We See What We Want To See

The Anchorage Daily News' lead editorial was on Ted Stevens today:

A sad day for Alaska

Alaskan of the Century draws scrutiny of federal authorities


It's a sad day for Alaska when a leader as influential and respected as Ted Stevens, 30-year veteran of the U.S. Senate, has his house searched by FBI and IRS agents.

Sen. Stevens has allowed a personal friendship to draw him into a potentially questionable arrangement with Bill Allen, long Alaska's most powerful and controversial political fundraiser.

When Sen. Stevens agreed to let his longtime friend Mr. Allen oversee remodeling of his Girdwood home, was Mr. Allen merely the project manager, or did he pay for part of the improvements?...

The editorial suggests that everything was fine until Stevens let Allen arrange things. People are complex. Rarely are they all good or all evil, usually some great mixture of good and not so good qualities. But when Stevens was named Alaskan of the Century in 2000 a good many of the warts were already visible. [Who chooses the Alaskan of the Century? As best as I can tell, a non-profit organization known as "Alaskan of the Year, Inc.*] But Alaskans tended to look the other way, smirk, or wink because Uncle Ted, as he's called here, consistently brought in the Federal dollars. I suspect no Alaskan who's been in this state for more than 20 minutes hasn't been impacted by Stevens. If they arrive at the Ted Stevens International Airport, if they get to ship things by mail at great rates to rural Alaska, if they drive the roads of most cities or towns, Uncle Ted has made their (I guess I should say 'our') lives easier than they otherwise would have been.

So as long as things were good, we didn't want to know too much. As long as Uncle Ted gave us our gifts when he visited, we smiled and said nice things about him. When the so called 'bridge to nowhere' campaign surfaced, some Alaskans were finally embarrassed enough to suggest that the money be sent back or to help Katrina victims . But the clues have been there for a while. We knew he had a nasty temper, or at least was a good actor, and used it to intimidate (is that the polite word for bully?) others. And if we didn't know things, the LA Times spelled a lot out in a Dec. 17, 2003 story on Stevens.

Senator's Way to Wealth Was Paved With Favors
by Chuck Neubauer and Richard T. Cooper


ANCHORAGE — He wielded extraordinary power in Washington for more than three decades, eventually holding sway over nearly $800 billion a year in federal spending.

But outside the halls of the U.S. Senate, which is a world of personal wealth so rarified some call it "the Millionaires' Club," Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) had struggled financially.

Then, in 1997, he got serious about making money. And in almost no time, he too was a millionaire — thanks to investments with businessmen who received government contracts or other benefits with his help.


Ted Stevens is chairman of the influential Senate Appropriations Committee.
Added together, Stevens' new partnerships and investments provide a step-by-step guide to building a personal fortune — if you happen to be one of the country's most influential senators.

They also illustrate how lax ethics rules allow members of Congress and their families to profit from personal business dealings with special interests.

Among the ways that Stevens became wealthy:

• Armed with the power his committee posts give him over the Pentagon, Stevens helped save a $450-million military housing contract for an Anchorage businessman. The same businessman made Stevens a partner in a series of real estate investments that turned the senator's $50,000 stake into at least $750,000 in six years.

As I was looking for this old article, I saw that others have found it too and published it now that Stevens is the center of so much attention nationally. To see the complete article, you can go to Commondreams.org. Getting it directly through the LA Times archive is much harder.


But my main point here isn't whether Stevens is good or evil. (I would never seriously ask such a question because as I said above, most people are far more complex than that.) Corruption at this level doesn't happen without the complicity of many people. We all knew, at the very least, that Alaskans were getting back far more money per capita than the people of any other state. And far more than we gave in taxes. We all knew that Uncle Ted had a great campaign war chest filled by lobbyists of all persuasions. Those of us who thought about it said things like, "Well, that's the way the game is played," or "If Ted doesn't get the money for Alaska, someone else will get it for their state," or "We are a small population in the biggest state, we have to use whatever means we can to get our fair share." Or some such argument.

