Teaching English To A Refugee In Alaska - Polishing Old Skills

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

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

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

A 50 minute class consists of

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

That's been using a lot of my creativity.  

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

Getting Boosted Does Help, And The Older You Are The More It Helps

As some of you know, I've been monitoring COVID data since March 2020 and posting updates as the State updates their dashboards, which is now weekly on Tuesdays.  Today I speculated that the folks getting sick enough to be hospitalized and to die are likely to skew older and unvaccinated.  And I try not to say such things without back up data on here, so I looked it up.  And it's supported by the data - boosted folks don't get as sick or die as often.  Old folks get sicker and die more.  

I infrequently post the COVID updates in the main part of the blog.  You can see them at the tab on top labeled Alaska COVID-19 Count 3  May 2021 - ???.

So here's today's update (yes, it's Tuesday).  And in the tabbed updates there's also an introduction and some tables where I updated the numbers as they got posted.  Early on it was every day, then three days a week, and now weekly as the state chose to update less frequently.  I began the charts because in the beginning the state didn't put up anything except that day's numbers and you had no way to see if things were getting better or worse.  

Tuesday, March 7, 2023 - Positive tests up 132 from last week's 450, no new deaths reported (doesn't mean there weren't any, just not reported yet), and hospitalizations down from last week's 44 to this week's 35, but this week there's someone on a vent while there hadn't been for several weeks.  Available ICU beds up by four to 33 statewide, but remain at two in Anchorage.  

The takeaway?  COVID is still here.  Most people seem to be less sick, but some get sick enough to be hospitalized.  I haven't dug deeply enough into the state data to know who is still getting hospitalized and who's dying.  Presumably a) those with little or no immunization and those who are older, if we go by national trends.  

From the CDC - you can see the odds of being hospitalized go up by age, and it's starker for deaths.  (This chart is as of Feb 6, 2023)

Here's one from Washington State that shows both hospitalizations and deaths by vaccination status.  Again, those getting boosters were significantly, but not absolutely, better protected from hospitalization and dying.

Supreme Court Redistricting Decision Is Still Being Written - What I'd Like To See Them Address

 It's been nine months since the Supreme Court first ruled on the Alaska Redistricting Board.  That was a relatively short opinion which just answered the most immediate questions - was the latest plan acceptable and if not what needs to be done?.  They left themselves until later date to write up their reasoning for the decisions they made.  

The Alaska Court system suspends the pay of judges who don't complete their written decisions within six months of the trial..  But the Supreme Court is a little different because there isn't just one judge.  The judges who sat on the case must all agree or complete their dissenting opinions.  The Court's clerk explained to me that a draft is written and circulated to the judges.  If there are changes, the six months clock is reset.  

The Redistricting decision is no longer time sensitive.  Given that the Court hasn't issued their decision suggests to me that the last Proclamation Plan will be the plan for the rest of the decade.  If not, they needed to let the Board know that early enough to make adjustments for the 2024 election.  If there were going to be any changes, they would be limited to a few Anchorage Senate seats at most.  So, I could be wrong, but I suspect the Courts longer, explanatory decision will leave the current Proclamation plan in place.  

The decision they are currently writing will be for the 2030 Redistricting Board.  They are taking their time, I assume, so the next redistricting board will have the clearest possible guidelines for what they should be doing and should not be doing when they divide the state into 40 House districts and 20 Senate Districts.

I've discussed some of the key outstanding issues in a Previous post.  I'm repeating part of that post here.  I've made some changes and added part 4.

Some things the Court ought to answer:

1.  Explain what appears to some as a contradiction between past rulings that said everything within a Borough boundary is considered Socio-Economically Integrated (SEI) and their finding this time that Senate pairings in Anchorage were political gerrymandering.  Those two findings are not necessarily mutually exclusive, but since the Board's attorney's mantra was "everything within a Borough is SEI" based on previous Court rulings, the Board majority seemed to think that then they could pair any two contiguous house districts within the Municipality of Anchorage, and it would be fine. (Contiguity being the main legal criterion for a Senate pairing.)  Aren't things like race, economics, political leanings part of Socio-Economic Integration? Why then are factors like race, economics, and political leanings  within a single Municipality  indicators of political gerrymandering?  That needs to be explained.  And maybe the past rulings about everything in a Borough being SEI should be adjusted to reflect the differences within a Borough as populous as the Municipality of Anchorage.  Here's a post I did looking at past rulings about SEI.

