Blogging The Redistricting Trial Is Not A Sustainable Activity

[Note:  I'm wiped.  Please excuse typos and other problems. I need some sleep.] 

The trial goes from about 9am to 4:30, with a morning break, lunch break and afternoon break.  If we're lucking there will be a technical glitch (today they had trouble getting the audio to work on a video) and I had time to just let my brain drift.  

So, it's Wednesday which means our weekly video call with the SF grandkids.  I've got about 14 pages of notes of today's trial which would take at least 90 minutes to clean up enough to post as rough.  And I'm not sure many people would get much out of it.  

So I'm going to give reactions again.  Thoughts.  [Turns out there are two main points.  And if you get bored during the first one, then scroll down to number 2.  It's a whole new ball game.  

Best part of today's trial for me:  Testimony of Miranda Wright.  

She was born at her family's winter camp at Mud River where her family traveled to by boat from Nulato.  Now she lives in Fairbanks.  She was asked about her education by Lee Baxter, one of the Board's attorneys, "Educational background?"

Wright:  Life experience, construction.  She worked with her husband.  Then she got a degree in anthropology because of her interest in the culture of her people.  They had stories in books in the library about folklore>  She didn't view them as folklore.  They were part of her life.  She did her Masters  thesis on Nulato.  She talked about the ties between people along the Yukon and the Kuskokwim Rivers.  How there used to be lots of villages on the flats south of Nulato.  It was there homeland.  Small game, fish.  Then the pandemics came and everything was lost, including many of the people and villages.  The linguistic history shows ties to Holy Cross.  She talked about MTNT (McGrath, Takotna, Nikolai, and Telida), GASH (Grayling, Anvik, Shageluk, and Holy Cross), and GYL (The Gana-A’Yoo, Limited). 

Baxter:  What do they all have in common?

Wright:  All Athabaskan speaking.  Some variation in dialects, which happens when you're spread out like that.  Overarching kinship structure that unites us as one people of the Athabaskan nation.  Belief structures similar, How we prepare food is similar.  Intermarriages.

Interesting as it might be, you're saying, why are we hearing about Alaska Native anthropology at the Redistricting Trial?   Before I attempt to answer that, let's look at a map of the Board's House District 36R (R is the Senate seat it's in).  Nulato, is at the white #1 (middle to the left)  

For days now, the Valdez witness have been pummeled with questions like "how are Holy Cross (#2) and Valdez (#3) socially-economically integrated?  SEI is one of the criteria for combining communities into a house district.  Valdez (I know the 3 is hard to see - it's bottom to the right of center) has been arguing for a map that connects them up the Richardson Highway.  Even, if necessary to the huge purple district.  Valdez is in the Board's D29-O (pinkish lower right).  They've been complaining they aren't SEI with Mat-Su.  Valdez has been grilled about choices they made in their proposed map.  I've been thinking, "Wow, they're being grilled on how they justify their decisions, but no one has grilled the Board members how they made their decisions." (That actually began today with Nicole Borromeo being asked fairly gentle questions compared to what Valdez witnesses have endured.  It will continue tomorrow when Board members testify.)

Redistricting is an art where you have to balance (in Alaska) Compactness,  Contiguity, Socio-Economic Integrity, and getting 40 districts all as close to the same population.  Since there is no simple test for SEI, the lawyers are setting up all sorts of exaggerated tests and demonstrations of SEI and bringing in people to verify what is and is not SEI.  

The map above is the Board's D36.  This is, according to the redistricting expert, Kimball Brace, who testified yesterday and today, the largest electoral district in the country and would be something like the seventh or eighth largest state in the US.  

The Doyon Coalition that closely followed the redistricting process and submitted its own map for the process, and whose attorney, Tanner Amdur-Clark, is the Intervenor attorney at this trial (he's at the top right in the picture with Miranda Wright and Judge Matthews)STOP  That sentence was getting away from me.  Doyon pushed hard for a district that would pull all the Doyon villages together.  But there aren't enough people for a full district so they joined with Ahtna to get this huge D36R.  Including Ahtna is why there's a protuberance of dark blue (D36) between D29 (which includes Valdez) and D30.  That incursion into the Denali Borough pulls Cantwell - an Ahtna village - into D36.  

