A Fork In The Road Of US And World History

This is one of those historic moments when the world will pull back from the bring of disaster or go crashing into a new world of callous destruction.  The US AID (Agency for International Development) [poster] from Thailand in the late 1960s isn't too dramatic for the choice we face right now.  On the left side it says "Communism,"  in the middle it says "or" and on the right side it says "Freedom." Our choice now is Authoritarian vs. Democracy.  

Despite its many flaws, the US Democracy has been one of the better examples of how humans can work together to build a society based on law and aspirations of peace, of freedom, and of comfort.  The reality has favored some more than others - in terms of freedom, justice, and economic and social security.  And it has had serious negative impacts on the environment.  

But we're at a critical fork in the road.  To the right, we crash into the despotic world ruled by Trump and those who pull his strings, like Putin and his meddling into our election as he has meddled in the Brexit vote, Hungary, France, Italy, and, of course, Ukraine.  He's a force of evil turning the world toward chaos that he thinks he can better thrive in.  

If we go the Trump route, it's not Trump so much I'm worried about.  But it's his backers - from Putin, to the Christian Nationalist mob, and the wealthy cabal on the far right who have been plotting for decades and have already successfully captured the Supreme Court.  

The left fork would give us the first woman president, who is also part East Indian and part Black.  And she's incredibly capable as her career and short campaign has demonstrated.  

There should not even be any doubt that Kamala Harris should win this election.  That there is reflects serious failures in our system.  Failures in the education system that has produced tens of millions of voters who would choose a candidate with hundreds of flaws and misbehaviors any one of which would have destroyed any other presidential candidate.  

Failures in our system that have allowed foreign propaganda to be broadcast through outlets like Fox News and all sorts of internet sites to sow seeds of distrust in our system and in the idea of Truth itself.

Failures in our justice system that allow a convicted felon, who is ineligible to vote in most states, to be a candidate for the presidency.  Who would be ineligible to join our military to be its Commander in Chief.  

Fairlure in our electoral system that disregards the popular vote for an arcane system that focuses all the attention on seven purple states.  

A Harris administration will face many serious problems (including the disgruntled cult members), but it would work on them rationally and in good faith.   And that a Trump administration would exacerbate.  

Often such turning points aren't realized until after they happen - Pearl Harbor, 9/11, the election of FDR, for example.  

But we know today.  We've known a long time that this election is a choice between two very different futures.  One continues to move us toward greater equality, and one hopes, more equal economic prosperity, and continued fights to minimize CO2 emissions and the worst ravages of climate change.  

The other unleashes nasty brutish anger and hate on our country and the world.  

And even if Harris wins the election decisively, we know the depraved one will fight to overturn the election.  

Fortunately, this time round we know his past behaviors and are better prepared.  The public is more aware because, except for his cult members, we've seen how he operated after the last election.  Our government is better prepared for the same reason.  And more importantly, Joe Biden is still president and in control of the military and the national guard and other resources that might be needed.  

My logical brain tells me that it will be a Harris victory.  Reason says that the world has changed in ways that disfavor Trump.

Clinton beat Trump by nearly 3 million votes.   

Biden beat Trump by over 7 million votes.  

Since the 2020 election, we've learned so much more about Trump's evil ways.

He was impeached for the second time.

He created a plot to challenge Biden's victory

He instigated the January 6 insurrection of the Capitol

He stole boxes and boxes full of classified documents and stored some of them in a bathroom in Mar-A-Lago. And shared them, well, we don't know for sure with whom.

He's become a convicted felon and rapist.

He has several serious indictments and trials still waiting for him

The Supreme Court overturned Roe v Wade

His public appearances have shown him to be more and more deranged

He's presided over a Nazi rally in New York City

Many of the 'very fine people' he selected to serve in his administration have publicly warned us what a disastrous president he was.  

I can go on and on, but the point is that we know so many more terrible things about him.  Even if his cult stays loyal, there have to be other Republicans and Independents who voted for him last time who either won't vote for Trump, and many who will vote for Harris.  And young people who now are eligible to vote, but weren't four years ago.

We know that the Dobbs decision has galvanized women, especially in light of the Republican states who have passed draconian anti-abortion laws that are killing women who have had miscarriages and other problems with pregnancy.  And we're hearing about many women forced to give birth to their rapists' children.  

Conservative states like Kansas and Ohio have put the right to abortions in their constitutions through ballot measures, by-passing their legislatures.  

The numbers of early voters shows Democrats returning their ballots more than Republicans, shows women outvoting men, shows young voters voting at higher than past levels.  So everything points to a Harris victory.  

But nothing is certain until the votes are counted and whatever gimmicks Trump pulls if he loses are blocked.  

This is one of those huge moments in history where human destiny hangs in the balance.  

[Soon after I arrived in Thailand in 1967 as Peace Corps teacher in rural Thailand, I was taken out one night to a village by an AID employee.  A village not unlike the one on the right of the poster.  He hung a sheet up across the road and showed movies about the danger of communism.  I suspect, in hindsight, I was being tested and I failed dismally - to my credit, I'd like to think.  AID (CIA?) never approached me again, to my knowledge.  But I did end up with this poster.]

"politically fraught with peril"

Sen. Lisa Murkowski said that it may be legal for state courts to disqualify former President Donald Trump from running in the 2024 election, but that doing so would be “politically fraught with peril.” https://t.co/1eLC8XvjAX

— Anchorage Daily News (@adndotcom) December 23, 2023

So imagine, Arnold Schwarzenegger decides to run for President and he's getting good polling results.  But someone sues to keep him off the ballot because he wasn't a natural born United States citizen.  

The Constitution says clearly:

"Article II, Section 1, Clause 5:

No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any Person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States."

Would Sen. Murkowski or any of the others talking about "fraught with political peril" say we shouldn't enforce the Constitution because it would be "fraught with political peril" to do so? 

Well that's exactly what is happening with Murkowski and others who want to keep Trump's name on the Colorado ballot.   As President, he, at the very least, gave aid and comforted those trying to overthrow the election of Joe Biden by storming Congress and stopping the ratification of the election. (And we don't even know who all he showed or sold secret documents to yet.)

Fourteenth Amendment  Equal Protection and Other Rights

Section 3 Disqualification from Holding Office

No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.

Trump's denials are no different from the denials of any accused criminal who tries to twist words and find legal loopholes to avoid the legal consequences of their actions.  

Does he really have to be tried for insurrection?  We all watched it live.  We watched the Jan 6 committee reviews of video tape and listened to witnesses, many who were Trump appointees who were with him in the White House on January 6.  

