Anchorage Bug Gunk Infestation

Aphid honeydew. Gunk. Particularly
under cottonwoods, there are large sticky wet spots.

If you stand under the true for a minute it feels like a very light drizzle. (One reason the close up picture below isn't better. I just couldn't stand under there for long. It wasn't just me, but my camera was getting dripped on.)

Here's a closer look of the sidewalk, gunking up. There are even bubbles.

And here are the culprits. (Double click any picture to enlarge it.) The best option I know (if you don't want to use poisons) is to wash the trees with a heavy spray of water everyday. The ones that are getting are deck sticky get sprayed. The others I leave alone.

Don Mitchell Revises the 'Palin-as-Public-Ethics-Champ' Story

With years as a politically active Alaskan and a week's worth of perspective on Palin's decision to resign, Don Mitchell offers a very plausible explanation the Governor's decision over at Alaska Dispatch.

There's a lot of interesting new story and interpretation here. Did you know that Palin was "reportedly livid" when Gov. Murkowski didn't appoint her to fill his vacant US Semate seat?

In December 2002 when Frank was sworn into office, Alaska's election law allowed Governor Murkowski to appoint Senator Murkowski's replacement. Sarah had enough juice to get on the long list of Republicans Frank interviewed. During her interview she came off as vapid and uninformed. But that's not how Sarah saw it. Several weeks later Frank astounded Alaskans by giving his Senate seat to his daughter, Lisa, who had never been publicly mentioned as a candidate for the seat and who had not been interviewed. Sarah, a 38-year-old former small town mayor who had never won a statewide election, reportedly was livid and reportedly never fully forgave Frank, because in her self-absorption she was certain that she should have been the obvious choice.

But most interesting to me was his rewriting of the story of Sarah Palin, ethicist for the people.

Mitchell talks about how she was appointed as the public member of the Oil and Gas Commission, even though she had no experience at all in oil and gas. He also points out how the position didn't require such expertise at the time, though that has since been changed.

Within weeks of her arrival at the Oil and Gas Conservation Commission Sarah knew she was drowning. That she had no understanding of, and no interest in, the Commission's highly technical work. And not only that, but, like every state employee, she was expected to be at work five mornings a week. To get to the Commission's office in Anchorage required an hour commute from Wasilla that during the winter she had to make by driving in the pitch dark down an icy, moose-strewn highway. [Moose-strewn? A little color for the Outside readers?]

So according to people who knew her at the time, soon after she arrived at the Oil and Gas Conservation Commission Sarah began searching for a face-saving excuse to quit a job she never should have been given.

She picked up on an issue raised by Ethan Burkowitz during the confirmation hearing of another Oil and Gas Commission member - Republican Party Chair Rudy Ruedrich. Berkowitz had asked how a party chair could ethically regulate people he would, as party chair, be asking money from?

For several months thereafter Oil and Gas Conservation Commissioner Palin, who also served as the Commission's ethics officer, had no ethical problem with Randy Ruedrich serving as a Commissioner. But then she suddenly had a huge, and very public, problem when the news leaked that during his workday Ruedrich had been using his office computer to conduct Alaska Republican Party business.

The year previous when she had been a candidate in the Republican primary election for the party's nomination for Lieutenant Governor, Sarah not only had used her computer in the Wasilla mayor's office for campaign purposes, she had used it to communicate about the progress of her campaign with Randy Ruedrich. But now she not only expressed outrage about Ruedrich's ethical lapse, she had the brazen temerity to file an ethics complaint against him. And then in a public fit of professed pique, in January 2004 she quit the Commission because, since the Attorney General's investigation of Ruedrich's violation of the Alaska Ethics Act was ongoing, she was precluded from publicly discussing what she knew about it. As Sarah went out of her way to tell the Anchorage Daily News, the state's largest newspaper: "I'm forced to withhold information from Alaskans, and that goes against what I believe in as a public servant."

There's a lot more in Mitchell's post. I can neither confirm nor dispute Mitchell's factual characterizations. But I think they add a lot more information to the public discussion of who Sarah Palin is. Eventually, with enough accounts, we will be able to sort through them, find which facts seem to stick and which seem to lack substance. Eventually we'll get a clearer picture of the phenomenon of Sarah Palin.

Mitchell's track record as, among other things, the most comprehensive chronicler of the history of the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (and volume 2) gives him more credibility than most.

