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Friday, August 03, 2007
Wales 8 - Back to Nome
Lena helped get people's luggage to the airport, but most of us just walked the 15 minutes to the airport. After just a few days, it was hard to say good bye to the people we came to know.
But we were glad the ceiling was high enough that the plane was able to come in and the flight back was beautiful.
Labels:
Alaska,
Nature,
Wales/Nome
Thursday, August 02, 2007
Wales 8 - Reindeer Corral Walk
Sunday while dinner was being prepared, we managed to get almost everyone togeter for a group picture on the steps to the Community Center. You can see how low the clouds were. Planes weren't flying in that day.
Sunday afternoon we had done some more writing exercises and worked on small arty notebooks we learned to 'bind' just by cutting a little and rolling some of the paper. Very clever, we couldn't figure out how they had been made until they showed us. And Alice had brought in this shell from the beach.
After dinner, Joan and I walked to a lagoon to see the reindeer corral. It was an almost rainy evening, with a brisk wind. We took a left on the dirt road at the airport and walked through the beautiful marshy landscape with plovers, dunlins (picture), ravens, and various other unidentified birds.
Finally we got to the reindeer corral and the lagoon. The reindeer were out somewhere eating. As I understood it, they only come here when necessary - like to harvest antlers.
On the way back we could hear the helicopter, but only see it now and again in the fog. It was taken boxes in the net up onto the hillside for the seismic team's research. I asked the pilot the next day if he could see. He said he only needed to see down, that seeing straight ahead was overrated. They weren't taking the equipment far up the hill from road where we were walking.
I couldn't help wondering how much it costs to rent a helicopter and how much it would cost to hire some local folks, where employment is scarce, to take it out on their four wheelers and then lug it the quarter or half mile further up the hill.
And when we got back they were still singing hymns in the Community Center.
The next day, Monday, July 23 - see I'm getting further and further behind here - we flew back to Nome and spent a gorgeous afternoon there. I'll post those pics tomorrow I hope.
Labels:
Alaska,
cross cultural,
Nature,
Photos,
Wales/Nome
Bob Penney on the Web 2 - Philanthropist and Environmentalist
Google comes up with lots of Penney material related to the land deal, but for someone so prominent so long, there is precious little pre-land deal that comes up on Penney.
-CHALLENGER LEARNING CENTER
Thank you to all who supported the Challenger Learning Center of Alaska in 2006!
The rest is at the link.
THE PENNEY CHALLENGE
Thank you Bob Penney and the Kenai Peninsula!
Bob has issued this Challenger Grant for the next three years to be matched for a total of $100,000.
-CHALLENGER LEARNING CENTER
Thank you to all who supported the Challenger Learning Center of Alaska in 2006!
Testimony of Mr. Robert C. Penney
before the U.S. Commission on Ocean Policy
August 21, 2002
Anchorage, Alaska
Introductory Remarks
The U.S. Commission on Ocean Policy has asked me to identify issues in my area of experience, and to make recommendations on how policies can be developed to resolve these issues. My experience is as an Alaska businessman who has worked closely with governmental processes for the past 51 years to promote stewardship of ocean and coastal resources, and especially the conservation of our fishery resources. My experience as a founder of the Kenai River Sportfishing Association, a conservation and sportsfishing advocacy group, has convinced me that protection of critical habitats is the foundation for proper stewardship of living marine resources. As co-founder of the Ted Stevens Kenai River Classic, I am proud to say sportfishermen through this event have raised more than $3 million during the last nine years for salmon habitat protection, public education and scientific research. My efforts to insure access of the sportsfishing public to these same resources has also taught me how little we know about the marine and marine-related environments, in spite of the many advances in knowledge in the second half of the 20th Century. As a final note on my experience, my special interest has long been the protection and sustained harvest of salmon, an animal that starts life in freshwater but goes on to gain nearly all of its adult weight in marine waters. Working with salmon has taught me that marine ecosystems do not stop at the shoreline. As the long-term fate of Alaska’s coastal watersheds is highly dependent on proper stewardship of coastal and ocean resources, my issues address marine, and marine-related ecosystems that cover both oceans and watersheds.
The rest is at the link.
Labels:
Alaska,
ethics/corruption,
people,
politics,
stevens
Wednesday, August 01, 2007
We See What We Want To See
The Anchorage Daily News' lead editorial was on Ted Stevens today:
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.
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
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.
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?...
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 4The board denied the waiver
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.
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, Kenai River Sport Fishing Association bio
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
Tuesday, July 31, 2007
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,
To add to Boehm's point, here's a video from Veracifier at Youtube in which
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.]
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.]
Labels:
Alaska,
ethics/corruption,
politics,
video
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.
Labels:
books,
environment
Monday, July 30, 2007
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.
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.
Labels:
books,
Knowing,
Wales/Nome
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