Cost-Effective Justice

Alaska Common Ground is bringing to Anchorage

• a Republican State Legislator - Jerry Madden - who, they say, led a successful reform of the criminal justice system in Texas;  
• Criminal Justice Consultant to the Department of Corrections’ Prisoner Re-entry Task Force - Linda Mills; 
• a President Emeritus of the for State Courts - Judge Roger Warren - who will talk about evidenced-based sentencing practices.  
 

 I know, you didn't know that the criminal justice system had been reformed in Texas.  Isn't that the state that has the most people in Death Row?   I guess it's time to get my Texas prison stereotypes adjusted.   


Anyway, Saturday you can learn everything you want to know about this topic for free at Marston Theater in Loussac Library, 9am - 4:30.  


But I don't think they're going to handcuff you to the seats, so you can probably come late and/or leave early if you can't spend the whole day.  I won't be there because it's Yom Kippur and I'll be fasting and thinking about how I can be a better human being in the coming year.









[I ran into some Alaska Common Ground members back in August planning this forum and took the photo then.]

More Signs That Lisa Is Running?

I went to the season introduction at Out North Thursday night - more on that later.    I ran into Pico there and he told me he'd been at the campaign sign graveyard near Ship Creek.

I'm not quite sure where this was but he said there were lots of old, large campaign signs for all different candidates. Theaters like Cyranos and Out North sometimes recycle them when they are making sets.

Anyway, he took these pictures of men gathering the Lisa Murkowski signs and putting them into a truck. Is this a clue about what she might announce Friday?

[All the photos in this post courtesy of Pico.]

Is Lisa Going To Run?

APRN's interview with Lisa Murkowski today suggests that Lisa is still thinking about doing a write-in campaign.  (Today's (Sept. 16) news isn't up yet on their website, but you should be able to get it here by tomorrow.)

But one of the signs that says to me that there's a very good chance she'll try is Paul Jenkins.  He's been a Republican Party insider for years.   He's done a couple of opinion pieces in the Anchorage Daily News - one strongly urging Murkowski to run as a write-in and the other vehemently attacking Joe Miller.

On September 4 he did a piece titled  Murkowski Was Classy But Wrong,
(wrong for not attacking Miller)  which included this:

With Miller in the race, and her on the sidelines, Democrats have a real chance against Miller, who too easily is painted a far-right tea party whack-job and a Sarah Palin clone who channels Joe Vogler and tilts at windmills. Many people find him very scary. Miller's malarkey plays well to the GOP's sometimes irrational far right, living in its own fantasy world, but he may be unable to clinch the seat when the rest of Alaska catches on.

Then on a September 11 there was,   Miller is full of whoppers, and they keep getting bigger

In this piece he quotes "a pal" named Izzo:

"The bigger the fib, the better. It's like that Hitler deal, lie and lie large, or something like that. It helps, of course, if your audience is dumber than a wet sock.

"That mook with the Democrats, McWhatshisface, can't even answer questions. My man Miller makes up the questions -- and the answers, too. He's great."

He ends his imaginary conversation with Izzo (and the piece) with:

So, what you are telling me is that not only did he lie about Lisa Murkowski and her stands on the federal stimulus, abortion and Obamacare during the primary, his campaign planks and his promises to voters are shaky, too? I ask.

"I'm just saying," Izzo says. "Ya gotta love this guy.

Why would anybody buy this stuff? I ask. Miller's a guy who, three days into the story, did not even know some preacher was about to burn Qurans in Florida. How could any Alaskan be manipulated into backing him? How long before his supporters get it? Who are these people?

"Suckers," Izzo says with a big smile. "Suckers."

Probably I'm naive,  but I can't see how Jenkins could come out and support Miller after trash talking him like this.  And he's surely not going to support a Democrat. So that leaves Lisa as a candidate.

 [Update:  Someone emailed me a quote from Paul Jenkins saying he had to support Tony Knowles over Sarah Palin for Governor. 

Voice of the Times, 11.3.2006

By PAUL JENKINS

May the Lord have mercy on my soul. I think I have to vote for Tony Knowles. That's right. Tony Knowles. ...

 And remember, Knowles lost to Palin.]

Tuesday Sept 21 - Permanent Fund Check Amount Announcement Day

I botched my last PFD post - I didn't read carefully enough about the difference between sending out the old checks that were left over (today Sept. 16) and the checks for 2010 (October 7).

