I'm listening to the live House Rules Committee hearing on the "The One Big Beautiful Bill" (as the Republicans call it) at 10:30 pm Alaska time. That makes it 2:30am in Washington DC. As Democratic and Republican House members take turns; It's as though the Democrats and the Republicans are talking about completely different bills.
“Hey, the elephant is a pillar,” said the first man who touched his leg.
“Oh, no! it is like a rope,” said the second man who touched the tail.
“Oh, no! it is like a thick branch of a tree,” said the third man who touched the trunk of the elephant.
“It is like a big hand fan” said the fourth man who touched the ear of the elephant.
“It is like a huge wall,” said the fifth man who touched the belly of the elephant.
“It is like a solid pipe,” Said the sixth man who touched the tusk of the elephant.
They began to argue about the elephant and everyone of them insisted that he was right. It looked
like they were getting agitated. A wise man was passing by and he saw this. He stopped and asked them, “What is the matter?” They said, “We cannot agree to what the elephant is like.” Each one of them told what he thought the elephant was like. The wise man calmly explained to them, “All of you are right. The reason every one of you is telling it differently because each one of you touched a different part of the elephant. So, actually the elephant has all those features what you all said.”
Giving the best interpretation, the Republicans and the Democrats, are talking about different parts of the bill. One Republican said something like, "The Democrats don't want to support police and fire fighters.." I don't know what those parts of the bill actually say, but if those aren't the parts the Democrats are complaining about.
The Democrats are saying the bill:
1. Destroys medicaid
2. Gets rid of food assistance for children 5 million more hungry Americans
3. So people making over $3 million a year will get hundreds of thousands of dollar cuts in their taxes.
But I'm not sure that conclusion in the blind men story is accurate when it says that everyone is right because everyone is describing a different part of the elephant.
I'm inclined to believe that Democrats are doing a more accurate job of describing this bill. Why? Because this is Trump's bill and Trump lies more than all the previous presidents combined. In just one day. We also know that Trump has pushed hard on Republicans to vote for his bills and to support them. But I know that die-hard Republicans would reject my interpretation. We truly are living in completely different realities. For instance, the Republicans are focused on the fact that Federal employees get a better pensions than private employees. They don't mention that private employees tend to get paid more. And even more importantly, that private companies have been cutting retirement benefits for their employees. And they are succeeding in that because Congressional Republicans have weakened unions for 50 years. And finally, Federal retirement systems should be the aspiration of private sector employees, and that may be one of the reasons private sector employers do not like Federal retirement systems.
I also believe this because I was just at a public meeting hosted by the League of Women's Voters and the ACLU and the Native American Rights Fund, discussing the Save Act. This Act being pushed by Republicans is essentially a voter suppression bill. I'll get to that in the next post.
And Democrats are citing Conservative think tanks like the Manhattan Institute and Moody's lower the US credit rating, that the bill will raise the debt significantly. And they are quoting Republican Senators who say it will blow up the deficit.
For those of you reading from other parts of the world, you can listen in if you find this right away. I don't know if YouTube will leave this hearing up after it's over. If so, you can listen in and evaluate my perception.
[Guide to this post: This post reminds me of the rambling posts I used to do regularly. And it feels good, because the world is tangled up in complicated ways - there are few straight lines. This began as a post about the movie Sinners. But immediately got hijacked by some observations about movie theaters these days. There's a nod to Clarksdale, Mississippi. But then I switch quickly to what I think is a much more important movie - The Laundromat. But that too gets delayed as I talk about Lisa Murkowski's appearance today on Talk of Alaska and her interpretation of her recent "We're all afraid" comment. Which requires some background into what ecumenical means.
If you only want to read one part of this post, I recommend learning about The Laundromat. It's still available on Netflix if you have that. Skip down to that heading - bold and in capitals. Then skip past the part on Murkowski to learn about why I think the film is important.]
We haven't been out to see a movie very often lately. A couple of times while we were in Bainbridge - A Complete Unknown and The Brutalist. Two movies worth seeing.
I'd been hearing about Sinners on Spoutible and BlueSky. Not a lot, but that it was a sleeper big hit, it was a Black themed film. The parts that had me a bit skeptical mentioned horror elements.
Well Monday night is a discount night, as two seniors, we got in for a total of $14!! The tariffs haven't hit Anchorage theaters yet. But our choice of seats was front row or two separate single seats further back. We chose the later. Inside, it was actually pretty empty and we took one of our seats and I sat in the one next to it, my actual seat in the row ahead.
It did fill up a bit more, but no one claimed my seat.
When I say it was full, I probably have to remind folks that the theaters have all been remodeled. There are far fewer total seats, and the ones you get are lounge seats where the head tilts back and the feet up. So a full theater has a lot fewer viewers than in the past.
