More Waste In Packaging

 Waste in packaging is another thing that has become normalized.  Unless it's egregious, we just wade our way through it, without even thinking about it.

I felt this one qualified as egregious.

The pills came in these three plastic bottles inside the box behind.

Each plastic bottle had 14 - FOURTEEN - pills!

When I put them all into one bottle they reached up to the blue line. (That was supposed to be an arrow pointing down to the blue line.)

That's about 1/5 of the bottle.  There were three bottles, so only 1/15 of the bottles' volume was actually needed for the pills.  That's not counting the box the three bottles were packaged in.

So the contents needed about 7% of the packaging (again, not counting the box this was all in.)  So about 93% of the packaging was unnecessary.  

OK, I get that stores don't want to sell things so small that it's easy for a shopper to put something into a pocket or purse without paying.  There have to be more creative solutions to stopping shoplifting.  If humans can figure out how to get to the moon, they can figure out how to not pollute the earth with excessive packaging.  

I'd also note a story in the LA Times Sunday.  Mike Hiltzik wrote a follow up to the big story earlier this year that stores were losing $45 billion to organized crime shoplifting.  

Politicians and the media both repeated the fabricated number without question.  And law enforcement agencies love it because such stories help them get ever increasing budgets to fight crime.  But for them crime means the guy who shoplifts $30 worth of groceries, not companies that steal billions from their employees and customers.

Why do I add all these other issues to a simple story about badly packaged pills?  Cause everything has a context.  Telling stories without the larger context is just relating miscellaneous anecdotes.  There's a lot more context for this pill story, but I'm just adding a little here so that readers at least think about the larger context and maybe even add more themselves.  

.  

Nearby Houses - Frank Lloyd Wright In Chicago, Blown Up Drug Lab In San Francisco

 I mentioned in the previous post that Oak Park, Illinois was Frank Lloyd Wright's home for a long time.  Then Sunday I discovered there were some of his houses around the corner from my friend's place.  Here are some pictures.  

The first pictures are of the Moore-Dugal House.  Our friends said it was for sale, but that it needed a lot of work.  

And these are some other FLW houses across the street and next door to the first house.

Sunday night we flew from Chicago to San Francisco.  My daughter-in-law is out of town and we're here to help the grandkids.  Always a delight.  The nasturtiums and sweetness my grandson planted when we were here in December are doing well - at least the ones that survived his watering schedule.  My granddaughter has a birthday Thursday.  

Yesterday after school the kids took us a couple of blocks over to see the house that blew up Thursday. 

The house on the left is the neighbor's house.

You can watch a video of the explosion from a neighbor's surveillance camera here as well as learn more details.  

And to end this on a lighter note, here's a house that looks like it's out of a cartoon that we passed on the way home. 

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

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

Narrative Features

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

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

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

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

Shorts  I think are worth watching:

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

 Cake Day - A good story told economically and movingly.  

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

First, from Kendra Zamzow** of Chickaloon:

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

Second, from Rachael Gaedeke of Anchorage:

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

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

So, what makes these good letters?

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

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

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

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


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

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

What's The Difference Between a Memoirs and a Memoir? And an Autobiography? But That's Just The Hook. There's Also Kimani. [Updated]

I follow  Kimani Okearah @theKimansta on Twitter.  He's a photographer for the Sacramento Kings.  Well, that's not exactly right.  He's a photographer for Vox News and he covers the Kings for them.  I follow a number of folks who experience life differently than I do just to keep tabs on worlds I don't know well.  Mostly there's basketball in his Tweets, but also stuff on race, and health, and things I'm not really sure what they are about.  But there's something sweet and decent about him. I've grown to like him.

It turns out one thing we have in common is an interest in film.  He's working on a documentary.  It's called 30 Year Memoirs of a Crack Baby.  He's the crack baby and he has, among other congenital health issues, a seriously problematic large intestine.

But as I read the title I wondered, why is it memoirs instead of memoir?  So I googled.

[UPDATE 8/15/19:  Kathy in KY commented that the boxes for Memoir and Autobiography had the same texts.  (I've corrected that.)  But then that leaves this post without a distinction between memoir and memoirs.  So here's one from the blog Memoir Mind  that seems to make sense:

"Writing about one's whole life is writing one's memoirs, plural. It's more akin to autobiography, in which you tell all about what happened, often with intense detail, the personal version of the kind of research a biographer would do if they were writing a life about you. Memoirs tend to be more informal than autobiography, but still have that life-encompassing feel. Most of the people who write them are well-known - that's how and why others would buy an entire book about their entire life, or multiple books about their entire life.
Memoir, on the other hand, the currently hot trend in writing and the topic of this blog, is focused on a particular time in one's life, or a theme or thread."

And, back to the original post, below is the bigger picture with the corrected illustration.]

The Author Learning Center explains the difference between a memoir, autobiography, and a biography.    And if you look closely in their summary of a memoir, the second bullet offers a brief note on the difference.

