Alaska Apple Users Group

Second Wednesday of the month is the AAUG meeting at the Anchorage Museum. I've posted on these meetings before here, here, and here. I really look forward to them. All of us oddballs who prefer macs to pcs come together and get shown different ways to take advantage of our machines. And then there are all the freebies. Well, tonight I scored. At the review table was a macbook case to be reviewed.
If you review something, you get to keep it. In the past I've mostly reviewed books and software. I did a wrist pad once. That was more like today. But I've been wanting something slim to slide my laptop into and here it is. And the review should be easy.

You can see it is just big enough for the MacBook. It has great zippers with indentations that fit my fingers. It doesn't have a handle though. But it does have thick, but light, padding.

And I sat next to a guy named Zack who showed me some cool things I can do on my keyboard and also helped me change the default screensaver file type from tiff to jpg. And saw some good friends. And had some nibbles. Oh, it's called LA robe protection from be.ez. And I just checked, it's $24.99 on Amazon. So the first draft of my review is done. No nagging emails at the end of the month asking where the review is, right Guy?

Dialogue Alaska

I went to a community meeting today (well it's yesterday now) at the BP Center. Alaska Common Ground, with money from the Council on Public Policy Education, is putting together a couple of public forums to get people together to talk about public policy issues in Alaska. This was something of an organizing meeting. Bill Hall has been the main person behind this all. Below is a short clip of video and photos I took at the meeting.

In with the new (CH2M Hill) and Out with the old (VECO)

I got the picture of the Veco building in mid August. A couple of weeks ago the new owner of Veco, CH2M Hill put up their sign and I finally got around to getting the after picture. They even repainted the metal on the bench. Maybe things will be different.





Fortune Magazine last year rated them the 80th Best Company to work for in the US. CH2M Hill is an employee owned company and being on this list is a good thing. But like all such lists we need to take it with a grain of salt. Enron was once on that list, and while they probably were a good company to work for, they ultimately were not a good company.





The Center for Public Integrity lists CH2M Hill in its Windfalls of War page identifying work it is doing in Iraq.

Background

The Colorado-based company offers engineering, construction and operations services with a special focus on hazardous-waste cleanup, waste-treatment design, and transportation projects. CH2M Hill is employee-owned and has more than 10,000 employees worldwide. The company name comes in part from the initials of the founders, Cornell, Hayes, Howland and Merryfield; after a 1971 merger with Clair A. Hill & Associates, Hill was added to the name.
Iraq contracts

CH2M Hill, in a joint venture with Parsons Water Infrastructure Inc., is providing support to the Public Works and Water Sector program office under the Coalition Provisional Authority's Project Management Office. The contract, which was awarded on March 10, 2004, is worth almost $28.5 million. According to a Democratic congressional report, the joint-venture is overseeing work done by four different companies—Fluor, Washington Group International, Black & Veatch and AMEC—on public works and water projects.

CH2M Hill also has a contract through a consortium with Spanish companies Dragados and Soluziona for "electrical power generation" worth $12.7 million. Dragados has reportedly opted out of the deal, in part because of a policy not to perform work in Iraq, a spokesman for the company said. This contract was awarded on Feb. 6, 2004.

Their corporate website includes a page on Social Responsibility.

A Shared Commitment to Social Responsibility

Executing projects to improve the quality of life shows only part of CH2M HILL's commitment to working without boundaries. The other part, not seen in technical reports or engineering drawings, takes shape in the hands and hearts of our employees; we volunteer time, donate funds, and contribute in-kind gifts to support scores of worthy causes in the communities where we live and worked.

CH2M HILL's Community Partners program focuses our endeavors into four areas:

* Global Responsibility — providing reliable infrastructure, clean water, opportunities for women, and hope for future generations in developing countries
* Educational Outreach — fostering interest in careers in engineering and technology through involvement in educational programs at all levels
* Environmental Stewardship — applying eco-friendly work practices and promoting environmental responsibility
* Human Services — supporting local causes to combat issues ranging from poverty to violence, hunger, and homelessness

With luck Anchorage is getting a new corporate player with strong ethical standards that will work generously with our community.

It's Autumn, The Leaves are Falling

Who's Writing Dan Fagan's Oil Columns?

Today's Dan Fagan column was, what, his third or fourth on oil? Has anyone besides me noticed that when he writes about oil his style changes completely? The normal stream of conscious ramble that we hear on his radio shows and the rest of his columns is gone. When he writes about oil the columns have a real structure, lines of argument with supporting facts. (Remember facts don't have to be true, but they are concrete enough to be tested for truth.) The closing lines actually bring some closure by referencing the beginning. Today he starts with a McCarthyism theme and brings us back to it at the end.

