Is Trump Walking Into Kim's Trap?

Some folks keep suspending reality and hoping that maybe Trump can pull this off.  He'll know, he's said, in the first  minute, whether he and Kim will click.

“Within the first minute, I’ll know. My touch, my feel — that’s what I do,” 

That reminds me of Bush's assessment of Putin:

"I looked the man in the eye. I found him to be very straightforward and trustworthy. We had a very good dialogue. I was able to get a sense of his soul; a man deeply committed to his country and the best interests of his country." 

I understand how people often connect on some sort of physical/psychic level instantly.  But people don't always admit to how wrong some of those first impressions were.  Many psychopaths are pretty good at dissembling.  Ted Bundy was said to have been charming, before he raped, mutilated, and killed his victims (at least 30.)

We know that Putin has charmed Trump already, or has enough on him to get Trump to wreak havoc with Western unity, a plot that can only strengthens Putin's hand in dealing with Europe and the rest of the world.

An LA Times story offers some history lessons on summits:

"But Kennedy’s most consequential summit, which came just months into his presidency, was an unmitigated disaster, according to historians.
Despite careful preparation, the young president did not heed the warnings of advisors familiar with his Soviet counterpart, Nikita Khrushchev, whom he met in Vienna in June 1961. Kennedy’s attempts to establish a friendly rapport, which experts had cautioned him against, came across as weakness.
After the summit, he knew immediately he’d blown it, as did William Lloyd Stearman, a national security aide who traveled with Kennedy to Vienna.
'It was Al Capone meets Little Boy Blue,” Stearman said last week. “Kennedy was not used to dealing with a thug like Khrushchev. And the Cuban missile crisis can be traced back to Khrushchev’s feeling that Kennedy was weak.'”

Of course, this means that Khrushchev's take on Kennedy was wrong as well.  

The Times article says later:

“This [Trump] is a neophyte who has given every indication that he does not like to do his homework, and the cost could end up being very great,” said presidential historian Michael Beschloss. “We’ve never seen a president who wears as such a badge of honor that he won’t prepare. There’s no president in American history that has done that, and certainly not on a summit as important as this.

I'm sure Trump supporters love this stuff.  They voted for Trump to thumb his nose at the 'elite' (how is a billionaire not a member of the elite?) and to do it his way.  The article goes on further to compare Trump to Nixon and his negotiations with China.  

And while Trump says he doesn't need to do homework for the summit, another LA Times article argues that the North Koreans have been preparing for this meeting a long time.  

"Kim and a team of advisors who have followed U.S. politics for decades have been studying Trump since before the 2016 presidential election, hanging on to statements he made as a candidate, such as his now-famous offer at a rally in Atlanta in 2016 to sit down with Kim over a hamburger.
“Maybe nobody else was paying attention, but the North Koreans listened to every word,” said Leon V. Sigal, director of the Northeast Asia Cooperative Security Project at the Social Science Research Council.
Since then, each move has been carefully coordinated, including sending Kim’s attractive kid sister (North Korea’s “Ivanka,” the media has called her) in the delegation to the Winter Olympics in South Korea, and the enormous white envelope that North Korean envoy Kim Yong Chol handed Trump at a White House meeting on June 1.
'Trump’s psychology is pretty obvious to just about every leader in the world. He doesn’t like to be criticized. He loves to be stroked. He’s interested in the bold stroke, especially if he’s at the center of it,' Sigal said. 'And that gave the North Koreans the sense that this was somebody they could work with.'”

Trump probably has a lot more experience dealing with thugs than Kennedy had.  As many have noted, he and Kim have a lot of similar characteristics.  But I'm pretty sure Kim is focused on the substantive stuff much more than Trump.  For one thing, just meeting with Trump will be a huge victory for Kim. Such a meeting IS substantive for Kim.  No other US president has deigned to meet with a North Korean leader.  But it's a concession for Trump, even though he will take full advantage of what great television it will make.

But Trump wants 'denuclearization' and Kim wants relief from sanctions.  Denuclearization doesn't happen overnight, but relief from sanctions could.  Kim could promise all sorts of things over time, and then not deliver.  Trump could call it a victory.  And probably will no matter what happens.  Trump, in his own press releases, always makes the greatest deals in world history  But, barring things blowing up in Trump's first minute assessment of Kim, we probably won't know for at least a year or two if Kim follows up on his promises.

Or Trump may not even care.  Giving Kim what he wants may be just what Putin ordered Trump to do.  Russia does border North Korea - to take one more dive that hurts the US and helps Putin's long-term geo-political power.  But Trump will paper over whatever the outcome and call it a great victory, just as he's done with Climate Change, Brexit, his tariffs, etc.  all of which would seem to be great victories for Putin.

It's in Kim's and Trump's interests to be able to declare these talks successful.  And both will want that to be how the summit is framed.

I would be more than happy forTrump to seriously ease tensions in the Korean Peninsula, but in a way that doesn't give away the farm.  Some have argued that Kim wants not only the removal of economic sanctions, but also the removal of US troops from South Korea.  And then he can unite the peninsula under his rule.  As China takes over a greater part of the waters of Southeast Asia, in ten or fifteen years, the US wouldn't be able to stop such a takeover.  Particularly if US troops leave South Korea.  

We'll see.

Once again, this weekend has proven how well Trump plays the media and makes sure his antics are in the headlines every day, distracting from all the damage his administration is doing while they can.  

Trump's Actions Clearly Advance Russian Interests

"In 1969 Richard Nixon’s Attorney General John Mitchell advised the press to 'watch what we do, not what we say.'”  (I double-checked this at HistoryNewsNetwork)

If we listen to what the Trump administration says, there's been no collusion with Russia, though he does seem to like Putin and other authoritarian leaders like the Philippines' Duterte, Turkey's Erdogan, and the feeling is apparently mutual.

If we look at some of the Trump administration's key 'achievements'*, they all seem to help Russia, mainly by weakening the West's alliances that keep Russia in check.
*I put quotes around 'achievements' because most of them are about breaking things rather than creating things.

1.  Getting out of the Paris Climate Treaty
2.  Getting out of the Iran Nuclear Agreement
3.  Tariffs for Europe, Canada, and Mexico, etc.
4.  Getting out of the Trans Pacific Partnership
5.  Trump's support of Brexit

All these actions weaken alliances by a) removing the US, b) building distrust for the US  c) making it harder for the remaining countries to reach an agreement.  The last one has particular benefits for China by weakening US influence in the Asia Pacific region.  And by removing the US  from these situations, Russia gains more influence.

6.  North Korea

Let's see where this goes.  As I've said before, I would guess that North Korea is far better prepared for any summit talks than the US.  Since the armistice (not end)  of the Korean War (which the North Koreans call, “Victorious Fatherland Liberation War,”) the North Koreans have been far more focused on the US than vice versa.  The US walked away and most US citizens have forgotten, if they ever knew, that

“The physical destruction and loss of life on both sides was almost beyond comprehension, but the North suffered the greater damage, due to American saturation bombing and the scorched-earth policy of the retreating U.N. forces,” [Charles K. Armstrong, a professor of Korean history at Columbia University] wrote.  [From Washington Post]

They've been rehearsing for this meeting since the 1950s.  Meanwhile, Trump's assault on the State Department (through budget cuts, position cuts, and demoralization that has led to a large scale resignations) means we lose the expertise we had on North Korea and Asia (not to mention everywhere else), which makes it harder for us to be prepared.  This echoes the purging of China experts in the 1950s.