[UPDATED Sept 4, 2022:  Maybe this is better focused:  I'd like to see the Court explain how they differentiate the criteria used to determine political gerrymandering and the criteria used for Socio-Economic Integration (SEI).  If Board Member Marcum hadn't mentioned that ER would have gotten an extra Senate seat, would the other characteristics of the two paired house districts been irrelevant?  At one point in the Supreme Court hearing there's an interaction between Board attorney Singer and Supreme Court Justice Warren Matthews [not to be confused with Superior Court Judge Thomas Matthews or Board attorney Matthew Singer] on terms like 'communities of interest,' and 'equal protection.'  It would be nice if they could explain clearly the different concepts that Attorney Singer discussed and how the Court distinguishes between the idea that a Borough, by definition, is SEI, but, as Justice Matthews pointed out, there are differences in communities of interest within the Borough of Anchorage.]

2. Address the issue of geographic contiguity.  While the House districts paired in the revised map were technically contiguous, the borders that were touching were in unpopulated and roadless mountain areas.  While that 'connected' the two districts physically, the communities in those two districts were geographically far apart (relative to the population of Anchorage) and not really sensible political units. 

"Auto-contiguity" came up as a concept.  That 'auto' refers to cars - can you drive from one part of the district to another without leaving the district?  This was an issue in the Valdez/Mat-Su case and in the Eagle River Senate pairings. 

 I understand that being contiguous in large, roadless rural districts will sometimes require those rural Senate seats to have much less ideal connections between communities.  But in urban areas where there is much greater population density, it seems more than reasonable to consider contiguity as a continuum from "more to less," than an "either/or, yes/no," evaluation.  It was clear that the Board majority paired HD 22 and HD 9 with such an unusable border for political reasons.  The Hickel Decision tell us that

"In addition to preventing gerrymandering, the requirement that districts be composed of relatively integrated socio-economic areas helps to ensure that a voter is not denied his or her right to an equally powerful vote."

In urban areas, extreme contiguity such as we had, should also be an indicator of possible gerrymandering,  particularly when much more natural contiguity alternatives are available.  

3.  Explain why the Supreme Court disagreed with Judge Matthews' finding that the Board needed to pay more attention to public testimony in the Skagway case.  Did they disagree with his reasoning on the Board's need to justify why they were making a decision that was contrary to the overwhelming public testimony?  As I understand it, they basically said, it didn't matter since the district met the criteria for a district.  

4.  The State Constitution says that Board Members should be chosen without regard to political party.  This has rarely been the what actually happens.  And in this case, the Governor picked three Board members who were not only Republicans, but were highly partisan Republicans who, in the end pursued maps that were clearly politically gerrymandered.  Budd Simpson even testified that he was selected for the Board because there are many Republicans in Southeast.  The Court did not really deal with this clear violation of the Constitution by the Governor in selecting Board members.  But perhaps it was on their minds when they said the Board was guilty of illegal gerrymandering with some Anchorage Senate seats.  It would be very helpful if the Board set some standards for dealing with such partisan choices by those given the power to choose Board members. If they don't, they are essentially saying that that part of the Constitution is unenforceable.  

5.  There was a request from Calista plaintiffs that ANCSA boundaries be found acceptable as local boundaries for the Board to use making their maps.  This makes some sense in situations where those boundaries connect villages (water districts, schools, roads).  But the for-profit Native corporations are just that: profit making corporations that have a lot of power.  We wouldn't want corporations, say like Conoco or Monsanto, to have their own corporate political districts.  I think the Native Corporations have the burden of proof here that they are sufficiently different, in ways that matter to elections, that it would be okay. Or the Court could identify which ANCSA boundaries might be permissible and which might not.  Would making a district that exactly matched the boundaries of a Native Corporation be legal?  By refusing to accept Cantwell into the larger 'Calista' district, the Court suggests probably not.  More clarification would be helpful.  