We've heard the tape of Trump demanding of the Georgia officials: 

"All I want to do is this: I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have," Trump says, according to audio of the call. "There's nothing wrong with saying, you know, that you've recalculated."

He's a known liar and he knew he lost Georgia and was demanding the Georgia officials overturn the election by finding him the votes he needed.  

So what is this "political peril" everyone is so worried about?

First, I'd ask, when did we start inserting political consequences into court proceedings?  Yes, it's happened, but it isn't supposed to.  It's the rule of law, not the rule of the mob that courts are supposed to uphold.  

Second, what crystal ball does Murkowski have that tells her there will be political peril?  No one knows what will happen in the future.  So this is just conjecture of what might happen.  Sure, there are lots of Trump supporters who likely would be very angry.  

Propagandists on the Right will tell Trump's supporters that this was an illegal prevention of Trump's right to run for office.  Is that a reason to ignore the Constitution?  Absolutely not.  This is a phantom peril.  Of his most rabid supporters who stormed the Capitol on January 6, 

"Approximately 723 federal defendants have had their cases adjudicated and received sentences for their criminal activity on Jan. 6. Approximately 454 have been sentenced to periods of incarceration. Approximately 151 defendants have been sentenced to a period of home detention, including approximately 28 who also were sentenced to a period of incarceration."  

"Approximately 714 individuals have pleaded guilty to a variety of federal charges, many of whom faced or will face incarceration at sentencing."

(DOJ, December 2023)

I'm not saying Trump supporters won't make lots of noise, maybe do damage, and generally try to reenact another January 6.  They have already made death threats against the  judges on the Colorado Supreme Court.  Trump isn't calling on his backers to stand down.  But we have police.  We have the National Guard.  We have the military if we have to put down another insurrection.

Third, if Trump is on the ballot and loses again, we are just as likely to face political peril then as now, maybe more so.  If they successfully bully the courts into ignoring the Constitution now, Trump supporters will be even more emboldened to try to prevent a peaceful transition again.  

Surely it's a better option to uphold the Constitution now and  remove Trump from the ballot now and let his various court cases play out. Let's face this speculated political peril now rather than later.     

Fourth, if the court ignores the plain language of the US Constitution and allows Trump to be placed on the Colorado ballot (and in other states if Colorado is successful in this), then we are already in political peril, we've already stumbled out of democracy and the rule of law.  The fact that we are even debating this says we are already one or more steps into the fascist dictatorship Trump has already said he would head.  

Fifth, Gerald Ford, after he became president when Richard Nixon resigned in disgrace, also feared political peril if Nixon were prosecuted.  So he pardoned Nixon.  While I think that decision was wrong - and set up a precedent for Trump to grasp at - it didn't violate the law or the Constitution.  The president has the power to pardon.  But when pardoning Nixon 

"Ford announced that he had pardoned Richard Nixon for all crimes he committed or "may have committed" while president" (Washington Post 2006)

which tells us he fully believed that an ex-president can be tried for acts committed while president - something Trump has said couldn't be done.   

Sixth, Murkowski and others have said that the people should have the final say by voting.  But no matter how much people would want to vote for Schwartzeneger or Trump, the two are constitutionally ineligible to be president.  We don't vote on whether to ignore the Constitution.  

"Political Peril" here is the bogey man the Right (and some on the Left) are using to justify ignoring the clear language of the Constitution.  Remember, this fight is for the man who spent years spreading the lies about Obama being born in Kenya and not being a natural born US citizen.  

Trump's whole strategy is to cause distrust of every US institution and then to say that "I alone can fix it."   The idea of "political peril" is part and parcel of his game plan.  Democracies don't make exceptions for bullies who threaten violence if they don't get their way.  

That is exactly what is happening here.  Arnold Schwarzenegger is NOT a natural born US citizen and is not qualified to run for president. 

Donald Trump supported an insurrection to overthrow the vote of the people and maintain his position as president even though he lost the popular and electoral college votes.  And he isn't qualified to run for president.  

Let's face whatever peril lies ahead now instead of next November when that peril might reappear if US voters vote for Biden over Trump once again.  Let's stop that peril now rather than let the Trump machine work to more effectively falsify the election results than they did in 2020.  

"Reporting back from the future: GOP's battered wife syndrome is in full force even after Trump has left office. So SAD!"

 On May 14, 2018 I began a blog post like this:

Congressional Republicans Show Signs of Battered Wife Syndrome

Medical News Today says battered women suffer from PTSD but then adds they suffer their own special symptoms as well.

In addition to PTSD, people with battered woman syndrome show symptoms that may be confusing to outsiders.
Those include:

• learned helplessness
• refusing to leave the relationship
• believing that the abuser is powerful or knows everything
• idealizing the abuser following a cycle of abuse
• believing they deserve the abuse

I then went on to look at each of these symptoms and relate them to Congressional GOP.  (You can see the whole post at the link above.)

Today, Anonymous left this comment:

"Reporting back from the future: GOP's battered wife syndrome is in full force even after Trump has left office. So SAD!"

So sad, indeed.  But the Democrats have laid out such a powerful, logical, and easy to understand case for Trump's treachery.  And it's all there in video - the presentations of the House team and the embedded video they used as evidence.  

Even if the Republicans can't see it, or are too paralyzed to break rank, everyone else can see it.  Historians have never had it so easy.  And their students have never had it so compelling.   

Time Travel Is Real - The First Time Trump Offered To Save Everyone By Building A Wall

I used to think that imaginative fiction writers (especially science-fiction) were the ones who thought up new ideas and possibilities that less imaginative, but technically competent, engineers would eventually make real.  Things like Dick Tracy's radio watch or sliding automatic doors and other inventions.

But after seeing this excerpt from a 1958 TV show featuring a con-man named Trump who scams a whole town into believing he can save them from the end of the world by building them a wall. .

Well now I'm sure it was the other way around.  Time travelers went into the past and used their knowledge of the future to write stories like this one.  He was warning us back then.

What the fresh hell. This is REAL. Filmed in 1958- about a conman who grifts a small town of suckers into building a wall. History not subtle enough for you? GUESS THE GRIFTER'S NAME
(And watch until the end) pic.twitter.com/6FA3p6KC00

— Alex Hirsch (@_AlexHirsch) January 9, 2019

Here's the whole episode for people looking for ways to avoid doing what they should be doing.  You'll see how skeptics were scorned and even used to increase people's gullibility.  How people lost all reason to fear.