Later: I didn't finish this. Sinners is a forgettable movie. Except for the music. I don't know what the creators were thinking. We'll do some Black history, but that doesn't sell enough (a dubious premise) so we'll add some great blues music, and to catch today's audience, we'll add in a vampire massacre. And we'll locate it in Clarksdale, Mississippi - the Birthplace of the Blues. (We actually visited Clarksdale and the Blues Museum. Visiting Mississippi was sort of like visiting Albania or North Korea in my mind - a place forbidden and evil. It wasn't our destination, but it was between Chicago and New Orleans by car. But that's a story for another day.)
This feels like one of my old blogposts, that wandered and jumped, as life does and as thoughts do. So let's jump back into the present future.
Why do people say the Democratic party is not really any different from the Republican party? Because deep down, they are both corrupted by money and protection of the wealthy. The Republicans are a lot more open about that. They think rich people are the product of hard work and deserve all they get.
The Democrats are a little embarrassed by their dependence on the rich. They cover this addiction (well it's almost required if you want to have enough money to campaign, thanks to Citizens United) by trying to make the lives of those screwed over by the system a little more bearable. They try to spread a bit of equality to more people, but their hands are just as dirty with money, and they go to parties with lots of people whose wealth comes from less than pristine morals and behavior.
NO, NO, NO, I'm not saying they are the parties are the same, or that life under a Harris administration would have been no different from the disaster of the current Republican Administration. [Someone suggested online today, not to mention his name, but to say Republican Administration instead to make sure all the cowards in the House and Senate are fully implicated in what's going on. After all, they could end this non-violent coups if they chose to. What do you think?)
THE LAUNDROMAT
So, tonight after falling asleep listening to Lisa Murkowski on Talk of Alaska, in what seemed an attempt to clean up her confession to being afraid, that 'We are all afraid' by saying, "It was kind of an ecumenical 'we' . . . When I say Lisa Murkowski is afraid, it's not in a cowardly way." She's not, afraid of things like being primaried, she said. She's hearing from Alaskans who are losing their jobs, from Alaskans whose grant monies and contracts have been halted. "So when I say 'we' I have to include myself as an Alaskan. She also spoke of her oath to uphold the Constitution and her responsibilities under Article 1. "I'm seeing an erosion of the boundaries, if you will, between the Executive and the Legislative branch..." As I say I fell asleep during this and I'm resurrecting her words through the podcast up at Talk of Alaska. (The comments I'm referring to start around 6 minutes in.) And if you are a little confused by her reference to the 'ecumenical we' as I was, here's a little refresher. Maybe she didn't want to say the 'royal we' and 'ecumenical' was the only other 'we' she could think of. Maybe she thought it would imply some sort of bi-partisan message. Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, atheists and agnostics, not included I guess.
"The Ecumenical Movement is a key effort in the Christian faith. It works to bring different Christian groups around the world together. Its importance is seen in religious fellowship and the chase of shared goals. The word ‘ecumenical’ comes from ‘oikoumen?,’ the Greek word for “the inhabited world.” Over time, it has gained a special theological meaning. The word’s evolution shows a move from ordinary to sacred, going from a word about geography to a sign of hope to unite Christians.
"The Ecumenical Movement started as an answer to the need for unity in the Christian church. The church was split by arguments over belief and competitive missions. Through history, ecumenical councils played key roles. They helped form the faith’s theology and practices. This includes councils from the Eastern Orthodox Church and the Roman Catholic Church. These meetings show the ongoing effort to find what the Ecumenical Movement is today. This effort is helped by groups like the World Council of Churches and places like Taizé that focus on community spirituality." (From Faithonview.com)
But all th's Murkowski stuff slipped in because I got a bit of a nap this evening so I felt like I could partake in a bit of Netflix and while randomly exploring, found a movie called The Laundromat. It turns out I saw this already on Netflix.
It's an important film for USians to watch to understand why some people say there is no difference between the two political parties. The very rich invite politicians of both parties to their parties, and most politicians accept the invitations. (OK, I'm just saying that. I don't have statistics. But I'm pretty sure it's true in a general sort of way.)
It's not your run of the mill movie. It's a semi-fictional account of a woman whose husband dies in a freak boating accident and she learns that the boating company's insurance isn't going to pay. She is told about shell companies and holding companies and off shore accounts. We also meet a couple of wealthy men, business partners, Jürgen Mossack and Ramón Fonseca who tell us their side of the story.
Mossack and Fonseca. Is that ringing any bells? Remember the Panama Papers? When a law firm in Panama got hacked and all their clients and shell companies got exposed? That was Mossack and Fonseca.
It's essentially a movie that attempts to tell us in a down-to-earth way about how the world is rigged against most people by the very wealthy. Generally we just hear stuff that says we're screwed.
" 735 U.S. billionaires hold more wealth ($0.4 trillion more) than the bottom 50% of American households." (I picked this claim because this is from Snopes checking out a statement by Robert Reich, so it was fact checked somewhat.)
The movie tells us a little bit more about how it happens.
Wikipedia says the movie got mixed reviews. But I'm guessing because it's imaginative, clever, and takes a very dry and difficult subject and makes it relatable to the average person. And the only vampires are allegorical blood suckers.