6.  Also on hold has been the decision about whether the Board has to pay attorney fees for the Girdwood plaintiffs. 

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

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

Choosing labels carelessly  

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

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

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

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

Eastman mulls the economic benefits of letting kids die

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

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

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

— ChudsOfTikTok (@ChudsOfTikTok) February 21, 2023

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

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

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

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

From CNN

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Random Shots San Francisco

 

Prickly pear foot.

Went to the Castro to buy a friend a rainbow flag.

Someone chalked a memorial to their grandfather on the garage door.

One architectural feature I began to notice I've finally got a name for - quoins.  Lots of the San Francisco buildings have them.  They seem to be both structural and decorative.  In the picture they are the lighter color pieces on the corners.  

I first started to notice them (first you see something, but don't consciously register them and then you do) on a bright blue house I put up in a previous post.  I don't usually post the same picture twice, but I think it's appropriate here.  

On this house, because of the starkly contrasting colors, they really stand out.  And while some go around the corners, others seem mainly decorative.  

Look closely for the hummingbird.

Waiting for the bus.

Cymbidium seem to do alright in San Francisco.  From Orchidweb:

"While these orchids can be cultured successfully indoors, Cymbidium benefit tremendously from growing outdoors between May to early October. In late summer and early fall, night temperatures that fall below 58°F (15°F) initiate the development of flower spikes. Keep in mind, these are not frost-tolerant plants, and should not be exposed to temperatures below 35°F (2°C)"

Other Avenues is a worker owned coop grocery in San Francisco with a small woke book section.  

I ended up buying two bars of soap which caused TSA to pull my roller bag aside and look for the suspicious blocks.  

I'm pretty sure this is an aeonium arboreum.  These plants are very popular in San Francisco.  

Nearby Houses - Frank Lloyd Wright In Chicago, Blown Up Drug Lab In San Francisco

 I mentioned in the previous post that Oak Park, Illinois was Frank Lloyd Wright's home for a long time.  Then Sunday I discovered there were some of his houses around the corner from my friend's place.  Here are some pictures.  

The first pictures are of the Moore-Dugal House.  Our friends said it was for sale, but that it needed a lot of work.  

And these are some other FLW houses across the street and next door to the first house.

Sunday night we flew from Chicago to San Francisco.  My daughter-in-law is out of town and we're here to help the grandkids.  Always a delight.  The nasturtiums and sweetness my grandson planted when we were here in December are doing well - at least the ones that survived his watering schedule.  My granddaughter has a birthday Thursday.  

Yesterday after school the kids took us a couple of blocks over to see the house that blew up Thursday. 

The house on the left is the neighbor's house.

You can watch a video of the explosion from a neighbor's surveillance camera here as well as learn more details.  

And to end this on a lighter note, here's a house that looks like it's out of a cartoon that we passed on the way home. 

Bearings And Sunshine - And Some Oak Park Houses

We're in Chicago/Oak Park, Illinois visiting a long time friend (we were roommates in Peace Corps training over 50 years ago) and J's brother who we haven't seen since well before the pandemic.  We arrived Wednesday evening, on a cloudy night.  My internal compass wasn't working.  The next day the clouds were low and leaking.  I just couldn't sense north or south, east or west.  

Then this morning I pulled up the shades.  

Blue sky and sunshine!  When we went out I was able to figure out directions much easier knowing my shadow was generally toward the north.  

We went off for a walk which gave me a chance to take some pictures of a few houses and other objects that caught my eye.  I'd note, for people who don't know anything about Oak Park, it's the town where Frank Lloyd Wright lived and had his studio.  There are a number of his houses and other structures in Oak Park.  

This is a WW I monument in the park next to the public library.  Monuments like this one glorify war by suggesting all who fought in the war were heroes.  They give young boys and men the idea that fighting for your country is noble and makes you a hero.  There are times when that is true.  I think those fighting in Ukraine now to keep Ukraine free from Russian conquest are noble.  

But far too many wars are fought to protect business interests or access to raw materials in other countries.  The only people who always benefit from war are arms dealers - whether guns, tanks, planes, and the people who supply all the needs of soldiers.  Those folks don't worry about the people - civilians and soldiers - killed or wounded or psychologically damaged.  They don't even care about the destruction that war causes.  In fact, they may even get contracts to reconstruct the cities their products destroyed.  

Kids around the United States and other parts of the world tend to see a lot more statues honoring the military and war than statues that treat doctors, teachers, artists, or scientists as role models whose paths are worthy of following.  