And I couldn't find any information on when the exact amount would be announced.  Today I called the Governor's office in Anchorage and they told me the date the amount will be announced is Tuesday, September 21.

As I said in the previous post, a  July 31 ADN article predicted it would be pretty close to last year's $1,305 - between  $1,250 and $1,320.


I would also note a comment from Anonymous in Ohio, who raised questions that I think are not uncommon from people Outside [Alaska jargon for everywhere not in Alaska.]  So I'm including Anon's comment and my response here.

Anon:
As a resident of Ohio, which sends more money to the federal govt than it receives back in federal funding, I am interested to know why Alaska sits on a fund with $35 Billion in assets, pays its citizens a 3 figure dividend from that fund every year, even when the fund has negative earnings in the prior year, yet gets more than double in federal funding what it sends as tax revenue. Why doesn't Alaska use that $35 B to build infrastructure, improve schools, and provide basic services to the villages? Do Alaskans pay federal tax on their permanent fund dividend? I actually find it rather distasteful to learn Alaska is taking federal funding while divvying up $8M among its residents.

My response to Anon:

Anon from Ohio, answering your questions could take up a few whole posts. But just briefly,
1. The US Government owns 60% of the land in Alaska. So a lot of money that comes to Alaska is related to managing your land here in Alaska. This includes a mountain officially named after a favorite son from your state and which your Congress members refuse to allow to be changed back to the name given by the original Alaskans. (The key opponent, Rep. Regula retired in 2009, so maybe there's hope now.)
2. Alaska has a large military presence and a lot of the federal money goes to that.
3. Alaska only became a state in 1959. Ohio has had over 200 years of statehood and federal help to develop necessary infrastructure. We have lots of catching up to do.

Do we deserve all the money we get from the feds? I'm not sure, but there are unique and justifiable reasons why Alaska gets so much federal money.

Why shouldn't we use the permanent fund now? That's a reasonable question. It was set up on the grounds that the oil was not a renewable resource and that one generation of Alaskans shouldn't squander the wealth and leave nothing for future generations. The idea is that when the oil money runs out, there is a fund that has been saved, which the state can tap to help pay for government. I would call that prudent management.

However, many Alaskans have taken the dividend so for granted, that they would oppose allowing the fund to be tapped to run the government. But as oil revenue runs out, the dividends of the fund should be able to pay for a good portion of our expenses. It's like a trust fund for the state.

Don't get me wrong. You're asking legitimate questions, but I'm guessing, Anon in Ohio, if you lived here you would be collecting your annual check and not want to dip into the principal.

Relaxing View of Waldron Lake

I managed to squeeze a run in this afternoon, and that helped clear my head, but I'm tired.  These three days with Tim Wise in town have been great, but busy.  So, here's a picture from Sunday when the weather was so spectacular.  This is Waldron Lake (near the soccer fields) from the bike trail just south of Tudor between the Seward Highway and Lake Otis. 

Anti-Racist Tim Wise on Conservative Talk Radio Today at 9:30 and 10am

[UPDATE:  10:30am - Here's what happened.  They put Tim on early at KWHL and I missed it totally.  What I heard was pretty disgusting and shows that if Bob and Mark learned something about Native Americans, what they learned didn't transfer to other groups.  I may address it in another post.  The discussion with Dave Stieren was good.  Dave asked serious, hard questions and Tim responded just as seriously.]


I didn't have time to post the video from last night at UAA.  It was pretty strong, but the audience at UAA was right with Tim.  Anyway, this morning Tim is on

KWHL 106.5 at 9:30 am.   [UPDATE: He's on KFQD -750AM - doesn't seem to have been on KWHL]

Tim Wise Signing Books at UAA Tuesday Night

This is with Bob and Mark who earlier this year had a segment called Cash for Tlingits which caused a serious reaction from Native Alaskans.  This resulted in the First Alaskan Institute and Healing Racism in Anchorage to begin 'conversations' with the two dj's involved as well as other station staff members.  Bob and Mark have issued apologies that were not viewed as pro forma, but really showed an understanding of why people were so offended and angered. 

This is a talk show and their audience hasn't gone through such a transformation, so this could be interesting.


At 10am, Tim will go down the hall and Anchorage Media Group to one of their other stations - KFQD 750 am - and will be on the Dave Stieren show.

Here's some of KTUU's description of the press conference (there's a video at the link too) after the discussions:

. . .After several months of ongoing meetings, the radio duo says the process has been illuminating. 

"Everything I've learned in the last three months has made me a better human being," Colavecchio said.