I also have Holy Cross numbered (2) and Glennallen listed (it wasn't on the original map so I had to write it in, because today the Valdez side returned the pummeling asking what was did Glennallen and Holy Cross have in common.  Do the live together?  Work together? Play together?  If not why are they in the same district?  

Have I lost you yet?  This is all the simple stuff so far.  You thinking you don't need to get into the more complicated stuff?  You're probably right.  Part of me thinks we have attorneys splitting hairs and then splitting them further and further.  They're trying to logically, almost quantitatively prove something that is qualitative and the more you work to prove it the more ridiculous it gets.  And that's one of the reasons I'm not trying to clean up my notes enough to drop them in here at the bottom.  It's just not worth it.  

But that is why I got to hear Miranda Wright's story.  She's part of proving that there are good reasons for all those villages in D36 to be together.  And I have to say she seems like an incredible woman who it would be fascinating to have dinner with.  

2.  Potentially the most impactful revelation at the trial today was the fact that the plaintiffs' attorneys have gotten access to at least some of the electronic communications between Board Members.  This is stuff the Board's attorney Matt Singer fought hard to prevent.  Whether they could be used went all the way up to the Supreme Court and Judge Matthews has been reviewing them to decide which can be released and which are protected by attorney-client privilege.  

Board member Nicole Borromeo was on the stand today and Valdez attorney Brena put up a number of texts she exchanged with people.  The Doyon attorney Tanner Amdur-Clark was texting her during Board work sessions about things I wrote about above.  Someone else was lobbying to get Fairbanks 'unlocked' because they were overpopulated but Board chair Binkley had decided from early on that Fairbanks houses should all be in Fairbanks.  It wasn't until the very end, when it seemed no longer possible, that he finally relented.  The Valdez folks are saying if that decision hadn't been locked in from the beginning, there would have been more flexibility for Valdez to have a better district.  

The question I'm sure everyone is asking is this:  What sort of messages are there between the three GOP appointed Board members and their friends about the Eagle River pairings?  There's good reason attorney Singer didn't want this information out.  It's a whole new world of open government now than it was ten years ago.  I have lots more thoughts, but the court is in session again in eleven hours.  

Tomorrow, when the Board members are testifying we could see more texts and emails.  

AIFF2020: Sapelo And A Strong Recommendation For The Last Days Of Capitalism And For Grab My Hand: A Letter To My Dad

Usually Saturday is really busy during the festival with films starting as early as 9 am some years.  But we've somehow gotten into a routine with Netflix that we never watch before it's dark.  (Well, in the summer, before 8 or 9 pm anyway.)  So it didn't seem right to start til late afternoon.  We saw one documentary feature - Sapelo - one shorts program - The Best Ships Are Friendships - and one narrative feature - The Last Days of Capitalism.  

Sapelo is a documentary about. . . well, that's a bit of a problem.  It starts out, it seemed, to be about the Black people who have been living on the island, a ferry ride from mainland Georgia,  for 200 years.  There are lots of pauses to just look at beautiful vistas of the island.  But it meanders into a story about two brothers, their grandmother.  How old are the boys?  Don't remember being told.  I do remember that an older brother was 14, so I'm guessing these two were maybe between 9 and 11.  The grandmother adopted the mother too.  Some of it feels like a reality show.  Some of it feels like an invasion of the kids' privacy, particularly as we watch one of the boys having anger management problems and there's talk of his medication.  He's wearing an ankle bracelet for a while and in the end he's been sent to a detention center.  By the end I felt like these boys were being exploited.  They weren't capable of giving consent.  Was it the grandmother who gave consent?  What was she told they would be filming?  

On the other hand, a unique way of life was being captured.  Well, the end of a unique way of life.  The boys may well treasure this intimate portrait of them when they are older.  But making it public doesn't feel right to me.  

What was the relationship between the Swiss filmmakers and the people on the island.  We never see from or hear about the film makers except near the beginning when one of the boys looks up at the camera and apologizes for his language

The Last Days of Capitalism -  Wow.  Just picked this from the website knowing nothing about it and we were totally absorbed by two actors - Sarah Rose Harper and Mike Faiola.  We had no idea where it was headed.  This was not your ordinary movie fare.  This is what I love about film festivals.  Will I wake up in the morning and wonder what I was thinking?  Not sure.  I just know that we were hooked til the very end.  Recommended.  (Not saying much about the content.  Just know that it is two people probing each other.  Drugs and alcohol and a fair amount of money are involved.)  My hat is off to writer/director Adam Mervis.  

