Salmon and Placinta

We had a great dinner with I, his parents, and grandmothers tonight. Unfortunately, I
is teething so there were a lot of tears interspersed with smiles and showing off his new vocabulary, all in Romanian. Being bi-lingual is a great advantage and they know he's going to be immersed in English soon, so his mom speaks to him just in her mother tongue as does the Grandma visiting now from Moldova.




But Mom's teeth must have been fine as you can see her smiling beautifully through the wine glass.









Grandma N made this placinta - it's filled with cheese and potatoes and kept calling me back.







And when we got home there was an email from Doug - it sounded like his flight to Frankfurt was ok.

Yak and Yeti and Habitat for Humanity

After Potter Marsh yesterday, we had dinner at Yak and Yeti last night. I usually stick pretty close to vegie and fish, but I couldn't resist the lamb curry - and on special occasions I've wandered off the diet. And it was delicious, but my stomach let me know it isn't used to meat afterward. They were very sparing with raita that comes with the curry and rice. The samples at Costco are bigger.



But this is a great addition to the Anchorage restaurant scene. It wasn't as crowded as the last time we were there (that was a winter Saturday night) and so it was much more relaxed.








After we took a walk to work off some of the dinner. We see these interesting new buildings. Obviously apartments or condos.




Then we saw they were Habitat for Humanity homes. Wow! They have a hip urban look. And then I realized that I had seen these when they were first getting built. Sky's dad had brought some young folks up from Juneau to work on them and I had been at the site a couple of times. These look pretty impressive, just off Spenard.

"Each day is like a work of art to him."

This was in a Fresh Air piece this morning. The girlfriend of Philippe Petit was quoted as saying this about the man who tight rope walked between the twin towers of the World Trade Center in 1974. The piece was about a new movie - Man on Wire - that is coming out about Petit.

Think about it. Each day is like a work of art. What if we all approached each day thinking of time as a canvas? Each day is ours to make into a work of art. Living as a work of art. Communications with others as a work of art. Walking as a work of art. Simply making creative use of the time, place,and energy we have each day. Changes in weather, health , and the world around us are simply different media with which to experiment and gain new insights about life.

What would your life be like if each morning you lived artistically in whatever you did - cleaning the house, attending a meeting, biking to work, shopping, visiting the dentist, relaxing, talking to friends? How can you do these things in ways that are beautiful, create new meaning, cause others to see or feel things they didn't see or feel before?

I think children do this naturally. Why do we lose this?

[See my review and clip from the film.]

Patronizing Businesses With Political Posters

So, what do you think? If you see a business that has a poster for a candidate that you are opposed to, does it cause you to go to another store or do you just go in and shop anyway? What if it is a candidate you favor? Do you buy more? Would you go to a new store because they support your candidate?


Ideally, we should be able to treat our fellow citizens the same no matter which candidate they favor. But when the political divide gets wider and wider, and rhetoric gets hotter and hotter, I can't help but wonder whether the money I would spend in the store might not end up supporting candidates I oppose.

Would it be better if they left the sign off? Then they still might use my payments to support candidates I oppose, but I wouldn't know. (Well I could look at the APOC reports.) Does posting a sign on your business constitute an in-kind donation? What if Conoco-Phillips put a huge banner down the side of their building?

I remember once asking the owner of an ethnic restaurant about the large poster of a candidate in the window. "The candidate eats here often and asked to put it up. We couldn't say no." Notice how skillfully the owner did not tell me if they supported the candidate or not.

Do such posters help a candidate? Do yard signs help a candidate? I would gess they do help persuade the undecideds. If you see lots of signs, especially if you know and respect the people whose yards they are in, you get a feeling that this person has widespread support. Especially if you want to fit in, be like everyone else. But some people may be turned off by the signs, especially if they are put up illegally.* (See below) I tried finding some articles on this, but didn't come up with anything recent. I guess people just assume it works.

For people who feel strongly against a candidate, seeing that candidate's poster in the window of a store they are about to enter, surely has to cause them to pause. Do you tell the owner why or just leave quietly?

