Standing For Salmon, Registering Voters, Visiting Photographer

Stand for Salmon is a group that got an initiative onto the November ballot that would better protect salmon habitat in Alaska.  An industry group, made up of mining and other resource extraction companies, is calling themselves Stand for Alaska, to oppose Ballot Initiative 1.

I haven't read through the initiative - it's about eight pages long.  I can do that.  But it was disqualified by the Lt. Governor (who supervises elections) and Stand for Salmon sued.  The Alaska Supreme Court has now ordered the initiative to be on the ballot, but with some changes.  We have to wait to see what the Lt. Governor's elections team does before we can know exactly what will be on the ballot initiative.  My basic understanding is that the initiative would bring back some of the protections Alaskans had before the legislature failed to renew our Coastal Zone Management Program.   The elimination of the program, which gave coastal communities much more say in projects, was supported by resource extraction organizations that didn't like all the public participation that slowed down or ended their project approval processes.  But that's my general impression and I have to get into the details soon.

In the meantime, you can start at Ballotopedia which gives much better coverage than I could give at this point.

All this introduction leads into the Salmon BBQ that Stand For Salmon threw at the Cuddy Family Park, Friday evening to celebrate Alaska Wild Salmon Day.  (Yes, that's a state recognized day.)

I was asked to help out at the Citizens Climate Lobby table and when I arrived, there was already a
large crowd walking around and lining up for BBQ salmon.  (Salmon was free, beer you had to pay for.)


I also brought along my voter registration forms.  I figured this would be a good place to register folks.  The first person I asked had moved up from California and hadn't registered here yet.  Bingo.  He had an Alaska drivers license.   But then, everyone else I asked was already registered, many in other states or countries.  Then folks told me they thought everyone was registered because of the automatic voter registration when you apply for the Alaska Permanent Fund check.  I'd forgotten about that.  Here's what the Permanent Fund Website says:

"On November 8, 2016, Alaska voters approved Ballot Measure 1 (15PFVR) which will automatically register eligible individuals to vote when they apply for a Permanent Fund Dividend (PFD), unless they opt-out. The Division of Elections webpage has more information.
A mailer from the Division of Elections will be sent to Alaskans who applied for their PFD from March 1, 2017 (effective date) to March 31, 2017 and whose address on their PFD application is different than their voter record address, or to applicants who are not currently registered to vote."

So Alaska has taken a different direction from a lot of other states that are trying to purge folks from the voting lists.  The only eligible unregistered voters are those who are turning 18 since the last PFD check and people who just moved to Alaska and haven't filed for the PFD check yet.  And, of course, those few folks who don't apply for their checks.  I'm guessing any way.  I have to check Monday with the elections office.  I also want to know how to register homeless folks.  I'm sure they've figured this out, but address is a mandatory

There were lots of tables with information from various non-profit organizations like CCL.  There was music, and, of course, the salmon.

I did get one more voter registered - a 20 year old who was in line waiting for his salmon.  He said he wasn't interested in registering and when I asked why not, his answer didn't make sense to me, so I pushed a bit.  "It doesn't matter if I vote."  I responded that the people who didn't vote could have changed nearly every race if they had vote. He still wasn't interested in voting.  "If you register, you don't have to vote.  But if you don't register and you change your mind, you won't be able to vote."  His response was that he didn't have time to register.  Now I had him.  "You're waiting in line to get free salmon.  You can fill out the form before you get your salmon."  And he took the form and pen and filled it out.  The couple behind him, when he gave the form back to me, congratulated him on registering to vote.

I talked to a lot of folks, including one gentleman who had three expensive looking cameras wrapped around him.  He's a photographer from London who's in Alaska talking to people about their views on climate change.  He was amazed at some of the folks in Utqiaġvik (formally Barrow) who didn't believe that climate change was caused by humans.  When I asked more, he did say they worked for or had worked in the oil industry.  The photographer, Laurence Ellis, said this was for Document Journal.  He sounded like someone who was worth noting here.  At the very least, he will be interpreting his version of Alaska to the world.   I only wish I'd worked a little harder when i took his picture with my low end Canon Powershot.


Toward the end of the event, everyone was invited for a giant photo of the event.  I'd guess most people had already left.  But there was still a good crowd.

[UPDATE August 13, 2018:  Coincidentally, the next post turned out to be about standing for salmon literally.]

