Anchorage International Film Festival (AIFF) 2009 Starts December 4

The Anchorage International  Film Festival starts in a couple of weeks.  I'll be blogging it again, though this time I'm starting a little bit sooner so I can be a bit more prepared than last time.  (Maybe being prepared isn't an advantage here, not sure.) As we get into the festival, that will be my main focus here.


In any case, prior to the start I'm going to try to highlight the films in competition.  Basically, these are the films that have been selected, from among those submitted, to be eligible for prizes.  There are various categories of films and I wrote about that last year.  So if you want to know the difference between official selections, special selections, in competition,  as well as how movies are chosen,  you can go to What Do the Film Categories Mean?

I know there are lots of people out there who are barely aware - or not even that much - that the Festival is happening.  They really don't know what's playing and won't look at the schedule.  But there might be a film that would interest them - because it takes place in India ("One Day in Cochin" for example) or because it's about a topic of interest ("Son of the Sunshine" is about Tourettes and "East Planet" is a Japanese science fiction movie.)  I'll try to come up with some lists that people could scan quickly to see if there is something of special interest.

I'm also working to get up a post for each category, listing the films in competition.  These are the films from which the winners will be selected.

There are also some changes in venue.  Fireweed is no longer in the mix.  But new, not even finished theaters for the Alaska Experience in the Ship Creek Center (the old Post Office Mall) will be venues.  The Bear Tooth will be the center of action, and the Museum, Out North, and the Marston Theater at Loussac Library will also be used. 

You can go explore the Festival website on your own if you're so inclined.  There are also still plenty of chances to volunteer.  Don't be intimidated by the forms, this is just people doing things.

How Old Would You Be If You Were Born in 1909?

I get this Google search question several times a month, but I got these two inquiries just today:

"how old would you be if you were born in 1909"

"how old would u be if your born in 1909"

Arithmetic is largely a matter of learning 'tricks' for manipulating numbers. One such trick is the idea of adding or subtracting 10 or 100 or 1000 to a number. It's pretty elementary. I don't know how old these people are who are asking this question, but they are old enough to type into Google. (And if a parent typed it for them, why didn't the parent teach them the math instead of teaching them to let Google do their thinking for them?) Maybe one of these people is an adult, who votes. Scary isn't it? Actually, only one comes from the US, the other was from UK. (So no smirking Jay.)

9+10 = 19 19+10 = 29 29+10 = 39 39+10 = 49 49+10 = 59

90+100 = 190 190+100 = 290 290+100 = 390 390+100 = 490 490+100 = 590

1909+100 = 2009 2009+100 = 2109 2109+100 = 2209 2209+100 = 2309 2309+100 = 2409

59-10 = 49 49-10 = 39 39-10 = 29 29-10 = 19 19-10 = 9

Once you learn the pattern, you can just do it automatically. While some people have a natural gift for math, others simply have to work harder to get these tricks, but they're just tricks. And when you learn them, suddenly it makes sense. Just the way that you have to know how to use a key to unlock a door. That's a trick someone has to teach you. Once you learn it, it's easy.

I'm not making fun of, or blaming these searchers, but I am concerned about the quality of education and even parental guidance these people got. Not knowing how to do such a simple calculation may be one of the reasons NPR reported today that researchers found that half of Americans couldn't round up $2000 in 30 days. [And NPR now lets us embed their pieces here on the blog. Thanks NPR! Click below to listen to the segment.]
Well, if you don't know simple math, how can you know how much you are spending compared to how much you are taking in? Maybe it's not just greed as many people have thought, maybe it's ignorance.

While some people are caught in minimum wage jobs and raising kids and may have had some health problem wipe out their savings, many, I would guess, just thought that their credit cards were instant money, or that housing prices would go up forever, or just bought way more than they could afford. And these people use the same level of thinking when they decide on things like health care policy.

Tiny Black Bugs - Fruit Flies or Fungus Gnats?

