyond the airport boundaries
4.  More options for reducing the number of planes and the duration of planes flying over the city.
5.  Plans in the scheduling for speeding things up (reducing the time planes fly over the city) if things go well.

That's just a starting list.  Noise matters to people's health and well being.  Reducing what residents of Anchorage are exposed to should be a high priority next time.

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

"You haven't got the disqualifications. . ." Plus Carrots Radishes And The Bike Trail

I'm reading Lucky Jim by Kingsley Amis for my bookclub.  I don't consider myself Lucky Steve for having to read it.  It's a 1950s British.  It's supposed to be an academic comedy I guess.  The cover says, "No one has been so funny in this vein since Eveyln Waugh was at his best."  It also says, "$1.45."

But I did find a redeeming quote today.  The feckless main character has just given a disastrous lecture to the whole academic and local elite community and lost his job as a professor.  But he gets a phone call offering him a new job.

"I think you'll do the job all right, Dixon.  It's not that you've got the qualifications, for this or any other work, but there are plenty who have.  You haven't got the disqualifications, though, and that's much rarer."

I'm not quite sure what that means, but I suspect that it's the unspoken reason many people do get jobs.  If anyone has some examples, I'd love to hear them.

Meanwhile mi nieta (Spanish does granddaughter so much better than English) is here with her parents.  We went to the Muldoon Saturday market at Chanshtnu Muldoon Park (Muldoon at the end of Debarr.)  This market has a mix of fresh veggies, baked goods, and hadn't  [hand-]made items from knits to lego earrings.



The produce was beautiful  Look at those radishes and carrots!

These are Somali baked goods.  Here's the ingredients of Kac Kac:

Z took this and the next picture.  These are squash.








And this is one of the Nepali farmers.

Just look at these onions.  I guess we're so used to food that's taken a week to get to Anchorage from Outside, that when we get fresh locally grown crops, they look sooo good.










After we got back, we took out the bike that Z learned to ride last summer.  We'd gone to a nearby empty parking lot and she got the hang of it.  Then I told her the second most important thing you need to know is how to use the brakes.  But when she left last summer, she was riding a bike.

Today we got out the bike to see how she was doing a year later as a 6 year old.  The alley near our house was paved this summer and it's perfect - a couple hundred yards, no traffic.  Well two other girls showed up on their bikes.  It's slightly downhill from our end, but she had no trouble, including looping around and coming back.  So later we went to Campbell Creek and rode the bike trail.  After about a mile and a half, I mentioned that however far we go, we have to go back.  She decided it was time to turn around. I didn't know how far she'd last so I didn't push to go further.
But the trail through the woods is beautiful and she was going up and down the small hills like a trooper.  Family pictures are not allowed on here.  Not sure how long she can avoid being captured by the online data vultures, but for now trying to keep her free.

However, I did take a short video of the grasses dancing in the wind on the bike ride.


(The wind apparently was responsible for knocking out the power in the area around our house too today.)

Wonderful day.

Chancellor "Ask Me Anything" Session With UAA Community

It was already standing room only when I got to the meeting with UAA Chancellor Sandeen.  With the governor's budget cuts, and the Board of Regents' declaration of exigency, the university is scrambling.  We still don't know how the final state budget will emerge and then there's the kickoff of the campaign to recall the governor to add to the uncertainty.

There were questions from students -

• why haven't there been support teams to help students cope with working, parenting, protesting, and school work when everything is so uncertain?  
• why haven't we had a Native Students director for the last few years?  
• Will I be able to get my classes and graduate?  
• Will engineering be in Anchorage or Fairbanks and can I finish my degree?  
• I'm a theater major, what's going to happen with the arts?

Answers were basically -

• we don't have many answers ourselves, we're trying to cope ourselves and just getting ready to respond,  this meeting is the start
• we were ready to hire when positions were frozen, 
• we're going to make sure all students are able to graduate, either here, or elsewhere, and 
• they're focusing on work preparation degrees, but I believe arts programs are work preparation and Anchorage is the arts center of Alaska, so I'm pushing hard to keep those programs.  

