Bugs, Boleta, Barbecue, and a Tacky Green Russula

Sky found a lady bug on the deck yesterday. He's here from Juneau while his new baby sister gets strong enough to go home. Pam, at Grassroots Science had written about lady bugs, something she heard on NPR:

Calling all kids! Cornell University wants you to find and photograph ladybugs. John Losey, a professor of entomology at Cornell University, hopes children will help document ladybug populations around the
country. Some native species are dwindling, while exotics are on the rise. To participate in the project, go to the Lost Ladybug Project Web site or send an e-mail to ladybug @ cornell . edu

So I decided to take a picture. The bug wouldn't hold still, but this one on M's hand gives a sense of the color, spots, and size.



Then he found this dragon fly, who did hold still. It was only afterward that we saw it was eating some other bug with little wings. It looks to small to be a fly. Not sure.




Sky was a regular explorer of our backyard and soon came up with this boleta. It was perfect. The recent rains had stimulated a lot of mushrooms, but such a beautiful boleta.








Sky wanted to keep it and we wanted to barbecue it - since the coals were already hot. He wasn't too happy when I sliced it up and put it on the grill. It was more than delicious.





But he found some more mushrooms. Looking at my mushroom field guide, I think this is a tacky green russula. There were five or six. Says "good" under edible.








Here are the gills.

Thinking Clean

Sky's baby sister was born two weeks ago prematurely. She's at the Newborn Intensive Care Unit at Prov. We went to visit the other day. Before you can go into the room, you have to put all your stuff into a locker and scrub your hands up to your elbows for two minutes. Then someone takes you in.

OK, this gets your hands clean, but what about your clothes, shoes, face, hair? What it really did was make me think about clean and dirty. Even though I'd just scrubbed up, I didn't want to touch anything. I looked at the door knob, all the surfaces, and thought, is that clean? I didn't want to hold the baby. What if I breathed bad stuff on her? What if she got infected from something on my shirt?

I did take the baby, who felt so very light, and held her while the tube of milk emptied through her nose. There was a mixup - Mom had planned to breast feed her, but for some reason this was set up. The baby doesn't have to work so hard this way I was told, but it seems so wrong for a baby to feed through a tube in her nose.

I'd left my memory card connected to the computer so no pictures. Was my camera clean enough to touch with my newly scrubbed fingers anyway?

And I'm still thinking about how dirty everything is. Making me stop and wash my hands for two minutes had a powerful effect on my awareness.

Makers and the Owner's Manifesto

My family didn't buy a lot of stuff, but they saved to buy good stuff, then kept things forever. Long time readers of this blog know that we finally bought a new washing machine last year when our 32 year old Maytag gave out and that I was pretty excited to find automaticwasher.org, a site dedicated to keeping old washers and driers alive.
Our first VW van lasted almost 25 years. Our Sony Triniton television is going on 33 years now - though it's having problems now which means we hardly watch any tv. I still have my Pentax camera that I bought in 1971, though it's been mostly sitting on the shelf since I finally went digital two years ago.












So when I caught this short piece from Day to Day on NPR about Mr. Jalopy my ears pricked up. [Once you get past all the intro stuff (about 1:15) you hear the story.] Everything about the story twitched some critical part of my being.

For example, one of the most visited posts on this blog was inspired by the Victor Lebow quote on how we had to be changed culturally, from humans to consumers. I like things that work, that are made well, that last. So everything about this show felt right.

My time in Thailand over the years has shown me how the rest of the world takes our discards and makes them live again. We've become so disconnected from the source of the things we depend on, that most of us couldn't function if we suddenly had to make our own environments. That's not good. There's nothing wrong with having fantastic technology. But there is something wrong when we have no idea how the things we depend on - food, clothing, shelter, music, transportation, etc. - are created and get to us and where they go afterward.

For all those reasons, I liked this interview. One part of the interviewe covered The Owner's Manifesto which I'm quoting below.

From Makezine.com:

If you can't open it, you don't own it: a Maker's Bill of Rights to accessible, extensive, and repairable hardware.