In lieu of a dog or cat, we have various insects living at our house. Most prominent lately have been these tiny black flying things. But they're too small and too active to really get a decent picture. But this week I found one floating in a little water at the bottom of a cup on the table. These guys sometimes seem to come home with bananas and they like any kitchen scraps we haven't covered well before taking them out to the compost. And we're at the season change time when our backyard compost takes its winter break and we haven't quite gotten used to the garbage disposal yet.

But with a picture in hand, I finally called Cooperative Extension to see if I could identify the little critters. Because they liked the fruit he thought they might be fruit flies, but when he saw the picture he called to say they were Fungus Gnats.

He sent me a link to the Colorado State  Extension site where I learned:

Fungus gnats (Bradysia species) – also known as dark-winged fungus gnats, are small, mosquito-like insects often found in homes and offices, usually in the vicinity of houseplants. They are considered a nuisance when present in noticeable numbers, but the adults are harmless insects that do not bite. Fungus gnat larvae develop in the growing medium of houseplants and are considered minor pests of houseplants. . .

They are really small, I took another picture with a grain of uncooked rice floating next to it.

The most important strategy to minimize fungus gnat problems associated with houseplants is to allow the growing medium to dry between watering, especially the top 1 to 2 inches. The dry-growing medium will decrease survival of any eggs laid and/or larvae that hatch from the eggs as well as reduce the attractiveness of the growing medium to egg-laying adult females. In addition, it is recommended to re-pot every so often, particularly when the growing medium has “broken down” and is retaining too much moisture. Furthermore, be sure to remove any containers with an abundance of decaying plant matter such as decayed bulbs and roots, which provide an excellent food source for fungus gnat larvae. . .

 Want to see if there are larvae growing in your potted plant soil?  But do you really want to find these guys?  (The larvae picture - on a potato - is from the Colorado State site.)

"An effective means of detecting the presence of fungus gnat larvae is to insert 1/4 inch slices or wedges of potato into the growing medium. Larvae will migrate to the potato and start feeding within a few days. The potato slices should be turned over to look for larvae present on the underside."

And the fruit fly?  That looks totally different.  Picture and text are from an Oklahoma State webpage

Life Cycle: Female fruit flies lay their eggs on the surface of rotting fruits and vegetables. Each female may lay as many as 500 eggs. These eggs hatch into larvae which molt twice before becoming fully grown. The larvae feed on the yeast organisms and fungi growing in infested material, and through their feeding efforts, they soon turn their food into a semi-liquid "mess." When the full-grown larvae are ready to pupate, they leave the food material for dryer areas. Complete development from egg to adult under summer conditions may be completed in 8 to 10 days. Mating takes place soon after adult emergence, usually within a few hours, and egg laying begins about 24 hours later.

There's a lot more on the links if you want to know more. 

KSKA Celebrates Bede Trantina's 30th Year

Shortly after we came to radio station KSKA first began to broadcast All Things Considered and other NPR programs and that's when I first met Bede Trantina.  Anchorage has changed a lot in those 30 plus years, but every Friday for most of that time, one thing has stayed the same.  If you turn on KSKA at 9 am, you can hear Bede announce the last day of the week. Just click on the yellow box with the black arrow below.

Yippee It's Friday by AKRaven

So on Friday, November 13, KSKA had a party to celebrate Bede's 30 years at the station.  A lot of good people were there to say thank you to Bede.

Seth Kantner Speaks at UAA

We got to the Arts building a bit early and Room 150 filled up pretty well.  He came on stage after a brief introduction and started to read.  Then he moved from the podium and talked until someone shouted out that he couldn't hear.  So to be accommodating, Kanter, clearly feeling confined, chained himself behind the podium where it was harder to see him, but he was louder.  (I hadn't had any problem hearing him before.)

(I agree the picture is kind of weird.  One day these experiments might pay off, but until then, you'll just have to bear with me.  And be assured, most of these don't escape the delete button.)

