Destination Juneau

Ever since I retired a couple of years ago, Rep. Max Gruenberg has invited me to Juneau for the legislative session, as a scholar, to sit in and watch what was going on.  For as long or as short as I wanted.  He wasn't going to pay me, but would let me have a desk in his office.  Well, the last two years we've gone to Thailand during much of the session, but this year I called him to have him spell out what exactly he had in mind. 

Initial discussions sounded interesting and when Alaska Airlines recently had a deal on tickets to Juneau, I bought a couple, which, in hindsight, was when I decided to go for it.  Friday I rode the Number 2 bus (I don't remember being on a bus in Anchorage where people had to stand before - it wasn't even rush hour) downtown to talk a bit more with Rep. G. 

So my role there is somewhat unique.  I'm not a staffer, I'm not an intern, I'm a volunteer.  But Rep. G has in mind something more than that, sort of a Legislative Fellow or Scholar in Residence kind of thing where I'm there as an academic.  Of course, my blogger status also came up.  Would I have to limit myself to weather and movies and other non-legislative issues?  I came up with a tentative set of guidelines:

OK to blog:

1. Objective description of events at public meetings (yes, I know 'objective' is a subjective term)
   

NOT OK to blog:

1. Anything that would cause heat for Rep. G, such as:
1. private conversations (without explicit permission)
2. subjective comments that paint law makers and staff negatively
2. Legally confidential information or off-the-record meetings (not that I'll have access to this sort of stuff)

When I got to Rep. G's office on 4th Avenue, the first thing we did - Rep. G, another new staffer, and myself - was visit Joyce Anderson, Administrator for the Legislative Ethics Committee.  One requirement is that everyone working (or even volunteering) with the legislator is to have ethics training.  We can do this online and/or in person in Juneau on January 15, just before the session starts.  But we went over a few things first.  One issue that came up was no gifts over $250 value are allowed.

I had a question.  We were offered housing at a long time friend's home during the session when his wife will be out of town.
Q:   Does that count as a gift? 
A:   Yes.  You're going to have to pay.

OK, I'm going down on my own dime.  Legislators and most staff and even interns, it appears, all have some sort of per diem and/or transportation.  So, I can't stay with a friend - someone who has stayed in my house on a number of occasions when visiting Anchorage - for free.   Joyce mentioned a staffer who was told she had to pay rent to stay with her mom.  After I questioned that in amazement, Joyce did add the fact that her mom was a lobbyist.  Even so, it's her Mom, she'd give her housing no matter why she was in Juneau.  What if Mom gives her a birthday present equal to the rent the following year, would they be busted?  Is paying rent going to stop her from confiding to her mom or helping out her mom the lobbyist?

One of my areas of research has been ethics.  So I understand the concerns about conflicts of interest, but I've published the argument that every politician has conflicts of interest and that the real issues are undue gain and improper influence.  My friend would have offered the housing for whatever reason I came to Juneau; it's not because I'll be in a legislator's office.  But I also understand the issue of appearance of conflict.  I may know my friend and I have this long term relationship, and that his offer has nothing to do with getting favors from me,  but do others? 


I also raised the blog questions while we were with Joyce.  It's not an issue that's come up before.  We'll be writing the rules as we go.  But I did get Joyce's ok to take her picture and blog about what happens as I start this process of becoming a volunteer in the Alaska State Legislature.

Afterward, Rep. G and I talked about things I might do.  He's being really generous.  I can do staff work for his office, but I'm free to explore whatever is of interest and to help out in another office or just do stuff on my own.  Of course, I'm going to do some of the staff work needed in his office, but it will be interesting to see where this all leads.  My goal is just to be close enough to get an idea of what the legislative process is really like.  And to better know who represents the residents of Alaska.