Posts Are Piling Up While I'm Getting Other Things Done

The Amanitas are starting to pop out of the ground.  I've searched my blog here to find a post I did on the more mystical properties of the Amanita.  As I did that I found that four of the five  previous  posts with an Amanita were put up between August 6 and August 19.  One outlier was on July 15, 2016.  [The post with the most information - including the warnings of the dangers and the praises of the flights - is the first one you see in the link.  And there's one more that you need to click on "Next Posts" at the bottom to get to.  There are lots of mushrooms on those pages, plus other surprises.]

Here's one that's a little further along, with a budding one in the background.

These two little white mushrooms were poking up in the woodier area of our yard where I've been experimenting with a hugel.  This link will get you started on "hugelkulture".   I've been trying to solve two gardening issues at once:

• excess soil
• lots of trimmed branches

In hugel gardening (Hugel in German means hill), you take branches of various sizes and pile them up and then put soil on top of them.  You get a hill with lots of organic material and air pockets below.  Go to the link for details.  

The new steps in front exacerbated an old problem that began when I dug out soil along the garage so I could put in some insulation.  Dug up soil is not nearly as dense as soil that's been packed down for years.  Even after spreading some of the extra soil around the yard, I still had a garbage can full of dry sandy soil.  So now I've taken care of about 70% of the pile of branches and twigs and the garbage can full of dirt.  There's more dirt from where they dug to put in the new front steps - which expanded into areas I'd had plants before.  

Another interesting white mushroom.  In the past I would have spent an hour going through my mushroom field guide to tell you what these two mushrooms are called.  But this is a post about not having time to put up other posts.  It was only supposed to be a few picture - like throwing your back pack to the ground when you're being chased by a bear.  To keep you (and the bear) busy while I gain some ground. (Fortunately, despite being in a state full of bears, they aren't really interested in interacting with humans and so we've had relatively few encounters while on foot and usually they run as soon as they see us.)

I went to the Covenant House BBQ Thursday for lunch and to touch base.  I hadn't been to the new facility which is really nice.  I was a mentor for several young men there in the past.  But the last guy I mentored is still in my life and I decided he's enough.  And all this reminds me I want to follow up on the ADN's editorial about homelessness.  

After the BBQ I stopped by the election office to get forms to register voters, and the instruction booklet to remind me how to do it.  I became a registrar about four years ago when I was involved in a political campaign.  

I also voted early in our primary which is August 21.  There's a lot to write about that - particularly the governor's race.  I have posted a little on that with a video of Tom Begich explaining why his brother jumped into the race.  

Outside the election headquarters the flagpole had no flag.  I remember when raising and lowering the flag were like a ceremony every morning and evening.  It would be nice if we could listen to everyone else in the US and be heard by them in return so we could make the US a country we could all be proud of.  Where we'd all be proud of our flag again.  (I say this recognizing that we're in a time when those in power (who were in charge of the flag and what it represented) rode roughshod over much of the population - women, the poor, people of color, lgbtq folks, and everyone else who was other.  But I think many of those 'others' still believed that the United States was moving forward toward equality for all of them eventually.  And thus many of them also took the flag seriously.  (I could be wrong here.  I don't think the mainstream surveys ever asked questions like that - they took the answers for granted.)

Anyway, now that laws have given more people better tools to be treated fairly, those who had the power are feeling victimized.  Equality for them, apparently meant, that they still kept their special status and privilege.  

So here's my stalling post, since I've missed a couple of days already.  I've got Friday's Stand For Salmon post to put up and lots of other themes I want to pursue.  Hope you have a good Sunday.  

On This 44th Anniversary, Here's Nixon's Resignation Speech - Maybe Trump Will Watch It And Get Some Pointers For His

I remember the day well.  Two days before my son was born.  On August 7th I began an eight full day class on Privacy with the Director of the Bureau of the Census, Vincent Barabba, a Nixon appointee.  And then on the 8th, Nixon went on television to give this resignation speech.  His speech began at 6pm after class was over.   As you can imagine, the next day, when he actually resigned, the class  strayed from the topic of privacy.  But we had a busy schedule and we got back on track relatively quickly.




Donald, watch carefully, maybe you can be known for the best presidential resignation speech.  Here's your competition.  Despite what we thought at the time, after 18 months of our current president, he looks incredibly presidential.