The sun was nice today, but the temperature never got more than mid-30s, The wind today was not much more than a breeze.   Also got to do some surrogate cramping today as we picked up my friends' granddaughter from pre-school and wandered around through parks and neighborhoods until her mom got home.  She decided she was going to eat my knee and so I said I'd eat her ear.  Five yer old ears are the tastiest I said.  And she responded without a pause - I'm four.  (She's five.) We did have fun.  

My Thoughts On Pro Publica And ADN Summary Of The Bronson Corruption

[NOTE:  This post highlights the ProPublica/ADN report on the Bronson administration.  I've added my own reactions in blue.]

For those in a hurry, summary of  points I make:

1.  Baker, as a private contractor, was NOT a client of the Municipal Attorney and thus the attorney saying he can't discuss the case because of that is incorrect.  And if he was a client of the attorney, then t was more inappropriate as part of the Mayor's team to approach the Attorney.

2.  Assembly should make it illegal for the administration to remove the indemnity clause in contracts without Assembly approval, regardless the value of the contract.  

3.  Media have to do a better job of getting past the facades of politicians (and others in power) to get the public the real scoop on who these people are and what they do.  Local media need to give reporters focused beats and incentives to stay on them to develop reliable contacts who will give them tips.  

Image from the ProPublica/ADN article

ProPublica and the ADN published a long article that pulled together many of the events that have happened in the Dave Bronson administration.  It's worth reading. 

It didn't cover all details, but focused on Larry Baker and the conflicts he had over the Golden Lion because he and other Bronson owners lived nearby.  I hadn't heard about the DOTPF memo being mischaracterized to make it look like the state would demolish the Golden Lion.  It discuss Baker's younger partner Brandon Spoerhase and his attempts to get the Muni Attorney to drop all charges against Spoerhase for violating a restraining order against a woman working in the Mayor's office.  

The article mentions that the mayor did not hire Baker as a Muni employee, but skirted the need for Assembly approval by hiring him as a contractor with three contracts at $29,500 - just below the $30,000 threshold that would require Assembly approval.  The contracts also gave Baker immunity from prosecution, meaning the Municipality would be on the hook for problems he caused.  

They asked then Municipal Attorney Peter Bergt about Baker's interference:

"Bergt declined to say whether Baker pressured him to drop or reduce the city charges against Spoerhase, citing concerns that he could break legal rules protecting confidential communications between attorneys and clients. . .

 “I took very seriously my ethical obligation to my client — the Municipality of Anchorage — and always acted in its best interest.”

My thought is that if Baker as a private contractor, the he wasn't Bergt's client.  The Muni, not a contractor is the client.  So there shouldn't be any attorney client privilege here.  [Of course I'm not an attorney so I'm sure some or even most lawyers might say I'm wrong. ]

[OK.  I've spoken to an attorney friend who first said that Baker, as a private citizen, has the right to contact the Municipal Attorney and try to point out legal reasons why he charges should be dropped.  But, I asked, he's the Mayor's policy advisor, so there's a conflict of interest.  In that case there may be an ethical problem, but probably not a legal one.  Then I went on to read the quotes above.  Then my attorney jumped and said, that as a private contractor coming in to discuss his business partner's charges, he's absolutely NOT a client of the Municipal Attorney.  And if the Attorney thinks he is his client, then there are bigger barriers to him interfering with this case.]

But I would also recommend that the Assembly pass a law that says a contractor cannot have the indemnity clause removed without approval from the Assembly, regardless the dollar amount of the contract..  

The article also quotes Assembly member Quinn-Davis (who also acted as temporary Mayor) about Baker and she responded.  

“Unlike Bronson, he knows he needs to get along with people and relationships matter,” said Assembly member Austin Quinn-Davidson, who filled in as mayor for several months after Berkowitz resigned.

“I like him,” she said of Baker. “I think he relies on that, which is smart. People sort of trusting him or liking him as a person to get things done.”

Getting along with people is a very useful skill.  My thought is how many people use this skill to mask some not so nice behavior as Baker did?  How many people in positions of power do dastardly deeds protected by a nice guy image?  Or other images that suggest competence - clothing, education, purported experience.  This is a call to media and political opponents to do a better job learning and then alerting the world about important background information about the people running for office and serving as corporate executives.  George Santos is only the most egregious example of the media not doing their job in this area.  Except for the North Shore Leader. which wasn't able to get the story a wider audience.  