It's also important to remember that besides South Korea, North Korea borders China and Russia, so both have an interest in what happens there.  If, in the end, North Korea denuclearizes, that's good for China and Russia.  If they don't, and the US loses face, that's also good for China and Russia.

And we have to remember that meeting with Kim Jong Un is NOT a victory for Trump.  Any American president could have met with him.  BUT, it is a huge victory for Kim Jong Un, who is seen by the world on equal footing with the president of the United States.  This is something other presidents have refused to give him without reassurances of ending his nuclear program in advance.

7.  Trump's anti-immigration rhetoric

Aside from securing military bases in Syria, which help assure that the Russian navy can get out to the world through the Bosporus in Turkey, Putin's benefited by the build-up of refugees trying to get into Europe.  This issue, probably more than any other, has weakened the European Union.  Rising nationalism in the Eastern bloc of the EU, particularly in Hungary and Poland, is fueled in large part by immigration that threatens linguistic and cultural identity.
Brexit added UK to this, and now Italy is shifting right, in both cases immigration played a role.
All this means that Europe is less united in standing up to Russia in the Ukraine and possibly the Baltic states and who knows where else.  Even Sweden is preparing to better protect itself from Russian aggression.  

8.  Trump's destruction of civil discourse and traditional presidential norms

Anything that makes the US less able to take on new challenges, to look positively toward the future, and to have a united population that can strongly support its government, makes it harder to  maintain the US's strong role in the world.  I'd add a few caveats here:

• we were already losing our civility and unity, though Trump was a key player in this by keeping the birther movement going and stoking the racist hatred of a black president
• many would argue that we were too strong at times - waging wars that basically supported US business interests (including the arms industry) at the expense of the economies of developing countries.  

But there is no doubt that Trump's actions have further divided the US and our Congress can't move because of the radical right wing of the Republican party and the inability of the 'traditional Republicans' to deal with Trump.  This leaves him to willy-nilly wreak havoc.  

Consider this a thought piece.  A draft. I've offered some links where you can get more info to support my claims, you can check the others as well as I.   It's way too nice a day to be inside at the computer.  Even outside at the computer.  Much better things to do.  

Getting A Handle on Denali National Park's Vast Expanses

We're back as of Sunday afternoon.  Our upstairs ceiling popcorn is gone and a new ceiling in place.  Everything is still shoved into spaces to allow for painting the ceiling and walls.

Saturday at Denali was Denaliesque.  I recently saw a Mongolian movie and thought, wow, those huge vistas remind me of Denali National Park.  The sun was out most of the time, the clouds here and there not threatening rain or snow.  The (still) white vistas - humans generally just don't experience stuff like this.  You see for miles and miles unpopulated land surrounded by mountains.  With the late snow everywhere it was almost too much.  After you enter the park, about four miles in, you're past all the park buildings - visitor center, camping and touring building, education center, housing for workers, sled dog kennels, and then there's just one road that goes for 90 miles.

Only 30 miles are open now (until buses start May 20), so what we saw is that part of the land you can see from the road in the first 30 miles.  There are a few structures inside the park - at campgrounds basically and lots of restrooms at the bus stops.  After May 20, you get past the first 3 miles or so only on the buses.  Or if you have a camping spot at Teklanika.  All the other camping spots are tent only and you get there by bus.  And there's a big visitor center at about mile 60.

The picture above is the road into the park (though we were driving back to the campgrounds at the entrance when I took this.)  You can tell we're still within the first 15 miles of the road because it's paved.  We're looking east.

And here's a panorama view - I've photoshopped three pictures together.  You see about 20-30 miles into the distance and probably 30 or so miles across from left to right.  If you click on the picture you can see it bigger. (Large vertical images work great here, but horizontal ones don't.)

Just think about what a 25 by 30 mile area in your city would encompass.   In LA that would be approximately from Santa Monica to East LA and from Beverly Hills to Palos Verdes.   It's most of the LA basin with one road and for 85 miles of that road just a few structures and outhouses.   Get a map online of your location.  Seeing such vast distances with nothing but one road and just a few structures stretched out of 90 miles on the road is always mind-boggling, even after 40 years.

And here's a map of Denali National Park and Preserve to get all this into even more perspective.

Original map from National Parks Maps  - This map is fairly large, but at the link it's much bigger

The entrance to the park is to the east where the little black rectangle is to the right of the red line. The first part of the road - brown on the original map here - is the 12 paved miles.  It ends at the red #1 on the map.  (I added the red because the yellow line is harder to see and to show you how far the road was open.)  #1 is where Savage River is, where we snowshoed on Thursday.  I didn't mention it in that post, but it was two years ago when we were there at the same time a young summer Park employee, Michael Purdy, had fallen and died and had not yet been found.  I wrote about that here.  A Park employee told me that his sister was in the park a week or two ago for the anniversary.  You can also see how different the trail looked in late April 2016 compared to early May 2018.
#2 is about where I took the panorama above from.
The Black Bear Paw is Teklanika Campground - the road is closed about a mile past there for now, though beyond it you can walk or bike.
#3 is Eilson Visitor Center (above the 3) - about 60 miles into the park with good views of Denali on clear days.
#4 is Wonder Lake campground, the end of the 90 mile road into the park.
#5 is the North Peak of Denali - the tallest mountain in North America at 20,310 feet (6,140m)

So what we saw last week is only 1/3 of the road in the park.  The panorama is of just one tiny part of the park.  The vast majority of the park has no structures at all.  And the views further in are even more expansive.  Even if you don't see any animals (not likely) or the mountain itself (much more likely), the landscape itself is worth the trip.

Looking through the trees across to a small mountain off in the distance.

Here you can see the slope of the land.  I took this from the road.  J is walking up the road in her red coat.  Since walking on the snow, even with snowshoes, is a challenge, we took turns walking along the road with the other waiting up ahead in the car.  You see much more on foot than in the car.

Here's an area where the snow had an icy glaze.  But if you tried to walk on it, you break right through the ice.

This is just past the gate that closes off the road at the Teklanika rest area.  I'm looking down at the Teklanika River, which at this point is mostly covered with snow still, just those few squiggly pieces of open water.  If you look closely you can see the bridge in the lower right corner.

And below you can see some of those squiggly spans of water from the bridge.

It was a beautiful day - I know that's relative.  The sun was out and the sky was mostly blue.  The temperature was in the 40's but there was a brisk wind in most places and especially on this bridge.    It was also a Saturday so there were a fair number of people who driven to the Park for the weekend from Anchorage and Fairbanks.