He read, he talked, he answered questions, he showed slides.  I think he's a very unique person - having grown up in a white family, but living very remotely in a traditional Native lifestyle, at least in terms of housing, food, and transportation.  In Ordinary Wolves, a novel based on his own life experiences, he writes about being white in a Native environment, but living 'more Native' than most of the Natives.  I'm sure the idea of a white kid who maintained a dog sled when most Native kids were on snow machines was hard to deal with.  Why was he 'playing Native' I'm sure went through some people's minds.  And I'm sure his reverence for the land while many Native kids had lost theirs, must have spurred in others a sense of guilty resentment.  His very existence messes with out stereotypes.

We're just lucky he also likes to write and gives us insights into a world few people on earth will ever experience.  And makes us confront our own, mostly artificial, images of  rural Alaska.  So, I say, go read the books.   Here are some pictures of the event. 


And finally, here's a short clip of him speaking.

November 13, 2009

According to Wikipedia, this is the third Friday the 13th this year.  The next one will be August 2010.

Alaska Pacific University President Search Nearing Finish Line

[UPDATE  Nov. 16: Finalists have been announced. Click on link.]

The search schedule puts the final 3-5 candidates coming to Anchorage in November/December so an announcement about those finalists should be made any day now.

September/October 2009	Recruiting continues. In late October, initial screening/filtering of leads to selection of 8 to 12 semifinalists.
November 2009	PSC interviews semifinalists at neutral airport location, selecting 3 to 5 finalists. Background checks are conducted on all finalists.
November/December 2009	Finalists are announced and visit campus, meet with all constituencies, including Anchorage community, and undergo comprehensive interviews/Q&A with Board of Trustees.
December 10, 2009	Scheduled Board of Trustee meeting. Trustees select the top candidate, Chair leads contract negotiations.
January 2010	New President introduced to the APU community on campus and the wider public.

The search is being conducted by Witt/Kieffer  a company that does things like executive searches.  There's a 17 page brochure about the job and APU in pdf form.  From page 10 I've gotten this list of the traits they are looking for.

Alaska Pacific University is dedicated to the service of Alaska Native populations. Its president must both embody and advocate for a university that is responsive to and supportive of a highly diverse community. A demonstrated track record of enhancing diversity is therefore required.
In addition, the ideal candidate will possess:

• a commitment to active learning and to innovation in the academic program, including a working knowledge of non-traditional delivery systems (especially distance learning);
• a deep understanding of and demonstrated commitment to both traditional and non- traditional students;
• an accessible personal style that fits the intimate environment of the small university, combined with an unrelenting commitment to students as the centerpiece of the university;
• exceptional financial skills as characterized by significant experience with both budgets and investments;
• considerable and successful experience as a manager of people and programs with an emphasis on team building;
• a commitment to and track record of supporting shared governance; a commitment to impacting the earth’s environment in a positive way;
• an understanding of the role of private university education combined with an ability to articulate and advocate its continued importance and value; and
• the core attributes of great leaders (in addition to those noted above): honesty, intelligence, energy, enthusiasm, optimism, adaptability, transparency, decisiveness, courage of convictions, tolerance for ambiguity, and a good sense of humor.

Finally, Alaska is a unique subset of the United States. Its people, culture, topography, and climate are truly different than what most in the “Lower 48” states experience. Alaska is one of APU’s most vital assets, and its people are among the university’s most important – and diverse – constituencies. Personal resonance with Alaska and Alaskans is critical to the president’s success. Both candidates and the APU community want to be confident that the new president (and his or her household) will thrive in this singular environment.

The choice of APU's President is one that should be of interest to all Anchorage residents.  Universities play an important role in a community.  The new president can energize the community by developing greater educational opportunities for Alaskans (and others), by working cooperatively with UAA, and by making the campus a center for research into Alaska issues.  Or, if the new President isn't a great choice, we will lose the potential of this resource.

Seth Kantner Talks Tonight at UAA at 7pm

[Update: newer post after the talk.]

Seth Kantner's Ordinary Wolves is a remarkable book.  I thought I wrote a post about it, but apparently not.  I haven't read his new book Shopping for Porcupine.

