Supreme Court's Redistricting Opinion Next Steps. Is Marcum Still On The Board?

The Alaska Supreme Court finally issued its Opinion explaining its reasoning for its earlier Orders.  (Three its in one sentence, sorry, I don't have time to make this pretty.)  See this post for more.  The immediate consequence of the decision is that the Alaska Redistricting Board was given 90 days to object to keeping the interim plan in place for the next ten years.  

For those not up on all these details - probably most people - the Court ruled the Board's last two plans  faulty because of gerrymandering.  So the court made a change in the Board's plan for the 2022 election.   The deadline for candidates to file to run for office was nearing and they needed to know what districts they would be running in.  So, that was the interim plan.  

Most of the state map has been approved and won't be affected.  There are only a few house districts in north Anchorage that could possibly be realigned into different Senate seats.  There is no way the court will allow the Board to make changes that would give Republicans more power in the legislature.  So it would seem that remanding the interim plan back to the Board is just a courtesy, maybe a way for the court to allow the Board to technically approve this plan as the actual plan for the next ten years. 

But that means the Board has to 

1. Reconvene and meet to 
1. approve the interim plan as the final plan, or
2. come up with an alternative within those very narrow options they have left and send it with a rationale back to the court
2. Do nothing and let the 90 days and let the interim plan become the final plan by default
3. 
   

Is Bethany Marcum still on the Board?

At the Alaska Press Club Conference Friday and Saturday, the Court's decision, which was announced Friday morning, was a big topic among some of the journalists who have reported on the Redistricting Board.  

One of the questions that came up was whether Board Member Bethany Marcum was still on the Board.  She's been nominated to the University of Alaska Board of Regents and some speculated that would mean she was off the Board. 

So I emailed Peter Torkelson who still is the Executive Director for the Board.  I asked 

• Is Marcum still on the Board?
• If not, since Governor appointed her, would he be appointing a new member?
• Are all the other members still on the Board?

Peter's normal quick response was that Marcum had resigned on March 23, 2023.  And the legal advisors believe that since the Governor appointed her, he would be the person legally entitled to appoint her successor.  He pointed out that Governor Parnell did that in 2011 for another Board member.  (Even though I covered the Board, I don't remember that at all.  But perhaps it happened early in the process.  I didn't start covering them until about March 2011.)  He didn't mention other members so I assume they are all still officially on the Board.

A new member could be someone who followed the process closely - say a Randy Ruedrich - but there aren't too many people who would really understand all the details and nuances of what the Board has been through.  I mention Randy even though the Court pointed out that the Constitution requires that appointments be made without regard to political party.  I simply don't think that Governor Dunleavy is capable of appointing someone who isn't committed to Dunleavy's political goals.  Unless he believes, as I do here, that there really aren't any changes to be legally made that would make a difference except to shake up a couple of districts and the incumbents of those districts.  

The Board's Eagle River Senate decisions, which passed 3-2, and were vigorously and loudly objected to by the minority members Banke and  Borromeo, were judged by the Court to be unconstitutional gerrymandering.  

I suspect the most dignified thing for the Board to do now would be to meet and vote to endorse the interim plan as the final plan and send their approval to the Supreme Court.  Board Members Marcum and Simpson were the most partisan Republican promoters of the gerrymandering.  The third Republican on the Board, John Simpson, went along with that, but I think he was less committed to that decision than the other two.  

I'd note that during the 2010 Redistricting process I asked then Board Attorney Mike White about a new plan being challenged on gerrymandering grounds.  His reply was that no plan had ever been overturned because of political gerrymandering and he wasn't worried.  Well, this round, the Supreme Court has definitively said that partisan gerrymandering is unconstitutional.  

I'm slowly reading through the Court's Opinion.  My present plan is read through the Opinion and identify what I see as the key points that are new.  Then I want to pull up the post(s?) I've written about what I hoped the Court would address.  Then I can see if they addressed all the issues I was concerned about.  So far, they have addressed the issue of the Governor intentionally appointing Republicans to the Board.  And they weren't just Republicans, they were hard core Republicans with a history of working with the Republican Party.  

I was concerned about how blatant the political appointments were this time round and that if the Court didn't address it, it would become an unenforceable part of the Constitution.  But they did address it - but I have to read more of the Opinion to see how it informs their conclusions.  I suspect it played a role in their deciding that the Eagle River Senate pairings were politically motivated.  

We'll see.  Meanwhile my previous post extracts the outline of their Opinion (all the headings) so you can have something like a Table of Contents of the Opinion.  There's also a link to the decision.  