Jehova[h]'s Witnesses and a Bumper Sticker Get Me Thinking

I was just wearing my running shorts when the doorbell rang. It's warm in Anchorage now. An attractive blond Jehovah Witness with another woman and a young girl were at the door. She read me a passage from her bible and asked if I'd ever worried all the terrible problems on earth? I said no. She said something about the truth of God's word and I should read the bible. I asked if she'd ever read the Koran. She said she has the Truth in the bible. I said that Muslims said the same thing about the Koran. She said she understood that people could get to God through different paths and she was tolerant of that. But, I responded, you claim your bible to be the the only true bible, so you are actually saying the Koran is wrong. She continued smiling nicely - she had really good teeth - and asked if she could leave something with me. So now I have this booklet. She may come back to see if I have further questions.

So here's the cover of the booklet I got.

(I found the Black version of the picture when I went online for the booklet.)


Then, when I went for my run, I passed this bumper sticker. Apparently God gives directions, but doesn't wash cars.



The booklet has a simple progression through an explanation of the future perfect world that is coming and why, if God can give us this perfect world, he didn't do that from the beginning.

In answer to question 1, yes God does care. (You can get all the details yourself online, but it doesn't have all the same pictures. I'll get to that.) After mentioning war and ethnic strife including the Holocaust, it tells us:

Thus, many people cannot understand why a good God would allow bad things to happen. They question whether he really cares about us or whether he exists at all. And many of them feel that suffering will always be a part of human existence. [source] [Note: after putting links to each of the separate webpages for each quote, I realized they were all going back to page 1 of the booklet. You have to click the arrows yourself to move along.]

HOWEVER,

millions of people worldwide have a totally different view. They foresee a marvelous future for mankind. They say that right here on earth there will soon be a world completely free from wickedness and suffering. They are confident that what is bad will soon be cleared away and an entirely new world established. They even say that the foundation of this new world is being laid right now!

These people believe that the new world will be free from war, cruelty, crime, injustice, and poverty. It will be a world without sickness, sorrow, tears, and even death. At that time people will grow to perfection and live forever in happiness in an earthly paradise. Why, those who have died will even be resurrected and have the opportunity to live forever! [source]

Cool, right? But why should I believe it?

Is this view of the future just a dream, just wishful thinking? No, not at all. It is founded on a solidly based faith that this incoming Paradise is inevitable. (Hebrews 11:1) Why are they so sure? Because the almighty Creator of the universe has promised it.

They anticipated my next question:

However, if God's purpose was to establish an earthly paradise free from suffering, why did he permit bad things to happen in the first place? Why did he wait six thousand years until now to correct what is wrong? [source]

But is that six thousand years from the beginning of the earth? Oh dear. I guess that's when they think Adam and Eve were created. And since everything was created in a week, I guess that's what that means.

How can we know there's a God? is the longest section. It asks us to:

apply this well-established principle: What is made requires a maker. The more complicated the thing made, the more capable the maker must be.

For example, look around your home. Tables, chairs, desks, beds, pots, pans, plates, and other eating utensils all require a maker, as do walls, floors, and ceilings. Yet, those things are comparatively simple to make. Since simple things require a maker, is it not logical that complex things require an even more intelligent maker? [source]

It then goes on to point out the complexity of a cell and the even greater complexity of the solar system and the earth and, of course, they couldn't simply happen.

It has an atmosphere with just the right mixture of gases so we can breathe and be protected from damaging radiation from space. It also has the vital water and soil needed to grow food.

Without all those factors, and others, working together, life would be impossible. Was all of that an accident? Science News says: "It seems as if such particular and precise conditions could hardly have arisen at random." No, they could not. They involved purposeful design by a superb Designer. [source]

Fortunately, today we have Google to look up quotes out of context. Since the booklet didn't cite the exact source, I took the quote and googled. One of the hits said it was August 1974, p. 124. Their online editions don't go back that far, but I have access to the UAA library system. So you probably have to give a password for this last link. Actually all Anchorage residents with a library card - and maybe everyone else - through the interlibrary link has such access through Loussac.

Here's what that article says in context:

It rejects handing the question over to theodicy which "justifies the ways of God in the minds of humans." Great phrase there. "But most cosmologists are not willing to take the cop-out route." Ouch! The best quote they could get was one that says their method is a cop-out. But, hey, how many people are going to look this up?

I'll just give you the synopsis from here on. You can read it yourself if you want the details.

