Watching the Snow Fall

This is the sequel to the thriller, The Leaves Are Falling.






Join me on the deck1234567891011121314151617181920123456789101 All is still, winter snowflakes 12312341234567891234567894567891 only moving things

Refugee Nation

Wow - another story telling show. This time three main story tellers presenting some of the stories of Lao Refugees to the US. They aren't always easy as we hear about the difficulties of adjusting to a new land after surviving war and refugee camps in Thailand. Although the two main actors are from LA, this is not a slick Hollywood production. Rather it is a well acted, genuine performance by people who want to entertain and educate about their people - the Lao refugees in the US. This is still a work in progress and I expect that the transitions from scene to scene will get a little tighter and the film will be better integrated into the rest of the performance. But these are my picky points and they really don't detract from the power of the show. This is a chance to see behind the news images people might have (or as the show points out, not have) of Lao and Hmong people.

The ADN did a great job of covering this show on the front page this morning. Below is a brief video of the question and answer period after the performance with Leilani Chan, Ova Saopeng, and May Lee-Yang.




And according to their blog, they've been having a busy but great time in Anchorage. They've been to various schools, to the Senior Center, met with Alaska Native kids, and tried out several of the Thai/Lao restaurants. Here's what they say about their welcome in Anchorage.

It's been two days in Anchorage and already we feel like part of the family. We've been welcome with warm smiles, hugs and hospitality unmatched beyond any expectation. In these two days so far, we have met more people, been filled with excitement and enthusiasm and gone to several happenin' events in Anchorage that it's like we never left home.

Also check out the website.

I know that Mike Huelsman, the Executive Director or Out North Theater, is responsible for much of the hospitality.

Anchorage is blessed to have such cultural riches and if you don't already have tickets to something Sunday, you should go to see Jack Dalton at Cyrano's and then Refugee Nation at Out North. You can get your tickets online there.

Refugee Nation has a 7pm performance Sunday and 4pm on Monday afternoon.
Dalton's My Heart Runs in Two Directions at Once has a Sunday 3pm show, then Monday - Thursday at 7pm. Cyrano's is on D Street between 4th and 5th Avenues downtown.

Yes, this is less a review and more a shameless plug. But I wouldn't be pushing this if I didn't think it was really worthwhile.

Jack Dalton - My Heart Runs in Two Directions

Just go to Cyrano's tonight. Just do it. Jack Dalton really is a story teller. That's his profession. In the stories we heard last night, he tells his own story. If I were to try to give a synopsis it would be like trying to describe a kind of music you've never heard before. Your brain would try to grab onto the closest images you have to the words I'd use and you'd come up with your own story.

But Jack tells his own story and it is the telling that makes the story powerful. One message he clearly sends is this: He wants through his stories to give others the courage to tell and to live their own stories. I guess I can list the scenes as printed in the program since they are his own words:

Act One: From the Tundra
Can't Sleep
Birth
Byron Scott Dalton
Heathen Savages
Foreigner
Happy Birthday
Really Being Yup'ik
Not Really Being Yup'ik

Act Two: From the City
The Storyteller
My Heart Runs in Two Directions at Once
Ellangellemni: The Moment I Become Aware
Angallguq: One Who Facilitates Healing


I knew Jack casually when he was a student at UAA and a waiter at Golden Pond restaurant long ago. There was always something special about him. The picture above from the program captures a Jack I don't know. The picture toward the end of this postseems to show his warmth and humor better. I also appreciated last night how quick he is. Several times he slipped out of character to make real time comments, and then easily slipped back into character. Or was that part of the act too?

Darjeeling Limited

Light, but not as light as it appeared, and lots of fun. Three brothers on a pilgrimage in India. The India part appealed. They obviously had a good time making the movie. The official webite has lots of material about making the movie and the soundtrack that deftly blends Indian music and Western music.



I've made two versions at different quality to see the difference. I'll post the second one soon. [Here's version two. Is the difference significant enough to justify using 5 times the megabites?]

DOJ Press Release on Kohring Trial

Again (as with the Kott verdict), the Department of Justice tells the world that the defendant was convicted of three counts (bribery, conspiracy, and attempted extortion) but doesn't mention that he was NOT convicted of one count (extortion.) It's one thing for private companies to omit important information to make themselves look good, but it's entirely different when the government does that.