This post has taken a direction of its own - the vastness of the park - so I'll save some of the people   and critters we encountered for another post.

The Lost Post Reconstructed - What Is Davos And Why Is Trump Going?

I can't remember the last time it happened - that a post vanished.  But it did yesterday.  There was a trace of the post - 15 visitors had visited, but it had reverted to a draft and the content was gone. [Bloggers might want more explanation, so see * at the bottom.]

I don't have time to reconstruct it all of yesterday's post, but I do think the World Economic Forum is something people should know more about, simply because a fair number of world leaders are planning to attend and what they say there will influence how the world operates in the next year.  And while I think that the WEF leans too heavily toward business and the issues of the wealthy, I also think that they take a rational approach that is sorely missing these days in the US among those in power.

So, here's the video - I recommend the first 14 minutes where Klaus Schwab talks - and I'll try to reconstruct some of the key points I had up yesterday.



[After Schwab's 14 minute presentation,  the rest is talking heads (well, so is Schwab).  This is simply a video of the press conference.  The fact that they didn't feel a need to spruce it up with graphics or closeups or other video tricks that keep audience attention, may reflect a) need to get it up quickly, b) the age of most participants  c) lack of concern because they have lots of power and might think they are so important that they don't have to trick it up.   It's not lack of money or technical know-how because the WEF website has lots of fancy charts and online sophistication. And the fact they have it up means the rest of us get to have a glimpse of the public part of this event.]


Klaus Schwab founded, and is the executive chairman, of the World Economic Council.  In this introduction to the conference for the media he covered:

Seven Reasons why Davos is significant  

1.  Collaboration - this is about the who can solve the problems - no one person, country, organization can handle these issues

Six Stakeholder Groups

• Governments
• Business groups
• Civil Society - NGO's (non-governmental organizations)
• University/Academic experts
• Younger Generation
• Media

2.  Integrative Approach - This is about the nature of the issues -They are  complex, must use systemic approach, ecosystem - 14 different systems (he didn't list them but said they are in the program)

3.  Not Stand Alone - everything is integrated into ongoing workshops - 3 example

• Global Network of Centers for the Fourth Industrial Revolution
• Global Center for Cyber Security
• Uplink - worlds foremost innovation accelerator 

He also mentioned:

• Middle East Summit
• Sustainable Development Impact Summit

[He didn't enumerate a #4]

5.  Timing - Beginning of each year is important.  Focuses the agenda for the year.  This is a critical year for Europe and most leaders will be here.

A second big issue will be the Future of the Global Corporation.

Future of Economic Growth - at the end of a big upswing cycle.

G20 and G7 Agendas are prepared at Davos

Publication of the Global Risks Report.  

Inclusive - one-third from emerging countries and Modi is a key speaker.

Integration of these discussions into discussion of the Fourth Industrial Revolution.

[He didn't identify specifically #s 6 or 7.  Maybe they were in the items mentioned after he mentioned #5.]

Conclusions

1.  Collaborative Approach - No one alone can solve the issues
2.  Integrated Approach - No issue can be solved in an isolated way
3.  Constructive Approach - great opportunities, but also unprecedented perils - danger of collapse of our global system, in our hands to improve the state of the world.

Some Background

From Wikipedia:

"The World Economic Forum (WEF) is a Swiss nonprofit foundation, based in Cologny, Geneva, Switzerland. Recognized by the Swiss authorities as an international body,[1] its mission is cited as "committed to improving the state of the world by engaging business, political, academic, and other leaders of society to shape global, regional, and industry agendas".
The Forum is best known for its annual meeting at the end of January in Davos, a mountain resort in Graubünden, in the eastern Alps region of Switzerland. The meeting brings together some 2,500 top business leaders, international political leaders, economists, and journalists for up to four days to discuss the most pressing issues facing the world."

Here's a brief Vanity Fair bio of Klaus Schwab.  


This second time for this post was much easier than the first.

*For Bloggers - I think I somehow got two draft posts going.  I completed one and posted.  But the other one was still open, but very rudimentary.  When I found it, I was confused.  I think I deleted the few lines and I thought I closed it, but I must have revered it to a draft.  When I looked today there were 15 visitors but it was in draft status.  And there was no content.
There are a couple of things I could have done:
1.  copied the published post and started a whole new post and then deleted both the old ones.
2.  opened the published post to edit, then deleted the second post, then updated the original post.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Often Foreigners See Us More Clearly Than We See Ourselves

Sometimes I think that many, if not most, Americans think of people living outside of the US as not as smart, not living as good a life, just somehow less than Americans.   But I suspect that non-American see us much more clearly and objectively than we see them or ourselves.

Most educated folks outside the US tend to speak and read and understand English at a level that few Americans (other than immigrants) can match with other languages.  They can read understand our newspapers and listen to and understand our television news.   How is it that someone who only speaks American English thinks he's smarter and knows better than people in other countries who speak their own language plus ours, and sometimes a few more?

They know way more about us than most of us know about them.

For example,  this Dutch TV host seems to see our gun problem much more clearly than many Americans.  How many Americans even know who heads the government of Holland, or even what his or her title is?






OK, to be fair to Americans, because we have been the West's most powerful nation and have great influence on the rest of the world,  we are the country that others are most interested in knowing about.  Or at least have had the most reason to keep track of what we do.  And because English is the lingua franca of most of the world, it's much easier for English speakers to travel the world using English.  The people of Holland cannot expect too many people, when they travel outside of Holland, to speak or understand Dutch.  So they have a greater incentive to learn at least enough English to get by with.

While that explains why it's easier for us to just get by with English, it doesn't change the fact that that means the rest of the world knows a lot more about us than we know about them.  And that gives them a leg up on us that we should be more humble about than we are.

Trump Threatens To Kill (At Least) 25.3 Million People

[Note to Readers:  This was meant to be a short response to Trump's comment at the UN this morning about destroying North Korea.  But as I read the whole speech, (which you can read here) I realized that there was a lot more to it than just that comment.  Though that comment certainly stands out.  Analyzing the whole talk is worthwhile.  My initial reaction is: 

• There are a lot of worthwhile aspirational ideals
• There are lots of contradictions between those ideals in some places and what he says in other places.
• There is nothing particularly thoughtful or detailed.  
• There are some parts that might be revealing of how Trump thinks about the world (though I suspect he tends to 'feel' rather than 'think')

When I tried to find some factual reference for the consequences of the US attacking North Korea, I found a long New Yorker article dated yesterday by Evan Osnos who was in North Korea in August.  The article itself offers a lot of context for North Korea's behavior, for our (mis)interpretations or them and theirs of us.  

So I'm going to stick to the comment on destroying North Korea in this post, recommend the New Yorker  article to readers, and maybe be able to review the speech and the article in separate posts.]

Post starts here:

Trump doesn't exactly say he's ready to kill 25.3 million people.  I doubt he has any idea of the population of North Korea or has visualized what his threat would mean. Here's what he actually said:

"The United States has great strength and patience, but if it is forced to defend itself or its allies, we will have no choice but to totally destroy North Korea. Rocket Man is on a suicide mission for himself and for his regime. The United States is ready, willing and able, but hopefully this will not be necessary. That’s what the United Nations is all about; that’s what the United Nations is for. Let’s see how they do."