Help Plan The Future Of The Anchorage Library System

Alaska Room 2008 

A recent article by Charles Wohlforth discussed the loss of the Alaska room in the library - begun
by flooding when pipes burst and completed by the loss of librarians to maintain it.  It was (and still is) a great space.  But all the Alaskana stuff has been relocated in a much less usable spaces.

"A 2016 study comparing Anchorage's public libraries to other cities of comparable size showed we support them less in every category: fewer hours, books, staff, programs and material purchases. Anchorage spends less than half as much per resident on library materials as other cities.
The Alaska Room had seven dedicated staff when it opened, including an archivist and archive technician, said Merrell, who helped plan and lead it. Now the entire Loussac Library has only five professional librarians."

So here's your chance to help the library get back to its former (though never good enough) self, and perhaps a better incarnation.

Here's the planning outline.

Here's a link to the survey to help the library with their strategic planning

Afternoon At Elliott Bay Book Company - Scary Old Sex, The Life You Can Save, And More

While in Seattle this last time, I got the pleasure of browsing the shelves at the Elliot Bay Book Company on Capitol Hill.  Here are some books to munch on.  I hope this reminds folks that there is more to do than follow Tweets about politics,

Alec Ross - Industries of the Future


You can watch Ross talk about this book at this Ted Talk presentation.  He talks about growing up in West Virginia and teaching in West Baltimore.  He thinks the kids he saw in those place are no less intelligent than kids anywhere.  Those kids didn't fail, the system did.

Premise of the book:  If the last 20 years were shaped by the rise of digitization and the internet, if that's what produced the jobs and wealth, what's next?
The book, he says, mentions a number, but in this talk he flags three.

1. Big data analytics - land was the raw material of the agricultural age, iron of the industrial age, and data is the raw material of the information age.  Background in data analytics will get you employment for the next 20 years or so.  
2. Cyber security - just an associate degree will get you a job starting at $60,000, with college degree, $90,000.
3. Genomics - The world's next trillion dollar industry will be created by our genetic code.  

Question is:  How inclusive will these industries be?  San Jose, for instance, has 4000 homeless people.
How to compete and succeed in tomorrow's world.

Three things we can do now for your kids:

1. Do not rely on the systems to save you.  Because the system fails kids.  Create your own system to save the kids.  
2. Make sure your kids learn languages - foreign languages and computer languages.  
3. Be a life long learner yourself.  

Loss of hope and loss of opportunity is fatal.

The video fills in a lot more background.  I've just given you the barest outline.

[If I do all of these in this much detail, I'll be up way past my bedtime.  I've already decided to do this in two parts.  Each one of these is worthy of a post of its own.  But the point is to just give you a quick look at these titles, like you were browsing in the book store.]

Ngugi Wa Thiong'o - In The House Of The Interpreter

Margaret Busby, reviewing this book in the Independent writes:

"From the first pages of In the House of the Interpreter, strong and memorable themes emerge: the power of education, the rootedness of kin, the need to transform the colonialist narrative. "How could a whole village, its people, history, everything, vanish, just like that?"

This memoir takes place in 1950s Kenya as the Mau Mau are fighting for independence from the British and Ngugi is going to a school.

"Alliance High School is a sanctuary. It is an elitist establishment – the first secondary school for Africans in the country – founded by a coalition of Protestant churches and initially shaped by American charitable funding that aimed at turning out 'civic-minded blacks who would work within the parameters of the existing racial state'".

Arlene Heyman - Scary Old Sex

From a New Yorker review:

"Consider a character like the retired doctor in the story “Nothing Human,” a grandmother three times over, who takes the opportunity of a cruise-ship vacation to berate her husband for his squeamishness: “We can’t try anal intercourse because you think I’m filled with shit to the brim. You have no sense of anatomy. I can take an enema! You can use a condom!” She knows she’s being less than fair. It’s the middle of the night, and he’s half asleep; she picked a fight over his not washing his hands as he groped his way back from the cabin bathroom, and now she’s turned to nagging to cover her deeper anxieties about the relationship. Was he in there to masturbate, when they haven’t had sex since the start of the cruise? When they got together a decade ago, after her first husband’s death, they couldn’t keep their hands off each other. She misses that, and she misses her first husband, too. But she’s too wise to indulge in nostalgia. When she dreams occasionally of her first husband, it’s in a detached, friendly way—'like a little visit.'”

This is a description of one of the short stories in this book, stories about older women and sex.  The author, Anne Heyman, is a psychoanalyst in her 70s.  To prove that so called sophisticated magazines like the New Yorker aren't any different from other media, the reviewer spends most of the review on literary gossip about Heyman's early affair with a much older famous author and how that affair is treated in different works of fiction.

Peter Singer - The Life You Can Save 

Singer is a prolific and well known philosopher.  You can actually read this book online here.   In the Preface, he writes about this book:

"I have been thinking and writing for more than thirty years about how we should respond to hunger and poverty.  I have presented this book's arguments to thousands of students in my university classes and in lectures around the world, and to countless others in newspapers, magazines, and television programs.  As a result, I've been forced to respond to a wide range of thoughtful challenges.  This book represents my effort to distill what I've learned about why we give, or don't give, and what we should do a out it."

Ken Liu - The Paper Menagerie


I pulled this book off the shelf because Liu is the translator for the Chinese science fiction book, Three Body Problem.

Amal El-Mothar writes about the book for NPR:

"Ken Liu's The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories is a book from which I staggered away, dazed, unable to speak. I have wrestled with how to review it, circled my metaphors like a wary cat, and finally abandoned the enterprise of trying to live up to its accomplishment. I will be honest, and blunt, because this is a book that has scoured me of language and insight and left itself rattling around inside the shell of me."

No wonder he was asked to translate The Three Body Problem.






Neil Gaiman - The View From The Cheap Seats




I know Gaiman from the graphic novel Sandman, a gift from my son.  This is a collection of non-fiction essays.  Kirkus Review writes:

"Gaiman (Trigger Warning: Short Fictions and Disturbances, 2015, etc.) is a fan. Of course, as a writer, he’s created unforgettable worlds and characters, but in this collection of essays, introductions, speeches, and other nonfiction works, it’s his fan side that comes through most strongly. The author writes about the thrill of discovering a piece of art that feels like it was made just for you; the way certain books or songs seem to slot into a place in your heart you didn’t know was there; the way a text can mean different things at different times in your life. If the idea of going on a long, rambling walk with Gaiman and asking him about his influences sounds appealing, this is the book for you."

Jason Heller offers a longer review at NPR.