Also of interest is that they say he faces a maximum of 35 years in prison (20 years on the attempted extortion charge, 10 years on the bribery charge, and five years on the conspiracy charge.) If the attempted extortion charge means up to 20 years, what would he have been facing if convicted for extortion? Not only did the DOJ not mention that he was acquitted on one charge, but that he was acquitted on the most significant charge - Extortion.

The last paragraph is also of interest:

This case was prosecuted by trial attorneys Nicholas A. Marsh and Edward P. Sullivan of the Criminal Division’s Public Integrity Section, headed by Chief William M. Welch, II, and Assistant U.S. Attorneys Joseph W. Bottini and James A. Goeke of the District of Alaska. The case is being investigated by the FBI and the Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigative Division.

The first sentence includes all four attorneys, though only Sullivan and Bottini actually tried the case. Marsh was there for the first couple of days. He said he was returning to DC after that. Goeke was in Courtroom 3 during most of the Kohring trial, sitting in the back.

The last sentence says the IRS is investigating the case with the FBI. One question that has been raised about the Veco contributions to remodeling Ted Stevens' Girdwood house has been about what Stevens did for Veco in return. Can the Government prove a direct connection? There is the National Science Foundation grant that Veco got. But if the IRS is investigating too, perhaps they are checking on whether Stevens declared the $100,000 worth of work Allen says Veco did for Stevens on his income tax forms.









FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 1, 2007
WWW.USDOJ.GOV
CRM
(202) 514-2007
TDD (202) 514-1888

Former Alaska State Representative
Victor Kohring Convicted on Public Corruption Charges

WASHINGTON – A federal jury in Anchorage, Alaska, has found former Alaska State Representative Victor H. Kohring guilty of conspiracy, bribery and attempted extortion, Assistant Attorney General Alice S. Fisher of the Criminal Division announced today.

Following an eight-day jury trial, Kohring, a member of the Alaska State House of Representatives from 1994 to 2007, was convicted of conspiracy, bribery and attempted extortion, for corruptly soliciting and receiving financial benefits from a company in exchange for performing official acts in the Alaska State Legislature on the company’s behalf.

On May 4, 2007, Kohring was arrested following the unsealing of two indictments charging him and two former Alaska representatives with various public corruption offenses.

At trial, the jury heard evidence that Kohring, while serving as a member in the state legislature, solicited bribes from and took action to benefit the financial interests of VECO Corporation, a major Alaska oil services company. Trial evidence, including more than 25 recordings of conversations involving Kohring and former VECO executives, showed that Kohring repeatedly agreed to lobby his colleagues and, if needed, cast votes in VECO’s favor on a key petroleum production tax proposal pending before the Alaska legislature. In exchange, Kohring received multiple cash payments and solicited a $17,000 payment.

“Former Representative Victor Kohring betrayed his oath of office and the people of Alaska when he deliberately and repeatedly took bribes in exchange for official acts,” said Assistant Attorney General Fisher. “I thank the federal prosecutors and FBI agents who have worked so hard on this case. Their efforts demonstrate that the Department of Justice will pursue public officials who abuse their positions of power for their own financial gain.”

The VECO executives who testified at trial, former Chief Executive Officer Bill J. Allen and former Vice President of Community Affairs and Government Relations Richard L. Smith, pleaded guilty in May 2007 to providing more than $400,000 in corrupt payments to public officials from the state of Alaska.

Kohring is the third former member of the Alaska House of Representatives to be convicted this year of corruption crimes. Thomas T. Anderson, a former elected member of the Alaska state House of Representatives, was sentenced to 5 years in prison for extortion, conspiracy, bribery and money laundering for soliciting and receiving money from an FBI confidential source in exchange for agreeing to perform official acts to further a business interest represented by the source. Peter Kott, a former Speaker of the House of Representatives, was convicted in September 2007 of extortion, bribery and conspiracy, and is scheduled to be sentenced on Dec. 7, 2007.

Kohring faces a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison on the attempted extortion charge, a maximum sentence of 10 years on the bribery charge, and a maximum sentence of five years on the conspiracy charge. U.S. District Judge John W. Sedwick of the District of Alaska set sentencing for Feb. 6, 2008.