The owner has the right to express his or her opinion. Is not shopping at a store that posts a sign for the candidate you dislike a political boycott? I think that going seeking the information about which candidates which business owners support and then telling people to avoid those businesses moves more into the boycott territory. Customers have a right to shop there or not. Business owners can support candidates many ways. If they want to post signs at their business, they have to consider the possible impact on their business.

But I do think the restaurant owner I mentioned above could have declined, saying that they didn't want to offend potential customers by having any political signs. They could then offer to have a sign at their house if they did support the candidate. Or, conversely, they could also allow the opponent to post a sign, though the opponent would probably assume they support the other candidate and wouldn't ask.


*While trying to get some information for this post I did find this about putting signs on roadways from the Department of Transportation and Public Facilities:

1. Campaign signs placed within the State’s road and highway rights-of-way are deemed unauthorized encroachments under AS 19.25.200 – 19.25.250 and will be removed by DOT crews without notification. Vehicles parked in rights-of-way that are used to display political advertisements are also prohibited and subject to removal. Political campaign signs are considered outdoor advertising.

2. AS 19.25.105(a) states, “Outdoor advertising may not be erected or maintained within 660 feet of the nearest edge of the right-of-way…” This section deals with advertising outside the corridor, but also addresses advertising that maybe placed within the corridor on bus benches or trash receptacles. If the sign is on private property, DOT must provide a 30-day written notice of removal to the sign owner and property owner.

Potter Marsh New Boardwalk

We kidnapped a friend from his office today and took him with us to check out the new Potter Marsh Boardwalk. When you go to the boardwalk from the parking lot, you turn left (right to the old boardwalk) and you walk further into the marsh and away from the highway.





The boardwalk is much higher above the marsh than the old one and shakes with relatively little motion. At one point about seven people were standing at the end of the new boardwalk, none walking, no one near us walking, and the boardwalk swayed.




We didn't see a lot of bird life. We were there about 3pm. We saw a couple of grebes, a whole family of Canada geese, and lots of swallows.









But there were salmon coming through the large pipes under the highway. Without a polarizing filter it was hard to see them through the camera, but if you look really carefully you can see one or two.

Lufthansa Strke - Turning the Unexpected Obstacle into an Adventure

Our visitor is due Saturday at 11:30am on the Condor flight from Frankfurt. The idea of a non-stop flight from Europe to Anchorage sounded great back when he was booking. But today he forwarded the following email he just got:

> Sehr geehrte Gaeste,
>
> bei einem eventuellen Streik des Lufthansa Bodenpersonals empfehlen wir
> Condor Gaesten, die einen innerdeutschen Lufthansa Zubringerflug nach/von
> Frankfurt gebucht haben, die Bahn-Anreise nach/ab Frankfurt. Der
> Flugschein nach/ab Frankfurt kann als Zug - Fahrschein genutzt werden.
>
> Wir bedauern eventuelle Unannehmlichkeiten.
> Ihr Condor Team
>
>
> Dear Passengers,
>
> Due to a possible strike of Lufthansa airport personnel, it is
> recommended
> that Condor passengers with a booked Lufthansa connecting Flight within
> Germany to/from Frankfurt, take the train to/from Frankfurt.
> The flight coupon will be honored as a train ticket.
>
> We apologize for any inconveniences.
> Your Condor Team.
>
>

He also wrote that the trains from London to Frankfurt are full until July 31.

Meanwhile the bus drivers in Denali have also voted to authorize a strike.


One way or the other this will work out. We used to tell our son, the year we lived in Washington DC and we went on weekend trips to see the sights and he said he didn't want to go: "You're only seven. We can't leave you home alone. You have to go. So, you can choose to have a terrible time or you can choose to have a good time. It's up to you. But, if you choose to be miserable, you may NOT make the trip miserable for the rest of us." He usually ended up having a good time.

So Doug can fret each step of his trip, or he can let it all go, and do what he needs to do and then observe the whole thing like he might a tv show about an airline strike and how everyone copes. I hope he can do the latter. This is a vacation, he isn't being airlifted out to have a premature baby like Sky's mom. It'll be ok. And maybe the rain will be gone when he finally gets here.

Easy for me to say, I just have to sit and wait for him to arrive.