So after all this maker stuff - I did have a really good class as an undergraduate student where we covered in excruciating detail what you need to have life, and just before the final it all fell into place for me and I understood how life could have happened without a maker, so I'm not impressed. Some things do happen randomly - like a cloud shaped like a dragon, or a rock that is perfectly round. And evolution, over many, many years, can work to select those qualities that gain an edge on survival. Makers aren't needed for everything.

Anyway, they then ask "So why did God let people suffer all this time?" This answer gets good. See, God gave humans free will because God made humans in his own image and God has free will. But not completely. There are rules. And Adam and Eve (it didn't take long), exercising their free will, violated the rules and lost the perfect life than God had created for them. And God, in his wisdom, realized that with free will, people had to see for themselves. So he waited all this time to make sure they got the message that humans trying to rule themselves really screw it up.

In this 20th century alone, we have seen the systematic murder of millions during the Holocaust and the slaughter of over 100 million in wars. In our time countless numbers of people have been tortured, murdered, and imprisoned because of intolerance and political differences. [source]

And he waited this long to be sure that there would be no doubt. Of course all this was prophesied. 1914 - the beginning of WW I was when the new era began. All predicted. The flu pandemic of the 1920's, AIDS, etc.

It also mentions that humans were not the only rebels. Satan led a band of angels in rebellion too.

So we're already at Part 8 about God's Purpose Moving to Fulfillment.

With all rulership independent of God taken out of the way, God's Kingdom rule over the earth will be complete. And because the Kingdom rules from heaven, it can never be corrupted by humans. Governing power will be where it was in the first place, in heaven, with God. And since God's rule will control all the earth, no longer will anybody be misled by false religions or unsatisfactory human philosophies and political theories. None of those things will be allowed to exist. [source] [I just realized that all these links go to the first page of this booklet and you have to click arrows to move through it on your own.]

Part 10 describes the wondrous new world coming up.

Thus, there will be no more murder, violence, rape, robbery, or any other crime. No one will have to suffer because of the wicked deeds of others.

Will it not be thrilling to wake up each morning and realize that you now enjoy vibrant health? Will it not be gratifying for elderly persons to know that they have been restored to the full vigor of youth and will achieve the perfection that Adam and Eve originally enjoyed? The Bible's promise is: "Let his flesh become fresher than in youth; let him return to the days of his youthful vigor." (Job 33:25) What a delight it will be to throw away those eyeglasses, hearing aids, crutches, wheelchairs, and medicines! Hospitals, doctors, and dentists will never again be needed.

Persons who enjoy such vibrant health will not want to die. And they will not have to, for mankind will no longer be in the grip of inherited imperfection and death.

Whoa. In the reform Jewish High Holy Day services there comes a point when we are asked: "If you were offered the chance of living forever, on the condition that no new babies would be born, who would take it?" I always understood that to mean that there is a cycle to life, and that earth would run out of room if everyone was immortal. So new life would have to end. Maybe I misinterpreted that.

Not only will people not die,

Great will be the joy earth wide when group after group of dead persons come back to life to join their loved ones! No longer will there be obituary columns to bring sadness to the survivors.

You think there's a housing shortage now, wait until that happens. But I'm lacking proper faith in God's ability to provide for us all. Maybe I missed something in Physics when they talked about the expanding universe.

But forget hamburgers and steaks. Everyone will be a vegetarian:

"The wolf will actually reside for a while with the male lamb, and with the kid the leopard itself will lie down, and the calf and the maned young lion and the well-fed animal all together; and a mere little boy will be leader over them." Never again will the animals be a threat to man or to themselves. Even "the lion will eat straw just like the bull."

And gourmet straw for people too?

But free will won't be part of this paradise.

Then the destructive ideas of human rule will be replaced by the upbuilding teaching that comes from God. "All your sons will be persons taught by Jehovah." (Isaiah 54:13) With this wholesome instruction year after year, "the earth will certainly be filled with the knowledge of Jehovah as the waters are covering the very sea." (Isaiah 11:9) People will no more learn what is bad, but "righteousness is what the inhabitants of the productive land will certainly learn." (Isaiah 26:9) Upbuilding thoughts and actions will be the order of the day.—Acts 17:31; Philippians 4:8.

Thus, there will be no more murder, violence, rape, robbery, or any other crime. No one will have to suffer because of the wicked deeds of others. Proverbs 10:30 says: "As for the righteous one, to time indefinite he will not be caused to stagger; but as for the wicked ones, they will not keep residing on the earth."

