Trump's China Deals And Alaska's Liquid Natural Gas Pipeline

NPR had a report on Trump's visit to China the other day and the story essentially said China was eating our lunch.  I'm going to offer you a fair amount here, because it's all relevant, but the key points are:

1.  Trump has sidelined the professionals who know China and replaced them with political hacks.  

2.  Even with seasoned professionals at the table for the US, China is one of the most restrictive countries for foreign businesses and the US is one of the most open, giving China great advantages.

3.  China has regularly supported its private companies so they could compete with an unfair advantage overseas.

4.  China, when it does work with foreign companies, requires partnerships with Chinese companies and access to all their technology advances.  

OK, here's from the NPR piece, just before this point there's a discussion about American beef having a much higher tariff than Australian beef.

"James McGregor, president of the greater China region for the consulting firm APCO, says China's lifting of the U.S. beef ban in May is the latest case of too little, too late. And he's not optimistic the Trump administration is focused enough to improve business for U.S. companies in China.
"There is no strategy and professionals are not involved," he says. "The people from [the U.S. Trade Representative's office] and Commerce and State are sidelined."
McGregor says instead of representatives from the U.S. Trade Representative and other government staff who typically deal with China, President Trump has political appointees with little to no trade experience engaging with the Chinese.
"It's really been a farce," says McGregor. "And if it continues like this, it's really going to hurt American business. The Chinese are pros. They know what they're doing. Anybody sitting on the other side of the table as Chinese negotiator has been doing that subject for 20 years."
McGregor says Chinese negotiators have called friends of his in Beijing to see what the Chinese side could give to Trump during his Beijing visit to please his base. He calls these "Twitterable deliverables," and he puts the lifting of the Chinese ban on U.S. beef in this category: an easily promotable gift that, because it has come so late, may not have a meaningful impact on the U.S. economy."

What would have an impact, says William Zarit, chairman of the board at the American Chamber of Commerce in China, is forcing China to open its markets to U.S. business and to stop giving preferential treatment to Beijing's own so-called "global champion" companies. Tech giants Baidu, Alibaba and Tencent, as well as telecommunications company Huawei, have all received generous support from Beijing. 

"These global champions are being nurtured in the domestic market with protection and with strong state support, so that in some ways, when these companies go international, it's tantamount to a Western company competing with the country," says Zarit. 

And when U.S. companies come to China, they're often forced to hand over their technology and enter into joint ventures with Chinese partners. U.S. companies in at least 10 sectors — including automotive, healthcare, tech and entertainment — have investment caps preventing them from competing with Chinese companies on a fair playing field. Chinese companies in these sectors have no such caps in the U.S. market.

I thought about this as I read  the Alaska Dispatch New account of the an Alaska deal signed with China's Sinopec, two large Chinese financial institutions, and the Chinese government to move along  the governor's pet project, the one he ran for governor to accomplish, a liquid natural gas pipeline.  

Are we once again the colony having our resources exploited by wealthy Outsiders?  Is the governor making too many concessions because this project is so important to him?  Are the Chinese giving Trump some empty fluff he can use to show his base how successful his trip was?  The ADN article said that nothing was really final and that "senior Sinopec executives weren't aware of the gas pipeline deal with Alaska."

Our governor is smarter and more pragmatic than most of our politicians.  He spent time as a lawyer in court over oil and gas issues.  That's a good way to learn to understand a business and the players in it.  

Maybe the best thing for the state is to just be able to use the gas we have to raise revenue while we can.  There don't seem to be any details available and we probably don't have that much leverage anyway.   Though I have wondered, with global warming, whether we might spare the $43 billion price tag for the pipeline (which experience suggests will be considerably higher in the end) and just wait a few years until tankers can pick up the gas directly from the North Slope.

But for now, we're part of Trump's evidence of what a great negotiator he is.  And maybe it's a show of Governor Walker's smarts, that he's willing to let Trump get the credit.  Stay tuned, this is going to be a long process.

Would The US Be Different If Women, Or People of Color, Or Blind People Had The Power Of White Males In Our Society

I've often spoken to my friend L about what it means to be blind.  The human-created world is designed by sighted people.  What would be different, I asked L, if blind people had designed things?  She was uncharacteristically silent.  She'd never asked herself that question despite being a blind activist.

And I think we should start thinking about how the world would be different if women had the power of men.  Or African-Americans had the power of whites.  Or a coalition of people of color.  Or atheists.  How would things be different?   A thought experiment if you will.

Let's be clear.  Despite the fears of evangelical Christians that they are being discriminated against and despite the fears of white middle class workers that their cultural identity is disappearing, white males, are still firmly in power.