All of the shorts were worth watching.  Grab My Hand: A Letter to My Dad was the one that stands out as visually striking and clever and beautiful and it was the right length for the story.  Nothing unnecessary.  I just don't know why they didn't call it Gatecheck.  Be sure to watch this one.  Camrus Johnson, thanks for this film.  Latchkeys was sweet - I mean that in the best way.

Sex In The City - Anchorage Edition

 I've gotten a few calls and emails from Outside friends and family asking about our Mayor's resignation.  Our local situation, has gone national.  Sex does sell newspapers and does gather clicks.  

It seems worth noting here.  We have a good mayor who's worked hard to deal with homeless issues and early on took a strong stand on COVID-19.  And even though we are now finally getting higher new case counts (between 150 and 255 statewide for the last week) our state Test Positivity level has stayed below (with a one day exception)  the CDC benchmark for problems of 5.0.  

Nevertheless, there's a vocal minority who have been showing up at Assembly (our city council) meetings to oppose the closing of bars and indoor eating restrictions at restaurants.  

The homeless initiatives have also generated strong vocal opposition to the mayor too.  While people complain about homeless encampments near their homes, when the mayor developed a large coalition with key funders to buy some properties to house the homeless and to set up an addiction treatment center, neighbors of those properties were enraged.  (I'd note I took an 8 week class last fall on this topic with key local people working on this problem and the municipality has adopted the best approaches from around the country - particularly Housing First - to attack this problem.)

In any case, the mayor's term would have been up next July, after an April election for a new mayor. A relative sent a link to a long Defector article on the Anchorage Mayor story.  While it tends to treat this as "Wow they do weird shit in Alaska" story, it does seem to have all the facts pretty much in order, so if you want more details, you can go there.  (I would note that while they mentioned that one actor in this story had been an escort, I would add that she has stated strongly that she was not a sexual escort, but rather a 'date' someone could hire.)

Society And Sexual Pictures

But one thought has to do with online sex related activities.  It seems there is a generational divide over using dating apps and sharing sexually explicit photos with people.  I say generation gap meaning only that younger folks use these apps  differently and more frequently than older folks.  But clearly older folks who are single, divorced, or widowed use them as well.  And some married folks do as well.  In any case, mores are changing. 

The Defector article makes that point as well:

 "I think ours is now a fairly permissive, post-affair society and today’s married office-holding rogues can get away with consensual, inappropriate messaging relationships if they want to. That said, if I were Berkowitz, I’d be extremely keen to peace out of this job."

The whole phenomena of selfies and sexting combined with the unforgivingness of the internet suggest that mores about public nudity are going through a transition.  And I think this is probably a good thing.  While clothing makes sense as a form of protection from weather and other hazards, we seem to have a fetish about public display of human genitals.  I recall being in Bali in the late 1960s when it wasn't unusual to see women in public with their breasts uncovered.  And I encountered a tribe in Uganda in 1970 where clothing consisted of a string like belt that exposed everything.  

It would be interesting to know what percent of the US adult population have shared pictures of themselves in texts or chats.  I suspect the number is much larger that people would suspect.  And I suspect it's still enough of an issue that many people would lie if asked about it.  

But such photos have spilled into politics.  Rep. Joe Barton of Texas resigned after a photo was published.  Representative Katie Hill of California resigned after pictures were published, though in her case it seems to be more about having a relationship with a staffer,  though she considers it a case of revenge porn by her ex-husband.  Rep. Weiner of New York resigned over a photo in 2011.

 A 19 year old gay Texas city council member who was forced out of office when someone anonymously sent nude pictures of himself he'd shared with someone on the gay dating app Grnder. 

At this point, with lots of people sharing  sexual pictures and videos of themselves to intimate partners, or online, inevitably some of those pictures are going to go public, either by accident or intentionally.  Revenge porn  and dick pic are both in the dictionary.   More and more mainstream movie actors are involved in fairly sexually explicit situations on film.  Mores are changing.  