This case was prosecuted by trial attorneys Nicholas A. Marsh and Edward P. Sullivan of the Criminal Division’s Public Integrity Section, headed by Chief William M. Welch, II, and Assistant U.S. Attorneys Joseph W. Bottini and James A. Goeke of the District of Alaska. The case is being investigated by the FBI and the Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigative Division.

###

07-878

Back into the Real World - Chester Creek

I had errands to do. The snow is long gone. It was into the low 40s. On the way home on the Chester Creek bike trail I checked out the progress of winter. It's slow this year. Last year at this time we were in New Dehli and Anchorage was going into deep freeze. I love the green feet of this tree.







I stopped to enjoy the music of the water hidden in the middle of Anchorage.

Trial Leftovers - Access to Courts and Credentialing Bloggers

There's a lot of material that I haven't had the time or energy to report, mostly issues that came up during the trials and needed some thought time and some research. One of those topics - one of these days - is the role of wire tapping and other surveillance techniques. But not today. Today I want to talk about a) media access to court rooms and b) the issue of press credentials for bloggers.

Media access to the courtroom in the big picture was not the issue this. Everyone could get into the court room. However, you have to go through more stringent and separate security from the regular security for the federal building. At the Anderson trial, this security meant no cell phones, cameras (still or video), audio recording, or computers past security. Attorney John McKay, hired by the Anchorage Daily News and KTUU jointly, was able to get the Judge and I guess also the US Marshals to allow the press to take cell phones and computers past security. Cell phones had to be completely off inside the court room. McKay was also responsible for getting access for the press to the government's surveillance tapes as soon as they had been used as evidence. The trial coverage significantly changed when they began posting the tapes online during the Kohring trial.

But this sort of access was only a temporary waiver of the rules by Judge Sedwick for the Kott and then the Kohring trials. This doesn't change the rules for the US District Court in Anchorage. John McKay said the Marshals had a number of security issues. Googling didn't really add any other issues.

Issues raised to restrict press (including video/still cameras, audio ) access to courts:
a. space in the courtroom
b. privacy and security of jurors, witnesses (particularly undercover agents and rape victims), defendants (children)
c. disturbance of the court proceedings - basic goal for the judge is a fair trial

Reading the ADN during the trial, I marveled at the photographs of the Linehan trial. Our State Courts have different rules. And some other states allow live audio and video feeds from the courtroom. California has particularly detailed rules for press access including getting permission to bring in video and audio equipment.

Apparently the fact that many laptops phones have video and audio recording capabilities and was discussed in the negotiations, but I guess they decided to look the other way. I certainly assumed that if any video or even a photo of the courtroom showed up in the media, that the computer and cell phone privileges would be gone.

Why press passes may be needed, including for bloggers.

• Determining who gets In
  The courtroom was never so crowded that anyone was turned away. Apparently during the Exxon Valdez trial, this was not the case. So, in the event that a courtroom is too small to hold spectators and press, there is a need to determine a) who is media and b) which members of the media get in. Again, at the Exxon Valdez trial I was told it was first come, first served and that a video room was set up for those who couldn't get into the actual courtroom.
• Determining who doesn't have to leave the cell phone and laptop with security
  This did become an issue for the Kott and Kohring trials. For some journalists, it was not an issue. They simply used their notepads and pencils. But I couldn't have covered the cases the way I did without my laptop. As I think I've related before, the established media folks gave me advice on creating a press pass and wished me luck. I never had any serious trouble getting in. Security knew me from the Anderson trial and let me through. Though once or twice they asked who I was with and I showed my pass and they let me through.
  On the second day of the Kohring trial, one of the guards asked for my url and my email address and said he'd get back to me. And he let me through with the computer. The next day I had no trouble. The next day, when he was back, he told me that they didn't have a policy for bloggers, but the judge said, since I'd covered the previous two trials, I could take my laptop in.

So, if media get special privileges how do you determine who qualifies as media?

In general, your employer, a traditional media outlet - newspaper, radio or television station - gave you a pass. In some cases these had to be approved by the organization you were covering - particularly where there was limited space (White House Press Corps) or special access given to the press. So, what about credentials for bloggers?