There are SO MANY different angles one could (and should) address this.  I'm just going to look at the implications of "totally destroying North Korea."  

1.  North Korea had 25.37 million people in 2016.  But experts argue that an attack on North Korea cannot be undertaken without North Korea also attacking South Korea, whose population was estimated to be 51 million in 2016.  

From a long New Yorker article by Evan Osnos, dated September 18, 2017: 

"The Obama Administration studied the potential costs and benefits of a preventive war intended to destroy North Korea’s nuclear weapons. Its conclusion, according to Rice, in the Times, was that it would be “lunacy,” resulting in “hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of casualties.” North Korea likely would retaliate with an attack on Seoul. The North has positioned thousands of artillery cannons and rocket launchers in range of the South Korean capital, which has a population of ten million, and other densely populated areas. (Despite domestic pressure to avoid confrontation, South Korea’s President, Moon Jae-in, has accepted the installation of an American missile-defense system called Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense, or thaad.)
Some two hundred thousand Americans live in South Korea. (Forty thousand U.S. military personnel are stationed in Japan, which would also be vulnerable.) A 2012 study of the risks of a North Korean attack on Seoul, by the Nautilus Institute for Security and Sustainability, estimates that sixty-five thousand civilians would die on the first day, and tens of thousands more in the days that followed. If Kim used his stockpiles of sarin gas and biological weapons, the toll would reach the millions. U.S. and South Korean forces could eventually overwhelm the North Korean military, but, by any measure, the conflict would yield one of the worst mass killings in the modern age."

Were Trump to really attempt to 'totally destroy North Korea' he would find himself moved high onto the top ten list of the world's mass murderers - along with Stalin, Hitler, and Mao.

There are many ways one can look at this statement.

• Is it just bluster?  
• What kind of language is appropriate in the UN?  
• How will the UN members react?
• How will North Korea react?
• Does Trump's behavior give license to others to act badly?

All of these could be discussed seriously.

• Are there times when bluster is appropriate and inappropriate.  One could argue that Kim Jong Un and Donald Trump might have a lot of similarities and thus can understand each other's bluster.  But that's open to a lot of debate.  
• One could argue that the UN is overly stuffy and people say what's polite and never confront serious issues and thus some bluster is needed to shake the place up.  I think that might be true on some issues, but frank talk does not equal bluster.  
• Maybe, as the rest of the paragraph suggests, this 'totally destroy' language is simply to provoke the UN to do its job of ensuring peace.  

I would note that Kim Jong Un might rather like the nickname "Rocket Man."  From the New Yorker  article:

"On an embankment near a major intersection, workers in gray coveralls were installing an enormous red sign that praised the 'immortal achievements of the esteemed Supreme Leader, comrade Kim Jong Un, who built the nuclear state of Juche, the leader in rocket power!'”

Go read the New Yorker article, it's got much more meat than I can add here.  

Comparative History Lessons

Enough has been said about whether statues are erected as history lessons or to honor people who protected collective values.  I don't think it's hard to see through the rhetoric of those discussions.

But I'd like to share this tidbit about comparative history teaching, from South AfricanTrevor Noah's Born A Crime.

"In Germany, no child finishes high school without learning about the Holocaust.  Not just the facts of it but the how and the why and the gravity of it - what it means.  As a result, Germans grow up appropriately aware and apologetic.  British schools treat colonialism the same way, to an extent.  Their children are taught the history of the empire with a kind of disclaimer hanging over the whole thing.  “Well, that  was shameful, now wasn’t it?” 

In South Africa, the atrocities of apartheid have never been taught that way.  We weren’t taught judgment or shame.  We were taught history the way it’s taught in America.  In America, the history of racism is taught like this:  “There was slavery and then there was Jim Crow and then there was Martin Luther King Jr. and now it’s done.”  It was the same for us.  “Apartheid was bad.  Nelson Mandela was freed.  Let’s move on.”  Facts, but not many, and never the emotional or moral dimension."

For those who need more clarification on how the US has treated slavery and its aftermath, I refer you to some posts I made on the book White Rage.
Part I   Looks at how the Supreme Court essentially nullified the rights blacks had won with the Emancipation Proclamation and the 13th and 14th Amendments.
Part II  follows up with a list of court decisions and their practical implications,  and
Part III, which looks at more modern times - the great migration of blacks from the South, Brown v. Board of Education and its aftermath, and up to today with our Attorney General who was born in Selma, Alabama in time to be embroiled on the white side of the civil rights movement.

The Decline Of The US As A World Power

Trump  has pulled the US out of the Paris Climate Agreement.  Instead of this being a triumph for  the Climate Change Denial movement, I think it will be their last Hurrah.  The shift from carbon based energy has too much momentum.  The real impact will be the loss of power and prestige of the United States of America.

Back in December 2016 I wrote (in a post about change in general):

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

But it appears that the US pulling out will not cause China and India and other significant players to pull out as well.

The rest of the world  (not to mention many US businesses)  understands that reducing carbon use is a long term common problem for all the peoples of the earth.  While some may lose bigger if we keep on the carbon path, no one will win.

But what will keep them united in the short term is their recognition that switching away from carbon based energy will be good for their economies as well.  They recognize that while the Koch brothers and their ilk who fund the climate change denial movement in the US exist, the world knows that most big businesses, including oil companies, and the US military, acknowledge that climate change is for real and they've already been planning to address it.  They're switching to other energy sources, preparing their facilities, and planning for the new energy economy.

The US pulling out slows things down for sure.  But it appears, not nearly as much as we thought a year ago.  The momentum toward a much more carbon free energy world is already too strong.

The real impact of the US pulling out of the Paris Agreement is that the US will be left behind.  And the rest of the world will realize that they can do things on their own without the US.

Other great world powers have gone this route.  Spain and Portugal are relatively modest nations today.  England is a shadow of what it once was.  All lost their power, in part, because they couldn't adjust their glorious self-images.

The US isn't finished as a nation.  It's just that other nations are discovering that we don't matter as much as we convinced them (and ourselves) that we do.  And we aren't all blind and backward either.  Our previous president was an enthusiastic supporter of the Paris Agreement.  More than half the voters cast their ballots for a candidate who would have kept us in the Paris Agreement.  But it is up to us to prove to the rest of the world that Trump is a short term aberration.

In many ways, we've grown too big for our own good. We believe our own propaganda about our greatness.  But, we've been in almost non-stop wars since WW II.   We've dominated the world power stage.  Letting the rest of the world get more equal casting won't be a bad thing.

Let's just hope I'm right that our withdrawal won't have nearly as much affect on humanity's fight against climate change as we once feared.

A New Life

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

















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

American People Are Starting To Fight Back

When FDR called for Americans of Japanese descent to be rounded up and put into camps, most Americans did nothing in protest.  A number took advantage of the situation to take possession of the property of those rounded up.  Though there were exceptions as the movie The Empty Chair documents.