I'm sorry, I'm missing something in the logic. If God is going to rule from Heaven and people will no longer be able to freely choose the wrong path, why didn't he do this in the first place? I know we covered that question above. It was to prove to people that they can't rule as well as God. But why did that have to be proven? If everyone had been living in a blissful paradise from the beginning, everyone would have been happy. OK, there was Satan and the evil angels, but God didn't need to create them and let them loose on earth. They are working hard to answer these questions in this booklet, but it doesn't quite follow right for me. But, if you buy into it the next section tells you how to join up. Go visit your nearest Jehovah's Witness Hall.


So with all this in my head while I was running, I began to think about the kind of religion that starts off by punishing people who choose knowledge. (It was the fruit of the tree of knowledge that got Adam and Eve kicked out of paradise.) Throughout history, those in power have restricted access to information and power. The Chinese created a writing system that required that you have a teacher. Not just to learn phonetics, but to learn every individual character, each of which represent words. While phonetic alphabets were easier, for a long time, only the anointed had access to books. And even today, governments conceal information from the people. We aren't worthy, we can't understand.

But I'm beginning to see at least one source of resentment toward those with knowledge. It's biblical. It was the reason we were cast out of the Garden of Eden in the first place. And questioning, rebelling, are all evil for we should be obedient to the word of God. The Jehovah's Witness booklet tells us that again when it talks about who will be allowed into this paradise:

By choosing God's rule, they qualify to be put on the "right hand" of Christ as he separates "the sheep" from "the goats." In his prophecy about the last days, Jesus foretold: "All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate people one from another, just as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. And he will put the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on his left." The sheep are humble people who associate with and support Christ's brothers, submitting to God's rule. The goats are stubborn people who reject Christ's brothers and do nothing to support God's rule.

My head is spinning. People believe this? Why not? It simply tells those who are unhappy that all they have to do is believe in God's will and they will experience heaven on earth forever. It's like buying a lottery ticket. It's hope. And in this lottery, if the story is true, everyone with a ticket wins. You don't have to think. You just have to follow. And man's thinking, as has been pointed out in the booklet, has led to all our suffering. Man's bad choices have done it all. So just let someone else tell you what to do.

And if you grow up with everyone around you believing this, this is your given. I hope my Witness comes back to check up on me. I've got lots of questions for her now.

The Four R's - Rendition, Rosencrantz and Guilderstern..., Rent, The Reader

We found our way back to Blockbusters. We'd been away so long that I found three movies just in the R section and then J got another one when she took those back.

We liked Rendition and The Reader a lot. Rosencrantz and Guilderstern are Dead we probably need to get again when we aren't so sleepy. I think Tom Stoppard is one of, if not, the best playwright alive. I first became aware of him when I saw a fantastic university production of Arcadia, then began to see he'd been involved in other things I liked, such as Shakespeare in Love. But his work requires a clear head. There's lots of very cerebral humor and we just weren't up for it. Need to go back and reread Hamlet before watching it again.

Rendition was both a tight dramatic adventure movie with good actors - Jake Gyllenhaal, Meryl Streep, and a great cast of Arabic actors as well - that also talked to an important issue of our day - secret prison camps and torture and kidnapping. While the Cheney types keep talking about the lives that are saved through torture, they never discuss the innocents who are needlessly tortured based on some minor suspicion, who eventually offer confirmation of the whatever the interrogators want to hear, leading to more innocent suspects. I also liked that the Arabs in the movie spoke Arabic with subtitles instead of dumbing it all down to English. In the world, not everyone speaks English, and certainly not when they are talking among themselves. The US is far away from non-English speaking countries (except Mexico). So most Americans see non-Americans on television and in movies, where they usually speak English. It's important to have movies portray them speaking their own languages. Movies have a powerful effect on how we understand the world. Even if we know intellectualy that they don't really speak English, we know, viscerally, from the movies, that they do.

The ending was disappointingly Hollywood. Unless they can show me where a CIA officer felt sorry for a captive and helped him escape, I think sweetening the end for American audiences almost ruins the movie. Making all the loose ends in the length of a movie isn't an easy task. The best movies manage to do it. I wasn't completely satisfied, but it kept my attention all the way through. I'm sure there is an ideological divide among viewers. This is clearly an anti-Bush policy movie and those who think fighting terrorism is the most important thing in the world will not be happy with this movie. There was also an interesting documentary on rendition and prison camps also on the DVD.

