Good Bye Studs Terkel

I've been pondering how to acknowledge the life of Studs Terkel, who died last week at age 96. I first remember becoming explicitly aware of him when I read the book, Working. As I think about it, he has to be one of the influences on me and some of what I do on this blog - particularly documenting the 'ordinary,' especially 'ordinary' people who I find interesting, but wouldn't normally be featured in the news.

KWMD has played a number of recordings of Terkel interviews all week. NPR has done a few pieces, and "This American Life" today also had some great interviews. So, I'll defer to "On the Media" which did what was, for me, the best succinct overview, and which also has embedable audio. "On the Media's" website says this and then goes to the audio:

The Recording of America
November 07, 2008

Studs Terkel, who died recently at the age of 96, spent the majority of his life documenting the lives of others – very often everyday, working-class people he believed were “uncelebrated and unsung.” From coal miners and sharecroppers to gangsters and prostitutes, every American had a story to tell and Terkel wanted to hear it. Publisher Andre Schiffrin talks about Terkel's singular gift for oral history.

[There's about 45 seconds of intro on the audio, then about 10 minutes of show.]



The episode of This American Life should be available Monday on their site. The Terkel piece is one of several in the show - with some fascinating interviews of people who lived through the depression.
[I've corrected the spelling from Turkel to Terkel. Grrrr. Spelling. Editors do serve a purpose.]

Interesting October Google (and other) Searches

Well, using Google analytics, I've got the last 30 days or so. By far the most popular page was President and Vice President Job Duties with almost 2500 folks going there. It gained renewed interest after Sarah Palin talked about the vice president job duties. It also seemed that a lot of teachers gave assignments on that topic judging from the number of people search vp duties from schools. They got there googling a variety of phrases like:

• "what does the 5 things a vice president of the united states do" Part of me thinks google should have a message that says, "No hits until you fix your grammar." But only if it's coming from a computer using English.
• job without duties (vp) - item without comment

The next highest was Victor Lebow's Complete Original 1955 Article

Some of the unique search terms were:

• "men that are gay having sex whet aman" - That got the person to the Eliot Spitzer post
  
  
• "what do bears know that people don't" - This one got to the posts on wildlife in Anchorage
  
  
• "famous people born on lunar eclipses" - "famous poeple born" get a lot of people to the post on Famous People Born 1908 . Nothing there about eclipses though.
  
  
• "will do what's best for the people in tapping into that position and ushering in an agenda that is supportive with the president?s agenda in that position" - from Paris, on a Spanish language Mac - I hope they weren't learning English using Palin's interviews
  
  
• "what do people look like in alaska" - Pale? What sort of answer was this person expecting?
  
  
• "what part of alaska do moose come from?" - Moose Pass?
  
  
• "how do you pronounce teklanika" - They got a bit about Teklanika, but no help pronouncing it. For the record people say Tek Kla NEE Ka. And while we're at it, the 1989 oil spill was near Val Deez, even though it's spelled Valdez.
  
  
• "anyone ever get in trouble for leaving off a dependent to join the military" - from someone in Oklahoma- is this like the new laws about dropping off kids you can't handle?
  
  
• "teeth been sold out" - got to “Bear Tooth vp debate sold out” - from the UK
  
  
• "mccarthy alaska 4th july videos" - Here's a Google screw up. They got an archive page in July, but not the videos of July 4th in McCarthy
  
  
• "tiberius gracchus and obama" - did someone else really make this association between these two folks, or had they seen the post once and were trying to find it again?
  
  
• "governors appointing themselves us senators" - hmmm, wonder what could have spurred this query? Sarah, any thoughts?

