Father Oleksa on Culture and Bagpiper Plays Alaska Flag Song

Talking about cross-cultural communication problems isn't easy.  No one does it more effectively than Alaska's Father Michael Oleksa.  With lots of stories about his own German-Russian background and his wife's Yupik background and his many stories of teaching around Alaksa, he uses humor and a lot of thoughtful insight to get audiences to see how embedded our own cultures are in our brains and that there are reasonable alternatives to what we've grown up believing was 'the correct way' in any number of situations.

[UPDATE 9pm - Whoops.  I forgot the photo of Father Oleksa.  Here it is.]

He spoke today at the Alaska Federal Executive Association's Civil Rights Committee had its Multi-Cultural celebration Wednesday at Loussac Library. 

There's no way I can convey all he said, but I can give his overview of culture.  If it makes sense - you should try to find an opportunity to hear him spell it all out.  If it doesn't make sense - you should try to find an opportunity to hear him spell it all out.

Basically, he offered three definitions of culture:

1. Your view of the world - your culture's stories about how the world works
2. Your 'ballgame' of life - every culture has rules about how to play the game of life.  He discussed the conflict between his mother's German and father's Russian sense of time.  One was strictly tied to the clock, the other was more flexibly related to the natural flow of things.
3. The story into which you were born - these are the family stories you grew up with, which slowly get added to over your life, not necessarily in any chronological order, and not necessarily told the same way by everyone.

He pointed out that most people aren't really aware of the first two.  We tend to know these things subconsciously.  Only the third one is something that people can articulate.  For that reason, he suggested that people from different cultures ask each other about their grandparents' stories as a way of starting to understand each other.

Father Oleksa's website lists his videos and writings and audio, but isn't clear about how to get hold of them.  Communicating across cultures [videorecording] / is available at Loussac Library.  I promise you the videos will be wonderful to play for your family. They are NOT dry and boring. You'll smile and you'll gain insight.

After Father Oleksa spoke, we heard an example of cross-cultural fusion - Dan Henderson of the Alaska Celtic Center played the Alaska Flag Song on his bagpipe.



I learned that bagpipes were brought to the British Isles by the Romans and were banned for 75 years after they were declared a weapon of war by the British.

Does God Exist? Out North Season Opener Part 3

[Headlines should reflect what you write.  Mine tend to be prosaic, but I try to remember they matter and to find something catchy from what I'm writing about.  So, yes, this question arises, but it's at the end (about 10:50) of the video below.]

The Out North Season Opening Event, as I said in the first post, generated (for me at least) a real excitement with the bringing together of a lot of different art, theater, dance, writing opportunities from a wide array of people and groups in the Anchorage community. Everyone was clearly pleased about their own membership in the 'club' and as the evening went on they got to see all the other neat folks they'd be rubbing elbows with in the hallways of  the former Grandview Garden library building, which before that was an electrical station.

I imagine that as the year goes by some of that excitement will be tempered by conflicts over how one group leaves the rehearsal space for the next group; over people unable to keep up with the pace; personal problems that interfere with artistic ambitions; performances that don't live up to the initial concept; and a myriad of other obstacles. But my bet is that people will overcome those problems and fulfill the promise of Thursday night.

And since I had an empty sd card in my camera and a battery that didn't start blinking its imminent demise until the very end, I just kept shooting more video. Maybe when the frustrations of making those dreams actually come true gets too heavy, people can come back to these videos to remember why they're working so hard.  And there are a couple of folks in the UK who, I'm sure, like to look in on their grandchildren, so to speak. 

So, here's the video Part 3. In it you meet the people from Focus - their connection to Out North is a little different. Their plan is to bring visual arts, theater, poetry, etc. to kids with disabilities and their families. Then one of the co-founders of F Magazine (I didn't catch the name) gives her Anchorage Arts rant. Then Scott's notion of a multi-disciplinary Art House.
Finally, the youth - Brave New Alaskan Voices. Three perform for you - in part - on the video. And you can ponder God's existence with the last performer.




To see Part 1.
To see Part 2.

I've edited a little bit, but this is much longer than I would normally do. That's why it's taking so long to get it all up.

Jobs, Oil Taxes, North Dakota, Norway, Spin, and Redistricting

When Gov. Parnell was pushing (I guess he still is) his $2 billion tax cut for the oil companies I went to the Anchorage hearing on HB 110. 

Two of the key mantras recited by those testifying in favor of HB 110 (and nearly all of the pro folks identified themselves as working for oil companies or oil industry support organizations) were:

1. We need this for jobs for Alaskans (variation:  I want my children to be able to find a job here and stay in Alaska)
2. All the jobs are moving to North Dakota where the tax environment is much better for the oil companies.