Let's just look at some numbers.  (Except for presidents - one Catholic and the rest Protestants - I couldn't easily tease out the religion information.  It won't be as stark as the president numbers, but I'm sure the vast majority of the people in these top positions are Christians.)

	White	Other	Male	Female
US Presidents	98%	2%	100%	0%
US House	79%	21%	81%	19%
US Senate	90%	10%	79%	21%
Fortune 500 CEOs	96%	4%	94%	6%
US Population	77%	23%	49%	51%

Sources:  House and Senate, Fortune 500 gender, Fortune 500 race, US Population

The numbers come from different years, but they give us a stark example of how white males overwhelmingly hold the top positions of power in the US government and in the largest corporations.  Only the US House of Representatives is close to matching the population race statistics, and even there it's a four to one advantage for whites. (I'd guess that gerrymandering people of color into packed districts plays a part here.  Black Reps often get 60-90% majorities when they are all packed into a few districts, thus wasting votes for Democrats that could have made other districts more competitive.) It's also four to one for males even though females make up slightly more than half the population.

I understand that most white males probably don't feel that powerful.  And they aren't.  They can't find a job, and if they have one it doesn't pay as much as it should.  They're kids don't listen to them.  Even Trump must be complaining about his lack of power to do things.  Individually most Americans don't feel too powerful.  But look at those numbers!   The people in power in this country have been white males since the beginning, and the rules have been made by people who see the world from a white male perspective.  If the average white male doesn't feel powerful, just think how the average female and the average person of color, or the average non-Christian must feel.

Would women earn as much as men if the top positions gave them the high level power men have  now?   Would birth control costs not be covered in many health insurance policies while viagra is?  Would there be universal child-care?  Or would men stay home and take care of the kids?

Would prisons be populated disproportionately by people of color if they sat in these top positions of power?  Would black wealth be equal to white wealth?

People these days don't have much alone-without-a-screen thinking time.  But I'm going to challenge you to imagine how the world if different groups of people had controlled the top positions of government and business the way white males have.  What laws would be different?  How would our lives be different?

Perhaps we all feel so powerless because the gap isn't so much about gender or race as it is about class.  For a while we had a viable middle class and the gap between the salaries of those at the top of the organization weren't nearly as extreme as they are today.  And with that money, the wealthy can use sophisticated advertising techniques to convince white males it's about race and gender, not about class.

Perhaps the biggest fear of white males as they feel power slipping away (though the numbers show that their perceptions are quite different from the facts) is that people of color and women will treat white males the way white males have treated people of color and women.  That is a scary thought isn't it?

Trump Supporters In The News This Week - Who Are They Really? Arpaio, Black Guy For Trump, Roger Stone, and Sam Clovis

The names and images flash past us quickly on the radio, TV, Facebook, Twitter, newspapers or wherever you get what passes for news these days.  There are so many different characters that most of us never really know who they are.   Here are a couple of Trump cronies you might want to know more about.

Joe Arpaio - Trump just pardoned Sheriff Joe.  How bad is he?  You already know about his racial profiling of Hispanics, and his role in pushing the Obama-is-a Kenyan bullshit. (Sorry, it's the right word), but there were other tricks too.  Here's a story from the Phoenix New Times* about how he staged an assassination attempt on himself including framing the fake assassin.

"In 1999, Arpaio's staff rigged the entire fake assassination plot – just so he could get his mug on TV.
News cameras were already rolling when deputies arrested Saville. Gullible TV reporters gobbled up Arpaio’s story about a local Unabomber who was plotting to kill America’s “toughest” sheriff.
In 2004, a jury found Saville innocent of all charges. Not only that, but it ruled that Arpaio’s minions helped buy the bomb parts themselves and “entrapped” Saville in a TV-ready murder plot.
Arpaio was re-elected just months after the jury verdict. (Journalists John Dougherty and Janna Bommersbach unraveled the tale in separate articles).
“Jurors listened in disbelief as testimony showed it was the sheriff’s money that purchased the bomb parts, and an undercover officer who drove Saville around to buy the parts,” Bommersbach wrote.
Records show that the final payment to Saville went out on August 28, 2008. The total $1.1 million that taxpayers spent to settle with him doesn't include money that the county attorney spent prosecuting him, or funds paid to deputies who worked long hours to frame him."

Here is the Phoenix New Times list of key stories they've written in the last 20 years on Arpaio.

*Since I didn't know this newspaper, I did check on line.  Wikipedia says that the Phoenix New Times has been reporting on Arpaio for a long time and the editors were arrested over an Arpaio story and the paper eventually won $3.75 million for false arrest.

Screen Shot from Daily Kos

Black Guy For Trump -  Maybe you saw this guy prominently behind Trump when he gave his 75 minute speech in Phoenix this week.  Well, here's some background on him from The Daily Kos.



