And then there is Sarah Palin

The Gist:

The people she so righteously decries for making 'blatant attempts. . .to destroy Stevens' were from the Bush Justice Department. Those who made sure his rights were "well-guarded" and dismissed the charges were from the Obama Justice Department.

The Whole Post:

(Thursday, April 2, 2009, 8 am Thai time) I knew something was up when I started seeing hits for Mary Beth Kepner again. Then someone left a comment on my Does Race Matter? post saying that the charges against Ted Stevens had been dropped. Although it was April 1, that isn't the kind of thing you make an April Fool's joke about. But I couldn't find much detail on the story before I went to bed and decided to try to digest this before posting anything. I have had attorneys tell me that the prosecution team had been totally out of line and the case should be dismissed, so I wasn't completely surprised. But still it was a stunner.

Now, though, as I look through the comments by various players and observers posted in the Anchorage Daily News (ADN) this morning, I'm disturbed (my regular readers know I tend to understate things) by the comments of our Governor. All the other comments in the story address the legal and personal aspects a in a more-or-less objective and muted tone.

At the most neutral tone we have the attorney general's words:

“In connection with the post-trial litigation in United States v. Theodore F. Stevens, the Department of Justice has conducted a review of the case, including an examination of the extent of the disclosures provided to the defendant. After careful review, I have concluded that certain information should have been provided to the defense for use at trial.

Ted Stevens' comments are also focused on the facts with little emotional elaboration and give credit where credit is due.

I am grateful that the new team of responsible prosecutors at the Department of Justice has acknowledged that I did not receive a fair trial and has dismissed all the charges against me. I am also grateful that Judge Emmet G. Sullivan made rulings that facilitated the exposure of the government’s misconduct during the last two years. I always knew that there would be a day when the cloud that surrounded me would be removed. That day has finally come.

The defense attorney's statement discusses the points of the dismissal, then gives effusive credit before slipping into a bit of editorial language.

Attorney General Eric Holder, too, should be commended. He is a pillar of integrity in the legal community, and his actions today prove it. Moreover, he has demonstrated the kind of leadership that we defense lawyers seek and that the Department of Justice desperately needs. Ineffective leadership permits this type of prosecutorial misconduct to flourish.

This case is a sad story and a warning to everyone. Any citizen can be convicted if prosecutors are hell-bent on ignoring the Constitution and willing to present false
evidence.

And then there is Sarah Palin. She adopts the language, tone, and emptiness of a talk show host. Does she realize what she's saying?

Senator Stevens deserves to be very happy today. What a horrible thing he has endured. The blatant attempts by adversaries to destroy one’s reputation, career and finances are an abuse of our well-guarded process and violate our God-given rights afforded in the Constitution. It is a frightening thing to contemplate what we may be witnessing here – the undermining of the political process through unscrupulous ploys and professional misconduct. Senator Stevens and I had lunch together recently at my home and he reiterated the faith he held for vindication; he never gave up hope. It is unfortunate that, as a result of the questionable proceedings which led to Senator Stevens’ conviction days before the election, Alaskans lost an esteemed statesman on Capitol Hill. His presence is missed.

I'm sure there are people for whom the governor's statement hits just the right tone. But unlike Stevens and the Defense Attorney, she leaves out any credit for justice being done. But does she even realize who those adversaries were?

The people she so righteously decries for making 'blatant attempts. . .to destroy Stevens' were from the Bush Justice Department. Those who made sure his rights were "well-guarded" and dismissed the charges were from the Obama Justice Department.


Can you imagine any of George Bush's attorneys general taking similar action for a prominent Democrat? Or a McCain/Palin attorney general? If the Obama administration had the same sort of mind set that Palin displays here, this decision never would have been made.

All that said, given how the professionalism of the prosecution changed so radically when they moved to DC, I still have to wonder whether someone in that Bush Justice Department did things intentionally to get this trial thrown out.

[Update: See Cliff Groh's interpretation on all this. He was at the trial of Stevens.]

