Name the 8th Continent in the World

[Update Feb 17, 2017: A flurry of hits to this post today alerted me to the announcement of a new continent called Zealandia that was announced by scientists.  From India.com:

". . . if the reports are to be believed, scientists have discovered a new, eighth continent on earth and they are calling it Zealandia. Located to the east of Australia, a team of 11 geologists found 5 million square kilometre land mass which includes part of New Zealand and New Caledonia. At 4.9 million square kilometres, Zealandia is touted to be Earth’s smallest continent with Asia as the largest continent." 

There's also, apparently, a video game app called Eighth Continent.]

An editorial in the NY Times tells us:

Until recently, the earth had seven continents. To that number, humans have added an eighth — an amorphous, floating mass of waste plastic trapped in a gyre of currents in the north Pacific, between Hawaii and Japan. Researchers have estimated that this garbage patch may contain as much as 100 million tons of plastic debris and is perhaps twice the size of Texas, if not larger.

[Map from Mindfully.org via Buffalo Readings]

Well, first try to name the other seven continents (five are on the map if you need help.) Go ahead, write them down. 30 seconds should suffice. This seems pretty basic, but I suspect not everyone can do this. (Well, maybe What Do I Know? readers can :) ) When I double checked at Wikipedia, one had been rechristened since I looked last, but we'll count the old name if that's what you had.

Then, come up with a name for this new continent that the editorial says is

• trapping as many as a million seabirds every year
• trapping some 100,000 marine mammals
• breaking down faster than expected and apparently releasing contaminants, including potentially harmful styrene compounds not normally found in nature.

The trash island isn't a new story, it's the breaking down of the chemicals that brought it up again.

[Trash picture from Cheney's blog at thelaughingplanet. I'm not sure this is really the island.]

Think about this picture every time you're about to buy something packaged in plastic or even made of plastic. Do you need to buy it? If you must and have no non-plastic option, let the store manager and the manufacturer know you'd like an alternative.

Wild Alaska salmon anyone? This is all happening in the north Pacific. But there's enough for the rest of the world too, so don't worry. Bring on Pebble and we can have even more unique flavors in our fish.

So, what should this new continent be called? According to Buffalo Readings, it already had various names two years ago such as:

• The Great Pacific Garbage Patch
• North Pacific Gyre
• Eastern Garbage Patch
• Pacific Trash Vortex

But none of these seem to have the gravitas needed for a continent.

Record your nomination here so you can document that you thought of it first.

The Birds and the House

This afternoon a black capped chickadee flew into our bedroom through this window, flew around a bit, and then out. I didn't actually see it myself, but I heard my wife's "there's a big spider" gasp and when I got there it was already gone.


Last week, while I was sitting here blogging, a nuthatch flew in between the window and screen of our living room window. The window was just barely open and it was fluttering around. I was able to open the window further and it flew off. This window is just below the one that a Northern Hawk Owl smashed into last fall. He dropped onto the driveway and I thought he was dead. But he moved, I got my camera, and video taped him getting up and flying off. You can see it at the link. No time for the camera in these recent encounters.


These are rather special moments, but a little strange. A few weeks ago a guest and I were having lunch on the deck when three nuthatches flew up to us. One landed on the table next to the guest's plate and one hovered over his chest while the third landed on him briefly.

As I was writing this I heard a noise on the deck. A Steller (NOT StellAr) Jay was checking out the flower box, and then came within a couple feet of me.

I don't know what it means. As long as Alfred Hitchcock doesn't show up, I'm ok.



Video from KJEveryday:

Leadership Anchorage

The Alaska Humanities Forum has a program called Leadership Anchorage which takes about 15 or 20 people each year and runs them through a series of workshops designed to improve their leadership skills. The intent is to take people who could play an important role in the future of Anchorage and Alaska (and beyond, of course) and help them develop the skills they need.

Applications are on line.

Most of us tend to play to the skills we have and use them to compensate for areas that aren't so developed. Leadership Anchorage helps people work on those often underdeveloped skills that we'd rather not use as well as the obvious talents.

