Propaganda Techniques

To get a little perspective on political propaganda, check out this video. I'm guessing it is 1950's vintage. Things have gotten a lot more sophisticated.





But, it still doesn't hurt to use their checklist:
1. Recognize the technique
2. Get the facts
3. Know the purpose
4. Weigh the facts against the purpose and techniques

I found this YouTube video on a Barcelona blog that had linked to my blog.

Congratulations to New US Citizens!

Friday morning we went downtown to the Alaska Lands Information Center in the old Federal Building to see our fellow blogger become a US citizen. Go over and congratulate him.



The ceremony was in the auditorium, but first we gathered in the Information Center, surrounded by stuffed animals. I had to think about why I thought this was different from the two bears at the Hilton. I asked one of the Park Service people here where the animals came from. A group of large ones came from a private collection that was going to be thrown away. It was donated. A taxidermist had stuffed a dead otter that had washed up on the beach. The others had been confiscated from illegal hunters. None had been commissioned or paid for. They were there to help Alaskans and visitors become more aware of the wildlife in the state. He said some places - like Denali - have artificial sculpted models. I saw those in Denali, they just aren't the same. He said they were necessary there because they don't heat the visitor center in the winter and the stuffed animals would burst in the cold.

I have to say that while watching the new citizens was wonderful, the ceremony itself was tired. The opening film was full of the Ellis Island cliche pictures of immigrants of the early 20th Century. Where were the faces of immigrants getting off of jets, the immigrants of today? Most of the government officials who spoke seemed like they were the ones who got stuck with this duty. The guy from the National Archives talked about what you could see in the Archives in Washington DC.





Yes, it's interesting, but hardly a top priority for these new Alaskan Americans. He should have left it with the register of the first new citizens in Anchorage in 1916 - beginning with a Dane. The Park Service could have had some slides to go along with the talk on Alaska's magnificent National Parks. The logistics were clumsy. The oath a little stilted. Why are we making an older woman in a wheelchair from a war torn country swear that she "will bear arms on behalf of the United States when required by law?"

The George W. Bush videotape was the most sincere and uplifting greeting of all.

Nevertheless, it was the kind of thing Americans should see once in a while. And I suspect the government officials aren't given much time to prepare for this event or resources to do it better. But we really should make this much warmer, better organized, and congratulatory. The last time I went to one of these at the Federal Court it was much better done.

The Oath of Citizenship

I hereby declare, on oath, that I absolutely and entirely renounce and abjure all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate, state, or sovereignty of whom or which I have heretofore been a subject or citizen; that I will support and defend the Constitution and laws of the United States of America against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I will bear arms on behalf of the United States when required by law; that I will perform noncombatant service in the Armed Forces of the United States when required by the law; that I will perform work of national importance under civilian direction when required by the law; and that I take this obligation freely without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; so help me God. In acknowledgement whereof I have hereunto affixed my signature.

Meetup.com Anchorage Beach Hike

I haven't been on a meetup.com hike since spring - too busy, too lazy, wrong time, wrong hike, lots of excuses. The concept is great - a website where people who want to meetup for some activity. But walking along the beach near Kincaid sounded just right and the time was fine.











We did ok coming down the steep embankment from the Jodphur parking lot. This big piece of driftwood was at the bottom, on the beach.








































We were eight people and eight dogs, all of whom will sleep well tonight.


















The strong tides in Cook Inlet tend to jumble the sea ice and leave a lot on the shore.

















Doug Van Etten, the mastermind behind the meetup.com adventurer group.






















The clouds were heavy, but there was a break on the western horizon all afternoon giving us a peak of the Alaska Range. I think this is Mt. Redoubt.

My First Music Video - Hunting in Winter

I didn't intend to make a music video. I had some pictures from this afternoon's walk at Campbell Creek near Stuckagain. But music sounded like a good idea. Grrrr. Going to have to learn how to use Garage Band so I can make some noises to put on some of the videos. But in the meantime, what can I use without getting into too much trouble? Something winter related.

I found a CD one of my students, Guo Wei, gave me in Beijing. She was an er hu player in the student traditional Chinese orchestra at Renmin University of China. We even got to hear two of their concerts in beautiful concert halls. So I found a piece from the CD

New Melodies of "Si Zhu"
Collection of Traditional Musical Instruments

Conducted by Qin Pengzhang Yang Chunlin

This is part of track 3 - Sketch of Life in the North - fourth movement - Hunting in Winter

Well, we weren't hunting, but it is north and it is winter.