But when Donald Trump ordered a ban on refugees and Muslims, American people went to the courts to file suit against the president, and they went to the airports to protest the holding of refugees and others held in airports from being sent back.

We've had presidents who have done things people disagreed about.  But we haven't had a president who ignores every tradition, every norm, every law, every norm of decency that interferes with his whims.  We've never had a president who has put into place so many people who have no regard for the basic values of the Constitution and the law.

We've watched this sort of thing happen in other countries, but we're only just learning how to handle someone who comes to power and abuses that power every day in his first week as president.  But we're learning.  I'm proud of the people who are finding their voice and their power to stop the illegitimate actions of this elderly child president.

There will be a backlash.  The real test is when people get hurt, even killed.  We all have to stand up and assume the role fate demands we play.  I hope we learn this quickly and well and that Congress sees where the power of the people lies and stops Trump before he carries out any of the orders he got from Putin*.

World, we want you to know we are planning on taking our country back from this madman.**



*If these aren't orders from Putin, they might as well be - take down NATO, take down the EU, weaken the US Intelligence Agencies, destroy US relations with countries like China, and, it appears more and more, take down the USA.

**I don't use this term lightly.  And the man who has called everyone who has opposed him all sorts of disparaging things, has not standing if he protests when people do the same to him - especially when they are close to or right on the mark.

Obama Still Alive And Well After 8 Years - What Did Trump Say Today?

I remember back in 2009, that many of us worried that Barrack Obama wouldn't survive his presidency.  So as I watched the new president being sworn in, I was delighted to see Obama there.

I hope those who have great fears about the next four years, will see at the conclusion of the Trump presidency, that their worst fears weren't realized.



Meanwhile, some reactions to the new president's inaugural speech.  It wasn't a typical Trump speech.  He only used the word "I" about three times. (I say 'about' because the word counters can be tricky, especially with single letter words.  I checked some words using a search function, but I also used an online word counter. The numbers vary a bit, so my numbers here are approximate.)  He used 'we' over 40 times and 'you' and 'your' about 23 times.  The words 'environment,' 'constitution,' 'climate,' and 'health,' were not mentioned. Though he did mention 'the misery of disease.'   "Law' was mentioned once - as part of 'law enforcement.'

But it painted a vision of a dark America with many people suffering poverty, unemployment, crime, and bad schools which will all be made great again.  He talked about America First, a phrase used by Nazi sympathizers who wanted to keep the US out of the second world war.  You can see his competitive model of the world throughout his speech.  Our team is going to start winning again was a key message.  Another key message was giving power back to the people from the corrupt politicians.


Here are some excerpts and my reactions.  You can watch or read it all here.

"Together, we will determine the course of America and the world for years to come."

That was one of two uses of the word 'together.'  The other time it was attached to making America great again.

". . . today we are not merely transferring power from one administration to another, or from one party to another -- but we are transferring power from Washington, D.C. and giving it back to you, the American People."

Exactly who the 'American people' are, who 'you' is supposed to mean is not clear in this speech.  Though I suspect Trump supporters think it means them and Trump opponents think it means Trump supporters too.  

"For too long, a small group in our nation's Capital has reaped the rewards of government while the people have borne the cost. Washington flourished -- but the people did not share in its wealth. Politicians prospered -- but the jobs left, and the factories closed."

Government is the bad guy.  That's a pretty common theme in the US.  I've been thinking about a post that argues government isn't the enemy because it's been taken over by business.  If government is corrupt, whose paying to corrupt it?  All the corporations who spend billions on lobbying to pass laws that help them and kill laws that would make corporations more accountable.  

Trump doesn't mention the non-governmental multi-millionaire and billionaire class that is getting richer at the expense of everyone else, he only mentions their puppets, the politicians.  

"January 20th 2017, will be remembered as the day the people became the rulers of this nation again. The forgotten men and women of our country will be forgotten no longer."

Who exactly will become the rulers again?  Not Native Americans or African-Americans, since they never were the rulers.  Not Asian-Americans or Hispanics.  Not LGBT folks.  Not women.  Who does that leave?  OK, he does mention women in the next sentence, but this is the 'forgotten men and women.'  Is this where he's talking about the Native Americans and all the others? Why does that seem like putting words in his mouth?  Toni Morrison's essay in the NYTimes offers one explanation of this part of the Trump appeal.

"You came by the tens of millions to become part of a historic movement the likes of which the world has never seen before. At the center of this movement is a crucial conviction: that a nation exists to serve its citizens."

This comes closer to classic Trump rhetoric - 'which the world has never seen before.'  You can make statements like this if you never read about history or about the rest of the world.  

"Americans want great schools for their children, safe neighborhoods for their families, and good jobs for themselves. These are the just and reasonable demands of a righteous public."

I bet if we sat in with the speech writers, we would have heard some debate about whether to mention health care.  Well, maybe not.  I doubt there was any discussion about climate change.

Here is where it begins to sound like a Communist Chinese report on human rights abuses in the US.

"But for too many of our citizens, a different reality exists: Mothers and children trapped in poverty in our inner cities; rusted-out factories scattered like tombstones across the landscape of our nation; an education system flush with cash, but which leaves our young and beautiful students deprived of knowledge; and the crime and gangs and drugs that have stolen too many lives and robbed our country of so much unrealized potential."

"This American carnage stops right here and stops right now."

Why don't I think this is a call to restrict the sale of automatic weapons?

"We are one nation -- and their pain is our pain. Their dreams are our dreams; and their success will be our success. We share one heart, one home, and one glorious destiny."

This is the closest this speech comes to a unity theme.  But the idea that Trump feels anyone else's pain just doesn't ring true to me.  

"For many decades, we've enriched foreign industry at the expense of American industry; subsidized the armies of other countries while allowing for the very sad depletion of our military; we've defended other nation's borders while refusing to defend our own; and spent trillions of dollars overseas while America's infrastructure has fallen into disrepair and decay.
We've made other countries rich while the wealth, strength, and confidence of our country has disappeared over the horizon." 

When I was a graduate student, I was surprised to read a review of American foreign aid packages. The aid bills in Congress always stipulate that US products are used to aid other countries and for the most part US companies get contracts to do the work.  It was always a good way to distribute money to American companies and workers in the guise of helping others.  Let's not fool ourselves that spending money abroad hurts the US.  If it did, Congress wouldn't pass those budgets.  They get lobbied by all the companies whose products - often things they can't sell - are going to be bought by the US to ship overseas.  It's a great stimulus to the economy. (See especially the bottom of page 44 in this report.)  And military spending has enriched American businesses since the Revolutionary War.  

Seeing American infrastructure rebuilt would be a great thing.  And it would be great for American businesses to thrive and for them to create lots of good paying jobs to build that infrastructure.  I just don't want them to get unduly wealthy, their employees overworked and underpaid, and a shoddy end product.  

"One by one, the factories shuttered and left our shores, with not even a thought about the millions upon millions of American workers left behind.
The wealth of our middle class has been ripped from their homes and then redistributed across the entire world."