The Reader raises all sorts of questions. Here, the characters are almost all German, but the cast isn't. They do have German accents though and I'm sure it was much more accessible being in English. (I've already discussed the issue recently of acting cross-culturally in a post on the play Man in the Attic - which also took place in Germany.) The Reader based on a 1995 German novel Der Vorleser by Bernhard Schlink. While the focus of attention on this movie has been on the Holocaust, it also raises issues about sexuality that I think are even more interesting. I say this only because the Holocaust seems to be covered so much. While sexuality is everywhere in our culture, it isn't usually dealt with frankly and realistically. In this case, a 15 year old boy is seduced by a woman 21 years his senior. By the end of the movie it is clear that this relationship has seriously damaged him emotionally and he's been unable communicate seriously with anyone.

Lots of men probably have the same symptoms from various causes. I've always wondered whether early sex with an older partner is ALWAYS the negative that we assume. Can an older person introduce sex in a positive way to a younger one? I suspect the difference in ages is relevant, that 15 is probably on the young end of the scale, but that each person is different. Clearly its lasting effects in this story are permanent debilitating scars. But, and this is a big but, how much of the scarring was due simply to the short affair and how much to the fact that the boy, later, as a law student in a small course on the Holocaust, attends the trial of - and he didn't know this in advance - his former lover who is convicted of murdering Jews as a Nazi concentration camp guard. Would he have gotten over the affair if it weren't for the second half? I know there are people who say that any sort of relationship like this is bad, and it clearly is for many if not most. But I don't know what research exists that looks at those who had such relationships and went on to have happy and healthy lives.

Anyway, a good, serious movie with no sweetened endings.


Rent. We made it through the whole movie, but we kept looking at each other and with a look that said, "Why was this a big hit?" Maybe those folks in the 20 - 40 range could relate better to all the issues brought up about relationships and compromises, but that's told a million different ways. This one just didn't connect.

Warm and Smokey

Warm days - into the high 70s/low 80s - and smoke from wildfires all around the State. Worked in the yard and cleaning out the garage the last couple of days. Trying to make room for summer visitors in the house. More room in the garage means I can move things out there on their way to finding new homes.





Here's a picture of the same view, on a normal, clear day, but without any telephoto. This is much more common. It feels a bit like Chiang Mai with warm air and haze.

Breaking Up is Hard to Do

This post is better if you have the music from the video on in the background.



We just lost our girlfriend governor. You know, the "hottest Governor in the country" that we've had this rocky relationship with. It started out pretty good. She stood up against Frank and said ethics was the most important thing in life. And we'd never had ethics before and we loved it.

But then John caught her eye, dangling before her much more than we had to give. She was flirting with states all over the country, humiliating us. But when they dumped her, we took her back. It was hard to see her with all those others, but damn it she was "hot!" and she was our governor, no one else's, even if she was so high maintenance.

But now she's made it official. She broke up with us on Friday. She doesn't like ethics with us any more. It seems it didn't just get boring, she's started to hate it. When she was in charge, she loved it. But now that we decided that we wanted to call the ethics shots, she's no longer into it.

And while she told us it was over and she was going to her secret hiding place, she must have her cell phone, because all these other guys are suddenly over at her place and they're as love struck as we once were. She's teasing them. Yesterday they each got to make out with her for ten minutes on the beach, and then she went on to the next guy.


Sorry, different metaphors keep trying out for the role of explaining Sarah Palin. Today, I've been taken over by the high school metaphor. Let's try a variation on this theme.

OK, I graduated high school before Palin was born and I'm sure things are different now. But when I was in high school, there were different cliques.

The soshes (from social) were the 'in' crowd. The beautiful people of high school, they defined what was cool and not. (Has 'cool' been in all this time, or did it go away for a while and come back?) Even among the soshes there were rival cliques. They had minor differences, but they all wore the right clothes, drove the right cars, hung out at the right places, and dated the right people. The cheerleaders (Title IX wasn't even an idea then) and the football players were the inner circle.

Then there were various others castes. The nerdy people were smart, but hopelessly dressed, socially inept, and a bunch of loners. Some soshes used the smarts from time to time for help with homework and exams (and helping them gave the nerds the illusion of temporary coolness), but the in crowd laughed at them behind their backs and sometimes, if necessary, would humiliate them in public.

