AIFF 2024 - Saturday Dec 7 Schedule

There's a lot to see Saturday from 9am until 10pm.  At the Bear Tooth, the Museum, and even coffee with film makers at the Alaska Experience Theater.  

The focus has been on the two films at the Bear Tooth Saturday.  One is an Alaska focused film on fishing in Bristol Bay and the other has skiing and mountains.  Both those kinds of films do well at AIFF festivals, which, I'm sure, is why they're at the Bear Tooth.  And Champions of Golden Valley is essentially sold out already.  Unearth has some seats left in the balcony.  

But for my money, the film to see will be Porcelain War, at the Museum at 6pm.  It premiered at Sundance and has won many awards.  It's a film about Ukrainian artists fighting the war with art.  There's a trailer down below.

So basically, I'm presenting Saturday as chronologically as I can - given that there is overlap between the Bear Tooth and the Museum at 12:30pm

Things start off early at  the first of the festival's "Coffee Talk and Panels" at the Alaska Experience theater.  

"Debut Dreams: The Journey of First-Time Directors"

SATURDAY December 7th at 9:00AM

Alaska Experience Theater 

First features are filled with passion, challenges, and the thrill of discovery. This panel brings together debut directors who dared to dive into filmmaking, sharing insights into their creative processes, struggles, and triumphs. Hear how they’ve shaped their visions into powerful first features and what advice they’d give to those taking their own first steps.

And then at 10am at the museum.   

At 10 am:    Ultimate Citizens

From the film website:  

ULTIMATE CITIZENS is the story of Jamshid Khajavi, an extraordinary 65-year-old Iranian American public school counselor who uses the sport of Ultimate Frisbee to help children heal. In an America where many families are quietly, barely getting by, Mr. Jamshid coaches an underdog team of kids on their way to compete in the world’s largest youth tournament. ULTIMATE CITIZENS is a celebration of resilience and belonging, and the third independent feature documentary from award-winning filmmaker Francine Strickwerda.

It first showed in May 2023, and has been at (and won awards at) a number of festivals this year.  The AIFF/Goelevant site says it was filmed at Seattle’s Hazel Wolf K-8 school.

Then come two shorts programs.  The first conflicts with Champions of Golden Valley at the Bear Tooth.

12:30 PM – 2:30 PM: International Gems – Event Tickets

Ivania – 12:00

Complications – 14:00

K.O.- 27:00

Pioneras – 14:30

Monte Clerigo – 27:30

Meanwhile, at the Bear Tooth:

Two Documentaries,

12 Noon:  Unearth 

Picture from Rogovy Foundation 

"Environmental activist Erin Brockovich has signed on to executive produce 
“Unearth,” a new documentary that will make its world premiere at DOC NYC   on Nov. 16.

Directed, produced and shot by Hunter Nolan, “Unearth” tells the story of two sets of siblings — the Salmon sisters and the Strickland brothers — who live in Alaska’s Bristol Bay. Both sets of siblings are alarmed when they learn of and fight against advanced plans for a Pebble Mine — a massive open-pit gold and copper mine — in the vicinity of their homes. The Salmon sisters, Native Alaskans, work on the regulatory front, pushing the federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to block the project, while the Strickland brothers, independent fishermen, expose the truth behind what the Pebble Mine developer is telling the public. The 93-minute doc reveals systemic failures in mining and the balance between the need for materials and their environmental costs."  (From Variety)

November 16 wasn't that long ago, so AIFF audiences will be among the first to see this Alaska based film.  You can learn more about the film at the Rogovy Foundation website. 

As of Thursday night, there are some seats left in the balcony at the Bear Tooth.

2:30 pm Champions of the Golden Valley

Picture from Champions of the Golden Valley website

This film got front page coverage in the Anchorage Daily News yesterday so I won't spent much more time on it here.  From their website: 

"In the remote mountains of Afghanistan, a newfound passion for skiing attracts young athletes from rival villages to the slopes. With minimal gear and makeshift wooden skis, the determined  coach Alishah Farhang organizes a ski race like no other that unites the community in a moment of joy and triumph, just before the country’s collapse

Champions of the Golden Valley captures the spirit of a classic underdog sports story with the heartfelt portrait of a community finding hope amid disrupted dreams. Revealing a stunning unseen side of Afghanistan, it is an uplifting exploration of what it means to be a champion – in all its forms."

As of Thursday night, the Bear Tooth map shows one seat way up in the far corner of the balcony.  

 

For those who have tickets at the Bear Tooth, Golden Valley ends at 2:30pm, and you could make it to the 3pm Alaska shorts at the Museum.  But there will be a number of film makers at the conference.  If Golden Valley has representatives coming, there will surely be some questions and answers afterward.  But if you miss the first or second short, there are more in the program.  

3:00 PM – 5:00 PM: Made in Alaska Shorts #1 – 

The Gingerbread Man – 9:03

The Glacier Pilot – 10:00

Footprints on Katmai – 21:50

The Grace – 13:00

Mending the Net – 11:36

5:30 PM – 6:00 PM: Alaska Jewish Museum Presents – Demon Box –  This film is free at the Museum, it's not clear if you have to buy tickets in advance to be sure you get in.  The IMDB page says:

"After festival rejections, a director revises his intensely personal short film about trauma, suicide, and the Holocaust, and transforms it into a painful, blunt and funny dissection of the film and his life."

