"Closed, But Still Awesome" - Snapshots Of San Francisco

We walked my grandson to his pre-school this morning along with a foldable shopping cart full of toys and other young child related items and put them into this bin of things being collected for kids who had to flee from the Santa Rosa and other Northern California fires.




And as someone who has a soft spot for good, clever graffiti, I had to take a picture of this sign inside a bus.

Lombardi Sports closed after 66 years in business.  This 2014  SFGate article discusses legacy businesses, like Lombardi Sports, that are giving way to more lucrative uses of the properties, like high rise condos.  But a 2016 SF Chronicle article says  Lombardi will become a Whole Foods store, not  high rise condos.

This hydrant begged my camera to take its picture.  I've no more to say about it.



I was taken by Cheese Plus' closed sign.  A delivery guy came with a dolly full of stuff, but the front door was locked.  It was not quite 10am, but a guy inside opened it and let the man in.

I told him I liked the sign.  He introduced himself as Joe and showed me the other side of the sign:  "Come In, We're AWESOME."


Here's Joe, below.  There's a little outdoor cafe on the side and he pointed out that the coffee was all from Equator Coffee, a coffee company that pays its farmers above market wages and, bingo, the name had a meaning beyond a ring around the center of the globe.



But I'm always a bit skeptical of business folks making claims to being super fair to their third world suppliers, so I looked up Equator Coffee.  The website is long on abstract philosophy and short on specifics of how they actually carry out their ideas.  That doesn't mean they aren't a great, conscientious company.  There just isn't much hard information there. For example, from Equator's website:

"Equator’s philosophy on coffee is built from a question: how do we create value from our perch in the coffee supply chain, standing at the intersection between local and distant coffee communities? It is this question that continues to frame our narrative as we strive to grow a business that values the stakeholders in both communities with respect for the people, the process, and the product. Equator believes that quality underlies economic and environmental sustainability, and this is the pillar of our approach. We support environmentally sound certifications, as well as practices that produce the highest quality coffee while securing a dignified life for those who produce it.  

It is no surprise that the relationships we have nurtured through the years remain at the heart of our coffee program. Brooke and Helen routinely pay quality incentives to farmers, support farming community initiatives, and provide micro-loan credits—all to ensure Equator has a consistent supply of quality coffee. Only with those practices in place can Equator’s dedicated and experienced team here in Marin transform the farmers’ efforts into a quality cup of coffee so that you can enjoy the results of all their hard work."  [emphasis added]

 I was vaguely aware of games where people become part of the performance, but only just barely.  But I wanted to find out more about this one, particularly the claim of Best Escape Room Nationwide.    I found Escape Room Tips' website which had a page titled "8 Best Escape Rooms in San Francisco:"

Real Escape Room, or this one on Polk St, Escape From the Jail, wasn't listed.

For those of you still scratching your heads out there, Room Escape Artist explains what these are all about.  Here's their  beginning:

"What’s a Room Escape?
18 june 2015 by david spira, posted in player tips
You get locked in a room with a bunch of people. The room is a puzzle that you solve by resolving the smaller puzzles that are contained within it.
These things go by a lot of names (room escapes, escape games, exit games, locked room games, adventure rooms). Whatever you call them, they’re all referencing the same general concept.
Wait… Locked in?
Yeah… Usually you are locked in the room, and your goal is to find the key to get back out.
Some states or municipalities have laws that prevent the company from physically locking you in, games in those locations have to get a bit creative."

The other day I discussed anger in the US and how we have an economic system that puts most people under unreasonable amounts of stress.  But we blame the person who has the stress, instead of questioning what it is about our system that causes the stress.  So I was ready to see this poster in that context.

Again, in a country where so many people are affected by stress, why is Sam to blame here for his heart's problems?  Rather it's the system that puts so many under great pressure.  And even if heart and cholesterol medications prevent lots of heart attacks, that takes away (thankfully) one of the worst consequences of that pressure, but not the cause.











Art takes all forms here in San Francisco.

And finally, my son pointed out this self-driving car.  I wouldn't have known, especially since there was someone in the driver's seat.  It does have interesting protrusions on the roof.

Puzzling Over Escher

I found an old jigsaw puzzle in the garage when I was decluttering.  I'm not a jigsaw puzzle person.  I figure they are just time sinks without much gain.  In a time when there was no radio or television, not to mention internet, maybe they might have been a way to pass the time, but I'm much too busy to need a jigsaw puzzle in my life.

According to puzzle warehouse,

The origins of jigsaw puzzles go back to the 1760s when European mapmakers pasted maps onto wood and cut them into small pieces. John Spilsbury, an engraver and mapmaker, is credited with inventing the first jigsaw puzzle in 1767. The dissected map has been a successful educational toy ever since. American children still learn geography by playing with puzzle maps of the United States or the world.

Yes, I learned the 50 US states that way.  That's a great use of puzzles.






But I do like MC Escher.  So I pulled the puzzle box upstairs and started putting the borders together.

So I came to this as jigsaw novice.  But it did seem to me that there were certain difficulties in this puzzle"

• black and white
• white border
• lots of similar features scattered throughout the picture

 I can imagine that a Jackson Pollack would be a lot worse, but this one seemed more than enough of a challenge.



So, if you can't group pieces by color, what do you use?  Starting with the border, I found I had to group pieces by shape, since all the pieces were simply white.  This was back in June I think.  Because then my daughter arrived for several weeks and she got us past just the border.  But it was clear there was one missing piece.  There simply was not another piece that had one totally flat edge, yet there was a missing piece in the lower right hand side.

At some point I decided to take pictures of the puzzle each night, just so we could remind ourselves that we did actually make some progress.