Elephants - Part 1

[Thursday, April 2, 2009 12:30am Thai Time]
The bus to Lampang (about 90 km south of Chiang Mai) dropped us off in front of the Thai Elephant Conservation Center and we called JP who told us to get our tickets and ride the shuttle up to the showgrounds. Here's another site that has videos of Center.



On the way up we saw this board next to information on getting a day of Mahout training.

The show focused more on skills the elephants had that made them so important for getting timber from the forest to the roads. But most such work is no longer available in Thailand because the government has programs to protect teak forests.

The show also included a non-traditional Thai elephant activity - painting.

Here are the three paintings we saw the elephants paint.

Apparently, elephants have very good control with their trunks and can do this sort of painting, but these representational paintings are done with close supervision from the mahouts. But when painting on their own, the elephants do much more abstract work than this. But the Center sells the paintings so this is a form of fundraiser.


After the show, people got to feed the elephants. A bunch of little bananas was 20 Baht ($.60). Most of the other visitors were Thai, though there were a a few other foreigners.



JP is a doctoral student doing his dissertation research here at the center. We met him last year and finally got a chance to go out and visit him in the center. His research is very interesting but I was sworn to silence until his work is published. But an earlier paper he published as a masters student on how elephants recognize themselves in mirrors. Here's the abstract:

Considered an indicator of self-awareness, mirror self-recognition (MSR) has long seemed limited to humans and apes. In both phylogeny and human ontogeny, MSR is thought to correlate with higher forms of empathy and altruistic behavior. Apart from humans and apes, dolphins and elephants are also known for such capacities. After the recent discovery of MSR in dolphins (Tursiops truncatus), elephants thus were the next logical candidate species. We exposed three Asian elephants (Elephas maximus) to a large mirror to investigate their responses. Animals that possess MSR typically progress through four stages of behavior when facing a mirror: (i) social responses, (ii) physical inspection (e.g., looking behind the mirror), (iii) repetitive mirror-testing behavior, and (iv) realization of seeing themselves. Visible marks and invisible sham-marks were applied to the elephants' heads to test whether they would pass the litmus “mark test” for MSR in which an individual spontaneously uses a mirror to touch an otherwise imperceptible mark on its own body. Here, we report a successful MSR elephant study and report striking parallels in the progression of responses to mirrors among apes, dolphins, and elephants. These parallels suggest convergent cognitive evolution most likely related to complex sociality and cooperation.

You can read the whole article at the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Chiang Mai Morning Bird Sounds - Mostly Koel

I'm taking the day off today and we're headed to see elephants with JP, who's doing his doctoral research on elephant behavior. But in the meantime, here are some morning bird sounds recorded this morning and yesterday. The scratchy noise in the background are the cicadas. There are other miscellaneous sounds like dogs barking and a couple of motorcycles. Enjoy. Just click on the yellow button with the black arrow.

Chiang Mai Morning Birds - Koel April 1, 2009 by AKRaven

One Week Left

It's Tuesday here in Chiang Mai. We're scheduled to fly out next week on Monday non-stop to Taipei. It was a quick 14.5 hours of airtime getting here from Anchorage in January, including a close connection - they'd already closed the doors on the flight we were catching - in Taipei.

The Anchorage flight (well, it's really the New York flight which stops in Anchorage) leaves before we make it to Taipei, so we get to overnight in Taipei and if all goes well, we'll be back in Anchorage to vote on Tuesday. But there is this Redoubt thing going on. An ADN story talks about Alaska Airlines resuming flights today and mentioned 'other airlines,' but not China Air's plans. Our travel agent says China Air's contingency is Vancouver. So maybe we'll even get to Seattle and have a chance to see our daughter. Or not.

It will all work out and we'll make sure we have a good time whatever happens.

Playing With Mud for a Good Cause

One of my neighbors found my blog and sent me this invitation to help build a meditation space for single mothers. [The picture is from Canvas Art Program Volunteer Blog. ] For people in Chiang Mai - it looks like a good day's fun today, tomorrow, and Thursday.