Charles Johnson - The Way Of The Writer

From a short review in the NY Times:

"Johnson’s book, the record of a single year’s email correspondence with his friend E. Ethelbert Miller, is a piecemeal meditation on the daily routines and mental habits of a writer. Johnson describes his study’s curated clutter, his nocturnal working rhythms and the intense labor of his revisions, alongside a careful outline of a theory, reminiscent of both Aristotle and Henry James, of how plots emerge from a “ground situation.” There is a winning sanity here: Johnson wants his students to be “raconteurs always ready to tell an engaging tale,” not self-preoccupied."

As I read some of this book in the bookstore, it was one I knew I needed to get back to.


I've got another bunch of images of books from that afternoon which I'll try to get up before too long.

If A Bus Driver Acted Like Trump . . .

the passengers would choose from several (not mutually exclusive, nor exhaustive) options:

• Think it's exciting to have a crazy driver
• Sit tight, trust in fate, and hope to survive
• Pray
• Get off the bus at the very next stop - assuming this was a city bus with lots of stops
• Call 911 for help
• Try to disable the bus, say, by turning off the ignition 
• Get the driver out of the driver's seat
• Jump out of the emergency exit

But what does a country with democratic traditions do?  The wheels of democracy turn slowly.  We're bound by the rule of law.

We also thought we were bound by tradition, but we now have a president who ignores those traditional restraints that are necessary in a civil society.   Miss Manners can only tell us what is proper, she has no enforcement powers to prevent the child-president from violating any tradition or policy that isn't backed by statute.  And getting the Justice Department or Congress to enforce the statutes is also problematic.

This seems to be the situation we're in.  So many rules of national etiquette are being violated, but the law doesn't deal with that.  And getting enough proof of statutory violations takes time, especially with the president's nominal party in control of Congress.

Norms are enforced by enough people agreeing the driver needs to be taken out of the driver's seat.

But Republicans in Congress are hoping the driver will go by their favorite neighborhoods (where they can, say, repeal ACA or cut corporate taxes) before the bus crashes.

That leaves it up to Democrats to put up as many roadblocks as they can until enough Republicans realize the futility of this Trumpian bargain.

You can play this exercise with other occupations.

• If your doctor acted like Trump
• If your high school teacher acted like Trump
• If your pilot acted like Trump
• If your boss (of the job you really need) acted like Trump
• If your priest acted like Trump

It works less well where there is a one to one relationship - like a doctor-patient relationship where the patient could just leave.

 It works better in situations like a teacher, or a supervisor of many people, situations where one risks something if she stands up alone.

Using these analogies may help identify strategies to stop this president before he does something so terrible (where the damage can't be undone) that the timid can no longer stand by and do nothing.

Actually, that kind of damage is already happening, but to marginalized and demonized people that the majority of Americans don't identify with, so they don't feel the damage or the personal threat, yet.

And that is part of the danger - that violating the long-standing traditions becomes the new norm.

Think about how people reacted to his speech to Congress Wednesday.  Because he didn't rant and rave, they thought it was an improvement.  It's like he has been running 20 minute miles, and now he ran a 15 minute mile and people think that's great.  Except that great runners do a mile around 4 minutes. And when you are president, you shouldn't be mediocre.

This also reveals how people pay more attention to tone than to content.  Although he didn't have any outbursts, his speech was full of factual errors and generalities. No details of how he's going to get all those jobs, improve education, or pay for that wall.

I predict that as Republicans realize that the ACA is not going to be repealed until they offer a health care plan just as good or better (in which case Obama's goal is still fulfilled), as they realize that Trump doesn't care about the deficit, or international political and economic stability, they will join the Democrats in stopping this bus driver.  Let's hope this happens before there's a spectacular crash.


This Andrew Sullivan piece echoes these ideas about the reaction to Trump's speech, but he puts it in the context of how abused spouses feel when their abuser is nice to them.

A New Life

We're headed to San Francisco in a couple of days to meet our new granddaughter who arrived Thursday.  She's inherited my mother's first name.  My Seattle granddaughter got my mother-in-law's first name and it took a while to not look for my mother-in-law when her name was mentioned.  Neither name is at all common in the US.  Mentally, seeing my mother's name attach to a new human being is exciting and confusing.  But I know from the first granddaughter experience, that soon the new granddaughter will be the rightful heir to the name, and it will sound totally normal.

















[Fill in the blank space as you like.  There are too many thoughts churning in my head to attempt to pin them down in a post.  Work for a better world for the babies being born this year.  Resist, but with respect and kindness and understanding.  Let's have a moratorium on vitriol.]

AIFF2016: Suggestions for Next Year's Film Festival

Overall, the 2016 Festival went well.  There were lots of good films, lots of visiting film makers, and some nice extra touches - like music before some films.  On the opening night, for instance, the Alaska based band whose music was in the opening night film, played before the film.  That was some thoughtful planning.

But there are always improvements to be made and here is my list for next year.

1.  Scheduling -

This is my biggest issue.  Here are two guidelines I'd like the schedulers to strive to follow.


A.  Maximize number of films someone can see.  From one time slot to another, there should be enough time for viewers to get to any of the next films.   Here's an example of what I mean.  Below is the first Saturday morning schedule. ( I realize it's hard to see the details, but you can get the basics points.)

Top row (A,B,C,D) - films that began between 11:30am and 12.  The blue-green stars indicate how many of the four following films a viewer has enough time to get to.
Someone watching film B could get to four.
Someone watching A or C could get to three.
Someone watching D could only get to two.

The pea-green circles show the number of prior films from which one could get to  the next set of films (E, F, G, and H).

Why not schedule the end times and starting times so someone could get from any of the first four to any of the second four?  This also has to take into consideration walking distance between venues.

All it takes is paying attention to
a.  how long each program is
b.  adjusting the starting times (and thus the ending times) of A, B, C, and D 
c.  adjusting the starting times of E, F, G, and H

They didn't need big adjustments as the following image shows.  A few minutes this way and that.

By starting the longest showings of A, B, C, and D a little earlier and slightly adjusting the starting times of E, F, G, and H, the movie goers' options are greatly improved.  They can see ANY of the following four films from any of the previous four films.  And it can work for the next set of films (I, J, K, and L) as well.

If someone is trying to see two particular films, it's not possible if the two are playing in the same slot.  Festival goers understand they can't see every film.   But one shouldn't have conflicts between slots.  (Slot meaning here - all the films that are showing between, say, 11:30 and 1pm, and then 1:15 and 3pm, etc.)

B.  It should be easy to see the films in competition in each category.

Films in competition are the ones the reviewers thought were the best.  I haven't always agreed, but overall, that's a good guide for picking out better films in a very crowded, generally unknown field.  So it should be easy to find and to watch the films in competition in each category.