That story links the website on his T-shirt in the picture.  Here's the first thing I saw there:

​​​ "The Real K K K Slave Masters Revealed, 2Thess.2:1-11 & they
are CHEROKEE Indians (Hidden Babylonians). The reason GOD​
YAHWEH chose TRUMP to be President is to be the  White & Black
Man's DELIVERER from the Babylon, like the Gentile  King CYRUS,
Isa.45:1-6!"

Roger Stone -  The other day, Fox News, among others, reported that Roger Stone

"'The people who are calling for his impeachment are the people who didn’t vote for him. They need to get over it. They lost. Their candidate had every advantage,' he said, pointing out that the Hillary Clinton campaign spent $2 billion dollars compared to the Trump campaign's $275 million.
'Sorry, he whipped her a**. It’s over. You lost,' Stone said. 'Try to impeach him. Just try it. You will have a spasm of violence in this country, an insurrection, like you’ve never seen.'

So who is this Roger Stone whose words are important enough to quote on Fox and other places?
If you have Netflix, find Get Me Roger Stone to see his life story starring Rogers Stone.  But if not, you can read the sordid tale on Wikipedia.  Here's a short excerpt:

"When he was a junior and vice president of the student government at a high school in northern Westchester County, New York, he manipulated the ouster of the president and succeeded him. Stone recalled how he ran for election as president for his senior year:
'I built alliances and put all my serious challengers on my ticket. Then I recruited the most unpopular guy in the school to run against me. You think that's mean? No, it's smart.' . . .
As a student at George Washington University in 1972, Stone invited Jeb Magruder to speak at a Young Republicans Club, then successfully asked Magruder for a job with Richard Nixon's storied Committee to Re-elect the President.[29] Stone then dropped out of college to work for the committee.[30]
Stone's political career began in earnest with activities such as contributing money to a possible rival of Nixon in the name of the Young Socialist Alliance—then slipping the receipt to the Manchester Union-Leader. He also got a spy hired by the Hubert Humphrey campaign who became Humphrey's driver. According to Stone, during the day he was officially a scheduler in the Nixon campaign, but: 'By night, I'm trafficking in the black arts. Nixon's people were obsessed with intelligence.'[31] Stone maintains he never did anything illegal during Watergate.[30]"

Image from Science 

Sam Clovis - Trump's nominee for for science advisor at the United States Department of Agriculture  (USDA) who will be in charge of $3 billion of research and education money.  No satirist could have made up a more ludicrous nominee.  Here's the Pro-Publica piece on Clovis.  A snippet:

"Clovis has never taken a graduate course in science and is openly skeptical of climate change. While he has a doctorate in public administration and was a tenured professor of business and public policy at Morningside College for 10 years, he has published almost no academic work.
Clovis is better known for hosting a conservative talk radio show in his native Iowa and, after mounting an unsuccessful run for Senate in 2014, becoming a fiery pro-Trump advocate on television."

You'll note it says he has a doctorate in public administration.  Since that's my field, I wanted to know where it was from.  Clovis' Linked in page says it's from Morningside College in Sioux City Iowa.  I checked Morningside College's website.  It says they have two graduate programs:  A masters in education and one in nursing.  It's Saturday, so I can't call Morningside College.  So there may be some explanation.  Maybe they had a program in the past.  But I couldn't find it on the website.

[UPDATED August 27, 2017:  Responding to Mike from Iowa - I should have given the link to the Clovis Linkedin page.  Here's a screen shot showing what is listed on education there.]

"Every time Trump has broken a window, GOP leaders have obediently swept up the glass."

Some articles I found worth reading.


1.  From the LA Times:

"Every time Trump has broken a window, GOP leaders have obediently swept up the glass, if sometimes after some initial grumbling. Their deference could explain why Trump might imagine Republicans would ultimately defend him even if he fired special counsel Robert S. Mueller III, as he’s reportedly considered this week."

As I've said before, this is like watching a car racing toward the cliff in slow motion.  Slowly Republicans in Congress - at least in the Senate - are going to figure out that the short term benefits of having a so-called Republican in the White House do not outweigh the long term harm of having Trump in the White House.

2.  From the New York Times, a long article about Kris Kobach, a smart guy whose moral reasoning seems particularly warped.   His mission is to pass the most restrictive voter registration laws possible to keep non-whites from voting.  He did that as Kansas Secretary of State and now he's the "vice chairman of a new Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity to be led by Vice President Mike Pence."  This guy uses up a lot of the ACLU's resources.

Raspail's The Camp of the Saints is also mentioned in the article.  Fits in well with the Bannon crowd.

"At the A.C.L.U. hearing, Kobach argued that his restrictive measures were justified by the high stakes. 'We are preventing noncitizens from voting in elections,' he said. “And when a few noncitizens vote, those can swing a close election.'”