7pm at the Arts Building* 150 

There is a little bit buried in a longer post about Tony Hopfinger's article about Wales in the the Walrus.  I'll excerpt a bit of here since it's too hard to find in the longer piece.

The Ethics of Outsiders Writing about Rural Alaska

An aside on language first. In cross-cultural discussions, it's important to clarify our words. I don't talk about 'white' writers here, because the issue is not restricted simply to 'whites.' It is really about non-Natives. But what about non-Natives who grew up in rural Alaska, like Seth Kantner who not only grew up in rural Alaska, but did so living a subsistence lifestyle using traditional tools? His book Ordinary Wolves [I didn't like any of the links I saw, and even this NPR piece starts out with the stereotypical "Ooooh eeeee. He grew up in a half buried arctic igloo made of sod. He had no electricity, no plumbing..." but you get to hear Kantner himself] writes about that life and about changes in rural Alaska. So, 'outsider', seems an appropriate term. I mean it to include people who have a different way of seeing the world from people who grew up in rural Alaska. It includes those who live in rural Alaska temporarily as government officials, teachers, medical personnel - people who get an intimate glimpse of rural Alaska life through their jobs, but with the glasses of an Outsider. Which is not to say some can't cross the line.

The Arts Building is on the far east of campus past the administration building.  That whole part of campus is entirely changed since the woods were cut down and a new parking garage installed.  Parking in the lot (don't know about the garage) should be free since it will be after 7pm.  And the talk itself is free. 

Shopping for Porcupine is also one of the two books that are being read this year in many different UAA classes.  It should be worth coming to hear Kantner.

*This is the southside of the Art Building. The entrance is to the right and up the main road.  Or you can park your bike at the end of this path on the left of the building.

Foraker Focus Group

I got to the Mountain View building about ten minutes early.  (Yes, they did move into the part of town that probably has a higher percentage of clients of the non-profits they serve, putting their money and their jobs where their mouth is.)  The parking lot was full and I saw the sign.  New snow plays tricks.  But at least I knew there was additional parking and the other side of the building was the most likely place.

The Foraker Group is an offshoot of the Anchorage United Way.  From their website:

In 1998, the United Way of Anchorage surveyed its agencies to determine what services they needed and would be willing to use in a pooled organization. Their initial list was long, but the four highest demands were assistance in fundraising, planned giving, finance and technology. A model was developed based on a concept of sharing these four resources under one nonprofit umbrella, thereby helping other organizations afford these services which are often beyond their budgets. This model is The Foraker Group.

The Foraker Group officially began offering shared services to the Alaska nonprofit sector in January 2001, after it secured the major financial support of the United Way of Anchorage, The Rasmuson Foundation, The M.J. Murdock Charitable Trust, ConocoPhillips Alaska and BP Exploration (Alaska), Inc.

Today, The Foraker Group offers a wide range of services, training and educational opportunities that help assure the success of Alaska's nonprofit organizations. [I left out all the corporate logos they had up.  An advantage of underwriting my own blog is I don't have to post any ads.]

The back of the building was in bright sunshine and made for a much better picture than the front.  Avocado has long been out as a color for appliances.  Maybe it's back now for buildings. 

I'm on the steering committee of Healing Racism in Anchorage (HRA),  which joined Foraker this year.  Our steering committee chair and our part time staff person went to a meeting with Foraker and the whole steering committee went to a strategic planning meeting this summer.

So now Foraker is having focus groups with representatives of its member groups to see how they are doing and detect future needs.  I was available yesterday, so HRA  sent  me.

I walked around to the front, cleaned the snow off the sign (both sides) and went in to the meeting.

Around the table were people from a diverse set of organizations - Volunteers of America, The Holy Rosary Academy, Friends of Alaska CASA,  Kincaid Project Group, me, and the Sitka Music Festival.