Text comes from The Author Learning Center 

Kimani is asking for a lot of money on GoFundMe, but films cost a lot to make.  He's an expert on the topic.  And since it's a memoirs, it will be a "1st person POV" and less "formal and objective" than a memoir. [And since it's a memoirs, it will be about his whole life, not just one time, theme, or thread.]

I'd urge you to go to his GoFundMe page.  Read it.  And if you weren't born to crack addicts and taken from your parents at 6 months and put into foster home and kicked out of that home as soon as you turned 18, you're probably had a lot more 'privileges' than Kimani has had.  So you could share some of your privilege by checking out his site.

And making a donation.  It doesn't have to be a lot.  $5 would do, but if you're going to go to all the trouble, you might consider making a larger contribution.

He hasn't had a contribution for a couple of days.  I think it's because people would rather look away.  But please, overcome that urge, and give him five minutes.  And when the movie is showing (at the Anchorage International Film Festival I hope), you'll know that you helped make it possible.

I'm not putting up his picture.  I want you to imagine what he looks like.  And then go check how well you conjured up his image.  I'm going to check how many people linked from this page to his GoFundMe page.    Yes, I can do that (and so all other websites.)

Big Science Stories 2019 -Space, Metric System, Antarctica, Opioids, Periodic Table, Climate Lawsuit, Moon, Gene Editing, Gun Research

We get so much news, so fast, and so superficially covered, that it's hard to separate the trivial from the truly significant.  We knew, back in 1969, that landing on the moon was a major change for human beings in their relationship with space and with humans' self image.  But today such earth-shattering (certainly in a figurative sense the moon landing was) events whiz by our consciousness.*

So I'm offering you some predictable science events coming up this next year as outlined by Deborah Netburn, Melissa Healy, Julia Rosen in the LATimes today under the title, "Nine stories to watch in the new year."  Of course, the article itself has a lot more details on each project/event.  And it has cool pictures too.

I'm going to put this list on the refrigerator, so when these become news stories, I will remember they were coming and have a more holistic sense of them all together.  And I can add other key stories that aren't on this list.  

1.  New Horizons pays historic visit to Ultima Thule: While you’re sipping champagne this New Year’s Eve, a spacecraft 4 billion miles from Earth will be making history.

2.  "Redefining the metric system: On May 20, the international metrology community will change the definitions of four basic units of measurement: the kilogram (mass), the Kelvin (temperature), the mole (amount) and the ampere (electrical current)."

3.  "Antarctica gets ready for its close-up: It’s summer in Antarctica, which means it’s the season for science. In January, two big expeditions will begin to explore pressing questions about how the West Antarctic Ice Sheet is changing — and what that means for the rest of the planet."

Sorry, can't skip this comment from the Antarcica story without my own comment:

"In addition, scientists will “collaborate” with seals by outfitting them with monitoring equipment that gathers data as they forage."

Even with the quotes around collaborate, this is still misleading.  They are using seals to further their research.  Whether the actual experiment is ethical or not, using 'collaborate' makes it sound much more like the seals are eagerly in on this and getting something out of it too.  (And the research may well be intended to help the seals long term, but the seals surely are not willing collaborators.)

4.  "New ways to prevent opioid abuse: The statistics of opioid dependency and death remain grim. And let’s not sugarcoat this: The data suggest things will probably get worse before they get better. In 2019, government agencies, health policy experts and medical researchers will be looking for ways to change the trajectory of this American crisis."

5.  "The periodic table turns 150: It’s time to step back and appreciate one of the great marvels of science. That’s why the United Nations has designated 2019 the International Year of the Periodic Table.
The choice wasn’t arbitrary: 2019 marks the 150th anniversary of the theory around which the table is organized. Russian chemist Dmitri Mendeleev discovered the cyclical pattern — or periodicity — in how the elements behave as they increase in atomic weight." 

If subtracting 150 from 2019 is a challenge, that gets us back to 1869.  So, no, Abraham Lincoln never heard of the Periodic Table because he was assassinated in 1865.

6.  "Youth climate lawsuit may finally go to trial: A landmark climate lawsuit has been inching closer to trial for four years. And in 2019, it may get its day in federal court at last — unless judges toss the case once and for all.
The suit was brought by 21 young people who say the U.S. government is violating their constitutional rights by promoting the use of fossil fuels in spite of the dangers posed by climate change." 

7.  "A traffic jam on the moon: If you thought going to the moon was passe, think again.  In 2019, China, India and Israel are all expected to land unmanned spacecraft on the lunar surface, while NASA steps up its efforts to return a human crew to the moon by 2028."

8.  "How to move forward with gene editing: Few were expecting that 2018 would see the birth of twin girls whose DNA had been edited in the lab when they were just days-old embryos. But it did, and now the scientific and bioethical questions raised by gene editing promise to be front and center in 2019."

9.  "Will money start pouring in for gun research? If the trend continues, the coming year will bring more school shootings and more mass shootings. And those will keep the complex of related issues — gun access and storage, mental health and violence prevention — front and center.
Philanthropies have responded to nearly 20 years of federal funding limits on firearms research with new private investments , and that money has begun to nurture a generation of public health researchers with expertise in these subjects."