By Mister Jalopy

The Maker's Bill of Rights

• Meaningful and specific parts lists shall be included.

• Cases shall be easy to open.

• Batteries should be replaceable.

• Special tools are allowed only for darn good reasons.

• Profiting by selling expensive special tools is wrong and not making special tools available is even worse.

• Torx is OK; tamperproof is rarely OK.

• Components, not entire sub-assemblies, shall be replaceable.

• Consumables, like fuses and filters, shall be easy to access.

• Circuit boards shall be commented.

• Power from USB is good; power from proprietary power adapters is bad.

• Standard connecters shall have pinouts defined.

• If it snaps shut, it shall snap open.

• Screws better than glues.

• Docs and drivers shall have permalinks and shall reside for all perpetuity at archive.org.

• Ease of repair shall be a design ideal, not an afterthought.

• Metric or standard, not both.

• Schematics shall be included.

Sun Makes Brief Appearance in Anchorage

I try to listen to all the advice about how to stay healthy. I value life and hope to live a healthy one as long as I can. I had no interest in smoking, so that wasn't ever a problem. I do watch my diet and eat mostly, but not completely, vegetarian. I stay away from high cholesterol foods. I exercise regularly, but never had an interest in things like marathons or other extreme activities. I believe pain survives in the process of natural selection because it tells us to stop doing things that are bad for us.

But I do ignore the medical literature in some areas. I know coconut oil is high in cholesterol - but there is no way I will give up Thai food. Since coconuts aren't an animal source of cholesterol, I'm counting on future researchers finding out that it has different properties from animal fat cholesterol, and may even prolong life.



But the other advice I ignore big time is to stay out of the sun. Having grown up at Southern California beaches, I had no choice but to think of a sun tan as desirable and any chance I get to lie out in the sun, I take. I've learned, of course, growing up in the sun, how to slowly roast my skin so it gets just red enough that it will turn brown overnight without burning. I do use sunscreen when I know I'm past that safe point. And I wear hats to keep my bald head from burning. But sunlight is essential for Vitamin D. And this addiction to the sun helps me understand how cigarette smokers and alcoholics can rationalize their addictions. We can all feel superior to people with weaknesses we don't have, but it is the weaknesses we do have that help us empathize with others who aren't perfect either.

So today was one of the few times this summer (as you can tell from the picture, though the sunny parts of the picture are also badly overexposed) that I could indulge and I did. :)

Techno Evil - UAA Email Phishing Scam

Here's a reason why it pays to do things that improve your critical thinking skills. Some people would argue that people who fall for computer scams have only themselves to blame. But we all have times of vulnerability - we're tired, busy, distracted, too trusting. Some people just do not have the cognitive skills to see through these things. There are lots of people out there - fetal alcohol syndrome folks - for example - who appear to function ok, but whose reasoning and judgment abilities are physically damaged.

So, I'm sure there will be some UAA email account holders that fall for this scam. Additionally, a lot of students are going to be pissed at the university for threatening to cut off their email in seven days. This is a total FRAUD.

Here's the email:

From	")'>UAA UPGRADE TEAM *BETA*
Sent	Saturday, July 19, 2008 9:31 am
To	Undisclosed recipients: ;
Cc
Bcc
Subject	Confirm Your University of Alaska Anchorage Web-Mail Account

Confirm Your University of Alaska Anchorage Web-Mail Account

Dear uaa.alaska.edu Web-Mail Account User,
This message is from uaa.alaska.edu Web-Mail messaging center to all uaa.alaska.edu Web-Mail Account users. We are currently upgrading our data base and e-mail center. We are deleting all unused uaa.alaska.edu Web-Mail Accounts. You are required to verify and update your Web-Mail by confirming your Web-Mail identity. This will prevent your Web-Mail account from been closed during this exercise. In order to confirm you Web-Mail identity, you are to provide the following data;

Confirm Your Web-Mail Identity Below;

First Name:...................
Last Name:...................
Username : ...............
Password : ................

Warning!!! Any uaa.alaska.edu Web-Mail Account user that refuses to verify and subsequently update his/her Web-Mail within Seven days of receiving this warning will lose his/her Web-Mail Account permanently.