When KBFX “The Fox” shock jocks Woody and Wilcox were called on the carpet in 2008 for making a racist and sexual joke that targeted Native women, the outrage led to serious consequences, including a two-week suspension of the hosts.

"And they got taken off the air and there was a huge backlash against the Native people and it was -- oh, and there was all these just horrible, disparaging comments, and how we couldn't take a joke," Rowan-Hellen said.   [Actually, Healing Racism in Anchorage and the Native Heritage Center (I think) worked with them in a similar fashion with a similar result.  It just wasn't made as public at the end as this incident was.]

But everyone involved in this incident hopes the outcome of this effort will take wing in a different direction. It was Rowan-Hellen who called for a face-to-face meeting with Lester and Colavecchio.

"I didn't want things to be done in anger, because I was angry," Rowan-Hellen said. "What I wanted was to sit down, so that Bob and Mark had my face in mind, so they knew me as a person -- so they could see, and that hopefully they could see what they were doing was hurtful."

Lester said he was surprised at the response.

“I was overwhelmed with the feeling of forgiveness,” Lester said.

The turning point came when Lester and Colavecchio attended a totem-raising at the Alaska Native Heritage Center, and met Alaska Natives who were fans of their show and were excited to see them. Colavecchio said he felt the kind of shame you feel when you hurt someone who loves you, and still embraces you.

"It transcends words," Colavecchio said.  

The First Alaskans Institute's Liz Medicine Crow says words are also where healing can begin.

"In the Tlingit culture, one of our values is to speak carefully and understand the power of words," Medicine Crow said.

"The Bob and Mark Show's" involvement doesn't end with Wednesday's news conference. The hosts and their station have pledged to do more to promote some of the positive aspects of Native culture.

A group called Healing Racism in Anchorage has planned several events this month.

Contact Rhonda McBride at rmcbride@ktuu.com

 It was pretty foggy last night after the UAA presentation and it's still foggy this morning.

This is Going To Be One Nasty, Tacky Election

I recently had a post about how some people aren't affected by facts that contradict what they believe and how emotion and personal narratives, the stories one has about how the world works.  As someone who thinks facts are important - would you like your doctor operating on you based on her opinion or based on scientific evidence? - I also recognize that we are all ruled by emotion as well.  And we need both to be rounded human beings.

So I'm posting this video, not because I personally like it, but because it shows that the Democrats are abandoning any semblance of rationality and reasonableness and going for the truly tasteless in hopes it will work for them like it does for Republicans.  This is an anti-Joe Miller ad that says it's from Blue America,  Outsiders who seem to think Alaskans  read at a 3rd grade level.  I wonder where they could have gotten that idea?

From the Blue America website:

Blue America '10

Among Blue America pages you will find actions dedicated to specific endeavors, like defeating Blue Dogs, rewarding members of Congress who have been fighting for meaningful health care or for ending the disastrous occupation of Afghanistan. There is even a page dedicated specifically to giving props to progressive hero Alan Grayson and one dedicated to the best challengers running for the U.S. Senate this year. I'm kind of partial to the one that Digby came up with to send a message to the Inside the Beltway Establishment by supporting BETTER Democrats, the non-corporate kind.

Whistling Vivaldi at the Anchorage School District with Tim Wise

Tim Wise met with ASD teachers and administrators today and talked about a lot of situations where racial stereotypes - on the part of the students as well as the teachers - affected students.  He cited a book called Whistling Vivaldi by Claude Steele.  The title, he said, comes from a black kid who found that at night when he walked near whites, they tended to cross the street and/or clutch their purses much closer.  He started whistling Vivaldi in these situations and white folks stopped avoiding him.   An interesting story that reminds me of black male friends and acquaintances who tend to dress up when driving to lower the odds of being stopped by the police.

Wise cited a number of other studies some of which are in the Vivaldi book.  Here's an example from a review of the book by Coert Visser

Experiment 2: Aronson, Lustina, Good, Keough, Steele & Brown (1999)
In this experiment, the researchers asked highly competent white males to take a difficult math test. In the control condition the test was taken normally. In the experimental condition, the researchers told the test takers that one of their reasons for doing the research was to understand why Asians seemed to perform better on these tests. Thus, they artificially created a stereotype threat. In the experimental condition, the test takers solved significantly fewer of the problems on the test and felt less confident about their performance.

You can listen to an Claude Steele on Talk of the Nation back in April this year.