This is August 18 with some of the loose pieces in the middle.  We got to a point where we stopped trying to add to what was already in the puzzle and try to work on pieces that had similar images.  I say images because they weren't all that clear.  You can see the hole in the lower right hand corner on the border.  Even when there were no pieces left, that was still a hole.

Here's August 19.  We've taken the extra pieces out of the middle of the puzzle, mostly.  There is progress from one day to the next, but you have to look closely to see it.


Somewhere along the way I tried to count how many pieces were already in the puzzle and how many were left.  The box said there were 551 pieces and my numbers were far short of that.  So in addition to the problems I mentioned above, we also had an undetermined number of missing pieces.


But by this point we were going to push all the way to the end.


Here's some more jigsaw history from puzzle warehouse:

"Puzzles for adults emerged around 1900, and by 1908 a full-blown craze was in progress in the United States. Contemporary writers depicted the inexorable progression of the puzzle addict: from the skeptic who first ridiculed puzzles as silly and childish, to the perplexed puzzler who ignored meals while chanting just one more piece; to the bleary-eyed victor who finally put in the last piece in the wee hours of the morning.
The puzzles of those days were quite a challenge. Most had pieces cut exactly on the color lines. There were no transition pieces with two colors to signal, for example, that the brown area (roof) fit next to the blues (sky). A sneeze or a careless move could undo an evening's work because the pieces did not interlock. And, unlike children's puzzles, the adult puzzles had no guide picture on the box; if the title was vague or misleading, the true subject could remain a mystery until the last pieces were fitted into place." [emphasis added]

Well, we did turn into those folks addicted to getting this thing done.  How long would this have taken if there was no picture on the box?  That's something they wouldn't even allow at Guantanamo. I ended up looking at the cover picture very closely trying to figure out from the background, which piece of pillar fit in which part of the puzzle.

We kept switching from grouping the pieces by shape and then by content (as hard as that was to figure much of the time) and then by shape again.






Here's August 23.  Some days we only got a few pieces added.  But if you look closely, we did fill in some holes and filled in along the inside edges.


















August 26 and things seemed to be moving faster, after all there weren't as many pieces to choose from any more.  And it seemed like there were far fewer missing pieces than I had thought.

And then, on August 27 we were out of pieces.  There were only nine missing pieces.

So, now we have to figure out what to do with this puzzle.  After all that work, just taking it apart and putting it into the box seems terrible.  Some things you make are intended to disappear - like a pie.  But it's anti-clutter season in our house, so this will go back in the box, and we'll give it a way.  And the next victim will at least know that there are nine missing pieces.


It did make me think of the assignment I had in the computer art class.  We had to digitally recreate a masterpiece.  I certainly learned a lot more about the picture I had chosen.  And in this case I got to know Escher's painting in much more detail than I ever would have.
Also learned to look at shapes AND content.  There were lots of different shapes but they fell in clear patterns.  Here's an example of three-knobbed pieces.

And I was reminded once again that slow but sure wins the race.  Well, I'm not sure about the race, but it does get the puzzle done.

And jigsaw puzzles, like other puzzles, take you out of daily routine.  The work on the puzzle seems to block out other things.  The other parts of your brain get a rest.

Jigsaw puzzle benefits lists 42 benefits of doing jigsaw puzzles.  I think this sentence gives an overview - though not the specific individual benefits.  Those are at the link.

"The educational value of doing a jigsaw puzzle is twofold: first, by building up a base of useful individual skills; secondly, by transferring these skills to other situations where they can be applied to solve new problems." 

Soccer Break

Ater 90 minutes of regular play, this game, whose winner would play in the championship game the next day (later today), was 0-0.

The game was on one of many soccer fields at Starfire Sports Complex, a large soccer complex in Seattle where, I'm told, the Sounders once played.  This league, Washington Youth Soccer,  is separate from the high school league, which starts later.

The game began an hour late because the previous game also went into to overtimes and was decided with penalty kicks.  It was in the low 40s (F) and while the players were mostly in short sleeves, the spectators had space heaters and lots of clothing.  At least the Starfire sports complex has indoor fields too and I could watch the game from inside.  The damp cold here is more penetrating than Anchorages dry cold, and just standing around outside doesn't keep one warm.

It wasn't until near the end of the second overtime that there was a flurry of action near the goal and the team I was rooting for (a relative was playing), and while the goalie saved this one,

This one made it. I think.  The camera captures the action, but you can also miss things.  If not this one, then immediately after.   I think the ball in the shot below is just to the left of the goalie's chest in this picture.

It took me a while to figure out how the clock works here.  It goes up to 90 minutes in the regular game.  Then it keeps going to 100 minutes in the first overtime.  Then it starts again at zero.  So, if I have this right

 Today's game will be for the state championship in the under 17 group.

For $15 You Can Watch The World Chess Championship Game 9 Live Now

"The World Chess Championship Match 2016, held from 11 to 30 November, will be contested by 25 year old reigning champion Magnus Carlsen of Norway and his challenger, 26 year old Sergey Karjakin of Russia — and this is the first time that two players who have come of age in the computer era are fighting for the title and represent a generational shift in chess."

Here's a screenshot from my son's computer a few minutes ago.  Karjakin is white, Carlsen is black.

You can purchase a front row seat here.

Carlsen left, Karjakin right image from world chess.com

For a lot more context on today's game, this year's championships, and the players, check this Guardian article, the source of the following snippet:

"Any expectations of the political intrigue and paranoia associated with the sport’s golden age were not disappointed. Israel Gelfer, the vice president of the world chess federation, spoke on behalf of the governing body only because Fide president Kirsan Ilyumzhinov was barred from entering the country due to his ties to the Syrian government and the Central Bank of Syria. At one point Carlsen fielded a question over the rumors that he’d enlisted Microsoft for cybersecurity consultation over concerns Karjakin’s team were trying to hack his preparations. No fewer than two questions were posed about Fischer-Spassky, never mind that Carlsen and Karjakin were years away from being born when the Match of the Century took place."