And then there were others who simply didn't count at all. They weren't well dressed, they weren't cool, and they weren't even smart.

I can't help seeing Palin as one of the soshes. Popularity is the most important thing. The image has to be maintained - cool clothes, being with the right people, doing the cool things. Basically looking good. Going to class is a social event and homework is so boring. She'd been a sosh in Wasilla, but when she moved to Juneau, it was like changing schools and she had to work her way in.

She used some of the nerds to come up with AGIA. They realized she wasn't too smart, but she was beautiful. They loved it when she walked around with them, holding their hands, leaning up against them, as they walked past their usually untouchable rivals the oil team. The team had been busted for gambling with the legislature and were temporarily on probation.

But when John, that college guy, caught Palin's eye, all bets were off. She quickly tried to act college. But she was out of her league. But when they wanted her to be a pit bull - hell that was easy, it was her natural behavior and hiding behind a facade of nice was so tiring. Well, that relationship didn't work out, but a lot of other college guys started panting after this hot high school chick.

But for a while, she came back to finish high school. But it wasn't any fun any more. She even stopped going to class at the end of this last semester to hang out with some college guys. And those nerdy chicks with the blogs started getting brazen and telling people that she wasn't pretty without all that make up, and who was buying her clothes, and they put up posters all over school every time she dallied with another guy. Who are these bitches?! But no matter what she said, they wouldn't leave her alone.

And so now she's announced that in her sophomore year, she's dropping out. I don't need you guys, I'm bored with you. I don't need to do my homework, the college guys like me just the way I am.

Deciding Which Public Information to Release

If you want to see the maturity of Alaskan bloggers, go look at Henkimaa's post "The 2 Million Dollar Meme." Mel writes a term paper on the Palin claim that $2 million has been spent on dealing with 'frivolous' ethics complaints. Mel pulls together ADN stories as well as posts from various blogs (yes, full disclosure, even this blog) which have covered the Personnel Review Board's report that only $300,000 has been spent on these, 2/3 of which was for Troopergate which Palin filed against herself. Mel posts a variety of charts.

Palin's counterclaim is that she's counting the cost of all the time others besides the Personnel Review Board spent. One line from a new ADN article from Sean Cockerham Mel quoted caught my eye:

It is a per-hour calculation that the Palin administration put together, involving time spent by state lawyers deciding which public information to release as a result of all public records requests, time spent by governor's office staffers responding to media inquiries about ethics complaints, and time technicians spend on retrieving requested e-mail, among other things.

This isn't in quotes in the article, so I'm not sure Palin actually said this or Sean has worded it this way, but as I understand it, no one should be deciding which public information to release. ALL public information should be released.

Palin is also quoted as saying she didn't take the filings personally, she's just concerned with all the money it's costing. Yeah right! This just doesn't square with how often and how emotionally she's mentioned it. Why was this mentioned, say, in her resignation speech? On the other hand, I have said that some of the complaints are pushing the line of what we consider acceptable. For instance, all politicians use their offices as stepping stones to higher office and campaign while in office. And for an Alaskan, physically so far away from DC, more time is required. But, ethics review offices, such as the Municipal Board of Ethics, have a pre-screening process with which they screen out 'frivolous' filings. It doesn't take that much time. I think she's taking her cue from the hate-radio guys - never back down from anything you say. She said two million and she's going to go with that no matter the contrary evidence.

Anyway, check out Henkimaa for one of the most indepth Alaskan blogger reports. As I say, this is a professionally prepared report on the topic. (OK, I said term paper above, but my grad students' term papers were often as good or better than reports the government pays for.)

McNamara and Palin - Wrong Stories

Robert McNamara died today at age 93. Lots of others are covering this story. I want to pull out a quote played today on NPR from the movie Fog of War.

"We saw Vietnam as an element of the Cold War, not what they saw it as - a civil war. We were wrong."

McNamara was usually characterized as a 'technocrat.' Over 30 years ago, management scholars Blake and Mouton developed their managerial grid where they identified two characteristics of managers - people orientation and task (production) orientation. McNamara came to the Department of Defense in the Kennedy administration from the Ford Motor Company, clearly a task oriented person. He had a Harvard education and had through his task orientation and mastery of details, done great things for Ford.

I would argue that Palin tends to be more of a people oriented person and mastery of the technical details of getting the job done are not her strength.

I think though that there is another issue that caused failure for both - they both used their skills to push the wrong story.