I also got a booklet:  Alaska State Legislature Uniform Rules (links to pdf file)

FOREWORD

The Constitution of the State of Alaska (sec. 12, art. II) provides: "The houses of each legislature shall adopt uniform rules of procedure." It is noteworthy that the drafters of the constitution did not say "each house" shall adopt, but rather emphasized that the "houses" should adopt uniform rules. It was the intention of the writers that Alaska should avoid the circumstances of many state legislatures where one finds house rules, senate rules, and joint rules. The uniform system is intended to permit the members and the public to follow or conduct the legislative process without a confusion of rules. The rules are adopted by both houses sitting in joint session as one body. The law on the subject of rules reads:

Sec. 24.05.120. Rules. At the beginning of the first regular session of each legislature, both houses shall adopt uniform rules of procedure for enacting bills into law and adopting resolutions. The rules in effect at the last regular session of the immediately preceding legislature serve as the temporary rules of the legislature until the adoption of permanent rules.

The rules are meant as an aid to legislators and both houses in the conduct of their business in the formal processing of legislative documents and the exercise of other powers and duties assigned the legislature by constitutional and statute law.

Copies of the Uniform Rules are distributed at the direction of the Legislative Council by the Legislative Affairs Agency.

Executive Director

Legislative Affairs Agency

There are 55 numbered rules.  Some examples:

Rule No. 1:  Organization of First Session

Rule No. 3.  Legislative Session Staff (that was less relevant than I expected)

Rule No. 8:  Privilege of the Floor

Rule No. 26:  Decorum in Debate  (that actually refers to a fat law book - Mason's Manual of Legislative Procedure - which are generally rules for state legislatures throughout the US, which guide behavior, though the Alaska rules take precedence if there's a conflict, or that's what I understood.)

Rule No. 37:  Introduction of Bills

Rule No. 45:  Vetoed Bills

Rule No 54:  Suspension of Rules

So this will be an interesting period.  We did talk about blogging with Joyce (Legislative Ethics) and it appears this is uncharted territory, at least from an official policy standpoint.  I'll probably start out pretty cautiously and see what happens.  But I didn't go to Juneau to blog - that's incidental, just as it was last year when I volunteered in Thailand.  There, too, I made sure I had appropriate permissions from my NGO, though it will be a little trickier, I assume, in Juneau.   

So, after talking to Rep. G, I'm now taking this opportunity to let readers know what's coming up and that I have no idea what the impact on the blog will be.  I normally try to be careful how I write, trying to be respectful of the people I write about and if I make critical comments, trying to talk about actions or ideas, not about people.  Trying to word things in as objective terms as possible.  This does mean I rarely offer my personal opinion, but let the readers draw their on conclusion.  And I don't always succeed.  But I suspect I'm going to get much better at this style of writing in the blog.

Preparing for GIFT at Congregation Beth Sholom

The Food Bank of Alaska sponsors a program to distribute food and toys to families in financial difficulties.

"All Alaskans deserve a warm holiday meal. Every hungry child, every hungry senior, every Alaskan deserves a warm meal, not only during the holidays, but year round. Every December, Food Bank of Alaska partners with The Salvation Army, the U.S. Marine Corps Toys for Tots and Anchorage’s faith community to make the holidays bright for families in need. Neighborhood GIFT provides holiday assistance to more than 4,800 families in Anchorage. Each family served through Neighborhood GIFT will receive a holiday food box and toys for their children (infants to age 12).

Neighborhood GIFT will take place on December 22, from 3:00pm to 8:00pm at five locations in Anchorage. If you or someone you know needs extra help making ends meet this holiday season please be sure you and they attend this distribution."

So today we went to one of the five distribution centers (see below) to help set up for tomorrow's distribution.  We spent about 4 hours unloading trucks, stacking tables, and talking with old and new friends. 

• Anchorage City Church (100th and Minnesota)
  99507, 99511, 99515, 99516, 99518, 99522, 99523, 99540, 99587
• Spenard Recreation Center (2020 W 48th Ave) 99502, 99517, 99519
• Fairview Elementary School (1327 Nelchina St at 13th)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  99501, 99503, 99510, 99513, 99520, 99524
  
  
• Congregation Beth Sholom (7525 E. Northern Lights Blvd near Muldooon)
  99504, 99505, 99506, 99509, 99521, 99567, 99577
• Clark Middle School (150 N Bragaw St) 99508, 99514

And then when it was time to go RZZ got on his bike and rode off into the sunset.  He's got about six miles to get home.