Here's the whole speech:

Good evening.
This is the 37th time I have spoken to you from this office, where so many decisions have been made that shaped the history of this Nation. Each time I have done so to discuss with you some matter that I believe affected the national interest.
In all the decisions I have made in my public life, I have always tried to do what was best for the Nation. Throughout the long and difficult period of Watergate, I have felt it was my duty to persevere, to make every possible effort to complete the term of office to which you elected me.
In the past few days, however, it has become evident to me that I no longer have a strong enough political base in the Congress to justify continuing that effort. As long as there was such a base, I felt strongly that it was necessary to see the constitutional process through to its conclusion, that to do otherwise would be unfaithful to the spirit of that deliberately difficult process and a dangerously destabilizing precedent for the future.
But with the disappearance of that base, I now believe that the constitutional purpose has been served, and there is no longer a need for the process to be prolonged.
I would have preferred to carry through to the finish whatever the personal agony it would have involved, and my family unanimously urged me to do so. But the interest of the Nation must always come before any personal considerations.
From the discussions I have had with Congressional and other leaders, I have concluded that because of the Watergate matter I might not have the support of the Congress that I would consider necessary to back the very difficult decisions and carry out the duties of this office in the way the interests of the Nation would require.
I have never been a quitter. To leave office before my term is completed is abhorrent to every instinct in my body. But as President, I must put the interest of America first. America needs a full-time President and a full-time Congress, particularly at this time with problems we face at home and abroad.
To continue to fight through the months ahead for my personal vindication would almost totally absorb the time and attention of both the President and the Congress in a period when our entire focus should be on the great issues of peace abroad and prosperity without inflation at home.
Therefore, I shall resign the Presidency effective at noon tomorrow. Vice President Ford will be sworn in as President at that hour in this office.
As I recall the high hopes for America with which we began this second term, I feel a great sadness that I will not be here in this office working on your behalf to achieve those hopes in the next 21/2 years. But in turning over direction of the Government to Vice President Ford, I know, as I told the Nation when I nominated him for that office 10 months ago, that the leadership of America will be in good hands.
In passing this office to the Vice President, I also do so with the profound sense of the weight of responsibility that will fall on his shoulders tomorrow and, therefore, of the understanding, the patience, the cooperation he will need from all Americans.
As he assumes that responsibility, he will deserve the help and the support of all of us. As we look to the future, the first essential is to begin healing the wounds of this Nation, to put the bitterness and divisions of the recent past behind us, and to rediscover those shared ideals that lie at the heart of our strength and unity as a great and as a free people.
By taking this action, I hope that I will have hastened the start of that process of healing which is so desperately needed in America.
I regret deeply any injuries that may have been done in the course of the events that led to this decision. I would say only that if some of my Judgments were wrong, and some were wrong, they were made in what I believed at the time to be the best interest of the Nation.
To those who have stood with me during these past difficult months, to my family, my friends, to many others who joined in supporting my cause because they believed it was right, I will be eternally grateful for your support.
And to those who have not felt able to give me your support, let me say I leave with no bitterness toward those who have opposed me, because all of us, in the final analysis, have been concerned with the good of the country, however our judgments might differ.
So, let us all now join together in affirming that common commitment and in helping our new President succeed for the benefit of all Americans.
I shall leave this office with regret at not completing my term, but with gratitude for the privilege of serving as your President for the past 51/2 years. These years have been a momentous time in the history of our Nation and the world. They have been a time of achievement in which we can all be proud, achievements that represent the shared efforts of the Administration, the Congress, and the people.
But the challenges ahead are equally great, and they, too, will require the support and the efforts of the Congress and the people working in cooperation with the new Administration.
We have ended America's longest war, but in the work of securing a lasting peace in the world, the goals ahead are even more far-reaching and more difficult. We must complete a structure of peace so that it will be said of this generation, our generation of Americans, by the people of all nations, not only that we ended one war but that we prevented future wars.
We have unlocked the doors that for a quarter of a century stood between the United States and the People's Republic of China.
We must now ensure that the one quarter of the world's people who live in the People's Republic of China will be and remain not our enemies but our friends.
In the Middle East, 100 million people in the Arab countries, many of whom have considered us their enemy for nearly 20 years, now look on us as their friends. We must continue to build on that friendship so that peace can settle at last over the Middle East and so that the cradle of civilization will not become its grave.
Together with the Soviet Union we have made the crucial breakthroughs that have begun the process of limiting nuclear arms. But we must set as our goal not just limiting but reducing and finally destroying these terrible weapons so that they cannot destroy civilization and so that the threat of nuclear war will no longer hang over the world and the people.
We have opened the new relation with the Soviet Union. We must continue to develop and expand that new relationship so that the two strongest nations of the world will live together in cooperation rather than confrontation.
Around the world, in Asia, in Africa, in Latin America, in the Middle East, there are millions of people who live in terrible poverty, even starvation. We must keep as our goal turning away from production for war and expanding production for peace so that people everywhere on this earth can at last look forward in their children's time, if not in our own time, to having the necessities for a decent life.
Here in America, we are fortunate that most of our people have not only the blessings of liberty but also the means to live full and good and, by the world's standards, even abundant lives. We must press on, however, toward a goal of not only more and better jobs but of full opportunity for every American and of what we are striving so hard right now to achieve, prosperity without inflation.
For more than a quarter of a century in public life I have shared in the turbulent history of this era. I have fought for what I believed in. I have tried to the best of my ability to discharge those duties and meet those responsibilities that were entrusted to me.
Sometimes I have succeeded and sometimes I have failed, but always I have taken heart from what Theodore Roosevelt once said about the man in the arena, "whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes short again and again because there is not effort without error and shortcoming, but who does actually strive to do the deed, who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself in a worthy cause, who at the best knows in the end the triumphs of high achievements and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly."
I pledge to you tonight that as long as I have a breath of life in my body, I shall continue in that spirit. I shall continue to work for the great causes to which I have been dedicated throughout my years as a Congressman, a Senator, a Vice President, and President, the cause of peace not just for America but among all nations, prosperity, justice, and opportunity for all of our people.
There is one cause above all to which I have been devoted and to which I shall always be devoted for as long as I live.
When I first took the oath of office as President 51/2 years ago, I made this sacred commitment, to "consecrate my office, my energies, and all the wisdom I can summon to the cause of peace among nations."
I have done my very best in all the days since to be true to that pledge. As a result of these efforts, I am confident that the world is a safer place today, not only for the people of America but for the people of all nations, and that all of our children have a better chance than before of living in peace rather than dying in war.
This, more than anything, is what I hoped to achieve when I sought the Presidency. This, more than anything, is what I hope will be my legacy to you, to our country, as I leave the Presidency.
To have served in this office is to have felt a very personal sense of kinship with each and every American. In leaving it, I do so with this prayer: May God's grace be with you in all the days ahead.
NOTE: The President spoke at 9: 01 p.m. in the Oval Office at the White House. The address was broadcast live on radio and television.