There were questions from faculty and staff -

• what happens when UAA and UAF each have grants that stipulate only one per institution if we combine into one institution?  
• what sort of structure can we expect for administrators?  
• what do we tell prospective students who we've been working with when they ask if UAA will have the programs they want?  
• will faculty be involved in the restructuring?

There was even less certainty here.  (Here's what I heard, though I didn't take careful notes since I was in the standing room section.)

• we don't know.  We'll have to work with the agencies as we transition.
• the HR department has already gone through this and if it's a model, the services will be centralized, fewer positions on campus
• things will work out, there will be places for them somewhere, but right now we don't know any details
• the president's plan calls for making restructuring proposals first and then allowing participation afterward, maybe those will be tentative proposals [don't hold your breath, the President has been trying to make one unified university since he got here and now he's got his way to do it]

Chancellor Sandeen was impressive.  She's only been here less than a year, but she was warm, caring, and listened and she sounded honest and sincere.  The audience, at one point, stood up and applauded her work so far.  She said that she hasn't for one iota of a second regretted her decision to come here, that she loves the community here and we'll work through this.

In Argentina, There Was A Love That People Showed For Each Other

I don't have pictures, because these moments came when I didn't have my camera out, and because I'm hesitant to intrude in intimate moments, but let me give you several examples of the caring I saw among people in Argentina.

1.  People greet each other with hugs that include cheek to cheek contact

I don't know the rules of who hugs who like this.  Certainly family members, but also work colleagues, friends, and even we received this treatment from people.  This contact is male-female, female-female, and male-male.  I think this - I want to say intimacy, but maybe it's because my US cultural perspective sees it that way - physical contact breaks down barriers that handshakes can't.


2.  I saw lots of fathers really enjoying being with their young children

Men would have their kids on their shoulders, or mock battle with them, men would become little kids themselves in their play with their children.  And there was an obvious love that sparkled in the eyes of parent and child and showed in the natural smiles they shared.  I'm not saying there aren't cold fathers in Argentina, just that I saw a lot more pure love showing than I see in the US.

3.  Mate bonding

I've mentioned mate in a few posts already.  It's a kind of tea that Argentines (Uruguayans and Chileans) drink from small gourd cups through metal straws. I guess gourds were the original cups, but they also use ceramic cups.  Everywhere you see people with their mate cups and a small thermos to replenish the hot water.

Bus drivers, people walking down the street, teachers, everybody drinks mate and it's a ritual.  People don't toss their mate cups the way Americans toss their latte cups.
But I'm talking about mate again here because people share their mate.  They share their metal mate straws.  The only thing like it I can think of in the US would be people sharing a joint.  

     Here's the bus driver on one of our tours adding hot water to his mate.













And here he's sharing his mate with the guide.

  

4.  Airplane Safety Video

Aerolíneas had an animated safety video - all the stuff about seat belts, oxygen masks, that we see or hear every time a flight is about to take off.  What made this animation different was that when the mother put the child's oxygen mask over his mouth and nose, the mother lovingly and ever so fleetingly (and unconsciously) she strokes the child's cheek.  And when the mother is shown helping the child get on his life rest, again, she reassuringly tousles his hair.

I've never seen anything like that in an airline safety message before.  And while there are commercials that show that sort of thing, I don't think I've ever seen one as natural as this.  I could be wrong, but I felt like the artist just put the love into the animation and no one objected.  Though it's quite possible they spent hours debating this.  But for me, the outcome was one more example of a human bonding that I saw lots of in Argentina.  (We weren't in Chile or Brazil long enough to make such observations.)


OK, that's it.  In this time of great interpersonal nastiness unleashed by the US president, I thought it important to shine a little lot of these acts of love.  I have no illusions that Argentinians aren't capable of evil - they demonstrated that in the 70s and 80s.  But these moments of caring did catch my attention.