 

*As a Peace Corps volunteer in Thailand in the late sixties, I watched the moon-landing in a Thonburi classroom.  That was one event that garnered plenty of attention in - then - far away Thailand.  But I learned during those years that not hearing the US daily news wasn't that big a deal.  Things that were truly important, I would learn about.  The rest - like car crashes and routine murders - were just variations of the same story with different details that I really didn't need to know.  Exceptions like the Sharon Tate murder, I did find out about eventually.

State of Alaska vs. Purdue Pharma, Attorney Resignations, Evolution Of A Blog Post

[NOTE: My original title was, "Might Dunleavy's Purging of Alaska State Attorneys Be Prelude To Drop Lawsuits Against Supporters?"   This blog post starts with a chance discovery of DocumentCloud.  A quick search for Alaska came up with a few pages from a state lawsuit against Purdue Pharma.  Then I connected this case with another event - Dunleavy's call for exempt employee resignations. I get more info about the original discovery.  Then more information from someone involved, and finally conclude that while the original idea might be valid, theoretically, in this particular case, it's probably not.  I'll let you go through this process with me.  It's sort of like the scientific process - you make a hypothesis, then do the research, then conclude.  In this case the hypothesis isn't confirmed.  But the info collected is interesting.  I'll start with the original draft of the postand comment on it in [brackets]. The original draft was written Dec. 17. I'm now calling that PART I.  Then PART II is my follow up today.]


[PART I:]  This is just a thought, but worth pursuing.  [In hindsight, could have been titled "the hypothesis"]

The incoming Dunleavy administration has called for the resignation of all exempt employees - including those in the Department of Law.  Many of these attorneys, one would assume, are in the middle of ongoing lawsuits.  It would be useful to get a list of the current ongoing lawsuits the State of Alaska has filed, so we can see what happens to them under the Dunleavy administration.

For instance, I serendipitously came across a lawsuit against Purdue Pharma [makers of Oxycontin] claiming their misleading marketing and other actions helped lead to, or at least exacerbate, the opioid crisis in Alaska.  [This was the original discovery - Alaska's lawsuit against Purdue Pharma - which is something everyone should know about.]

It would be useful to check out whether Purdue, and other organizations being sued by Alaska,  had any role in Outside, campaign funds that supported Dunleavy.  This will probably be tricky since the point of some of those funds is to keep the donors anonymous.

DocumentCloud search for 'Alaska' came up with the state's complaint against Purdue.  Here's a summary of the complaints - they are explained in more detail in the document.  [It was the discovery of DocumentCloud that led to my discovering the Purdue Pharma case.]

As alleged in this Complaint, Purdue engaged in false representation and concealment of material facts about the use of opioids to treat chronic pain. 

"Purdue knew, deliberately ignored, or recklessly disregarded, that:

1. its statements about the risks and benefits of opioids to treat chronic pain were false or misleading;
2. it failed to correct prior misrepresentations and omissions about the risks and benefits of opioids
3. its statements made to promote the use of opioids to treat chronic pain omitted or concealed material facts; and
4. for many patients the pain relief of "12-hour" OxyContin dosing lasts well short of 12 hours; and
5. there is no evidence to support statements that abuse-deterrent formulations of Purdue's opioids make the drugs less likely to be abused or diverted or less addictive; and
6. it lacked the commitment it professed to reducing or deterring abuse and to cooperating with law enforcement, as evidenced by its failure to report suspicious prescribers as required by law and its misrepresentations regarding the abuse-deterrent properties of is opioids."

(This complaint is dated October 30, 2017.  A Department of Law Press Release dated July 13, 2018 links to a judge's order that denies the defendant's attempts to dismiss most of the charges.  So I'm assuming this case is on-going. ) [I confirm this later.]

How many other cases are there like this that some large corporation might like to have dropped?

Am I being alarmist here?  I don't have any evidence that any wrong doing has taken place or will in Alaska regarding well funded defendants.  However, defendants have made large contributions to defeat judges in states with partisan judgeships.

It's not hard to imagine a wealthy defendant making contributions anonymously to a PAC that would support a gubernatorial candidate who could end a state's lawsuit.  And given that our new governor has asked for the resignations of all exempt employees - which includes a lot of prosecutors - I don't think it's unreasonable to raise this question.

Given the high visibility of the opioid crisis in Alaska, dropping this case would probably get a lot of blowback.  So I just want to make sure people are paying attention to this case and others that potentially could be dropped under Dunleavy.

An article in the Knox News about Tennessee's lawsuit against Purdue mentions Alaska's lawsuit several times.

PART II  Dec 19, 2018  I'm abandoning the [brackets] since this is the new update.

I talked to an Alaska state attorney yesterday.  Given the headlines about the governor asking for resignations, I wasn't sure if the email addresses would still be valid.  But I got an email back quickly, which told me that the Purdue Pharma case was, indeed, still ongoing.  The judge had set a March 23, 2020 trial date.