For feature length films 

a.  they shouldn't be shown at the same time
b.  they should be marked as films in competition so it's easy to identify them
c.  as much as possible, feature length docs and features, shouldn't play at the same time

Shorts and supershorts
These are more complicated because they are shown in programs with other films.

a.  put as many shorts in competition together in the same program as possible
b.  don't have orphans - just one film in competition in any program
c.  put the films in competition at the beginning or end so someone doesn't have to sit through the whole program to catch them
d.  show more of the short, particularly the short shorts, before feature length films - this year, for example, "Arrival" was shown on GayLa night before "Real Boy."
e.  pay attention to which films are repeated in different showings - there were some shorts I saw three or four times and others I never got to see

2.  Other Issues 

Indicate Films in Competition in the list of selected films on the website
This has been the usual practice, but this year this was only done for the Docs and Short Docs.  There was a place for them to be marked, but they just weren't.  Even though the festival was notified in advance, it didn't get done.  Aside from alerting viewers, it's important information that verifies what a film maker says about her film.

Memberships - I don't know how many people are aware of AIFF memberships, what they mean, and what benefits members get. (I don't.)  Membership is not pushed on the website or at the festival.  I suspect more people would join if it were pushed a little.

Locations
49th Brewery basement room - all seats are at the same level and the screen isn't elevated so it is hard to see films,  particularly those with subtitles.  On weekend nights there was a lot of noise from nearby rooms.  Having food available is good.

Alaska Experience Small Theater - temperature regular goes from cold to hot to cold to hot.  If you sit under a vent it's really bad.  Also latecomers have to walk in at the front and opening the door lights up the screen.  Otherwise, it's a cozy little theater.

When scheduling, remember that it probably takes about ten minutes to get from the Brewery to the Alaska Experience and another ten or so to the museum.

Award titles - get them consistent
  Generally, the awards have been titled:  Winner, First Runner Up, and Honorable Mention.  But at least one of the announcers at the Awards ceremonies used other names, like Winner, Second Place, and Third Place.  I'm not sure the official names are the best.  Would someone not associated with the festival who hears "Honorable Mention" realize this is a third place honor?  It might be useful for the board to consider what names they want to use.  And then get everyone to use them consistently.

World Premiers - Mark any films that are world or North American premiers in the schedule, online, and announce it before the film is shown.

Computer Instructions  -  The audience shouldn't have to see the projectionist's computer screen.  It happened often enough - particularly at the Alaska Experience Theater - to be something worth mentioning here.



All that said, I think this was one of the better run festivals.  The volunteers were great - helpful, cheery, thinking on their feet.   The festival remains low key and, from what I hear from the film makers, one of the most hospitable festivals around.

The Three Body Problem

As people look toward 2017 with relief that 2016 will be over, I have several thoughts.

1. First, a lot of people probably think 2016 was great.  Their candidate was elected to office and now their 'enemies' are feeling what they have felt for the last eight years.  (I could, of course, argue that this is different, but in their minds it's the same - their team won.)   
2. Second, as I read the headlines in the paper and online about what a bad year it's been, I'm wondering what makes people think 2017 is going to be better.  There's lots of news we never read about because it wasn't sensational enough or bad enough.  But the key news item - the US election - doesn't suggest to me a better year.  There will be unanticipated benefits like in any disaster.  People will pull together and discover friends and personal strengths they didn't know they had.  But the man who will be slumming by moving to the White House, thinks he's the smartest guy around.   The truly smartest people are those who know they know very little.  The only way one can be totally sure of oneself is if one has a very simplistic view of the world.  And we have a very cocksure new president and that doesn't bode well.  Yes, there will be some positive impacts here and there, but overall and in the long run, the American people and the world are going to pay big time for the new president's on-the-job training and winner mentality.  
3. But third, I've just finished reading The Three Body Problem which has as one of its key points - don't assume the alternative of a very bad thing won't be worse.   This is a very interesting book, not simply because of the story it tells and how it tells it.  It is a Chinese science fiction novel that won the Hugo Award for best novel in 2015, which makes it unique already.  

The story begins with the Red Guard harassing to death a renowned physics professor during  the Cultural Revolution.   Physicists play a big role in this book.  I really don't want to talk about any more of the plot than that.  Having the plot reveal itself as you turn the pages is a big part of the enjoyment of the book.

I will say that the book's structure has the reader  opening doors into new worlds and thinking wow, I didn't expect this.  Only to have a new door and another new world and another wow, and then another, and another, and another.  This is the first part of a trilogy. The other parts are already available.  I'm just a little behind.

But, getting back to the opening of this post, I will say that the reader will spend time in a secret Chinese military post scanning the universe for signs of intelligent life.  And there's a signal.  And the person who is on duty at the time secretly sends back a signal.  The human condition, this physicist feels, is so dire, that humans would be better off being rescued by a superior form of being.

I'll say no more about the plot, but I'd send you back to my third point above.

It's a fascinating book and I'm looking forward to the next volume of the trilogy.  Have a Happy New Year and focus on making what we have better rather than looking for a savior to take care of things for us.

What Does "Change" Mean In Regard To Trump?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Obama's Press Conference Message: E PLURIBUS UNUM

Listening to Obama now in his press conference, I think there is one message that he is trying to send:  E PLURIBUS UNUM.  "Out of Many One."

It underlies his answers - which are focused on American values, on things like smooth transition, on following procedures, on minimizing Trump's outrageousness.  "The president still is in transition mode.. . There's a whole different attitude and vibe when you're not in power as when you're in power. . . We have to wait and see how they operate when they are fully briefed on the issues, have their hands on the levers, and have to make decisions."

But lest people miss the message, just look at the camera view of the president at the conference.

Screenshot from White House feed of Obama press conference Dec 16, 2016

Look carefully at the lower right corner of the image.  It's the presidential flag.  E PLURIBUS UNUM fits neatly into the corner of the image.  There is no way that was an accident.  Look at the presidential flag and think about how it has to be folded so that E PLURIBUS UNUM folds so perfectly into the corner of the image.  You'll also notice that much more of the presidential flag is in the image than the American flag.

Image from flagandbanner

As an amateur photographer and blogger, I know that I don't capture that kind of image accidentally.

And if you listen to his comments, he tells us over and over again, in his words and in his tone, that we have to improve the public discourse, that we have to stand together as Americans or foreign nations will exploit our disarray.  We are the strongest nation and that we are the only enemy who can defeat us.


The subtext is the old Pogo message.

