Obama Still Alive And Well After 8 Years - What Did Trump Say Today?

I remember back in 2009, that many of us worried that Barrack Obama wouldn't survive his presidency.  So as I watched the new president being sworn in, I was delighted to see Obama there.

I hope those who have great fears about the next four years, will see at the conclusion of the Trump presidency, that their worst fears weren't realized.



Meanwhile, some reactions to the new president's inaugural speech.  It wasn't a typical Trump speech.  He only used the word "I" about three times. (I say 'about' because the word counters can be tricky, especially with single letter words.  I checked some words using a search function, but I also used an online word counter. The numbers vary a bit, so my numbers here are approximate.)  He used 'we' over 40 times and 'you' and 'your' about 23 times.  The words 'environment,' 'constitution,' 'climate,' and 'health,' were not mentioned. Though he did mention 'the misery of disease.'   "Law' was mentioned once - as part of 'law enforcement.'

But it painted a vision of a dark America with many people suffering poverty, unemployment, crime, and bad schools which will all be made great again.  He talked about America First, a phrase used by Nazi sympathizers who wanted to keep the US out of the second world war.  You can see his competitive model of the world throughout his speech.  Our team is going to start winning again was a key message.  Another key message was giving power back to the people from the corrupt politicians.


Here are some excerpts and my reactions.  You can watch or read it all here.

"Together, we will determine the course of America and the world for years to come."

That was one of two uses of the word 'together.'  The other time it was attached to making America great again.

". . . today we are not merely transferring power from one administration to another, or from one party to another -- but we are transferring power from Washington, D.C. and giving it back to you, the American People."

Exactly who the 'American people' are, who 'you' is supposed to mean is not clear in this speech.  Though I suspect Trump supporters think it means them and Trump opponents think it means Trump supporters too.  

"For too long, a small group in our nation's Capital has reaped the rewards of government while the people have borne the cost. Washington flourished -- but the people did not share in its wealth. Politicians prospered -- but the jobs left, and the factories closed."

Government is the bad guy.  That's a pretty common theme in the US.  I've been thinking about a post that argues government isn't the enemy because it's been taken over by business.  If government is corrupt, whose paying to corrupt it?  All the corporations who spend billions on lobbying to pass laws that help them and kill laws that would make corporations more accountable.  

Trump doesn't mention the non-governmental multi-millionaire and billionaire class that is getting richer at the expense of everyone else, he only mentions their puppets, the politicians.  

"January 20th 2017, will be remembered as the day the people became the rulers of this nation again. The forgotten men and women of our country will be forgotten no longer."

Who exactly will become the rulers again?  Not Native Americans or African-Americans, since they never were the rulers.  Not Asian-Americans or Hispanics.  Not LGBT folks.  Not women.  Who does that leave?  OK, he does mention women in the next sentence, but this is the 'forgotten men and women.'  Is this where he's talking about the Native Americans and all the others? Why does that seem like putting words in his mouth?  Toni Morrison's essay in the NYTimes offers one explanation of this part of the Trump appeal.

"You came by the tens of millions to become part of a historic movement the likes of which the world has never seen before. At the center of this movement is a crucial conviction: that a nation exists to serve its citizens."

This comes closer to classic Trump rhetoric - 'which the world has never seen before.'  You can make statements like this if you never read about history or about the rest of the world.  

"Americans want great schools for their children, safe neighborhoods for their families, and good jobs for themselves. These are the just and reasonable demands of a righteous public."

I bet if we sat in with the speech writers, we would have heard some debate about whether to mention health care.  Well, maybe not.  I doubt there was any discussion about climate change.

Here is where it begins to sound like a Communist Chinese report on human rights abuses in the US.

"But for too many of our citizens, a different reality exists: Mothers and children trapped in poverty in our inner cities; rusted-out factories scattered like tombstones across the landscape of our nation; an education system flush with cash, but which leaves our young and beautiful students deprived of knowledge; and the crime and gangs and drugs that have stolen too many lives and robbed our country of so much unrealized potential."

"This American carnage stops right here and stops right now."

Why don't I think this is a call to restrict the sale of automatic weapons?

"We are one nation -- and their pain is our pain. Their dreams are our dreams; and their success will be our success. We share one heart, one home, and one glorious destiny."

This is the closest this speech comes to a unity theme.  But the idea that Trump feels anyone else's pain just doesn't ring true to me.  

"For many decades, we've enriched foreign industry at the expense of American industry; subsidized the armies of other countries while allowing for the very sad depletion of our military; we've defended other nation's borders while refusing to defend our own; and spent trillions of dollars overseas while America's infrastructure has fallen into disrepair and decay.
We've made other countries rich while the wealth, strength, and confidence of our country has disappeared over the horizon." 

When I was a graduate student, I was surprised to read a review of American foreign aid packages. The aid bills in Congress always stipulate that US products are used to aid other countries and for the most part US companies get contracts to do the work.  It was always a good way to distribute money to American companies and workers in the guise of helping others.  Let's not fool ourselves that spending money abroad hurts the US.  If it did, Congress wouldn't pass those budgets.  They get lobbied by all the companies whose products - often things they can't sell - are going to be bought by the US to ship overseas.  It's a great stimulus to the economy. (See especially the bottom of page 44 in this report.)  And military spending has enriched American businesses since the Revolutionary War.  

Seeing American infrastructure rebuilt would be a great thing.  And it would be great for American businesses to thrive and for them to create lots of good paying jobs to build that infrastructure.  I just don't want them to get unduly wealthy, their employees overworked and underpaid, and a shoddy end product.  

"One by one, the factories shuttered and left our shores, with not even a thought about the millions upon millions of American workers left behind.
The wealth of our middle class has been ripped from their homes and then redistributed across the entire world."

This is a side-effect of capitalism.  Companies work to make a profit.  If they make more profit by going overseas, that's what they'll do.  But as many jobs, maybe more, are lost to automation of jobs.  In the 50s and 60s there were articles about how Americans would spend their leisure time when automation brought the work week to 30 hours.  What those writers weren't thinking was that the benefits would go to the owners, not the workers.  That 'leisure' is called today 'unemployment.'

It seems to me that 'ripped from their homes' was related to unregulated mortgage schemes ultimately the fault of big banks that were making money so fast they didn't care about the consumer.  Government's involvement was that they didn't regulate the banks closely enough.  

"We assembled here today are issuing a new decree to be heard in every city, in every foreign capital, and in every hall of power.
From this day forward, a new vision will govern our land.
From this moment on, it's going to be America First."

As mentioned above, America First, has a dark history.  If Trump sticks to his word here, his friend Vlad is in for a surprise.  I'm not holding my breath.

"Every decision on trade, on taxes, on immigration, on foreign affairs, will be made to benefit American workers and American families. We must protect our borders from the ravages of other countries making our products, stealing our companies, and destroying our jobs. Protection will lead to great prosperity and strength."

