Computer Art and Design

I've mentioned obliquely that I'm taking a class at UAA this semester. It's a computer art class taught by Mariano Gonzales. Actually, I've taken this class ten or 11 years ago, but the technology was somewhat different then. The shock then after the first day was that, "Oh dear, all the other students are artists." But I managed to survive.

So far, we're slowly playing (literally, we are supposed to be playing and experimenting) with basic tools in Photoshop and Painter. So, midterm time is next week and Prof. G talked about the exam on Monday. We will have a set of steps in which we will do certain things and play with certain tools. Prof. G gave us a demonstration, though he didn't precisely tell us the steps - he'll do that today. Basically, he started with one square. Duplicated the square and made it a different color. Then through grouping and copying and pasting, developed a checker board. Then distorted it, used the perspective tool. Added a sky. Then used the oval tool to make an egg, and then on and on. Here are some pictures of the transformation.









I didn't have much time Monday after this demonstration, because I was going to the funeral. But I did start my own version of what I thought were the steps. I, of course, have to be different so I made ovals instead of squares. Then stacked them up. I realized as I was shutting down the computer that I should have made two different colored ovals. Oh well, we'll get the precise steps today and see what students did with this in the past today.

Obama Wins Debate in First Five Minutes

The debate isn't even ten minutes old, but for me Obama won this debate when he said his choice for Treasury Secretary is Warren Buffet. He did say there were other qualified people, but that Buffet was one of his advisers and a great choice.

The economy is the biggest problem as we go into the election. I can't think of anyone who is more respected in this country in the area of business and investing than Warren Buffet.

OK, I know there's still about 75 minutes left in this debate.

Morris Ellis - Farewell after 100 Years

I had a post at the beginning of the year on famous people born in 1908. I could only confirm one who was still alive - Claude Levy Strauss. But there was a man here in Anchorage who was born September 9, 1908 who was at least famous in his family - with his children, grandchildren, great grandchildren, and great great grandchildren.

Morris Ellis died Saturday October 4, 2008. Yesterday was his funeral. I'd only met him once or twice, but his son and daughter-in-law are people I feel very close to. At the funeral I learned about this family patriarch from his sons, and grandchildren.

1908. Four years after the Wright Brothers flew their plane at Kitty Hawk. Mr. Ellis worked for the US Post Office after leaving school in the 8th grade. Here's a picture of him with his Post Office delivery truck.



Later, he joined the navy and worked in Algeria - at a Naval Postal facility - during WW I. He moved his family from New York to Los Angeles after enjoying the weather in Algeria.

Eventually he came to Alaska about ten years ago with his wife at the invitation of his children and grandchildren.

A life ends. A rich, long life. Celebrated by a large and loving family.

Democrats Have Developed Anti-Swift Boat Attack Weapons System

Sarah Palin and others have been talking about Obama's supposed close friendship with Bill Ayers, who back in the 60's was a member of the Weather Underground involved in anti-war bombings.

She doesn't mention that Ayers was never convicted of anything and is now a distinguished professor of education at the University of Illinois - Chicago. The Washington Post Fact Checker looks at the whole story if you want more on this. As many have pointed out, Obama was eight years old when Ayers was in the Underground.

This sort of sniping from the Republicans - piecing together the flimsiest facts and blowing them up into a completely new and blatantly false, out of context, accusation - has a long history in US presidential campaigns, from Willie Horton, to Swift Boat, and to stuff like this.

What's new, is that the Democrats seem to have been ready for this and in response have released a very slick - music, shots, story - video about McCain's involvement in the Keating Five affair.




We'll see how the facts of this video play out, but the narrator was a banking regulator who was intimately involved in the trying to regulate Lincoln Savings. He's now a professor at the University of Kansas and the author of at least two books on this subject. Here are book reviews the University of Missouri Kansas City Law School Web Page on Black cites:

His book, The Best Way to Rob a Bank is to Own One (University of Texas Press 2005) has been called “a classic” by George Akerlof, the Nobel Laureate (Economics, 2001).

More directly related is this:

Robert Kuttner, in his Business Week column, proclaimed:


Black's book is partly the definitive history of the savings-and-loan industry scandals of the early 1980s. More important, it is a general theory of how dishonest CEOs, crony directors, and corrupt middlemen can systematically defeat market discipline and conceal deliberate fraud for a long time -- enough to create massive damage.

Just compare the Palin speech and accusations to the Obama campaign produced video with Professor William Black. You can't help but believe that Black knows a lot more about Keating and McCain than Palin knows about Ayers and Obama. And that Black's motivation seems a lot less self serving than does Palin's.

The real story in my mind, though, is the Obama campaign seems to have developed an anti-swiftboat weapon. Do they have others ready and waiting in case the McCain campaign decides to keep fabricating more stories about Obama?

AARP Alaska Senate and House Debate 1

Tonight at UAA, Ted Stevens and Mark Begich debated videotronically and Don Young and Ethan Berkowitz debated live at the Wendy Williamson Auditorium. KTUU's John Tracy moderated.