We Have Not Stopped Trembling Yet - American-Philippine War

E. J. R. David's We Have Not Stopped Trembling Yet is a series of letters, to his American family, his wife, his sons, his daughter.  David was born in the Philippines and moved directly to Barrow (now  Utqiaġvik) where his father was working.  I first met him at a First Alaskans sponsored conference where he was the stirring keynote speaker.   (See video below)

He's a psychology professor at the University of Alaska Anchorage and Trembling is his most recent book.  I'm not far into it, but a few of his thoughts on the US-Philippine war at the beginning of the 20th Century are worth putting up here now.

[If you're already bored, just skip to the last two quotes.]

You see, Spain colonized the Philippines for almost 350 years, instilling a Western and White ideal among Filipinos.  Then, after Filipinos fought for, died for, and won their freedom from Spain, the United States snuck in and colonized the Philippines in 1898, and established a nationwide school system that inculcated Filipinos with American standards and worldview. 

It's important for you to know that Filipinos didn't just welcome the United States with open arms, calling out to be saved, educated, and civilized.  

He then describes the American war to fight the resistance of Filipinos  that killed about 10,000 American soldiers and cost about $600 million.  He talks about 200,000 civilians killed in a three year period.   He wonders why all this isn't covered in American history classes today.

"The historical amnesia - or should I say selective amnesia - regarding this war is perplexing because it got quite the national attention during the early 1900s.  This war was so brutal and controversial that many Americans, led by Mark Twain and the Anti-Imperialist League, were criticizing America's presence in the Philippines, questioning why so much money and so many lives were being lost in the Pacific islands."

He tells us that President McKinley cited Manifest Destiny and Benevolent Assimilation as the reasons.  Then David quotes Senator Albert Beverage of Indiana:

"We must remember that we are not dealing with Americans or Europeans . . . We are dealing with Orientals who are Malays.  They mistake kindness fr weakness, forbearance for fear.  It could not be others unless you could erase hundreds of years of savagery . . . They are not capable of self-governance.  How could they be?  They are not of a self-governing race. . . Savage blood, Oriental blood, Malay blood, Spanish example - are these the elements of self-government?  We must never forget that in dealing with the Filipinos we deal with children."

David notes this same logic was used to justify the genocide of Native Americans.

David then offers some facts about the Philippines that show Beveridge's remarks were based on racial prejudice, not reality.