And then, one thing led to another. The pictures had to have some connection to the music. Let's just say, I learned a lot on iMovie today, and I have a long way to go. I really got into the music and wanted to do the whole piece, but I never would have finished that. It's not finished as it is. I hope you enjoy the pictures of Campbell Creek area and the wonderful music.

This is especially for my musician fellow blogger, Phil; Guo Wei; Frank in Beijing; and Des and Lyrica.

"It's like a bully, a black hole bully punching the nose of a passing galaxy"

This blog's name is "What Do I Know" because I'm interested in how people 'know' what they know. How is it that Christians of one denomination 'know' their truth while those of another know a different truth? And Muslims yet another truth. Hindus and Sikhs still others.

How is it one voter 'knows' that Ron Paul is exactly what American needs, while another thinks he would be a disaster?

I don't know the answers to these questions, but the explanation that makes most sense to me is that humans come to 'know' things through a complex mix of ways.

• genetics provide us with instincts and predisposed tendencies
• experiences with the world that provide us with mostly unconscious knowledge of the physical world (visually interpreting depth and movement) and the social world (interpreting the intent of other people)
• instructions from authorities such as parents, the media, teachers which is why Chinese babies end up speaking Chinese, unless they get adopted by, say, an American, in which case they end up learning English; and why Muslim kids usually have Muslim parents
• logic and reason provide us with ways to examine what we know, test it, change it

All of these ways are essential, none is best for everything, some are better for some things. How they play out in our brains is different from individual to individual, and even within a single individual from one time to another.

So I found Seth Borenstein's AP story on a black hole the other day interesting. He writes:

"It's like a bully, a black-hole bully, punching the nose of a passing galaxy," said astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson, director of the Hayden Planetarium in New York, who wasn't involved in the research.

But ultimately, this could be a deadly punch.

What in Neil deGrasse Tyson's life causes him to see, in these images, a bully punching someone in the nose? Why does he put human intent in them? Poets use images to convey abstract ideas. If Tyson is trying to make this astronomical event understandable to us non-astronomers, why that image? Watch the NASA video and see if that is what you see.





Actually the description in the video is far less based on human emotions.

This made me think of Rohrschach tests. Those inkblots psychologists give patients to interpret. From the same ink splotches, different people see totally different things. I only have a layperson's understanding of such tests and the Rorschah.com site said very little

The test itself, as well as the book, are too well known to require any detailed commentary here,

Rohrschach.org was full of typos that didn't give me much confidence in that site. (revealing one of the ways I 'know' what I think I can trust on the internet.)

uk.tickle.com had what they purport to be an actual Rohrschach test. I went through the eleven inkblots, but at the end I had to 'skip' eight or nine ads to get to a page where I could pay £8.95 to get my results. But if you just go through the test pages, you'll get the point I'm making here about interpreting what you see. The questions they ask give a sense of the different things people see. Here's one of their inkblots.




I think the inkblots - and the space activity - are good examples of seeing how people take their own knowledge, experiences, and emotions to interpret the identifical 'facts'.

One part of improving public discourse is for people to become more aware of how they know things - the stories in their heads with which they interpret the 'facts' of the world. Also, explicitly seeing how different people 'see' different things in the same set of 'facts' is also instructive.

Attending the corruption trials also emphasized the way people take in evidence and determine guilt or innocence. Clearly the jurors saw things differently than the defendants.

And, of course, some people's interpretations of facts, are a closer match to reality. My basic test for good interpretation is how successful one is in using that interpretation to predict outcomes. Sometimes this can be done - which fishing hole is most likely to yield fish? - sometimes it can't be done - which is the most beautiful painting?

Anchorage Concert Chorus at the Museum

After brunch, we went over the the Museum to see the Ainu and Korean Ceramic exhibits once more before they left town. We knew something else was going on because there was no parking near the museum. If it hadn't been around ten degrees, or if we were more warmly dressed, we could have just walked over.