I wish the rest of the country could see the debate. It wasn't great. But all the participants knew their subject matter in depth and debaters were civil to each other. The country would see that Alaskans DO NOT talk with a Beverly Hillbillies twang. They can address the questions they're asked knowledgeably.




The Stevens/Begich debate was a little peculiar since Stevens was in DC and so both candidates had been interviewed earlier and we watched that hour on a large screen. Both John Tracy (the moderator) and Mark Begich were in the Auditorium watching themselves on screen.

Stevens showed his age as he frequently stuttered getting the right word out. But his cognitive processes were intact. He knew exactly what he wanted to say, and while he stumbled getting the words out now and then, this is still a minor issue. He talks as though he's had three or four cups of coffee - fast and urgently. You have no doubt that he has a grasp of a lot of information and that you get in his way at your peril. Mark Begich matched him, but without the stutter, and without the coffee effect. He spoke calmly and much slower.




Don Young belied his reputation for malapropisms and spoke clearly, on topic, without rancor. He was clearly enjoying himself. Ethan Berkowitz had a moment of where he couldn't remember his next point early on and then he abandoned his notes and spoke passionately and knowledgeably the rest of the evening. He needs to loosen up a bit, though his wit came through a couple of times. At one point, when he paused, Tracy moved on to Don Young. Ethan said he wasn't finished. Tracy said,"Well, you paused so..." Ethan responded, "I paused...for effect" and the audience burst out laughing.


The topics I can recall (sorry, I wasn't taking notes) included the economic crisis, health care, earmarks, social security, energy, and whether the candidates endorsed Sarah Palin. The last was particularly significant because, Tracy pointed out in his questions, she hasn't endorsed fellow Republicans Young and Stevens. They both said they endorsed her, though in roundabout ways. The legal problems of the two Republican candidates were not raised.

There was a significant amount of agreement between both pairs of candidates - they all would open ANWR, and none would abandon getting earmarked projects for Alaska. Differnces were in things like who to blame the economic crisis on (the Republicans blamed Clinton for the bill that deregulated financial institutions, the Democrats blamed eight years of Bush.)

Sunday Pictures

Just a few pictures from today. Here's M at the Middle Way Cafe after we checked out the REI sale. I got a new bike lock.

















Then, driving down Minnesota, the sky got darker and darker. This is Westchester Lake on the East side of Minnesota.












Later we met friends at Thai Kitchen. Here Dad helps I out a bit.








And to add to my collection of pictures of the view from the Thai Kitchen parking lot - the snow was over and mostly gone here, but it had come way down on the mountains since our hike the other day.

First Snow

[Update later October 5:

Earliest Date of First Measurable Snowfall
September 20, 1947


Latest Date of First Measurable Snowfall
November 11, 1950
November 11, 1944

Here's the website for all the Anchorage weather records]

State Employees to Testify in Legislative Investigation

Thanks for the heads up from Dennis Zaki:

Attorney General Talis J. Colberg Releases Statement on Status of Subpoenaed Employees in Legislative Investigation

For Immediate Release:

October 5, 2008

( Anchorage , AK ) Alaska Attorney General Colberg announced today that the seven state employees who filed suit to quash the Senate Judiciary Committee subpoenas will make themselves available to testify in the legislative investigation.

The Senate Judiciary Committee issued the subpoenas for the benefit of Stephen Branchflower, who is conducting an investigation for the Legislative Council of events surrounding the removal of former Public Safety Commissioner Monegan. The Department of Law challenged the authority of that committee to subpoena the state employees in a lawsuit filed on September 25, 2008, Kiesel et al. v. Seven Subpoenas et al. In a decision dated October 2, Superior Court Judge Peter Michalski determined that those concerns were more properly considered by the legislature than by the courts. The Department of Law then consulted with the seven state employees and advised them of their options.

All seven employees have decided, in light of Judge Michalski’s decision, to cooperate with the legislative investigation. Attorney General Colberg said today, “Despite my initial concerns about the subpoenas, we respect the court’s decision to defer to the legislature. We are working with Senator Hollis French to arrange for the testimony of the seven state employee plaintiffs.”

# # #

Sharon Leighow

Deputy Press Secretary

Deputy Communications Director

465-4031 Juneau

269-7450 Anchorage

240-7943 cell

Word of the Day - Newspeak

The Republicans have taken the principles of George Orwell's fictional language in the book 1984 to help win elections since Ronald Reagan and even earlier. Swiftboating John Kerry was probably the low point - taking a war hero, who was running against a draft-dodger and turning his heroism into a lie. That's precisely the sort of thing that Newspeak, Orwell's future language of thought control, was designed for, to turn truth on its head.