 THE UNWINDING WALL

**VOLUNTEERS NEEDED**

Build a mud bottle wall! play with mud, recycle, and give to
Wildflower; a single mothers' community. Cultural Canvas Thailand, a
local arts NGO, will be creating a meditation space with single
mothers to provide them with a place of refuge and quiet. So come join
us!

Tuesday 31st of March, Wednesday 1st of April and Thursday 2nd of April
09.00 am- 04.00 pm
Lunch and Transportation Provided

Contact- Amp (Thai) 089-110-8860
Melissa (English) 083 -683 -2065

To learn more about Cultural Canvas Thailand visit
http://www.culturalcanvas.com/canvas_projects.php

For more information about "The Unwinding Wall" see our blog:
http://volunteercct.blogspot.com/

What's the Difference between a Lashkar and a Wazir?

Time to get a little perspective on our internal Alaska problems. This Foreign Affairs article by Nicholas Schmidle was emailed to me by a Pakistani friend, so I assume he's saying to me, "this guy gets it reasonably well." Here's the opening:

After eight years of a White House that often seemed blinkered by the threats posed by Pakistan, the Obama administration seems to grasp the severity of the myriad crises affecting the South Asian state. The media has followed suit and increased its presence and reporting, a trend confirmed by CNN’s decision to set up a bureau in Islamabad last year.

And yet, the uptick in coverage hasn’t necessarily clarified the who’s-doing-what-to-whom confusion in Pakistan. Some commentators continue to confuse the tribal areas with the North-West Frontier Province. And the word lashkars is used to describe all kinds of otherwise cross-purposed groups, some fighting the Taliban, some fighting India, and some fighting Shiites.

I admit, it’s not easy. I lived in Pakistan throughout all of 2006 and 2007 and only came to understand, say, the tribal breakdown in South Waziristan during my final days. So to save you the trouble of having to live in Pakistan for two years to differentiate between the Wazirs and the Mehsuds, the Frontier Corps and the Rangers, I’ve written an “idiot’s guide” that will hopefully clear some things up.


1. The Troubled Tribals
Bring up the Pakistan-Afghanistan border at a Washington cocktail party and you’re sure to impress. Tick off the name of a Taliban leader or two and make a reference to North Waziristan, and you might be on your way to a lucrative lecture tour. The problem, of course, is that no one knows if you’ll be speaking the truth or not. A map of the border region is crammed with the names of agencies, provinces, frontier regions, and districts, which are sometimes flip-flopped and misused. With only an unselfish interest in making you more-impressive cocktail party material (and thus, getting you booked with a lecture agent during these economic hard times), I want to straighten some things out.

To answer the title question you'll have to read the rest at the Foreign Policy link.

He does have more confidence in his ability to understand than I have in mine.

"I lived in Pakistan throughout all of 2006 and 2007 and only came to understand, say, the tribal breakdown in South Waziristan during my final days."

I always find that the more I learn about something, the more I find out how much there is that I still have no clue about. But he certainly knows a lot of details that most of us don't. And the Afghan-Pakistani border is only going to become more and more important in the next couple of years.

Stan Jones on Billy Muldoon

It's 8am on Monday here in Chiang Mai and 5pm yesterday in Anchorage, so I have no idea what people have been writing while I was asleep. But yesterday, the following comment appeared on my post about privacy and bloggers, part of which touched on people's comments about the author of the defunct blog Billy Muldoon.

Anonymous said...

I know to an absolute certainty that Billy Muldoon is Stan Jones, another former Daily News reporter. Billy Muldoon is not Mike Doogan.

Well, I quickly found Stan Jones' website and email address and asked him if he was Billy Muldoon. He replied. But I don't quote private emails without permission, so I went to bed last night without posting. This morning I got an ok. Here's Stan Jones' response to whether he is Billy Muldoon:

Steve:

When Billy Muldoon was still around, I steadfastly refused to discuss in any way anything I might know about his identity, and I suppose I should continue to do so, even though he's gone. So, my lips are still sealed, unfortunately.