What about the resignations of the attorneys?
The line attorneys had been assured by the new Attorney General that their jobs are safe.  Only management are on the line.

What about a list of all the cases?
There are so many cases it would be hard to list.  But that includes many that are just in the investigatory stage - that can't be made public at this point - plus there are different departments pursuing different cases.  Actual, ongoing cases?  Not so many.

And the Purdue Pharma case?
This is such a high profile case, it would be hard to shut down.  There are cases all over the country on this.  Essentially three major groups.

1. Litigating states- almost 30 states who have filed suit in their own state courts and who are either litigating through their AG or through outside counsel such as Motley Rice (AK and 7 other states) or another firm
2. MDL- Multi district litigation in Cleveland OH, multiple plaintiffs mostly cities, counties and tribes although one or two states have submitted themselves to the federal courts jurisdiction
3. Multistate investigation- includes some litigating states (but not AK) and the remaining states that have not filed suit yet

There's a Reuters article that gives an overview of the lawsuits around the country over Oxytocin.  

Another Reason Purdue Pharma (and other cases) won't be dropped - money

Cases like these bring revenue to the state.  When I asked for a ballpark, my contact wouldn't make a guess.  But when I asked "Say $5 million?"  my contact said more than that and likened this case to the the tobacco lawsuits which are still bringing in revenue, even as cigaret sales have declined.

My Hypothesis Not Confirmed

Did Purdue Pharma or the Sackler family that privately owns Purdue make contributions to the Dunleavy campaign in order to get the new governor to drop this case?
I couldn't find anything about Purdue Pharma in the Alaska Public Offices Commission searches (though I don't use them that often so I might have missed something.)
Open Secrets reports show fairly low expenditures by Purdue Pharma and nothing Alaska related.   Nor could I find anything of interest for members of the Sackler family who privately own Purdue Pharma.  That doesn't mean there's nothing there, but it would take more sophisticated sleuthing.  And given the number of suits around the country against Purdue Pharma, Alaska's probably has to be one of the smaller ones, simply because of our low population.
And the report from the state attorney I talked to indicates the attorneys have gotten no reason to believe the case won't continue, and the potential revenue to be gained is a good reason to continue.

What's next?

It probably wouldn't hurt to monitor state law suits against corporations.  People should know what the state is doing, especially, in this case where the state stands to recoup some of the costs of dealing with the opioid crisis.

I didn't know anything about the suit against Purdue Pharma and so I will do another post on this topic.  For those who can't wait, I suggest you read this (long, but chilling) New Yorker article - The Family That Built An Empire of Pain - about the Sackler family who own Purdue Pharma and how this company contributed to the current opioid crisis because of how profitable it is.

I'd note that the Anchorage Daily News has reported on this case:

October 2017 - Alaska sues drugmaker Purdue Pharma, saying its OxyContin stoked opioid crisis
December 2017 - Alaska hires Outside law firm to investigate potential opioid lawsuit
July 2018 - Judge allows Alaska’s lawsuit against opioid manufacturer to proceed

And another case where five Alaska Native tribes joined a nationwide suit by Native American tribes against opioid makers and sellers:
November 2018  Alaska Native tribes sue drug companies over cost of opioid epidemic

And they've republished Washington Post stories on suits against Purdue Pharma, like this one on the Ohio case I mentioned above in this post:

April 7, 2018 An epic battle over the opioid crisis moves to an Ohio courtroom

And this one:

Sept 7, 2018  Man who made billions from OxyContin is pushing drug to wean addicts off opioids

Henry v MOA - Drug Day And What Is The Plaintiff Trying To Do?

[I've started a new tab on top - Henry v MOA - so you can find all the posts on this topic.]

I feel like I've walked into the tar pits and the case is sucking me under.  The still mild weather at least allows me exercise and some time with trees as I ride to and from court.  I'd show pictures, but the security at the court told me not to bring my camera any more because I'm not allowed to take it into the court section of the Federal Building and they aren't allowed to hold it for me - as they did last time I covered a trial and for the first few days.  I think it's because I got out late the other day and it was locked in overnight and others asked about it. The next day they wanted to give it back to me in the morning.  But I was going into court.  Should I hide it in the bushes in the atrium?  Sorry, can't take it to my car because I'm on my bike.  We need you to take it by noon.  I found someone in court who could take it out to his car at noon and I got it after court was over.  So now I have to leave it at home.  And no, I only have what someone called a 'smart enough' phone,  I don't think it takes pictures.  But yes, people can take their smart phones up.  I also learned they now have wifi in the court area.  I'm trying not use it.  One of the benefits of going to the trial is not having access to the internet.

I'm writing all this because it's much easier than trying to write about what happened in the courtroom.  First, I got there late, so I missed the finishing up of Ann Kirklund, the FBI agent. She was a great witness yesterday, very credible and I'm sorry I missed her testimony this morning.  I thought they were going to put on the economist to talk about how he calculated the backpay and pension award should Henry win his case.  I had gone to Karen Hunt's OLE class on the 2nd Amendment.  That was interesting.  OK, I need to get to the task at hand.