I've known people in the program since it started. The mix in each year's group is amazing. There's an ethnic mix, a talent mix, and an age and experience mix. There are usually people few people know about and there are a few people in fairly high positions already. Here are some of the people who have gone through the program over the years:

• Janie Leask, First Alaskans Institute
• Nils Andreassen, Institute of the North
• Liz Posey Urban League of Young Professionals
• Bill Wielechowski, Alaska State Senate
• Guadalupe Marroquin, (she worked in the Clerk's Office and spared no effort to overcome my fax problems so I could vote in the Muni election from Thailand.)
• Macon Roberts, Anchorage School Board
• Angelina Estrada Burney, State of Alaska
• Erick Cordero Giorgana, Matsu School Board

I'm not giving you a lot of notice here - the deadline for the application is tomorrow. But I bet you could send in a partial application and get the rest in by Monday. (I'm not making the rules, so you better ask first.) And if you can't get your stuff together for this year, you might want to tuck it into your brain as something to prepare for for next year.

This is the 2009-2010 Group

I've posted on this before. It's not free, but it is a great opportunity. And there are some scholarships. There's a fair amount of work you have to do, but it is designed with busy people in mind. Everyone is in the same boat. Here's the schedule for the coming year from the website:

Fall 2009 - Spring 2010 Training Schedule

Retreat: October 9 and 10, 2009 (Friday and Saturday, overnight)* Training 2: October 17, 2009 (Saturday) Group Project Selection Training 3 November 5, 2009 (Thursday) Mentor Training* Training 4: November 21, 2009 (Saturday) Training 5: December 10, 2009 (Thursday)* Training 6: January 23, 2010 (Saturday) Training 7: February 11, 2010 (Thursday)* Training 8: March 13, 2010 (Saturday) Training 9: April 10, 2010 (Saturday) Training 10: May 1, 2010 (Saturday)* Graduation: May 18, 2010 (Tuesday, 6:00-8:00 p.m.) * You are expected to make arrangements to be absent from work on these days. With the exception of the Retreat, the trainings will begin at 8:30 a.m. and conclude at 5 p.m. The retreat will involve an overnight Friday night.

You can see you'll spend some intense time with the group, which means you'll develop some important bonds with Anchorage's future leaders.

The Director, Jim MacKenzie, was a student of mine and is really smart and really well organized, not to mention totally obsessed about making this the best experience the participants have ever had. He lived in Japan for nine years and when he returned to Anchorage he worked as a translator for the Japanese Consul in Anchorage. He's got lots of good stories. He's the guy in the front, right in the picture with the red tie.

Christian Support for Gay Rights

I used to wonder why Buddhism and Hinduism and Islam were attractive to many people in the US and why people in China and Korea were attracted to Christianity. My hypothesis is that when we grow up in a particular religion we see how many of the people profess their faith at the place of worship, but don't live it in their lives. We see people using religious functions to show off their new clothes and use religious rites of passage as a way to compete to see who can throw the most extravagant party. We also learn that some of the religious leaders aren't as perfect as we thought and we learn about cases of financial frauds and sexual abuse among clergy and many people are turned off by that.

But when we get to know an 'exotic' religion, we tend to learn about it more abstractly. We learn about the ideals, the principles, the definitions of good behavior, etc. Long distance, we see other religions in their best light, we don't see the actual practice of it by imperfect human beings.

In any case, yesterday, I read an opinion piece in the Anchorage Daily News entitled, "Prevo is wasting resources fighting gays". Geneva Walters wrote:

I am a heterosexual, conservative, Christian woman and am not threatened by two men or women who love each other and wish to live together and live an openly gay lifestyle. Furthermore, I am horrified at the thought that they would be denied fundamental civil rights based on their sexuality. . .

Then she lists her Christian bona fides

I believe in a triune God, God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. I believe that God created the earth and man in 6 days and rested on the 7th. (However, I do believe that dinosaurs did, in fact, roam the earth, a very long, long, time ago.) I believe in the deity of Christ Jesus, that He was born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified on a cross, died, and rose again on the third day. I believe that He ascended into heaven and now sits at the right hand of God the Father, Almighty.

Then her conservative bona fides:

As far as the term "Conservative" goes, I wait patiently each week for Ann Coulter's column, I am a staunch defender of the rights of the unborn, and the only problem I have with the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan is that we didn't go in sooner.

When I first read it, I was quite surprised, but pleased. But the more I thought about it, the more puzzled I became. The letter was written in a very reasonable and rational tone. How could someone like that be an Ann Coulter fan? Was this really some liberal posing as a conservative?