Keeping Busy with Leadership Anchorage While J's in LA

Took J to the airport yesterday. Although cloud covered most of the sky, Denali and Foraker where shimmering crisp and clear under a blue sky and in bright sunlight off in the distance. (The battery in my camera was home charging, so no pictures.) Then to my class. (I'm still working on my photoshop picture and will post it when it's reasonably done.) Then I had dinner with K. Jim at Leadership Anchorage invited me to be K's mentor. I think we hit it off well. Today was the mentor orientation at the school district. There are about 16 [20] participants in this year's Leadership Anchorage class. The other mentors who were there were an impressive group including Arliss Sturgulewski (former Municipal Assembly member, State Senator, and who continues to work hard to support the development of our community and good state policy), Eleanor Andrews (owner of the Andrews group, former Commissioner of Administration for the state, and currently working as head of the Anchorage Urban League), Carol Comeau (Anchorage school superintendent) and Michael Carey (Anchorage Daily News columnist, former editor, radio host, whose expertise on Alaska and Palin was featured widely - BBC, NPR, etc.).

This was a great photo opportunity, but I couldn't find my camera on the way out. I did find it when I got home. Always need to put things back where they belong, not just a convenient vacant spot. So, no pictures. But the participants are a varied group working in a wide variety of places from the Food Bank, to Providence, to Municipal Light and Power, and many other places.

There are no age restrictions for this program that started in 1997. Applications for next year's class can be turned in between May and August 2009. This is something I highly recommend for anyone who's interested in leadership training with a focus on community service. Check the Leadership Anchorage website.

No more eating in the kitchen when company comes

"Hold this Thought" this morning, very appropriately, featured "I, too, sing America" by Langston Hughes. You can hear Vivian Melde read this poem at the "Hold this Thought" link. Thanks, Barbara for this and all the other excerpts you've been giving us to think about everyday.

I, too, sing America.

I am the darker brother.
They send me to eat in the kitchen
When company comes,
But I laugh,
And eat well,
And grow strong.

Tomorrow,
I'll be at the table
When company comes.
Nobody'll dare
Say to me,
'Eat in the kitchen,' Then.
Besides,
They'll see how beautiful I am
And be ashamed--

I, too, am America.

Election Night Video and Some Results

Here's a bit of video to give you a sense of the evening downtown.

[This is a new version with a short clip added of state house candidate Pete Petersen that inadvertently got left out in the original.)


And here's Alaska's disconnect from the rest of the US (for latest results):

Looks Like Alaska is Electorally Keeping its Distance from the Lower 48

The Obama high for Alaskan Democrats is being tempered by the early returns on the US Senate and House races. After sharing Sarah, if we elect a convicted felon (yeah Ted, I use the old fashioned definition of convicted) and a Congressman under serious investigation, while the rest of the country went for Obama, they may let us secede.











We're back home. I was getting pretty tired. The wifi at Egan was slooooooooooooooow. And J leaves for LA tomorrow.

Egan Center and Anchor Bar Full of Happy Voters

Poll Watching on Historic Day

This is an historic night as the United States ends the Bush era in a big way and just as significantly, demonstrates that while racism still exists, it's significance is reduced to the point where a majority of Americans can vote for an African-American candidate. Things haven't been officially called for Obama, but enough key states have gone his way that I can't see how Obama could lose. I'll save other comments on this incredible change in the United States' ability to go beyond race and the potential we know have to regain our status as a country the rest of the world looks up to. Meanwhile I'll tell you about my day as a poll watcher.

I was at the 'staging area' (someone's basement) at 6:40am and at the polling place at 6:50am in time for the starting of voting at 7am. It was dark when I got there and it wasn't clear where the polling place was. This picture on the left I took when I was leaving at 4:30pm and they had put up some signs. Still, it was hard to see. There was also a sign up on the street by the time I left(see bottom picture).

I had several jobs:

1. Keep track of the likely Democratic voters. I had a list of voters who were expected to vote Democratic and my job was to mark them off on three identical lists. The first list was to be picked up at 9:30am, the second one at 1:30pm, and the third one at 4:30pm. The lists, as I understood it, were to be used to call people who hadn't voted yet.