I got into court around 11am.  The new witness was taking the stand - Joseph Hazelaar.  (The name was hard for me to keep in my head so I looked it up.  It means hazel or hazel wood in Dutch.)

But before getting into details, let me try to outline what I'm starting to see as the strategy of Anthony Henry's attorneys  Since I didn't get to the first several days of the trial,  I missed the opening arguments which, presumably, would have spelled this out.  So I have to tease it out from the myriad details that my gut says we are hearing repeated way too much.  Today I heard Ray Brown ask the exact same questions about an hour apart.  But I'm sure there's a reason that I don't yet fathom.

Anyway, here's my overview based on what I've seen since last Friday.

Basically, Henry’s legal team is trying to disprove the allegations against Henry that came out in the Brown Report.  They are doing it by:

1.  Disputing facts:
1. That telling Gen Katkus about a National Guard member who was a drug suspect did NOT make the drug investigation ‘go sideways’
1. Showing that the drug investigation continued very successfully after Katkus was informed 
2. Informants continued cooperating
2. That what Henry did (informing Katkus) was completely normal and followed procedures
2. Trying to show that certain APD officers - particularly Jack Carson - ran a rogue investigation of the Guard and filed false allegations against Henry
3. Showing that Investigator Rick Brown was NOT an independent investigator, but rather was a captive of people in the Muni who wanted to get evidence to terminate Henry, particularly Jack Carson and  Asst Municipal Attorney Blair Christiansen.  AND that Rick Brown wasn’t competent to do the study.
4. Showing that Carson had personal reasons for wanting to go after the National Guard and harass Henry with complaints.   

These are things that seemed likely based on (mostly) today's testimony.

The Municipality of Anchorage is the defendant, but in a sense, Anthony Henry is on trial, or perhaps on appeal of the decision the Municipality made to terminate him.  So, he has to prove MOA made an incorrect  decision.

To do that, they have to drag  the jury through a mire of details.  And the jury has to see how each of the seemingly random bits of information come together to make the case.  The problem I'm having is figuring out which of the many details we're going through are directly relevant to proving their points, which are necessary to understand those directly relevant points, and which are just distracting.

For example, here are a few of the details I got to sit through today:

1. Technical stuff about how FBI, APD, DEA, State Troopers coordinate through the Safe Street program and a program that seems to overlap with Safe Streets called OCDETF. (They pronounce it something like “Ocidet”).  It stands for Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force.   This seems to be in there to make the point there was only one investigation of drugs at the National Guard, and thus Jack Carson's claims that there was a separate one at SAU (Special Assignments Unit) at APD (Anchorage Police Department) would be false.  
2. Understand more about how the task force with different jurisdictions work.  Again this seems aimed at delegitimizing Jack Carson.
3. Technical details for processing suspects and requirements for recording interviews. Aimed at showing why Carson's claims were false.
4. Jurisdictional issues like APD wouldn’t pick up $7000 in drug money in Glenallen, because it’s outside their jurisdiction, so troopers would do it, or why they would be collecting the money.  I’m not sure, but I understood it to be related to working with informants and supplying drugs for an outlying area that can’t afford to buy large amounts, so they wait to collect it after the person sells it.  Someone (Carson again?) claimed an APD officer did this.
5. How much cocaine would stay an APD case, and how much would go to the FBI Task Force.  Little stuff stays in Anchorage, big stuff to FBI.  To delegitimize Carson's claims the SAU was also investigating.
6. FBI would have to get permission from Headquarters to investigate a high level official like a General.  Why Henry, as part of the FBI run task force, couldn't do an undercover investigation of General Katkus on his own.  I think.
7. Drug deals happening more in parking lots, because police get search warrants for houses. Random, not essential for the case, I think.
8. Background on Jack Carson  To explain his motive.
9. Undercover agents don’t see the confidential informants they manage in person very often, but frequently by phone. Random? And they don’t last long in that relationship. To dispute Carson's claims that telling Katkus ended the informant's cooperation.
10. A jumpout is a drug bust with lots of unmarked cars. There was a big one at the Debarr Costco parking lot in 2010.  Show that the operation didn't die after Katkus was informed.
11. You need a Glass Warrant if you are state or local law enforcement before you do an audio recording of someone who doesn’t know you’re law enforcement.  I think again to dispute Carson.

I'd note, I made the list of details, by going through my rough trial notes from today. But then I added the italics as I tried to see if I could connect the detail with one of their goals.  The exercise was illuminating to me.  It's mostly aimed at Jack Carson.  I did hear Herny's attorney say they will not call Carson as a witness.  Is he also on the defense's list.  He's someone I want to see for myself.  He's turning out to be the villain of the plaintiff's story.


Today, from a different perspective.  As I said somewhere up above, when I came in Joseph Hazelaar was being sworn in.

I think it's easiest to just give you my rough notes for his background.  They're abbreviated, but a much better option than the long tedious testimony that dragged out until 4:30 when the judge dismissed the jury.  I've combined the questions and the answers so I could keep up.