Thank you for using uaa.alaska.edu!
Warning Code:VX2G99AAJ

Thank you in anticipation for your co-operation.

Sincerely,
Web-Mail Service
University of Alaska Anchorage


Scam watch offers the following list of warning signs for phishing scams:

• You receive an email claiming to be from a financial institution. This message may seem to be from your bank or from a bank that you don’t have an account with. The email contains a link which leads you to a website where you are prompted to enter your bank account details.
  This is scamming a university, not a financial institution.
  
  
• The email does not address you by your proper name.
  There is no personal name at all.
  
  
• The email might contain typing errors and grammatical mistakes.
  Web-Mail is usually written webmail. And they left the 'r' off 'you' here - "confirm you Web-Mail identity' but otherwise it's pretty good.
  
  
• The email might claim that your details are needed for a security and maintenance upgrade, to ‘verify’ your account or to protect you from a fraud threat. The email might even state that you are due to receive a refund for a bill or other fee that it claims you have been charged.
  Here's where it gives itself away the most.
  
• it claims the system is upgrading
• it wants you to verify your account
• instead of offering a refund, it threatens to shut down your account in seven days
  

Cynics Unlimited has an even more detailed list with another sample phishing email. They define phishing this way:

Phishing, in practical terms, is an attack used by hackers to gain access to private information such as credit card numbers, social insurance numbers and user passwords. Rather than breaking down a physical or technological barrier, phishing is a social engineering attack where targets are typically duped into providing this information directly to false versions of legitimate websites run by the hackers. Personal information can then be used for fraudulent purchases, resale to third parties and even identity theft. While there are no universal statistics on the number or nature of phishing scams, most security websites agree on the following:“ (then comes their list of things to look out for).

Cuddy Family Midtown Park - Almost Ready

To get to the Peter's Sushi fire site the other day, I ran through the new Cuddy Family Midtown Park (CFMP). I say 'new' because although it's been there a few years, with a path and an amphitheater, now the speed skating rink is in, there's a couple of small lakes (ponds?), and it looks like lawn has been seeded. There's also an asphalt path that wanders around the edges of the park.
The northwest end - which you can get to from the Loussac Library parking lot was full of poppies this week.

There's a small amphitheater near the west entrance. It's been there a while and is already starting to look uncared for. There's a lot of potential for outdoor concerts and even some theater. But this is no Greek amphitheater.

Here's the west entrance at the end of 40th. Never heard of 40th? This is just south of 36th and C. Or just north of Tudor and C. The previous post puts this into a larger context.

This map shows you where the pictures were take from and the direction I was shooting. Google Earth is a little behind the times as you can see from the pictures. But you can also see the scrubby trees that were cleared to make this park. If I understand the function of bogs right, we've traded a natural water filter for lawns that will probably be fertilized and maybe pesticided. Or maybe the parks people have gone organic.

Here's a veiw looking toward Loussac Library not far from the east entrance off of Denali. This is off that new out of the way road into the Loussac parking lot. You can see the road barely in the upper right of the picture.


And here's a view of the tiny lakes, looking west from near the east entrance.



Finally, a panorama from the south side of the park near the back of Lowe's (on Tudor). This is three different pictures spliced together, so the right side is basically looking north and the left side more to the west.

This isn't one of those typical Anchorage parks where they chopped down a bunch of trees to add some playground equipment or sport fields. As I recall, uncertainly, this had some stunted bog spruce. There's still some of that green on the Google Earth map It looks like its going to be rolling lumps of lawn. Maybe they'll even put some trees back in. It's in a residential-free island surrounded by Tudor, C St., Denali, and 36th. So it's not a neighborhood park.

The speed skating rink will probably attract a certain crowd. There really aren't too many places to sit and watch the skaters - a few small benches. Sitting on the grass knolls might be good, but they'll be under snow and ice when there are skaters.

And there isn't a lot of parking. Well, there's Loussac's parking lot, but it's pretty full most of the winter. There's room for some cars down on the park end if there aren't too many people using the park.