At this juncture, when the power structure is being shaken up, can Alaskans of various political persuasions rally together and take a serious look at who we are and where we are going? Our Governor stood up to corruption. Her success is atypical of what happens to whistle blowers. But she did the right things at the right time and was rewarded for it. Can we as a state look at our financial situation - not as "what's in it for me," as the money flow from DC, or as our annual Permanent Fund Dividend checks - but as a way to fairly, competently, and efficiently allocate funds to those services and projects which are most needed and give us the most value for our dollar? Can we find ways to diminish the influence of professional lobbyists?

Now is the time to review whether the Permanent Fund remains a goody bag for individuals or we use its earnings as they were originally intended - to help pay for our collective state needs - infrastructure, education, police, maintenance of our land and resources, etc. The flow from DC is surely going to diminish. Our Permanent Fund is at $40 billion. Are we going to blow it? Or act collectively like responsible adults?

It is also time to reflect on what we knew, when, and what we chose not to know about Ted Stevens, Don Young, Bill Allen, and many others. What do we know about all our prominent politicians, business leaders, and educators and religious leaders as well? Do we individually have to the tools to distinguish between those who are sincerely and competently working in the public interest and those who use a facade of goodness to abuse our trust? And are we willing to not grab whatever we can from the collective pot?

This is one of those times of upheaval when we could make great changes. Or not.



*According to Taxemptworld.com , ALASKAN OF THE YEAR INC has been a charitible organization since July 1994 in Anchorage County [ok, this is a national organization that collects and posts non-profit registration forms from around the country and they don't know Alaska has boroughs instead of counties or that it is the Municipality of Anchorage, not the County] whose contact person is
RODNEY D LIND, and whose mailing address is
701 W 8TH AVE STE 600
ANCHORAGE, AK 99501-3468

A quick Google search discovers that 701 W. 8th Ave STE 600 is the office of the accounting firm KPMG Peat Marwick and that Rodney Lind asked the Board of Certified Public Accountants

for a waiver of the requirement that he earn 4
hours of continuing education in ethics for renewal of his CPA
license for the January 1, 2006 – December 31, 2007 renewal
period. He makes this request because he is licensed as a CPA in
two other states and receives continuing education in ethics in
those states.

The board denied the waiver

on the basis that Mr. Lind needs to be aware of changes in Alaska’s statutes and regulations.

OK, Rodney, I don't know you, and there is absolutely nothing here to suggest any wrong doing on your part. Asking to waive the ethics class requirements because you've already taken such courses in other states seems like a reasonable request. But since you are the contact person listed for the organization that selected Stevens as the Alaskan of the Century, there is a certain irony here that I just can't resist.

Bob Penney on the Web - Board Member, Kenai River Sport Fishing Association

Yesterday I said we need to know more about Bob Penney. Here's a contribution, and I'll post more as I find it. [I'm not looking for current news about the Murkowski land deal, but other things that will help me understand who he is.]

Board of Directors
Robert (Bob) Penney

Work:
Penco, AK

Personal Info:
Married - Jeannie
4 Children
10 Grandchildren
Has lived in Alaska 50+ years.
Resides at River Presence - a private family fishing lodge on the Kenai River.
D.O.B. 05-03-32

Business Acitivties:
Self-employed businessman since age 26.
Owns and operates Penco, AK, a family owned real estate development company, which holds porperties in Alaska, California, Texas, Utah, and Washington.
Has been engaged with various retail businessmen in the Anchorage area.

Organization Affiliations:
Past President of the Anchorage Chamber of Commerce -1980
Co-Founder and past Chairman of Resource Development Council
Past board member of Anchorage Economic Development Commission

Fisheries Activities:
Founder, past chairman and present board member of the Kenai River Sportfishing Assoc.
Formed and helped fund HAB-PRO Habitat Preservation and Restoration efforts on the Kenai River
Founded and Chaired Kenai River Classic Sportfishing Tournament
Past member of the North Pacific Fisheries Managenment Council
Member of Alaska Sportfishing Assoc.
Lifetime member of Alaska Flyfishing Club
Partner/Owner Golden Horn Lodge - Dillingham
Shareholder - Trapper's Creek Smoking Company, a fish smoking, processor, retail and wholesale supplier
Long time advocate for public fisheries in Cook Inlet
A lifelong dedicated sports angler

"Grandpas's [sic] are here to take grandkids fishing"

Board of Directors, Kenai River Sport Fishing Association bio

We Need to Know More About Bob Penney

In an earlier post I discussed Lisa Murkowski's selling back the land she bought cheap next to real estate developer Bob Penney's house on the Kenai River. (For the non-Alaskans, that's KEY-nai, emphasis on the KEY.)