While we have watched quite a bit of this play out over the last year and a half, we we lacked key details that were revealed by Amy Demoboski when she was fired and sent a nine page letter of accusations.  As a conservative Assembly member who moved over to serve as Bronson's city manager, she had the insider's view of what was happening and because she's an ideological ally of the mayor, her accusations have more weight.  

I mention this because I think 'nice' guys are protected by insiders generally not exposing them as Demboski has done.  

This means we really do need better ways to keep our officials accountable and keep government as transparent as possible.  When local reporters have long term assignments, they have time to build up networks of insiders who give them tips.  Let's hope we can get media outlets to keep reporters on beats long enough to develop these networks.  I'd like to thank ProPublica which is helping the ADN do more long term coverage of major issues.  

One of the issues the article doesn't cover is the crowd of abusive Assembly attendees who made anti-Semitic and anti-LGBTQ attacks in opposition to both COVID regulations and the Assembly's homeless actions.  They were loud and and worked to intimidate Assembly members and the public who did not support their politics.  These were basically stirred up and supported by the group of Geneva Woods neighbors - including Larry Baker - who were opposed to using the Golden Lion Hotel for an addiction center.  

Spoutible's Impressive If Imperfect Start - A Serious Attempt For More Civil Society

 I can understand readers here who think I'm spending way too much time on the new Twitter alternative startup Spoutible.  But hear me out.

Why I think this is important

Most of social media has become infected with trolls - from jerks to paid hit men.  Spoutible is a serious attempt to create a protected space where people can interact and discuss serious issues calmly (or even excited too) and rationally.  It's designed to keep out those who prey on the weak, and also on the not so weak.   

The creator of this project is credible and capable.  It has a chance to offer a safe place and be a model for others.  If this works, it would show that neutralizing the haters is possible.  

Who is Christopher Bouzy?

 Christopher Bouzy isn't your typical tech startup creator.  He created BotSentinal - an app that allows you to submit someone's Twitter handle and then scores it by how civil its cumulative tweets are.  He did this to help people recognize those trolls quickly.

In a reasonably small human setting - a school, a religious congregation, at work, on a sports team - you quickly get to know who you can trust and who tends to be a jerk.  Online anonymity means we don't know people's identity or history.  BotSentinel is a tool to help overcome that.

As Twitter became more hateful, Bouzy saw a need for a civil space to discuss the issues of the day, or one's personal life, or whatever one wants without being targeted. And BotSentinel suggested he also had a lot of technical resources to pull it off.   As Twitter's decline in civility quickened with Musk's takeover, things got more urgent.  Using what he knew from working on BotSentinel, Bouzy got to work with a collection of computer folks to create a new online forum.  He made it pretty Twitter like so it would be easy for Twitter users to navigate on it quickly.  

He's also happens to be black which gives him a view of the world most techies don't have.  He's pledged to have 40% of Spoutible workforce be women.  

Spoutible Background

The team spent about three months developing the site.  Then they invited journalists and some other celebrities to try out the site for a week or two.  Journalists, because Bouzy believes that they need a healthy platform to gather early news tips and to alert the world to what they are working on and have produced.  [I'd note that I resisted Twitter for a while.  But at an Alaska Press Club conference I attended a couple of workshops put on by the then Social Media editor of the Wall Street Journal who explained how and why he used Twitter - the reasons I just mentioned: to get early tips on emerging stories and to share their own stories.  That got me to try it.  And it does those things.  It also can help you waste a lot of time if you don't pick the people you follow carefully.

Because I've used BotSentinel to identify Twitter abusers, I appreciated that there was someone who saw this problem and came up with a way to combat it.  So when Christopher Bouzy came into my awareness saying he was working on a Twitter alternative and that his background included creating BotSentinal, I was ready to follow.  I'd already joined Mastodon and Post as I looked for Twitter alternatives, but neither really grabbed me.  