No, other countries aren't 'stealing' our companies.  Even though they may be owned by Americans, these are Americans who weigh their costs and benefits and decide to ship jobs overseas.  

"We will reinforce old alliances and form new ones -- and unite the civilized world against radical Islamic terrorism, which we will eradicate completely from the face of the Earth."

I can't in any way defend people who murder women and children in cold blood.  But they are still human beings.  To deny that may be an attempt to distance oneself from the atrocities that humans commit.  The leaders who led the genocides in Africa used similar language - calling their enemies cockroaches to be eradicated.  Dehumanizing the enemy is practiced all over the world.   However misguided ISIS terrorists are, they come from situations where they are alienated enough to be susceptible to recruitment.  And then they are trained to obey orders and be loyal to the group.  

Here's a passage I'd love to have the new president discuss with, say, Charlie Rose or Bill Moyers.

"At the bedrock of our politics will be a total allegiance to the United States of America, and through our loyalty to our country, we will rediscover our loyalty to each other.
When you open your heart to patriotism, there is no room for prejudice. The Bible tells us, "How good and pleasant it is when God's people live together in unity."

Whoa!  Total allegiance to the United States of America!  I imagine a lot of Christians might argue that their first allegiance is to God.  Others might say their allegiance is to all of humankind, not just to Americans.  And what does that mean for people who don't agree with what the United States is doing - say like Trump until today?   Or people who have dual citizenship?  Is that going to be abolished?  What will happen to someone who has only 75% allegiance to the USA?  Should we have more loyalty to corrupt Americans than to saintly citizens of other countries?  

I like that he suggests there is no room for prejudice, but I don't understand how that follows from loyalty to the US. White Nationalists would argue they are completely loyal to the US, but with whites in power.  

Then there is the bible quote.  What exactly does "God's people" mean to Trump?  It's from the Old Testament, so does it refers to Jews?  Is it understood to mean Christians?  Christians and Jews?  What about Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, and atheists?  It would be nice to hear an explanation of what Trump, or the speech writers, had in mind.  

Knowing that bible translations vary greatly, I looked it up.  Of 22 different translations, biblehub  shows only one that mentions "God's people."  All the others refer to when "brethren" or "brothers" live together in unity.  (One says 'brothers and sisters.")  To suggest that it's "good and pleasant' when brethren live together in unity, also suggests that it's common for them not to.  The bible it comes from appears to be one of the most used, which raises questions about how close to the original biblical language most American Christians are.  

This is going to be an interesting four years.  

What Does "Change" Mean In Regard To Trump?

People write things like, "now that he is no longer a candidate" or "once he becomes president" Trump will change with the office.  Mitt Romney seemed to think he could have a calming effect. Tech leaders felt meeting with Trump would have a positive effect.  Thomas Friedman thinks there might be some room for optimism.

Really?  The man is 70.  What things will a 70 year old change?

He's not going to change his basic way of behaving, and from his point, why should he?  Everyone said it couldn't work in the primary and he won.  Then it couldn't win in the actual election, and he got enough votes in key states to win the electoral college.  So from his point of view - even if a 70 year old could easily change his basic behavior, there's no reason to.  His behavior works.

He can change things that aren't fundamental parts of his personal identity and the habits he's acquired over the years.  His basic goal in life is to win, but it doesn't seem to be wed to any ideology beyond that.  So specific policy issues could change based on the last person Trump talks to before he makes a decision.   Things like what he's going to do about Israel, building a wall on the Mexican border, or climate change.

But the bluster, the belief that he's the smartest guy in the room, his wheeler/dealer business style, his bullying, his need for attention and approval, those things aren't going to change.

If he's lucky, those around him will edit him before he goes public.  He's not the kind of guy who takes easily to editing, but once he discovers how much work being president is, he'll delegates lots of the work to others.  Though some of the people he's appointed have belief systems worse even than Trump's in areas.

He'll continue to be quick to take offense when someone slights him.  He'll continue to demean others.  He'll continue to make quick judgments because he thinks he is smart enough to figure it out.  He's not likely to start reading much.

The positive thing about Tweeter Trump is that he publicly says, and puts on record, what he's thinking.  The kinds of things I'd guess lots of powerful figures think, but only say when surrounded by like thinkers, and don't utter publicly.  That means we know a lot more about his true beliefs and values than we have of others in the past.  Well, we surmised, but they rarely gave us proof we were right.

So, I expect to see current Trump relationships change as new disagreements arise and or he decides someone's help is needed for something.  His friendship with Putin is based on a similar authoritarian style, so Trump recognizes another player who sees the world as he does.  But the first time Trump realizes that Putin has played Trump for a fool, that friendship will end.    Other actions - like supporting Netanyahu's pro-settlement stance - may have initial positive benefits, but will quickly lead to a backlash.  The world is a lot more complicated than doing business deals.  The US military power is a lot less effective in a world of ied's  and suicide bombers than he thinks it is.  Putin was able to use military power in Syria because he doesn't care about collateral damage.  An American president has to think about such things.

My fear is that Trump will do a lot of damage both in the US and the world, before he leaves office. Things that will have to be undone before we can move on.  And while he won't kill people Hitler style, if he does slow down climate change action, the result will be turmoil and human suffering and death around the world.  Severe weather events will create havoc for farmers all over the world.  Rising temperatures mean that crops that grow at a certain latitude now, or with a certain level of rainfall, won't in twenty years or less.   This will disrupt food supplies and livelihoods everywhere.

Many people believe that the five year drought in Syria was related to climate change and a major contributor to the rebellion there.  Farmers could no longer raise their crops and moved to the cities where they couldn't make a living.  They were the dry kindling of revolt.

Americans believe that their way of life is far superior to how people live in the rest of the world.  But those who have traveled, worked, and lived in other countries long enough to become friends with locals, know that their middle classes' lives were not significantly different, in the most important ways, from American lives.  These are the people who are now refugees from the killing in Iraq, Syria, and other parts of the world.  Civilization is a fragile thread.  We aren't immune from craziness here.  There are Americans who would be happy to perform 'ethnic cleansing' of non-white parts of the US population, just as the Hutus and the Serbs and ISIS did and are doing.  Those fleeing Aleppo or Bagdad were just as shocked to see their normal lives disrupted by horrendous urban military violence, as American will be if it happens here. The election of Trump shows us that nearly half the voters are willing to overlook all sorts of authoritarian, racist, and sexist behaviors for the hope of regaining the respect they had living in a society where non-whites and women had significant barriers to economic and social justice.  Focus on 'others' rather than the economic system in which owners of businesses get rich by replacing workers with machinery makes economic improvement ever so much harder.

I hope I'm wrong on all accounts.  Trump's style is one where there are few friends for the long haul.  It's why he wants his family as his close advisors.  This is a Mafia like world view.  Only family can be truly trusted.  Because his style creates lots of enemies.  I'm sure the Cruz's, the Christie's, Bush's, and others are just biding their time until they can avenge the personal abuse Trump heaped on them.  And like the people of Aleppo, the rest of us will be in the cross fire.  Probably not actual violence - though I don't rule that out - but more likely the destruction of our social infrastructure that protects the victims of a form of capitalism that has no respect for workers, that buys companies to raid workers' pensions, that lies to customers to squeeze out more profit, and finds all sorts of ways to make the rules work for those who are already wealthy against those who are not.