YELP Lives In Old ATT Building And Other San Francisco Short Stories

View of San Francisco from the bus on a rainy morning.

The waterfall is in Yerba Buena Gardens, on the way to the children's museum.  Yerba Buena, it turns out, was the name of the Mexican town in Alta California where San Francisco sits now.


The building in the center, with the flag on top, is the old Pacific Telephone and Telegraph Building, and now houses YELP.


From Marketwatch:

Unlike the sanitized office parks that Silicon Valley is famous for, Yelp’s new offices are in one of San Francisco’s earliest skyscrapers, a relic of the building boom of the Roaring ’20s. The 26-story Art Deco building was once owned by Pacific Telephone & Telegraph Co., or PT&T, one of the Baby Bell subsidiaries of AT&T Inc. The building, now named for its address, 140 New Montgomery, was designed by the well-regarded local architect Timothy Pflueger. Like an early version of Google Inc.’s /quotes/zigman/59527964/composite GOOG -0.21% Googleplex, Pacific Telephone developed ways to keep its employees inside the building, with a cafeteria for employees — most of whom were women — and an auditorium for special events, lectures, parties, bridal showers and exercise classes.
The Bell system logo remains above the front entrance to 140 New Montgomery, a reminder that Yelp’s headquarters was once home to Pacific Telephone & Telegraph. “We are kind of the new Pac Bell or AT&T,” said John Lieu, director of real estate and facilities for Yelp.
Today, the business-review site, which has been growing steadily but losing money since it was founded in 2004, occupies nine floors in the recently reopened building. The high-rise had been unoccupied since AT&T /quotes/zigman/398198/composite T -0.16% , which ended up merging with SBC and the vestiges of Pacific Bell/Telesis), moved out in 2007. The current owners, developers Wilson Meany and Stockbridge Capital Partners, bought the iconic building in 2008 for $118 million, with that price including a nearby parking garage. Initially, the developers planned to convert the building to a residential condominium, but the recession and financial crisis put those plans on ice.

The contrast between the very wealthy and the very poor is particularly visible in San Francisco.  Right near high end stores, you see homeless folks.

And not far from this Prada window was this wedding dress window.

I ran into Brian when he was yelling into a doorway that he had a 2004 BA as we walked passed.  He saw me and explained something about a a college sweatshirt and a woman.  He offered me his pipe and posed for this picture.

The Women's Athletic Club:

Despite the overwhelming role of women in the organization of the club (only outside consultants, lawyers and its architects were men) the members were almost always referred to in the press and in other records by their husband's names, i.e., Elizabeth Pillsbury was Mrs. Horace D. Pillsbury. Mrs. Pillsbury became the first president of the Women's Athletic Club. The core of the membership of the club was expected to come from the Social Register, but efforts were made to reach artistically trained women and working-class women. The aim of the club, as stated in 1914 in a letter sent to prospective members, was "educational first and recreation and pleasure afterwards." Elizabeth Pillsbury reached out to working women and girls by creating another athletic club, the Recreation Club for Girls Who Work, located at 507 Harrison Street, which was located in the heart of the industrial section of the city.

The site also gives some history of women and athletics in the US.

"Socially, physical education for women in America began as early as the 1820s in girls' schools, but it wasn't until the mid-19th century that widespread concerns began that the health of American women was in decline, perhaps because of the effects of urbanization and industrialization. In the 1860s and 1870s, several women's colleges including Mills College in Oakland were established incorporating programs for physical training in their curriculums, including calisthenics, dancing and gymnastics. The first gymnasium for women outside of women's colleges was Miss Allen's Gymnasium for Ladies, established in Boston in 1879. In the 1890s, it became fashionable for wealthy women to engage in certain sports--golf, tennis, yachting and horseback riding. It was not until 1900 that public attitudes about athletics for women began to change, but there were still voices of opposition present. In 1905, The Women Citizen reported that former President Grover Cleveland "gravely pointed out the menace of the women's clubs" but by 1925, the social venue had changed and such statements by high politicians were rare or non-existent. While California women obtained the right to vote in 1911 in State elections, it wasn't until 1919 that women could vote in national elections."

Don't park under a mock orange tree when the flowers are about to drop off.  But the flowers smell so sweet.

It appears these steps aren't used often.

Revenge Porn, Equal Benefits for Transgender Employees, Vaccinations, Sexual Violence Ed, State Lichen, And Other New California Laws

The LA Times listed a slew of new laws that came into effect today.  Sounds like something like something all major newspapers ought to do.  ADN, you working on the Alaska new laws story?  I can't find a list of new Alaska laws, though there is plenty online about the Alaska's new marijuana law.

Here are some of the new California laws from the LA Times article.  You can see the whole list here.

Here's one that has the potential to impact Alaska, especially if other states copy it:

• The state’s two major public employee pension funds must sell holdings in companies that derive at least half of their revenue from mining coal used to generate electricity by July 1, 2017.

Here's something I talked about in a two posts in November -  So, How About Wrongful Treatment Insurance? and "Fair and Moral Compensation" - A Followup Post.  It's really a token, but at least it's acknowledgement of a moral duty.

• The state will increase compensation for innocent people who are wrongly convicted from $100 for each day behind bars to $140, to reflect inflation.