In the perfect world, there would be room for everyone. Is there a fair way to determine who is a 'legitimate' blogger and who is not? One could say that people who cover 'news' on a regular basis are different from people who simply post pictures of family or mushrooms. But before the Anderson trial, I had never done any sort of thorough reporting of anything, and who's to say which family blogger won't suddenly get serious about some community issue and want media privileges to bring a computer or camera in?

Googling, I learned that this question about press credentials for bloggers is being dealt with in all sorts of venues. Sports bloggers post a lot on this with different outcomes that seem totally idiosyncratic. One sports franchise rejects bloggers, while another grants them passes, but not access to locker rooms, and a third gives them press passes. The Washington Capitals asked a blogger to come up with a blogging policy. Some other bloggers chronicle their somewhat successful attempts to get AFL press credentials.. The Ladies Professional Golf Association said no. The Latin Grammys also said no to a blogger.

The American Bar Association allows bloggers into their meetings and events, conditionally

“New media” journalists, such as bloggers, must authenticate their status as reporters by supplying links to and/or samples of their blogs or media outlets. Credentials will be granted at the discretion of the Director.

The CIA apparently changed their definition of media to make it inclusive of bloggers.

GovernmentExecutive.com is reporting that the CIA has adopted a new definition of "news media" that could significantly reduce the fees and costs for citizen journalists who request documents under the Freedom of Information Act.

And then there is the Media Bloggers Association that is credentialing bloggers.

Up here in Alaska, I'm not sure there's that great a benefit to the credentials generally, but having my laptop in court sure was a big deal. Reviewing what's out there, it seems there are a few existing standards that have been used by various institutions.

• how long and frequently you blog
• do you cover 'news' in the particular area rather than just post family pictures
  
• % of your income that comes from media work (California legislature)
• affiliation with established media
• do we like what you write about us? This was not listed anywhere, but I assume it is a factor
• links to your post and ratings from blog rating sites like technorati

Coincidentally, The Next Hurrah, a great blog that focuses on the Federal Courts and the Department of Justice among other topics, discussed blogger press passes today because of a New York City case

New York journalist Rafael Martinez-Alequin and his lawyer Norm Siegel are challenging the New York City police department's policies for issuing press credentials. (For somewhat arcane reasons having to do with access to crime scenes, the NYPD issues all City media credentials.)

Marci Wheeler, posting as emptywheel on the Next Hurrah, doesn't think the percentage of income criterion is constitutional. I hope not because it would cause me serious problems. She also emphasized the criterion of links.

I suggested that rather than judging on readership (since really focused blogs tend to spike when their expertise becomes relevant), a Court ought to judge on links. Since linking is a sign of reliability, you'd want to show links to show that you're considered reliable (and, preferably, knowledgeable on the subject) by your peers.

While my blog isn't highly specialized normally, it certainly did spike when I was covering the trials.

A hockey blogger even questioned the whole need for press passes,

What is there to gain by doing it? Really. The key selling point of the blogging community is that we're not the media. We have a hell of a lot more freedom to post a certain angle or perspective that many in the mainstream media cannot get away with. The more bloggers try to "gain respect" within the framework of the mainstream media, the more they have to adhere by certain guidelines and behaviors, and the closer the bloggers are to becoming incorporated to that mainstream.

I did think some of the Media Bloggers Association requirements seemed focused on aggregating power for the head of the organizations:

* Members must be intimately familiar with the MBA Mission Statement and Statement of Principles and support both without reservation.
* Members must be subscribed to the MBA Broadcast e-mail list (MBA-Announce) at all times.
* An MBA event or activity is any event or activity so designated by the President of the MBA.
* Members are expected to promote the organization and portray the organization in a positive light in both word and deed at all times.
* Members are expected to identify and recruit potential members.
(emphasis mine)

I also think that there may be times - like covering Federal cases in Anchorage - where getting accepted as media would be important for my blogging.

And finally, there is the problem of having the agency itself decide who can cover it. It's ok for privately owned sports teams to limit access perhaps, but for government there are additional problems. While I think Judge Sedwick has been scrupulously fair and respectful to everyone in the courtroom [no, this is not sucking up now that I realize he might be reading my blog, I'm still calling them the way I see them] not every judge will be so fair. There is no question that media who are highly critical are not as welcome and may not get their press pass renewed.