Well, it's just in the beginning stages, so let's see what other amenities come in - picnic benches, covered table areas, seating near the rink, etc. And some trees maybe. It does look more like a Lower 48 Park than any other one I can think of. The water is artificial lakes, the lawn areas were sculpted, and the natural vegetation was nearly completely cleared out (except for the edges of the Loussac parking lot) and replaced by...well we'll have to see.

B Street & 40th Street Anchorage

We spent a year in Washington DC long ago. We explored much of the area and our maps were worn out at the end. I came back thinking that I could take a map of Anchorage and mark off every road I'd been on and that we were small enough that I could
eventually mark off every road.

Well, I didn't. But in the 31 years I've lived here, green open space has been replaced by view blocking buildings of various sizes. Or by new roads like Elmore Road. And quickly we forget what things looked like before and we adjust to the new use of that space.

Both thoughts - checking out all the roads and documenting the changes - came together Wednesday when I ran over to B St between 40th and Tudor to look at the remains of Peter's Sushi. This is a street that is hidden off the beaten path. So let me show you some pictures. First, with the help of Google Earth.

First an overview of the area I'm talking about. The red box is enlarged below. But this is between 36th and Tudor (Loussac and Lowe's) and C Street and Denali. It includes the new Cuddy Family Midtown Park which is pretty messed up in the Google Earth photo and now has a finished speed skating rink and lawns that have just been started. Pictures in the next post. The red star is at the intersection of 40th and B Streets.


Again, part of the documentation here comes from the Google Earth picture below which has dirt where the RE/MAX building is now. You can also see how tiny - just a path really - 40th is between B and C Streets. Pictures of now are below.

This is the red square from the first map with pictures of the buildings that are in the maps. Another way to do this is to go to Google Street map.

4oth and B Streets looking NORTH. On the left is the new RE/MAX building.

This is 40th and B Streets looking SOUTH. Note that whoever built this street didn't consider pedestrians or cyclists because there is no sidewalk.



This is a view from 40th and B Streets looking EAST. There is nothing here but a tiny parking lot and a park entrance. People working in the offices along B Street or people coming to the park from the south have no sidewalk along B St to this park entrance.

This is two pictures loosely meshed together to give you the sense of looking WEST from 40th and B (the red star in the two maps above.) According to the top map, this was just a path not long ago. Looking this way actually jarred, briefly, very briefly, a memory of walking in Singapore at the end of April - looking toward a busy street (C Street) with tall buildings, particularly the glassy Arctic Slope Building.

We ride down streets with lots of buildings that we never go in and we have no idea what goes on in those buildings. So I went into two of the buildings on B Street (the others seemed like there was basically one tenant; 3 buildings were DOWL engineers, another TTT Environmental) and took pictures of the list of tenants.



Above is the Northwest Building and below is the list of tenants in this buiding.






The Park View really has a park view, in the back. I'll put up pictures of the park in the next post. The directory, which looked very good in person, proved to be a bitch to photograph, what with the reflections of the light from behind. As I look at it now, I should have used my flash. Since I normally dislike how a flash changes the mood of the scene, I forget all about it in situations like this. In any case you can enlarge the pictures and squint if you want to read it.




Note that B St. is something of an oddity because A St here for a block or so is in between C St and B St. The dilemma is that north of here is where A street splits off to the right from C St. There is no A St to the south. There are a few tiny pieces of B St to the south (map on right) and a few blocks to the north (map on left)

40th Street is another that appears here and there. A new section of 40th is scheduled to become a reality from Lake Otis eastward through what is now mostly woods and a big hill near the McLaughlin Youth Center. It's the dotted yellow line between A and B in the map.


From the Community Council Survey Capital Projects Needs Ranking Survey : (This is a screen capture of the original so the missing words were like that. You can click on the image to enlarge it.)



Notice the language used here:
traffic calming, increase connectivity, relieve pressure. All sounds really good, until you see another chunk of wild green in the city chewed up and spit out as pavement.

Here's just a bit of this future 40th, looking east from Laurel (another road recently punched through) at the hill south of McLaughlin Youth Center.