Just one more piece of trivia.  I've tried to pay attention to follow the Court's language.  Particularly regarding "decisions," "orders," and "opinions."  So I checked online and here's what Cornell's Law School says:

• An order tells the parties to a case or cases something that they should do.  Orders can deal with housekeeping matters, such as scheduling or permission to file a brief, or with something substantive and important, such as whether the case will be dismissed or not.  An order may accompany an opinion or opinions, but if it does not, it tends to be brief and not to offer reasons. It may deal with one or more cases, and may dispose of those cases or not.
• A decision is a loose term for the set of opinions that accompany an order, combined with that order.  There may be more than one case associated with a particular decision.     
• An opinion is a general term describing the written views of a judge or judges with respect to a particular order.  Not all orders--including important orders, and including in both the district courts and the courts of appeals--have opinions.  A single order by a court might produce a zero or more majority opinions, zero or more concurring opinions, zero or more dissenting opinions, and zero or more opinions that concur in part and dissent in part.  It is also possible that a decision produces other documents that are not opinions -- for example, a syllabus, appendix, or summary describing all the other documents related to the decision.

What we got Friday was an Opinion.  

Teaching English To A Refugee In Alaska - Polishing Old Skills

RAIS is the Alaska Catholic Social Service's Refugee Assistance and Immigration Service.  Last summer I volunteered to tutor English for them, but I decided that I did not want to go into someone's house regularly during COVID.  They said some of their clients live outside of Anchorage and maybe we can do this online.  

Several weeks ago they got back to me.  A refugee living outside of Anchorage wanted lessons. (I'm going to be vague to protect confidentiality.)

In Peace Corps training back in 1966 and 1967 we got killer training for Teaching English as a Foreign Language (TEFL).  The trainer in charge of the TEFL lessons was like a teaching machine.  She had a technique and a style that, in hindsight, was a really good way to teach a foreign language AND the lessons were good for teaching any class.  I can't believe her name escapes me at the moment.  I used to have nightmares about her watching me practice teach.  [UPDATE March 11, 2023 - It was Phyllis!]

A 50 minute class consists of

• 5 minutes of pronunciation drill
• 10 minutes of vocabulary lessons
• 20-25 minutes of grammar drills
• 20-25 minutes of reading the lesson in the text out loud and questions and answers about the text

The pronunciation drill would be related to some of the words in the vocabulary lesson.  The vocabulary would come from the reading in that chapter.  The grammar drills focused on lots of oral repetition using the grammar we were working on.  And, of course, it included the vocabulary and sounds we just did.  There might be a sentence and after the students could repeat it fairly well, I'd give them words that they used to replace words in the sentence.  This was a good way to see if they understood it or whether they were just parroting stuff they didn't understand.  

We had a Level 3 English textbook at training that was used in Thai high schools.  The readings in the chapters were about Thai history, US history, and British history.  (I learned the basics of key Thai historic figures that way.)

When I arrived at my school, I found they were using the same book we had trained with.  And the class was at a chapter that I had done a practice lesson on in training in DeKalb, Illinois.  It felt like magic.  

So, using what I learned then,I've started preparing my lesson plans, though now I can do that with Keynote (Apple's version of PowerPoint.).  My student is highly motivated, already speaks fluent enough English, but grammar and vocabulary are limited and pronunciation could be improved as well.  Lesson 3 is tomorrow morning (Saturday).  So far he's put up with my very packed lessons with good humor.  I think I will have to ease back a bit - I can't sustain that level of effort.  But we've got lots of material to work with over the next month.  I told him he's my boss and he has to tell me what he wants and then I'll do it. But, of course, his texts also alert me to sentences and grammar he needs to work on.    

As I've been reading online to get foreign language teaching tips, I found one that both of us like:  Learn the words to English songs you like.  He's suggested the Beatles "Yesterday."  So I'm going to see what sort of grammar and pronunciation lessons we develop using the lyrics as a starting point.  (I used "Hello, Goodbye" once in Thailand.  Very easy lyrics.)

I'll look at the grammar they use, and then try to substitute words to make a lot more useful sentences from the lyrics.  

Learning to teach English as a Peace Corps volunteer meant we were learning Thai using the same method that we were preparing to teach our students with.  That's a very humbling experience which gave me a much better understanding of what my students were struggling with.  What looks so obvious to a native speaker seems impenetrable to a non-native speaker.  Sounds they make in Thai, we simply couldn't distinguish at the beginning.  So I had a lot more patience than I probably would have when my Thai students had the same problems I had and was still having trying to speak Thai.  Thais only have eight final consonant sounds.  Eight!  B, D,  K, N, NG, M, P.  (I checked online and they include W and Y, but it seems to me that those really become vowel sounds.)  But that means Thais have a LOT of trouble with all the consonants and consonant clusters (RD, ST, CH, NK, etc.)

So I've been looking at specific pronunciation issues that speakers of my students native language have.  

That's been using a lot of my creativity.  

I also learned in our first meeting that one of his sponsors is someone I've spent a fair amount of time with in the last couple of years.  