It also has a short trailer, that I don't see a way to embed here.  I'd note that Leslie Fried, the director of  the Jewish Museum in Anchorage has unfailingly nominated excellent films every year.  

There's still more on Saturday at the Museum

6:00 PM – 8:00 PM: Documentary Feature: Porcelain War  at the Museum

This is a Ukrainian movie and from what I can tell is one of the movies to see at the festival.  From the NYTimes: 

"The latest documentary dispatch from Ukraine, “Porcelain War,” brings a message of hope rooted in art. Making art does feel like an act of resistance during the Russian invasion, when Kremlin propaganda attacks the very existence of Ukrainian culture. But what’s intriguing is that the directors, Brendan Bellomo and Slava Leontyev, also celebrate Ukraine’s military defense, making for a jangly mix of idyll and warfare.

Slava, who appears in the film, is both a ceramist and a member of an Ukraine special forces unit who gives weapons training to civilians turned soldiers. His partner, Anya, paints the whimsical figurines he creates, and the irrepressible couple weather the war in bombed-out Kharkiv with their more anxious pal Andrey, a painter and cameraman."

From Deadline:

"The film has won 30 prizes around the world, including the Grand Jury Prize for U.S. Documentary at Sundance. This past weekend, it earned the Grand Jury Award for Best Feature Documentary at the Woodstock Film Festival in New York, as well as the Best Documentary Editing Award. And at the Heartland International Film Festival in Indianapolis, it won the Documentary Feature Grand Prize, which comes with a $20,000 cash award."

8:00 PM – 10:00 PM: Narrative Feature: Midwinter   at the Museum

"Nadine is tired and her whole body aches with inflammation and she can sleep. Her son Goldie keeps her active beyond her energy level. Her husband Jack owns a large ad agency and has been a loving husband who has recently expanded his romantic life beyond his marriage to include co-worker Maeve...who happens to be the ex-partner of his sister-in-law Lena. Lena is a burgeoning music writer who, getting over a break-up, takes on an assignment writing about one of her favorite queer indie artists, Mia Hawthorne. Mia is out in the Berkshires, in search of inspiration, a bit frustrated with a high-class problem: the record label wants her to have a co-writer. The mundane poetry of life ensues.

Ryan Andrew Balas

Director, Writer"  (From TMBD) 

Midwinter is also streaming on Netflix and other streaming sites, so if it's been a long day already, you can watch it at home.   

Salmon Roe Technicians Wanted

For something a little different today.

Sunday's Anchorage Daily News classified section included a bunch of long ads for:

1.   Salmon Roe Technicians:  5 Temporary, full time positions to work from 6/1/2019 to 9/20/2019. Work will be performed at plant in Valdez, AK.  Responsible for processing salmon roe to produce Ikura and Sujiko (Japanese salmon roe products) for export to Japan.  [Then there's a long description of all they have to do such as "sorting, salting, preserving, brining, seasoning, mixing, agitating, dewatering"  and then inspecting and packing, and providing technical expertise in grading and quality control  . . .]

This positions is 40 hours a week plus up to 40 hours overtime for $14.50/hour and $21.75/hour overtime.  It includes transportation to the site, housing and meals, and transportation back "if the worker completes half the employment period or is dismissed early by the employers."

Experience needed?  two years of this work processing roe for the Japanese market and knowledge of processing and grading standards for the Japanese market.

The employer is Pac-Maru Inc.  Seattle (which is a subsidiary of  Toyo Suisan Kaisha Ltd..)

2.  Salmon Roe Technicians:  5 temporary, full-time positions to work from 5/5/2019 to 9/20/2019.  These will be at "3 land plants in Kenai  and Kasilof, AK.  This one is pretty similar, but it's up to 44 hours overtime and pays $15/hour and $22/hour overtime.

This one is from North Pacific Seafoods, Seattle

3.  Also Salmon Roe Technicians - this one for Cordova, Naknek, Togiak, Unalakleet, and/or Kenai, AK.   $14.50/hour and $21.50/hour overtime.

The employer Nomura Trading Co., Ltd, Bellevue, WA.

4.  Peter Pan Seafoods is looking for 9 Salmon Roe Technicians - for Dillingham and Valdez.  This ad has much the same details though the language is a little different.  It only pays $14.48/hour and $21.72/hour over time, but it has up to 50 hours of overtime possible.  They'll also pay for visa and border crossing expenses.  And you apply, not to the company, but to the Alaska Dept. of Labor.

Here are some worker comments about Peter Pan Seafoods.

5.  Westwood Seafoods has openings for 7 seafood processing technicians (surimi and roe) in Dutch Harbor.  "Must be willing to work up to 12 or more hours per day, 7 days per week, depending on fish availability.  Big difference here:  Wage is $20-$40/hour DOE plus health insurance and potential for bonus.  Overtime at $30-$60 per hour DOE.  Free room and board as well, however, return transportation paid only if employee works the whole contract or is dismissed.  (Getting back from Dutch Harbor is a lot more than Valdez or Kenai!)  And the contract is from 5/24 to 10/24/2019.  Again, apply at Alaska Dept. of Labor.

6.  Premier Pacific Seafoods, Inc has openings for 3 seafood processing technicians (surimi and roe) on board M/ Excellence or the Phoenix vessel in the Bering Sea and North Pacific.  Wages here are $16.65 to $30/hour and $24.98 to $45/hour overtime, depending on experience, or if higher, $235 - $300 per day, plus health insurance, possible bonus, and room and board.
Here are some worker comments about Premier Pacific. 