This was pretty suspect at the time - everyone seemed to be reading from the same cheat sheet.  Now we're getting more information that suggests things are a lot less black and white than those who told us it was crucial for Alaska's (perhaps they just meant their own) future.

Jobs for Alaskans Mantra

Back in April already, Patti Epler reported at the Alaska Dispatch that Parnell's Labor Commissioner said jobs were increasing and that a large proportion of the jobs were going to non-Alaskans.  Of course, anyone who has flown to Anchorage from Seattle on a Saturday or Sunday knows those planes are full of Outsiders flying back to their oil jobs.  You can't help but overhear them discussing the hassles of commuting between the Lower 48 and Alaska.

The Anchorage Daily News had an article last week on the Senate Labor and Commerce Committee hearing in Anchorage recently where the Senators expressed:

"dismay over a state Labor Department finding that more than half of the new hires in Alaska oil and gas jobs during the third quarter of 2010 weren't state residents."

The oil companies quoted in the article claim that most of their employees are Alaskans [possibly they are now, but were they when they were hired?] and the problem is with contractors.  But the point is the claims were about how important the tax cut was to preserve Alaskan jobs - they didn't distinguish between oil company and contractor jobs back at the hearings.

North Dakota's Tax Environment is Taking All Our Jobs

The reason people gave for the oil boom in North Dakota was a more favorable tax structure. They didn't say anything about the fact that it's a lot easier to get oil from North Dakota to the other Lower 48 states. But I noticed recently an article that suggests North Dakota's low unemployment level and general good economy has a lot to do with their state bank.

In a response to a New York Times blog article that claims North Dakota's low unemployment is based on oil, Ellen Brown in Yes! magazine compares North Dakota to other oil states:

Oil is certainly a factor, but it is not what has put North Dakota over the top. Alaska has roughly the same population as North Dakota and produces nearly twice as much oil, yet unemployment in Alaska is running at 7.7 percent. Montana, South Dakota, and Wyoming have all benefited from a boom in energy prices, with Montana and Wyoming extracting much more gas than North Dakota has. The Bakken oil field stretches across Montana as well as North Dakota, with the greatest Bakken oil production coming from Elm Coulee Oil Field in Montana. Yet Montana’s unemployment rate, like Alaska’s, is 7.7 percent.

She goes on with further comparisons and points out that North Dakota has weathered the housing crisis better than other states.

North Dakota is the only state to be in continuous budget surplus since the banking crisis of 2008.

To my knowledge, Alaska has also been in 'continuous budget surplus' during that time. So that does suggest we need to check Brown's data carefully.


But she finally concludes

If its secret isn’t oil, what is so unique about the state? North Dakota has one thing that no other state has: its own state-owned bank.  [emphasis added]

Access to credit is the enabling factor that has fostered both a boom in oil and record profits from agriculture in North Dakota. The Bank of North Dakota (BND) does not compete with local banks but partners with them, helping with capital and liquidity requirements. It participates in loans, provides guarantees, and acts as a sort of mini-Fed for the state. In 2010, according to the BND’s annual report:

The Bank provided Secured and Unsecured Federal Fund Lines to 95 financial institutions with combined lines of over $318 million for 2010. Federal Fund sales averaged over $13 million per day, peaking at $36 million in June.

 This is a point that the strongly 'anti-socialist' supporters of the $2 billion tax cut haven't mentioned about North Dakota.

Talking about 'socialism' the supporters of HB 110 never talked in much detail about Norway.  But a gaggle of Alaska legislators went there this summer to study their oil policies and there's a long Alaska Dispatch story on Norway's oil policies, including this:

In addition to depositing all of its oil and gas-related tax revenues into its savings account, the Norwegian government owns 67 percent of the shares of Statoil, a publicly traded oil and gas company based at Stavanger, just north of Oslo at the center of the nation's petroleum industry. All of the government's Statoil dividends go into the savings account. [emphasis added]

The article also compares Alaska's Permanent Fund with Norway's equivalent fund:

. . . [O]ur $40 billion fund is not big enough to replace oil when oil eventually runs out. Norway's fund is big enough and getting bigger at a rate of $50+ billion per year! Norway estimates the fund will top $3 trillion before oil and gas runs out. That is enough to "pay out" $120 billion per year at their 4% pay out limit and still keep the fund inflation proofed. Calculate what that amount works out to for each of 700,000 Alaskans. Stunning. And to think they made their first deposit into their fund in 1996 while we started ours in 1977.

HB110 and the Alaska Redistricting Board

The governor (and we have to remember that before becoming governor he was a lobbyist for Conoco-Phillips) didn't get his bill passed in part because the state Senate is split 10 Republicans and 10 Democrats and their coalition wouldn't pass the bill.