And when a lot of citizens are prevented from voting, those can swing less close elections.

When I read about people like this my mind screams, "WHY????"   Why does his brain work this way?  Is there something about his brain chemistry that's different from most people?  Was he picked on as a kid?  Maybe that difference caused him to be picked on.  There are lots and lots of other possible explanations.  Figuring out these things - rather than just dismissing him as evil or whatever else - is what will move us along as a species.

3.  Mapping Police Violence

I'm not sure what you'll get since the link goes to the main page, which I assume changes.  But the website tracks blacks and whites killed by police.  The statistics are shocking and surprising.  It's all about graphics and data.  A number of different displays.  And there's a link to download their database.

There are lots of possible explanations for these seeming disparities, but the data aren't as easy to get. Is it simply more racist cops in some places?  Better police training in some places?  Different policing styles, like beat cops?  Age of the population or other factors that matter?  Stability of the population?  Lots to think about here.

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

AIFF2016: Donald Cried Follow Up

I sent a long list of questions to Kris Avedisian last night (well, early this morning) about his film Donald Cried.



I heard back from Kris and Kyle Espeleta (one of the producers.)  I sent the questions via the Donald Cried website contact page, so I don't have a copy of all the questions I sent.  But one was about who Tom Luke was (the film was dedicated to him in the credits).  Kris wrote,

"Tom Luke is my beloved uncle who passed away right before the film was made. I believe he was in some way responsible for all the snow given to us during production."

For anyone else for whom the characters in the movie were like real people you felt you knew, and about whom you still have lots of questions, here's an April 7, 2016 interview Kyle shared with me of Kris and others at the Film Society of Lincoln Center that addresses some of those questions.  

Would More Women Police Officers Reduce Police Violence?

My previous post looked at FBI Director Comey's comment that crime was going up and the only single cause he could correlate with this was that police were more timid because of fears of viral video tapes.
I went through a number of issues that affect crime and people's response to police.  After posting, my mind kept rolling on.  I'm a big proponent of the idea that many of our intractable problems stem from people's models of the world, which cause them to draw different conclusions from the same facts.  And this year's media coverage of white police killing unarmed black men illustrates my hypothesis.

Police easily get jaded about human beings. They see people at their worst - when they are pulled over for traffic violations, when they crime victims, when they have committed crimes.  And if an individual officer grew up in a household that had racial stereotypes, that saw things in absolutes, then it's easy to think about the world as made up of good guys and bad guys.  Anyone who doesn't cooperate with the good guys (the police) is automatically a bad guy.

African Americans all have stories of being treated differently - whether it was a lowered expectation by a teacher, being followed by security in a department store, or in any of hundreds of other small slights.  Lynching stories are in every African-American family history.  For many if not most blacks, the kind of treatment they've seen in those viral video tapes is surprising only because the national media are actually covering their story. 

While I think that there are lots of different factors that affect the crime rate in any particular community at any particular time, I think those two different interpretations of police action are the underlying cause of the tension between police and blacks at the moment.  And why the New York Times and others, came down so strongly against Director Comey's statement.

So, to the title question:  Do Police Have To Be Violent And Macho?

I googled 'demographics of US police' hoping to get some data on the economic and education background of  US local police officers.  Yesterday, I quoted the Department of Labor saying that a high school diploma and GED are required everywhere, and that some places wanted some college or even a bachelor's degree.  I was trying to get information on the actual number of officers at different educational levels because I think this is part of the problem.

But what google gave me were stories about women in law enforcement and I think this Washington Post article is a good start for answering the question about violence.  I'll give you a couple of quotes that I don't think need any comment from me.  The first is from David Couper, the former chief of police in Madison, Wis

• "As David Couper, the former chief of police in Madison, Wis., recently wrote: Women in policing make a difference — a big difference — they make for a better police department. Haven’t you wondered why women police are not the ones involved in recent officer involved shootings? After all, they are usually smaller, somewhat weaker in physical strength, and yet they don’t appear to shoot suspects as often."

• ". . . In fact, over the last 40 years, studies have shown that female officers are less authoritarian in their approach to policing, less reliant on physical force and are more effective communicators. Most importantly, female officers are better at defusing potentially violent confrontations before those encounters turn deadly."

•  "One of the earliest studies, sponsored by the Police Foundation in 1974, found that women encountered many of the same kinds of situations (involving angry, drunk or violent individuals) and were as capable as men. The study’s most important finding, though, was that 'women act less aggressively and they believe in less aggression.'”  