And if you are in Anchorage, you can hear Tim Wise at UAA Wendy Williamson Auditorium tonight (TUESDAY, SEPT 14) at 7:30pm.  Free.  Parking around Wendy Williamson is also free from 7pm. 

Tim Wise 10am Alaska Time on Talk of Alaska Now

Turn on KSKA right now - 90.3.  Or your APRN station around Alaska.


Here is in the workshop last night in the Mountain View Credit Union 1 community room.

From the APRN website:

Talk of Alaska: Racism

Fri, September 10, 2010
Years ago, the best-selling book “Black Like Me” showed White Americans discrimination they never had a chance to see.   Now the book “White Like Me” points out once again that it is all too easy to be totally un-aware of racism.  But that doesn’t mean it disappears.   The author of “White Like Me,” Tim Wise will be the guest on the next  Talk of Alaska.
HOST: Steve Heimel, APRN
GUESTS:

• Tim Wise, author, “White Like Me”
• Callers Statewide

PARTICIPATE:

• Post your comment before, during or after the live broadcast (comments may be read on air)
• Send e-mail to talk [at] aprn [dot] org (comments may be read on air)
• Call 550-8422 in Anchorage or 1-800-478-8255 during the live broadcast

LIVE Broadcast: Tuesday, September 14. 2010 at 10:00 a.m. on APRN stations statewide

Anti-Racism Workshop with Tim Wise Goes Well

[Disclosure:  I'm on the steering committee of Healing Racism in Anchorage, so I'm both reporting and promoting this.  But I wouldn't be involved if I didn't think it was very important and if we didn't have good programming.]


We had limited the workshop to 35 participants, but a few more showed up, and so we squeezed them in.  Squeezed around small tables gave us an intimacy, which, along with a good dinner, brought us closer together.  Here's Tim Wise responding to someone's comment.

Much of the workshop was discussion in our smaller groups.  We began with people saying what they hoped to get out of the workshop.  Then, while the group ate, Tim synthesized what we'd said into two basic areas:

1.  How do respond to individual incidents, and

2.  How to respond to structural racism.

We then worked in our groups to make lists of why people hesitate to speak out when faced with racial discrimination - whether jokes, disparaging comments about a group of people, or structural obstacles based on racial stereotypes.  It was a long and interesting list.  I don't think I got half of what was raised in my notes.  But here are some of the reasons. (Of course, the discussion was much richer than this.)

1.  People don't like confrontation, want to be polite.
2.  Fear - of retaliation, of being ostracized
3.  Exhaustion - it happens so often that people are just too tired to try to explain what is wrong
4.  Don't think it will make a difference
5.  There's unequal power - one has to complain to people in authority
6.  Feeling all alone in the situation
7.  Too emotional when it happens to be articulate and 'reasonable'

Related to this was the question of whose responsibility is it for white people to be aware of racism and its effects on people of color and on whites themselves.

There were also some suggestions for taking action.

1.  Sometimes one should wait until both sides are calmed down so the discussion can be more productive.
2.  Humor and the arts are often ways to defuse or make the point.
3.  Facts are useful, but (as I posted the other day) they won't necessarily change someone's opinion.  At that point counter narratives are necessary to get people to understand.  That is, telling one's own story and own pains to counter the other person's story of how things work.  Often people simply have no experience and hearing someone's story will expand their own narrative.
4.  Ask questions rather than give answers.  "Why do you think that?"  "I don't get it.  Can you explain to me why you think that is funny?"  "Do you have any data to support that?"
5.  Tim offered a two step option:
Step 1:  Personalize the lesson - give an example from your own life
Step 2:  Depersonalize the critique

• talk about the situation and the behavior but not the person.  
• acknowledge that you yourself have on occasion succumbed to such thinking. 
• acknowledge that even the best intended people think or say racially biased things because our society has conditioned us to think that way. 

We had people from a wide set of backgrounds and the discussion was rich and helpful.  This is the sort of safe setting in which to talk about race that  Healing Racism in Anchorage creates for our six week classes.  A mix of guided large and small group discussions to share experiences and perspectives grounded with factual information and lots of participation.  The next such class will begin Wednesday, September 22.  There's more information at the Healing Racism in Anchorage website.

Tuesday morning you can listen to Tim Wise on KSKA (91.1 FM) Talk of Alaska in Anchorage (and APRN stations around Alaska as well as online) from 10 - 11am.

And there's a free talk at UAA's Wendy Williamson Auditorium at 7:30pm.  Parking around the auditorium after 7pm is free.