Here are the others

• Prosecutors are allowed to seek forfeiture of the images and storage devices used in “revenge porn” cases, in which an estranged romantic partner posts nude or sexual pictures of the other person online
• Law enforcement agencies must obtain a search warrant before looking at private emails, text messages and GPS data stored in smartphones, laptops and the cloud
• Requires short-term rental platforms such as Airbnb to alert users that if they are renters, listing their home on the site could violate their lease agreements.
• Companies with state contracts worth at least $100,000 must provide equal benefits to transgender employees.
• Bans concealed weapons on college campuses.
• Crisis pregnancy clinics certified by the state must post notices that California has public programs providing affordable contraception and abortions.
• The word “alien” will be removed from California's labor code to describe those not born in the United States.
• The vaccination law eliminates the ability of parents to waive immunization rules for their children based on personal beliefs. Though the law takes effect on Jan. 1, it allows parents to delay the vaccinations until July 1 if they filled out a request before New Year’s Day. But almost all students will have to show proof of immunization shots for the start of the new school year this fall
• High schools that mandate health courses must provide lessons aimed at preventing sexual violence and the concept that both parties must consent to sexual relations.
• Students are required to take sexual health classes unless their parents object — the classes are now voluntary — and the lessons must include the teaching to be inclusive of different sexual orientations.
• Cheerleaders for professional sports teams are considered employees, not independent contractors, and therefore are eligible to receive a minimum wage, workers' compensation and other benefits.
• Designates lace lichen, commonly known as Spanish moss, as California's official lichen.

One imagines that Texas and California are polar opposites.  JRLawFirm let's us compare a bit.  In some ways it's true.  While California banned concealed weapons on campus, Texas did the opposite.

• Senate Bill No. 11, which will take effect on August 1, amends the Texas Government and Penal Codes to allow handgun license holders, in some circumstances, to carry a concealed handgun on public and private colleges and universities in Texas, as well as other independent institutions of higher learning (does not apply to public junior or community colleges until August 1, 2017).

But in other cases they are moving in the same direction.  Texas also took action against 'revenge porn' and they're requiring a search warrant for cell phone and wireless devices.

• It is now illegal to broadcast or disclose private, intimate, visual material if that material was disclosed without the person’s consent, the material was not expected to be disclosed, the disclosure of the material caused harm, and the disclosure revealed the identity of the person in any matter. This is now actionable in criminal as well as civil court, per State Bill 1135, effective September 1st, 2015.
• Police must now obtain a search warrant in order to search a persons’s cell phone or wireless communication device, per House Bill 1396, which will take effect on September 1st, 2015.

And while California now has an official lichen, Texas now has an official hashtag  - #Texas.  I'm sure there will be a lot more activity involving the hashtag than the lichen.

Meadowlark Lemon Takes His Leave

I saw Meadowlark Lemon and the Harlem Globetrotters at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium.  I thought it was in the early 1960s, but the only mention I could find online of the Globetrotters around that time at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium was in a history of the auditorium:

"And on February 3, 1959, Wilt Chamberlain and the Harlem Globetrotters whipped the Los Angeles Rams in a basketball game, 80-56." 

Whether it was that game or a later one in Santa Monica, I just remember laughing very hard and being totally amazed at what these guys could do with a basketball.  I'd note that some of the first UCLA basketball games I went to were also in the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium.

Below is a snippet of Meadowlark and the team that will give those who never saw the Globetrotters an idea of what they did on court.

Below that is a longer documentary that puts their comic talents into the context of their amazing athletic talents and race relations in the United States and the world - the real importance of the Harlem Globetrotters.

Some Personal University of Missouri History

In the summer of 1967 I was returning to the second summer of Peace Corps training in DeKalb, Illinois.  Friends had moved from LA to Minneapolis and asked if I could drive their second car; so I got a chance to drive across the US before heading for Thailand for several years.

On the way I stopped to visit my roommate from the previous summer's training  He was, in the language back then, a Negro.  While I went to a demographer's dream of a high school and had many interactions with black students there, this was the first time I got to have a close friend who was black.  (He's still my close friend all these years later.)  But he didn't make it through that first summer of training.  At the end, he was told to pack up and leave, as were others.  In hindsight, it was obviously racism.  He was the only black in our group.  It wasn't til much later that I learned it was his first time in an all white setting.  Thais have a thing about light skin, so it may have been the influence of the language teachers that got him kicked out.

Why do I say it was racism?  Because he did get into a Philippine group later where he served his two [three] years well.  And because there were so few volunteers of color and because he has an infectious smile, he ended up on a Peace Corps recruiting poster that was used for years and years.

[UPDATE July 9, 2016: rereading this I realize this is not a good explanation of why I feel he was deselected (the term they used) because of racism.  He and I were a team in training (and still are when we get together now) and there's no reason that our foolishness should have gotten him deselected and left me in the program.  I'd been labeled 'high risk-high gain' by our shrink, Dr. Feldman.  My sins?  In hindsight, I realize it was the first time I'd been discriminated for being from California.  What Feldman said was, "You wear cutoff shorts, a silly hat, and go barefoot everywhere."  Well, that was my native dress and we trained in DeKalb, Illinois where it never got below 90˚ F, and we didn't have air conditioning.  My dress was entirely appropriate to the weather.  (My hat was just a normal little hat the gave me some shade, not particularly silly.) I could ditch the hat and wear long pants and shoes - which I did for the rest of the summer - but my friend couldn't change his skin color.  I think my pointing out that he served well in the Philippines was to show that he eventually did become a successful volunteer, good enough to be used in recruiting posters.]