7.  Finally Nicherei U.S.A. LLC has 25 openings for Salmon Roe Technicians "at multiple work sites in SW Alaska, incl. plants in Cordova, Kodiak, Naknek, and Valdez.  35 regular hours at $14.48/hour and up to 30 additional at $21.72/hour overtime.  This one has slightly different wording about food and lodging.  The others said this was free.  This one includes it in a sentence about travel to site (reimbursed if complete half the period) and travel back (if complete whole period.)  The wording suggests that meals will be covered if half the contract is worked.


I understand that lots of college students go work in fish processing plants and on fishing ships over the summer for the adventure and the pay that comes with all the overtime.  But it would seem to me that a Salmon Roe Technician with two years experience are harder to find and should get paid more than minimum wage.  The only two companies here paying more than minimum wage are Westwood Seafoods and Premier Pacific Seafoods, though the later is on a ship which adds more adventure but also much more risk.

NOTE:  I saw these ads in the print edition and couldn't find them online. They're on pages C-2 and C-3, of the Sunday Anchorage Daily News, March 17, 2019.

Standing For Salmon 2: Fish [Ship] Creek Fishers

The last post was about standing for salmon politically.

This one is about literally standing for salmon - at Fish [Ship] Creek in downtown Anchorage next to the Port of Anchorage.

We'd made a trip to Alaska Mill and Feed, but they close at 4pm on Sunday, it turned out, and it was 4:30.

So we decided to walk around the area.  We hadn't done that for a number of years and things have been spiffed up.  The Bridge Restaurants crosses over Ship Creek and has an upscale menu and there have been lots of improvements.  Here's the fanciest outdoor public restroom I've ever seen in Alaska.  If you look closely (you may have to click on it to enlarge and focus it) you can see they're labeled Dollies and Chums.


It had rained during the night and much of the day, but it was surprisingly warm - low 70s F.  And it was windy.  Weather reports said it was a remnant of a typhoon in Japan.  I'd say we had about 10 mile/hour winds most of the time with gusts over 30 mph.

Here's a guy sloshing through the mud, his rod had snapped.












Here we walked down to a look out point, next to the boat launch into Cook Inlet.  The picture is looking north to the mouth of Ship Creek with the Port of Anchorage in the background.  If I'd turned around and taken a picture to the south, you'd see downtown Anchorage about half a mile away.

We sat there watching the clouds move past us in the wind.

To get a sense of how fast the clouds were moving, the series of shots below span just under two minutes.

Another shot to the north, geese in the foreground and the port in the background.











Another view of the fishers as we cross a bridge and return on the other side.

And yes, folks were catching fish.

[UPDATE Aug 16, 2018:  Jim Kerr pointed out this is Ship Creek, not Fish Creek.  I seem to have used both names in this post.  Thanks Jim, I've made the corrections now.]

Needed A Break From Cleaning - The Beach Did The Trick

We left my mom's house in pretty good shape last time, but there's still quite a bit of stuff to sort through, give away, throw out, etc.  But eventually I just had to get out of the house.  It had rained a bit during the day, but we decided to walk at the beach before it got dark.  The sound of the surf washed away all the negative thoughts from the house cleaning.

 





We walked along the water as it got darker and the lights on the Santa Monica pier got brighter and brighter.

We got to the steps from the beach and got the sand off our feet as best as we could.  As I waited for the roller coaster to come by for a picture, the janitor came by and emptied the garbage can.

You can see the roller coaster on the inside of the loop.  They also have a trapeze school on the pier and people were practicing doing flips and getting caught by the second person who was swinging upside down.  But it was too dark to get a good picture.

There were lots of people on the pier, musicians with loud speakers, and at the end of the pier there were night fishers.


It was nice to have a break.  Today was more cleaning.  I finally tackled the stuff suspended up on a platform in the rafters.  We got a lot cleaned out.

Keep Moving

Fish was a big topic this week as we had house guests up here to do video of a Homer based village fish processing organization. 






Now we're back at the airport headed out for my son's birthday and then my Peace Corps group's reunion in Portland over the weekend.  I can't remember how long it's been since we got together last. 

The upside of 6am flights is seeing Anchorage early as it's getting light.  It almost seems like our house sitter belongs in the house and we are the house sitters when we're here.  But after the next few trips south to settle my mom's stuff, I think our hectic pace will slow down. 

Sea Lion Pulls Fisherman Off Boat, Whales Take Cod Off Lines. Following Loose Threads

It's hard to make sense of the news these days.  (Well maybe always.)  We get snippets, sometimes serious, sometimes not, that are often out of context.  Let's look at a couple of recent stories in the Alaska Dispatch:

  

1. Fisherman bitten, pulled off boat by sea lion in San Diego's Mission Bay

This man-bites-dog story seems to have been written for News of the Weird. Man holds up fish on boat for trophy picture and seal jumps out of the water and pulls the man in.  It's not clear what happened to the fish;  the article says the man was snatched by the sea lion "while attempting to

From old post on Seal Lfe Center Seward

snatch the large fish."  

What's missing from this story?  There have been a number of stories - including the Time magazine Feb. 18, 2015 story on the massive die-offs of sea lion pups in Southern California. 