From the Newspeak Dictionary:

The purpose of Newspeak was not only to provide a medium of expression for the world-view and mental habits proper to the devotees of IngSoc, but to make all other modes of thought impossible. It was intended that when Newspeak had been adopted once and for all and Oldspeak forgotten, a heretical thought -- that is, a thought diverging from the principles of IngSoc -- should be literally unthinkable, at least so far as thought is dependent on words. Its vocabulary was so constructed as to give exact and often very subtle expression to every meaning that a Party member could properly wish to express, while excluding all other meaning and also the possibility of arriving at them by indirect methods. This was done partly by the invention of new words, but chiefly by eliminating undesirable words and stripping such words as remained of unorthodox meanings, and so far as possible of all secondary meaning whatever.

To give a single example - The word free still existed in Newspeak, but could only be used in such statements as "The dog is free from lice" or "This field is free from weeds." It could not be used in its old sense of "politically free" or "intellectually free," since political and intellectual freedom no longer existed even as concepts, and were therefore of necessity nameless.

The Republicans have taken Madison Avenue marketing techniques and applied them ruthlessly and effectively to presidential politics. Part of their campaign was to take all the words that Democrats used to describe themselves and to turn them into pejoratives. Their biggest achievement was to essentially take away the word liberal as a positive label. Feminists were converted to feminazis. When the Democrats tried to get rid of racist and sexist terms, they were vilified as promoting political correctness. . The Republicans even took to calling the Democratic Party the Democrat Party and linked "tax and spend" to the word Democrat. It became hard to talk about being a Democrat without using words that had been poisoned. I suspect they consciously attempted to use the principles of Newspeak - "making other modes of thought impossible" - to make talking about traditional liberal issues impossible. Sarah Palin tried to do this with the term 'community organizer' when she mocked Obama in her acceptance speech.

On page 4 of the online copy of 1984 Winston sees the Ministry of Truth which has three slogans of the Party painted on it:

WAR IS PEACE
FREEDOM IS SLAVERY
IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH

This was the goal of the Swiftboating campaign. In this election we see it in the stealth campaign that says Obama is a Muslim. If you tell a lie often enough, people believe it.

The Two Minutes of Hate begins on page 10. The Republicans have multiplied this into nearly 24 hours of hate on talk radio and Fox News. The image below comes from books.google.com.

I'd always thought that the fact that Bin Laden was still alive and free somewhere proved the ineffectiveness of the Bush Administration. But after rereading that passage, perhaps they find that Bin Laden far more useful alive, as the icon of evil, just as their mentors in Oceana used Goldstein.

Democrats who believe that truth and rationality are important for all voters are totally missing the boat. Yes, we need to expose all the lies for those who still use reason. But we also have to constantly examine language to be sure it isn't being shaped in ways that limit our ability to think. By talking about and demonstrating the manipulation of language, we can help people see how they are being manipulated.

Lisa Kron's Well - Interesting Play Totally Pulled Me In

We went to a local theater performance recently that got great reviews, but didn't really excite me all that much. It was good, but not THAT good. Which raised questions about what my purpose is here. Basically the purpose is to explore things that expand how I know the world and maybe expand readers' understanding of how they know. But how to apply that isn't always clear. I also consider how what I write might affect others. I'd rather cheer on something good than rag on something that didn't work.

So, if I see a local event - a performance, exhibit etc. - that is good - particularly if it explores how people know things in some way, which good art should do - I clearly want to let others know about it. I want people to go to local venues, give them appreciative audiences, keep them alive financially, so we continue to have access to them.

But what if I don't like it? Should I say so or should I just not write about it? If I think something is damaging I'll take it up if I have time and energy. But what if it is innocuously not very good? Their intent was good, but they just didn't excite me at all? At this point I think I'll just not deal with it. I'm not completely comfortable with that decision, so I'm open to other opinions on this.


Now, the Well. I like to come into a performance with no knowledge of what I'm going to see. Of course, this isn't easy, but my ideal is just to be told by someone I trust, that I should go. I want to discover it as it unfolds, be surprised by having my expectations ambushed.

I basically knew nothing about this play, except that we'd seen Lisa Kron here a couple years ago and that her piece and performance were stunning. That was enough to know.

The Well, which opened last night, experiments with the whole idea of a play - the roles of the actors, the audience, the story. It examines itself, and examines itself examining itself. I suspect that sort of thing could be too cerebral for some people, but I loved it.

The lead character seemed a little stiff at times, but I'm not sure that wasn't the role itself. The audience wasn't totally sure of its role either and that may have affected her opening night performance. Overall, it was a great experience and left us all talking about it. I thought it was much better than the highly praised performance we saw but were not so excited about. The other cast members totally inhabited their roles. So much so that even when they played different characters there was no confusion at all. When it was over I thought it was the intermission, but my watch showed that two hours had passed.

It's at Out North and will be here for a couple of weeks more. You can get tickets for slightly less on line.

About the picture. I normally wouldn't a take picture during live performances unless I have permission. This was at the very beginning. I thought it was before things had started, but now I'm not totally sure.