Steven Soderbergh (a very inventive filmmaker) directed it and it stars Meryl Streep as an ordinary USian who wants to know who is screwing her over. Gary Oldman and Antonio Banderas play the two Panama lawyers who got hacked.
As Trump is leaning on Congress to pass a huge tax cut for the very rich, this film does give us a glimpse of how slimy it all is.
This is an important interview by Brian Taylor Cohen, one of the brightest and most articulate commentators (I want to say on the air, and he does appear on cable news, but he's also a powerful presence on the internet via Twitter, YouTube, and other platforms) and Heather Cox Richardson, an important US historian who uses history to inform current events.
A couple of points they make that jumped out at me.
1. Taking Over World Money Supply. She talks about how Trump is 78 years old and not in great health, and could leave Vance in charge. Vance is Thiel's pawn. Peter Thiel is a 'tech bro' interested in crypto currency and this could lead to taking control over the world money supply.
2. Whenever there is a new technology, and she lists mining, cotton, diamonds, copper, oil as examples, there are no regulations at first and a few people get very rich and powerful to the detriment of everyone else.
(#1 and #2 are intertwined starting around 5:45 to about 7:40)
3. Trump's succeeded because his actions are so outrageous that people can't conceive he's being real. They want to take away abortion, get rid of medicare, etc. people don't believe it. They're planning that. We need to take it seriously. (about 8:30 min)
4. The Big Lie. If your roommate steals $20 you can get mad at him. But if he schemes to take over your family's bank account, retirement funds, your family's house, it's beyond comprehension. Don't have emotional groundwork to get mad because it's too outrageous to imagine. That's what Trump has done. Of course the Supreme Court wouldn't give the President to commit crimes in office, but they did.(about 10:50)
5. History- Turning on a Dime - History taught me that American society can turn on a dime. I've been waiting and it didn't happen. But since Biden pulled out of race, the US has turned on a dime. (about 17 min)
There's a lot in between that links each of the points together worth listening to.
This video has two very bright people dissecting what's happening and where we seem to be going.
At the end they push two of their books probably worth reading:
Richardson: Democracy Awakening coming out in paperback in October
Cohen: Shameless How Republicans used long term plans to change the US, which we can see most clearly with the Supreme Court.
I started a long post trying to show that homelessness isn't a local issue. Well, sure, the impact is local, but the main causes are outside the control of local politicians. While that post sits around (maybe forever) waiting for me to make it perfect, an article in Sunday's LA Times gives a great example of how greed and uncontrolled capitalism set up a structure that makes many ordinary folks with money in pension funds unwitting accomplices to the high cost of housing. From the LA Times:
"At the Shady Lane Apartments in the suburbs east of San Diego, the carpet could be worn, the appliances old. But with some of the cheaper rents around, the complex was a relatively affordable home for an increasingly priced-out working class.
Then, in 2021, the nonprofit that owned the 112-unit property sold it. In less than three years, the new owners raised rent for vacant units 21 percentage points more than landlords in nearby neighborhoods, according to data from a real estate research firm. On average, available homes at the complex went from less expensive than the surrounding area to more expensive.
Existing tenants saw change too. Rubin Flournoy, a supervisor at a city water treatment plant, said he’s seen his rent climb roughly twice as much annually since the sale. What he didn’t know was that the new owners had a surprising funding source: people like himself.
The El Cajon complex had been sold, according to research firm CoStar and commercial loan reports, to a giant real estate investment fund managed by the private equity firm Blackstone. Investors in the fund include the California State Teachers’ Retirement System and other public pension funds across the country.
There's the bind. Pension and other such funds, like the Alaska Permanent Fund, are supposed to be invested to increase the value of the fund. For pension funds, the purpose is to be able to pay pensions once people retire. An important goal.
Now, this was a short and easy post to write (and I hope to read). Store it in that part of your brain that monitors housing and homelessness issues. And the negative side effects of unregulated (or loosely regulated) capitalism.
Also check on the funds your money (personal or pension or Permanent Fund, etc.) is invested in.
Our mail in ballots came several days ago. The primary is August 12. It's an open primary - all the names will be on the ballot and the top four (if there are that many) will go on to the ranked choice ballot at the November general election.
Anchorage has moved to vote by mail, so everyone gets ballots sent.
The primary and general in November are state elections so if you want to vote by mail, you need to request a mail ballot.
You can do so online here. But hurry (deadline is August 10) so you get the ballot on time. If you don't get a mail in ballot, you can go to your regular polling place. But check to be sure it hasn't moved.
I've been to several candidate fundraisers this summer. These are great ways to meet candidates, to ask them questions, and just get a feel for them. You don't have to give them a check, but if you decide you like them, a donation is always welcome.
One was for Ted Eischeid who came close to winning his NE Anchorage seat in 2022 - he was 72 votes short, in a district where Democrats won handily for US Rep, and State Senator.