Perhaps a committee that has diverse representation could work with the agency. Even this can be hijacked as the history of US regulatory agencies has shown over and over again. But it's more transparent better than just a judge or administrator. And publishing criteria used is also critical.

Liberty Watch 2

When you buy a certain type of car, suddenly you see them everywhere. When you are pregnant, suddenly you notice all the other pregnant women around. When you get a new model of things, you suddenly start noticing things that you didn't see before. Naomi Wolf's ten steps to dismantling a democracy is helping me organize different incidents in my head and fit them into a coherent model of what's going on. So I've started a new tag - Liberty Watch - to point out actions that fit into those ten steps. This one is more about non citizens but it relates to keeping track of people, restricting their movement, and preventing key individuals from presenting their views publicly. So it would seem to partially fit the following steps in Wolf's list:

4. Create a surveillance apparatus for its ordinary citizens.
5. Arbitrarily detain and release citizens,
7. Target key individuals
8. Restrict the press

Below is a mass email I got from the president of the American Association of University Professors, probably the major institution that represents American university faculty, about foreign professors having trouble attending conferences or taking visiting professorships in the United States.



In spring 1983, just over two years into Ronald Reagan's first term as president, I was in the midst of a complex ballet with the U.S. State Department. My institution, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, had invited the distinguished cultural studies and Marxist scholar Stuart Hall to teach a course and keynote a conference. He had just been told by the U.S. visa office in London that they had no record of his application?an application he had submitted three times. I scheduled a tentative interview with National Public Radio, then presented the State Department with a choice: issue the visa or listen to me discuss the situation on NPR. It issued the visa. Those, apparently, were the innocent Reagan-era days when the State Department could actually be embarrassed by bad publicity.

A quarter of a century later, in 2007, we are living in a very different world. Our State Department is no longer subject to embarrassment on this issue. The atmosphere today is reminiscent of the Cold War, when the U.S. government regularly barred from the country visitors whose views it rejected. But Congress repeatedly restricted this power, first limiting exclusion to those presenting a genuine national security risk in 1977, then explicitly applying standards for constitutionally protected speech to foreign visitors a decade later, finally shifting the focus for deportation and exclusion from beliefs to conduct in 1990.

As a result, for many years foreign scholars have given papers at conferences and taught at our colleges and universities. These interactions have advanced knowledge across a whole spectrum of fields and strengthened our ties with other nations.

But for six years foreign scholars have frequently been denied entrance to the United States. Often they have been turned back after their planes have landed. Most had already visited here without incident. Some had done so after the 9/11 attacks; a number are graduates of U.S. institutions. Their stated reasons for visiting have been both clear and legitimate.

Earlier this year, as AAUP president, I signed an extensive legal declaration outlining the AAUP's consistently strong stand against the exclusion of foreign scholars for ideological reasons. For about two years we have been involved in litigation seeking to compel the government to admit Swiss Muslim scholar Tariq Ramadan to the country. His visa was revoked in 2004 as he prepared to take up a tenured appointment at the University of Notre Dame. Then he was denied a visa to address the AAUP annual meeting. The declaration I signed lists Michael Chertoff and Condoleezza Rice, respectively Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security and Secretary of State, as defendants.

Usually no reasons are given for denying a visa. In Ramadan's case, as a result of our lawsuit, the government was compelled by a court to give an official explanation. It said Ramadan had provided "material support" to terrorists. The support? Donations that Ramadan had made to European Palestinian-relief organizations which later gave money to Hamas. The idea that Ramadan could have anticipated later donations defies reason. Last month, the American Civil Liberties Union was once again pressing our case in federal court. On October 25, an assistant U.S. attorney suggested that potential donors write to organizations specifying that no donations go to support terrorism. Suffice it to say I am not convinced that would prove effective.

Another suit involves South African scholar Adam Habib, who in 2006 was intercepted at the airport and denied entry to the United States, where he was scheduled to meet with officers of the Social Science Research Council, Columbia University, the National Institutes of Health, and the World Bank. The State Department subsequently revoked the visas of his wife and their two young children?an extraordinary step for which no explanation was given. Contending that censorship at the border prevents U.S. citizens and residents from hearing speech that is protected by the First Amendment, the lawsuit challenges his exclusion and contends that his exclusion violates the First Amendment.

