Visiting and Blooming in Our Yard Recently

A magpie family is spending the summer
in a nearby yard. The birds are beautiful,
but their call is the equivalent of bird barking.

The steller jay that sometime joins
them speaks the same language.

A new resident hosta.

Dianthus gnappi

This is a very common flower, but up
close it looks unusual. Any guesses?

Pansies have such outrageous colors and patterns.

Amanita.

Short Hike in Eagle River

I had to get back for a 2pm dental appointment to get my teeth cleaned, so DZ got up about 9:20am - his earliest morning so far - so we could get out to Eagle River for a short hike first. It had rained much of the night and the clouds were still heavy and dripping a bit.




Here's a view from the viewing platform on the Rodak Trail, right near the visitors' center.





Is there a pink birch species?

The trouble with google is that as soon as I type a question like that, I have no excuse for not looking it up.

"Pink Birch • Schizomeria serrata

Pink Birch is the common name for a number of species which form a medium to large tree throughout the region from New Guinea, Bismarck Archipelago to North Queensland and the Solomon Islands. It occurs in lowland and montane forest. In the Solomon islands, it is represented by only one species, generally scattered but locally common. Small sawn parcels could be made available by special order. [From SolomonTimbers - a pdf.]

I think our trees are probably a totally different species since they live in the cold and these are from warm regions.



Red Bubble writes about pink birch bark, but those are pink from the winter morning sun.

There's a soda called pink birch beer in Scottsdale, Arizona.



We walked on to Rapids Camp where we looked at the yurt, but since there was obviously someone inside, we went down to see the rapids.

And we got back in time to get the things on the Costco list (lots of milk for Dick and he got some pizza) and for me to drop him and the food off at home while I biked back to the dentist. And running up the five flights of stairs, I got to the waiting room out of breath, but a minute early. But Diane gave me a bad time for sitting in a corner where I wasn't easy for her to see. She continued to pick on me while she cleaned my teeth. Which is consistent with the sign on her wall.

[If you enlarge the list, you can see that the author and artist was Janet Casoy.]

Happy Birthday J

Thirty Three Teeth by Colin Cotterill

JL suggested I read the Coroner's Lunch by Colin Cotterill. It was checked out from Loussac library so J brought Thirty-Three Teeth. (When I told JL, he said I had to read them in order, but I was already half way through Teeth.) These books have an M in their library call letters - they are murder mysteries, but they take place in Laos and the main characters are all Laotian.

One of the best ways to get a sense of another culture is to read good fiction by someone in that culture. With google it's easy to find fiction about the place you are going. Even at the library you can search the name of the city or country and 'fiction' and come up with some good options available in the library. While they don't give you the well organized tips a travel book gives, they give you a sense of the place that travel guides can't convey.

These books don't quite fit this category because they are written by a foreigner living in the culture. So in that sense it's a little filtered, but that can give the advantage of having a guide explain what's happening.

I think the key aspect that will be strange to Western readers is the role of spirits in this book. For people who read science fiction or vampire stories, a little suspension of the normal rules of physics shouldn't be a problem. And people who believe in things like creationism, immaculate birth, and resurrection, should also feel comfortable with the idea of people believing in things that can't be explained by science.

When I tried to find some quotes to give you a sense of the book, I realized that the writing was a little heavy. The real draw of this book is the easy-to-digest peek into life in Laos and a sense of a place that most people know nothing about.

At the beginning you meet two of the main characters - Siri, the coroner, and one of his assistants, Dtui.

Siri walked into the office to find Dtui at her desk poring over the pictures in one of Siri's old French pathology textbooks. As she studied the black-and-white photo of a man who'd been sliced in half by a locomotive, she chewed on a rice snack wrapped in pig intestine. (pp. 36-37)

This sounds - and was probably intended to sound - a little gross, but really a lot of these foods look and taste delicious and you wouldn't know what they were made of if you didn't ask.

Siri is a widow who spent most of his life as a doctor with the communist rebels in the jungles of Laos and only recently (this book starts out in March 1977) has moved into the city when the communists finally overthrew the King of Laos after the US left Vietnam.