"flood the zone with shi*t" - Why Courts And Media Don't Seem Adequate These Days

[Bear with me.  I'm trying to pull a number of issues together.  Basically, we need to step back and see the bigger picture rather than get distracted by all the crap the Right is throwing out there.  Their goal is to spew so much nonsense that the system breaks as people try to address it rationally.] 

Choosing labels carelessly  

"CULTURE WARRIORS such as U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) . . ."  LA Times"

There may have been a time when there was something that could be called 'culture war,' but that time is long past.  MTG is not offering anything resembling 'culture' unless the naked quest for power is considered a 'culture' today.  There's nothing here, really, about Christian values, though one could argue MTG represents hijacked Christian values to wrest power.  The attacks on LGTBQ and specifically trans and drag queens is merely a hook to incite the gullible to send cash and votes toward the GOP.  

On the other side are people who merely want to be free to be themselves.  If they take PRIDE in who they are, it's merely because society has vilified them so long and so hard, that they need some validation now and then.  

The media are slow to discard misleading labels, while the Republicans have an automated factory where they produce and distribute new imagery daily.  Where they take left leaning terms and turn them into epithets.  Some journalists are too young even to remember that the correct name is Democratic Party, but the Republicans have flooded the airwaves so long with "Democrat" party that people think that's the name.  

Eastman mulls the economic benefits of letting kids die

"In the case where child abuse is fatal, obviously it's not good for the child, but it's actually a benefit to society because there aren't needed ??  government services ?? for the full course of that child's life."

Rep. David Eastman (R - Wasilla) on the cost savings to the state when abused children die.

Alaska: Rep. Eastman of the family values party says it's actually a net benefit to society when a child dies from abuse & neglect because of the financial burden it would otherwise put on the state budget. pic.twitter.com/NKUOvUZvgf

— ChudsOfTikTok (@ChudsOfTikTok) February 21, 2023

The Republicans in Alaska have rules that oust other Republicans from committees if they don't vote with the party on budgets.  But making a case for letting abused kids die because it saves the state money, well, he has the right to free speech according to the committee chair Rep. Vance (R Homer).  

But, as I write, it seems that the House has censured Eastman over this.  (Thanks Matt Acuña Buxton)

The problem I have as a blogger (and any legitimate journalist has) is dealing with all the jabberwocky  being thrown out there by the Republicans - from DeSantis' shipping of immigrants to New York, banning the teaching of history he doesn't like, and his Don't Say Gay campaign (just a few examples) to the Hunter Biden laptop.  

And that's the point.  Stephen Bannon said to "flood the media with sh*t" and that's exactly what they are doing.  

From CNN

While some of the actors in this circus may actually believe what they're doing, those encouraging people to file all those election challenges and to write all those laws letting kids carry machine guns in public are just "flooding the zone with shit."  Getting people riled up and wasting time on fighting all the shit flying at them.  

Our justice system is based on the assumption that people believe in the Rule of Law and that the vast majority of people will voluntarily obey the law.  Neither our court system nor our journalists are quite ready for large numbers of people rejecting the rule of law or the rules of reason.  

The lawyers were trained to dot their i's and cross their T's, but with Trump and others filing bogus lawsuits and appeals and motions, the courts can't keep up. The public is losing confidence that they will ever be able to bring Trump and his mob to justice. But that's how Trump has stayed out of prison all these years.  The legal system has to retool itself to handle this sort of threat.  Not sure how.  Dominion suing Fox is one option, but so much damage happens before it is settled.  And Alex  Jones declared bankruptcy to avoid the financial consequences of losing his lawsuit.  We need tactics that work with the Right's new weapons.  

Journalists are trained to be impartial to the extent they feel compelled to treat insurrection as a legitimate point of view.  I'd note that some journalists believe they shouldn't vote because that taints their objectivity.  Here's an NPR journalist mulling over NPR's ethics code.  The Republicans are counting on journalists to continue such internal counting of angels.  

Such purity doesn't matter any more (if it ever did) because whatever journalists do, the Republicans will vilify them.  Meanwhile old school journalists will try to respectfully cover MTG's calls for a new confederacy and Eastman's claim that letting abused kids die is beneficial to the state of Alaska.  

Not voting, not declaring one's party, might seem the right thing to do, but I think declaring where you stand openly and then letting readers determine if your personal values color what you write (or say) is the more honest approach.  

In any case, the old rules don't apply to the new political world we're in.  Yes, a lot of voter fraud cases were won.  And a number of January 6 Insurrectionists (yes, that term identifies me as biased, but it was also the conclusion of the courts) went to prison.  But most of the top people are still living, ostensibly, comfortable lives.  (I'd like to think that all the  pending litigation is at least  disturbing Trump's peace.)

We need new tools for dealing with the current manufactured chaos.  How much damage have we had to endure (can we endure) before the deluge of lies is dammed?  

There are perhaps a dozen more threads I could easily follow that give context to what's happening today. 