Best,

Stan Jones

I'd say he could be running for vice president with a non-denial like that. And for those of you who have had the pleasure of reading Billy Muldoon, well, it brings back fond memories.

Billy's covered his tracks well and I couldn't find any cached copies of his blog to compare with, but I do have this quote from a post I wrote June 2007 when Billy was debunking a bogus George Washington quote that conservatives were citing all over.

If, like Billy [Muldoon, the blogger], you ripped open this morning's ADN to read the latest from Dandy Dan Fagan, you may have thrilled to the righteous thunder of this passage in his opening paragraph:

In 1797, George Washington said it this way; "Government is not reason. It is not eloquence. Government is force; like fire it is a dangerous servant, and a fearful master.

?Hay problema? !Si!

As mentioned previously on the Fires, any time Dan gets within spittin' distance of a testable proposition, he's apt to get it wrong, and this is another such case. It turns out that the Father of Our Country never said no such of a thang! You can read the debunker here at an excellent reality-check site called Bartleby.com

You be the judge, but I think Doogan's off the hook on this part.

Blogging the Big Stuff

Alaskan bloggers spent much of the weekend [It's closing in on Monday morning, March 30, here in Chiang Mai as I write] lamenting that one of their own is no longer anonymous. While I recognize that this was a difficult weekend for that specific blogger, other families in Alaska had family members seriously ill and others even died. But we spent no time on them. I don't mean to belittle the issue which is about, among other things, the right to practice one's free speech rights anonymously. But I think that counterbalancing concerns about secrecy as well and concerns about people anonymously wielding power are legitimate. I also tend to feel (I haven't thought is all through yet) there is a real difference between the anonymity of a blogger whose actions are in the open and the anonymity of political operatives whose actions are both anonymous and secret. While these are important issues, I think we have a yet bigger project.

What concerns me as a human being, is the need for all of us to understand the bigger issues - by that I mean the issues that will have the greatest consequences on our lives and on the world itself. And then to act on that knowledge to make the world a safer, healthier, more just and more free place to live. As newspapers die and as television news turns into partisan propaganda, we have this new technology that allows us to talk to the world. Do we have something worthwhile to say?

A number of my fellow bloggers have been experimenting with how to use this tool positively and I know that many of them are fiercely committed to making the world a better place. And their posts - unpaid and written, mostly, while working full time jobs - have made important contributions to what Alaskans know. But I think we need to envision - and there's been some email chatter about this among bloggers - a less hit and miss way to do this.

There are lots of issues that are extremely complex and difficult to tease out. What really is happening and likely to happen to our economy? How do we make sense of this and translate it into stories that most people can understand? How do we gain trust, not only of the people who think like us, but those who are skeptical of what we believe in?

Wesley Loy at the ADN writes today about a story that Phil at Progressive Alaska has raised several times:

Pollock is the nation's biggest commercial catch by weight, worth well in excess of $1 billion after the white-meated bottom fish are processed.

Depending on how stringent the chinook cap is, the pollock fleet could be forced to pull its huge nets from the water and stop fishing before the normal quota is reached.

According to one major fishing company, that could mean the loss of more than 2 million cheap seafood meals for every thousand tons of foregone pollock catch.

People on the other side of the debate, however, say a tough chinook cap is vital to prevent the fleet from netting salmon on the high seas before they can return to the Yukon and other rivers to spawn and to provide commercial, subsistence and cultural opportunity for villagers.

I've talked about externalities before. It's a concept everyone needs to understand. Externalities are the costs that are not born by the producer of the good. In this case, one of those costs is the loss of Chinook salmon to the Yukon and other rivers and the people who live off those fish. So, these cheap meals are being subsidized by the people of the Yukon and other rivers where those fish would have returned. Not to mention the impact on the ocean food chain of having "billions of pounds of pollock" (not to mention the by-catch) scooped out of the sea. How long can we do that without making the Bering see the waste-land that has occurred in the North Atlantic?