Boua, his wife, had been the middle child of nine and the only rebel. While her family was in the royal capital working under the king's patronage, Boua was in France training to overthrow the royal family and rescue her country for communism.

She had returned to Laos after eight years with ideals and a rather baffled doctor husband called Siri. (p. 65)

As we read, the existence of spirits becomes increasingly important. Siri has recently been buried alive when a stupa in a temple in the old royal capital of Luang Prabang fell on him. Later he meets a shaman named Tik.

Tik sat cross-legged on the floor and stared at this guest. He was a man who didn't waste time creeping up on the point. "I feel you should be dead."

Siri joined him on the ground. "How could you know?"

"How could I not? How could I miss the incredible force you drag behind you? A powerful shaman and a wild pack of angry spirits could hardly arrive in Luang Prabang without my knowing. Tell me. Begin with this morning."

Siri related the events leading up to his death: the sound, the stupa closing around him, and the feeling of being dragged below the earth. He told him how he knew beyond a whisper of a doubt that he was dead. Tik gave him an admiring chuckle.

"Ahh. They're devious, the Phibob. Those from the south especially so. Yeh Ming has obviously made some powerful enemies over the past thousand years." (p. 126)

This isn't a great book, but it lets you travel to Laos and it's pretty short - 238 small pages. Now I have to get the first volume of the series.

American Violet with Basketball on a Warm Night

We saw "American Violet" Monday night at Bear Tooth. I'd just like to call people's attention to the movie - it's about how the district attorney in the Texas town of Melody got federal money by raiding poor black neighborhoods and arresting masses of people and getting them to plea bargain for a lower sentence, even though in many cases they had no evidence at all. Without their own attorneys, they depended on the public defenders who basically told them they were better off making the deal. It turns out that for every conviction (and the plea bargains were counted) the county got anti-drug money from the feds. The DA had considerable power over the justice system. So in the movie the ACLU sends a couple of lawyers who team up with a local lawyer to defend one of the victims of a raid. It was a powerful film and I was surprised the ACLU didn't have a representative there to solicit memberships.




While J was talking to friends, DZ and I went across the street to Play it Again Sports and found him a used basketball for $6.










We walked home from the movie on a very delightful evening. It was almost 9 pm and the temperature was 78˚F (25.5C).

When we got home, DZ rode over to play with his new basketball at Wendler.


.

Sunday Bike Ride

Sunday after dropping off our houseguests at the train, DZ and I rode Campbell Creek trail out to the end near Dimond and Victor, then found our way to Kincaid and rode the Coastal Trail to Westchester Lagoon and back home via Chester Creek. I'm hoping to put together a guide to how to get from one trail to the other where there are still gaps. Here we checked where this long bridge at Taku Lake went (to Foxridge/76th and C.)





Here's a peaceful little spot right off of Minnesota and Dimond. You can see Minnesota in the background. One of the things I love about Anchorage's bike trails is that right in the middle of the city and busy intersections, you are in a quiet oasis lined with trees as though you were way out in the wilderness.


After the Campbell Creek trail ends around Dimond and Victor, we wandered through neighborhoods until we got to Jewel Lake Road and Strawberry. It's been interesting to see when DZ pulls out his camera - generally to get pictures of cars like this one. It turns out I got part of it accidentally while documenting the street. His picture when the car turned left didn't come out.





Finally we are getting back to dedicated bike trail. (When you double click to enlarge these, the pictures are much sharper.)


What should you do when you see people this close to moose and starting to get even closer? Last summer I tried to tell my visiting British friend that he was too close (and he was twice as far away as these people) when the moose charged at him and the others next to him. They ran and the moose stopped. When these folks began to walk toward the moose from where they are in the picture, I shouted to stay back, this was a wild animal with a baby. They did back up but when they finally walked on they muttered something to me. One might say it was their choice and the natural consequences would be more effective than anything I might say. But I remember the man who got killed by a moose at UAA after people had harassed it all day. These people might not have been hurt, but there would have been an irritated moose on the trail with lots of Sunday bike and pedestrian traffic going by. Someone else might have been the victim of their foolishness. On the other hand, we don't hear many stories about people getting hurt by moose so maybe I was out of place to interfere. I have to admit this moose looked extremely mellow.