Image from here

Trump And The Arts

Prediction:  The period beginning roughly in 2017 will be known in the future for its burst of artistic creativity in music, literature, poetry, painting, graffiti, and all other forms of human creativity.

What A Trump Presidency Would Look Like

I suspect a Trump presidency would be worse than many imagine, and not as bad as some imagine.  After Bush v Gore I proposed that there be a cable channel that followed what happened with the actual winner and a channel that created a world in which the other won.  I'd really like the Trump supporters to see what a Trump-led US would really look like.  But neither candidate will actually be able to do much until members of Congress start breaking bread with members across the aisle again.

But here's a bit of prognostication based on what we do know about Trump.

Preface:  I’ve done a several posts about Donald Trump and what makes him tick.  There’s a post about his father and grandfather. There’s the post about his mentor, Roy Cohn.  And we’ve all seen his behavior on the campaign trail.  Using that history, I think we can predict how he will behave as president.  We can’t predict specific actions, but I think we can predict the kinds of actions he’s likely to take.  What he actually does will depend on events, on other people, and on Trump’s ability to figure out how to make the US government apparatus work.

So, let’s start with his world view that underlies why he does what he does.  (A lot can be seen in his relationship with his father and with his brother who did not live up to his father’s ideal and thus was Donald’s first and closest example of a loser.  See the post on his father.)

Then we’ll look at the sorts of behaviors this world view leads to.

Finally, I’ll give some examples of those behaviors once Trump gains the White House.  


Trump’s World View:

• Power is everything.
• Life is a long poker session and while you're going to lose a few games, at the end of the night you want to go home a winner.   Poker is about bluffing.  Poker-face means being able to lie without people reading your thoughts.  Honesty is a handicap in poker.  You can call people all sorts of vile names during the game yet go home as friends.
• The worst thing you can be is a loser.  Losers are contemptible.  Not being a loser is one of Trump’s key motivations to have power.  To do or say whatever to have power.  And he trashes his opponents. And when he doesn’t have power, he at least has to look like he does.   (Would those missing tax returns show us he isn't as wealthy as he claims?)
• With power he can do whatever he likes with impunity.  Rules don’t matter if you have power.  Reward and punishment are the basic tools.  
• You do favors for people who can help you.  You try to stay nice as long as they have something you need - prestige, support for your projects, fulfillment of your lusts.  You can take what you want from the less powerful and they don’t have the power to do anything about it.  You can take the women you want.  You can stiff contractors because  taking you to court will cost them more than walking away. You can pay off the rule makers, such as politicians,  to bend the law to your will.  
• But if they don’t cooperate, you punish them.  
• You hire lawyers to fix what you’ve broken.  Lawyers, don’t simply defend you, they are also attack dogs to destroy those who cross you.

Trump’s behavior based on his need to be the most powerful.

The need to appear powerful means:

• Honesty is a handicap.  He says whatever makes him look good.  He denies all allegations of  wrong doing.   He lies about opponents.   The only truth is Trump power.  Facts that don't support him are lies.
• The center of attention is the best place to be.
• Promoting his private interests and fulfilling his needs are the basic goals.
• Putting the Trump name on everything he owns and even things he doesn’t own.
• Attack, counterattack, never apologize. (See post on Roy Cohn.)

Trump as President

Applying  his world view and the behaviors they lead to, we can anticipate the kinds of things he's likely to do as president.

Center of attention - Winning the presidency will assure this goal for as long as he holds the presidency - which could be briefly for any number of reasons, or, if he has his way, could be for his lifetime.

He’ll want to be seen with the world’s most powerful leaders.  Putin may well be the first one to be feted at the White House.  Watch for opulent displays of power and wealth with the rich and famous and powerful leaders of the world.

We can be sure his new Washington DC hotel will be the center of inaugural events as much if not more than the White House itself.   And we can assume that he will totally remodel the White House. Maybe a White Trump Tower?

The Trump name:  Look for the Trump name to appear on the White House and Air Force One.  If he can figure out a way to change  the name of the country to Trump’s United States of America, he will.  Maybe it will be on all passports.  On money.  On all signs for government buildings and national parks. How about Trump’s United States Marines?

Promoting his private interests, particularly his wealth:

Look for changes in the law that help Trump, starting with income taxes and deregulation.  He would find it useful to delete all the records of federal agencies that have records about him.  Again the IRS comes to mind and the court system.

He’ll want to make government properties available to his real estate empire.  Or make arrangements that benefit him for other businesspeople to take over government property.  He'll be privatizing agencies and land.  He might want to make National Parks into Trump resorts.  As with his campaign, he'll have the government contract with various Trump businesses.  When challenged on this, he'll say he's saving the country money and attack the challengers.  


Attack, Counterattack, Never Apologize

Nixon had an enemies list.  It will look tame compared to Trump's list.  It will have anyone who has blocked his path toward something he wanted,  anyone who mentioned his small hands or didn't do his bidding fast enough.   Top on the list are the media who can expose his lies and constantly make his life miserable.  He’s already promised to change the libel laws.  He’ll change whatever laws he can to stop the media from saying bad things about him.

Those who block his policies will suffer merciless attacks in all the ways we’ve seen on the campaign, plus whatever levers of government power he gets access to.  Republicans (Paul Ryan is toast) and Democrats who stand up to him will be subject to withering attacks, both visible and behind the scenes.  Comey will become the new J. Edgar Hoover, using the FBI as Trump’s private mafia.  If Comey doesn’t cooperate, there will be a new FBI chief quickly.

The first foreign leaders - including terrorist leaders - to belittle Trump, will see massive retaliation.  If they are white, western nations, there will be vitriol and threats of economic sanctions.  If they are part of the rest of the world, don’t be surprised to see Trump USA Air Force jets unleashed on them.


Surprises that shouldn’t be surprises

Given that Trump sees life as a game of negotiations, lots of what he's promised on the campaign is just bluffing.  Not everything will go as many expect.

The Clinton's - Since Trump’s world is a series of poker games, once he wins, the election will be over.  All the anti -Clinton talk was bluster to win the election.  All he's charged her with, he'd do himself.  It was just competitive trash talking.  If he can find the Clintons and their foundation and allies useful, he could be gracious to them and find ways to use them to increase his own power.

The Wall - I’m guessing there will be a symbolic move to start a wall along the Mexican border, but it might eventually evolve into a border-walk of casinos and hotels and a revised border patrol mission to help businesses get cheap labor and make deals with wealthy foreigners who can help the Trump mission.