I've rambled on long enough here.  I offer a June 2016 Atlantic analysis of Trump by Dan P. McAdams, a professor of psychology at Northwestern as a more in-depth and nuanced assessment of Trump's qualities and how they may play out in the presidency.

AIFF 2016: Features In Competition

Features are full length fictional films.  Films in competition are those chosen by the original screeners to be eligible for awards.

• a list of the super shorts in competition
• list of the programs where they appear and when
• description of each super short in competition in alphabetical order

I'd note that while these are the screeners picks, screeners don't always agree, so some would have chosen other super shorts as the best.  I often disagree with the screeners, but this is a good start.

Features in Competition	Director	Country	Length
Demimonde	Attila Szász	Hungary	1:25:00
Donald Cried	Kyle Martin	USA	1:25:00
First Girl I Loved	Karem Sanga	USA	1:26:00
Heredity	Carlos G Vergara	Columbia	1:40:10
Planet Outtakring	Michi Riebl	Austria	1:30:00
Youth in Oregon	Joel David Moore	USA	1:40:00

Demimonde
Attila Szász
Hungary
1:28:00

From Huniwood (Hungarian Film Festival Berlin):

"In January 1914, a horrific murder shocked the city of Budapest. Elza Mágnás, a famous courtesan, was strangled and her body thrown into the icy waters of the Danube. The film which is based on a true story chronicles the last four days of Elza’s life through the eyes of a naive maid, portraying Elza’s complex relationship with her housekeeper, her sugar daddy and her young lover. (HFM)"

 Director Szász's The Ambassador To Bern won the best feature at the 2014 AIFF.  It was an excellent film and I'm sure this one will be a contender this year.  I did a Skype interview with Szász then and part of it was about this film.  I'll try to edit it to focus on Demimonde.  But it's in sections with transcript so it is easy to find.

Here's what he said two years ago:

"Q: What's the new film about?
The assassination of a famous courtesan….Years ago that shook up the entire city of Budapest, everybody was talking about it because the courtesan was very famous, everyone knew about her and they were shocked because someone famous was getting murdered.
Q:  Was that before or after the Arch Duke got shot?
It’s before.  It takes place in January, so it’s maybe a couple of months before the assassination [of the Arch Duke].  It’s a style piece.  It’s the Austrian-Hungarian monarchy.  So it’s very difficult to recreate the era, because we have to start from scratch, the costumes, the props, set, everything.  And we have so little money again, but I just couldn’t refuse this chance because the script is again something I love very much.  I was warned, do you remember the first time you had to shoot in 17 days with so little money, you suffered and you were frustrated, and you want to do it again?  I said, yes, because it’s a good script and we have now, nineteen days so it’s two more days, - piece of cake - probably it's a bit longer,  the story. so it’s very difficult to shoot again, but hopefully next time we’ll have the backing of the film fund and we’ll have maybe three or four times the time and money, because it’s normal that Hungarian films are being shot in 35, 40, maybe 45 days and we had less than 20 both times."

Donald Cried
Kyle Martin
USA
1:25:00

From the Donald Cried website:

"Peter Latang (Jesse Wakeman) left working class Warwick, Rhode Island to reinvent himself as a slick, Wall Street mover and shaker. Fifteen years later, when he's forced to return home to bury his Grandmother he loses his wallet on the trip. Stranded, the only person he can think of to help him out is his next door neighbor and former childhood friend Donald Treebeck (Kris Avedisian). Donald hasn't changed a bit, and what starts as a simple favor turns into a long van ride into their past."

And interesting point from the director's notes from the same link:

"For me specifically it had a lot to do with the guilt of how I treated people in high school and the guilt I carried with me.  Jesse and Kyle  (co-writers) come from the same really small town in Northern California and brought elements of their experience going home. All the Rhode Island elements, the people the neighborhoods, were very specific to my experience growing up there in the 80's."

Donald Cried from Groove Garden on Vimeo.



First Girl I Loved
Karem Sanga
USA
1:26:00

From Variety:

"Anne (Dylan Gelula, from Netflix’s “The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt”) is a mildly quirky 17-year-old who lives with her single mom (Pamela Adlon) and exercises her arty side as photographer for the school yearbook. It’s in the latter capacity that she encounters softball-playing senior star athlete Sasha (Brianna Hildebrand), and is instantly smitten. "

Image also from Barranquilla

Heredity
Carlos G Vergara
Columbia
1:40:10

I was trying to find something on this film more than just the Bear Tooth blurb, but there isn't a lot out there.  I suspect this is pretty close to what the Bear Tooth says in English.  From Festival Internacionale de Cines Barranquilla

"Sinopsis:  Tati  y  Pedro  llevan  una  vida  rutinaria  hasta  que  él  amanece  convertido  psicológicamente en un niño. Buscando la cura Tati lleva a Pedro a donde él vivió su infancia,  allí Pedro se reencuentra con su familia y a ninguno reconoce, en cambio juega y es feliz como  cuando realmente era niño. Después de que su madre lo ve en una de sus crisis decide revelar  un secreto, esto hace que Tati lleve a Pedro a seguir las huellas de su padre. Encontrarlo para  que haga catarsis es la última esperanza."

Again, you can get this in English at the Bear Tooth link.

Screenshot from outtake on Planet Ottakring's website

Planet Ottakring

Michi Riebl

Austria

1:30:00

Bear with me on this one.  This some interesting background that will add depth to your understanding of the movie.  I couldn't find a good English description for this film, so I started with the German synopsis from the film's website:

"Eine Krise zieht ihre Kreise um den Planet Ottakring: Disko, der letzte Pate stirbt, Frau Jahn, Kredithai vor Ort, übernimmt die Macht. In dieser Situation gerät die Wirtschaft des Bezirks ins Strudeln. Sammy ein junger und nicht sehr überzeugter Kleinganove, aber Erbe Diskos, ist gezwungen zu handeln. Valerie – Wirtschaftsstudentin aus Deutschland – gerät im Zuge ihrer Masterarbeit ins Zentrum des Geschehens. Gemeinsam mit Sammy und seinen Freunden bilden sie eine Allianz gegen die heimtückische Vorgangsweise von Frau Jahn und finden dabei ein Wirtschaftssystem, von dem eigentlich alle profitieren können. Wären da nicht auch noch Gefühle mit im Spiel. David gegen Goliath in Wiens 16. Bezirk!"

Here's my translation with some help from internet dictionaries.  I was still a little uncertain, but checked with an Austrian friend, who confirmed I'd gotten the gist and then I was able to tweak it into more idiomatic English.