Our timing was perfect, the Anchorage Concert Chorus was four deep up the stairs of the atrium and the director Grant Cochran was just explaining how the chorus traditionally performs in the museum and then walks over to the Performing Arts Center for their concert there. Below is a taste of what we heard.

Audubon Christmas Bird Count Tally

The previous post highlights our day riding around counting birds in east Anchorage. Dianne picked us up again at 5ish and we took the new Elmore Road to the Campbell Creek Science Center for the tally of all the groups out counting birds today. 15,248 individual birds and 39 different species were counted. This is down from the last couple of years. But a lot of factors go into this - the weather, the number of people counting, luck....

Two new species (for the Anchorage Christmas Bird Count) were spotted:

• 25 Northern Shovelers
• 1 Brambling [I had "Bramble" but my birder friend Catherine reminded me it's Brambling]
  

The brambling brought the most ooos and aaaahs. Below is a brief video that will give you a general sense of the evening.

AIFF - Film Makers Forum 2

Today's the last day of the Festival and I got to Ship Creek Mall for the filmmaker forum only to find the doors locked, but there was a note - moved to Starbucks at 5th & F. There I found 11 folks around the table talking about making films.

A majority were local people and talk got around to how to improve the film making environment in Alaska itself - ways for people to keep in touch with like minded others, equipment rental possibilities, etc. People talked about projects and passed out their cards. There was even someone from Bristol Bay Alliance looking to connect to local film makers so they can make a film about Bristol Bay and the potential impacts of mining. He made it clear they want an all Alaskan project - funding, film makers, everything. And they want it something that talks to people in the middle, not the extremes. Here's a glimpse at the meeting.

AIFF - Shorts in Competition Catch Up

This evening we saw Body/Antibody at the museum and then back to the Fireweed for Cthulhu.

But I need to catch up with all the great shorts we saw at the Shorts in Competition showing Friday night. Was that only yesterday? This was a very strong field of good shorts.

I'll give you the Festival website blurb and my comments.

The Wine Bar
When blue-collar Henry orders a beer in a snooty wine bar he offends everyone and has to defend himself and the woman sitting next to him.
In Short Competition

This one I already liked the best last Saturday and did a short comment then. This one is just a very well made, funny, insightful, and you feel good at the end.

Dear Lemon Lima,
A lonely girl with a vivid imagination struggles to plant seeds of love after her narcissistic sweetheart breaks her heart.

Posted about this one already.

Boletos Por Favor
(Tickets Please)
A train, a pursuit, only one way to escape.

It's hard to write about shorts without telling too much. This one was like walking into a highly charged situation and getting to watch it close up. The ending wasn't as satisfying as it could have been.

Anonymous
New fresh kind of independent cinema.

This one blew me away. It had a quirky style, every now and then it got jerky, like stuttering visually, along with the sound of the turntable scratching back and forth. And it was just right for this strange little story of a writer, his typewriter, the woman in the apartment next door, and an elevator. This was my favorite. Though it might not be everyone's taste.

Security
Dark humor veers into tragedy in Security, a drama about an American Immigration agent at Newark International Airport whose private fears spill into his professional life when he confronts an Iranian mother and her son. Starring Chris Messina (Six Feet Under). Based on the play by Israel Horovitz.

This one had me so pulled in that I totally forgot about my camera. Powerful. Homeland Security is NOT the hero of this film.

La Parabolica
(The Parabolic Dish)
During the broadcast of the Pope's visit, Vicente’s television is broken. Desperate, he decides to make a homemade parabolic dish.

This was the weakest of the bunch. It was fine, but not up to the quality of the others.

Demain la Veille
(Waiting for Yesterday) (See the trailer)
Bob is a 30 year old man like all others: he walks backwards, looses his memory, his skills, like a good citizen. But one night, he wakes up in sweat realizing that the world that he lives in is not “normal”. As he starts behaving differently, he finds himself chased by mercenaries, trying to put him back on track. Little does he know what he is in for: fighting the abstract power that has taken mankind backwards.

This one was also amazing. Seeing the world go backwards - wine pouring out of the mouth into the glass, ink disappearing off the page into the pen - is a nice brain stretcher. Making the film go backward isn't that hard, but at times I thought the storm troopers might actually have been running backward. I'd like a copy of this to play over and over again. Not sure if this was that good or it was simply the novelty of everything going backwards. Definitely worth seeing.