McNamara told us that his story going into the Vietnam war was "The Cold War" but it should have been "Civil War."

In the Cuban Missile Crisis, at the end, I think we did put ourselves in the skin of the Soviets. In the case of Vietnam, we didn't know them well enough to empathize. And there was total misunderstanding as a result. They believed that we had simply replaced the French as a colonial power, and we were seeking to subject South and North Vietnam to our colonial interests, which was absolutely absurd. And we, we saw Vietnam as an element of the Cold War. Not what they saw it as: a civil war. [also from NPR]

I think that Palin's problems too, are based on a story that is at odds with most people in the US. It's a story, apparently, based on a strong belief in a fundamentalist interpretation of Christianity. It's based on relatively sheltered life with a small set of family and friends and experiences which never seriously challenged her story. Combine this then with her people orientation - which values loyalty (taking care of your own and expecting them to stand with you) - and a weakness with details and analysis of complex issues.

So, it is understandable when Palin is startled by the animosity towards her and it might explain her vitriol in attacking those who challenge her. But I think that while many of the issues that have been raised against Palin are petty, the real issue is the antipathy to Palin's story. Perhaps one day, an enlightened Palin, like a more enlightened McNamara, will say something like:

"I saw good and evil as established by Fundamentalist Christianity, not as they saw it as defined by the Constitution of the United States. I was wrong."

June 2009 Google Search Hits and Misses

I've been doing occasional posts on interesting Google terms people use to get here and how successful their searches have been. This time I've grouped the searches based on how close I think they got to what they were looking for.


Where Google does well:

how to dehydrate alcoholic beverages - got to a post on an Alaskan who says he's close to having dehydrated beer for campers.

There have been a number of people searching variations on those words. I thought it was interesting that domain name of the searcher was: US Dept of Treasury


the soor mulk cairt - I had to look this one up myself; I didn't remember putting it in a post. And I didn't. This phrase was in a comment made by Scotsman Mirksome Bogle on a August 2007 post. He has such a knack for catching the actual sounds.

tutsiroll tamarind - I described tamarind as having a color and texture a little like a tootsie roll and Google figured this out despite the unique spelling of tootsie roll.

lec aphorisms - This went to my post on famous people born in 1909 which included a short bio of Stanislaw Lec which included some of his aphorisms such as these:

Some like to understand what they believe in. Others like to believe in what they understand.

In the beginning there was the Word -- at the end just the Cliché.

Many who tried to enlighten were hanged from the lamppost. Burning stakes do not lighten the darkness.

hoover women agents - Got to my post on women in the fbi. I'd say this one was a direct hit. And it's a pretty good post too. Talks about the first women agents - a few before Hoover who left within a year of his becoming the head of the FBI. And how the next ones got in after he died.


high wire michael fajans - Bullseye again. High Wire is a series of paintings of a magician by artist Fajans at the Seattle Airport. I put the whole set of pictures into a video for the blog. If this person wanted to see those pictures, he got exactly what he wanted and there doesn't seem to be anything else posted with all the pictures. If she wanted some history about the paintings, then this is not a bullseye. But because of the query, I've added two brief descriptions of the paintings to the post. I also learned, much to my dismay, that Fajans died in 2006, in a motorcycle accident in Seattle.

high school geography test - This query came from New Jersey and got exactly what was requested - some of Ropi's high school geography test questions in Budapest. It's not as bizarre as it sounds since the test was in English. There was even a link to the whole test.
most interesting google searches - Another direct hit. But there are a number of posts on interesting google searches. Why this one and not the others?





prison talk i will self surrender to the us marshalls - Got to a post about Vic Kohring self surrendering. Was it helpful? Not sure what the viewer wanted so I can't tell.


Chanot Thailand - My post on Chanot Chumchon. is about a type of chanot, but should get the person a bit closer to what they were looking for. A chanot is a deed for property and Chanot Chumchon is a community deed for property. This one took some things from the internet, but then a fair bit of questioning of my colleagues at the office in Thailand to put together.





On the paper, but no Cigar:

what to avoid with cracked ribs got one of my reports on my son's broken ribs after he was hit by a car, but I don't think he quite got what he was after.