Puerto Rico Got Rid Of Its Governor. Alaska, Now It's Our Turn

Puerto Ricans got 25,000 people out in the streets to protest their governor and after about a week he's announced his resignation.

Alaska's governor, apparently taking orders from his Outside handlers, is poised to destroy Alaska as we know it.  As I've written before, the only explanation that makes sense to me is that the Koch brothers want to defund government so that there are no obstacles for Outside corporations to plunder Alaska's resources.  No university scientists to challenge their reports, no government regulators to monitor their activities, no public processes to hinder their profits.  And, based on what happened at the Dunleavy chaired hearings a few years ago on Erin's Law, he personally would like to weaken public schools to the point that people either home school or demand vouchers for private schools, including religious schools.

Our university's Board of Regents has already declared financial exigency because of the budget cuts, and Anchorage's Mayor has declared Civil Emergency because of the impact of cuts on health and safety.

Puerto Rico's population is around 3 million. (Google searches give a variety of numbers, many estimates based on the 2010 census data, plus an AP report from April saying the population has dropped 4% since Hurricane Maria.  So, for my purposes here, 3 million is close enough.)

25,000  is .8% of Puerto Rico's population.  Yes, less than 1%.

Alaska's population was 736,239 in 2018 according to the State Department of Labor.  So, if we go for 1% of our population, that would be 7369.  7000 is a good round number.

So, if all the groups that are working to overturn the Governor's draconian (yes, that term has been used in the past, but this time it's not metaphorical) can get together and we can get 7000 people to rally around the Atwood Building - 550 W 7th Ave - where the governor's Anchorage office is, for a week, maybe we can get the kind of attention Puerto Rico has gotten.  I don't think we can persuade Dunleavy to resign.  He's not paying attention to Alaskans.  But maybe we can get some more momentum for overriding his vetoes and/or impeachment.

Is this an achievable number?  It's a tiny fraction of our population, but when that many people take to the streets, as Puerto Rico has shown, people pay attention.  We don't need the same 7000 people every day.  And if smaller rallies appear in other towns and villages, the world would notice.

Large rallies should be in addition to all the other pressures being put on our politicians to save Alaska form this impending calamity.

Planes Overhead

[This is my first posting on my new iPad.  There are things here in blogger that don’t work quite right.  The page is too big for the screen and Command - doesn’t make it smaller.  If I use my fingers, I get all the open windows.  Weird things are happening.  I’m hoping it isn’t just really clumsy with blogspot, just different ways to do things that I have to figure out.  But I’m having trouble placing the pictures and text where I want things. So bear with me as I figure this out.  And anyone who’s figure this out, please give me some suggestions]

One of the factors that made leaving Anchorage during the summer for this trip, was the knowledge that the Anchorage airport would continue with construction on the North-South runway, diverting all flights to take off over Anchorage.  Last summer it was three months of constant noise.  This summer is scheduled from May to October.  

Fortunately, it hasn’t been as bad as last summer so far.  Planes took off on a flight line just south of our house, so we heard most of them.  Those heading south than veered in that direction, and those heading north veered over our house, some a little further east, a few just west.  The constant rumble and sometimes roar, was a serious annoyance.  

I was surprised - I should know better than to be surprised - by the vehemence of some online comments at Next Door and letters to the editor that made light of the noise and attacked the complainers as whiners.  After all, it’s your airport, they’d mock.  

Clearly these were folks who have trouble empathizing.  If it wasn’t a problem for them, anyone who complained was a weenie.  But what I wanted to know was whether they just lived where there was less jet noise, or they endured the same decibels as I did but it didn’t bother them.  

I also was curious about what kind of disturbance would start THEM whining.  Gun control laws?  Lack of alcohol?  Drivers going the speed limit?  Losing at anything?  