We spent a short time going over Foraker's sustainability model for nonprofits.  Basically it's about making sure that the money, the personnel, and the organizational purpose are all three healthy and working in a collaborative community.

We did some exercises to give Foraker feedback on how well they are serving their members.


What I got most out of this meeting was the chance to talk with and hear from people from other nonprofits.  It was interesting to hear their issues and experiences.


I also learned that while foundation and corporate donations were down, individual donations were holding relatively steady. 

Dennis McMillian who is head of Foraker is seen by many folks as a man who walks on water.  I know Dennis and I too think he has pretty extraordinary skills.  It's been one of his goals to improve the
nonprofit sector in Anchorage in part by fostering collaboration across organizations, professionalizing the way nonprofits are run, and encouraging greater philanthropy. But whenever a group is successful, some folks are likely to become disgruntled.

The collaboration of United Way, Foraker, and the Rasmussen Foundation in some ways has become the 400 pound nonprofit gorilla in Anchorage. I tend to be pretty much out of the gossip loop, so I can't tell how big a deal that is. I know that the people running the three organizations are very competent and pretty driven so I suspect they could seem pretty formidable to organizations outside the network. My sense though is that they acknowledge that not everyone wants to do it their way and that they wish them no ill will. But looking around on line, I can't find online about these organizations that isn't glowing.  What I'm tiptoeing around is the notion that these organizations seem to have been treated by the media with kid gloves.

I'm pretty sure that what they are doing is basically for the benefit of Alaska and particularly Alaska's needy.  I personally have no knowledge of anything negative.  But I also think they are big enough players in town that the media ought to pay more critical attention to what they are doing.  Just to make sure they keep doing the right things.  Alaska media has had a tendency to be overly respectful of those in power, especially when they dole out money.  I'm not in any way suggesting that there is anything untoward going on, but journalists should always have some healthy skepticism. 

Exxon's Iraq Oil Contract From Different Perspectives

The name of this blog is What Do I Know? in part to call attention to the fact that we know things, often the same things, differently.  The stories in our heads cause us to focus on different facts in the same situation and interpret the same situation differently.  And to be totally blind to the what others see that conflicts with what we see.

Here are a couple of stories on Exxon/Mobile getting contracts for oil in Iraq.  In respect for the sources, I'll just offer the beginning of each piece. You can click on the links to see the rest of each of these.

From the Guardian:

ExxonMobil wins $50bn contract to develop West Qurna oilfield

The American energy giant ExxonMobil today won the right to develop one of the world's most prized untapped oil reserves, in a $50bn (£30bn) deal that will entrench the company as one of the largest players in postwar Iraq.

Exxon was awarded a contract to extract oil from the West Qurna reservoir near Basra in Iraq's south during an extended tender process that has seen the Iraqi government partner foreign firms in a bid to get its reserves of oil out of the ground as cheaply and quickly as possible.
West Qurna was considered the jewel in the nine Iraqi oil and gas fields up for grabs, with verified reserves of 15bn barrels and a strong chance that exploration will reveal significantly more.
Iraqi oil minister Hussain Shahristani said the contract stipulated a $25bn investment and $25bn more in operating fees. It is also expected to yield up to 100,000 jobs in the impoverished deep south of the country that was heavily blighted by insurgency throughout the past five years.
"Iraq will get great benefits from developing the sector and providing services for the people," said Shahristani in Baghdad's oil ministry. "After decades of oppression and tyranny, Iraq is getting back its riches for this generation and for the next."

Here's the  view from countercurrents.org

The Plunder Of Iraq’s Oil

By James Cogan

11 November, 2009

The awarding of development rights over the huge West Qurna oilfield in southern Iraq to Exxon-Mobil and Royal Dutch Shell last Thursday once again underscores the criminal character of the continuing US-led occupation. As the direct result of the Iraq war, major American and other transnational energy conglomerates are now gaining control over some the largest oilfields in the world.