 It's a psychological barrier to blogging because I know that writing about some discrete issue merely entangles me in Bannon's web.  But people's attention spans are much shorter than they used to be.  Few want to read long attempts to put things into perspective.  I'm not just making this up.

"A recent study by Microsoft Corporation has found this digital lifestyle has made it difficult for us to stay focused, with the human attention span shortening from 12 seconds to eight seconds in more than a decade."

But you can't read too many long articles, let alone books, even with a 12 second attention span.  But if you got this far, you're doing fine.  And should take articles like that with a grain of salt.  Who measured the average attention span in 2000, for example?  No, I'm not going to dig up the actual research report to find out.  It does say that drinking water, exercise, and avoiding electronic devices helps increase attention span.  So go for a walk and don't take your phone.  

WORDLE Words For March - Update On February WORDLE Post

In early March I speculated about the balance of luck and strategy in WORDLE.  You can see that here.  In this post I'm just going to update the stats for how often each letter was used in March.  

If you go back to to the March post (about February) you can see the details of the February numbers to compare to the March totals.  Just remember there were three more days in March, so that adds 15 letters (five a day.)

Last time I posted my overall stats for the end of February.  I realize now I didn't save a screenshot of those for the end of March.  But my numbers improved - another 2, and a lot more 3s than 4's and a few 5s and 6s.  (Things got much worse in April, but that's for another post.)  

So here are the words for March* 

*I had screen shots of most of them, but some were missing.  This site lists them all.

If you look for patterns you can probably find what you're looking for.  How many days in a row do they use one or more letters from the previous day's word?   They followed EPOXY with NYMPH!  The lesson:  don't assume anything can't happen.  

Through March, they still haven't used simple plurals that end in S, or simple past tenses that end in ED.  

THE DISTRIBUTION OF LETTERS (for February 2022 then March 2022)

Vowels

A = 12 times in 11 different words 

A = 12 times in 11 different words 
E = 12 times in 12 different words 
E = 21 times in 17 different words

I  = 9  times in 7 different words

I =  3 times in 3 different words

O =12 times in 12 different words

O = 14 times in 14 different words

U = 5 times in 5 different words

U = 6 times in 6 different words
Y = 1 time in 1  word

Y = 5 times in 5 different words

Here are some more observations about the vowels (Remember this is just February 2022):

WORDS WITH JUST ONE VOWEL - 6/28

WORDS WITH JUST ONE VOWEL - 7/31

WORDS WITH TWO DIFFERENT VOWELS - 19/28  13/31

WORDS WITH THE SAME VOWEL USED TWICE - 2/28 (ELDER and VIVID)  

-5/31 (RUPEE,  AHEAD, SWEET, TEASE, RENEW)

WORDS WITH THREE VOWELS - 1/28 (ONE DOUBLE) (AROMA)   - 6/31 (FOUR WITH ONE LETTER USED TWICE, LISTED ABOVE)

IF A WORD HAD ONLY ONE VOWEL - IT WAS ALWAYS THE MIDDLE LETTER

IN MARCH THAT WAS NOT TRUE FOR ALL (NASTY, MONTH)

VOWEL IS FIRST LETTER - 6/28   (A=2  E=1  I=0  O=1  U=2)  3/31 (AHEAD, ALLOW, EPOXY)

CONSONANTS (WAS MOST TO LEAST FREQUENT IN FEBRUARY, BUT SEEMED MORE USEFUL TO PUT THE SAME LETTERS NEXT TO EACH OTHER THIS TIME.)  SAME FIVE LETTERS ON TOP, BUT THE ORDER CHANGED.

NOTE:  I did the chart before I did the BLACK=FEBRUARY, RED=MARCH scheme.

• C = 7  5
• D = 5  5
• K = 5  0
• M= 4  5
• N = 4  7
• P = 3   6
• V = 3 (Twice in VIVID)  1
• M = 3 5
• B  = 2 1
• F = 2  1
• G = 1  1
• W = 1 5
• X = 1
• J, Q, X, Z = 0   J,K, Q, Z =0

The earlier post has some thoughts about what I found and some strategies.  It doesn't seem to make sense to repeat it.  For the most part there aren't significant changes in letter frequencies, except for E.  Less so for K and W.  NYMPH was probably the trickiest word, but EPOXY was a close second.  You can go to the previous WORDLE post to see what I wrote if you want.

Is Getting WORDLE On Second Try Just Luck? What Are The Most Likely Letters?

 

How much of WORDLE is luck?  [This is a fairly long and detailed post.  But before you ditch it for something more interesting to you, I'd recommend scrolling to the end.]

Here are my stats (end of February).  The streak break was when I used my laptop instead of my phone.  Now I just use the phone.  The Sixes were fairly recent.  In both cases I goofed.  In one I used a letter I already knew was not in the word.  In the other case though I should have thought a bit more before trying out a word.  That left me with several possible first letters and not enough rounds.  I lucked out in round six.  If I'd have chosen the other possible word, I'd have gone over the Wordle cliff.  

