"Don’t call them “at-risk.” They’re “at-promise" And 3 Other Articles Of Interest

Let's start off with some good news.  If you're only going to link to one of these articles, I recommend this one.   There are better ways to do things.  For one things, being smaller and close to your people helps.   I also want to disclose that the head of Fledge is a close relative.

Novel Holding Company Africa Eats Has Raised $1.8M For Its Impact Startups (Forbes)

About a year ago, Fledge, which operates about 10 impact accelerators around the world, launched Africa Eats, a holding company with 27 agriculture and food-focused Africa-based graduates of the networks’ programs. The goal: supporting entrepreneurs on-the-ground with an intimate understanding of how best to address hunger and poverty in Sub-Saharan Africa. Since then, the company has raised close to $2 million—and, despite the pandemic, the portfolio companies are doing fine.

Another good news story, where calling attention to labels can make a difference.  Not 'at risk.'  'At promise.'  Most kids want to be good people, they just need support for those dreams.

Caring for the environment helps South King County kids recovering from trauma or hardship find a sense of purpose  (From the Seattle Times)

"This summer, Park, Amine and Tracy are among two dozen mostly South King County youth learning to be stewards of the environment. 

They clean urban lakes during kayak patrols, plant trees, learn field mapping skills and test water quality in streams and rivers on state parks and public lands. They’re on water or trails several days each month. They’re paid $15 an hour for the work — enough to keep most of them from having to take other part- or full-time jobs that would otherwise consume their days — and they’re getting leadership training so they can help lead conservation and pollution prevention efforts in the future. . .

Many of the youth involved in Unleash the Brilliance have faced early adverse experiences “on steroids,” says Dorsey. Amine was peer pressured into regularly using drugs in middle school; his grades and relationship with his parents tanked. Park’s family faced bankruptcy. Other youth bore witness to their parents’ addictions, moved around a lot or lived in extreme poverty. Some have a history of being incarcerated, skipping class or facing delays graduating from high school. 

Dorsey sees them for their potential. Don’t call them “at-risk.” They’re “at-promise,” he says."

How much do your peers impact your behavior?  This Atlantic article addresess peer pressure and vaccination.  

The Anti-vaccine Con Job Is Becoming Untenable:  Why targets of deliberate deception often hesitate to admit they’ve been deceived

"Something very strange has been happening in Missouri: A hospital in the state, Ozarks Healthcare, had to create a “private setting” for patients afraid of being seen getting vaccinated against COVID-19. In a video produced by the hospital, the physician Priscilla Frase says, “Several people come in to get vaccinated who have tried to sort of disguise their appearance and even went so far as to say, ‘Please, please, please don’t let anybody know that I got this vaccine.’” Although they want to protect themselves from the coronavirus and its variants, these patients are desperate to ensure that their vaccine-skeptical friends and family never find out what they have done. . .

Shifting from an individual to a relational perspective helps us understand why people are seeking vaccination in disguise. They want to save face within the very specific set of social ties that sociologists call “reference groups”—the neighborhoods, churches, workplaces, and friendship networks that help people obtain the income, information, companionship, mutual aid, and other resources they need to live. The price of access to those resources is conformity to group norms. That’s why nobody strives for the good opinion of everyone; most people primarily seek the approval of people in their own reference groups."

Do you know whether your insurance company is insuring coal companies?

U.S. INSURERS FAIL ON CLIMATE ACTION:   Global insurers make coal increasingly “uninsurable”; whole industry fails to act on oil & gas  

LONDON (December 2, 2020)—U.S. insurance companies lag behind their global peers and play a key role in enabling the fossil fuel industry, the Insure Our Future campaign revealed today in its fourth annual scorecard on insurers’ climate policies. 

Insuring Our Future: The 2020 Scorecard on Insurance, Fossil Fuels and Climate Change finds that most European and Australian insurers no longer provide coverage for new coal projects, which has made it harder and costlier to secure the insurance that coal projects need to operate. Coal companies face rate increases of up to 40%. Controversial projects—like the Adani Group’s Carmichael coal mine in Australia—are finding it hard to obtain insurance at all. This demonstrates the insurance industry’s unique power to accelerate the shift away from fossil fuels.  

 More useful for most folks is the scorecard here.  

Unfortunately, smaller companies like All State and State Farm aren't listed here.  They are both independent companies.  But Geico is owned by Berkshire Hathaway which is one of the worst offenders.

 

Spaghetti

 

Little UN at Muldoon Farmers' Market In Anchorage

 Finally made it to the Muldoon Farmers' Market Saturday.  It's a little smaller and has fewer venders than when I was here last in 2019.  Maybe there will be more venders as the summer crops ripen.  

Still, I got to buy veggies from Cherry, who's from Myanmar.  

She spent something like ten or twelve years in refugee camps - first and longest, in Thailand.  And then in Malaysia.  She was in the refugee camp near Maesot, Thailand which I passed on the way to and from Umphang where one of my former students is the headmaster of the local school.  He tried to take us into that huge camp, which sprawls across a mountainside, but the officials he knew there were away that day.  Here's a picture I took from a post back in 2007.  They said 25,000 refugees from Myanmar were kept there.

This booth was set up by Vonnie whose company is Arts by Vonnie.  She has her own unique Alaska cards that she designs.  Vonnie's got cards with a number of different styles as well as stand alone prints.  The website reveals a lot of interesting pieces and also a woman who's involved in important social issues, like projects at Hiland Correctional Center and the Let Us Dream project - for which she did clever portraits of the various participants.  I recognized EJR David as soon as I opened that page.  