Local Food - Viewing the Movie Ingredients

A friend let me know that the movie Ingredients - about the local food movement - was playing at UAA Sunday afternoon.  It's not like we haven't seen enough movies lately, but this is a topic I'm interested in - I've even blogged about it a little while I was in Thailand because I was working with a group helping farmers.  The topic was important and I discovered the term CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) while in Thailand.

It turns out the film was produced by Brian Kimmel, the brother of Mara Kimmel, Ethan Berkowitz's wife.  It's a good film and I encouraged him to submit it to the Anchorage International Film Festival 2010.

The film discusses food - particularly local and chemical free food - with farmers and restaurateurs in different parts of the US. 

The film was followed by a panel discussion and Q&A with local restaurateurs and local food agents, including [Rob Kineen] a [executive] chef from Orso's.  It looks like Anchorage, despite our climate and relatively short growing period, is not significantly far behind the rest of the country.  Issues of food security (what would happen if we were cut off by a major catastrophe?), health, taste, food economics and corporate farming all came up.  We're moving along, but clearly need some sort of organizing body to promote local foods among consumers, restaurants, and farmers.  And programs in the schools where kids actually get out onto farms and see where food comes from seems like a good idea.  They have such programs in other cities.

Public Relations: The GWIM Way to Solve Problems

So here was the Anchorage Daily News headline Thursday:

Wanted:  PR firm to help state fight species listings

The Legislative Council is asking public relations firms to bid between now and Jan. 4 on the effort, which lawmakers appropriated $1.5 million to fund. The PR pros are to assemble a panel for an "Alaska Conference on Climate Change," after suggesting how the panel debate should be framed. They'll launch a public relations campaign "based on the conclusions reached by the conference panel," according to the Legislature's request for proposals.

The goal of the project is figuring out how to reverse what the Legislature calls negative economic effects from listings based on climate change, like the designation of the polar bear as a threatened species.

So bear with me as I try to come up with an explanation that's plausible.  Note, one way of understanding the world is to come up with hypotheses to explain things that aren't understood and then going out to test those hypotheses.  This is sometimes known as science when done with rigor.   I'm going to brainstorm here a bit. I'm just testing one possible explanation. Then you and I can go out and talk to people who think like this and see if this line of reasoning bears further pursuit.

I don't exactly want to say this is "Republican" thinking though this comes from Republicans and the people who are taking this line seem to be all Republicans.  How about I make up a word - GWIMs - for people who believe that Global Warming Is Marketing.  I do think there is a close alignment with Republicans in any case.  Republicans have billed themselves as the party of business and American business believes completely in the power of advertising, and with good reason.  When Reagan became president, marketing gurus applied sophisticated marketing techniques they had perfected selling automobiles and toothpaste to selling candidates and ideology.  (I can't find the reference I'm looking for, but here's a NY Times article that talks about the creation of Republican think tanks to create conservative research to push conservative ideas.  Some of the people associated with operationalizing aggressive political marketing include Lee Atwater, Roger Ailes, and Michael Deaver.)

So, perhaps one way to explain GWIM behavior is to consider the many Republicans who were trained for business - either through their families, through on-the-job-training running their own small businesses with support from their local chambers of commerce, and through MBAs.  They see the world in terms of competition for market share, selling one's product, creating demand for new products, and essentially beating the other guy.  Losing means bankruptcy.  Thus winning is everything, "at any cost."  The most important application of scientific reasoning is in areas of market research.

American business creates reality through their marketing.  They create demand for products that people didn't know they needed.  I look at all the people who can't live without their cell phones, can't imagine life without them, and are willing to pay outrageous rates to have them.      Having lived most of my life without one, I know they aren't essential.  Creating the idea of cell phones as a necessity, not a luxury, is part of marketing genius  - not simply for cell phones, but for our insatiable appetite for the new in general.  (Market philosophy says price goes down if demand dips.  But people seem to be willing to pay any amount for their phones.  If people began to boycott cell phones over price, the rates would drop quickly.  See I do believe in the market too.)