2. Report problems with voting - people turned down, overly long lines, machine problems, etc.

When I got there, about 30 people were in line, waiting for the polls to officially open at 7am. Once that initial crowd got handled, there were never more than four or five in line and most of the time there was no wait. But most of the time things were moving along briskly and the voting booths were busy all day.

The election workers were great. They were very friendly, made things as easy for me as possible, and were on top of any problems before I even knew about them.

No one came to pick up the 9:30am list. Nor did anyone come at 1:30pm, including my replacement. So I stayed. One problem came up with the voting machine about 4pm. Apparently, someone had dropped a ballot on the floor and it picked up a chunk of de-icing salt which got caught in the shute and so the ballots couldn't go in. They started putting them into the side box to be counted after they closed the polls. But Richard who was monitoring the machine was able to get the salt chunk cleared out and voters could put their ballots through the shute again and they could get counted.

The voting at our polling place was running much lower than one might have expected. By the time I left - my replacement came about 4:30pm - only about 25% had voted. (That doesn't count people who had voted early or absentee or had questioned ballots.) Of those who voted, about 40% were on my list which seemed like a good sign. There was no Republican poll watcher.

I'd left a message on our home phone to let J know I was still there and not sure when or if I'd get relieved. She showed up with a bag of goodies about 3:30. Do I have a great wife? And we left at 4:30, when I took the two outdoor pictures. And since we were across the street from the Thai Kitchen and they were about to open, we stopped there for dinner.

Obama Overkill?

"Hello, my name is Steve. I'm part of a crazy horde of Obama supporters and our goal is to call every home in America at least 26 times."

Sometimes when you know how to do something well, there comes a point where doing it no longer pays off. I don't know if the Obama campaign's phone banks are still serving a useful purpose or if they've reached the point of diminishing returns. I spent two and a half hours this afternoon calling people in Las Vegas. I had five or six pages of names - about 20 to a page. Where they got the numbers I have no idea, but they were in numerical order all in area code 702. Most people were not home or the phone was not in order. I left a few messages, talked to a few people. Other people there had been calling Iowa and some were actually calling people in Anchorage. If you got a call, this is what it looked like where I was calling from. I should have brought an earplug for my other ear.



But overall, it didn't feel right.

• I couldn't help but think about all the people being bothered by the phone calls. One caller near me said the people had been leaning for Obama but were so disgusted by the phone calls that they were now voting for McCain. Obviously the point is to make sure Obama supporters vote. But our list was orphan numbers - they didn't know what the people were planning on doing.
• I couldn't help but wonder what the enormous amount of volunteer time might be better used for. Non-profits always need volunteers. Can this organization now be used to redirect the volunteers to some of those organizations or is this just about Obama?

Was my time usefully spent? I know, we're just the foot soldiers who are supposed to do as we're told because we don't understand the big picture. Someone said that McCain couldn't do this using real people. Their calls are all robocalls. I hope that the cumulative effect of all this phoning will actually pick up some Obama voters. The best option would be that they don't matter because the Obama lead will be enough without our effort. But who knows, so we were calling.

The script we had was really stilted and I started modifying once I got the hang of things. Humor did seem to get past the anger. I told some people who complained about the calls that I felt the same way so I decided to get out of the house and make calls so I didn't need to answer any more.

Tomorrow I experience something I haven't experienced for a while - being awake before 6am. I have to get to the polling place where I'll be a poll watcher by 6:45 after picking up my badge and lists at a gathering point.

Slow Cool Run

I haven't run since I got back from the LA-Portland trip. It took a while to adjust from 90˚+ to 20˚ (32˚C to -6˚C) and I found a lot of reasons why I couldn't run. But then I read Theresa's post on her -10˚ (-23˚C)run in Fairbanks and I decided that I couldn't hold out any longer. It may be 70˚ colder than it was in LA, but it's still 30˚ warmer than Fairbanks. So today I took a slow lazy run (3 3/4 miles) in the light snow dust. It feels good now that I'm back. Part of the way I thought about being close to the waves at Venice Beach and that warmed my hands a bit.