The vendor at this booth sold us some great kale and some baked goods.  She's from Somalia and ok'd a photo of the table, but not of herself.  

Another vendor was from Bhutan and I got a jar of rhubarb-raspberry jelly from an Alaska Native woman.  

Here are some  posts from 2018 and2019 that feature the market.  And yes, by September there are a lot more fresh vegetables for sale.  

There's also a great playground here for the kids.  

Living Through A Pandemic Is A Little Like Living Abroad For A Year

Back in June there were various news stories about how high school students felt that they were being robbed, by the pandemic, of sacred high school experiences, like prom and graduation.  My reaction was that in ten years, their pandemic year stories will be much more meaningful than most people's graduation stories.  

As I thought about it more, it seemed that the pandemic has been, in many (not all) ways - a lot like living living abroad for a year.  

Of course, there are lots of ways to live abroad - with work, in the military,  a school year overseas, traveling from country to country, etc.  The impact of the year (or more) abroad ranges widely, depending on whether you live in an ex-pat bubble or you're the only foreigner in your community. Most people's experiences are somewhere in between those two extremes.  

Some key factors that affect the experience include:

• whether you have to learn and to speak the other language(s)
• how many others from your culture are there with you
• whether you work with locals or not

But regardless, there are certain things that happen to many people living in another culture.

• your new culture makes you think about your home country differently
• you think about things you miss, but also learn that the new culture has alternatives, some of which are better 
• you start comparing the two cultures, which is the first step to realizing that the way you've always lived isn't the only way to live, or even the best
• things you thought were necessary turn out not to be
• you see that your new culture interprets news about your culture differently - whether it's in the newspapers or comments from your new friends and colleagues
• you start thinking about what the new culture does better than your old culture and vice versa
• if you learn to speak the language well enough to negotiate life in it
• you find out that your native language is just one of many, many ways to communicate
• that translation is not simply substituting the foreign words for your native words 
• you learn that there are words in the new language that don't exist in your own, that give you different ways of thinking about the world, 
• as you master the grammar, what first seemed awkward or just plain weird, now becomes an alternative to what you once thought was the only way words could be arranged together
• there's a certain freedom to navigating without ever using your native language, a liberation from the biases and limits every language imposes on its native speakers
• If the new language has a different alphabet or characters instead of letters, you have to rearrange brain cells to adapt even more

• when you return you are not the same person who left - your mind and expectations have been expanded
• there's the pleasure of old food favorites and seeing friends and family
• but you start missing food specialties from the new culture 
• and your old friends haven't gone through what you've gone through and they don't realize you see things differently, and while they like the exotic pictures, they don't understand the less visible aspects of the other culture and how that's changed you

The list can go on and on.  But overall being in another country forces you to see your own country differently and also to see yourself differently.  You see that there are other possibilities than the life you used to live.  This is true if you went to the other country voluntarily or not (say, if your parents took you.)

I think the same will prove true for all of us who have lived through the pandemic.  

• It interrupted our routines and forced us to find other ways to do things.  
• We learned to order delivery or use curbside pick up for groceries and other items.  
• We learned to wear masks and gloves.  
• We learned to use zoom and streamed a lot more videos.  
• There were many things we didn't understand - particularly about the virus and how to respond to it - and it took time to figure out what worked and what didn't.  
• Some people resisted changing their routines. 
• They refused to believe that the virus was real.   This happens, say, to US citizens overseas who insist on only eating US food and will only speak English and think they are not subject to the new country's laws and customs
• We've had more time home alone or with our families.  Time to think.
• We've learned new vocabulary, from COVID to community spread and Zoom

Changes are already being reported.  I'm hearing news of people who want to keep working from home post pandemic.  Or even rethinking whether they want to stay in the same job or profession.  

Some people get back from an overseas stay with new insights, but gradually fall back into their old routines.

Other people's lives are profoundly different when they get back.  They gravitate to new friends who have overseas experiences too and can understand their new perspectives.  They cook their favorite foods from overseas and try to find ways to keep up their language skills.  They see bias in the media covering their new country.

Nobody chose to spend these past two years in a pandemic, but some people took advantage of the changes while others endured it kicking and screaming.  But even they will have learned from this experience.  I think of my son who did not want to spend a year in Hong Kong and didn't particularly enjoy all the changes in his life.  He was 15 at the time.  But he used his overseas experiences in his college essays when he got back.  Later he took Chinese in a community college so he could speak to work colleagues using their own language.  He taught English in China for a year, worked a year in Europe, and got a masters degree in SE Asia.  I don't think those things would have happened without the year in Hong Kong.  

One obvious difference between the pandemic and a year abroad is that the whole world participated in the pandemic at the same time.  And the pandemic exposed inequities between nations and within nations.  

For all of us, 2020 and 2021 will be landmark years in our personal lives and in the history of the world.  If we're lucky we will have learned a lot.  We'll be better prepared for a future pandemic.  We'll take climate change more seriously. We'll realize that changes to our routines to combat climate change may be initially challenging, but they will also offer opportunities we didn't expect.  

Keeping Busy Doing Nothing - AK Press Club, Seedlings, Bike, Cooking, Redistricting, COVID, Spanish, Grandkids. . .