So, does the ADN have some kind of written agreement with their regular columnists in which the writers say that what they write is their own writing, and they aren't having others supply them with a draft or more? I don't know for sure that Fagan has ghost writers, but the difference in style between most of the articles and the oil articles is really pronounced.

So who might be writing the oil pieces? The Voice of the Times regularly represented the oil industry in their columns, in fact they were owned by Veco, now CH2M Hill. OK, so Allen and Smith are out of the picture now, but they probably had people writing the columns for them anyway. Are those folks still at it, helping Fagan now?

The basic points seem to be:

* The PPT tax is giving Alaska an extra billion so why change it?
* Tax high and you get nothing, tax low and you get a lot
* Government is bad, oil companies are good
* Keep the tax climate stable
* Sarah Palin's an idiot to want to change the PPT tax (on the other hand she's clever, go figure)
* The tax wasn't corrupted by VECO, they didn't get what they wanted.

Here's a comparison of what appear to be oil industry talking points.

Notes: Fagan Column Sept 2, 2007
John Shively, President Resource Development Council, August President's message
Gail Phillips, Voice of the Times, 10/6/07

Of course, 20% was the amount the oil companies agreed on with the Governor Murkowski. We know that good bargainers don't start out with what they are willing to accept. They probably would have been happy with 25% or even 30%. But I'm not here to argue the facts, but the style and the lack of originality of the columns. Here's another comparison:



Notes: Fagan Column Oct. 7, 2007
Alaska Oil and Gas Association (AOGA) Pioneer TV Spot
Gail Phillips, same link as above

My point is that even if someone else isn't giving Dan a draft to work from, he's not being an original columnist on oil, but is merely giving us the oil company's talking points. We had that with the Voice of the Times. And after the Veco, I mean, Kott trial, we know that they were doing more than passing out talking points. Isn't this enough reason to give Dan his pink slip?


If not, there's another problem. Dan is starting to repeat himself. Below you can see what was in the June 17 column and what reappeared in the October 7 column.


June 17, 2007

In Canada the government wanted more cash out of companies developing oil sands in Alberta. So Canadian politicians lowered royalty rates.

That's right, lowered them. What happened? Alberta's oil sands royalty revenue increased 12-fold in just three years. Lowering royalty rates made oil sand development palatable for industry so they invested more.

Then again on October 7, 2007

Remember what happened in Canada? The government wanted more cash out of companies developing oil sands in Alberta so it lowered royalty rates. Lowered them. Those politicians must have been shills of the industry, corrupt and anti-Canadian.

What happened when royalty rates dropped? Within three years, Alberta's oil sands revenue increased 12-fold.

I don't agree with the people who want Fagan's column cut because of his views. But if he's not really writing his own stuff, if he's getting drafts or talking points from the oil industry, then he shouldn't be a regular columnist. And if he's running out of things to say and has to pad his columns with things he wrote just a few months ago, then it's time to bring in someone fresh, someone who can write original, thoughtful columns.

World's Northernmost Hindu Temple?

I'm teaching a class this semester for the Honors College at UAA. We only have a few students who are taking a directed study. The title, adapted a little from what the original professor had set up, is "Searching for Truth in Anchorage: Through Science, Art, and Faith." This week we focused on the Hindu religion - first a dinner on Tuesday with Dr. Rashmi Prasad at Bombay Deluxe Restaurant. Today we visited the Shri Ganesha Mandir. Practically invisible from the street, this small temple is in a larger building and is like walking into another world.

Dr. Prasad said he thought this might be the most Northern Hindu temple in the world. A quick google search didn't locate any that are further north. Mandirnet.org
shows temples in Stockholm and outside Oslo, but south of Anchorage, slightly. There is no listing for Russia the only other country with a large population this far north. The link also gives a lot of interesting material on Hinduism.

First Frost

There was frost on the deck this morning, though by the time I got up it was already 35 degrees Fahrenheit. And the sun was warm later in the day.

Hair - Forty Years Later

We saw Theatre Artists United's production of Hair last night at Out North. Fun. The music still stands up after all these years. I couldn't believe that all the songs were familiar. I saw it long ago in LA, but never had the album. But so many of them were hits on their own. The small band under Steven Alvarez' direction filled the theater with music. The twenty or so actors filled the stage with and at times the audience with movement and song.