But I suspect the really interesting character in this story is Bob Penney. His name has been in and out of the news since we arrived in Alaska 30 years ago. He's been a big proponent of sports fishing. We really need to learn more about all the things he's been involved with. The quote below and then the video deal with Penney's knowledge of the value of the land.

From a Richard Mauer and Brandon Loomis Anchorage Daily News piece on July 25, 2007,

“The denial of knowledge of the value of a prime piece of real estate by a multimillionaire developer who lived next to the property and an attorney/real estate investor turned U.S. Senator took on comic opera overtones when Penney told the press: ‘Word of honor, I did not know what the assessed value was … I thought it was still $120,000,’” Boehm wrote.
“It doesn’t pass the straight-face test or the laugh test,” Boehm said in an interview. “On what planet is that an excuse?”

To add to Boehm's point, here's a video from Veracifier at Youtube in which

Real Estate developer Bob Penney testifies at a hearing on the "Ecocomics of Sports Fishing," April 24, 2007

By the way, I still haven't heard back on the email I sent Penney's company on the 27th offering to buy the land he'd just gotten back.

[More on Penney here and here.]

Mom and Daughter Fly to LA

My daughter has been visiting for the whole month of July. My mother came about two weeks ago. The logistics were a little tricky since we had our trip to the village of Wales (don't know why everyone thinks we went to UK when I say we went to Wales) came the day after my mom arrived. Anyway, getting my mom on a non-stop flight was a high priority and there are about two a day from Anchorage, one a red-eye, one at 3:15pm. And then getting my daughter on the same flight.










I've never seen the Alaska Airlines check-in so crowded in Anchorage. It looked more like LA. Let's start here at the check in counter. Only half the stations are open. Doesn't look bad.






But here's the beginning of the line, these folks are almost at the counter. It goes all the way back and around to the windows.











This is maybe 3/4 of the way, looking back toward the counter. The line winds to the right and then around way back to the far wall. The machines at left are the e-ticket baggage checkin lines.







And here I'm at the end of the line. Now this may be common other places, but I've never seen it this jammed in Anchorage except on the first day of Christmas vacation.



The E-ticket baggage check-in was also crowded, but it only took about 20 minutes.




Meanwhile, security was almost completely empty.















Then I decided to pay for the parking at the relatively new machine in the terminal. Actually, we were pretty close to 30 minutes so I thought we might still be in the free category. But the machine got stuck. Pushing the cancel button did nothing, running my credit card through did nothing, and the machine had my parking ticket. We pushed the 'call for help' button and got a recording saying to leave a message.




We tried again a few minutes later and they sent someone to fix the machine. But by then we owed $2. Oh well, if we'd have paid after we got the car, it surely would have been $2 anyway.

When we got home after running errands, we found out their 3:15pm flight didn't leave until almost 7:30pm. Bummer. At least they were together and my mom didn't have to do all that alone.

What's With All the Phone Books?

It used to be that the phone company dropped one copy of the white pages and one copy of the yellow pages on our doorstep once a year. Now it seems we get new sets of phone books every couple of weeks. Another one was there this morning. Who are all these people publishing phone books? It's not from our phone company. I called and asked them to please come and take it away, but she said they couldn't. Is it worth checking the anti-litter laws? She did tell me it was recyclable. Great use of trees. There's got to be a way to stop this proliferation of phone books.