"A crisis erupts in the Viennese neighborhood of Ottakring.  Disko, the last godfather, dies.  Mrs. Jahn, a local loan shark, takes power.  The economy of this district then goes to hell.  A younger, and not very eager minor hoodlum, Sammy,  Disko's heir, is forced to act.  Valerie - a business student from Germany [it's an Austrian film] - while working on her masters thesis, finds herself in the center of the action.  She builds an alliance with Sammy and his friend against the malicious approach of Mrs. Jahn and through this finds an economic system in which all can profit. If only there weren't feelings coming into play.  David and Goliath in Vienna's 16th district."

Poking around with my sketchy German that is certainly no match for Viennese dialect, I did discover that the movie's ideas go back to an experiment in the 1930s in a place called Wörgl where they had a "money-experiment" to deal with the desperate economic situation.  This comes from a post about the film when it was shown in Wörgl.  

I did also find something on this in English at Lietaer.com:

"One of the best-known applications of the stamp scrip idea was applied in the small town of Wörgl in Austria in 1932 and 1933.  When Michael Unterguggenberger (1884-1936) was elected mayor of Wörgl, the city had 500 jobless people and another 1,000 in the immediate vicinity.   Furthermore, 200 families were absolutely penniless.   The mayor-with-the-long-name (as Professor Irving Fisher from Yale would call him) was familiar with Silvio Gesell‘s work and decided to put it to the test.

He had a long list of projects he wanted to accomplish (re-paving the streets, making the water distribution system available for the entire town, planting trees along the streets and other needed repairs.)  Many people were willing and able to do all of those things, but he had only 40,000 Austrian schillings in the bank, a pittance compared to what needed to be done.
Instead of spending the 40,000 schillings on starting the first of his long list of projects, he decided to put the money on deposit with a local savings bank as a guarantee for issuing Wörgl’s own 40,000 schilling’s worth of stamp scrip.   He then used the stamp scrip to pay for his first project.   Because a stamp needed to be applied each month (at 1% of face value), everybody who was paid with the stamp scrip made sure he or she was spending it quickly, automatically providing work for others.   When people had run out of ideas of what to spend their stamp scrip on, they even decided to pay their taxes, early."

The post goes on to say it was so successful that other Austrian towns wanted to copy it and the Central Bank clamped down.  They were sued, but the Austrian Supreme Court backed the bank and these schemes became criminal.

From the first post above, the writer also says that director Michi Riebl says that the Ottakring district no longer has the gangsterism in this form.

Image from Teaser-trailer.com

Youth in Oregon
Joel David Moore
USA
1:40:00

JDM**

There's something here for everyone.  Youth in Oregon is the directorial debut for Avatar actor (Dr.Norm Spelling), Joel David Moore.  It takes place in Oregon with acting greats like Frank Langella and Billy Crudup.  There's  Married... with Children's Christina Applegate and  Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman's Mary Kay Price.


From the YouTube description:

"When 82-year-old curmudgeon RAYMOND Ingersol tells his family that he has made arrangements to be euthanized in Oregon, his daughter KATE is determined to stop him. But when another family emergency arises, Kate’s husband BRIAN finds himself with the unlucky task of driving his father-in-law from New York to Oregon AND convincing the crotchety old man that he doesn’t want to die. The problem: Brian hates Raymond. And with Raymond’s wino wife ESTELLE tagging along for the journey, it’s just in-laws and the open road for the next 3000 miles."

Variety reviews don't pull punches.  But they aren't looking for film-festival flicks, as the last line of this quote suggests:

"Rarely has euthanasia seemed more desirable than it’s made to appear in “Youth in Oregon,” a torturous saga about a man dying of an incurable heart condition who sets out on a cross-country journey to Oregon, where killing oneself is legal. Maudlin and mannered, this contrived indie squanders another fine late-career performance from Frank Langella, dousing its treatment of the subject in affectations until it’s snuffed out any trace of genuine life. While it fits comfortably into the fragmented-family drama subgenre prized each year at the Tribeca Film Festival, its groan-worthiness is apt to get it buried at the box office."

But here's from a more sympathetic reviewer.   Mary Kay Place on her character from The Mary Sue   answering the question, "Did you feel their marriage had gone through a change before the film started that altered their dynamic?"

Mary Kay Place: I did, and I think that’s when she became a heavy drinker. Because he was withdrawing and becoming angrier and more isolated. And that was infuriating to her, because I image them being a solid couple and had been true partners. And that partnership started dissolving as he became more isolated and cranky. Well, I think he’s always been cranky, but now he’s become crankier than ever. And it’s been difficult on my character, because she felt as if she’d lost her partner before he died. He had already slipped away.

There's a note on this YouTube video - "This video is unlisted. Be considerate and think twice before sharing." - but this seems an appropriate place for it and I can't find any easy links where I could ask for permission. I can't find a website or FB page for this film.

**Screenshot from IMDB


Let me get this up so I can start on the Documentaries in Competition.  I don't usually get more than a few of these up each year as a preview.  Let's see how far I can get. I'll also try to add the times and locations for each of the film showings.   This one went pretty easily until I got to Planet Ottakring which took a while.  This looks like a solid group of films and there's still a bunch more other Features, many of which I'm sure are going to be well worth watching.

Warnings To Republicans And Democrats - No Hope And Listen Liberal

Several weeks ago, checking out the new books at Loussac library, I found these two which seemed to offer political symmetry.

No Hope is subtitled "Why I left the GOP and you should too."  Listen Liberal is subtitled "What Happened To The Party of the People?"

I've read No Hope, but only the first and last chapters of Listen Liberal, so I'll talk about Jimmy Lasalvia's book in this post, and Thomas Frank's in a later post.  Spoiler:  Frank's book seems the much weightier of the two.

Lasalrvia's book is basically his justification, as a gay Republican, for being the gay spokesperson for the Republican Party for as along as did.  Basically, he says he's an economic conservative who's gay and was trying to get the Republicans to be more tolerant of people who weren't straight, white males.  He also felt that by supporting Republicans in a conspicuous way - as a founder and head of GOProud - he would also show Republicans that there were conservative gays and that they should change their gay intolerance and court gay voters.  There are some successes along the way, but in the end he realizes the Republican party was getting worse not better.

I went along with his story for a while, but soon concluded that he was like the skinny kid who who never gets picked.  He wants so bad to be on the Republican team, but, geez, he's gay, no way.  He tries so hard to prove he's a Republican team player - he's for smaller government, less taxes, and he bemoans Obama's failed _(fill in the blank)  policies.  He wants so hard to prove that just because he's gay doesn't mean he's not a good Republican.  He can't understand why they don't get his belief that they need him more than he needs them.

I like Jimmy. He's a decent guy.  He's loyal. He's sincere.  But it takes him forever to get it.  Even when all the other gay organizations are dissing him for defending Republicans, he gamely says, "hey, you have to be a team player."  Team player is his mantra.  You want me to debase myself, ok, I'll do it to prove I'm a team player.  For example:

"Again, I compromised my integrity to uphold the Republican code." (p 133)  

There are successes.  GOProud gets to be a CPAC sponsor, but no senior Republican officials show up for their big dance party, that's supposed to show the world that Republicans can be cool.  And when CPAC gets a new executive director, they cut GOProud out.   GOProud seems to have survived as long as it did mainly because they get a few big donations, like from gay billionaire Peter Thiel.  And Ann Coulter comes to one of their fundraising events.