I could just post my suspicions, but I really didn't have enough to go on and I could be totally wrong. And I wouldn't want to raise doubts about what, on the surface, was the kind of conservative we need more of.

I would also note that sometimes people write of an opposing political persuasion, "Why do you only concentrate on issues on our side? You never talk about problems that you guys have." On the one hand that's a valid point. But on the other hand, why should conservatives give liberals free fodder and vice versa? Each side should get the dirt on the other side and they have no obligation to serve up juicy stories about their own heroes. But on the other hand, a balanced source of information ought to give praise when it is due and criticism when it is due. If this article in the Daily News is a fake, wouldn't it be better if a progressive blog said so first?

I don't think there are any easy answers to those questions. If my side is wrong, I should acknowledge that. If I find a story about people I support which may tarnish them, but ultimately isn't a big deal, why should I post it? And I might not post something about people I don't support if it's only outcome would be to hurt them personally. It's not easy to figure this all out, and I reserve the right to make mistakes.

In this case, I emailed my questions to the author of the piece. And she responded in a way that put my questions to rest. (I did tell her I was a blogger and that I wouldn't put up anything from her if she didn't want me to, but that if she said OK, she didn't have approval rights. She had no problem with that and said ok.)

Essentially she said, "Hey look, people aren't black or white. Just cause someone has certain characteristics doesn't mean she's a certain 'type' and that you can predict everything else about her."

It's so easy to place someone in a box because they hold a certain viewpoint and not allow them to express their opinion on an issue by issue basis. As long as America is content with a two party political system, we will continue to place people on one side or the other. We don't bother to try and understand them, it's just easier to dismiss them as Liberal or Conservative. It's silly to me, it's like we're all lining up for a game of Red Rover. While I may be pro-life, I'm quite liberal when it comes to environmental issues. Believe it or not, I have a few gay friends that are pro-life and a bit "Hawkish" when it comes to national defense.

I believe it. She goes on:

There were really two issues that were weighing heavy on my conscience. One of course was the issue of gay rights. I have several gay friends and colleagues and have been given an opportunity to interact with them and seek to understand what they are really fighting for. I don't pretend to understand all of the aspects to the gay rights movement, after all, I'm not gay. I just refuse to deny them their basic rights or allow other Christians to speak for me on this issue. The response I have received has been overwhelmingly positive and much of that response has been from Christians who have basically said "thank you for saying what I've been feeling for a long time." It's also worth pointing out that not all Christians are from the "main-stream evangelical" or "fundamentalist" background which is pervasive with legalistic rule following. I am a product of the Christian Reformed faith and differ on many points with fundamentalists (Baptists).

There's lots in that paragraph.

1. She has gay friends and so she's had a source of information on this topic that is different from the church. Besides some Christian churches are taking stances in favor of gay rights.
   
   
2. She's trying to take back the label Christian, or at least not let one group claim to be the only true Christians and the only people who can speak as Christians. I had to go look up Christian Reformed and I'm still not sure I got it right. I did find this on Religionfacts:

   "Presbyterian
   Presbyterian and Reformed churches share a common origin in the 16th-century Swiss Reformation and the teachings of John Calvin."

   They aren't listed in many comparisons of Protestant groups such as this page at ReligiousTolerance, on Divisions within Protestant Christianity. (Beware, I found one point that seemed to be in serious error. Their chart says that Conservative Christians favor "Special rights for heterosexuals; e.g. marriage" which would seem a rather major error.)
   
   My point here was to try to figure out whether her religious background would have any credibility at all with Fundamentalists. I have no idea.
   
   

I'm also glad to hear about the positive response she got to the piece. But all groups can be nasty when one of their own speaks out like this publicly. So day two might not be as positive. But I guess it depends on where, actually, the Reformed Christians fit in the liberal - conservative continuum. Finally, she wrote:

The second issue was the homeless. It breaks my heart to see these folks on street corners and living in our parks. We could do so much more for them. It wasn't until a few weeks ago that I saw the correlation between these two issues.