And then near the end of working on this I found wikimapia that has Google maps with some of the buildings identified as you pass the mouse over them. I could have gone in and added the names of the buildings I've got here, but this is taking me long enough. In any case, the link above goes to their map that coincides with part of mine.

And you can also go to Google Maps Street view to see this from a somewhat different view of the B Street. I would link it, but I couldn't. You can go to Google Maps and search for 40th and B Street Anchorage and then click on Street View on the top.

Halcro's Charges Against Palin over Monegan Firing

Andrew Halcro is a smart guy in a left brain sort of way, he writes well, and he knows a lot of people. But over the last year or two I've grown to wonder about his judgment or maybe his motivation. He seems to totally dismiss factors related to human feelings as irrelevant and seems not to care a whit about what people think about him. That can be ok if you just like making noise or have unchecked power (hear Jane Meyer on Dick Cheney) . But if you want to change people's minds, you need to show some respect for the the people with whom you disagree.

So, where I used to read his columns with care and give what he said serious weight, I'm much more skeptical nowadays. For instance, the gas pipeline decisions have unknowns that no one can answer with certainty. We can make predictions about what might happen, but there are so many variables, so many future decisions by different people all of which will be influenced by what the others do, that no one can predict with certainty what the outcomes will be. But Halcro has taken a strong stance against the Governor and against AGIA with a tone of omniscience and almost contempt for people who disagree, that I wonder whether he is just completely enamored by his own brilliance or whether he might have some ties with the oil producers. Or he has God's on his speed dial.

Since we know that he's been on a crusade against the governor for all sorts of reasons, when he lights into her over anything we have to get out the salt shaker. You might want to shake some white grains into your palm before reading on.

Today Halcro is offering his explanation of the firing of Public Safety Commissioner Walt Monegan. You can look at Halcro's blog post for yourself.

Basically, Halcro is saying that Monegan was fired because:

• He has not fired the trooper who divorced Gov. Palin's sister
• He has fought hard NOT to reduce the troopers' budget opposing the Governor's office
  

Halcro's alleging that the Palin family has been filing frivolous complaints against the ex-inlaw trooper trying to get him fired.

I've done grievance work in one of my lives and I know that no matter how compelling someone's story is, there is almost always another take on things. Even if Halcro put a call into the Governor's office, I suspect she probably didn't call back. But I'm sure we'll hear more about this.

Governor Palin has enjoyed a level of public image and popularity that we all know is partially earned and partially wishful thinking. As she has to decide more and more issues where interests and values are in conflict her shine is going to dim. The backbone that it took to stand up against the corruption she saw on the Oil and Gas Conservation Commission and stand up to the oil producers, could, on a bad day turn into a counterproductive stubbornness. Standing firm until you get what you want, tied in with family loyalty, could turn into the kind of vendetta Halcro portrays. And Palin's silence on the firing and her not telling the Commissioner the news herself only add fuel make Halcro's fire. Maybe we'll soon find out why Lyda Green disliked the Governor so much.

Or maybe this is part of the oil producers' campaign to discredit the Governor so that they can gain back their control over what happens with Alaska's oil. Stay tuned.

Meanwhile for some other thoughts on the issue, here is a thread from a law enforcement officer forum.

Thanks to AW for pointing out Halcro's post.

Fifty Years Ago John F. Kennedy Urged Alaskans to Elect Democrats

Going through the oral history section of the UAF Archives I found this speech by Senator John F. Kennedy given Nov. 11, 1958. The rest of the United States had voted on Nov. 4, 1958 and elected an overwhelmingly Democratic Senate and House. Alaskans would be voting on November 25. Kennedy, in Juneau, is urging his audience to elect Democrats. He is introduced by Ernest Gruening. Kennedy begins 4 minutes into the tape.