Throughout the book Lasalvia is swimming up the Republican stream that just has too many barriers.  When the Romney team won't even talk to Lasalvia, he slowly starts to get it.  Despite his belief that the Republicans need him to diversify, they see him as poison and want nothing to do with him.

I wanted to be able to sit down with Laslavia and talk to him.  He tells us he grew up as a military brat and that most people on the bases were pretty conservative.   And in the book, his conservative beliefs tend to boil down to slogans.  I'm guessing, that if he hadn't had to face up to the fact that he was gay, he would have been perfectly happy on the Republican team, even bashing gays.

But he did turn out gay and so he saw this one flaw in the conservative narrative.  Not because he was thinking more deeply, but because it kicked him in the groin.  But when he writes about other Republican positions, it's always superficial talking points.  Things like:

"I focused on Obama's failed record, the poor economy, and the need for Romney's management skills in the White House."

I wanted to say to him, "Jimmy, exactly what was the economy like when Obama took office?  How is it worse now?  Jimmy, you've seen the flaw in the Republican stance against gays, women, and people of color.  Maybe you should examine more deeply their economic positions as well.  You're just spouting slogans.  You need to reexamine everything you believe."

The book offered some behind the scenes snippets of the Republican party - mainly in the arena of gay policies.  It reads fast.  But partly that's because you don't have to think too hard about any of it.


What I've read so far of Listen Liberal is a much deeper analysis of mainstream Democratic thought.  I'll try to do a post on it when I've finished it.  The basic thrust I've picked up so far is this:

Democrats have always been fighting against inequality, for the lower and middle classes getting a fair share of the economy.  That fight has always been about the distribution of money.  That worked when blue jobs that didn't require a high school education could keep people in the middle class.  If money is the first hierarchy that separates the economic classes, today, there's a second hierarchy - the professions - that also separates the classes.  And the Democrats have sided with the educated  against the rest.

OK, that's my take at the moment and it makes a lot of sense.  The Republicans have voiced the concerns of the uneducated - abortion, immigration, guns, the terrorist menace.  But, let me read some more so I can spell out his argument more accurately.

Does The Supreme Court Really Matter That Much?

One thought game I like to play as often as possible is to take something I believe so strongly, that I don't even consider that I might be wrong, and question its validity.

[Synopsis:  Is the Supreme Court the Holy Grail of US presidential elections, important enough for party members to ignore their candidates' flaws so at least they can appoint the next Supreme Court justice or two?  Or is its importance over rated?  This post gives some evidence that both parties treat the court that way.  The crux to me seems to be the extent to which the court's decisions can thwart voters - like in Bush v Gore or in gutting the Voting Rights Act.

But the Supreme Court is the issue, only because we are unable to solve our differences at a lower level.  The worst issues get kicked up to the Supreme Court.  A  bigger long term issue is the need for grass roots movements to get Americans of different ideologies to talk to each other and to break the media's narrative of the unbridgeable divide.  I believe that most people's basic values are much more aligned than the media portray.  With more Americans speaking with a more united voice, Congress will be less polarized, and the court's decisions will be more focused on legal, rather than political, disputes.   The details are below.]

In discussions about the election - whether it's whether Republicans should support Trump or Sanders supporters should vote for Clinton - all roads seem to lead to the balance of the Supreme Court.  As much as you may dislike your party's candidate, you don't want the other party appointing the next Supreme Court justices.

Some examples I found online:

From left-leaning The Nation:

"The Supreme Court Is the Most Important Issue in the 2016 Election If Republicans obstruct Obama, the next Democratic president can shape the most progressive court since the 1960s."

The opening sentence of that article lists the reasons:

"Healthcare, gay marriage, voting rights, affirmative action, reproductive rights, labor rights, immigration, climate change."

And from another voice on the left a piece at TPM:

"The Implications for the Nation of a changing Supreme Court. There is so much at stake concerning the Supreme Court for the next few years. As I wrote in Plutocrats United, the easiest way to amend the Constitution to deal with campaign finance disasters like the Supreme Court’s opinion in Citizens United is not to formally amend the Constitution, but instead to change the composition of the Supreme Court. Regardless of what happens with Justice Scalia’s replacement, there will be likely at least three other Justices to be appointed over the next 4-8 years of the next President’s term. The stakes on all the issues people care about—from abortion to guns, from campaign finance and voting rights to affirmative action and the environment, depend upon 9 unelected Justices who serve for life."

From the conservative Weekly Standard, there's a recent article about Zubik v Burwell (on whether non-profits should have to notify the government they do not want to offer contraceptives in their health insurance plans) with the title:

"The Stakes Are High: A timely reminder of the importance of the Supreme Court." 

Richard Wolf, writing in USA Today, back in October 2015 wrote that the Supreme Court is a bigger deal to Republicans than Democrats.

Note:  I do have to acknowledge that when looking for these quotes, I did find a lot of articles on whether Republicans should vote for Trump or Sanders supporters should vote for Clinton that did NOT mention the Supreme Court.

So, is the Supreme Court enough reason to vote for someone you're seriously unhappy with?  

The recent conservative leaning Supreme Court (before Scalia's death) declared money a form of speech in Citizens United, and allowed same sex marriage, upheld the Affordable Care Act, and struck down a number of voting rights provisions.

As big a deal as many liberals make of Citizens United, I would point out that social media have offered a counterweight to money.  And we have seen all the big money going to fight Trump's nomination, it would appear today, unsuccessfully.  And Sanders has managed to refuse PAC money yet to stay in the race and win many primaries and caucuses through the power of the internet and a strong ground game.

Even with a five-four conservative majority, Obama Care and same sex marriage are now the law of the land.

Though the gutting of sections of the Voting Rights Act does pose a serious threat of continued gerrymandering by the many Republican controlled states and allows for obstacles to be erected that prevent - generally - the poor and non-white voters from getting to the polls.  That does fundamentally weaken the chance for the majority's vote to be counted.  For democracy to work. (OK, I understand that a lot of people would laugh at the idea that democracy works at all.  There's only so much I can squeeze into this blog post.  But I've touched on this issue under the label ten steps to dismantling democracy, which I created after a post of that name about Naomi Wolf's book The End of America.)

But there are Republicans telling other Republicans to vote for Clinton.  He's not even mentioning the Supreme Court.

But Democrats tend to be telling Sanders voters to vote for Clinton.  The articles I saw saying Sanders voters should go with Trump tended to be from conservative outlets.  For example, The Federalist.