Reality is socially constructed by marketers (and others like science fiction writers and the geeks that turn the SF imagination into products.) Truth is measured in dollars and when this is converted to politics, it's measured in votes.

In the fundamentalist church of the free market, 'socialist' is the current term for heretic.   And in this reality, you don't have to be a socialist to be labeled one.  That's another part of creating reality through marketing.  (Actually, 'socialist' has no substantive meaning in this case other than 'non-believer.')  Free market worshipers believe in the sanctity of business and see anything that they perceive as threatening their short term economic benefits on the level of  a terrorist attack.

One thing I've learned over the years is that most people assume that others think like they do.  So honest people assume everyone they meet is honest, and it takes them much longer to spot someone who is deceiving them.  They expect honest and that expectation looks for  excuses - there must have been an error - when it's challenged.  And liars assume everyone else is lying too, and so they are always suspicious of everyone else, not believing that anyone tells the truth.

And this applies here.  The GWIMs assume that global warming advocates are creating their own reality for their personal gain.  Here's an example from Roaring Republican  which assumes Copenhagen is simply a part of a marketing campaign:

Global Warming is more marketing campaign than science. There are spokespeople, Al Gore, Leo DiCaprio, Sheryl Crow, and there are products and services, books, light bulbs, T-Shirts, and movies. Just as there are industries buit around making accessories for iPods, there are millions of people who profit from the “green” campaign by branding their wares with the messages of the mindless.
Copenhagen seems to be equivalent to a major “Stevenote,” the always anticipated addresses by CEO of Apple Inc., Steve Jobs, who mesmerizes audiences with new products they simply have to have when the presentation is done. The media eats it up.
We found out yesterday that melting ice caps is the new product rollout for 2010. Even though the science of the message was instantly discredited, the media already invested an enormous amount of time to spreading the word. Just like a Stevenote, the press buzzed even after a few skeptical eyes pointed out the product wasn’t that great.
Speaking of that, product placement is key to global warming. Al Gore had an entire week of appearences and the message of going “green” sprawled across every single show on NBC. An Inconvenient Truth and a sewer full of other propaganda has made its way into schools across America. Children sing oaths and take pledges to be greenies. Who needs jingles when you can just indoctrinate the youth?
Now that we have the 2010 rollout, we can expect to hear more about melting ice. Yes, this years line is a little recycled, these are greenies, what do you expect? We’ve been down the ice cap melting road before. The ice seemed to be going away a few years ago, it returned. It seems to have a habit of thinning during warmer months and coming back during colder ones, if you can imagine such a concept. Still, it makes for great headlines and sells more product if the story has horrific consequences and puts humanity on the brink of destruction.

 I suspect this narrative I'm writing here is true in some cases, but not in others.  Perhaps it will be helpful in understanding - and challenging - those who try to market their way out of problems.

But in this case, they want to spend $1.5 million of our state money for their fictional reality.  While they are quoted in the article as not wanting to repeat the fiasco that was the unsuccessful marketing campaigns (also millions of state money) to open ANWR to oil drilling, this is essentially the same flawed thinking that underlay that waste of state money.

So, my basic thought here is maybe GWIMs and others of the Fundamentalist Church of the Free Market truly believe that they can create reality through marketing and so this idea of spending $1.5 million to change the reality of polar bears seems perfectly reasonable and legitimate, because, after all, in their view, global warming itself is simply a PR campaign from their competitors, the Church of Environmentalism. 

As a final note that I don't have time to pursue here -  I've discussed the social construction of reality and other relevant ideas in a previous post at length.

Winter Views Before Solstice

 The winter solstice is due Dec 21 at 8:47 AM Alaska Standard Time this year according to timeanddate.com.  Monday morning.  Two years ago I did a post on Jean Meeus whose calculations we use to determine the solstice.  We got here fast this year and by Wednesday  we'll start gaining light each day.  I took the picture above on Friday.  The sun doesn't rise high over the horizon, but it's out almost five an a half hours. 