Ted's a retired teacher, so education is a priority issue for him. His opponent voted NOT to override the Governor's veto on education funds. The override needed just one more vote!!
Another one for Calvin Schrage. He's an incumbent, but it's probably a close race. He's on the right in the blue shirt, with his campaign manager Erik Gunderson.
And finally, just this week a fundraiser for three state Senate candidates - two from Fairbanks - Sen. Scott Kawasaki whose district was made much redder in the last redistricting. I got to know Scott while I was blogging the legislature back in 2011. A good man. And Savannah Fletcher, an attorney, and she's Presiding Officer of the Fairbanks North Star Borough Assembly.
Matt, Scott, Savannah
The Anchorage candidate was Matt Claman. Matt's wife was a colleague at the University, so I've known him for a long time. He wanted the Fairbanks candidates to get some Anchorage exposure.
Matt pointed out, when he spoke to the crowd at the fundraiser, that Alaska is the only state in the country that has multi-party (Democrats, Republicans, Independents) coalition majorities in the state House and Senate. And that keeps us from going to either extreme.
They'll be a lot more fundraising and campaigning between now and November. I encourage people to go to fundraisers. It's one of the easiest ways to meet the candidates in your districts. As I said, a donation is not required, but if you like the candidate, donate what you can. Five dollars is good if that's the limit of your budget. We don't currently have any limits on campaign contributions so you could give $10,000 too. And some people are giving more than that.
Talk to them, ask them hard questions, tell them your priorities (after you ask questions, not before).
I wrote a couple of posts strongly defending Biden staying as the Democratic presidential candidate (for example.) I had several serious concerns should he drop out of the race:
Chaos that would result as various potential candidates jostled for the nomination and the impact on Black voters if Harris wasn't the candidate.
Issues over who had access to the money that had already been collected
Questions about whether a new candidate would be listed on the ballots of all states.
I acknowledged that Biden was getting on in years (as is the GOP candidate) and that he clearly did not do well in the debate with Trump, but was worried the three concerns listed above would doom a new candidate. I was also concerned that some of those calling for Biden to step aside - people who normally are politically savvy - might have had personnel encounters with Biden that revealed more than a single debate's worth of issues. And I also heard people who said it was the money people who were pressuring other Democrats to get rid of Biden.
Well, I was wrong. The new candidate has stirred a level of enthusiasm for a presidential candidate I last saw at the Alaska Democratic caucus in 2008, when the Begich Middle School was packed - seriously packed like a sardine can - with people who had come out to caucus for Obama.
The people working on all this - including Biden and Harris - made sure the three issues I listed above were resolved before the announcement. Clearly they made sure Harris was the only candidate and the issues about the money - with her as candidate - apparently was not an issue. And getting the new nominees on the ballot apparently will not be a problem. Which makes sense since the Democrats haven't had their convention yet anyway.
Yesterday I signed up for the White Dudes for Harris call this afternoon (Alaska time) and watched cavalcade of (mostly) white men explain from different perspectives why they were supporting Harris.
Singer Josh Groben
There was an alternating pattern of politicians/officials and celebrities - mostly actors.
New Orleans Mayor Landrieu
Others included: Pete Buttigieg, Illinois Governor Pritzker, Wisconsin Gov. Tim Walz,
Actor Paul Shearer
Michigan Sen. Gary Peters, California Rep Adam Schiff,
Actor Rob Lowe
Actor Joseph Gordon Levitt, Actor Sean Astin (Patty Duke's son), Rep. Steny Hoyer, and others. (You can tell by the money amounts listed on the screenshots that I don't have them all up in the right order. Well maybe it's not clear enough, but the totals were on the blue/red bar on the right.)
North Carolina Gov Roy Cooper
It went on for about three hours and they said that there were 170,000 participants. Though the white dudes were not nearly as generous as other groups. By the end there was about $4 million donated, which pales compared to the - STOP -
"Author Glennon Doyle shared on Friday [the call was Monday] that the call raised over $8.5 million so far."
So the $4 million raised in the three hour call was actually significant.
Most of the celebrities who participated talked about activism they're involved with such as unions or spoke about why different issues were important to them.
I'd note that I 'registered' Sunday, but never got a link to the Zoom call. I tried again just before the call. I couldn't figure out how to skip the donation page. Maybe you couldn't. Maybe that's a way to screen out saboteurs. I wasn't pleased and donated the lowest amount - $25 - though I guess I could have done my own custom donation, based on amounts listed on the bottom of the screen. But even then I had trouble getting to the Zoom link. Eventually I found a link to the Youtube live page. I would have contributed more once I got on if I hadn't been forced to pay before getting on. (And perhaps there was a way that I didn't see.)
So, despite my earlier Keep Biden stance, I'm a happy camper. I know I wouldn't want to keep the hours and travel schedule a president keeps and that Biden's already done this for four years. Now he can be an elder statesman rather than possibly die in office.