It's a long time since Senator Gary Hart was knocked out of the 1988 presidential race because of a picture of him on a boat with an attractive woman on his lap.  

Given President Trump's numerous sexual misadventures, it would appear that sexual indiscretions are not an issue with Republican voters.  But they are used to attack political opponents.  

The real issues related to the Mayor of Anchorage, in my mind, are the ones he has to resolve with his family.  They really aren't the business of the people of Anchorage and don't affect his ability to do his job.  Unless there's more that we haven't learned about, I'm sorry he has resigned.  

Hope This Independence Day Gave You Time To Reflect

European royalty was assumed to be anointed by God.  From Wikipedia:

"The divine right of kings, divine right, or God's mandate is a political and religious doctrine of royal and political legitimacy. It stems from a specific metaphysical framework in which the king (or queen) is pre-selected as an heir prior to their birth. By pre-selecting the king's physical manifestation, the governed populace actively (rather than merely passively) hands the metaphysical selection of the king's soul – which will inhabit the body and thereby rule them – over to God. In this way, the "divine right" originates as a metaphysical act of humility or submission towards the Godhead."

While the Declaration of Independence uses words like 'Creator' it only mention's God once, and then it is "Nature's God."

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America, When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

The Declaration then goes on to talk about 'consent of the governed.'

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, , ,"

That's a break from being anointed via the Divine Right of Kings.  The colonists weren't without precedent.  Medieval barons had forced concessions from an English King centuries before with the Magna Carta.

That "the governed," by the time the Constitution was written,  didn't include women, men without property, or Native Americans, or Africans raises questions about the ideals.  Though as we know from modern times, politics requires compromise, and if all the colonies were going to be in this new union together, resolving the conflict by abolishing [slavery] was not a negotiable item for slave owners.

The NYTimes has a podcast up called 1619 (link to Apple podcasts) - the date the first shipment of slaves arrived in the colonies - that attempts to tell the history from a black perspective.  Adam Serwer has an Atlantic article that outlines the controversy it's raised among some prominent historians.

Hope you've been able to safely enjoy this holiday and that our nature imposed restrictions enabled you to ponder it in a new light.

Title IX Training Suggests Big Changes On Campus: Being A Jerk No Longer Acceptable At UAA

I used to have to tell faculty, when I was a faculty union grievance rep, that simply being a jerk was not a grievable offense.  A supervisor had to violate a specific provision of the contract, the university policies and procedures, or the law before an action could be grieved.  The rules against harassment were very vague.

But if yesteday's Title IX training at UAA is serious (and I have no reason to question it), then being a jerk, if it manifests itself as bullying or other harassing behaviors, is now grievable.  This is big.  (Other jerk behaviors that are irritating, but not mean or intimidating are probably still ok.) And, of course, unwanted sexual advances have been taboo for a while now, but victims have a lot more with which to fight back.


This was mandatory training for faculty.  As people walked in, they had to sign the list of names that they were there.  If your name wasn't on the list - mine wasn't since I'm retired and not teaching this semester - you signed another elsewhere.  I don't know what happens to faculty that didn't get the training yesterday or earlier in the summer.  But the auditorium was pretty much full.




What I Thought Was Significant

1.  This is serious.  

• It was mandatory.
• Chancellor Tom Case opened it and supported the idea of treating everyone with respect, but also said there were significant consequences for universities that are not in compliance.
• The United Academics (the faculty union) president Abel Bult-Ito was down from Fairbanks to say the union was co-sponsoring the event, emphasizing protections are in place not only for students, but for faculty and staff as well.
• Faculty Senate President Diane Hirschberg then briefly discussed national and local cases.  She said that Jerry Sandusky had cost Penn State, just in fees and fines, $69 million.  Hirschberg's own alma mater Berkeley had its own recent case, and UAA's women's volley ball coach was our own recent incident.  She also talked about a New York Times story about how badly a new student's rape by football team members was handled by campus authorities
• This training was happening because UAA is on a list of school being investigated on their Title IX implementation.
• And she told the faculty that new legislation has been introduced that includes fines up to 1% of a school's budget and $150,000 per incident.