So I was eager for the Bouzy site to become real.  I listened to Bouzy talk to us on Twitter Spaces (ironic that he can use Twitter to promote Spoutible) and take questions.  I was impressed with what I felt was sincerity and openness.  He was going to be as transparent as possible without giving away information that might not be safe in the hands of competitors, scammers, or hackers.  There have been several other open forums and each time I'm impressed with Bouzy's sincerity, his motivation, and his technical knowledge of how to get this done and hire people to do what he can't.  

On February 1, 2023 (yes, just five days ago) Spoutible opened up for preregistered users, which included me.  It was both a strong and rocky start.  Lots of people signed on and started spouting.  But there were technical glitches and the site was really sluggish.  It got better by February 2 and then there were more problems the next day.  

Saturday Bouzy did another Twitter Spaces forum where he talked about the issues and answered questions.  By the time I saw the notice, the meeting was over, but I was able to go for a walk and  listen to the recording.

Meeting Takeaways 

[You can listen here. It's 2 hours and 44 minutes long. Good for an airplane trip, or doing some mindless task, as well as exercising.  Don't need to hear it all, but at least to get a sense of Bouzy.]

1.  Bouzy haters - He started out by taking all the blame for things that went wrong, including a sort of breach.  No data got compromised. But the attackers acted like there had been.  These attackers have been on Bouzy's case since BotSentinal examined online attackers of Meghan and Harry and they have turned their attention onto Bouzy and Tweeting how Spoutible was a scam and you would have all your data compromised. [Me:  I had wondered how much of the problem with Spoutible was hacker related and apparently some of it was.]

2.  Lots of people signed up and lots of kumbaya - Despite the technical problems, there was a surge of people signing up and it seemed that the tone of the conversations was great and that people were meeting lots of new people and following and getting followers and lots of comments and discussions.  Bouzy was a little cagey about numbers, though he Tweeted in mid December that 110,664 had already pre-registered.  His hesitance to talk numbers had to do with the haters, but I didn't quite understand the issues.  [Me:  I agree with the tone and warmth of the spouts.  And people commenting on my posts and following me much faster than they did when I first joined Twitter.  But I suspect there are other explanations.

• There aren't that many people on Spoutible right now and everyone is trying to find followers and people to follow.  And they are connecting quickly because of a sense of the safety of the site
• No cliques yet.  The crowd is mingling.  There are no groups yet.  So people are connecting with people they normally wouldn't connect with.  This is good.  But I suspect once people get familiar with each other, they will settle in to interacting with regulars more and won't be making friends so freely.

I also didn't see a lot of the serious political or theoretical discussions that I find important on Twitter.  It feels a bit like the early days of the internet where everyone was just looking around and having fun.  People didn't quite know where it was going or how to make money off of it.]

3.  Despite the technical issues in the first couple of days, people have been very forgiving  Lots of thank-yous to Bouzy.   Responses were similar to mine: grateful for this new space and understanding that this was put together in three months and has only had a significant number of users for four days.  A number of of commenters told Bouzy not to be so hard on himself.  We all recognize that Twitter has had  about 16 years to evolve.  Bouzy acknowledged that but said that protecting users was his top priority and anything they overlooked he felt was a problem.  That's good, but as many pointed out - going without sleep too long is not healthy.  

4.  Identification of bugs, suggestions for improvements

There were minor to serious technical issues - ie the Spout drop blocks the like button for some, can't sign up two accounts, some people's emails and some non-US phone numbers weren't recognized,  There were questions about when features would come out - like a phone app, a common suggestion box, the rules of engagement, foreign language options, podcast options, etc.  A couple of people wanted to have kids get access since it seems like a safe space.  That was the only one Bouzy was not receptive to.  In most cases he said it was coming and they were trying to prioritize the most important things first.  

5.  Transparency

This and previous online open forums demonstrated a level of openness we don't see very often.  I can't help but feel that Bouzy is a really decent person I'd love to have as a personal friend.  