The New York Times reports today that

A Spanish court has taken the first steps toward opening a criminal investigation into allegations that six former high-level Bush administration officials violated international law by providing the legal framework to justify the torture of prisoners at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, an official close to the case said.

Baltasar Garzón, front, in Madrid. He has built an international reputation by bringing cases against human rights violators.

The case, against former Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales and others, was sent to the prosecutor’s office for review by Baltasar Garzón, the crusading investigative judge who ordered the arrest of the former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet. The official said that it was “highly probable” that the case would go forward and that it could lead to arrest warrants.

How do we deal with those who say we should just move on? How is it that we've filled our prisons with casual marijuana users, yet we have people who think politicians and their minions, who, in the eyes of many, have devalued the US Constitution, should just be allowed to get on with their lives? Should the US continue to hold itself up above international justice but insist that others are subject to its judgments?

The Trustees for Alaska has sent a plan to the Governor's office calling for immediate action to protect oil stored in what could be the path of mud slides on Mt. Redoubt. It begins:

[Update: Progressive Alaska has the whole letter up.]

There are lots more issues out there that have great consequence. We need to figure out ways to use the power of these blogs not simply to call people to task, but to help our readers understand the really complex issues we face, and to point to options that could make a positive difference. That means tapping into those who understand the issues and finding ways to empower normal folks to elect ethical, competent, and committed representatives who can work with others to resolve problems.

We have to establish forums that people of different perspectives trust.

I'm not sure how we do this. Logic tells me that we have to divide up the issues and gain individual expertise in various issues and/or tap into people whose lives are spent in these areas and making sense of what they tell us.

And Alaskan bloggers are doing some of this. The oil spill letter above, I got from fellow blogger Phil Munger at Progressive Alaska. Erick at Think Alaska, has been getting out information about candidates. Celtic Diva, Mudflats, Andrew Halcro, Shannyn Moore, the Immoral Minority, and many others regularly get important information out.

If we want to speak to more than those who already agree with us, we have to pull back on the snark, and praise what's praiseworthy and protest what's not regardless of political affiliation. (OK, I know you can now all point to a Democrat on the firing line.)

But we also need broad generalists who can tie together the linkages across the issues.

This is not to say that everyone needs to get on this path. We each have to do what we do best. But we do need a way to take on the big issues in a more organized way and establish respected forums that people trust and turn to when they want to understand those issues.

I'm not sure how we get there, I just know that enough of us need to go in that direction so that more and more people are conversant with the issues we face at more than a superficial level. The random serendipity of many different bloggers has a certain appeal too and google lets us find it. But I think in addition, some more organized approach would be useful. Not to replace, but to supplement what is already there.

OK, I know I have to lighten up a bit.

The Right to Privacy - Bloggers and Privacy

The US Constitution does not explicitly protect people's right to privacy by name. The Bill of Rights (the first ten Amendments to the US Constitution) include some specific cases where privacy (without using that word) is to be protected:

Amendment III

No soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law.

Amendment IV

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

Amendment V

No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a grand jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the militia, when in actual service in time of war or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.

And some people point to the Ninth Amendment as a place where privacy is protected:

Amendment IX

The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

It wasn't until the Privacy Act was passed in 1974 that Americans had a specific law that addressed privacy, though it was limited to information the federal government collected and kept about individual citizens. (There were previous laws that gave some privacy protection in certain areas like the Fair Credit Reporting Act. The Freedom of Information Act, passed in 1966 mentioned personal privacy as one of the reasons that might prevent release of information. But that was not spelled out until the Privacy Act eight years later.)

However, the Alaska Constitution begins with a list of rights and number 22 explicitly addresses privacy.