This is a side-effect of capitalism.  Companies work to make a profit.  If they make more profit by going overseas, that's what they'll do.  But as many jobs, maybe more, are lost to automation of jobs.  In the 50s and 60s there were articles about how Americans would spend their leisure time when automation brought the work week to 30 hours.  What those writers weren't thinking was that the benefits would go to the owners, not the workers.  That 'leisure' is called today 'unemployment.'

It seems to me that 'ripped from their homes' was related to unregulated mortgage schemes ultimately the fault of big banks that were making money so fast they didn't care about the consumer.  Government's involvement was that they didn't regulate the banks closely enough.  

"We assembled here today are issuing a new decree to be heard in every city, in every foreign capital, and in every hall of power.
From this day forward, a new vision will govern our land.
From this moment on, it's going to be America First."

As mentioned above, America First, has a dark history.  If Trump sticks to his word here, his friend Vlad is in for a surprise.  I'm not holding my breath.

"Every decision on trade, on taxes, on immigration, on foreign affairs, will be made to benefit American workers and American families. We must protect our borders from the ravages of other countries making our products, stealing our companies, and destroying our jobs. Protection will lead to great prosperity and strength."

No, other countries aren't 'stealing' our companies.  Even though they may be owned by Americans, these are Americans who weigh their costs and benefits and decide to ship jobs overseas.  

"We will reinforce old alliances and form new ones -- and unite the civilized world against radical Islamic terrorism, which we will eradicate completely from the face of the Earth."

I can't in any way defend people who murder women and children in cold blood.  But they are still human beings.  To deny that may be an attempt to distance oneself from the atrocities that humans commit.  The leaders who led the genocides in Africa used similar language - calling their enemies cockroaches to be eradicated.  Dehumanizing the enemy is practiced all over the world.   However misguided ISIS terrorists are, they come from situations where they are alienated enough to be susceptible to recruitment.  And then they are trained to obey orders and be loyal to the group.  

Here's a passage I'd love to have the new president discuss with, say, Charlie Rose or Bill Moyers.

"At the bedrock of our politics will be a total allegiance to the United States of America, and through our loyalty to our country, we will rediscover our loyalty to each other.
When you open your heart to patriotism, there is no room for prejudice. The Bible tells us, "How good and pleasant it is when God's people live together in unity."

Whoa!  Total allegiance to the United States of America!  I imagine a lot of Christians might argue that their first allegiance is to God.  Others might say their allegiance is to all of humankind, not just to Americans.  And what does that mean for people who don't agree with what the United States is doing - say like Trump until today?   Or people who have dual citizenship?  Is that going to be abolished?  What will happen to someone who has only 75% allegiance to the USA?  Should we have more loyalty to corrupt Americans than to saintly citizens of other countries?  

I like that he suggests there is no room for prejudice, but I don't understand how that follows from loyalty to the US. White Nationalists would argue they are completely loyal to the US, but with whites in power.  

Then there is the bible quote.  What exactly does "God's people" mean to Trump?  It's from the Old Testament, so does it refers to Jews?  Is it understood to mean Christians?  Christians and Jews?  What about Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, and atheists?  It would be nice to hear an explanation of what Trump, or the speech writers, had in mind.  

Knowing that bible translations vary greatly, I looked it up.  Of 22 different translations, biblehub  shows only one that mentions "God's people."  All the others refer to when "brethren" or "brothers" live together in unity.  (One says 'brothers and sisters.")  To suggest that it's "good and pleasant' when brethren live together in unity, also suggests that it's common for them not to.  The bible it comes from appears to be one of the most used, which raises questions about how close to the original biblical language most American Christians are.  

This is going to be an interesting four years.  

Obama's Press Conference Message: E PLURIBUS UNUM

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

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

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

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

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

Image from flagandbanner

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

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


The subtext is the old Pogo message.

Image from here

How To Talk To Your Cat About Gun Safety And Other Books At Elliott Bay Book Company

There was a book I couldn't get in LA, San Francisco, or Anchorage.  But Elliott Bay Book Company said they had a copy when I called.  It's a surprise for a relative, so nothing here yet.  

But here are some other books I saw on the shelves.  Remember books?  

HOW TO TALK TO YOUR CAT ABOUT GUN SAFETY -  Zachary Auburn

From the Preface:

"My fellow purrtiots,
You hold in your hands the only book in print today with the courage to tell it like it is.  To stand up to the idolaters, the liberals, the international bankers, and the secret kings of Europe who want to destroy America and replace it with their one-world government.  To bring about our downfall, these villains have targeted what is surely our greatest national resource:  our cats.  They know that no other cats in the world are as cute as ours.  American cats have the softest bellies, the fluffiest tails, and the loudest purrs.  We are the greatest country in the history of the world, and we have the cats to match.  Our enemies know they have no chance of defeating us while we stand tall with our cats by our sides, and so for years these scoundrels have worked in the shadows, trying to weaken us and our cats.  Stripping from ur cats their Second Amendment right to bear arms!  Undermining the faith of our kittens by teaching them the lie of evolution!  Addicting out feline friends to the scourge of catnip!  The cats of America are under siege . . ."

BLANKETS,  Craig Thomson

From DrawnandQuarterly:

"This groundbreaking graphic novel, winner of two Eisner and three Harvey Awards, is an eloquent portrait of adolescent yearning; first love (and first heartache); faith in crisis; and the process of moving beyond all of that. Beautifully rendered in pen and ink, Thompson has created a love story that lasts."

RAD WOMEN WORLDWIDE  - Kate Schatz

From Advocate:

Rad Women Worldwide tells fresh, engaging, and inspiring tales of perseverance and radical success by pairing well researched and riveting biographies with powerful and expressive cut-paper portraits. Covering the time from 430 B.C.E. to 2016, spanning 31 countries around the world, the book features an array of diverse figures, including Hatshepsut (the great female king who ruled Egypt peacefully for two decades), Malala Yousafzi (the youngest person to win the Nobel Peace Prize), Poly Styrene (legendary teenage punk and lead singer of X-Ray Spex), and Liv Arnesen and Ann Bancroft (polar explorers and the first women to cross Antarctica). This progressive and visually arresting book is a compelling addition to works on women’s history. 

WE CAME TO AMERICA - Faith Ginggold

From Kirkus:

"Known for her trademark folkloric spreads, Caldecott Honoree Ringgold showcases the arrival of people immigrating to America. By way of luscious colors and powerful illustrations, readers embark upon a journey toward togetherness, though it’s not without its hardships: “Some of us were already here / Before the others came,” reads an image with Native Americans clad in ornate jewelry and patterned robes. The following spread continues, “And some of us were brought in chains, / Losing our freedom and our names.” Depicted on juxtaposing pages are three bound, enslaved Africans and an African family unchained, free. The naïve-style acrylic paintings feature bold colors and ethnic diversity—Jewish families, Europeans, Asian, and South Asian groups all come to their new home. Muslims and Latinos clearly recognizable as such are absent, and Ringgold’s decision to portray smiling, chained slaves is sure to raise questions (indeed, all figures throughout display small smiles). Despite these stumbling blocks, the book’s primary, communal message, affirmed in its oft-repeated refrain, is a welcome one: “We came to America, / Every color, race, and religion, / From every country in the world.” Preceding the story, Ringgold dedicates the book 'to all the children who come to America….May we welcome them….'”