I couldn't help wondering what it all meant to the actors none of whom was born when Hair first came out. The emotional edge of 1968 didn't translate into 2007. The whole tension of Claude dealing with the draft board, the generational chasm over sex, drugs, and rock and roll that underlie the whole show no longer reverberate like they did then. That's not to say the issues are gone, but back then, guys' hair over their ears and lapping down the neck was a sign of rebellion. Today's shaved heads are more like the old traditional crew cuts and military cuts the long hair was repudiating. What was most shocking in 1968 was the fact that a Broadway show included the whole cast full frontal nude. But without the music it wouldn't have made it. This production doesn't include that scene. It really isn't necessary, and director Christian Heppinstall said that having a 16 year old actor precluded it anyway. I'd also note, that it is nice when the actors are picked based on talent whether they have perfect Hollywood faces and bodies or not. There were real people on the stage - all of them talented.

Anyway, it was fun. If you're in Anchorage during October I'd recommend it. The clips above, like always, are a spectators fuzzy digital camera view of events. Not great video or sound, but a sense of what was happening But I'm getting better with iMovie.

Google Hits and Misses

It's interesting to see how people get to this site. I've posted about this before in Blogging is Like Fishing. I'm constantly amazed by what people are looking for or that I actually show up on page 1 of their google search. Lately, people have searched for

• Alaska Mushrooms,
  
• various places we stayed in India and Thailand, including
  
• "prevention taken to stop the turning of yellow over the taj mahal,"
  
• several hits for 'bibidibobididoo' (I guess some one showed Cinderella somewhere),
• "things to do on a sunny day in anchorage",
  
• Dan Fagan,
  
• Termination Dust.
  
• Carnival Cruise line queries (usually about getting from the Anchorage Airport to the cruise.
  
• people related to the Kott trial. The day after the trial Debora Stovern was searched more than anyone else.
  

And the other day someone googled

• "lemon and peppers Hindu talisman."
  

That's when I learned that not all my pictures have stayed visible - I had a picture of such a lemon and peppers under a car parked in Goa.

But today I got a pretty creepy one and I couldn't imagine where the googler was sent on my site for this. Someone in Abijan, Cote D'Ivoire

Referring URL		http://www.google.fr...hl=fr&start=130&sa=N
Search Engine		google.fr
Search Words		2007 email contact of nazi germany director and staff

You can click on the URL to see what he got. The ones I saw would not get him contact with any nazis. Below is what he got on my website - a strange collection of posts that had one, or at most two, of the words he was looking for. You can see how random it is below. And I have no idea how Google decided to include some pages with 2007 in them and not others. I've left out most of the 2007's:

Les termes de recherche suivants ont été mis en valeur :

2007

email

contact

nazi

germany

director

staff

Germany has the Goethe Institutes

Sunday, April 29, 2007

a community member on the steering committee and member of the Mayor's staff,

"There was something in the disk of his smile - a kind of mischievous exuberance, more honest and more excited than mere happiness - that pierced me to the heart. It was the work of a second, the eye contact between us.

His parents were never able to get visas out of Germany.

he talks about how the Nazis are manipulating language to effectively get the German people to support the Nazi Party, a particularly appropriate topic for those living under the Bush regime. It is a fascinating account of day-to-day life of a Jewish professor in Nazi Germany. He had converted to Christianity and was married to an 'Aryan' and had been on the front lines for Germany in WWI, all of which helped delay his being taken to the concentration camps. The first volume covers 1933-1941.

Christian, a former student of mine, and the director, writer, and an actor in the play, told me it was going to be a comedic look at the porn industry.

I wasn't able to meet any of the volunteers while we were in India in November (though I had some email contact and one good phone conversation).

People Lose - Dot Com Wins

I've been pretty annoyed that the Anchorage Daily News has been putting a People section on page 2 of the main section. It's the equivalent of putting candy at the checkout stand in the supermarket. Why does this gossip about celebrities rate such a prominent spot in the paper?






Yesterday, I noticed that instead of people on page A2, it said Online at adn.com. People's gone. That can only be an improvement. Even if it's replaced by an ad for the newspaper's online version. Actually, it is reasonable to be pointing to the ADN website because they can put lots more material up there - as they did with all the audio and video tapes from the Anderson and Kott trials.

Nationally people are watching to see if newspapers can survive the internet. The ADN seems to be doing a good job in this proactively meeting this challenge.






What I didn't notice until today is that the People section didn't go away. It's now taking a full page, but on D3. OK, D is the View section - cooking, advice columns, movies, comics.
People, if we have to have it, fits much better in here away from the so called hard news.