A discussion with my daughter was the catalyst for this post.  I've got eight right guesses in round 2. (One more since then.) While luck plays a role, I would argue that strategy lowers the odds so that a second row pick isn't purely luck.  (But mostly)

So after February ended, I pulled up all the words for February 

If you look for patterns you can probably find what you're looking for.  How many days in a row do they use one or more letters from the previous day's word?   February 11 and 12 they had two words in a row that began with UL!  And they had had U's in the previous two days.  The lesson:  don't assume anything can't happen.  

THE DISTRIBUTION OF LETTERS (for February 2022)

Vowels

• A = 12 times in 11 different words
• E = 12 times in 12 different words
• I  = 9  times in 7 different words
• O =12 times in 12 different words
• U = 5 times in 5 different words
• Y = 1 time in 1  word

Here are some more observations about the vowels (Remember this is just February 2022):

WORDS WITH JUST ONE VOWEL - 6/28

WORDS WITH TWO DIFFERENT VOWELS - 19/28

WORDS WITH THE SAME VOWEL USED TWICE - 2/28 (ELDER and VIVID)

WORDS WITH THREE VOWELS - 1/28 (ONE DOUBLE) (AROMA)

IF A WORD HAD ONLY ONE VOWEL - IT WAS ALWAYS THE MIDDLE LETTER

VOWEL IS FIRST LETTER - 6/28   (A=2  E=1  I=0  O=1  U=2)

CONSONANTS (FROM MOST TO LEAST FREQUENT)

• L=  All three L's in 4th spot were words with LL at the end.(SKILL, SWILL, SPILL)
• T =  Note:   FIRST AND LAST = 1 (TACIT)
• H = Note:  2 TH..., 2 SH... 2 CH....words

• C = 7
• D = 5
• K = 5
• M= 4
• N = 4
• P = 3
• V = 3 (Twice in VIVID)
• M = 3
• B  = 2
• F = 2
• G = 1
• W = 1
• J, Q, X, Z = 0

THOUGHTS

1. This was just for February, a short month.  It doesn't mean these letter frequencies will hold up into other months.  But they might be pretty close.
2. I was surprised by L and R.  But on reflection, it makes sense for them to show up often in five letter words.  They form consonant clusters.  That's a term I learned when I taught English as a foreign language.  It just means two consonants together.  BR, BL, CR, CL, DR, FR, FL, GR, GL etc.  They also work as the first letter in a consonant cluster with many letters:  scaRF, chaLK, fauLT, smaRT, etc.  
3. Words that have the same letter twice are tricky.  They aren't frequent, but in February it happened three times with vowels and a number of times with consonants. So remember that possibility.  They're tricky because once you get a green one, you think you're done with that letter.  And because to check you have to get the second one in the right spot, otherwise you'll think it's the one you already found. Would a blue square for a letter used twice be helpful?  Yes, but what happens when it's in the right place and would normally be green?  Something to think about.  Did the original inventors rule that out or just not think about it?
4. Sometimes you get stuck with three or four correct letters and with LOTS of letters that could fit, but not enough rounds to try them all.  That's when using a strategy is really important.
5. Wordle doesn't seem to pick plurals (CRABS, FORKS) or 3rd person verbs (JUMPS, FLIES). I think there'd be a lot more S's if they did.  

Strategies

1. First word should be mostly or all words made up of the most common vowels and consonants.  Words like ROAST, LATER, TRIAL, STEAR, etc.  This helps in two ways:
1. Increases your odds of getting one or more correct letters
2. It eliminates frequent letters, thus improving the odds when picking the next words
2. Second word will, of course, depend on the first word results.  You want to go for another word with as many frequent letters as possible.
1. If the first word gives you one green letter, that's really helpful.  More green or yellow letters is useful.  You can use the letters a couple of ways:
1. Think of words with the green letters in the right spot.  If you can only think of one or two, then try one of them as your next word.  It might be the right word or it might force you to think of more possible words.  Ideally you will eliminate common letters or change some yellow to green.
2. If you can think of lots of such words, then try to use the most common letters again to 
1. figure out which letters are in the word or NOT in the word.  If you pick your words well, you'll find that a lot of words won't work because you've already eliminated one or more important letters. 
2. For example:
   
   
   If the T were yellow, I might just go for a totally different word with as many unused common letters as possible. Or keep the T in the word to try to make it green.   But with a GREEN T, I made a list of words ending in T.
   
   
   MOIST   COUNT   CLOUT  MOUNT  FOUNT  FLINT  STINT
   BLUNT   UNLIT   BUILT   SCOUT  JOINT   POINT  SWIFT (but not ERUPT because E and R were eliminated in HEART)
   
   
   Then I counted the letters: N9, O8, I8,  U7, L5, S4,  C3, M2, B2, J1, P1, W1
   Then I picked the word that had the most frequent letters.
   