"Even though my ancestors had already declared their independence, developed a constitution, and elected their leaders before the United States even got there, Filipinos were still perceived as not civilized enough to govern themselves.  Even though most of my ancestors were already Christians before Americans even got to the islands, the United States still felt that it was their manifest duty to "Christianize" my Peoples.  Even though the Philippines already had a well-established university - the University of Santo Thomas  was founded in 1611 - long before the first American university was established - Harvard was founded in 1636  - the United States still felt that it was their destiny and benevolent burden to educate my Peoples."

David's adopted US hometown was a large, oil rich,  Alaska Native village.  He married an Athabascan schoolmate.  So his letter to his American family is to his wife's family.   This history of the Philippines is to fill them in.

But the rest of us would do well to know this too.

And I'd note that the Sen. Beveridge's quote begins with "We must remember."  This fits in with the cliché power rhetoric I discussed in the previous post.   Must we?  Really?

Here's Prof. David when I first got to hear him.  I just ask you to watch the first five minutes, because I know you'll then watch much more. Video is from First Alaskans.

Make No Mistake - Another Power Cliche To Shut Down The Opposition

In an editorial by the Anchorage Daily News (ADN) editorial staff today (Sunday), the title, "Setting the bar on homelessness", was followed with a quote that began:

"Make no mistake, the path out of the woods on the issue of homelessness is likely to be a winding one."

There a number of phrases that alert me to pay attention, and not in a good way, but rather in a skeptical way.   

• "To be (perfectly) honest" always suggests to me that up til now the speaker wasn't being honest. 
• "The reality is" implies the speaker has a direct line to "the truth" and is now shutting down all opposition, because, well, 'this is what is real,' and whatever anyone else has to say is, what, unreal?

"Make no mistake" is on that list of terms that quickstart my crap detector.  It too suggests, "what I'm about to tell you is the Truth."   If you believe otherwise, you are making a mistake.  (That was my personal reaction, but I double-checked.) 

The Free Dictionary lists definitions from a number of other sources.  They all are pretty much the same.  Here are a few which include some slight variations

• "What I have said or am about to say is absolutely certain; do not think otherwise."
• "do not be deceived into thinking otherwise"
• "used to emphasize what you are saying, especially when you want to warn somebody about something."

I'm not the only one who has a problem with this (now) cliché.  Slate complained already in 2004.

"The current president [George W. Bush] did not invent the phrase, "make no mistake," but he uses it a lot. The search engine for the White House Web site displays 227 instances, and, even discounting for the fact that some of these MNMs emanated from Bush apparatchiks like former press spokesman Ari Fleischer and Tom Ridge, I feel certain that's a gross undercount.

"It's the ripple effect that interests Chatterbox. For 1994, the Factiva news database finds 3,624 MNMs, with the phrase's usage heavily weighted to manly discussions about business or sports. MNMs climbed steadily through the 1990s, adding about one thousand references each year. Since the base number kept growing, the rate of growth actually declined. Then—bam!—MNMs jumped from 9,174 in 2000 to 12,062 in 2001, the first year of Bush's presidency. Last year yielded 13,141 MNMs, and the first four and a half months of this year have so far given us 5,223. Given that this is an election year, Chatterbox wouldn't be surprised to see MNMs break 15,000."

Make No Mistake is a verbal power play.  Note that the grammatical form of this phrase - Make No Mistake - is a command.  A forceful command - the reader is being told what to do.  It adds no content to support one's argument.  It suggests that the speaker (writer) knows better than everyone else.  If someone tells you otherwise, you shouldn't listen.  Sometimes the speaker does know better.  But I'm guessing, it's often just a verbal bluff.

For some, it might just be a filler, like "You know?" or "Um."   In which case it has no meaning at all other than, "Give me a sec to get my thoughts together."

I probably wouldn't have written this post except that on the same page was another opinion piece by a  doctor arguing for the 80th percentile rule used by insurance companies in Alaska when calculating what they should reimburse patients.

"Make no mistake, these are the forces driving insurers to undermine Alaska's 80th percentile rule — they want to lessen their obligations to pay for patient care, narrow their networks reducing your access and choice, and ultimately keep more of the sky-high premiums and deductibles they are charging." 

I'd note that the editorial misused this powerful phrase for a rather uncontroversial point. There was no important point that followed "Make No Mistake."  It wasn't about "the only way to reduce homelessness," or even their desire to keep the government accountable by identifying exactly how many homeless folks live in Anchorage.  Rather it was about their rather tortured metaphor about how difficult the task will be.  Few would argue it will be simple.  Which suggests to me, it just sounded strong and firm to the person who wrote it and that person really didn't even think about how it was being used.  Which raises questions about the actual points they made, which I do have questions about,  but let's save those for another post.  When I have it up, I'll link it here.