But the key change that the Republican dominated (4-1) Alaska Redistricting Board accomplished was to put two Democratic Senators from Fairbanks into the same district, to put Democratic Senator Al Kookesh into the same district as Republican Senator Bert Stedman in Southeast, and to give Anchorage Democratic Senator Bettye Davis a much more conservative district.  Knocking out just one Democrat from the Senate makes it an 11-9 Republican majority.  And possibly enables a new version of HB 110 to pass in the future.

Photoshop with Tern Lake - Bug Bite

A trip to Seward Saturday resulted in a couple of pictures I wasn't terribly excited by.  The first was of Tern Lake and the second was my eye after a bug bite.  So I turned to Photoshop and played around.  I've marked what I did, but remember, within each option, you can play around with the sliders. 


Tern Lake

Bug Bitten Eye

Therapy Secrets Onstage, Here and Now, and Artistic Amnesty - OutNorth Season Preview 2

In part 2 of the video of the season preview you hear about Out North's dance classes, KONR - Out North Radio at 106.1 (coming soon), bringing therapy to the stage, Be Here Now - "a young artists theater group."  And then there's Corinna Delgado - a force of nature all on her own - talking about the Artistic Amnesty Project and One Soul. 




And I'll get part 3 (and there will probably be a part 4 too) up later.

Part 1 is here.
Part 3 is here.

There's Magic Happening at Out North - Season Kickoff

[Looking this over, I realize it gets a bit gushy.  But I'm convinced it's accurate.  There really is something special happening at Out North now.]

The very first time I saw Scott Turner Schofield at Out North I knew this guy was special.  That feeling's been reinforced every time I've seen him in action.  Last night the years of work that Gene Dugan and Jay Brause put into clearing the land, planting the seeds, watering, fertilizing, keeping  the wild animals from trampling it all, are now turning into the magical arts incubator and stage they cultivated.

That's not to say a lot of special performances haven't already happened over the years.  But Scott seems to have sprinkled his own magic dust on Out North.

The season preview attracted a full house to bid on silent auction items, eat and drink, and then to watch Scott emcee the preview show spotlighting Out North Art House residents he's gathered to Primrose and Bragaw.

It's an amazing collection of talent - from Hmong youth musicians, Hispanic Hip Hop, a therapy theater group from Akeela House, youth rappers, a writers' group, 20 something actors troupe, a non-profit that works with disabled students, a dance group, local arts magazine, to an FM radio license - from such a variety of local communities and media.



I have no doubt that the kind of talent we sampled  last night exists in every community.  The difference is that here everything has come together just right to provide the nurturing and mentoring to hone one's craft and confidence, the space and time to  practice and perform, and an administrative infrastructure to get the bills paid and the audience to attend.  That infrastructure includes a lot of volunteers and a charismatic performer/organizer who contributes a special energy and excitement. 

I haven't had time to edit all the video I took of last night's event, but here's part one.



I've added the second part of the video here.
Part 3 is here.

Is The 1911 Fur Seal Treaty Relevant Today? A Dozen Meet at UAA - Public Presentation Tonight

Clark Wolf

UAA philosophy professor Raymond Anthony has put together an intimate conference of philosophers at UAA today and tomorrow with the help of a National Science Foundation grant.  I've been sitting in today and the discussions - focused on environmental ethics - have been fascinating.  Clark Wolf of Iowa State discussed intergenerational ethics of climate change, relating Michele Bachman's concern (voiced in his home town recently) about the financial debt the US is piling on the next generation to the environmental harm we're bequeathing them.  He also looked at principles articulated in a 1911 Fur Seal treaty which stopped the high seas slaughter of fur seals.

Professor Paul Thompson of Michigan State University examined biofuels.

All the professors listen to all their colleagues presentations and discuss them.  They'll continue tomorrow, but tonight. . .

 these two professors plus Professors Bryan Norton of Georgia Institute of Technology and Chrisoula Andreou of the University of Utah will speak at a public discussion tonight at UAA.

UAA Consortium Library 307

7:30pm

Thursday, September 8, 2011

I'm hoping to post more on the conference, but thought I'd get this up for anyone who can take advantage of coming to hear these folks tonight. 

After Seeing MLK Memorial, Clear that Architect Blew It Abbreviating the Quote

 Last week I listened to an NPR report on the critique of the design of the memorial - basically that a quote of MLK's was shortened and thus taken out of context and, in the words of Maya Angelou,  King was "made to look like an arrogant twit."

The memorial's executive architect, Ed Jackson Jr., is also interviewed.  He acknowledges Maya Angelou's greatness, says he owns some of her books, and that the quote was changed to a paraphrase based on time constraints.

"The statement that she made was very colorful and it  attracted the attention of the reader and that's what writers are supposed to do.  But I'm in the business of architecture and when we are faced to make design decisions, we have to do so with respect to a number of factors

• size, 

• shape,

• distance,

• perspective, 

• height,  

• depth, 

• weight, 

• size of letters, 

• font style.