   But there are 8 Os and you have no O, you say.  If you look, all the words with O also had U or an I.  UNLIT got rid of ALL the words I'd guessed at. Got rid of words with L and I, words without U or N, and words where U or N were in the wrong place.  So I had to think of new words - ones with a U in the 3rd or 4th spot. The closest word I had was SCOUT.  But N is the second letter.  So my next word was
   
   

   

   
   

   I was lucky that they hadn't picked another word I hadn't thought of. 

   You don't want to get in the position where you have three or four green letters but there are ten possible letters for the missing space(s).  You don't want to find yourself picking for row 4 with green - -OWN at the end.  Your options would be:

   BLOWN, BROWN, CLOWN, CROWN, FLOWN, 

   FROWN, DROWN, GROWN, SHOWN

   This is why you want to confirm or eliminate Rs and Ls early. 
3. Try to be clever or go for broke?
1. Should you try to guess the word on the second try or use a longer term strategy. like the one above?    If you can only think of 1-3 words that work with the letters you've discovered in round one, go for it.  Ideally one of the possible words will help eliminate all or at least most of the others.  
2. Should you keep a GREEN letter where it is?  In the HEART case I did because there were so many possible words and I could get a word that might eliminate all the others.  And it could be the right word.  If it's yellow, keep it to find its proper spot, or at least eliminate ones where it doesn't fit.   But sometimes it's better to cast your net for as many letters as you can, and you already know where the GREEN letter goes.  

Does this sort of strategy eliminate all the fun?  I guess it depends on how you define fun.  Just finding the right words without thinking too much is great fun.  But for me, going beyond the sixth row is to be avoided as much as possible.  And so far I've only gotten to row 6 twice.  And both times got the WHEW that goes with it.

So to answer the title question about luck or skill, I'd say it's a combination of both.  

You can increase your odds by using the most common letters - either finding out they are in the word, or eliminating them (and many possible words that have them.)

According to wordmom, there are 6445 five letter words in the English Scrabble dictionary.  I don't know how many are plurals or 3rd person singular verbs, but for ease, let's say there are 6000 words you could choose from.  Your odds are one chance out of 6000.  Way better than most lotteries.  But not anything I'd bet money on.  Wordmom also lets you do other interesting searches.

"Five letter words with S - 1745

Five letter words with T - 1630

Five letter words with E = 2960

Five letter words with A = 2845

Five letter words with L = 1760"

Getting rid of the letter E cuts your odds in half almost.  And getting rid of A does almost as much.  If you get rid of words with all those letters, you improve your odds greatly.  

I haven't made a list of March words yet, but I'd like to just to see if it changes the most used letters significantly.  I suspect not.  

When I Google "good luck happens" it gets me to  “Luck Is What Happens When Preparation Meets Opportunity,"  That's a little moralistic for my taste, but I do think that doing a little exploration can increase your odds in WORDLE.  

Doing posts like this is why my todo lists never get done.  But it's fun to figure things out.  

I'd note that my Chilean friend says there's a Spanish version and I guess a lot of other languages have it too.  What about languages like Thai or Hebrew where the vowels can go above or below the consonant?  Or Chinese that use characters?  I'll let someone else check that out.  

TJ Leaves; Rich Russian Penis Vocabulary; AIFF 2022 Calls For Film Submissions; Housing Shortage Though People Leaving; Helping Ukraine

There are so many things to talk about.  This post is just going to give you a glimpse of a few and you can check out the links yourself.  

Redistricting Board Changes

TJ Presley resigned as Deputy director of the Alaska Redistricting Board to become Bill Walker's campaign manager.  According to Executive Director Peter Torkelson, TJ gave several weeks notice and his resignation was effective February 16, 2022.  I'd note that TJ and Peter worked closely together and were responsible for the website and the Board's efforts to insure as much public input as possible to the Board.  Unfortunately, they were not responsible for whether the Board listened to the public's input, and as Judge Matthews noted in his decision, they clearly did not in the Eagle River pairings nor in the Skagway house districts.  

"Not To Be Penis-Like"... Explaining the Brilliance and Insanity of the Russian Language

This blog post by Russian-American Slava Malamud, begins with a comparison of English airport customs signs and the equivalent signs in Russian.

"When you arrive at the Sheremetyevo airport in Moscow (did you notice how Russian passengers applauded the pilot for landing the plane without killing anyone?) and survive the passport control by the openly hostile female junior lieutenant of the Border and Customs Service, you are immediately greeted by two signs. One of them says the following:

“TOVAROV, PODLEZHASHCHIKH OBYAZATEL’NOMU TAMOZHENNOMU DEKLARIROVANIYU, NYET.”

Can you say all of this ten times fast? Or, really, fuck it, just say it one time slow.