Image source

By the way, Frank Wilczek is an American Nobel Prize winning physicist.

Political Fan Culture: Democrats And Republicans Are Rival Sports Teams

Good  metaphors work well in love poems.

My love is of a birth as rareAs ’tis for object strange and high;
It was begotten by Despair
Upon Impossibility.

Mixed metaphors work for comedians. 

"We can talk until the cows turn blue."

But when metaphors are used in politics, they often  oversimplify and, if they catch on, magnify one aspect of the compared idea,  creating their own new distortion of reality.  

I don't like the tribal metaphor being used for today's politics.  We're uncivil because we are only associating with 'our tribes' and everyone else is the enemy.  From New York Magazine:

"How do you live peacefully for years among fellow citizens and then find yourself suddenly engaged in the mass murder of humans who look similar to you, live around you, and believe in the same God, but whose small differences in theology mean they must be killed before they kill you?" 

My problem here is that it gives tribalism and tribes a bad name.  In the USA, 'tribes' most often refers to Native American tribes.  This idea that tribes are ruthless and and irrational surely is a left-over of several centuries of depicting Native Americans as blood-thirsty savages, to justify taking their land and massacring them if they didn't leave it peacefully.

So, rather than tribes,  I compare (with caution) many partisans for either Democrats or Republicans or, broader, for liberals and conservatives, to sports fan .  But sports fans are us, not some 'other' that we traditionally vilify.  And we know people who are die-hard sports fans, whose highs and lows in life are correlated to the wins and losses of their beloved team.  A younger me enjoyed the joys and agonies of the UCLA Bruins, so I understand.  (But then I went on to graduate school at cross-town rival USC, but I still root for UCLA, but with much less passion.)

When you're a sports fan, you kind of know that you're exaggerating, stretching the truth, lying even,  when you brag about your team and vilify fans of the other team.  Everything is about winning or losing.  It's a game. (Or at least it used to be, before sports became a huge business. I can't find a perfect reference for this quickly, but here's one and here's another.)   Being a fan is a form of theater.   You are allowed to jump and scream and dress up funny and say terrible things about the enemy.  Your manic behavior is understood.

But it's different when people apply those same emotions, loyalties, and behaviors  to political parties and to politicians.

We see fans totally emotionally connected to their parties and ideologies - believing only the good about their team and calling the bad 'lies.'  (I believe that the Right has a lot more fans who ignore facts they disagree with, or simply ignore facts. College graduates earn more because they have better reasoning skills.*  And they seem less likely to be Trump fans.  There are studies that show that white males with no degree to be the strongest Trump supporters.  But people on the left are also susceptible to believing hoaxes that support their views. It's just, they're more likely to recognize it when their error is pointed out.  But the right has no monopoly on emotionally disturbed fans.)

Many commentators and academics tell us that emotion, not rationality, rules people's decisions.  But when we do this in sports, most fans don't hate their friends who root for the other team.  But in politics today, like in sports, winning boosts our spirits and self-esteem.  But the game doesn't end at the end of the day, or even after the election.  So turning back into a normal human being doesn't happen.

And as they say about some paranoid people - there really are people trying to get them.  And we're at a point where our democracy is in significant danger.


*About college grad reasoning skills.  This surely isn't universally true.  Some get into (and out of) college because they've learned how to succeed in educational settings, because their parents can help them with thinking skills at home and pay for extra learning experiences, not to mention college expenses.  And college grads can get that degree without improving their thinking skills.  Or maybe they had better skills before college and college didn't help them.  But the skills helped them get into college.

This footnote is here because just about any sentence one writes can be taken apart and criticized.  And I'd like to think that trying to minimize the risk of misinterpretation is one reason I write longer, rather than shorter, posts.  We're all told to keep it short, because that leads to better writing and more clicks.  But good, crisp writing is less important than accuracy.  And I'm not penalized here for fewer clicks.  

Simple writing works better when we all have the same world views. (When we all share the same erroneous beliefs.)   And the political fan culture of today, combined with social media, seems to relish misunderstanding the other team's words.  

"The Plural of Anecdote Is Not Data" Commission Member Dunlap's Problems With Presidential Advisory Commission on Elections

The Presidential Advisory Commission on Elections was controversial before it began   Today one of the Democrats on the commission (though they were shut out from viewing documents and meetings) published a letter he wrote to the defunct committee's chair and to the President.  First come experts from a news report, then below is the letter itself.