He lived in St. Louis and he was a student at the University of Missouri, which was still in session as I drove to Minneapolis.  I stopped in Columbia to visit him.  What I remember from that day was that he saw things I never saw before.  As we walked around campus he showed me escape routes, little paths he could use to disappear, if say, a threatening looking group of white students was approaching him, or if a campus police car was nearby, or any number of things that would make a black student at the University of Missouri nervous.  This was only ten years after the Little Rock Nine, four years after the University of Mississippi took black students, and three years after Governor Wallace blocked the entrance of the University of Alabama in an attempt to keep black students from enrolling.  The University of Missouri, through a court order, had integrated 'way back' in 1950.
But only for students in the nearby black college who wanted majors not available at their school.

I had lunch that day with my friend at a campus restaurant with his friends (all black.)  I was very conscious of all the people staring at me from other tables.  And later I learned that my friend was chewed out by his friends for having me eat with them.

I got the message that day, that Missouri was a southern state.

So it's with a mix of sadness and awe that I watch the news now of the University of Missouri's black football players standing up to the crap that's apparently still going on after all these years.  Football players threatening to boycott the game means people risking their scholarships and their education for their principles.

It says something about American universities that the threat of a cancelled football game can get a president and a provost to resign in a couple of days.  These aren't issues that are confined to Missouri or even the south.  These are issues on every campus.  And what will it take to get campuses safe and comfortable for women?

Lewis, do you have anything to add?  I was only there a day or so, you spent four [two] years in the mid 1960s at the University of Missouri.  You must have lots of stories to tell and lots of thoughts as you watch your alma mater today.  [UPDATE July 9, 2016:  Lewis emailed me after this was posted to say that he didn't comment here because it was still - over 40 years later - too painful to dredge up other memories of those days.]

What's A Blogger To Do? Too Much To Write About - LIO Scandal, Forced Arbitration, Trump's Good Old Days, Hockey

Me:  Even with the gain of an hour overnight as we set our clocks back,  there's not enough time!
Jiminy Cricket:  Of course there is Steve, you just have to prioritize.
Me:  Actually, the number of things we could do has increased so fast that humans will soon be obsolete, we just can't keep up.  It used to be we maybe had two newspapers to read, now every newspaper in the world is available online.  Not to mention every home video anyone has ever made.
Jiminy Cricket:  You going to complain all morning or write?
Me:  OK, OK.  So, my first glimpse of November 2015 was an inspiring one as I looked out the window at what should have been 9:24am, but because of the time change was only 8:24am.  And if you look closely you can see the snow that we got Friday still lingering.


So, what's stacking up in the blog pile?  Anchorage International Film Festival (AIFF) posts on documentaries, shorts, animation, and maybe even Alaska films in competition.  I try to get some of those groups done before the festival begins and this year I have the features in competition up already.  I don't have to think too hard on these, just go looking for info on the films.  And the AIFF 2015 page is started already.  That's up on top and I'll be updating general festival strategy stuff from last year and information on the films for this year.

I've got more to do on the Chuitna decision which the resource development community is upset about and has appealed.  There are some significant democratic principle issues at stake there that should be explored.  But it's complicated and people have lots of other things to distract them (back up to complaints about too little time above.)

I want to post more on my new, evolving relationship with my sourdough starter.

I'm working on something on rules - what they do for us, but how to keep from becoming trapped by them.   There are some books I want to say something about, some movies, how Netflix and other online movie sites are changing things, more on the conflicts between police and African-Americans  . . .  But serious posts require some time and thought and if I take on a subject, I want to look at it differently than others, not just reprint what others write.

Then there are all the potential posts that show up everyday, not part of the queue, but begging to be written.  Today's Section A of the Alaska Dispatch News (ADN)  (it was the second time this week we had to call to say it wasn't delivered) was full of such stories.  I'll just try to do a short take on a couple of them.

1.  Jim Gottstein's lawsuit against the Legislative Information Office remodeling contract.  It's so easy for legislators to get away with stuff.  Lisa Demer wrote along detailed story on all the irregularities in the contract two years ago in the ADN.   But this needed someone with legal standing and money and perseverance to step up and sue.  Today's article reveals some private emails that show Rep. Hawker worked with the politically generous developer to get around legislative attorneys' opinions that a no-bid contract was illegal.  Legislators often work with constituents to find ways to get around obstacles to get things done.  But when it's for a no bid contract for a state building that's going to raise the legislature's  rent enormously, it's suspicious.  And Hawker's an accountant, so he can't plead ignorant (ignorance is not a get out jail free card for anyone, but he had special expertise and clearly should have known better.)

2.  Corporations slipping arbitration language into contracts.  This is a New York Times article that was on the front page of the ADN.  It's got several themes I've got an interest in:

• The power of large corporations to force rules on their customers, rules that always favor the corporation.  In particular it is looking at rules that require arbitration to resolve disputes.   The offending language is:

". . .the company 'may elect to resolve any claim by individual arbitration.'

Those nine words are at the center of a far-reaching power play orchestrated by American corporations, an investigation by The New York Times has found.

By inserting individual arbitration clauses into a soaring number of consumer and employment contracts, companies like American Express devised a way to circumvent the courts and bar people from joining together in class-action lawsuits, realistically the only tool citizens have to fight illegal or deceitful business practices.

Over the last few years, it has become increasingly difficult to apply for a credit card, use a cellphone, get cable or Internet service, or shop online without agreeing to private arbitration. The same applies to getting a job, renting a car or placing a relative in a nursing home."

[Added later:  I should also add that attorneys have lots of incentives to fight for their ability to file class action lawsuits.  And that my sense is many of those suits only bring in money for attorneys because either the individuals don't understand all the paperwork needed to make a claim, or they do understand and decide that for the small amount they might possibly get, it's not worth all the work.]

• The impossibility of consumers actually reading all the contracts they have to agree to these days.  For a particularly egregious example, see my post on the iTunes update agreement back in 2013.
• Among many disturbing aspects of this issue, is how this change was carried out and Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts' role in this.