"Born?  grew up? in Virginia,  HS diploma
14 years in law enforcement
State Troopers, DEA, FBI
4 years in Fairbanks, patrol officer.
Transferred out to Bethel 2004, first drug ring
Training?  Canine handler, OJT, then started sending me to academies
Undercover or as detective?  Both
Dependent on case  - rural Alaska no real undercover, might bring people in temporarily as undercover
DEA 2006 transferred to major offenders, high level drug, the 2007 assigment with DEA to 2010.  Transferred to APD.  Coming out of DEA, not wanting to go back to troopers, Capt. Mallard thinking of assign with cooperation with APD.  To work under Lt. Henry at APD.  Into SAU Special Assignment Unit
Clearance, deputized for DEA, doesn’t cross over to FBI
How long in SAU til full fledged? - on paper around April, still had limited access, still reporting to Annie Kirklund, About April 2010.
Stil police officer?  No.  Self- employed, Fire arms industry.  [I think that's what he said]
Still have contact with law enforcement.  Yes
Terminated?  No
Terminated from Troopers?  April 13, 2011
Rehired?  April 2013
Investigation going on?  Rehired you following investigation?  Remained trooper a while?  Year and a half?
Terminated again?  Yes, I could not hold my Alaska Police Standards Certificate.
Finding against you of dishonesty?  Yes sir."

OK, so he lost his Alaska Police Standards Certificate for dishonesty.  When I looked up the meaning of his name I also got the decision about his certificate.

He also talked in detail about his undercover work, including a meeting with a representative of a Mexican drug cartel.

When he was questioned by Ray Brown for the plaintiff Henry, he was a very credible witness, answering quickly, articulately.  Seemed to know a lot of details.  But when he was questioned by the defense attorney Doug Parker, his yesses and nos got crisper and tighter.  And he couldn't remember as well. He looked like he was trying to calculate what Parker was tricking him into saying. And a couple of times he seemed to get riled a bit and pushed back with attitude.  Nothing remarkable, but enough to show that calm facade wasn't who this person always is.

And as he testified, I began thinking.  Here's a guy whose job (as undercover agent) depended on his ability to lie convincingly.  But also outside that job, he'd lied enough to get caught and to lose his police certificate.  Jury, be careful here.  (Of course, that's rhetorical since the jury aren't allowed to listen to any news about the trial.)

How much more detail do you want?  Because I'm running out of steam.  I hinted at a lot with my list of details.  Here's something that got me thinking.  Hazelaar told the story of having a confidential informant connect hm up the chain to a high level drug dealer. The names of the people who gave names and the people who were named were discussed in court.  I don't know what happened to the people involved (I asked and was told he couldn't reveal that.)  But I wondered what would happen if word got out to the guy who was informed on.  The names were originally redacted in the documents filed with the court before the trial, but in the trial they are all being discussed.  One attorney told me they had to because using initials was too confusing for the attorneys and the jury.  But I wonder.  I suspect no one is going to publish the names (I'm not) and they will never find out.

He also explained why the drug investigation had to be sped up around the time Henry told General Katkus there was a drug dealer in the National Guard.  It wasn't because  Katkus tipped people off to hide the drugs.  Rather, they had put a tracker and gps on the target's car.  But he found out right away.  How?  He took his tires in to be changed and the mechanic found it.  So lesson learned;  don't put trackers on cars when it's time to change to or from snow tires.  The mechanic thought it was a bomb.


This post sort of wanders from subject to subject, and from one style to another.  In that sense, it gives you an idea of what court feels like.  But I hope it was easier to follow.  It's certainly takes less of your time.

What's Jamie Love Doing These Days?

When we got to Anchorage in 1977, Jamie Love, as the founder and director of the Alaska Public Interest Group (AKPIRG) was reviled daily in the Anchorage Times for raising questions about equity, about the environment, about anything that challenged those with power.  I don't have the constitution to take that kind of regular abuse and I was in awe of him.

Stephen Cysewski posted a FB link to a Guardian article about Jamie today, fighting big pharmaceutical companies whose patents often mean people die because they can't afford the jacked up price of drugs.  It's worth reading.  One more person who cut his teeth in Alaska and went on to make a big difference in the world.  Way to go Jamie.

It begins like this:

"On a hot August afternoon in 2000, four Americans arrived for a secret meeting at the central London penthouse flat of an Indian billionaire drug manufacturer named Yusuf Hamied. A sixth person would join them there, a French employee of the World Health Organisation, who was flying in from Geneva, having told his colleagues he was taking leave. 