Trump Supporters - They’ll continue to be fed Trump’s racist, sexist, nationalist, anti-semitic rhetoric, but other than that, their lives won’t be better.  He was nice to them while he needed them.  To the extent that he will need them for his next terms, he’ll feed them the lies they love.  He'll rant to them about those blocking his reforms.   But he has no real interest in them other than what they can do for him and he has no idea of how to actually improve their lives.  Trump’s tax plans will cripple   the economy and the hollowness of making America great again will become obvious.  Except for the very, very rich.  But even they will be vulnerable to a failing economy.


I could go on and on, but you get the idea.  These are the things that Trump would like to do if he could.  But I imagine he'll find the combined resistance of the Clinton supporters and the establishment Republicans he's displaced, of the bureaucracy which is intended to slow down despots, of the courts, and of women and  people of color will be overwhelming.   And don't forget the rest of the world.  Even his supporters will eventually figure out they've been had.

Preferably, Clinton will win and the Trump presidency can be the basis of cable television series.

Whether It's US Election Divisions Or Israelis And Palestinians - We're All Humans And We Need To Work It Out

Here's an LA Times headline on that got this post going. 

"This election is much more than Trump vs. Clinton. It's old America vs. new America"

OK, in some ways I don't disagree with the authors.  But we've been hearing variations of this for quite a while now.  Here's some of the script:

"There’s the old one — a distinction not of age alone, but cultural perspective and outlook — that Trump appeals to as he courts white, rural voters and social conservatives.  .  . 

And there’s the new America, the one Hillary Clinton has homed in on with her appeals to women, gay and lesbian Americans, the young, and minorities."

This has been the story of the US since we were colonies.  Each group already here is threatened by the newcomers.  The newcomers are less human, less civilized, don't speak proper English, will take us over and destroy what we have.  

And then the newcomers become the old guys who say the same thing about on new newcomers.

Here are some quotes from the past:

‘’Help wanted but No Irish need Apply’’

From a long letter by Benjamin Franklin on the problem of German immigrants:

Those who come hither are generally of the most ignorant Stupid Sort of their own Nation, and as Ignorance is often attended with Credulity when Knavery would mislead it, and with Suspicion when Honesty would set it right; and as few of the English understand the German Language, and so cannot address them either from the Press or Pulpit, ’tis almost impossible to remove any prejudices they once entertain.

How about Italians?  Here's from Wikipedia:

"After the American Civil War, during the labor shortage as the South converted to free labor, planters in southern states recruited Italians to come to the United States to work mainly in agriculture and as laborers. Many soon found themselves the victims of prejudice, economic exploitation, and sometimes violence. Italian stereotypes abounded during this period as a means of justifying this maltreatment of the immigrants. The plight of the Italian immigrant agricultural workers in Mississippi was so serious that the Italian embassy became involved in investigating their mistreatment. Later waves of Italian immigrants inherited these same virulent forms of discrimination and stereotyping which, by then, had become ingrained in the American consciousness.[11]
One of the largest mass lynchings in American history was of eleven Italians in New Orleans, Louisiana, in 1891."

 My point?  All the same rhetoric - fear of crime, loss of jobs, loss of culture and language, are nothing new.  This has been the reaction of the people already here to every wave of new immigrants.

 Immigrants with darker skin aren't any different from the immigrants that have been coming to North America since the Pilgrims.  They all eventually assimilate and become Americans.

BUT, it's harder for darker skinned immigrants because white Americans can't seem to get past their skin color and keep treating them badly.  It's not their culture or their language or their religion.  Protestants didn't like Catholics, or even different kinds of Protestants.  

For white immigrants all that evolves into a culturally 'acceptable' American ethnicity with Columbus Day and St. Patrick's Day parades after a generation or two.  Blacks and Mexicans and Filipinos can't as easily anglicize their names and 'fit in' like Germans and Poles and even Italians and Jews.

So let's stop making like this is a cultural shift that is significantly different from what's happened in the past.  Or that Americans from non-European backgrounds have cultures so different from mainstream America that this is different from European immigration.  It's not.

It's the same old rhetoric.  The only difference is the difficulty of some whites to accept people who can't pass as white even after they speak perfect 'American' English.  The new immigrants are not even necessarily less conservative on many social and economic issues, but since they've experienced discrimination themselves, the go to the party that is more tolerant and accepting.

Before the Tea Party and Trump gave them a place to go, the only liberal allowable targets of discrimination were' hillbillies' and 'white trash.'  Now let's see if liberals can start turning our our tolerance to these groups.  Can we start listening to their stories and understanding why they hate others, why they need to dominate women?  It's not as though some liberal men don't also treat women poorly.  It's not that we have to accept their views, but at least we should understand where they come from, listen to their narratives, like we do all the other groups?  

Liberals have tolerated racist and misogynist rap lyrics.  Why not take the same view of Trump's misogynist supporters that Kanye West uses to at least explain, if not excuse, misogyny in rap?

“So let’s take that to the idea of a black male in America, not getting a job, or getting fucked with at his job, or getting fucked with by the cops or being looked down upon by this lady at Starbucks. And he goes home to his girl … and this guy is like … you just scream at the person that’s the closest to you.” West linked the use of misogynistic and violent language in rap to a “lack of opportunities” before switching tack and discussing hatred and racism.

I'm not suggesting any misogyny or racism is acceptable.  But we have to understand how men get to that place and figure out how to shape our society so it doesn't produce so many angry, dispossessed people.  We have to understand their narrative and help them see that there are other narratives.  Perhaps that their economic woes aren't really due to immigrants, but to weakened labor laws, weakened economic regulation of corporations, and tax laws that help the rich get much richer and the poor poorer.  The ruling class has used race to divide and conquer for ever.  For the wealthy right, 'class' is a politically incorrect topic.

Here is an example of that idea in a totally different context.  I just read an interview in the Sun Magazine with a Jewish Israeli and a Muslim Palestinian who both are committed to nonviolence and belong to Combatants for Peace.  The Israeli, Rami Elhanan, tells the interviewer at one point:

Elhanan: There are two possibilities: One, people open their eyes and realize we have to change. (This is the less likely possibility right now.) Or, two, we end up with an all-out war that results in oceans of blood and won’t lead to a resolution, because we won’t be able to push the Palestinians into the desert, and they won’t be able to throw us into the sea. The war will just go on and on. In the long run I fear for the existence of Israel. So many young, educated Israelis go abroad and don’t come back. Almost everyone has family members who live in other countries. And the ones who are leaving are the intellectuals and the artists and the scientists — people we need to ensure the survival of a democratic society. The ones left behind are the ultra-Orthodox and the less educated. Sometimes I see it as a coming apocalypse. It’s terrifying. But I don’t want to succumb to doomsday thinking. I want to believe that once people see that the price of war is greater than the price of peace, there will be a shift in attitude. You can’t live forever by the sword.
Hertog: Though it has often been tried in history.
Elhanan: That’s true. But it’s also true that historically all conflicts end. One year, two years, twenty years — in Ireland it took them eight hundred years to make peace. At some point we will have peace here as well.