Bird Houses and Chinese Dinner

We did some of the Anchorage Garden Tour yesterday. It was disappointing. We saw nice gardens, but nothing that was terribly exciting. Perhaps I've been on too many of these tours, but it sure seems like there was more variety in past tours. The most interesting thing I saw was this wall of bird houses. This is perhaps just a half or a third of the wall.






Later we had dinner at the home of friends. Xiwei and Wang Yen had prepared a wonderful dinner and the company was good too.

Wales 7 - Writing Workshop

The ostensible purpose of the trip to Wales was the Writing Workshop. I'd never been to one before and didn't know what to expect. We had a bona fide writer leading the workshop. Actually, someone who has extensive experience in teaching writing - Kim Stafford director of the Northwest Writing Institute at Lewis & Clark College..


I was pleasantly surprised. Starting in Nome, where we spent the first night because Wales was fogged in, we regularly did little writing exercises. Our first exercise was to "take a line for a walk." After about five minutes or writing we stopped, volunteers read what they wrote, then we were supposed to pick a line we really liked in what we wrote, and start from there.

We got another assignment to just write a run-on sentence - we weren't to worry about proper grammar or anything like that, just keep writig your thought.


Saturday, in Wales, when we had all the participants, we did an assignment on "What makes me want to live?" I'm attaching a page Kim printed out with one or two lines from most of the participants. These are pretty short and anonymous and they've been printed and passed around so I don't think I'm betraying any confidences by posting this here. I'd love to put up a couple of the pieces that were printed in the booklet at the end of the workshop. Even though people picked what they wanted in there, and it is pretty public by virtue of being in the booklet, I don't have anyone's permission to put their stuff up here, so I'll pass on that.



I've never really written in a group before, where we shared our writing with others as we wrote and it was an interesting and useful experience. I explored ideas I wouldn't have come up with on my own. I also got a better focus on things I sort of knew. Since this was my first and only such workshop, I don't have much experience to base recommendations for such things on. Things I know contributed were: 1) an experienced, articulate, thoughtful facilitator, 2) interesting and diverse participants who brought a lot of different perspectives and ideas to the table, and 3) being in a pretty isolated place. There was only nature and nice people to distract us pretty much.

Oh yes, I would also add that many of the people in the group identify themselves as artists rather than writers, so some of the participants led art exercises. We did watercolors one afternoon and made little books out of beautiful pieces of paper. All - the writing, the watercolors, the bookmaking - were incorporated in the booklets Kim had published on his new printer that he'd carefully carried all the way to Wales.

Dan Fagan is Now Selling Happiness

Today's Fagan column ends with:

Happiness is like the flu. It spreads. It has a domino effect. And that's a good thing.

Next, he's going to change his radio show theme song to John Lennon's "Love, Love, Love"

But for all his ranting against materialism -

I say the following with an unblemished record of being a staunch lifelong capitalist. I fear we are in the grip of materialism

- he hasn't come completely over to the dark side. He doesn't mention capitalism or even corporations as a cause for our materialism. He doesn't 'bellyache' about CEO's getting paid $50 million when their companies lose money, or corporate America's search to cover the last empty space with advertising to create all these wants in people who have to max their credit cards at 20% and higher interest rates to pay for it. He doesn't say corporations are the problem. Instead, Fagan says

government is not helping with the wants verses [sic] needs problems.

It's all the money government gives to welfare recipients to meet their wants, not their needs. Things like cell phones and Big Bird. Again, there's no mention of how much cellphones and Big Bird cost, compared to, say, for starters, what Haliburton has gotten from the government in shoddy, or uncompleted, contract work in Iraq.

But let's give Dan some credit here. He even recognizes some subtleties - that some people are unhappy because of chemical imbalances or real tragedies. Dan's taken some big steps in his articles. And in today's he tells us that spreading happiness is much more important than 'bellyaching.'

Dan, are you going to follow your advice and spread happiness on the air, or are you going to keep bellyaching?