Steven, I grew up in a Christian home and can honestly never remember discussing the "gay" issue. I never saw my parents attempt to address this issue on behalf of the church. Instead, I remember my parents, and the other members of the church, taking over our kitchen on Sunday afternoons to make sandwiches for the Brother Francis Shelter. This was the image of the Christian faith that I grew up with, not the finger wagging and shallow platitudes that are handed down from the pulpit in many modern churches

So, from what I can tell, she's a genuine Christian and she's conservative on the issue that Christian conservatives made pivotal - abortion. And conservative Christians are getting more concerned about the environment.

So, it appears that this was the real thing. A believing Christian who doesn't want the Jerry Prevos speaking on behalf of all Christians. She sounds a lot more like my vision of what a Christian sounds like.

I've been trying to tell some of my progressive buddies that we shouldn't look at all the 'conservative Christians' as a monolith. Just as we aren't all the same. And if we talk to each other with respect and decency, they are more likely to approach us when the time is right. Geneva, thanks for standing up for your convictions - both the ones I agree with and the ones I question. You still need to explain Ann Coulter to me, but it sounds like we can have that discussion.

Ride To Bird Creek

Sometimes it's easy to get stuck in town, especially when you try to use the bike instead of the car. But this evening we decided to take a 'short trip to Alaska,' so we drove out of Anchorage down to Bird Creek. And here is where the rain had been hiding. But soon there was a faint rainbow over the mudflats.







It had been threatening to rain all day, but the sun managed to find the holes in the clouds most of the time. But down here it let loose. There's a hint of a rainbow in this picture of Turnagain Arm.




Here's a picture of the mudflats.




To make more sense out of the previous picture, here it is with the mountains to give it some context.



Mudflats at the mouth of birdcreek, with a run of salmon coming in.









There's a street off the Seward Highway at Bird Creek with this street sign. Problem is, the jay

is named after the German naturalist Georg Wilhelm Steller who discovered them in 1741 (Evans 1986).(wikipedia
(from Wikipedia)

On the one hand you could say just leave it. But it has nothing to do with the stars, it's about Georg Wilhelm Steller. If you leave it, people will see it and think it should be spelled this way.







It smelled pretty bad here as there was a fair amount of rotting salmon waiting for the gulls to clean them up.







Now we're on the boardwalk at Potter Marsh.

We saw the swans as we drove along the Marsh. The belted kingfisher (sorry, but real birders will recognize it from this shot) was there briefly. The bald eagle's been there all summer at a next. I took this through someone's spotting scope.

It really wasn't this dark, but my choice was to make the foreground dark or wipe out the sky.

And the Lucky Winner Is . . .

Bonsai-Jay from San Antonio, Texas. He was the 123,456th visitor. I asked if he could send a picture and he sent this bonzai ficus. I'm totally in awe of his bonsai prowess. It's a good thing all he can see of my yard are close up pictures of flowers and not the rest.



He writes:

My name is Bonsai-Jay. I live in San Antonio, Texas. I stop by you blog at least 3 or 4 times a week. As my screen name suggests, I am a Bonsai Enthusiast [and I work as] an Information Systems Administrator. I used to live in Alaska back in 1980-82. Anchorage most of the time. I worked/lived in Whitter one summer break from college. Gee those were the days.

Here's his sitemeter visitor profile. I'm posting this with his permission, in part to show the 123,456 was from San Antonio and also because I think everyone should be aware of what tracks they leave behind at websites they visit. In the interest of transparency, I've always left my sitemeter open to anyone to poke around. Just click on the number - the one below the word Sitemeter in the lower part of the right column. (Not the 123,456 near the top. A couple people saw that and thought they'd won, until they looked a little closer.)

I'm now working on a prize. I'll let you know what he gets after he's received it. He's given me some ideas.


Norma Jean from Michigan was 123,457 - a first time visitor to the site.

Marge, also from Michigan, checked to see if she was the winner, not sure exactly what number she was. Someone from Topeka, Kansas was 123,454. And someone from Houston was 123,455. Texas, not Alaska.

I'm not exactly sure what Jody from Mississippi's number was. She wrote:

I was born in Alaska in the early sixties. My father was stationed at Elmendorf Air Force base. We lived there for a few years when I was small until my father was sent to his next assignment (Vietnam). I love Anchorage and all things Alaskan. My husband and I flew to Anchorage several years ago and visited Anchorage and Juneau and went salmon fishing. It was a wonderful trip.