Not far later we saw this mother with two calves. (#2 is still in the bushes here.)





DZ hadn't eaten much and was extremely happy to be able to get a hotdog from this vendor at the parking lot with the view of downtown near Earthquake Park.

I'd heard about some new outlet for fish at Westchester Lagoon, but hadn't seen it.

This is from a Federal Site where the links don't work right on my Macbook using Firefox, but I tried what I did at the ABC site to find this:

Chester Creek is one of several small salmon-producing streams in the Anchorage area. Chester Creek and its outfall (Westchester Lagoon) are heavily urbanized. Westchester Lagoon is maintained with an obsolete water control structure that is a barrier to fish passage. A new water control structure is under design and scheduled for construction. Anchorage Fish and Wildlife Field Office staff coordinated assessment of coho salmon passage into Westchester Lagoon (Chester Creek, Anchorage) with Alaska Pacific University. College students installed and operated video equipment to count coho salmon escapement through the old outlet structure for Westchester Lagoon. A new outlet structure to provide better fish passage is under construction and passage through the old structure will serve as baseline for evaluation of the new structure.

DZ's bottom was getting sore, so we skipped the loop around Goose Lake and came home through the neighborhoods near Lake Otis.

Dan Fagan Becomes a Man

I stopped writing about Dan Fagan's column a long time ago. But I have to break that silence now. In yesterday's column in the ADN Dan Fagan tells us:

Too much of what was coming out of my radio show, Web site, and Sunday column was unwholesome. For some reason I had convinced myself it was my job to run down and criticize others. It is one thing to analyze policy and issues. It is an entirely different thing to tear down someone's character with personal attacks.

I will tell you I am ashamed of the way I have conducted myself publicly in recent years and frankly I am embarrassed by it too.

I have tried on this blog to focus on policy and not personality, not always as successfully as I would like. When Dan's newspaper column began, I tore his words (not him) apart pretty ruthlessly. (But I learned as a teacher that separating one's words from one's identity is not easy. Even if you stay strictly on the content and the grammar, it can be painful for the recipient.) When some humanity showed through in his columns I saw that as a good sign that there was another Dan Fagan inside there fighting to come out.

In August 2007 Dan wrote about what a good man his father was. Dan wrote and I quoted him:

He modeled a life of character, integrity and honesty. But most importantly he showed me how to treat a woman.

When a man is a real man, he does more to help build a better society than a hundred thousand government programs.

Manhood is not about I. It's about service, sacrifice, devotion, selflessness.

Manhood is about respecting, honoring, and yes, even loving.

I went on in that post to speculate that perhaps Dan's ranting was projection, that he was angry at himself for not living up to model his father set.

Dan just doesn't live up to that great role model he's just praised as "the kind of man we need to make this country work right." Is Dan really ranting against the world because he can't face the fact that he doesn't live up to the expectations set by his Dad? According to Wikipedia

psychological projection (or projection bias) is a defense mechanism in which one attributes to others one’s own unacceptable or unwanted thoughts or/and emotions. Projection reduces anxiety by allowing the expression of the unwanted subconscious impulses/desires without letting the ego recognize them.

Could this be Dan really talking about himself:

But where are the men today? Why are so many obsessed with their own needs instead of their families?

On July 27, 2007 I saw some improvements and asked if they meant Dan was going to start spreading happiness instead of bellyaching:

But let's give Dan some credit here. He even recognizes some subtleties - that some people are unhappy because of chemical imbalances or real tragedies. Dan's taken some big steps in his articles. And in today's he tells us that spreading happiness is much more important than 'bellyaching.

'Dan, are you going to follow your advice and spread happiness on the air, or are you going to keep bellyaching?