THE BATTLE FOR HOME - Marwa Al-Sabouoni


From The Guardian.

". . . With so much of the country destroyed, what will the future look like? People close their eyes, and they wonder: is it even possible to imagine such a thing?
Marwa al-Sabouni believes it is – and her eyes are wide open. A 34-year-old architect and mother of two, Sabouni was born and grew up in Homs, scene of some of the most vicious fighting. Unlike many, however, she did not leave Syria – or even Homs itself – during the war. The practice she and her husband still (in theory) run together on the old town’s main square was shut up almost immediately: this part of the city quickly became a no-go area. But her home nearby somehow survived intact, and her family safe inside it.
“I’m lucky,” she says. “I didn’t have to leave my home. We were stuck there, as if we were in prison; we didn’t see the moon for two years. But apart from broken windows there was no other damage.” She laughs, relishing my astonishment at this (we’re talking on Skype, which feels so strange, the cars in her street honking normality – or a version of it – with their horns). . . "

ATLAS OBSCURA: An Explorer's Guide to the World's Hidden Wonders - Joshua Foer, Dylan Thuras, Ella Morton

This book is divided by continents and then countries.  I randomly opened to a page to a 'hidden wonder' I'd actually been to.  On India's northwest border with Pakistan, outside Amritsar, there's a bizarre, but uplifting ceremony held each sundown when the flag is powered at the border called the
Wagah border ceremony.  A couple pages later was another choice Indian attraction we had visited - Jantar Mantar, an observatory built in 1728, in Jaipur.  The Alaska entries are less compelling.  The Eklutha cemetery and the Adak National Forest sign are definitely unique, but not quite of the same magnitude as those Indian entries.






NEIN - Eric Jarosinski

From Publishers Weekly:

". . . Nein is not no. Nein is not yes. Nein is nein," he explains. The slim manifesto is divided into digestible, tweet-length aphorisms (each on its own page) with a hashtag for a title. "#TechRevolution/ Turn on./ Log in./ Unsubscribe./ Log out." Jarosinski also includes a hilarious glossary of Nein-ish words and phrases. Performance art, for instance, is defined as "six doppelgangers in search of a selfie." Technology particularly draws his ire. He calls Instagram a "marketplace in which pictures of your cat are exchanged for a thousand unspoken words of derision." There are gems on nearly every page. The book might seem tongue-in-cheek, but Jarosinski's cynical aphorisms about philosophy, art, language, and literature hold plenty of truth. . . "

"Committing Acts of Journalism" And Other Interesting Ideas From Online Class - Journalism Skills For Engaged Citizens

Somehow I got a notice of a course called Journalism Skills For Engaged Citizens, being taught online from the Melbourne University via something called Coursera.  It's taught by two journalist/academics Drs. Denis Muller and Margaret Simons.  It costs $49 for a certificate or without it's free.  So I thought I'd see what I could learn;  Things to improve how I blog, but also to see what a worldwide internet class is like.

One of the reasons for the class, according to one of the Dr. Simons was that:

"journalism is, without a doubt, probably the fastest changing profession on the planet."  

She also caught my attention with this phrase:

"citizens, increasingly armed with mobile phones and other communication tools, are committing acts of journalism."

Week 1 has been about defining journalism and what a journalist is and a bit on good writing.  Dr. Muller highlighted some tips from one of my own favorites - Strunk and White's Elements of Style. 

We had an interesting discussion question:  Which of the following four do you consider journalists:  Julian Assange, Edward Snowden, Jon Stewart, and Oprah Winfrey.

The lectures - they were broken down into four lectures of 2 to 12 minutes - surveyed some definitions and characteristics of journalists.

These were collected, as I understood it, from different sources, and they offer a blogger some things to think about.

• "respect for truth and the public's right to information."
• "public actually have a right to information."
• " Journalists describe society to itself"
• "Journalists convey information, ideas, and opinions. "
• "a privileged role."
• "Journalists search, disclose, record, question, entertain, suggest, and remember."
• "Journalists inform citizens and animate democracy."
• "main duty is to the public,"
• " journalists scrutinise power but also exercise power."
• "Journalists must maintain an independence from those they cover and, indeed, from their employers."
• "being impartial or neutral was not necessarily a core principle of journalism. It was the method that was objective, not the journalist."
• "respecting truth begins with the idea of assembling and verifying facts"

Nothing really new, but certainly worth reviewing all together now and then.

What have I learned so far?

1.  To be more persistent when things don't seem the way they should be.  The computer boxes we were supposed to put our assignment in, didn't quite fit the instructions.  It turned out there were two different boxes (only one short assignment) and I should have looked harder.  But, the assignment said no more than 30 words.  The box said no more than 140 characters.  So I had to pare my 'lead sentence' down, which made it more succinct.  But this first week it was only a practice assignment, I'm sure intended to help us figure this sort of thing out before we get the 'real' assignments.

2.  I'm going to learn some Australian.  There's a fictional town - Newstown - with its own website with lots of information that we'll be covering.  It turns out that a crèche in British and Australian is a preschool.  Allotments in a new housing development are what I'd call just 'lots.'  And they use Cr. before council members' names.

3.  I'm going to be doing some thinking about differences between traditional news stories for a newspaper and blog stories.  Some things will probably improve how I write posts.  Others I can ignore because we're doing somewhat different things.  I'm particularly thinking about a recommended structure for a news story and the lead sentence assignment we had where you're supposed to get all the key points covered.  For some posts that's probably a good idea - and I've done summaries or overviews on some long complicated posts.  But for other posts I'm ok with meandering a bit.  And I can always work on getting my prose as clean and lyrical as possible.

4.  Distance learning technology has come a long way from when I first had a student calling in to class from Kodiak in the early 80s.  Of course, I knew that.  Blackboard had already added a lot by the time I retired.  And I watched my daughter preparing for her distance class last spring.  But I haven't been on the student end.  I did keep getting lost, trying to find different parts of the course and going through the wrong doors at first.  I still haven't figured out a simple way to do a one-on-one message to another student.  We do have people from all over - Aussies of course, but also Ukrainians, a Brazilian, and people from Canada, New Zealand, a Tibetan living in Bangalore, and more.  There are supposed to be thousands of students taking the course, but only a tiny fraction have introduced themselves online.  More have participated in the discussions.

Here's a link to the course. And perhaps more importantly for many, to Coursera where you can find a lot more courses in different subjects.  I'll add more about class if there are particularly interesting ideas that come up.

There were a lot of different opinions on who was a journalist.

Jay Hammond "If there has ever been a greater waste of energy and economic potential than what Alaska and the nation paid for the All-Alaska pipeline route, I don't know what it might be."