§ 22. Right of Privacy

The right of the people to privacy is recognized and shall not be infringed. The legislature shall implement this section. [Amended 1972]

The Constitution isn't too specific about what this means, though the Alaska Supreme Court has interpreted it to protect, among other thnings, people who smoke marijuana, who choose to have abortions, and to protect people from forced psychiatric medication.


I note here that the language says, "The legislature shall implement this section." I'm guessing that means the legislature is to spell out what specifically the right of privacy means. I'm guessing that it doesn't mean that members of the legislature should be revealing the names of individual citizens who choose to express their opinions anonymously for whatever reason.


However, on further googling, I discovered this ruling by then Commissioner of Revenue Darryl Rexwinkel.*

The privacy provision of the Alaska Constitution3 has consistently been interpreted as a "state law" exception to the public records law. See AS 09.25.120(4). These privacy protections have been construed by the Alaska Supreme Court to include protecting information that is sensitive and confidential and "which a person desires to keep private and which, if disseminated, would tend to cause substantial concern, anxiety, or embarrassment to a reasonable person." Falcon v. Alaska Pub. Offices Comm'n, 570 P.2d 469, 479 (Alaska 1977) (quoting 3 Hasting Const. L. Q. 249 (1976)).

In 1990, the legislature passed laws directing the state to provide special notice when requiring a person to supply personal information so that the person may, among other things, challenge the accuracy or completeness of the information. Chapter 200, SLA 1990. As a part of this Act, the legislature adopted a definition of "personal information." Sec. 15, ch. 200, SLA 1990. This definition specifically excludes a person's name and address. AS 44.99.350(2).4

Although we don't know whether the legislature was explicitly interpreting, or implementing, the constitutional right to privacy when it adopted AS 44.99.350,5 this definition3 Alaska Constitution, article I, section 22, provides that "[t]he right of the people to privacy is recognized and shall not be infringed. The legislature shall implement this section."4 AS 44.99.350(2) (enacted as AS 44.99.040 and renumbered in 1990) reads:

personal information means information that can be used to identify a person and from which judgments can be made about a person's character, habits, avocations, finances, occupation, general reputation, credit, health, or other personal characteristics but does not include a person's name, address, or telephone number, if the number is published in a current telephone directory, or information describing a public job held by a person. (Emphasis added.) 5

Although it is clear that a legislative enactment cannot abrogate constitutional guarantees, the privacy section of the


Hon. Darrel Rexwinkel, Commissioner April 1, 1992
Department of Revenue Page 3
663-92-0163



of "personal information" is an implicit statement by the legislature that it does not consider a person's name or address to be protected by the right to privacy. On this basis, we conclude that a person's name and address are subject to disclosure under AS 09.25.110 and 09.25.120. We thus overrule the advice contained in our memorandum of advice dated July 15, 1987, and now advise you that the department must provide the names and addresses of PFD applicants to any member of the public who requests the information and pays the required fees.

[* For those of you wondering what happened to Rexwinkel, I found this from the Nevada Department of Corrections dated Jan. 22, 2002:

Darrel Rexwinkel, appointed as Assistant Director of Support Services, has more than 36 years’ experience in fiscal management. Mr. Rexwinkel is a Certified Public Accountant who has served as the Director of the Department of Revenue for the State of Alaska, as well as the Chief Fiscal Officer for the Municipality of Anchorage, and has been employed by the State of Nevada since 1996. His fiscal experience includes governmental entities as well as corporate enterprises.]

So, some of you are probably scratching your heads and saying, "What is this all about?"

Well, probably the most well-known and read anonymous Alaskan blogger's identity was sent out by State Rep. Mike Doogan in an email to his constituents yesterday (not exactly sure what day it was with the time difference and all). You can read about it at any of a number of Alaska blogs - at Mudflats itself or Immoral Minority (which has links to more sites.)