Here's Ben Shapiro's take at The Daily Wire on why voting for Trump because of the Supreme Court isn't a good reason.  (It's the fourth of five reasons to vote for Trump that Shapiro says are false.) Also  he dismisses the importance of the Supreme Court at the end.  I'd note that I don't understand how he thinks a Trump victory will lead to a Democratic US Senate.):

"4. But The Supreme Court! Trump, the logic goes, will select a more conservative Supreme Court Justice than Hillary Clinton. There is no evidence to support this contention. Again, Republicans are highly likely to lose the Senate to Democrats. Does anyone truly think Trump has the stomach to fight for a constitutional conservative on the Court when he thinks that Supreme Court justices prosecute crimes and sign bills? Ronald Reagan missed two out of three Supreme Court picks. George H.W. Bush went one for two. George W. went one for two. Ford went zero for one, and Nixon went one for four. Does anyone think that Donald Trump will do better than any of these people? Trump has never backed a constitutional balance of powers; he doesn’t know what that phrase means. If you’re hanging your hopes for a conservative Court on Donald Trump, you’re being conned.
Beyond that, the Supreme Court is not the best hope for the Constitution. That hope lies at the state level, and in resistance to unconstitutional legislation and decisions." [from The Daily Wire.]

The Republicans have, for decades now, focused on grooming conservative attorneys to go into the federal court system and on gaining control of state governorships and legislatures. The Federalist Society has played a big role here.  This movement is a mix, I'm sure, of those who truly believe in various conservative ideologies, those who are opportunists looking for jobs and power on a relatively low level, and those who are looking for power and wealth on a relatively high level.  They've made anti-regulatory arguments into personal freedom issues and used those to challenge science that was harmful to their personal interests - science that said smoking caused cancer, science that says global warming is caused by humans.  They've carefully played the emotions of the religious and the less educated on issues like abortion and gay rights.  And they've fought the whole idea of government, except to serve their own interests.  At least that's what it looks like from where I sit.

The Democrats seem to have been focused on specific issues, but not on long term structural strategies like the Republicans.

The media have also played a negative role.  As the newspaper business has become corporatized, and profit becomes the most important motive, news becomes entertainment.  Conflicts generate more readers than calm, so the media now focus more on conflict, and our view of the world is distorted by the exception (the conflict), not the norm (the people who live peaceful lives.)  (That's not to say that profit and conflict  haven't always played a role in the news.)  This election is basically a reality television show - a political "Survivor" - that focuses on personal characteristics, gossip, and strategies to knock competitors off the show, not on the important issues.  No wonder Trump is the Republican nominee.  He's a veteran of reality tv.

The way I see it, taking back our country is something that people have to do.  It's not something Trump will do for us.  Taking back our country is not about going back to when white males did ok because women and non-whites were blocked from the best careers, the best universities, from voting, from controlling their own lives.  It's about going back to when there was a thriving working class, and college grads didn't have huge debts along with their diplomas,  when people with different world views at least knew each other and talked to each other civilly.

The bright side of the internet can help us take our country back.  But it's something that has to be done, ultimately, face to face, community by community.  Immigrants have to share family stories with working class white families.  Black and Latino high school students have to do the same with those who would cut public school funds and together they should work out  better ways to educate our young.  Wealthy owners of corporations need to eat meals at the homes of their lowest paid employees and learn to see the world through their eyes.  And the advocates of regulation need to spend some time in businesses that are tied up by rules.  We have lots of problems, but they are all resolvable if we see each other as well intended human beings and not as 'the enemy.'

Basically we need to talk to each other about the basic issues.  Our childhoods and our relationships with our parents and siblings and partners and kids.  How we earn. save, and spend money.  What our fears are, what our joys are.  What our dreams are.  Why we smoke, drink, take drugs.  Why we don't.  When we do this, we'll find out how much we really have in common.  We'll be able to learn better strategies for getting past our obstacles from those who have already done that.   Good art and literature can help here.  When we start talking to each other as people, as members of our community, rather than as the enemy, everything else will work itself out.

So yes, the Supreme Court is important.  But it's only important because we're so polarized that we can't make important decisions.  Those intractable issues get bumped up to the court.  We need to resolve things at a much lower level and let the Supreme Court worry about legal, not political, issues.

Instead Of Taxes, How About An Alaska Membership Fee?

Back in 2008, at his corruption trial, Vic Kohring said that he had signed a 'no taxes' pledge.  He could not vote for any tax.  However, if the tax were called a fee, he might be able to vote for it.

Eight years later we still have legislators who are allergic to the word 'tax' and break out in hives and start hyperventilating when anyone utters the word.  Some key legislators in Juneau are willing to inflict enormous damage to the state of Alaska rather than even consider something like an income tax.

I have a proposal.

The Alaska Membership Fee

Everyone who lives in Alaska is eligible to buy a membership.  Memberships would be sold on a sliding scale based on factors such as net worth, income, location, age, etc.

The biggest attraction of the membership would be:

• eligibility to apply for an Alaska Permanent Fund Check  - it wouldn't guarantee eligibility for the check, but without  an Alaska Membership Card (AMC) one couldn't apply.  

There could be a number of other perks one gets with an AMC such as:

• free public education
• discounts (or even free pass for higher levels) at state parks, state ferry, state run airports
• access to Pioneer Homes
• discounts and scholarships at University of Alaska campuses
• discounts for driver's license, fishing licenses, hunting licenses, etc.
• use of the Anchorage LIO when legislators aren't there

People who live in rural areas will have different needs from people who live in urban areas.  Age may also lead to different kinds and levels of service.  These will all be figured out.  Or, the legislature might decide that simplicity may be preferable to complicated pricing and eligibility requirements and choose to use one or two factors, such as income or net worth.  

Alaska Membership would help people realize the different benefits they get from the state that they normally enough without even thinking about it.  After all, good government is invisible.  Most people only notice government when it stops working well:

• when diseases break out 
• when potholes aren't repaired
• when traffic lights don't work
• when police abuse citizens
• when foster kids are abused
• when their own kids don't learn at school 
• when garbage piles up and air is polluted 
• when the water is no longer safe to drink
• when state parks are all closed and local park equipment is broken
• when voting machines are hacked
• when gasoline pumps show more gallons than you actually got

When such government services break down, we end up paying more to deal with the consequences:

• higher insurance and repair bills because of poorly engineered and maintained roads, contaminated water and air
• lost work days and health costs because of lack of sanitation or access to basic health care
• shortsighted legislators because of poor schooling
• lost work time because of long waits in line because there aren't enough employees
• higher need for police, courts, and social services because foster kids aren't well supported
• weaker economy because business can't get good employees when government services make Alaska an undesirable place to live

You get the point.  Some of our influential legislators don't.  Their mantra is 'government is bad,'  'taxes are worse." 

But we wouldn't have to have an income tax or a sales tax.  Instead we'd all become members of the State of Alaska and our membership fees would go towards all those services that our legislators say are wasteful luxuries, like health care for the poor, like school teachers.  