 Time seems to whiz by.  Suddenly it's Wednesday and I have to take out the garbage again.  How can it be 10pm, it's still light out?  I just paid that bill.  Making it worse, it seems like I haven't gotten anything done.  

But when I try to track what I'm doing, it turns out I'm really doing a lot.  I'm tracking and posting  the Alaska COVID numbers every day.  I'm doing 20-40 minutes into DuoLingo Spanish.

I try to do the Cryptoquote and the Sudoku in the paper every day.

My Seattle granddaughter FaceTimes with us for an hour or three several times a week.  And I've been volunteering in her class, via zoom, listening to kids read books of their choice.  The SF grandkids have a regular two or three hours every Wednesday afternoon.  

This month, the Alaska Press Club has been having Monday, Wednesday, and Friday 8am workshops in lieu of a three day in person conference.  Despite the horrible hour, all the ones I've listened in on (all of them so far) have been excellent.  Yesterday was one on covering Corrections and included a reporter who does cover corrections, an ACLU employee who works on corrections issues and used to work for the Dept of Corrections under Walker, and a woman who started a non-profit called Supporting Our Loved Ones Group - people who have friends and relatives in prison.  One part of the discussion focused on the words that journalists use to describe people in prison. I guess I've had a soft spot for the plight of prisoners ever since I visited a former 6th grade student (he was then probably in the 9th grade) at a juvenile detention center outside of Los Angeles maybe 50 years ago.  Other sessions have been on Climate Change and How to Choose And Write Stories. They also did one on setting up an elections debate commission for Alaska that was very compelling.  You can see the commission proposal here.   I've got notes for blog posts on all of these, but the Anchorage Municipal Election and the Redistricting Board have distracted me.  

I haven't seen much coverage at all in other media about the Alaska Redistricting Board and since I covered it intensely in 2011-13, I realize I know a lot about what it is, what the issues are, and what was done last time.  So it seems I'm stuck doing it again.  Right now not much is happening - setting things up procedurally and getting staff - they've hired a law firm to advise them and they are getting an RFI ready to hire a Voting Rights Act consultant.  They are behind the pace of ten years ago because the Pandemic and Trump policies slowed down the Census Count and the State redistricting numbers won't come out until maybe August this year.  Last time they got the numbers in March.

I've started my summer biking in earnest yesterday, keeping to the trails along streets while the trails through the greenbelts still have snow on them.  I did a seven mile test run south on Lake Otis, east on Dowling, north on Elmore, then wandering through neighborhoods back home.

Here's Campbell Creek from Lake Otis

An aside about snow this year.  I'd asked Weather Service guy Brian Brettschneider, via DM on Twitter, if we'd had more snow days this year, because it seemed like I was shoveling snow all the time.  He responded: 

"Anchorage will finish with about 5" less snowfall than normal. But our snow depth was one of the greatest on record. We basically had 0 melting events throughout the season."

Riding along Dowling, the ice and snow were gone from the trail the whole ride.  

And then Campbell Creek again, this time looking back from Elmore.

My knees have been showing signs of being past their warranty.  Running is out.  Biking was ok last summer.  I'm hoping I can do another 600 km or more this summer, but it will depend on how my knees react.  

We've been zooming in to the Alaska Black Caucus' Sunday panels. (Link to this Sunday's forum is on the upper right of their page.) They've been doing a great job covering a lot of topics from candidate forums (School Board and Mayor, and this Sunday they are going to have the mayoral runoff candidates - Dunbar and Bronson) to discussions on things like body cameras for police and the military experience in Alaska for Blacks.  They've been having 50 and 60 attendees every week.  Really well done.  I've never heard candidates talk so candidly.  But then the 

There was also a Citizens Climate lobby meeting and a few other zoom meetings.

One way to get through all the zoom meetings is to do relatively mindless tasks that allow me to pay attention, but also get something done.  Eating is the most obvious, but I also prepared and baked a bread through one meeting.  

And used the left over dough to make a veggie pizza.  

And I've been planting seeds now that I can see patches of ground through the snow outside.  Trying Arctic Tomatoes this year.  But I've also got arugula, stock, snapdragons, pansies, sweet peas, flax, and a few other seeds growing.  

I suspect that feeling like I haven't gotten anything done comes partially through the fact that zoom meetings let you stay home and so you don't get out that much.  When you physically go to a meeting, it (probably, it's hard to remember) feels more like you've actually done something.  So I have to write things down to remind myself that I've actually been busy and doing worthwhile things.  

Oh, and watching some of the video of each of the UAA Chancellor candidates.  A really diverse selection.  Not a good time to be a white male in this crowd I'm guessing.  Most looked reasonable, some very good, and our Superintendent of Schools must have been unwell, because she couldn't be still or say more than platitudes.  You can watch them yourselves.  I'd recommend about ten minutes of each to get a sense of them.  Really, these tell us mostly how well they speak in public.  To some extent how much the know about higher education.  But not too much about how well they can run a university.

AK Redistricting Board: January 26 - Approving Their Own Pay And Per Diem, Public Hearing Notice & Public Records Policies

 The Board met and passed the policies recommended by the staff.  The main change they made was to combine the meals ($60) and incidentals ($25) into on $85 which, it seems bumps up their meal allowance when traveling.  There was no mention or discussion of whether it was appropriate for that to cover alcohol.  Board member Melanie Bahnke, the President and CEO of Kawerak,  a Native non-profit Corporation of the Bering Straits Native Association, asked that her pay go to Kawerak because that's the corporation's policy when employees do this sort of work on corporation time.  Staff thought that could be arranged but will check.  