" . . .the move to block class actions was engineered by a Wall Street-led coalition of credit card companies and retailers, according to interviews with coalition members and court records. Strategizing from law offices on Park Avenue and in Washington, members of the group came up with a plan to insulate themselves from the costly lawsuits. Their work culminated in two Supreme Court rulings, in 2011 and 2013, that enshrined the use of class-action bans in contracts. The decisions drew little attention outside legal circles, even though they upended decades of jurisprudence put in place to protect consumers and employees.

One of the players behind the scenes, The Times found, was John G. Roberts Jr., who as a private lawyer representing Discover Bank unsuccessfully petitioned the Supreme Court to hear a case involving class-action bans. By the time the Supreme Court handed down its favorable decisions, he was the chief justice."

 The problem for me isn't that a group of people come together to change the law.  That happens all the time for things like civil rights, environmental protection, and other important causes.  But the Constitutional narrative of James Madison was that competing powers would mean that laws would be just because people would challenge misuses of power.  And that's what seems to be happening in the LIO case mentioned above.  However, given the huge inequality in the distribution of wealth in the United States today, the ability to challenge large corporations becomes harder and harder.  The ability of corporations to draft legislation for the legislators they've funded, to change the laws in their own favor, grows increasingly hard to challenge. 


3.  A Washington Post article reprinted on page A-7 of the ADN explaining that supporters see Trump as the candidate who can restore America's greatness.   Trying to understand the motivations of Trump and other candidates is something I always want to do.  I think it is often more complicated than is normally reported.  Unfortunately, the reporter's tone is a bit flip (not to the snark level).  But he does point out that 'when America was last great' varies from person to person, and how Trump is going to restore this lost quality isn't clear.  But let's look at a couple of the examples of the good old days.

• ". . . the last time America was great was when Ronald Reagan was president, when people played by the rules."   

Let's see, the 1980's included the savings and loan scandal, Iran Contra,  Reagan's Chief of Staff was convicted of lying to Congress and more. Jimmy Swaggart and Jimmy Baker scandals, and in sports Pete Rose was betting on his games and Ben Johnson got his Olympic Gold metal with steroids. 

• ". . . it was in the ’70s, Holly Martin says, when you could depend on Americans to work hard."   

When the US had the largest number of union members who still had some power to negotiate with their employers?  When the pay ratio between the CEO and the lowest paid employees was about 20-1 compared to today's 350 - 1? [Clearly related to inequality of wealth mentioned in the class action suit article.]  And jobs were easy to get because so many men were fighting in a controversial war in Vietnam and women were supposed to stay home and raise the kids?

• " . . .to find true American greatness, Steve Trivett contends, you need to go back to before the Vietnam War, “when you could still own a home and have a good job even if you didn’t have a college education.”

You mean just before the Civil Rights Act when whites didn't have to compete with blacks for jobs?  And redlining meant blacks couldn't get loans to buy houses?  

• “The last time we had good jobs and respect for the military and law enforcement was, oh, probably during Eisenhower.” 

When income tax rates in the US were at their all time highest, the largest percentage of US workers were unionized, and when Southern police and courts looked the other way when blacks were lynched?  That was right after WW II and before Vietnam tore the country apart.  

All this selective memory echoes the theme of the play I just saw Other Desert Cities.  We all remember things differently.  And none of those decades were calm and peaceful. They all had strong conflicts. 

4.  Local hockey player squeezes in grandmother's and great aunt's funerals in Saskatchewan before leading his team to victory back in Anchorage.  Here's a kid whose family obligations came before his team obligations.  It involved three plane changes each way (and a hefty bill, I'm sure).  On the lucky side, instead of the normal Fri-Sat games, it's a Sat-Sun series.  A good story and my condolences and congratulations.

Not Watching The Super Bowl

I googled "Who Doesn't Watch The Super Bowl?" and only got some lame sites.

I googled "How many people watch the Super Bowl in the USA?"  and got these numbers at Sportingcharts:

The most watched Super Bowl in history was Super Bowl XLVIII (Seahawks vs. Broncos), which had an average total viewership (in the U.S.) of 111.5M. The least watched Super Bowl was Super Bowl II (Packers vs. Raiders) which had an average viewership of 39.12M.

The US Census population clock says there are over 320 million people in the USA.

So, for every person watching the game, two aren't watching.

But I still don't know if there are other common characteristics of the non-watchers?  How many under 5?  And what are they doing?  Reading?  Outdoors?  At work?

I'm at LAX waiting for a plane back to Anchorage, but I wouldn't be watching anyway.  Just not interested.  This is no longer sport in my opinion, it's big business (besides the NFL, all the other businesses that make money from people watching the game)  making lots of money.  This site discusses it, but chops up the report into six pages.  Something I see a lot.  A way for websites to get more page hits.

I've also discovered over the years that the Superbowl is a great time to do other things - nobody is around.  For all the rest of you not interested, Salut.  

AIFF 2014: Short Narratives In Competition: A Box of Chocolates

This category is like a box of chocolates - lots of little delicious bites of films.  So many choices, which should you pick?  Which will be best?  I haven't seen any of these films, but I've gathered crumbs from each, but not enough to spoil the surprise.

The Short Narratives in competition are spread over three different short narrative programs.  Plus there are several other Short Narrative programs.  I've color coded the programs - the reds are in Global Village, the greens are in Love and Pain, and the purple is in Mixed Bag.