Mostly, the creation of Alaska Membership would remove the key obstacle for those legislators who,  like Kohring,  can't accept the word tax, but could get behind a fee.  And it would be voluntary.  No one would have to join, but they couldn't apply for the Alaska Permanent Fund  check if they didn't.  And they could buy Alaska T-shirts and hats at a discount.  

I'd note that plenty of organizations, public and private, already use sliding scale fees for their services.  Here are just a couple of examples: 

Airlines
Health Care
Independent Adoption Center
Golf Clubs and Health Clubs
Private Schools
Universities
Movies
Museums
Hotels

AIFF 2015: Audience Likes Iranian Film The Descendants

A film festival volunteer  told us before the film, that the filmmaker really wanted to audience to send feedback.  The film is about an Iranian student who's moved to Sweden to study.  His mother gets upset because after two months they have heard nothing from their son.  Finally the dad goes to Sweden to find their son.  He discovers a world where foreign students of low means are living a different life from the one they write home about.

The volunteer herself is Iranian who went to Sweden as a student before coming to the US, so she found the film very poignant.

In response to the filmmaker's request, I offered my camera to audience members after the film and you can hear their comments below.

Thank you for sending this film to our festival!







The Descendants plays again Wednesday night, December 9 at 8 pm at the AK Exper Large theater.

At Least Ten Legislators attend Alaska Fiscal Forum

While some legislators and their staff are getting bad press for spending $400 and more per night in Seattle hotels and $90,000 altogether for the conference, other legislators are getting their education right here in Anchorage.  There's nothing wrong with going to conferences Outside.  That's how you connect with others and learn new ideas.  But it seems there should be a limit on hotel costs that the state pays and there are questions about why so many needed to go.

That said, I want to at least give credit to the legislators who took advantage of the Alaska Common Ground/ISER forum on Alaska's fiscal future last weekend.  I was able to count ten who were there - that's 1/6 of the whole legislature, about 17%.  (I didn't try tracking staff members so I don't know  how many of them were there.

Here are the legislators I saw:

Rep. David Guttenberg (Fairbanks area)
Sen. John Coghill (Fairbanks area)
Sen.  Berta Gardner (Anchorage)
Rep. Shelley Hughes (Palmer)
Rep. Matt Claman (Anchorage)
Rep. Bryce Edgmon (Dillingham)
Rep. Max Gruenberg (Anchorage)
Rep. Andy Josephson (Anchorage)
Rep. Harriet Drummond  (Anchorage)
Rep. Lynn Gattis (Wasilla)

There may have been more.  But those are the ones I was able to identify while I was there.  (If you were there and want to be listed here, just email me.)

[Note:  I saw Matt Claman early, before I thought about taking pictures of the legislators present.  Later, when I looked for him I couldn't find him.  So I used an old photo I had of him and photoshopped it so it didn't look like I was slipping it in as a current picture.  The original one of Berta Gardner was even more out of focus and so I played with it a bit in photoshop too.]

Shelley Hughes started talking about her reaction to what had happened already, so I asked if I could get it on video. 





You can see Sen. Wilkin's handout to get the precise point Rep. Hughes is referring to in the video about how a slight reduction in the Permanent Fund yields the biggest bang for our bucks.  In fact, you can find links to videos and  all the handouts at the Forum here at the Alaska Common Ground website.  [I'd note that link goes to their main page, so it might have other stuff up after a while, but probably you could poke around and find their links to the Forum materials.]

So I just want to thank these legislators for coming to the forum and showing their interest and being where constituents and non-constituents can talk to them easily.  And some came from outside of Anchorage.  And there were five from the Majority caucuses and five from the Minority caucuses.



And here's a picture of Cliff Groh who was a key player making the Forum happen, along with
Gunnar Knapp.





BTW, I'd note that there was another article in the ADN about the legislators' trip to Seattle.   This one features Sen. Lesil McGuire saying she didn't approve the trips her staff members made and put all the blame on the staff.  The staff members are reported as reimbursing the state.  While she may be technically correct, the article does say the staff member had signature authority.  Good bosses don't throw their staff under the bus like that.  She could have just said that there was a misunderstanding and the money had been repaid without  publicly reprimanding her staff.  She even could have taken some of the blame.  Since most people aren't bosses, they'll identify with the staff and think of bosses they've had who have dumped on them.  Either way, readers will wonder what really happened.  If she had taken the high road, she would have at least gotten credit for standing up for her staff.

 Rep. Nancy Dahlstrom, in contrast, took the blame for a letter that most probably was written by her staff member.  I can't be sure what happened, but the link explains why I think the staff member wrote the original letter.  But Dalhstrom, as the boss, accepted responsibility for what her staff did.  Showed some class there.

Watching The Pieces On The Chess Board: Climate Change, Ukraine, Oil Prices, Putin Support of Asad, Greek Debt, Refugee Crisis

Let's start with this LA Times headline Tuesday:

"A crisis of unity exposed in EU" 

In the last couple of weeks I've been thinking about how Europe's influx of refugees is causing great disruption in Europe not to mention the horrors that are causing the refugees to leave their homes.  But there's one clear winner - Russia, of course.  A united Europe is not good for Putin's ambitions.

As I see this, we get news about the world in fragments, and often that's how they stay in our brain - fragmented.  But everything is related to everything.  So this post is a way for me to try to connect in my own head a lot of these fragments.    And I'm sure I'm missing a lot, but let's look at some of the moves on the chess board.


1.  Russia's march into the Crimea made for daily headlines such as this back in spring 2014.

2.  Western reaction was strong and included sanctions.   

3.  Sanctions against Russia caused Putin to retaliate including threats to Europe's natural gas supply.

4.   EU stands firm on sanctions.

5.  And don't forget Russia's offer to help Greece with its debt to the rest of the EU.

6.  Meanwhile, the Syrian civil war expands as ISIS comes in.  And Russia continues its support of Syria's Asad.


7.  The Saudis, unhappy with Russia's support of Asad,  have increased oil production, which led to lower oil prices.  Since oil is critical to Russia's economy, the Saudis were hoping the economic impact would lead Russia to drop support of Asad, according to the New York Times.









 8. Back to the  Los Angeles Times headline  that I began with:

A crisis of unity exposed in EU

Some of the 28-nation bloc’s key initiatives are in jeopardy amid deep discord over the influx of refugees.

BY HENRY CHU

   LONDON — Just three years ago, the European Union basked in the glory of a Nobel Peace Prize and boasted of being a tight-knit community bound by “European values” of democracy, diversity and dignity.    By its own measure, the 28-nation club is now looking decidedly less European and even less a union these days as it grapples with the continent’s biggest refugee crisis since World War II.. .

So, if millions of Syrian (and other) refugees flood into Europe, critical parts of the European unity get tested.  Schengen - the agreement that eliminated stops at border crossings between most European countries - has been one of the most important symbols of the EU's unity.  And now Hungary's building of a border wall to block the refugees, raises question about Schengen.  Croatia has only applied to be a Schengen member so it isn't a breach of Schengen yet. But now Austria is talking about closing its borders with Hungary, which would be a breach. 