One item was added to the published agenda - an update on the progress of the website. The staff is working on it, but no dates were given for when it goes up.

Chair Binkely reiterated several times that these policies could be revisited and amended if that seemed necessary.  

I posted the other day saying I didn't think a board like this should be asked to set its own compensation.  I further raised various ethical and socio-economic questions about the role of public boards like this.  My personal sense is that in many cases per diem and travel allowances are often abused by both private and public sector employees.  I agree fully that members of such boards shouldn't have to spend out-of-pocket to serve on boards, but I also feel that given Alaska's severe cutting of public programs because of the drop in oil revenues, that members of public boards, particularly when they have other well paid jobs besides their board appointments, should be very conscious that many people, many children in Alaska today eat on much less than $60 a day, let alone $85.  

Again, this is something I feel is important and not really aimed at the Board itself, but more at the contradictions between some politicians who vigorously promote cutting the budget and then want to be generously compensated by a government agency.

Below is my rough transcript of the meeting as I listened in by phone.  Occasionally I had trouble identifying who was speaking and I try to indicate that with a question mark.  This is not verbatim, but it's enough to get the gist of the discussion.  Audio tape will eventually be up at this link (and later on their own website when they get that up. 

[I've included some of the staff recommendations from the Documents for the meeting which were online as well.]

Alaska Redistricting Board January 26, 2021

Present:  Board members: Nicole Borromeo, Melanie Bahnke,  Bethany Marcum, Budd Simpson, John Binkley, 

Staff:  Peter Torkelson and TJ TJ Presley 

Open meeting at 2:34

Approval of Agenda - Simpson - amend to add # 6 Webpage

Adopted

Agenda

1. Call to order

2. Establish a quorum

3. Adoption of agenda

4. Board Policy Review and Discussion

a. Public Meeting and Notice Policy

b. Public Records Policy

c. Member Compensation Policy

d. Member & Staff Travel Per Diem Policy

5. Adoption of One or More Board Policies 

Added new 6 -Website progress -  and made Adjournment 7

6. Adjournment

1. Board Policy Review and Discussion

Turn it to Peter

Peter:  Worked through this.  TJ drafted the first two. (Hard to understand)

Public Meetings and Notices Policy:  

Melanie - about screens on Zoom

Dept Director TJ Presley:  

Public Meeting - how the board communicates to public about when there’s a meeting.  Executive and Legislative branch policies.  Executive Branch uses public meetings - all bodies, pretty broad.  

Notice given reasonable time, but no definition.  (Reviewing info in documents covered in earlier post on the Board.)

Banke:  It’s hard to understand, very muffled.

Move to Second Policy Public Records Policy

Hoping to procure a minutes taker as well.  How to keep records varies.  AIDEA - has statutory requirements.  Legislature has uniform rules - court proceedings electronically.  

In this case Board could adopt Legislative or Administrative. 

Staff recommendation - electronic recordings and minutes provided.  (Again see previous post )  

More discussion about TJs audio.  

Peter doing quick summary.  Here’s the official written staff rec:

Meetings and Notice

“Staff Recommendation: Redistricting Board should adopt Alaska Open Meetings law, AS 44.62.310, as its public notice requirements. This action directs staff to ensure notice of themeeting, its location, attachments, and teleconference options, would be posted to the Alaska Public Notice System website within a “reasonable time”. Staff will further make notice of its meetings available on the legislative website.

It is the policy of the Alaska Redistricting Board that the board comply with the Alaska Open Meetings act and seek to provide 72 hours of public notice prior to board meetings with 24 hours notice being allowable. Notices shall be posted to the State of Alaska Public Notice System.

Advance public notice can be difficult if you aren't organized or if things come up at the last minute, but it's important for the public to be able figure out when the board is meeting.  Furthermore, while the State Public Notice System is there, it's not something that most people regularly use.”

Public Meetings 

"Staff Recommendation: Adopt a policy that includes recording and maintaining electronic copies of the audio recording of each meeting and keeping minutes that capture votes, motions, and a “brief statement of the position of any Board Members who makes a statement on the issue before the board” (This is modeled on legislative committee minute recording language). This could be a simple summary like, “Member A expressed concern that the proposed House District 12 did not take into account the city boundary”

It is the policy of the Alaska Redistricting Board that meetings be electronically recorded and made available to the public and that written minutes be kept of each meeting which identify motion makers, seconds, vote tallies and a brief summary of the concerns of any Board member who states a position on the issue under consideration.

Binkley:  Public Notice questions?

Borromeo:  Public Notice.  On Legislature’s website?  Tied to Governor’s office?  I had problems finding us.  

Peter:  We were under umbrella of Legislature because they funded us.  Now on both  Alaska Notice dot Gov [I'd give you a url if I could figure out the right one- Steve] also on http://w3.akleg.gov/index.php#tab4 (?)   So we’d be on both.  

We have our own website being set up and we’ll notice there as well and also have email notification for those who subscribe.  

Binkley:  Compensation Policy.  The Constitution says they should be compensated.  Board members spend a lot of time on Board matters not just on meetings.  We send hundreds of pages to the members.  Done on daily rate, but should also cover hours working on Board issues not at meeting.  