On many other occasions the AAUP has written letters on behalf of excluded scholars. Sometimes our efforts and those of other academic organizations have succeeded in having travel restrictions against particular scholars lifted, but the list of distinguished visitors prevented from entering the country continues to grow.

Obviously we must bar entry to those presenting genuine threats to national security. But the government should not act as if we fear ideas almost as much as we fear bombs. As the ACLU put it, it sometimes seems we are fighting not so much a war of ideas as a war against ideas.

We urge all of you to write to your representatives in Washington to reverse this practice and let foreign scholars visit the United States. (If you are not sure how to reach them, use the AAUP's lobbying tools.)

You may not agree with Tariq Ramadan or all of the other excluded scholars, but we hope you'll agree that the University of Notre Dame had a right to offer him a job, and the AAUP had a right to invite him to address our annual meeting. Academic freedom embodies principles behind which all of us can unite.

Cary Nelson
AAUP President

Talk of Alaska

Here's Phil Munger (on the left) and Steve Heimel, the host of Alaska Public Radio Network's (APRN) Talk of Alaska this morning getting ready for today's discussion on blogging the political trials. I appreciated that Dennis called up and identified himself as the commenter who supported Aaron Selbig's righteous indignation. And Aaron himself called too.

You can listen to the show here.

I'm still trying to figure out the circularity of how all this works in circles - from the trial to the blogs to the radio back to the people who commented on the blogs.


Phil Munger hosted the USA v. Kohring blog, which had a limited life from the beginning and has started a new blog called Progressive Alaska His first post yesterday said, in part:

There are* a growing number of progressive Alaska-based or Alaska-related web sites and weblogs. None seems to be keeping up with this site expansion in a comprehensive way.

I think it is vital that opportunities for these sites to be aware of each other, and to develop communication links, grow rapidly between now and the 2008 elections.

He has this bloglinked there and in the greater scheme of things, I guess it fits into the broad category. But I'm more interested in promoting authentic dialog that doesn't start with the answer, but with the questions. I'd rather see smart, genuine, cooperative politicians of a variety of viewpoints who are working for the public interest, than politicians whose only goal is to win for their side.


*[To [sic] or not to [sic.] When I quote in blocs like this I sometimes wonder if I should put a [sic] after obvious mistakes as one would in a quote in an academic journal to indicate that the mistake was in the original. Most of these quotes are simply cut and pasted so, unlike the old days when you had to retype the quote (and thus could introduce new errors) the odds today are that the error was in the original. Also blogs are a lot less formal and typos are not uncommon - in my blog as in others. So, I'll leave out the [sic] and let the readers figure it out or not. This fits in with Steve Heimel's comments that bloggers are defining the rules as they go along.]

Blog Meets Radio - KSKA Tuesday at 10am

Should I mention this in the blog? Well, my goal here was to learn about blogging. As a result of blogging the trials my blog got more attention than it ever had with pictures of mushrooms and birds. Enough that Steve Heimel invited me to be a guest on Talk of Alaska tomorrow for the topic: Blogging the Political Trials. I'm not sure who all else is on the panel, but I think Phil Munger of USAvVictor H. Kohring will be. I hope Kyle Hopkins the ADN blogger will be there too.

My friends avoid me these days. For some reason they don't think blogging and political trials should be the only topic of discussion. So it's not that I will run out of things to say. My concern now is saying things important. Writing is a much easier format for me. I can spell check it and go back and edit it until I'm happy with it. But talking live on air - no second chances.

This summer has seen a real transformation of the Anchorage Daily News' use of the web. After the Anderson trial, their attorney convinced the judge to require the prosecution to distribute the surveillance tapes - audio and video - to the press right after they are shown in court. By the second trial, the ADN's website was full of the tapes, as well as audio recordings of the trial itself made by the court. Some of the audio/visual material have been offered in their entirety, some not. Some have been well organized and described, some not. They've also linked to blogs, including this one, which has markedly increased the daily hits. The hits have gone down after each trial, but to a higher low than before the trial. We'll see how many stick around when I'm not focused so thoroughly on one specific topic of considerable local interest.

Anyway, a number of folks in the rest of the media have been very supportive of my blogging. And this crossing media borders phenomenon will continue tomorrow on 91.1 fm in Anchorage and other public radio stations around the state as blogging itself becomes a news topic.