"Experts at NOAA say that the culprit is rising ocean temperatures. (On a call with reporters Wednesday, a NOAA climate expert said that they do not believe the stranding increase is tied to climate change.) The warm temperatures are somehow affecting the squid, sardines and other animals that are the core diet of sea lions, perhaps driving the prey deeper into the water or farther offshore. So when mothers swim off to forage from the Channel Islands, where pups are weaned every year, they are having to stay away longer before they can come back.   .   . 

The root cause of the crisis, officials believe, is the odd wind patterns that aren’t cooling the ocean like they normally do. They aren’t certain of what’s behind the lack of cold winds, but they believe the patterns are creating a ripple effect through the food chain. The sea lions, at the top of that chain, are signaling that bigger things may be amiss among the larger marine food web. “There are a lot of puzzles here that we’re trying to put together,” says Nate Mantua, a NOAA climatologist. 'We don’t understand it. It’s a mystery.'”

Why are they dying?

"[T]hey do not believe the stranding increase is tied to climate change."  

But later on it says,

"We don't understand it.  It's a mystery."  

They think that

"warm temperatures are somehow affecting the squid, sardines and other animals that are the core diet of sea lions, perhaps driving the prey deeper into the water or farther offshore."

Is this related to climate change?  They think not, but they really don't know the cause.  But they believe there there's

"a ripple effect through the food chain."  

Was the sea lion that pulled the fisherman overboard particularly hungry because there's a sea lion food shortage?  The story never mentioned that.  And I don't know if this is affecting older sea lions or just the food they feed the pups.  But I suspect there's a bigger story we don't understand yet.

2.  Fish-stealing whales take bite out of black cod harvest in Gulf of Alask

This story goes into much more depth.  It's not a man-bites-dog story at all.  It's not a 'funny' one time event.  Rather it's come up at the North Pacific Fishery Management Council (which is currently meeting in the Hilton in Anchorage April 6-15 and whose agenda is here) and is being taken seriously because the whales are taking, according to federal surveys cited in the article

"under 10 percent of the annual harvest of the more than 360 Gulf of Alaska vessels that fish for black cod."  

They also report, 

"One study found that killer whales can reduce the catch by an average 65 percent."  

I'm guessing that the 65% figure could be for an individual boat, but the impact on the overall fishery is closer to the 10% level.  

Loose thread  (thoughts I want to raise, but don't have time to pursue in depth):  

1.   Seems to me that there's some sort of connection(s) between a hungry seal lion trying to snatch fish from a San Diego fisherman and whales  on cod hooked on long lines from Gulf of Alaska trawlers.  Both incidents involve mammals taking fish from humans.  What else might connect them?

2.  There's a clear human-centric bias here that pits the sea lion and the whales as the criminals, but to what extent does it make sense to ask how much fish are humans taking away from sea mammals and other sea creatures and how is that affecting their available food supply?  To be clear, the article says the sperm whales seem to be thriving and they've learned that the trawlers mean easy pickings.  

3.  Also not mentioned, is that the nearby pollock fishery's halibut by-catch for this year is predicted to be 92% of the allowable Bering Sea halibut for 2015. From an ADN opinion piece by David Bayes:

The International Pacific Halibut Commission has proposed a 70 percent reduction in halibut harvest for the central Bering Sea region, the most recent cut in a steady quota decline. In the meantime, halibut bycatch caps in the region's trawl fisheries have remained largely unchanged for decades. If these numbers hold true for the 2015 season, 92 percent of halibut harvested in the Bering Sea will go overboard as bycatch. You read that right, 92 percent of the allowable halibut catch is caught, smashed in the nets, and then shoveled back into the water. While some portion is allowed to be donated to food banks, millions of pounds each year are discarded. 

So, if you're not worried about starving sea lions or hungry whales (that may actually benefit from the bycatch going back into the sea), you might care about rural Alaskans who depend on halibut fishing for their living and much of their nutrition.

3.  Ocean acidification triggered devastating extinction, study finds

This one is from the LA Times and was republished today in the Alaska Dispatch News.  It looks at a huge marine die off

"the Permo-Triassic Boundary mass extinction event, happened some 252 million years ago, which over the course of about 60,000 years is thought to have wiped out more than two-thirds of land species and more than 90% of marine species on the planet."

[I tend to take explanations of what happened 252 million years ago with a grain of salt.  I have a lot of respect for what scientists can do, but they taking a few clear facts and project a possible story.  They could be spot on, but I can't find the 252 million year old archives on google to support it.] 

I know that ocean acidification is again a problem - this time human, not volcano caused - and it's possible there's a connection between the hungry sea lions and ocean acidification.

I know that when people find a lucrative and satisfying way to earn a living, they get pretty hostile to events that threaten that.  Their perception of the situation narrowly focuses on the personal impact they foresee.  Southerners saw the abolition of slavery as a threat to their way of life, and some are still fighting that battle.  But those of us not so directly affected need to be able to more rationally assess the situation and come up with options that are don't ignore those most impacted (fishers here), but that are best for society as a whole into the future as well as for the planet. 

There's a lot humans don't understand, but I do know that for every 'event'  there are usually many, many factors that play a role.  It's not a clear, A caused B relationship.  But there are a lot of C's, D's, E's, etc. that work, perhaps independently, to influence each other and the major events.  They may slow things down or speed them up.  Their combined impact may be to maintain the status quo, or to tip it in one direction or another. 