And there appears to be a great deal of enthusiasm over Harris being the candidate, while it appears that Trump's pick of Vance - who apparently was pushed on him by Peter Thiel and perhaps Elon Musk - isn't working out as well as Trump might have liked.
Hillbilly Elegy is still on Netflix and we watched it the other night. I'm not sure it's the most flattering portrait. Perhaps he thinks his rise from poverty and abuse are admirable - and I'm sure they are - but he comes across as pitiful in many scenes. And I'm not sure how accurate a portrayal of his life the film is. I doubt Trump has seen the film because he hates weak losers (which is how the young Vance is portrayed in many scenes). If he did see it, it would support the idea that he chose Vance because of the financial support from Thiel and other tech billionaires. This is going to be a troubled relationship.
UPDATED July 30, 2024
I got this as part of an email from Ross Morales Rocketto and Brad Bauman, who organized the White Dudes for Harris call:
"Over 193,000 people attended the kickoff call
We raised $4.2 million dollars last night for Harris for President
Over 150,000 folks signed up to join White Dudes for Harris
And our twitter account was banned…no joke, Guess we got under someone’s skin yesterday ;)" [emphasis added]
It becomes clearer each day that Musk bought Twitter to be an election influencer.
I'm going to comment on how two articles in Saturday's LA Times distort the moment by how they word things.
1. Comparing North Korea Policy - Ignores the Overwhelming Difference Between the Candidates
While US North Korean policy is important, this headline reminded me of other articles that skip over the part about Trump being the worst, most horrible person to every be nominated to be president. The candidate who would discard the constitution, set up internment camps for immigrants and his 'enemies' and who knows who else. The candidate who would turn the US Democracy into a dictatorship. See Project 2025 to see what he and his Heritage Society Friends are planning. That link is Wikipedia's entry. You can look at Project 2024's own site as well. Is Trump smart enough to do that? Probably not, but he's got some nasty folks behind the scenes and Project 2025 outlines what they plan to do with his next presidency.
So seriously asking questions like whether Trump or Biden would have a better North Korean policy is sort of like asking which candidate has biggest ears. It's beside the point [I looked this up to see if it should be beside or besides] Electing Trump would be an unmitigated disaster for all. Even the multi-billionaires who hope to have their taxes and regulations cut will find that Trump, like Putin, would go after any of them is there is any sign their total obeisance is slipping. The word defenestration has come back into use for a reason.
This sort of article makes it seem that this is a normal election and it simply isn't. All these sorts of comparisons help legitimize Trump as a candidate.
It also assumes that Trump has policy or is capable of carrying out policy that is more than his personal, at that moment whim. That his policy is more than feeding his ego.
2. Worst day since April
[I'm leaving the ad in, because somehow I suspect monetizing online newspapers like this plays a role in why we get silly headlines like this. Media these days seem to always add a negative to any positive that might reflect on Biden. It used to be that newspapers and blogs had pictures that illustrate the story. But now they have clickbait pictures like this. They are either disgusting, irrelevant to the story, or misleading because readers think the picture is related to the story. ]
My key point here is that much of the media seem to feel that "strong economic reports" has to always be balanced with a negative like 'S&P has worst day since April." Is the S&P's one bad day equal in importance to the 'strong economy report'? Or is it a minor blip, but they felt they had to 'both sides' the headline?
And "since April"? Really? This is just May. I'm waiting for the headline that says, "Worst day since yesterday."
S&P 500 has trended up over the year and it's higher now than any time in April. What are they really trying to tell us with "worst day since April"? What does one bad day mean when the trend is a steady long term climb? And why is that mentioned in the headline?
3. Why are the media taking shots at Biden when his administration has such a strong record on many things, while at the same time treating Trump like a viable presidential candidate when he's so demonstrably terrible and dangerous?
I don't know. People have suggested a number of reasons, none of which I can show proof of. The proof is their performance, but why? Some possible explanation.
The main media are owned by very rich people and their interests are aligned with the wealthy
Media need sensational headlines to get eyeballs. As a blogger, I can see how such headlines get more readers. I don't do lurid headlines, but if I can post a funny or dramatic headline because it fits the story, I'll usually do it.
Media want people to follow the presidential (and other) election because that sells news. So keeping the presidential race close, they believe, will get them eyeballs and advertisers.
Media make money through advertising. Political ads are a great source of income.
"Traditional ad spending will grow 7.9% (over 2020) to $8.86 billion. TV makes up nearly all of that, with $7.06 billion in spend, up 7.5% over 2020. Print, radio, and other traditional media make up the rest." (From eMarketer)
Those are four plausible reasons for media to forgo journalism ethics in the name of profit (and for many newspapers survival.)
All I can say is that people should read these kinds of headlines - and articles - critically. Even better, write letters to the editors challenging the assumptions.
I was in sunny Anchorage yesterday, not in the path of the eclipse. But in 2019 my daughter invited us to meet her and her family to see an eclipse in San Juan, Argentina. It was a memorable experience out in the desert. But at the time I was a bit disappointed that it didn't get really dark, just dusk-like. My image of an eclipse was that day turned to night for a minute or so.