But this last week it seems the planes have been moving back to last summer’s pattern.  I was at a Community Council meeting at which Jim Szczesniak spoke briefly.  He’s the guy who worked at a high level at O’Hare until about 10 years ago when he took over his grandmother’s T-shirt company.  It seemed a strange career move that made me wonder why Alaska hired him to run the airport and whether this runway project is his ticket out of here.  In any case, he’s full speed ahead, people with noise problems be damned.  He did say that pilots this summer have been requested to fly slower until they reach - if I recall correctly - 4000 feet.  That was supposed to make things quieter.  And maybe accounted for the planes who flew farther east (than my house) before turning.  But it was at the pilots’ discretion.

Some of the pictures show that some planes are much further away, but others fly pretty much right above us.

I’ve realized though, in the last few nights that planes have been waking me at all hours of the night.  So if I’m going to miss a month summer in Alaska, this is a good summer to do it.  

Upon what meat do these, our legislative potentates, feed? " An Analysis Of A Letter To The Editor

Go ahead and read this letter to the editor that was in the Anchorage Daily News the other day:

The Letter

THE LAST OF A DYING BREED
Upon what meat do these, our legislative potentates, feed? The constant whining, wailing and caterwauling politicians of both stripes, lining up like pigs at the feeding trough of public spending, have gorged themselves for years.
Since Tom Fink, I’d given up all hope of ever seeing another fiscal conservative. To make actual cuts of real substance — ’twas a consummation devoutly to be wished. To take on the biggest governmental fraud, public indoctrination of our youth masquerading as education, requires a strength of courage that was thought never to be seen again.
So-called public education, for approximately 140 years, has produced decade after decade of declining test scores, rewarded in the following decades by increased funding. In the private sector, such a business model would have been diagnosed and terminated 135 years ago as an unmitigated failure. The answer is not more funding, but the fraud’s replacement with charter, private and religious schools that educate.
— Ed Wassell
Anchorage

How to review it?

I feel I need to respond. But who should my audience be?  I should respond to the ADN, but my response is way too long.  Then who?  My first impulse was to respond to people who might be taken in by these words, to help them see between the lines, or below the surface as some might say.  That would be easy to do.

But the real challenge is to address myself directly to the author.  But how?  A human being wrote this, and my intent is not to belittle him, but to try to engage in conversation about what he wrote.  Does he really believe this?  So I thought about how a graded my graduate students' papers.  I had to stay strictly objective.  My point was to help them improve, not to make the drop out of the class.

So let's see what I can do.  Line by line.  

"Upon what meat do these, our legislative potentates, feed?"

Mr. Wassell, I think you'd acknowledge this is not how most people speak today.  I even googled "Upon what meat do these potentates feed?"  I got several close citations.

"Upon what meat do these men feed that we should be their slaves, that they should not pay the same taxes that other people pay?"

This comes from a book called State Republican Legislative Souvenir, 1897, and Political History of Michigan  and recounts a debate over getting railroads to pay their fair share of taxes.  It's not that different from Alaskans asking that the oil industry pay its fair share of taxes.

Here's another example I found:

"Upon what meat do these men feed that they are grown so great?"

This was a harangue against school boards that fought against  teachers unionizing.  It appeared in a 1919 article in "The Public:  A Journal of Democracy.  (p. 396)

So, Mr Wassell what is it about late 19th/early 29th century rhetoric that you feel is so relevant for the opening of your letter?  How does it add to the readers' understanding of the issues you appear to discuss?  I ask in all seriousness.  Perhaps that's how you talk.  Or you want to be a little more poetic than we hear today.  Perhaps you want to impress people with your erudition.  Or perhaps it's a time you would feel more comfortable.  You don't tell us, so I have to guess.

Let's move on.

"The constant whining, wailing and caterwauling politicians of both stripes, lining up like pigs at the feeding trough of public spending, have gorged themselves for years."

The phrase 'legislative potentates' in the first sentence was the only hint of judgment on your part.

Merriam Webster tells us that potentate means:

" RULER, SOVEREIGN
broadly : one who wields great power or sway"

But you're applying it not to sovereigns or rulers, but mere legislators who have to struggle with other legislators.  They really don't have anything near a potentates' power.  But you convey that they are all powerful.   