My own suggestions:

1. people's profiles should pop up when you put the cursor over their image
2. easier navigation back to where you were - ie not jumping back to the top of your timeline after checking a comment
3. have the follow/unfollow button available with each spurt
4. I understand why they have the Bot-Sentinel button so prominent, but so far everyone is zero.  I think it would be better if it was on people's profile and popped up with the profile (see suggestion #1)
5. Will the BotSentinel score be 
1. just for Spoutible?
2. for Twitter and Spoutible separately?
3. for a combination of both?
4. just for Twitter?
6. Timestamps on Spouts seem to reflect the spouter's time zone - converting them into the readers' time zone seems to make more sense.
7. 
   Why does the Spoutable image in tabs bar look like a P instead of an S? OK, if I look closely maybe that's supposed to be a spouting from the vague but blue whale below.   WOW!  I went back to capture the Spoutible image alongside the Twitter image and there was already a new Spoutible image.  A minute after I wrote this.  But I think a bigger whale without the extra word (which shows where you are on Spoutible) would be better.    There are more, but this is enough for now.  
   
   Follow up:  If tab isn't open, then just the whale or bird show. [Update 4pm - the P is back.  Guessing they're experimenting.]

My hope for Spoutible is that:

1. The platform can be a space where journalists, artists, activists, and other humans can safely express themselves free of hate and vicious attacks. But 'safely express themselves' doesn't include people who make hateful and vicious posts or spread disinformation.  Paradox?  It might appear so, but if people object to something, they need to do it civilly and explain why.
2. That it will serve as a model that such places can exist and thrive online.
3. The world will adapt with the changes and find ways to protect safe spaces in general

My concerns are:

1. The various forces that want to preserve those parts of the status quo they benefit from will do what they can to find ways to infiltrate my ideal Spoutible and poison it as they've poisoned the internet in general.  These include:
1. White supremacists, fragile would-be alpha males, and troubled people in general, who out of anger, spite and/or for profit have used their anonymity to intimidate good people without consequences to themselves and to make truth harder to discern
2. The people who stir up such people with propaganda and pay them to disrupt the free flow of ideas
3. People who will see hacking Spoutible as a challenge.  Bouzy did say he hopes most of those people will be friendly and let Spoutible know of any vulnerabilities they find.  

But I also know that in the flow of time, as new problems emerge, new strategies emerge to overcome them.  The Right has had strategists working for years to exploit race and abortion in order to keep power.  They've plotted for decades to take over the Supreme Court.  The Left  has generally not been so calculating long term and have been slow to recognize the Right's strategy.  But now that they know what has been happening, they are more galvanized to fight it.  They have science and good will on their side and they will find ways to stem the evils that new technologies have unleashed

About Making Assumptions: Looking Up Lisa Blatt Before Finishing This Post

 A week or so ago an attorney arguing before the US Supreme Court claimed:  [You can read the transcript here page 28.]

"but, yes, it's just been -- I mean, the world has been around for, like, 7,000 years, and no country has ever tried another country.

(Laughter.)"

The case is TURKIYE HALK BANKASI A.S., )AKA HALKBANK, )  v. UNITED STATES and involves a challenge to the US' ability to bring suit against a Turkish bank on the grounds it is part of the sovereign nation of Turkiye.  (Yes, that's the new formal name of the country.)

"the world has been around for, like, 7,000 years"

Was this a joke?  Was it pandering to the Federalist Society appointed judges?  Was it the attorney's actual understanding of how old the world is?  

Trying to comment meaningfully on today's world is how I imagine a mosquito swarmed caribou in the midsummer Arctic must feel.  Every bite hurts a little but there are just too many to deal with. 

But I also know we must stand firm.  All the voting fraud legal losses have weakened Trump and his follower, and claimed  We shouldn't assume they have more power than they have.  

That said, I looked up Lisa Blatt to see if she's also a docent at Kentucky's Noah's Ark Encounter?

Sarcasm often floats over people's heads.  I learned quickly that I couldn't use it in class because there were always a few students who took my words literally.  

Not everything is as it appears.  Lisa Blatt is said to be the female attorney who has appeared most frequently before the US Supreme Court.  She's also a former RBG law clerk.  

Here's an interview with Lisa Blatt chair of the Supreme Court and appellate practice at Williams & Connolly, that makes it pretty clear that she knows the world is more than 7000 years old and this might have been an unintentional bit of humor.  

 Is this post worth writing? If I just dealt with one mosquito among millions?  I think so, because the real point is to be careful about jumping to conclusions - which seems to happen with greater frequency as online media rush to be the first to report anything.  And if anyone reads this and checks on an assumption she's about to make, then yes.  

And I'm going to reiterate this theme in an upcoming post, so this is just a seed to get you ready.