Another symbol of that unity is the Euro which came into crisis with the Greek debt showdown.  And the Russians offered to support Greece against the rest of Europe.

If, in fact, the refugees help break down the European Union, then Russia's European opposition is much weaker economically and militarily and Putin would have much more freedom to treat his people and neighbors as he pleases.   


Abdul Jalil Al-Marhoun  argues that Russia's key goal in Syria is access to the Mediterranean Sea.  While a port in Syria would be a useful base, he argues, it's not essential.  A weaker Europe would make securing this route much easier.  Especially through the narrow strait by Istanbul.

Click to enlarge and focus - map from Wikipedia

The map shows the Black Sea geography.  Russia has a major naval base in Sevastopol which it leased from the Ukraine for, according to a state sponsored  Russia Today article: 

"$526.5 million for the base, as well as writing off $97.75 million of Kiev’s debt."  

After the takeover, that agreement was voided by the Duma.  That's over half a billion savings for Russia and loss for Ukraine.  A Center for Strategic and International Studies article describes the strategic benefits to Russia of this naval base.


Life is much simpler when the news anchors just say "the good guys" and "the bad guys" and that's all you have to know.   And when news is made up of discrete unrelated incidents of video violence.  News is merely entertainment - real life examples of action movies.  But it doesn't help us understand how and why things are happening.  For that you have to think like a chess player - each move is about the position of all the pieces and where they will be three or four or five moves hence.   Certainly Putin, head of a nation of chess players, has in mind strategy such as this offered by the United States Chess Federation:

"When you are considering a move, ask yourself these questions:

• Will the piece I'm moving go to a better square than the one it's on now? 
• Can I improve my position even more by increasing the effectiveness of a different piece? 
• Will the piece I move be safe on its new square?  
• If it's a pawn, consider: Can I keep it protected from attack? 
• If it's another piece, consider: Can the enemy drive it away, thus making me lose valuable time?

Even if your intended move has good points, it may not be the best move at that moment. Emanuel Lasker, a former world champion, said: "When you see a good move, wait---look for a better one!" Following this advice is bound to improve your chess." 

Maybe American schools should start teaching chess so American students can learn to think about the long term implications of their actions.


Oh yes, climate change.  How does that fit in here?  From Scientific American:

"Drying and drought in Syria from 2006 to 2011—the worst on record there—destroyed agriculture, causing many farm families to migrate to cities. The influx added to social stresses already created by refugees pouring in from the war in Iraq, explains Richard Seager, a climate scientist at Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory who co-authored the study. The drought also pushed up food prices, aggravating poverty. “We’re not saying the drought caused the war,” Seager said. 'We’re saying that added to all the other stressors, it helped kick things over the threshold into open conflict. And a drought of that severity was made much more likely by the ongoing human-driven drying of that region.'”

"Alaska is like a billionaire facing a horrific future as a millionaire."

So said Liz Medicine Crow, the President/CEO of First Alaskans Institute at the Fiscal Forum last Saturday.   I was only able to catch a couple of hours in the morning.  And I only had the back of a Moose's Tooth receipt to take notes on.  I'd also note my quotes are rough paraphrases, not exact quotes.  (I think English needs a paraphrase mark in addition to quotation marks.)  This will just be notes on things that caught my attention.  For an overview of the forum, see Devin Kelly's ADN piece.  And I'll do one more on this covering the legislators I saw at the forum. 

John Havelock, Brad Keithly, Liz Medicine Crow, Gary Wilkin (l-r)

Medicine Crow also said a number of things that don't usually get said at forums on money and budgets.  Some examples:  

I assumed that she was referring to the Alaska constitution's directions in Article VII Section 4

"Fish, forests, wildlife, grasslands, and all other replenishable resources belonging to the State shall be utilized, developed, and maintained on the sustained yield principle, subject to preferences among beneficial uses" [emphasis added]

When she pointed out an oft overlooked resource:

"Preserve the resource of our humanity."   

Not a resource that's calculated too often in corporate annual reports or even most government reports, but certainly the most important factor of all.

She politely reminded us all that the terms sourdough* and cheechako* are relative as she gave a traditional Alaska Native introduction which places the speaker into context:

"My parents and grandparents are Tlingit-Haida from Kake.  . .  We've been here for hundreds of generations."

She also politely reminded us that cooperation offers more hope than conflict. 

 "In hard times we come together to make do, not for our own interests, but in the community interests."

And that rather than fight tribal power as the previous administration did, everyone would be better off working together. 

"Respectful government to government relations between tribes and state.  Tribes have access to resources, such as through the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium, which is internationally recognized for how efficiently it provides health care. 

Tribes have access to resources as tribes.  Some examples she gave were for justice and corrections.  Let's look at things differently.  We can find savings, not just cuts."

I found Keith Bradley's comment on multiplier effects interesting, but limited.

"Multiplier effect of spending means while PFD is mostly spent in Alaska, things like construction projects send money outside for things like cement and steel." 

The statement seemed to be an argument for why we should keep the Permanent Fund Dividend in spite of our budget problems.  I thought that pointing out how little money stays in the state when we do construction projects was interesting.  I hadn't thought about that.  But it seems that spending on education and health care and social services do keep money in the state.  Did he use construction as his example because he wants to cut the budget and education didn't support that point?  I don't know.


Gary Wilkin put our dire condition, as did Medicine Crow's billionaire statement, into context:

 "We're the only state with a portfolio of $73,000 per resident."

He got a few chuckles with this analogy: 

"PFD is like a self licking ice cream cone."  

I'm still trying to visualize a self licking cone so I can figure out what he meant. 

*For non-Alaskans, sourdoughs are folks who have lived in Alaska a long time. ("A long time" means generally as "as long as I've been here" and in my mind certainly over 20 years.)  Cheechako's are newcomers. 

Busy Day - Alaska Budget Forum and Quaker Wedding

It's a little after 10pm and I'm only just getting to my computer for the first time today.  That's generally a good sign, and that's true today.  And I've got lots of pictures and thoughts, but I'm only going to do a preview of posts to come.

Alaska Common Ground's Fiscal Forum

Lots of people at Wendy Williamson auditorium at UAA - I'd guess around 300 or more for this interactive session on Alaska's fscal future. That's a lot of folks to show up for a day of budget talk inside on a sparkling fall day.   And a fair number of legislators in attendance, too.  I counted ten - almost 17% of the legislature.  And not just Anchorage legislators. 




Quaker Wedding


I realize that while I know people who are Friends and I've heard about the silence at their meetings,  this was the first time I've ever been at a Friends' meeting.  And the silences were meaningful. (Making me think of John Cage as I write this.)  In addiition, this was a pretty significant Alaskan wedding.  More at ten.  Oh yeah, it is ten.  Well more later.

[UPDATE Sept 21:  I've put from "this was the first time" to "Making me think of" back into the sentence where it belongs, not dangling  at the end down here as a floating fragment.]