Happy Birthday Moni, Ropi, and Alex

Today's a big day for birthdays. My daughter's, Hungarian blogger Ropi's, and family friend's Alex.



In addition I want to thank my wife for the greatest birthday present I ever got, my daughter.

Things People Search

Here's my latest of collection of search terms that got people to this blog:

• turning wife over to sexual demonic powers (Columbus Georgia)
  No comment - I think this got to the post on Eliot Spitzer
  
• i know my first name is steven (from Start.no, a Norwegian search engine)
  This turned out to be the title of a movie about a seven year old boy who was kidnapped, but it has a lot of words in common with What Do I know?
  
• how to tell if people dont like you (san diego)
  
• what do birds have in common
  With what? This got to post on ten common birds of Chiang Mai
• how to get ready for a dentist appointment in 1 day (Tennessee)

• western union, little india
  Sometimes people get exactly what (it would appear) they want.
  This got to this picture of the Western Union shop in Little India, Singapore
  
• interesting cow parsnip facts
  And they got to a long post with pictures and links on cow parsnips
  
• motor vehicle called hummer (from Malawi using Eng us)
  They got a picture of Senator Lyman Hoffman's Hummer
  
• charity ceo "reporting unethical behavior" (Chicago)
  doesn't sound good
  
• instructions for life
  That's a pretty ambitious request. They got Victor Lebow, then went on to Buddhism
  
• what do you do when the company act unethical
  another person with a real problem
  
• land hidden above alaska
  let me know if you find it
  
• preparation for porn
  I'm embarrassed to say What Do I Know showed up as #1 out of about 14 million hits for this one. They got something on Anchorage's Soapscum porn - theater production. I guess there aren't many posts that have "porn" and "preparation" in them together. By the way, that post has what used to be the most popular picture that people got through Google Images.
  
• how do they get you brain out when your dead
  This got them to the post on Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead. BTW, I was getting enough queries for a while about how the name came about, I added a bit at the top of the post guiding people to Siberart's comment explaining it.
  
• "[Alaska Politician Name]" "[relative]" gay
  I hope this was a gay rights group just trying to make a connection, but rather doubt it
  
• unethical to take lower bids (Commonwealth of Kentucky Dept. of Information Syst)
  It's usually unethical to take higher bids. They got to the post on whether it was ethical for legislators to get discounts at the Baranof Hotel
  
• names of people for unclaimed money from chugach electric for year 1988
  My post on the Chugach list had links to get all the names. I hope they got some money. There were a few that were looking for that list.
  
• people that are not famous and born on december 10 200
  The post on famous people born in 1908 is one of the most popular (after Victor Lebow), and people get there looking for all sorts of dates, but this is the first one looking for people who were NOT famous.
  
• victor tile shop in jaipur
  Well, I have a post on Victor Lebow and another one about a shop in Jaipur (India). I think these folks got the shop, but not a tile shop.
  
• what's the difference between english and french weather (London)
  The first four words got them to the post on the difference between a hurricanes, cyclone, typhoon, and tornado?.
  
• palin's new ethics commissioner is a fraud
  Do we have an ethics commissioner?
  
• i now how to do chinse staircase but i do not now how to start it
  I had to look this up. It appears that a Chinese staircase is a stitch for what I would have called a lanyard. At Boondogleman.com you can see one.
  
• soap petrol tank
  This was a story about what I thought was a pretty obscure solution to a leaky gas tank. It never occurred to me that I'd have three or four people searching using these words.

And for those wondering what picture gets the most hits now, it's the Burmese dragon tattoo.

Falling Rain

The summer's most eagerly awaited sequel is now here. The end of the epic trilogy that began with Falling Leaves, then Falling Snow, is now at hand with the climactic Falling Rain.



I guess Doug, we won't be able to say, "Gee the weather was great until you got here." Actually, I'm working on squeezing out the last drops before you get here.

Palin and Monegan - What’s it all mean?