West Qurna has proven reserves of 8.7 billion barrels of oil. Iraq’s total reserves are currently put at 115 billion barrels, though dozens of potential fields have not been explored adequately. Before the US invasion in 2003, rights over West Qurna had been awarded by the Baathist regime of Saddam Hussein to the Russian oil firm, Lukoil. The pro-US puppet regime in Baghdad has torn up all pre-war contracts.

Exxon-Mobil is the first US-based oil giant to benefit. Under the terms of a 20-year contract, Exxon-Mobil and Shell plan to boost daily production at West Qurna from less than 300,000 barrels to 2.3 million barrels per day over the next six years. As well as the Iraqi government compensating the companies for the cost of upgrading the field—which may run as high as $50 billion—they will be paid $1.90 for each barrel extracted, or some $1.5 billion per year. Exxon-Mobil holds an 80 percent stake and Shell the remaining 20 percent.

From the Wall Street Journal:

Exxon-Led Consortium Wins Iraq Oil Contract

By GINA CHON

BAGHDAD—The Iraqi Oil Ministry on Thursday said it has awarded a consortium led by Exxon Mobil Corp. and Royal Dutch Shell PLC the right to develop the West Qurna-1 oil field, representing the first American-led team gaining access to the country's oil patch.
The pact is the latest in a series of deals Iraq has recently signed or initialed with some of the world's biggest oil companies. Earlier this week, Iraqi officials completed a final agreement with BP PLC and China National Petroleum Corp. and an initial agreement with a consortium led by Italy's Eni SpA. U.S. oil company Occidental Petroleum Corp. participated as a junior partner in the Eni-led team.

The Exxon-Shell team, combining two of the world's biggest publicly listed oil companies, had been seen as the favorite to win the contract, which calls for the consortium to boost production at the already-pumping field in southern Iraq in exchange for a per-barrel fee. Among the three competitors, it offered the highest production target for the field, the Oil Ministry said.
An initial pact is expected to be signed on Thursday. The deal will then go to the Iraqi cabinet for approval before a final agreement can be signed, Oil Ministry spokesman Assem Jihad said.

Here's what it looked like five years ago to Information Clearinghouse:

The Great Iraq Heist

Iraqis are paying for the war waged against them

A.K. Gupta

01/15/04: Forget for a moment about quagmire, the growing heaps of U.S. and Iraqi dead, and the rebellious population. George Bush, Paul Bremer, and gang have pulled off the biggest heist in history. They and no one else own 100 billion barrels of crude oil—a windfall of at least $3 trillion—along with the entire assets and resources of Iraq.

Since March 2003, a series of executive orders by Bush, UN documents, and regulations and orders issued by Iraqi Proconsol Paul Bremer have put the U.S. in absolute control of the state of Iraq, its oil industry and monies, all while lifting barriers to repatriating profits.

In the name of reconstruction and security, the Bush administration has essentially granted itself the power to use the wealth of the Iraqi people as it sees fit. Never mind that the new “fiscal matrix” in Iraq violates international law: a fact of little concern to the White House when the war was illegal to begin with.

The largest contracts have gone to corporations like Halliburton, Bechtel, and Fluor, which are big contributors to the Republicans and now enjoy oversight of their Iraq activities by former executives who now sit in the Bush administration. Furthermore, Bush has given the corporate victors the ultimate protection: indemnifying them from liability for any and all activities related to Iraqi oil.

To top it all off, the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq is using money from oil sales to help pay for the counterinsurgency campaign. So not only are U.S. corporations reaping billions off the conflict in sweetheart deals with legal impunity, but Iraqis are being forced to pay for the very war being waged against them.

The story begins in February 2003 when the U.S. Agency for International Development secretly asked six companies to bid on a reconstruction contract worth, at minimum, $900 million. The six—Bechtel, Fluor, Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg, Brown & Root, Louis Berger Group, Parsons, and Washington Group International—were all generous supporters of the Republicans, having given them a combined $2.3 million between 1999 and 2002. . .

 We tend to interpret the world in ways that justify our advantages and show that our problems are someone else's fault.  But it's only true some of the time.