[Dan, a note on your metaphors and similes. You're trying to create a postive image here. Yes, the flu spreads quickly, but it isn't something that people want. And what exactly is 'a domino effect"? One thing knocking down another and then another and then another? Again, not exactly a positive image. I know, I'm having trouble too coming up with images of things spreading quickly that are happy. A beautiful song? What about peanut butter on bread? These don't quite catch the spreading image of the flu, but they are a lot more positive. So a good writer here, if she couldn't come up with a positive metaphor, would try to find a totally different way of making the point instead of using problematic metaphors.]

I'd link this to his Comment piece, but I'm having trouble getting to it tonight. If I can, I'll add the link in later. [Fixed - link at top]

Good-Bye Toni Pounds

I shouldn't have been surprised at how many people I know from totally different parts of my life who were at Toni's memorial this afternoon at the Anchorage Unitarian Universalist Fellowship.





I knew Toni from Healing Racism Anchorage. Such a smart woman with such a wicked sense of humor. And so dedicated to fighting racism. She's been on dialysis for years, but she kept leading discussion groups and training workshops. She didn't make it to our last meeting - July 17 - and Shirley invited us to go back to the hospital with her after the meeting. Toni was clearly in pain and not at all happy, but she was still making snappy comments.

Today, despite the reason we were there, there was much laughter as friends and relatives told tales about the Toni they knew. I'm sure Toni was watching from somewhere, free of the physical ailments that burdened her here on earth, and smiling along with all of us.

The details were in official ADN announcement:

Anchorage resident Toni Pounds, 59, died July 20, 2007, at Providence Alaska Medical Center after a long illness. A memorial service to honor and celebrate her life will be at 3 p.m. Saturday at Anchorage Unitarian Universalist Fellowship, 3201 Turnagain St.
Toni was born Oct. 7, 1947, to Gloria and Russell Pounds, at Fort Riley, Kan. Her father was in the military and Toni traveled and lived all over the world during her childhood. After earning a bachelor's degree in cultural anthropology from Iowa State University, she received a master's degree in public administration from Drake University. Toni moved to Anchorage in 1990 with her daughter, Elizabeth Gloria Pounds. She worked for the Municipality of Anchorage in the Department of Health and Human Services until illness forced her retirement.
Her family wrote: "Toni was an incredible and multi-faceted woman in many ways. She loved life and after retirement, forged ahead continuing to work on projects of importance to her, in spite of chronic kidney disease. Her spirit continues to enrich our lives with the memories we hold of her, and she is deeply mourned by the many people whose lives she touched."
Pounds was instrumental in establishing the Alaska Chapter of the American Association of Kidney Patients and was the chapter-founding president. She represented the state at several national AAKP conferences.
She was a dedicated member of Anchorage Unitarian Universalist Fellowship, serving on the board of directors, many committees, and overseeing large groups of Unitarians who traveled through Anchorage each summer as part of the WhaleCoast program. She was a much-loved, active and pivotal member of the church community.
Pounds was a dedicated co-founder, guiding force, steering committee member, and workshop facilitator for the nonprofit organization Healing Racism in Anchorage. She also had an enormous love of literature, participating in several book clubs. She was a member of several writing groups and was a regularly published author.
She is survived by her daughter, Elizabeth; and two brothers, Michael and Russell, all of Anchorage; as well her aunts, Gladys, Lillian and Grace; and cousins, Jackie, Jewel, Cheryl and Eileen.
Published in the Anchorage Daily News on 7/26/2007.

Wales 6

I'm still trying to catch up with the reports of the Wales/Nome trip. Last Saturday, while we were walking, Tony went out and caught a salmon for dinner.








Here's the group filling their plates. Catherine had shipped in a lot of food and we had a nice mix of local and outside food for our meals.




Then the drumming practice began. The Kinggikmiut Festival will bring drummers from different villages to Wales later this year. Writing workshop participants were proud of the young drummers and dancers who were maintaining the local traditions.









One former Wales resident, who is now an engineer in New York State, was visiting and getting video of the drumming and dancing.











They told us the drummers could make the sun shine, and the only time we saw the sun in Wales was that evening toward the end of the drumming.




And I couldn't help notice the back of this sweatshirt from one of Wales' residents who had on a World Eskimo - Indian Olympics sweatshirt.