My daughter went to Texas to see yesterday's eclipse. It was cloudy, but the sun poked out through the clouds so they could see the moon covering over the sun, part of the time. But because it was cloudy, it also got much darker than it was in Argentina.
So, two things about eclipses:
1. Watching the sun covered by the moon. You can only do that if you have special glasses or other way to darken the image. Otherwise the brightness of the sun makes it impossible to see the eclipsing moon.
2. Experience the change from full daylight to night. As you can see in the picture (sort of, since the camera's auto lighting affects things a bit) it got twilight in Argentina but not so dark you needed lights if you were driving - as my daughter reported happened yesterday. So clouds don't completely ruin an eclipse. You experience more darkness than without clouds.
SPRING
Anchorage had near record snow for the year - about three inches less than the snowiest winter - so there's still a lot of snow. But we're seeing larger areas of snowless ground - under the bigger trees in the back yard and along the edges of the snow piles. Here's Campbell Creek on March 28
And here it is on April 7, ten days later. Somewhat disappointing that there is now a large piece of trash in the creek. The trails along the main streets are clear of snow, but the trails along the creeks through the woods still covered.
The two days of sunshine reminded me that April has often been a wonderful month, but today we have a heavy cloud cover again. [I just looked up. It's snowing out. I really don't need enough snow to set the record.]
PRINTER CARTRIDGES
Lots of people have complained about the printer cartridge scam. You buy an inexpensive printer, only to be stuck for buying ink cartridges for outrageous prices.
At Office Depot, to get all four colors for my printer costs $166!!!
To buy a whole new printer costs $4 more - $170. They're considerably cheaper online. And then there are kits to refill the old cartridges yourself. But HP and the others know consumers are too lazy to fill their own cartridges or in too much of a rush to shop around. Presumably, the market would work if people balked at these prices and didn't buy the new cartridges. Or is this just a ploy to get people to buy a new printer. Either way this contributes to waste for the earth and profit for HP.
What is the cost of a whole printer and packaging compared to four cartridges?
In 2023, HP Inc.'s revenue was $53.72 billion, a decrease of -14.61% compared to the previous year's $62.91 billion. Earnings were $3.26 billion, an increase of 4.18%."
So they took in almost 15% less total revenue in 2023 than 2022, but increased their profit by 4%. How much of that profit was from printer cartridges?
PRIVATE CONCERTS
Before the pandemic, someone invited us to a home nearby to hear a concert. Since then we've been to four or five such concerts. Usually it's a $20 donation plus a dish for the buffet to attend. Sunday we went to a jazz performance there - the first one for us that wasn't classical.
Here's John Damberg on the vibes and Mark Manners on the guitar. Bob Andrews hand can be seen on the bass, and drummer Eiden Pospisil is hidden in the background. The second half connected much better for me - I'm not a big vibes fan and Damberg spent more time on the piano and the guitar had a bigger role.
But it was a wonderful evening with lots of very friendly people - maybe about 40 or so. [While I called it a 'private' concert, it was noted in the Anchorage Daily News, so anyone could have come, though there obviously has to be a limit on how many could attend.]
This video is very dramatic and easy to follow. Its findings seem in the ballpark with other such information I've seen.
Nevertheless, I did poke around to make sure they were consistent with what others have found. At the bottom are some links to others which show, at least roughly, a similar distribution.
The video is short and to the depressing point. This is why billionaires have worked to hard to capture the Supreme Court. So that we can't meddle with this reality.
James Brooks reported in the Alaska Beacon and APRN that the Alaska Redistricting Board met Friday October 13 to approve a $400,000 payment to the East Anchorage plaintiffs who challenged the Eagle River Senate pairings and prevailed in the Supreme Court.
I only learned about it when I read the Sunday Anchorage Daily News last week.
So essentially I'll refer you to the link above for details since I didn't get to attend.
The email alerts the Redistricting Board sent out to subscribers for a couple of years, were shut down after the final map was approved.
There are still some possible settlements out there. The East Anchorage and Girdwood plaintiffs (who challenged the second Eagle River Senate pairings and also prevailed and received $115,000) are the two that had major victories and got settlements for their legal fees.
I'd note that the first and second Eagle River pairings were decided by a 3-2 vote, with the majority made up of Republicans and the minority making dramatic objections and predictions that the decision would be overturned by the Supreme Court.
But Alaskans are the ones that bear the costs, not those who made the widely opposed decision.
Legal expenses have been the largest part of the Board's budget. Some of that is anticipated by the way the Constitution sets up the appeal process - basically Alaskans are given 30 days to challenge the Board's map. They do this by filing objection with the Superior Court and any disputes (usually all of them) get decided in the Supreme Court.
But as I said above, this was clearly a partisan gerrymandering attempt by the Republicans on the Board that went against all (non-partisan) common sense. So much of the legal expenses paid to the Board's attorney* and the winning plaintiffs ($515,000) could have been avoided.