• ". . . In a 1988 article in the Journal of Police Science and Administration researcher Joseph Balkin reviewed the U.S. and international research spanning 14 years on the involvement of women in police work. He found uniformly that women not only perform the job of policing effectively, but are better able to defuse potentially violent situations: 'Policemen see police work as involving control through authority,” he wrote, 'while policewomen see it as a public service.'”

• ". . . the 1992 Christopher Commission report on police brutality in the Los Angeles Police Department. The commission was created in the aftermath of the Rodney King beating and the subsequent devastating riots: “Virtually every indicator examined by the commission establishes that female LAPD officers are involved in excessive use of force at rates substantially below those of male officers.” The commission explained: “Many officers, both male and female, believe female officers are less personally challenged by defiant suspects and feel less need to deal with defiance with immediate force or confrontational language.”

• ". . . A 2002 study by the National Center for Women & Policing of excessive force incidents in seven major city police departments found that “the average male officer is over eight and a half times more likely than his female counterpart to have an allegation of excessive force sustained against him … [and] two to three times more likely than the average female officer to have a citizen name him in a complaint of excessive force.”

 The author, Katherine Spillar, then points out:

"local police departments averaged just 12 percent women in their ranks, only slightly higher than the 7.6 percent of women in local departments 20 years earlier."

 She says larger police departments have a higher percentage - 18% - but that's only because of many anti-discrimination law suits from the 1970s which are now beginning to expire.

She blames the lack of women on three things:

"Misguided recruiting practices, ongoing discriminatory hiring processes and hostile work places."

I would also raise again, the issue of education.  Is there a way to get better educated police officers?  Police work, because of high level of conflict inherent in the job, tends to isolate officers from the rest of society  Thus, there is probably more camaraderie among police.  This might be another obstacle to women.

One of my older posts that still gets lots of hits and may offer more insight on women in law enforcement is Early Women In The FBI.

[Sorry for reposting - Feedburner problems.]

Homeless Follow Up - It Looked Like A Raid

 I mentioned the homeless lined street in Venice last night near Gjusta's.  Today after running various errands, I did a loop to the beach on the way home and passed the street where all the homeless were.  And it looked like a raid.

In Anchorage, the police go through homeless camps along the bike trails and clear everything out.

And here were Hazmat and garbage trucks and people high-pressure- hosing down the sidewalk.

Didn't look good.

But along Rose Avenue all the belongings were piled up on the sidewalk there.  It went way on down the block.

So I pulled over between two parked cars and asked someone what was happening.

They're cleaning the street.  They do it every Friday.

Sometimes things aren't what they seem to be. 

[Feedburner problem, going to repost this to see if it gets through.  Sorry for those who've already seen this.]

UA President's Bonus Rescinded And Fuller Cowell, The Regent Who Voted No

This is old news, but I want to complete the story I started on this topic and also get people to start paying attention to who is on the Board of Regents.

At their September 8, 2014 meeting, the Board of Regents voted, at the President's request, to rescind the $320,000 retention bonus.  I'm hoping this is the end of this particular series of posts, but I would note that the president's request did say that the bonus was inappropriate at this time.  Leaving open, perhaps, a more appropriate time.  But I want to give the president the benefit of the doubt.  As I've indicated in previous posts on this topic, he's already earning - with pensions from the Air Force and the Alaska Railroad - and his UA salary, in the ballpark of half a million a year.  Anyone could find something to do with $320,000, but at his income level, surely he can live well without it.

One of the regents voted against rescinding the bonus.  KFQD reported:

"[Cowell] says the university wants to attract high-quality leaders and the vote sets a bad precedent. Gamble says he appreciates the support of the board."

It seems that the rest of the regents thought giving the bonus sends an even worse message to students, faculty, and staff of the university system, not to mention potential donors, the legislature, and the general public.  And I'm not sure what bad precedent it sets.  That the Board listens to the president?  That it is sensitive to public opinion?  That it can correct a mistake?  Or that if you want to be president of the Alaska system, your salary won't be unlimited?

I emailed Regent Cowell right after the vote to ask some questions, but I never got a response.  He's also the only regent who doesn't list his phone number on the University pages for the regents.

So I took to the internet to try to figure out who he might be.  I'll warn you, I've been doing this long enough to know that figuring out someone's values and motives from scraps of bio information is a risky business.  At best it can let you speculate and raise questions to ask.

So let's look at Cowell's online shadow.

First, from the University of Alaska's bio of the regent.

Fuller A. Cowell of Anchorage was appointed in 2007 by Governor Palin. Regent Cowell was raised on a homestead in Fairbanks, attended Lathrop High School and studied biology at UAF. He completed his bachelors of business administration with an emphasis in marketing at National University, Sacramento, California graduating Summa Cum Laude. Cowell completed the Advanced Executive Program at the Kellogg Business School, Northwestern University, in Chicago, Illinois. In 1995, he was awarded the UAF Alumni Achievement Award for Community Achievement. The award was established to recognize outstanding UAF alumni.