I read several Alaskan blogs and the Alaskan Daily News every day. Your state is fascinating. I appreciate the work and effort you put into your posts. They are always interesting.

It's nice to hear from people who have been to the blog. There are a couple of other regulars who stop by who might like to send an email like the person from Volin, South Dakota, or the person from rcn.com in DC (you were 123,458!), or the person from Liege with Linux. Come out from behind the curtain and say hello. Or not.

Again, thanks to everyone who has visited and moved the counter up, now already closing in on 124,000 as I write this. The numbers really aren't that important, but knowing that people do read the blog does keep me much more careful about what I say and how I say it.

[Update:  Click here for a picture of the prizes. ]

Spam Blog?

I got the following email today:

Hello, Your blog at: http://whatdoino-steve.blogspot.com/ has been identified as a potential spam blog. To correct this, please request a review by filling out the form at http://www.blogger.com/unlock-blog.g?lockedBlogID=30897652 Your blog will be deleted in 20 days if it isn't reviewed, and your readers will see a warning page during this time. After we receive your request, we'll review your blog and unlock it within two business days. Once we have reviewed and determined your blog is not spam, the blog will be unlocked and the message in your Blogger dashboard will no longer be displayed. If this blog doesn't belong to you, you don't have to do anything, and any other blogs you may have won't be affected. We find spam by using an automated classifier. Automatic spam detection is inherently fuzzy, and occasionally a blog like yours is flagged incorrectly. We sincerely apologize for this error. By using this kind of system, however, we can dedicate more storage, bandwidth, and engineering resources to bloggers like you instead of to spammers. For more information, please see Blogger Help: http://help.blogger.com/bin/answer.py?answer=42577 Thank you for your understanding and for your help with our spam-fighting efforts. Sincerely, The Blogger Team P.S. Just one more reminder: Unless you request a review, your blog will be deleted in 20 days. Click this link to request the review: http://www.blogger.com/unlock-blog.g?lockedBlogID=30897652

[The above copied as an html table and on my computer the right side is cut off. But I think you can get the gist without have to read every word so I don't think it is worth the time to fix it.]

Of course I was suspicious that this was just a phishing scam. In fact, a google bot had been by twice today looking up phishing scam on my blog. But I figured I could follow the link and see where it took me. If it was phishing, it was far more sophisticated and grammatically correct than most I get.

That led me to this page:

It looked to be a real blogger site, it didn't ask for any information, it already had my email, so I've sent it in.

So, if I disappear, this is why. Hopefully their systems work and I won't disappear. But I do now have to put in word verification to post on my own blog.

Julie & Julia is a Blogging Movie

I almost didn't go. Listening to Julia Child on television was like listening to fingernails on the blackboard for me. Fortunately, Meryl Streep's version of Julia Child didn't quite capture her voice.

I thought it was going to be a movie about cooking, but it was really (you know I almost never say what things are 'really' because I know we each take our own meaning from things, but in this case it really - tongue firmly in cheek -) is about blogging. This is the first mainstream Hollywood movie that I recall that is about a blogger blogging from the beginning to the end. (OK, I know people will suggest three or four others. Sleepless in Seattle [You've Got Mail, thanks SCWG] was about AOL mail. And email has played a role in a lot of movies. But blogging being a central activity?)

I did know about the blog, and I even visited it a couple of times, but I didn't think the movie would spend as much time on her blogging as it did on her cooking. And it resonated here - especially when her husband told her she was way more wrapped up in the blog and than in him. J and I both laughed. That kind of laugh where hers means 'gotcha' and mine means 'guilty.'

Damn, she worked a full time job, took the subway home, shopped for dinner, cooked one, two, or three of Julia Child's recipes, blogged, and started over again the next day. Ahh, to be young again.

Bloggers out there, go see this movie - with your spouse or significant other. Eat before you go though.

Sometime Soon

[UPDATE August 23, 2009: There was a winner who got to the site at 6:04pm tonight. He's identified himself and when I get permissions, I'll announce more. We also have to figure out an appropriate prize. Thanks to all who have moved the numbers up.]

Visitor number 123,456 will visit this site. It could be you. I have a prize for you if you are that visitor. But you have to identify yourself. The sitemeter number is in the right hand column after "About Me" and before "Labels." I can't tell your email address, so you'll have to email me to claim your prize.