Hamied took his guests into the dining room on the seventh floor. The room featured a view of the private gardens of Gloucester Square, Bayswater, for which only the residents possess a key. The six men sat round a glass dining table overlooked by a painting of galloping horses by a Mumbai artist (Hamied has racehorses stabled in three cities). The discussion, which went on all afternoon and through dinner that evening at the Bombay Palace restaurant nearby, would help change the course of medical history.
The number of people living with HIV/Aids worldwide had topped 34 million, many of them in the developing world. Hamied and his guests were looking for a way to break the monopoly held by pharmaceutical companies on Aids drugs, in order to make the costly life-saving medicines available to those who could not pay.
 Hamied was the boss of Cipla, a Mumbai-based company founded by his father to make cheap generic copies of out-of-patent drugs. He had met only one of the men before – Jamie Love, head of the Consumer Project on Technology, a not-for-profit organisation funded by the US political activist, Ralph Nader. Love specialised in challenging intellectual property and patent rules. For five years, he had been leading high-profile campaigners from organisations such as Médecins Sans Frontières in a battle to demolish patent protection."

Here's the whole article. 

Potpourri: Brent Crude, Science Literacy, Burner Phones, And Hidden Netflix Codes

Some stuff that might interest folks.


1.  What is Brent crude?  When they talk about the price of oil, they mention West Texas Intermediate (WTI), and Alaska North Slope (ANS), they also mention Brent Crude.  What does that mean?  This Wikipedia post spells it out.  There's even a goose involved.


2.  Here's a good discussion on American science ignorance at Quartz, or put another way matching this blog's underlying theme, the American way of not knowing.  This physician begins by pointing out that the US as a country is one of the very best in science, but as individuals we've got a lot of ignorance. She picks out a study that defines scientific literacy in terms of whether subjects could identify 'correct' scientific facts.  She writes,

Scientific literacy has little to do with memorizing information and a lot to do with a rational approach to problems.

And she gives three reasons the fact based approach to scientific literacy is problematic.

• Facts change.  That may come as sacrilege to some, but she points out that old ideas get modified by newer experiments.
• It encourages people to dig in their heels about what they think they know.
• The interpretation of data requires critical thinking.  

Actually, I don't think Americans have a monopoly on scientific ignorance, but I suspect we market ignorance in a more sophisticated way than most other places.

3.  The Quartz page also had an article about El Chapo and Sean Penn and mentioned burner phones.  That led me to a post that explains the evolution of burner phones.   The Wire is mentioned as where many people first heard the term.  I watched The Wire but didn't remember that word.  So here's the burner phone post on PureTalk.

4.  Netflix codes for all their different categories.  This lets you get beyond what they think you'll like.

Bahram nodded, 'Democracy is a wonderful thing, Mr Burnham,'

he said wistfully.  'It is a marvellous tamasha* that keeps the common people busy so that men like ourselves can take care of all matters of importance.  I hope one day India will also be able to enjoy these advantages - and China too, of course.'
'Let us raise a glass to that!'

 This conversation takes place on page 377 of River of Smoke, by Amitav Ghosh.  It takes place in 1839 in the foreign enclave (really the small island ghetto, the only place foreigners are allowed to live in Canton, China).  The occasion is a goodbye party for William Jardine who was returning to England, to lobby the British government to force the Chinese to open to more trade.  The Chinese were trying to shut down the opium trade which had made Jardine, the Indian trader in the book, and Burnham very rich. 

Wikipedia describes this event:

Jardine left Canton on 26 January 1839 for Britain as retirement but in actuality to try to continue Matheson's work. The respect shown by other foreign opium traders to Jardine before his departure can be best illustrated in the following passage from a book by William C. Hunter.

A few days before Mr. Jardine’s departure from Canton, the entire foreign community entertained him at a dinner in the dining room of the East India Company’s Factory. About eighty persons of all nationalities, including India, were present, and they did not separate until several hours after midnight. It was an event frequently referred to afterwards amongst the residents, and to this day there are a few of us who still speak of it.

The farewell dinner to Jardine was held on 22 January 1839 with several members of the Foreign settlement in Canton mostly traders. Among the guests were the Forbes brothers of the prominent Forbes family and Warren Delano, a senior partner in the trading firm Russel & Co. and maternal grandfather of US President Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
The Qing government was pleased to hear of Jardine's departure, then proceeded to stop the opium trade. Lin Zexu, appointed specifically to suppress the drug trade in Guangzhou, stated, "The Iron-headed Old Rat, the sly and cunning ring-leader of the opium smugglers has left for The Land of Mist, of fear from the Middle Kingdom's wrath." He then ordered the surrender of all opium and the destruction of more than 20,000 cases of opium in Guangzhou. He also ordered the arrest of opium trader Lancelot Dent, the head of Dent and Company (a rival company to Jardine Matheson) since the Chinese were more familiar with Jardine as the trading head and were quite unfamiliar with Matheson. Lin also wrote to Queen Victoria, to submit in obeisance in the presence of the Chinese Emperor.

It's interesting how Ghosh has developed in this reader an affection for the trader Bahran and the men who work for him.  Even though we know that his whole life is defined by smuggling opium into China.  I think the positive side of this, is that as human beings we can connect to the way have to fight to make their way in life and how they can do evil things, yet the path to getting there seems quite reasonable.  If we can have empathy and understanding for such people, surely the differences among American citizens are not insurmountable.