Elhanan and his Palestinian counterpart and friend, Bassam Aramin go around talking to school kids.

Elhanan:  ". . . This morning, for example, a student sent me an e-mail saying I had shown him light in the darkness. That was from a boy in a military-preparatory course. These kids are idealistic and committed, but they know nothing. They are the product of indoctrination by the Israeli educational system. You should have seen these students: the tension, the emotions, the anger. They have rarely interacted with Palestinians and have learned to see them all as terrorists and criminals. It’s a shock for them to consider a different narrative. Bassam, who was with me, succeeded in breaking down their defenses and showed them an image of a Palestinian who is not a victim or an enemy, but who also does not surrender his pride. After a meeting like that, those kids did not walk out the same as they came in. They will continue thinking, and they will talk at home about what they have heard. That’s the work we do. There are no shortcuts. We change the narrative, person by person."

It's a powerful interview.  Both men have lost children to the conflict.  Both take huge risks doing the work they do.  It's inspiring for those who think there is no hope.

Elhanan: Nowadays everyone is hopeless. It’s fashionable to have no hope. People wave their despair as if it were some kind of flag. You can’t live like that, especially if, like me, you have already experienced the worst. You can’t just give up because the world is terrible. You have to find hope in small things.

I would say the political divide we have in the US is a minor disagreement compared to the Israeli - Palestinian conflict.  Except for the indigenous people of North America, everyone else has no particular claim to being here that's better than anyone else's.  If "I'm more entitled than you because I've been here three generations and you only two generations" has any validity, then all of us who've been here less than 500 years should be banned and let North America's indigenous people, who have been here for 10,000 years or more,  have their land back.

We need to start, not talking, but listening to everyone.  We need to acknowledge other people's grievances and hopes, and then get them to do the same with ours.  It's not as hard as it seems because, in the end, we're all human beings.  We're born to into a family, have childhoods that turn into adolescence and adulthood, face the task of making our own living in the world, finding a partner, and starting the process over again.  These are the universal themes that unite human beings and make stories from any culture understandable to every other culture.

Here's an excerpt from the interview with the Palestinian, Bassam Aramin, on breaking past each others' narratives.

Aramin:  . . .  That first meeting lasted about three hours. I told a lot of lies, because I didn’t trust them, but it was amazing just to talk. They spoke about how they’d occupied us and harassed us — they admitted it!
They were real soldiers. I wasn’t much of a fighter. I had been arrested because I was part of a group of kids who’d thrown stones. My friends had also thrown two hand grenades at an Israeli patrol, but because they didn’t know how to use the grenades, nobody had been killed or injured. I felt I wasn’t at the same level as these Israelis. To impress them, I boasted that I had shot soldiers and that I had thrown the hand grenades at the Israeli patrol.
Hertog: If you didn’t trust the Israelis, what made you decide to meet with them?
Aramin: I already had one child at that time, and I was thinking of his future. I had decided that I needed to take responsibility, not just fight Israelis. And the Israelis needed to take part in ending the occupation. For them it was security; for me it was my life. We both wanted to find a solution. Palestinians need Israelis, so they can learn to understand us and explain our point of view to others in their society.
Hertog: How did Combatants for Peace come into being from that meeting?
Aramin: At the end of the meeting someone suggested that we meet again. I asked why, because I had assumed it was supposed to be just once. And one of the Israelis suggested that we could work together against the occupation. When he actually called it an “occupation,” I thought, Wow. And I agreed to meet again. In the period before our second meeting, we looked up all the information we could find about these Israelis, so we knew they were for real. Meanwhile they looked up what we had done. And when we met again after two weeks, we talked at a more personal level and discovered we actually had a lot in common.

We either work to make things better, or we let them get worse.  I don't see there being much of a choice here.

Oil Pro: "The oil industry is in a horrible dilemma."

This blog is, at its core, about how we know what we know.  We all know that different people see the world differently than we do.  We have lots of sayings, like, "Where you stand, depends on where you sit" that express this notion.

The problem is that while people know there are other points of view, too many assume that their own view is THE correct one.  And there are lots of positions one can take that are 'right' from one angle, but wrong from another.  It may be 'right' for you and your cronies, but wrong for the vast majority of people.   It may be right in the short run, but wrong in the long run.  Or it may have been right for a time, but the times have changed.

We are closing in on the time when oil stops being the right decision.  Where big oil can put their pipelines wherever they please, the people whose land they take to do it, be damned.   It's already the wrong decision when it comes to climate change.  Massively wrong.  And before long, all the subsidies and political and military assistance that have favored big oil will be tilting toward other energy sources.

That's the essence of this article from OilPro - a website that appears to be aimed at people working in the oil industry.

"The oil industry is in a horrible dilemma. New developments simply do not have enough time to play out. Oil sector developmental activity will disappear for around two decades. The disruption crash is inevitable - it will stifle new projects. It compromises recovery of initial CAPEX outlay. New projects, if they were to commence today, will barely start production before the disruption black hole opens up and swallows them. Projects simply will not happen. This new situation all but wipes out cost recovery opportunity. 

Supply side capacity constraints are unlikely to occur. Existing players have a brief period to produce while demand persists, accrue cash, and use that cash to diversify out of oil. This is the Saudi strategy. It is now perfectly clear what they are up to. They are out to aggressively realise what they can now, while prices are elevated(!), and use that cash strategically to develop other sectors in their economy for the longer term. Oil's heyday is over. Hydrocarbons are in decline. COP 21 dealt the killer blow. The Saudis know it. Oil companies that want to survive will copy them - the race to diversify out of oil has started. It is now a matter of survival. Recent sector history is littered with half-hearted efforts in this regard. A sense of urgency might finally produce a different result. Dividends are going to have to stop. It is madness to continue to pay them when your very existence is at stake.  

The economics of projects currently underway - such as Statoil's Johan Sverdrup - will undoubtedly undergo intense review in the light of this revelation. Most projects currently on the slate will be shelved indefinitely. The same goes for a number of projects already underway. This will be painful for those involved."

Alaska legislators need to upgrade their mental, energy software.

Thanks to Jeremy for this article.