Perhaps Dan gained some self confidence with all the attention he got from his radio shows and his newspaper column. Enough to recognize that he wasn't using his power to make people happy, but to spread negativity. But now that he's gotten some of what he wanted, it's empty. He writes he's lost the joy in his work.

But he also wisely wonders how this will affect him. I'm guessing he's asking the same question I've been asking. Do people really have to dump on others to get ratings?

Does this change mean I will lose many of my radio listeners? Perhaps. But recently I've lost the joy in my work. It has become a grind. I now know why. If my profession calls for tearing down others to be successful, then I'll just have to find another career.

I suspect that the listeners who tuned you in regularly did so because you reflected their feelings. This is not an easy world to succeed in. Our national myths push the idea that if we just plug along and work hard, we will be successful. So there are a lot of people out there who either have to face the truth about themselves (they aren't strong, they aren't working hard) or they have to find scapegoats to blame. When people talk about systemic obstacles to success, many just dismiss them as 'socialists' because that doesn't seem to fit our ideals about rugged individualists. But it isn't just socialists who talk about helping others. Christians do that too.

Dan, it seems you've broken through some of the morass. You recognize that what you've been doing - gaining a local following (and a fair amount of flak as well) by tearing down others - isn't what your Dad taught you to do. It isn't what your religion tells you to do. Now perhaps you can help your followers get past that teenage rebellion stage and take responsibility for their actions and grow up, like you seem to be doing. You even apologized to the people you wronged.

In conclusion, I want to publicly apologize to Sarah Palin, Sean Parnell, Hollis French, Art Hackney, Mark Begich, Frank Murkowski, Matt Claman, Lisa Murkowski, Don Young, Ivan Moore and too many others that limited space won't allow me to name.

Dan, I've learned in life that inside every person I meet, no matter how much I may dislike what they say and do, there is a real human being. If I can connect with that real human being, I know that I will like that person. You've shown glimpses and now your human has come out on center stage.

I'm truly happy for you and for the extra energy and power for good our community gains. I am confident that now your successes will come from leading a life that is consistent with what your Dad has taught you. I'm sure there were/will be tears in his eyes when he reads this column. (You wrote about your Dad dying of cancer back in March. I don't know if he's moved on to another place or not. Wherever he is, I know that he knows about this column.)

I would also note, that this forgiveness thing isn't limited to Dan Fagan. Nils Andreassen writing at Think Alaska made a similar kind of apology to Sarah Palin yesterday too.

[Update Monday afternoon: I got that is out a little faster than I probably should have. There's a section above where I've left between-the-lines some of the steps in my logic. I talked about 'systemic changes' and then jumped to 'helping others.' I'd say the rugged individual model makes it hard for some to acknowledge how social, economic, legal, and political structures can set up obstacles for some people to succeed. Fishers know how changes in the law have favored some and put others pretty much out of work. We all know how our choice of employer (or losing our employer) can mean we are cut out of much of the health care system. So, those who acknowledge that not being materially successful is not always caused by lack of grit or by laziness, are more willing to help those on hard times, either personally or through supporting policy changes that result in needed assistance.

Also, while Dan has apologized and stated his new goals very publicly, this is a significant change in behavior. So I will try to support him when he walks his talk and I'll be tolerant if he slips into old habits, so long as he acknowledges them as slip-ups and renews his commitment to the new Dan.]

The Beautiful Depot Stevens (and a few others) Built for Carnival

It's been a little over two years since we took friends downtown to catch the bus to Seward and their cruise south and my interest was piqued to check on the cruise lines.
That led to a post about how Carnival owns most of the cruise related businesses in Alaska (Holland, Princess, Sheffield Hotels) plus they have significant connections with the Alaska Railroad. (The former head of the railroad and current Port Authority Director, Bill Sheffield, sold Sheffield Hotels to Holland and his assistant became a honcho with Holland, and Stevens helped the cruise lines get a railroad depot at the Anchorage Airport and it was named after Sheffield... and much more at that old Carnival Cruise Lines post and a little more at New Pirates on the Seven Seas.)