I don’t have any more facts than the rest of you who read the newspaper. Well, maybe a few insights from people who know the players, but not much. But I do know something about administration and human resources. The ADN's editorial this morning (there were also not one, but two different front page stories on the topic) called for an investigation of the Monegan firing:

The big question is whether Monegan was fired for not doing the Palins' bidding and firing Trooper Wooten. If so, that would be an abuse of office.

I'd argue that we need to separate the issues better. There are, it seems to me, two key issues.


1. The firing. This happened. Everyone agrees. It is important to remember that a Commissioner serves at the pleasure of the Governor. The Governor need not give any reason for the firing. Commissioners are not regular civil service positions that have protections against arbitrary terminations. These kinds of protections for career civil servants are there so public administrators are protected from arbitrary termination without cause. Ideally, this allows public administrators to do the right thing despite pressure to do some shady deal for a boss.

But the higher ranks are exempt from those protections. These are known as political appointees. The rationale for these folks is that a new politician needs to have people loyal to her vision of how things should be, to the platform she was voted in to carry out. But if a governor (or mayor or president) no longer trusts or is comfortable with a political appointee, there are no legal impediments to instant termination. There may be political consequences, but there are no legal violations.

To call for an investigation of the firing of Monegan is a waste of time and money. What she did was legal and was her right. What can the result of the investigation be? Nothing.


2. Pressuring the Commissioner to fire someone for personal reasons.

On this the facts are in dispute. We don't know exactly what happened and the players disagree. In a previous post on whether it was ok for legislators to get discounts from the Baranof Hotel during the special session. I raised two key ethical problems for public officials - undue gain and improper influence. Improper influence occurs when someone takes criteria into consideration that are outside the normal process for making a consideration. The Department of Public Safety has a union contract with its troopers that spells out the steps for terminating a trooper.

When it becomes necessary for the Employer to initiate disciplinary actions against any member for just cause, such actions shall be administered in a fair and impartial
manner, with due regard for the circumstances of the individual case. (p. 19)

If attempts were made to cause the Governor's ex-brother-in-law to be terminated that were outside of this process, then we could be getting into improper influence issues.

Undue gain happens when someone gets, through use of their position, something that they are not qualified to get. In many ethics laws, this usually means something of value was exchanged. Doing harm to an enemy fits into this, certainly in the public's mind.

But let's look at some of the possibilities:

• What can a sitting governor say or not say to her commissioners?
  
• If a Governor hears of a wrong doing by a state trooper that was not a relation, would anyone complain if she mentioned it to the Commissioner and asked that he look into it? I think not.
• If the Governor herself feels harassed or sees questionable behavior by a trooper and mentions this to the Commissioner, would that be a problem? Again, I think not.
  Both of these situations would involve the Commissioner, rather than the Governor reporting to the individual trooper's supervisor. But we expect the Commissioner to be aware of what is happening in the organization and he could pass the tip on to the supervisor.
  
• If a member of the Governor's family is a trooper and the Governor has issues with his behavior, can she mention it to the Commissioner? She could be accused of covering it up if she didn't.
  
• And finally, the case at hand, if the ex-husband of the Governor's sister is a trooper and the Governor thinks his behavior raises questions about his fitness as a trooper, can she mention this to the Commissioner?
  

It is clear, that if the Governor lied to get the trooper fired from his job hoping this would jeopardize her ex-brother-in-law's custody of her sister's children, that this would be a problem. But, if she really believed that he was unfit to be a trooper because of behavior she witnessed or heard about, is telling the Commissioner about it improper influence? In the context of what is done all the time, I would say no. In terms of a perfect world where no one ever was in a gray area, it would be a problem. One also has to wonder why someone would want to jeopardize child support payments by getting him fired. But it does appear that the Heath family thought this trooper was not fit to be a trooper.

But we don't know the facts - whether her concern about his fitness was genuine or whether this was an emotional reaction against the man who she perceives as doing her sister wrong. And from what we're learning about the trooper, he's no gem either.

• Is the Governor responsible for what her relatives say to the Commissioner?
  