From the Bangor Daily News :  

PORTLAND, Maine — The now-disbanded voting integrity commission launched by the Trump administration uncovered no evidence to support claims of widespread voter fraud, according to an analysis of administration documents released Friday.
In a letter to Vice President Mike Pence and Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, who are both Republicans and led the commission, Maine Secretary of State Matthew Dunlap said the documents show there was a “pre-ordained outcome” and that drafts of a commission report included a section on evidence of voter fraud that was “glaringly empty.”
“It’s calling into the darkness, looking for voter fraud,” Dunlap, a Democrat, told The Associated Press. “There’s no real evidence of it anywhere.”

Kris Kobach disagreed.

“It appears that Secretary Dunlap is willfully blind to the voter fraud in front of his nose,” Kobach said in a statement released by his spokesman.
Kobach said there have been more than 1,000 convictions for voter fraud since 2000, and that the commission presented 8,400 instances of double voting in the 2016 election in 20 states.
“Had the commission done the same analysis of all 50 states, the number would have been exponentially higher,” Kobach said. 

But Dunlap says:

In response, Dunlap said those figures were never brought before the commission, and that Kobach hasn’t presented any evidence for his claims of double voting. He said the commission was presented with a report claiming over 1,000 convictions for various forms of voter misconduct since 1948.
“The plural of anecdote is not data,” Dunlap said in his Friday letter to the shuttered commission’s leaders. 

But here's Dunlap's complete letter to Kobach and Trump outlining his complaints.  He doesn't mince words.

Matthew Dunlap Presidential Advisory Committee on Elections (PACEI) Docs Findings Letter - by Steve on Scribd

You can get 29 additional documents Dunlap received at the Maine Secretary of State website.

New Steps And A Footnote

Children are still separated from their parents, Trump's doing what Nixon and all other guilty folks do - denying everything, the ADN seems to be reporting gun and traffic deaths on a daily basis, but even with that backdrop, we all have to keep on maintaining our daily lives.*

Our front steps have been commented on by friends visiting us for a number of years now.  The railing snapped off last fall and had to be welded back together.  My attempts to envision a whole new entry way kept me putting off the new steps until I had a bigger plan.  But my attempts at that have proven fruitless and so finally today the workers began taking out the old, very cracked and split up steps.

Here's what they looked like Monday.

And here are some pictures from today.

Presumably, the new steps will get put in tomorrow, and we may be able to actually use the front door again in a few days.  It's not raining hard, but it's not sunny either.  And yes, I dug up those hostas that were in front and put them in another hole for a while.

*I've made comparisons to Nazi Germany at times.  Some people reject any such comparisons as hyperbole.  But many of the steps Trump is taking to dismantle democracy ARE similar to steps Hitler took.  We aren't talking about concentration camps, but Trump's detention centers treat immigrants as though they weren't human.  The  MAGA slogan isn't much different from Hitler's call's for reviving Germany's greatness after the humiliation of losing WWI and the Versailles Agreement.   The Trump administration's attacks on the media, the callous treatment of refugees and Muslims, the lies and alternative reality we hear daily from the White House, and the stirring up of hatred and violence, all happened in the 30's in Germany.  He's creating a whole new vocabulary - Fake News, Witch Hunt, the derogatory nicknames he repeats and repeats like Crooked Hillary - as did Hitler's regime.  Hitler too was elected on a populist wave of nationalism and making Germany a great nation again.  Hitler scapegoated Jews, Trump scapegoated Muslims and immigrants.

But, there are a lot of things that make it harder from Trump to pull a Hitler.  For one, he's not nearly as smart as Hitler, who actually did build infrastructure -  the Autobahn, not a wall.  His messages were more focused and consistent.  And the power was centered in Berlin.

Our advantage is states having much more independence from DC than German states had from Berlin.  The various state lawsuits against various Trump policies are examples of this. For me right now, fixing the steps is something that still makes sense.  That wasn't the case for my grandparents in the 1930's in Germany.  So in that sense, things are very different.  For me at least.  For immigrants with uncertain status, repairing steps is probably not something they are thinking about.

A Little Zen From The August Sun

The August edition of The Sun came today.  Each addition has an interview.  This month's is with
Norman Fischer, the founder and senior dharma teacher at the Everyday Zen Foundation.  He's interviewed by Corey Fischer.  They haven't found any family connection, but they decided to use first names in the interview to avoid confusion.  Here's just a bit, which seems useful to think about these days.