*It's harder to determine what part of the Board's attorney payments went to defend the Eagle River decisions. Should we count the first map defense? Some of it, but there were other plaintiffs as well who had other (non-Eagle River Senate pairing) objections. Definitely we can count expenses after the Board majority passed the second Eagle River pairing, which I figure as at least $150,000. See the Budget post.
Demon Copperhead won a Pulitzer Prize and has had lots of publicity so I won't add much to what's out there, only to note some similarities to If I Survive You.
First I read Demon Copperhead for my bookclub. A deep dive into being poor in Appalachia. The hero in this David Copperfield inspired novel struggles to survive in a world shaped by addiction. Author Barbara Kingsolver makes it clear that the addiction is the fault of the pharmaceutical companies whose owners and operators profit off of getting as many people addicted to opioids as possible. Anyone who comes in contact with the health field and has some insurance of agency to subsidize their habit - foster kids, vets, the elderly, those employed with health insurance in any level job is fair game. But Damon (Demon) has David’s (Copperfield) pluck and resilience as he bobs up and down in rural western Virginia, mostly. (Thought I'd blogged about this one already, but I only mentioned it in passing.)
[As I move to If I Survive You, I'd say the main characters share struggling to make ends meet, being part of groups that are discriminated against (in Copperhead it's being from rural Appalachia) though Demon knows well who his cultural people are, just not his birth family. Both are trying to overcome their own self doubts, though Demon seems more successful. In some ways not having family may have given him an advantage over Trelawny who is in a constant fight with his father and brother.]
[I started this yesterday, but I'm adding a few notes today (Oct 3) but I'll leave what I wrote yesterday in the present tense.]
Now I’m on my second plane today and I’ve finished If I Survive You. This book, by Jonathan Escoffery, has been shortlisted for the Booker Prize. It was among five and this one was at Loussac Library and available just before we left.
It started out being about a youth, Trelawny, trying to figure out who he was. Not personally, though, of course, that’s always there, but who did he belong to/with. His parents and brother were born in Jamaica, but he was born in Miami and people keep reminding him that he speaks white which alienates him from the family and pretty much everyone else. The Hispanics take him in at school, thinking he’s one of them and they pity him because his parents don’t speak Spanish. When they find out he’s Jamaican, they drop him. “Am I black?” is a question he gets varying answers to until he gets to a midwestern college where everyone assumes, yes, he is.
But then the book veers into many other directions. The father/son and sibling relationships are painful to him and the reader. It’s not clear to me to whom the “YOU” in the title refers - his father? His brother? The family? Himself? The world?
The book took me around south Florida and introduced me to a lot of folks struggling with different ways to keep a roof overhead - musicians, an arborist, a boat captain for rent, school teachers, a nursing home flunky, and in the end a very wealthy couple with their own devils to overcome.
It feels like this is more a collection of stories than a novel; the same characters run through most of the stories. The one that haunts me most is “Splashdown.” In it we see Trelawny's cousin finally meeting the father who he's never met. But the nursing home chapter ("Independent Living") is a mini expose of that industry. and the final chapter ("If I Survive You") is equally gripping and kinkier. They all explore how the need for money causes people to do things they probably wouldn't and definitely shouldn't. The last one adds a more direct example of privilege folks using a poor man for their own (apparent) gratification and that cause him conflicts between his moral standards, personal dignity, and money. It essentially asks, how much money will it take to get you to do X? When the money is small change to the offering party but significant to Trelawny.
I don’t regret reading this book, but at the end I am haunted by the characters and their struggles.
This is the United States we live in today, where there are a few people who have managed to vacuum obscene amounts of wealth out of everyone else. Then there are others who would appear to live quite comfortably. But over the last three or four decades, the rules of engagement have changed enough that more and more people are sliding out of the comfortable faction into the world of economic (not to mention psychic) struggle the characters in this book deal with daily.
Thinking about this book as I reread what I've written - first on the plane when I finished the book and now as I add and edit - I know this is a book that I won't forget. The scenes are so real that I almost feel like I was there.
Despite three different topics in the title, this isn't going to be a long post.
1. It's ok for firefighters, but not for the hungry
Lake Otis and Tudor is one of the busiest intersections in the city. I also have to get across it on a couple of my regular bike rides.
Two weeks ago it was crawling with firefighters raising money for charity. Though collecting money in Firefighters' boots seems a little gross. They didn't look like new, unused boots.
That's an admirable activity. But they were doing it standing in the intersection. Some in the middle, others between the right turn lanes and the through traffic lanes.
Photo by ADN photographer Marc Lester
Eighteen months ago, signs like this caused a stir in Anchorage.
"The municipality spent more than $8,000 to post anti-panhandling signs at dozens of Anchorage’s busiest intersections in December — but the city law cited on the sign was found unconstitutional by a state court years ago."