• If she told them to go tell him and this can be proven, then yes.
• If she said something like, "Do what you want, but don't involve me" probably yes.
• If she said , "Don't do it," but they did it anyway, probably no.
• Is the Governor responsible for what her subordinates say to the Commissioner?
• If they say it on her behalf, at her behest? Yes.
• If they say it without telling her and she notifies the Commissioner as soon as she finds out, I think not.
• What does pressure mean?
• The Governor says she never pressured the Commissioner. The Commissioner says she did. "Pressure" I would argue here is in the eye of the beholder. But like all things, the word "pressure" means different things to different people. There's probably a continuum from "offhand comment" to "threaten with a gun". I suspect that the Governor and the Commissioner would mark the spot where 'pressure' sits on that continuum in different places. She may think she just mentioned it to him. He may think that when the Governor mentions something, it is always more than idle chit chat.
  
• Again, we don't know what she said. If we had a tape, we could play it and let people vote whether it fits their idea of pressure. We know she didn't say anything like, "You fire that guy or else" or anything even remotely close to that. If she had, then Monegan wouldn't have been so surprised when he was fired.
  

• What might be the outcome of an investigation?
  
• The investigators find clear proof that the Governor used her position to pressure Monegan to fire the brother-in-law.
• They don't find clear proof.
  

• If they find clear proof, what can they do?
• This hardly seems something that we would impeach a Governor over, especially when her popularity ratings are much higher than the legislators' ratings. If Bush can authorize torture, manufacture excuses to get into Iraq, and on and on without there being impeachment proceedings, then this option is going nowhere.
  
• There could be a vote of censure
• They could end up doing nothing
  

• Who wins and who loses here?
• Winners
• people who don't like the governor - they get the satisfaction of seeing her embarrassed and her golden glow tarnished a bit
• people who might benefit from the Governor being weakened
• The Oil Producers - AGIA passed last night in the House, but as John Coghill said when urging people to vote for the bill, there are no winners yet, we're just a little closer and we have a little more information. There is still a lot of negotiation to do. This still has the Senate vote and a weaker Governor can't negotiate as hard
• Sean Parnell's political opponents - He's been closely linked to Palin. If damage to her rubs off on him, then that helps Don Young in the primary. If Parnell beats Young in the primary, it helps Berkowitz or Benson, whoever wins the Democratic nomination. If this causes Parnell to lose to Young, this would also help the Democrats who believe they have a better chance against Young than Parnell.
  
• the legislature - they've been unable to stand up against Palin's popularity; if that lessens, then they gain
• Who loses?
• The Governor
• The Lt. Gov and US house candidate Sean Parnell
• The people of Alaska
• The time and money spent on this by whoever investigates
• The spiritual loss when people find out she's not superwoman
• The National Republican Party as they watch what they've billed as a rising political star
  

I'm sure others can add more people I've forgotten


Ultimately, as I think the chess pieces several moves ahead to see where this might go, I see much ado about nothing. This wouldn't have been a blip on the Alaska political scene five years ago, but then neither was buying votes outright. But unless there's evidence she strong armed Monegan, it is highly unlikely anything will come from this investigation beyond "he said, she said." In the end I think it will be the difference between their interpretations of "pressure."

This did not cause the Governor to lose the AGIA vote, but the timing of this was terrible. Her opposition didn't make up this issue just before the AGIA vote. She created it by firing Monegan. If she thought she'd done anything wrong, surely she would have waited until after the AGIA vote to fire him . But given we've seen several politicians sent to prison for things they think were ok, that isn't a foolproof argument either. Or maybe she's lived in such a positive publicity bubble for so long that she thinks she can't do wrong.

Part of me would like to see the ethical bar raised a little further. So an investigation would cause people to think more carefully about all their conversations. Another part of me thinks that we have to let governors and legislators have a sense of freedom of thought and speech that doesn't cause them to say nothing for fear of violating something.

One way out of this would be for the Governor to acknowledge that ex parte communications with a Commissioner for personal family gain is totally inappropriate and that she knows that and wouldn't do that. However, she has come to realize from this whole discussion that as Governor, perhaps people weigh her words much more heavily than they did when she was just Sarah Palin from Wasilla. So, what she thought was merely casual communication may have been interpreted as pressure by the Commissioner.

Now, let's get back to work solving the trooper shortage, alcohol problems, finding more and diverse energy sources, and on and on.