• And the Clery Act.  From the Clery Center:

"Originally known as the Campus Security Act, the Jeanne Clery Disclosure of Campus Security Policy and Campus Crime Statistics Act (20 USC § 1092(f)) is the landmark federal law that requires colleges and universities across the United States to disclose information about crime on and around their campuses. The law is tied to an institution's participation in federal student financial aid programs and it applies to most institutions of higher education both public and private. The Clery Act is enforced by the United States Department of Education."

2.  There are people to back this up and these folks appear to be good

Whaley, Micek, and Trew

The three main presenters - Stephanie Whaley, Jerry Trew, and Mandee Micek - are key people in the team of investigators and support staff for faculty and students.  Jerry and Mandee are both former police officers and are attorneys.  The presentation was straightforward, the content was to the point, and I got the sense that these people knew what they were doing and did it well.

And there are others on campus.  There is a web of different offices and as I look at my notes and pictures and what's on the web, I'm a little confused.  This needs to be more straightforward.  I know they talked about a Care Team yesterday and there's a Title IX team, and there are others doing overlapping work in different parts of the campus.  Stephanie Whaley came to the Title IX team form Residence Life which handles things in the dorms.



The sense I got was that there now are people on campus whose job it is to:
1.  investigate complaints
2.  advocate for victims
3.  help faculty and staff and students report problems
4.  help potential offenders get help to modify their behavior

And there are requirements to report violations.  It doesn't have to include a name, but if someone finds out about a sexual assault or about harassment, they have a mandatory duty to report.

I had a chance to talk to Jerry and Stephanie afterward.  I came in with some skepticism based on over 30 years at UAA.  But I'm impressed with these folks.  They could disappoint me down the line, but I suspect that will only happen if they don't get the support they need from the administration. It's encouraging to learn that two colleges rescheduled major functions so faculty could attend this training yesterday. 

3.  It includes various forms of harassment including bullying.  

Faculty and supervisors and students who bully, who intimidate, who create a hostile environment are no longer just jerks, they are in violation of university policy and (if I understood this right) federal law.  They can be complained against and there are people who are there to advocate for the victims.

This is big.  I can tell lots of stories I've experienced, witnessed, and heard over the years at UAA.  Bullying had plenty of practitioners. There is now an avenue for correcting these folks who make working and student life miserable for others.  Administration is no longer looking the other way, no longer saying "he's just that way, don't let it bother you."  This is big.


4. If You Can't Remember What All Was Covered (highly likely) Call  The Office of Campus Diversity And Compliance 786 4680

There was too much information, much of it was general and putting it into practice is a lot easier said then done.  People need to do role-playing to develop scripts for responding to students who are in trouble or to confront harassers.  You can't just tell people to not be emotional.  If it were that easy, we'd all get along fine.  But I talked to Jerry and Stephanie afterward and they understand this.

There's still a lot of conversation to be had.  During the break, three different people touched me when the talked to me.  This was right after a discussion about touching others.  There was nothing wrong with the pats on the arm, but I suspect discussions on welcome and unwelcome touching would be useful, because there's a big gray area here where people could conceivably get into trouble for what they thought were innocent touches.  (And I want people to be able to continue touching.)

The reporting requirements need more explanation - like what to report, when to report, how to report, and to whom to report.  All that was discussed, but people need to walk through this.  It's all new territory for many.

But that's why I say, a key point I took out of the meeting was just to call.  And there will be other options to get more specific behavioral training on all this.

All in all, this was an auspicious start.


My Conclusion 

This is BIG!  This is bigger than the end to smoking in classrooms and then in buildings completely.  And that was huge.  This sets in place people who are trained to deal with sexual assault victims.  This makes campuses accountable to the federal government with large potential fines for violations.  It sets in place more training and education for potential victims and potential perpetrators.

But within the package here, yelling and bullying are no longer acceptable behaviors.  I'd suggest buying stock in anger management training, because people in authority who have been used to bullying their staff will now be sent to anger management classes and if they don't learn, they'll be out.

Of course, this all requires enough resources and follow through.  And some of the worst offenders are those in positions of authority.  There will be resistance.  And smoking was a much more tangible behavior - it was clearly visible and the odor lingered long after.

But with everyone carrying around a audio and video recorder in their phone these days, and with text messages recorded as well, I don't think there will be any lack of evidence.