[Source: While this is basically audio, it is stored in video format. This page gives all the information. This is a direct link to the audio.It is housed in the Alaska State Library - Historical Collections, PO Box 110571, Juneau AK 99811-0571; mailto:asl.historical@alaska.gov]



The Division of Elections website tells us that Alaskans followed their advice. (Well if you look closely, the numbers and the words don't match. I'm guessing they

The General Election, November 25, 1958

Immediately following certification of the August primary election, campaigning by successful candidates began for the state’s first general election. Although general elections, nationwide, are held the first Tuesday in November, the 1958 general election in Alaska was scheduled for November 25.

The most hotly contested race in the election was between two former territorial governors, Gruening and Stepovich, both running for the U.S. Senate. In the uncontested primary election race, Stepovich had "beaten" Gruening by approximately 6,000 votes. In the general election, Gruening beat Stepovich by slightly more than 3,000 votes.

Republican secretary of state candidate Karl Dewey withdrew his nomination before the general election, and the party replaced him with Brad Phillips of Anchorage.

The day of the election the Anchorage Times wrote in its lead story, "The fruits of 42 years of effort will be the result of today’s election - the official proclamation that Alaska is a State of the Union." More than 50,000 Alaskan voters went to the polls to cast ballots on November 25.

Official Returns of the November 25, 1958 General Election

STATE OF ALASKA
PREPARED BY THE SECRETARY OF STATE

Thus, Bob Bartlett, Ernest Gruening and Ralph Rivers went to Washington to represent Alaska as voting members in Congress. Bartlett was to draw the two-year "A" term, and Gruening, the four-year "B" term. They stood for re-election again in 1960 and 1962, respectively, when each was elected to the six-year senatorial term prescribed by the U.S. Constitution.

After the November 25th election was certified, Bill Egan and Hugh Wade, working with members of the newly-elected first state legislature, immediately began the challenging task of organizing the 49th state’s new government.

Also, following certification, President Dwight D. Eisenhower on January 3, 1959, consistent with the Admission Act, proclaimed Alaska a State of the Union.

UAF Archives - Kennecott then and now

Kenrick linked to a University of Alaska Fairbanks Archives 1953 photo in a comment the other day on my post about the Kennecott Mill in Wrangell-St. Elias National Park. The picture he linked to was very similar to the one I'd posted.

Given the blogger discussions some of have had about the use of photos we didn't take on our blogs, I looked to see how to get permission to use an Archive photo. They have a long list of fees.

At the top of the chart it says:

Publication and exhibit fees are charged for commercial and revenue-generating uses of photographic and other still images reproduced from our collections, except that these fees will be waived for Alaska non-profit organizations with tax-exempt identification numbers. This is in addition to any charges for reproduction services. Payment for services and use fees must be made in advance.

Well, I don't have ads on my blog, so I'm not commercial or revenue-generating (though blogs with ads probably would be) but I'm not a tex-exempt non-profit organizations The answer was yes - but give credit and a link and the contextual information.

Here's the info:

Collection Name Robert and Wilma Knox. Papers, 1949-2001. UAA-HMC-0461
Identifier UAA-hmc-0461-series15-1-8
Title Abandoned mine buildings in Kennicott, 1953.
Description View of the abandoned Kennecott Copper Corporation operation at Kennicott, Alaska. The concentration mill is visible on the skyline. From caption: "And here is the mine building---looking almost like a castle the way it sits on the crest of a hill and looms against the sky. There are many, many thousands of dollars worth of equipment still in the building but of course, its in such an isolated spot that no one would think of carrying any of it away. Its hard to say how many millions of dallar [dollars] worth of copper ore passed through this building when it was in operation." From sign on building at right: "Kennecott." In 1953, Cordova Airlines started a regular series of aerial tours from Anchorage to the old mining town of Kennicott and the nearby ghost town of McCarthy. This photo is from the first tour. Original photograph size: 5" x 6 1/2".
Creator Knox, Robert G.









My picture. July 5, 2008. The roof on part of the mill is missing and some of the buildings are gone and some trees have grown in.


The Archives have lots of great stuff that helps us get a context for what is happening today. Here's the last of their FAQ list:

Q) Who do I contact about making a donation of funds or materials to your organization?

Please contact: email@vilda.alaska.edu or phone (907) 474-5003 so we can direct you to the most appropriate person based on your interest or potential contribution.