If you just read this you might think Cowell was born in Alaska, but a McClatchy article from 1993  says he didn't come until he was seven. 

He has an extensive background in Alaska, moving to the state with his family when he was seven years old. 

That's no big deal.  I didn't get to Alaska until I was in my 30s. It's not so much how long you've been here, but a) whether your story matches what really happened, and b) whether your time here was spent getting to know the state, particularly the people.    

Probably much more relevant to his position as a regent is his educational background.  From the official bio we can infer that he studied at, but did not graduate from UAF.  Then, apparently he switched from biology to business.  National University is today a big online university. How good it is, I can't tell.  Students often go to online universities because it's easier to get in, class times are more flexible, and they want a degree.  While you can get a good education online (and a bad one in person), my guess is that most people going to online programs want the degree more than they want an education.  That's a generalization and there are lots of exceptions.  Does it apply to Cowell?  First, I don't know when he went and whether it was even online at the time.  But it's not a traditional university.  I'm guessing he went there because after dropping out (?) of UAF, he just wanted to get his diploma.  But I don't know.  We just gather clues and make hypotheses and try to test them.  His next educational experience seems to point in the same direction. 

"Cowell completed the Advanced Executive Program at the Kellogg Business School, Northwestern University, in Chicago, Illinois."

First, I'd mention that Northwestern is in Evanston, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago.  But maybe they have a Chicago branch, or maybe he thought people wouldn't know where Evanston was, or maybe he's not a stickler for details.  It's probably not important, but just another clue that may or may not prove useful.

The Kellog School has one of the best business programs in the country.  An advanced executive program sounds pretty substantial.  But the Advanced Management Program - Intensive today is just under three weeks long and costs $36,000! (In comparison, a Harvard Business School Program For Leadership Development costs $45,000, but goes from December to June with two (12 day) on-campus and two off-campus modules.)

Again, this is a program for someone who wants to get things done quickly, who can't or doesn't want to spend the time for a longer, more traditional program.  I'm sure it was a stimulating experience, but there's only so much you can learn and retain in such a short program. 

Is this the best person that Sarah Palin could find to be on the board?  Of course, each appointee should be considered in the context of the other members.  If they all have more traditional educations, then he might add a useful perspective. 
 

Back to the official bio. 

Cowell serves as co-chair of the Providence Foundation Steering Committee, is on the board of St. Elias (long term acute care) Hospital and on the C.W. Snedden Chair of Journalism Selection Committee at UAF. He has served on the Journalism Advisory Board at UAA, the boards of Commonwealth North, Anchorage Chamber of Commerce, and the Anchorage Performing Arts Center and co-chaired the United Way of Anchorage campaign.

The Juneau Empire adds this:

He also co-chaired the Providence Foundation Steering Committee and was a founding member of the Alaska Cancer Research and Education Center.

The cancer research makes more sense if you look at Evangeline Atwood's Bent Pins to Chains:  Alaska and Its Newspapers:

"He returned to Alaska in 1993 as publisher of the Daily News but had to retire in 1999 to concentrate on a successful fight against leukemia."

Back to the official bio:

Cowell’s newspaper career took him from a newspaper carrier at the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner to director of operations of the McClatchy Company and ultimately publisher of Alaska’s largest newspaper, the Anchorage Daily News. He spent ten years commercial fishing in Area E, which includes Prince William Sound and the Copper River Delta.

Cowell is married to the former Christmas Tripp of Fairbanks. Their daughter Alexis lives and works in Anchorage where she was born.

Much of his career has  been spent working for the McClatchy newspaper chain. Including time with some of its California papers.   He seems to have been in the management rather than the journalism side.  The McClatchy newspaper chain published information about Cowell when he took over as the publisher of the Anchorage Daily News, in 1993.


He's also, it seems, the owner of Cowell's Heliport Service in Big Lake.  The only date I could find on the site was a 7/2004 activation date; there's a July 2014 reference at 123 Jets. Or maybe he has a son with the same name.


OK, as I said, this is just a bunch of facts about his education and his work experience.  It doesn't tell us who he is, what he knows, what he values, and whether he's a good choice for the Board of Regents.

The University plays a critical role for Alaska.  If it does its job well, more Alaskans will get a good education and make important contributions to a sustainable Alaska, an Alaska that uses its resources wisely and has both  physical and social infrastructures that support a good life for this and future generations.

With a FY15 budget of over $1 billion, it's also an institution whose leaders should be closely followed and kept accountable.  But I dare say few Alaskans could name even one or two regents, let alone have any idea of what they do or how well.  (I did post abbreviated bios of the regents in an earlier post.)