OVERVIEW

1. THE LIST OF SHORT NARRATIVES IN COMPETITION
2. DESCRIPTIONS OF EACH GROUPED BY THE PROGRAMS THEY'RE IN
3. LISTS OF THE OTHER SHORT NARRATIVE PROGRAMS

1.  THE LIST OF SHORT NARRATIVES IN COMPETITION

Narrative Shorts In Competition √
Film	Director	Country	Length	Program
Arena	Martin Rath	Poland	23m	Global Village
Given Your History	Molly McGlynn	Canada	15m	Global Village
How Hipólito Vázquez Found Magic Where He Never Expected To Find It  [De cómo Hipólito Vázquez encontró magia donde no buscaba]	Matias Rubio	Argentina	15m	Global Village
Till Then [Bis Gleich]	BenjaminWolff	Germany	20m	Global Village
Tom in America	Flavio Alves	Brazil	17m	Mixed Bag
Universal Language	Kirsten Russell	USA	35m	Love & Pain
What Cheer?	Michael Slavens	USA	17m	Love & Pain

[UPDATE, Dec. 6, 2014:  It turns out I left out Full Windsor - a super short narrative in competition.  It plays in the Love and Pain program.]

2.  DESCRIPTIONS OF THEM GROUPED BY THE PROGRAMS THEY'RE IN

There are four films in competition in the Global Village program.

Global Village - Shorts Program

Sun, Dec 07 3:00 PM  AK Experience Large   Thu, Dec 11      7:30 PM  AK Experience Small

Into The Silent Sea | Andrej Landin 2013  **How Hipolito Vazquez Found Magic Where He Never Expected | Matias Rubio 2013    Intermission | Marielle Gautier 2014  **Arena | Martin Rath 2013   **Given Your History | Molly McGlynn 2014    **Till Then | Benjamin Wolff 2014    **= films in competition

Screenshot from trailer - "shot in a perpetual twilight"

Arena
Martin Rath   
Poland
23m √

Culture.Pl lists this Polish film, with a German director,  among The Most Interesting Debut Films of 2013

It won what appears to be the main international prize at the Cork Film Festival where they posted this brief assessment:

"Grand Prix International (€1,000)
Martin Rath, Poland
Jury Statement: From the first to the final frame, Arena maintains a threatening ambiguity. Shot in a perpetual twilight, things are always about to get dark, and Rath’s immense skill is to hold the tension as the film oscillates between machismo and sensitivity.
Cork Short Film Nominee for the European Film Awards 2014

ARENA"

From the Krakow Film Festival:

"A hitchhiker is taken in by an remote Polish mountain community. Absorbed by the charismatic locals and unforgiving harshness of his new environment he constitutes his presence in the mountains. But to whom do we have to prove of what we're made?"

Part of Global Village Program that plays:

Sun, Dec 07 3:00 PM  AK Experience Large  

Thu, Dec 11      7:30 PM  AK Experience Small

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Given Your History

Image from  National Screen Institute Canada:

Canada
15m √

This is the US premiere of this film.  It's only been publicly shown once so far - in Hamilton, Canada

From the National Screen Institute Canada:

NSI Drama Prize short Given Your History, from writer/director Molly McGlynn and producer Laura Perlmutter, is getting even more festival exposure.
Next month it screens at the Hamilton Film Festival on Saturday, November 8 at 9 p.m. as part of the drama shorts 2 programme at the Staircase Theatre.
The short also screens in Alaska in December at the Anchorage International Film Festival as part of their short film selections.
Given Your History is an honest look at two sisters trying to move on after their mother’s death from breast cancer.

This means, Anchorage audiences will be among the first to see this film, and it's possibly an US premiere.  There apparently has been a shorter (4 minutes) version that's played in fesitivals Seattle and elsewhere.

Part of Global Village Program that plays:

Sun, Dec 07 3:00 PM  AK Experience Large  

Thu, Dec 11      7:30 PM  AK Experience Small

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How Hipólito Vázquez Found Magic Where He Never Expected To Find It  [De cómo Hipólito Vázquez encontró magia donde no buscaba]
Matias Rubio
Argentina
15m √

From Two Short Nights Film Festival website:

"Hipólito Vázquez is a talent scout. With his loyal partner Cholo, he is looking for a little child whose supposed to “do magic with the football”. Therefore they go on a long journey to the distant Club “La Camelia” following the advices of a mystery man. But as the trip goes along, not everything goes as planned and maybe what he ends up discovering was not exactly what he expected to find."

Based on a map on the films Facebook page, this appears to be only the third US showing.  It got the Grand Jury Prize at the Indiana Short Film Festival in October this year.

Part of Global Village Program that plays:

Sun, Dec 07 3:00 PM  AK Experience Large  

Thu, Dec 11      7:30 PM  AK Experience Small

***********************************************************

Image from Spiffest

Till Then [Bis Gleich]
Benjamin Wolff
Germany
20m √

From a review by Beth Groundwater at the Breckenridge Film Festival:

"A man and a woman sit at their respective windows across from each other on a busy street in Berlin, Germany, and observe the interesting minor dramas unfolding on the street below them. They never speak, but they acknowledge each others presence. But then one day the man does not appear. What should the woman do?
Instead of relying on on a preponderance of dialogue to express emotion and move the story forward, the scriptwriter, Tara Lynn Orr, and director, Benjamin Wolff, expertly use the characters' actions to tenderly reveal the story to the viewer, the courage it takes for the woman to act, and the bittersweet result. This nineteen minute smile awaits you!"

Part of Global Village Program that plays:

Sun, Dec 07 3:00 PM  AK Experience Large  

Thu, Dec 11      7:30 PM  AK Experience Small

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Two films in competition in the Love & Pain program.