We recommend $477.  Legislators at $486.  We don’t know how many weeks we’ll have before Census Data arrives.  This is our 8th meeting.  Board has been in place about 5 ? months.  

Banke - My company policy says it should be directed back to the organization since I’m doing this on company time.  Otherwise I have to take personal leave each time.

John?:  Check with Leg Legal.

Peter:  Staff will check on how this gets done. I think it’s possible, but we need to check

Borromeo?  - Presume every day a Board meeting being held?  Not per day, right?

Peter:  Per Board Meeting Day.  

Budd:  If 15 minute meeting, say procedural, I wouldn’t feel right about taking a full day meeting rate.  Perhaps a half rate for shorter meetings.  

Binkley?  - in my experience - corporate boards, sometimes preparation is lengthy even if meeting short.  It’s hard to quantify every possibility.  It should balance out with time you spend preparing, meeting with public, but no recognition on that.  Maybe we can proceed and make adjustments.  I don’t see these policies as static.  

Banke:  Hand up?  No, forgot to put it down.

Borromeo:  I have same reaction that Budd did.  I don’t think any of us accepted appointment to this Board to make money.  In another board it’s a sliding scale.  This is a high meeting fee, but it is in line with other Boards and commissions and if we can review it in the future, I’m comfortable moving forward.

Binkley:  Travel and Per Diem Policy

Peter:  Given COVID right now different.  2010 Board did numerous meetings around the state.  We should be able to travel in the future.  We’ve looked at different options.  Using the AK Boards and Commissions policy.

Actual housing costs.  $60 food and incidentals.  We felt $25 for incidentals and $60 for transportation.  

[From the documents:

"Staff Recommendation: Adopt a policy based on the State of Alaska Boards and Commissions Per Diem table with actual lodging and $60 per day for meals. Amend this to include up to $25 for incidentals and $60 per day for ground transportation or car rental to reflect the fact that board members may be sent on road shows to distant communities with little logistical support available on the ground. Provide the Board Chair the ability to waive policy caps if there is documented need (for example, renting a car in Utqiagvik may cost more than the specified daily car rental rate).

“'It is the policy of the Alaska Redistricting Board that members and staff receive per-diem reimbursement for actual lodging, meals to a value of $60, actual incidentals to a value of $25 and ground transportation to a value of $60 per day for board related travel that is authorized by the Board Chair or Executive Director. Reimbursement for actual costs incurred over the maximum amounts may be made at the discretion of the Board Chair.’”]

Banke:  Up to $25 for incidentals.  Is that by request or added to meals?  

Peter:  You can submit receipts for optional - topped at $60 and topped at $25.

Barromeo:  All sounds good except for the meals at $60 per day.  You’d be hard pressed to eat at that price in even Anchorage and Fairbanks.  Can we raise it to $75?  What do others think?

Budd Simpson:  Agree it would be tight.  Either way works for me.  

??? :  I agree with Nicole.  What if we just mix meals and incidentals at $85 and all it good.

Peter:  Board traveled with lots of maps that required skycaps to get them on planes.

Bethany? :  I’m comfortable.  I don’t thinks it’s reasonable to raise the rate, but if we merged with incidentals I’m ok, but otherwise don’t think we should raise it above $60.

Barromeo:  I like the suggestion to merge the meals and incidentals to $85 and above that give receipts and get approval.

Binkley:  Public Notice - Should include meetings AND Hearings   and agree to change the per diem to meals and incidentals together at $85 and other actual expenditures require receipt and approval.

Banke?  - Can we hold off til Peter gets confirmation they can take care of my issue of giving my payment to my corporation?  

Binkley - I don’t think adopting this language would preclude that from happening.  

Motion to adopt these?  Seconded.  Discussion?  Hearing nothing.  Motion adopted.

Web page discussion:  Peter.  We need to have a website so public can be introduced to what we’re doing etc.  Also posting existing districts and maps.  So public will have ready access to maps as they are adopted.  Map section is core to website.  

I can post some mock up examples for public to see.  

Binkley:  appreciate what you’re doing and that you want to get it out to the public so we can get public input.  Any other comments?  

Budd:  Thanks to the staff for putting that together, Like the idea of using the old map as a graphic for this.  Beside being interesting, it doesn’t emphasize urban or rural areas like modern maps do.  

Barromeo?  Thanks for making the changes I sent the other day.  

Adjournment, but anything else first?  

Barromeo? - consider prioritizing with various organizations to say what redistricting is - time to educate public before we get into the details.  

Banke - traveling during quarantine hard from Nome because of quarantines, but things getting better, but next week I get my second shot.  More available for people in rural areas than for Anchorage folks.

Adjourn?  Borromeo, move.  Budd Second.  

Adjourned.  2:35

How Much Does It Cost To Eat Out In Anchorage? The Redistricting Board Thinks $6o A Day Isn't Enough

The staff of the Redistricting Board today recommended a per meeting compensation of $477 a per diem for meals of $60, and incidental costs allowance of $25, and a ground travel allowance of $60. The incidentals were taken from the previous Board that said often they carry lots of maps and other displays for traveling to various communities and that requires extra costs getting those things onto planes.  Hotel allowances were "actual costs." 

I thought, overall, the Board members sounded responsible about this.  While I personally think pay for such service should be more like an honorarium, I also don't think they should have to pay out of pocket to travel to the meetings and spend the night away from home.  Further what was approved was within the general parameters of other Boards and Commissions.  