"Corey Young, a spokesman for Mayor Dave Bronson, said the signs are meant to 'keep pedestrians away from dangerous situations in the roadway.'”
It appears from the article that this was done by the mayor's office without consulting affected departments like the Police Department. I don't think anyone disputes the idea that there's an element of danger involved in walking the lines of cars at busy intersections, but the courts had said it couldn't be prohibited.
If the mayor's office thinks this is dangerous, why are they letting the Fire Department do this? Did the mayor's office even know the Fire Department was doing this?
Or maybe we should ask if the original signs were an attempt to make those experiencing homelessness less visible to the general public, and danger wasn't the real issue.
2. Who's responsible for inflation
I like seaweed. I don't eat it everyday, but I do now and then. Last week I went to the Korean grocery story on Fireweed and Eagle to get some more seaweed. Here's last year's empty package.
And the new one I got last week.
The weight and number of servings are both the same. It's at least a year since I bought the first package of seaweed there. But the price of both is still the same!
While national chain groceries have been rapidly raising their prices, this local Korean grocery is charging the same amount as they did a year ago - $9.99. A similar product at Carr's, for instance, is advertised:
This is a total of .92 ounces for $8.99. The Korean store seaweed is 65 servings at .07 ounces per serving, or 4.55 ounces! One is $9.77 per ounce and the other is $2.20 per ounce.
But my point isn't that you can get seaweed much cheaper at the local Korean grocery than at the chain store.
It's really about inflation. We know prices have gone up rapidly in the chain store groceries. But on this item, the Korean grocery has kept the price the same for over a year. No blaming inflation to raise the price, and adding further to inflation. [But it's true that I don't know how much the Gimme packages were selling for a year ago. It's possible that no one increased the price of seaweed.]
3. Clouds
Anchorage has been having weather this month. By that I mean wind and rain and sun all fighting it out. I put up some cloud pictures two weeks ago. Here are from one this week's bike rides.
Same corner as top pic but with little traffic and no fire department panhandlers.
Taku Lake
4. Biking. And since I've mentioned bike rides, I reached my 1000 km goal for the summer (since April) and then got to 1100. Getting most of my rides done on the local bike trails and getting regular views of places like Taku Lake make the riding a pleasure. For lots of folks 600 miles is not that much, but it's kept me out exercising regularly all summer.
My phone asked me to log in with my Apple ID today. On a whim, I tried Air Drop after and it worked. So, in what I hope is a long window, I'll put up some pictures.
Grow North is the farm in Mountain View where the Refugee Assistance and Immigration Service of Anchorage Catholic Social services grows food for the summer and operates a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) with once a week pick ups and sells fresh vegetables and some baked goods as well during the week. You can't get much fresher food in Anchorage unless it's from your own garden.
The garlic and the picture of the farm are from last week.
This week's box includes:
Classic cauliflower,
Crunchy kohlrabi
Unique malabar spinach,
Tasty bok choi,
And some lovely sage for the herb of the week!
From the email that CSA subscribers get:
"Malabar spinach seems like it would retain similarities to that of regular spinach. The plant uses the name spinach in it, yet the ironic part of that the two could not be more different. Malabar spinach grows on a vine, granting it the nickname of vine spinach, whereas regular spinach grows from the ground (like many leafy greens)."
This Goose Lake as I rode by The ducks hang out here because its's spot where people feed them.
On a completely different bike ride, out past Taku Lake, they've had the big blue sign up much of the summer, but the little one just popped up. If you can't read the small sign (which I'm guessing you can't) it says, "We are upgrading the skatepark!" It also says the construction budget is $1.2 million. I know we've had inflation over the years, but really? $1.2 million for curved concrete? Curious how much profit the contractor, also listed as "Street Maintenance and Grindline Skate Parks LLC" is making. I realize they may be doing more than just the skateboard park, but it would be nice if there was a watchdog group which gathered all the data on summer construction projects and evaluated how the money was spent.
In other construction news, the ACS fiber optic team was out on Crescent in Geneva Woods today. We're on the Lake Otis side, but all this area is getting wired. That bright orange wire is popping up all around the neighborhoods.
And it's mushroom season. Here are some making appearances in my yard.
Don't have time now to research these. The orange one is an amanita - hallucinogenic and al over Anchorage now. It can also make you really sick. Not planning on eating any, though I'm waiting for the King Boletes and the Shaggy Manes.
But I have started eating the olive bread I made last night. It came out well. The one in the back is a dill experiment. (We got lots of fresh dill from Grow North Farm last week.)
Meanwhile J got off the phone this evening with her long time friend (does 45 years count as long time?) who lives on the Haleakala foothills in Maui. Her house is far from Lahaina, but there is also a fire up in that neighborhood as well and she's been evacuated and is staying with friends. If I recall right, Maui has its share of eucalyptus trees, and their oil burns easily. May the fire be quickly extinguished and your house survive.
I was in sunny Anchorage yesterday, not in the path of the eclipse. But in 2019 my daughter invited us to meet her and her family to see 
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