I hope to explore this topic further in future posts. 

Prop 1 Boils Down To: Who Do You Trust?

This truck was parked outside the Bear Tooth when I came out of the  Alaska Dispatch News and UAA sponsored debate on Prop. 1. 

It seemed to sum up the question that voters have to answer to vote on this.  Do they trust the oil companies that worked hard to pass SB 21 (that Prop. 1  would overturn)?  Or do they trust those who are saying SB 21 is a giveaway to the oil companies?

Wielechoski and Croft

Speaking for Prop 1 (to repeal SB 21 and return to ACES) were Senator Bill Wielechowski and former Senator and University Regent (when the Board hired Mark Hamilton) Chancey Croft. 

Smith and Hamilton

Opposed were Mark Hamilton,  President Emeritus of the University of Alaska and Doug Smith, CEO of Little Red Services.

It cost $15 a head to get in, but the theater was full.










The debate was moderated by Steve Johnson, speech professor and director of the amazing UAA debate program.  And much of the proceeds were to support the UAA debate program.

Even though this was probably the debate with the most well prepared presenters I walked out still scratching my head over the facts.  Wielechowki went through a history of broken oil company promises and asked why we should trust them now.  Hamilton said it wasn't about trusting the oil companies, but about trusting facts.

But what are the facts?  Both sides cite facts that support their position and both sides say no one can predict the numbers when the facts don't support them.

• Did state oil revenue go up under ACES?  Both sides agree it did.  
• Will SB 21 raise our oil production to 1 million barrels a day as the governor predicted?  Both sides agree that isn't going to happen, but the No side says SB 21 will produce more oil than ACES.
• Would a return to ACES destroy incentives to develop more oil in Alaska?  The two sides disagree strongly here.  The No folks say the high taxes when prices are high scare away oil companies and at low oil prices SB 21 brings in much more.  The Yes folks say the high taxes in ACES are paired with high tax write-offs that spur new production.  
• Did ACES cause oil companies to leave Alaska for North Dakota and other states?  The No folks make this argument strongly.  The Yes side say it wasn't the taxes but the lower costs of extracting shale oil in locations closer to markets. [I heard that in other places, they didn't actually say that tonight.
• Will ACES or SB 21 give Alaska more revenue in the future?  That's where both sides differ greatly.  It depends on whether oil prices stay above a certain level and how much production there is.  And no one can predict that.  

Doug Smith said SB 21 should be given a chance and if, in a few years, the predicted new development doesn't happen, then he will be right in front of the line to get the legislature to change the law.  But with oil companies helping to elect legislators, is that really going to happen?  However, if Prop 1 passes, I guarantee that ACES will be amended in the next session to deal with some of the tax issues when oil is at a very high price.

Other issues that came up:

The Yes side raised the ethical issue of two legislators who are highish level Conoco-Philips employees who recused themselves, but were then told they had to vote and ended up voting in favor of SB 21. Without their votes it wouldn't have passed. The No side said these were honest and honorable men and wouldn't have voted against the state's interests and that not voting disenfranchises their constituents.
The Yes side countered with:  Can you see an oil company employee going back to his Conoco-Philips bosses and saying, "I thought it through and decided against saving you $600 million a year"?
Now, I suspect that an oil company employee probably thinks that changing to SB 21 is a good idea anyway and that their constituents knew they were oil company employees when they elected them.  On the other hand, if legislators who had this kind obvious sort of conflict-of-interest were not allowed to vote on issues they had a direct vested interest in, then voters would know that if there were a lot of oil bills, then a particular candidate would not be able to vote.

Both sides agreed that ACES earned more revenue for the state than SB 21 would have in the last few years - though they didn't agree on how much more.  And they completely disagreed on what would happen in the future.  And since that depends on the price of oil and the amount of oil, we can only guess on that.


It was pointed out that the oil companies very legitimately work to maximize their profits and that bargaining with them requires state negotiators to be doing the same thing for Alaskans.  The Yes folks didn't think having a former Conoco-Phillips attorney/lobbyist act as the state's negotiator was a good sign. 

Wielechowski said that the Norwegian Fund which began in the late 1990s now has $900 billion while our Permanent Fund, begun well before, only has about $51 billion.  Smith countered that Norway continues to tax its citizens at a high rate and uses only a tiny percentage of the fund each year.  He personally didn't want to pay that kind of tax.

But I thought about that.  Since Norway is a country.  Leaving it means changing one's nationality.  Alaska is but one state in the United States and a large percentage of oil company employees either moved to Alaska from other states or commute from their home states to work in Alaska.  Having a state tax and a large fund for the future would weed out people coming to Alaska to make a quick fortune and leave from those who plan to stay.  It would also weed out people who come to Alaska to get the Permanent Fund dividend.  Personally, I'd rather have people here who plan to stay and who are interested in investing in Alaska's future.