A couple members of the Alaska Redistricting Board today said the equivalent of "You can't eat three meals in Anchorage for $60."  In the end they combined the meal allowance and the incidentals into a single category of $85, which, for the most part means there's now an $85 a day meal allowance.  Any incidentals above that need receipts and approval to get reimbursed.  So, that also means that if the Board member eats for $50 a day, they'll probably get an extra $35.  (I don't think they need to show actual costs below $85, but I'm not sure.)

I also don't think that the Board should be put in the position to decide how much they should get paid.  The legislature should spell out guidelines for this.  

All that said, I think it's also reasonable to consider that lots of people are eating courtesy of the Food Bank these days.  That lots of Anchorage kids are not eating much at all because schools aren't open and they aren't getting the free meals they normally get there.  And there are lots of people who, when they go out to eat, go to food courts, fast food restaurants, or order pizzas.  

I'd also guess that everyone on the Board has made contributions to charity greater than they'll get back in the $25 per diem they'll get each time they travel.  So, just for appearances, it would be a nice gesture for Board members to accept the $60 limit and if they want to eat fancier than that, or have drinks with their meals, they pay for that out of pocket.  After all, if they stayed home, they would probably spend at least $25 on food anyway.  

I've traveled for work and I know that it's often useful to have meals with colleagues at conferences. But the Board members can't get together in groups of more than two (I think) without it being considered a secret, un-noticed Board Meeting.  And the Board members are all likely folks who know lots of people in Anchorage who will invite them for a meal while they are in town.

But to help them find places to eat for under $60 I here's Trip Advisor's list of place to eat on the cheap in Anchorage.  I suspect they are so refined that they can't eat at these places while they are in town for meetings.  

Here's the menu for one place on the list:  Arctic Road Runner:

"BIGGER, BETTER, MEATY BURGERS

the following are 1/4 pound patties, served on a hamburger bun, unless otherwise roasted. we cook our burgers "medium well" unless you request otherwise.

"All American $4.35

ketchup, mustard, onion.

Alaskan Banquet $5.25

mayo, lett, tom, onion.

Arctic Cheese $5.50

mayo, lett, tom, onion & amer cheese.

Bacon Burger $6.30

mayo, lett, tom, onion, amer cheese & bacon.

Pepper Burger $5.95

mayo, lett, tom, onion, 1/2 mild chile pepper & mozz. cheese.

Kodiak Islander $6.15

mayo, lett, tom, onion, 1/2 mild chile peppers 1/2 slice. each: bologna, salami, ham, amer, mozz, cheese. an onion ring to top it off.

Kenai Whopper $6.50

our biggest meaty burger. two 1/4 pound patties, mayo, lett, tom, onion, 1/2 mild chile pepper & mozz cheese.

Mexican Burger $5.95

mayo, lett, tom, onion, 1/2 mild chile pepper, meat sauce & amer cheese.

Nature Burger $6.15

on a wheat bun. mayo, sprouts tom, onion & mozz, cheese, not this is not veggie burger."

Uncle Joe's Pizzeria has pizzas from $8.99 to $13.99 and a bunch of salads for under $6.  

Most dishes at the Thai Kitchen are $13 and rice comes free.  Three people could have a filling meal sharing, Thai style, a green curry, pad thai, and cashew chicken.

There are pages and pages of places to eat on Trip Advisor's list.  

Campobello Bistro is a little more upscale, with real tablecloths even, but you can get several different pastas for under $20.  Yes, if you add a salad and dessert, you're going to have to keep your breakfast and lunch combined under $20.  [UPDATE Jan 27, 2021:  a reader informed me this restaurant has closed.]

Part of me says, this is small potatoes.  The state spent too many millions buying ANWR drilling leases in (legitimate) fear that no one else would bid.  

Another part of me says, a few dollars here and a few dollars there start to add up.  Assume the five members of the Board all spend $85 for meals when they travel to Anchorage for meetings - if and when it's safe to do that - say for 100 days.  How much does that extra $25 add up to?  (Some may travel more than others, but just to ballpark this let's go with this.  The last Board ended up taking three years to get their work done, so I'm sure there will be more than 100 per diems racked up by the Board.)  

That's $25 X 5 X 100 = $12,500.  Again, not a lot in terms of Alaska's budget. But $12,500 savings here and $10,000 savings there, adds up.  The Governor says that we have to make millions more in cuts to the Alaska budget. Other legislators argue there's fat to be cut. Well, here's a place to do that. It's not so much large expenditures that are they problem.  They get lots of scrutiny.  It's more stuff like this that tends to be invisible in the budget.  

And, while the Board member bios aren't up yet for the Board members, it doesn't appear to me that any of these people are strapped for money.  They don't have to do this to make ends meet.  It's an honor and a public service to be performed.  One Board member today said that when members of her Corporation serve on boards like this on company time, they get the boards to give the money straight to the corporation.  (I'm guessing she makes a lot more on her regular salary anyway.)

And a third part of me thinks about the fact that these Board members are doing this for the people of Alaska.  How connected are they with the people of Alaska if they either can't imagine how to eat out in Anchorage for $60 a day or they can't imagine eating at places that don't have cloth table cloths and where they can't get a few drinks with the meals.  (The Board did not talk about whether the meal allowance will cover drinks too.)  $60 a day is more than many families spend a day on food.  