But the basic point I wanted to make is that there is usually much, much more to every news report  - whether it's about a shooting, an election, or a marine mammal-human conflict over fish - that doesn't get into the article.  And even when the media doesn't provide the details, readers should be asking for them. 

Lianna Lisiulinka Will You Marry Me? And Other Santa Monica Pier Folk

I had four generations of women around this week from my mom to my granddaughter.



Got to take my little shark for a bike ride along the beach Wednesday.  I was able to rent a kid trailer to attach to my bike - and we rode to Santa Monica pier.



Here are just a couple of people we saw.

Desmond Bellow played sweet sweet music on his steel guitar.  The little shark watched and listened intently.  Here's a little bit from his website.  It sounds much, much better live.

I didn't get this artist's name.  He certainly was the most colorful person on a pier full of colorful folks.

As we went by he sang the ABC song, then itsy bitty spider which had the shark entranced.









And as we were listening to the music, we saw this sign being pulled by a small plane over the ocean.

This could be romantic, weird, and even creepy depending on the story surrounding it.

I did google the name, but nothing came up.  Did she see it?









[Photo honesty:  The sign wasn't clear in the picture I got with the plane and the sign.  So I took the plane from that picture and put it into the picture with the sign clear.  Seeing is no longer believing.  But then it never really was.  But in this case, this is pretty much what it looked like.]

Fresh Keta Salmon

We saw this in the market yesterday here in LA.  I asked the man what Keta Salmon was and where it was from.  All he could say was "USA."   "Is it Alaskan?"  He didn't know.  And it didn't say.

I know a bunch of names for different kinds of salmon, but Keta isn't one of them.

It turns out it's chum or dog salmon.

From Wild Pacific Salmon: (a seafood marketing site)

Wild Alaskan Keta Salmon

Keta (Chum) Salmon

Scientific Name: Oncorhynchus Keta

Market Names: Chum, Keta, Silverbrite

Vernacular Names: Dog Salmon, Calico Salmon, Chub, Keta Salmon

Description: Keta Salmon have greenish-blue backs with silver splashes in the tail. It looks very similar to a Sockeye salmon when ocean fresh. Keta salmon range from 6-17 pounds and are mature at 3-6 years old. The Keta salmon has very light colored flesh and is very mild in flavor.

It's no wonder they don't sell it as dog or chum salmon.  Chum is, as I recall, the least desirable salmon, and that's confirmed by the Alaska Department of Fish and Game:

General Description
Chum salmon, also known as dog salmon, are the most widely distributed of all the Pacific salmon and generally occur throughout Alaska. Like most other Pacific salmon species, chum salmon spend most of their life feeding in saltwater, then return to freshwater when mature to spawn once in the fall then die. Most chum salmon populations do not travel far upstream to spawn; however, some travel up to 2,000 miles upstream to the headwaters of the Yukon River. Although generally regarded as one of the less desirable species of salmon, in Arctic, Northwestern, and Interior Alaska, chum salmon are highly prized as a traditional source of dried winter food. Since the 1980s, commercial chum salmon harvests in Alaska have more than doubled as a result of the Alaska hatchery program and increased foreign sales.

Is this an Alaskan product?  They aren't advertising it as such. 

Who Skips Fisheries Debate? [UPDATED]

[UPDATED 1:45pm:  Apparently, not Dan Sullivan any longer.  According to Lanie Welch's column in today's ADN:

"The lure of reaching a statewide audience was too much to pass up for U.S. Senate hopeful Dan Sullivan, who will be at the Oct. 1 fisheries debate at Kodiak after all.    Sullivan was able to reshuffle a packed travel schedule to fit in the fisheries event, said Ben Sparks, campaign manager. Sullivan initially was going to be in Bethel on a multi-day swing through Southwest Alaska during the time of the Kodiak event. “Dan recognizes the importance of Alaska’s fisheries, and our campaign has rescheduled our southwest swing to ensure that Dan could make the debate. He looks forward to a healthy exchange of ideas with Mark Begich on the future of Alaska’s fisheries, and is excited to attend the debate in Kodiak,” his campaign said in a prepared statement."

The original post below should be read with the above in mind.]

This letter to the editor was in the ADN Sunday. [I couldn't get the link to the ADN, but it was also in the Kenai Peninsual Clarion]:

"Who skips fisheries debate?    I had to ask myself this week does Dan Sullivan actually want to get elected in November? I’m not sure he does, since he chose to skip the fisheries debate in Kodiak. Or he is a complete fool and had no idea the giant mistake he made by turning down this debate.    Either way, Sullivan just proved what Sen. Begich and Democrats have been saying all along he doesn’t know or care about Alaska.    Bill Starnes"

Why couldn't he make it?  According to debate organizers, via Lanie Welch, ADN's fishing reporter:

"Sullivan campaign manager Ben Sparks told debate organizers that Sullivan does not have a prior commitment keeping him from the fisheries debate, but that “he is just too busy with all the traveling he is doing.” The two-hour debate is broadcast live to over 330 Alaska communities."