Judging from the comments at Mudflats, many of her readers are still in the second stage of grief - anger - and it's too early to have a rational discussion of the pros and cons of anonymous blogging. (See the many negative reactions to Bob Poe's post on Mudflats.) One has to wonder about the toll living in Juneau is taking on Mike Doogan's mental health for him to out her, through a legislative email to constituents no less. I wonder what the woman who lets him live with her thinks.

But on the other hand, a blogger who has gets hundreds of thousands of hits a day is no longer "just me" although I understand that our own personal conceptions of ourselves change slowly. After all, my self conception got stuck at age 22 while my body kept getting older. But when you have as many readers as Mudflats and you write about politics you become a political force whether you acknowledge it or not. In some ways, Mudflats embodies for many, a more intelligent and capable version of the persona that Sarah Palin wanted to portray - "I'm just an ordinary Alaska woman." And just as Sarah got sucked into a vortex far more powerful than she might have expected, Mudflats followed her into that vortex.

Along with power comes pressure for transparency. At least in democracies. Mudflat appears to be the real thing - exactly as projected on her blog. But what if she were, hypothetically, being paid by, say, Outside 'interests'? Wouldn't we want to know that? Wouldn't we have a right to know? (Fortunately, my readership is modest and I run little danger of people writing that I said she was controlled by outside interests.)

I know that liberals have spent a lot of time and money trying require that people making political contributions over $100 are identified so that we can see where the money is coming from. We do this knowing that public exposure increases the likelihood that people will think about what they are doing and that voters will have a sense of who is supporting which candidates. And those who listened in on the three political corruption trials in Alaska know that Bill Allen was well aware of the contribution laws and the need for disclosure and it affected his behavior. (He sometimes used it as an excuse not to contribute, more often to find roundabout ways to contribute without being exposed.)

As Mudflats points out in her very clearheaded post,

I choose to remain anonymous. I didn’t tell anyone why. I might be a state employee. I might not want my children to get grief at school. I might be fleeing from an ex-partner who was abusive and would rather he not know where I am. My family might not want to talk to me anymore. I might alienate my best friend. Maybe I don’t feel like having a brick thrown through my window. My spouse might work for the Palin administration. Maybe I’d just rather people not know where I live or where I work. Or none of those things may be true. None of my readers, nor Mike Doogan had any idea what my personal circumstances might be.

Just as gay people should be allowed to come out on their own terms, so should anonymous bloggers. But when gay legislators cover their sexual orientation behind an anti-gay facade, many gay activists feel justified in exposing them. But Mudflats was totally open about her generic identity, there was no hypocrisy.

And we have plenty of models of anonymous heroes. Some of Mudflats' commenters have pointed to the writers of the Federalist Papers and to Ben Franklin writing under the cover of pseudonyms, and to Superman's secret identity. Let's not forget the Lone Ranger and Zorro. There's no shame in being an anonymous hero.

But heroes are in the eye of the beholder. Mudflats was no hero to the Palin Administration. She had considerable power to attract attention to things the Palin team would rather not be spotlighted. And Doogan seems to have a lot of problems with how the 'rules' of journalism he got at school are morphing in the internet age.

When I started this blog I chose to be cagey about identifying myself. I wasn't trying to hide, but I wanted readers to read the posts without judging my words through the filters of the labels I would have to use to describe myself. Readers who read enough of my blog would figure out a lot about who I was. And I didn't hide my identity from others outside the blog. I did feel a bit violated the first time someone mentioned my name with a link to the blog, so I get a sense of Mudflat's reaction. But part of me also acknowledged I had to take responsibility for what I wrote. But I also think that a male's sense of vulnerability is different from a female's. (We males only think we're less vulnerable, females know that everyone is vulnerable.)

I would also dispute Doogan's claim that being anonymous isn't being accountable. I guess in part that depends on what "accountable" means to him. Technically legislators are accountable at election time, but in many ways they are hidden from public view so they really aren't all that accountable. But bloggers are accountable to their readers - if they have any (and if they don't none of this matters) - who will immediately post comments to challenge what they disagree with. And other bloggers will call them out as well.