It seems that their view of democracy is shared by quite a few who hover around state capitals and Washington DC.  

* tamasha is defined in an earlier post I did on River of Smoke and the richness of the language

El Chapo Prison Break Background

I ran across a documentary on the Mexican drug trade a while back that will give you some background on El Chapo, who broke out of prison the other day. 

Here's the post with the video "Narco Bling" (at the bottom).  Well worth a look. 

Will try to get back to regular blogging soon. 

 [Trying again to get Feedburner to work.]

Cuba and Marijuana - Strong Emotion And Political Power Have Too Long Trumped Reason

"President Obama on Wednesday ordered the restoration of full diplomatic relations with Cuba and the opening of an embassy in Havana for the first time in more than a half-century as he vowed to “cut loose the shackles of the past” and sweep aside one of the last vestiges of the Cold War."  (NY Times)

When Nixon, in 1970, announced he was going to China to reestablish diplomatic ties, it was 21 years after the Communists defeated the Kuomintang.

It's taken almost 65 years since Castro took over Cuba in January 1959, for the US to finally begin to reestablish diplomatic ties with Cuba.

Havana was both prosperous and corrupt before the revolution, and there was a huge economic gap between the cities and the rural areas. From PBS:

Between 1952 and 1958, Cubans from all walks of life -- students, businessmen, mothers, politicians -- united in opposition against Batista. Author Carlos Alberto Montaner describes the mood: "the talk was about democracy, freedom and respect for human rights; the... objective was to restore the rule of law that had been swept aside by Batista."

Cuba had been a Spanish colony and then, after the Spanish-American War essentially became a colony of the US.  Again from PBS:

Since achieving independence in 1902, Cuba had suffered what simply could be called bad government. A bloody and costly struggle to achieve independence from Spain had devastated Cuba's economy. The insurgent leaders, known as the  had been decimated. José Martí, Cuba's , was killed in battle in 1895. On May 20, 1902, the birth date of the first Cuban republic, no leader had the power to harness the passions and ambitions unleashed by independence. The U.S. Congress passed the Platt Amendment, granting the U.S. the right to intervene militarily in Cuba to protect its interests there. The U.S. position further undermined the legitimacy of the government, as it placed the United States at the center of Cuban affairs. Invoking the Platt Amendment, the United States would occupy Cuba between 1906 and 1909, and continue to intervene in later years.

If we hadn't been so consumed by the Cold War and still being lapped by the ripples of the McCarthy era, and had not been so blindly supportive of American business interests in Cuba, we might have worked with Castro from the beginning.  But CIA chief Allen Dulles and others were hostile.  His (and his brothers') strong support for US business interests can be seen in this discussion of the Dulles brothers and Nixon in 1948.  By 1959, John Foster Dulles was dead, but Allen was CIA chief,  presumably with the same interests of protecting US corporations. Castro's flirting with communism was a big problem for them.  Castro versus the Eisenhower Administration gives a sense of the competing interests and policies.

We don't know how all the wealthy, who fled Cuba for Miami, made their fortunes in Havana, but in many cases, I suspect they would not want their true stories exposed.  Other people had more legitimate gripes.  But the Cuban-Americans, bolstered by the US loss of face by having a Communist country 90 miles from its borders, have been able to hold the Castro regime and the people of Cuba hostage to US embargo for over 50 years.  Whatever evils Castro has committed, and he clearly did not live up to the revolution's promises of democracy, they aren't worse than other countries we have diplomatic relations with - China, Russia, Saudi Arabia, our WW II enemies Germany and Japan, and various South American dictatorships over the years.  The difference is an emotional difference fired up by an active Cuban refugee community.  Even the sting of losing a war to Vietnam only lasted 20 years before we had full diplomatic relations again.

In the same way, marijuana was emotionally linked with the hippies and  the anti-war movement of the 60's and 70's.  And a huge illegal drug smuggling business whose wealth is able to corrupt law enforcement officials, legislators, and private companies.   


In both the cases of Cuba and marijuana, US policy was twisted from reasonable and humane by strong, negative emotional reactions and the power of those with a vested interest in the status quo.  For many, marijuana represents lawlessness and the anti-government protests of the Vietnam war.

Cuba has had and continuous to have serious issues.  Moving toward normal diplomatic relations with Cuba ends a 55 year grudge.  It doesn't solve all the issues, but it's a step forward.

Legalizing marijuana also moves us to more reasonable and sensible approaches for dealing with the side effects of marijuana use.  It doesn't mean we'll adopt good policies.  Certainly the new Alaska law legalizing marijuana, is imperfect.  It gives away too much power and incentive to private sector businesses  to sell as much grass as they can.  The state needs to craft regulations to most sensibly implement the legalization, such as requiring more consumer protection in terms of quality of the products and labeling and limiting advertising.

But at long last we can stop the costly, ineffective wars against Cuba and marijuana users, and move on to more positive and productive relationships.

Just as Nixon's trip to China is seen as his greatest legacy, I'm sure that Obama's reopening our relationship with Cuba will be a big part of his legacy.