I think at least three more credible possibilities beyond the two Starnes gives:

1. He knows that Begich, after six years in the Senate and as Chairman of the Subcommittee on Oceans, Atmosphere, Fisheries, and Coast Guard knows his fisheries much better than Sullivan and that Sullivan would look bad in comparison.
2. He knows his policies as Attorney General and Natural Resources Commissioner - helping get rid of local input in development, on Pebble Mine, and other issues wouldn't sit well with the fishers anyway.
3. He's simply biding by the old saying, attributed, incorrectly it seems, to Abraham Lincoln, 

"Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt."

Maybe a combination of all three.  He knew this was a fight he couldn't possibly win. 


[Note on dubiously attributed quotes:  The link goes to a website called Quote Investigator:  Exploring the Origins of Quotes.  It looks like a much better sources than all the spurious 'quote' sites that just copy things incorrectly from other places.   The discussion on this quote makes it highly unlikely that it came from Lincoln and also looks at similar sentiments from the bible.]

Jelly Fish, Puffins, And Starfish Lunch

jelly fish

jelly fish

early morning over Seattle

tufted puffin

starfish eating a fish

Got to go with my granddaughter and daughter to the Seattle aquarium between flights today. 

When I flew in, just the peak of Rainier was showing in the distance.

And when I left in the afternoon.

And a little closer as we flew by.

Vampire History of Alaska - Why You Should Vote Yes on Prop 1 - UPDATED

[UPDATE Sept 25, 2018:  This November there is a new Prop 1 on the Alaska ballot.  This one would restore the public's ability to have input on projects that would impact them and the environment.  Input that was taken away, in part, when Republicans eliminated the Coastal Zone Management projections that every other coastal state still has.  Naturally (not the best choice of words here) the mineral and oil extraction industry is strongly opposed to this Proposition.  This post explains the historical patterns of non-Alaskans exploiting Alaska resources and taking most of the profits out of the state, so it's appropriate for understanding why we are having this battle yet again.  Mining and oil (particularly) companies - most headquartered outside of Alaska - don't want to have to deal with pesky locals who don't want their water and air and fish messed with unless there are careful reviews and guarantees that the project will be done right.

Go ahead and read this.  Once again the right response, from my perspective, is to vote yes.  Construction companies along with the extraction industry are making doomsday predictions how this proposition will stop all development dead.  Same arguments they made against environmentalist fighting the original oil pipeline.  All the environmentalists did was make the pipeline safer, though even that hasn't stopped oil spills here and there, not to mention Exxon-Valdez.  THIS POST"S DISCUSSION AT THE BOTTOM IS FOR THE 2014 PROPOSITION 1.  BUT THE VAMPIRE HISTORY IS STILL RELEVANT TO THE 2018 PROPOSITION 1, ]

[UPDATE Feb 21, 2018:  Note, this post is dated 2014 and this is a very different Prop 1 than we have an the ballot in April 2018.  Definitely Vote NO on this year's Prop. 1.]

Everyone knows vampires don't show up on photos.

"According to many tales a vampire will cast no reflection when in front of a mirror; in addition, a vampire's image can not be caught on film. So what then of digital cameras?

Before we tackle that question, we should first know why the myth exists in the first place. Mirrors were thought to show a person's soul. As a vampire has no soul (unless he is Angel) we must logically conclude that there will be no reflection. The same hold true for film and photographs - they too were thought to be creating an image of the soul. (Interestingly enough, some people were even afraid to have a picture taken of them, for fear of having their soul stolen!)

Based on these assumptions we must then conclude that a vampire would not show up in a picture taken by a digital camera for any mechanical device that reproduces an image of a being is actually only capturing their essence or soul. "  (From Everything2)

But I  frequently warn readers not to believe everything they read online.  In fact, this post is made possible by recent advances in vampirology and in technology.  It's been discovered that vampires actually have a negative soul. (Sorry, the link keeps crashing, and as you read on, you'll understand why.)  That vampire knowledge along with new technology that can find the vampire traces left in old photos,  allows historians to reprocess historical pictures (and even drawings) to reveal the vampires who were actually there all along.  This process is not yet available to the public, but through a friend of a friend,  I was able to give them five photos and one picture. That's all I can tell you.

Timber Vampires

The most successful of the ones I submitted has to be this Timber Vampire picture.  I used an historical photo I got from
AlaskaNativeStudies.  Other images came back looking like shoddy photoshopped work.  But the technology is in its infancy.  Additional sources for this and the other images are at the bottom. 


Of course, we all know that famous phrase, often attributed to Churchill, "History is written by the victors."  And so it is, that while vampires have been involved in much of world history, they have done a great job in scrubbing their malicious presence from the history books.  Of course, vampires do not die of natural causes, so they live a very long time.  That gives them a great advantage over humans.  They understand the rhythms of history.  They understand the weaknesses of human beings.  And they exploit them with deadly precision.

Currently Alaska is under a massive vampire attack as they use every trick in their arsenal to get Alaska voters to vote no on Prop 1.  This proposition would overturn SB 21 that gives oil companies a huge tax break and cuts the benefits Alaskans would get from their ownership of state oil.  It's vastly complicated and in this post I just want to put this particular human/vampire encounter into the context of the vampire history of Alaska. 

The basic pattern of vampire invasion of Alaska goes like this:

• The vampires sense an Alaskan resource is currently worth exploiting.
• They use any means necessary.  Earliest attempts used great violence, but that was before Alaska was well connected to the world and before media covered what was happening.  