Final Note

This issue isn't really about the Board.  It's about how people in different income brackets think about what is normal, think about what level of restaurant is suitable. It's about a system that goes well beyond the State, where people get perks with their jobs that allow them to stay in hotels and dine in restaurants that would stretch most people's budgets, because the company or in this case the government is paying.  I'm all for reimbursing legitimate expenses, but when government employees are traveling they should be reimbursed to stay in the least expensive accommodations that are clean and and quiet enough to do work and close enough to places they have to go to minimize extra costs for transportation.  If that doesn't suit the traveler, she is free to stay and eat at better places by paying the difference from their own pockets.  I think most Alaskans would agree. Legislators often go after travel budgets when they want to cut agency costs.  I think a lot of travel is necessary.  Much of it has long term benefits to the organization.  Cuts should be on the edges to allow reasonable, but not extravagant travel. 

There was more to the Board meeting and I'll talk about that in a different post.  Tomorrow I hope.  I would add that for the most part I think the Board members discussion was reasonable.  But I do think the issue about not being able to eat in Anchorage for $60 a day does reflect that at least some on the Board have different standards of acceptable eating than many of the people whose district boundaries they are going to be setting.

Regular Snowfalls Outside, Things Growing Inside

 My personal trainer is working on my upper body this winter.  It keeps giving a little more snow to shovel four or five times a week.  Today there was about three or four new inches.  

We've also had foggy days.  Which in December, when we get down to five and a half hours or so between sunrise and sunset, makes it seem even darker.  But the snow and ice do such beautiful tricks.  

Here's ice patterns after shoveling the deck.  We'd had a couple days where it got above freezing and then froze again.  I hadn't gotten the snow off the deck, so there was this thin glaze of ice after shoveling.  It should get more focused if you click on it.

And my van was used by the snow as a canvas too.  

And here are some spruce needles holding up a blanket of snow that's turning icy.

Inside, the green stuff continues to give the illusion of a different season.  This is a bromeliad I brought up from my mom's yard where they grow like weeds.  We've had it here maybe 20 years.  It bloomed the first two years, but hasn't since.  I guess I need to check the local bromeliad society to get some tips.  It has offered up new sprouts so now I have three of these.  

But I can't put them where people move back and forth.  The thorns - look closely - are nasty.  

And it's nice that I still have geraniums blooming.

And someone sent us a box of pears.  We've been eating away.  I made a pear omelette and J made a couple of pear tarts.  

AiFF2020: Toprak and The Woman of the Photographs

 I can't believe there are still five narrative features I haven't seen yet.  Or that I'm writing about two obscure films instead of addressing more significant issues.  But there are plenty of people commenting on US politics and not very many commenting on these two films - one  Turkish and and Japanese.  

Toprak - 

I just looked up Toprak on google.translate.  It means Soil.  You don't have to know that watching the movie (I didn't), but it makes a lot of sense.  

Often times, watching a film based in a culture other than one's own, people need to change their sense of time, their pace.  I suspect, given the success of US films around the world, that speeding things up is easier to adapt to than slowing things down.  

This film slows things down a lot.  It takes place in rural Turkey, where this slower pace is the norm.  It focuses on the remnants of one family - a grandmother, her son, and his nephew - who eke out a living growing and selling pomegranates.  It's a theme we've seen repeatedly in AIFF films - young people leaving rural areas and small towns to pursue a more interesting, if not better, life.  And we know this saga in the US and here in Alaska all too well.  

This movie takes us into how these tensions between carrying on the family traditions and breaking the ties plays out in this (and to a much lesser extent one other) Turkish family.  

Originally, a copy of this film without subtitles was up on the AIFF site.  That was corrected yesterday (Wednesday).  Slow down and take a trip to rural Turkey. Pomegranates would make an appropriate snack for this film.

The Woman of the Photographs

We watched this one after Toprak. The topics of this film are very contemporary and the pace much faster.  It's an odd film - the main character doesn't speak a single word until the last few minutes of the film; a praying mantis has a significant supporting role - that explores the boundaries between the reality of who people are - what their actual faces and bodies look like, the manipulated photographic images on social media, or how other people perceive them.  This is a perfect film festival selection.  

I found The Woman of the Photographs a more watchable film than Toprak, I think because the issues raised in Toprak are well-known.  Toprak merely adds a case study to the stories of people leaving their small town/rural lives to larger cities.  Woman of the Photographs offers interesting material for the current concerns about how social media are changing the nature of reality, how we communicate,  and personal identity.  

Six Images Winter, Visitors, Nourishment

 

We have several Steller Jays that visit regularly.  Part of me wants you to see how blue it is.  But the snowy background made the exposure of the bird dark.  But when the bird is dark you focus more on it's silhouette.  

It's been snowing close to every day.  I figure my personal trainer is adding an inch or two regularly to get me outside with the snow shovel, since my biking is pretty much curtailed.  

Today it snowed a bit harder.  I think we have about three inches to be shoveled.  

Besides the Steller jay, we had some moose visitors who left messages in the snow to let us know they'd been by.  

Meanwhile, inside our cooking gives other interesting visuals.  

Cooking bananas and kiwis for my morning oatmeal.  

And a whole wheat bread using Mrs. Nash's old bread machine recipe.  Except the bread machine is long gone and the recipe didn't have temperature and time instructions.  