If the 123,456th visitor isn't identifiable, the closest (to 123,456) identifiable visitor will win. So even if your close, keep track of your number and
email me.

What's the prize? Depends on who you are and where you are. You'll have to tell me a little about yourself so I can figure out something from here you might like.

Oh yes, the last time, some people said they tried to win by coming back to the site over and over. But as I understand it, sitemeter doesn't record you if you come back from the same isp within a short time period. I'm not trying to boost hits, just to note a milestone of sorts.

See more at the top of the right column.

Phoebe Greenough and Breaking Ground at Out North

We went to Out North last night to see dancers. The blurb said

Breaking Ground sprung up during a dinner conversation between Becky, Therese and I. [It hurts to write that on my blog - it should be "between Becky, Therese and me." Maybe I'll explain why in another post one day. In the meantime you can go to the link to find out why.] Our goal was to find a way to bring together artists and dancers in the community and give them the opportunity to produce and try out new ideas...

We knew that things might be a little crowded because of all the cars parked on the street and we were early even. I'd read that there would be about 10 five minute pieces by different people. So, the cars might just be those of all the performers.

There was also an art exhibit in the gallery, so we looked around.



While I wasn't excited about everything, there were some pieces - and parts of pieces - that felt good on my eyes.


When we went into the theater it was packed and we got seats way in back. Good strategy - lots of local performers means lots of friends and family who come to see them. Enough to fill up a small theater.

"Breaking Ground" means doing new stuff, so I was expecting to see something new. Maybe it meant new for the dancers rather than for Anchorage or for dancing. At least that went through my mind for the first couple of dancers. This caused me to think about how one should evaluate dancing, especially ground breaking dancing. (One could debate whether we should evaluate at all, but that too is a different post. I would note that someone this week mentioned a workshop she attended on non-violent communication which has as a main starting point, getting rid of judgmental language. When I read the book, I'll do more on that.)

Picture taking was specifically banned during the performances so you get after-dance pictures here. In any case, as I watched the dancing, I thought about what would be 'good' in this case. Some of the dancers were pretty young and this is Anchorage, not New York City. I came up with two factors - was the dancing 'good' and was it 'new'? What's good dancing? For me, the dancer is dancing, not performing. The dancer is moving naturally, is not thinking ('ok, now step to the left and ready for the next leap"), but just flows naturally. The body has to be able to move right to the music. I forget where I am and just enjoy.

What's 'new'? Not being a dance expert who keeps up with the latest trends, I guess I can only judge what's new for me. And it seems to me that while there are an infinite number of moves human bodies can probably combine into a piece, coming up with something that no dancer has ever done before (and should do) is probably not easy.

So I was ready to settle for 'good' and not worry about 'new'. I liked 'ChitChat' by Michelle "Shimmy Shoes" Steffens because it broke from what I'd call the ice skating routine type dancing to music of the first pieces. She started out seated, tying her shoes, then tapped while sitting, got up and tapped around. The only music was her shoes until she got the audience involved in a routine of foot tapping, finger snapping, more tapping, and two claps. It was different and it involved the audience actively in the dance. I liked it. J wasn't moved by it though. And she knows a lot more about dancing than I do.



But things changed radically when Krista Katalenich and Felix Bambury Webbe took the stage. Forget all the criteria - you know good dancing when you see it. They were there and I just enjoyed how they moved alone and then came together and then alone. It worked. They were somewhere else with the music, not on stage in front of an audience. We got to talk to them a bit afterward. They live in Fairbanks. Felix, who's from Cuba, has been there for two years and teaches Afro-Cuban (I think that's what he said) dancing. Krista is a student at UAF and at Felix's dance school.

The last piece was eleven dancers swinging to Swingset by Jourrasic 5. It was an ambitious piece with couples dancing, splitting, regrouping, moving here and there across the stage, and with choreographer and dancer Rick Ruiz lip-synching.
You really should go to the video. The cool thing is that what they did on stage was way better than what happens in the video. Rick is in the picture with the other 'director' of the piece - Dorthy Fredenberg. The group will be performing at the State Fair and there's something else coming up in Anchorage, but I forgot what. Maybe Rick will tell us in a comment. Below he's telling us how the idea for the choreography came to him.



The group is called Swingset Hooligans.