The message had to be communicated succinctly and then allow the visitor to come around and face Dr. King and have that once in a lifetime experience."

He goes on to talk about the other inscriptions at the monument and how this one isn't going to overpower all the others.  (You can listen to him at the NPR audio - starting at 1:28)

My initial reaction to architect Jackson was not positive.   Font?  Depth?  Did he really say all those things?  Was he serious?  Yes, those are factors, but his job is to make all those things work, not to use them as an excuse to rewrite the words of the man he's honoring.

I visited the Martin Luther King memorial on the Tidal Basin Tuesday.

Now that I've seen the memorial, I have no sympathy for Jackson whatsoever.  He just botched it big time.  Who is he to change King's words?  "Well," he might say, "the symmetry would be better if we left some of his qualifiers out."  (I'm not going to even discuss what was changed and how it affected the meaning.  You can go to the NPR post to see that.)

His idea about seeing those words just before seeing the statue itself?  Well, we came to the statue along the path where the cherry trees line the Tidal Basin, so we saw the statue before we saw the quotes.

OK, here's the main statue of King. 

Behind it is the official entrance through 'the mountains.'  But, as I said, we came from the Tidal Basin side.  On the left (as you look at the statue in the picture above)  are the words "Out of the mountain of despair, a stone of hope."

The people are looking at the MLK likeness in the front.  That's the Jefferson Memorial on the other side of the Tidal Basin.

Then on the right side (facing the statute) is the controversial edited quote.

As you can see, there is plenty of room on this side of the monument.  He could easily have included four more lines.  He probably would say that it had to be two lines to match the "Mountain" quote on the other side.  He didn't say that, but why else would he have cut it short?  As I said, and you can see, there's plenty of room.  Or he could have used a different quote on this side or the other side so they'd match. 

To put this into a different context, at the nearby Lincoln Memorial the wall to the right of Lincoln has three panels with Lincoln's Second Inaugural Speech.

On the left side (facing Lincoln) is the Gettysburg Address.  It's only one panel.  But that didn't cause the designer's of the Lincoln Memorial to edit the 2nd Inaugural to match the Gettysburg Address.

If it's good enough for Lincoln, I'd say it's ok for Martin Luther King, Jr.

I usually try to see the different sides of a controversy and to understate the situation and let the readers come to their own conclusions.  But in this case it is so completely clear that the architect Jackson's defense of his rewriting of King's words is just mealy mouthed weaseling to justify the unjustifiable.  He was so consumed with his technical issues, that he completely missed the much bigger issue.  This is a monument to MLK, and MLK's original words, in context, and not some abbreviated version to 'fit' what Jackson thought was the proper visual style. 

Oh yes, the other quotes.  They're good.  And the wall they are on shows us how much influence Maya Lin's Vietnam Memorial Wall has influenced how we think of memorials.

Here are a couple of the quotes that it would do us well to consider and discuss regularly.

Of course, there's always the possibility that I missed something. That he gave NPR a much better reason than font size and distance etc. for what he did it. But it really sounds like damage control.

Posing At The Lincoln Memorial

There are lots of people at the Lincoln Memorial.  Even on a cool, rainy day.  From all over the world.

3000 Year Old Humans vs Today's Humans

We know about racial bias, and ethnic bias, but we don't often think about what I call temporal bias - the belief that people today are superior to people who lived in the distant past.  We obviously know (well, some of us anyway) about history and so we know about them, but they didn't know about us.  That seems to give us some superiority.  And we live with cars and dishwashers and computers and telephones and airplanes, so it would seem obvious that we are far superior.

But how much is any one of us individually responsible for any of those things?  How many individuals today would be able to come up with even the simplest advances, say, like tablecloths or buttons or scissors?  If it weren't for a few geniuses amongst us who saw the need and conceived a solution when the right resources were available, would any of those 'great' inventions exist?

To what extent is the average human being walking the earth today intrinsically smarter or more sophisticated than those walking the earth 3,000 years ago?   The Spartans built the Trojan horse and then wrote great plays and poetry about it around 1200 BC.

And at the Freer Gallery yesterday I looked at vessels like this one, created about the same time.

How many of us could conceive of and then execute such an exquisite piece?  The level of sophistication in the craftsmanship and the artistry suggests to me that the person who made this ewer could walk into the modern world, and after a few months of adjustment, be able to understand and appreciate today's world.  And perhaps teach us a thing or two.

Despite the fact that we have 3000 years on the ancient Greeks and Chinese, our progress has occurred mainly in the area of technology through the efforts of a tiny fraction of humanity. In the area of interpersonal and international relations, we don't seem to have advanced much at all.

By the way, it said that this and a few other vessels like it, were for holding grain alcohol.  That surely says something about the importance of alcohol then.