Carrie and Kona Arrive in Singapore

I got this picture from my son. His girlfriend and dog had to delay their trip to Singapore - where my son is going to school for a year - because they couldn't get their reservations for the quarantine kennel for Kona on time. But that gave Joel some time to get oriented. So this is Kona's home for a month while she proves she doesn't have rabies.

Bela Fleck and the Flecktones in Anchorage

Fleck was on my radar enough to know that I should go hear him, but I don't know that I'd heard him before. We were up so high that the seat belt sign was on through the whole concert, but not high enough to be able to use our electronic equipment during the flight. So I took my pictures before, during intermission, and at the encore. I figured that didn't really count as the concert. We were so high up, and it was so dark, it didn't really matter.




In fact, these two shots during the encore give you a much better sense of the music. It was definitely the kind of music I like - sort of a combination of electronic, jazz, with banjo. The guitarist and (Fleck on) the banjo pushed those instruments about as far out of their normal ranges as Hendrix pushed on the Star Spangled Banner. Not the same way he did, but that far. Often it was like a where's waldo, and every once in a while there'd a shadow of be something I thought I recognized - Norwegian Wood, Amazing Grace (well that was more than a shadow), Come Together, Chopsticks, etc. But mostly it was combinations of sounds and silences that one doesn't normally hear put together.


And in his final banjo solo, Fleck had the spirits of all the great pickers of stringed instruments of the US hill country, Eastern Europe, and Central Asia helping him.



I obeyed the written instructions on the program and didn't record. But you really can't report on these guys without some sound, so I found this video on Youtube. It isn't our concert. All four performers we saw are in it, though we didn't see this number.






And when the concert was over almost three hours later at 10:30pm, we spilled out into a balmy evening.

Are You One of the Four to Six Thousand Alaskans Who Matter?

In this morning's NPR piece (sorry, you have to go NPR and then listen to their ad before this plays) on Senator Stevens, Anchorage attorney, and author of Take My Land, Take My Life: The Story of Congress's Historic Settlement of Alaska Native Land Claims, 1960-1971, Don Mitchell, explained why Stevens' friends benefiting from federal spending doesn't prove wrong doing:

If you accept that there are only four to six thousand Alaskans in Alaska who matter in the political and economic sense, a large number of that relatively small number will be former Stevens staffers or personal friends of the senator. That goes with the turf of a very small state.

I have to think about this a while. Can it be true that less than 1% of the population of Alaska "matter politically or economically"? What exactly does it mean to "matter politically and economically?

We should note here that according to the author blurb on his book Sold American

Donald Craig Mitchell is a former vice president and general counsel of the Alaska Federation of Natives, organized by Alaska Natives in 1967 to fight for their historic land claims settlement. In private practice since 1984, he has been intimately involved, both before Congress and in the courts, in the development and implementation of federal Native policy. In 1997, he represented Senator Ted Stevens before the United States Supreme Court as amicus curiae in Alaska v Native Village of Venetie, which upheld Mitchell's view that Congress did not intend land conveyed to Alaska Native corporations to be "Indian Country."

So, I guess that since he represented Stevens in the Supreme Court, Don must be one of the Alaskans that matter. but let's put that thought on hold for a bit.



In the same NPR piece, former Anchorage borough Mayor Jack Roderick says

Bill Allen was the Outstanding Businessman of Alaska, so what do you do? You deal with them.

I couldn't find anything about "Outstanding Businessman of Alaska," but an ADN article on Veco says Bill Allen shared the Alaskan of the Year Award with former Gov Jay Hammond in 1994. I wonder if Hammond thought the award a little tarnished sharing it with Bill Allen. Just the other day I raised the question about who picks these awards and at least found out there's a non-profit called Alaskan of the Year, Inc. (It's mentioned in the first paragraph after the opening quotes and then in the *footnote) Trying to check on Allen's honor, I found that the State Chamber of Commerce give s this award. How are they connected to Alaskan of the Year, Inc.? Are they all part of the Alaskans who matter?


OK, it is true that we are a relatively small state in terms of population and people do tend to know each other. But friends of the Senator shouldn't get signficantly greater benefits from projects than the general public. And the general public's money shouldn't be steered to projects in order to benefit friends of the senator. I already posted about how Stevens earmarked $28 million for the Bill Sheffield Railroad Depot at the Ted Stevens International Airport that is only used by passengers of (mainly) Carnival Cruisea and other Carnival owned lines like Princess and Holland-America. Is that just the natural consequences of so few people who matter?

And what about Trevor McCabe, former Ted Stevens aide, and business partner of Ben Stevens (the son), and former SeaLife Center Board member? How did he happen to buy land in downtown Seward in 2003 that suddenly became so critical for a multi-agency center that Stevens earmarked money to buy that very land as reported in Wednesday's Anchorage Daily News? Just a matter of the Senator having too many friends so someone or other of his 4000 former staffers or friends will just happen to benefit? Why did he buy that piece of land? Why did Stevens earmark money to go to the SeaLife Center instead of the City? Why did the SeaLife Center buy McCabe's land with the earmarked money? Why not the City of Seward, which owns the SeaLife Center? I guess it was just a coincidence since the Senator has so many friends it's bound to happen now and then.

Stevens has brought many, many projects to Alaska. As people look closer and closer into each one, I suspect we will have many surprises, and maybe discover more and more of the 4000-6000 Alaskans who Matter. Maybe Don Mitchell can publish the list of the Alaskans that matter and the rest of us can just stop playing like we matter at election time.

But, I still have to think about what this means. If it's true, then maybe that explains why Mitchell is opposed to Native sovereignty - those folks simply don't matter. Or maybe he'd like to believe it is true. If it isn't true, why would Mitchell say it? And if it is true, does it have to stay true? And again, what does it even mean?

Wales 9 - A Sunny Stop in Nome

The Bering Air van took us downtown (we walked back later for our flight, about 30 minutes) and the sun was shining bright and the beach is just behind the buildings on the main street. I slipped over the rocks protecting town from the ocean and stretched out in the warm (oh, high 60s, low 70s I'd guess) sun. The water was sparkling. I wondered whether my trunks were in my day pack. They were. How often are you at the beach near the Arctic Cirle on a warm day with the water so inviting? I slipped into my trunks and went to test the water. It really wasn't all that cold - it's felt colder in LA - but the surf wasn't good enough to tempt me to go in further than my knees.







Then we walked through downtown with views of the beach to our right. Stopped in the library to check e-mail.






Then continued til we were out of town










On the way back, I took these pictures of houses on the main street that face toward the beach - and the sun that day.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.]