Then this second sentence slides into anti-government liturgy, like repeating verses of the Bible that everyone takes as a natural truth.  At least members of that political religion.  But it is simply empty rhetoric that attacks the honor of all politicians.  Without any factual evidence.  As though all politicians are equally venal and none are in Juneau because they believe in the serving the public.  It's typical anti-government clichés.  Perhaps you are surrounded like people who talk in those kinds of phrases, but to many of your readers, I'm sure this language will be jarring and hurt your credibility.  

And you seem to condemn both 'potentates' and 'legislators.'  So if you disapprove of authoritarian rulers and you think democratically elected legislators are all hacks, what do you believe in?  I guess no government at all.  Let the natural state of humankind work things out?  Is that what you're saying?  If that's what you believe, why not just say you are opposed to government altogether?   

OK, on to the next sentence.  

"Since Tom Fink, I’d given up all hope of ever seeing another fiscal conservative. To make actual cuts of real substance — ’twas a consummation devoutly to be wished."

Conservapedia tells us:

"Fiscal conservatism is a political position (primarily in the United States) that calls for lower levels of public spending, lower taxes and lower government debt. It is a variety of conservatism concerned with economic rather than social issues. Fiscal conservatives oppose unnecessary government expenditures, deficits, and government debt. They take the perspective of the present and future taxpayers, and worry about the possible burden on them. They support balanced budgets. This should be contrasted with those who believe that lower taxation will stimulate industrial development, even though it causes higher deficits."

But it also says:

"Fiscal conservatism may also support limited periods of higher taxes in order to lower the public debt."

I'm not sure why you thought it useful to lift a phrase from Hamlet's To Be Or Not To Be speech.  This time you're reaching back, not 100 years for your style, but 400 years.  What do you mean by this?  Hamlet was referring to death.  And you seem to be referring to cutting the budget.  I guess that's a form of death.  At one time, people might recognize the line, but today I doubt very many would know where it comes from, so it might be helpful to give Will some credit here.

OK, next sentence.

"To take on the biggest governmental fraud, public indoctrination of our youth masquerading as education, requires a strength of courage that was thought never to be seen again."

Again, rather flowery language, but that's a stylistic issue I won't quibble with other than to ask you what purpose you think it serves here?  But embedded in this sentence is another mantra of the anti-government, anti-public school movement.   Here are a couple of examples of this wording Google found for me:

From the Montana Standard

" the socialist liberal progressive, politically correct liberal idiot-logical indoctrination camps that masquerade as public schools inculcating our youth instead of instructing them on what they need to know to be productive and responsible citizens."

A bit over the top I'd say.

From the New American:

"Global citizenship education is also a frequent topic in the report and all throughout the UN's global indoctrination efforts masquerading as education."

Can't you make your point using your own words?

Let's move on.

"So-called public education, for approximately 140 years, has produced decade after decade of declining test scores, rewarded in the following decades by increased funding."

Finally, there is something factual we can actually debate.  By factual, I don't mean it's actually true, but rather it talks in terms of facts that we can look up.  And so I did.  It's not easy to find such statistics.  Here's 120 Years of American Education: A Statistical Report, but I don't see anything on testing.  Here's a history of standardized testing.  It's hard to tease out anything like your numbers.   OK, you'll probably say these are liberal and biased reports.  So please give me your statistics - but make sure they are objective and not conservative biased stats.

School testing was just an idea a few people  had 140 years or so ago.  The idea was to test kids to see how much they learned.  But it took a while for such testing to be implemented. Then there was a huge market for tests. But there were no national tests where schools were tested on a regular basis using the same test with scores traced and monitored until very recently.  So, the idea that scores declined decade after decade for 140 years has absolutely no basis in fact.