Anti-Sanctuary Ordinance Buried Indefinitely

I got the following email tonight from the blogger at Independent Alaskan:

Despite the fact that the Anchorage Assembly postponed public testimony regarding Paul Bauer's anti-sanctuary ordinance, Assemblyman Allan Tesche moved to postpone the ordinance indefinitely. The motion passed 8-3 (Bauer, Coffey & Sullivan voted no). A second vote for reconsideration was 8-3, so the issue will not be brought up again!!! It's done!

I guess after someone last week who claimed to be Debbie Bauer wrote things like this on the ADN blog:

As for my husband's anti-crime ordinance, what don't you understand? Google for yourself and find out just what illegal immigration has done to this country. It speaks for itself. Not a waste of time, but one man's effort in making our city a safer place in which to live. So if you want to live with illegal's move, cause this city is going to change for the better.

Are you here legally? Everyone that is making the issue of illegal immigrants has something to hide themselves.
We are proud to be the decendents of immigrant familes that processed thru Ellis Island in the 1900's.

that wiser heads on the Assembly realized where this debate could have headed if not stopped now.


While getting the link to the ADN blog just now I noticed that Kyle Hopkins just blogged the same story with a sour note at the end:

In a surprise move -- surprise to me, anyway -- the Assembly voted to postpone indefinitely a proposal from Assemblyman Paul Bauer that would let police ask you for proof of U.S. citizenship.

That means it's dead.

Bauer just handed me a written statement in response. It says, in part:

"The eight Anchorage Assembly members voting to postpone indefinitely the ordinance "Local-Enforcement-Anti-Sanctuary" is a slap in the face of law-abiding, legal citizens."

If Paul Bauer is so strongly in favor of obeying the law he might want to work on the people who run red lights, speed past schools, and beat their wives. I suspect they, and drunk drivers, cause a lot more harm to Anchorage than illegal aliens.

Funny how things work. I got an email that linked me to a page with this video. It has quotes from the bible about how people should help 'aliens'. I had been recalling that there were a number of passages I recalled that said people should take in and help strangers (which I was taught meant something like people from other lands). I think the video is a little heavy handed. But it saves me the time of finding these quotes myself. I know that quotes can be taken out of context so I got my bible out to check on the passages. The wording is a slightly different, but the key difference in the passages I looked up was that the video uses the word 'alien' where my bible says "stranger.' But alien is probably a closer translation to what those words mean in modern American English.

I at Ten Months

Last January we visited I. at the hospital when he was born. Here he is ten months later.








As I looked at the video I had a couple of thoughts. Attending the Assembly work session on Paul Bauer's proposed ordinance to ask for people's proof of legal presence in the US whenever the police stop someone is making me think things I would never have thought of. Will someone watch this and ask what language is that? Who is that person? Why isn't she speaking English? Is she legally here? Yes, she's legally here, married to a native born US citizen, and making a positive contribution to the people of Alaska through her job and hard work. She's teaching her baby her native language in hopes that he will grow up totally fluent in both her native language and English. I wonder if Paul Bauer is fluent in another language besides English? He said he spent time in Germany in the military. I wonder if he spoke German when he was in German shops or did he use English? Maybe he did.

I find the paranoia about people not speaking English incomprehensible. The whole world speaks English. It's not going to die out. It's just Americans who don't speak other languages. Except immigrants and their children who are the people we have to depend on for translators. What would we do without Arab-Americans to help us understand what the Arab world is saying and writing?

And spending the evening with the baby and his family I had to think about what Tom Anderson will be missing when he leaves for prison. His youngest is a little older than I. Five years, minus whatever good time he manages to accumulate, will be a significant time in his child's life. Just as it is for people headed off for Iraq, people who might not come back to ever be in their kids' lives again. We should all be grateful for the many things we have that we take for granted, like being around our kids when they're growing up.

Lazy Run

I took my camera on my run today. The end of November is not supposed to be so snowless. Yes, there's some snow left over, but not very much.


A - I don't know that this little lake has a name. I checked Google maps - that's why there is a map at the end - and it isn't even on that map. But then I checked for the Municipality of Anchorage Trail Maps and found a map with the trails on it. And tweaked that a bit.







This is a marshy area in the summer. B on the map.