When I think of the oppressive environment I moved into here in 1977, this is huge. I can think of a number of women faculty who suffered from the arrogance and power of male colleagues and supervisors.   Power is still power though, even if it is more polite.  But life should become a lot more pleasant on campus.  And as people learn to see their own behavior as unacceptable, they may even grow as human beings.

One final note.  It will take time for folks to work out the difference between acceptable and unacceptable behavior.  When is something legitimate disagreement and when does it become intimidation?  When is touching a means of communication and when is it just creepy or menacing?  Those who see things in black and white will want clear-cut descriptions of what is and isn't ok.  And that won't be possible.  These folks who have trouble reading non-verbal communication will need to err on the side of very conservative interpretation.  If they aren't sure, they shouldn't do it. 

Thank You - Another Culture Where It's Not Used So Much

"It was time for dinner. The old woman outside, his wife, fed us beans and cabbage, and there was all the water one could dream of.  I thanked hiim, and he said, "You are our guest.  You do not say thank you.  Would you thank your mother?" (p. 152)

This comes from Robert Sapolsky's A Primate's Memoir.  I've already posted about the book here and here.  He'd just

"lurched through 110 - degree dust for the [last] twelve hours, covering 130 miles"

from the desert of Juba, Sudan up into the mountain logging town of Katire.  This happened some time in the 80's but Sapolsky is loose with when things happened, or else I just missed it.  (You can see some recent pictures of Katire here.)

He'd just had an interaction at the police station about his right to be there.  Then, it's resolved.  He gets his passport back.

"We relaxed, his job over.  Suddenly, he lunged at me, said, "We must go now."  Wha, wha, what did I do?  It was time for dinner."

I'm posting this as a follow up to an earlier post that included a snippet on how Chinese think Americans say thank you way too much.

And because of the turmoil going on now between the new nation of Southern Sudan (Juba is the capital) and the Sudan it broke from.  Below is a map.  I added Katire, that's approximately where it is.

Sapolsky's work with baboons was initiated by his interest in the social causes of stress and here's a link to a three minute video of Sapolsky - a Stanford professor now - talking about stress in humans compared to other animals.

Equity versus Socio-Economic Integration - ADP Memo Supporting Motion on Socio-Economic Integration of HD 6, 37, 39, and 40

This is the first of three late motions from the Alaska Democratic Party supporting the Riley Plaintiffs' most recent redistricting challenges.   My hope is to make these motions more accessible to the average Alaskan so when the decisions come down, they will understand the ruling.  You can see the motion on HD 6, 37, 39, and 40 here.

Summary of the challenge

It's basically arguing that Tanana Chiefs Conference/Doyon villages in central Alaska were unnecessarily spread out into these four different districts (plus, I assume there are also TCC/Doyon members in the other Fairbanks districts).  The memo uses different maps to show that the Department of Labor, ANCSA, Schools, Housing, and Health systems all group these villages together, but that the Redistricting Board chose, unnecessarily, to split them to lower the overall deviations to a point lower than they need to be. 

Also see V. Conclusion below for their own summary of the arguments.

The basic issue I saw was the tension between equity among districts (by having very low deviations* from the perfect sized district of 17,775) and preserving socio-economic integrity (one of the Alaska constitutional requirements.)


Going through the motion, step-by-step

I.  Introduction
II  Facts (pp. 2-3)

Points out that the Board encouraged and accepted plans after the June 21, 2013 deadline.

"Fairbanks is the hub of the TCC/Doyon region.  It is surrounded by 47 smaller predominantly Alaska Native villages with populations from 20 to almost 1,000."
The (TCC/Doyon*) "Misplaced Villages" (ADP's term) =
HD 40:  Alatna, Allakaket, Evansville, Hughes, and Kaktovik
HD 39:  Galena, Huslia, Kaltag, Koyukuk, Nulato, and Ruby
HD 37:  Anvik, Grayling, Holy Cross, McGrath, Nikolai, Shageluk, and Takotna

[Different sources give different numbers of of TCC/Doyon villages.  I'm not sure how many are in HD 6 and how many members are in other Fairbanks districts.  Given a total of 47 villages, the misplaced villages represent 38% of the villages, but I don't know what percent of the population.]


III.  Districts 6, 37, 39, 40  Are Not Socio-Economically Integrated (pp. 3-9)

“In rural Alaska, the lines that most reflect socio-economic and political integration are the boundaries of the ANCSA*(see glossary below) regional corporations.”