There was more, but you get the gist.  I agree with Mark Hamilton that we should focus on facts, to the extent that we can.  The historic facts seem to say that ACES was a better deal for the state than SB 21 would have been - even if people disagree on how much better.  Looking to the future, the facts are more slippery.  It depends on a number of things:

• the future price of oil
• the amount of oil produced
• the cost of recovering Alaska oil compared to the cost of recovering oil elsewhere
• the impacts on large and small producers
• the impacts on old and new fields

In my mind, it really does boil down to Who Do You Trust?  The 'facts' are too complex for most voters to determine, and too dependent on assumptions about the factors listed above for anyone to know with certainty. 

Should the public trust the oil companies who had behind-closed-doors meetings with Gov. Murkowski to come up with PPT which crashed when the FBI found Bill Allen paying legislators to vote for the oil bill?  Who send huge profits out of the state each year?  Who were unwilling to make any promises in exchange for the huge tax cuts they got  in SB 21?  Who are spending millions to defeat SB 21?

Or should they trust those Alaskans who are working on their own time with their own money and who stand to gain no more than any other Alaskan?

There are well known and respected people on both sides.  Some of the difference in opinion can be traced to different world views - Republicans tending to trust business more than government and Democrats leaning the other way.  But the key players on the No side are oil companies, oil industry related companies, and their employees.  Their payoff from the tax cuts are immediate.  


Doug Smith said we should give it a chance (which reflects the latest oil company ads and is far different from the governor's certainty when he was pushing this in the legislature) and come back in three years if it isn't working.  I think the odds of that happening are pretty slim.  After the last round of redistricting we're likely to have strong Republican majorities at least until the next census data in 2020 and redistricting, and they're not going to repeal SB 21.  But, if Prop 1 passes, there's no doubt in my mind that ACES will be on the table for changes in Juneau next session. 


What I think everyone should agree on, is looking at what Alaska will do when the oil runs out.  We've been kicking that barrel down the road since the oil began to flow.  Both sides pointed out that our (Republican-controlled) administration and legislature have spent wildly the last couple of years.  And since we don't have $900 billion, or even $100 billion, in our Permanent Fund, we need to start thinking seriously about the future.

Pain

I slipped on the ice last Saturday.  I'd walked a mile to the library and then back, and just before I got to my house I found myself flat on my back on the sheet of ice that's been my street lately.

I wasn't even sure I could get up.  But without too much pain, I managed it, and walked home, put ice on my back, and waited to see how bad it would be.  I could walk and do lots of things, though it hurt, sometimes really bad.  Getting into bed was torture.  I had to bend the wrong angle and my lower left back screamed.  Finding a prone position that didn't hurt took a while.  Did I break a rib, just bruise it, or was it just sore muscle?  Could I make things worse if I did the wrong thing?  Some over-the-counter pain pills, ice, and I finally managed to find a position that wasn't more than a minor irritation and slept the night.

I figured it wasn't too serious because the next day I could walk and bend a little with bearable pain.  But certain moves set of ied's.  I started being very careful about reaching, leaning, bending, all the normal things you do a million times each day without thinking.  Now I had to think about each one.

It was during this time I saw this poster Guadalupe put up on Facebook.

I'd already started noticing other people who walked tenderly and had much more compassion for them than I had before.  I had an invisible pain.  I didn't look any different than before I slipped, but I sure moved more gingerly. 

Good health is so random.  Sure, you can eat well and exercise, but a tree falls, a car veers your way, or, in Vic Fischer's case recently, a camel hears a motorcycle backfire and kicks out just as you're walking by.  (He was in Rajasthan, India at the time.)   Sure, I read and link to Peter's incredible Parkinson's blog, and I see how valiantly he lives his life.  And then I forget again how lucky I am.

It takes a fall like this to remind me to be more aware of others' afflictions.  If they act a little weird, maybe they're in serious pain.  And even those people who match the definition of a 'jerk' probably have a history and/or a condition that would help us understand their behavior.  (Understand isn't the same as approve.)




I did get to the doctor by Wednesday, had an x-ray, and learned I hadn't broken anything. 
Just  some very angry muscle.  I'm clearly moving back to normal.  But I hope I won't forget to stay sensitive to others who might be living their lives with a serious pain or other affliction battling them every step of the way.

The x-ray room had this miniature skeleton and I've added a little graphic to indicate the hot spot.

When people lived in small communities and knew everyone over a lifetime, they tended to know who had what ailments and accommodated (or persecuted) them.  In our more anonymous worlds, we don't know the people we interact with, and don't understand who they are and how they got that way.  And how quickly one's life can change from one condition to another.