Love & Pain - Shorts Program

Sat, Dec 06  12:00 PM    Alaska Experience Large Thu, Dec 11  6:00 PM     Alaska Experience Large

Four Brothers. Or Three. Wait ... Three. | Philip Buiser 2013 The Mourning Hour | Susan Cohen 2013 **Universal Language | Kirsten Russell 2014 Beneath the Trees | Kitty Mahoney 2014 Reaching Home | Kenneth Murphy 2013 Full-Windsor | Faraday Okoro 2014 **What Cheer? | Michael Slavens 2014 **= films in competition

[UPDATED 12/6:}  Full Windsor

Image from Ari Fulton Design for Stage and Film

Faraday Okoror
USA
6m

A 10 year old boy battles his mother in order to wear his father's tie to school.

Part of Love & Pain Program that plays:
Sat, Dec 06  12:00 PM    Alaska Experience Large

Thu, Dec 11  6:00 PM     Alaska Experience Large

***********************************************************

Universal Language
Kirsten Russell
USA
35m √

Excerpt from Universal Language's Kickstarter page:  (It got more than its $3500 goal)

"In the spring of 2013 I had plans to be in Austria for two weeks.  I got a call from a long-time friend (and gifted actress), Frederique Nahmani who had moved back to France.  And she threw and idea at me.
"If you're going to be in the neighborhood, why not swing over to Paris...and shoot a little film."Now what normal person, let alone filmmaker, is gonna turn that down?
the scriptI just had to write a script. So I started with the most obvious thing…the language. Or for me the language barrier since I'd be shooting a film as a stranger in a strange land.  I knew who my lead actress would be (clearly Frederique) and since I like to write for specific actors, like dysfunctional muses, I approached Marcel Simoneau, another long-time friend and filmmaking buddy.  And with these two, I made up Dan and Sophie... "

The film she did for Kickstarter probably gives us a good introduction to the film:

There's a long interview at FilmCourage if you want to know more.

Part of Love & Pain Program that plays:
Sat, Dec 06  12:00 PM    Alaska Experience Large

Thu, Dec 11  6:00 PM     Alaska Experience Large

***********************************************************

What Cheer?

Michael Slavens

USA

17m √

It's hard to find something about a lot of these movies that isn't just a copy of the official description of the movie.  I want you to get a sense of the movie without giving anything away that might spoil it.  So, here's what a film maker Patrick Longstreth wrote on his blog 

"One of my favorites was “What Cheer?” starring Richard Kind. We shared a Q&A with director Michael Slavens, who is a thoughtful filmmaker and really nice guy. I was very happy to see his film win the “Filmmaker’s Favorite” award."

What Cheer?  won the The Black Bear Award for Best Use of Sound at the Athens (Ohio) International Film Festival.

Part of Love & Pain Program that plays:

Sat, Dec 06  12:00 PM    Alaska Experience Large

Thu, Dec 11  6:00 PM     Alaska Experience Large

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And one film in competition in the Mixed Bag Shorts Program:

Mixed Bag  - Shorts Program

Thu, Dec 11 8:00 PM    Alaska Experience Large

One Armed Man | Tim Guinee 2014 Samantha '66 | Dan Wainio 2014 **Tom in America | Flavio Alves 2014 The Ladder | Pete Fitz 2013 Zugwang | Yolanda Centeno 2014 **in competition

Tom in America

Flavio Alves

Brazil

17m √

This one only plays once as far as I can tell.  And although its director is a Brazilian and this is categorized as a Brazilian film, it takes place in New York, with a couple who celebrate their 50th anniversary, and then . . .  It stars two academy award nominees - Sally Kirkland who was nominated according to Wikipedia

"1987 for Anna, for which she won the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a Drama"

and Burt Young, who, again according to Wikipedia, was also nominated for his role

"as Sylvester Stallone's brother-in-law Paulie in Rocky (1976), for which he received an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor."

He's also been in a lot of other well-known movies television shows from Chinatown to M*A*S*H and the Sopranos.

The clip below is NOT the official trailer, but the opening theme scored by Walter Schick.

Part of Mixed Bag that plays:

Thu, Dec 11 8:00 PM    Alaska Experience Large Unfortunately at the same time as Global Village Program with four other Short Narrative films in competition.   So see Global Village on Sunday Dec. 7 at 3pm

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3.  LISTS OF THE OTHER SHORT NARRATIVE PROGRAMS


Three More Narrative Shorts Programs:

• Alaska Grown (Thursday 8pm), 
• Mexican (Friday Dec 12)  and 
• Chinese Short Film Programs (Sun Dec. 14)

Plus fifteen, mostly 2 minute, shorts from kids in the Iditarod School District.

Alaska Grown

Sat, Dec 13  5:00 PM   Alaska Experience Large

Russian Jack | Jonathan Lang 2014 Speak No Evil | James Elden 2014 Wrong Side Up | Henry McComas 2014 STORYTELLING | the movie | Stefanie Black 2013 Six Dead Bodies Duct-Taped to a Merry-Go-Round | Kevin T. Bennett 2014 Look What You Did | Eirin Strickland 2014 Beneath the Trees | Kitty Mahoney 2014

Short Films From the Guanajuato International Film Festival

7:00 PM     Fri, Dec 12  Alaska Experience Theater - Large

Under The Sun [Bajo el sol] | Arcadi Palerm 2012  Fifteen Years [Quince Años] | Liliana Torres 2012  An Eye [Un ojo] | Lorenza Manrique 2012  No Brakes [Sin Frenos] | Pancho Ortega  Eskimo [Eskimal] | Homero Ramírez 2011

UAA Confucius Institute  Short Films from China

Sun, Dec 14  2:30 PM  Alaska Experience Large

Return to Prairie | Liqi Yi Can’t Piss | Xinqi Song Summer Secret | Zeng Zeng Grandfather’s Wishes | Yu We

There are also feature films as part of the Mexican films and the Chinese Films.