Luckily, there is the second sign. It is the accurate, literal English translation of the above. It says:

'NOTHING TO DECLARE.'”

While Malamud tells us that English is far more efficient than Russian, he also says:

 But, as already hinted above, one area in which English can never compare to us is in relaying emotions and nuances of feelings. This is a task that Russian, with its myriad of suffixes, its glut of diminutives, its gender sensitivity and its poetic verbosity is uniquely suited to, leaving the directness and punctuality of English at a loss.

Wanna see how this works?

So, let’s consider the phrase “Yob tvoyu mat, kak zhe khuyovo-to, blya!”, uttered by pretty much every Russian male upon waking up hung over. It’s seven words, plus an emphasis word “to” (pronounced “toh”), which carry almost zero relevant information, while expressing rich layers of emotion that English is not equipped to relay. 

This phrase contains three profanities, all of them of carnal nature (the only type of profanities that exist in Russian).

The link will take you into a world you never knew existed.  (Unless you're a native Russian speaker or close to it.)  

Anchorage International Film Festival

If you know film makers, encourage them to send their best work to our festival.

The day is FINALLY here! Calling all filmmakers and screenplay writers: you can now send your film/screenplay to Anchorage International Film Festival to be considered for the 2022 program! We can not wait to watch and read all the new, exciting works , and equally share the joy here displayed by one of the wonderful filmmakers attending the festival last year (and having a blast, it looks like), Pat McGee

Spread the word to any and all filmmakers you know, all the scr…

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Housing Shortage Along With Loss of Population

I'm sure there's a good explanation for this and if it weren't after 5pm on Friday, I'd make some phone calls to see if I could find it.  Today we had this story in the ADN:

Average home price tops $420K amid ‘scary’ low inventory

Bill Popp quoted:

"Just over 3,600 single-family homes sold last year, an increase from 2020, when sales topped 3,200 and were the highest in at least 12 years.

A key factor is the limited number of houses on the market, realtors say, as residential construction has slowed in recent years.

The industry built fewer homes than expected last year. Popp said residential construction fell 7% compared to 2020, amid rising costs and shortages of material and labor during the pandemic."

But in late January Mr. Popp was lamenting declining population in Anchorage.  

Anchorage’s declining population creates strains on local economy

 "Anchorage lost a total of 1,550 residents from April 2020 to July 2021, eliminating part of the adult working-age population in the city. Anchorage has been decreasing in population, Popp said, since 2016.

I can think of a number of explanations, but it would be nice if the reporter of this most recent story had asked Popup to explain the apparent contradiction.  If we have 1500 fewer people, why don't we have more available housing?  Is this about people wanting to move out of apartments into new houses?  Is it about investors buying up houses and using them as rental units or B&Bs, while they wait for their investments to gain in value?  There's a lot more to this story than just having Mr. Popp's limited explanation.  

Helping Ukraine

And if you feel helpless as you watch the destruction of Ukraine, there are ways to help.  It's always hazardous to send money to online 'charities' especially when there is an emergency and scammers pop up all over waiting to take advantage of your generosity.  But for left leaning folks, you might give these Obama Foundation Leader* recommendations a look.  But try to double check nevertheless. 

How You Can Help the People of Ukraine - From the Obama Foundation - a list of organizations that their fellows in the field recommend for donations.  With links.  Just do it.  If $10 is all you can give, remember 1000 people giving that is $10,000.  

*What's an Obama Foundation leader?

The Leaders program launched in Africa in 2018, expanded to Asia Pacific in 2019, and inaugurated a virtual program in Europe in response to the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.

Obama Foundation Leaders hail from a wide variety of nations and territories, work across public, private, and nonprofit sectors, and address a full range of social impact issues.

The Leaders program offers practical skill building for social change, leadership coaching, discussion of critical issues, and small group support.

Obama Leaders also participate in various virtual experiences and special events, including one-on-one conversations with experienced mentors in the Foundation’s global network.

Libraries And Schools Are Targets In GOP War Against Truth

First Anchorage mayor Dave Bronson appointed a library director who didn't meet the minimum qualifications of the job description - a masters in library science and some years experience working in libraries.    When the Assembly didn't approve her, he appointed a second unqualified head librarian who isn't likely to be approved. (Or maybe they've already voted her down, there's so much nonsense going on it's hard to keep all the details straight. I can't find proof one way or the other.)

So now he's reorganizing the city through his budget which, according to Cheryl Lovegreen would  put the library into the Department of Parks and Recreation which changes the head librarian to a position that doesn't need Assembly approval. 

In an earlier post I pointed out that these actions are deliberate and that the GOP is pushing library takeovers around the country.  

I don't know how much of this Mayor Bronson consciously understands and how much he is just following the party instructions supported by the various national anti-think tanks and those organizations set up to get ideologically driven legislation passed at the state and local level.  