Missed the Target

They did get a word, but not what they wanted.

onunwor pronunciation - (from Columbus, Ohio) here's the google summary the person got:

What Do I know?: February 2008
... Gray of bribing then-East Cleveland mayor Emmanuel Onunwor involving a no-bid, ...... The pronunciation is easy to remember - “In Sea”) Land Reform ...
www.whatdoino-steve.blogspot.com/2008_02_01_archive.html

It's got onunwor and pronunciation. But this is one of those situations where the two words come from two totally unrelated posts. When you click, you get a long page of February 2008 posts which includes the first post listed about the Cleveland Mayor. But not the second one. My post does NOT help the reader figure out how to pronounce Onunwor's name.


"what does not guilty mean?" speeding - The google result only had two entries! A main and a secondary reference to this blog. Pretty amazing that they could find only one website with “what does not guilty mean?” and a variant of ‘speeding’. Why didn’t it offer pages without the ‘speeding’ variant? Anyway the person got two posts on the Kohring trial. The first one didn’t have the phrase in it. The second post - Kohring Day 7 - had Kohring’s attorney’s closing argument which included the sentence, “What does not guilty mean?” It also had, later on, the word speed: “He was a frequent flyer with Joyce Anderson. Should have had her on speed dial.”

celticdiva everquest - Here's a Google problem. I have celticdiva on probably all my posts, because it's one of the Alaska blogs I link to. So if someone puts that in with something else, they'll score both. And I have a post which mentions everquest - it was a post noting the passing of Gary Gycax, the inventor of Dungeons and Dragons.





Does Google Have a Sense of Humor?


living next to a telephone poll - I love typos like this that turn out to make sense, but not as intended. This reader got to a post looking at the affect on polling of the increased use of cell phones.

are bugs a problem going up to alaska in july? - You know how Google sometimes asks, "Did you mean: XYZ?" Well they did this time too:

Did you mean: are drugs a problem going up to alaska in july?

Google, are you making jokes about the quality of Alaska dope in July? Coming up as number 2 out of 643,000 hits is my post “Catching Up - Thai Bugs”. While the word Alaska appears on the blog itself, it is not in the post. I can’t believe there aren’t posts on Alaska bugs in July that shouldn’t have been better matches.


Click this link for other posts on interesting Google searches.

Too Nice To Be Inside - Quick Catch Up

Falling behind on some things here, so here is a quick catch-up post.

BS called to see if I wanted to bike on Wednesday and we had a great time riding from Bird Point (Seward Highway mile 99) to Girdwood and back on the bike trail made from the old road that clung to the cliff and I was always behind an RV going up at 15 miles an hour. Much better as a bike trail.






Bear scat-
terd
along the trail








On the way back we stopped at the view point that looks up the valley. We'd seen gulls and a raven harassing an eagle on a tree top, but I waited too long to get my camera out of my pocket trying to get closer. It flew off and over us before I had it ready.



But we did watch the green-violet swallows. In Thailand I gave up on trying to identify the swallows. They fly too fast to catch in the binoculars and would never land where I could see them. But this one in the tree was sitting in the sun with the green and purple iridescently brilliant. But of course it turned around when I was taking the picture.






There were a couple of free to use binoculars at the rest point, so I tried out my camera in the eyepiece.





The tree trimmers came by Thursday morning. We'd planted trees long ago to have a screen between us and the neighbors, but the birch have gotten so tall that we're getting less and less sun in the yard. I've read the Cooperative Extension pamphlet on why you shouldn't top trees, but Scott Gage promised to do it in a way that wouldn't kill the trees or look weird. He said those rules of trimming came from the midwest and east where they had 100 year old oak trees that people wanted to top and people get carried away with the rules. Anyway, they did it so well that the before and after pictures are too hard to tell what they did.




And last night we went to see episode 3 of midnight soap scum. I thought last week's episode better. It seemed there was less satire and more farce last night. I still don't know why the swimming pool scene was there, but maybe it will be revealed next week. There was a program this time so I can recognize some of the actors that particularly impressed me. Rebekah Franklin is close to Tina Fey in her spot on

portrayal of Sarah Palin. Steve Deloose, well, I've never met him out of character, so I don't know how much he's acting here. But his character of Phillipe-Auguste is a kick. And Mama Rose Mary, the narrator is my favorite. She takes over between the scenes. Last week she had a huge blond wig and red outfit. Last night, despite the relatively normal dark wig and Alice in Wonderland dress, her incredibly bitchy and attention needy persona made her the star of the show for me. (People who were there will all agree, because they know if they don't, she'll embarrass them in front of everyone next week.) She's on the far left in the picture.