Mudflats didn't choose to become a blogger celebrity overnight, but it happened. She isn't 'just me' to the politicians whom she covers. But they are free to post their responses on her blog. That's what freedom of speech is all about.

There's lots to mull over here. As with most issues it isn't just either/or. There are conditions in which being anonymous might be appropriate and where being transparent might be appropriate. And even if we make a general checklist, it will always be a judgment call in the gray areas.

What's clear in my mind is that Doogan's lost touch. I can find no justification for his action. As a State Legislator he has duty to uphold the Constitution, and that includes Article I, Section 22. The State Constitution protects individual privacy. I can't find anything in the Federal Constitution that makes free speech contingent on identifying the speaker.

One last thought. A commenter on Progressive Alaska said that Mike Doogan was the anonymous blogger at Billy Muldoon, a blog I linked to early on before it closed shop. If that's true (and there is no confirmation on this,) how would that square with his strong stand against anonymous blogging? And wouldn't he at least understand that someone might want to blog anonymously? If you go to Billy Muldoon now, you get this:

This blog is open to invited readers only

http://tribalfires.blogspot.com/

[Update: Sunday, March 29, 2009, 11am Thai Time: Dawn Teo writes at Huffington Post that:

Many locals believe that Doogan is secretly the identity behind former local blogger Billy Muldoon, but Doogan has categorically denied any connection to Muldoon.

There were no links to the denials and I couldn't find them through google.]

Saturday Morning - Catching Up

[Saturday morning, March 27, 11am Thai time] My impending departure seems to be sinking in at the office. "But you just got here." Our housesitter emailed "You are welcome to stay where you are for a few years if you like. We'll keep an eye on things.." Yesterday we had our most serious meeting about the website. I had made some mock up pages and so with the printouts in hand, plus my mockups projected on the whiteboard, we got through a lot of stuff. It won't be done before I leave, but it's getting closer.

The air has been much cleaner this week. You can see the mountains. We've had attempted thunderstorms several times - gusts of wind jump up like sleeping cats briefly batting at flies then die down, clouds appear in the sky, there's a flash or two of lightening and distant rumbling of thunder. A couple of times it actually rained hard, but mostly just some scattered drops or nothing at all.




The picture on the left was yesterday. You can actually see that the sky has a suggestion of blue in it compared to the picture on the right from a couple of months ago. And you could actually see things on the mountainside, not simply the faded silhouette in the picture on the right. You can also see this teak tree had a lot more leaves then.

Firefox 3.07 as soon as I had loaded it about two weeks ago had seriously slowed down my internet access, so this morning when 3.08 asked to be downloaded, I immediately said yes and things are moving much faster.

But I'm moving much slower. Somehow I've done something to my right ankle and walking is a less than easy, but I'm determined that we're not going to spend our Saturday inside. We only have one more Saturday after today before we head home. Tonight is Ann-Marie's good bye party. She was a volunteer at my office for two years and had been away a while when we came last year. She's been working at Chiang Mai University and is headed for a job in Paris.


Several days ago I noticed a stack of king-sized mattresses in the laundry room. I immediately asked if we could have one. Even when you put two twins together, there's inevitably a crack that interferes with marital harmony. And the next day our two twins were bridged by our new superhard (I always liked the mattresses in Asia because they are so hard, but had never seen it so clearly stated. I bet there'd be a market for harder mattresses like these in the US. The line above LADY is clear in my photo and if you double click on it.)





I'm looking around at miscellaneous photos that never got up. Here's Matt standing next to a tiny little red Rover about two weeks ago.









Here's a building they've been working on while we've been here. It's just before I get to work on my bike in the morning. The first picture was March 3 (thanks to digital cameras that keep track of the date) and the second one was March 25.



And here's the mural across the street that I pass as I pull out of our building's little parking lot every morning.








And here's an artist who was sitting at the table outside my office one evening as I was leaving for home. This wasn't any parricular village, but a mix of features from a number of villages.