And if such declining test scores did exist over that time period, I think it would say more about the inaccuracy of the tests than the abilities of the students.  This was a time when the United States became the leading nation in the world, built on ingenuity, scientific discoveries, inventions, industrial technology.  Countless great Americans graduated from public high schools -
Jonas Salk, Steve Jobs, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Google co-founder Larry Page, Spike Lee, Youtube CEO Susan Wojcicki, Apple CEO Tim Cook, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Warren Buffet, Kareem Abdul Jabbar, Elvis Presley, and Bob Dylan - just to name a few.

There certainly are problems with public schools. But there are also problems with private schools.  And private schools have the luxury of expelling students who don't fit in well.  Public schools can't do that.  So they have all the more labor intensive (and costly)  students - from behavior problems, cognitive problems, etc.  .

Your claim of 140 years of decade by decade declines in test scores is hard to swallow.  You would be much more persuasive if you included some data to support your claim.  I doubt it exists.


Moving on to the next sentence.

" In the private sector, such a business model would have been diagnosed and terminated 135 years ago as an unmitigated failure."

First, businesses live or die based on making money, not test scores.  Businesses can be run very sloppily and make money in the right place and right time.  And they can be run well, but suffer from a bad economy - what I expect will happen to many businesses in Alaska if Dunleavy's budget were to pass.  Public schools are not businesses, because many of their students simply could not afford to go to school if they had to pay.

Second, the sentence is seems contradictory.  You just said that schools have had declining test scores 'decade after decade" for 140 years.  So, 135 years ago - had there actually been any testing - it would still be five years before the first decade was up.  So, even in your fantasy scenario, nothing would have been closed down.  I point that out because I think it's reflective of the lack of rigorous thinking throughout the letter.  Nearly all the sentences are cliché filled opinion.  There's nothing of substance there.  So the conclusion in your last sentence doesn't really follow from what you've written up to that point.

"The answer is not more funding, but the fraud’s replacement with charter, private and religious schools that educate."

I don't follow how you got to this conclusion.  You've offered us fact-free tirades against public schools.  You've not given us any data that shows - for educating all kids in the US - private schools are any better.  Yet that's your conclusion.

In addition, early on you talked about indoctrination.  While there are many good religious private schools in the United States, the very reason most people send their kids to private religious schools is to 'indoctrinate' them in the values and beliefs of that religion.  For example, here's the mission statement from Holy Rosary Academy:

"Holy Rosary Academy seeks to complete what the attentive parent has begun by forming students in faith, reason, and virtue through a classical education in the Roman Catholic Tradition."

Public schools indoctrinate kids in belief in the greatness of the United States.  Good public schools expose kids to many different ideas and ways of seeing the world.

Closing

This post could go on and on.  But I think I've made my key points.  And I'm afraid I've failed to do it in a way that might cause Mr. Wassell to even pause a bit.

After I wrote a first draft,  I couldn't help wondering who had written this letter for ADN readers, so I  googled and learned a bit that helps explain where some of this comes from.  I'm not certain it's the same Ed Wassell, but it seems likely.

Here's the key thing - in terms of understanding this letter - I found out.  An Ed Wassell from Anchorage got an award from the Acton Institute:

 "Best thing Going: “What you do is still far and away one of the best things going for Catholic Education in the United States.” Ed Wassell, Executive Director, Holy Rosary Academy, Anchorage, AK. 4-time honoree."

There are several other links to Ed Wassell being involved with Catholic affairs in Anchorage, but the school link probably tells us a lot.

What will happen if public school funding is drastically cut?  Class sizes will get much bigger, teachers will get overworked, and parents who can afford it will start looking for private schools.  And I would be surprised if Dunleavy didn't push, next go around, to use public money to give parents vouchers to private schools, even private religious schools, which I understand to be unconstitutional in Alaska.

I also found a video of a Holy Rosary teacher who won a national award as teacher of the week.  [Video is at the bottom of the page on the right]  She sounds like a great teacher.  What I found striking is that they showed her in her fourth grade class.  There were nine students.  Imagine what public school teachers could do with classes that size.

One last note.  Tom Fink, who Wassell mentions in the letter, is the chair of the board at Holy Rosary Academy.