Their schemes became more subtle as mass media and communication evolved.  Typically,

• they use the legal process to lay claim to resources
• they disguise themselves inside corporations 
• they infect a select and useful group of Alaskans such as legislators, business people, Republicans, and media to work for them
• they brain wash as many of the remaining Alaskans as possible to believe the vampire corporation(s) is 
• creating jobs, 
• bringing wealth to Alaska, 
• retrieving natural resources critical to US security
• that anyone opposing them is a communist, liar, environmentalist, or a combination of all the evil terms their focus groups discover, and 
• those evil opponents' agenda is to destroy Alaska and the civilized world
• they cause discord between urban and rural, Alaska Native and Non Native, public employees and private employees, etc.
• they deviously convince the poor and undereducated that the interests of the rich are their interests
• they destroy the land, the water, the flora, the fauna to get what they want as cheaply as possible
• they get their infected legislators to pass laws to restrict citizen participation, to hamper environmental protections, to build infrastructure needed to exploit the resource
• they sprinkle crumbs from their bloody profits on public buildings and on arts and charities leaving them indelibly marked with their corporate logos
• and they send the blood of Alaska back Outside to their vampire bosses

Some examples of vampire invasions in the last several centuries of Alaska history:

Seal Hunter Vampires

Among the first vampires to come to Alaska were those from Russia who killed seals and otters and Aleuts to enrich themselves in the fur trade.


Vampire Miners

Gold Mining Vampires

Minerals have been a favorite target of vampires in Alaska.  Above are some gold mining vampires.  Remember we can trace the pattern of blood sucking listed above in each of these waves of vampire.

Vampire Miners

Copper mining is another example.  In the case above, JP Morgan and the Guggenheim family vampires managed to mine $200 million (1930 dollars) of copper blood out of Alaska.  I'd note that I discovered, doing this post, that there's a whole special class of vampire miner  that tend to look more like computer game icons: 

Vampire Miners appear in cavern-level biomes and follow the Fighter AI. They wear (but do not drop) a Mining Helmet, which provides a small amount of light around them. This light can sometimes reveal sealed caves, much like blooming Blinkroot. Vampire miners can break down doors. Vampire Miners also have a brighter hue of red.  Vampire Miners are immune to the Poisoned debuff.

Fishing Vampires

Then there are the fishing vampires who have sucked the fish blood out of Alaska and sent it all Outside.  They infected some Alaskans, but many were - and still are - brought in from Outside. 





Timber Vampires

Getting the government to build roads, they clear cut forests, destroyed salmon streams, and generally sent raw timber away to be processed elsewhere. 










Oil Vampires

The largest current vampire invasion has been ongoing for over forty years.  The most visible damage of this invasion happened in 1989 in Prince William Sound.

Exxon Valdez Oil Vampire Work

Alaska's Current Vampire Threat Level

Image from here.

You can also see and hear the vampire handiwork today in newspapers, on television, on radio, on lawn signs as they use their huge corporate profits to convince Alaskans that if they don't vote no on Prop 1

• Alaskans will lose their jobs, 
• the oil companies will leave the state, 
• oil production will collapse, 
• income and sales taxes will be law
• everything that is good in Alaska will disappear.  

By Tuesday they'll be telling people Prop 1 will cause guns and penises to stop firing.

Just vampire business as usual in Alaska, as well as in their corporate colonies around the world.

Image from here.

The TRUTH?

If Prop 1 passes, none of those things will happen.  ACES will get revised in the next legislative session so that the tax rate at the high end will be adjusted.  And there will be enough money in the state budget to support schools and even reformed vampire support groups.  Sean, there's a way out.  The first step is

"admit to [your]self that something is seriously wrong in [your] life."

And where does Sarah Palin fit in here now that she officially supports Prop 1?  All I can say is there is a big difference between vampires and zombies.


Image sources:

Timber Vampire:
AlaskaNativeStudies
MLP Wikia
The Loneliest Vampire

Seal Hunter Vampire:
St. John's College, Cambridge

Gold Miner Vampires:
Media-Cache-AK

Copper Miner Vampire:
AlaskaDigitalArchives
Needcoolshoes
Zazzle

Fish Vampire:
Carmelfinley

Oil Vampire:
NOAA
AntiqueImages 

"Love is Serious Shit!" - Girl w/ blue cooler

I noticed this sign next to me while waiting for the light, on the way to vote early, so I whipped out my camera.  There are stories everywhere you look, but this one is spelled out a lot more than most.

Did he find her?  I looked for a contact number.  It says to check Craigslist, so I checked Craigslist:

"Fish Creek Man of My Dreams - w4m (Anchorage) It was a beautiful, sunny afternoon at Fish Creek on July 31, 2014. Walking along the bank with a blue cooler, I was looking for my friend who had abandoned my son and I. You passed me by asking if that thing was full and I said no and that I hated mud. I was a little scared of getting stuck so I went to the other side. The last day of the opening, yesterday. It only happens once a year-sometimes years apart. You said you had seen me on the other side of the river before you left like you'd been looking for me to talk to me while I meanwhile stole your fishing spot. I pointed out my son to you and you walked away but you came back. I should have said something but I didn't know what to say. I probably would have jumped in your arms if I wasn't an encrusted mud ball. I know your friend's name is Jack but I don't know yours. You live in Anchorage; I live in Wasilla. I've been looking for you my entire life and I was sad to see you leave the river and walk out of my life forever so now you'll have to find me all over again but I'm trying to help you do just that. Trust me I look better without muddy hip boots and that ugly, brown sweater!