Well, yesterday we took our visitors to the Sheffield Depot to catch their train to their Princess cruise out of Seward. Still, four years after the depot opened, the only people I know of who use it as a train depot are people who buy an Alaskan cruise. I've also heard you can rent out the depot for parties since most of the time this depot is not in use.
So dropping them off gave me an opportunity to get some pictures of this beautiful present from Ted Stevens and members of the legislature to Carnival and the Alaska Railroad.

Here are some of the passengers waiting for the train to take them to their cruise.


And here's the train waiting for the passengers to be called to the platform. Eventually a man came out and yelled, "Alllll Aboard!"

We had a little extra time so we wandered with our friends down the tunnel with the northern lights arts project and the ten or so aerial photos the Anchorage Airport over about a 50 year span. I'd forgotten about this tunnel which we used to take before all the new buildings got put up and the easy access through the station from the parking lot ended. What I also discovered was the new rental car facility, somewhere I never go since I never rent a car here.

I know Andrew Halcro complained when all the money was being spent on the railroad depot and not on a new space for the rental car offices. [Update Monday evening: Actually he "opposed the rail depot because it was built with $30 million in federal taxpayer money even though the feasibility study showed it would never be used for anything other than cruise passengers for four months out of the year." You can see more details on his thoughts here. I thought I'd linked to this, but didn't.] I have less of a problem with the rental car space. This is a feature of all airports. Every passenger has the option of using a rental car, and thus this space. It isn't dedicated to a couple of companies and their clients exclusively. Plus there's a tax on rental cars and I believe some of that was used for this space. Not sure what percent was paid that way.

But it is pretty fancy and the new parking lot is huge.

As we drove past the parking pay booths, we got this glimpse of the engine waiting above the road.

I wonder if the FBI has collected data on how money got funneled to this project. When they were lobbying for it they promised commuter service to downtown, Girdwood, and the Valley from the airport. None of which ever materialized. Sierra Club, do you feel a little sheepish now for supporting this project? Maybe you can still redeem yourselves.

We could still have a train car that went back and forth to provide service between the airport and downtown every half hour both ways. I'm sure someone has invented a fairly inexpensive, fuel efficient vehicle that can run on railroad tracks. Knowing that one had, at most, a 30 minute wait would mean that it would be an attractive alternative for passengers who needed to go downtown and people downtown needing to go to the airport.

Again, the details are all in the previous posts.

Saturday Market, Len's Cap, Flower Displays, ANMC, etc.

Having visitors means getting to be a tourist at home.




The sun and blue sky were glorious and we spent some time at the Weekend Market downtown. We walked past the Anchorage walrus.


And watched the juggler at the market a while









Then after a pit stop at home we went to the botanical garden where we met, yes I did check, and his name is Len and he's visiting from Massachusetts.















It was Garden Club day at the Botanical Gardens and in addition to the regular flowers, club members had entries into the flower show. It also meant admission into the botanical garden was free. And we each got a blue ballot to vote for the "People's Choice" in two different categories.








The first category was design, where people had put their flowers together in some sort of display. You can see they varied greatly.













Picking just one was hard, but I liked this one and when I saw that this was made from recycled tin cans, that decided it for me.









This one was sort of strange. But I guess if you're into shoes. . .








The second category was 'horticultural' which meant just the flowers (well there were also some vegetables) themselves without fancy displays. This category was even harder, until I found this flower which I thought was a hibiscus. But apparently it was something else, but I didn't write down the name. This one was just perfect.

There's obviously a lot of luck in this. Which of your flowers is just right on the day of the contest? And is it one that will stay fresh for two days in water?







Then we stopped at the Alaska Native Medical Center to see the building and the art work. Here are a couple of glimpses.

































We went home to barbecue some salmon and have dinner on the deck.






Then off to Glen Alps where we walked to Powerline Pass where we could see moose off in the distance and back to the view point where we were just in time to watch the sunset around 11 pm.







Today we take them to the infamous Sheffield Depot to catch their train to Seward - which apparently is back in operation after being blocked by a rockslide on Tuesday - and their cruise to Vancouver.