There's nothing wrong with Mr. Wassell's involvement with Holy Rosary Academy, though it would be nice if he had disclosed that in the letter.  And would still like to hear Mr. Wassell's explanation for the somewhat old fashioned way of writing.

Let me also note that Jesuit schools have a reputation for teaching rigorous thinking skills, so this is not a condemnation of Catholic schools. Though victims of sexual abuse at Catholic schools will be less forgiving of their failures.    I have less confidence in the thinking skills students get in Evangelical schools, particularly those that deny evolution and teach traditional roles for males and females and believe that homosexuality is a sin.  But that is straying a bit.

Signs Of Our Discontent - Rally Outside Americans For Prosperity's Private 'Public Meeting"

Background:  The Alaska governor Mike Dunleavy introduced a budget that cuts almost everything drastically.  He recently announced public meetings across the state to meet with Alaskans on the budget.  We quickly learned that Koch funded Americans for Prosperity had organized and was running the meetings.  One had to get free tickets online by giving up personal information - name, phone, email, etc. - and agree to lots of stipulations including no signs, no political T-shirts, no recording, need to show ID, and on and on.  More specifics here.  And there was a hearing sponsored by House Finance Committee Sunday afternoon.

Various groups including Senate Democrats and unions called for a demonstration outside the venue where the governor was going to speak in Anchorage tonight.  Anchorage Assembly member Forrest Dunbar acted as the MC.  That was today.  Here's the first of a few posts of pictures of the demonstrations.  I'm guessing there were altogether, about 300 people.  The NYE (New York Equivalent is a metric I came up with a an anti-Palin rally to give people outside of Alaska a sense of what an equivalent crowd would be in New York City.) would be about 9000 people.

This shot I got from the stairs on the side of the 49th State Brewery where the Americans for Prosperity private meeting was held.  (They said they had room for 150, even though various legislators offered larger venues for free if the governor would speak without all the restrictions.)  This picture doesn't show all the people in front of the building, so I took this picture too.

So these posts are going to focus on signs.  There were lots of signs!  Some were printed up and distributed - particularly supporting education.  But there were a lot more home made signs.  I've  grouped them into categories.  Like all such groupings, there are instances that easily fit into more than one category.  But this at least tries to capture what people were expressing in a bit more organized way.

GROUP 1:  COMMENTS ON THE PRIVATE NATURE OF THE GOV'S PUBLIC HEARING

This first group seems to be focused on the fact that this 'public' meeting wasn't public.  That a private organization was staging what the public was going to hear from the governor and limiting what the public could say in the meeting and could even document to tell others.  (An ADN story did quote an AFP person saying that individuals could use their phones to record, so they loosened up, but still people had had to sign a document forbidding recording.)


GROUP 2:  CONCERNS ABOUT SELLING OUT THE STATE TO OUTSIDE INTERESTS

Tomorrow I'll put up more.  There was a lot of focus on raising revenues instead of cutting, opposition to the governor's budget in general, and more specific concerns, particularly cutting education.

Legislative Info Office Hearing on the Budget [UPDATED]

Given that the Governor's 'budget roadshow' is being handled by Americans for Prosperity, a Koch funded group, and requires one fill out a form online with more personal information than I want to add to AFP's data base, the House majority caucus is having its own hearings around the state.

It was jammed today with people testifying (mostly) against the Dunleavy budget and for reinstating an income tax.  I did hear two folks (one after the other) say they wanted their full PFDs and the state shouldn't subsidize lazy people.  But everyone else were ready to reduce their PFDs for public education, health care, etc.

If you click on this image it will get much bigger and clearer

I'll add to this later.

LATER:


There was a line that went out the front door, and I didn't get there until about an hour into the hearings.

There was an overflow room with a video of the session in the next room over.

And there was another overflow room.

And the hallway was full of people from the line that went out the door.  This was really the only big sign that I saw and did not seem to reflect the sentiment of most people testifying.

The control room was between the hearing room and one of the overflow rooms.  It had dark smokey windows.