A little history is always helpful and this view of the Alaska pipeline from Jay Hammond's Tales of Alaska's Bush Rat Governor (1994) seems useful in its succinct and clear description of how Alaska built an all-Alaska pipeline (instead of a Canadian pipeline) which had some short-term benefits, but had, in Hammond's view, much, much bigger long term costs.

He frames this argument as a clash between people who have diametrically opposed narratives about the human mission on earth.

"One type are folks who, fed up with environmental degradation and people pressures found elsewhere, flee to Alaska believing it the last redoubt of pristine wilderness and broad horizons.  Here they can indulge in lifestyles which, if not long since lost elsewhere, are at least suppressed in their native states.  Those people have read Robert Service and Thoreau.  They arrive with romantic notions of life in a remote homestead cabin away from the urban rat race.
Along with those would be rustics, however, comes another type of 'pioneer' no less determined to find a different kind of 'good life.'  Jobless or discourage by conditions 'back,' and hearing tales of common, unmanned folk striking it rich in Alaska, they flood north intent upon exploitation.  It's inevitable that the shovels and picks of those treasure seekers often bruise environmentalists' toes." (p. 167)

[I'd note these two views are highlighted in the play The Ticket which is an imagined conversation between governors Wally Hickel and Jay Hammond. It's having its world premiere run in Anchorage through October 9.  But it's so good, I'm guessing it will be extended.  But don't count on it.]

While Hammond says he sees both sides, he acknowledges that he leans with the environmentalists.

Hammond is adamant about how wrong it was to build an all-Alaska pipeline instead of sending the oil through Canada to the midwest by pipeline.  And you could hear the words on the page getting louder as he explained why.

"Almost no one in Alaska, save of course, 'preservationist extremists' dared suggest we even look at a Canadian route for fear of being branded a 'crackpot conservations like Hammond' by the state's most powerful newspaper and labor union.
Clearly, Alaska would experience far less environmental trauma with only six hundred overland miles of pipeline construction across its wilderness than nine hundred miles to Valdez - not to mention the pollution hazards of tankering via Prince William Sound and down the Pacific coast.  The fact that the planned pipeline terminal at Valdez would be erected on a major earthquake fault was also not mentioned, as I recall.
In any event, transporting our oil through a single, 2,100 mile trans-Canada line to the Midwest would clearly be less costly than tankering past  West Coast ports - which is precisely what happened when the southern pipeline fell through and inadequate West Coast refining capacity required North Slope crude to be shipped to the Panama Canal.  There, supertankers had to be unloaded onto smaller vessels able to navigate the isthmus.  These took the oil another 1,500 miles north to the gulf of Mexico, to refineries in Houston.  From there, of course, the product was piped north and east to the marketplace.  Some Alaska oil didn't ship north to Houston, but went all the way to the East coast for refining and sale.
If there has ever been a greater waste of energy and economic potential than what Alaska and the nation paid for the All-Alaska pipeline route, I don't know what it might be.  It has already cost uncounted billions of dollars and has been a major contributor to the nations's enormous trade deficit.
Most economists in 1970 agreed;  only if Alaskan oil was shipped to neighboring Pacific Rim nations, did the longterm economic impacts on the state become a wash with piping it via a trans-Canada route.  There's no doubt this was intended.  Japanese interests admitted such negotiations were under way.
This revelation only further infuriated Midwestern congressmen who wanted Alaskan oil to flow to their refineries.  When Congress threatened to halt pipeline construction until assured no Alaska oil would be sold to the Japanese, pipeline owners and proponents of the trans-Alaska route, scuttled negotiations and gave their word not to ship Alaska oil abroad.  Instead, they'd just ship it twice that distance around the coasts of North and Central American - each additional mile of transportation costs deducted from the wellhead price of the oil.  Since severance taxes on oil extraction are based on the price of oil at the wellhead, less transportation costs, obviously the lower the transport, the higher the tax revenues.  Don't even mention the additional energy wasted in this most inefficient boondoggle." (pp. 176-7)

He does acknowledge that building the All-Alaska route provided jobs for Alaskans and for Valdez, but with caveats.

"Certainly the one-third greater pipeline construction costs expended in Alaska might have provided more jobs and contracts for locals, as proponents promised.  However, since most pipeline workers were imported, and many of the bigger contracts went to Outside firms, it's hard to quantify how much more Alaskans benefited in the short term - if at all - than had much of the pipeline gone through Canada.
True, the greater length of pipe in Alaska, and the number of capital projects located in the Port of Valdez, are values added.  Yet countering these are the costs of state services required to offset population explosions in communities like Fairbanks and Valdez.  Both played for the trans-Alaska route, but were the first to come begging the state for multi-millions in 'impact money' to offset spiraling demands for government services that came with the 'boom.'  .  .  .
"Economic studies financed by Alaska Legislators John Sackett, Al Adams and Jan Faiks, indicated by 1987 Alaska had lost an estimated $15 billion as part of the price paid for the all-Alaska Pipeline.  Since Alaska crude sells at a lower price than imported oil, the higher price would bring on the world market has cost the national treasury many billions as well. " (p. 178)

Hmmm  With a $4 billion deficit this year, that $15 billion would have come in handy.

And he's not done.  He talks about the delays - he says he predicted - caused by court injunctions because of failure onto comply with EPA standards.  A delay he says that added to the national problems caused by the OPEC oil embargo.  BUT . .

" . .  rather than blame 'environmental preservationists,' far greater blame should be laid at the feet of those 'developmental preservationists' who would preserve every exploitive, 'damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead' environmentally insensitive despoiling technique of the 19th Century.  By ignoring laws of the land and the forewarnings of those who promised to force legal compliance, they, not the environmentalists, caused the costly delay.
Forgotten by many who still curse environmentalists for those woes is the fact that during the delay, construction techniques were upgraded and engineering problems resolved.  Now, even some of the pipeline's most ardent promoters admit that, without those improvements, the line might well have proved a disaster.  today they point with pride to what the environmental activists compelled them to do." (pp. 178-9)

Hammond was the Senate President for some of this period and writes about how he tried to get the legislature to require reviews of all the alternatives - basically the Canadian route.  But he was clobbered by Bob Atwood's Anchorage Times.  He does acknowledge that some of the decisions made sense when you understood the financial interests of those pushing for the all-Alaska pipeline.
He concludes talking about the ban on exporting the oil to Japan.

". . .Alaska oil, on its way eastward through the Panama Canal to Gulf states and beyond, passes Mexican oil, on its way westward to Japan.  This is ridiculous.  What we should have done, of course, is simply swap, from for drum, Alaskan oil for Mexican - and enrich the treasures of both nations.  This issue, I regret, once more demonstrates the ability of politicians to subordinate our nation's well-being to demands of local constituencies." (p. 180)

As we deal with our budget deficits now, challenges to the Permanent Fund Dividend, oil credits, and a gas pipeline, it's useful to look back and see what happened 50 years ago and consider what parts of that history might be repeating themselves today.