If anyone knows these two who were at Fish Creek on July 31, please let them know the ad is on here so Jack's friend can find me. Please do not contact me if you are not the person I am seeking as I will not respond."

 Anyone know Jack and his friend?  Oh, yeah, the Craigslist link has a picture of the blue cooler too.  

Why I Live Here - Salmon, Politics, and Food

It's another beautiful sunny Anchorage day.  Mid 70s, blue skies, like yesterday when I went for a bike ride to stretch my muscles a bit.  There were salmon coming up Campbell Creek. I didn't get a good picture with fish, but here's the creek, looking toward Lake Otis Blvd from one of the bridges. People are in the water in the background.

Then, not too far away, a group of folks were holding signs for Russ Millette who's running for governor as a Tea Party Republican.  I'd talked to Russ on the phone when I posted about his signs being defaced and this was the first time I got to meet him.  It was very cordial.  I'm convinced that if you meet the right way - and that includes being respectful - you can have decent relationships with people even if you disagree with them politically.  A lot of the acrimony today, I'm sure, is from people feeling unrespected as a human being.  And that leads to returning disrepect.  Until things are much harder to repair. 

I even suggested to Russ that his name was too small on those signs for drivers to catch as they go by.  He agreed and said Governor needed to be bigger too.  Russ in in the red and white plaid shirt.

And then, just a minute or two down the block, I stopped at Namaste, which has changed hands, to get some take out 'Himalyan' food.  

The prices might look a bit steep, but the food was delicious and the portions enough for another meal - for us anyway. 

If it looks like I'm giving Millette a lot of attention here, it's not intentional.  A lot of times I simply post what I happen to see along my path. 

Don't Eat Contaminated Fish And Other Tales Of The Last Day In LA

 

I made a few phone calls and then biked an hour down along Venice Beach to Marina del Rey where I found this sign that belied the healthy look of the water of Santa Monica Bay.

 

The fog had been pushed way out, but you could see it off in the distance.  (Not in this picture, but further out on the left.  

We did odds and ends for my mom, made more phone calls to clear up bills that we'd thought had been cleared up.  There's no end to having to check and double each statement.  We also managed to drive my mom to the cemetery - Monday is the anniversary of my brother's death.  He died in a work accident at age 23.  It's 38 years now.  My mom used to take flowers there every week for years and years, but now that she can't drive and getting in and out of the car is hard, it's not so often.   And then back home and then the caregiver dropped us off at the bus stop.  We had lots of time, but it was getting into rush hour.  The first bus was packed and I figured the next one would be emptier.  They wouldn't let us onto that one, too full.  But we had a good time talking to various folks waiting for the bus.  A guy from the music industry who'd gone to Hollywood to pick up his new $8,000 bike, but the bank didn't release the money, so he had to take the bus back home instead of his new bike - as in bicycle, not motorcycle.  And there was a fellow in a wheel chair who was a little pissed at not being let on the bus.  But before too long a relatively empty Rapid bus picked us up and we got to the airport in plenty of time.   On the bus we fell into a conversation with a guy who'd live on 30th and Spenard in the early 90's and it was clear he remembered Anchorage fondly. 

 

The sun was over the horizon as we took off.  In this picture I'm looking over the south beaches (the opposite of the previous picture.)

I don't recall ever flying so close to the Channel Islands off of Santa Barbara and Ventura.  You can see the fog bank just beyond the islands.

My travel preference from long ago is to go somewhere for a long time - say three months or better yet a year.  But with kids and mom scattered along the west coast, and mom needing more and more attention, we've racked up enough miles to be MVP (20,000 miles or more on Alaska Airlines) the last few years. 

That means when you book in advance, you have your choice of all the seats to choose from.  It also means two free check-in bags - though we usually just do carry on.  But with Alaska's 20 minute guarantee, we have checked them in sometimes.  Especially if we have a long layover somewhere and want to get out of the airport.  But we also get bumped up into First Class every now and then.  

The times we've been in first class, we've gotten a meal that I would call a nice snack.  Hot, nicely put on the plate, but not much food.  This time it was different.  We had a Niçoise Salad, a pasta dish, and Salted Caramel Budino.  (The ones I saw online seemed solid.  This one was a hot liquid.  I knew it was full of things I wouldn't normally eat.  Looking at the recipes was a mistake.  Impressive.  And then a little bowl of warm nuts.  

The Niçoise Salad

Maybe we got all this food because this was the non-stop flight - almost 5 hours.   Which also gave me lots of time to read my book for Monday's book club meeting - Erik Larson's In The Garden Of Beasts.  It's a fascinating non-fiction account of a history professor who gets appointed ambassador to Germany in 1933 when Roosevelt got turned down first by several more likely candidates.  It takes place in mostly Berlin, a place I first visited as a student the year I spent in Germany.  It's fascinating to see the conflict from the people who get around and know what's going on and the newcomers to Germany who see the surface and don't believe things are that bad. 

We'd been hearing that it's been raining while we were gone, but that it should be sunny Saturday.  The tarmac was wet when we landed.  And it's late August and by midnight it was actually dark.

Landing in Anchorage

But it wasn't raining and the air felt fresh and comfortable.  Nice to be home.  But these trips to visit Mom are going to be pretty regular.