In the earlier post on taking over libraries, I'd found that a key goal is to purge libraries of books about race, about the history of race relations, that discuss diversity in a positive way.  It's part of the anti critical race campaign.  Mustn't allow people access to alternatives to the sacred myths of US exceptionalism.  

All of this is about lying on a pretty spectacular scale.  Lying as a form of keeping the masses ignorant, as a way to make them believe in an alternative reality.  It's how you create a cult of followers who deny what's in front of their own eyes and accept what their leader tells them.  

What's this got to do with libraries?   Lying isn't new to politics. 

"Secrecy - what diplomatically is called discretion," as well as the arcana imperil, the mysteries of government - and deception,  the deliberate falsehood and the outright lie, used as legitimate means to achieve political ends have been with us since the beginning of recorded history. Truthfulness has never been counted among the political virtues, and lies have always been regarded as justifiable tools in political dealings.

--Hannah Arendt (1971) “Lying in Politics: Reflections on The Pentagon Papers”, 

The Trump presidency took lying to a new level, at least in the US.   Journalists kept tab of how many lies he told in a day.  Twitter made it easier to track. And people are saying things like, "the lying was the point." But it's more than that.  Politicians have always lied about their opponents so they could take over their jobs.

Now it's a frontal attack on truth itself.  The constant denial of truth and the ways we evaluate and measure what is true, is intended to destroy people's confidence in education and in science.   It's an attack to take over as the arbiter of what is true.

If we look at the evolution of intentional lying in the modern United States, of well funded and scientifically based (science was used to determine the best ways to convince people, not to seek the truth) campaigns, we see things like the tobacco industry's decades long campaign to convince the US public that smoking was not bad for your health (for example here and here.) and the oil industry's campaigns denying climate change.  Both industries knew they were lying.  We see it again today with COVID.  People earn lots of money packaging and selling lies. These are just the big ones that have been exposed. There are thousands of lesser ones to get people to by 'health food' or to lose weight and on and on and on.  

But counting the lies and offering scientific evidence that 'prove' the inconsistencies are all besides the point.  The new GOP is now about obliterating truth.  By creating false realities, they can challenge science itself.  Trump may or may not believe he really won the election. (I tend to think he knows the truth, but he's also enough of a narcissist that he maybe can't imagine he didn't win.  I don't know.)  By still challenging the election, he cultivates the doubts of his supporters, and hopes to harvest their votes in the future. And to cast doubt on the legitimacy of any election he loses.

They have to lie and to eradicate any kind of objective truth because the truth does them no favors.  The US Justice system has huge flaws that favor the wealthy and the white and delivers injustice to the poor and the people of color.  But they have to maintain the facade that it is fair, at least when it punishes the poor and not-so white.  The economic system now takes from the poor and gives to the rich through systemic laws and rules that make it hard, if not dangerous, for workers to unite for better pay and better working conditions.  Their unions that fought for 40 hour weeks and vacations and overtime pay and fair grievance procedures have been gutted.  But they must maintain the fiction that if you work hard and honestly you'll do well.  

The elimination of any sort of verifiable truth gives the GOP the possibility of splitting the population and continuing to get many to vote against their own self interest.  They do this by creating an emotional self interest based on race, religion, abortion, immigration.  It's built on a quarter truth and three quarters lies. (No, I have not measured the truth ratios.  Think about this metaphorically.)

Thus They Want To Gut Libraries And Schools

So, if elimination of truth and the ability to evaluate what is true is the GOP goal, then it makes perfect sense for them to go after libraries and schools - all levels - and to go after libraries.  Because these are institutions that give average people access to the truth.  And access to alternative truths and to logic and science.  

Our governor's drastic cuts to the University of Alaska are a similar effort to destroy public universities.  I also believe that schools are prime targets of private takeovers.  But that idea distracted me from recognizing the other, larger,  goal - obfuscating truth.  

Viktor Klemperer (cousin of conductor Otto Klemperer) was a distinguished university professor and WW I veteran when Hitler came to power.  Klemperer kept a diary during WWII - I Will Bear Witness in two volumes - where, among other observations,  he kept notes on the language used by the Nazis in their speeches and in the news.  This later resulted in The Language of the Third Reich: A Philologist's Notebook.

These books are careful studies of how the Nazis manipulated language to hide truths they didn't want the German people to hear and to believe the truths the Nazis wanted them to believe.  

Good lesson for citizens of the United States to learn.  

And since I brought Nazis into the discussion, I had found the GOP's embrace of White Supremacists AND their flipping this completely by crying that they are victims of Nazi like suppression of liberties (for having to wear masks, for example) pretty bizarre.  

But on reflection, it's part of obliterating any kind of objective truth.  We are Nazis and we are the victim of Nazis.  Consistency and truth broken, leaving logical thinkers sputtering in disbelief.  That is the point.  To capture truth and make it their own way to rule the world.