A.  TCC/Doyon* Socio-Economic Integration
TCC= Tanana Chiefs Conference - Interior Alaska, the not-for-profit corporation
Doyon is the ANCSA for-profit regional corporation for TCC
    1.  Economic Development
ADP Exhibit 5 - Economic Regions of State on 2013 Proclamation Plan - Econ Regions come from the Alaska Dept. of Labor and Workforce Development.  Interior region is one of the few that closely follows the boundaries of a regional corporation.  The Board’s plan does not reflect the economic patterns of the region.
    2.  Education
1975 - Molly Hooch case and setting up of regional education attendance areas (REAA).  Legislation required state to establish boundaries of the REAA’s by using the boundaries and sub-boundaries of ANCSA regional corporations. 
Exhibit 6 - Map of AK school districts.  REAA boundaries in the interior vary only slightly from ANCSA boundaries.  All the Misplaced Villages are located in either Y-K or Ididarod Area REAA, both in TCC/Doyon region.
Thus, under Alaska law, the MVs are all socio-economically and culturally integrated with other TCC/Doyon villages in HD 6 and not with Arctic Slope, NANA, Bering Straits, and Calista villages in Districts 37, 39, 40.
High school athletics, esp. basketball.  The basketball conferences also show

Map of Basketball Conferences and Districts - click to enlarge

the socio-economic integration of the MV with other TCC/Doyon villages and not the villages in the house districts imposed by the Board.  The map is one of several exhibits showing the mismatch between TCC/Doyon villages and the Plan.
    3.  Health Care - TCC contracts with IHS to provide healthcare throughout the TCC/Doyon region.   All are linked to the Chief Andrew Isaac Health Center (CAIHC)
     4,  Housing - TCC is authorized to operate a housing authority in the interior region.  Pursuant to this authority, TCC established the Interior Regional Housing Authority (IRHA) which provides housing service to the TCC/Doyon region including all the misplaced villages.
    5.  HD 40:  Combines Athabaskan villages with substantially Inupiaq Eskimos.  Judge Larry Weeks “probably the single worst combination that could be selected if a board were trying to maximize socio-economic integration in Alaska.” 

IV.  The Board Had Alternatives Available (pp. 9 - 11)

Calista plan’s overemphasis on equal protection and low deviations wreaks havoc on SE integration.  Other plans including the Board’s Plan A offered much better SE Integration for TCC/Doyon

V.  Equal Protection Does Not Require Dismembering the TCC/Doyon Region (pp. 11-14)

Argues that the Board unnecessarily emphasized low deviations over other values and cites the Alaska Supreme Court's earlier interpretation in this case of the 2001 Redistricting cases:

"While the court finds the Board's intent to achieve low deviations to be commendable, it concludes that it must also live in harmony with the other constitutional requirements.  The Alaska Supreme Court's instruction did not imply that justification for deviating from the lowest possible deviation would not be accepted.  It simply stated that the Board must try to achieve low deviations."

Cites Justice Erwin in Groh v Egan - that while it would be easy to divide the state simply by numbers,

"it would be inconsistent with traditional notions of representative government for it would lead to absurd combinations of historical, social, economic and geographical boundaries with the state.”

VI.  Conclusion (p. 14)

“The Alaska Natives of the TCC/Doyon region are socio-economically integrated.  They live in a defined economic region.  They have a common cultural heritage.  They have common educational systems.  They have a common health and social services provider.  The Board has parceled out the Misplaced Villages into districts with which they have no socio-economic ties to achieve low population variances.  The 2013 Proclamation Plan violates the socio-economic integration requirements of art. 6, section 6 of the Alaska Constitution with respect to Districts 6, 37, 39 and 40.  The Court should grant ADP’s motion for summary judgment.”

Glossary
Deviation - Number and percentage difference between a district's population and the ideal population (17,775) of a district.  Keeping all the districts as close as possible to 17,775 helps preserve the one-person-one-vote principle.
ANCSA - 1991 Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act
TCC - Tanana Chiefs Conference
Doyon - Doyon Native Corporation


Doyon website says they have over 18,000 shareholders.  Since 17,775 is the ideal number for a house district, if the population lived compactly enough, Doyon would have its own district with several hundred people left over.   It would seem the proportionality arguments could be applied here as well. 