Alaska Blogger Rumor Test

I've seen lots of people accusing Alaska 'Progressive' bloggers of "knowingly posting false rumors." In our defense, I and others have said things like, "They almost always say it's a rumor, they've challenged each other when someone's gone overboard, often the 'rumors' have proved correct or were never disproven, or they have eventually acknowledged the rumor was false."

So Gryhpen at the Immoral Minority this morning has a rumor that we can test out in the next weeks or months. He's written:

Exclusive! Sarah and Todd Palin are Splitsville!

Earlier this week one of my best sources claimed to have explosive new information for me.

It took all week for us to finally get together, but last night we finally sat down for an amazing conversation. And what I heard made my jaw drop.

According to my source Sarah is finished with Todd and has decided to end their marriage. . .

The main test will be what happens in the next weeks or months. Do the Palins get divorced or does their marriage stay intact? Even that isn't a perfect test. Sure, if they announce this week they are splitting, then we'll have to give it to Gryphen that his source was right.

But his rumor is about something that is going to happen, not something that already happened, so his post and subsequent publicity on it could affect whether it does or doesn't happen. It could put more pressure on the family that causes things to follow the prediction, or it could cause the couple to hang in there and keep the marriage going to prove the bloggers and media are wrong.


Is the rumor qualified or stated as a fact?

The headline of the post is written as though it is a known fact. In the post itself the claim is qualified by "according to my source..."

Personally, I wouldn't post something like this. First, it's personal stuff about a FORMER public official. Second, if it is true, it means the family is going through very difficult times. When people are having marital difficulties, a lot is said and tested but until they take official action, they can change their minds many times. Third, the rest of the world, in my view of things, should leave them alone to work it out. (Good friends, of course, should be there for support as needed.)

Fourth, any publicity on a topic like this simply complicates an already difficult situation.

But that's my opinion. I could also make an argument for publishing. In any case, the world of journalism - and I include television and newspapers as well as blogs in this case - is as much if not more about money and ratings as it is about news. That has led to celebrity gossip scooping and paparazzi and all the other unfortunate practices we see today. But along with that there are also probably important news stories that do get covered because of the competition.

So Gryphen is merely part of an American 'news' tradition here. And the tradition wouldn't continue if a lot of people didn't pay to get this sort of news. So the public is also responsible. I would note that the Immoral Minority does not carry ads. It does take Paypal donations, but I doubt that Gryphen is in this to get rich.

And one could charge that I'm taking part in the exploitation myself by doing this post. I don't know what unconscious motivations lurk deep in me, but I do believe that my real interest here is to turn this into one test of one Alaskan blogger's story and not as a sneaky way to put the story on my blog. I even thought of mentioning the story without names or details. But that would make it difficult when looking back, to test. The story is out anyway. Perhaps my post can refocus some people's attention to the whole business of publishing rumors.

Gryphen has put himself out there. We can try* from a story like this one to test whether he is
1. Running with unsupported rumors just to be sensational
2. Using a solid source to report a big story early
3. There are other options like "affecting the story by writing about it" though I'm not sure how we can test that.

Obviously, the story is more complicated than either it happens or it doesn't. If it happens in two years, was the story accurate? Even if it happens next week, we don't know Gryphen's motivation. I'll arbitrarily set a three months deadline. If there is no divorce filing, then this was a premature or incorrect story. For the Palins' sake, I hope that Gryphen will have to post a mea culpa.


In any case, he's put it out there. Whether you agree with what he's done or not, let's use this as a test of one Alaskan blogger's reliability. And perhaps a basis for a discussion on what we should post, shouldn't post, and why.


[UPDATE: Sunday morning: Dennis at the Alaska Report reports that Palin's attorney says this rumor is completely false. Surprise. You can see the whole post at the link. Here's the last paragraph of the the attorney's letter to Gryphen at Immoral Minority:

Others have raised the issue of honorifics already. I've always questioned why former judges and governors etc. still are called by their title. In this case, since Palin quit the job of governor, it seems inappropriate.]