Shaggy Manes - Late September/Early October Gift From Nature

 On my bike ride Saturday, I noticed a patch of lawn where shaggy mane mushrooms had just pushed up out of the ground. 

Shaggy manes turn black when they're past their prime and become inky.  So I was concerned about all the black.  But it turned out to be dirt they'd pushed up as the erupted into the world from underground.  There were probably a couple of dozen in this area.  And it was public land so when I chose a few good ones, I wasn't poaching.  In the pictures above and below here, you can see why they are called shaggy.  

So I continued my bike ride and stopped back to get some mushrooms.  

Here they are, ready to be cleaned. 

Cut up.

And then cooking.  

With a little garlic and onion in butter (a rare treat in our house), they're delicious.  With the second batch I scrambled some eggs in with them.  

To me, these mushrooms are like a free gift from nature.  You just have to come across them at the right time, and they're yours to pick and enjoy.  

Random Thoughts On COVID-19 Impacts Now And Later

 Impact On Kids 

There's lots of talk about the debilitating impacts on the mental health and development of kids with schools out of session.  But I haven't seen anything (I did look, though not exhaustively) on all those kids for whom school is torture because they are shunned, picked on, bullied, beat up, or otherwise made to feel miserable at school.  For them, distance learning is probably an improvement.  

Medical Waste

I've been appalled for a long time about medical waste.  I think it started when I accompanied someone to the ER for a twisted ankle that was swelling.  It was winter here in Anchorage with lots of snow.  We got into the ER and they pulled out some sort of chemical ice pack, they twisted it and put it on her ankle.  I don't recall the price of the item - over $50 at least.  All the free snow and ice you could want, perfect for molding in a plastic bag on an ankle, was just outside the door.  

When you get a shot, the syringe and needle is tossed.  My mom was a lab technician and I remember the autoclave (there's a word that's been sitting idle in my brain for decades just waiting for this post, I even forgot it was there) where they sterilized the glass syringes and the needles.  Now things get tossed. 

When my mom caught MRSA in the hospital - new doctors kept coming in and each put on a whole set of protective clothing before entering.  (They all wanted to do new tests which required drawing more blood from my poor mom.)  They saw her for less than five minutes, then tossed all the protective gear when they left.  

While I don't know how much this kind of waste adds to the total medical costs, I do know it contributes to the landfill problems, including plastics and ocean plastic gyres.  

But when PPP were in short supply at the beginning of the pandemic, medical personnel began wearing masks all day instead of throwing them away after each patient.  Hospitals found ways to sterilize PPP. 

I hope there are people rethinking our throwaway hospital practices.  How can they reduce what they add to landfills, reduce the use of the raw materials, reduce costs?  All the medical supply companies will be fighting them all the way.  It would be interesting to see the role of medical supply company lobbyists play in the developing the rules hospitals must follow in these practices. 

Food

The whole way my household gets food has changed radically.  We use an app and then go pick it up 'curbside' in the parking lot.  (There really isn't a curb involved.)  I'm getting better finding what I'm looking for with the app.  I buy less spur of the moment things because I don't see them.  And I realize that we have at least one new staple in our fridge - cottage cheese.  It's an easy to 'prepare' snack that's probably healthier - and less expensive - than the Talenti gelatos in the freezer.  Also, without going out to eat, our food bill has gone way down.  

Will we go back to in-store grocery shopping when this is over?  I  suspect so, but I don't know, but when we're pressed for time I'm sure we'll use the apps.  And I know there will be a huge demand for restaurants.  And there will be plenty of people ready to open restaurants to meet that demand.  

Laws of Nature versus The Rules of Men*

The notion of social construction - things that are created by humans - is becoming clearer during the pandemic.  Often these are institutions that people just assume are 'natural', fixed, the way things are.  Like slavery once.  Like women not voting.  Like until death do us part heterosexual marriages.  (And the * in the heading is to emphasize that until very recently in the US, nearly all laws were made by men.) 

We're seeing now how the economy can collapse.  How school can be cancelled.  How our customary forms of greetings can be put aside.  How covered faces can be seen as the fashion of bandits, the assumed oppression of some Muslim women, to now a badge of political political persuasion or concern for health.  

But while we keep being enlightened about the 'made up' quality of the rules of people, the laws of nature keep steady - the sun comes up each morning, the weather does its thing, viruses do theirs.  

Science is the study of the laws of nature.  Science doesn't always correctly describe how nature works, but it's surely proving that science does a lot better than religion or politicians who want to ignore it for their own personal gain.  

I'm hoping that when this is over, a lot of the rules of men that oppress other people, that keep people poor, that destroy the natural world, that allocate wealth, will be seen as just made up rules that can be changed to create a more equitable and positive place for people to live.  

Video Conferencing

As I'm writing this post in Anchorage, I'm also on jitsi watching my grandkids in San Francisco playing with various Lego and other building materials.  We're just hanging out together doing our own things, but we can look and see each other as we do it.  It's VERY cool that we can be together like this.  I think back to my childhood when even a call to outside the local area in Los Angeles cost so many cents per minute, and international calls were dollars per minute.  This video conferencing is as amazing a change as anything I can think of.  (As I was proofing this my granddaughter pulled  apart her big brother's lego creation and he got so mad he hit her.  And she cried and told him to go away.  And now they've made up with the guidance of their dad.  

Everyone enjoy your weekend.  Time for me to get away from this screen.