From the bike trail bridge over Northern Lights Blvd, looking west.









And east. The bridge pictures are at C on the map.















One day I'll do a whole post on Lanie. She's a wonderful human being and was one of the people who got Anchorage's great bike trails started. This is at D on the map.






These last two pictures are at E on the map, where the bike trail comes right up on Goose Lake.














This is also at the lake at A on the map. I couldn't tell what kind of bird it was, sort of scoter like. Usually only see them in summer and they have somewhat different markings. Maybe Catherine or Dianne (who's on her way back from bird watching in Bhutan - now that's a serious birder!) can identify it. I'm experimenting with different download levels from iMovie. This was CDRom quality. Not very good I'm afraid.





Map from Anchorage Municipality Trail Page I've added the A-E letters and the bright blue lake at A. The yellow dashed trail is my run - just under 4 miles. By connecting the trails through the university and then the Lanie Fleischer trail (the dark green one - covered with the yellow dashes of my route) I get about half the run in the woods.

Before "Before..."

To get to the movie yesterday (Before the Devil Knows You're Dead - and thanks to two commenters for explaining that the title comes from an Irish Toast, "May you be in heaven half an hour before the devil knows you're dead") we had to walk through the mall.

If this is a predictor of holiday shopping either lots of people joined the shopping boycott, people are becoming less materialistic, they were enjoying what was for some T-shirt weather (40s F), or the economy is down. Anyway, below is a brief visit to the mall on the way to the movie.



I did this quickly, but I played around with the 'billow' transitions, but decided not to take any more time last night to figure out why some were slow and others faster. I think the clips were too short. Also saved this at 'video' quality which means it takes up very little memory, but the visual quality is pretty degraded.

Sky Visits from Juneau

Sky and his parents spent the night last night. They're visiting from Juneau. Sky's mom was nominated to be Alaskan Nurse of the Year, but someone else was picked last night. But at our house, she's nurse of the year.




It was fun having a three year old spend the night - big smiles, runny nose, mercurial changes from happy to not. But he was very careful with the nick nacks and was a good eater.

Watching the Snow Fall

This is the sequel to the thriller, The Leaves Are Falling.






Join me on the deck1234567891011121314151617181920123456789101 All is still, winter snowflakes 12312341234567891234567894567891 only moving things

Back into the Real World - Chester Creek

I had errands to do. The snow is long gone. It was into the low 40s. On the way home on the Chester Creek bike trail I checked out the progress of winter. It's slow this year. Last year at this time we were in New Dehli and Anchorage was going into deep freeze. I love the green feet of this tree.







I stopped to enjoy the music of the water hidden in the middle of Anchorage.

Paul Kendall on Hydrogen

I met Paul Kendall the other day when I was part of a panel that discussed the political corruption trials here in Alaska. He said he's learned that he's good at gathering information and finding things, but not at getting his ideas out to the world. So I pulled out my digital camera and took some pictures and made some sound memos. I only got him once he was into his pitch and I had to stop each time after 60 seconds. So what I have on the video are three interrupted clips of 60 seconds. But I told him I'd give him at least my small audience. If you want to know more, email me (there's a contact link in my profile) and I'll pass it on.



He's obvious intelligent, he is passionate, knows his subject, and is a very fluent speaker. He knows that some people think he's crazy, but assured me he's never been on meds and isn't 'off his meds.' I liked him.

After Trial Interview - Browne and Kohring

Michael Clayton

I walked out of Michael Clayton feeling like I'd been to a good restaurant but the food just wasn't satisfying. This is Erin Brockavich from the viewpoint of one of the attorneys trying to screw over the class action victims. But there wasn't any soul. Listening to real life corrupt business men this summer in the US District court telling their stories maybe makes this story seem thin.





I'm not sure why the video quality of the clips is so bad. As usual, this is not a spoiler, but gives you a sense of the film if you don't pay attention to the subtitles.

Dialogue Alaska

I went to a community meeting today (well it's yesterday now) at the BP Center. Alaska Common Ground, with money from the Council on Public Policy Education, is putting together a couple of public forums to get people together to talk about public policy issues in Alaska. This was something of an organizing meeting. Bill Hall has been the main person behind this all. Below is a short clip of video and photos I took at the meeting.