 

 I had a meeting at UAA on Thursday, and while it had snowed a bit overnight, I still wanted to bike over.  They tend to keep the bike trails well plowed on campus.

 

A little bit of sun was out Thursday as well as you can see in this picture from Rasmuson Hall.  The ice fogged trees are still completely and spectacularly white.

And here's a common winter problem.  The bike trail was cleared fairly quickly, but as the snow plows repeat their plowing of main streets get they push the snow in the bike and pedestrian paths. 

AIFF 2009 - Vincent Part 2

I'll try to get some of the leftover videos, photos, and thoughts about the film festival up as I can.  I talked to Vincent: A Life In Color  director Jennifer Burns (and to Vincent) before their film was shown.  Here's a bit of the Q&A after the Sunday showing of the film.



This was a quirky film - about a quirky person, Vincent, who stands on a downtown Chicago bridge wearing brightly colored suits waving at the tour boats on the Chicago River. 

Burns took a local character whom many people knew about - he's also a regular on some Chicago radio and one of the tv shows - and then reveals, layer by layer, a life most of us would otherwise never have a chance to know.  It's a stereotype breaker as I saw my initial hypotheses about Vincent shattered and a completely different story unfold. Having Vincent come along to Anchorage, wearing his amazing suits (I think he said he brought five or six suits along), was an extra bonus.

This film is a definite demonstration that different from the norm is NOT less than the norm.  This was Jennifer's first film and I think it would be a better film by cutting about 20 minutes.  The people discussing Vincent's past should pretty much stay, but some of the people speculating about Vincent's present life got a bit repetitive.  But overall, it was an interesting view of humanity, not someone you meet every day.

Avatar Line Anchorage Opening Night

We got invited to see Avatar tonight.  Fortunately he'd bought the tickets much earlier and got us to the Century 45 minutes before the show. 

 The line started at theater 9 then snaked out to the hallway at the end

 
Then it went down to the end of the hallway and back the other side. But we got in fine.


And here's the line already for the 11:30 pm showing.

It's late, I'm tired. I loved the visual effects and the spectacular flora and fauna of the world of Pandora. The story was a space age variation of the Dances With Wolves theme, but much more simplistic. Corporation comes to indigenous peoples' land, wants them to move to get the minerals beneath their sacred site, sends in scientists to convince them to move out of the way. The world they created had a vaguely underwater look, the inhabitants were cool.

I wonder how many people who root for the hero (who abandons the human mission to join with the native people - that's not really a spoiler, you can't help but know it's coming), will be able to recognize the villains as the US troops gaining territory around the world to protect US corporations claim to the minerals. Or the similarity to what the Europeans did to the original inhabitants of North (and South for that matter) America. And the three-D was also fun.

AIFF 2009 - Filmmakers Maddux, Bliley, and Burns Talk About Festival

After the awards ceremony Sunday night, I caught Stu Maddux, director of Trip to Hell and Back, Robyn Bliley, director of Circus Rosaire, and Jennifer Burns, director of Vincent:  A Life of Color in the Bear Tooth.  Given that they'd each been to a number of other film festivals, I asked them how the Anchorage International Film Festival could be improved.  They told me what they liked, but I got the sense they didn't want to direct any criticism toward the festival. 

They all were very pleased with how well they were treated by the festival.  You can hear what they said:

AIFF 2009 - Last Show - Paddle to Seattle 5:30 Hipsters 8pm

The winners of the best Documentary and best Feature get shown today, then the festival closes up til next year.  But I do suspect it will be hard to get in, so go early.  I haven't seen Paddle to Seattle yet - a long kayak trip that people really enjoyed.  And Hipsters is a fun musical that will change your mind about Russian cinema and keep your feet tapping.  BEAR TOOTH.

Being Jackson Pollock

Now, here's a site worth checking out.  Don't give up.  Do something.  It's waiting for you.  There's more than black, find it. Jacksonpollock.org

[Update:  I see people coming here, but only a few are clicking the link.  Trust me, you should.  It will take you to another state of mind.]