Corey: If you were to distill Zen Buddhism to its most basic, core concepts, what would those be?
Norman: [Laughs.] Oh, boy. Maybe the simplest and truest thing to say is that Zen doesn’t have a basic core concept. Zen is just appreciating being alive. There’s nothing to it beyond that. But if I said only that, it would be a little silly and disappointing, even though it’s true. So I will say more. . .

"Zen Buddhism is interested in awakening through different ways of looking at the world. It doesn’t try to tell you what the absolute truth is, the way Western religion does. At a certain point in history people began sincerely thinking, “Well, if you don’t believe in Jesus, your soul is in jeopardy. So we should do whatever it takes to straighten you out. That’s an act of compassion because we’re in possession of an absolute, metaphysical truth.” Forcing religion on unwilling others turned out to be a terrible idea."

You can read the whole interview here.

[We've had a lot of nice days and today is one.  It's going on 10pm and the sky is blue with puffy white clouds and I'm sitting on the deck in shorts surrounded by trees.  The picture shows the magazine on the outdoor table next to my computer.  The white lacy thing is a cover to keep bugs out of the food.  It opens sort of like an umbrella.  The bugs haven't been a problem, but some young Steller jays have been coming pretty close before we have to shoo them away.]

Anchorage Garden Tour 2018

The last Sunday of July is the Anchorage Garden Club's Garden Tour.  The newspaper used to feature the houses on the tour, but I think they were getting way too many people traipsing through their yards.  So notice is more discrete nowadays.  We've gone on lots of these tours and they are always inspiring - introducing new plants, ideas making gardening easier or more productive.

There have been overwhelming gardens that someone has spent a small fortune on and then there are much more modest ones, with ideas I can imagine duplicating in my own garden.

This year all the gardens fit in the more modest category.  I've decided to put up the pictures by categories rather than by the gardens they were in.  I also got pictures of all but one of the six hosting gardeners.

Ideas

This garden featured flower beds growing out of bales of hay.  Karen said she just dug out a hole and planted and things did really well.  There was something about adding nitrogen.  She suggested looking online for more details - so here's a link I found.

This gardener used a mail box token her hand tools in.  She also lined her flower beds with beer bottles.

This garden was billed as an example of 'upcycling.'   And there were lots of odds and ends all over the yard, like this giant pail with small waterfall.  Most of it was not the sort of thing that appeals to me during our decluttering phase.  These possible second uses of things are precisely the logic my mom used for not giving or throwing things away.




But I did like this use of an old bed post to put a new spin on the idea of a flower bed.

Some new ideas come in the way of plants I don't know, but do well in an Anchorage garden.  I did know that people have tried hydrangeas, with difficulty.  But this Hydrangea Annabelle has been doing well for nearly ten years she said.  It has a mint green flower that then turns white.  It is against a south facing house wall, which helps.  

And I didn't know about these orchid primroses.  

And this nine bark diablo was another.






Pretty Flowers 

Of course one of the delights of a garden tour is to see some beautiful flowers.  And I'm a sucker for the deep blues of delphiniums












And these white lilies in the same garden were exquisite.

The Gardeners

Karen Gonne-Harrell was the gardener with the straw bales.  These beds were from last year's straw beds with wood put around them.  She added some dirt on top. But she said the carrots weren't doing well - here she pulled up a couple to show me.  

Rona Spaar had the most 'perfect' garden - everything was in place, lots of beautiful flowers everywhere, not spots that weren't green or full of blooming flowers.

Rathe Rasmussen's garden had lots of ideas in it - like the beer bottle borders.  This was a fun and lush garden.

I thought I recognized Marti Black's Spenard garden from a previous tour - five years ago she said.  (It's the first one in this 2013 post.  The porch was added on since then.)

And yes, in all these cases the gardeners were women.  Though Lester Black was also here and showing people around.

This was the part that was a beautiful garden in the most traditional sense, including the apple tree.

The other side of the house had Lester's junk pile.

This is Vicki Russell - the upcycling gardener who also had a number of plants I hadn't seen before.


Other Thoughts

We parked at Spruce Park near one of the houses.  The sign on this white bicycle says:

In memory of Jeff Dusenbury
11-29-62
7 -19-14
Beloved husband, father, friend, and avid cyclist.
Killed here on July 19, 2014

 As someone who bikes a lot, this is a somber reminder of the dangers.  The link tells more about what happened.

This sign at one of the gardens reminded me that gardening is one of those activities that transcends political leanings.  Passionate gardeners come in all ideologies.  Gardening is a neutral ground for those of different views to remember they are all human beings with more similarities than differences.




I wasn't exactly where this picture of the elephant fountain fit, so here it is to close this post.