I'd note that the Redistricting Board's website is adding motions that have been filed, so I'm way behind here.  

Cowboys, Indians, and Everyone Else - Adding Nuance To Homage to Hollywood Cowboys

NY Times writer Edward Rothstein had a thoughtful piece yesterday on the Autry Center of the American West.  Gene Autry was all over the radio and then television and movies when I was a kid.  A singing cowboy, whose "Happy Trails" is still a fixture in my head.  [Just goes to show how our memories aren't such good guides.  When I looked up "Gene Autry Happy Trails" it gave me Roy Rogers and Dale Evans.  Gene Autry's song was "Back in the Saddle Again." But I can understand the cross wiring.  Roy Rogers was the other big singing cowboy.]   I'm including the video for those who have never heard of Gene Autry or the song.   It's part of the historical context for the rest of this.




Autry made a lot of money and put up a monument to the cowboy to keep his memorabilia in Griffith Park in Los Angeles, not far from the LA zoo.  We've passed it on any number of occasions while in LA over the years, but never had any interest except maybe as a lark to look at the cowboy kitsch.

But the article says this place is becoming more serious:

You don’t hear shootouts at the Autry National Center of the American West any more, and the gunslingers at the O.K. Corral have been put out to pasture. Hollywood’s singing cowboy Gene Autry, whose fortune helped establish this institution in 1988, a decade before his death, is still cast in bronze out front, but his guitar and memorabilia have been retired to a modest display case. Even the museum’s central mural, “Spirits of the West,” which exultantly portrays that realm’s history, from Spanish missionaries to Clint Eastwood, has curtains that can be drawn to shield visitors from its out-of-sync sensibilities. 

Instead of simply promoting the Hollywood driven myths of the cowboy West, the museum is now trying to balance that with other perspectives on the West. 

The Autry no longer celebrates the Wild West the way the Disney “Imagineers” who designed it once expected it would — or even as it did when I visited seven years ago, as its evolution was well under way. It is long past High Noon. Last year, the Autry brought in a new chief executive, W. Richard West Jr., who is not only an American Indian (Cheyenne and Arapaho) but was also founding director of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian. [Here's my own post on that Smithsonian Museum.] Two new permanent exhibitions (including a multicultural display of Western art) and two temporary exhibitions (one on Jews in Los Angeles, the other on Hopi spirit dolls) make no effort to bring the Old West back to life. They struggle, instead, to define something else.

Rothstein goes on to discuss the difficulties of changing the sensibilities of an institution like this.  He finds the different perspectives being added, but mostly they are separate and don't show the integration of them all.  This is a thoughtful essay that anyone interested in how history is portrayed and rethought, and the role museums play in that process, will want to read.

Here's the link again:  A Museum Works to Reinvent Itself, as Well as the American West

Maybe when we're in LA next week to check in on my mom, we can find time to check it out ourselves.

[UPDATE Aug. 16, 2014:  We did check it out last year and here's the post How Many Years Did The Pony Express Run and Other Tidbits From The Autry Center for the American West Part 1.  (There isn't a Part 2.)]

Visiting A Well-To-Do Thai Home - 1919

No, I didn't take this movie, I'm not THAT old. Even my mom hadn't been born yet. This was posted at Thai-Visa [not sure if you need an id to get in there, probably just to comment] and I thought it worth sharing. When I was in Thailand in the 60s some of this was still going on. I don't remember women wearing this sort of sarong except for classical Thai dancing. Eating betel nut was still popular, but only by the older men and women - these women would have been in their 60s or 70s by then. I'm guessing the hostess must have been someone pretty high on the social scale (maybe royalty?) based on how low these women prostrate themselves when they 'wai'. Though when you are already sitting on the floor, the others have to get down pretty low to show proper respect. While I often was in situations where we were all on the floor like that, I wasn't with people that elegant.









Writing this post made me remember a short video of a breakfast on the floor with farmers in Chiang Mai in 2008.  That would have been 89 years later.  And a much less elegant, but more comfortable setting.  You can see that video here  just for a comparison.  They're speaking Northern Thai dialect.   I'm not sure why the photos have vanished.